Blood will have blood

By David Bridge.

‘Blood will have blood,’ says Macbeth, whose meal invitations you might well avoid. I have similar feelings about the festive season and my relatives. Still, a meal’s a meal, and times in the performing arts being what they aren’t, I attend.

It’s an excuse for a shindig, a get together, a celebration of life, a sharing of gifts, and a reason to argue with your nearest and dearest over who paid for what last year. Raise a glass, carve a bird, spice the tofu. All the ingredients according to family tradition: what has always been done and can never be changed, world without end. Oh boy. Karaoke. Late night drinks round the fibre optic tree. Who’s sleeping where hierarchy, and bathroom lottery. Tent in the garden and pee on the lemon gets my first pick, and I’m rewarded as usual.

Ham and eggs for breakfast, always Dad’s favourite, no vegan option. Unless you count fruit loops – brother Mike’s reliable contribution, on a par with his climate sensitivities. Honestly, where do you get a lump of coal these days, let alone gift wrap it? Not that I’m competing in the present stakes. What can you get the man who has everything? – witness the V8 ute and surf-ski surrounded by blow-up reindeer. Dad’s boy. No doubt. Mum’s eyes excepted. Particularly the one plumped in festive shades.

The postprandial games begin, with the usual command performance. I give them my best, and a set of steak knives for good measure. To the hilt. Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Of course, that’s Christmas taken care of for a while, and I have a captive audience thrown in. Not that I get to create my own props anymore. Perhaps Twelfth Night next year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Bridge, originally a teacher in the UK, retired from working at Deakin in 2011. His main interests are writing, reading, travel, photography and teaching for U3A.