Saint Sylvester
They’d draw names from a hat and, that year, had to decide which fruit or vegetable the drawn person most closely resembled, and offer them a gift and dirty ditty to explain.
Every New Year’s Eve was spent with the same five couples. The men had all been to private school together; each had three children, remained in the upper echelons and all of their wives were blonde and thin, save one named Janet who, for some undisclosed reason, didn’t cover the grey.
And every year there was a theme for their get-together. They’d spend weeks beforehand planning, writing poems and finding joke gifts for each other, seeing how far they could push innuendo. Last year’s theme had been Mother Goose.
On the evening of the thirty-first, they would gather in tuxedos and long sparkling gowns, gay and drenched in perfume, clean shaven, having come through a luxurious Christmas unscathed.
Champagne and laughter and DuMaurier smoke, prawns and oysters and beef. It would get louder and funnier and smokier as the evening moved inexorably toward maudlin Auld Lang Syne, champagne giving way to whiskey and gin; a cup of coffee before they climbed into their cars.
And the children would watch from the top of the stairs as Aunt Susan did her annual striptease, at the glazy-eyed men grinning on the sofas and the women squealing because they thought they should as Susan shoved her naked boobs in all their husbands’ faces. The men writhe and quip, chortle and the girls cry, Oh, you’re awful! Then someone suggests they play Post Office.
And the kids – staring down at their parents delivering kisses and registered fondling to their godparents and parents’ lifelong pals – would look at each other, then back, trying to figure out what the heck was so funny.
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