The Christmas card simply said: ‘Bill.’ No jolly message, no ‘to Henry.’ Just the one word as usual. He put it on the mantelpiece and over Christmas, whenever he glanced at it, he thought: ‘Some friend!’
He spoke to his wife Jan, workmates, pals. We knew each other at college, he told them, and have kept in touch by Christmas card since. We’ve never met up, never phoned, and he never says a damned thing in his card! All of them gave him the same message: just stop communicating with the blockhead.
Ignoring them, he posted a card the next festive season: ‘Hope you’re well, Bill. Happy Christmas from Henry, Jan, and family.’ A day later on the hall floor was the reply. He recognised the tiny handwriting on the envelope. He opened it and read the solitary word again, ‘Bill.’
The Christmas after he sent another card, asking, ‘How are you Bill? What are you doing with yourself?’ Such questions might make him talky. But no card came back. Every day, as Christmas Eve last delivery approached, he inspected the cards on the hall floor. Nothing.
He chewed his Christmas turkey quietly, while his wife, children, and wife’s parents chatted. Instead of experiencing a sense of release, like a man on the chain gang finally shaking off shackles, he felt oddly disturbed. He held the Christmas crackers absently, while his kids pulled and yelled gleefully at winning prizes. ‘Why?’ The thought flickered on and off in his brain, almost in time with the lights on the Christmas tree. ‘Why?’ was soon followed by, ‘What’s happened to him?’
He sat on the sofa, the dog Bongo nibbling his slippers, which she did whenever she wanted his attention. She didn’t get it. He was deep in reflection. There would be no more berating Bill for his emotional and verbal inadequacy. He’d miss the old bugger in a funny sort of way. Why he’d almost enjoyed the absurdist comedy of yet again getting a missive saying absolutely nothing. It felt to Henry like – why yes – as if he’d suffered a loss.
He wiped the dishes while his mother-in-law washed up. He wished Bill had told him something about his life these last couple of decades. His job, his marriage if any, his kids if any. His foe, the butt of his – let’s be honest – partly manufactured anger, was also his counterpart. Wasn’t Bill perhaps his mirror image, in some ways? What had happened to him? In jail? Dead? Had Bill finally plucked up the courage to end the annual communications? He was desperate to know.
‘I know it’s early Henry,’ his mother-in-law was saying, ‘but what do you want for next Christmas? I’ll be looking out for bargains at the Boxing Day sales, see.’
‘Want…? A card from Bill. That’s what I want.’ Involuntarily, he looked behind him down the hall, to the doormat bereft of cards. Why hadn’t Bill written to him? Just one word would’ve done.
