Margaret and Dick made a resolution on this New Year’s Eve morning to stay awake to see in the new year. Margaret and Dick tend to make this resolution. They always break it as cocoa beckons at 9.30.
‘I do wish we were party animals’ said Margaret.
‘No you don’t,’ said Dick. ‘Think of the uncomfortable shoes you’d have to wear.’
Rosie the Cockerpoo looked at Polly the Cavachon. ‘Dada’s right,’ she said. Margaret thought he was probably right too. Margaret doesn’t often think that, so she wrote ‘Dick was right today.’ in her diary. Margaret noticed at the same time she was to meet a friend for coffee at 10.00, when she had thought 10.30.
‘Besides’ said Dick,’We do our partying at lunchtime.’
But Margaret had moved on. She was rushing. It had to be the going out bra. She hated it. It was uncomfortable, but needs must, as her mother would have said. And on the subject of shoes… perhaps not her walking boots as it was New Year’s Eve so she put on her going out shoes. She saw then that she had a hole, a large hole in the heel of her tights which would show. Margaret said some words. Her mother would have called ‘Language’ and sent her to her room.
She put on her new tights. They were fleecy for extreme cold. It was mild outside. But never mind.
On went the perfume. Polly raised an eyebrow at Rosie. ‘The lady is going to leave us, forever. again.’ They went to their beds, their backs to Margaret.
Margaret was ready. She called goodbye, reached the gate. Stopped, went back, because she had forgotten her phone. Dick was at the door. He handed her the phone. He handed her parcel she was taking, and which would fit in the bag. Margaret hadn’t realised she had left the parcel too.
Margaret put them in her new Christmas bag from her friend, Pat. ‘I wonder if one day,’ Dick pondered, ‘ you will get out in one go?’
Margaret doesn’t like smart alec remarks, and flounced off, calling, ‘I wonder if you’ll get the shelves up as you have said each day, so very there?’
Because they are new to the road, Margaret and Dick feel they must blend in, and be grown up. It’s very hard behaviour to keep up and Margaret hoped no-one had heard. It was a walk of a mile and a half. to town. She had gone a 100 yards when she felt something was slighty awry. A bit of sagging in the tights area.
She walked on, the slip sliding of the tights did not improve. In fact, there was definitely a feeling of uncertainty, of things amiss, of, in fact, things descending, of things not being kept up, a bit like their not quite grown up behaviour.
Half a mile further on clippetty clop Margaret realised she had Norah Batty wrinkles at her ankles, and very warm legs. Why had she worn her new fleecy tights, which felt very much as though they were slip sliding further down with every step? In fact, why had she worn her lined mac?
Margaret surreptitiously yanked up her new smarter, hotter tights, and on she went, because she didn’t want to go back home, and find Dick waiting for her with a different pair of tights, as he seemed able to read her mind.
On, and on, she walked along the road, now quite busy as people were driving into Thirsk to do their New Year’s Eve shopping. If it had been a quiet lane she could have stopped, taken the tights in hand, and given them a really good pull, even captured them by rolling the tights’ waistband over that of her skirt – but it was not an option.
By the time Margaret reached Thirsk she was glad of the mask she wore as she walked around groups of people, because no-one would recognise her and her funny walk. But ‘Hello Margare’ was called by rather a lot of people, though kindly they made no mention of Margaret’s affliction as she was now walking from the knees down. Straight into the Fleece, she flew – well all right – strutted using very short strides She strutted past the reception desk into the little girls’ room. The pleasure of a really good yank and the capture of errant tights is not to be underestimated.
Much recovered Margaret and her friend had their coffee. Margaret thought a brandy in hers might help her recovery but it was only 10.00 so she had the maltersers that come with coffee in the Fleece instead.
Then there was the walk home, a little fraught, as her tights, though tucked over her waistband seemed to want to tug not just themselves but her skirt down.
On she clippetty clopped. Home at last. Dick was carrying a shelf into the house.
‘You are walking a little strangely,’ he said. ‘Sort of carefully.’
Margaret said, ‘I have a little local difficulty with my tights, they want to fall down. I think I must have lost a fair bit of weight.’
Margaret swept into the house ahead of Dick, but clear as day she heard him say. ‘Oh no, not from this particular perspective you haven’t.’
Rosie and Polly had rushed to meet Momma who had left them forever but had found her way home at last, after years and years. Yes, they had rushed, but they heard Dada’s words and went to their beds, wondering why Dada never learned the art of keeping his thoughts to himself.
Margaret thought the same, very much so. And as she threw her new tights into the bin ten minutes later, she was heard to say, ‘It might be New Year’s Eve, but one more word from you, Dick Graham, and you will be in the bin too.’
They were on no-speakers for quite some time, but after a nice meal, and a sit down they talked about the year that had gone, and the one that was to come, until at last it was midnight, and then one minute past and Margaret asked, ‘Cocoa?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Dick.
But a resolution kept at last.