Christmas. There was nothing like it. Mildred looked around at her family crammed around her dining table. It had been a squeeze but they’d all managed to fit somehow. Christmas was such a magical time, a time for family. Her brothers, Mikey and Christy, were raving over the spread of food she had put together. The table was full of everything you could ask for in a Christmas dinner, and the gravy boats seemed never-ending.

Mildred waved an oven-gloved hand over the table and asked if anyone needed anything else. As one, her relatives assured her the turkey dinner was divine, and that she should sit down and get stuck in before the food goes cold. 

‘And before this greedy so-and-so eats it all.’

Mikey jabbed his fork at his brother next to him. Christy shrugged, it was a fair cop. The whole table erupted into laughter. Mildred smiled at her brothers. Like her, they were in their eighties, but showed no signs of growing up. They acted just the same as they had done when they were teenagers, all silly jokes and leg-pulling. If they lived to be a hundred, Mildred thought, they’d still be exactly the same. 

Her cousin Mary insisted that the sprouts were to die for. Mildred thanked her, her cheeks burning red at the compliment.

Once they had eaten, everyone reached for the Christmas crackers. 

‘This is the best part.’ Mildred beamed.

The table was suddenly a frenzy of pulling crackers, reading out the dreadful hokes, showing off the little gifts that came inside, and placing paper hats on their heads. Not that Mildred wore the paper hat. She had spent ages getting her hair just right, and wasn’t about to let a paper hat ruin her hard work. 

When she had cleared the plates away, with the help of her cousins, she handed out glasses of sherry and whiskey. Side plates were handed out with thick slices of Christmas cake and mince pies.

‘Mildred, give us a song.’ someone called.

The rest of the group called out in agreement. 

‘What should I sing?’ she asked.

‘Give us one of those old Irish songs.’

‘The Rare Old Mountain Dew.’ Uncle Ronnie suggested.

‘Okay, but you lot better join in.’

They cheered and insisted they’d sing along. Mildred took a deep breath and began to sing.

‘Let the grasses grow, 

and the waters flow, 

in a free and easy way.

But give me enough,

Of the fair old stuff,

That’s made near Galway bay.’

The room was full of singing, Mildred waving her handkerchief in time as she sang.

On Boxing Day afternoon, Detective Noel Carroll stared at the body of the elderly woman. There was a strange smile on the dead woman’s face. The police constable beside him read from her notes. 

‘Mildred Holly. Eighty seven years old. Lived on her own.’

While her body was being taken away, Noel went outside. He knocked on the house next door. When the neighbour answered, he showed his badge and asked if he could come in. The couple in their thirties ushered him through to the living room. When they were seated on the sofas, Noel explained that Mildred had died, and asked if they could tell him anything that might help.

‘Maybe the party was too much for her.’ The guy said. ‘It sounded like she was throwing a massive Christmas Day party. We could hear laughter and chatter, music and singing.’ 

‘They were singing all the Irish songs he loved. It sounded like they were having a great old time. Maybe she over did things.’ His wife agreed.

‘Maybe so.’ Noel nodded.

He thanked they for their time and headed for the door. As he reached his car, a woman hurried over to him from across the road. 

‘Do you know what happened? I live over the street from Mildred. It was me that called the police. I was bringing her some bits of food this morning, but there was no answer.’

‘Next door seem to think that her Christmas party was too much for her.’ Noel said.

‘There was no Christmas party.’ the neighbour said. ‘Mildred told me she’d be spending Christmas alone. She had nobody, no living family, no surviving relatives. We would have invited her over but with all the grandchildren there just wouldn’t have been room. That’s why I was bringing the bits over this morning. She was all alone and I really felt for her.’

All that afternoon, it niggled at Noel. The neighbour over the road, Sally Ann, insisting that Mildred had nobody, and was, like a lot of people her age, unfortunately, all alone. And yet, those next door say there was a massive Christmas Day get-together.

He called the lab to see how they were getting on with poor Mildred’s body.   

Colin, the supervisor, explained.

‘I would put the time of death as somewhere around midnight on the 24th December.’

‘Christmas Eve?’ Noel asked. ‘So she had passed by Christmas Day?’

‘Yes, definitely, I’m afraid she didn’t make it to Christmas. Nothing else unusual, except that there was a piece of shiny cardboard in her hand, like the end of a Christmas cracker.

By Chris Platt

From: United Kingdom