“Here’s your coffee, Jeff,” said Elizabeth placing a steaming mug on the nearby low table. “Though I’m not so sure you ought to be drinking coffee at this time of night … I mean morning.”
Jeff looked up.
“It’ll keep me awake while I finish this,” he declared, nodding towards the task on which he was engaged. “Thanks Mother.”
“How long do you think it’ll take now?”
“I just wish I knew.”
Jeff picked up the mug; two minutes’ respite then he would have to get back to the job in hand.
***
It was Christmas Eve. The boys’ presents had been brought into the lounge from the various places around the house where they had been secreted, and placed beneath the tree, all except two. Gordon and Alan had outgrown their bicycles so Jeff bought new ones. They were delivered two weeks earlier but he had been so busy working on a penalty clause concerning a supplier which had failed to deliver an order for components to Tracy Engineering there had been no time to assemble them. Once the two youngest boys were safely in bed Jeff opened the boxes.
“Shouldn’t take long,” he declared and turned to his other three sons who were draped about the lounge furniture in various positions. “Right you three – you can all get off to bed in the next twenty minutes. Virgil – bathroom and don’t take for ever to brush your teeth and wash your face. John can follow you.”
“Aw Dad, it’s not our bedtime yet,” John protested.
“It is tonight. It’ll be a busy day tomorrow and I don’t want any of you falling out and quarrelling because you’re tired.”
Virgil uncurled himself from the chair where he had been drawing on a sketch pad; he looked tired out. He had been out for most of the day singing carols with a group from the local church and it was typical that he would be running around like a steam locomotive one minute and dead on his feet the next.
“Night, Dad. Night Grandma. Night you two.”
“Goodnight Virgil.”
With his sketch pad tucked under his arm and a pencil wedged behind his ear he wandered out of the door and towards the stairs.
“Give him ten minutes and you can go up, John,” Jeff ordered. “And no reading under the comforter with a torch.”
Scott grinned, earning himself a punch on the arm.
“Do you need any help with those bikes Dad?”
“No thanks, Scott, it shouldn’t take more than half an hour to do each one. You get off to bed as soon as John’s finished in the bathroom; you’ve been a great help today, getting all those logs in for us.”
“Think I’ll go up now,” said Scott. “See you in the morning; sleep tight both of you.”
Five minutes later Jeff turned to Elizabeth.
“Mother,” he said, “do you think I’m hard on the boys?”
Elizabeth glanced at the mountain of wrapped presents beneath the tree.
“No, Jefferson,” she said. “I don’t think you’re hard on them.”
***
So it was that by nine o’clock all five boys were in bed (John sneaking a read beneath the comforter with a torch; fortunately nothing woke Virgil once he was asleep.) Six hours later Gordon’s bike was standing beside the Christmas tree covered in one of Elizabeth’s Christmas tablecloths in lieu of wrapping paper and Jeff was scowling at Alan’s bike which he had been trying to assemble for five and a half hours.
“I just can’t work out what has to happen here,” he declared, poring over the instruction sheet for the nth time.
“You really need to get to bed, Jefferson,” said Elizabeth, stifling a yawn.
“You too Mother – look, you go up, I should be able to work this out before much longer … can’t understand it … it’s almost the same model as Gordon’s and that one went together easy as spreading jelly on a bagel ….”
A further half hour on, Elizabeth was nodding in her armchair and Jeff was running his hands through his thinning hair and had a desperate look on his face. They heard movement from above. Someone was coming down the stairs. That was all he needed – Alan bursting into the lounge to find his Christmas present in bits across the carpet. But no – with relief he saw it was Virgil dressed in a pair of jogging pants and that ancient Harry Potter tee-shirt he insisted on sleeping in, Heaven knows why; he didn’t like the Harry Potter books. And it didn’t even fit him properly now.
“What are you doing up?” Jeff demanded.
“I want a glass of water,” said Virgil. “What are you doing Dad?”
From looking like a sleepwalker Virgil suddenly sprang to life and dropped to his knees on the carpet, inspecting the sorry state of the bike.
“I’m trying to put Alan’s bike together,” Jeff sighed.
“But you said it wouldn’t take long to do them.”
“I did. That’s what I thought ….”
Virgil picked up a spanner.
“Dad, have you tried this?” He deftly applied the spanner to something beneath the frame and pulled the handlebars into their correct position. “I think that’s fixed it.”
He scrambled to his feet and went out to the kitchen. Jeff heard the faucet being run.
“Well I’ll be ….”
Elizabeth opened one eye.
“Have you fixed it Son?”
“Yes. No. Virgil did.”
Virgil appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Is it okay now Dad?”
“It’s fine,” said Jeff, “should have it all done in five minutes.”
“It’s the frame,” Virgil explained, bending over the bike and pointing to where the handlebars joined, “see, it’s designed to pivot ….”
“Okay, Virgil, I think we’ll scratch the technical analysis for tonight and get off to bed.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning then,” Virgil grinned. “Night Dad, night Grandma.”
Elizabeth roused herself and sat upright.
“Well,” she declared as she heard the door of John and Virgil’s room click shut, “how does it feel to be upstaged by a twelve-year-old?”
“A very great relief – that’s how it feels!”
Within ten minutes Alan’s bike was standing on its own wheels and Elizabeth was unfolding a second Christmas tablecloth for covering it. Jeff stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at the object and nodding with satisfaction.
“There’s only one thing to be said,” he declared at last. “Merry Christmas Virgil!”