I’m walking down a slightly sloped street; I turn the corner bending to the right and see the house I used to live in, my childhood home. The houses on each side have the familiar lighting, and I can see the candle arches in the windows. I take my key out and bend down to open the frustratingly low lock on the porch door, step in and open the main door. The Christmas tree in all its elegant glory brushes against my jacket as I step in and my previously long hair catches on the candle holders on the tree. I never saw the point in putting candles on the tree without lighting them. This tree was always decorated in a warm sophisticated red and gold, an oversized star precariously balancing on the folded over top branch. The decorations zigzagged across the ceiling were vibrant red, gold, green, the ceiling looking several inches lower. The staircase was to the left, but I walk past it and turn right into the living room looking back at the garland fixed by permanent hooks on the banister. The smaller tree is in the front room; it’s more colourful than it is tasteful. A round thing hangs in the centre of the room and cards hung on the wall. Wreaths are attached to the light fittings on the wall. I walk to the small table with the tree on it and take a candy cane. “One a day Joanna, or you won’t be able to have one tomorrow,” says mum. I still needed to be told when I was 15.
I’m out the door again, walking up to the bus stop to catch the 2 into town. I go up past Swanshurst Park and remember its beauty on a Saturday morning covered in white. Then I see the Jelly household (I promise I’m not making any of this up, or at least, not the name of the family) covered with flashing lights that could give someone who was unused to it an epileptic fit. The house diagonally opposite would always try to compete with its flashing Santa going up and down the chimney at a speed that even magic couldn’t keep up with.
I’m on the bus and reach the Stratford Road, the predominantly Indian/Pakistani area [ironically] covered in as many Christmas lights as any part of town. The tinsel lights wrapped around the lamp-posts were tasteless but I grew up seeing them and loved them all the same. I get off the bus outside the rag markets and walk up to the Bull Ring, light pouring into the open area from Borders and the bottom floor of the shopping centre but also from beautiful blue light suspended above. I walk up the slope pretending I’m not getting out of breath and veer to the left making my way up to the German Market.
I only discovered it two years before I left, which I was most gutted about. It’s the most wonderful market you could ever go to (or at least the most wonderful market I’ve been to). The lights were so bright that they probably used enough energy to power a small town for a week. The smell of pretzels and ginger and spicy sausage was so strong that it absorbed itself into your clothes so that when you were home three hours later your scarf would still smell of German stuff. There was a waiting list for German market hot dogs, but the half an hour wait was worth it simply because they were German. Teenagers who would have thrown their parents the most evil glare if they suggested going on “baby rides” would queue excitedly for the carousel and helter-skelter simply because they were German. The German Market was a jewel, not least tacky and plastic, and I found it too late.
Cambridge in comparison is, simply put, minimalist. The main attraction at Christmas is a temporary ice rink accompanied by a small market going along the length of it. The most lights in any one place are on the facade of the Guildhall and John Lewis, the latter being marginally more tasteful. The lights swinging from one side of the trees lining the path of Christ’s Pieces to the other are beautiful and simple. They remind me of the loss of myself that fateful night of November. Lights dancing in his eyes and they in turn dancing for others more beautiful than myself.
