Boxing Day

Boxing Day functions in the novel as more than a date in the Christmas calendar: it is a recurring point of contact between Lucas and the family home where he never quite belongs. Through Edwina’s memories of Dickie bringing him from Chelsea, the day gathers the small rituals and old hurts of a blended family; in a later confrontation, it becomes the setting for Lucas to disclose his part in the burglary of Edwina’s house.

Place in the Narrative

The contents list identifies “Boxing Day” as the ninth chapter, between “Christmas Day” and “The Magic Trick.” Its position places the chapter within the novel’s Christmas sequence, while the remembered visits give the holiday a particular family meaning: it is when Lucas is brought into a household whose traditions and childhood keepsakes are not his own.

The novel also returns to Boxing Day as a marker of family separation. Lucas’s birthday celebrations are hosted by Barbara, and the twins are never invited to River Walk. That division contrasts with the visits to Edwina’s home: Lucas can be present there without being included in the family’s most intimate history.

A Visit That Does Not Make a Home

Dickie usually goes to Chelsea to fetch Lucas on Boxing Day. One year, when Lucas is about thirteen, he arrives in a dinner jacket and bow tie. The twins, dressed in jeans, find the contrast hilarious. Edwina remembers teasing him by asking whether he had been playing snooker, and later wishes she had been kinder. The memory preserves both the awkwardness of the moment and her belated recognition that a joke could sharpen Lucas’s sense of being out of place.

The house itself makes that difference tangible. Edwina’s Christmas tree is decorated with expensive baubles alongside objects made by the twins at nursery school, but Lucas’s kindergarten keepsakes—his handprints, clay pots, cotton-wool snowmen and toilet-roll Santas—are at Barbara’s. Barbara remains the custodian of those traces of his childhood. Lucas’s visits therefore do not give him the same claim on the house or its memories that Rowena and Charlie have.

The Strain Beneath the Family Ritual

Edwina recalls having tried to act as a dutiful stepmother to Lucas: she remembered his birthday, wrapped his Christmas presents, made his breakfast and washed his clothes. Yet she experienced the role as a performance, feeling that she was pretending to care. In her private reckoning, Lucas was Barbara’s child, and she and Lucas merely tolerated one another. Her resentment reaches an extreme in the thought that, if a boat capsized, he would be the last person she saved.

The antagonism is part of a larger family alignment. Edwina remembers Barbara, Lucas’s mother and the first Mrs Spinner, as bound closely to her son and united with him in mutual hostility toward Edwina. That history helps explain why Lucas’s presence in the household feels charged rather than ordinary. Edwina also remembers that his bedroom had been made ready for him: after Dickie suggested Lucas might return, even for a night, she could not bring herself to refuse. The room was prepared for a welcome that her feelings could not fully sustain.

From Blame to Confession

In the later reckoning associated with Boxing Day, Edwina challenges Lucas to tell her how everything was his fault. Lucas does not accept the invitation to assign blame. Instead, he recognizes a cycle of blame, revenge and guilt that has gone on too long and needs to end. The exchange shifts the meaning of their history: the old injury is not erased, but neither does the scene let accusation remain the only available response.

Lucas then confesses that he arranged for Edwina’s jewellery box to be stolen. In trouble at school and owing money to someone who would not forget the debt, he handed over the house keys and told the thieves when it would be safe to enter. He thought he had obtained the money without anyone being hurt; in retrospect, he acknowledges that the whole family was hurt. Edwina can only tremble and weep as he speaks. Boxing Day thus connects a childhood ritual of uneasy inclusion to the adult disclosure of a secret: the day’s family history is not repaired by the truth, but the truth allows the cycle of blame to be challenged.