His eyes snapped to the ceiling but the ceiling stayed exactly where it was. He waited. On the periphery of his hearing there was a sound: voices, distant, tinny, jumbling together, and lots of them. Like a crowd of people stuck in a huge bucket at the bottom of a well. But it t was getting louder, nearer. He sat up and looked around. The sound was coming from the walk-in cupboard in the wall opposite the end of his bed, which had so recently been a forest floor. He heaved himself out of bed again, took his coat from where it had replaced itself on the bedpost (no blood stains), in case there was more snow involved, and walked to the doors. For a moment he leaned close and listened to the sounds from within; definitely voices, lots of people, echoing round. Grasping the handles, he took a deep breath and swung the doors open. Trees again. In the cupboard. And smoke, emerging in puffs from somewhere towards the back. He touched the trees. Plastic? Plastic...Christmas trees, in my cupboard?
“This way!” A man’s voice, British this time, a little well-to-do, but with some slight Celtic nuance. It came from further in, roughly from where more puffs of smoke emerged. There was only one way to get this over with, so Nick pushed through the scratchy trees, following the regularly ascending clouds which, as he walked through their remains, he smelled as pipe-smoke. There was light ahead and then he finally stepped out from the fringe of the woods.
It was a shopping centre, a big one. The floor was polished honey stone tile, the ceiling arched above them to a glass roof dimly showing the onset of a dusky winter’s evening. Some way ahead was a balcony overlooking the floors below, and receding into the distance down either side of this level were the flattened conformity of commercial units. A large number of people wandered through the brightly lit hall, entering and leaving shops, brushing past vast and gaudy decorations, savouring the tinny music and responding with the tinny echoes of their myriad voices. Over the sound-system, tinny Greg Lake sang that he believed in Father Christmas, with tinny cynicism.
“The present, I assume,” said Nick, having taken all this in.
“Oh yes”, said the voice, “welcome to Christmas present.” The tone of his voice suggested “and you can keep it,” with a hint of satisfaction, as though the mere sight of the Mall was the final point in a conclusive argument.
Nick turned back to see who his Guide was. Standing against the rows of Christmas trees ranged before “Discount Christmas”, was someone who did not look much like he should be in Christmas Present at all. More like Christmas-Austerity-After-the-War. He was dressed in a well-worn tweed jacket and unremarkable, formal trousers that had seen better days, with what looked like stout walking boots of the old kind, protruding from the bottoms. A chunky tie bound the broad wings of his shirt collar. All of this combined with his thinning hair and ruddy cheeks, made him look like a farmer out for a Sunday walk, and he certainly seemed out of place here. He replaced the pipe for a moment and smoke swirled about his face, his twinkling, lively eyes shining through. Nick continued,
“Right. No sheep...or anything?”
“No, no, no. No, Christmas here is nice and clean. Clad in synthetic marble, treated with antiseptic, climate controlled, lights beautifully sequenced. No. You would never find blood or lambs here.”
“You sound disappointed. I can tell you it’s no bad thing after what I just saw.”
They wandered towards the balcony, people weaving around them, even though they had no idea there were two extra people crossing the walkway.
“Yes, no bad thing. But do you ever think, especially with your many years of observing humanity, that people tend to swing the pendulum from one extreme to another? Never seem to settle somewhere in the middle.”
“The pendulum can swing as far as it likes from killing cute farm animals in a wood, as far as I’m concerned.”
“A fair point. But is this real? Doesn’t it feel like a dose of ether? Like one big anaesthetic? To keep you from feeling...something?”
“Yes. The wrong end of a big pointy knife somewhere painful.” They reached the balcony and leaned on the rail, the Guide replacing the pipe and puffing thoughtfully. Presumably smoking was banned in here, but who would know? “And all that running about, trying to find something to keep back the darkness, filling up the emptiness – that’s all gone.”
They watched the chaotic rush below: the multicoloured frenzy of hundreds of people heaving through the walkways; people clutching lists, tensely ticking off successes and underlining lamented failures; the hollow looks of disappointment because the last available one was sold an hour ago; the joyous pride and warmth of heart registering on the faces of those making their way to the car-park, arms overflowing with victory; the occasional elderly person, sat on one of the few, begrudgingly provided benches, watching sadly, alone, here because it was warm and not their empty home, to where they knew, eventually, they must return. Every one of the thronging mass desperate for that one thing to carry out into the encroaching darkness of the winter night.
“Maybe,” said the Guide and continued to puff, illegally.
“Oh look!” Nick’s heart warmed instantly. “It’s me! I love it when they do that.”
The balcony formed a large oval, and framed the scene below where the Mall owners had sacrificed some shop-space to erect a large Christmas scene. Plastic snow banks led up to Santa’s igloo. A large mechanical Polar Bear, swung its head back and forth, and here and there a penguin wearing a woolly hat moved its beak so as to sing a tinny rendition of “Winter Wonderland”.
“Gosh,” said the Guide, “singing penguins.”
“Yes...it can get annoying after a few years of that outside your window. At least you can switch these off. But look, you can’t beat that!”
The top of the igloo was missing so that watchers from above could see what the gaggles of queuing children could not: Santa, in his igloo-grotto, sat upon his throne, smiling benignly at the child on-a-stool-not-on-Santa’s-knee-because-this-Complex-has-a-child-protection-policy.
“You can’t get much better than that!”
“It doesn’t bother you that he’s pretending to be you?”
“No! Goodness no!” and he gave a little jiggle to show how jolly he felt about it. “No, I’m only available one night a year while the kids are all unconscious. This is a way for them to experience just a little of the uniqueness of the T-MOC.”
“Ah. And what would that be precisely?”
“Well, they meet their favourite person in the world, and receive a wonderful gift, and go away with joy in their hearts.”
“Yes, I suppose they do. Except, it isn’t really you. And the gift isn’t a gift,” he pointed the stem of his pipe towards the ice-encrusted sign stuck jauntily in one of the snow banks that read Only £7.50. “And we both know they will have forgotten what the present is by the time they reach the window of Toys-R-Us.”
Nick turned in annoyance to the Guide, who remained passively observing the conveyor belt of children being helped, by elves, in at the front and out at the back of the Grotto. Nick was used to this kind of fanatical criticism, but it had been a long night, and on this night especially, he expected better treatment.
“Look, nothing is perfect in this world. Why deny these kids a few minutes of happiness, a few minutes with someone who is like me, carrying me in his heart, bearing The T-MOC to these kids. It’ll wear off, I know that. I’m not naive. But out there is darkness and a real world they have to grow up in which is going to be hard, so they need something...more than life, ordinary life, offers them.”
“But that is precisely my point. Do you not think they need something more? And you are, if you will forgive me for saying so, a supernatural entity, someone who can be everywhere in a night, who has access to power of which mortals only dream. Do you not think you could do something more than permit these children to settle for a fleeting moment of happiness? Something more for this world of tears?”
“No! That’s not me! I get out once a year, shed some happiness, and go home again. It’s what I’m for. Not global transformation.”
“I wasn’t necessarily thinking globally, not initially anyway. I was thinking more, one heart at a time.”
“I warm hearts for a few hours, I don’t change them.”
“No, but a man of your considerable ability, do you not think you could use your influence to point them somewhere they can? Wouldn’t that be more significant than two minutes in a plastic igloo with a fellow in a stick-on beard who’s desperate for the day to end so he can go home?”
“It’s Christmas Eve! Why even say things like that!”
“Actually, it’s not Christmas Eve. This is three weeks ago – there’s another twenty one days of this uniqueness, here under the constellations of super-brite LEDs. Three more weeks of fruitless searching for something.”
“What is your problem?! So what if the uniqueness stretches into November, or October?”
“Ah, always Christmas but never winter.”
“And what’s wrong with a bloke in a stick-on beard bringing this uniqueness?”
“Nothing at all. You misunderstand me if you think I’m against all of this. I’m just suggesting that it may need something more. And it all depends on what you mean by unique.” He pointed again with his pipe to a shop front on their floor, just a few yards to their left. A hastily written sign proclaimed He’s Here! There in the window itself, surrounded by polystyrene snow, was another Santa.
It produced a slightly odd sensation to see two of himself at close quarters but Nick did not see this as a big issue, not really. “He’s just helping to spread it a little more.”
“As is he,” the pipe waved in the opposite direction. Another Santa had pushed a handcart of toys before another large store. He fiddled somewhere in cart’s depths and started another tinny recording of ‘Winter Wonderland’.
In the lane snow is glistening sang Frank. A veil of tears for the virgin birth, sang Greg, whose turn on the loop-track had come round again
“And that one,” the Guide waved another trail of smoke. A major department store, whose first floor emerged a little way further down, had now positioned elves at the door who were pretending to play plastic trumpets as Santa emerged triumphantly from within. His beard was somewhat better than the man with the handcart, who turned his music up in the hope of disguising this fact.
Later on we’ll conspire, as we dream by the fire, sang Frank. “‘Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn, and I saw him and through his disguise,” intoned Greg.
Nick was starting to feel dizzy and the competing noises of canned music and kids shouting, and the startling increase in clones of himself was starting to make his legs feel weak. And then a voice cut through:
“Oi!! I don’t recognise you! You’re not licensed!” Another Santa had emerged from ‘Discount Christmas’ behind him. He looked very much like a Discount Santa and had the attitude to go with it. In the process of shouting he had also attracted the attention of the other Santas who were now making their ways toward him.
“They can see me!” cried Nick. He turned in desperation to the Guide, but he had vanished and nothing remained of him except one small puff of smoke that drifted slowly upwards, towards the glass-encased night sky. A hand came down heavily on his shoulder – Discount Santa had reached him, and the others soon arrived. A new jumble of angry not very-jolly voices joined the Mall.
“You’re not approved...where’s your licence? He comes here, on our patches...!”
A small crowd gathered to view proceedings, unaware that they were watching the Genuine Article being attacked by a hoard of doppelgangers. It made a nice change from watching competing parents punching each other outside the toy-shop.
Hallelujah, Noel, be it heaven or hell... Greg had gone solo. Where was Frank when you needed him?!
They swarmed around Nick and all he could see was red cloth and white fur swirling before him, their voices jumbling with Greg’s. The Christmas you get you deserve. They were on top of him and he could feel himself falling as he struggled against the crimson tide and then finally succeeded in throwing off his blankets onto the bedroom floor.
He was up and sat on the edge of his bed in a moment. All he could hear was the sound of his own blood pumping at speed. Nothing else stirred in the darkness.
This time he did not try to sleep. He stood and looked out of the window at the starlight reflecting on the ice. He was feeling very tired indeed, and disturbed. The people in the woods were bad enough, but this last dream had involved images of himself, like broken fragments, shards reflecting something... It made him feel uncomfortable, but he was not sure why. “This is Christmas,” he said to himself, “that’s how Christmas looks What’s the matter with it? Nothing, that’s what. That’s how Christmas is. That’s how Christmas has always been.” He wiped his brow. “Isn’t it?”
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