A Bright Moon for Fools

by Jasper Gibson

  No sooner had Christmas picked up some speed than he hit a queue. Teenagers in yellow jumpers were ordering people to join different lines. “Got any gels?” said one, “Creams? Hairsprays?”

  “What do you think I am?” grunted Christmas, “An extremely ugly woman?”

  Security always infuriated Christmas. Why should he have to prove he existed, the devil take them! He was real. The state on the other hand was pure construct. It should have to prove its existence to him. Christmas quelled the urge to ask the officer for his passport in return.

  Shuffling. Undressing. Dressing. Shoes, belt, arms raised wide. Christmas breathed heavily through the indignity. However, once he was past the last gum-chewing staff member, his considerable frame was shot through with exhilaration. He looked back at the queue: the polished, empty faces of Europe. He’d made it. He had deliberately bought an indirect and open-ended ticket to Venezuela. Even if he were tracked to the airport, there was no way anyone could know his ultimate destination.

  Gatwick airport departure lounge – an amphitheatre of tat. Christmas headed straight for Yates Wine Lodge for a remedial double scotch, trying to block out the conversations around him.

  “... Don’t watch it at all anymore.”

  “Oh God, me neither.”

  “I mean I don’t think I’ve watched it in weeks.”

  “Did you see that whatsername yesterday? The one from whatsit?”

  “God she looked fat!”

  “What about those kids being forced to examine what was in their own poo?”

  “... in Bangkok, he gets completely wasted and ends up fucking two prostitutes. Un-fucking-believable.”

  “But that’s Bangkok, mate. Standard fucking practice.”

  “Not when you’re on your honeymoon.”

  Christmas stood up in despair, deciding he should eat. He sat down again in Garfunkel’s.

  “And how do you want your steak, sir?”

  “Right through the heart. And bring me a large scotch, would you? Laphroaig, no ice.” Christmas watched the crowds and remarked to himself with no small sense of wonder how everyone seemed to be dressed for an amateur sporting event. Were Muslim women the only smart people left in England? A cheerless steak was plonked in front of him by his cheerless waitress. He ate it cheerlessly, consumed several glasses of scotch and asked for the bill.

  “Is the tip included?”

  “‘Sh’d’no,” she replied.

  “What?” but she just shrugged and ambled off. Who were these people? Why the devil did they behave in this way? But Christmas was a man of temporary passions. No sooner had the hedgehog of disquiet bristled its spines than it was run over by the spirit of adventure. Caracas. No more looking over his shoulder. In Caracas things would be different. In Caracas, perhaps, The Rot had not taken hold. He might be temporarily potholed in Gatwick airport departure lounge, but soon he’d be riding horseback with dusky-eyed girls from the reef. Christmas enjoyed a long outward breath until he saw a youth with an Adidas tattoo on his arm. He went insane with fury.

  “Are they paying you for that?” he asked, prodding the offence. “Are. They. Paying. You?” After a brief conference of the eyes, the youth fled. “The devil take the lot of you!” Christmas cursed after him. Moments later, back in Yates Wine Lodge and facing a conspiracy of drinks, he stirred his agitators to a pitch and then dispensed them to the cause. Damn these children. God damn them all.

  From his position Christmas overlooked a couple sitting at one of the tables for McDonald’s. The man had his computer open. The woman was wearing a headset. She was crying, attempting to look away from everybody but failing as they were sat right in the middle, her body and neck twisted over the seat. “Oh Lesley,” she sobbed into the mouthpiece, holding it close, “I’m so sorry, love, I’m so sorry, oh that bastard, that bastard – how could he do that? Honestly, Lesley, you’re such a lovely person –” Rubbish, thought Christmas, Lesley’s an absolute bitch. “– yeah, yep, that’s right ... You’re always thinking about other people ... so what I’m saying, love, what I’m saying is let other people look after you a bit too, OK? ... yeah ... when you’re back at work, bit more steady on your pins kind of thing ... yes, yes of course ... and Gary sends his love.” Her husband had a hand on her knee, but the other was tapping away at the keyboard, his face an expressionless mask. Christmas took out a slim volume of poetry from his inside jacket pocket and began to read.

  “Mind if we ...?” Christmas looked up. Another couple were hoping for the two free seats that other travellers had wisely avoided. In an airport full of people secretly trying to kill themselves, Yates Wine Lodge had become rather full. Christmas spread the air with the back of his hand and carried on with his poetry book and his Laphroaig. Something in the silence caused him to look at his guests. They wanted to talk.

  “Cheers,” said the man, holding up his drink. Christmas, who was already holding up his drink, bared his teeth with a smile.

  “Off anywhere nice?”

  “No,” said Christmas. “Paris.”

  “We’re going to Spain. To Alicante.”

  “We’ve moved there,” said the woman. Oh have you, thought Christmas, closing the book, his inner voice already starting to slosh about, have you really? Oh have you, have you really? You’ve moved to Spain. Have you really? Spain? Really?

  “Just back from visiting our son.”

  “He’s a psychologist.”

  “He’s a child psychologist.”

  “And they give him the time off school?”

  “Pardon me?”

  Psychologists. Absolute blackguards. Passed themselves off as scientists when they were little more than witch-burners.

  “Our daughter’s at university in London,” continued the woman, “studying theology.”

  “Really,” said Christmas. A family of witch-burners. Why were they telling him this stuff? Did he look like the fucking taxman?

  “We try to come back as often as we can but – well, London just seems to get worse and worse and worse.” And why oh why did people like this always moan about London? It had improved considerably since they got a handle on the plague, and at least these days you required a license for the distillation of gin. “All the bombs and everything – and do you know what happened at my granddaughter’s school?” she continued, “They’ve closed the pool! She absolutely loves swimming and they’ve gone and closed the pool because,” she lowered her voice, “the Muslim children don’t do it, do they?”

  “I have no idea,” said Christmas, wearily sensing the direction of the conversation.

  “I mean I’m all for civil liberties, but the police have got to be allowed to do their job.”

  “In the swimming pool?”

  “Excuse us?”

  “There are police operating in your granddaughter’s swimming pool?”

  “Not police, Muslim girls.”

  “I thought you said they didn’t care much for swimming?”

  “They don’t.”

  “Well I hardly think that merits police action.”

  “We’re not talking about the pool.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “We’re just saying, you know, I mean no one feels safe, do they?”

  “From police frogmen?”

  “From the bombs.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Christmas, pulling a face, “‘bombs’?”

  “The bombs. Exactly.”

  “There are bombs being planted in school swimming pools?”

  “No, but I mean, where is it all heading?”

  “Where the devil is what all heading?’ said Christmas, down-right confused.

  “I mean there’s got to be a limit, hasn’t there?” agreed the woman.

  “Look here,” said Christmas with a huff, “I didn’t like swimming much when I was a child – verrucae and so forth – drowning – so I rather take umbrage at your suggestion that one should be forced to do it because of one’s religion.”

&
nbsp; “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yes, you did. And as for bombs – well ...” Christmas forgot what he was talking about for a moment. Then he had an idea. “A lead box. That’s the thing. With you in it. And besides that, a lead box for Monsieur here, and beside that, rows and rows of lead boxes with us all in them, feeding tubes up our backsides, and they’d say ‘yes but you’re all safe, that’s the main thing’, that’s what they’d have to do to make life safe, and who, madam, wants a safe life? Are we chickens? No, madam, we are not, we are the fox, and if we have to fight some dogs then we’ll fight some bloody dogs!” Christmas accepted the deafening applause of an imaginary rally. I stand before you all as a man who has just survived nothing less than an assassination attempt and—

  “You’re not one of those hunting lot, are you?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re not one of those toffs on a horse, are you? Because, I’m sorry, that is just plain sick.”

  “No madam, I am not on a horse.”

  “Mm ...” she replied, disqualifying Christmas because he was obviously posh. Then she saw a family coming up the escalator all wearing the same football shirts. She let out a small ‘hmph’ noise and immediately lost interest in the conversation. Christmas saw the self-satisfied look on her face, followed her line of sight, saw the family and immediately fingered her as the type of middle class person who, while celebrating their gritty roots, is an exacting snob when it came to modern members of the working class. As he ground his teeth through this judgement, Christmas noticed her husband settle an empty look upon him.

  “You know I think the point is ...” the husband started, “I mean we were saying just the other day –”

  Christmas made a firm decision to attack. He didn’t sit down with these galoots, damn it, they sat down with him, and it was they who would be standing up again. He gave the husband a broad, cheerful smile.

  “– well, these friends of ours were saying, and I do see their point, if you know what I mean, that there’s nowhere to be English any more. The North’s out and so’s the Midlands and the Southeast. There’s Devon and Cornwall and bits of Kent – basically that’s what’s left and it costs a fortune to live down there.”

  “So,” Christmas nodded enthusiastically, “scandalized by immigration, you’ve emigrated.”

  “We—”

  “And of course, Devon and Cornwall, they’re full of yokels.”

  “Ha, ha. Well, I—”

  “Big-breasted, scrumpy-swilling, hay-chewing yokels that prowl about in the woods planting maypoles and smearing each other with cream.” The woman returned her attention. “There’s packs of them,” Christmas continued, “stuffed either side of the bridle paths, waiting for retirees on tandems that they can kidnap at Cornetto-point and subject to Cornish grammar seminars by the light of the horrible moon.” The couple exchanged looks. Christmas leant forward, “and they’ll force you, yes, force you, madam, and you, sir, force to your knees, your kneeeeees, naked! Facing holy Exeter, shrieking God of Barley, God of Corn, take these supplicants that they might reject the false idols, the lord of frozen cakes, of industrialized fishing, of tarty news readers that sit on the edge of their desks because evidently genocide requires a casual delivery!” He slammed his glass down on the table, closed his eyes and began to breathe heavily. When he opened them again the couple had left. Christmas burped with satisfaction and picked up his book.

  4

  Flight EZ116 to Paris. Christmas leant his head against the glass. The sun slipped down onto the horizon and the clouds became one territory, endless bodies lying side by side. Jolting and shaking the aircraft lowered into this battlefield until finally the sky cleared and he was able to see the tiling of the earth.

  Christmas closed his eyes, imagining himself twenty years younger. He wasn’t running away to Caracas. He was flying to Paris for a trade show. At the trade show he was going to meet Emily. She was here, next to him. Christmas opened his eyes, but there was only a child’s face rising above the seat in front. Higher and higher he went, with a widening smile until his upper body bent over into what was incontrovertibly Christmas’ zone. Christmas searched his drink for a last drop and crunched on an ice cube. The boy burst into a grin. Christmas looked out of the window.

  Parisians respect rudeness. This normally gave an advantage to a man like Christmas. When shopping in Paris his technique for commanding their guarded attention was to approach their most expensive item and ask for it ‘in crocodile’. Once they had to admit that it didn’t actually come in crocodile, a certain superiority of extravagance was conferred on Christmas and they would start to kowtow accordingly. Powered by scotch, and with two hours to wait in Charles De Gaulle airport, Christmas summoned a variant of this approach in order to gain access to the business class lounge.

  “Now look here,” he broadcast to the receptionists, swinging his frame through the doors, “one of your colleagues promised to fetch the manager and I am still waiting!”

  “I’m sorry, Monsieur, if I could just—”

  “Waiting, I said!” interrupted Christmas as a party of business travellers entered behind him, “I’ll be waiting in here.” And off he walked, unchallenged, into the exclusivity of free coffee and marginally larger seating. There were two glamorous couples laughing and talking about Milan, otherwise it was full of the usual harried men and women unable to figure out their BlackBerrys and reading the Financial Times at incredible speed. Christmas went to the buffet, filled a bowl full of chocolate croissants and sat down with a triple espresso.

  “So I bought a book for the journey,” a businessman opposite was saying to his colleague, “called ‘How To Improve Your Memory’, and guess what?” You forgot it, thought Christmas. “I forgot it!” said the man. Christmas frowned. He had, of late, become concerned about his own memory. He used to be rather proud of it, but now he found himself forgetting names, which lies he had told to whom and historical facts and personages that had once been at his fingertips. These days if he didn’t write the thing down, it vanished from his mind just as completely as those infuriating objects left for only a moment vanished from sight.

  Christmas spied the manager picking his way through the tables. “Monsieur, you—”

  “Why haven’t you got the Asian Daily News?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Asian Daily News – why don’t you have it, man? Or at least the Hong Kong Gazette. Many of your guests I see here are undoubtedly destined for the East, and yet I notice a woeful lack of provision in your newspaper range. Messrs ADN and HKG are, in particular, noticeable by their absence.” The manager relaxed. There was no earwig in the milk. There was no stolen bag, no mouse, no insult from a staff member. There was no crisis. He took out a pad of paper and slowly pretended to write down the newspapers’ names. In fact he was writing the French for ‘fat English cunt’.

  “Mmm ...” he said, “We do get these in from time to time, but I am afraid that in the past they haven’t proved very popular. However, I will take this up at our next meeting, and hope to rectify the situation before your next visit. Would that be OK, Monsieur?”

  “That would be adequate.”

  “Now if you will excu—”

  “Too bloody right,” said Christmas, biting into a croissant. The manager departed. Munching and wiping his hands, Christmas walked over to the internet consoles and typed ‘best hotel in Caracas’ into Google. He made a note of Gran Melía’s phone number. He took his mobile out of his pocket and switched it on for the first time in two days. There were thirty-eight voicemail messages. He called the hotel, booked a room for a week with a secured credit card – the last type of card he was allowed – and then tossed the phone into the bin.

  5

  The Paris–Madrid leg of his journey was notable only for the peanut that refused to be scooped out of his scotch and the struggle over the armrest that his elbow conducted with his neighbour’s. Both travellers submitted to the unwr
itten lore of this ancient combat: combatants do not acknowledge the combat; combatants do not acknowledge each other. In the end, Christmas settled for his arm lying over the front of the armrest while his neighbour’s elbow was squashed against the seat, both suffering the kind of pressurised proximity that pride alone could deem acceptable. Only Christmas, however, could deem it enjoyable.

  Once in Madrid there were yet more security checks. Everyone sighed and tutted. If the few were to die for the increased convenience of the many, then surely that was a price worth paying? It was certainly paid in other contexts, but Christmas suspected that the multiplication of such procedures – this taking off and on of one’s belt, shoes and coat, the delving for coins and keys – had nothing to do with ‘the war on terror’. It was plain humiliation, a public stripping to cow you into accepting the delays and the food and the modern scandal of in-flight alcohol rationing. Shaken and observed, they wanted you to stare into the plastic tray of your life, examine its pittance, and then be grateful for seven per cent off five hundred fags.

  Christmas walked onto a travelator and stood with everything crossed until it delivered him to a bar. Here he consumed a slice of tortilla, a glass of beer and two large Dewar’s – the only available alternative to that well-known whisky for children, Jack Daniel’s.

  “So where you headed?” asked the barman.

  “My wife’s grandmother is Venezuelan,” he munched. “We’re going to track down where the old woman grew up. Guiria – heard of it?”

  “No.”

  “Any more of that tortilla left?”

  “So you’ve left your wife with the bags?”

  “She’s reading. Always bloody reading.” The barman cut him another slice. “Beautiful woman, my wife,” added Christmas. “Doesn’t take any shit. Have you ever met a woman from Stoke-on-Trent?”