‘What’s wrong?’ Dropping his cloth, Duncan dashed into the hall to find Jamie holding a Francis Preston cap. ‘I thought you’d done yourself an injury.’
‘What’s this? No, whose is it?’
‘It belongs to Neil.’
‘Neil Nugent?’
‘He left it here last week. I’ve told you he’s doing his local history project on the Mercury. I’d far rather have done it with you, of course.’
‘But he’s the next best thing?’
‘You know perfectly well it’s not like that.’
‘How do you know what I know. Are you a fortune teller?’
‘Don’t you mean a mind reader?’
‘Do you pick him up on every word too?’
‘Why compare yourself with him? I’m just trying to give him a helping hand. I’ve become close – very close – to his mother. You’ve met her: Rose’s speech therapist.’
‘Is she teaching you new swallowing techniques too?’
‘That’s disgusting, Jamie. You’re not a child.’
‘That depends, doesn’t it? On what you want from me at the time.’
‘I want you to understand what I feel for Ellen,’ Duncan said, wounded by the charge. ‘I love her.’ For all the awkwardness, it felt fitting that the first person in whom he confided should be his son.
‘So? You loved Mum, didn’t you?’
‘Most definitely.’
‘And that fucked up.’
‘In the end, yes. But we had thirteen – well, ten – happy years. In any case I’m older now. We both are. Maybe not wiser.’ He laughed uneasily. ‘But more experienced. So’s Ellen. She’s been through a lot.’
‘Big whoop!’
‘It’s early days, but when you know something’s right, as right as this is, then the usual rules don’t apply. I want to marry her.’
‘You can’t!’
‘It may look like I’m rushing things, but I promise you to me it feels more like holding back.’
‘I’m not listening.’ Jamie clamped his hands to his ears like a four-year-old protesting against bedtime. Duncan wondered whether to prise them away, extending the movement into a hug, but he was afraid of feeling his son’s body tense up against him. Besides, Jamie could still hear every word.
‘That’s why I want you to make a special effort to get along with Neil.’
‘He’ll never be my brother.’
‘No, but I hope he’ll be your stepbrother.’
‘What about Craig?’
‘Exactly like Craig. Though on my side of the family.’
‘No freaking way!’
‘I’m not asking you to fall in love with him,’ Duncan said, immediately regretting his choice of words, ‘just to make an effort to get along.’
‘This is the worst Christmas ever!’ Jamie said, stomping out of the flat and down the precipitous stairs. For once Duncan was grateful for the slam of the front door, which showed that he hadn’t broken his neck. He grabbed his coat and was about to follow when he decided that, despite the arctic conditions, Jamie needed time to recover. At least the intensity of Jamie’s fury proved that beneath the defiance and contempt he still cared for him. Or was it just the selfishness of a child who snatched back a discarded toy the moment that it was claimed by somebody else?
As the hours passed with no word from Jamie, he grew increasingly anxious. He left messages and sent texts and even contemplated going on a reconnaissance mission around town, but with such a hazy view of his son’s life he had no idea where to start. In desperation, he debated whether to ring Linda for a list of Jamie’s close friends, but he was loath to worry her, and any innocent explanation for the request, such as throwing him a surprise Christmas party, sounded lame. At six o’clock he called Ellen to cancel dinner, saying only that Jamie had picked a quarrel with him and stormed out of the flat. On impulse he asked whether Neil knew of any classmate he might be seeing. She went upstairs to find out, returning after several muffled shrieks and bangs with a tight-lipped ‘no’. Assuring him that she knew ‘the territory’, she offered to come over and wait with him, but he reluctantly refused, fearful of Jamie’s reaction when he finally arrived home.
At 8.30, with the ‘when’ in Duncan’s calculations looking dangerously like ‘if’, he texted Jamie that unless he heard from him within ten minutes he would call the police. His gamble that Jamie, unfamiliar with investigative procedures, would fail to detect the hollowness of the threat paid off when he received an instant reply: ‘At Stu’s. Back 10.’ With relief bordering on euphoria, he rang to tell Ellen before devouring half of a sixteen-inch seafood pizza. He left the rest in the oven for Jamie, who sauntered in at 9.58 as though determined to extract every last ounce of drama. Far from the frozen and bedraggled waif Duncan had envisioned, he was warm, dry and even, having eaten with Stu and his family, well-fed.
Claiming to be too tired to talk, Jamie went straight to his room, not even emerging to brush his teeth – although perhaps, Duncan thought bitterly, he had done that at Stu’s house too. He remained equally tired, or at any rate taciturn, throughout Sunday, barely speaking except at meals and even then confining himself whenever possible to one-word answers. He refused to discuss, let alone meet, Ellen and Neil, saying that having to spend Christmas Day with them would be bad enough. And while grudgingly observing the ban on texting at table, he reached for his phone the moment that they stood up.
‘Do you ever have a thought you don’t share?’ Duncan asked on Sunday evening, when Jamie sat glued to his phone during a TV thriller that he had insisted they watch.
‘Lots! With you.’
Given Jamie’s instant rejection of every proposed activity, Duncan decided to go in to work on Monday. He sat at his desk, savouring the peculiar calm of the one week in the year when the paper was not produced – even if this year it was tempered by the fear that the respite might prove to be permanent. The full staff would be back in a week’s time for an issue that could practically write itself, with stories of Christmas Day babies, the Francombe Dolphins’ Boxing Day Dip and any local resident who featured in the New Year Honours list. Meanwhile, as on every holiday in living memory, Ken had volunteered to man the news desk, fuelling Duncan’s suspicions that he and his wife Pamela were one of those couples who for years had communicated only by notes.
In mid-morning they were joined by Sheila, whose claim that ‘I thought you might need some company’ would have held more conviction without the rider that ‘You won’t even know I’m here’.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be helping out at Castlemaine?’ Duncan asked.
‘After yesterday, Jean thought it best if I left it till Christmas Day. She says that Mother’s always worse when I’m there. She plays up in order to punish me.’
‘Surely not?’
‘Why should she change the habits of a lifetime? Sorry. Just once before she dies, I’d like some acknowledgement: a sign that I’m more than just a spare pair of hands. But no doubt she’ll be so sedated that she’ll make even less sense then than she does now. Or else I’ll sit by her bedside for days and she’ll slip away while I’m in the loo. Out of spite! Or she’ll cling on and on till I’m even madder than she is.’ Sensing that his editorial duties now stretched to a hug, Duncan took a step towards her, but she put up her hand to check him before rummaging in her bag for a mint, which she popped in her mouth. ‘Don’t mind me, it’s just all the excitement of Christmas,’ she said, adding that she would spend the day sorting out the petty cash.
On Tuesday the office was closed, and Ken and Sheila were left to their own devices. Duncan spent the morning buying presents, panic as ever a great inspiration. He returned to the flat to find Jamie sprawled on the sofa, scrolling through the TV channels and complaining about the lack of Sky.
‘No friends to chat to?’ Duncan asked disingenuously.
‘They’re all doing boring things with their families.’
‘You don’t need the boring.’
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br /> ‘What?’
‘If they’re with their families, the boring’s understood.’
‘Is that supposed to be funny?’
‘If you’ve no better offers, you can always come and be bored with me this afternoon.’
‘I’m bored with you now.’
‘It’s my annual stint as Father Christmas, delivering toys from our appeal to the children at the Princess Royal.’
‘No way! Any case, aren’t they meant for the poor? What if some of the kids are rich? Or do only poor people get sick at Christmas?’
‘They’re for the poor and needy. Any child who’s in hospital at Christmas is in need of cheering up. Why not come and see for yourself? You might find it moving. If we can track down a costume, you can be an elf.’
‘An elf?’ Jamie asked, the crack in his voice accentuating his outrage.
‘It’s not the same as a pixie. Aren’t there elves in Lord of the Rings?’
‘You really are losing it!’
After lunch Duncan made his way, alone, to the Princess Royal, where he donned a Father Christmas costume that was redolent of the doctor who had worn it for the Santa Fun Run in Jubilee Park the weekend before. Following last year’s embarrassing exchange with a scornful boy who had spotted his wandering beard, he had brought his own spirit gum. Once his transformation was complete, he presented himself to Sister Bennett, who led him onto the ward where their noisy welcome confounded her hope that he would not ‘overstimulate the patients’. Flanked by two nurses, one Filipina and the other Nigerian, he handed out gifts to tiny tots who fervently believed in his existence and older children who judiciously suppressed their scepticism. He ho-ho-hoed till he was hoarse, chatting with each one in turn and promising that he would visit them at home next year. He answered familiar questions about Rudolph and Mrs Claus, along with new ones about the number of toys he made in a day and how he would cope if his computer crashed (in the past it had been his sleigh). He faltered only twice: first, at the sight of a bald girl lovingly stroking the hair on her new Barbie; and second, when a clammy, red-faced boy, wondering why he was so much thinner than his picture, asked if he had lupus too.
Leaving the ward to the echo of Sister Bennett’s ‘three cheers for Santa’, he returned to the sluice room to take off his beard and costume before heading home in a state of profound unease. While the courage and resilience of the children were as uplifting as ever, he felt as if he had colluded in a giant confidence trick extending far beyond the existence of Father Christmas to the festival itself. How could anyone celebrate the birth of a God who permitted the suffering of so many children? It was no coincidence that the Nativity had been followed by the Massacre of the Innocents, for which neither He nor His apologists had ever expressed one word of remorse.
Rarely had he felt less in the mood for church. Yet ever since childhood, when his father maintained that it was ‘best to get all the holy stuff over with so that it doesn’t spoil the day’, he had attended Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, first with his parents and sister, and now just with Adele. It was one of the few occasions for which she still left the house, trusting no doubt that both God and the congregation would applaud the effort. Duncan escorted her, swathed in moth-eaten mink, to a pew next to the crib, which, as she never ceased to remind him, had been donated by her mother. Then, concealing his parcel in the parish newsletter, he walked shyly down the nave and under the organ loft to the sacristy, where he had arranged to call on Henry before the service.
‘I brought you this,’ he said, as Henry ushered him in. ‘Just a little something … nothing really.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you,’ Henry said with a smile. ‘Mm, I wonder … what can it be?’ He shook the parcel, whose shape, size and solidity left little room for doubt.
‘I wasn’t expecting anything,’ Duncan said. ‘It’s only a review copy. But the moment I saw it I thought of you.’ He felt a tinge of apprehension, as in the musty, dimly lit sacristy, Make the Most of Your Time on Earth no longer seemed the most appropriate choice for a vicar. ‘I won’t stop. You’ll need some time to prepare.’
‘No, I’m all kitted out and ready for battle. We’ve no choir tonight and only Joel Lincoln serving. He’s busy clearing up vomit from the font.’
‘Too many mince pies?’
‘Too much Christmas spirits! Still, we all need something to get us through the night. I’m ready to drop.’
‘Only three more services and then you can unwind.’
‘It’ll be time off but I doubt there’ll be much unwinding. My cousin Charles and his wife invite me to stay out of duty – not Christian duty, mind, since Charles tells me at least twice every visit that he doesn’t believe in God. I think he expects me to respect his sincerity.’
‘Maybe he’s embarrassed by your faith?’
‘He’s embarrassed by me, period! I’m nothing but an inconvenience to them both. They have to push lunch back to five o’clock so I can make it after the family service. Last year I was in such a rush that I was stopped for speeding. After failing the breathalyser, I explained that I was a vicar who’d been obliged to consume the leftover Communion wine.’
‘Did the policeman believe you?’
‘He let me off. Maybe he thought anyone who could make up a story like that deserved a break.’
‘Was it made up?’
Henry gave Duncan a cryptic glance, which he took as his cue to leave. He rejoined his mother who, having shifted her attention from the crib to her fellow worshippers, was affronted by the lack of reverence, notably from a trio of youths beneath the lancet window who were quaffing cans of lager.
‘Christ turned water into wine, Mother.’
‘But not to the best of my knowledge into beer.’
Preceded by Joel, Henry entered with the air of a priest in a more majestic procession. As the service began, Duncan derived the same pleasure from listening to the familiar lessons and carols as he did from looking at old family photographs: the meaning may have been lost, but the associations were rich. The one discordant note was struck by Adele’s sobbing during ‘The First Noël’. He waited until they were walking back to the car before asking her what was wrong.
‘You’ll think me silly.’
‘Try me.’
‘Some weeks ago I was going through your grandfather’s papers. I found the commission for a new arrangement of ‘The First Noël’ for Hereford Cathedral in 1932. It was a great success.’
‘Do you still have the score? I’m sure Henry would be happy to use it next year. Of course he doesn’t have the cathedral’s resources.’
‘I don’t intend to beg, Duncan. Your grandfather won’t be the first prophet without honour in his own country.’
Resisting the temptation to point out that, a few dubious Scandinavian folk music circles apart, Stafford Lyttleton was no longer honoured anywhere, Duncan drove her back to Ridgemount, where his hopes of a swift getaway were dashed by the need to reassure her about the full house for Christmas lunch.
‘You used to love entertaining.’
‘That was when I had staff.’
‘One maid, Mother,’ Duncan said, anxious to puncture her pretensions before she offended Ellen as deeply as she once had Linda.
‘Poor Duncan,’ she replied. ‘You always did have such a literal mind.’
Duncan returned home, where the chink of light under Jamie’s door emboldened him to knock. Greeted by a less aggressive (or merely more drowsy) ‘What?’ than usual, he entered and was further cheered to find that, rather than listening to his iPod or playing with his computer, Jamie was reading.
‘Just seeing if there’s anything you want.’
‘A cheque for a million pounds.’
‘It’ll be in your stocking tomorrow.’
‘How was the service?’
‘You should have come.’
‘Why? I don’t believe in it, same as you. At least I’m not a hypocrite.’
&nbs
p; ‘You can believe that something has value even if you don’t believe that it’s true.’
‘It’s late, Dad!’ Jamie replied with a groan.
‘I wish you’d come to the hospital this afternoon,’ Duncan said, sure that with Jamie by his side he would have felt less disenchanted.
‘Those kids must be really sick if they thought you were Father Christmas.’
‘I remember when you were young –’
‘Oh no!’ Jamie said, pulling a pillow over his face.
‘You must have been five or six,’ Duncan said, gently lifting off Jamie’s fingers. ‘Some bright spark at primary school had told you that Father Christmas was a made-up person – at least that was how you put it to us later. We managed to convince you he was wrong.’
‘See, you were lying to me even then!’
‘But the next morning when you opened your presents, you looked at your mother wide-eyed and asked: “Why does Father Christmas use the same wrapping paper as you?”’
‘I’m tired, Dad. What does it matter?’
‘It matters because you’re my son. I like to remember the funny things you used to say.’
‘Get a life!’
Duncan felt a rush of gratitude that Jamie was here with him and not in Antigua or, worse, the Princess Royal. He bent to kiss the crown of his head and for once Jamie didn’t flinch. Bone-weary, he prepared for bed where, despite telling himself that Christmas was not a time for introspection, he was tormented by the thought of everything that he might have done to preserve the Mercury for his son. Sleep, when it finally came, brought no relief since he was plunged into a nightmare where the money tree in his office shot up like a pantomime beanstalk, filling the entire building and forcing him to transfer the archives to Geoffrey’s sex museum on the pier. In order to consult them, he had to stand in a line of seedy-looking men, only to be told on reaching the turnstile that he could not be admitted until he was eighteen. ‘I’m forty-eight!’ he protested in an unconvincing treble. The next moment the museum was engulfed in flames and he woke up trembling. Since it was almost seven, he crept into the kitchen where he sat with a pot of Earl Grey, listening to Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ on the radio. At 8.30 Jamie walked in, the buttons of his pyjama jacket touchingly misaligned, and gave him his first unsolicited kiss in years.
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