by Robert Ford
‘Are you OK, Sam?’
‘Fine,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Fine.’
‘OK, well, we’ll be seeing you guys in a bit.’ Rachel turned to go.
‘Bye guys,’ said Megan over her shoulder as they walked along the path towards the main house.
‘Bye,’ said Sam and Spike in unison.
Eventually, once they were out of earshot, Sam let out an enormous gasp, as if he had been holding his breath the entire time.
‘What in the hell is wrong with you?’
Sam knelt then collapsed, rolling onto his back in the snow.
Spike looked at Sam, and then up at the ladies walking arm in arm, away into the distance. ‘Ah!’ he suddenly exclaimed ‘Ah! You little beauty.’
‘What?’
‘What? You love her, mate. You love Kirkham’s daughter.’
‘No. I mean...’
‘Yes. That’s right. Ah, mate, that’s just cruel, isn’t it? Just wait till I tell Teddy. He’s gonna wet himself. You don’t know him like I do. He’ll buy a new hat, a great big blue thing with tassels and stuff!’
‘You what?’ Sam scrabbled to his feet, still looking more than a little flushed, small clods of snow falling to the ground from the back of his coat. ‘That’s nonsense... I honestly...’
‘Come on there, you beauty. Secret’s safe with me - for now.’
‘Ridiculous,’ snapped Sam as he started to march off back to the house.
Spike picked up the toolbox and made after him, slipping here and there on some of the more compacted snow.
‘Wait, Sammy boy. Wait!’ Spike cried after him. ‘She’s a beauty. Really. You’ve got great taste. Don’t give it a second thought. You’ll need to woo her, obviously. And that’s not easy, let me tell you. Take it from a man who knows what it is to woo. Back at home they used to call me the one-man dragnet. And do you know why? Because I killed ‘em. Every night. No one and nothing was immune.’
Sam marched on, doing his best to ignore the Australian. They crossed the lawn towards the house, leaving fresh prints in the thick snow. Spike’s voice, high and playful and full of good humour, faded until it became indistinguishable from the gentle ambience, the low wind and spare rustle of the countryside in winter.
JUST ANOTHER CHRISTMAS
Edge Hill suited Christmas. It had the age and the shape and the setting that somehow leant itself to the season, quite a feat given the various compromises that had been forced upon its architecture to accommodate the specific requirements of residential care: the industrial feel, the cold and the utilitarian where once stood the intricate and the ornate, this gave the house a slight sense of loss; of injustice, perhaps. And yet to be there on Christmas Eve, with the low lighting and the great vaulted ceilings and the sense of seasonal abandon amongst the staff, was to experience a genuine gladness of heart.
With all of the residents asleep in their pods, the house stood quiet and still. The staff members had taken turns throughout the day to eat their annual Christmas dinner and now it was over to the final group, which included Hal, Sam, Morris, Dr Fell, Ted, Rachel, Spike and Megan.
The meal was in full swing, the handlers arranged round a large table in one of the many oak-panelled dining rooms. Crackers had been ripped, backs slapped, wine drunk and paper hats draped jauntily on heads.
‘I remember when turkeys had legs. And wings.’ Morris leant over towards Sam as he prodded what was left of the enormous single ‘breast’ that had been big enough to feed all twenty of them.
Although all the other handlers were still in their uniforms, Morris had changed into a Father Christmas suit and was now drunk.
‘Seriously?’ said Sam who had never really given this any thought.
‘Serious!’ said Morris, suppressing a burp, clenched fist covering his mouth.
‘Wow. OK. Weird.’
‘No,’ said Morris, waving a finger rather close to Sam’s nose. ‘Not weird. Not weird at all.’
Across the broad oak table, Rachel and Megan sat either side of Ted, who, in between great slops of wine, was explaining the details of his absolute dislike of lumberjacks.
‘Generally speaking they smell of trunk, which is actually disgusting. And the things they do to trees...’
To their right, a few places down, sat Dr Fell, Spike and Hal, all of whom seemed to be in an advanced state of inebriation. They sat and swayed and banged and howled as they lurched their way through the evening, a substantial cocktail of various substances pulling them this way and that, up and down, forward and back, their movements random and constant, not unlike the branches of a tree caught in a high wind.
As the evening progressed, so the clamour in the dining room rose. This was not only a Christmas party, a staff party even. No one was going home for the holidays, because where else could they go? This was Christmas. And the later it got, the more this fact was amplified as they plunged head-first into an ecstatic, alcoholic fraternity.
Then, at around ten-thirty, the heavy latch on the dining room door was raised and in walked Kirkham. His entrance silenced the room; that is, apart from the Christmas Hits playlist rumbling away from the corner.
‘Thank you. And please,’ bleated Kirkham, ‘can we turn that off now?’
For a moment no one moved, the handlers looking around the room at each other with blank expressions, like passengers on a long-haul flight who had just woken up to find themselves still on the runway, yet to take off - a combination of jaded injustice and pure disbelief. Finally, though, Morris stood up and blundered his way over to shut off the music.
All eyes turned on Kirkham, who shifted about for a second before breaking into a broad grin, a politician’s smile. ‘Good evening. Every. One.’
From his seat near the back, Hal muttered something completely unintelligible, which was probably for the best.
‘I just wanted to come down and say, on behalf of everyone at TWL Leisure Group - have a very Happy Christmas!’
Silence.
‘I know that the past few weeks has been a period of transition, for everybody, but I can honestly say that we shall emerge as a stronger and better and more able retirement community because of it.’
Kirkham looked about, awaiting some kind of reaction. But the handlers were silent still, lodged somewhere between apathy and obvious dislike. It wasn’t as if Kirkham had lost his audience - he had never had them in the first place.
‘Well... and so. A little Christmas tradition, I think it’s rather a nice thing to do.’ Kirkham cleared his throat and then, employing a thin falsetto voice, he proceeded to churn out a rather strange rendition of Away in a manger complete with small, self-conscious movements as he mimed his way through the song.
The handlers had been taken completely by surprise, most now sitting bolt upright and wondering, through the muddle of their alcoholic minds, quite what on earth was going on. Indeed the only ones not stirred by Kirkham’s song were Hal, Spike and the doctor, who had slipped so far down in their chairs that it was now only possible to see them from the neck up.
Sam looked across the table to where Ted and Rachel sat arm in arm. They had turned their seats round to face the front and seemed to be swaying together as they mouthed along to the carol, immersed in it all. Behind them, however, Megan looked as if she wanted the ground to open up beneath her; at first she played with her wine glass, swilling the dregs of her about in a circular motion, and then, as the performance continued, she leaned forward and clasped her hands together, almost as if in prayer. Sam watched her sitting there, enduring - it made him think of the time that his mother had drunk too much rum before a parent teacher evening and had spent the session scampering around the old gymnasium swatting at imaginary flies whilst singing She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain. The memory made him shudder, but also made him smile, made him want to cry.
At long last, the song finished. Kirkham executed a small stiff bow, turned on his heel and made to leave, pulling open the solid oak door
and moving into the corridor.
Silence.
Almost a minute passed and then from nowhere wild applause broke out amongst the handlers, laughter that was in fact bright and bold, genuine and heartfelt. Indeed, Ted and Rachel were in floods of tears, hugging each other, overwhelmed by it all. Kirkham stopped dead in his tracks, his retreat halted by the unexpected sound of cheering. For a second he looked on the brink of going back into the room for a more fitting curtain call, but instead he stood there alone in the long dark light of the corridor, blowing kisses to his imaginary army of adoring fans.
The stern old grandfather clock tolled midnight - a dozen rather civilised chimes. Dinner had long since finished, with around half of the handlers retiring to bed at about eleven, including Ted and Rachel who had stumbled off together singing The Holly and The Ivy - a discordant caterwauling that was subject to more than a few choice comments from the remaining staff.
The lights had been dimmed and a cloud of cigarette smoke hung above the dining table, its surface swamped with empty bottles, glasses and various cracker-related detritus.
Sam sat back in his chair and looked about. At the far side of the room Hal was perched alone on a window seat, looking out into the night. Meanwhile Spike and Dr Fell sat at other end of the table from Sam discussing, as far as he could make out, the idea of an animated feature film based on the lives of the Kronstadt Sailors. Dr Fell thought that he should be given the opportunity to hand-draw the film, that in a world of eye-popping computer-generated animations the ‘stick man’ was grossly underused as a story-telling device. Spike disagreed and as their dialogue grew louder and louder it appeared that creative differences might put an end to their venture before it had begun.
Opposite Sam, across the table, were a couple of handlers whose names he could not quite remember. He thought the one the right was called David, but was that really it?
As he sat there contemplating how best to break in to their conversation, Megan rounded the table and perched on the seat next to him.
‘Dexter,’ she said under her breath.
Sam turned towards her and squinted, catching up.
‘Dexter,’ Sam said, loud enough to cause the handler to break off from his conversation.
‘Sam?’ said Dexter, a tall, eager man, with an enormous lantern jaw and a thick Long Island accent.
‘Um. Never mind.’
‘OK. Have a nice night now.’ Dexter beamed. ‘And Happy Holidays.’
Megan filled her glass, pouring in rather more than she had probably meant to.
‘Ha! There we go.’ She put the bottle back on the table, then raised her glass to Sam. ‘Happy Christmas.’
‘Happy Christmas,’ he replied. ‘Amazing performance by your Dad earlier... truly... inspirational.’
‘He’s an artist, what can I say?’
‘You should have a look at these guys over here.’ Sam pointed across the table to where Dr Fell was waving a napkin in Spike’s face, shouting ‘Rake’ over and over.
‘They’re special certainly,’ she said, and they both laughed - Megan snorting, much to her embarrassment.
Over by the window, Hal had become distracted from his steady vigil; turning away from the glass, he unfurled his crooked shoulders as if to observe them.
‘Hey,’ Hal chirped, his voice hoarse and slight as he slipped from his seat and plodded across the room.
‘Dickie. Come on. We must go now,’ said Hal, lurching around the table towards them, his movements exaggerated and unreliable.
‘What?’
‘Come on, Dickie. We must prepare. This war will not win itself.’
‘War?’ said Sam, trying to catch up to whichever level of reality Hal was currently working in.
‘Look, Hal. This is Megan. She’s -’
‘Yes, yes, yes. Come on now, Dickie.’
As Hal stood there holding out his hand, it struck Sam how small and sad and tired he looked.
‘Megan. Sorry...’ Sam stood up from the table. ‘We should go.’
‘Yes.’ Hal croaked, reeling and unsteady, as though the floor was suddenly made of gelatine.
‘That’s OK. You guys go.’ She smiled up at the two of them. ‘Good night and Happy Christmas.’
The corridors of the East Wing were deserted as Hal and Sam walked in silence back to the main atrium and the staff accommodation. Although they were both more drunk than was necessary, the silence lent a weight to their journey, a sense of underlying import.
‘Are you OK, Hal?’ Sam asked.
Hal seemed almost not to hear his question, walking on for a few seconds, very much in his own world.
‘I don’t think you should see that girl,’ he said at last.
‘What girl?
‘That girl.’
‘I’m not ‘seeing’ her.’ Sam protested, a stronger objection than he had planned.
‘But you were talking to her?’
‘And?’
‘She has the look of a fascist about her.’
‘Well, yes, you said, but -’
‘A fascist. Like her father. You may in fact be in danger already.’ Hal looked down at his feet.
‘What on earth are you talking about, Hal?’
‘What am I talking about? They’re everywhere. They breed. And never mind the fact that her father has arrived, unannounced, and in a very short time has ripped the beating heart from this institution. He has defiled it. And I for one just can’t get past this... this... horror.
‘I feel, Sam, I feel like a dog. Like a large dog that once had a magnificent pair of balls. And then one day I’ve woken up only to discover that they’ve taken me to a veterinarian. And they’ve done me, they’ve chopped off my beautiful big balls. And everyone’s coming around patting me on the head and I’m thinking: What’s everyone so bloody happy about? This is just not right.’
‘Your balls?’
‘My balls, Dickie. My lovely big balls. Gone. Can’t anyone else see that?’
‘No. No they can’t Hal. I mean -’
Sam shrugged; what more could he say?
‘...putting things in perspective. All this. It’s not that bad. Is it?’
‘Perspective?’
‘Perspective.’
‘Perspective my arse!’ He barked, eyes livid, his body tense. ‘Fuck the lot of it!’
Hal swung away from Sam into a ragged twirl, a petulant display of his frustrations. He continued to curse and mutter as he made his way into and across the atrium towards the west wing, falling through the double doors at the other side and into the cloisters beyond.
Sam stood there and watched the doors settle, quite alone now.
‘Happy Christmas’ he said to himself. ‘Happy. Christmas.’
SPROUTS
With the refurbishment of the library still taking place Sam and Hal had been temporarily reassigned to the dining room shifts. And of all the days to have returned, Christmas Day was perhaps the worst, because not only did the residents receive their usual portion of Meel, but they were also to be given a ‘proper’ dinner - a plastic plate piled high with Brussels sprouts, a handful of roast potatoes and some pale gelatinous meat which was, allegedly, turkey.
Sam made his way through the main hall to the hatches at the back of the room where the other handlers where grouped.
‘Morning,’ said Spike.
‘Morning,’ he said, settling against the wall. ‘How you feeling?’
‘Alright, I think. You?’
‘Dog rough, unfortunately. You seen Hal this morning?’
Spike shook his head. ‘Not likely to either. He’ll not come out for the dinner shifts. Never has, never will.’
The hatches were opened and the smell of sprouts and Meel mixed together to produce something prodigious; a rich, nagging stink.
Sam covered his nose and mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Ah Jesus Lord, I think I’m gonna be sick.’ Sam coughed, eyes watering.
‘Here they com
e. If you think it smells bad now...’
The doors at the side of the room ground open and in came the residents, along with the four or five handlers that had escorted them there. There was no way that they could have known it was Christmas Day, but for some reason, perhaps as simple as the fact that they were responding to the insidious smell of the sprouts, the residents were far more animated than normal. As Sam stood there and watched them file in, he began to wonder just how far diminished their minds really were - what degree of comprehension was at their disposal? To live like this, to see out their old age in such an environment, seemed a sad but essential captivity. So maybe Hal was right after all? Maybe the library, the space that it afforded, the atmosphere and the haphazard recreational pursuits were not just important, they were fundamental to these people? Bestowed a humanity upon them?
Sam looked up at the huge windows to his right; the sky was brilliant, cloaked in pearl-tinged light that pulsed and moved and changed, the kind of light that was almost unbearable to look at, that repelled the eye but also demanded its attention. He felt overwhelmed, struck dumb by the deep dogged frailty of a truly terrible hangover. It was something that he could not get used to and in a way he hoped that he never would - as unsavoury as it was, he couldn’t help but think these moments important. Indeed, Sam often wondered if the world might be a better place - a more compassionate place, at least - if politicians were required to pass legislation in such a state, forced by law to attend bacchanalian revelries on the evening before any kind of decision-making process. He would imagine mornings in the Palace of Westminster, corridors lined with men and women of a certain age and bearing, avoiding eye contact as they laboured to assuage the black thoughts that had risen as a result of a hearty binge the night before.
REPORTER: “And will you be signing off on the controversial ‘Aid to Africa’ deal this morning, Minister, the largest of its kind in the country’s history?”
FOREIGN SECRETARY: “Well, yes. Mainly because when I think about all those starving people I want to curl up into a ball and cry. Its just so... so... unfair. Isn’t it? At the end of the day politics isn’t about us as politicians, it’s about doing something magnificent and noble and good! And I need a bacon sandwich. And if we wrap this up soon I can spend the rest of the day watching daytime TV and drinking Tizer. Please don’t point that light at me. Oh shit, will you hold me? Just for a moment.”