Shaping the Ripples

by Paul Wallington

  “Of course,” I said. “I’m sorry – I’m not trying to give you a hard time. Next Friday would be fine. Do you want to come to my flat, or meet on neutral territory?”

  After we’d arranged that she would come to my flat, and agreed a time, she rang off. I sat for a time, just staring at the telephone, wondering what sort of ghosts were suddenly so pressing that she was travelling to York especially. I didn’t believe for a moment that her business was bringing her here. Liz and Peter ran a rare book dealers service together, which I knew meant visiting book fairs regularly. However, in two years it had never brought her to York as far as I knew. I also doubted that there were many book sales in Christmas week.

  Whatever, I clearly wasn’t going to find out what was really going on until we met up. Liz and I had parted as amicably as you can in a divorce, but I was still very wary of opening up those old wounds again.

  People often think that the worst day to be on your own is Christmas Day. In my brief experience of it, it’s actually the evening before that’s the hardest. The day itself passes just like any other, sometimes rather more enjoyably because you tend to give yourself a treat; get in some special food and so on.

  It’s Christmas Eve that feels strange. While you imagine that everyone else is feverishly preparing; putting out stockings, wrapping presents, trying to calm children down enough to get them to sleep, making sure they have enough food in and so on, you don’t have anything special to do. It’s because of this that the last couple of years I’ve made Christmas Eve my time to put up the Christmas decorations.

  In truth, I hadn’t actually decided whether to bother this year. However, the fact that Liz would be visiting made the decision for me. I didn’t want to give her another reason to feel pity for me. So I rummaged around in the wardrobe until I came up with the boxes into which I had shoved last year’s decorations (on Boxing Day if my memory serves me correctly.) Before long, the small artificial tree was decorated, and some tinsel hung from the light across to the wall above the door.

  I switched off the light, and sat down, looking at the patterns of coloured light cast by the tree on the wall and floor. I poured a cold beer into my glass, and lifted the glass to the tree. “Happy Christmas, Jack.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Christmas Day was another bright and clear day. I’d pretty much made up my mind that I would go to church, if only to check on how Christopher was doing. I woke up sufficiently early that I had plenty of time to get dressed and have breakfast. On an impulse, I took the bottle of wine that I’d bought to consume during the course of the day from the fridge, and found some paper to wrap it in. It wasn’t Christmas paper, but it would do.

  Getting to church, I was struck by how few people had managed to find the time to come. There were a couple of families, the children each holding tight onto what were clearly their favourite selection from the toys they had received; a cluster of pensioners sitting together at the front; and a few other people dotted around the church. All in all, there couldn’t have been more than thirty of us.

  A cheery voice boomed behind me.

  “Happy Christmas, Jack!”

  I turned around, and Samuel and Ruth Kondo stood beaming at me. Samuel crushed me with a bear-hug, and I just about managed to grab a breath before Ruth also gave me a huge hug.

  “We were hoping you’d be here, Jack,” she announced. “I’ve been feeling awful that we didn’t invite you to come for dinner today. Do say that you’ll come and eat with us.”

  “It’s really nice of you,” I answered. “But I’ve already got plans for the rest of the day. I’m sorry.”

  Actually a few hours with the two of them and their family would have been very welcome. The trouble was that, no matter how sincere I knew the invitation to be, I would have felt that I was intruding. A family has a right to be together, without having to put up with assorted waifs and strays with nowhere else to go.

  “How about New Year’s Eve then?” Samuel suggested. “We’re having a party, and everyone’s welcome.”

  This time at least I could tell them the truth.

  “I’ll try to pop in, but I’m actually taking someone out to the pantomime that day.”

  A look passed between them.

  “A girl someone?” Ruth enquired mischievously.

  “Yes, a girl someone,” I admitted. “It’s someone I work with. We went out together the other night and it was a nice evening, but we’ll just have to see how it goes.”

  Both of them were smiling even more widely. “That’s a very good reason for snubbing our party.” Samuel commented.

  “I’ve been praying that you’d find a nice girl to look after you Jack.” Ruth suddenly confided. “Your news is the best Christmas present I could have had.”

  “Hang on,” I said in mock despair. “We’re only going to a pantomime together. Don’t be rushing out to get a new outfit for the wedding just yet.”

  The start of the service saved me from any further inquiries. Christopher still looked weary, but sounded in good spirits as he led the early part of the liturgy. He invited out the few children there, and took time looking at each of their presents. The only clue to what was really going on in his head came in the sermon.

  As he climbed up the steps into the raised wooden pulpit, I have to confess that I wasn’t fully paying attention. Over the years I’ve learned that Christmas sermons are usually as predictable and comfortable as a favourite jumper. The preacher says something about presents and then gets to the conclusion that Jesus is the best present you can ever have. Sometimes they tell jokes, sometimes they speak in a monotonous drone, and I once even saw a vicar preach it while juggling. But the basic point is always the same.

  I suppose that’s why I found what Christopher had to say so striking. Of course, in the light of the events of the next weeks, his words seemed especially significant. I can’t promise I remember them exactly, but I know I’ve got it fairly close.

  To begin with, he stopped for a long time, just looking around the church. When his eyes fastened on mine, I was surprised by the desperate intensity that seemed to burn in them. He then took a deep breath, and began.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot in the last few weeks about the Christmas story and about what it really means. Today, if you don’t mind, I’d like to share some of that with you. You see, year after year we come to church at this time and focus on the people in the story. The people; Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, and especially the baby himself – God’s gift of love to the world. Even the innkeeper gets a look in sometimes.

  “But I’ve been more and more struck by the place where it all happens – the stable in Bethlehem. Jesus could have been born anywhere in the story. If he really was God’s son you would expect, as the wise men did, to find him in a palace. Or if the point was to show that God comes to the most ordinary people, in a little home somewhere. Even if it had to be Joseph and Mary, surely it wouldn’t have been hard for God to fix up a room spare at the inn. But He didn’t. The story insists that the baby was born in a stable, in the animals feeding trough.

  “So when we picture the stable, we make it nice and cosy. Lots of clean warm straw, the animals obligingly off in the corner. But the reality would have been very different. Stables stink. They were dirty, smelly messy places, especially when an innkeeper was too busy to clean them out. In this place, with the animals almost certainly nosing around the pregnant teenager who was his mother, Jesus was born.

  “The story insists that Jesus came to the least sanitised place it was possible to imagine. Why? And what does it mean for us?”

  Christopher paused again and closed his eyes, as if in pain. When he opened them, it was with a new determination.

  “Just as we try each year to sanitise the stable – to make it nicer, more respectable; so each day we all try to sanitise ourselves. All of us have parts of our lives that we’re ashamed of, parts that we spend all of our lives trying to keep hidden from everyone
else, so that they’ll think better of us.

  “Our unkindness, our selfishness, the things we do when no-one is looking. The behaviour we’re ashamed of – the secret, dark, smelly places that live in each one of us. We keep them locked away and tell ourselves that as long as no-one sees them, as long as nobody else knows that they’re there, we’re alright. Often, we even try to keep them hidden from God. Or we tell ourselves that they’re just the worst parts of ourselves, the parts that have nothing to do with our relationship with God.

  “But the Christmas story tells us that that won’t do. For God’s coming only makes sense if he is allowed into the stable. It’s to those very parts that we’re so afraid of, that His light needs to come. We need to stand, open and vulnerable before God, and ask Him to take and love us as we are.

  Again a pause, slightly shorter this time.

  “But even then, God doesn’t take those areas away. Once Jesus was born, it wasn’t like air freshener was sprayed all around. The stable was still smelly and dirty – but it had become a holy place because God was in it. The miracle of today isn’t that if we offer our hearts to God, He will make us perfect. The miracle is that those hearts, still just as shallow, just as selfish, just as human, become a holy place because God lives in them.”

  He stood silent, as if he was going to say something more, but then turned and slowly walked down the steps to continue the service.

  At the end, there was the usual rush for the door. People keen to get home to sort out the dinner, or ready to begin a journey to visit family. Samuel and Ruth had one more go at persuading me to go home with them, but I continued to politely resist and before long they, too, were gone.

  At the door, I took my wrapped bottle of wine out of the plastic bag I had carried it in, and presented it to Christopher.

  “Happy Christmas,” I wished him. “That was an interesting sermon you preached.”

  His answering smile was a weary one. “Thanks.” Once he’d opened it he looked past me at the empty church and then continued.

  “Have you got the time to come back to the vicarage for a drink of it?” he invited. “I’ll only be a few minutes clearing and locking up in here.”

  “If you’re sure you wouldn’t rather have some peace and quiet,” I answered. “I think I could be tempted.”

  It took only a few minutes to extinguish the candles, turn off the lights, and lock everything away. Then we walked together down the narrow track that led from the church to the large vicarage.

  “It must be a hard place to heat when you’re on your own,” I observed as he showed me into the sitting room.

  “It is, quite. But I only really live in a few of the rooms so a lot of the radiators are permanently turned off.” Christopher left me alone in the room while he went to fetch glasses and a bottle opener. I looked around and my eye was caught by a tall pile of books on the floor in the corner. I couldn’t read all of the titles but those I could see had titles such as “Fighting the Darkness” and “Deliver us from Evil”. My anxiety about Christopher increased.

  He came back in, carrying the open bottle, and poured out two glasses of wine. We both drank in companionable silence for a moment.

  “Are you sleeping any better?” I asked him.

  “Not really,” he replied. “I’ve just had so much going on in my head at the moment, it’s hard to rest. I hope that now I’ve talked about some of it in the sermon I’ll start to have a bit more peace.”

  “Would it help to talk about it?” I offered.

  His brow furrowed and then he spoke.

  “Do you think that a person is worth nothing more than their worst moment, or than their greatest weakness?”

  “I’m not sure I follow you,” I admitted.

  “It’s something I’ve been thinking of a lot recently. You know how if politicians or celebrities are found out in some scandal, that’s all that anyone ever remembers them for. Never mind all the good they may have done, all the people whose lives they may have helped, all they are is the scandal. For the rest of their lives they have to wear the label of the moment that they’re most ashamed of – he or she was the one who did such and such.”

  I thought for a while before answering. There was something fairly major at the heart of his agonising. What was he trying to hint at?

  “I suppose that’s how it can seem, especially in the newspapers.” I said. “But as you were saying today, we’re all a mix of good and bad. If we’re honest, we all do things we’re proud of and things we’re ashamed of. But even those people you mention, the ones whose failings gets shouted to the whole world, are more than that. I’m sure the people who they’ve helped, and the people closest to them, remember all the good things they’ve done as well. That’s got to be worth at least as much as, if not more than, one moment of weakness.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” he mused. “But I’m not sure it works like that. It’s as if their worst moment defines what they’re worth, and poisons everything else their life has been about.”

  I tried to be reassuring. “But even if that’s how some people see it, it can’t be how God measures a person. Wasn’t your point today that He sees the whole of us in a way that no-one else can and yet still loves every part of us?”

  Christopher sighed. “I know that’s what I said. But sometimes I wonder if it isn’t all a load of rubbish. Maybe we are alone, and there’s no forgiveness, and no hope of redemption.” Then he shook his head, as if to take back his last words. “But then I think that I’m being too negative, and that there is hope. That’s what I have to hold on to.”

  His head had been bowed as he spoke, but now he lifted it. It was almost as if he’d been speaking to himself and had only now remembered that I was here.

  “Don’t worry, Jack. I was just rambling. I’m a bit tired and run down is all, and then you start questioning yourself. I didn’t mean to cast a cloud over your day.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Listening to people is what they pay me for. Do you want to tell me what it is that’s on your mind that’s troubling you so much? It might help to get someone else’s perspective. I know how draining it can be if everyone comes to you with their problems, but you don’t have anyone to turn to yourself.”

  With what looked like a great effort, he managed to smile. “No, I think that it’s something I’ve got to work out for myself. Thanks for the offer though, it’s really nice of you.”

  I told him to call if he needed someone to talk to at any time and, after exchanging a few more pleasantries with him, got up to leave. I glanced in at the window as I passed it. Christopher was sitting back down, his head bowed again, the wine glass in his hand already refilled.

  Back at home, I switched the television on so that the flat wouldn’t feel quite so silent and empty. I had bought myself a roast turkey meal for one, and while that was warming in the oven, flicked around the channels trying to find something worth watching. Nothing particularly inspired me, so I settled for watching “The Wizard of Oz” for the umpteenth time. The food was surprisingly good for a pre-packaged meal, and it was easy to lose myself in the familiar story line. I experienced a feeling that was dangerously close to contentment.

  Just as the end credits were rolling across the television screen, my phone rang. Assuming that it would be an emergency call out, I was grateful that I had given the wine to Christopher rather than ploughing through the bottle by myself as I’d planned.

  “Hello, Jack Bailey speaking.”

  I felt a rush of warmth as I recognised the voice on the other end.

  “Hello, Jack Bailey. It’s Katie.”

  “Katie!” I said. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. How are you surviving your family Christmas?”

  “It’s been good so far,” she answered. “Everyone is sleeping off my mum’s massive dinner in the lounge now, so I thought I’d give you a ring and wish you a happy Christmas. What are you up to?”

  “Just watching TV,” I admitt
ed. “It’s a really nice surprise to hear your voice.”

  “I didn’t like the thought of you being all by yourself. Have you got any plans for the week?”

  “Just being on call at the Centre. Oh, and apparently my ex-wife is coming up to see me on Friday.”

  There was a slight pause. “Did she say what she wants?”

  “No,” I answered. “It seems a bit strange. I guess I’ll have to wait until Friday to find out. She said it wasn’t anything major though.”

  “I hope it goes well. Did you manage to get any tickets for the pantomime?”

  “Yes, they just had two left. We’re at the very back of the stalls but it’s a small theatre so it shouldn’t be too bad.”

  “Good. I must admit that I’m quite looking forwards to it now, but won’t we be the only people there without children?”

  “I doubt it,” I answered. “People tend to keep going year after year, even when their children have grown up.”

  “I’ll see you on Monday then,” Katie said. “I hope you have a good week.”

  “Yes, you too. See you soon.”

  When she had rung off, I had to admit that it had been wonderful to talk to her, even if just for a few moments. “You need to watch yourself, Jack” I admonished myself out loud. Having been so alone in the recent years, it would be easy to get carried away with my feelings. Spending time with a delightful, attractive woman, was bound to produce strong feelings in me. I had to be sure that I wasn’t just desperately grabbing at the first person who was vaguely interested in me, and so opening us both up to be badly hurt.

  Even these cautious thoughts failed to dampen down the rush of pleasure that I was feeling. I found a channel that was showing an evening of episodes from the “Angel” series. Jennifer had once suggested that the reason I liked the programme so much as because I identified with the theme; someone trying to atone for the sins of their past by rescuing others. I’d argued that my enthusiasm for this and for “Buffy” was more to do with the excellent writing and acting, and the subtle humour that runs through the programmes like a vein. Whichever, it was a good evening.