SANTA'S CHRISTMAS

Ruby and Billy rushed to the living room to find a modest pile of Christmas presents under an artificial Christmas tree.  Mummy and Daddy followed, smiling wearily.  It had been a tough year.

The children started with their stockings, each contained a novelty pencil, a tangerine and a tennis ball.  They looked at each other and continued; surely the bigger presents would be more exciting.  But Grandma had given knitted jumpers and hats and Nanna had provided painting sets.  The last hope was the present from Mummy and Daddy.  Ruby thought she remembered there had been more than one each last Christmas.  Billy opened a cheap looking trainset and could barely hide his disappointment.  For Ruby there was a baby doll with no house, accessories or cot to go with it.

They turned to glare at Mummy and Daddy.  At that moment the front door was knocked down.  Mummy and Daddy turned, mouths falling open and the children whooped with delight.  In he came, red coat and black boots, white fur trim and long flowing beard.  He carried no sack though and gave no cheery hohoho.  “Mummy and Daddy!” he cried, “Billy and Ruby wrote to me at the beginning of December.  Billy wanted a bicycle.  Ruby wanted a princess palace.  They both wanted an X-box.  This pile of crap here, what is it?  Jumpers, tangerines?  They’re not presents!”

“We’re hard up,” Mummy whispered.
“And where’s your presents to each other, Mummy and Daddy?  Has the romance gone?  And what is there for dinner?”  Santa marched through to the kitchen and opened the fridge; the children ran after him and clutched at his red coat.
“What the hell is this?” demanded Santa, “turkey, potatoes and carrots?  Is that ALL?  Where’s the stuffing?  The sausage meat wrapped in bacon?  The WINE?”
Mummy burst into tears and Daddy put his arm round her; “Look ...” he began.
“I can fix this,” Santa interrupted, “the children needn’t remember anything.  I’ll put the clock back to early December.  You can get this right.”
“Do you want us to skip a mortgage payment or something?” demanded Daddy, “Jesus!”
Santa became very still, his face went as red as his coat and his eyes flashed a demonic shade of green; “Don’t say that name to me!  He isn’t what Christmas is about!  It’s all about me!  I say that how much you love your children shows in how much you spend on them - the amount of presents and the quality of those presents.  It’s about gorging your faces with luxury food and drinking your fill of wine!  Now, do you want me to turn back the clock or not?”
“Yes please!” cried Billy and Ruby.
Mummy and Daddy nodded.

Ruby and Billy rushed downstairs to the living room to find an enormous pile of Christmas presents under a beautiful pine Christmas tree.  Mummy and Daddy followed, smiling wearily.  The stockings were crammed with toys and sweets; there was Billy’s bicycle, Ruby’s princess palace and an X-Box.  There were DVDs, dolls, books, puzzles and Lego.  Mummy got her favourite perfume and Daddy a Breitling watch.  Waiting in the kitchen was a sumptuous turkey feast to be served with champagne or red wine when the rest of the family arrived.  The day was one long party, although Mummy and Daddy were at times quiet.  On Boxing Day; the children played with their bonanza of toys, while Mummy and Daddy whispered furiously at each other in another room.

The day after Boxing Day, Mummy went out, taking Daddy’s watch with her.  The children played with Billy’s bike in the garden and the postman called.  Billy was doing wheelies and wanted his father to watch.  “Daddy!” he called.  There was no reply.  Then, from inside the house there was a crash and an audible crack.  The children ran in to find Daddy hanging by the Christmas tree, a letter from the bank under his feet.

ICON

When I first got the script I was super excited.  It was for the role of a lifetime – complex, intense, requiring great sensitivity and involving huge responsibility.  It was a part that could catapult me from a moderately famous actress into an icon!

“You’re made for this part.”

“It was written for you.”
“You’ll be incredible.”
“You’ll be amazing.”
Simpered my agent, his PA, my boyfriend and his publicist.

I got online and researched the part.  I went out into the world and lived it part time.  I did all I could to learn what it felt like to be this role.  At first I was super confident, but the more I read the script, the more I doubted.  I kept imagining the consequences of failure.  What the reviews would say if I bombed.  This could cost me my career, cause me to be dropped by everyone, including my boyfriend.  The more research I did, the less I believed in myself.  All my life I had existed only for me, so how would I ever be able to play a part involving so much self sacrifice?  I’d come across like a phoney on camera.  I’d look like I was acting.  But if I turned it down?  No-one would understand why and if I wasn’t good enough to play such a role what did it say about me as a person?  It would mean I lack depth, that I am a coward.

There was only one solution, I wrote down my research experiences and shared my thoughts on how the role could be tackled.  I stuffed the script and the letter into a large envelope.  I addressed it to my oldest friend who was able and sentimental enough to take on the role in my memory.  I then booked that hotel room, organised the barbiturates and bought the fancy negligee they’d find me wearing.  They’d make much of my tempestuous relationships, my history of substance abuse and my troubled childhood.  They’d remember the last characters I’d played – emotional, intense types.

No-one would guess the real cause.  The script I’d accepted without thinking, the demands of a role that I couldn’t live.  If I attempted to play it, I’d be revealed to the world as second rate.  No, let them talk instead about how great I would have been if only I’d lived to play it.  Let them say I would have been incredible.

JACOB AND ANNABELLE

Jacob and Annabelle are coming, both of them, and we are not ready.  We sit in the silence of our living room, staring out at the moon, racking our brains for a way ahead.
“The house isn’t big enough.  We’ll have to sell it,” you say.
I close my eyes, thinking of the peace of this living room, the sea views, the scrape your key makes when you turn it in the latch in the evening and the way the sea breeze gently blows the bedroom curtain on a Saturday morning.  The house is not the only thing that must be sold.  The sports car has to be traded in too.  It is not practical enough for Annabelle and Jacob.

On moving day I start in the kitchen, I take the bottles of wine from the rack and empty them two at a time into the sink, watching the fizz of champagne mix with Rioja red which used to smell so appealing.  We must be pure now.  You come through and without a word pick up the empty bottles and take them out to the recycling.  When you return you find me rooting through the fridge, removing pizzas, half mouldy cheese, an opened tin of frankfurters and an apologetic single item of rotten fruit.

“That was lunch,” you say.
“Not anymore,” I reply, “Annabelle and Jacob won’t tolerate junk food.”
“Shall we do the bedroom?”
We find the old love letters, the journal I made of how we got together, pictures of our exes and photos of us in our pie eyed drunkenness at party after party.  We don’t want to remember those times, they can never come again.  We burn everything.  Jacob and Annabelle won’t want us to have a past.

We stand on the porch waiting for the removal men, watching the bonfire ash being blown inland by the strengthening winds.  We are thinking of what we are leaving behind and of what is coming.  We have made such sacrifices and yet it has been easy.  Will we be good enough though?  Can anyone get this right?

“Oh God,” you whisper, your hand clutching mine, “I hope they know they’re wanted.”
I hope they know they’re already loved.

THE END OF THE LINE

The conductor loved working this line, as the train got nearer to London, the class of passenger improved.  The noisy youths and unwashed got off at Scavant and workers in hi-vis vests joined the already busy coaches.  The press of a button, the sound of an alarm, the shutting of doors and the train continued its journey.  Pensive types stared out of the window, harrassed looking women tended their restless children, rowdy jokes were exchanged between the workers.

 At Fossingstoke, the workers trooped off the train and bookish civil servant types got on.  The conductor pressed the button, but the doors did not shut.  This could only mean one thing.  He hurried from carriage to carriage, scanning the passengers, until he found the old man, clinging to his hard hat with hands blackened by manual labour.

“This is your stop.”
“I thought I’d buy a ticket to go on,” the old man replied.
The conductor shook his head and referred to the passenger inventory; “Samuel Jones, 61 years old, past retirement, with no formal education ...”
“But I’ve experience.”
“Do you really think that pathetic northern accent of yours would be tolerated?  Get off!”
The old man left the train with the air of one who had tried.  As the journey resumed, the conductor spoke into the public address system; “Sorry about the slight delay, ladies and gentlemen.  Someone wanted to stay beyond their stop.”

 

At Meading, the mothers and their pushchairs and the pensive types and their thoughts got off.

“You know,” a woman said to the conductor, “I could stay on.  I’m educated, I’m a qualified carer and I have empathy.”
The conductor didn’t even bother to look at his inventory; “With your history!” he scoffed, “off you get!”
The woman glared at him and left the train, as she walked across the platform, she heard him speak into the public address system again; “Sorry ladies and gentlemen.  A lady with a history of mental health problems tried to stay on this train all the way down the line!”
There was the sound of raucus laughter as men in business suits and horse faced women got onto the train.   The sound was cut as the doors slammed to and the train continued on its way.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, the next station is Hapham.  Please change here for Victoria, Paddington and Waterloo.”

The civil servants and the City types got to their feet.  They jostled their way off the train to get their connections to the financial district or to Whitehall.  Onto the train got other suits, but these were from Savile Row and this clientele smelt of fine cologne.  Each had a faintly protruding stomach - fine meals consumed in top restaurants.
The conductor pressed the button, again nothing happened.  He rolled his eyes.  A man had remained in his seat; “I’m not moving,” he warned, “I’m going to the last stop.”
“I’ll call the revenues,” threatened the conductor.
“I’m a postgraduate and I have 20 years financial experience.  I do charity work in my spare time.  Look at your inventory!”
The conductor obliged and snorted.
“Oh do get off the train,” brayed one of the passengers.
The man stood; “Is it because I’m black?”
“No, it’s because you didn’t go to Eton.  The revenue are here!”
The man saw the approaching uniformed figures and hurried from the train, thumping the side of it as he left.
The conductor shut the doors and made another apology to his customers as the train began moving again.  He’d barely finished the apology before he had to make another announcement; “Ladies and gentlemen, the train is now arriving at Westminster where this service terminates.  Please remember to take all your personal belongings with you and may I wish you a pleasant evening.”

The driver sitting in the cab watched them walk by; clones carrying leather cases, smug white faces and dead, disinterested eyes.