Chance encounter in a city ready to party

Jan 1 2008 by Gail-Nina Anderson

After last night’s New Year celebrations, we’re offering readers a perfect excuse to put their feet up and relax with this festive short story by North-East writer and lecturer Gail-Nina Anderson.

The Ghost of Christmas Presents

DAVE was sure he hadn’t started out his life as Ebenezer Scrooge, but a certain Scroogishness had definitely crept up upon him, this year worse than ever.

Perhaps, like a diminished capacity for beer and the distinct threat of piles, it just came with the territory when middle age loomed.

He sighed, so loudly that a passing group of merrymaking ladies paused in their progress to the next pub and turned on their (really surprisingly high) heels to get a better look at this unseasonal moaner.

Like Dave, they were not in the prime of youth. Unlike him, they were definitely in the prime of the party spirit, even though Christmas had just passed and New Year wasn’t yet even an Eve.

There were four or five of them, not slim but happily rippling with glitter and shimmering with good nature.

One of them even wore deelie-boppers. She nodded in his direction, causing her festive headgear to flash on and off and play a few notes of something he vaguely recognised from that brief period when Christmas had fused with glam rock.

He sighed again.

“What’s up with you then, pet? Are ya ill or do ya just need a bit of a party? We could always be doin’ with a nice fella, ya know!”

Phrases like ‘dog’s dinner’ and ‘done up like a Christmas tree’ flitted through Dave’s brain, but there were four or five of them, all nicely primed, and he knew that if it came to a struggle, they could take him without breaking a sweat.

“Thanks, ladies, but I’ve somehow mislaid my party spirit. I’m just glad Christmas is over for another year.”

The women had to cling on to each other as a gale of laughter overtook them.

“We’re not celebratin’ Christmas, bonny lad, we’re celebratin’ the sales!”

“We’re drinking early for New Year!”

“No, no – we’re getting into shape for next Christmas!”

As they spangled boisterously out of sight, Dave crunched up his hands in his jacket pocket and decided to concentrate on how wrong it all was.

How could those women, who had left girlhood behind some decades ago, be having a girls’ night out? How could they be so totally focused on having fun when that wasn’t what life was all about? When was the real world going to kick in?

He hunched, not just against the cold but against the situation. Christmas was well over, he thought.

It was all like a hot bath on a wintry day – you were supposed to enjoy planning and anticipating it, but nine times out of 10 you let in too much cold water, so it was chilly by the time you stepped into it, then cooled down before you’d got the benefit and left you with nothing but goose pimples and a ring of soap scum.

He would have congratulated himself on his metaphor, but everything he saw was pushing him further into his black mood.

Why was the chap over there talking with such animation into a mobile phone? He must have been frozen without a jacket and whoever he was speaking to wasn’t even there with him, but he was actually laughing like a moron down the wretched thing.

And why were those lads gravitating towards the hot greasy aromas of an American fast-food take-away as though they liked the idea?

And whatever had persuaded those young people that deathly pale faces and exotically black clothes could make them even remotely attractive?

It was bad enough that any 21st Century teenager should want to look like a Regency dandy, but a dead Regency dandy was beyond his comprehension.

Right, that was it. Cold as it was, Dave needed to sit down well away from all these folk who thought the festive season was still going on.

He took an abrupt turn, hardly knowing where or why, and found himself wandering down a narrow side street to the back of the cathedral.

At least it was quiet there, leaning against a low wall with the bulk of the building behind him lit by a dazzlingly white moon.

Though there was no-one in sight, he still felt the need to be surreptitious as he took a tobacco tin from his pocket and went through the soothing routine of rolling a thin cigarette.

On the fourth attempt he realised he should have known that his lighter would fail to work, and started digging in his trouser pockets for a match.

“It’s probably someone up there telling you to give up, you know.”

Dave was so surprised by the voice that he dropped the matches and spat out the pathetic little fag before he realised what he was doing.

He turned round sharply, and would have spoken more sharply still, but the speaker wasn’t behind him and the voice wasn’t one you swore at.

It was female, humorous but firm, with more than a touch of the school teacher about it. He stooped to retrieve his matches, and found he was looking at the feet which must be attached to the voice.

Up until that moment, had anyone asked him to define what brogues were, he would have passed swiftly on to the next question. Now he knew, with a laser-sharp burst of comprehension, that he was looking at a pair of brogues.

The woman who was wearing them was no spring chicken, and certainly not the sort to describe herself as a girl. She was short, vaguely tweedy, and wore a woollen headscarf knotted under her chin.

Dave stared – no-one, absolutely no-one, still wore headscarves in that style except the Queen. Despite his lost cigarette, he smiled.

“Ah, that’s better – first smile you’ve cracked all evening.”

As he opened his mouth, Dave knew he was going to be polite.

A strange woman had popped up from nowhere on a dark, chill evening and was starting just the sort of pointless conversation he hated, but even if it ground his teeth to powder, he would have to respond politely.

He wondered if it was the proximity of the cathedral or simply years of conditioning from a childhood still steeped in traditional values.

“Tradition’s not what it used to be, eh?”

Dave knew he hadn’t spoken out loud, but the woman had picked up the very word that was in his head. That was coincidence – older people always talked about tradition at this time of year. He would be polite but uninviting.

“I was just, um, gathering my thoughts. Funny time of year.”

“Funny indeed. So much to raise a smile – fried chicken and pizza, Goths and mobile phones, and no-one minding the cold. Oh, except you. Where did you leave your new gloves?”

“New gloves?”

“Oh don’t tell me you didn’t get gloves for Christmas! They’re one of the great stand-by gifts for the male relative – gloves, maybe a scarf, aftershave, posh razor.

“I remember thinking how disobliging it was that some men would insist on wearing beards. Cuts out half the usual present options.

“But I suppose today you can give fragrance for men and don’t have to call it aftershave any more. Does that mean anyone’s more likely to use it, or does it still just stand gathering fuzz on the bathroom windowsill until someone has a clear-out?”

The threads of the conversation suddenly seemed to be waving wildly about Dave’s head, but as he was clearly expected to respond, he struggled manfully to catch on to a few loose ends.

“Must have left the new gloves at my sister’s on Christmas morning, probably down the back of the settee. And I can’t see the attraction in pizza.”

“Well it’s just like a big cheese and tomato pasty rolled out flat, if that makes it easier to deal with. But it’s not what you grew up with, is it?”

“No – what this city needs is more old-fashioned fish and chip shops.”

“Shortage of cod and you can’t wrap them in newspaper any more!”

Dave blinked at the swiftness of her response. Somehow she didn’t look as though she’d be on the ball like that. The woman was smiling now, spinning a little web of memories, though he was no longer sure whether they belonged to her or to him.

“The shop would be warm, almost too warm, but the chips weren’t really yours until you stepped into the cold with the parcel hot in your hands, opened it and breathed in the steam.

“I think it was the vinegar that caught you first, a sharp edge that suddenly lifted everything, made it urgent.

“However nicely you’ve been brought up, you don’t hesitate over chips!

“And the salt on the top ones – you didn’t just taste it, you felt it on your tongue, a sprinkling of glitter against that golden skin.

“Almost too hot to bite, still you bit and inside was another little world of steam, curling away from the soft potato, making you huff at it so you could bite again. And those crunchy, crispy little bits of batter you’d find in the corners of the bag …

It was only much later, when he went through her words in his head, that Dave realised what was missing from this description. There had been no note of regret in her voice. She smiled and began to move away.

“Must go – the dog’s had his walk and I’ve made myself hungry. You should go back to your sister’s, you know.”

“Before my fingers drop off?”

This time she laughed outright. “If it’s gloves you need, I bet you’ve got a dozen pairs at home! The special thing about your Christmas gloves is that you left them behind. That was an extra present – one you gave to yourself.”

He must have looked puzzled, since she continued as though she was explaining something to a child. “The chance to go back and pick them up. Plenty of time, you know – Christmas spreads over 12 days.”

She whistled surprisingly loudly and turned down the side of the cathedral, walking in determined strides.

Dave couldn’t see any dog but just for a moment he thought he heard one very close, sensed a wiry softness brushing against his fingers, then felt it go.

Later he would take time to wonder quite who would walk their dog in the middle of the city on a cold winter’s night, but then later he would wonder about a lot of things.

At that moment, however, his thoughts were interrupted by a pair of dark figures who wandering towards him.

He’d never actually talked to any Goths and might not have started now, but the boy spoke first.

“You’re looking a bit pale, mate.”

There was no way for Dave to stop the wave of laughter that overtook him. For a moment the boy looked worried, but his girlfriend got the joke and giggled.

Dave had never seen a Goth laugh before. He found himself admiring the way her black-edged eyes looked so vast in that white face, a winter princess from some slightly spooky fairytale.

In her concern she had leaned so close that he could smell something deep and delicious on her clothes. Incense? Patchouli? Trying to identify it he must have sniffed noticeably, because she straightened up in embarrassment at his response.

“Sorry – that’s the vinegar you’re picking up. It’s one of our little rituals.”

Dave was puzzled. “You mean like black candles and strange chanting? How does vinegar come into that?”

Now the boy was laughing. “No, one of our rituals – you know, like friends and families have. We go out to the coast and look at the sea till we’re nice and cold, then we get fish and chips, really fresh.

“Then on our way home we come round here to say hello to the vampire rabbit.”

He gestured to the ornate doorway on the opposite side of the street. Above it was a sculpted rabbit, complete with outsized teeth and claws, looking like something out of Alice in Wonderland, half comic, half nightmarish.

Dave was astonished. “How come I’ve never ever noticed that before? Has it been here long?”

The Goths exchanged glances. “About 100 years – but it’s easy not to see it. It’s like everything else, it just depends on where you focus.”

The wind blew just a touch colder, and Dave noticed them take each other’s hands against the chill.

He dug his own back into his pockets and stepped away.

“Had enough of the rabbit already, then?” The girl’s voice was much warmer than the night, and he turned back to leave her with a smile.

“No, but I’ll leave him to you tonight. I’m going to come back for a better look tomorrow – by then I’ll have remembered my gloves.”