Winter Song

The time will come for everyone of us to say goodbye to all
We’ll meet again upon that distant shore
Where pain and misery will be
Just memories of what used to be
And happiness will reign for ever more

But it will not be as it should be
If I don’t have you standing next to me
Your love is all that I desire
It’s all I need, all I require
To make this happy day of life complete
To make this happy day of life complete

And as we come to the year’s end
With brothers, sisters, foes and friends
Both by our side and scattered round the Earth
The memories that we hold so dear
Of precious ones both far and near
The future starts now with our love’s re birth

But it will not be as it should be
If I don’t have you standing next to me
Your love is all that I desire
It’s all I need, all I require
To make this happy day of life complete
To make this happy day of life complete

And as we gather round the fire
The flames of hope reach ever higher
All come and join beside us in the feast
Holding hands and in the calm
Sharing in this safe and warm
I wish you all Love, Happiness and Peace
I wish you all Love, Happiness and Peace
I wish you all Love, Happiness and Peace
I wish you all Love, Happiness and Peace
I wish you all Love, Happiness and Peace

The Truth About Santa Claus

Christmas should be a magical holiday. But how can you believe in magic when Reality keeps getting in the way? Then again, sometimes, even Reality has a few tricks.

Kids have a right to believe certain things. Should we believe in fairies and elves? Is Christmas a special time? Should we believe in Santa Claus?

I’m not sure whether you should believe this story. But I promise you, it could be true. I had gone into what had once been called "The Traveller’s Rest" for a couple of drinks before the evening shift at work. It was around tea-time, the shops were shutting and it was a bitingly cold, wet evening. Christmas was not far away, and all the decorations and coloured lights and other trappings of the so-called festive season just served to throw my own despondency into stark relief. This Christmas did not look like it was going to be one of the best of times. I was in a job I didn't like, which didn't pay enough to cover the bills on my credit cards. And my girlfriend was leaving me, at the end of the week. It was going to be a great Christmas.

I was slightly surprised to see, that quiet December evening, one of the barmaids standing on the other side of the bar, evidently on her day off, making a social call. She was chatting to one of the barmaids on duty, and a chap, who answered to the name of Chris and who I gathered was the manager. The barmaid off duty had brought with her a young girl, of about eight or so, probably her daughter, to show off to the other staff.

Chris, the manager, was explaining with great gusto and in great detail, all his clever plans to make the most money out of the forthcoming holiday season, especially Christmas and New Year's Eves. On the one hand, his know-all clever-dickness was getting on my nerves, on the other he just sounded like a guy who knew his job very well.

It was at this point that Chris decided to share another snippet of his vast range of knowledge with the little girl. "And I'll tell you something, Sarah, about Santa Claus."

"What?" asked Sarah, agog with anticipation. She'd probably been looking forward to Christmas for weeks, and the merest mention of Santa Claus stirred her excitement.

"Santa Claus doesn't exist!" Chris announced.

"What?" she said.

"Santa Claus doesn't exist."

"Yes he does," she said, with determination, defying him. "Course he does!"

"Course he doesn't," he insisted. "How could he? How many chimneys are there in the world? Millions, right? - " I was wondering when we'd get round to statistics again - "And how long does it take you to see just ten of your friends in an evening?"

She tried to answer him, but she was clearly worried. Seeing he had an audience that could not escape either his logic or his voice, he continued, "Santa Claus can't exist. He couldn't get down all then chimneys in one evening. And some people don't even have chimneys. So he can't exist."

"Yes he can," she insisted, "He's magic!"

"He's not magic," said Chris, "Santa Claus is dead! So you can forget about Santa turning up on Christmas Day. It ain't gonna happen."

There was nothing more she could say to that, and she fell silent.

I drained my glass and prepared to go. Just at that moment, the little girl got up and walked past me to look at a pinball machine by the door. She was still very quiet.

As I got level with her, on my way out, I leaned over to her, and said, quietly, "Don't you take any notice. Santa Claus does exist, you know?"

She said nothing, staring at her feet. I'd said what I had wanted to say, and my hand was almost on the door. Then, I said, "You do believe, don't you?"

She looked at me briefly, then her gaze returned, silent, to the floor.

"Listen," I tried again, " I know he exists. Because I've seen him."

This got her attention, at last. Her eyes were so big and dark, you could fall into them. "When?" she said.

"Well," I said, "it was a long time ago." I had to stop and think what to say next. I had a feeling it might be important. "It was a long time ago," I continued, "well, not all that long, really, when I was just a little bit older than you are now. And I was growing up, and one or two people - one or two silly older people who didn't really know anything really - were telling me that as I was growing up I shouldn't believe in Santa Claus any more. They told me Santa Claus didn't exist.

"Then it came round to Christmas, and I started saying, 'I don't believe in Santa Claus any more, he doesn't exist'. Though I felt a bit funny about it really."

"Why?" she said.

"Well, I'd always believed in Santa Claus before and I had always got lots and lots of really nice presents every Christmas, and here I was saying he didn't exist. That wasn't a very nice way of saying 'thank you,' was it? Hm?"

"Suppose so."

"And then it got to Christmas Eve, and I went to bed early, saying, 'I don't believe in Santa Claus.' And I settled down just to go to sleep. But I couldn't sleep. So I got up, and I went downstairs to where we had this big Christmas Tree. And there were presents all around the bottom of the tree, presents for every one. Every one, that is, except me."

Sarah looked suitably impressed by this.

"Every one had been left a present, except me. And it was all because I stopped believing. Because I had said Santa Claus didn't exist. And I ran out of the house, thinking, 'Oh no, it's too late, Santa's gone and not left me any presents, all because I didn't believe in Santa Claus.' And I bet you'll never guess what happened next!"

Sarah's eyes were firmly fixed on mine by now. "What happened?"

"I looked up in the sky, and that's when I saw Santa Claus! He was up there, in his sleigh, being pulled across the sky by his reindeer, and all their bells were ringing, and he had a big sack of presents on the back of his sleigh, the biggest sack you've ever seen. I called to him, 'Santa, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't believe in you! Come back!' But he was in a hurry. He had presents to deliver to all the other children, the ones that still believed in him. He didn't have time to waste on people who thought he didn't exist. But it was too late, now. Or so I thought." I gave her an inscrutable look.

"Why? What did you do?"

"Well, I went back in the house, and I couldn't believe my eyes. Because, there, all around the Christmas Tree where they had been presents for everyone else but me, there was an even bigger pile of presents!"

"An even bigger pile?"

"An even bigger pile! And all of them were for me. And there was a card, for me, too. Do you know who it was from?"

"Santa Claus!" she squealed.

"Yes, Santa Claus! And do you know what it said?"

"What?"

"It said 'Just Kidding'!"

"'Just kidding'?"

"That's right. Santa Claus was just kidding that he wasn't going to leave me any presents. He knew I still believed in him really. He just wanted to make sure I didn't forget!"

Sarah stared at me, her eyes twinkling. I watched her tiny bright face, and started to laugh. And she laughed too.

"So," I said, just glancing for a moment in the direction of Chris, "you'd better remember Santa Claus really does exist, because you've met someone who's actually seen him."

* * * * *

Well, I got in to my job and did a terrible night's work, and it got to the end of the week my girlfriend moved out, and then it was Christmas Eve. I was stuck in the house all alone, and no amount of trying to watch the banal pap that passed as festive entertainment on the TV was going to get me in the mood to celebrate anything. I had steadfastly turned down any offer from friends to go to any party or anyone's house, because I didn't want to turn up alone, and now I was regretting it. I decided to try the local pub, a dull pit of a place - at least the landlord would have restricted himself to a few paper streamers. It was a place I normally avoided, so there was no-one there that I knew, but I picked it tonight because it was in walking distance.

I thought briefly about all that cobblers I had told that little girl. Making her believe in fairy stories, when there was a real world to grow up into. What had I done? Poor little girl, I thought. "Stuff this," I said to myself, and I wandered off home.

When I got back to the house, I realised something was slightly different. I let myself in, and found the small reading light in the living room was on. I was certain that I had left it switched off when I had gone out. The house was quiet, but not in the deathly, isolated way it had seemed before, but peaceful and welcoming. In the little pool of light, on the coffee table, there were some packages. Someone had been in the house while I had been out.

There were various people who had a spare set of keys - my folks for instance, and my girlfriend, of course, and a set that were hidden under a plant pot outside the door, that several of our friends knew about. I figured that it could be any of them that had decided to call round, leaving whatever they had been doing that Christmas Eve in order to see me, and I'd been out. So they had left me some presents! I could hardly believe it. A feeling came over me that I could not describe. It was as if I had been standing for a tremendous time in a shadow, and now I had stepped out of it.

Suddenly, as daft as it sounds, I didn't feel lonely any more. I made up my mind that I would find out who the presents were from, and make sure that I went round and thanked whoever it was next day. And I wouldn't stay in on my own being a miserable git feeling sorry for myself, but I would get out and have a good time. After all , it was Christmas! A time to celebrate had to find who the presents were from, so that I could thank them, even if they were only pairs of socks, unbearable after-shave and a ghastly tie. They had really made my evening.

But the first thing I picked up was not a parcel, but a small envelope. I opened it, and a plain little card slid in to my hand. Inside, written in a wide, flowing handwriting - that I couldn't recognise and yet it looked familiar - was a two-word message.

It said, "Just kidding."

Then, at the bottom: "Thank you!"

It was the best Christmas I've ever had.

The end

Home From Home

A death in the family - a tragedy, good fortune, a coincidence? Or even more?

#

(This story was originally published in Chorley and District Writers' Circle magazine, Aware, issue 3, November 2007, on the theme Home and Away.)

I stepped into the familiar hallway over a dune of junk mail circulars and free-sheet newspapers. The air was at once familiar yet cloyingly strange – the house had been shut up for many weeks. It was tomb-like, yet I breathed the air I knew from childhood. So different from the boiled cabbage, urine and disinfectant soaked atmosphere I had had to tolerate recently.

I entered the living room. Brown wallpaper, some faded floral pattern whose colour scheme seemed to be based on recycled teabags. The fusty armchair, seat bellowed inwards. Dull books on the shelf, dull ornaments and pictures. All this would have to change. Not a problem now. This chair would be first to go. This was where my father died.

At least, that is to be assumed. That is where they had found him. It was a fair assumption. It’s where I had last seen him alive.

‘What am I going to do?’ he had asked. ‘Everything was going to come to you. And I’ve tried to keep going on my own, but it’s too much.’

‘You are very ill, father,’ I had agreed.

‘But I can’t look after myself anymore.’

‘I look after you, father.’

‘I know you do.’ He tried, painfully, to readjust himself in his chair, and grimaced. ‘Pass me one of my little friends, will you.’

I handed him the book-sized bag – it had been a sort of pencil case, I think. But, instead of pencils, it contained spliffs of cannabis, papers, lump of ‘substance’ wrapped in Clingfilm. He took one, lit it, and drew deeply on it. Hot tiny cinders fell from the end and burned pinprick holes in his old shirt – I was surprised the health visitor never picked up on this. ‘If I go into a care home, this is the one thing I will miss,’ he said at length, hoarsely. ‘You know, this is the only thing that gives me any relief from the pain?’

‘Yes, I know, father. You’ve told me many times. Many times. You forget, don’t you?’

‘Do I?’

I reached for his other medical kit, the one with the insulin, and, as I did so, I couldn’t help feeling how life could be so unfair, inflicting a man with two severe illnesses, diabetes and MS, either of which could, if left untreated, kill him. I checked his blood sugar tester and absent-mindedly looked up the dose – I already knew the table pretty much by heart.

‘The thing is, I can’t go into care unless I sell up the house. I will need the money to pay for the home.’

‘Not on medical grounds,’ I reminded him, patiently, for the umpteenth time.

‘But I will need the residential care – I need somewhere comfortable where I’ll be properly looked after.’

I passed him his syringe. ‘The Health Service will look after you.’

‘No they won’t,’ he insisted, as always. He equated National Health Service care as being in hospital, incarcerated, waiting out his days.

‘Here you are.’

He started to cough intermittently, the smoke irritating his lungs. God help us, I thought, if he also ended up getting cancer. However, I noticed that, apart from the shaking from each minor spasm, the tremor in his hands had eased. I wondered if he would make the injection himself. It would be easier.

‘You do it, son. My little friend is making me a bit woozy.’

‘You can do it, Dad,’ I reassured him. ‘Your hand’s much steadier now.’

I had left shortly after and that’s how they found him. When the post-mortem showed he had died from a pulmonary embolism, that there was air in the injection fluid and my fingerprints on the syringe, I was arrested and charged with murder. I had means, opportunity and, with the chance of being bequeathed an entire house, the motive. They made it sound like I had almost been sloppy. Some rising star was picked by the CPS to make the prosecution case just for the practice, so sure were they of winning, of sending me away for a long time. I should get used to my prison cell. It would be my home for many years to come.

I had my own hot-shot lawyer, however. While I was on remand, waiting interminably for the case to come to court, we went over my defence. Counsel is not allowed to coach a witness, even one speaking in his own defence. There is no law against doing things the other way around, however.

I merely suggested that my father had increasingly relied on illicit drugs for pain relief. It was perhaps no surprise that he had graduated from just cannabis to intravenous heroin. And the post-mortem also concluded that my father had enough of the stuff in his bloodstream to anaesthetise a horse. Certainly that would have been enough to kill him. I often gave him his insulin injections because of his hand tremor. Of course my fingerprints would be on the syringe. It would not be possible, with his prints and mine both present, to say who handled the little glass tube last.

Why, if I had wanted to kill my father, would I use two different methods to finish him off, especially one that was so easily detectable?

This was sufficient to sew doubt in the mind of the jury. Much more reasonable to assume the old man had been ham-fisted in preparing the injection for himself, before I even arrived for my daily visit. That I’d already left before took it. The simplest explanation is always thought the most likely.

And so, the case had collapsed. I was discharged, a free man, not put away to rot out the remainder of my life, any more than my father had needed to be put away to see out his own.

I stood in the house I had grown up in, and had now inherited, without a stain on my character, nor, for that matter, on my conscience.

The fact that I had prepared the fatal injection containing both heroin and the bubble of air that had formed a clot in my father’s lungs, swiftly and painlessly killing him, was irrelevant. I was in the clear, I was home free.

I was home.

The end