Collected Short Stories (24 page)

Peter peered into the darkness towards a land that he could not see.

Flocks of thoughts crowded his mind; the lobsters and the fishing … the cow on the road … the corn growing in the fields … the reading about the locusts … and the death of Alice …

A cold sorrow swept over him and tears formed in his eyes. He gripped the iron-rail and tried to stifle his grief.

Below someone laughed, a door opened, and a thick smell of tobacco floated out to him. And he thought of Robert jolting home in the cart to a hearth cold for his return. He shuddered. A piercing sense of utter worthlessness crept into his soul, the tears flowed thickly down his cheeks, and he could no longer see the lighthouse beams that wavered across the land.

‘Will you do what I ask you?' his wife said again, wiping the crumbs off the newspaper which served as a tablecloth. ‘Wear your hard hat and you'll get the job.'

He didn't answer her or raise his head. He was seated on the dilapidated sofa lacing his boots, and behind him tumbled two of his children, each chewing a crust of bread. His wife paused, a hand on her hip. She glanced at the sleety rain falling into the backyard, turned round, and threw the crumbs into the fire.

‘You'll wear it, John – won't you?'

Again he didn't answer though his mind was already made up. He strode into the scullery and while he washed himself she took an overcoat from a nail behind the kitchen door, brushed it vigorously, gouging out the specks of dirt with the nose of the brush. She put it over the back of a chair and went upstairs for his hard hat.

‘I'm a holy show in that article,' he said, when she was handing him the hat and helping him into the overcoat. ‘I'll be a nice ornament among the other applicants! I wish you'd leave me alone!'

‘You look respectable anyhow. I could take a fancy for you all over again,' and she kissed him playfully on the side of the cheek.

‘If I don't get the job you needn't blame me. I've done all you asked – every mortal thing.'

‘You'll get it all right – never you fear. I know what I'm talking about.'

He hurried out of the street in case some of the neighbours would ask him if he were going to a funeral, and when he had taken his place in the line of young men who were all applying for the job of Father Christmas in the Big Store he was still conscious of the bowler hat perched on top of his head. He was a timid little man and he tried to crouch closer to the wall and make himself inconspicuous amongst that group of grey-capped men. The rain continued to fall as they waited for the door to open and he watched the drops clinging to the peaks of their caps, swelling and falling to the ground.

‘If he had a beard we could all go home,' he heard someone say, and he felt his ears reddening, aware that the remark was cast at him. But later when he was following the Manager up the brass-lipped stairs, after he had got the job, he dwelt on the wisdom of his wife and knew that the hat had endowed him with an air of shabby respectability.

‘Are you married?' the Manager had asked him, looking at the nervous way he turned the hat in his hand. ‘And have you any children?' He had answered everything with a meek smile and the Manager told him to stand aside until he had interviewed, as a matter of form, the rest of the applicants.

And then the interviews were quickly over, and when the Manager and John were mounting the stairs he saw a piece of caramel paper sticking to the Manager's heel. Down a long aisle they passed with rows of counters at each side and shoppers gathered round them. And though it was daylight outside, the electric lights were lit, and through the glare there arose a buzz of talk, the rattle of money, and the warm smell of new clothes and perfume and confectionary – all of it entering John's mind in a confused and dreamy fashion for his eye was fastened on the caramel paper as he followed respectfully after the Manager. Presently they emerged on a short flight of stairs where a notice – PRIVATE – on trestles straddled across it. The Manager lifted it ostentatiously to the side, ushered John forward with a sweep of his arm, and replaced the notice with mechanical importance.

‘Just a minute,' said John, and he plucked the caramel paper from the Manager's heel, crumpled it between his fingers, and put it in his pocket.

They entered the quiet seclusion of a small room that had a choking smell of dust and cardboard boxes. The Manager mounted a step-ladder, and taking a large box from the top shelf looked at something written on the side, slapped the dust of it against his knee, and broke the string.

‘Here,' he said, throwing down the box. ‘You'll get a red cloak in that and a white beard.' He sat on the top rung of the ladder and held a false face on the tip of his finger: ‘Somehow I don't think you'll need this. You'll do as you are. Just put on the beard and whiskers.'

‘Whatever you say,' smiled John, for he always tried to please people.

Another box fell at his feet: ‘You'll get a pair of top boots in that!' The Manager folded the step-ladder, and daintily picking pieces of fluff from his sleeves he outlined John's duties for the day and emphasised that after closing-time he'd have to make up parcels for the following day's sale.

Left alone John breathed freely, took off his overcoat and hung it at the back of the door, and for some reason whenever he crossed the floor he did so on his tiptoes. He lifted the red cloak that was trimmed with fur, held it in his outstretched arms to admire it, and squeezed the life out of a moth that was struggling in one of the folds. Chips of tinsel glinted on the shoulders of the cloak and he was ready to flick them off when he decided it was more Christmassy-looking to let them remain on. He pulled on the cloak, crossed on tiptoes to a looking-glass on the wall and winked and grimaced at himself, sometimes putting up the collar of the cloak to enjoy the warm touch of the fur on the back of his neck. He attached the beard and the whiskers, spitting out one or two hairs that had strayed into his mouth.

‘The very I-T,' he said, and caught the beard in his fist and waggled it at his reflection in the mirror. ‘Hello, Santa!' he smiled, and thought of his children and how they would laugh to see him togged up in this regalia. ‘I must tell her to bring them down some day,' and he gave a twirl on his toes, making a heap of paper rustle in the corner.

He took off his boots, looked reflectively at the broken sole of each and pressed his thumb into the wet leather: ‘Pasteboard – nothing else!' he said in disgust, and threw them on the heap of brown paper. He reached for the top boots that were trimmed with fur. They looked a bit on the small side. With some difficulty he squeezed his feet into them. He walked across the floor, examining the boots at each step; they were very tight for him, but he wasn't one to complain, and, after all, the job was only for the Christmas season and they'd be sure to stretch with the wearing.

When he was fully dressed he made his way down the stairs, lifted his leg over the trestle with the name PRIVATE and presented himself on one of the busy floors. A shop-girl, hesitating before striking the cash-register, smiled over at him. His face burned. Then a little girl plucked her mother's skirt and called, ‘Oh, Mammy, there's Daddy Christmas!' With his hands in his wide sleeves he stood in a state of nervous perplexity till the shop-girl, scratching her head with the tip of her pencil, shouted jauntily: ‘First Floor, Santa Claus, right on down the stairs!' He stumbled on the stairs because of the tight boots and when he halted to regain his composure he felt the blood hammering in his temples and he wished now that he hadn't listened to his wife and worn his hard hat. She was always nagging at him, night, noon and morning, and he doing his damned best!

On the first floor the Manager beckoned him to a miniature house – a house painted in imitation brick, snow on the eaves, a door which he could enter by stooping low, and a chimney large enough to contain his head and shoulders, and inside the house stacks of boxes neatly piled, some in blue paper and others in pink.

The Manager produced a hand-bell. ‘You stand here,' said the Manager, placing himself at the door of the house. ‘Ring your bell a few times – like this. Then shout in a loud, commanding voice: “Roll up now! Blue for the Boys, and Pink for the Girls”.' And he explained that when business was slack, he was to mount the ladder, descend the chimney, and bring up the parcels in that manner, but if there was a crowd he was just to open the door and shake hands with each child before presenting the boxes. They were all the same price – a shilling each.

For the first ten minutes or so John's voice was weak and self-conscious and the Manger, standing a short distance away, ordered him to raise his voice a little louder: ‘You must attract attention – that's what you're paid for. Try it once again.'

‘Blue for the Boys, and Pink for the Girls!' shouted John, and he imagined all the buyers at the neighbouring counters had paused to listen to him. ‘Blue for the Boys, and Pink for the Girls!' he repeated, his eye on the Manager who was judging him from a distance. The Manager smiled his approval and then shook an imaginary bell in the air. John suddenly remembered about the bell in his hand and he shook it vigorously, but a shop-girl tightened up her face at him and he folded his fingers over the skirt of the bell in order to muffle the sound. He gained more confidence, but as his nervousness decreased he became aware of the tight boots imprisoning his feet, and occasionally he would disappear into his little house and catching the sole of each in turn he would stretch them across his knee.

But the children gave him no peace, and with his head held genially to the side, if the Manager were watching him, he would smile broadly and listen with affected interest to each child's demand.

‘Please, Santa Claus, bring me a tricycle at Christmas and a doll's pram for Angela.'

‘I'll do that! Everything you want,' said Father Christmas expansively, and he patted the little boy on the head with gentle dignity before handing him a blue parcel. But when he raised his eyes to the boy's mother she froze him with a look.

‘I didn't think you would have any tricycles this year,' she said. ‘I thought you were only making wooden trains.'

‘Oh, yes! No, yes, Not at all! Yes, of course, I'll get you a nice wooden train,' Father Christmas turned to the boy in his confusion. ‘If you keep good I'll have a lovely train for you.'

‘I don't want an oul train. I want a tricycle,' the boy whimpered, clutching his blue-papered parcel.

‘I couldn't make any tricycles this year,' consoled Father Christmas. ‘My reindeers was sick and three of them died on me.'

The boy's mother smiled and took him by the hand. ‘Now, pet, didn't I tell you Santa had no tricycles? You better shout up the chimney for something else – a nice game or a wooden train.'

‘I don't want an oul game – I want a tricycle,' he cried, and jigged his feet.

‘You'll get a warm ear if you're not careful. Come on now and none of your nonsense. And Daddy Christmas after giving you a nice box, all for yourself.'

Forcibly she led the boy away and John, standing with his hands in his sleeves, felt the prickles of sweat on his forehead and resolved to promise nothing to the children until he had got the cue from the parents.

As the day progressed he climbed up the ladder and down the chimney, emerging again with his arms laden with parcels. His feet tortured him and when he glanced at the boots every wrinkle in the leather was smoothed away. He couldn't continue like this all day; it would drive him mad.

‘Roll up!' he bawled. ‘Roll up! Blue for the Pinks and Boys for the Girls! Roll up, I say. Blue for the Pinks and Boys for the Girls.' Then he stopped and repeated the same mistake before catching himself up. And once more he clanged the bell with subdued ferocity till its sound drowned the jingle of the cash-registers and the shop-girls had to shout to be heard.

At one o'clock he wearily climbed the stairs to the quiet room, where dinner was brought to him on a tray. He took off his boots and gazed sympathetically at his crushed toes. He massaged them tenderly, and when he had finished his dinner he pared his corns with a razor blade he had bought at one of the counters. He now squeezed his bare feet into the boots, walked across the room, and sat down again, his face twisted with despair. ‘Why do I always give in to that woman,' he said aloud to himself. ‘I've no strength – no power to stand up and shout in her face: “No, no no! I'll go my own way in my own time!” ' He'd let her know tonight the agony he suffered, and his poor feet gathered up all day like a rheumatic fist.

Calmed after this outburst, and reassuring himself that the job was only for three weeks, he gave a whistle of forced satisfaction, brushed the corn-pairings off the chair, and went off to stand outside the little house with its imitation snow on the chimney.

The afternoon was the busiest time, and he was glad to be able to stand at the door like a human being and hand out the parcels, instead of ascending and descending the ladder like a trained monkey. When the children crowded too close to him he kept them at arm's length in case they'd trample on his feet. But he always managed to smile as he watched them shaking their boxes or tearing holes in the paper in an effort to guess what was inside. And the parents smiled too when they looked at him wagging his finger at the little girls and promising them dolls at Christmas if they would go to bed early, eat their porridge and stop biting their nails. But before closing time a woman was back holding an untidy parcel. ‘That's supposed to be for a boy,' she said peevishly. ‘There's a rubber doll in it and my wee boy has cried his eyes out ever since.'

‘I'm just new to the job,' Father Christmas apologised. ‘It'll never occur again.' And he tossed the parcel into the house and handed the woman a new one.

At the end of his day he had gathered from the floor a glove with a hole in one finger, three handkerchiefs, a necklace of blue beads, and a child's handbag containing a halfpenny and three tram-tickets. When he was handing them to the Manager he wondered if he should complain about the boots, but the tired look on the Manager's face and his reminder about staying behind to make up parcels discouraged him.

For the last time he climbed the stairs, took off his boots and flung them from him, and as he prepared the boxes he padded about the cool floor in his bare feet, and to ensure that he wouldn't make a mistake he arranged, at one side of the room, the contents for the girls' boxes: dolls, shops, pages of transfers, story books, and crayons; and at the opposite side of the room the toys for the boys: ludo, snakes and ladders, blow football, soldiers, cowboy outfits, and wooden whistles. And as he parcelled them neatly and made loops in the twine for the children's fingers he decided once again to tell his wife to bring his own kids along and he'd have special parcels prepared for them.