‘Oh,’ Amy said, sniffing. ‘That does help a bit.’
‘I don’t know why I don’t know how this is going to end,’ Santa said. ‘This is only my second Christmas in the job, maybe I didn’t read the manual quite as thoroughly as I should have, maybe I watched nine series of Friends back to back instead. But one thing I do know is that it will turn out OK in the end. I am Santa. I bring comfort and joy. It’s in my job description. All this means is that this is an adventure for both of us. We are experiencing it together, and actually, “psycho Amy” notwithstanding, it’s pretty fun, isn’t it?’
Amy nodded, looking up at Santa; he was so sweet, so funny and handsome and clever, not to mention excellent at kissing and dancing. It really did seem a bit unfair that pretty much the only perfect man she had ever met seemed to be entirely out of bounds. But now that she had met Santa, now she knew exactly what she wanted in a man – less the outfit and the unusual working hours – at least she knew what to look out for, and that had to be a good thing. And in the meantime she might as well enjoy what the rest of the night would bring and the last few hours that she had with him.
‘So where next?’ Santa asked, helping her into the sleigh. ‘I’m still quite keen on the skinny dipping idea.’
‘Is my dad still alive?’ Amy asked thoughtfully.
‘Um…yes.’
‘Take me to see him.’
‘Are you sure?’ Santa asked.
‘I am.’ Amy smiled at him. ‘With you at my side, I know I will be fine.’
10. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
‘MY DAD LIVES in East Dulwich,’ Amy said as Santa manoeuvred the sleigh to a seemingly impossible stop on the steep pitch of a Victorian villa. ‘My dad has money?’
‘He lives quite comfortably,’ Santa admitted. ‘He owns this copywriting business – Roger Tucker Consultants – it’s done quite well.’
‘My dad is a business man and has a nice house in Dulwich?’ Amy stood on the crest of the roof, her breath misting in the cold air as she tried to take that in. Of all the things she expected from the man that she could not remember – the man that had left home when she was barely two – that he was a drunk or a father to a brood of kids by various mothers or a drug addict maybe, she did not expect that he had a cosy media job and lived in a large Victorian house in Dulwich less than a twenty-minute bus ride away from her house.
‘Then it’s not because he’s a reprobate that he never got in touch with me,’ Amy said. ‘It’s because he’s a git. I’m not sure which is worse.’
‘People do funny things when they are hurt and confused,’ Santa said. ‘They make the wrong choices, they make life more complicated and painful because all they want to do is hurt the person who hurt them as much as they can. It’s understandable, even if it’s wrong and it’s often children who get caught in the fallout. Try and remember that.’
Santa took her in his arms, holding her a little closer than she thought was strictly necessary for a slide down a chimney, and, after a moment of darkness surrounded by a swirl of stars, they were standing in her father’s bedroom. And what a bedroom it was.
Black and gold paper lined the walls, embellished in a Chinese design, a black lacquered chest of drawers sat in one corner and in the centre was her father’s bed, swathed in black and gold silk.
‘Dad likes his bling,’ she whispered, still not used to the fact that people couldn’t see or hear her unless she wanted them to. In the middle of the bed there were two shapes, nestled neatly into one another, a picture of love and contentment. Hanging off the bottom bedpost were two identical gold, crystal-trimmed stockings.
‘What should I do now?’ Amy asked.
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want to see her,’ Amy said. ‘The woman he finally settled with. I mean, Mum can be a royal pain in the backside, but she is lovely, pretty, funny and stacked. All the things that men mostly look for in a woman. After she’d gotten over what Dad did to her she had no shortage of suitors right up until she married Jim. I just wonder what it was that Mum didn’t have, what she lacked that meant my dad left us for good.’
‘OK,’ Santa said very slowly. ‘Go and have a peep.’
Carefully, and ever so quietly, Amy went around to the side of the bed. Her father, the man she only knew from one ancient dog-eared photo that she still kept in her jewellery box, was furthest away from her, arms wrapped around his lover. Taking a deep breath and discovering that her fingers were trembling, Amy crouched down at the side of the bed, ready to pull the silk sheets away from the face of the woman he loved.
‘Have you ever thought that actually your job is a bit pervy?’ she said, suddenly losing her nerve.
‘Um, yes?’ Santa said. ‘I am officially the only man in the world who is allowed to come in and out of people’s bedrooms in the dead of night. That’s why new applicants get a full CCRB check. Celestial Criminal Record Bureau. They only let you have the job if you have a completely clean record with him upstairs.’
‘So you are officially a nice guy then?’ Amy said, smiling at him. ‘Typical.’
‘Are you going to crouch in someone else’s bedroom indefinitely admiring me,’ Santa said, ‘or are you going to get on with it? It’s just that whereas I have diplomatic immunity, you are technically committing a serious offence right now.’
Pursing her lips, Amy went back to the task in hand and, ever so slowly and ever so carefully, she pulled the sheet back from the face of the woman with whom her father had finally settled down and made a life.
‘I think I know what my dad’s new woman had that Mum didn’t,’ she told Santa.
‘Well?’ Santa asked.
‘A penis,’ Amy said. ‘Not to mention a very full beard.’
11. Make the Yuletide Gay
‘MY DAD IS gay!’ Amy exclaimed, sitting back on her heel, with enough force to make her dad’s partner mutter and scratch his beard. ‘He’s gay. He left my mum because he was living a lie and needed to come out! But, but that’s fine, that understandable, that’s cool – but it didn’t mean he had to just abandon me.’
‘It was the 1980s,’ Santa said. ‘I think it’s hard to remember that life was probably a lot more difficult for gay people then than now and it’s still pretty tough now, come to think of it.’
Amy got up, reaching out for Santa who came to her side.
‘I want to talk to him,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why, but now I know, I’m not angry any more. It’s as if somehow I know now he’s been through really tough times and I get it. I understand. It’s just that, it’s not the 1980s now, is it? Why wouldn’t he have tried to find me now? That’s what I don’t understand.’
‘I can wake him in a dream state,’ Santa said uncertainly, ‘but it’s risky, Amy. We don’t know how much he’ll remember in the morning, and if it’s too much or somehow gets jumbled up in his head, it might spoil things for you. Maybe even put him off meeting you in the real world.’
‘Do it,’ Amy said. ‘Please, I want to talk to my dad.’
Santa waved his hand over the bed, letting a cascade of what looked like fairy dust fall over her father.
‘For God’s sake, Kevin, I told you gold, not pink! No one wants to look at pink-coloured baubles,’ Roger Tucker muttered as he sat up in bed, catching sight of Santa.
‘Finally a dream worth having,’ he said.
‘Hello, I’m Santa, I’ve brought you a Christmas wish.’
‘Excellent,’ Roger said. ‘Obviously in real life I would never betray Kevin, but as this is only a dream and as you are dressed as Santa, come on over here, babe…’
‘Um, no. Not that sort of Christmas wish,’ Santa said. ‘This sort.’
Amy stepped forward out of the shadows. ‘Hello, Dad.’
Gasping, Amy’s dad pushed back the covers and got out of bed, coming over to her at once. He was tall, good looking and she could see that she got her dark eyes from him – and her thick dark hair. And he ha
d on a really lovely pair of paisley pyjamas.
‘My Amelia,’ he said softly, reaching out to touch her hair. ‘My little Amy, all grown up. This is the best Christmas wish I could have ever hoped for. I’ve missed you, Amelia, every single day.’
Amy was so dumbstruck and confused that she didn’t know what to say. She could only look at him, at the love in his eyes, the tears trickling down his face, and wonder why he stayed away.
‘Does she talk?’ her dad asked.
‘She does,’ Santa said. ‘A lot actually, most of it nonsense. But I think I am right in saying that the reason she isn’t saying anything now is because she doesn’t know how to ask you why you left her.’
‘Oh darling,’ Roger said. ‘I never left you. Not in my heart. Sally, your mum, she was so hurt when I told her why I had to go. She vowed I’d never know you, and I didn’t blame her. I took away everything she thought she had in a second. I never knew a thing about you, not until you were six. And then Sally found me. She was remarried, happy. She’d found it in her heart to forgive me. We talked about you meeting me then, but we thought you wouldn’t understand about me, my life, Kevin. So we decided to leave it, until you asked her about me.’
‘But I never asked,’ Amy spoke finally. ‘I never ever mentioned you to Mum. I thought it would hurt her too much. I didn’t know I could ask. And I’ve been missing you all this time and wondering what I did wrong.’
‘Nothing, darling, you never did a thing wrong,’ Roger said. ‘It was me and your mum that got it all wrong, although I promise you we were trying to do the right thing. I’ve been watching you grow up, do so well, I’ve been helping your mum with paying your uni fees and that deposit on your flat. Here look…’
Roger went to a mirror-fronted wardrobe, pulled it open, and retrieved a large gold box from the top shelf, tied with a black ribbon, and set it on the floor.
It was full of papers, photos of Amy at various ages, from her debut as a star in the school nativity play to her in gown and mortarboard when she graduated, and most recently as a bridesmaid at Rosie’s wedding in a seriously vile green dress. But there were also dozens of sealed envelopes and tiny boxes, each exquisitely wrapped.
‘A card,’ Roger said, ‘for every birthday and Christmas, and a gift too. I always get you something lovely from Tiffany’s, you can’t beat quality, darling. There are enough charms in there to fill a bracelet. I got those when you were little – and the bracelet; and on your eighteenth I got you a pendant; on your twenty-first, a pair of diamond studs. When you get married I’m going to go to town and get you a full diamond necklace. I’m glad you didn’t marry that Gavin, by the way, what a dick.’
‘That’s what I said.’ Santa nodded approvingly.
‘Open them, go on,’ Roger said happily. ‘You don’t know how long I’ve waited to give them to you.’
‘No,’ Amy said, carefully putting the box on the lid. ‘Dad, you’ll wake up in the morning and you’ll think this is a dream. But I want you to remember something really important. I miss you. I want you in my life so badly. Please come and find me, Daddy, and then we can open these things together. Please.’
Roger touched her face, stopping the tears that were running down her cheeks with his fingertips.
‘I promise, Amelia,’ he said. ‘I won’t make either of us wait any longer. Now I see you, I don’t understand why I waited at all.’
Getting up, he returned the box to the wardrobe and looked at Santa.
‘This isn’t just a dream, is it?’ he asked.
‘I’m not supposed to say,’ Santa said. ‘But no.’
‘Do you promise that the first thing I do tomorrow will be to ring Sally and to arrange a time to go round and see Amy, meet Amy? So that me and her mum can explain everything to her and we can be a family at last?’
‘I can’t promise,’ Santa said. ‘But I do know one thing. When a man loves someone as much as you love this woman, then you won’t need reminding what to do. You will just do it.’
‘Bye, Daddy,’ Amy said, running to her father and hugging him so hard it knocked him back a step or two.
‘Goodbye, Amelia,’ Roger said. ‘See you tomorrow.’
*
Back on the roof, Amy climbed into the sleigh next to Santa and held his hand.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I think that’s my Christmas wish done.’
‘Done?’ Santa looked at her. ‘What do you mean, done? We’ve still not gone skinny dipping yet!’
‘Well, I’ve found someone to love – my dad. And he loves me back just like you said. I know it’s not the sort of love I was expecting but it’s more than I could have hoped for. And besides you said the wish was a bit non-specific, maybe this is what it meant?’
‘No,’ Santa said. ‘No, I’m pretty sure this isn’t it. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to take you home yet. I’m pretty sure, what with me having magic powers and all, that we have a few more places to visit yet. Yep, I’m certain.’
‘But you said that you didn’t know how it ended?’
‘Exactly,’ Santa said. ‘And, as we can’t be sure that this is the end, I think we should have a few more laughs, I mean, epiphanies first. For your own good, just to be on the safe side.’
Amy studied him in the moonlight. ‘You like hanging out with me, don’t you, Santa?’
‘To be honest, yes, I do,’ he admitted, studying the stars rather carefully. ‘So where to next?’
‘Your place,’ Amy said. ‘Take me to Lapland.’
12. Walking in a Winter Wonderland
‘I’M NOT AT all sure about this,’ Santa said, as he brought the sleigh in to land along a strip of fully decorated Christmas trees, planted to form a runway in the snow. Beyond the runway Amy could see what looked like an entire town nestled between a thick forest of fir trees, sparkling in the dense cold night, and looking for all the world like a perfect Christmas card. ‘It really is in breach of protocol, bringing a Christmas Wish back to the office – today of all days.’
‘But you’re Santa,’ Amy said as the sleigh glided to a practised stop, Rudolph and the other reindeer snorting and hooting with pleasure at being home. ‘You are the boss, right? Can’t you re-write the rules?’
Santa turned to her as a couple of, what Amy could only assume were, elves approached the sleigh at quite a trot. ‘Can I ask you something, Amy? Do you believe that this is happening, or do you still need to think it’s a dream and that I’m a very good-looking figment of your imagination?’
Amy looked into his quicksilver eyes, her heart accelerating as she gazed at him. ‘I believe in you, Santa,’ she said softly. ‘Everything that’s happened tonight, with Gavin and Pete and my dad, it’s changed me, for the better. And I don’t think that could have just come out of my head. I don’t have that good an imagination. I believe in you, I really do.’
Santa nodded, as if that was exactly what he wanted to hear. ‘Well then, I can’t make up the rules. I’m not the boss, The Boss is the boss, and I don’t mean Bruce Springsteen. But maybe, just maybe…’
‘Maybe what?’ Amy asked, but before he could reply the elves arrived at the sleigh. Well, Amy assumed they were elves, only she had never seen anyone look less elfish in her life. Where were the pointy ears and diminutive statures?
‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’ the first one asked, a quite cute-looking red-headed girl in her twenties who’d customised what appeared to be a standard elf outfit into a pair of green satin hot pants over stripy tights and a midriff-baring tunic.
‘Christmas Wish.’ Santa nodded at Amy, rather briskly she thought, as if she were something of an inconvenience. ‘Wished to come here, didn’t she?’
‘Well, that’s not really on, is it?’ another elf, an older woman this time, with black spiky hair and what looked like black leather elf biker boots, complete with bells, chipped in.
‘Yes, well. I don’t know,’ Santa said, getting out of the sleigh, lifting Amy out in one flu
id movement and depositing her in the snow unceremoniously. ‘It’s never happened before, has it? Becca, you take Amy here; show her round the non-restricted areas. Suz, I need you to come with me. We need to have a look at the manual, and, as you’re currently the longest serving elf, I might need your expertise in human resources.’
He marched off into the snow, with Suz the Human Resources biker elf at his side, and with not so much as a backward glance at Amy. She stood shivering next to Becca, the hot pants elf, and wondered if she’d done something to upset him. Maybe she shouldn’t have said she believed in him, maybe she shouldn’t have let him see exactly how much she wanted and needed to do just that.
‘Right, you, follow me,’ Becca said. ‘Hurry up then, we haven’t got all night. Well, technically we’ve got as long as Santa makes the night last, but still, it’s good to have a sense of urgency on Christmas Eve.’
Amy trotted after Becca as fast as she could, towards what looked for all the world like a pub; it even had a flashing neon sign saying ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ hanging over the door.
‘We work in shifts throughout December, right up until the big day,’ Becca told Amy as she led her into the noisy bar. It was jumping with hot beats and a mass of elves getting their groove on. ‘This is the first shift to come off work tonight and this party will go on for about a month. If I wasn’t baby-sitting you, I’d be right in there. I’ve been trying to cop off with Gilbert Stanley, Hot Logistics Elf for months now,’ she confided in an annoyed stage whisper, ‘and I bet that Kirsty will bag him now. Flirty Kirsty always gets her elf.’
Amy stood on the edge of the dance floor watching elves dancing, drinking, singing and making out with colleagues – basically all of the things you would expect to see at any office Christmas party. Photocopying backsides for a dare could well be going on in a side room somewhere.
‘They don’t look very…elfy…’ Amy observed, sensing immediately that she had further annoyed an already irritated Becca.
Santa Maybe Page 4
