The Advent Calendar

by Steven Croft

  Josie was there for lunch again and Megs had invited Andrew, with Alice’s permission. He said very nice things about the casserole. Megs said it was nothing special really but she had got up early to make it and her cheeks went a bit pink.

  ‘So tell me, Mum,’ said Alice after the first course, ‘how come you know all about church and stuff and even took the bread and wine, and Sam knows nothing about it?’

  ‘Charming,’ said Sam. ‘I wouldn’t say I knew nothing.’

  ‘I went to church until I was about your age,’ said Megs, ‘in Lincolnshire where we grew up. Grandma was very involved though your grandfather only ever went at Christmas and Easter. I was confirmed and everything – that’s what happens before you can take bread and wine. I had lots of friends there.’

  ‘But what about Sam?’

  ‘I was too young,’ Sam said. ‘I was only five when we moved to Luton.’

  ‘We just never started going again when we moved house,’ Megs went on. ‘I found new friends, life kind of filled up. I’ve thought about going back to church from time to time – especially over the last few months – but never quite made it. Your father would get cross every time I mentioned it. He doesn’t believe in anything. I never really wanted to go on my own.’

  ‘I used to have to go when I was a kid,’ said Josie. ‘My mum and dad go all the time. All I remember is having to keep really quiet. Didn’t you find it really boring?’

  ‘I don’t understand a lot of it,’ said Alice. ‘But that’s not the same as boring, is it?’

  ‘What about you, Andrew?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Choirboy and server,’ Andrew said, blushing a bit. ‘That’s someone who helps at the front, Alice. But my mum died when I was sixteen. She had cancer. I stopped going after that. Blamed God, I suppose.’

  Megs squeezed his hand. ‘I’ll get the pudding,’ she said. ‘I – er – made a trifle.’

  The phone rang. Alice ran and answered it. ‘It’s Grandma for you, Mum,’ she said. ‘She sounds worried.’

  Megs took the phone into the front room and Alice dished out the trifle proudly. Andrew and Sam asked for big helpings and teased her that the bowls were too small.

  Everyone was laughing and giggling when Megs came back into the room. They fell quiet when they saw her face.

  ‘It’s Dad,’ she said. ‘He’s been taken into hospital. He had some kind of seizure at lunchtime. Mum’s just got back. She’s really upset. I think one of us needs to go and see her.’

  ‘Can’t we all go?’ said Alice.

  ‘Not really, my love,’ Megs said. ‘We’ll need to go and see Grandad in hospital and they probably wouldn’t let you in. You’ll need to stay here with someone.’

  ‘Best if you go, old girl,’ Sam said quietly. ‘Not the best time for me to appear, is it?’

  Megs and Alice both knew that Sam hadn’t seen his mum and dad for about six months – and the last time they had seen each other Sam and his dad had quarrelled badly. Something about Sam’s job and some money he owed them.

  ‘Do you want me to take you?’ said Andrew. ‘No trouble. I could find something to do in Luton for a couple of hours.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Megs. ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Least I can do after a lunch like that.’

  ‘That’s settled then,’ said Josie. ‘Leave the washing up to us. No excuses, Sam!’

  Megs packed an overnight bag, just in case, and she and Andrew were gone ten minutes later. After the clearing up, Josie popped into town to do some Christmas shopping. Sam and Alice settled down in the front room to catch up on homework and the Sunday papers.

  Alice had a French test the next day, so she spent twenty minutes trying to master irregular verbs. Feeling tired she went over, as she often did, to look at the calendar.

  ‘Sam, you toad, there’s another door!’

  Sam was snoring quietly in the corner. Alice shook him awake. ‘Wake up! Sam! There’s a door. Where’s your phone?’

  Sam rubbed his eyes and stared. The new door was the grandest yet, made of some kind of crystal. He stumbled outside to his coat and fished the mobile out of the left-hand pocket.

  As he came back into the room he shielded his eyes from his own reflection. His skin was caked in mud and his clothing was torn to shreds. They went through the familiar routine.

  ‘Five.’ Click. ‘Four.’ Click. ‘Colon.’ Click. ‘One.’ Click. ‘Two.’

  Cautiously, both Alice and Sam turned towards the mirror. To their amazement and great relief, the surface had turned cloudy. Sam went first this time. He pressed one hand through, then the other and waved his arms around. Nothing. Taking a deep breath he pressed his face through the viscous surface.

  As he opened his eyes on the other side he heard JB chuckling. ‘There is no need to hold your breath, Sam. Just come on through. The show is about to start.’

  With some difficulty Sam drew his legs and body through the narrow space. As Alice followed him, he looked around. They were indoors – you could tell that from the temperature: warm and a bit stuffy. There was some kind of soft black carpet on the floor.

  The room was dark apart from a small light burning in what seemed to be the centre of the space, near to where they stood. Right in the middle were three elaborate-looking chairs – like the ones in the dentist’s or in the first-class compartment of an aeroplane.

  Sam inspected the chairs, which were like nothing he’d ever seen, with all kinds of attachments. Alice looked above and around her. ‘Stars,’ she gasped. ‘Thousands of them. And they are underneath us as well as above. Like we are in space but we can breathe.’

  Sam saw more clearly now, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, that the floor was a small circular platform surrounded by a guard rail at waist height. The platform was about the size of a large living room and seemed to be suspended in a huge sphere.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ said JB. ‘Enjoy the show!’ He took the seat in the centre with Sam on his right and Alice on his left and showed them how to get ready. There were special suits to wear made from very thin silver-coloured material, a headset with an earpiece and a safety harness securing them to the seat.

  Alice got it first. ‘Is it like an IMAX?’ she said. ‘It feels like the one I went to with Dad, near Waterloo station – only with seats.’

  ‘Right first time,’ said JB, securing Alice’s straps. ‘Only we’ve built a few refinements into this one.’

  ‘It looks like the dome is 360 degrees,’ said Sam, eyes widening as he took in the scene. Both Sam and Alice loved fairground rides and rollercoasters of every kind. ‘Rollicking roosters!’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said JB. ‘Only the best. The sound is pretty impressive. These earpieces are just so that we can talk to each other. The seats tip and move during the flight so strap in tightly. We’ve also added atmospherics: wind and temperature changes and some smells.’

  ‘Amazing,’ said Alice. ‘When do we start?’

  JB was strapping himself in. Sam saw he was still wearing his enormous coat and that his chair had some kind of keyboard strapped to it so he could start the performance.

  ‘Can you hear me, Alice?’ JB’s voice was clear through the headset.

  ‘Loud and clear,’ she said and gave the thumbs up.

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘All clear, JB.’

  ‘Then let’s go!’

  The journey began slowly in terms of perception – although Alice realised afterwards that in reality what seemed to be the slowest part of the experience – at the beginning – was actually when they were travelling the fastest. The seats moved into an upright position. The front of the platform fell away so it felt as though they were suspended in space. As she looked at the dome above and below her, stretching away as far as she could see, Alice noticed tha
t the stars were no longer stationary but had begun to move towards her and past her. There was no sound or wind, of course, simply a sense of forward movement in the vastness of outer space. One particular star dead ahead of them burned larger and more brightly than all the others. They were entering the solar system.

  The journey continued in silence for what seemed like half an hour. The sun grew larger on the horizon. ‘Lower your visors now,’ said JB. ‘The sun will soon be too bright to look at directly. Look right.’

  Sam turned his head. The coloured rings of Saturn flashed below them. The chairs banked left, as they spiralled into the solar system. In a matter of minutes the bulk of Jupiter appeared and passed beneath Alice’s left shoe. A few seconds later, the chair shook and dived, navigating its way past the asteroids, and moments after that they passed the red planet, Mars, skipping round its atmosphere, ever bending inwards and conscious of the growing brightness of the sun.

  A few minutes later, as it seemed, Alice caught her first glance of earth suspended in space, rushing towards them. They skimmed low over the moon’s surface and were able to pick out craters, hills and plains and from there headed straight towards the earth, turning slowly on its axis. Alice gasped at the beauty of her own planet and picked out the familiar shapes of oceans and continents.

  Sam jumped as somehow a great glass bubble was projected around them and the chairs moved back into a flat position. As the craft entered earth’s atmosphere the chairs lay flat and vibrated as they met resistance. The temperature increased and the bubble itself was coated in a sheath of flame.

  The next moment the seats came upright again and they were flying through blue skies, through layers of cloud, descending all the time towards the earth’s surface. ‘Visors up!’ came JB’s command. As they descended, Alice could make out the coastline and the rivers, the vast desert spaces, the lakes and forests.

  ‘Where are the towns and cities?’ she asked.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said JB. ‘Remember this is not quite the normal view.’

  As they came nearer to the earth’s surface, the glass bubble around them retracted. They could feel the warm wind on their cheeks now and hear the gentle soundtrack of the earth without people. Alice noticed the way in which you had to listen carefully. The call of the gulls, the splash of waves on the beach, the cry of a deer.

  Their journey paused over a series of low hills. Coming in, Alice had seen how their destination was a place where three great continents met: a crossroads of the world. They hovered at a height of about a hundred feet. JB pointed ahead and below. Alice saw the only signs so far of human life and habitation. A small wooden shack: a place for animals not people and, on a low hillside nearby, a wooden cross. There was nothing else.

  JB pointed to the ground. ‘Watch very carefully.’ As they looked, something new began. A glistening, thin, deep-blue line appeared in the earth, then another, then another. They spread like a giant cobweb from the place where the cross stood and out for miles around covering the hillsides.

  ‘Foundations,’ called JB.

  As the deep-blue lines spread outwards, Alice gradually began to see the shape of what looked like a great city: streets and squares, parks and gardens etched in sapphire. Sam looked back towards the centre. Clear crystals were appearing now in between the web of blue foundations, sparkling in the morning sun. Walls and houses, domes and turrets grew outwards from the centre. Ribbons of gold formed streets in between the buildings. Towers grew and sparkled the deepest red. As they watched, the great outer walls of the city were growing now and glistened with every kind of jewel. They rose above and around the city, protecting it from harm. Within them were set twelve pairs of gates made of pearl, four on each side, facing north, south, east and west. The gates were not closed but wide open waiting to receive all who would come. There was a light over and within the whole city which was brighter and more glorious even than the rays of the sun.

  The crystal city grew upwards and outwards before them through the course of a whole day. They moved around to different vantage points, now zooming in, now pulling back. Sam and Alice witnessed every part with cries of wonder and delight. JB let them take the controls and they were able to swing the joystick to the right and then to the left. Sam and Alice grew practised at swooping and diving over the city.

  They saw now a great river winding its way from the centre with mature trees lining its banks. They saw beautiful gardens and parks unfolding with towers and waterfalls, pleasant walks and every kind of flower and shrub. They saw spacious homes of every kind made ready and furnished: flats, mansions, terraces and squares. They saw what looked like fully stocked libraries and workshops, concert halls and galleries all prepared but standing empty. Within the city itself were vineyards and olive groves, allotments laid out and magnificent public squares. The city was now vast in size: ‘To walk across it now would be three days’ journey,’ said JB. ‘To explore its wonders is the work of many, many lifetimes.’

  There were no artificial lights in the city, no streetlamps or lights within the buildings. As evening came, Alice saw that none were needed. The city itself was lit from within in some way she could not understand. There were no shadows or dark places, no corners for wicked things to hide.

  This growing of the city went on throughout the night. Now the basic features were laid out, Sam saw, more and more attention was paid to the detail: the crystal walls and towers were etched with beautiful carvings showing scenes from great battles and stories of the past. The pearl gates were inlaid with writing in many different languages. JB explained that they were words of welcome and of truth and the names of ancient tribes. Fruit ripened on the trees and in the allotments the vegetables matured to be ready for harvest. In the middle watch of the night, they flew low over the city from east to west and looked at the twelve foundation stones of its walls, which were inscribed with a different twelve names, again in many languages: ‘Those who are honoured for all time,’ said their guide.

  And then, as the sun rose again in the east, they climbed a little higher above the earth and their ears caught the sound of singing. Alice pointed as angels in vast numbers flew from the east, out of the rising sun and took up their positions at each of the gates and around the walls.

  With the dawn, from north and south and east and west – from the whole earth JB told them later – came lines of pilgrims walking in orderly procession and singing as they came. Children and old people, helped along by those who were stronger. Husbands, wives and friends arm in arm. Groups of young people. Black and white, yellow and brown. To judge by their clothes and dress they were from every age and nation and tribe. The lines stretched back as far as the eye could see: a countless, countless host.

  JB’s eyes were full of tears. ‘The pearl gates stand open to receive the pilgrims as they come singing to their eternal home,’ he said, slowly and with great passion. He intoned words which seemed as ancient as the hills:

  ‘No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days or an old person who does not live out a lifetime. Death itself cannot come to this city. There is no war here, no hunger, pestilence or plague. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more.’

  Above the sounds of the sea and the cries of the birds there rose now the song of the pilgrims as they entered the eternal city and were welcomed to their new homes. As each person passed the angels on the gates there came a moment, Alice saw, of looking and seeing: as the angel’s eyes met the eyes of a child, or woman or man, all was laid bare and they were welcomed through the gates. But from time to time, she saw, one person or another was not able to enter the city. They gathered in small groups on either side of the gate, their loved ones clinging to them and begging them to come in.

  ‘What’s happening there?’ Alice asked. ‘Can we go down and see?’

  JB adjusted the controls and they swooped low over one of the gates in the
Western Wall. Alice saw now that each of those who were asked to wait outside was carrying something: a suitcase or rucksack or carrier bag.

  ‘The people themselves are welcome,’ JB said to them. ‘But nothing unclean can enter the city. All falsehood and greed, uncleanness of every kind, must be left outside.’

  Sam watched as a man urged and pleaded with his wife to leave a great suitcase in the small pile by the gateway and come inside with him. After some time she reluctantly set down what she was carrying, took her husband’s hand and walked through the gate. They disappeared down one of the golden streets. An elderly couple were seeking to reason with a young man about Sam’s age who could not be parted with a small black briefcase. In the end his mother tried to wrestle it from him and the young man ran away. Sadly, the couple let go and turned away into the city, joining their voices to the song of praise around them. Sam’s eyes followed the man as he crept away beyond the city wall.

  ‘What will happen to him and those like him?’ he asked.

  ‘There is a rubbish dump, a tip, a waste ground on the far side of the city,’ JB answered. ‘It is a place of filth and squalor. But it is the only place that such a man can live. There is no way back to the earth that was. And now come. Our journey is almost ended.’

  Once more they ascended and flew around the walls, admiring again its majesty and greatness and the new life now teeming within it. Then their view changed, so they were looking down and, as if they were flying upwards to a great height, the city itself grew smaller and smaller. Alice saw the very contours of the earth had altered so that this land was now in the centre and all roads, lined with pilgrims, led to the city.

  And then their chairs tilted back into the start position, the harnesses were released, their view was, as it seemed, simply a blue sky on a summer’s day, with streaks of cirrus cloud hanging low on the horizon. There, just behind them, was the shape of the mirror’s misty surface.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Alice to JB. Sam squeezed the great man’s hand.