“No, no’. You trawl boy, you TRAWL! If you want to guarantee you catch your fish, you put out a huge net with tiny holes and you drag everything in. Yes you’ll kill the odd turtle and dolphin, but boo hoo, because you’ll be sure to catch the critters you’re after. So true Welfare Reform is about dragging enough people away from benefits so that we catch all the scroungers and slackers, and we won’t worry too much about the odd oversight.”
“Oh and then there’s this” said Brian. He opened the booklet again at section 5.1.1 and read aloud. “‘The responsibility for provision of Social Fund loans will be decentralised to individual councils.” Brian smiled sarcastically. “Ha! these bloody emergency relief loans are a joke. They’re apparently meant to provide short term funds to poor people if they run out of money. Run out! I tell you. Well, I’ve never been so disorganised as to run out of money. Anyway, I’m almost a hundred percent sure that most of these loans are frittered away on drugs and satellite dishes. No council given the chance is going to keep these going, not with all the other cuts they’re having to incur. So they’ll be gone too and it will look like the fault of the councils! A virtuoso bit of policymaking I’m sure you’ll agree.”
Brian stood up and walked over to the window again. He motioned with his head for the intern to join him. As the intern stood by his side, Brian placed a hand around his shoulder. As he did so the intern felt a shiver down his spine but luckily he did not shudder.
“You see my boy, there has always been poverty and there always will be. And that is because everything is relative. Relative to the wealth of others, some will always be in ‘poverty’. It is not something we can organise society to prevent. It is the way things have been ordained and it is not for us mortal men to interfere.”
“What about Scandinavia?” asked the intern.
“What about Scandinavia?” Brian replied. He removed his arm and turned to face the intern.
“Well” continued the intern looking down and fiddling with his hands again. “I’ve read that Sweden for example, has levels of poverty much lower than ours.”
“For God’s sake” Brian sighed “that’s probably because their country isn’t cursed with millions of weak- willed slackers! And they sat out the bloody War! Right, take this.” He shoved the booklet back into the intern’s arms. “Now get out and get on with your work.”
--
David had become increasingly uncomfortable as Brian’s discourse had progressed. Whether it was because of the vehemence of his ideas, or the concern at seeing his minister and former boss waxing lyrical with such lack of restraint – he wasn’t sure. David glanced up at the ghost upon whose face was much a more stern expression than he had seen before. He found the expression quite distressing for it is well known that a stern expression upon a face that is habitually kind will induce much greater unease than a stern expression on a face that is always angry.
Wishing to try and appease the ghost, David spoke quietly. “I tried to reshuffle him away from welfare recently.”
The spirit spoke, ignoring David’s statement. “The institutions of welfare - they were constructed in place of fear and in place of suffering, where they not?”
“I believe that perhaps they were” David replied.
“And this man, with the passion and cruelty of a zealot, seeks to tear them all down does he not?” said the spirit.
“He does” David replied looking at the floor.
“And who furnished him with the power to do so?”
“Well, thirty six percent of the population voted for us and then we formed a quite legitimate coalition, so really it was the people of the UK.” David offered, not wishing to unendear himself to the spirit.
“WHO FURNISHED HIM WITH THE POWER?” The spirit demanded again in a terrible booming voice. He appeared to grow much larger as he said the words and his face seemed to be lit from underneath by a terrible flame-like glow.
David cowered in fear at the spirits changed appearance. “It was me, It was me!” he cried closing his eyes and shielding his face from the spirits terrible gaze.
The spirit grasped his torch with both hands and brought it crashing down on the wooden floor of the room with a great CRACK!
--
David opened his eyes only after the echo from the strike had finished its reverberations; which seemed to last for several minutes. Looking around, he could see that he and the spirit were no longer in the bright and spacious environs of Brian’s office but were instead stood in a darker, smaller room- a bedsit in fact. In one corner was a double mattress. A red unwashed duvet lay half on the mattress, half on the floor. To the immediate left of the mattress was a kitchenette consisting of a single hob and a few cabinets clad in yellowing, plastic veneer. The small sink was full with unwashed glasses and a single pan. In front of the mattress was a small black television sat on a cabinet that was lacking its doors. As he surveyed the new environment, a shuffling sound coming from behind caused David to turn around.
Standing in front of a cracked, full-length mirror was a woman. She was painfully thin, so much so that you could clearly see her fragile thread-like veins curling up her slight arms towards her neck. Her skin was stretched tightly over the shrunken muscles in her arms and legs almost making each one of them individually discernible from its fellows. She stood sideways-on to the mirror looking at herself intently. One hand was holding up her white T-shirt whilst the other gently rubbed an unmistakable protuberance in her lower abdomen which revealed to the perceptive onlooker that she had been with child for at least six months. The girls face was obscured by a veil of uncombed, long brown hair.
The girl pulled her T-shirt over her tummy before turning to face David and the spirit. She pushed her hair back behind her ears as if to tie it up behind her head and in doing so revealed a thin face. Her cheeks were sunken and there were fine lines around her eyes. Upon seeing her face, David felt sudden flash of recognition although he couldn’t at first place her within his memory.
As the recognition better crystallised in David’s mind, his eyes grew wide and he exclaimed “Sam!” Her appearance was much changed but David was nonetheless reminded of the last time that he had seen her and remembered the feeling of great sorrow that he had felt when he last looked into her eyes. At that moment he was unable to detect quite the same depth of sadness and he could not help but wonder as he glanced at the abundant physical bulge in her tummy, whether she might have found a way to fill the void.
Sam walked past David with her arms still behind her head, tying up her hair. As she passed by, David noticed four lines of deep purple bruising to the underside of her left arm. She picked up the duvet off the floor and gave it a quick shake before replacing it on the bed. She then walked over to the kitchenette and began to wash the empty cups and the pot.
A few moments later, the door to the bedsit opened and a man, almost as thin as Samantha staggered in through the door. He was slightly taller than her and had thin brown hair which was starting to grey at the temples. His gait was unsteady as he walked and his face carried a look of terrible woe.
“You stink of booze” said Sam “I thought you were at work”.
The man tilted his head to one side and pulled an almost comical sad face at Sam before slowly shaking his head. “Nope”
“Why not, what’s happened?”
“Let me go” said the man.
“What! Why?” asked Sam. “Did they at least pay you for today, we’ve got no food in and the gas is going to run out any minute and its freezing.”
The man didn’t answer her but instead clambered on all fours onto their makeshift bed. His shoes, wet with snow left muddy marks all over the duvet. He grasped the corner of the mattress that was tucked into the corner of the room and felt around the area underneath. “Where’s my gear?” He shouted with his back to Samantha “where’s it gone?”
“There’s none left” Sam replied. “You used it all last night remember- you’ll have go out and get some
more if you want it”
The man turned round and got to his feet. “I’ve got a client coming round for you in a bit” he said. “That’ll see us right.”
“I can’t!” said Sam. “You know I can’t, I’m pregnant!”
The man lurched towards Sam, and gripped her arms tightly on either side, digging his fingers into her meagre flesh. He pushed her across the room then up against the mirror. Sam winced with pain but didn’t cry out. “Don’t tell me what you can and can’t do” he said through gritted teeth, “there isn’t any money and this is how we’re going to get some.”
“You said I wouldn’t have to while I was pregnant” said Sam turning her face to the side.
“I’ve changed my mind” said the man, “now stop answering back and get ready.”
At that moment, Sam’s baby gave a little kick; a tiny movement only just discernible under her T-shirt.
“That little bastard is always kicking and keeping me awake” said the man looking at Sam’s bump. He let go of her and raised his fist to direct a blow at the bump but Sam managed just in time to turn sideways so that the impact was with her flimsy ribs and not the baby. The sharp jolt of pain nearly knocked Sam off her feet but she somehow managed to duck out of the man’s embrace and head for the door. As she went she grabbed a thin grey jumper and flimsy green coat off the floor before exiting the bedsit and running as fast as she could down the stairs. The man who had initially tried to follow Sam, was deterred by the large number of people milling about outside.
David and the ghost followed Sam as she hurried down the snow covered street. Her flimsy jacket offered insufficient protection against the winter’s chill so she wrapped her arms around her body in a self-hug, rubbing the sides of her arms as she walked.
Eventually, she stopped outside the window of what David thought was a small glass-fronted shop. The shop seemed strangely empty for a Christmas Eve and there was conspicuous lack of people tumbling over one another or queuing in long lines at checkout counters. Instead, the folks inside were stood looking intently at rows of noticeboards or onto computer screens embedded in large green stands jutting out of the ground. For a moment, David though the interior had the appearance of a miniature art exhibition until he looked up at the green and yellow sign above the door which read ‘Job Centre Plus’.
Sam pushed open the glass door and stepped inside. She walked over to a man who was sat behind a desk and after a brief interchange, he pointed to three chairs at the back of the centre that stood to the side of a very stern looking security door. Sam walked over and sat down in the middle seat. After a few minutes, a small round lady in a dark grey suit and white shirt walked over to the door and swiped a card across an electronic lock next to the door handle. She had short black hair cut in a bob-style, framing a friendly round face and on the lapel of her grey jacket was a little Christmas tree brooch with tiny flashing lights. She pulled the door open and turned to Sam “Come in” she said with a smile.
The door led to a small, sparse office which housed a desk with a computer and a hefty looking black filing cabinet, almost as tall as Sam herself. The lady sat down behind the desk and gestured towards a chair on the opposite side of the desk for Sam to do the same.
“So how can I help?” asked the lady.
“Erm, I need a loan” said Sam without looking up.
“Ok” replied the lady “What’s your name and date of birth? Are you registered with us at the moment?”
“Yeah I am registered here. It’s Samantha Maria Russell and my date of birth is eighteenth of April nineteen eighty.”
“Ok” said the lady again as she typed on her computer. “And what is this loan for?”
“It’s for the heating and for food said Sam looking at her hands”
“Right, and are you working.”
“I do some causal stuff for my boyfriend and some of his mates.”
“So not full time then?”
“No” replied Sam blushing.
“And when would you need the loan?” said the lady still looking at the computer screen and typing.
“Erm today” said Sam raising her eyes just slightly towards the woman.
“Oh dear, I am sorry - we don’t do that type of loan any more Samantha. They’ve been cut I’m afraid. There might be some other support I could arrange for you but that will take weeks. Look, is everything else ok? what’s happened to make you run out of cash toady?”
Sam sat silently looking at her hands. The woman took a moment to look at her properly for the first time. In doing so she read some of the sad story that was revealed by Sam’s resigned posture and thin, needy hands. Most of all, she noticed the flimsy old green coat, intended when made many moons ago to function as a fashion accessory for spring or summer; not as a protective winter pelt. The woman opened a drawer under her desk and shuffled through some papers before handing Sam a leaflet.
Sam accepted the leaflet and read its title.
‘SANCTUARY HOUSE: WOMEN’S REFUGE’
“Look, I don’t know if that will even help but just in case. It’s nearby apparently. Look I’m really sorry that I can’t help you out.”
“It’s ok” said Sam. She stood up from her chair. The woman rose too and opened the door to the office.
“Look, can I get you a drink of tea or something before you go?”
“No thanks” said Sam. “Thanks for this”, she held up the leaflet and left. The woman’s sad gaze followed her out of the door and back into the cold street outside.
--
Sam stood in the street and shivered as the cold wind easily breached her feeble attire. She looked thoughtfully down the street in the direction of her flat before once again looking at the leaflet in her hand. She briefly touched her pregnant bump through her clothes before turning and walking in the direction of the address on the leaflet.
After about fifteen minutes of walking, Sam arrived at the address. She stood outside a plain black door that was sandwiched between a Pizza Takeaway shop and a Launderette. To the left of the door was a small plastic sign screwed to the wall, which read:
‘For Sanctuary, please ring the bell’
Samantha pressed the small white button of the doorbell under the sign. There was no sound. Hoping that the bell could be heard inside, she stood and waited for a minute or so but still no-one came. She rang the bell again, pressing the button hard with her thumb, once, twice, three times but still no answer. Sam sat on the step in front of the door and wrapped her arms around herself. After a moment she stood up with a renewed resolve and began banging on the door with her fist. The noise attracted the attention of the Laundrette owner, a stout middle aged man who stepped out into the street wearing an apron and gloves.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“I’m trying to get in here” said Sam leaning against the door.
“Well there’s no-one in there, girl.” He said. “Hasn’t been for weeks - you’re out of luck I’m afraid.” Satisfied that he had stopped the banging, the man went back inside.
Sam leant against the black door with both her arms outstretched and hung her head. She stayed like that for a moment before turning and walking down the street at a brisk pace.
David shuffled after her and looked up at the spirit walking next to him. “Spirit, where is she going now?” The spirit kept his eyes fixed in the direction of their travel and said nothing.
Sam walked and walked, through busy streets, across parks whose fields were covered in snow and punctuated with the occasional snowman. She turned round corners, walked over bridges and crossed busy streets with what seemed to be a purposeful navigation. In fact she walked without aim, simply trying to keep alight the small fire inside her body so that it might at least warm the baby.
As night began to fall and the grey sky began to thicken into a true darkness, it came to pass that Sam stumbled upon a church. The great building and steeple appeared dark and forbidding in the dim evening light but as Sam app
roached she saw that there emanated a soft warm glow from the vestibule. As she approached even closer she could see that just inside the entrance was a tall Christmas tree, beautifully decorated and twinkling with elegant white lights. The Church sign near the gate read:
“CHURCH OF ST JOHN OF THE CROSS: ‘ALL WELCOME’”
“St John” Sam whispered to herself. She felt her spirits lift a little as she approached the entrance. As she got closer she could hear the soft sound of Christmas carols coming from inside.
“Once in Royal David’s city, stood a lowly cattle shed, where a mother laid her baby, in a cradle for a bed……”
Sam passed the Christmas Tree which gave off a delicious fresh pine scent and walked into the church proper. All of the pews were empty and the carols seemed to be coming from the small speakers hidden in the rafters. The sound was nonetheless beautiful and gently filled the great space. At the far end of the church stood a verger, dressed all in black, putting the finishing touches to a large Christmas wreath of holly and berries. She was a grey haired woman of slim build wearing spectacles with a green rim. Her face was red and smiling and she moved her head from side to side in time with the music. As the Verger heard the footsteps coming down the aisle, she turned around suddenly. Her initial response was one of alarm at seeing Sam’s dishevelled appearance coming towards her from a distance, but as she drew closer and saw the tired worn look upon Sam’s face and noticed her shivering; her anxiety quickly melted away.
A Christmas Cameron Page 10
