I'll Be Home for Christmas

by Tom Becker

  Sorry. I’m OK, now.

  Me? Thank you for asking, Angela. Sane as the day is long, except I did start getting these vicious headaches at pretty well the same time. Coincidence – of course!

  And no, in case you were worrying, none of you are going to have your brains turned to scrambled egg, you needn’t worry about that. Amazing how fast tech develops these days, isn’t it? It was only twelve years ago when Dad used Meem technology to change our memories. And now, well, now they can change the memories of the entire nation … and no one even knows about it.

  Angela! A thought’s just occurred to me. I’m wondering if it could be that you’ve sat here and watched similar jars being emptied into the water supply. Could it be that you are – I hate to bring it up, but you never know – actually complicit in the rewriting of our recent political past yourself? Hmm? Well, well, let’s not go there. But if you have, my dear, you can relax your guilty conscience. Because this jar, unlike any others that you may or may not have seen go into our waterways – this jar is the Truth. This is going to reverse everything. All the lies, all the inventions. Everything back to how it was. More or less. I don’t know everything myself, of course – had to fill a few gaps, make up a bit here and there. But hey – that’s the nature of truth, eh? It’s an imperfect thing. I guess it always was.

  What? Sorry? What? How do I know all this? Oh, right. I found the files. See, I work for him. Yeah, I know. I was lying about being cool. I’m actually a geek. A big one. Yep. A great, big, fat geek. I started getting flashbacks, that was the start of it. Double memories. That’s weird, I thought to myself – how come it’s both Mum and Dad sitting around opening presents with us on Christmas Day, when Mum was also spending Christmas in rehab? How come it’s both Mum and Dad kissing my knee better that time I fell off the slide at the local park. How come…

  The flashbacks got worse. I put two and two together. I was working in Dad’s office at the time, helping to coordinate his political rehab, so I did a bit of digging.

  And guess what I found out? I found out that everything I remembered was shit. All of it. My entire childhood had been retooled to make that fucker look good. What do you think of that? He created this version inside my head, where he – the biggest, most absent, philandering, lying, unreliable and occasionally violent father who ever walked this earth – is turned into Mr Nibbily-Niceicles. And my mum, my poor, long-suffering mum, my kind, caring, doting, loving mum, who was always there for us, day and night, who did her best right up to the point where she could put up with him no more, was turned more or less into … him! Yes. A drinking, shagging, lying machine. My lovely mum. He did that to her. He turned her into him.

  How about that? Can you imagine that? He destroyed his own family to make himself look good.

  What’s that? Why didn’t I just publish the files? I did! And you know what? No one took any notice. Meems, you see. One of the easiest things to do is interfere with the relative importance of things. The PM sent to jail for fraud? Who cares! Destroyed his family’s minds with Meem tech? Nah. You’d have to be crazy to believe nonsense like that…

  Oh, Jesus, here it comes again. I get these headaches like you wouldn’t believe. Bad tech. Oh, God, that hurts. Ow ow ow ow. They got even worse when I reversed what they’d done to me. Reprogrammed the Meems – it can be done. Resculpted the brain, put back what had been changed. If I’d had just a bit more time … just a bit, I might have fixed it up a bit better. Oh…!

  There, it’s going. Thank God. It’s like cramps. All you can do is wait for it to pass.

  Yeah, well. I’m afraid you’re going to find out all about the headaches. My Meems are a little bit … kinda homemade. The Meems he used on me and Mum and Val, they were pretty crap, and I had to use his leftovers. ’Fraid so. Couldn’t start from scratch – didn’t have the equipment or the skills. I had to do it at home on my Mac, with a glass jar and a bottle of rejects. Such is the nature of Truth. Whereas the ones he used on you and the rest of the nation, Angela, to reshape your attitudes and memories of him – that’s a different ball game altogether. Of course he had a huge business consortium behind him by then. Billions of pounds … dollars, euros, yen, roubles, yuan. They’re all in on it.

  Right, I think we’re ready. I’ll just fix the jar in place. Final check…

  Apparently Mum found out some of what he was up to, threatened to go public unless he gave her a divorce. Was prepared to do it quietly, but he wasn’t having that. She wanted the kids, you see – no way was he having that! That might have a negative effect on his electoral chances. So he tried to change her mind instead. First, by argument. Then, threats. Finally, with Nanomeems. Failed on all counts. Tried to change Val. Failed. Managed it just about with me. See? I’m only a bit crazy. Don’t you think? I do get a bit confused sometimes, but that’s because I have two complete sets of memories in my head. One real, one fake. It’s exhausting.

  Still, it’s a small price to pay when you consider what a great boon to mankind Nanomeems have been. For hundreds of years politicians of all creeds have been reduced, entirely against their will, to lying and cheating in order to make sure we have a proper, professional administration. They don’t have to do that any more, thank God. They just change the truth.

  There! Away they go. Bye bye, little Meems! Into the water system. Over one hundred billion of them in that one jar. Amazing, isn’t it? Like so many tiny sperms, fertilizing the heads of the nation with the Truth.

  Of course, not everyone will get to see him in his Santa costume, but not many will slip through the net. It’ll be all over the news, on TV, in the cinema. Magazines and newspapers. Posters on the street. And then – truth and headaches, Angela. Truth and headaches. Happy Christmas! Ho, ho, ho.

  Tomorrow morning, when you turn on your TV, there’ll he’ll be, my dad in his Santa suit. What’s supposed to happen is – Lo! Hope! Trust! Joy! The spirit of Christmas! All those lovely Christmassy feelings welling up into your hearts. Happy Christmas. Happy Markie Holloway! Good will and peace to all men! The Christmas spirit. Markie is coming home! It makes so much sense!

  See him lose an election after that? I don’t think so!

  But he’s not Santa, is he? He’s the Grinch. He stole Christmas off me and now he’s trying to steal it off you as well. He’s trying to steal it off every man, woman and child in the country.

  You think I’m crazy, I expect. Well, maybe I am. But when you turn on your TV in the morning and see my old man in his Santa suit, or on the front page of papers, or on a poster as you drive back from your mum’s on Boxing Day, it won’t be Christmas joy you’re gonna feel. It’ll be disgust. Revulsion. Anger. A soupçon of hatred and bitterness. A sense of betrayal. By this time tomorrow afternoon, you won’t be able to stand the sight of him.

  There. I’m done. What can I say? Sorry I had to put you through this, Angela. Sorry about the headaches, too. Have a good Christmas – and don’t forget to vote next time round. It’s your say in the government of this country.

  Bye!

  The Bluebird

  –

  Julie Mayhew

  This voice. Very quietly.

  Let’s start at the start.

  It’s winter. Moony night in a small town. Trainer-scuff black. Follow me, invisible, down to the Coke-bottle bobbing sea, past terraced kingdoms (with enchanted gardens just about big enough for the wheelie bins). See the cashpoint, charity shop, betting shop, chippy. Smell the beer-and-crisps lure of The Dog and Sparrow (but beware the troll who asks for ID). All about the town, lights are roped, more gaudy than a landlady’s jewellery. Strings of treasure they are, a sign that joy is around the corner. Unless the way they wink only reminds you how distant life is from a Christmas-card scene.

  Onwards we go, through golden ink spots dropped by lampposts, past doorways spilling real warmth and fake laughter. There’s treasure afresh to be found as we near the suck and spit of the great grey ocean – treasure more valuable than starfish and se
aweed, crabs and old shoes. The lights of the Magical Palace shine all year, whatever the season, yet still no one comes to this yawning, dumbhead town to play the amusements. People only come here to sleep. For this town is a home. And home is a place people go back to, not a place they head for in the first place. So take the advice of a resident – those grab machines in the Magical Palace will never reward you with what you desire. I’ve been trying to get me a bluebird for months now. Could have bought one outright five times over with the gold that machine has eaten.

  Look, listen and cross the road. Step inside the Co-op on the corner.

  See that girl with the long-long hair buying baked beans? She’s called Rae. She likes a bit of Dylan Thomas, if you hadn’t noticed. Doesn’t mind a bit of Poe either, a Grimm tale or two. Books, basically. Stories and tales and songs and skits – the things we gift ourselves when the universe refuses to pay out. This girl, this Rae, you don’t see her much, whether it’s December-cold or the sun is sending ice cream running down your wrists. When Rae’s not at school, she’s locked in a tower. Some say it’s an ogre that keeps her there. That’s what they call Rae’s dad. Though they don’t understand. Ogres grow out of difficult situations. If your mum does a moonlight flit, leaving no word of explanation, it bends and shapes your so-soft dad into something seeming less human.

  So look up, up, above the Magical Palace, above the coloured bulbs that are cursed to dance that sequence for eternity, and there you’ll see it. The tower. The two-bed flat. The living-room windows, at least. The entrance is on the side street by the skip and the cobbles, and that’s the view Rae has when she sings from her window. There are no tunes of jolly snowmen and candy canes and sleigh rides and bells. Not when Rae is doing the deciding. Judy knew how to tell it. All the right festive words – a gay yuletide, days of gold – set to a key that will break your heart.

  But turn your gaze, for now, away from Rae and on to the boy in the Co-op confectionery aisle. Because he’s the important one in this story. Watch as he zips a box of Ferrero Rocher inside his trackie top. That’s Ben, prince to Pregnant Tanya, and he’s shoplifting only because it’s bad luck to ignore the cravings of a girl who’s expecting. Rae sees what he’s doing – oh, she’s observant as well as being lyrical – but she doesn’t give it too much mind. If she did, she’d have to notice how Ben and Tanya are part of a gang, a family of sorts, made up of people a little bit like you but different enough to be different. People you choose. Ones you don’t have thrust upon you. And noticing that would make Rae sad.

  So she pays, leaves, doesn’t let herself sigh.

  *

  She heads back to the two-bed tower as the cold-cold day turns into a freezing night. She upends those beans into a pan and serves them warm on toast to the friendly ogre, who is watching the snooker. Then later when Rae is in her room, singing Judy’s seasonal, sorrowful song about faraway troubles, Prince Ben happens to be passing the Magical Palace. He hears our Rae singing that song, letting it drift down from her bedroom window, past the skip, across the cobbles, and he feels it enter his hard, hoodie-covered heart. He stands, as if held by a spell, so that he might hear more. Though lord only knows why! Oh, Rae can sing sweet enough but – here she goes! – shifting into a new song, an unseasonal one, with words so sour – all about a bird breaking into a house and getting more than a broken wing for its trouble.

  “Hey! Rae!”

  The stone pings from the window and bounces into the rubble of the skip. The tune cuts. And there is Rae, long-long hair tucked for safety behind her ears, hanging from the window frame, peering into the gloom at the cobbles below.

  “Whaddya want?” she says, not measuring out her words, even though this is His Royal Highness, Prince Ben of the seaside, stealer of Ferrero Rocher, breaker of hearts.

  “You,” he replies. “Come down here.”

  She scoffs. She splutters. “You’ve gotta be kidding!”

  And Ben scoffs and splutters in return. He has never had anyone say ‘no’ to him before. He is struck dumb now, as well as still. He is struck fascinated.

  “Me dad’ll be done with his dinner soon,” Rae goes on. “Then he’ll need a cup of tea. And who’ll be doing that if I’m gabbing on the street?”

  “Well, he knows where the kettle is, dun’t he?” says Ben, recovering his tongue.

  “Yeah, but by the time he’s got to it, he’ll have forgotten what he wanted it for.” Oh, it’s so hard to explain to the ogre-uninitiated! “I just don’t want him to have the stress.”

  “Oh,” says Ben. “Oh.”

  “Oh,” says Rae. “Oh.” And though she has always known how to pitch a note to dismantle even the most vigorous of listeners, she had never before realized the power of her own speaking voice. That is, she had never really noticed what was in it – lurking, giving her away. There in that everyday melody, without her having to try, was an overwhelming sadness. She hears it as she sends words out to the prince below and she cannot pretend that he doesn’t hear it, too.

  “Oh, come on, Rae!” The prince begins his gentle begging. “Let your hair down. We all need to let our hair down every once in a while.”

  Maybe it was the timing, the position of the moon marking out the angles of his face, the clouds his breath made in the lamplit dark. Maybe it was a perfect alchemy of hormones and the upcoming holidays. Or could it have just been the distant promise of a stolen Ferrero Rocher. Whatever it was, just as her song had drifted down, Ben’s words drifted up. Those words, they enter Rae’s closed-off, cardiganned heart.

  *

  There was to be a day trip – a quest, if you like – to the next town, to see if it was as slow and black as the place they had always called home. To see how gaudy its Christmas lights dared to be. Rae is invited.

  But she has been warned about villainous boys and witchy girls and the dangerous world outside their flat. The ogre is hopeless at making tea, but he is good at warnings. It would be a waste of hard-won time even to bother asking to go.

  But every night, as the hush comes, Ben is there at Rae’s window with words of persuasion.

  “Come out, Rae, have some fun, let your hair down.”

  He even shins up the drainpipe, using the leverage of the lip of the never-emptied skip, and places an early Christmas gift on the peeling paint of her bedroom windowsill. It is a necklace – shiny and star-like, with a stone impersonating the beauty of a ruby – and it is the most brilliant thing she has ever seen. Treasure – maybe. She puts it on, looks at herself in the mirror and catches a glimpse of who she might turn out to be.

  *

  When Rae finally finds the courage to ask, the answer comes just as she had foretold.

  “No,” says the ogre. “No way, no how.”

  She lets some days pass and asks again.

  “No, Rae, no. Who’ll get my tea? Who’ll answer the door if someone knocks? What if your mum calls? It’s Christmas soon. She’ll be thinking of us now. What’ll happen then?”

  But she won’t call, Dad, is what Rae wants to tell the poor, downtrodden ogre, but it doesn’t need saying out loud. He knows it already.

  Our Rae does not give up though. She may not be popular, or skilled at being free, but she’s nothing short of hardworking. In all things. English, maths, housework, care. And so she applies her diligence to convincing the ogre to let her go.

  It’s just one day, she says, just a few miles away. It’s just, it’s just, it’s just…

  And the ogre begins to soften.

  He sets her tasks.

  “Fix that drip on the bathroom tap, then maybe I’ll let you go.”

  “Get the council to sort out the damp in the kitchen, then maybe I’ll let you go.”

  “Get that Bolognese crust out of the living-room carpet once and for all, then maybe…”

  So Rae wrenches and phones, she washes and scrubs. She goes above and beyond, onwards and over. She fetches paint and brushes to brighten the walls of every room, runs up a new livin
g-room curtain to please you peerers-in. She sweeps out the kitchen cupboards, evicting all mice (which, in this story at least, show no signs of banding together to sew Rae a dress for an upcoming ball). She drags home a tree and decorates its branches, sensing a glimmer of how it might feel to sing a song in a different key. And it is only then, as the angel is placed up high, almost out of reach, that the ogre issues his final task: “Now bring back your mother.”

  The skin is hanging heavier than ever from the bones of his face. His black eyes are wet in the flickering light of a late-night comedy. Laughter spills from the television.

  I can’t, thinks Rae. My mother is a puff of smoke, a green gas. She was turned into a white rabbit, a pumpkin, a croaking frog, long long ago. She is far far away.

  But Rae doesn’t say this. She strokes the stray hairs on the ogre’s head and takes herself off to bed.

  *

  Morning. In the dark before dawn, while the salt winds still whistle through the alleyways and passages, Rae combs her long-long hair and decides to let it hang free. It whips across her face as she opens her bedroom window and climbs out, away from all the Thou Shalt Nots of that two-bedroomed flat above the Magical Palace. She slides down the drainpipe and waiting beneath is her Prince Ben with his trusty steed (a rust-dappled 1997 Fiat Uno he affectionately refers to as Jacob). They gallop away – just one car in a joyous family procession, off on a quest for a treasure called fun.

  When they arrive in the next town, gasping exhaust smoke and their own anticipation, their mouths fall open to see a pier that hasn’t slipped into the water, fairground rides that haven’t been eaten by the brine. Those so-called villainous boys and witchy girls tumble out of their cars and on to the sands in search of candyfloss and a decent tattoo parlour. The rising sun dances on a clear bobbing sea, making no promises of warmth but guarantees of light. Other people arrive, and they come to play, not to sleep.

  “That baby ain’t mine,” is what Prince Ben tells Rae later over a banquet for two – chips wrapped in paper, taken to a bench on the promenade edge. “Tanya ain’t mine either.”