A Lot Like Christmas

by Connie Willis

  He’s going to do it, I thought, and almost wished he could. It would be nice to see something good happen.

  Sir Spencer reached his hand out for the book, and Yet to Come drew himself up and pointed his finger at him, and it was not a finger, but the bones of a skeleton.

  I thought, He’s going to speak, and knew what the voice would sound like. It was the voice of Margaret, telling me she wanted a divorce, telling me they had to take an earlier train. The voice of doom.

  I drew in my breath, afraid to hear it, and the secretary leaned forward. “Sir Spencer does not sign body parts,” she said sternly. “If you do not have a book, please step aside.”

  And that was that. Sir Spencer signed newly purchased hardbacks until a quarter of three and then stood up in midscrawl and went out the previously arranged back way.

  “He didn’t finish,” the young girl whose book he had been in the midst of signing said plaintively, and I took the book and the pen and started after him, though without much hope.

  I caught him at the door. “There are still people in the queue who haven’t had their books signed,” I said, holding out the book and pen, but the secretary had interposed herself between us.

  “Sir Spencer will be signing on the second at Hatchard’s,” she said. “Tell them they can try again there.”

  “It’s Christmas,” I said, and took hold of his sleeve.

  He looked pointedly at it.

  “You’ll miss your plane to Majorca,” the secretary said, and he pulled his sleeve free and swept away, looking at his watch. “Late,” I heard the secretary say.

  I was still holding the pen and the open book, with its half-finished S. I took it back to the girl. “If you’d like to leave it, I’ll try to get it signed for you. Was it a Christmas present?”

  “Yes, for my father,” she said, “but I won’t see him till after Christmas, so that’s all right.”

  I took her name and telephone number, set the books on the order desk, and began taking down the posters.

  I had thought perhaps Yet to Come would have disappeared after his failure with Sir Spencer like the others had, but he was still there, putting books into boxes.

  He seemed somehow more silent—which was impossible, he had never spoken a word—and downcast, which was ridiculous, as well. The Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come was supposed to be dreadful, terrifying, but he seemed to have shrunk into himself. Like Gemma, shrinking against the shelves.

  It’s Sir Spencer that’s terrifying, I thought, and his secretary. And her gold Rolex watch. “Scrooges are praised and much rewarded for their greed,” Present had said, and so they were, with Savile Row suits and knighthoods and Majorca. No wonder the spirits had fallen on hard times.

  “At least you tried,” I said. “There are some battles that are lost before they’re begun.”

  Children’s came over to buy a gift. “For Housewares. I told her I didn’t believe in exchanging with colleagues,” she said irritably, “but she’s bought me something anyway. And I’d planned on leaving early. I suppose you are, too, so you can spend the evening with your little girl.”

  I looked at my watch. It was after three. They would be leaving for the station soon, and Robert’s parents, and the orthodontist.

  I cleared away the refreshments. I put foil over the plum pudding and set it next to the girl’s book, which I had no hope of getting signed, and went back to help Yet to Come take Making Money Hand Over Fist down from the shelves, trying not to think about Gemma and Christmas Eve.

  The spirit stopped suddenly and drew himself up and pointed, the robe falling away from his bony hand. I turned, afraid of more bad news, and there was Gemma in the aisle, working her way toward us.

  She was pushing steadily upstream through shoppers who all seemed to be going in the opposite direction, ducking between shopping bags with a determined expression on her narrow face.

  “Gemma!” I said, and pulled her safely out of the aisle. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to tell you goodbye and that I’m sorry I can’t come for Christmas Eve.”

  I raised my head and tried to see down the aisle. “Where’s your mother? You didn’t come here alone, did you?”

  “Mummy’s up on fifth,” she said. “With the dolls. I told her I’d changed my mind about wanting one. A bride doll. With green eyes.” She looked pleased with herself, as well she might. It was no small accomplishment to have gotten Margaret back here half an hour before they were to meet Robert at the station, and she would never have agreed if she’d known why Gemma wanted to come. I could imagine her arguments—there isn’t time, you’ll see him the day after New Year’s, we can’t inconvenience Robert, who after all is paying for your brace—and so could Gemma, apparently, and had sidestepped them neatly.

  “Did you tell her you were coming down to third?” I said, trying to look disapproving.

  “She told me to go look at games so I wouldn’t see her buying the doll,” she said. “I wanted to tell you I’d rather be with you Christmas Eve.”

  I love you, I thought.

  “I think when I do come,” she said seriously, “that we should pretend that it is Christmas Eve, like the little princess and Becky.”

  “They pretended it was Christmas Eve?”

  “No. When the little princess was cold or hungry or sad she pretended her garret was the Bastille.”

  “The Bastille,” I said thoughtfully. “I don’t think they had figs in the Bastille.”

  “No.” She laughed. “The little princess pretended all sorts of things. When she couldn’t have what she wanted. So I think we should pretend it’s Christmas Eve, and wear paper hats and light the tree and say things like, ‘It’s nearly Christmas,’ and ‘Oh, listen, the Christmas bells are chiming.’ ”

  “And ‘Pass the figs, please,’ ” I said.

  “This is serious,” she said. “We’ll be together next Christmas, but till then we’ll have to pretend.” She paused, and looked solemn. “I’m going to have a good time in Surrey,” she said, and her voice died away uncertainly.

  “Of course you’ll have a good time,” I said heartily. “You’ll get huge heaps of presents, and eat lots of goose. And figs. I hear in Surrey they use figs for stuffing.” I hugged her to me.

  A thin gray woman with rather the look of Miss Minchin came up. “Pardon me, do you work here?” she said disapprovingly.

  “I’ll be with you in just a moment,” I said.

  Yet to Come hurried up, but the woman waved him away. “I’m looking for a book,” she said.

  I said to Gemma, “You’d best get back before your mother finishes buying the doll and misses you.”

  “She won’t. The bride dolls are all sold. I asked when I was here before.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling. “She’ll have to send them to check the stockroom,” she said airily, looking just like her mother, and I remembered suddenly what I had loved about Margaret—her cleverness and the innocent pleasure she took in it, her resourcefulness. Her smile. And it was like being given a boon, a Christmas gift I hadn’t known I wanted.

  “I’m looking for a book,” Miss Minchin repeated. “I saw it in here several weeks ago.”

  “I’d better go,” Gemma said.

  “Yes,” I said, “and tell your mother you don’t want the doll before she turns the stockroom inside out.”

  “I do want it, though,” she said. “The little princess had a doll,” and again that trailing away, as if she had left something unsaid.

  “I thought you said all of them had been sold.”

  “They have,” she said, “but there’s one in the window display, and you know Mummy. She’ll make them give it to her.”

  “Pardon me,” Miss Minchin said insistently. “It was a green book, green and gold.”

  “I’d better go,” Gemma said again.

  “Yes,” I said regretfully.

  “Goodbye,” she said, and plunged into the crush of shoppers, which now was going
the other way.

  “Hardback,” Miss Minchin said. “It was right here on this shelf.”

  Gemma stopped halfway down the aisle, shoppers milling about her, and looked back at me. “You’d better eat the frosted cakes so they won’t grow stale. I’m going to have a good time,” she said, more firmly, and was swallowed by the crowd.

  “It had gold lettering,” Miss Minchin said. “It was by an earl, I think.”

  The book Miss Minchin wanted, after a protracted search, was Sir Spencer’s Making Money Hand Over Fist. Of course.

  “What a sweet little girl you have,” she said as I rang up the sale, all friendliness now that she had gotten what she wanted. “You’re very lucky.”

  “Yes,” I said, though I did not feel lucky.

  I looked at my watch. Five past four. Gemma had already taken the train to Surrey, and I would not see her sweet face again this year, and even if I stayed after closing and put everything back as it had been, there were still all the hours of Christmas Eve to be gotten through. And the day after. And all the days after.

  And the rest of the afternoon, and all the shoppers who had left their shopping till too late, who were cross and tired and angry that we had no more copies of The Outer Space Christmas Carol, and who had counted on our gift wrapping their purchases.

  And Mr. Voskins, who came up to say disapprovingly that he had been very disappointed in the sales from the autographing, and that he wanted the shelves back in order.

  In between, Yet to Come and I folded chairs and carried boxes of Sir S’s books to the basement.

  It grew dark outside, and the crush of shoppers subsided to a trickle. When Yet to Come came over to me with his bony hands full of a box of books, I said, “You needn’t come back up again,” and didn’t even have the heart to wish him a happy Christmas.

  The trickle of shoppers subsided to two desperate-looking young men. I sold them scented journals and started taking Sir S’s books off the literature shelves and putting them in boxes.

  On the second shelf from the top, wedged in behind Making Money Hand Over Fist, I found the other copy of A Little Princess.

  And that seemed somehow the final blow. Not that it had been here all along—there was no real difference between its not being there and my not being able to find it, and Gemma would love it as much when I gave it to her next week as she would have Christmas morning—but that Sir Spencer Siddon, Sir Scrawl of the new hardbacks only and the Armentières water, Sir Scrooge and his damnable secretary who had not even recognized the Spirits of Christmas, let alone heeded them, who had no desire to keep Christmas, had cost Gemma hers.

  “Hard times,” I said, and sank down in the wing chair. “I have fallen on hard times.” After a while I opened the book and turned the pages, looking at the colored plates. The little princess and her father in her carriage. The little princess and her father at the school. The little princess and her father.

  The birthday party. The little princess huddled against a wall, her doll clutched to her, looking hunted.

  “The little princess had a doll,” she’d said, and meant, “to help her through hard times.”

  The way the little princess’s doll had helped her when she lost her father. The way the book had helped Gemma.

  “I find books a great comfort,” I had told the Spirit of Christmas Present. And so had Gemma, who had lost her father.

  “I’m going to have a good time in Surrey,” she had said, her voice trailing off, and I could finish that sentence, too. “In spite of everything.”

  Not a hope, but a determination to try to be happy in spite of circumstance, as the little princess had tried to be happy in her chilly garret. “I’m going to have a good time,” she’d said again, turning at the last minute, and it was rebuke and reminder and instruction, all at once. And comfort.

  I stood a moment, looking at the book, and then closed it and put it carefully back on the shelf, the way Gemma had.

  I went over to the order desk and picked up the plum pudding. The book the girl had left for Sir Spencer to finish signing was under it. I opened it and took out the paper with her name and address on it.

  Martha. I found the fountain pen, with its viridian ink, uncapped it, and drew a scrawl that looked a little like Sir Spencer’s. “To Martha’s father,” I wrote above it. “Money isn’t everything!” And I went to find the spirits.

  If they could be found. If they had not, after all, found other employment with the barrister or the banker, or taken a plane to Majorca, or gone up to Surrey.

  Mama Montoni’s had a large Closed sign hanging inside the door, and the light above the counter was switched off, but when I tried the door it wasn’t locked. I opened it, carefully, so the buzzer wouldn’t sound, and leaned in. Mama Montoni must have switched off the heat as well. It was icy inside.

  They were sitting at the table in the corner, hunched forward over it as if they were cold. Yet to Come had his hands up inside his sleeves, and Present kept tugging at his button as if to pull the green robe closer. He was reading to them from A Christmas Carol.

  “ ‘ “You will be haunted,” resumed the Ghost of Marley, “by three spirits,” ’ ” Present read. “ ‘ “Is this the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?” he demanded in a faltering voice. “It is.” “I—I think I’d rather not,” said Scrooge. “Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.” ’ ”

  I banged the door open and strode in. “ ‘Come, dine with me, uncle,’ ” I said.

  They all turned to look at me.

  “We are past that place,” Marley said. “Scrooge’s nephew has already gone home, and so has Scrooge.”

  “We are at the place where Scrooge is being visited by Marley,” Present said, pulling out a chair. “Will you join us?”

  “No,” I said. “You are at the place where you must visit me.”

  Mama Montoni came rushing out from the back. “I’m closed!” she growled. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” I said, “and Mama Montoni’s is closed, so you must dine with me.”

  They looked at each other. Mama Montoni snatched the Closed sign from the door and brandished it in my face. “I’m closed!”

  “I can’t offer much. Figs. I have figs. And frosted cakes. And Sir Walter Scott. ‘ ’Twas Christmas broach’d the mightiest ale, / ’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale.’ ”

  “ ‘A Christmas gambol oft could cheer / The poorest man’s heart through half the year,’ ” Present murmured, but none of them moved. Mama Montoni started for the phone, to dial 999, no doubt.

  “No one should be alone on Christmas Eve,” I said.

  They looked at each other again, and then Yet to Come stood up and glided over to me.

  “The time grows short,” I said, and Yet to Come extended his finger and pointed at them. Marley stood up, and then Present, closing his book gently.

  Mama Montoni herded us out the door, looking daggers. I pulled A Christmas Carol out of my pocket and handed it to her. “Excellent book,” I said. “Instructive.”

  She banged the door shut behind us and locked it. “Merry Christmas,” I said to her through the door, and led the way home, though before we had reached the tube station, Yet to Come was ahead, his finger pointing the way to the train, and my street, and my flat.

  “We’ve black-currant tea,” I said, going into the kitchen to put on the kettle. “And figs. Please, make yourselves at home. Present, the Dickens is in that bookcase, top shelf, and the Scott’s just under it.”

  I set out sugar and milk and the frosted cakes I’d bought for Gemma. I took the foil off the plum pudding. “Courtesy of Sir Spencer Siddon, who, unfortunately, remains a miser,” I said, setting it on the table. “I’m sorry you failed to find someone to reform.”

  “We have had some small success,” Present said from the bookcase, and Marley smiled slyly.

  “Who?” I said. “Not Mama
Montoni?”

  The kettle whistled. I poured the boiling water over the tea and brought the teapot in. “Come, come, sit down. Present, bring your book with you. You can read to us while the tea steeps.” I pulled out a chair for him. “But first you must tell me about this person you reformed.”

  Marley and Yet to Come looked at each other as if they shared a secret, and both of them looked at Christmas Present.

  “You have read Scott’s ‘Marmion,’ have you not?” he said, and I knew that, whoever it was, they weren’t going to tell me. One of the people in the queue, perhaps? Or Harridge?

  “I always think ‘Marmion’ an excellent poem for Christmas,” Present said, and opened the book.

  “ ‘And well our Christian sires of old,’ ” he read, “ ‘loved when the year its course had roll’d, / and brought blithe Christmas back again, / with all his hospitable train.’ ”

  I poured out the tea.

  “ ‘The wassail round, in good brown bowls,’ ” he read, “ ‘garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.’ ” He put down the book and raised his teacup in a toast. “To Sir Walter Scott, who knew how to keep Christmas!”

  “And to Mr. Dickens,” Marley said, “the founder of the feast.”

  “To books!” I said, thinking of Gemma and A Little Princess, “which instruct and sustain us through hard times.”

  “ ‘Heap on more wood!’ ” Present said, taking up his book again, “ ‘the wind is chill; / But let it whistle as it will, / We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.’ ”

  I poured out more tea, and we ate the frosted cakes and Gemma’s figs and half a meat pie I found in the back of the refrigerator, and Present read us “Lochinvar,” with sound effects.

  As I was bringing in the second pot of tea, the clock began to strike, and outside, church bells began to ring. I looked at the clock. It was, impossibly, midnight.

  “Christmas already!” Present said jovially. “Here’s to evenings with friends that fly too fast.”

  “And the friends who make it fly,” I said.