The Christmas Hypothesis

by Anna Blix

  She knew too well that the day would come when her father was too old to run the farm, and she dreaded that day. Who was going to take over if she didn’t do it? Would they have to sell? She still hadn’t told him about the letter she kept hidden in her dresser, but she knew she would have to reach a decision soon.

  “I’ll be fine,” Mr Sheldon said. “I’m going mad just moping around the house all day long.”

  Even though Clare did most of the work that day, it was quicker and easier caring for the reindeer with her dad helping. Clare took care of half of the herd while Mr Sheldon checked on the remaining animals. They finished up in forty-five minutes and headed back down the mountain in the four-by-four.

  Back at the farm, when Clare was getting out of her car, her phone rang.

  “You go ahead, Dad. I’ll see you back at the house.”

  Ten minutes later, Clare placed her wet boots on the old newspapers spread out just inside the door and hung her coat up.

  “Dad,” she called. “I need to go to London for a couple of days.”

  Floorboards squeaked above her head and her dad’s voice spoke from upstairs, “How so?”

  “Somebody called me about a reindeer. Sounded like they were in over their heads.”

  Her father came down the stairs with a jumper in his hand. “Let me guess, now they want you to come and bail them out.” He pulled the jumper over his head.

  Every once in a while and particularly around Christmas, people called the farm when a situation had got out of hand, and Claire had rescued a fair few reindeer in her days.

  “Yep, pretty much,” she said.

  “And what have those London capitalists done now?”

  “Same old story, really. Some city farmer bought themselves a reindeer from a dubious importer, thinking it would be a fun novelty that would bring a crowd and lots of cash for Christmas. Only thing, the novelty wasn’t so fun anymore when rutting season started and the reindeer went stampeding in its little pen.”

  “Stupid gits.”

  “Aye. And now they’ve gone and found us on the Internet, and oh, come to think of it, wouldn’t it be better if the reindeer could come and live here with us in Scotland? Then it could roam the wilderness, in the company of like-minded.”

  Her father smiled. “They’ve got a good point though. It would be better.”

  “It would. A lot better.” Clare could only agree, but why should it be her job to bail these people out? She walked into the kitchen. “Although it’s irritating, those numpties think they’re doing me a big favour. Phoning me up, and very kindly offering me a reindeer, when I’m the one getting them out of trouble.” She filled the kettle while her dad sat at the table.

  “So are you going to drive down there and collect it?”

  “I guess so.” She put the kettle on the stove. “I’d hate to leave the poor animal to suffer in that place. But I’ll only go if you think you can manage. You don’t have to go up on the mountain again while I’m away, Dad. The herd will be fine for a couple of days.”

  “I’ll manage. Don’t you worry about me. And besides, Christmas shopping should be at its height in London. Maybe you can buy me a musical necktie when you’re there.”

  “Haha, very funny. Watch it, or I might actually do it. Or I’ll get you some light-up reindeer antlers. That might be more appropriate.”

  As far as Clare was concerned, Christmas was all just a big moneymaking machine, best left to the easily gullible. Her idea of a good Christmas was staying on the mountain with her dad and the reindeer, far away from any shops or other spectacles, waiting for the whole thing to be over with. She refused to spend a bucketload of money on some overpriced plastic bits that were going to be thrown out by Boxing Day.

  “I’ll set off before dawn tomorrow, then,” she said. “Should be back late the day after.” The kettle whistled on the stove, and she poured them each a cup of tea.

  Claire went upstairs to pack her bag. Save for the few years she had spent at university, she had lived in the same room since she was a little girl, and the room still carried the marks of the days and nights she had spent in it. The stripy yellow wallpaper her mother had chosen for her when she was five years old had scuffmarks, and in the corner was a crayon drawing of a pony. Her bookshelves were an eclectic mix of classics, teen romance, modern thrillers and a few childhood favourites that had earned themselves a permanent position.

  She opened the doors to her large pine wardrobe and took out the clothes she needed for a few days away. A couple of T-shirts, a knitted jumper, nightie. She even packed a dress.

  She opened the top left drawer of her dresser to get some socks out — and there was the letter. Clare quickly buried it under her socks again. She didn’t want to think about it right now. But she knew she was going to have to deal with it soon. They had already given her plenty of time to decide, and they were waiting for her answer.

  She had often wondered where she would have been if she had not come back to her dad’s farm that summer five years ago, after graduating from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in engineering. It was only meant to be temporary until he could hire staff to help him. But here she was, five years later, still working on the farm.

  One day, not long before her dad came down with the flu, Clare had taken a day off to go to Edinburgh. She had told him she was going shopping with friends. In her defence, this was true — she had run into some old school friends on the bus. And she had bought herself a new pair of jeans while she was there. But those were not the main reasons she had travelled to Edinburgh that day. She had been called for a job interview at a start-up company which developed mechanical design software. It had been founded by three friends she had known at uni and kept in touch with. A few days later, they called and offered her the job. And then the contract arrived in the post. She just couldn’t bring her self to sign it. Not yet.

  Clare set off before dawn the following morning. Her father was out of bed, but still in his pyjamas.

  “Bye, Dad. You look after yourself now. I’ll call you when I get there.”

  “I’ll be fine. And you tell those Londoners to stay away from keeping reindeer from now on. And be home before Christmas. I don’t want to sit here alone on Christmas Day.”

  “I promise, Dad. I’ll only be away for one night.” She kissed his cheek.

  Clare threw a worried glance in the side mirror when she drove down the lane with the trailer in tow. She didn’t like leaving Scotland, and she didn’t like going to London. Especially not at Christmas.

  12

  Niklas woke up after his afternoon nap, which, judging by the darkness outside, had extended into the evening. He got up and gave Black the cat — who had now settled for the foot end of his bed — a pat on the head. Four weeks had gone by since his arrival in London, and the whole time the weather had been a constant grey drizzle, which perfectly matched his mood.

  On one of those drizzly days, Niklas had made his way to the local job centre, where a lady in frilly hair and cat-eye glasses had asked him a load of questions and requested a load of papers that he didn’t possess. In the end, she had promised she would phone him as soon as a job came up in any of the research fields: polar science, ice formations, or Arctic ecosystems. But two weeks later, she still had not been in touch.

  His landlady, Mrs Dollimore, kept insisting they should get to know each other better, and every chance she had, she wanted to make him coffee and sit down and talk. Most of the time, she was happy to chat about her son and her late husband and the things they used to do back when her son was a child. This wasn’t too bad because Niklas could zone out and simply nod every once in a while, but now and then, the little lady asked Niklas a probing question about himself. This he didn’t like, and he always made a point of grunting his evasive answer. Frankly, he couldn’t see how his situation was any of Mrs Dollimore’s business.

  Niklas headed downstairs for the coronation chicken sandwich he had left in Mrs Dolli
more’s fridge. It was a new discovery he had made, and a surprising one. Imagine mixing chicken, curry powder, mayonnaise and raisins. Raisins! Then putting it all in a sandwich. Niklas couldn’t get his head around it, but yet, the proof was here in his hand. It was by far his favourite thing about his new life in England, followed by the new smartphone he had bought and the Twitter account he had created on it.

  The house seemed unusually quiet. Maybe the lady was out? Niklas carried the sandwich on a plate through the breakfast room and out to the hallway, but stopped at the bottom of the stairs — it really was very quiet. A change of scenery from his floral room might do him good. He turned and brought his dinner into the living room instead, where he sat on Mrs Dollimore’s pink plush sofa and tucked into the sandwich, while at the same time checking his Twitter feed. In the corner of the room stood an old grandfather clock, ticking away as he ate, lulling him into comfort. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

  When he had finished the sandwich he leaned back against the soft plush, and continued to aimlessly click his way around the Internet. Mrs Dollimore must have left the heating on when she left. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier and soon they closed. His hand lowered. Tick-tock.

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  Niklas jumped. The phone fell out of his hand and dropped to the floor. He wiped his chin with his hand and sat up straight. Mrs Dollimore was standing in the middle of the room. How had she crept up on him without making a single sound? Who was she, a ninja? Now it was too late for him to sneak upstairs.

  He stooped to pick up his phone, grunting, “Okay.”

  Mrs Dollimore chose the armchair opposite him and reached for her knitting in a wicker basket on the side. She looked up at him, then studied her knitting pattern. After a while, she said, “I hope you don’t mind my asking, Niklas… But I was wondering… How’s your work going?”

  “What?”

  “You mentioned you were a scientist. Aren’t you here with work? You said you would be doing something that will last until Christmas? I just wondered how it’s going.” She set the knitting pattern on the coffee table in front of her.

  “Okay,” grunted Niklas.

  Mrs Dollimore worked a few stitches, and then she said, “I’m only asking because my son and his wife will arrive any day now. Do you think you’ll finish in time?”

  Niklas checked his Twitter feed for a second time. Nothing of interest. Maybe he should find some new accounts to follow.

  “What exactly is it you do again, Niklas? I haven’t noticed you actually… well, doing anything.”

  “I haven’t started yet.”

  “Oh? You haven’t started…” Mrs Dollimore turned her knitting around. “But you’ve been here for… Are you waiting for some colleagues to join you from Finland?”

  Niklas kept his eyes fixed on the phone screen. “No. I haven’t been to Finland for fifteen years. But I’ll move out. Don’t worry. I’ll go and grab my stuff right now.” He made a move to get up. It was time to call this London project off anyway. He should leave and go somewhere else instead.

  Mrs Dollimore hurriedly set the knitting down in her lap. “Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sure you can stay a few days longer. I’ll let you know when they give me a date.” She worked another row in silence. Then she said, “Where have you been then?”

  “What?”

  “If you haven’t been in Finland for fifteen years, then where have you been?”

  Here was a Twitter profile that looked interesting. Someone posting photos of Jupiter and Neptune from NASA’s space probe missions. He clicked the Follow button. “I’ve been living on a small island in the Arctic Ocean.”

  Mrs Dollimore nodded. “That sounds lovely. Lots of nice little islands there.” She kept on knitting, every once in a while referring to her pattern. After a while, she added, “Which one was it? Madeira? We went there on holiday when Steven was little.”

  Niklas grunted, “Not the Atlantic Ocean. The Arctic Ocean.”

  The little lady’s eyes widened over her knitting. “Oh. The Arctic Ocean... But isn’t it… full of ice? Can you really live there?”

  “There is ice in the Arctic Ocean, yes. But you can live there, though not many people do. Politically, the island belongs to Greenland, which of course is an autonomous Danish territory. But it’s actually very close to the North Pole.”

  “Goodness, the North Pole? That sounds terribly cold. Did you see Father Christmas?”

  Niklas put his phone down on the pink plush armrest and sighed. “No, I didn’t. There’s no Father Christmas at the North Pole, I can vouch for that. And that’s exactly the kind of error that had me swamped in misdirected post.”

  Mrs Dollimore looked up from her knitting. “What’s that? Misdirected post?”

  “Children writing to Santa Claus. My whole room was full of wish lists.”

  Mrs Dollimore stared at him. She opened her mouth, but for once no sound came out, so Niklas continued, “They write and they write and then they put their letters in the post. Where did they think the letters would end up? I’ll tell you where: on my desk!”

  Mrs Dollimore closed her mouth, then she opened it again. “But… I don’t understand. Wish lists? I thought you were a scientist…”

  Niklas shook his head. “They were delivered to me by mistake. And I was a scientist. A polar researcher. But I lost my job. They cut my funding because I didn’t produce any results.”

  “Oh, Niklas. I’m so sorry to hear that. I had no idea.”

  Niklas turned to look out the window. It was dark and the streetlights had come on. He could see his reflection in the glass. The windowpane was speckled with droplets, but he couldn’t make out if it was still raining outside or not. “At the moment I don’t have a job,” he said to the window. “I’ve been trying to find something here, but it’s not that easy.”

  Mrs Dollimore cleared her throat. “Don’t despair. I read something about a slump in the market the other day. But I’m sure it will pick up. You just keep on trying.” She let go of her knitting and punched the air with her little fist.

  Niklas shrugged. “I left my number with the job centre, but they haven’t phoned back.”

  “You hang in there, Niklas. It will be all right in the end, just wait and see.” She smiled reassuringly. “But what happened to all the wish lists? …If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I assume they were destroyed after I left. But I brought one of the letters with me, and I thought… Well, at first, I thought I’d try to find that child. Maybe even give her the present she asked for.” He laughed.

  Mrs Dollimore smiled. “That sounds like a lovely thing to do.”

  “But it was a stupid idea. She didn’t even give an address.”

  “Ah, that complicates things.”

  The pair sat in silence, Mrs Dollimore’s knitting needles clicking along to the grandfather clock.

  After a while, the little lady spoke again. “I have to say, Niklas, it sounds like you’ve had a rough few weeks. No wonder you’ve seemed a bit grumpy.” She set her knitting down and grinned at him. “Tell you what, I happen to have a Pinot Grigio blush in the fridge. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. What do you say, shall we crack it open? I know it’s the middle of the week, but what the heck?”

  A Pinot Grigio blush? Niklas rubbed his beard. “I don’t really drink wine.”

  “It’s very refreshing.”

  “You don’t happen to have any…” He shook his head. “You don’t happen to have any piña colada?”

  “There you go, dear.” Mrs Dollimore placed two tall glasses on floral coasters. “It turns out piña colada is a drink you’re supposed to mix up from a number of ingredients. Did you know that?”

  Niklas shook his head.

  “I had to make a couple of substitutions. Of course, there was no white rum in the house, so we have to make do with white sherry. It’s quite similar, from what I understand. Oh, and I didn’t have any pineapple, so
I used orange juice. There’s coconut in there, though, just like in the recipe.” She raised her glass. “Cheers, Niklas.”

  Niklas clinked his glass against hers. “Kippis.”

  He took a sip of his drink. So this was what a piña colada tasted like. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” He drank some more.

  Mrs Dollimore sipped hers. “I always used to get my Steven to write to Father Christmas, but I never stopped to think his letters would actually end up on somebody’s desk,” she said.

  “No? Where did you think they’d end up?”

  “I don’t know… With the real Father Christmas, I suppose.”

  She sipped her drink. “This is actually quite refreshing. I can’t believe I’ve never had a piña colada before.” She made a smacking noise with her mouth as if she was trying to extract the last bit of essence from the taste.

  Niklas examined the picture on the wall behind Mrs Dollimore. A3 sized, in a dark wooden frame — it looked like an image out of an antique Bible, with two children crossing a rather precarious rope bridge suspended across a rapid stream. Behind them stood a guardian angel, with her arms stretched out in protection. She had white wings and a halo over her blonde curls.

  “Nice angel.”

  Mrs Dollimore smiled. “I’ve had it since I was a little girl. My mother gave it to me.” She tilted her head. “Say Niklas, you don’t think that you are the real Father Christmas then? Since you’ve been receiving all those letters?”

  Niklas laughed. But Mrs Dollimore appeared dead serious. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said. “I don’t really believe in Santa Claus.”

  Mrs Dollimore put her half-full glass down. “Really? You don’t believe in Father Christmas?” She shook her head and reached into her basket for a different colour ball of yarn and a pair of scissors. Snipping the old yarn, she knotted the ends together and continued her knitting.