The Christmas Hypothesis
Page 8
“Then get yourself back in the house. You’re meant to be sick in bed, not entertaining visitors.”
The boy walked back towards the house with slumped shoulders.
“And don’t you dare open the door again if anybody comes knocking,” shouted the woman after him.
Clare had a feeling she’d put her foot in it, even though she couldn’t see what she had done wrong.
The woman turned to her. “And who are you?”
Clare tried a smile. “Sorry if I knocked on the wrong door — I didn’t know you were out here. I’m Clare, we spoke on the phone yesterday.” She stretched out her hand — a gesture that was completely ignored.
The woman waved the rusty hayfork in the air. “Come with me,” she said and strode back inside the barn. Clare followed her inside the building, where a bare lightbulb cast a harsh light over a pen with four sheep. The woman climbed over a gate and started throwing the sheep hay.
“We spoke on the phone yesterday,” repeated Clare. The woman’s expression gave no sign of recognition. “…About the reindeer.”
At last, she reacted. “Ah, Einar, bless him. Yeah, he’s been taken care of. They picked him up this morning.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, maybe I should’ve called you, but I didn’t know if it would make any difference. And besides, I’ve been busy. My boy’s home sick from school, as you saw, and if that wasn’t enough to drive a person mad, I’ve got this farm to take care of.” She shrugged.
Clare exhaled slowly. “Yeah, it would have been helpful if you had let me know you didn’t need me. You do realise I’ve driven all the way from Scotland to help you?”
“I know I said I was going to give you the reindeer for free, but somebody else was willing to pay me two hundred quid for him. First come, first serve.” The woman turned away and resumed throwing hay to the sheep. The animals chewed contentedly.
“They paid two hundred pounds for him? Isn’t that marvellous! And did you bother to find out where he was going? Did you find out anything at all about the people who collected him?”
The woman turned back to Clare. “I don’t know. I assume they were going to parade him around the usual Christmas displays. There’s a lot of that going on at the moment. Good money in it too. Yeah, that’s it — he said they were taking him to a shopping centre.”
Clare could hardly get the words out. She stamped her boot on the concrete floor and pressed through tight lips, “The only thing is, you mentioned to me that this animal…”
“Einar.”
“…Einar the reindeer, had got out of control and trampled one of your helpers here at the farm.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what he did, the crazy brute! Good luck with him, I was going to say, but I didn’t want to miss out on the money. Stupid animal bucking around the barn like mad. Well, not this barn — here’s where we keep the sheep. Took the three of us to wrestle him down. Poor Jake, that’s my helper, broke his arm. Has to take three weeks off, and just before Christmas. Left me in a right pickle. That’s where it happened, that barn over there.” The woman nodded towards the building at the opposite side of the courtyard. “Bat shit crazy. None of us could handle him. Obviously, there was no way we could let him outside. Went bonkers if we tried. Couldn’t even show him to visitors, so what’s the point in having him? And we were thinking of putting on a Santa’s grotto thing. Was supposed to stand outside and the kids could come up and stroke him. But of course, that didn’t go ahead. Bat shit crazy!”
“Anyway, don’t you think it may be a wee bit inappropriate to take this out-of-control reindeer to a shopping centre full of children?”
“To be honest, darling, I don’t care. Not a problem of mine anymore.”
Clare sputtered, “He’s a living animal! Not some Christmas prop!”
“Well, I’ve had quite enough of you now missy. I was kindly doing you a favour, and I would have given him to you for free, but you were too late, so boohoo. You can leave now if you don’t mind.”
Clare had had quite enough of the woman too. She turned to leave, but then she said, “Do you remember which shopping centre they were taking him to?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. A new one, I think he said, but honestly, it could’ve been anywhere. I did him a huge favour, actually. The other reindeer of his apparently failed to deliver, whatever that means. Good thing he found me, or he would have to get dressed up in antlers himself on Saturday. Now off you go!”
Clare saw herself out of the barn.
“Ungrateful people,” the woman muttered behind her.
Clare’s eyes welled up as she crossed the courtyard between the fenced-off paddocks. She no longer bothered to avoid the mud and her new leather boots sank deep, squelching with every step — but she didn’t care. Neither did she care to hold back the tears that rolled down her cheeks. She just wiped them off with her sleeve. The two Shetland ponies stared at her when she passed, eyes even sadder than before.
As Clare passed the barn on the opposite side of the yard, the one the woman had pointed to, she stopped and peered inside. It was a damp and dark space, smaller than the sheep’s barn. The straw on the floor was sparse and wet with urine. In one corner was a bucket, half-full with dirty water. So this was where the reindeer had been kept. “I’ll find you, Einar,” whispered Clare. “I’m bringing you home. Somehow, I’m going to take you home.”
She slipped back outside. The woman was still busy with the sheep. It seemed she hadn’t noticed Clare’s little detour. Clare walked past the main house. The television was still on inside. It was almost completely dark, so she held on to the wooden fence to find her way back to the four-by-four. She rummaged in her bag amongst till receipts, sweet wrappers and tissues and found the car key. She unlocked the vehicle — pleased to hear the chirpy beep, and even more pleased that the headlights automatically switched on to light her way the last few steps across the loose gravel.
Clare sat in the driver’s seat, collecting herself for a minute. She couldn’t believe the nerve of some people. Did that woman not realise how rude she had been, or did she not care? And the poor boy. Clare banged her fist on the dashboard. All she could do now was try to find the reindeer before it trampled a group of children eagerly queuing to meet Santa at some Christmas event. Or — worse — got locked up and neglected in some old barn again.
She phoned her dad. “Dad, you won’t believe these people. The reindeer is gone. They’ve already sold him to a man who was going to take him to some Christmas display at a shopping centre.” Clare noticed her voice breaking.
“They did what?”
“Dad, will you be okay for a couple more days?”
“Of course I will. But I hope you’re not going to do anything daft?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but I’ve got to try to find him. Dad, you should have seen the pen where they kept him. It was horrific. These people have no clue how to look after a reindeer, and I suspect that neither does the man they sold him to. I’ve got to find him, Dad!”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then a deep sigh. “Just don’t get yourself in trouble, Clare. You promise me that.”
“I won’t, Dad. Promise. But I do need your help with something. Can you please look at my planner?”
Clare kept a large planner by the phone in the kitchen, and in it, she made notes of everything. Appointments, routines, goals, plans, who had contacted her, and what about. It was likely Einar was not the first reindeer this person had tried to get his hands on. If he had phoned her up, asking to buy or hire a reindeer for a Christmas display, which was something that happened regularly, then Clare would have made a note of the details.
16
Niklas had noticed that Emma and Pekka Aho often sat together at lectures and accompanied each other to the canteen at lunchtime. Sometimes, when he walked past their table carrying his tray, Emma called out to him and asked him to join them. He would sit with t
hem and listen as they chatted to each other. They liked to talk about films and student life, and sometimes they discussed a recent lecture.
But every once in a while, Pekka couldn’t make it to lunch, and Niklas and Emma were alone at the table. Then Emma talked to Niklas instead. She told him about her family — she still lived at home with her parents and younger brother — and about her interest in various pseudo-sciences, like astrology. Of course, Emma didn’t call them pseudo-sciences, and neither did Niklas when he talked to her. She also asked him about his family and he told her his parents had moved to Tenerife.
Emma made a sympathetic face. “Is it hard, being on your own?” she asked.
Niklas shrugged.
“Are you going to visit them?”
“I’m going to spend Christmas there.” He had to remember to book his ticket soon. It was already October.
Emma checked her watch. She had ordered a stir-fry, which she was still waiting for. Niklas had already tucked into his split pea soup, and on the side waited a stack of pancakes.
“I wish I could spend Christmas in Tenerife,” Emma said.
“I have to check with my parents.” They probably had enough bedrooms. It looked like a big house, from the pictures they had emailed over. He should ask them if they had some spare bed linen, or if they wanted Emma to bring her own. What else could she need? Niklas wasn’t used to having visitors stay the night, let alone a whole week. He wasn’t used to having visitors at all. Should he tell her to bring her own soap?
“Oh… No, I didn’t mean this year. My family… Sorry, they wouldn’t want me to…” Emma shook her head. Her cheeks were red.
Another lunchtime, when Pekka was otherwise engaged, Emma talked to Niklas about a singing competition she had been watching on television. She asked if he had seen it too, and Niklas said no. Emma explained it was on every evening and she told him who the contestants were and which one she was cheering for — a man in a black leather jacket, with long dark hair. He sang songs he had written himself and he played the guitar, while all of the other contestants only performed cover songs to a backing track.
That evening at home, Niklas watched the singing competition. And there was the man in the leather jacket! It turned out the viewers could phone in and vote for who they wanted to remain in the program. Niklas phoned three times for the man in the leather jacket, but in the end, he still had to leave the show.
The next day, he wanted to talk to Emma about the singing competition, but Pekka was back again and the two of them talked about other things.
It was evident Emma and Pekka did things together in the evenings. Once, they talked about a movie they had watched together at the cinema. Another time, they talked about bowling. Niklas listened to their conversation. They had been bowling together and not asked him if he wanted to come. He wondered if he would have said yes. Had they asked.
17
It cannot be said that finding a well-stocked DIY store in central London is an easy task, and the directions Mrs Dollimore had given to Niklas were not particularly helpful, “Just take the Tube to Piccadilly Circus. There, you’ll find everything you could possibly dream up.”
Only if you like to dream about a bottomless hell of lost tourist souls, thought Niklas, where he stood staring up at the giant billboards advertising Coca-Cola, anti-ageing facial cream, and other manifestations of human happiness. At least the place was aptly named: Piccadilly Circus. He chuckled to himself and scratched his hair. What could possibly have possessed Mrs Dollimore to come up with this terrible idea? Surely there wouldn’t be a hardware store here or any other shops where he could buy the materials to build Sophie’s red scooter? What had the old lady been thinking?
Standing in a stream of people flowing past him, Niklas reached out to a passer-by. “Excuse me, do you know if there’s a hardware store nearby?”
“I have no idea, man. I’m not from around here.” Of course — the young man carrying a rucksack was obviously a tourist, just like ninety-nine per cent of the other people rushing past him over the crossing. Niklas sighed. He may just as well have a look around, now he had gone through all the trouble of riding the Underground — maybe London would surprise him, although he seriously doubted it. He continued up Shaftesbury Avenue, shaking his head at Mrs Dollimore’s poor judgement. Silly old lady, thinking he was the real Santa Claus. As if there even was a real Santa Claus! This was absolute madness, but if he went along with her experiment, maybe he could teach her a thing or two about critical thinking and the scientific method along the way. She needed all the help she could get in that area. And if he conducted a proper search, he would be able to tell her exactly how wrong she had been about this Piccadilly Circus.
It was an unseasonably mild day — cloudy, but dry. Niklas felt warm walking up the avenue in his snow boots and red parka. All around him were Christmas shoppers, slipping in and out of shops, although he happily noted that Englishmen were polite — even though it was a busy day, everybody stepped aside and left him plenty of space on the pavement.
Shaftesbury was an avenue lined with theatres, chain restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops. Niklas found a shop called Paperchase. He glanced over the notebooks, pens and rulers. The shop was full of flustered Christmas shoppers, and there was a long queue leading up to a single till, behind which a young woman was frantically gift-wrapping a monthly wall-calendar with photographs of puppies, while her customer waited.
After making another fruitless sweep over the merchandise on offer, Niklas approached a young woman on the shop floor. She looked at him nervously.
“Do you sell anything I can make things out of?” he asked.
The girl shook her head. “Excuse me?” Then she added, “We have some craft kits. Is that what you’re after?”
Niklas scratched his beard and exhaled slowly. “No,” he said. “I was thinking more in the lines of raw materials.”
“Do you mean like paper? Origami? We have some origami books and square paper over there.” She pointed towards the far corner of the shop. “It makes a lovely Christmas present. If you’re shopping for somebody who’s into that kind of thing.” Her eyes wandered down towards Niklas’s muddy snow boots.
“No. I’m thinking wood, or glue, or screws. Anything like that?”
The girl took a step back. “There’s some PVA glue over there, by the supplies.” She pointed to the next aisle. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m being called to the back office.” She hurried away.
An adhesive could always be useful. Niklas found the glues where the girl had indicated. A few different brands of PVA paper glue were up for sale, all of indistinguishable quality. He picked the cheapest one and joined the queue at the till. Fifteen minutes later, he had reached the front and set the bottle of glue on the counter.
“Is it a Christmas present?” the young lady behind the till asked. She had a mechanical way about her, like a robot.
Niklas smiled. “Not yet, but it’s going to be one.”
Without any attempt to hide her sigh, the girl gift-wrapped Niklas’s PVA glue, took payment, and wished him a merry Christmas.
Niklas emerged from the shop, as hot and flustered as his fellow shoppers, and continued his wandering. Diverting from the main avenue and instead, walking up and down the backstreets, he eventually stumbled upon a skateboard shop. Reluctantly, he went inside. It was a trendy shop, even he could tell, with fake graffiti on the walls and a bare concrete floor. The fluorescent ceiling light flickered worryingly.
He browsed the shelves. Row after row of skateboards. This would work, but it would be too easy. “Santa Claus doesn’t do prefab,” he muttered to himself. He took a skateboard down from the wall and examined it. It did seem a good board — fine quality wood. The motif was a white skull on a red background. Good — Sophie had specifically requested a red scooter.
An assistant came up to him. “Can I help you?”
“Do these come apart?” Niklas tugged at the wheels.
“No, I’ll just have this one. I won’t be able to use it like this anyway. But the components are good. Solid.”
“You’re welcome to take her for a spin if you’d like.”
Niklas considered the offer. “Maybe I should try it out. Just to check it’s a good one.” He put the skateboard down and set one foot on it. As soon as his other foot left the floor, the skateboard shot off — and before Niklas knew what hit him, he was lying on his back on the bare concrete floor, looking straight up at the flickering ceiling light. Pain shot up through his back and into his head. He blinked.
“It’s fine,” he heard himself say. “I’ll take it.”
The shop assistant offered Niklas a hand to get up. Refusing the offer, Niklas sat up slowly, rubbing his back. He got to his feet and straightened his stiff body. The assistant retrieved the stray skateboard and took it to the checkout. Niklas limped after him.
“Is there anything else we can get you today? A helmet, or some pads?”
“No, that will be all.” Niklas paid for his skateboard. Although still aching, he was pleased with his findings. This was going better than he had expected. He decided it was time for lunch.
He took his skateboard and PVA glue into the nearest Italian coffee shop, bought himself a toasted cheese and Parma ham panini and a double espresso, and since there were no free tables, sat opposite an unaccompanied young woman. The young women kept her eyes on her phone, which suited Niklas well.
Happily, he tucked into his lunch. He had found a solid board with some wheels, which needed to come apart and be built back together again in order to qualify. He had also acquired an adhesive, which was sure to come in useful — not bad for a morning’s efforts. All he needed now was some sort of steering rod and a handlebar.