by Anna Blix
Niklas took the pen. The room was warm and stuffy. There was a pot plant, desperately in need of watering, on Margaret’s desk. He ran his fingers around the neckline of his jumper. It was going to be cooler in Antarctica, for sure.
“Dr Heikkinen? If you’d like to sign the paperwork, then we’ll be done here.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head.
“The salary is negotiable. Between you and me, I’m sure they’re prepared to go up a bit for the right person.” Margaret nodded encouragingly.
“I said I’d stay for as long as she wanted me to.” He had done this before. For fifteen years. Would he be gone for fifteen more? Would she still remember him when he came back?
“Pardon?”
What was he doing? “I’m sorry.” Niklas set the pen down and handed back the paperwork to Margaret. “There’s been a mistake. I’m not the right person for this job.”
Margaret stared at him with her mouth half open.
“I don’t want to go to the South Pole. I already have a job here and people rely on me to finish it. There’s someone…”
“Oh?”
He got up and grabbed the present. “Please give my regards to the university and tell them thank you for their interest in me. But no thank you.”
Outside, darkness had fallen. It was five in the evening and the air felt electric. This was it.
39
It was still freezing cold outside when Niklas left the job centre and headed for the nearest Underground station. He pulled his knitted red hat down over his ears and walked with determined strides.
A short journey later, he surfaced in the West London area he had circled on Mrs Dollimore’s map. He got the map out, held it up against the white-tiled wall by the station exit and studied the search area. He was going to have to walk up and down all those roads, one at a time, and find house number fifty-seven in each one of them. Then compare it to the house in Sophie’s drawing. And with a little bit of luck, he’d find a match.
He set off down the first road, Sycamore Avenue. It was a long street of residential buildings with cars parked on both sides and trees planted at regular intervals. Niklas assumed they were sycamore trees, but due to their lack of leaves, he couldn’t be sure.
Number fifty-seven Sycamore Avenue was a four-storey modern apartment block. The front door was protected with a code lock, and a CCTV camera monitored any visitors’ comings and goings. It had absolutely no resemblance to the house in Sophie’s drawing.
He moved on to the next road. Lionel Road was an adjoining road to Sycamore Avenue. It was populated with terraces and semi-detached houses. Most of them had gravelled front gardens behind metal railings. These houses looked much more likely to belong in Sophie’s drawing, and number fifty-seven was indeed a semi-detached brick-built house quite like Sophie’s. Quite like — but not exactly like. It had a little porch, just like Sophie’s house had, but the front door was red, not blue, and the masonry was brown instead of red. This wasn’t the house. He carried on.
In this manner, Niklas moved from one road to the next, systematically checking house number fifty-seven in every single one of them. He wandered up and down street after street and found a dry cleaner, a pub, a florist and numerous residential houses, none of them quite like Sophie’s. He kept going for hours. His feet went numb, and his hands were freezing. Reluctantly, he acknowledged his prospects were looking bleaker. He was losing hope. Was he ever going to find Sophie’s house?
He knew what Clare would have said. It was only a crayon drawing. How did he think a child’s drawing could lead them to the right house? Niklas shook his head. Should he call it a night and go home? He’d checked every road in the search area, and it was getting late. It had been a long shot from the start. The real house might not even look much like the one in the drawing. Or it could be in a completely different part of the city. It might not be number fifty-seven at all. He should go back to Mrs Dollimore and tell her he wasn’t going to the South Pole after all. But then he would also have to tell her he hadn’t delivered the present.
He brought the map out again. Maybe he should just check one last road before he went back home. It wasn’t far from the search area, and he had a funny feeling about it. He took a left turn down a narrow road.
York Road was a poorly lit road of terraced houses with untidy gardens and unsightly rubbish bins out front. Niklas walked up the road, looking at the house numbers. These houses didn’t look much like the one in the drawing. The street was much rougher than he had imagined Sophie’s. But he was nearly there and would soon find out. Niklas picked up pace.
“…Fifty-one… fifty-three… fifty-five…” he counted. Then he stopped. “And that should be number fifty-seven.” He stood in front of an empty plot. It was fairly big, fenced off and overgrown with shrubs and trees. The building that once was number fifty-seven York Road must have been completely demolished.
Maybe it was the next one. Niklas moved on to the following house. It was number fifty-nine and looked nothing like Sophie’s house. This was the wrong road.
Niklas shook his head. He turned and walked back, shoulders slumped. It had felt so right. It was already after midnight, and he had combed the whole search area. There was nothing left to do but go home. He couldn’t walk every street in London. And what good would that do? He would probably still not find Sophie’s house, just like Clare had said. He was going to have to tell Mrs Dollimore he had failed. They would have to discard the hypothesis. He wasn’t Santa Claus — as if that had ever been a possibility. He wasn’t a polar researcher either. Who was he trying to fool? The University of Cambridge had dodged a bullet there and they should be happy. But what was he then? Who was he? He walked back along York Road and onwards towards the Underground station.
After a while, he reached a low building. Its front was illuminated, and Niklas could see lights on inside as well, even though it was past midnight. It looked like a community centre. A small gathering of people huddled outside the front doors. When Niklas passed, a heavyset man in a basketball coat addressed him. “You’re just in the nick of time.”
“What?”
“I assume that’s for me,” the man continued. He reached out and plucked the gift-wrapped scooter out of Niklas’s hands.
“What are you doing?”
The man stepped back. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “We haven’t had many people pass by in the last hour, and since you were carrying a Christmas present — well, I assumed it was for the collection. Apologies.” He handed the present back to Niklas.
Niklas surveyed the group of people. They were busy sorting presents from a table into crates on the floor. Behind them on the wall was a banner. “Christmas Present Bank for Disadvantaged Families. We Welcome CE Labelled Toys for Boys and Girls, Ages 0 to 14.”
“This gang of heroes have been sorting through the gifts all evening,” continued the man. “And tomorrow we’ll be handing them out to local children who may not get so many presents otherwise. I thought that was why you were here. Please forgive my mistake. Here, have a business card in case you’d consider contributing to one of our other causes.” The man handed Niklas a card and returned to the group. He picked up a present from the table and put it in a crate labelled “Girls 6-9”.
Niklas stood there with the present under his arm. He watched the group work. They were smiling and chatting. Their work gave them joy.
After a while, he called to the man in the basketball coat. “Excuse me.” The man looked up. “There has been a mistake. You’re absolutely right. That’s exactly why I’m here, I understand that now.” He handed the man the present. “This is a blue scooter. It’s meant for a little girl. Can you please tell her it’s from Santa Claus?”
“That’s what we always say.” The man smiled and slipped Sophie’s scooter into the crate. “Happy Christmas!”
Niklas smiled, then turned and walked towards the Underground station. His head was spinning. He wondered if it ha
d been the right thing to do. It was for a good cause. And Sophie probably got loads of Christmas presents anyway. Now it would go to a child who really appreciated it.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling he had given up too easy. That there was something he was missing.
Niklas stopped, then turned back, retracing his steps past the community centre. He passed the group of volunteers working tirelessly outside and nodded to them, then he continued along the road. He found himself back in front of the fenced-off plot number fifty-seven, where he stopped.
He peered in over the abandoned plot. There was something strange about this plot. Something nagging at him. It was a large plot, unkempt with overgrown grass, bushes and trees. It seemed like it had been abandoned for years. But this was prime real estate. Why had nobody built a new house in its place?
There was a hole in the fence, and a barely visible trail led from it, deeper into the grounds. Even though there were no artificial lights, the greenery seemed to emit a strange glow. The vegetation was a pale blue, almost white in the soft reflected light from the clouds above. From a distance, it could even be mistaken for snow.
Niklas climbed through the hole in the fence.
40
Niklas walked along a trail deep into the large abandoned plot fifty-seven, York Road. The vegetation was dense, with long grass, brambles and bushes.
After making his way twenty meters or so through the thicket, the space suddenly opened up and Niklas stood in front of a deep pit in the ground, overgrown with ivy. It must have been excavated in preparation for some building project that never happened. And on the edge of the pit, he found a fallen tree trunk.
Niklas took off his parka and spread it out to sit on. It was in the early hours of the morning, and it would still have been pitch black, had it not been for the strange glow that lay softly over London this Christmas night. A dog barked somewhere. There was the low grumble of traffic. Cold found its way through the stitches of his jumper. He rubbed his hands together.
Now what? He knew he should go back to Mrs Dollimore’s. She was probably wondering where he was. Maybe she was even starting to worry. He knew she wouldn’t mind that he hadn’t found Sophie’s house. It didn’t matter to her. But in all honesty, it mattered to him. He would have liked to finish the project. If nothing else, then for the gratification of a job done well.
There was a rustle in the bushes. It must be a small animal, maybe a squirrel or a bird.
“Niklas?” Out of the thicket emerged Clare. She was wearing the green hat Mrs Dollimore had knitted for her, and she was stumbling forward on the high heels of her leather boots.
“Clare? What are you doing here?” Niklas had thought he’d never see her again. “How did you find me here?”
“You’re not an easy one to find.”
Niklas moved aside and made room for Clare to sit next to him on his parka.
“Mrs Dollimore has been worried sick about you. We’ve been trying to find you all evening.”
“Really?”
“Neither of us had your phone number, so she made me ring the job centre, but there was no answer. She thought you’d already gone to Antarctica. I tried to tell her there was no way you were going tonight, but she wouldn’t have it. Then she thought you’d been in an accident. She was beside herself.”
Niklas looked down at the bottom of the pit. “I’m sorry, I should have thought to let her know where I was.”
Clare sighed. “So I promised I’d find you. All I could think of was to look for Sophie’s house. I found the charity collection down the road, and they told me you’d given them the present and gone this way. This used to be number fifty-seven so when I saw the hole in the fence, I thought it would take someone like you to trespass on private property in the middle of the night.”
Niklas laughed and shook his head. She had a point.
“I’m not going to Antarctica, Clare,” he said.
“Oh. Did you not get the job? I’m sorry, Niklas.”
“No, it wasn’t that. I think they would have given me the job, but I’ve decided to stay here. All my friends are in the UK. All two of them.”
Clare rubbed his arm. “Mrs Dollimore will be pleased to hear.” She kicked a stone on the ground. It rolled down to the bottom of the pit.
“So you don’t think I’m trying to scam her any longer?”
Clare laughed. “You seem harmless enough. Now I’ve got to know you. Sorry I didn’t trust you at first.”
They sat in silence for a while longer, then Clare said, “So you didn’t find Sophie’s house?”
Niklas shook his head. “There were times when I really thought I would make it. Stupid, eh?”
She shrugged. “At least the scooter will be put to good use.”
“I know,” Niklas said. “But it would have been nice to see the task through. Finish something I’ve started, for once. And Mrs Dollimore was really into it. It felt like she believed in me. I mean, not just that I was Santa Claus… But that she believed in me.”
“She still believes in you. She thinks the world of you. And you’ve made her Christmas special. If you go back now and show your face, she’ll be over the moon, I know it.”
Niklas shifted a little closer to Clare. He stared into the pit. It must have been dug out years ago, and then abandoned. Now it was used by the locals as a rubbish tip, by the looks of it. Scrap metal, plastic bags and rags were strewn at the bottom of the pit, and at some point, somebody had made a bonfire down there — burnt pieces of wood were scattered about, and some of the debris had been charred. An old disfigured bicycle, some metal rods, a wooden pallet, half-eaten by fire.
“What are you going to do now?” Clare asked.
Niklas didn’t answer straight away. He broke a piece of bark off the tree trunk and rubbed it between his fingers. He was feeling the chill through his knitted jumper and shivered slightly. But he didn’t want to go home yet. If they went back, Clare would leave.
“I think I will take a break. From everything. I was rushing into things, when what I needed was to slow down. People tried to tell me, but I didn’t listen. For now, I think I’ll just stay here in London. I have some money saved up. Maybe I’ll do some more sightseeing around the city. So far, I’ve only been to Piccadilly Circus and Aspenwood Shopping Centre.”
Clare smiled. “Good old Aspenwood. Well, I don’t really like London, but I’m sure there’s more to see than Piccadilly Circus and Aspenwood. Then, when you’re done, you could always come to Scotland and see some real sights.”
There was a young tree at the very edge of the pit, with a rope swing dangling from a dangerously thin branch. Niklas imagined youngsters coming here to hang out in the summer. It was a good hiding place. Neither of them said anything for a while and Niklas listened to the gentle murmur of the city.
Clare took out her phone. “I should let her know I’ve found you.”
Niklas noticed there was a message from her dad on the display. He watched her press Mrs Dollimore’s contact and put the phone to her ear.
“Hello? It’s Clare.”
Niklas stood up and walked up to the edge of the pit. He peered down at the old rubbish.
“I’ve found him. He’s safe. No, he was just trying to find Sophie’s house. We’re coming home now.”
Niklas went around to the other side of the pit. He looked at Clare, sitting on the tree trunk, with her phone in her hand. Above her was an opening in the trees, and a soft light beamed down over her. She glanced up at him and nodded. In this light, smiling the way she did, she looked like the angel in Mrs Dollimore’s picture.
Then Niklas’s eyes fell on something at the bottom of the pit. Something he had not seen from where he was sitting on the other side. A red piece of plastic, with wheels, and a metal handle. Even through the shadows under the trees, Niklas could clearly see what it was.
Clare watched Niklas from the other side of the pit. “Are you ready to go?” she called to him.
There was a text message from her dad on her phone she hadn’t noticed receiving. Safe drive home. Miss you. Happy Christmas, Dad. She stared at the words, realising how much she missed him too. Dad, who was always there when she needed him. She wondered how he had managed these days while she’d been gone. Her trip had been almost a week longer than planned, and he must have gone up on the mountain on his own. They had spoken on the phone of course, and he’d insisted everything was fine but had refused to give her any details.
She wouldn’t be home until late in the afternoon on Christmas Day. It was the first Christmas she had not been at home with him.
Clare remembered a Christmas twenty years ago. She had come downstairs, excited to find presents under the tree. Then she’d gone out to the kitchen. Her dad was sitting alone at the table, not reading, like he always did, but just looking — staring into the air in front of him. He was sad, even though it was Christmas Day.
“Where’s Mum?” she had asked.
“Gone,” was all he’d said.
Much later, Clare had learnt she’d had enough of family life and taken off.
Niklas seemed amused by something. He met her eyes across the pit. She put her phone back in her handbag.
Niklas leaned his head back and laughed out loud. “Clare,” he called. “Come here, you’ve got to see this.”
“What is it?”
“You won’t believe it!” Clare got up. She picked his red parka up from the tree trunk and folded it over her arm.
“Look,” he said.
“What?” Clare walked around the pit to his side.
“There, at the bottom of the pit, underneath that bicycle. I didn’t see it from the other side. Can you see?”
“Where?” Clare leaned forward and tilted her head to the side. “Yeah, I see it now. Ha!” She slapped her leg.
Niklas nodded. “It’s a red scooter.”
