1
Deck The Halls played heartily as the mechanical Santa in the shop’s window put presents under a tree, a broad, happy smile painted across his face. Looping, looping, looping, present followed by present followed by present it went on and on and on, always smiling. Around it stood cardboard cutouts of elves, copious amounts of fake snow from a can and a Reindeer toy with half the felt rubbed off it’s hide.
It must have been impressive when it first debuted in the 90′s. It looked a bit battered by now.
Santa delivered, music played and all was well in his shopfront kingdom.
Deck the halls with boughs of holly…
Slowly, menacingly a dark shadow slowly crept across the scene, increasingly casting the Santa and his elves into darkness.
The Santa’s movements suddenly jammed, the music skipping with it as it tried, tried tried to deliver the present.
Deck the. Deck the. Deck the. Deck the.
The shadow across it grew darker. The Santa desperately trying to break from the trap, the music skipping incessantly.
Deck the. Deck the. Deck the.
The shadow grew darker and darker and darker until...
Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la laaa.
The Santa got past it’s jam and once again began moving in a loop, delivering the present as the carol played cheerfully.
Light began to fall back onto the display as the shadow moved away. It belonged to a man stood outside the shop, who was part of a long cue of people on the street outside.
Another shadow loomed large as a new person shuffled in front of the window. The people waiting shuffled forward in unison, their lifeless, tired movement in sharp contrast to the joyful Christmas music in the shop.
The cue snaked down the street and into a building about fifty yards away, The Job Centre, a place no one wanted to be, but everyone had to.
The grey sky and drizzle matched the mood of the people shuffling towards it and the tone of the town where they lived, Dudley. It was the kind of place that used to have industry, but now has two Wetherspoons and fifty vape shops instead.
A wiry woman of nineteen, Danni, walked past the window display, completely ignoring it. Beneath her oversized hoodie her short, styled hair was soaked and the rain continued to make it’s way inevitably through her skinny jeans into her slowly filling boots. The make up now running down her face showed she did care about how she looked, though she would violently deny it if you asked.
She carried herself like a bear on a comedown, hunched shoulders, a fairly permanent scowl. She joined the line, looking down the length of it.
This’ll take fucking ages. Great.
As the thought drifted away the guy in front of her turned around, cheerfully displaying a grin missing the majority of it’s teeth.
Danni half returned the smile, the man taking this as an invitation to speak.
“You don’t know where I could get any smack do you?”
Danni stared blankly back at him, “No.” The rain slipped down the back of her neck and she arched her back to try to stop it, but failed. “But do you wanna go halves on this?” She pulled a joint from the pocket on the front of her hoodie.
The half toothed mouth gave her the broadest of smiles, as empty as it was, and Danni searched for a lighter.
They were nearer the front now. Danni took another long draw and handed it back to the toothless man.
“And you can’t… You can’t even fucking not come ’cos they stop your benefits.”
“It’s bollocks.”
“And then they send you to some bullshit interview with fifty other people and-”
Their chat was interrupted by a sound reminiscent of a dying swan. In reality it was a car horn, or what was left of it. A battered Vauxhall Astra pulled up next to the queue, sounding it’s death rattle again.
Danni rolled her eyes and looked to the driver’s seat. There he was. Michael, forties, pencil thin and life-worn, beckoning frantically for her to come over. Unfitted shirt, big tie and no chill, he had over-worked middle management written all over him.
He waved her over again and Danni had no choice to but to finally go. As embarrassing as it was to still get picked up by your Dad at nineteen, she knew the longer she delayed, the worse it would get, “See you later mate.”
“Hey thanks for the-” Toothless waved the spliff in her direction as she walked towards the car.
“No problem. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
And with that Danni opened the car door, slipped inside and was finally out of the rain.
Before her backside had hit the seat she had recommenced her and Michael’s usual animosities, “I need to go to my appointment.”
“You know this is important.”
“If I don’t turn up they stop my-”
“How have you not been to your appointment?” Michael, fizzing with anxiety as per, looked like if he was exposed to a naked flame he might ignite.
“Oh. I. My alarm didn’t. I didn’t hear my-” Danni sputtered her response, but her Dad was on the offensive now.
“I told you. I told you to go in early today.”
“Batteries must have gone or-”
“Jesus Christ Danielle, the one time I ask you to… Forget it. Forget it, we don’t have time to ague we have to go and-”
“Fine, Fine.”
Michael flicked the ignition and as the engine sputtered to life, ‘Deck The Halls’ cheerfully spilled out of tinny speakers.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir thought Danni, same shit every year.
“Let’s go, we don’t want to be-” as the car pulled off the kerb Michael suddenly shot his glance over at his daughter, “have you been smoking?”
Danni looked straight ahead, giving nothing away.
“You’re really… You’re really going to turn up at your Mum’s… You stink of smoke Danni.”
“It’s relaxing,” Danni looked towards him as he took a careful scan of her pupils, and she couldn’t help but curl the corners of her lip up into the tiniest of smiles.
“Are you stoned? You’re stoned. Oh my God.”
“Stoned? It’s not 1985.”
“Jesus Christ.” The car merged into the traffic and the carol still played, the grey drizzle sleeting down on the small town like it always seemed to do.
For the past ten minutes they’d barely moved. The rain formed into droplets onto the glass and careered its way down the windscreen as the Mormon Tabernacles sang their little hearts on on the stereo.
Christmas Carols? Jesus Christ, so cliché.
Michael broke the silence, “Did you get the toothpaste? Tampons?”
“Dad.”
“Did you? That’s all I asked. Did you do it?” Danni looked straight out of the window. She didn’t want to respond. Michael bubbled up once more, “Two things. That was too much for you was it? Two things?” Again, no response. Michael again tried to leave it, to stop the flow of their constant sniping, but he couldn’t help himself, “How am I supposed to treat you like a functioning adult if you can’t buy bloody toothpaste and tampons unsupervised? Huh?” It just kept pouring out. “Have you even been looking for jobs? Have you? There is no point going to the meetings if you haven’t… You have to be proactive-”
At that a car pulled into the tiny space in front of them, trying to muscle it’s way into their lane, “Yeah fuck you mate! Fuck you. Unbelievable. Some people. Unbelievable.”
The cars were bumper to bumper, the sky grey as slate and the choir as chirpy as ever. Danni looked back to the raindrops.
Fucking kill me now.
But no one did. Instead O Come All Ye Faithful came on, providing a backdrop for her father’s rather blue invective towards the traffic, the world, and everything else around him.
Finally the car pulled into the School car park, the wheels on the Astra squeaking as it came to an abrupt stop. It wasn’t parked straight, it was certainly not between the lines but at least it was there.
Michael scrambled out, holding his coat over his head to protect him from the rain while Danni slipped out of her side at a rather more regal pace, to the seemingly inexhaustible annoyance of her father.
He locked the car and dashed toward the school reception, his daughter a few slower paces behind.
They were directed to the classroom they needed and Danni sat on a chair in the corridor while Michael went inside. Wet and huddled up from the cold, her hoodie sat drying on a radiator.
She looked up at the displays of myths and legends across from her, Beowulf, King Arthur and the like, and she thought back to her school days, all the spelling tests and flash cards, the nastiness and the dinners.
Eurgh.
Her reminiscing was broken by the door to the classroom being flung open and Michael exiting, somehow looking even more flustered than before. He was pulling behind him Kip, his 11 year old son, wastrel thin and elven featured but carrying himself with the strut of a hardened prison enforcer. The Teacher followed a step behind, grin firmly fixed upon her face.
“And really, I am really sorry about… it is out of character for him,” Michael sputtered continuing down the corridor.
The Teacher’s grin was unmoved, “Well we’ll just chalk it up to experience, yes Kip?”
“Christopher”, the boy spat back.
“Of course, yes, Christopher”, her grin may have still been unmoved, but her eyes flashed an unmistakable difference from her happy exterior.
Danni grabbed up her hoodie, which disappointingly was now warm and wet rather than just wet, and followed them out.
Michael, while still moving them towards the exit, was still talking away, “Kip’s a good lad, he’s just-”
“Christopher. God.” The boy’s face further screwed up at the injustice of it all.
“He’s a good lad.”
“I know, I know”, replied the Teacher, holding a door open for them, “And I know at home things have been… How is your wife?”
For the first time Michael’s tone dropped slightly, “Good, she’s… We’re off to see her now.”
“Ok, I hope… I hope it goes well”, the Teacher buzzed her way through the final security door and held it open, letting them back out into the rainy car park.
As they got to the door Kip couldn’t help himself, pinching Danni between her ribs. Danni responded in kind, pushing her palm firmly into his face and Michael, desperately hoping the Teacher didn’t see, shunted them both out into the rain, towards the car, blurting out “Ok, bye Miss Perry.”
“Bye Mr. Morgan, Kip”, she called back, closing the door behind her.
“CHRISTOPHER” Kip shouted, as the School door closed and Michael slowly moved him further carward.
By the time Good King Wenceslas was in full swing on the stereo, the inquest into Kip’s behaviour was well underway. “He called me a wasteman”, Kip protested.
“When you’re clearly a wasteboy”, clipped Danni, making no effort at all to help the situation.
“You can’t just- Hitting people isn’t the answer Kip”, Michael chirruped from the front seat, his eyes still firmly affixed to the traffic still not moving in front of him.
“CHRISTOPHER’, shouted Kip, though to be fair, as his voice was yet to break it carried very little of the threat he was aiming for.
“Christopher. Chris. Kip. You can’t just hit people.”
“He was disrespecting me. I ain’t being disrespected.”
“Ain’t?” Danni’s incredulity was in full display through the eye brow arched in Kip’s direction. He looked at his older sister and mouthed ‘Fuck. You.’ She couldn’t help but smile, but that made Kip’s mood even more foul.
“You’ve just got to treat people the way you want to be treated Kip,” Michael flicked on the indicator, the clicking noise competing with the carols.
“So they gotta show me respect, y’know?”
Danni looked down at Kip’s bag which sat between them on the back seat. It had a cute cartoon puppy dressed as a policeman upon it. She smiled to herself as she looked out of the window.
Show you respect. Sure.
When they pulled up to the hospital the ignition was killed and Michael turned to address the kids. “Now, we know this has been very hard for your mother so we just need to be positive and keep her spirits-”
At that the car door opened and Julia lowered her head through the door. Bald from the chemotherapy and battered by the treatment, her loose, over washed clothes hung from her frail body. But the eyes. The eyes still showed a woman fighting. “Hello! Oh you all came, I told you not to come!”
She kissed Michael as he shot a final look to the kids very much saying do as I said, but his mouth was saying “We wouldn’t miss it for the world. How’d it go?”
“All done, no more hospitals!”
Kip’s voice cut across her, “So you’re ok now?” Danni looked at him, at times like this she remembered how young he really was.
Julia turned around to look at her son, “I’m feeling good.”
The hope in Kip’s eyes was crushing, “So you’re not gonna die anym-” The punch came from Danni, short and sharp. On the arm so it didn’t hurt too much but swift enough to stop the sentence in it’s tracks. The silence in the car was horrible, as was the look on Julia’s face as she tried to formulate what to say.
In the end all she could come up with was a rather weak, “Doctors don’t know everything love.”
“Of course they don’t, no one does”, said Michael, scrambling to sound chipper, “Right, let’s go celebrate!” He turned the ignition and the Mormon Tabernacles started up again.
As the car pulled away Julia turned to her husband, “I was reading about a course of homeopathy.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s designed to compliment that Gerson therapy I was talking about.”
“Great. Great.”
They continued the drive back, Kip shooting evils at his sister, and his sister just wanting to get back home, out of this damned car and out of this damned atmosphere that seemed to swallow them up every time they were all together.
