#57 A Tale of Seasonal Redemption

This is it. 2023. Over and Out. Our final story of the year and given the season, I thought it would be fun to write something festive. Sort of.

In this story, Simon, an aspiring actor playing Santa at a Christmas market, thinks he’s reaching rock bottom when a miracle unfolds.

Last week, I went to see a newish band called Jockstrap. Their music is a beautiful mish-mash of pop, ethereal ballad, and nightclub energy. It’s curious and weird and thoroughly addictive. I saw them at the Barbican Hall in London, with a full orchestra in support. Your paired listening is the mesmerising Concrete Over Water performed for the Mercury Prize earlier this year.

To read more stories by me, sip the froth of the archives.

#57 A Tale of Seasonal Redemption

1974.

One.

The cigarette scalds his lip. 

‘Bugger!’ he mutters as a cloud of breath and soggy fag smoke lingers in front of him. Despite the swearing, he doesn’t mind it so much as the cold in his fingers hurts more than the burn. He sucks at the final clutches of his cigarette, winces before exhaling, and reaches into his pocket for another one. Lighting it hastily, he sucks again, and rubs his tired eyes with the knuckles he can’t feel.

‘Simon! Simon! Come on, we ain’t payin’ you to smoke fags. We need ye back out there.’ Jerry, the manager, is a fatty with pink cheeks who says money is time and time is money. But what if time is just time? Money was made by men, but Time was made by… well, the damn universe or something. ‘And put your beard back on.’

‘I don’t want to put my beard back on.’

‘Put that beard on, Si, or you’re not gettin’ paid.’

‘B-’

‘Ah! No questions. I make the rules. You stick to them.’

Jerry walks back, checking some notes on his clipboard, and Simon throws the fag into a puddle and phlegms on the pavement. There’s a stabbing at the back of his head and it throbs in sync with the terse jingle of the carousel and the flashing lights of the carnival around him. The smell of burning sugar and roasted chestnuts claws at his neglected appetite. 

‘You’re not Santa!’ a little boy, astray from the main path, shouts up at him.

‘Timothy, stop that. You’re not to go back there. Come here.’ A mother calls after the boy, who stares at Simon with grave mistrust in his eyes. 

‘I’m so sorry,’ the mother says. 

‘That’s no way to speak to Santa,’ Simon replies, looking down at Timothy. ‘After all, I’m the man with all your presents.’ He crouches down to the boy’s level. ‘Do you want your presents this year?’

‘You don’t have my presents because you’re not Santa! Santa doesn’t smoke cigarettes!’

Simon’s back straightens. What the hell does he say to that?

‘Well, kid, you clearly don’t know Santa. Of course, he smokes. He smokes 20 a day! How else do you think I keep warm up there in the sky and when I’m back in the North Pole? It’s all that smoke inside me, warming me up like a log burner in a country house.’

He catches the mother’s eye, who’s glaring at him with what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about eyes.

‘Right, I’ve got a job to do,’ Simon sighs. ‘Excuse me.’

As Simon passes the kid, he receives a strong kick to the shin (so strong, he’s sure the kid’s boots are metal-plated… or maybe it just hurts more in the cold). 

‘Hey! What was that?’ Simon turns around and the boy has a grin on his face. The mother didn’t see it.

Simon reaches down and pushes the kid’s head and he drops to the floor.

‘Ow!’ the kid cries.

‘What are you doing?’ the mother starts.

‘Your kid kicked me, the little sh-’

‘Simon, what is going on here?’ 

Jerry’s back.

‘This kid jus’ kicked me for no good reason.’

‘Is that so?’ Jerry asks like a regular high court judge.

‘Well, yes. But then this man dressed as Santa pushed my son over. Palm to head!’

Jerry turns to Simon. ‘Is this true?’

‘The kid kicked me, Jerry…’

Jerry goes quiet for a moment before asking the mother to leave with her son. 

‘Simon, you can’t be pushing kids over like that.’

‘I know, I’m sorry.’

‘Look, we’ve got twenty minutes left until we close up. Can you just get through that and we’ll call it a night?’

‘Yeah… Yeah… Course…’

‘Thank you. Right, on you go.’

Simon gets through the twenty minutes, and when I say gets through, he sits in his chair and smiles with the children and asks, ‘What do you want for Christmas?’ But he has no cheer, no smile, and two children left asking their parents why Santa smells like their grandfather’s cardigans.

‘John!’ Simon calls. ‘A quick one at the pub? I could do with it.’

‘Aye,’ John calls back, pulling a kink out of his unnecessarily gripping elf tights. ‘Let me change, I can’t go anywhere looking like this. I’d go home with a black eye.’

‘But I haven’t got anything to change into…’ 

‘Si, I ain’t goin’ nowhere dressed as an elf. If you want your pint, you’ll go with regular old John.’

Two.

The pub’s his favourite place to be. The beer-soaked bar smells sweet and there’s warmth that spreads life back into his fingers, his cheeks and his heart. They get lagers and inhabit a small table opposite the bar, with beer rings all over and legs of inconsistent length.

He lights a cigarette and reaches for the ashtray.

‘How’d it go this morning with the TV role?’

‘Oh, so, so. I think I performed well. Although they want an Irish boy and my Irish accent’s about as good as a long turd.’

‘Mm,’ John grunts. What was the role again?’

‘Lobby boy at a desolate hotel, set in Devon or Cornwall somewhere. Supposed to be a comedy but the script ain’t all funny.’

‘They do have odd ideas, don’t they, these writer types.’

‘They get cocky, they do. They ain’t just writing what people want. After they’ve done two or three good gigs, they just write what they want and tell the world they’re Shakespeare reincarnated.’

Simon’s hands shake a little as he pulls at the corners of his eyes.

‘How about you?’

‘Aye, yesterday I got a call back for that stage show. The murder mystery one.’

‘You did?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And… the role?’

‘Police officer.’

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ Simon erupts. ‘You’re playin’ a goddamn police officer!’

‘Well, I ain’t got the role yet.’

‘What are the chances?!’

‘Tell me, Si, when was your last actual gig?’

Simon’s face drops. ‘Why in hell’s name would y’ask that, John… You know the answer too well.’

‘I know. It’s just been so long. And play’n Santa’s little grotto for spoiled kids ain’t doin’ it for me.’

‘Me either. Some little brat shouted at me today. Telling me I ain’t Santa, like don’t I bleedin’ know it.’

John shakes his head.

‘I’m just so tired, John. My flat in Camden’s a shitehole, and this Santa job is… is… demeanin’, that’s what is. Demeanin’...’

‘At least you’re Santa. I gotta wear tights. Tights for chrissake.’

‘There ain’t no hierarchy in this line of work, John. We’re all in the bleedin’ gutter.’

‘Another beer?’

‘Yea…’

John gets two more beers, froth sliding down their outer walls, onto his hands as he careens back to the table.

Three.

‘We’re actors, we are. TV, film, that sorta thing.’

John’s chatting to the girl at the next table. She’s smiling a lot at him, but Simon can’t stop staring at her teeth: why are they so short? All he can see is black spaces between them, and gums, such pink gums.

‘Wow, what kind of roles do you get? Apart from Santa, of course,’ she nods at Simon who smiles back, a bitter smile shadowing his loathing.

‘Oh that, well, that’s just a side gig. I’m play’n a police officer in a play.’

‘You are?’ She laughs hysterically to John’s consternation.

‘Yeah.’

‘Will you get handcuffs?’

‘Yeah…’

The girl sniggers and curls her cheek into her coat. Simon’s earmarked her as a regular dunce.

‘I’m gettin’ another pint,’ he says.

‘Ah yeah, can you’s get me one too? And one here for…’

‘Maureen.’

‘Right, yeah. One for Maureen?’

Err, no? Simon thinks to himself. But John’s gone back to chatting to her and he technically does owe John two pints, so that can be his two. 

He comes back with the pints. Neither of them even says thank you. Simon sips his beer and watches the crowds around the pub, most of whom glance at him when he looks over, wondering why on earth he’s dressed as Santa in the pub. Next thing he knows, his pint is finished and the other two have barely started theirs.

He won’t admit it publicly but he feels wicked about John’s callback. He hasn’t had a callback since… he has to think… March… Nearly 9 months… And even then, he was flatly rejected twelve seconds after finishing his audition. It’s nasty work trying to be an actor. Represents the worst of humanity. Thousands upon thousands of people who say they’ve got talent, but only a few of them actually do. And then they’re treated like lambs in a pen, one by one waiting to have their coats shaved and possibly shot for someone’s dinner.

Simon knows things get dangerous when he gets… blue. He does things he wishes he’d never done. Things that make him hate himself. And it gets worse after a fair few pints. He better save himself.

‘I’m going home,’ he says to John and the girl. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘See you, Si.’

‘Bye,’ Maureen calls after him, her gums protruding out the lasting image she leaves with him.

Simon steps into the cold. Tears are bunching up around his eyes but he won’t admit the fact. He’s shivering, and he rubs his cheeks with his hands. The bones in his legs ache, and the joints that connect his arms to his shoulders are burning. His fingers sting. He’s just so goddamn tired.

He walks down the main road, and some guy bumps his shoulder.

‘Scuse me,’ he says.

‘Watch yourself, mate.’

‘Piss off,’ Simon spits back.

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing.’

Simon turns to walk away, and closes his eyes, hoping that’s the end of it.

‘No, go on. What did you say?’

‘Nothing.’ He walks briskly but he can hear the man’s footsteps behind him. He looks back and he’s getting closer, so Simon breaks into a run. 

‘Oi! Santa! Get back here!’

Simon runs and realises he can actually run quite fast, despite the weight of this damn Santa suit.

No, he thinks. I won’t be dragged back by the weight of this bleedin’ world. I can do whatever I want. I know I’m extraordinary. I know I’m talented. I know I can be whatever in Christ’s name I want to be. 

All of a sudden, there’s a rocketing whoosh over his head, and a hurricane wind sweeps him forward. A great shadow folds over him. ‘What in the fu-’ but he can’t finish his sentence. He looks up and is rendered totally speechless by… is that… are they… hooves? And… some sorta bleedin’ carriage…?

Four.

Back in the pub, John’s got one hand around Maureen’s waist. He can’t see anything around him. There might as well be no one else in the pub, it’s just him, little inebriated John, and Maureen, lovely, beautiful Maureen. She’s the most beautiful girl in the world right now. He leans in for a kiss.

‘Ey,’ she interrupts him. ‘That yours?’

John opens his eyes and looks where Maureen’s looking. She’s pointing at their table, where Simon’s pint glass is standing on its own. In the middle of the table is a black wallet. He burps a little.

‘Ah, shit. It’s Si’s.’

‘We should…’ she says.

‘Yeah…’

John grabs the wallet and runs out into the street, closely followed by Maureen. He looks both ways, but can’t see him. ‘Si!’ he shouts. ‘You forgot your wallet!’

His voice seems to echo into the city darkness, nothing happens.

‘What’s that?’ Maureen says, pointing up into the sky.

John looks up, and the silhouette of a long carriage, being pulled along, drifts between clouds.

‘Some feckin’ prank probably. A light show for kids.’

‘Maybe your friend Simon really is Santa.’

‘Some goddamn actor if he is.’

Maureen giggles and John notices how gummy she is beneath the streetlight. 

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘I need another pint.’ He tucks Simon’s wallet into his pocket and they delve back into the honey pot of the warm London pub.