David Peace - 1980

It was the night before Christmas. There was a house in the middle of the Moor, lights shining in the windows. I was walking across the Moor, light snow underfoot, heading home. On the front doorstep I stamped my boots loose of snow and opened the door. A fire was glowing with artificial coals and the house was filled with the smell of good cooking. Under a lit Christmas tree, there were boxes of beautifully wrapped presents. I took a big box, gift-wrapped in newspaper from under the tree and pulled the red ribbon loose. Carefully I opened the newspaper so I might read it later. I stared at the wooden box on my knee. I closed my eyes and opened the box, the dull thud of my heart filling the house .

‘What is it?’ said Joan, coming into the room and switching on the TV .

I tried to cover the box with my hands but she took the box from me and looked inside .

The box fell to the floor, the house full of good cooking, the thud of my heart, and her bloody screams .

I watched as the fetus slid out of the box and across the floor, writing spidery messages and swastikas with its bloody cord as it went .

‘Get rid of it,’ she screamed. ‘Get rid of it now!’

But I was staring at the TV, the people on the TV singing hymns, the people on the TV singing hymns with no face, no features -machines, the gulls circling overhead screaming, the wings in my own back, out of the skin, torn, huge and rotting things, and I stared down at the baby on the floor and it sat up, hands across its heart, and smiled a faint and dreadful smile and I looked at the tag on the box, the tag on the box that said:

Love Helen – the night before Christmas .

I open my eyes -

The radio’s on:

Christmas messages: Carter telling the world that all fifty-two hostages are alive and well; the Pope’s message for Poland; Thatcher’s for Northern Ireland; nominations for people of the year: Ayatollah Khomeini; the eight US soldiers who died trying to rescue the hostages; the boat people; JR Ewing; Voyager 1; or John Lennon?

The Yorkshire Ripper?

Radio off -

I close my eyes.

‘Merry Christmas,’ says Joan -

I open my eyes.

‘Merry Christmas,’ I say.

‘How do you feel?’

‘Not so good.’

‘What happened to you?’

‘A few too many Christmas drinks.’

‘Where?’

‘Leeds.’

‘How did you get back?’

‘I drove.’

She sits up in bed: ‘Peter!’

‘Sorry.’

She gets out of bed and puts on her dressing gown.

‘Sorry,’ I say again.

She goes downstairs.

My head is killing me, my stomach churning, on the verge of throwing up -

I close my eyes.

Downstairs, she’s put on the Christmas tree lights and started making breakfast.

I go into the kitchen.

‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘Please,’ I say.

I go back into the lounge and look out of the window at a wet and grey Christmas Day.

‘Here you go,’ she says and hands me a cup of tea -

‘Thanks.’

‘You think I should take them something?’ she asks, looking at the police car parked at the bottom of the drive.

‘They might as well get off,’ I say. ‘Now I’m here.’

‘Doesn’t it make you feel secure?’ laughs Joan.

‘Watched more like.’

I walk down the drive in the drizzle and my dressing gown -

‘Merry Christmas,’ says Sergeant Corrigan, winding down the car window.

‘And to you Bill,’ I say, bending down and nodding at another man I don’t recognise.

‘Thought you were bringing us a bit of turkey, sir?’

‘Bit early for that,’ I say.

‘Aye, hear you had a late one,’ he laughs -

‘Don’t,’ I say.

‘Not feeling too good, are you?’

I shake my head: ‘Listen, you can get off if you want.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yep,’ I say. ‘We’ll be doing the rounds of the relatives most of the day anyway’

‘You sure?’

I nod: ‘Go on.’

‘Right then,’ says Corrigan, starting the car. ‘You know where we are if you need us.’

‘Thanks, Bill.’

‘Have a Merry Christmas, sir.’

‘Same to you.’

We eat bacon and scrambled eggs on toast at the kitchen table, the TV on in the other room – a church service.

I ask: ‘What time they expecting us?’

‘Twelve, mum said. Same as always.’

I nod.

‘You going to be OK?’ she asks.

‘I’m fine.’

I get dressed upstairs and come back down, the presents in two big bags by the door.

She comes out of the kitchen, her coat on.

I say: ‘Shall we go?’

She smiles and hands me a small and beautifully wrapped box in green Christmas paper with a red ribbon: ‘Merry Christmas, love.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t have time.’

She nods: ‘I know. Don’t worry.’

I say: ‘Can I open it?’

Of course.’

I pull the red ribbon loose and carefully open the paper -

‘Can you guess what it is?’ she says.

I shake my head and open the box -

‘Happy?’ she asks, squeezing my arm -

I nod, taking out the digital watch.

‘It’s a calculator as well,’ she says.

I take off my father’s old watch and put it on.

‘Happy?’

I smile: ‘Thank you.’

‘Merry Christmas,’ she says, kissing me on the cheek.

I say again: ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t got you anything yet.’

‘Don’t worry. You can take me to the sales.’

I put my father’s watch on the windowsill and look at my new one.

‘What time is it?’ she laughs.

‘Just gone eleven-oh-one and seventeen seconds.’

‘Shall we go?’

I nod and open the door.

She points at the tree: ‘Going to leave the lights on?’

‘Better had,’ I say and lock the door behind us.

We drive slowly into Warrington, listening to the local radio as we go, pop songs and carols, not saying very much, and we’re early when we get to her parents but they’re already back from church, waiting -

We park on the road just as her brother and his family arrive.

Their three kids are out of the car, carrying brand new toys up the drive and stretching to reach the doorbell, but her dad’s already there at the door, wearing a paper hat and waving a cracker, wishing us a merry Christmas.

I reach over and take the two bags of presents off the back seat.

‘What’s in there?’ asks Joan, looking at another bag on the back seat.

‘Just work,’ I say, but taking the bag full of back issues of Spunk and locking it in the boot – sure I’d left them in the shed last night.

I say hello and merry Christmas to Joan’s brother John and Maureen, his wife, and we all walk up the drive talking about the miserable weather we’re having and how there are never any white Christmases any more.

Her father is carving the bird, mother in the kitchen, Joan and Maureen bringing in the vegetables, John and I holding sherries, moaning about City and the terrible season they’re having, his son and two daughters, the twins, itching to get eating so they can open the presents from their Nanna and Grandad Roberts and their Uncle Peter and Aunty Joan and then watch Top of the Pops in peace.

The food smells great and my mouth is wet.

We all sit down and I uncork a bottle of Asti Spumante and pour as Joan’s father serves the turkey and sausage and we all help ourselves to vegetables, bread sauce and gravy, the children wanting some of this and none of that, their parents laughing and frowning, telling stories about Carl, Carol and Clare, how they’re growing so fast and there’s really no denying they do seem to grow up quicker these days.