Tham Cheng-E - Surrogate Protocol

Do you like the selection I got you? I hope they came through in one piece. I thought you might like Matthew and the Mandarins. You’ll find two records in the package. Enjoy them, they’re quite a hit back home.

One more thing: remember the Mount Carmel address I sent you? Don’t forget to remit the cash every 6 months. In time you’ll know what it’s for.

Yours truly,

Willow the Wisp

November 9th, 1967

IT WAS THE twilight before Christmas Eve. London weltered in a misty mizzle at a temperature near freezing. Arthur’s frosty fingers could scarcely hold the letter at its edges. Receiving a letter at the height of one’s loneliness was spiriting. It asserted his existence when he was just about convinced that he no longer mattered to the world.

Traffic thinned along Camden Road. On the damp sidewalks commuters hustled home in brisk, plunging strides, their heads lowered against the chill, vapours streaming. The courtyard of Ifor Evans Hall was bedecked in bulbs of red and green strung on catenaries. A white marquee stood over the open car park where students mingled to the voices of Johnny Mathis and Ray Stevens crooning jigged-up carols on scratchy vinyl records.

Arthur sat on the steps to the cafeteria and read the letter for the fourth time. He didn’t mind being the only loner around, he supposed. Being sociable wasn’t exactly a commendable trait for a fugitive. His fingers had taken the full measure of the bitter cold, and with considerable difficulty he employed them, frozen and juddering, in folding the letter and sliding it back into its envelope. As usual, the letter had no return address on its back, but it had become habitual to search for it each time he received a letter from the elusive pen-pal who called himself Willow the Wisp.

The dance had begun by the time Arthur entered the marquee. Beer went round in plastic cups, and boozed-up overgrown adolescents jived to a rendition of Little Saint Nick by a four-member amateur band. He thought he might meet someone with whom he could strike up a decent conversation, drink in hand, just to show the others that he had a mate and that he wasn’t just a pitiable recluse desperate for attention.

Mother used to lament about how Christmas was besmirched. She said that the world threw out the Absolute not because it was untruth but because relativity was more convenient.

Still, this is hardly conversation material for the occasion.

He hung around stacks of chairs and hungered for a smoke. But he wouldn’t content himself with the weedy fags being passed around. Nothing beat the good old lustrous flavours of flue-cured tobacco. He found no table, and it would be rather debasing of him to fix himself a pipe while bumming crossed-legged on the floor like a schoolboy. With difficulty he fed the tobacco into the bowl of a meerschaum pipe while standing. He tamped it and ruined four matchsticks before lighting it.

A few students passed him with sneering, sidelong grins. “Puffing a bowllaweed eh, Chink?” said one of them. “You’ll fit right in the Marshal Keate, mate! Crammed full of barmy pipe-smoking gaffers!”

Arthur expelled the smoke, squinted at them through the smokescreen and responded with a dispassionate nod which seemed to disappoint them. It all ended there and then. Fights were for puerile, overgrown adolescents.

During an intermission someone played a vinyl of Dora Bryan singing All I want for Christmas is a Beatle , and it annoyed Arthur so much he decided to scoot. He passed a stand and grabbed two cups of ale, then made his way to a spot behind the marquee, sitting down on a kerb at a poorly lit parking lot. There he downed the first ale in a chugging draught and drank the second one slowly, between takes of the pipe. A hailer mounted to a lamppost behind him still blared the cackling voice, now sounding like a scathing satire for his current plight. He scowled through the entire song, until it finally transitioned to the smooth, trilling voice of Lena Horne:

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light.

From now on our troubles will be out of sight.”

Sick little joke. Chug up a few more ales and his heart would be light as a feather.

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the yuletide gay.”

Shut up.

“From now on our troubles will be miles away.”

Footsteps. A young woman sauntered into the lamplight, dressed in a pink turtleneck, grey leggings and brown calfskin boots. She wore her hair parted in the middle, and long and straight to her shoulders. From her lips came a smile that kindled recognition. But a name was slow to surface. Arthur’s jaw fell open when it came to him. He never thought he’d hear himself utter it again.

“Hannah?”

Her eyes wrinkled in a titter. “What took you so long?”

“I think I’m better disposed to ask that question.”

“I was worried you wouldn’t remember me.”

“In another month or two I might not have.”

“I was afraid of that,” said Hannah. “Wouldn’t want you spending Christmas alone.”

Arthur snapped off a bitter laugh and looked away. “I think you owe me an apology.”

“I thought we’re supposed to be friends?” Hannah rubbed her hands and blew into them. “Friends don’t owe each other anything.”

“Now you owe me two.”

“Aw, don’t be a whinger, Arthur,” Hannah coddled. She was slowblinking her lovely eyes and stepping away from him one teasing step at a time. The wan light of the lamp fell away, and her face slipped once more into a penumbrous gloom.

“I don’t know if I should stop you or dump you,” said Arthur.

Hannah laughed indulgently. “You haven’t changed, Arthur.”

“Why the hell are you walking away?”

She stopped and came back into the lamplight, her calfskin boots gritting on the asphalt. “Because I don’t know what an enraged man would do to me.”

“Don’t be difficult, Hannah.”

“Who’s being difficult here, Arthur? All this time you won’t even shake to a reunion with someone who’s crossed the Atlantic to see you.”

Hannah offered a gloved hand and lifted Arthur off the kerb with force he did not expect. She then opened her arms and he lingered in a moment of indecision before taking her into a tentative hug, then slowly pressing her close. He felt her arms tighten around him and he closed his eyes to the familiar scent of her hair.

“You must be really glad to see me,” she said, perching her chin on his shoulder.

Arthur did not reply because any response would have seemed frivolous. He pulled away and took her by the arms. He was watching her now, beholding the beauty in a face that had finally ranged into focus for the first time since he was whisked away to London over something that was but a washed-out ghost of a memory.

“You got a place to stay?” he asked.

“Recommend something.”

“I know a cosy little room on the third floor of the block behind me.”

Hannah tossed her head. “Lead the way.”

The door opened to darkness and Arthur clicked the light on. The room had a fusty green carpet that smelled of old cigarettes and a window with heavy velvet drapes. A single bed was set against a wall, and opposite the bed there was a desk with a chest of three drawers. There was a washbasin at a corner, and beside it, a narrow wardrobe. Arthur held the door open and Hannah entered, dropped her hippy patchwork bag into a chair and sat down at the edge of the bed. “So we’re sharing the bed?”

Arthur broke an obliging chuckle and closed the door behind him. “I didn’t think it would be ethical,” he said. “I’m taking the floor.”