THREE STORIES THAT ARE ALMOST ENTIRELY UNRELATED EXCEPT THEY'RE ALL ABOUT CHRISTMAS

By

Richard Rippon

I.

When I was a kid, I used to rummage through my parent’s wardrobe looking for Christmas presents.  Now I just rummage through people’s e-mail accounts, see what they are ordering.  I know everyone’s passwords.  Being the only IT semi-competent in the family, they asked me to set up their accounts.  Now they’re getting cocky and ordering stuff online.

It was too tempting, like the wardrobe where they used to hide my toys every year.  So I snooped through my Dad’s e-mail (blue Diesel sweater – thanks Dad!) and your Mother’s (Family Guy boxset – just what I wanted!).  I was checking out your messages and feeling relatively pleased with the gifts you’d selected for me, when I saw that you’d ordered me a watch.  It wasn’t a Rolex or a TAG, but fairly decent all the same (“A stylish and robust design”, said the blurb next to the picture).  There was a fairly decent price tag on it too, so I was even a little touched that you’d splashed out on me.

So Christmas came and it was okay.  We ate at your Mother’s, had a few drinks and in the taxi home I was looking forward to opening our presents.  “Our own little Christmas,” you said.  You loved the necklace and the underwear I bought for you.  Of my presents, I saved the little box till last. 

I open it up and it’s a fucking phone. 

I suppose I had it coming, but thank you for the gift of paranoia.  Now I have the new hobby of scoping out the wrists of every man I see you talk too.  I suppose it’s better than socks.

II.

When you were very young, my love, I took you to Fenwick’s window to see the Christmas display.  

You were still in nappies.  Your Mother and I had code for the consistency of their contents.  Chicken korma.  Potato Wedges.  Uncle Ben’s sweet and sour sauce. 

I lifted you onto my shoulders above the crowd, to see the fibreglass elves and reindeer.  I caught our reflection in the glass.  You, in your pink hat, your face alight with excitement, the widest smile, the brightest eyes.  A little bubble of snot hung above your gummy grin. 

I looked tired, drawn.  A little closer to middle age than I would have liked.  My mouth sour from beer the night before.  My feet cold and wet.  I would have stood there forever if you’d wanted me to.

“Wave to the little elves,” I said and you did: your latest trick.  The slightest new thing covered me with unabashed pride. 

I tilted my head to look up at you.  You looked down at me, looked right into my eyes and giggled. 

I thought: of all things, retain this.  Of all memories that can dissolve, or be shunted out by bullshit, trivia or senility, keep this one safe. 

Remember this, remember this, remember this.

III.

Robby?  Robby’s just a cunt.  Always has been.  And what’s with that billiard shaped growth on his forehead, like some bloody bauble off the Christmas tree?  It looks like a bug has laid eggs under his scalp.  Looks like it could pop at any time, unleashing untold stinking slime and evil.  Maybe, when he was younger, he could have hidden it under his hair, but that’s getting pretty thin on the ground now.  Whatever looks he had are gone.  All that’s left is the meanness.
 
He used to hit his mother, then moved out with some poor girl, started hitting her. He was into the football hooliganism, that’s what he went inside for. Did two years. People are still scared of him and he knows it. That’s why last Friday night he felt he could slam Mick Appleby’s head off the bar and walk out, leaving blood on the peanuts and nobody moving a muscle. 

It’s also why I didn’t mind too much when I saw it was him I’d mowed down with my car after leaving the pub drunk on Saturday.  Knocked him through the hedge.  I checked if he was still alive. He was, but he wasn’t too clever.  Another egg appearing on his head where it had bounced off my windscreen. Still unconscious, I hear.  I hope I’ve knocked him into 2008. 

No turkey for you, Robbo.