The ground dropped away like a stone, and Elvis felt
his breakfast rise up in protest.
He took a gulp of cold, clear air, and
squeezed his eyes shut. The only sound was the jangling of the reins, Rudolph’s
sugar-fueled snorts and the occasional ‘caw!’ of a surprised rook.
After
counting to ten, and assuring himself that his stomach had returned to its
rightful place, the elf opened his eyes. Beside him, Klaus was swigging from a hip flask and
mumbling angrily to himself. He cast a grumpy glance at Elvis, then rolled his
bloodshot eyes.
“What the blazes am I going to do with you?” he
growled, apparently not expecting an answer. “The whole point is get away from the
magic nonsense and delivering gifts to all the kids in the world in the time it
takes an atom to whizz round the Hadron collider. But now. Now, I’m gonna have to
explain a thigh-high, pointy-nosed elf wherever I go.”
Elvis shifted in his seat, uncomfortably.
“Don’t they have little people where we’re going?”
“Yeah, they do, but don’t expect the royal treatment.
At best, you’ll be something like a side-show at the circus. Whatever happens,
don’t come running to me – I’ve got some serious business to catch up on.”
Cold, miserable, and now thoroughly confused, the elf
sank back in his seat, suddenly missing the dull familiarity of life on the
homestead he’d been so keen to leave just a few short hours ago. His nausea
passed, and in time, the gentle rocking of the sleigh as Rudolph settled into a
steady canter through the clouds lulled him to
sleep. Obviously, a night in the deer shed with Entynne has taken more out of
him than he’d realised. He settled into the warm dream of slightly obscene wishful thinking that
featured some rose-tinted scenes definitely not suitable for family viewing. For the first time all day, he smiled indulgently to himself.
A deafening roar and whoosh as the sleigh banked
steeply to the left jolted him away from his elvish wet dream. His eyes flew open to the sight of a giant stiff-winged
bird thundering past them. Klaus was clinging
to his sack, though too late to save the coffee pot tumbling out and
plummeting earthwards.
(The next morning, Hamish McPhee, a bachelor crofter
in the Hebrides called the BBC Scottish Service claiming to have been visited
by a UFO in the night. He had a hole in his roof and the melted misshapen
remains of an alien artifact to show for it. Dougal and the other sheep agreed
that was irrefutable evidence of “something out there”. None of them could
explain the strong smell of burnt mocha that surrounded the object, but Hamish
imagined aliens needed a kick of caffeine to get them going in the mornings as
much as anyone.)
Elvis dared not close his eyes again. He
stared around him, blinking like a startled bush-baby on speed. Below, the
landscape was changing. Wild rolling hills merged with a patchwork quilt of
tamed squares dotted with long glass sheds. The fields in turn gave way to
trickles of houses, warehouses and factories running into towns, before being
swallowed up into the ugly grey of concrete, office blocks and multi-storey car
parks. Traffic lights twinkled in competition with flashing Christmas illuminations
wrapped around anything that didn’t move.
It was all very different from the homestead. Elvis was
starting to think he might have made a terrible mistake.
A shuddering bump roused him from his thoughts as the
sleigh landed clumsily and Rudolph barely managed to avoid skidding over the
edge of a flat rooftop. Klaus pulled his bulk out of his seat, hitched up his
belt and reached for a bucket on the floor of the sleigh. He filled it with
jelly babies and placed it front of the reindeer.
“Should keep him happy for a while,” he belched
noisily. “Now, it’s my turn.”
He signaled to the elf. “If you’re coming, come on.”
and strode off in the direction on a grey metal door in a concrete square no
bigger than a suburban toolshed.
Elvis scrambled out and ran after the old man. He had
no choice. Who knew what horrors hid among the glass, bricks and bags of old
asbestos lying around the rooftop?
The door led to a damp stairwell with all the charm (and
the scent) of public toilet. Down they went. Five flights felt like five
thousand to Elvis’ little legs, but eventually they reached the bottom where
Klaus opened a door at the bottom to reveal a world full of light, jangling colours and
merciless cheery music. A neon banner overhead proclaimed “The Home of Croydon Shopping”.
Bemused, Elvis stammered. “Where are we? What are we
doing here? And what’s ‘Croydon’?”
“Best not to ask,” answered Klaus, gruffly. “We left
home to lose ourselves, didn’t we? Well, Croydon seems like as a good place as
any to start.”
He took the elf by the hand like an errant child, and
guided him past more red and green than if the
Spirit of Christmas had thrown up on the place after a particularly wild office
party.
Around them, people rushed to and from. Even
from his waist-high point of view, Elvis could see the panic in their eyes and
feel the wave of “Buy! Buy! Buy!”
flowing off them like the stench of a week-old chicken breast forgotten in the
fridge. They moved with the air of a hoard of zombies that had been given an
electric shock, rushing mindlessly from one shop to another, knocking over
small children and shoving a blue-haired old lady with a walking frame into the
wall.
An orange-faced girl so short Elvis momentarily took her
for a fellow elf shoved her impossibly pneumatic cleavage (barely covered in an
X-rated version of Klaus’ fur trimmed red costume) in his face. She squirted a
bottle of something that smelled vaguely of snowberries and reindeer pee in his
direction with a cheery “Arctic Fox. sir? Just the thing for that special
little lady in your life, innit?”
Before Elvis had the chance to politely decline her offer, Klaus had dragged him out a glass door that opened with a swish and
a blast of synthetic-scented air into a dull, grey street. The ground was slick
with the greasy remains of the morning rain and the world beyond the over-lit
shopfronts looked tired and cynical. A bit like Klaus.
The old man looked one way, then the other, looking for something beyond the bustling crowds and street hustlers. After
a moment to catch his breath, the elf felt his arm yanked almost out of its
socket as Klaus set off with a new determination down the street.
Pushing their way through the door, they were greeted by a shout of 'Here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun' from the jukebox as they stepped into a dispirited
bar, festooned in tinsel and fake happiness. It was empty but for a bored-looking
man with a comb-over and a pot belly picking his teeth behind the bar, and a
bag lady in checked trousers, a Hawaiian shirt and a too-big man’s overcoat,
happily counting bottle tops on the table before her.
Klaus led Elvis to a booth in a dark corner and headed
for the bar. The elf sat down, utterly bemused, and waited. After a few choice
words and flashing a wallet full of plastic, the old man returned with a double
whiskey for himself, two packets of cheese and onion crisps, and a bottle of a
watery pink drink that smelled vaguely of red jelly babies for Elvis.
“Sorry,” he said plonking the bottle down before the
elf. “I tried to get you a proper drink but the tosser behind the bar said he
couldn’t serve you alcohol without ID. I reckoned that if nothing
else, this stuff might give you a bit of any energy boost – the ads say it gives
you wings, after all.”
Klaus took a long sip from his glass, smacked his lips
in appreciation, and took a deep breath. But before he could speak, the smell of sweet sherry and parma violets heralded the
presence of someone else.
“Well about time too!” said the old lady with the
bottle tops.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you, Klaus Kringle?
This is no way to treat your wife, you know!”
The man in red shifted in his seat, and looked up at
the bag lady like an apologetic puppy. “Gladys, sweet’eart! I can explain.”
...Part 8 coming soon - stay tuned.
Meanwhile, in addition to the my stories being published in the 'Grim Keepers' and 'Festive Frights'
anthologies I told you about last time, I’ve had some of my tales included
in another two collections:
