4. GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY

Still on the stairway to Heaven Santa recollects an old error of judgement

The fat man stamped one foot petulantly and glared around him.

Everything was devoid of light. It was blacker than black in the void between what was and what would be. There was just the staircase he was fighting his way up, the sense of someone else perched on his shoulder and way ahead still, but always getting closer, the woman.

He could tell when he looked that she was a beautiful woman, but weren’t most women beautiful, he thought, even ugly ones?

“I’ve had enough of this!” he snapped.

“You should have thought of that before you died,” muttered his alter-ego, “there are always consequences that arise from our decisions. This is a consequence of you going to the trouble to pass away. It really was thoughtless of you! Did you give one moment’s thought to how I might feel about it?”

“Shurrup!” snapped the fat man, “I’ve had more than enough of this!”

“And her at the top of the stairway up there, just waiting for you … how much longer are you going to keep her waiting?”

“She doesn’t have to be there...” snapped the red-coated and very argumentative weary fat man, “I never asked her to be.”

“Yes she does. You’ll see,” soothed the alter-ego.

The struggling obese figure sighed. “It takes me back,” he muttered.

“Don’t tell me! You’re beginning to think of that girl from the North country?”

“How did you guess?”

“It’s easy when you’re part of the same fellow,” grinned his alter-ego, “don’t forget, I’ve always been there, even when you’ve been asleep, and I met Mary Smith. Just like you did.”

“She had a toddler with her and she was waiting in the queue at my grotto in the shopping centre,” sighed the breathless old man, sitting wearily on the next step up and wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” warned his alter-ego.

“Mary Smith! That was her name! I can picture her now! There she was with the scrap of a toddler, waiting in line at my grotto, waiting to get a gift from me. Waiting patiently, holding the little one’s hand and telling it things like Santa’s in there and all these people want to see him too, so we’ll have to be patient, just a little while longer...”

“I remember.”

“Of course you do! And I can picture her standing there. It was a cold day but she wore the tiniest skirt, the sort that I wouldn’t think would keep a gnat warm! But she didn’t look pinched or cold or anything like that. It was fawn in colour. Simple. And her legs were bare.”

“She wore tights! I could tell that!”

“You remember?”

“I said so, didn’t I? She was wearing that simple skirt, pressed and smart like they did in those days, and flesh-coloured tights.”

“I wondered...”

“Or stockings. They might have been stockings. Women did in those days. Nylons, they called them.”

“It was her hair that I noticed. I always notice hair when it is long and fragrant and...”

“Blonde?”

“It was! It was blonde!”

“I saw it too. And I saw her face,” grinned the fat man’s alter-ego.

“There never was such a face. Pretty, pink lips, blue eyes, wind-brushed cheeks. I saw that face and I loved her.”

“And then you were a bad Santa,” his alter-ego reminded him, and he blushed the deep grey blush of the dead caught in an old memory.

“I didn’t do anything wrong! Not really wrong! She eventually arrived at the front of the long queue with her toddler’s hand in hers.

“’Say hello to Santa’, she said, and it was the first time I … we … heard her voice. She was from the North and it sounded warm and loving and caring and filled with motherliness.”

“Probably Yorkshire,” commented the blob on his shoulder.

“’Sit on Santa’s lap,’ she said in that warm voice of hers, ‘go on, Gabriel, he’s Santa and he’s got a special present for you...’”

“But the squirt was terrified of you!” scoffed the fat man’s alter-ego, “he screamed fit to bring the roof down! Folks were staring and wondering why a little kid should be making all that noise when all he’s got in his sight is the great Santa Claus, and everyone knows that Santa Claus means no harm to anyone!”

“Santa Claus,” murmured the fat man, “that was me.”

“And you scared the poor little mite till he could do nothing but cling to his mother’s hand and try to pull away…”

Santa frowned. “I tried to help,” he said, as if excusing himself of what was to come next. “The little boy was scared so I tried to show him there was nothing to be frightened of...”

“By grabbing his mother and sitting her on your knee!” grinned the festive alter-ego.

“It wasn’t quite like that! I looked at the young kid, Gabriel he was called, though no angel, I can assure you of that! “Let me show you, I said to him, I won’t hurt your mummy…” and I took her by the hand that wasn’t still holding onto the kid, and pulled her so gently towards me, and she came, she came to my lap more willingly than anyone else ever did, and she looked at me and smiled, and I knew there and then that she was the most special young woman in the whole world. I wanted to kiss her… I wanted to caress her… she excited me... but the child was watching.”

“And screaming! He was screaming louder than ever and a large crowd was standing all around and staring, there was Santa Claus, terrifying a little boy and half-raping his mother!”

“I did nothing of the kind!”

“It’s what things look like that matters, not what things are. That’s why you got the sack, sent on your miserable way with nothing but the memory of a beautiful young woman with flowing golden locks to remind you of what might have been...”

“They didn’t even pay me...” grumbled the fat man.

“Anyway, all these reminiscences aren’t getting us anywhere,” his alter-ego reminded him, “there’s still a whole lot of steps left before we reach the woman at the top of the stairs, and look, she’s beckoning at you!”

“Or threatening me,” grumbled Santa Claus.

“Probably a bit of both,” grinned the other.

The fat man stood up, wearily. “Okay, you win,” he muttered, “let’s climb some stairs.”

© Peter Rogerson 08.11.18