Writing for Fun
December 2016
High Voltage - Pete Norman
Arthur Derry hated Christmas. Not Christmas as such, but what Christmas had become.
In his childhood everything had been so simple. In the middle of the night Santa filled a small stocking in his bedroom with a few nuts, a tangerine and, if you were lucky, a handful of farthing chews. It was not a large sock, it was green and white striped and when it was not hung from his bedroom fireplace its usual role was to fill his football boots. In the morning when you raced downstairs, squealing with excitement, you would find your present under the tree . . . a present that is . . . one single present, not some monstrous sack filled with half the contents of Toys R Us that the kids nowadays seem to expect. Christmas then was all about giving and receiving but now the entire world seemed to be out there lurking in wait, on the other side of his front door, just for Arthur Derry, for him to give so that they could receive.
At any time from October onwards it is impossible to walk down the High Street without having a collection box thrust under your nose every dozen paces.
Happy Christmas. Please give to help the poor sick animals.’
‘Happy Christmas. Please give to help the poor sick children.’
‘Happy Christmas. Please give to help the people who manufacture all of those bright red plastic collecting tins covered with jolly festive decorations to ensure you are in full Christmas spirit mode and thereby more inclined to give.’
On Tuesday Arthur had foolishly ventured down the High Street – a big mistake! The Salvation Army had launched an invasion and their formation took up most of the walkway. Arthur deliberately moved across to the other pavement to avoid them but the cunning beggars had out-thought him – they had positioned an out-rider on the opposite side to waylay the stragglers. He had to run the gauntlet of an old lady in full uniform, with a winsome smile and shaking the ubiquitous red plastic tin.
This side of Christmas he only ever ventured out for essentials and even then only at quiet times when the red plastic tins were more likely to be having a well-deserved rest, but it was almost impossible to avoid them, even on a trip to an out of town supermarket. On Wednesday outside ASDA, close to the trolley park – a place everyone had to pass – a man had the audacity to bang a tambourine against his knee as people approached to make sure that they looked his way, to make sure that they looked at his winsome smile, that they looked at his red plastic collecting tin covered with jolly festive decorations . . . that day Arthur had taken a wide and circuitous path around the car park to collect his trolley.
It was not even safe to stay indoors, in the secure confines of your own home. Every time you turned the television on you were subjected to endless advertisements for hideously expensive toys, great fat turkeys, enough alcoholic drinks to sink a battleship and demand after demand to commit to ‘Only twenty five pounds a month to help . . .’
He hated the relentless barrage of emotionally charged demands for his money and so he tried to avoid the commercial channels but sometimes, to his intense annoyance, he forgot and was confronted with presenter after presenter who seemed to feel the need to dress up in bright red and white costumes and leap up and down with manic expressions on their faces all the better to help them to get their receiving message across to the givers of the world.
Arthur Derry hated Christmas. He had never once said the words, ‘Bah humbug!’ but he had to admit that on a number of occasions he had come very, very close to it and this week he was fighting the urge like a trooper. It was the week before Christmas and every night he was bombarded by carol singers. None of them could sing. None of them knew the words to the carols. None of them cared.
The routine was always the same: first a knock on the door just to make sure you knew they were there, then the first couple of lines of one of the simplest carols – sung out of tune, out of time and with some dubiously substituted words thrown in just to make it all more ‘interesting’. Then a ring on the bell just in case you had not heard the knocker and then the rest of the first verse followed – mangled atrociously in sympathy with the first half. If all of this auditory excellence had failed to get you racing to the door with your wallet open then the door knocker was assaulted violently. It was a war of attrition and they had a lot more soldiers and a lot more perseverance than Arthur.
He had tried turning off all the lights at the front of the house and hiding in the kitchen with a book but by some magical ‘carol singer insight’ they always seemed to know he was there and there was no escape.
He had tried confronting them at the door and trying to reason with them – that all he wanted was a bit of peace and quiet – that ‘Aren’t you a bit too old to be carol singing?’ but that particular episode had resulted in his front window being pelted with eggs (eggs which were well past their smell-by date!)
He had thought long and hard and he knew that he had to up the ante to stop this insanity once and for all but he could not come up with anything useful . . . until, that is, the light fused in the kitchen. As he stood in the under-stairs cupboard shining a small torch on the circuit breaker which had tripped something stirred in his grey matter – the spark of an idea was forming.
He quickly located a spare three pin plug, although it took a little longer to find a suitable length of wire and his tool-bag. He twisted the ends of both of the cable-cores together and connected them to the positive terminal in the plug and then ran the wire out to the front door. With a pair of pliers he quickly loosened the two nuts that held the letter box and door knocker in place. He wound the wire around the two bolts and then screwed the nuts firmly back in place.
He tripped the circuit breaker in the hall socket circuit and inserted the plug. Inside the under-stairs cupboard he leaned back so that he could see the socket clearly and then, with more than a degree of hesitation, he threw the switch. Nothing happened. Arthur grinned. It was a perfect plan – what a ‘shock’ they would get if they dared to try their nonsense tonight – they would not be too quick to try that again!
Arthur placed a kitchen chair in the hallway beside the under-stairs cupboard in case he need to trip the circuit breaker quickly and there he waited in eager anticipation, however it was turning out to be an uncharacteristically quiet evening and time was dragging by, he had not had the hint of a carol singer for at least an hour and a half and his bum was going numb. He was bored beyond belief and all of the earlier bravado had evaporated. He just felt a little silly now – just a silly, grumpy old man. He decided to call it a day and pushed himself to his feet.
The doorbell rang. He sat down again, his heart beginning to flutter. The first two lines of Good King Wenceslas were desecrated. The doorbell rang again, a little longer. The rest of the first verse was similarly murdered – if it was being sung by an angel then he was certain it must be a Hell’s Angel! The doorbell rang again, but this time it did not stop. He braced himself for action. Any minute now . . .
‘Come on, what are you waiting for?’
Arthur’s nerves were at breaking point. He could take no more. He flung open the front door to confront the idiots . . . and there was no one there. The bell was still ringing. He removed the piece of BluTack from the bell push and from the other side of his front hedge he could hear the sounds of excited giggling. He stormed back indoors and resumed his seat by the cupboard. They would be back and next time . . .
They did not come back. Another half an hour passed. Arthur decided that he had wasted enough time on this foolish venture – he reached into the cupboard . . . and then stopped.
The most beautiful voice he had ever heard began to sing Silent Night. It was soft but powerful, the notes high and crystal clear, the words and the cadence perfect. He had never heard a sound quite so sweet.
There was no ringing of the bell, there was no knock on the door, just the angelic voice filling him with joy and love. He closed his eyes willing her to sing the entire carol, not just a couple of verses . . . but then his eyes opened with a jerk. The knocker . . . he must stop her using the knocker!
He ran to the front door and flung it open and there on his doorstep stood a young girl no more than six or seven years old. She was dressed in a white flouncy dress decorated with pink roses and her blond hair cascaded down around her shoulders – she looked just like the fairy on top of a Christmas tree.
Arthur reached for his wallet. He had never liked the new plastic fivers anyway and the sweet smile on her face as he pushed the small note into her basket melted his heart. He stood in the doorway watching as his own personal little angel walked down his path. He watched as she made her way along the road, as she stopped at every door. He listened to her magical voice over and over again – he could never tire of such a beautiful sound – until she passed around the corner and out of his life.
He murmured, ‘Bah humbug!’ and grinned.
A very different Arthur Derry turned back to his own world again. He stepped across the threshold and reached out to close the door.
He took a firm hold of the door knocker and pulled . . .