When I had lain paralysed for what felt like blind hours, the breathing went away. It was in the chimney, dislodging soot; it might be the wind. But I knew it had come out to let me know that whatever the fire had done to it, it hadn’t been killed. It had emerged to tell me it would come for me on Christmas Eve. I began to scream.
I wouldn’t tell my mother why. She washed my face, which was freckled with soot. “You’ve been sleepwalking again,” she tried to reassure me, but I wouldn’t let her leave me until daylight. When she’d gone I saw the ashy tracks leading from the chimney to the bed.
Perhaps I had been sleepwalking and dreaming. I searched vainly for my nightlight. I would have been ashamed to ask for a new one, and that helped me to feel I could do without. At dinner I felt secure enough to say I didn’t know why I had screamed.
“But you must remember. You sounded so frightened. You upset me.”
My father was folding the evening paper into a thick wad the size of a pocketbook, which he could read beside his plate. “Leave the boy alone,” he said. “You imagine all sorts of things when you’re feverish. I did when I was his age.”
It was the first time he’d admitted anything like weakness to me. If he’d managed to survive his nightmares, why should mine disturb me more? Tired out by the demands of my fever, I slept soundly that night. The chimney was silent except for the flapping of flames.
But my father didn’t help me again. One November afternoon I was standing behind the counter, hoping for customers. My father pottered, grumpily fingering packets of nylons, tins of petfood, Dinky toys, babies’ rattles, cards, searching for signs of theft. Suddenly he snatched a Christmas card and strode to the counter. “Sit down,” he said grimly.
He was waving the card at me, like evidence. I sat down on a shelf, but then a lady came into the shop; the bell thumped. I stood up to sell her nylons. When she’d gone I gazed at my father, anxious to hear the worst. “Just sit down,” he said.
He couldn’t stand my being taller than he was. His size embarrassed him, but he wouldn’t let me see that; he pretended I had to sit down out of respect. “Your mother says she tried to tell you about Father Christmas,” he said.
She must have told him that weeks earlier. He’d put off talking to me – because we’d never been close, and now we were growing further apart. “I don’t know why she couldn’t tell you,” he said.
But he wasn’t telling me either. He was looking at me as if I were a stranger he had to chat to. I felt uneasy, unsure now that I wanted to hear what he had to say. A man was approaching the shop. I stood up, hoping he’d interrupt.
He did, and I served him. Then, to delay my father’s revelation, I adjusted stacks of tins. My father stared at me in disgust. “If you don’t watch out you’ll be as bad as your mother.”
I found the idea of being like my mother strange, indefinably disturbing. But he wouldn’t let me be like him, wouldn’t let me near. All right, I’d be brave, I’d listen to what he had to say. But he said “Oh, it’s not worth me trying to tell you. You’ll find out.”
He meant I must find out for myself that Father Christmas was a childish fantasy. He didn’t mean he wanted the thing from the chimney to come for me, the disgust in his eyes didn’t mean that, it didn’t. He meant that I had to behave like a man.
And I could. I’d show him. The chimney was silent. I needn’t worry until Christmas Eve. Nor then. There was nothing to come out.
One evening as I walked home I saw Dr Flynn in his front room. He was standing before a mirror, gazing at his red fur-trimmed hooded suit; he stooped to pick up his beard. My mother told me that he was going to act Father Christmas at the children’s hospital. She seemed on the whole glad that I’d seen. So was I: it proved the pretence was only for children.
Except that the glimpse reminded me how near Christmas was. As the nights closed on the days, and the days rushed by – the end-of-term party, the turkey, decorations in the house – I grew tense, trying to prepare myself. For what? For nothing, nothing at all. Well, I would know soon – for suddenly it was Christmas Eve.
I was busy all day. I washed up as my mother prepared Christmas dinner. I brought her ingredients, and hurried to buy some she’d used up. I stuck the day’s cards to tapes above the mantelpiece. I carried home a tinsel tree which nobody had bought. But being busy only made the day move faster. Before I knew it the windows were full of night.
Christmas Eve. Well, it didn’t worry me. I was too old for that sort of thing. The tinsel tree rustled when anyone passed it, light rolled in tinsel globes, streamers flinched back when doors opened. Whenever I glanced at the wall above the mantelpiece I saw half a dozen red-cheeked smiling bearded faces swinging restlessly on tapes.
The night piled against the windows. I chattered to my mother about her shouting father, her elder sisters, the time her sisters had locked her in a cellar. My father grunted occasionally – even when I’d run out of subjects to discuss with my mother, and tried to talk to him about the shop. At least he hadn’t noticed how late I was staying up. But he had. “It’s about time everyone was in bed,” he said with a kind of suppressed fury.
“Can I have some more coal?” My mother would never let me have a coal-scuttle in the bedroom – she didn’t want me going near the fire. “To put on now,” I said. Surely she must say yes. “It’ll be cold in the morning,” I said.
“Yes, you take some. You don’t want to be cold when you’re looking at what Father – at your presents.”
I hurried upstairs with the scuttle. Over its clatter I heard my father say “Are you still at that? Can’t you let him grow up?”
I almost emptied the scuttle into the fire, which rose roaring and crackling. My father’s voice was an angry mumble, seeping through the floor. When I carried the scuttle down my mother’s eyes were red, my father looked furiously determined. I’d always found their arguments frightening; I was glad to hurry to my room.
It seemed welcoming. The fire was bright within the mesh. I heard my mother come upstairs. That was comforting too: she was nearer now. I heard my father go next door – to wish the doctor Happy Christmas, I supposed. I didn’t mind the reminder. There was nothing of Christmas Eve in my room, except the pillowcase on the floor at the foot of the bed. I pushed it aside with one foot, the better to ignore it.
I slid into bed. My father came upstairs; I heard further mumblings of argument through the bedroom wall. At last they stopped, and I tried to relax. I lay, glad of the silence.
A wind was rushing the house. It puffed down the chimney; smoke trickled through the fireguard. Now the wind was breathing brokenly. It was only the wind. It didn’t bother me.
Perhaps I’d put too much coal on the fire. The room was hot; I was sweating. I felt almost feverish. The huge mesh flicked over the wall repeatedly, nervously, like a rapid net. Within the mirror the dimmer room danced.
Suddenly I was a little afraid. Not that something would come out of the chimney, that was stupid: afraid that my feeling of fever would make me delirious again. It seemed years since I’d been disturbed by the sight of the room in the mirror, but I was disturbed now. There was something wrong with that dim jerking room.
The wind breathed. Only the wind, I couldn’t hear it changing. A fat billow of smoke squeezed through the mesh. The room seemed more oppressive now, and smelled of smoke. It didn’t smell entirely like coal smoke, but I couldn’t tell what else was burning. I didn’t want to get up to find out.
I must lie still. Otherwise I’d be writhing about trying to clutch at sleep, as I had the second night of my fever, and sometimes in summer. I must sleep before the room grew too hot. I must keep my eyes shut. I mustn’t be distracted by the faint trickling of soot, nor the panting of the wind, nor the shadows and orange light that snatched at my eyes through my eyelids.