The Advent Calendar (18 page)

‘Amazing,’ said Megs as they drove home. ‘Never seen anything like it.’

The phone was ringing when they came through the front door. Alice picked it up. ‘Code’s arrived,’ said Sam. ‘Got a pen?’

‘But Sam...’ said Alice.

‘Can’t talk now,’ said Sam. ‘Party.’ Alice could here the music and voices in the background. Sam sounded a bit the worse for wear already. ‘Write this down and repeat it. One. Colon. One. Eight.’

‘One. Colon. One. Eight,’ said Alice ‘But Sam...’

‘Can’t stop. Shee you later.’ He hung up. Alice shrugged her shoulders and went into the front room. The new door in the calendar was strange and round and made of glass. ‘If I didn’t know better,’ Alice thought, ‘I would say it was the door of a washing machine.’ As she looked closely, she almost thought she saw water swooshing round inside as if it was halfway through a programme. Nothing else happened. There was no sign of the door opening. The mirror’s surface was sharp and solid, her reflection still the same awful picture she saw each morning.

‘Teatime,’ Megs called.

***********

Sam was having an excellent time at the office party. The firm had been very stingy this year and, instead of going out, they were just having a few drinks in the building after work. But Tizzy had done a brilliant job with the food and decorations on a limited budget and different people had brought in extra booze. Some of the desks had been cleared away to make a space for dancing and one of the receptionists was acting as DJ with her portable music player wired up to a huge set of speakers. Wild dancing alternated with karaoke but now the music was slowing down. Even Richard seemed to be enjoying himself and relaxing just a bit. Sam had already entertained the entire company with his impersonations of Elvis, Meatloaf and his annual rendition of Slade.

He and Tizzy had been together most of the evening and Tizzy had made a particularly brave if drunken job of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’. She looked absolutely stunning in what she was wearing.

As the party moved out of its most raucous phase someone turned out more of the lights and the music slowed down to George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’. ‘Dance with me, Sam,’ Tizzy called, pulling him close. Other couples were pairing up across the floor and some people were beginning to slip away. Sam waved to Germaine who had his coat on and was leaving. ‘Happy Christmas!’ he mouthed. Germaine mouthed something back and wagged his finger in warning, pointing to his wedding ring. Sam thought it might have been ‘Josie’ but he couldn’t be sure.

Tizzy’s arms were tight around his waist now and Sam noticed she was steering him gradually away from the dance floor and towards the stockroom. She reached up and whispered in his ear as they came closer. ‘Let’s go and count the envelopes. Like last year.’

No one was watching. They opened the stockroom door and slipped inside. The lights were on and they both closed their eyes against the sudden brightness. Sam felt Tizzy’s head against his chest and was reaching out his hand to flick off the lights when, from the back of the room, there was a deep cough.

‘Ahem.’

Sam and Tizzy sprang apart. Sitting on a pile of boxes against the back wall and watching them, was a large figure with a bushy beard in a massive coat.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce me, Sam?’ asked JB, sadly, looking down.

Sam went very red and was sober in an instant.

‘Tizzy, this is a friend of mine, JB. JB, this is my – er – colleague. Elizabeth Green.’

JB stepped forward and took Tizzy’s hand. ‘Good to meet you, child,’ he said. ‘Happy Christmas.’

‘Happy Christmas,’ said Tizzy, her cheeks burning. ‘Sam, I’ll – er – just go and check on the party. See you later.’

Sam nodded. He and JB stood facing each other in the empty stockroom. Sam could not meet the great man’s eyes at first, dreading what he would find there. JB said nothing. When Sam finally met his gaze he found a strange blend of compassion and questioning.

‘I’m sorry, JB,’ said Sam, in the end.

‘Then you must change,’ said JB. ‘Life is not a game. Some of the choices we make last for ever. Sam, your commitment to Josie and to your child is for life now. That means turning your back on certain things. Tizzy has to find her own way.’

‘I know. But she needs a friend right now.’

‘She does indeed,’ said JB with a hint of anger. ‘I think she needs a friend who will care for her not exploit her weakness.’

Sam was silent for a moment.

‘You’re right, of course,’ said Sam. ‘What can I say?’

‘Like everyone else, Sam, you have turned Christmas into nothing but a season of eating and drinking and carousing into the night. Have you not seen yet it is also the time of new beginnings?’

He put his arm round Sam’s shoulder as they moved to the door. ‘Go home, Sam. Go home to Josie and to Alice. Start again.’

JB’s final words echoed in Sam’s mind as he said goodbye to Tizzy and the others. As he and Tizzy hugged he whispered, ‘Sorry. Still friends.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Still mates.’

JB’s words echoed in his mind as he travelled home on the train, as he walked through the empty streets still wrapped in fog, as he opened the front door. Josie, Megs and Alice were having cocoa in the front room. Josie got up and gave him a big hug.

‘Home early,’ she said. ‘Missed you.’

Sam wiped a tear away and blew his nose. Megs went to make more cocoa. Alice took him by the hand and led him to the calendar.

The strange door that looked like a porthole stood open now. ‘Start again’ came the echo in his mind. Inside the door stood a table spread with the whitest linen cloth Sam had ever seen. No marks, no spots, no blemishes. Start again.

18 December

Sam slept badly and woke early. His mind was in turmoil now about all that had been happening. He took a long look at himself in the bathroom mirror and realised that he did not really like what he saw. He put on his work clothes, came downstairs and for the first time took a very long look at himself in the new mirror in the front room.

He could hardly bear the sight reflected back to him and screwed up his eyes. He made himself remember Josie and JB and what had almost happened last night and forced first one eye open and then another.

He hardly recognised the creature staring back. His skin was caked in mud and slime. His hair was matted, dank, twisted into knots. His clothes were filthy, shredded rags hanging from his limbs. His shoes were split and the soles worn through. He was a much thinner version of Sam with sunken eyes and cheeks. His flesh was covered in wounds and sores. The creature cowered inside the mirror. The eyes which stared back into Sam’s were burdened and afraid.

Sam sunk down and perched on the edge of the armchair, eyes still fixed on his reflection. ‘Is this what I’ve become?’ Sam whispered to himself. ‘Shallow, pointless, scared? “Start again” was what he said to me. But how?’

Just then, Sam thought he heard someone call his name, from faraway. It sounded like JB’s voice but he couldn’t be sure. He reached out to touch the mirror, then pulled his fingers back. His hands had met those of his reflection. They were worn and calloused and cold.

Head bowed, Sam turned away. Time for work. At least it was a half day.

When Sam arrived at the office, it was half empty as he expected. Those who were there were simply going through the motions. He was relieved to see that Tizzy had stayed at home. There was a faint smell of alcohol and crisps in the normally sterile corridor.

Richard came by and made a sarcastic comment about not expecting to see Sam at work that day but otherwise he was left undisturbed. All that morning, his mind tangled with the problem caused by JB’s advice: ‘Start again.’ But how? He was the person he had become through years of choices or not making choices. Again he caught the echo of a voice calling his name from very faraway: ‘Sam!’

He was meeting Josie for lunch and Christmas shopping. At least here he could make a beginning. Although he and Josie got on well, he knew there were so many things he wasn’t saying. They ordered soup and a sandwich.

‘Josie, can I say something?’

‘Sure. What is it?’ Sam thought he saw a shadow of fear flash across her face. He took her hand.

‘I just want to say that I’m not very proud of the way I’ve been and the way I am. That’s a bit of an understatement really.’ Sam’s mind was full of his reflection in the mirror. ‘I’m not sure I can, but I want to do better. For you. For the baby. For me.’

‘Sam!’ came the voice calling from faraway. Sam turned his head towards the door.

‘What is it?’ asked Josie.

‘Nothing,’ said Sam, turning back. ‘I just wanted to say that. I want to be a better person. If I can.’

‘So do I,’ said Josie, taking his other hand. ‘I really want this to work, Sam. You and me.’

‘You and me,’ said Sam, his mind still full of his reflection.

**********

Unlike Sam, Alice slept in that morning, clattered down the stairs at the last minute and was whisked away to school. The whole morning was acutely embarrassing. Alex had managed to bunk off for the day so she and Suzie had to face the music on their own.

The Head came to see the whole class in the first lesson with Miss Newton. He explained to them the stress the biology teacher had been under for the whole of the term and that she would be taking compassionate leave for the next few months. They were to have a supply teacher in the new year. Suzie’s and Alice’s cheeks burned red. He then talked at great length about health and safety and responsible behaviour and wasting the time of the fire services who could have been needed in a real emergency. Alice and Suzie felt extremely small. He then singled them out, talked about when pranks go too far and about how they deserved to be excluded from school but Miss Newton had intervened, and gave strict instructions that the class were not to emulate their behaviour. Alice and Suzie wished the classroom floor would open up and swallow them in green smoke. ‘Where is Col when you need him?’ Alice thought grimly.

Whatever the Head said to their own class, to the rest of the school they were some kind of heroes. People came up to them in the corridors and at break time and clapped them on the shoulders. Alice would have done a great deal not to be famous in that kind of way. From time to time during the morning she thought she heard someone calling her name from very faraway, across the other side of the playground but whenever she looked there was no one there.

School ended just after lunch with an assembly in the big hall. Once again, the Head told the story of yesterday, emphasised what a serious, stupid prank it had been and read out the names of those responsible. All but the worst behaved kids in the school now knew that they had gone too far and Alice knew that they knew. The incident would live on and grow in the school’s memory and her name would be linked with it for ever.

Normally breaking up for Christmas was one of the best days of the entire year but Alice left the yard with Suzie in silence, shoulders drooping. They hugged as they said goodbye for the holidays. The only good thing to come out of the whole incident was cementing their friendship. Each knew she would have an ally in getting through the next term.

Again, as she left school, Alice thought she heard her name being called: ‘Alice!’ It was the kind of voice that makes you want to see the person, but whenever she turned round, there was no one there.

Alice arrived home to an empty house. She ran straight upstairs to change out of her uniform and came back downstairs to the front room. The calendar lifted her spirits as it always did and she spent a few moments tracing the different images and adventures of the last week. Today was the sixth day, she realised. Today they should face some kind of test and say goodbye to JB. The way she was feeling, this just might be the last time they entered the world of the calendar.

Reluctantly, Alice turned and looked into the mirror. She saw what Sam had seen before her, though she was not aware of it. A sad, frightened creature stared back at her from the mirror’s surface, clothed in rags, caked in dirt and covered in the most horrible sores. ‘No more than the truth,’ she thought and even as she thought it, she heard her name called again, from somewhere deep within the mirror: ‘Alice!’

She heard keys turning in the front door. ‘In here, Mum,’ she called, biting her lip. But it was Sam.

‘Home early,’ he said. ‘Half day. How was school?’

Alice just looked at him.

‘They might have forgotten, you know, after Christmas.’

Alice looked at the floor and sighed. ‘Message!’ said Sam’s phone.

Both of them brightened up at the thought of whatever awaited them in the calendar. Sam dashed upstairs to change into jeans and trainers. Alice inspected the new door. It was framed in tiny coloured and glazed tiles. The door itself was blue and made of wood.

‘Alice!’ came the call again. Sam came back into the room and read the code. ‘Five. Three. Colon. Three.’

They turned round. ‘The mirror,’ Sam said. ‘The surface has changed. Ready?’

‘Let’s go,’ said Alice. ‘Remember it’s a test. Don’t mess up. I want to make it through till Christmas Eve.’

Sam climbed through first, Alice followed.

They found themselves standing on a simple pathway, leading away from the mirror, flanked on each side by a grove of the most ancient olive trees. From the branches on the ground, they recognised the wood of the mirror’s frame and of the calendar itself. It felt like evening or perhaps early morning: just enough light to see by but not very clearly.

Alice turned to look at Sam and flinched. Sam looked at Alice and did the same. Then they both looked down and realised what had happened.

Each had become the creature in the mirror, their own reflection: covered in layers of dirt, clothed in filthy rags, with broken, worn shoes, covered in sores, weak and thin and frightened.

‘Is this what you looked like in the mirror?’ said Sam.

Alice nodded, still looking down.

‘Me too,’ said Sam, ashamed.

‘I want to go back,’ said Alice, turning back towards the mirror.

‘Alice!’ ‘Sam!’ came the voice from faraway, back down the pathway.

‘Sam, I can’t stand being like this. I want to go back.’

They both turned back towards the mirror. To Alice’s surprise, it had become solid again: there was no way through. She peered into the frame, expecting to see only her own reflection.

Instead she saw the front room and the person she had left behind looking back and walking away from the mirror. She saw the room change and this same person growing older and, she thought, harder. The pictures in the mirror flashed before her: fierce quarrels with Megs and her father, even with Sam; her dress becoming weirder; smoking and drugs; becoming sloppy with her homework; sneering at her friends; left alone.

The mirror once again turned misty.

‘Alice!’ ‘Sam!’ called the voice.

She turned back to Sam and flinched as she saw the creature in front of her and knew she looked the same.

‘What did you see?’

‘I saw myself turning my back on the mirror. I saw snapshots of the coming years. Josie and I got married but it didn’t work out. We had a son. I couldn’t cope with what was happening. I played around, lost my job, everything fell to pieces. You?’

‘Same kind of thing. What do we do?’

Sam was quiet for a moment, reaching within.

‘I think this is the test,’ said Sam. ‘The test this time is not to turn back. We need to go forwards.’

‘I’m not sure I can,’ said Alice. ‘I’m not sure I can be like this.’

‘I have to go on, Alice,’ said Sam. ‘I can’t stop this now.’

Alice reached out her fingers and touched the surface of the mirror. It would be so easy to turn around, to step back through, for the adventure to stop, to go back to the way she was. She couldn’t stand the rawness of the way she looked on this side of the mirror. For a moment her whole story was poised, balanced on a knife edge.

‘Alice,’ came the call again.

Alice closed her eyes, took a deep breath and made her choice.

‘OK,’ she said to Sam. ‘This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And I couldn’t do it on my own. But it’s the right decision. Let’s go.’

Alice and Sam turned and walked down the path, through the olive grove and away from the mirror. Progress was slow. It was painful to walk on bruised and blistered feet. They were cold and hungry in the twilight of early morning though it was growing just a little lighter. The voice called them forward. From time to time it would call out ‘Alice!’ or ‘Sam!’ as if it was longing for them to come.

‘Is it JB?’ said Alice.

‘I thought it was at first,’ said Sam. ‘I’ve been hearing it all day. But now I don’t think so.’

The trees on either side of the path thinned out as it led up towards a low hill. In the distance was a town. The path wound around the side of the hill. The call seemed to come from the far side.

They came slowly and painfully round a sharp bend and stopped in their tracks. Both Alice and Sam had seen pictures, of course, but nothing had prepared them for this.

A man of Sam’s age, perhaps a little older though it was hard to tell, was stretched out on a cross on the hillside above them.

Like them, he was covered in dirt. Like them, he was clothed in rags. Like them, his body was covered with bruises, sores and wounds. He was suffering and close to death.

They knew now that he was the source of the voice which called them. As they watched, he lifted himself up on the cross, at great cost, and called again, this time in relief that they had come: ‘Alice!’ ‘Sam!’

They stood in silence for a little while, taking in the awful sight. Then both of them knelt in silence.

‘Why?’ said Alice, aloud. ‘No one has ever told me. Why?’

‘So there could be a new beginning,’ said a woman’s voice behind her. ‘So that we can start again.’

Sam and Alice turned to see a woman wearing a blue cloak standing behind them, gazing at the figure on the cross. Her shawl was drawn across her face.

‘Who are you?’ asked Alice.

‘That is for another day,’ said the woman, with great gentleness. ‘There is more to this story yet. Now that you have seen and understood, follow the path to the river. It is not far.’

They looked once more at the figure suffering on the cross and then turned, slowly and painfully, away from the scene. The path led downwards now, bending through the trees. Alice ached all over from the sores. She felt cold and hungry, sorry and ashamed. Only the voice calling her name sustained her on this final part of the journey.

A little way on and the trees began to clear again. An enormous crowd of people lined the near bank of a wide river. All were turned towards them. As they appeared, a great cry and cheer went up. Sam and Alice looked into the faces of the crowd. They were strangers yet they seemed familiar. Everyone seemed to know them. Each one called out in encouragement.