CHRISTMAS WAS SURELY COMING

 A short story by Irish poet Pat Ingoldsby:

A horse and cart creaked and harness-clinked down the hill that was winter frost-breath morning. Another one followed behind. Christmas was surely coming and so too were the logs and twigs from the castle. Logs and twigs that were cart-trundled on to the green in the middle of the village. A present from his lordship up in the castle. Me and my brother, we knew something about a lord who lived in a castle which was built by the Normans and it still had suits of armour in it. We liked that bit. We liked stepping out of our house with buckets as big as ourselves to collect up the logs and join all the people on the green and they'd be laughing because soon, the logs and twigs, they'd be crackling and spitting and burning and shadow-dancing on the ceiling. And Christmas was surely coming.

The green was right outside our house and on the other side of it, the frozen sea. The cold wind from it couldn't touch us now that the logs were in and my father and mother, they were shaking the dust off the paper chains, red and yellow and green and drawing-pinning them to the low wooden ceiling which they could touch easily without standing up on anything, but we couldn't. Large green paper balls that twisted and spun in every draught and your father lifted you up safe and sound to finger-tip them. And Christmas was surely coming.

Rabbits dangled down head-first outside the fish shop. Soon they'd be gone and then the turkeys. Holly rested on the saw-dusted floor and late at night me and my brother huddled close together in the bed because the wind off the sea made noises down the fire-less chimney in the corner of the room. And always in the late night we could smell fresh paint. Fresh paint? Who was painting when everyone was in bed? And my father, he'd finished clacking his typewriter downstairs hours ago. We never tiptoed down. We never set eyes on the fine young raven-haired man with the black moustache and his auburn slender wife painting with love - painting 'C.I.E.' and 'SUCK-A-ZUBE' on to the wooden double-decker bus. Carefully daubing 'JOHNSTON, MOONEY & O'BRIEN' on to the wooden bread-van. We never heard the man hammering and banging and sawing weeks before, until the toys were well and truly ready because Christmas was surely coming. And upstairs we could smell the fresh paint.

We never saw the man as he really was. Young and black-haired. We never really saw the beautiful woman who would turn the heads when she took her wicker basket and did the shopping. We saw our father. We saw our mother. We see them now, as they were then, in the yellowing black and white and brown photographs. Is that the way they really were? We never knew. And soon the tree would be up, bent over at the top because the ceiling was so low, yet you could only touch it when he lifted you up.

Me and my brother together in the bed. "Do you think he'll bring the...? Do you think he knows where...? Do you think there are ghosts in the chimney?" And when my father stood at the bedroom window and said: "Boys, it won't be long now" - the ghosts in the chimney were gone. And so were we. To waken up to bare feet on cold linoleum floor and scamper downstairs and yes yes the tree is up and white-bowled, grease-proofed puddings cauldron-bubbled in the saucepans and our father said: "I wouldn't be at all surprised if Santa brought you a C.I.E. bus and a Johnston Mooney & O'Brien bread-van."

"Because... because we asked him for it?"

"Because you asked him for it."

Santa must have got the letter!

My father stood beside the bedroom window on the night you were so excited that you couldn't sleep and the white pillow-cases were at the end of the bed and he eased down the window on the sash and we could hear the sea on the other side of the green. Then my father said it: "Boys... listen... over on the island. Santa's sleigh bells." And we listened and we heard them just as surely as if they were there. We heard them... he was on the way and we'd better... we'd better go asleep.

He got the note! He got the letter! Suck-A-Zube and the bread-van! The logs hissed and crackled safe warmth and always after dinner on Christmas Day my father said it - "go mbeidhmís beo ar an am seo arís."

And we were. But then, he wasn't. And we love him. Because Christmas is coming. And as long as it surely is... we surely will.

.

in "Once Upon A 'Hide", 2004

linocut by Curlew Cottage Design