What are you in the queue for?

Big queue today.

Pre-Christmas rush, I wouldn't wonder.  Last posting dates and such.

Slade playing on the radio. Then Greg Lake. Then Michael Bublé.

By the time I get to the counter Dawn is all buzzy.  Not like her.  She’s usually on the stern side but today there is a girlish fizz about her.  She spreads her fingers wide and stops for a moment, spotting me.  She fixes me with her eye,  hanging back from her side of the counter.  She looks like a gladiator preparing to fight, and I have a feeling she will win.

            -  Just breathe, she says.  Just breathe…

            -  Been busy, I ask.

            -  Mad, she says.

She steps up to the counter again.  Battle Stations.

Behind the glass a foil decoration glitters as it lifts in the warm updraft from from the fan heater.  There’s tinsel along the top of the window, stuck up with sticky tape.

Dawn grips the bundle of notes I pass through to her and starts a business-like counting of the corners, scrunching the notes under her fingers as she digs through the pile.  She's nearly done when her Santa hat slips down over her eyes.  She tugs it off her head with a growl and starts the count again.

            -  No pooch, today? I ask

            -  Huh?

            -  Your little dog.  Is it not here?

            -  We’re too busy, says Dawn.  He’d get squashed!  Under ‘s feet.  Terry’s got him at home.

            -  What do you call him?

            -  Terry? she laughs.  I call him Terry!

            -  The dog, I say, what’s his name?

            -  Oh, we call him Skittles.

            -  Skittles?

            -  Yes, Skittles.  Y’know, like the sweets.

She waves her hand vaguely at the shelves down the side of the shop.

            -  Ha!  How did you come up with that?

            -  It’s because everything he touches becomes Skittles!

It feels like she’s been longing to say that to someone.

            -  Y’know, like the advert.  Where the bloke touches the desk and it turns to Skittles.  Then he touches the phone and… skittles.  Well he chews things, does our Skittles - toothbrushes, slippers and the like, and then they kind of become his because no other bugger wants them anymore…

            -  Oh,… right.

            -  So everything becomes Skittles!

Then Doreen calls over - somebody needs a SORN form so Dawn has to pack me off to Ron and deal with it.

First in the Queue

In the Queue Too
Third in the Queue

The Abduction of the Lord

Hull

On Marlborough Avenue

old grandeur has been

transformed into student flats.

Faded paintwork,

shabby front doors,

stained-glass panels replaced

with boards,

columns of doorbells

down each jamb.

Number Five, however,

is still occupied by

an elderly man

and the memory of his wife.

Maybe

he enjoys the energy of young people around him

or

maybe

he is just too tired

or poor

to move away

from the late night parties –

Tequila drinkers

sat on his front wall at night –

students,

parking their cars,

yes, cars,

on the grass verge

in front of his house,

turning up the mud,

turning up the heat.

Or maybe

he cannot leave

while each decaying room

reminds him of her:

wallpaper decisions

made together;

her Mills and Boon,

that he will never read

but with which he cannot part,

on shelves he had made for her;

her silent clothes,

still hanging next to his.

He lives in a past

where civility is commonplace and expected;

where clichéed backdoors are left open;

where there is an understanding of what is right.

He holds these thoughts,

as treasures,

and picks up the plastic

chocolate milk cartons.

He trims

both sides of the hedge

at the back of the house

even though it is growing

in next door’s

garden.

And each December

for the last half century

he has prepared

in his own modest front patch

a crib scene, 
where

Mary, Joseph,

shepherds and kings,

ox and ass and angel,
await the arrival 
of the infant.

Above 
an illuminated star

powered by an extension lead

stretched through the

draughty front room window.

There was a year or two

when I lived down the street –

Number Nineteen –

in a flat

that had been,

in its heyday,

the library of the house

that had been,

in its heyday,

owned by Hull’s Chief Librarian.

A pleasant enough cell

in which to sleep

for a short while

- just a mouse or two.

I walk past his house daily

to fetch milk from Jacksons

or pop into Pier Luigi's for a pizza.

In 1986,

the rains of November

give way to a crisp December

and two weeks

this side of Christmas,

as if by elves,

on a bright Monday morning,

the crib appears.

A small collection box

is stationed within reach of the fence -

“Donations to

Dove’s House Hospice”

he has written

“In gratitude”

Children

from the private nursery along the way

stand on steep

tiptoe, to peep,

while parents

deposit coins then

tug at childish hands

and drag them off

to fourbyfours.

This picture is from the Birmingham Mail.
Birmingham seems to have had somewhat similar problems

And as Christmas Week

arrives

the freshly painted infant

takes its place in the

straw manger.

It is

after a silent night

a holy night

after the day itself

when

the note

appears.

The infant child,

plaster saviour of the world,

has disappeared

from beneath the noses

of his statuary parents

who look on with their

unmoving, beatific smiles

at the empty space

where their child has previously lain

arms outstretched

in the manger.

And the note,

in crumpled writing,

reads:

“Apologies,

Children.

Ruffians have stolen

the Baby Jesus”

The Bishop's Wife

‘Twas the week before Christmas

four years ago

and Viv bought a dvd called

The Bishop’s Wife

- We’ll watch it together,

she said,

on Christmas Eve

and I’ll make a lovely soup

and it will be like

the Start of Our Christmas.

And we did.

She made a Lovely Celeriac Soup

and we sat and watched

David Niven and Cary Grant

being a Bishop and an Angel.

It was a good film

and there was a Skating Scene

where Cary Grant

took the Bishop’s Wife skating.

It was great.

It was the Start of Our Christmas

four years ago.

- We’ll make this a Tradition,

said Viv,

and we all agreed.

It would be a good Tradition.

The next year

we did the same thing again

although the soup was not the Lovely Celeriac Soup

because Viv could not get any celeriac

but it was still pretty tasty.

The film was just as good

especially when we remembered the Skating Scene.

- This is a good Tradition, said Viv

we all agreed.

The year after

Viv had a bad cold

and she had to go to bed early

on Christmas Eve.

- We’ll watch The Bishop’s Wife

on Boxing Day,

said Viv.

- Haha! she laughed, d’you remember the Skating Scene?

We all laughed

because we all remembered it.

It was great.

But then we thought

it wouldn’t be

the Start of Our Christmas.

So we decided not to watch it that year,

but we definitely would the next year.

The next year,

at 11pm on Christmas Eve

we were all busy wrapping presents

in different rooms and

Viv shouted

- Oh no!  We forgot to watch The Bishop’s Wife.

- Oh no!  we all said,

but it’s too late now!

We’ll definitely watch it next year, though.

- Yes we will, definitely! we all said.

This year

I bought the Celeriac for the Lovely Celeriac Soup

and when Esmé came home for the holidays she said

- We mustn’t forget to watch The Bishop’s Wife

- We won’t, I said,

I’ve already bought the celeriac for

the Lovely Celeriac Soup.

- Yay! she said.

On Christmas Eve morning

Viv said

- I just have to go in to town

to pick up a few

Last Minute Things

but I’ll be back at midday

and I’ll make the Lovely Celeriac Soup ready

for this evening.

- Yay! said Esmé

- Yay! said Naomi

- Yay! said I.

At a quarter to four

pm

Viv phoned to say

- Can you meet me off the bus,

all the Last Minute Things

are very heavy.

- Of course, I said,

and I went to meet her.

We were walking

Back Up The Hill

when she said

- I’m not making the Lovely Celeriac Soup

tonight

it’s too fiddly.

We’ll have it on Boxing Day.

- Oh, I said, OK.

So this evening,

instead of watching The Bishop’s Wife

and eating Lovely Celeriac Soup,

I’ve written this poem.

The Boys' Choir from The Bishop's Wife