The Night Before the Christmas Before I Was Married & Other Festive Tales (3 page)

I was in shock. Could it be a curse? Or worse, was it possible that Mr Grimwald had something to do with this. To suspect him would be truly insane but to dismiss what I thought I had seen might be equally as dangerous. Was such a kind natured old man really capable of such a feat or was it just my over-active imagination all too eager to make a fool of me. I knew I must investigate, to find out if it really was the old man or some consortium of disgruntled understudies so jumped straight in the van and drove over to Mr Grimwald’s house.

Arriving at the front door I knocked tentatively at first and then with real vigour but no answer was forthcoming. After a couple of minutes I knew he must be out but something inside of me was willing me onward, I tried the handle. It was locked. Slowly and quietly I made my way around the side of the house so as not to attract any unwanted attention from nosey neighbours until I reached the dilapidated conservatory I had seen from the dining room window so many times before. I tried the handle and to my astonishment it opened and I stepped inside.

Technically this was breaking and entering but I felt driven by some unstoppable force to go onward. I moved through the utility room at the back, the house cold and my breath hanging in the air as if I was still outside. I slid slowly into the kitchen and the hallway. There were no lights on in the house but I found my way quite easily as I was now familiar with this part of the house.

I stood very still in the hallway, listening for the slightest sound, any signs of life within this massive house but after a minute all I could hear was my heart thumping in my chest. I grabbed the banister and move steadily up the creaking stairs, just one piercing step after another. On the first landing I paused again, waiting for Mr Grimwald to potter out of a room, dressed in his usual tweed suit and cravat but there was no sign of him.

Just as downstairs, there were pantomime posters everywhere but even in the half light provided by the outside streetlight which flickered in and out of existence as it leaked into the room I could see that all of them were missing a pantomime dame. Each one had been neatly removed.

The higher in the house I climbed, the more Christmassy the whole place became. The colour scheme was jolly enough, if a little garish and all of the available surfaces were littered with stage props and pieces of make-up. When I eventually reached the highest landing there was still no sign of life but at the top of the attic stairs was a door.

My eyes flicked left and right, expecting at any moment to be confronted by the apparition of Mr Grimwald chastising me for being in his house without permission. I tried to think of excuses for my behaviour but my thoughts were interrupted when I took a single step towards the door and it struck me. The door really was surrounded by light bulbs, in the same way a mirror in a theatre would be, just as George had described it. I was back to when I was a kid.

I took another step and they blinked into life.

I froze. Waiting. Waiting and watching.

I galloped up the remainder of the stairs, unable to contain myself any longer, the adrenaline pounding around my body making me shaky until I reached the top, flung open the door and saw…

Mr Grimwald. In full drag this time, replete with bloomers, make-up, wig, crinoline skirt and high-heeled boots. I was taken aback, but nothing, nothing could have prepared me for what came next

“Young man,” screeched Mr Grimwald, falsetto voice wavering under the strain. “I don’t know, coming up me back passage like that unannounced. Its enough to give the old girl the hump!”

He turned and winked at an invisible audience.

“I’m sorry, I can see you’re busy. I’ll just…”

“No. Sit. Enjoy. Here, you want a feel of my melons?” He reached into his brassiere and handed me a melon. I didn’t know what to do. I took it and sat down.

As I gazed, open mouthed he sashayed around me in some dance of the mad, waving a fairy wand as he minced around the room.

“It’s time for Widow Twanky to cast her spell,” he squealed before bringing the wand into contact with the back of my head. It was only the sudden onset of unconsciousness that gave away the fact that the wand was made of metal instead of the traditional wood.

Three weeks later the police had tracked us down, myself and seven Widow Twankys from around the region, all bound and gagged and subject to the cruellest of tortures: the double entedre.

Night and day, day and night, he continued – screeching in his half-rant of high-pitched puns, slowly wearing us down, driving us mad…

It turned out that Mr Grimwald hadn’t been the normal Meal on Wheels customer, he had been humiliated and broken hearted by a cross dresser as a young man. After being tempted by sexual dirty talk and the promise of body whoring he was exposed in the crudest possible way in front of his friends and family. After years of being taunted by those closest to him, the jibes always being worse at Christmas with the Widow Twanky snaps plaguing him and since his wife died he had spent every day reliving the night when he realised he’d fallen for a man. He wanted to destroy the world of men and only by dressing in this way could he rid himself of the nightmare. The press declared him a nutcase.

I made it. Eventually after long and patient hours of counselling, the undoing of what had been done. I’m alright now. I couldn’t tell anyone, the embarrassment and all. But it was eating me alive. To this day I can’t watch a Carry On film without breaking down and even the sight of a man in drag makes me wince. Nothing can prepare you for a time like that, there’s no recovery, it’s the call of the crinoline, the beckoning of the bloomers, there is no escape – it just keeps coming around. Every year, like clockwork…

“Y
ou have to swear to me you won’t forget,” my girlfriend Tracy had said. “Swear to me.”

“I swear to you I won’t forget,” I replied dutifully.

“Mum’s present. Christmas tree for work. Say it.”

“I’m not a child.”

“It’s important. Mum’s present and if I impress my boss with a big enough tree, you never know… so say it.”

“Your Mum’s present. The bloody Christmas tree for your bloody work.”

“Brilliant. You’re a star,” she kissed me and started to walk towards the lobby of her office. “And it’s not just my job on the line if you forget,” she shouted so everyone around could hear. “It’s our relationship too.”

Winking at me, she kissed her fingertips and mimicked blowing the kiss to me. A personal joke that was wasted on the circling crowds.

I turned around and began walking in the direction of the shops and my left foot slid on the icy, un-gritted pavement. I caught myself, rebalanced and moved on as quickly as I dared.

The gaudy tat for the future mother-in-law was first on the list. I rummaged in my overcoat pockets for the receipt as I reached the shop but it was hidden within wrappers, papers and tissues all of which chose that moment to hurl themselves to the four winds.

The receipt with the distinctive logo fluttered towards the floor. I reached forward but it wasn’t to be, the wind sent it spinning behind me. Bending down to retrieve it, the door of the shop snapped open, struck me on the hip and sent me crashing downwards. I landed on my arse and slid backwards on the ice, spinning in two neat circles before coming to an abrupt stop as my spine made contact with a nearby lamppost.

“The Astounding Marlin Lazzar as I live and breath!” said a voice I knew only too well. “I’m so sorry my dear man. Please let me help you.”

The Great Gerry Spagnolo, the man who had just sent me sliding, was a hack-hypnotist. A purveyor of cheap parlour tricks with no conscience or credibility and whose only purpose in life seemed to be to get the gigs, prestige and fame that belonged to me.

You see, I’m a proper entertainer. Yes, I use hypnosis but my act is practically art. I have this one review that even says that. Unfortunately this jaded trickster always seemed to be one step ahead of me.

“Terry Castle?” I said. For that was his name.

“Now then
Martin
there’s no need to be like that. It was an accident.”

“Accident?” I stood up and patted myself down. “Hardly.”

“Now, now. I didn’t see you there bending down.”

Bending down – that was a good point, if I lost the receipts Tracy had given me there would be hell to pay. I glanced around to see if I could spot them.

“Looking for these?” asked the Great Spagnolo. Raising a plucked eyebrow he held up the two receipts.

“Give me them,” I said and reached out to snatch them but he was too quick and snapped them back.

“Let’s see what they are shall we?” without his glasses he needed to hold them away from his body. Squinting he read them aloud one by one as I stood and indulged his playground routine. First the tat-brooch for her Mum was duly mocked, then he came to the tree. “Just what I need, actually, a Christmas tree.”

“Don’t be childish
Gerry
,” I couldn’t let the idiot do this.

“Childish? Hardly. Tell you what,” he grinned a grin I didn’t like the look of. “You’re always at great pains to tell everyone how much better you are at the old mesmeric arts so why don’t we have a little contest. Winner gets the tree?”

I’d had enough. I lunged forward once more to grab the receipts and the ice caught me again. My feet went forward and slid into Spagnolo, toppling him toward me. I rectified myself easily by shooting out my right hand.

Unfortunately my flat palm hit the Great Gerry in the face and burst his nose wide open. Well, I say ‘unfortunate’ but perhaps that isn’t the right word.

“You’re on,” I said, snatching the receipts and stepping over him into the jewellers. And that was that, the game was afoot. Or it nearly was, the game had to be briefly paused to allow me to collect the Mam-tat and to be hurled bodily out of the store by a hypnotised security guard who believed me to be a mountain goat.

You had to respect Spagnolo’s style. The bastard.

When Christmas struck Kilchester it struck like a drunken tornado. It was as if a woodchipper had been turned on and it was spewing people, spraying them into the air and having them land directly in my path.

When I tried to walk on the path, in the road, attempted to ride the bus and even when I resorted to a trip on the underground. Everywhere I was plagued by people crushed together and slowly, slowly moving forward seemingly without purpose or shopping agenda.

By the time I reached my destination Spagnolo had been afforded ample opportunity to slide in and succeed ahead of me. I wasn’t worried, I knew I was better than that greasy great twat and this
was
going to prove it.

The Christmas trees were being sold from what was usually a small car park. Through an insane quirk of bureaucracy it had been handed over to this festive forest, denying desperate shoppers a place to park their overburdened transport.

Occasionally a car would try to plough through the small shed that had been erected as a makeshift home for the attendant and would slide to a halt on the ice, inches from demolition. The reason I knew this was the attendant had told me it was the very reason he’d stopped going in there. For ‘health reasons’ as he put it. I told him why I was there, he nodded and took the receipt Tracy had given me. He looked at it carefully then thanked me and began quietly clucking like a chicken.

I watched for a few seconds, drinking it in with creeping disappointment. I had really, really, hoped for better than this.

His head bobbed forward with a
bok-bok-bokaaaaw!

He tucked his hands under his arms and, elbows outstretched and started walking up and down, scratching for grain with his feet.

“Where’s the tree?” I said firmly.

He paused, cocked his head to one side and stared at me. I stared back resolutely and he clucked appreciatively before starting to walk in what appeared to be a specific direction. Following a few steps behind him, I sensed that all was not as it should be. There was movement in the Christmas trees and I glanced around warily wondering whether things were going to plan.

As I walked, an onion the size of my fist rolled into the path startling the chicken-man and he fled off out of sight. I stopped and stared as another man came crawling on all fours from between some of the trees.

“Have you seen my delicious apple? I just…” he began but his eyes saw the onion and picked it up. “Never mind.”

Grinning, he took an enormous bite from the onion, his eyes beginning to tear up as he chewed. That pretty much settled it, Spagnolo
had
been here. I stepped over the onion-man and went on my way.

There was a noise to my left and I turned to look but as I did a young woman hurtled at me from the right, spinning me around.

“Excuse me?” I said, without bothering to try to conceal my irritation.

She glanced down from my eyes to my midriff and blushed.

“Oh you’re excused, I’m sure big boy,” she said, her hand darting up to cover her mouth. “Aren’t you cold out here without your clothes on?”

And so the pattern continued as my search for the tree continued. It was like the ghosts of shit-hypnotists past; the man speaking Swedish like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets, a teenage girl flirting with a plastic doll in the mistaken belief it was Brad Pitt, a man playing the trombone really badly believing in all his heart that he was a maestro. The cacophony of cack just rose and rose until…

“What on earth is going on?” said a voice.

I looked over to see it was a man standing in front of the tallest tree in the lot. Standing an enormous fifteen feet high. The tree, not the man.

“I think I have an idea,” I replied.

“Care to share it?” he said.

“Not really.”

“Are you the Astounding Marlin Lazzar?”

“Yes,” I said. “And that’s my tree.”

“I am your King, sir, and I will assist you.”

I nodded and waited. He breathed deeply and began to speak loud and clear in the darkness.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,” he bellowed. “Or close the wall up with our English dead!”

There was a clucking from nearby and the attendant came into view.

“This could be the greatest night. We could give someone a fine, fine Christmas but you,” he jabbed a gloved finger at the chicken-man. “You are going to let it be the worst.”

The chicken man now stood beside me, watching intently as a post-hypnotically-regressed Henry V somehow monologued up a crowd.

“‘Oh, we’re afraid to go with you, sire, we might get in trouble.’ Well kiss my royal arse from now on! Not me!”

I was pretty sure that Shakespeare had written the start of the speech but the rest was anyone’s guess. Still, it was doing the trick, the clichés were coming out of the woodwork if you’ll pardon the pun.

“You and I know that a day may come where the courage of men fails,” he shouted and as he did little speckles of spit formed at the corner of his mouth. “But it is not this day. This day we FIGHT.”

They were all here now, all of them staring at this lunatic’s commanding performance. I was certain that Henry V had never faced the hordes of Mordor but I wasn’t going to argue, he seemed to be achieving the required result.”

“This day we take this enormous tree and we carry it aloft, through the streets to its destination and we will spread joy as we go. If there is a man or a woman here who will not follow me then I will strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger. Is there anyone?”

Silence.

“Are you with me?”

And as one they screamed, “YES!”

Except the bloke with the trombone but he gave a little
parp
of agreement.

I got in a taxi, went on ahead and arrived at my girlfriend’s office well before the convoy.

“So you’ve got the brooch then?” said Tracy, taking it from me and opening it immediately. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it’s beautiful. I wasn’t sure when I saw it online but that is spectacular.”

There was a barely audible
thud-thud-thud
sound in the distance.

“I saw Spagnolo there,” I said.

“Oh no, you two didn’t get in a fight did you?”

The
thud-thud-thud
was getting louder and there was a chant that went with it.

“Not exactly, no. He knocked me over. Nicked the receipts for the brooch and the tree.”

It was the stamping of feet. Marching feet
thud-thud-thudding
and the chant had a slightly menacing quality to it.

“But you got the brooch,” she said. “What about the tree. Where’s the tree Martin? Never mind Marlin Lazzar – did Martin Lester get the tree or not?”

You could hear what they were saying now, if you knew what to listen for. I did but Tracy didn’t.

“Hang on,” she said looking off down the street. “Is that what that noise is? You better not embarrass me in front of my workmates.”

I nodded and turned around to see a dozen people, all dressed as Santa Claus and carrying a fifteen foot tree. They walked in tight formation, holding up the traffic as they went and marching like an army regiment.

THUD THUD THUD
went their shoes as they moved forward.

“HO! HO! HO!” they all screamed in unison.

Except the bloke with the trombone who was
parping
in time.

“You did this?” she was trying to stay mad but I could see she was going to crack.

“Not exactly.”

And I told her what had happened, how after I broke his nose I reached for him andput him in a trance with one simple command. Told her how I’d given him a suggestion, a task to carry out. To hypnotise people and get me enough little helpers to carry the bloody tree. Oh, and to make sure they looked festive. How he went about it was in his typical hack-fashion but he managed it.

“And when I was in the taxi I phoned the local news and look,” I pointed to a camera man getting out of a car. “Publicity for me and publicity for your lovely business. Bet there’s a promotion in it for you if you’re lucky.”

“And where is he now?” said Tracy.

“He’s in the shopping mall convinced he is Miss World. Giving a speech thanking everyone and wishing for world peace.”

She turned to me and smiled her wonderful smile.

“Shame there’s no mistletoe,” she said, looking up above us.

“Who says there isn’t?” I said and reached into my coat pocket.