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  There's no such place as Bedford Falls

  Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 23/12/2007

  Page 1 of 3

  An exclusive short story for Christmas by Joanne Harris

  It's six in the morning, and Santa's on the blink. Good job I checked; can't have a malfunctioning Santa on the front lawn, today of all days. Lowers the tone, you know - and the neighbours are a snotty bunch, always complaining about one thing or another. Last week it was the penguins. Three of them, cheery little fellows, the latest addition to the Wall of Lights at the front of the house; one wearing a Santa hat, the other two carrying ice-skates, all three wired to play Winter Wonderland and twinkle the whole night through.

  They'd been up for less than a day when Mr Bradshaw complained. 'Listen, mate. We can live with the fairy lights and the dancing snowflakes and the Christmas trees and the inflatable snowman and the magic grotto and the Three Wise Men, and even the flashing Santa and his 12 reindeer, but that's it. The bloody penguins have got to go.'

  Talk about over-reaction. I mean, what harm is there in my putting up a few Christmas lights at this time of year? I'm not asking anyone else to do it. I'm not offended when the neighbours don't return my cards. To be honest, I'm not expecting peace or goodwill from any of them, but you'd think they could just leave me to enjoy the spirit of the season in my own personal way. But no. There's always something. If it isn't the penguins, it's the sleigh bells keeping the neighbours awake. Or some estate agent trying to blame me for the drop in house prices. Or someone complaining about the daily deliveries. Or the postman giving me funny looks as he comes up the drive. Or the local yobs belting out Silent Night at one in the morning and leaving empty beer cans outside the door. Only the other day in the supermarket, a lad yelled: 'Where's yer reindeer, Santa?' over the aisle, and the girl at the checkout (a new girl, a blonde) sniggered in a most unprofessional way.

  That's why I try to get all my groceries delivered nowadays. It's quite easy: I phone in the order every Monday at nine, and two hours later the van comes round with the week's goods. One medium turkey, frozen; 5lb King Edward's potatoes; 1lb Brussels sprouts; 1lb carrots; 1 packet sage and onion stuffing; 1 packet Bisto gravy; 7 chipolata sausages; 7 rashers streaky bacon; 1 luxury Christmas pudding; 1 packet luxury mince pies; 1 packet Bird's custard; 1 bottle sweet sherry; 1 jar Branston pickle; 1 medium Warburton's loaf; 1 small box Milk Tray chocolates. And last but not least, 1 packet economy crackers, the red and green kind, with party hats and clean jokes.

  I love Christmas. I really do. I love writing Christmas cards and wrapping presents. I love the Queen's Speech and the 'Phil Spector Christmas Album'. I love my tree, with its tinsel and its little foil-wrapped chocolates. I love my Wall of Lights. I love the artificial snow on the mantelpiece and the wreath of plastic holly on the door. As for the food -well, I still don't know which I love the most: Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, or cold turkey and pickle sandwiches and the late film - White Christmas or It's a Wonderful Life - with the fire on and my stocking up by the chimney, the single chocolate, glass of sherry and the giddy, breathless feeling that tonight, of all the magical nights of the year, anything - just anything - could happen.

  I'm dreaming of a white Christmas... Doesn't happen very often, I'm afraid. Most of the time I have to make do with artificial snow, cotton wool, and that spray-on stuff you get in cans. Still, it doesn't beat the real thing; the silence of it; the feeling that everything has been miraculously renewed. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Not much chance of that, not with all that global warming you hear about, but we can only hope.

  Irene gave up two years ago. She left on 4 April, between A Christmas Carol and the Queen's Speech (1977, one of many, video-ed and kept for the occasion), without even staying to open her present. Her note was typically confused: couldn't bear it any longer; thought we'd travel now we'd retired; wanted a change; would write when she was settled. And so she does, once a year; a long and dutiful letter (but never a Christmas card), wishing me well.

  She never did get into the spirit of things the way I do.

  Oh I wish it could be Christmas every day. Imagine that. If every day was Christmas Day - every day a new start, a new celebration. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire (though I make do with Living Flame); and I saw Mamma Kissing Santa Claus.

  In fact, I'm slightly worried someone might have interfered with Santa. Someone with a grudge, perhaps, or just kids out to cause a nuisance.

  There's no such place as Bedford Falls

  Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 23/12/2007

  Page 2 of 3

  Still, it could be the fuse, or even a dead bulb - we go through rather a lot of them, and although I do turn off the illuminations during daylight hours (I'm on a pension, you know, and I have the electricity bill to think of??), I know I'm putting more pressure on the Wall of Lights than it was ever really designed to take. Still, I wouldn't change it. Not for Mr Bradshaw, not for the residents' association, not for all the tea in China.

  It's a Wonderful Life. To date, I've watched that film 354 times; 1946, Frank Capra, with James Stewart and Henry Travers. Made when I was six years old, in a world where men wore hats and controlled the family's finances, rosy-faced children went ice-skating on the village pond, and neighbours were real neighbours and not stuck-up yuppie homeowners looking to increase the value of their house.

  Bedford Falls, they called the town. For years I thought it was a real place. For years I wanted to live there - even applied to emigrate once, hoping to find it waiting for me, knee-deep in snow and Yuletide spirit.

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  Now they tell me there's no such place. But I proved them wrong, renamed my house, and now I live in Bedford Falls Cottage, Cat House Lane, Mawbry, and it's Christmas whenever I say it is.

  Of course, everyone else thinks I'm crazy. I don't care; I'm no crazier than that bloke at the chippy who thinks he's Elvis, or that fellow Smith down the road who's a druid or something, or Mrs Golightly, walking around Tesco's car park at three in the morning, or Al and Christine, trying to lose five stone each in time for New Year. Why should Christmas come only once a year? And why shouldn't I celebrate what I like, when I like, any time I want to?

  I'm not saying it's always easy. It's hard to be different - Jimmy Stewart knew that in Wonderful Life - harder still to give up what you want for what you know to be the right thing to do. But Jimmy Stewart had integrity. What he did changed people. Made a difference. And that's what I'm trying to do, in my way. To change things. To light up the sky.

  To bring wonder back into the faces of the children who slouch down the street with fags hanging out of their mouths. Christmas is supposed to be a time of miracles, isn't it? Magic and mystery and tiny tots with eyes all aglow? I do believe in miracles, you know. You have to - don't you? - when there's nothing else left.

  But it's hard to have faith, day in, day out, when no one else believes and everyone thinks you're a bit of a joke. I had that TV news programme round last year, in December, trying to find out why I do what I do. I thought they were nice: the lady interviewer was pretty and kind; the cameramen ate mince pies and drank tea and laughed at my jokes. But they ran the piece in August, during the silly season; it made the papers - 'Time-Warp Santa Prays for Snow' - and for a while people came from all over the country to look at my Wall of Lights and laugh at the mad old bastard who thinks it's Christmas every day.

  For a while it was rather fun. Children came to talk to me; some even sent me Christmas cards. And then it stopped. Word got round in the wrong quarters; vandals broke into my garden and smashed my illuminations; some paper even started a rumour that I was some kind of a pe
rvert, luring little kids into my house under false pretences. A new headline - 'Sinister Santa' - and after that the children ran away, or sprayed slogans on my garden wall. Four months on, and they still do.

  I fixed Santa. Turned out to be a loose connection after all, and not deliberate vandalism. I suppose that should make me feel better, but it doesn't somehow. It's still dark at 6am, and I give the Wall of Lights a final burst, just to see it in action before the sun comes up.

  Funny, but it doesn't feel like Christmas Day. For once, the calendar says it is; for once I am in step with the rest of the world. Even a broken watch is right twice a day, as Irene used to say, and that's how I feel this Christmas morning. Like a broken watch, all face and no ticker.

  Most days at six I make myself a cup of tea, have a small breakfast of toast and marmalade, then peel the sprouts, carrots and potatoes and get the turkey in the oven ready for lunch. But today of all days, I don't feel like it. Television? There's A Christmas Carol (the classic 1938 version, with Reginald Owen) on one of the cable channels, and today of all days I won't need my videos. But I've seen it 104 times already (and I've watched the 1984 remake 57 times), with White Christmas coming a close second (301 times, and counting) to It's a Wonderful Life.

  There's no such place as Bedford Falls

  Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 23/12/2007

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  They're all on today, on various channels, but strangely, today, I don't feel like watching any of them. I try the radio. Christmas music on all stations. I have a library of Christmas tapes, from the King's College choristers' eerie rendition of Silent Night to Mike Batt's Wombling Merry Christmas. I know them all, but today I can't concentrate. The music makes my head spin; the cheery voices of the DJs fill my heart with a terrible silence.

  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

  I look, but there's nothing out there. Just a great sweeping blue-black sky with no stars. All around me, houses are beginning to light up. The Bradshaws' children, five and seven, have been up for hours. I've seen the movement at their bedroom window, their smudgy faces peering out at the dancing penguins on my roof.

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  Those bloody penguins. Singing Winter Wonderland night and day. How can I stand it? Mr Bradshaw was right, they were a mistake - and in a swift movement I get up, though I still have a good two hours before dawn, and switch off the Wall of Lights.

  The sudden darkness is quite a shock; usually, with the curtains open, there's enough light from outside to illuminate my entire living-room.

  Now there's nothing but the glow from the small artificial tree by the TV, and the fairy lights on the mantelpiece. Just out of curiosity, I switch those off, too. The darkness is soothing. I imagine just not doing Christmas this year: no pudding, no pies, no Queen's Speech, Wonderful Life, creamed potatoes and Bisto gravy. No turkey sandwiches and video-ed Morecambe and Wise, no presents, no tinsel, just peace and goodwill.

  For a moment the thought holds me, magical. To give in; to be free; to read - a thriller, perhaps, or a historical romance - over a simple lunch of cheese and crackers. Perhaps I could even call on Irene. She doesn't live far - just a bus ride away, down the Meadowbank Road - and for a second I see myself actually doing it, buying the ticket, walking down the gravel drive, knocking on the door (perhaps there will be a garland of holly pinned to the knocker), saying 'Good morning, Irene' (though perhaps not 'Merry Christmas'), seeing her smile, smelling her scent of rose and laundry. Just that. No lights, no miracles. No angel to point the way. No Bedford Falls.

  You could do it, you know. It's easily done. The voice sounds a little like that of Alastair Sim in the 1951 film Scrooge. A clipped, authoritative voice, not easily dismissed. You could just stop. Today. This minute.

  Now.

  Could I? The thought brings me indescribable relief. Relief, and with it, a terrible, inarticulate fear. Stop? Just stop? But what would I do?

  Once more, I see myself walking down the gravel drive to Irene's house.

  I imagine the sound the gravel makes, that frosty crunch. There will be a pot of lavender by the door, and a row of winter pansies lining the path. She has a smile of exceptional sweetness, especially when taken by surprise, and a habit of tucking her unruly hair behind her ears.

  Perhaps there will be a pot of tea on the hob, and a box of biscuits by her chair. She enjoys looking at travel brochures; perhaps this time I will join her, and we can spend Christmas in Portugal, or Italy, or Spain. It's really much too cold for us in England at this time of year.

  We could do with a change.

  I can almost see it; almost hear it now, like music in my mind. A new life; a new hope; a place beyond Bedford Falls and its eternal, ersatz snow. For a second, delirious, I am out of my chair; my hand on the door; my coat and hat left hanging on the hook, as if the moment of turning to pick them up might be the final, fatal moment in which Bedford Falls drags me back - and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, the doorbell rings.

  Today? At six? Unheard of. It's not the postman (no post on Christmas Day). And it's surely not the Bradshaws complaining about the lights. Who then? A visitor? A joker? In haste, I yank the door open. An icy breeze drifts into the room, scented like Christmas - cloves, apple, pine and brandy - but there's no one at the door. The gate is closed, the street deserted. And yet the bell rang.

  Every time you hear a bell ring - I know that voice. It's the voice of Henry Travers in Wonderful Life; kind, warm and impossible to resist. And yet it sounds like my voice, too, so close that an observer might struggle to tell us apart. How can I think my work is done? How can I even consider abandoning my post on this, of all days? There are presents to be wrapped, the voice protests.

  Sprouts to be cleaned, carols to be sung, potatoes to be roasted, stuffing to be rolled into walnut-sized balls and laid in a baking tray with sausages and bacon strips; giblets to be removed from the defrosted turkey; the pudding to be placed in a ceramic basin and steamed. If these duties are not performed, what terrible floodgates might then be opened? What stars might go out, what gospels founder, what salvation be squandered?

  I see now that there can be no leaving. I am a broken clock, frozen for ever at an impossible hour. Let others move on, if they must, if they can. For myself, I have duties to carry out. Sacrifices to make. Stockings to fill. Warnings to deliver. Lives to touch. Like it or not, I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, and I have a job to do.

  Very slowly I turn away from the door. A flick of the switch, and the Wall of Lights shines forth again. On the mantelpiece, fairy lights twinkle. That scent of pine, strangely nostalgic, that must have wafted in through a crack in the door. And now, looking up, from a violet sky slowly brightening towards dawn, I think I can just see the first small flakes of snow.

  © Joanne Harris. Her latest novel, 'The Lollipop Shoes', £17.99, and her children's novel, 'Runemarks', £14.99, are published by Doubleday

 

 

  Joanne Harris, There's no such place as Bedford Falls

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