Rollback...

This story first appeared in the Dangerous Creatures newsletter in January 2002.

Christmas Present
by Mark Heron

I was almost home when the man cannoned into me. Stinking of drink, he twirled around, and only didn't fall because a wall got in his way. He caressed its rough bricks.

"Cig'rette," he said. "Wanna cig'rette."

"Good luck." I stepped round him, carefully, and kept going, the heels of my boots clicking loudly on the pavement. I was constantly walking through a frost of my own breath. The man yelled something incoherent after me. Perhaps it was 'Happy New Year'. I had taken my hands half out of my pockets at the moment of collision, but now I shoved them back. It was colder than central London had any right to be.

When I reached the delicatessen above which my bedsit was situated, Andre, the owner, was just shutting up shop. Struggling with the heavy metal shutters, he coughed and wheezed. I stepped round him and pushed the side door open. As I was climbing the stairs, I heard him call after me.

"Happy New Year." His tone was ironic. The steps were deadly with ice. I took them one at a time, cautiously, not trusting them with my weight. One hand inched unwillingly out of my pocket to grip the handrail. The chill of it seemed to transmit itself down my arm.

The bedsit wasn't much warmer. I groped in my pockets for the PowerPay card, and then held it up to the dim light, and ruefully inspected it. Bent, scratched and beginning to tear, it probably wouldn't have worked in the meter even if it had had any credit left. Which it didn't. I sat down on the bed, and pulled my coat more tightly around me. The old feller was sitting on the tiny chair in the corner by the window. He looked quite bright and fresh today. I pulled my cigarettes out, and lit one. The smoke was burning hot in my throat.

"You shouldn't do that," the old feller said.

"Give over." I allowed myself to fall onto my back. I was glad to see him so perky. The last couple of days, he'd been looking a bit washed-out, as if he'd given up. But now he seemed to have found fresh inspiration from somewhere. "You smoked fifty a day."

"And it killed me," he said. "You were always after me to stop, an' all."

"It's a choice," I said, and sucked in more smoke. The drug was starting to hit me, waking me up, easing away the pointlessness of my day. Another nine-to-eight, another fifty quid in the bank account. And for what? as the old feller had been asking me since Christmas Eve. I used the PowerPay card to scratch my head. The cigarette smoke was coiling reluctantly in the cold, heavy air.

"You always were a good lad. Always used to listen to me, you did."

"Shouldn't ha' died, then."

"I've been sent back to help you."

"You said." I pushed myself up off the bed on one elbow, leaning slightly sideways so I could look at him. There was only the faintest outline of the chair showing through. "But look at it this way--"

"Money's not the most important thing in life ..."

"If you'd had money, you could have got better treatment. That's all I'm saying."

"And bought a few more years?" He shook his head at me, sadly, regretfully. "We all die, Jack."

"Then don't be after me about the smoking."

I took several more deep drags on the cigarette, then slid off the bed and threw the PowerPay card at the sink. It missed and fell almost soundlessly to the floor. I went to investigate the tiny fridge balanced on the end of the bookcase. The dregs of a pint of milk and half a cut-price sandwich. Better than nowt.

"You could make your own life better," the old feller said. "Make lots of peoples' lives better. With all that money you've got."

"I might need it." I looked at the best-before date on the sandwich. "Some day."

"You used to be such a good lad. Always ready to run an errand for some old lady. To do summat for charity. Don't you remember?"

"I remember," I said, closing the fridge again. The sandwich was only a couple of days too old. And it wasn't as if it had prawns in or anything sensitive like that. I stubbed the cigarette out in the sink and then sat back down on the bed to eat. The old feller looked as if he didn't want to watch.

"So what changed, Jack?"

"I did. I suppose." I shrugged, not very interested in the question. Or the answer. Chewing, I looked at the old feller, who was apparently staring at the window. Nothing to see there, only a torn net curtain and behind that a frost of condensation on the glass. Red light from the cinema across the street diffused faintly through, and gave his face a healthier glow than it usually had. Perhaps not surprisingly, he looked much as he had the last time I'd seen him alive. The doctors had given him six months to live, but he'd been cheated out of even that, been rushed into hospital days after my last visit, and died before I could get to him. The thing they'd asked me to identify, stretched out blue and cold in the morgue, hadn't been my father. I refused to remember him like that.

"Why won't you listen?" he said.

"I'm listening." I coughed, and covered my mouth to keep the bits of sandwich in. "I'm just not convinced, is all. Not yet, anyhow."

"You've got to listen."

"I do listen." With a sigh, I tossed the empty milk carton aside. Never too bright, the old feller, which was working to my advantage, now. After all, if I took notice, he'd have no reason to stay, right?

Some people might think their soul's salvation more important than their father's company. But not me.

It's a choice.

Copyright 2001 Mark Heron