It is July, and they are playing Christmas songs.
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You don’t like Christmas songs. You definitely don’t like Christmas songs sung by Kylie Minogue. ‘Just slip a sable under the tree’ – what is a sable, anyway? You thought women stopped wearing those in the eighteenth century.
You look around the store, trying to find anything that might have made them think this could be acceptable. But there’s no tinsel in the windows, no tree in the corner. No boxes of baubles that need to be shifted before the next lot of stock comes in.
No one else seems to be in the festive mood either. You guess it’s hard for women to pick out clothes with a mental picture of Kylie in her Santa’s Little Helper outfit. And it’s even harder for men, whose immediate reactions are to rush home and get on the internet.
‘So hurry down the chimney tonight!’
That ba-duh-ba-da, ba-duh-ba-ba bit is the most annoying of all. You stick a shirt and tie set under your arm for safekeeping and stand on tiptoe to hit upon someone you can complain to, but none of the staff seem to have any time for their customers today. The girl at the make-up counter is talking –no, whining – on the phone, and that tall guy with even taller hair is painting his nails black. You start to head over, but they run off like they know you’re coming.
'Excuse me, sir?'
You spin around to stare at someone in a skirt-suit and shoes that are too high for the workplace. She smiles at you and you see lipstick on her teeth.
'Can I help you, sir?'
You realise you have been standing in the same spot for the last five minutes, trying to work out exactly what is going on with the music. You glower at her and snap, 'Are you in charge? I’d like to speak to someone who’s in charge, please.'
'Are you sure it’s not something I can deal with –?'
'Miss,' you interrupt, as the king of all Christmas nightmares, I Wish It Could be Christmas Every Day, starts up. 'This is urgent. I’d like to speak to the manager, please.'
She looks as though she wants to argue, but you put on your best ‘you’re not going to budge me from this’ face and fold your arms defiantly. With a world-weary sigh, she motions towards a set of stairs in the part of the shop people always avoid because they’re not sure whether customers are allowed. There’s too many of them; when you get to the top you are rubbing your legs and wheezing.
So that’s how you end up in the tiny cell-block place they call the manager’s office. She’s sitting across from you with a face the colour of cauliflower. When she smiles, there is no lipstick on her teeth, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes either.
'I’m here to complain about the music you’ve been playing here today.'
At once, she is defensive, goes rigid. Her lips purse together and make her look like Edward Scissorhands.
'What’s wrong with it?'
You stare at her.
'Do you know what month it is?' you ask, very slowly, in case she might be a bit simple. 'It is July. Why are you playing Christmas songs in the middle of July?'
She shrugs.
'I want it to be Christmas.'
You can’t believe it; she’s like a child. How did she ever come to be manager of a major department store?
For a moment, neither of you say anything. You can’t understand the way she’s acting. She looks like she can’t bear the way you are much longer. You hear Slade come on and it all becomes too much.
'I am a shopper,' you say, rubbing your temples as another migraine announces its arrival, 'in your store. The music you are still playing is ruining my shopping experience. Why is it so hard for you to just turn it off?'
'Why is it so hard for you to just put up with it?' she retorts without a moment’s hesitation.
Maybe you’re not the first to bring the music to her attention.
'Do you speak to all your customers like this?!' Your hands start to feel clammy, and you can feel the heat rising in your neck. Her expression hasn’t flickered from that infuriating, sulky pout. Someone knocks the door and edges it open slightly, but the manager waves them away.
'Most of my customers don’t let a little thing like a couple of Christmas songs ruin their day.' Her fingers are tapping the desk. You see that her hands are shaking, and as you watch, she scratches at her nail polish and peels a bit off.
The heat spreads to your ears.
'I don’t like your attitude,' you say.
She doesn’t reply, but you can see in her thin lips and her hard eyes that she doesn’t like yours much, either. You wonder why a couple of Christmas songs are so important to her. And suddenly it comes to your attention that there is tinsel in the window, a sorry little plant in the corner, and baubles hanging all over it. It’s like she’s made this office into her own little world, where the other seasons don’t exist.
She has hidden herself behind her computer, and is typing something, probably an email. Playing for time. Forgetting you are there. You notice a Christmas card stuck between some papers. It is open, flattened beneath the mound of forms and letterheads. You squint to make out the first word. From the looks of it, it is ‘Dear’. That makes sense, you suppose.
'Are you going to say anything?' you ask, getting uncomfortable now. Uncomfortable in this chair, uncomfortable in this room. The Christmas songs don’t seem to matter so much anymore.
She blinks at you from behind the computer, a faux smile plastered across her face.
'What would you like me to say?'
It’s an unanswerable question. You want her to say why the songs are so important, you want her to tell you what it is about Christmas that means so much to her. Most of all, you want her to tell you about the card that’s sitting there like a bomb that could go off at any moment.
Maybe you should just ask her.
But that would be impossible. That would mean showing interest in another human being, and that would just be unacceptable for you. You are most certainly not about to turn into one of those busybodies who can’t keep their thoughts to themselves.
She has gone very quiet, and you realise she is still waiting for a reply.
'I don’t know,' you say at last. 'I want you to act a bit more professionally, I suppose.'
Her mascara is a little smudged and her eyes are a bit red. She looks as though all the fight has gone out of her. Her fingers have rested on the Christmas card, even though it would be easier for her to rest them on the desk itself. The music stops. The silence is like someone has just announced their engagement to someone everyone else hates.
She is suddenly alert at the lack of noise. She looks discomfited, upset. Her eyes go wider, her fingers tense on the card. As if she can stand it no longer, she jumps from her seat and leaves the room, without offering any explanation. Seconds later, you hear the Christmas songs start up again.
How long will she be? Do you have time to read that card? Should you risk it?
Taking another glance around the room, you opt for safety. This doesn’t look like a room she would want to leave for very long. It is a safe zone, a haven, a shelter she has created for herself. You wonder if she is really as old as she looks, or if something has aged her beyond her years. Something that happened at Christmas.
Your fingers edge towards the card...
BAM. You jump back like you’ve been bitten, turn around and see that she is back, and by the sound of things has slammed the door behind her. Yet she doesn’t appear to be angry or in a sulk, like when you first got here. The artificial smile is back, and she has rubbed away the mascara under her eyes so that now it smudges out from the corners. Settling herself opposite you again, she asks, 'Is that all you wanted, sir?'
You pause.
'Well, you’re still playing it,' you say, unsettled.
'That’s because I like them.' Her smile remains in place, but it is ruined by an annoyed flicker of her cheek muscles. For some reason, that helps you to feel a little less on edge, and you feel yourself wanting to thrive on her anger.
'You’re not even playing the classics,' you say, trying to rile her. It works; her eyes harden. 'If you must play this sort of thing, why not put on something timeless? Like Elvis.'
She bites her lip.
'He didn’t – I don’t like Elvis.'
Your head snaps up and you try to meet her eyes but she avoids your gaze, goes back to what she was doing on the computer. She acts as if she hasn’t said anything strange, and from that you take it that is how she wants you to act as well.
It’s like the card is looking at you.
Has she decided that, if she ignores you, you’ll go away? She does not seem to have any intention of carrying on this conversation. It is then that it comes to your attention how thin she is. Her clothes hang off her frame as though they don’t know where they should be, and the skin of her neck sags too much for a woman her age, as if she has lost a lot of weight in a very short space of time. She has peeled off more of her nail varnish and as she stares at the computer screen, she rips off a piece of her thumbnail that has partly broken away.
All this happens to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock, and it doesn’t feel quite right. You wish more than ever that she would just stop playing these songs. But you don’t think she ever will.
'I’m sorry,' you say, itching to know, 'that I’ve come in and disrupted your day. But I’m sure I’m not the only person in this store who finds the music a bit off-putting, you know – walking into a shop and thinking it’s Christmas. It makes us think we’re in here to buy presents!'
Her raised eyebrows tell you she doesn’t find your joke funny. And why should she? She has made it very clear that she has other, more pressing matters on her mind. Matters that don’t matter so much if it’s forever Christmas in her office.
'Maybe you should start buying presents now.' Her eyes are downcast again, watching her own fingers on the keyboard. 'You don’t seem to have much of a festive spirit going on, and I’d bet that doesn’t change when it really is Christmas.'
'Ah, so you are aware it’s not actually –?'
'Yes, I am aware that it is not actually Christmas,' she snaps, bashing out the last of her sentence on the keyboard and finally looking at your face. 'But I don’t come into your office and start pissing all over your life, do I? So if you’re still going to buy that –' she nods at the perfectly packaged shirt and tie set under your arm – 'I’d say that it’s about time you got back downstairs and paid for it, because quite frankly, you’re getting on my tits.'
You gape.
'Would you like me to write to whoever’s above you and inform them of this?' you ask. She shrugs. 'Tell them how unprofessional and rude you’ve been to me? You might lose your job, all because of a couple of Christmas songs. Do you really want that?'
For a while, she says nothing. She does nothing more on the computer, but she stares, unblinking, at the screen, as if it might blow up. You’ve written to complaint offices before, but something tells you that your own threat is really an empty one.
At last, she speaks. 'You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?'
You are about to argue when it occurs to you that she is probably right; for someone who keeps to themselves so much, you do ask a lot of questions, some of them rhetorical, some of them just a bit pointless or angry. Maybe you should just let this woman speak, however long it takes her.
Some of this must show on your face, because suddenly she gets up and leaves again, and after a moment you hear the music come to an abrupt stop. But when she comes in, her make-up is smudged again, her hands are shaking out of something other than anger, and she seems unwilling to speak. Something tells you she didn’t turn the CD off because of you. She swallows like there might be a lump in her throat, and all of a sudden, it is unnerving not to be able to hear the music.
You clear your throat. 'Something I said?' you ask feebly. She looks at you but tries to hide behind her hair – though not before you have noticed the tears at the brim of her eyes.
'No,' she whispers, 'I just don’t like that song.' And yet you hadn’t even noticed it had changed that time.
'What was it?'
She looks like she doesn’t much want to tell you as she answers, 'It’ll Be Lonely This Christmas, by MUD.'
With a start, you remember the second line, ‘Without you to hold’, and you want more than ever to get a closer look at that card. Your eyes fall to it and this time – to your horror – she sees you. She whips it out of sight, snaps a desk drawer shut.
'It’s nothing!'
Suddenly it is unbearably important that you see that card. You want someone to come in and divert her attention; you want her to leap out of her seat because she has just remembered she has left the oven on at home. Anything to make her leave the room long enough for you to solve this mystery.
You couldn’t just ask.
Could you?
'What’s happened to you?' The words seem to tumble from your lips; they are out before you can stop yourself. She jumps, goes poker-straight in her seat and stares at you, biting her lip again, almost chewing it.
'How do you know something’s happened to me?' she whispers.
It’s a stupid question, and it’s clear she knows it. But you’ve already worked out – without much effort – that whatever’s going on isn’t something she ever talks about much. She just surrounds herself with the answer, surrounds herself with Christmas trees and tinsel. Picturing her home, it is difficult not to shudder. You imagine a wintery room with an ice-cold atmosphere to match. Maybe she’s even made a gingerbread house. Maybe whoever sent her that card used to make them with her.
'Can I see that card?' Oh, the words just keep coming, don’t they? Can’t keep your mouth shut, can you? And yet it works: her eyes are so full of tears now and her shoulders are shaking so much that she wordlessly passes you the card from under her desk.
On the front, there is a scrawled Christmas tree, badly-drawn, as if by a child. ‘Happy Christmas’ is in block capitals at the top, spelt with a ‘K’. You open it, lie it flat in your lap.
Dear Mummy,
Merry Kristmas,
Lots of love from Ben XXX
It’s the same handwriting as on the front – messy, scrawled, yet somehow at the same time so sweet, so sentimental. You raise your eyes to her face, see that she has buried it in her hands and is silently weeping into them. It all becomes so clear now.
'I suppose,' you say, closing the card carefully and slipping it back between the papers, where it was before, 'the Christmas songs aren’t that much of a bother anymore. If you want to put them on then ... I’m not going to write to anyone.'
*
You are at home, with a cup of Earl Grey and the Daily Telegraph propped up in your lap. A pile of newspapers sits on the antique coffee table, ready for you to reach for after this. As you brush them aside to pick up a pen for the crossword, your eyes fall on the picture on the front page of the local news.
It is her. Her, from the department store, smiling, joyful, and holding a young boy of about four. You had forgotten all about her; that was weeks ago. All broadsheet newspapers forgotten, you grasp it in both hands and lift it, thumb through to where it says the article is:
BEREAVED MOTHER COMMITS SUICIDE
Joan Cummings, known to her friends as Joanie, was found dead in her flat yesterday when roommate Vicky came home.
Police reports have confirmed suicide, and a distraught Vicky explained that Joan never got over the loss of her son, who drowned at the end of December last year.
‘The house is still full of Christmas decs, because that was the last time Joanie saw Ben,’ Vicky told us. ‘I think if she could just have taken them down, or if she’d let me, then she might have been able to start moving on. But in a way, I don’t think she wanted to move on.’
‘She was a really strong woman; she went straight back to work and she put on a brave face in front of friends. I wish I could have done more to help her. I should have.’
A memorial service will be held for Joanie on 3rd September. Contact details follow.
So that’s that, then. You make a note of the date on your calendar, and take down the number.
It’s only right, after all.