CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR

CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR

"When shall we tell him?"

"Not yet!"

Overhearing this exchange between his parents, the small boy in the
navy-blue raincoat and red school cap looked round, thought better of
it, and continued down the black and white path to the front
gate.

"Say goodbye to your grandad then!" Dutifully the small boy waved, and
the old man waved back from the porch. "Merry Christmas," he called to
his departing grandson, "See you next year."

The couple followed their son through the gate. "Hurry up!" said his
mother, "We've got to catch the 4.10"

The winter daylight was fading as they made their way down the shabby
side road to High Street. Snow that had falled earlier in the day had
thawed, but patches still lay in the gutter.

Every Christmas they descended upon Grandfather's terrace house in the
suburbs. LIke the three wise men they bore gifts, in this case of mince
pies and cake which they consumed before an open fire in his front
room.

The room was full of wonderful objects. A marble clock upon a black
marble mantleoiece, faded family portraits in silver frames. An
unhealthily pale green plant growing out of a porcelain jardiniere. A
lamp suspended from the ceiling by wires, pulleys and counterweights. A
Victorian piano with real candles. Ancient gramophone records and a
machine you could wind up. A glass-fronted, mahogany bookcase reached
almost to the ceiling. Inside, a History of the Great War, Children's
Encyclopaedia, Life in Ancient Greece, Midshipman Easy, Gulliver's
travels, East of the Sun and West of the Moon...

Sometimes he was allowed upstairs to "wash his hands". Then he was able
to explore the freezing bedrooms. Lino everywhere - no fitted carpets
like they had at home. A marble-topped washstand with china bowl and
ewer. Huge bedsteads with brass knobs which unscrewed. Cupboards which
fell open at a touch, exposing piles of magazines fifty years
old...

"For goodness sakes," snapped his mother. "Get a move on. And stop
walking in the gutter. Just look your shoes!"

He sighed and moved to the middle of the street, his parents walking
behind him.

It was market day, but even the last-minute shoppers had departed and
the traders were packing up their stalls. A municipal dustcart moved
slowly among the cardboard boxes and rotting fruit. One of the dustmen
leapt forward, kicking with his heavy boots at something in the gutter.
He held it up, an enormous rat hanging limply by its tail. Across the
street, from the window of a strore, a tall, black-haired young woman
recoiled in mock horror. The dustman grinned at her and dropped the rat
which, to the boy's delight, abruptly came to life and frantically
wriggled through a grating into the safety of a drain. Through the
plate glass window the woman mimed a parting message to the man, then
stopped to lift a large drum of polish.

"Life in Ancient Greece!" exclaimed the boy, for at that moment, with
the drum resting on her hip, she became a slave girl on the side of a
Greek vase, balancing on her hip in the very same fashion as an amphora
of wine or olve oil. It was a pleasing thought and he laughed out loud.
Retribution followed. "Hurry up!", cried his mother, "We're trying to
catch a train and you just stand their in the middle of the street
laughing. What's so funny?"

"Nothing", replied the boy.

"Well then," added his father ineffectually, "Get a move on." They
continued, the boy lagging behind until his mother siezed him by the
arm and dragged him the rest of the way to the station.

"When shall we tell him?" That's what his father had asked. What
tortures were they planning for him now? New crowns for his teeth
perhaps, a new psychologist or even a new school? He was reasonably
sure that they couldn't take out his appendix again.

His father scrabbled among the contents of his wallet and when at last
he found the tickets his wife bustled them onto the crowded train and
into the last vacant seats. The boy sat in a window seat and began to
play one of his games. If you covered your ears with your hands and
kept very still it was like listening to a shell. By moving your hands
you could alter the pitch. Sometimes it was almost like listening to
music ...

"What's the matter with your ears?" asked his mother irritably, "Have
you got ear-ache again? Why are you holding your ears?"

"They're cold"

"Put your scarf round your head then."

The train began to move, jerkily at first. After a time it stopped,
started and came to rest in the middle of an open stretch of ground.
Not countryside - there was nothing like that within twenty miles - but
derelict land which had once been railway sidings. The boy looked out
and saw that a new and wonderful object had sprung up since last
Christmas. Its velvet black rectangle on the horizon could just be
distinguished from the dark blue of the sky and on its surface
glittered countless points of light, like diamonds in a jet-black
crown. It was the Castle of the North Wind, just like its picture in
the huge, tissue-wrapped book of stories his grandmother had read from
when she was alive.

"They've finished the high rise," observed his father, "Do you see the
lights? It must be occupied. Ugly things. Not like proper houses. Dad
wouldn't have liked living there."

"He'd got used to it in time. They don't put the old ones on top. Old
ones and families get the flats on the ground floor."

"He wouldn't like living next to children. The kids nowadays would
drive him mad."

"Anyway, we've decided now. He's not eating with us though. I won't
having him coughing all over the table. I can give him his meals in his
room."

"We'll have to tell him soon."

So, thought the boy, it was grandfather they were talking about.
Nothing for him to worry about after all- just another visit.

"And another thing. I"m not having all those dusty old books in the
house. We'll have to get rid of them before he moves."

Not just anothe visit then. "See you next Christmas," Grandad had said.
He was coming to live with them and nobody had told him. He would lose
the home he had lived in since childhood, and with it all his
treasures. He would not be allowed to eat with the family, he would use
the bathroom only when it suited mother, leaving the bath as he would
wish to find it. He would be allowed no books, except from the public
library. He would not smoke his pipe in his room. He would go out after
breakfast, not returning until mother had cleaned the house.

And they hadn't even told him. For a whole ten seconds the boy tried to
imagine being old and unwanted, living out the remainder of his days in
someone else's home.

The important question was, whose room would he have? Not the living
room, with its imitation bamboo wallpaper, room divider and huge
fish-tank. Not his parents' bed-room with its vast fitted wardrobes and
TV.

That left his room. Grandfather was to have his room. And where would
he sleep...? The attic! It could only be the attic. A small draughty
room with a small window set into a sloping roof. The window overlooked
the surrounding houses and from here, his own battlements of the North
Wind, he could survey the whole neighbourhood. There would be scenes he
had never imagined through windows he had never spied on, lounge
windows, kitchen windows, bedroom windows...

Besides, the stairs creaked. One heavy foot on the bottom step would
give him ample warnig of his mother's approach...

"What are you smiling at now?" asked his mother irritably.

"Nothing"

"You're just like your grandfather. You spend your life wandering about
in a daze. You never pay attention to anything people say. Reading
books and day-dreaming, that's all you're good for. Just wait till you
get a job. You'll have to change your ways ..."

The boy sighed, then made use of a secret trick he had perfected.
Reaching into a far corner of his mind he pressed an imaginary switch
and, for the remainder of the journey, his mother's scolding troubled
him no more.

But now the little suburban train was approaching the terminus,
stumbling noisily over points until it came to a halt under the huge
glass roof. Mother, father and boy passed the barrier, but could
proceed no further because of the crowd that had assembled in the
concourse for the annual carol concert.

The music seemed strangely discordant, and when they had pushed their
way through they saw, round an enormous Christmas tree, twenty
choirboys in white surplices. Surrounding them was the same number of
boys, equally picturesque in their multi-coloured football scarves and
shirts.

"Adeste Fideles," sang the choir boys.

"The minister's wife, she was there, she had us all in fits ..."
bellowed the football fans.

The boy watched, entranced. It was better than the Saturday morning
cinema. One of the fans pulled at a surplice. Its wearer, who at other
times was captain of the school boxing team, felled the attacker with a
left hook. Suddenly there was bedlam.

"Fred, what shall we do now? Can't you do anything?" There was a trace
of panic in his mother's voice.

The boy put his hand in hers. "Don't worry, Mummy," he said
reassuringly, "It's only Christmas."