Lost (12 page)

‘Lord bless me.' cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. ‘My dear Mr Scrooge, are you serious.'

‘If you please,' said Scrooge. ‘Not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour.'

‘My dear sir,' said the other, shaking hands with him. ‘I don't know what to say to such munificence.'

‘Don't say anything please,' retorted Scrooge. ‘Come and see me. Will you come and see me.'

‘I will.' cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.

‘Thank you,' said Scrooge. ‘I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you.'

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk — that anything — could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house.

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it:

‘Is your master at home, my dear.' said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl. Very.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Where is he, my love.' said Scrooge.

‘He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll show you up-stairs, if you please.'

‘Thank you. He knows me,' said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. ‘I'll go in here, my dear.'

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table (which was
spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right.

‘Fred.' said Scrooge.

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started. Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done it, on any account.

‘Why bless my soul.' cried Fred,' who's that.'

‘It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred.'

Let him in. It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, wonderful happiness.

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late. That was the thing he had set his heart upon.

And he did it; yes, he did. The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full
eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

‘Hallo.' growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. ‘What do you mean by coming here at this time of day.'

‘I am very sorry, sir,' said Bob. ‘I am behind my time.'

‘You are.' repeated Scrooge. ‘Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.'

‘It's only once a year, sir,' pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. ‘It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.'

‘Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,' said Scrooge,' I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,' he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again;' and therefore I am about to raise your salary.'

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.

‘A merry Christmas, Bob,' said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. ‘A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year. I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob. Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.'

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that
such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

said the attorney-type into his cell phone. He wiped the wet from his face. “There must be. It's in the carpool lane.” He listened, squinting, and motioned to Winnie:
Stop. Don't open the car door yet
. Already, other drivers were slowing down to rubberneck. “Where are we, Braintree, Quincy? On 93 north, anyway, a half mile beyond the junction with 128. Yes, I know enough not to move anyone, but I'm telling you, you'll have a hell of a time getting an ambulance through, what with rush hour—there'll be a backup a mile long before you know it.”

He listened again. Then, “Right. I'll look. Two or more, maybe.”

Returning from a few quiet days on Cape Cod, Winifred Rudge
had missed her turnoff west and gotten stuck on the JFK toward Boston. Woolgathering, nail biting, something. Focus was a problem. Late for her appointment, she'd considered the odds: in this weather, what were her chances of being ticketed for violating the diamond lane's two-riders-or-more rule? Limited. She'd risked it. So she'd been at the right place on the downgrade to see the whole thing, despite the poor visibility. She'd watched the top third of a white pine snap in the high winds. Even from a half mile away, she'd noticed how the wood flesh had sprung out in diagonal striations, like nougat against rain-blackened bark. The crown of the tree twisted, then tilted. The wind had caught under the tree's parasol limbs and carried it across three lanes of slow-moving traffic, flinging it onto the hood and the roof of a northbound Subaru in the carpool lane. The driver of the Subaru, four cars ahead of Winnie,
had braked too hard and hydroplaned left against the Jersey barriers. The evasive action hadn't helped.

Winnie had managed to tamp her brakes and avoid adding to the collection of crumpled fenders and popped hoods. She had been the first out in the rain, the first to start poking through dark rafts of pine needles. Mr. Useful Cell Phone was next, having emerged from some vehicle behind her. He carried a ridiculous out-blown umbrella, and when he got off the phone with the 911 operator he hooked the umbrella handle around a good-size tree limb and tried to yank it away.

“They said don't touch the passengers,” he yelled through the rain.

Afraid her voice would betray her panic, she didn't even like to answer, but to reassure him she managed to say, “I know that much.” The smell of pine boughs, sap on her hands, water on her face. What was she scared of finding in that dark vehicle? But the prime virtue of weather is immediacy, and the wind tore away the
spicy Christmas scent. In its place, a vegetable stink of cheap spilled gasoline. “We may
have
to get them out, do you smell that?” she shouted, and redoubled her efforts. They could use help; where were the other commuters? Just sitting in their cars, listening to hear themselves mentioned on the WGBH traffic report?

“Cars don't blow up like in the movies,” he said, motioning her to take a position farther along the tree trunk. “Put your back against it and push; I'll pull. One. Two. Three.” Thanks mostly to gravity they managed to dislodge the thing a foot or so, enough to reveal the windshield. It was still holding, though crazed into opacity with the impact. The driver, a fiftyish sack of a woman, was slanted against a net bag of volleyballs in the passenger seat. She didn't look lucky. The car had slammed up against the concrete barrier so tightly that both doors on the driver's side were blocked.

“Isn't there someone else?” said Winnie. “Didn't you say?”

“You know, I think that
is
gasoline. Maybe we better stand off.”

Winnie made her way along the passenger side of the car, through branches double-jointed with rubbery muscle. The rear door was locked and the front door was locked. She peered through pine needles, around sports equipment. “There's a booster seat in the back,” she yelled. “Break the window, can you?”

The umbrella handle wasn't strong enough. Winnie had nothing useful in her purse or her overnight bag. The cold rain made gluey boils on the windows. It was impossible to see in. “No car could catch on fire in a storm like this,” she said. “Is that smoke, or just burned rubber from the brake pads?” But then another driver appeared, carrying a crowbar. “Smash the window,” she told him.

“Hurry,” said Cell Phone Man. “Do they automatically send fire engines, do you think?”

“Do it,” she said. The newcomer, an older man in a Red Sox cap faded to pink, obliged. The window shattered, spraying glassy baby
teeth. As she clawed for the recessed lock in the rear door, Winnie heard the mother begin to whimper. The door creaked open and more metal scraped. Winnie lurched and sloped herself in. The child strapped into the booster seat was too large for it. Her legs were thrown up in ungainly angles. “Maybe we can unlatch the whole contraption and drag it out,” said Winnie, mostly to herself; she knew her voice wouldn't carry in the wind. She leaned over the child in the car's dark interior, into a hollow against which pine branches bunched on three sides. She fumbled for the buckle of the seat belt beneath the molded plastic frame of the booster. Then she gave up and pulled out, and slammed the door.

“I'll get it,” said Red Sox Fan, massing up.

“They said leave everybody where they were,” said Cell Phone, “you could snap a spine and do permanent damage.”

“No spine in her,” said Winnie. “It's a life-size Raggedy Ann doll, a decoy.”

The emergency services arrived, and Winnie, valuing her privacy, shrank back. The fumes of the spilled gasoline followed her back to her car. She sat and bit a fingernail till she tore a cuticle, unwilling to talk to the police. To her surprise, the traffic began crawling again within fifteen minutes. The police never noticed that she was another illegal driver doing a solo run in the carpool lane.

And then, despite her missed exit, the snarl-up, the downpour, the rush hour, she wasn't late after all. Damn.

 

“Someone's been here before us,” observed the older woman in the mulberry windcheater, pocketing the keys. She flopped her hand against the inside wall to knock a light switch. The air was stale, almost stiff. A few translucent panels overhead blinked, and then steadied. Winnie noted: It's your standard-issue meeting room. It proves the agency's fiscal prudence and general probity. A few
tables with wood laminate, sticky with coffee rings. Fitted carpets of muddy rose, muddier in the high-traffic zones. Folding chairs pushed out of their congregational oval. As if whatever group that met here last night had cleared out with rude speed.