Shaping the Ripples (13 page)

“Hard at work, I’m pleased to see,” he began. I interrupted him before he could carry on.

“Ian’s here,” I told him. “He’s been in your office waiting for the last hour.”

“Blow!” he exclaimed. “I’d forgotten I’d arranged to meet him today. The last thing we need at the moment is to upset him.” With that he rushed off down the corridor and into the office. Judging by the jovial greeting he got from Ian, there wasn’t any ill feeling.

Some time later, the two of them emerged.

“You can be the first to hear the good news,” George beamed. “We’ve already picked up extra donations for next year to the tune of twenty thousand pounds.”

“And there’s still quite a few companies to visit in the New Year.” Ian added. “It looks like what you and Katie said at the dinner really did the trick.”

“We wouldn’t have got anywhere without your help though,” I replied.

“That’s quite true,” George agreed. “We just can’t thank you enough for your support and help, Ian.”

Ian waved this praise away. “It was the least I could do. To celebrate the good news, how about if we have a party at my house in a few weeks time. I know my wife’s dying to meet the people that I’ve talked about so much.”

“That would be great,” George said. “If you’re sure that your wife really wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m sure that it will be fine, but I will check with her before we finalise it. Now I’d better go and do a bit of last minute Christmas shopping. Have a good Christmas, both of you.”

Once he was gone, George turned to me.

“Are you sure I can’t persuade you to come over for lunch tomorrow? You know that Edna would love to have you with us.” When I assured him that I had other plans, he continued. “I’ve got to get off, as well. Don’t you stay here all day, just put the phone through to your mobile and go home. And remember that I’m at home most of the time if you need anything.”

To my surprise, he then gave me an awkward hug.

“You take care of yourself, Jack. Try and get some rest over the next few days.”

“I will,” I promised. “Say “Happy Christmas” to Edna for me.”

Alone again, I carried on working through lunch. As expected, it was turning out to be a very quiet day. At about three, my mobile phone rang.

“Hello. Jack Bailey here.”

The voice on the other end was the last one I would ever have imagined.

“Hi Jack, it’s Liz.”

I guess the long moments of silence that followed gave away how surprised I was. Liz and I had been apart for three years and, once the divorce was complete, tended to only keep in touch by cards on birthdays and at Christmas. I couldn’t dream what would have made her ring me up on Christmas Eve.

“Jack, are you still there?” The voice in my ear pulled me out of my reverie.

“Sorry, Liz. I was just surprised to hear your voice.”

“There’s no law against phoning your ex-husband at Christmas is there?” she said sharply.

“No, not at all.” I said quickly, trying to smooth things over. “It’s nice to hear from you. Is everything OK?”

“Yes, we’re fine. I was just ringing because I’ve got to come up to York on business this Friday, and I was hoping we could get together.”

This was even more unexpected. We hadn’t actually seen each other for nearly two years.

“That would be nice,” I said, my brain still whizzing frantically. “Is Peter coming up with you?”

There was another silence for a minute. “I’m not sure yet,” she said. “If he does, I won’t bring him with me when we meet. I just wanted us to have the chance to talk about things.”

How does conversation become so stilted and formal with someone you used to build your life around?

“Are you sure everything’s alright?” I asked again.

“I already told you,” she said, sounding irritated. “I’m fine, Peter’s fine, everything’s fine. I’m just going to be in York, and I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently. There are some things that I need to say to you – some ghosts that need to be put to rest if you like. Please.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m sorry – I’m not trying to give you a hard time. Next Friday would be fine. Do you want to come to my flat, or meet on neutral territory?”

After we’d arranged that she would come to my flat, and agreed a time, she rang off. I sat for a time, just staring at the telephone, wondering what sort of ghosts were suddenly so pressing that she was travelling to York especially. I didn’t believe for a moment that her business was bringing her here. Liz and Peter ran a rare book dealers service together, which I knew meant visiting book fairs regularly. However, in two years it had never brought her to York as far as I knew. I also doubted that there were many book sales in Christmas week.

Whatever, I clearly wasn’t going to find out what was really going on until we met up. Liz and I had parted as amicably as you can in a divorce, but I was still very wary of opening up those old wounds again.

People often think that the worst day to be on your own is Christmas Day. In my brief experience of it, it’s actually the evening before that’s the hardest. The day itself passes just like any other, sometimes rather more enjoyably because you tend to give yourself a treat; get in some special food and so on.

It’s Christmas Eve that feels strange. While you imagine that everyone else is feverishly preparing; putting out stockings, wrapping presents, trying to calm children down enough to get them to sleep, making sure they have enough food in and so on, you don’t have anything special to do. It’s because of this that the last couple of years I’ve made Christmas Eve my time to put up the Christmas decorations.

In truth, I hadn’t actually decided whether to bother this year. However, the fact that Liz would be visiting made the decision for me. I didn’t want to give her another reason to feel pity for me. So I rummaged around in the wardrobe until I came up with the boxes into which I had shoved last year’s decorations (on Boxing Day if my memory serves me correctly.) Before long, the small artificial tree was decorated, and some tinsel hung from the light across to the wall above the door.

I switched off the light, and sat down, looking at the patterns of coloured light cast by the tree on the wall and floor. I poured a cold beer into my glass, and lifted the glass to the tree. “Happy Christmas, Jack.”

Chapter Fifteen

Christmas Day was another bright and clear day. I’d pretty much made up my mind that I would go to church, if only to check on how Christopher was doing. I woke up sufficiently early that I had plenty of time to get dressed and have breakfast. On an impulse, I took the bottle of wine that I’d bought to consume during the course of the day from the fridge, and found some paper to wrap it in. It wasn’t Christmas paper, but it would do.

Getting to church, I was struck by how few people had managed to find the time to come. There were a couple of families, the children each holding tight onto what were clearly their favourite selection from the toys they had received; a cluster of pensioners sitting together at the front; and a few other people dotted around the church. All in all, there couldn’t have been more than thirty of us.

A cheery voice boomed behind me.

“Happy Christmas, Jack!”

I turned around, and Samuel and Ruth Kondo stood beaming at me. Samuel crushed me with a bear-hug, and I just about managed to grab a breath before Ruth also gave me a huge hug.

“We were hoping you’d be here, Jack,” she announced. “I’ve been feeling awful that we didn’t invite you to come for dinner today. Do say that you’ll come and eat with us.”

“It’s really nice of you,” I answered. “But I’ve already got plans for the rest of the day. I’m sorry.”

Actually a few hours with the two of them and their family would have been very welcome. The trouble was that, no matter how sincere I knew the invitation to be, I would have felt that I was intruding. A family has a right to be together, without having to put up with assorted waifs and strays with nowhere else to go.

“How about New Year’s Eve then?” Samuel suggested. “We’re having a party, and everyone’s welcome.”

This time at least I could tell them the truth.

“I’ll try to pop in, but I’m actually taking someone out to the pantomime that day.”

A look passed between them.

“A girl someone?” Ruth enquired mischievously.

“Yes, a girl someone,” I admitted. “It’s someone I work with. We went out together the other night and it was a nice evening, but we’ll just have to see how it goes.”

Both of them were smiling even more widely. “That’s a very good reason for snubbing our party.” Samuel commented.

“I’ve been praying that you’d find a nice girl to look after you Jack.” Ruth suddenly confided. “Your news is the best Christmas present I could have had.”

“Hang on,” I said in mock despair. “We’re only going to a pantomime together. Don’t be rushing out to get a new outfit for the wedding just yet.”

The start of the service saved me from any further inquiries. Christopher still looked weary, but sounded in good spirits as he led the early part of the liturgy. He invited out the few children there, and took time looking at each of their presents. The only clue to what was really going on in his head came in the sermon.

As he climbed up the steps into the raised wooden pulpit, I have to confess that I wasn’t fully paying attention. Over the years I’ve learned that Christmas sermons are usually as predictable and comfortable as a favourite jumper. The preacher says something about presents and then gets to the conclusion that Jesus is the best present you can ever have. Sometimes they tell jokes, sometimes they speak in a monotonous drone, and I once even saw a vicar preach it while juggling. But the basic point is always the same.

I suppose that’s why I found what Christopher had to say so striking. Of course, in the light of the events of the next weeks, his words seemed especially significant. I can’t promise I remember them exactly, but I know I’ve got it fairly close.

To begin with, he stopped for a long time, just looking around the church. When his eyes fastened on mine, I was surprised by the desperate intensity that seemed to burn in them. He then took a deep breath, and began.

“I’ve been thinking a lot in the last few weeks about the Christmas story and about what it really means. Today, if you don’t mind, I’d like to share some of that with you. You see, year after year we come to church at this time and focus on the people in the story. The people; Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, and especially the baby himself – God’s gift of love to the world. Even the innkeeper gets a look in sometimes.

“But I’ve been more and more struck by the place where it all happens – the stable in Bethlehem. Jesus could have been born anywhere in the story. If he really was God’s son you would expect, as the wise men did, to find him in a palace. Or if the point was to show that God comes to the most ordinary people, in a little home somewhere. Even if it had to be Joseph and Mary, surely it wouldn’t have been hard for God to fix up a room spare at the inn. But He didn’t. The story insists that the baby was born in a stable, in the animals feeding trough.

“So when we picture the stable, we make it nice and cosy. Lots of clean warm straw, the animals obligingly off in the corner. But the reality would have been very different. Stables stink. They were dirty, smelly messy places, especially when an innkeeper was too busy to clean them out. In this place, with the animals almost certainly nosing around the pregnant teenager who was his mother, Jesus was born.

“The story insists that Jesus came to the least sanitised place it was possible to imagine. Why? And what does it mean for us?”

Christopher paused again and closed his eyes, as if in pain. When he opened them, it was with a new determination.

“Just as we try each year to sanitise the stable – to make it nicer, more respectable; so each day we all try to sanitise ourselves. All of us have parts of our lives that we’re ashamed of, parts that we spend all of our lives trying to keep hidden from everyone else, so that they’ll think better of us.

“Our unkindness, our selfishness, the things we do when no-one is looking. The behaviour we’re ashamed of – the secret, dark, smelly places that live in each one of us. We keep them locked away and tell ourselves that as long as no-one sees them, as long as nobody else knows that they’re there, we’re alright. Often, we even try to keep them hidden from God. Or we tell ourselves that they’re just the worst parts of ourselves, the parts that have nothing to do with our relationship with God.

“But the Christmas story tells us that that won’t do. For God’s coming only makes sense if he is allowed into the stable. It’s to those very parts that we’re so afraid of, that His light needs to come. We need to stand, open and vulnerable before God, and ask Him to take and love us as we are.

Again a pause, slightly shorter this time.

“But even then, God doesn’t take those areas away. Once Jesus was born, it wasn’t like air freshener was sprayed all around. The stable was still smelly and dirty – but it had become a holy place because God was in it. The miracle of today isn’t that if we offer our hearts to God, He will make us perfect. The miracle is that those hearts, still just as shallow, just as selfish, just as human, become a holy place because God lives in them.”

He stood silent, as if he was going to say something more, but then turned and slowly walked down the steps to continue the service.

At the end, there was the usual rush for the door. People keen to get home to sort out the dinner, or ready to begin a journey to visit family. Samuel and Ruth had one more go at persuading me to go home with them, but I continued to politely resist and before long they, too, were gone.

At the door, I took my wrapped bottle of wine out of the plastic bag I had carried it in, and presented it to Christopher.

“Happy Christmas,” I wished him. “That was an interesting sermon you preached.”

His answering smile was a weary one. “Thanks.” Once he’d opened it he looked past me at the empty church and then continued.

“Have you got the time to come back to the vicarage for a drink of it?” he invited. “I’ll only be a few minutes clearing and locking up in here.”