Christmas on the cards: Short story by Deric Longden

Dec 24 2008 by Yvette Smith, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Huddersfield author DERIC LONGDEN tries to get sorted well in advance for Christmas ... but events conspire against him, as he tells in this story for the festive season

CHRISTMAS was going to be all done and dusted early this year, in plenty of time so that we could sit down and enjoy it. I’d made a list and it’s always a start, isn’t it?

The cards would be written well in advance, with the food ready in the freezer and the kids’ presents all wrapped up in pretty paper by the end of November at the latest. December was going to be a horrendously busy month for both of us, we had to be here, there and everywhere and so inch-perfect planning was to be the order of the day. Starting with the list.

I’m good at lists. Sometimes I use different coloured Biros and sometimes I don’t. It depends on how I feel. This time I used sheets of colour-coded paper, each of which I slipped into a clear plastic pocket. They looked very smart, but Aileen had her doubts.

“You’ll have to take them out every time you want to cross anything off.”

She didn’t understand. This wasn’t any old list. It was a work of art. Once you start crossing things off it ruins it.

“I shall tick them off. With colour-coded Biros. On the outside of the plastic pocket.”

“Oh I see. And then rub them off with your sleeve.”

There’s no talking to her when she’s in that sort of mood and anyway she was way off the mark. I happened to sit on the pale-pink Christmas card list for the best part of an hour and so rubbed off the ticks with my bottom.

Which was why I was on my way up to the card shop in Marsh. I had already posted over half of our cards, but now I had no idea who I had posted them to. I could eliminate the overseas contingent – they went off ages ago, and there were certain others that I remembered writing. Some I knew I still had to write and those with addresses to be checked were sweating it out on top of the sideboard. That left us with thirty-nine floaters who might, or might not, be about to receive a Christmas card with love from Aileen and Deric. I decided to double-up and take no chances.

I had stopped to admire the doctor’s house when she caught up with me. They’d just had it sand-blasted and it looked a treat. She must have slipped out of the surgery round the back and she was with me before I knew she was there.

I don’t know her name and it’s got to that point where it’s too late to ask her. She doesn’t know mine either. She calls me Gordon and it’s too late to put her right.

“Hello, Gordon.”

“Hello.”

I can tell what she’s saying when she comes at me from an angle. It’s when we are walking together that her voice disappears and goes on ahead.

She’s a tall woman, much taller than I am, but she stoops so badly that I finish up much taller than she is. She’s like one of those cherry trees, the sort that they cut up for walking sticks. She goes off at a tangent halfway up her back, and although I was walking beside her, it was the woman who was walking in front of us who got hold of most of the conversation.

I stopped outside the card shop. It’s called Don’t Forget, which seemed quite appropriate. She swung round to face me and nearly had my eye out with her plastic hood.