Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Year Van Morrison Saved Christmas
The Year Van Morrison Saved Christmas
(a ‘Children of Bramblebrook Farmhouse Conversion’ tale)
PART ONE
The first of December was always a tense time of year for the children of the Bramblebrook Farmhouse Conversion, for it was the day when their parents would decide upon the maximum distance they were prepared to travel in order to purchase Christmas presents. Using an iPhone App which he had designed specifically for this purpose, Mr Patterson would offset the carbon footprint of any car journeys required, against the good or bad behaviour of his offspring over the previous 12 months, in order to work out the overall present miles for the year.
With the family’s adopted Myanmarian baby - Ahn Suu Kyi Patterson - safely secured inside the sleeping area of the bespoke wooden Wendy house, where she could not disrupt the proceedings, the two older Patterson children and their mother gathered around the table in the breakfast room where Mr Patterson was consulting a spreadsheet on his iPad.
“Tristan,” he said, addressing the oldest of the children. “You supplemented your consumption of Fantastic Four graphic novels by reading the The New Internationalist for half an hour each morning, as per our gentlemen’s agreement. However you also misbehaved at the farmers market and ate a bag of chocolate buttons before I could establish their fair-trade origins, when I expressly forbade you from doing so.”
Tristan had developed a useful strategy for coping with the various permutations of the word “forbidden” that his father would routinely throw at him. He closed his eyes and visualised himself jumping up and down on his parent’s high thread-count Tibetan cotton bed sheets, in his muddy football boots, while eating a Cadburys flake.
“Sophie,” continued Mr Patterson. “Your conduct at school has generally been good. However, we cannot overlook the death of Mary and Joseph - the school tortoises - while in your care and the negative effect this had on your class's nativity diorama. Furthermore Miss Branlett has singled-out your lack of commitment in her Mime and Performance Art workshops.”
He paused and glanced around the table, regarding the expectant faces of his children and his wife’s pained expression.
“Taking all of this into account, our maximum roaming distance for presents in 2010 will be...”
He pressed an onscreen button in the far corner of the spreadsheet.
“...4.8 miles. That’s five miles down on last year, although much of this can be accounted for by changes in the world pollution index. I have also recalibrated the behaviour settings to reflect your growing responsibilities as young adults, so you shouldn’t be too disheartened.”
Despite her father’s reassurances Sophie look concerned.
“Will that get us to Toys R Us?” she enquired.
“I think it will, but let me just confirm it on Google maps.”
Mr Patterson did some more fiddling around on his iPad.
“This year’s Present Mileage will take us to the far end of the car park of Toys R Us but regrettably will not get us inside the store.”
“What if we pay someone to go inside and buy our presents for us while we wait in the car?” said Tristan.
“That would undermine the whole concept of present miles and make us polluters by proxy.”
“We could pay a homeless person to do it for us,” said Sophie. “That way we would be helping the poor.”
“Then we would be exploiting a vulnerable member of our community for our own selfish ends. Ordinarily in this situation we would to source our gifts from the petrol station. However since BP has presided over the largest environmental catastrophe in recent memory, this year all presents will be purchased from Mrs Findlay’s corner shop in the village.”
Sophie shivered as she recalled the rows of pickled turkeys that lined the back shelves of Mrs Findlay’s shop, where you would ordinarily expect to find boiled sweets, their unnaturally pale bodies pressing against the sides of their preserving jars. In the far corner of the shop was the last turkey to have been pickled by Mr Findlay before his death in 1952. A hand-written cardboard sign propped up against the jar read: “This turkey is for display purposes only and is not for sale.”
“Darling, what about Variance?” asked Mrs Patterson.
“Ah, yes. The family outing to see a performance by the urban dance troupe - Variance - will go ahead as planned, despite falling outside our current travel radius. This is because the tickets were purchased before this year’s present miles were calculated.”
Tristan’s head sank to the table in defeat, as he felt the last vestiges of the Christmas spirit leaving his body.
Continues tomorrow...
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Part two
That afternoon the Patterson children convened in Tristan’s bedroom where they discussed at length their father’s decision and the general unfairness of their lives. As a newly minted teenager, Tristan’s stirring adolescent hormones had granted him a finely-tuned sense of personal injustice:
“All year Dad’s been telling me that good and evil are abstract concepts founded on ever-changing social norms,” he raged. “Suddenly Christmas comes around and he’s back to dealing in moral absolutes.”
“I thought that you made a well-argued point about the inherent anthropomorphism at work in the concept of the happy pigs at the farmers market,” commiserated Sophie. “I think Dad was in a bad mood that day because the Geniuses at the new Apple store didn’t applaud him when he left. Plus you did eat those chocolate buttons in front of him.”
“Another thing I can’t believe is that Mum taking us to see Variance counts as one of our presents. I don’t even want to go.”
Variance were a Rada-schooled, self-styled urban dance crew from Notting Hill. The previous year the children had been taken to see their gritty alternative pantomime – Inclusion which followed the lives of a group of teenagers who had been expelled from a tough inner city school. The play, which lasted four hours, involved a lot of choreographed jumping around and the beating-out of rudimentary rhythms on the shell of a burnt-out police car and the perspex roof of a bus station. This year the crew were back with a new show titled Cohesion, featuring the same characters, now older and wiser, attempting to run a youth centre in an impoverished, ethnically diverse community.
“I don’t think I can take another run through The 13 Rules of the Street,” said Tristan ruefully." I’ll either scream the place down or go completely catatonic.”
“I can’t remember what the 13 rules of the street are,” said Sophie, sadly.
“The only one that I can really remember is number eight: ‘Keep the rhythm in your heart and the beat in your feet’ which isn’t even a proper rule. It’s completely meaningless. You could easily get rid of half of those rules and still survive on the street.”
A look of disgust crossed his face.
“All I fucking want for Christmas is one of the new Dalek paradigm action figures. I’m hardly likely to get one of those from Mrs Findlay’s crusty old corner shop.”
Sophie regarded her brother with disappointment.
“J K Rowling says that every time an under 16 swears, a house elf gets chicken pox.”
“Oh Sophie, stop talking crap.”
“It’s true. She confirmed it at the book signing I went to at Hatchards. Plus there’s a link on her website to a peered review paper from Cambridge University that proves it. Anyway if you swear Van Morrison won't bring you anything for Christmas and right now he’s your best chance of getting a Dalek.”
Tristan stared at his sister with a mixture of contempt and anger.
“You do know that Van Morrison doesn’t exist?”
“Yes he does. We saw him at The Yummy Fruits Yoghurt Company Festival in Southwold. He performed a duet with Nora Jones.”
“Well, of course, if you put it like that, then he does exist, but he’s not like Father Christmas. He doesn’t come tiptoeing into the house on Christmas Eve with a sack of presents.”
In fact Van Morrison had killed Father Christmas in 1976, during the recording sessions for A Period of Transition. Ian Anderson, from the band Jethro Tull, had witnessed the altercation between the two men and had given sworn evidence to a secret jury that the Irish bard had acted in self-defence following an unprovoked attack. The winter of discontent that followed was partly the result of parents realising that there was no longer a jolly, multi-billionaire philanthropist who would buy expensive presents for their children, and that any further seasonal gifts would have to be purchased with money from their own pockets.
The correct age to inform children of the death of Father Christmas was, along with sex education, the subject of a fierce ongoing debate in both parliamentary houses. Currently it was felt that 12 years old was the age at which children’s psyches were strong enough to cope with the crushing disappointment. The previous year in history class, Tristan’s teacher had broken the news by passing around photocopies of an old newspaper front page bearing the xenophobic headline: SANTA SLAIN BY IRISHMAN. Beneath it there was a grainy black and white photo of a man in a Santa costume lying face down in a pool of dark fluid. Immediately half the class had been reduced to tears, with five children becoming so inconsolable that they had to be taken to see the school nurse.
“He is like Father Christmas,” said Sophie insistently. “The reason he’s so sour and grumpy all the time is because he killed Santa and now instead of jamming with his musician friends on Christmas Eve, he has to deliver presents to each and every good girl and boy. Anyway I’m writing him a letter and you should too.
Tristan sighed.
“Okay,” he said. “You write the letter and I’ll include a scientific drawing of a shamrock at the bottom."
Concludes tomorrow...
you are a grade A genius
Can't wait for tomorrow.
Wonderful start to Christmas Day.
Thanks Backwards which would be sknaht.
B7
another odd perfect thing.
All the very best to you - my friend the Mindbending Southender!
Quintessentially bonkers.
Good work fella! Looking forward to final part. Have a lovely day!
MAGICAL CHRISTMAS EVE INTERLUDE
In Belfast, Van Morrison was awoken by a reindeer gently lapping at his face. He pushed the warm muzzle to one side and glanced over at his clock. A sense of wonder filled him as he realised that it was Christmas Eve and he had been asleep since Tuesday. During the intervening nights and days, a thicket of snow-white facial hair had sprouted from his cheeks and chin. He checked his voicemail and found it full of messages from Jools Holland. The jovial television presenter was planning to gatecrash the evening service at Westminster Abbey with Sam Brown, and accompany the carollers on boogie-woogie piano, before maybe interviewing a bishop, or Eric Clapton.
Wearily Van rose from his bed and dressed in his traditional black suit and broad brimmed hat.
In the kitchenette a small group of reindeer had pried open the fridge door and were helping themselves to the contents of an upended carton of tropical fruit juice that had formed an opaque orange puddle on the tiles.
He carried on down the hallway towards the front parlour, where he kept a sack of rust-speckled harmonicas. The source of their corrosion was a mystery to him. He empted the soiled gob-irons out onto the bare wooden floorboards where they scattered to the corners of the room. Taking the empty sack with him, he shambled up and down the gloomy corridors of his home, carefully selecting gifts by making sweeping gestures with his arm along the cluttered shelves that occupied every last square foot of wall space.
When the sack was full he returned to the front door, put his boots on and stepped out into the fantabulous night.
The reindeer were already harnessed to their sleigh. They pawed at the ground with their hooves as Van climbed into the back, the inarticulate speech of his heart expressing itself as a surly grunt of displeasure.
Sensing that all was well, or least that things were as good as they were going to get, the deer began to move forward in unison, slowly at first but rapidly building momentum. At the end of Cyprus Avenue the sleigh made a couple of abortive hops before launching itself skyward. It climbed steeply into the Celtic rays of the setting sun that had penetrated the dense Aryan mist, high over Hyndford street, along the ancient highway to Downpatrick, across the Irish sea to The Isle of Mann, to Blackpool and beyond, a faint cry of “Geronimo!” echoing in its wake.
please! More!
Love this B7! Waited yesterday...it didn't come. Now it's here! There's life in this tale yet, I tell ya! I'm in Red Square as I tap this, so know that your work is well appreciated in Russia.
Fantastic, you've been the Massive's Christmas tree for me.
Part Three
PART THREE
From the far end of the landing, Mr Patterson watched his two children framed in the doorway of Tristan’s bedroom, quietly unwrapping their presents. A shaft of sunlight, projecting at an acute angle through an unseen window, bathed the pair in a radiant amber glow that infused the scene with a strange sense of stasis. As he gazed upon this perfect, yet heartbreakingly ephemeral tableau of family life he felt a strange sense of panic gnawing away at his contentment.
“Darling... DARLING!”
“Mmm, what is it?” said Mrs Patterson, emerging from their en-suite bathroom with her new sonic toothbrush still buzzing in one cheek.
“I think Van Morrison’s been in the house.”
Mrs Patterson’s expression immediately transformed from one of tired serenity to alarm. She switched off her toothbrush, even though the digital timer on the handle indicated that there was still 47 seconds of mandatory brushing time left.
“Oh god! Is the cat alright?”
The pair hurried downstairs past their oblivious children who were up to their ankles in a sea of crumpled wrapping paper.
“How on earth did he get in?” Mrs Patterson called to her husband, who had raced ahead of her and was already the kitchen.
“He smashed the window over the sink. I can still see the blood. And then I suppose he must have rifled through the drawer and found the backdoor key.”
“I’ve read that if he can get the brim of his hat through an opening then he can squeeze his entire body through it.”
Excited footsteps stampeded across the living room carpet behind them.
“Mum, look what Van Morrison bought us,” cried Sophie, as she and her brother thrust a pair of glass jars towards their parents.
“it’s a couple of jars of mussels and some potted herrings,” said Tristan.
“In case we get famished before dinner!”
“Make sure that you save some room for your pickled turkey. Your mother spent the last fortnight de-vinegarising it,” said Mr Patterson, who was attempting to regain his composure and claw back some of the authority that he felt had been usurped by the midnight intruder.
“And Tristan. I don’t think you should eat any of that because you’re allergic to seafood,” added Mrs Patterson sternly.
“But that was just that one time when I had those fish fingers that grandma kept in her cupboard. Remember when we went to The Fat Duck: I had Dover Sole stuffed with its own parents and grandparents and I was only sick once, and that was on the way there in the car because Sophie told me I was going to have to eat snails.”
In the lounge there were more gifts:
“Dear Tristan and Sophie...” said Sophie, reading from a letter that had been precariously balanced on top of a pile of presents.
“’...Thanks for the can of Guinness and the drawing of the shamrock. It was great. I hope that you enjoy what I brought you.”
“Well obviously this wasn’t written by the real Van Morrison,” concluded Tristan.
“There are some lovely things in this hamper...” said Mrs Patterson as she inspected the contents of a giant wicker basket, picking up each item in turn for closer examination.
“...Wild Honey, Tupelo Honey made by the descendants of distant cousins of Elvis Presley. Oh, what’s Backstreet jelly roll?"
“It’s a dessert that blues singers used to eat in the 1920s,” said Mr Patterson. “MOJO and Uncut magazine both published articles about it in the same month.”
“It’s got some very strange ingredients in it: Hot foot powder, coffee grindings, lemon squeezings, black cat bone - I think that’s a herb. I’m sure that I’ve seen it in Waitrose... Oh, I don’t know about this: It says here that it will ‘stone you to your very soul’ and that it’s ‘guaranteed to put a powerful monkey on your back!’"
“That’s okay I like monkeys,” said Tristan as he studied a gift tag taped to the side of a flat, square package. It read:
‘Dear Tristan, I hope that this will help you with your English literature coursework.’
He pulled off the paper to reveal a 12 inch record titled: ‘Rave on John Donne – The metaphysical poetry of John Donne, reinterpreted by 808 State.’
Sophie put her new paperback copy of The Adventures of Gloria: The Brown-Eyed Girl to one side.
“There’s a present here for Ahn Suu Kyi," she said. "Shall I open it for her?”
She tore the paper from a rectangular box. A doll with an oversized head, bushy eyebrows and unconvincing painted-on stubble stared back at her with a pair of disturbingly girlish eyes.
“It’s a ‘You Say France and I’ll Whistle’ doll,” said Sophie, reading off the box. “His name is Jean Paul... It says here: ‘Make sure that your baby’s first word is ‘France...’ It’s made in France... Not authorised for sale in the UK...”
“What does it do?” said Tristan who was still studying the tracklisting of his new album.
“I think if you say ‘France’, it whistles.”
“France,” said Tristan.
“FRANCE!”
From inside its box the doll gave a muffled wolf whistle, accompanied by a lewd thrusting motion of the groin that was partly subdued by the plastic ties that were holding it in place inside the packaging.
On the opposite side of the room, Mrs Patterson carefully undid the sellotape of a large, loosely-wrapped bundle. She gasped and then held up something that resembled a florescent pink bathmat.
“Look darling! It’s a Veedon Fleece in the exact colour I wanted:– Anemone.”
Next to her Mr Paterson was struggling to make sense of a heap of silky purple material.
“Is that a dress?” enquired Tristan.
“It’s from the Madame George collection for men,” said his father seriously.
“He got to his feet and held the garment up against his body. The dress combined a frumpy blouse with an above the knee skirt.
“Oh, I like that,” said Mrs Patterson.
“I think I might wear it to John Whitaker’s retirement do.”
He clasped the skirt to his chest as if it was a dance partner and twirled around on the spot.
* * * * *
Mr & Mrs Patterson lay in bed watching the giant flat-screen TV on the far wall. On the 10 O’ Clock News a woman was reporting from the scene of a tragic, faster than light, hit and run sleigh accident, which had killed every member of the urban dance crew - Variance - and all their understudies. The picture cut to an excited scientist who explained how the impact had created thousands of previously theoretical Higgs Boson particles which had been scattered far and wide by the velocity of the collision. All over the planet physicists were running around with giant nets catching these elusive crumbs of matter and either preserving them in pickle jars, or pinning them to boards for display. In Switzerland there was already talk of Variance being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in the Community.
“It was a good Christmas wasn’t it,” said Mrs Patterson, muting the sound with the remote control and settling down next to her husband.
“I’m a bit worried by how easily Van Morrison was able to get into the house. It’s going to drive up our home insurance premiums.”
“He didn’t really cause that much trouble. Tristan really enjoyed the jelly roll.”
“I think I might call our burglar alarm chap tomorrow.”
“On Boxing day? Do you think he’ll want to come out?”
“I’ll make it worth his while,” said Mr Patterson
With the prospect that order would soon be restored, he turned over onto his side and soon was fast asleep.
The End.
Just...amazing...
B7 strikes again. That was magnificent. *Standing ovation*
Excellent
That was really good. I particularly enjoyed all the song references. Well done and a Happy New Year to You.
Ditto!
Splendid stuff.
Seriously demented...
...in a good way. Scrooge (by Alastair Sim) used to be my favourite Christmas character, but I'll have to reconsider after reading this.
Great fun.