A Modern Christmas

The impartial observer may well have thought little Timmy Spalding had received a new set of fingers for Christmas, such was the intesity with which the boy stared silently down at his hands. In fact the eight-year-old received a PlayStation2 computer video game, and one he'd been looking forwards to playing ever since seeing the advertisement on the television set one night in November too. His glum expression was not caused by the paucity of the gift, rather it was due to the lad's certainty that this was going to be another miserable Christmas in exactly the same style as those of years past.

"Daddy, did you remember..."

"No!" came back the answer to the start of Timmy's question immediately, as his father's strained tones came back through the closed bedroom door. The last time Timmy had heard his dad's voice sound so stressed was when he was trying to carry a wardrobe up the stairs. "Go and play your game in your room, daddy's a bit busy".

All he wanted was another joypad so that he could enjoy the various two-player modes with a friend. Had Santa bought him one like he asked? Probably not, thought Timmy, as the Santa which serviced his particular area of town had a terrible habit of getting his order wrong every year. It seemed to Timmy that he was worth £39.99 and not a penny more.

Ten curiously long minutes passed. The bedroom door clunked unlocked and a woman, or some might say a girl, emerged and jogged down the stairs two at a time. "Was that my new mummy?" asked Timmy of his red-faced and strangely sweaty father. "No, that's... your dad's friend Emma" said dad, clutching a pillow close to his groin and bending forwards at a slightly unusual angle, as he waved her away.

A half smile at the front door saw Emma leave for her own Christmas morning. First stop -- her mother's house to pick up her nine-year-old daughter Paula, fathered one incoherent night in a pub toilet somewhere in East Anglia. She remembered the man. Well, she remembered his smell, she remembered the fuzzy outline of his head against the flourescent lighting, she remembered waking up the next day remembering little else with no idea at all of where or in whose possession her knickers had ended up.

Paula was very quiet as usual. Even a church mouse would've failed to notice her. Her gran smelled of wine over breakfast (dry brown toast, no butter), Paula's sign to be on her best behaviour to avoid angering the ageing hag. So far for Christmas Paula had received one card, a box of travel sweets from The Gran, and a wake-up call at 7:45am so Gran could be shot of her as soon as mummy arrived.

Emma tried her best to make Christmas special for the little girl, she really did. The small tree cost a fiver, the decorations were stolen from Woolworths last year and kept in the wardrobe for this, the frozen chicken purchased back in October to avoid the seasonal price hikes. But it was just the two of them as usual, and Paula was to spend most of the day alone in her bedroom silently playing on her games machine to keep out of the way.

Paula, you see, was a girl who didn't like causing fuss or asking for presents. She was happy to get what she was given, for it was easier to adopt that attitude than to ask for things which one had no chance of receiving. She didn't ask for the new game she wanted, as she knew there was scant chance of her mother paying the full £44.99 RRP, so when mum asked if she wanted a game she simply replied 'Yes' and let mother trawl the bargain racks for something adequate -- ie, cheap -- and readily available at the local electronics warehouse.

Best thing for Paula to do was stay quiet and act happy with whatever came her way. This isn't what she thought to herself, by the way, this is no conscious choice of action on her part, this is simply what she does, automatically, each year, to make the passing of the season more bearable. No arguments, no fights, no hassle. Keep her little head down and stay out of trouble, she would've said were her tactics, had the poor thing even been aware of what she did.

Meanwhile, across town, Timmy's older and original mum Anne was enjoying an exciting new Christmas experience of her own. Anne had spent Christmas Eve in the flat on her own crying, while Mike had spent the night equally alone in a nightclub trying to chat up girls some ten years younger than him while wearing the jacket that Anne had picked out for him last Christmas.

"Then let him eat two Christmas dinners, he's a growing boy!" shouted Mike, her new boyfriend, the previous night, before storming out in rage, as the arguments over who got to spend the festive day with the child intensified. She knew Timmy would rather spend the day with his dad, watching TV, playing games and eating sweets, but it was a matter of principle. They'd agreed on Timmy staying with him, but that felt like losing. She was going to create a scene.

So, at 12:45, with the potatoes just set a-roasting, an angry Anne set off to bring Timmy back to her house for Christmas dinner.

Timmy, meanwhile, was quite bored. Dad was drunk and asleep, television was all Enrique Iglesias and Rolf Harris, dinner hadn't even been started and the Terry's Chocolate Orange had already disappeared, as Terry's Oranges are wont to do when there are hungry little boys around them. And it was, god, only a quarter to one. The new game had lost its appeal after an hour, once the new features introduced since last year's prequel had been explored, and the rest of Timmy's presents were much too clothes-like to entertain a child for long. It was going to be a long, hard day.

But Emma had had a great morning so far. She'd made it a full three hours without having a drink, Paula had left her alone and disappeared upstairs to play with her present, the chicken had defrosted almost thoroughly and dinner was well under way. Another hour for the chicken, twenty minutes for the chips and everything would be done and over for another year. Time to celebrate with a bottle of wine or two. But whether to go for the red or white? Tradition says red wine should normally go with a Christmas dinner, but, thought Emma, the white was 2% stronger and therefore more likely to get her pissed, so white wine with chicken it would have to be and to hell with polite thinking. The red would go well enough with the pudding.

Should she bring Paula a Coke up to her room? Best not, thought the mum as she numbed herself with a third glass of the nice rioja, she's been quiet enough all day, it'd be a shame to interrupt her and then have to entertain the child. Perhaps she'd sneak out for a walk. Yes, a walk. It's always fun walking the empty Christmas streets while slightly pissed and giggly.

Anne had arrived. Dad wasn't expecting her -- he would've cleaned the bathroom a bit at least had he known she was due a visit -- and he could only prey she didn't need to go in the kitchen for any reason, such was the disastrous state of the cooker they chose together that Saturday afternoon some five years ago now.

"So! What did you get for Christmas, Timmy?" asked Anne even before the door had closed behind her, really wanting to ask the boy 'How much money did dad spend on you compared to me?'.

"A game... and some clothes" the boy said to the skirting board.

"What about that stick thing? The pad controller you wanted. Did you get that?"

"No"

"No?" asked mum, looking at dad as if he was Santa himself and therefore responsible for the terrible omission. "I thought you wanted that more than anything?" said mum, like a dog on a steak, spying a chance to create an argument and score five Christmas present points over dad.

"Not really" lied Timmy, again speaking mostly downwards. "I've already got one" he said, attempting to take blame away from his dad and apportion it to himself for being such a greedy child.

"Well we can't have that!" said mum. "Go and get me yours to show me what type it is and I'll get you one in the Sales tomorrow!"

"It doesn't matter" said Timmy, "I only really need one" he lied again, wishing the moment would end, even if it required the instant death of himself and all present in the room.

"No, go upstairs and show me yours" demanded his mum. "I'll get you it as a special present, seeing as your dad's too STUPID to get you what you need".

Timmy still only had the one joypad. He used to love it, used to enjoy the way it fitted his hands, used to enjoy the curves and textures of the plastic, he even used to like the smell of it, not that he'd ever admit that to anyone. Now he hated the thing. He pulled the wire out roughly, nearly pulling the console it was attached to off the shelf, then dragged it down the stairs taking special care to hit it on every step on the way down.

"OK, that's the one. I'll get you another just like it. Now, where do you want to have your Christmas dinner? Here or back at my house?" asked mum, audaciously trying to win Christmas in one fell swoop.

Later on in life Tim would estimate the ensuing silence to have lasted approximately five seconds, as opposed to the 48-hour gap it seemed to be at the time.

"He's OK here," said dad after two days of nervous waiting. "There's a turkey in the fridge"

"No! Let HIM choose. Timmy. Come here. Where do YOU want to spend Christmas Day?"

How cruel a question to ask a small boy. It is hard enough a question to ponder in silence to yourself when alone, but to have a response demanded from you, immediately, under the gaze of three angry adults, well, that's quite an impossible task even for a grown up. So Timmy remained silent. He also remained perfectly still, as if worried that he may inadvertently signal some sort of choice by his body movements.

What could he do? How could he answer? There was only one thing left to do -- head for the door and run!

Still holding the joypad in his hand Timmy ran some more. Off down Pennington Road, along Jerningham Avenue, across the deserted High Street and away down a vaguely familiar road to his loneliness and freedom. He'd experimented with running really fast in the road outside his house many times, but now, under proper race conditions, he was really proud of how far and fast he could go. They'd never find him now.

But -- boof! -- he was stopped in his tracks upon rounding a corner and smashing face-first into an oncoming pedestrian. It was Emma, the girl who made his dad so tired.

"Timmy? Is that you? What are you doing here?" asked Emma with an unusual slur to her voice, who was now so very excited to have an excuse to go and see the lad's father presented before her in such an unexpected manner.

Tim didn't answer.

"Come back to my place, it's so cold out here" she clucked, displaying the sort of caring parental responsibility one only displays for the children of other people.

"You stay here, I'll go and get your dad" said Emma upon taking the boy back to her house, while thinking to herself that she'd better brush her teeth and put her good jeans on again if she's off to see the boy's father.

"Paula! Come and play with Timmy! I'm off out for a bit!" shouted the mum.

And so the two unwanted children were left alone, together. For a while, perhaps a minute or two, the kids sat in silence. Having never met before they were understandably rather guarded. They'd heard each other's names, usually shouted, they'd each secretly hated the other for no particular reason, they were both curious about what their counterpart was really like. And here they were, together, on Christmas Day, suddenly much less brave and inquisitive. Finally, the silence was broken...

"Have you got a spare joypad? I've only got one" Paula whispered to Timmy quietly, politely pretending not to notice the pad he was holding behind his back.

"Yes" he replied, almost in a whisper, not breaking eye contact with the now extraordinarily interesting pattern on the carpet.

"Shall we go and play?" the little girl asked back.

"Yes" said Timmy, looking up at her and breaking into his first smile of the day. "That would be nice."

It was only a rubbish budget game, one that you or I would not deem worthy of a second glance, but when played together by those two lost youngsters it became the finest and most engaging, enjoyable example of video entertainment ever created. How they laughed! For hours and hours and hours!

Perhaps this would be a good Christmas after all.