A Christmas Barrel (long)

[Phssthpok]

Hum-bl****-bug; I hate Christmas. I loath the false bonhomie; the fat perverts with cotton-wool beards trying to entice little kids into their plastic grotto; supermarket shelves groaning under the force-fed weight of battery turkeys; malodorous shoppers worshipping at the shrine of mammon and I swear, if I ever hear Slade’s Merry bl**** Christmas Everybody again I’ll go ******g postal. So, what was I doing standing next to the malting branches of a deformed Christmas tree in the tinsel dressed opulence of my local Halfrauds on the eve of the big day? I’ll tell you what I was doing, I was trying to explain to the malingering, mince pie stuffed moron on the business side of the counter that I really did need the bottle of Carb-deicer I’d ordered 3 months ago. The moron smiled like someone who was chromosome deficient and mumbled about having another look in the store room; but he was sure it hadn’t arrived yet.

Clicking my Cuban shod heels impatiently I was considering converting to Islam when a tap on my shoulder brought me back to the Christian world. “Raffle ticket; in aid of the dog sanctuary,” grinned a slack-jawed idiot who could have been the counter moron’s kid sister.

“I don’t give to charity on principle,” I grunted and turned away.

“And what principle would that be?” she asked pleasantly.

“The principle of my money is best spent on me. Now p*** off and annoy someone else.” Sniffing back a tear, she went to leave just as I caught sight of the raffle prize in the corner of the shop; a huge aluminium barrel of Stella. “How much are those tickets?”

“Ten pence each or six for fifty pence.”

“Ok, this is Christmas and it is for a good cause, I’ll take one.” I scribble my name on the back of the stub and handed over ten pence, just as the idiot returned from the store room braying like a donkey and holding up my Carb-deicer. Sneering a thank you, I grabbed the bottle, barged passed two kids cooing at a pus-yellow Mountain bike and left the shop.

Outside, it was decidedly nippy, with a thick layer of new snow threatening to make this the first white Christmas of my life. I was pouring a measured quantity of Carb-deicer in the SE’s tank when I heard the muffled voice of the Halfraud’s manager announcing the results of the raffle.

“…..and the lucky ticket is 666.”

Humbug, I had ticket 999.

“and the winner is …….er,…..Mr. Phssthpok.”

b******* me blind, I’d been looking at my ticket upside-down.

Five minutes later I’d hefted the enormous barrel of beer onto my shoulder and was wobbling towards the door. The raffle-ticket selling imbecile stepped into my path, coughed politely, and said, “er, Mr. Phssthpok, at Christmas, it’s customary for the winning ticket holder to give back the prize so it can be re-raffled. That way we make lots more money for the dog sanctuary.” Then she added hopefully, “The last three winners all re-donated the barrel.”

Sniggering politely at her poor joke, I pushed passed the witless girl and set about shoe-horning the beer barrel into the passenger seat. Of course, a 200 kilo barrel did little to improve the SE’s skittish handling nor did the low, dark clouds decision to dump a mother-load of snow improve my haemorrhoidally sour mood.

Driving home at a precarious 20 miles per, I peered myopically through the streaked windscreen and almost missed the solitary figure standing next to a marooned vehicle. As I neared, the vehicle curdled into a Robin Hood and the lone owner waved pathetically at me. I briefly considered, but that might mean offering a lift and that would mean leaving the beer barrel unattended. Deciding discretion was in order, I pretended not to see the forlorn figure and drove off into the thickening snow storm.

By the time I’d locked the Westfield’s wishbone to it’s ground anchor in the garage and safely stowed the beer barrel in the cupboard under the stairs away from prying eyes, I was ready for a night vegetating in front of the zombie-box. I’d no sooner sat down when the phone rang. It was Ferret, long time so-called friend and fellow WSCC member. I listened impatiently as he excitedly explained about the ride-out the club had arranged for Christmas morning to raise money for the local kindergarten. Ferret said he wanted me to join in as they were very short of people, but I knew he had an ulterior motive: he after my barrel of beer. “Humbug,” I growled, “if feckless nunneys want to over-populate the world with their snot-nosed brats then they can raise their own bl**** money for the kindergarten. Why the hell should I get involved? Besides, I have better plans for Christmas morning.” To emphasise the point I slammed down the phone and yanked out the cable.

By eleven I’d had my fill of festive television and it’s mawkish merriment. Glancing around my undecorated sitting room, my eyes fell upon a solitary Christmas card. Okay, maybe it wasn’t technically my card, it had been sent to the house’s previous occupant, someone called Auntie Edith; anyway, the old crow was probably dead so she wouldn’t miss it. Suddenly angry, I snatched up the card and ripped it into a hundred pieces before throwing the litter in the rubbish bin. Feeling better, I took a quick peek in the cupboard to make sure my beer barrel was unmolested, then wearily climbed the stairs and fell into bed.

I’m not sure how long I slept or what woke me up. While I was fumbling around trying to find my watch I became acutely aware of the intense cold. Then I noticed a shabby old guy, looking like an anorexic Father Christmas, standing at the foot of my bed. I’m sure there was a perfectly logical explanation for him being there, but try as I might I couldn’t think of one. “W-w-who the feck are you?” I stammered, pulling the bed sheets up my chin.

The old guy shook his cadaverous head, “Ask me who I was.”

“Who were you then?”

“I am the ghost of Bill Marley,” he groaned proudly, “the man who wrote the sacred Speed-Series rule book, man who first drove a Westfield to……”

He carried on in this vein for sometime, giving me chapter verse about his munificent driving achievements, none of which seemed to be modesty. This had to be a practical joke and any minute some over-paid ponce from television would spring out of the wardrobe. I decided to play along. “Okay, old fella, I’m convinced, you’re the best thing since VX engines, now what the feck are you doing in my house?”

He groaned a bit more, rattle a chain or two for effect, then moaned, “Phssthpok, you’re a disgrace to your fellow man and I am here to show you the error of your miserable ways.”

At this juncture, I notice two disturbing things about Marley: first, he was translucent and second, he floated 6 inches above the floor. Before I could react, his spectral hand grabbed mine, gave a tug, and with a noise like a champagne cork popping, pulled me out of bed. Normally I’m not given to histrionics, but when I noticed my earthly body was still fast asleep, tucked under the warm duvet I screamed like a Jessie.

Old Marley waited patiently while I gibbered, whimpered, beat my chest and attempted to pray to a god I’d long forsaken. When I’d finished, he led me through the wall and floated me outside, onto the road where an equally ghostly Pre-lit was parked. I waited a good twenty minutes while Marley, prodded, poked, tickled, kicked and cussed the elderly car into life. Motioning me to get into the rudimentary passenger seat, we wobbled off down the road in a spectral cloud of blue smoke. I was loathed to admit it, but old Marley was an able and fearless driver. Of course he had the advantage of being dead, nevertheless I was starting to enjoy the excursion when I spotted a familiar figure ahead of us. It was the stranded Robin Hood owner I’d seen and not stopped for earlier.

Luckily the guy couldn’t see us, so at least I wasn’t going to be berated by him for not stopping. Marley applied what I assumed were the Pre-lit’s puny brakes and we floated to stop.

Of course, the male Robin Hood driver turned out to be a female, and a particularly fine looking filly at that. “This is Judy May,” moaned old Marley. “She broke down on the way to visit her widowed grandmother before flying back to Australia in the morning. All she needed was a bit of your Carb-deicer, but now she has to wait for the AA and won’t have time to see her gran. What Judy doesn’t know is her gran will die on Boxing day”

“Humbug, how was I to know?” I spluttered with indignation.

“You never knew because you didn’t try to find out.” With that, Marley clunked the 4-speed box into gear and we were away.

The strange thing about sitting in a phantom car driven by a ghost is how smooth the roads seem and the way you can go through other cars instead of around them. In next to no time we’d pulled up outside a wooden building with PLAY SCHEME painted in big, bright, yellow letters on a sign above the door. After angrily yanking the handbrake, Marley walked me through the wooden walls, into the centre of what looked like a kids playroom. “Look around you,” he groaned in his theatrically OTT voice.

“Okay, I’ve looked,” I sniffed airily.

“Good, because you won’t get another chance. In three weeks this building will be sold to developers. You see, the play group desperately needed donations to keep the project going and your refusal to help your friends raise the money tipped the balance. Now they’re going to have to shut down and all those children who gained so much from coming here will be heart-broken.”

Old Marley was beginning to bore me with his sanctimonious clap-trap, if he was expecting me to feel guilty he’d chosen the wrong guy. In silence we floated back to his Pre-lit. I tapped my foot impatiently while he worked up a supernatural sweat starting the antediluvian x-flow, when he finally had most of the cylinders firing he turned to me. “We’ve one more visit to make then you can go back home.”

After what seemed like hours we finally spluttered into the car park of the local dog sanctuary. Marley clambered out of the car and I trailed after him. He stopped by line of kennels with narrow, mesh enclosed runs. “Remember that beer barrel you’ve hidden under your stairs?”

“What beer barrel?” I answered too quickly, “I don’t know anything about a beer barrel.”

“Whatever,” he sighed. “That barrel was being raffled to save dogs destined to be destroyed. Now, look at that line of nineteen kennels.”

I looked.

“Every time the barrel was re-raffled another six dogs could be saved. If you’d let them have the barrel back they could have saved them all. Now I want you to come and meet Sam.”

I followed Marley as he hovered passed the line of kennels and their tail-wagging occupants. Stopping at the final kennel he gently tapped the wooden door. A few moments later a moth-eaten pooch emerged, sniffed the air, gave itself a good shake and wandered over to us, obviously please to see anyone, even ghosts. Marley reached a hand through the wire mesh and scratched the grateful dog behind it’s ear. “Meet Sam,” moaned Marley. “He was found half dead after someone threw him out of a car on a motorway. By some miracle the kennel staff managed to nurse him back to full health. But he’s an old dog and the people who come to the sanctuary for a pet don’t want old dogs. Despite his experience at the hands of sadists Sam’s kept his faith in the human race and would have made someone a loyal companion.”

“Would have?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

“Yes, would have,” Marley echoed. “The sanctuary can’t afford to keep dogs forever and the vet is coming to put Sam down tomorrow. If you’d have let them re-raffle that beer barrel Sam would have lived. Why don’t you give him a final scratch, because the next person Sam sees will be his killer.”

Tentatively, I reached though the mesh and rubbed the daft old dog behind it’s ears. Sam looked up at me with it’s large brown eyes, grateful for the contact.”

Marley didn’t speak again. We drove back in silence and he dropped me off outside my house without another word.

I awoke at seven in the morning, even though I could have had a lie-in. For reasons I couldn’t understand I felt agitated and tired, as if I’d had virtually no sleep. I remembered most of my dreamt encounter with the spectral old Marley, which was unusual because I don’t normally recall dreams. Trying to shrug off the unease, I padded into the bathroom to empty my bladder. I first noticed something wasn’t right when I saw the state of my feet. They were filthy; looking like I’d been on a shoeless hike across particularly muddy fields. The next thing I noticed was the smell on my hands, a musty odour like wet animal. Then I saw the dog hairs on my pyjama trousers.

I ran down stairs like an Olympic sprinter, grabbed the Yellow Pages and thumbed frantically through thick book until I found the number I needed. Scooping up the phone I plugged in the lead, banged the buttons and swore to myself as it seemed to ring forever. Eventually a recorded voice said, “This the Oxford Dog Sanctuary, we are now closed until the new year. Please leave your message…..” I slammed the phone down. Feck.

Precisely five minutes later I was in my garage stirring the Westfield’s cold engine into life. I didn’t know how long I had, but if there was a world record for covering five miles of slippery, snow covered roads in a heaterless SE I’d have won it.

Skidding to a halt outside the sanctuary, I jumped out and was running towards the kennels oblivious to the fact I’d left the engine running. A middle-aged woman, dressed warmly against the cold, was standing by Sam’s kennel. Trying to catch my breath, I wheezed, “The dog in number nineteen, Sam. I’ll take him.”

The startled woman looked at me as if I’d just escaped from the local psychiatric hospital, then her face softened, “I’m sorry,” she said, “the vet’s assistant came and took Sam away this morning. Don’t worry though, we’re bound to get other dogs in after Christmas, give me your telephone number and I’ll ring you.

Big men don’t cry and I’m a big man, but not that big. I nodded a grim thank you to the lady and turned towards the Westfield just as the first, fat, salty trickle ran down my cheek.

On the way home I made a personal vow. From now on, I was going to be a changed character; I’ll return the beer barrel, I’ll help my mates fix up the kindergarten and I’ll never, ever turn my back on a needy driver again. If Sam’s death was going to have a purpose then that purpose would be my rehabilitation into the human race. Back at home I put the Westfield away and decided to ring Ferret. Noticing the answer-phone message light was flashing I pressed play. “……hello, this is the dog sanctuary. Something very strange has happened, the vet phoned to say that Sam had escaped. Then, a few moments ago he came wandering in the sanctuary, wagging his tail. Do you still want him?” And, at that precise moment, I could have sworn on a stack of bibles that I could hear the splutter of old Marley’s ethereal x-flow in the distance.

[Westfields Rock On]

what are you blathering about you daft old fool. been sniffing the varnish again grandad?

[worzel]

I heart warming true story no doubt    

       

[Blatman]

Can't be true. Good looking women most certainly don't drive Robin Hoods...

[worzel]

Can't be true. Good looking women most certainly don't drive Robin Hoods...

and no conscious man would willingly relinquish a barrel of Stella  

[MARSDALEBEAR]

I want a pint of whatever you have been drinking!

[Mark Stanton]

Phsstpok - true to form         well done    

[neilwillis]

Excellent tale

We want more!!!

[Doug D.]

         Brightened up a ****e monday

[pistonbroke]

A fine tome  

will there be a sequal ?

[Phssthpok]

........right then folks, I'm off to America to try and get some decent rays on my pallid, white skin. I'd like to wish you all a good Christmas and cracking new year and whatever your plans are make sure they're on two-wheels; .....er, I mean in a Westfield.

........nearly $2 to the £.

.................no sequel to the story, although I've managed to nick a great wad of diary from a certain Mr Bert Jones and I'll stick them on-line when I return.

[neilwillis]

Bon Voyage, and a happy christmas Mr P

[Blatman]

Merry Chrimbo Phsstpok.

Whilst stateside, don't forget to pick up the stabilisers for your Hog so that you'll be able to go round corners...

[Mark Stanton]

Have a good one Mr Phsstpok      

[Bob Green]

no sequel to the story, although I've managed to nick a great wad of diary from a certain Mr Bert Jones and I'll stick them on-line when I return.

I cannot wait for this.  Jesus, this man is funny,