Superstore, closing time, ’tis the night of Christmas, all that–
And already my colleagues and I are taking down the decorations. Lead has been stripped from church roofs with more decency.
Yep… Nothing gets one revelling in the Yuletide spirit like an army of disgruntled shelf-stackers laying waste to the season’s culmination before it has even begun. From aisles twelve-through-twenty-four there peals the chorus of paper chains twanging, tinsel torn from ceilings; those of my colleagues not participating in the massacre loiter by the store’s exit; the tinsel-ringed clock above their heads ticks over to a quarter to midnight, five more minutes until they’re free to escape into those last remaining remnants of Yule.
Left alone behind the delicatessen counter, the last deckhand on a sinking ship, I’m in no hurry to abandon my post, for what awaits me this Christmas Eve is not freedom, not merriment–
But the dreaded family get-together…
I can just picture the scene now, all fuzzy beige celluloid: close up on a terrace, rooftop twinkling with frost, hatchbacks all up the kerb like a motorway pileup. In we zoom through the misted window, the dining room, a horde of extended family extended around the extender. The whole clan is here, paper hats, elbow-to-elbow, scoffing mince pies by the dozen and punch intravenously. What with all the divorces, separations, marriages, remarriages, that one case of inbreeding and a couple of sex changes, it’s impossible to remember who’s exactly related to who; there are more ‘steps’ around this table than there are on the stairway to heaven.
There at the head of the table teeters all fifty inches of Great Granny Something, a wrinkled prune in a plastic tiara. “Say now, say now!” she cries, order in court. “And how does–”
Out fly her dentures into the punch bowl, plop, 9.7. She shakes them off, gobbles them back into place like a chimp chewing on a parsnip. “And how does the season find you, Jenny?” she calls down the table, the use of my name the only indication that it’s me she’s addressing. “I expect you’re looking forward to some time away from work, some well-earned Christmas–” Plop, gobble, “–Some well-earned Christmas respite.”
I nod, wipe the punch-perfumed dental bond from my cheeks. Alas, I must inform thy queen that I’ll be working overtime every night up until New Year, my colleagues having this crazy notion about spending Christmas at home with their families, in-laws, granny dissolving her gums in the punch, Dad orbiting the extender like a congenial fly in a sweater. He shakes each relative by the hand, ceremoniously announcing to the table their name. (As best he can remember.) “Uncle Him! Brother Somethingorother! Why, it’s Nephew… You!”
“But Jenny, you never take a moment’s rest,” Queen Granny keeps on. “Now, when I was a wee lass,” she sobs, cataracts glazed like the proverbial ham–
I slip away, back to the counter, my sinking ship; there hasn’t been a customer in hours, but by staying open this late I’m told we’re providing an essential community service. Suppose a family runs dry on cranberry sauce? Heaven forbid, Christmas would be ruined!
“Ruined!” Granny weeps, glaring despondently at the platter of uncomplemented game Dad has laid before her. With an elbow she nudges the neighbouring throne; at the third time of asking the jawbone of great-great-Whogivesafuck grinds one Germanic word a minute.
“Now… Any other day of ze year… turkey… it iz…”
The jawbone slows, slackens, we around the table left holding our baited breath. Granny slams down her punch.
“–Hwuaah! Jawohl, mein herr? Oh…Yes.. Turkey… It iz considered zee del-li-cas-sss…sssss…zzzz”
“You just can’t have the turkey without the cranberry!” Granny goes on. “We simply must have our condiments!”
“Leave it to me,” I proclaim, grabbing my coat, knowing an opportunity when I see one. “You all wait here. I’ll just nip back to the shop and–”
“Hold your horses there,” Dad chuckles, snagging the napkin under my chin like it’s a set of reigns. “I think we’ve still got a jar left over from last year.”
Off Dad nips to the kitchen, returns sometime later clasping a jar; the lid pops off with all the sterility of a sarcophagus. “Expiry dates are just a suggestion, right?”
“Ja!” salutes the jawbone. Granny tugs down an inappropriate salute, leans around it.
“And how’s your promotion coming along, Jenny? Have you–” 8.6. “–I say, have you made supervisor yet?”
I’m about to present my papers when, thank the newborn Christ, a customer with an empty face and basket drifts up to the delicatessen. Their want clearly imperative I snap up, clatter my knees on the underside of the table – Dad yanks me down again.
“Where are you running off to?”
“There’s a customer at the counter that I need to– I mean…” I take a moment, get my story straight. “I mean, I’m just going to the bathroom.”
Dad shakes his head. The bathroom’s occupied; the queue runs the full length of the banister. Curses! Think, Jenny, think!.. A-ha!
“Then I’ll use the one downstairs.”
Dad again shakes his head. “Auntie Who’s in there.”
“Has been for the past hour,” says a stirrer, adding a pointed quip regarding a certain jar of pre-war berries and dysentery. The table goes quiet, trouble’s brewing, my customer’s getting impatient; I break from Dad’s grasp, bolt from the dining room, through the window, skidding to a stop before the aforementioned customer. “Yes?” I pant, switching on my deli hat. “How can I help you, madam?”
“You may help,” madam insists, pointing, “by telling me why there is a fly squatting in-between those two sausages!”
Forgoing any mention of the counter’s refrigeration being switched off some hours ago, and said sausages having been under the lights since the equinox, I explain, “That’s not a fly. That’s… That’s a cranberry.”
The customer almost chokes. “A cranberry? Are you quite sure?”
“Yes.”
A compelling argument – blunt, irrefutable, to the point. Somehow madam is unswayed.
“Cranberries are red,” she says. “This ‘berry’ is black.”
“Racist!” I restrain myself from screaming. Instead, an ingenious retort, “That’s because this particular cranberry is candied. It’s a new flavour we’re trialling: Pork and Candied Cranberry, a special Christmas recipe. Ho-ho-ho, you know?”
The customer doesn’t. Truth be told, neither do I.
“Jenny!” Granny cries. “Hic! – Jenn-knee!”
The prune’s shitfaced already, her dripping bottom row half hanging out like a bulldog with jaundice. Before anyone gets bitten I bow to the customer, swap hats, retake my seat just as the babies are being passed around the table like some spontaneous game of Guess the Weight. Having taken a punt on eight-pounds ten-ounces I pass a niece along.
“Jenn-knee – Hic!” splosh, perfect 10, punch everywhere.
“Mein gott! Ve are sinking!”
“Hic! – Why don’t you have any children yet, Jenn-knee?”
Before Commandant Granny and her ilk can pursue me with questions relating to husbands, boyfriends, a functioning uterus requiring immediate examination–
“As I was saying,” I explain to madam, bowing, hat, etc., “one of those poor helpless cranberries must have broken free from its porky cocoon in a quest for adventure. They’re prone to doing that, cranberries.”
“And do these cranberries of yours,” madam asks, “have legs?”
“Sometimes.”
“Wings? Eyes?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. You know cranberries–”
“Jenny!”
Dash, back, a baby punted into the punch and a Who dashes for the downstairs and granny’s teeth diving from the ceiling and–
Enough! I hurl the sausages at the ducking madam, a string of Pork and Housefly going slap-banger into the clock; it jolts it to an immediate midnight; like a herd of startled gazelles my colleagues’ heads shoot up; there erupts a rush for the exits the likes of which you’ve never seen.
And so, that’s that. The lights in the superstore go out. The last to leave I remove whatever hat I’m wearing and make slowly into the night. But for one hatchback the carpark is empty.
“Jenny!” Honk-honk goes a horn. “Jenny! Your sleigh awaits!”
I climb in the passenger side. The radio crackles Slade. The seat warmers are warmer than usual… And moister?
From between my legs I retrieve the kitchen foil parcel I’ve sat on. Joy. Leftover turkey sandwiches. “With extra cranberry,” Dad smirks.
I’ll admit, despite the pressing from my panini ass, they do smell delicious.
Dad winks, turns the ignition; the headlights bring a starfield glitter to the falling snowflakes. As we pull away I admit I’ve been roped into working overtime, every day up until New Year. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Dad shrugs. “Nah, it’s all right. I’ll come pick you up as usual.” He helps himself to a mangled sandwich. “Any excuse to get away from those fucking in-laws…”
Scott Tierney’s writings include the ongoing series The Adventures of Crumpet-Hands Man, the novella Kin, and the comic book series Pointless Conversations. His short-stories have been published on Liar’s League, Bristol Noir, After Dinner Conversation, and HumourMe, and his Instagram page can be found at instagram.com/scotttierneycreative
Academy of the Heart And Mind 