The boy was silent as he walked slowly down the stairs. The night was pitch black but even so he did not need to feel his way. He did not hesitate, but walked with confidence down the stairs he knew so well, making not the slightest flutter of noise. So many times he had done this, crept down the stairs in utter darkness, roused from sleep by raised voices in the lounge beneath his bedroom. So many times his father’s harsh tones had snuck up the stairs and roughly elbowed him awake.
Tonight though, there were no raised voices, no-one awake, no-one downstairs. It was Christmas Eve and the house was asleep. The boy, alone as he reached the bottom step, strode left towards the door to the lounge.
He went into the room. There was no Christmas tree this year. Normally it stood on the coffee table (the usual load of magazines and assorted junk tidied away for the duration of the Christmas holiday), pushed in front of the window so that passers-by would admire the twinkling lights. But not this year. Two cards standing on top of the TV were the only evidence that it was Christmas at all.
The boy went over to the window. The curtains were drawn but all the same he gazed outward, imagining the midnight silhouette of the plants in the front garden, picturing the moon shining down on this Christmas Eve.
Upstairs, his mother stared from sleep, just for a moment. She murmured to herself and gasped in the dark. Then she was asleep once more. By the time she awoke the following morning the last residues of the make-up she had removed before bed with only half her mind on the job, would be streaked down her cheek by the tears that squeezed out of her eyes even in sleep.
The boy, still gazing at the curtains but seeing only winter garden, remembered the previous Christmas Eve.
Waking into darkness. Noises from downstairs - Mum crying, Dad yelling. Jack throws aside the duvet and slides into his slippers. As he edges across the bedroom to the door he hears more sounds drifting up the stairs; shouting, something breaking, glass maybe. He is frightened, like always. He opens the bedroom door and makes his way to the stairs.
The boy stopped staring at the window and walked over to the cards on the television. “To our Daughter at Christmas Time”, one of them said. The other had a legend which read, “Thinking Of You”, the words perched over a picture of a sad-looking grey teddy bear with its hands clasped in front of it. The boy wondered who had sent the second card. A relative? A friend, maybe.
He takes the stairs a step at a time, straining to hear the words of the argument taking place in the living room, wincing as he hears his Dad swearing, then a noise like a slap and his Mum’s voice, crying out, afraid, pleading. As Jack reaches the bottom stair he wipes a tear away from his cheek and takes a deep breath. He has to be brave. He has to be a man.
The boy reached out to the cards, almost went to grab the second one. He pulled his hand away before it touched the card. He turned round and looked around the room, at the photos on the wall – photos of him. Him as a baby; him on his rocking horse as an infant; him with his Mum; him on his first day at school. Dozens of photos - too many photos - and all of them, in one way or another, of him.
He walked out of the living room, through the dining room, not stopping, into the kitchen, where one dirty plate sat next to the sink with a knife and fork sitting side by side in a small puddle of gravy. He looked on the worktop, where in previous years there would have been a plump turkey, defrosting on a plate, but this time there was nothing. It was as if Christmas had been swept up into a huge dustpan and tossed into the bin, then simply forgotten.
He throws open the living room door. The lamp which normally sits on top of the television is on the floor, broken glass from the bulb decorating the carpet around it, the flimsy shade crushed out of shape. At first, just for a second, he doesn’t know where his Mum is. He can’t see her but he can see his Dad, on his knees behind the settee, his arm raised in the air as if saluting with his fist. There is white foam at the corners of his mouth and he is shouting, swearing, screaming in rage at Jack’s Mum, who Jack knows now is also behind the settee, somewhere on the floor down there. Jack’s Dad hasn’t seen Jack, doesn’t even notice the door flying open and his eight-year-old son crashing into the room.
The boy glanced at the back door. He had to go outside. He had to go into the back yard, out into the cold Christmas Eve darkness. He knew he didn’t belong here, not now, not anymore. He strode towards the back door, ready to leave the house behind. He could feel the darkness drawing him outside.
“Daddy!”
Jack shouts. His Dad doesn’t hear. Mum screams as Dad brings his fist down, shouting BITCH and WHORE and other bad words at Mum, as she screams out, begging him not to, saying she is sorry, pleading with him to stop. He is yelling, possessed, raining down on her with his fists. Jack runs at him, blinded by his fear for a moment, not knowing what to do, tears running down his cheeks. Still his Dad hasn’t seen him. Jack jumps at him and his arms wrap around his Dad’s neck. As the smell of stale whiskey crawls up Jack’s nostrils, making him gag, his Dad swings around, shouting at him to get off, swinging with his arms. He plucks Jack off his back as if he was nothing more than a rag doll, and tosses him aside. Jack crashes into the coffee table and the Christmas tree tumbles down on top of him as pain shoots up his spine where it thumped into the edge of the table. He sees his Mum’s face as she reaches out towards him, but his Dad pins her down. She can’t get up. There is a nasty gash under her left eye, which is half closed, and blood is smeared down her cheek. Her face is raw with crying, her lips swollen. Jack tries to get up. He has to help her.
Out in the back yard, a thin layer of snow coated the ground. The snow had stopped falling as the boy strode out into the yard. He wasn’t cold. Not at all. He kept going, into the night, away from the house.
Jack tries to pull himself up, reaching out without really looking, grabbing the Christmas tree to give himself some leverage. A scream strangled itself in his throat as his teeth clasped down on his tongue, drawing blood. The lights on the Christmas tree sparked and shorted as the defective wiring channeled the current through Jack’s body, his hand fixed around the cable that snaked through the branches of the synthetic tree. He bucked and whined as the smell of burning skin began to fill the room.
The mains circuit, which powered the house, blew, so that there was only darkness and death.
In the dark, Jack’s father stood with the knuckles of one hand between his teeth, a thin trickle of blood running down the back of his hand as he stifled his own screams, frozen to the spot.
The boy turned to face the house and waved up at the upstairs window, behind which his Mum slept, as restless as always.
The next day, Christmas morning, she awoke, dressed, and went downstairs. She pulled her gown tight around her as she went into the living room, gazing at the pictures on the walls. She wouldn’t cry, she knew she wouldn’t, not today, not anymore. She had no tears left. She touched her fingers to her lips, then reached up and touched one of the photographs with a strained smile.
She went into the dining room and looked at the table that she no longer ate at. It was there where Jack’s father had taken his last drink, the bottle of Scotch he used to wash down thirty sleeping pills. Then he had slept, two weeks after the death of his son, right there in the room next door. He didn’t wake up.
In the kitchen, she filled the kettle. Standing at the sink, she could see out into the yard. It was a white Christmas. In the snow outside, she could see something. She leaned forward over the sink, straining to make it out.
Footprints. Small footprints, in the snow. She gasped, looking at the tiny indentations. She felt warm inside, less sad then a moment ago. She saw Jack in her mind – smiling, waving. As she looked at the marks in the snow, they began to fade, even though there was no new snow falling. After a minute or two they had gone completely.
In her mind though, they would never disappear.
© Nick Boldock