Ye Olde Christmas Story

I never knew what to get Jesus for His birthday. He was good at batting away stupid questions like that. He’d been on a bit of a downer. I didn’t blame him. I usually got Christmas jumpers and socks. He got good enough intentions. Enough Rosary beads to choke the planet. Portraits of the Holy Father. Whichever daft Pope was sheltering paedophile priests in the Vatican, smiling and holding a hand up in Benediction. Sometimes, looking frailish, not speccy, leaning on a staff, for a bit of variety. Sagging shelves full of plaster-cast people he grew up with and their dour looking relatives. Discoloured and their heads falling off. His Mother always smartly dressed in blue, dainty feet stamping down on the neck of a snake. He knew the snake too. They were kind of pals, but always scrapping.  Whatever present you got for Jesus, He already had it and you couldn’t surprise Him, unless you were a child like my wee brother, Bod.

Our first house was a single-end in Dalmuir. I guess we’d be called poor because there were lots of us. We were waiting for Santa, but got Jesus instead. Mum must have been praying again with the Holy Water and all that flung about us and splashed on the walls. I wasn’t very happy. I wanted a Chopper bike that wasn’t secondhand. One I wouldn’t have to share with my wee brother, a wheel each and shots each, and no fighting. He wanted a scooter. Jesus said, He brought Peace to the World. Fat chance.

He didn’t even bring chocolate or miserly Spangles. Said he was hungry. My sister, Jo, nudged me. This was when Jesus would do the good stuff. Water into wine. Da would like that. Because his job was to get drunk and not have a job. He’d taken all the money as usual and wasn’t in. Loaves into fishes or something like that, but I’d have preferred a hot dog. We could never afford them at the La Scala, ABCminors, or even sweeties, which we called swedgers, but maybe Jesus could.

Bod, my wee brother, said to Jesus, ‘How come yer hair is so dark—ur yeh a Paki?’

Jesus laughed and took him onto his knee. He had to be careful. Bod was a bit scabby and stinky, because that’s what wee brothers were in those days. It might have got Jesus’ seamless white tunic dirty. Bod tugged at his hair and beard. ‘Dae yeh use coal, or jist eat it?’

Bod was loving the attention, lapping it up. There was a hole in the couch, but it wasn’t called that. It was called something else, I can’t remember. It was covered over with a checked dishtowel that sometimes came into play for wiping snottery noses, cleaning dishes, or wiping the three-legged table behind the couch. Jesus might have escaped from the fires after harrowing Hell, or the tomb where Him and Mary Magdalene stood chatting while the world ended, but He wouldn’t have easily have escaped from the hole that wasn’t a hole.  

Mum brought Jesus a plate of soup. It was watery, mostly turnip with potato. She wasn’t a miracle worker. Bod was making the kinds of faces that declared he wasn’t for moving.  That made Jo leap forward and grab his arm. Mum skelped Bod on the back on the head. That got him girning.

She apologised to Jesus about the mess. Searched her pinny pockets and lit up a fag. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Jesus, her even posher voice going up a scale and upmarket, perhaps even as far as Bearsden. ‘You want a smoke?’ Held up her crumpled packet of five Regal in one hand like a playing card she’d just found and not hoarded. Extended her arm and other hand and other hand towards him, waving the lit cigarette end, smoke curling.   

Jesus shook his head. He’d a smile as wide as the hole in his side.

My mum pursed her lips. Her chin went down and back up again. She gave Jo the nod. ‘Get the salt. There’s no enough salt in it.’ Panic even in her poshest voice.

‘The soups fine,’ said Jesus. He lapped up another spoonful to prove his point.

Mum tugged at the right-hand side of her cardigan over her lactating breasts. Daft pictures of Himself with His heart shunted right-handed, off centre had pride of place on the wall. Bleeding all over the place in gory spumes of purple. His picture didn’t even look like Him. They should have sent them back to the Vatican and asked for their money back. But Mum would never do that.

Sev, my eldest brother, was nearer Jo’s age. He was sitting in Da’s seat beside the unlit fire. Turning the pages of an Oor Wullie annual, we’d read about a million times and trying to look unimpressed. ‘Did it hurt?’ he squinted at Jesus.

‘Don’t be askin such daft questions,’ Mum blurted out in her normal voice, glaring at Sev. ‘It’s nane o’ yer business.’

The annual fell into the side of the seat as he let the folded pages fall off his lap. ‘Yeh know, like gettin crucified an that?’

Jesus finished his soup, smacking his lips. We waited to say what He was going to say. ‘No bad.’

He got up to go. Before he went he picked Bod up and kissed his forehead. But my brother squealed. Tried to kick Him and wiped His lip marks away. ‘Fuck aff, yah darkie,’ he cried.

We laughed as if we’d never heard a swear word.

‘Yeh no gonnae float up through the ceiling?’ Jo clutched at her sides, because she thought she was so funny. Expecting us to join in.

‘In a while crocodile,’ said Jesus. But he just walked out the door in his funny sandals, clutching his sore side. He was laughing too. Maybe it was funny. Maybe it was sore.  

I opened my mouth and closed it. Wanted to ask Jesus about the bike, but it no longer seemed to bother me that much.

Being a positive type of person. No snow. Cold and wet. Typical December day. Dark in Clydebank for 3pm. My Mum died on Christmas day, years ago. It was hard to explain. We knew she was going to die, but thought she’d live forever as all mums do. I went up to the Crematorium . I’d planted ‘Winter Sun,’ mahonias, around her grave. Gold, myrrh and incense were alright for Kings, but I was on Universal Credit. Old enough to know it certainly wasn’t Universal. Any credit you had was given with one hand and taken away with the other. We thought then the world was getting better. What did Jesus know?

I told Jesus I was agnostic about heaven, but I wasn’t going there if my Da was there.

Jesus said I wasn’t to worry too much about that.