The little advent calendar card came in the post around the end of November. Inside was a cheery “Happy Advent!” followed by the initial ‘H’. Or was it ‘M’? There was no sender address on the back and I had no idea who it was from. The card was beautifully illustrated with twenty-four little doors, each with a swirling number decorated with festive motifs and flourishes. I put it on the shelf next to my desk and thought no more about it. The days were busy. We were still in the midst of the pandemic and changing rules and advice and the endless debates about public health vs. the economy filled my head. Too much in fact. I felt anxious and jumpy from a combination of isolation, boredom and worry. I uninstalled the Twitter app, which fuelled my jittery thoughts, and resolved to spend less time online. A week or so later, under an unopened charity envelope and a discarded shopping list, I found the advent calendar. It was already the 3rd of December. I felt an unexpected thrill as it took me back to childhood and the excited anticipation marked by little doors like this. I peeled back the tiny cardboard flap that bore the number 1. A happy angel holding a heart smiled back at me. Sweet. I opened door 2 and frowned. There was no picture, just a word: “Little”. It must be going to reveal a greeting – or a bible verse perhaps? I looked a bit closer and it seemed to me that the word was written in ink rather than being printed on like the angel. Odd. I opened door 3 to see if the message continued but there was just another picture – of a camel this time. I suppose I could have opened all the doors then to see the whole message – I wonder how things would have turned out if I had? – but childhood conditioning stopped me. First the small child’s belief that it would be ‘naughty’ and then the older child’s nascent understanding of delayed gratification; opening all the doors wouldn’t bring forward the arrival of Christmas and there would be nothing left to open in the days ahead. There was so little in that time of pandemic, with its cycles of lockdown, that was exciting and new and this somehow reinforced my resolve not to rush ahead and open the doors. Not that I was actually feeling at all excited about Christmas itself though. I’d be spending it alone for the first time ever. It had been just Mum and me for years but she had passed away two years ago and, aside from a few cousins in Canada, I had no other family. It was going to be a bit quiet but I was determined not to feel too sorry for myself. There was a Christmas-dinner-on-a-tray in the freezer, a nice bottle of wine on the rack and I’d lined up my TV viewing schedule. I anticipated a bit of a cry at some point – probably about 3 glasses of wine in – but that was ok and only to be expected.
Work was very busy for the next week or so. The days at the makeshift desk in my living room were long and filled with Zoom calls, spreadsheets and databases. I hardly went out and often started and finished work in the dark without noticing much in between. At some point each day I usually remembered the little calendar and opened a door. The 4th and 5th were pictures of a donkey and a present but day 6 revealed another word: “woman”. Still caught up in work, I didn’t think too much about it. Days 8 and 10 showed “takes” and “the” written in ink in the same sloping hand. It wasn’t until Saturday 12th, and a bit of a break from relentless video calls and sales figures, that I realised this wasn’t quite what I thought it was. I had woken late, with a cold coming on and feeling – I finally admitted to myself – a bit low. The work, although hectic and uninspiring, had kept the loneliness and gloomy thoughts at bay. Now, under the weather and with nothing to do on a wet, locked down weekend, the sadness settled in. I recognised it. Before this year fell apart with the virus, I had resolved to sort my life out. Leave my job, travel, make proper friends – somewhere different maybe – and work out how to be happy. Of course, none of that happened and the insidious gloom had been slowly taking hold. I forced myself to make toast and drink a glass of water and then wrapped myself up in a blanket on the sofa planning to crawl inside the TV and hide in other people’s lives for the day. The advent calendar was on the coffee table. Despite the fact that I was completely indifferent to the approach of Christmas Day, the existence of a simple, doable task was appealing. I opened the door to find the word “French” in swirling blue fountain pen ink. This wasn’t a bible verse, I thought, as a mix of excitement and apprehension ran through me. In fact, it was a very strange phrase indeed. I looked back, “Little woman takes the French…” How odd. I’d never seen anything like this in an advent calendar. Should I open all the doors and see what else was there? I lay for a while on the sofa and pondered this and the odd set of words. A wave of ennui came over me and I got lost in the on-screen angst of amateur antique purchases.
By the next morning, greeted by another little angel, I had decided to only open the doors on their designated days. There was little else to get excited about in my life and I looked forward each day to seeing what lay behind the next door. I developed a little ritual. I could only open the door if I was up and dressed and had eaten something. It sounds foolish now but that tiny bit of structure kept me going through those grey mid-December days. I may have crumbled without it. By the next weekend I had three more words and a phrase that read: “Little woman takes the French border to a….” I was utterly intrigued by now and wished I had someone to tell. It shamed me to admit there was no-one. I’d moved to this city to be with a guy I’d met online. We did long distance for a bit and then he persuaded me to move South and join him in this slightly down-at-heel English market town. Everything was great for a few months but then he lost his job unexpectedly, and I discovered he was quite heavily in debt. We rowed about that and I saw an angry, petulant side to him I hadn’t noticed before. The relationship didn’t survive and I found myself alone in a strange town with no real friends.
On the 20th and 21st were a shepherd and a lamb respectively. By then I was finished work for Christmas and when I woke on the 22nd I was nursing a hangover which brought with it the usual despondency and listlessness. I moped around until late afternoon when, just as the darkness was closing in, I remembered the calendar and opened the door marked “22”. “Holy” it said. “Little woman takes the French border to a Holy….” Curiouser and curiouser, I quipped to myself half-heartedly.
I stayed in bed all day on the 23rd listening to the rain and wind and watching a patch of grey sky through the gap in the curtains. On Christmas Eve I woke to bright sunshine streaming through my window. I kicked myself mentally out of bed and made coffee. The piece of paper where I’d written the words from the calendar lay on the table. I had two more doors to open. 23 was a manger scene but behind door 24 was the word, “city” followed by a full stop. So that was it, the whole sentence, “Little woman takes the French border to a Holy city”. I read it over several times to myself but couldn’t make any sense of it. Could it just be an awkward rendering of a Christmas message, garbled by a clunky translation algorithm? I took a shower, hoping a bit of free thinking might make something click. And, as I rinsed the shampoo off the black and white chequered tiles, it did. I threw on some clothes and checked door 24 again. I was right! There below the word “city” was another mark in ink: “(9)” I knew then what the words were. A clue. A cryptic crossword clue. I used to do cryptic crosswords regularly and was pretty good at them. I felt a bit rusty but I still knew all the rules. One part of the clue is like a standard crossword clue, a synonym for the answer. The rest are the building blocks whose individual meanings you have to decipher and put together like jigsaw pieces. Different conventions apply but every word of the clue has a job to do. I sat down with a pencil and a determination I hadn’t felt in weeks. Little woman takes the French border to a holy city. (9) Where to begin? “the French” – that arrangement almost always means the French word for “the”, so either “le” or “la”. Ok, we were underway….an hour later I was no further forward and feeling a bit despondent. My head was a bit fuzzy and I realised that I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon. I made scrambled eggs and let the clue float at the edge of my mind, trying not to look at it directly in the hope that something might reveal itself. The cover of a book I’d read in School popped, unexpectedly, into my mind. Four fresh-faced, girls in old-fashioned clothes skating on a pond. Little Women! But the clue said “woman” so it wasn’t the book itself but rather one of the girls. I googled their names and tried them out with “le” and “la”. “Jo-le-“, “Meg-la-”…hmmm. Wait, “Beth-le –.” Could that be it? I scanned the clue again. “Holy city”. It must be. “Bethlehem”. Could “border” be another word for “hem”? Yes, it could, so that really must be it. I was elated for a moment as if I’d just won the sports day sprint. I looked at the word. Bethlehem. Well, it was Christmassy wasn’t it! So, it was just a fun puzzle as part of the advent calendar then. I felt a bit flat. All over and still not even Christmas. I looked at the clock. 11.45am. Was that too early to open wine? It was Christmas Eve after all…I went into the kitchen thinking that maybe if I faffed a bit with the glass and the corkscrew it might be just past noon before I actually took a drink and therefore not a problem at all. The local radio station was playing Christmas music and it took me a moment to recognise the tune. I laughed – “Oh little town of Bethlehem”. I liked the tune and killed a few more seconds singing, badly, along with it before pulling a bottle off the rack and reaching for the opener. The music stopped and an advert followed for a pandemic-safe installation in the town square called, of course, “Little town of Bethlehem”. Sounds a bit naff, I thought, revelling for a moment in my Scrooge-like cynicism. I took the wine to the sofa and looked at the advent card again. Who was it from, I wondered? I opened it up to look at the message thinking, without any real hope, that I might recognise the handwriting. A chill went down my spine. Under the message there was a P.S. “I do hope you’ll go”, it said. That hadn’t been there before! But it must have been, the rational part of my brain insisted. How could I possibly have missed it? And besides that, what on earth did it mean? Go where? This was all too weird and it made my head hurt. I lay back on the sofa and took a large swig of wine, a rich pinotage that was meant to be for Christmas day. A little later I went back to the kitchen for a refill and the radio was playing the same advert about the town installation. It ended just as I was leaving the room but the last words of the advert made me stop dead. “I do hope you’ll go!” said the voice. What the hell! I rubbed my eyes. Just stupid coincidences, I thought. I’m losing it – too much booze and introspection. I went back to the sofa but I couldn’t relax. Perhaps it was the combination of the radio advert, the card and the music or maybe, more likely, just that I hadn’t left the house in three days and desperately needed some air and a change of scene. I’ll go, I thought. I pulled on my coat and boots and remembered at the last minute to shove a mask and some hand gel in my pocket.
The town centre was only 15-minutes from my flat and I walked briskly, stretching my legs and taking deep breaths. The air was crisp and stars were already appearing in the darkening sky. A sense of purpose, plus the two glasses of wine, meant I felt almost cheerful as I approached the town square. As soon as I arrived though my heart sank. The square was deserted and I could just make out the shapes of little half-size wooden houses in the darkness. An inn and a stable I guessed. It was really dark now and I noticed that not only was the installation not illuminated but the town Christmas tree had been switched off as well. I stood for a minute, feeling stupid and lonely and trying not to cry. I should have just stayed in and finished that flipping bottle of wine. A notice, stuck haphazardly on the side of the stable, caught my eye, “Bethlehem installation cancelled due to social distancing concerns. Effective Sunday 20 December”. It hadn’t been on for 4 days so why on earth were they still running that advert on the radio! Idiots, I thought unkindly, still feeling foolish and even more alone than I had before.
I was about to leave and stomp home to my wine when I heard a noise, like a sigh or a groan, that seemed to be coming from the plywood stable. I poked my head through the half-open door but I couldn’t make anything out. There it was again. The noise was coming from the other side. The square was still empty and I felt a little nervous. I walked tentatively round the low building and peered into the space between it and the other building. A young man sat there in jeans and a white t-shirt. His skin had a greyish, almost silvery pallor and his breathing was laboured. His whole body was shivering. I hesitated for a moment, 9 months of people-avoidance-conditioning kicking in, before humanity took over and I shoved on my mask and went towards him. “Are you ok?” He looked up and gave me a weak smile. He didn’t say anything, just pointed down one of the side streets and seemed to gesture that he wanted to go there. I helped him up and he leaned on my arm, propelling me along. Partway up the side street was an open doorway with an aroma of cooked vegetables and coffee wafting out of it. The man stopped suddenly at the door and seemed to wait. I stuck my head into the doorway and called, “hello?”. A cheerful voice answered “Come in. Just put the bread on the side, I desperately need another pair of hands in the kitchen if you can stay?” I went in, helping the young man up the steps and into a corridor that led to a single door. He sank immediately into a chair against the wall and his chin dropped forward onto his chest. I walked on into a large bright room that was filled with steam. Four enormous urns of soup were bubbling away on industrial kitchen rings. A woman in a mask came over to me, smiling with her eyes and waving her arms. “Hi!”, she said with a warmth that made me tingle. “Thank goodness you’re here! Everyone called in sick and it’s just me. Oh, hang on, you’re not Nancy!? No bread then….” I shook my head, about to explain, when she went on, “come in anyway, I’d love your help if you can stay? I’m Stella”, her eyes beamed. “In fact, I don’t suppose you could you come tomorrow as well? It’s going to be freezing tonight and we’ll be busy. We’ll have mince pies and a bit of a socially distanced sing-song in the yard”, at this she gestured to a hatch at the far end of the kitchen. I saw an open area where a few bundled-up figures were standing with hands clasped round steaming mugs. Without even thinking, I heard myself tell her I’d be delighted to stay. I felt a cold draught from the corridor and I suddenly remembered why I was there. “There’s a boy outside, I think he needs some help.” She cocked her head to one side and looked at me intently for a few seconds and then popped out into the hallway. A voice from the hatch called for soup so I rolled up my sleeves and found a ladle. I was onto the fourth bowl when Stella came back. “That was Michael”, she said “we see him occasionally. He’s gone now but he said to say he was glad you came.”
December 2020
‘Advent’ was my first published story and was included in the Swoop Books ‘Ordinary People’ anthology in May 2021.
Hilary Coyne 