A SHORT STORY - Mrs Claus' Red Boots

Geoff really didn’t like going to the nursery but after his wife died quite suddenly it became a necessary part of his new life. He thought the staff were just girls themselves. They made him feel uneasy with bright colours on their eyelids and big hair held back with too many clips. He didn’t like them feeling sorry for him. But Sarah’s mum had insisted that she enrol. She wanted to know that Sarah was settled before she went. So they picked the nursery and it seemed she was right. Sarah loved going. The girls fawned over her and Geoff would collect her with plaits and ribbons in her hair that he didn’t know how to copy.

It had of course been very, very sad when Sarah’s mother died. As an adult, Sarah couldn’t remember anything of the illness or the funeral. She couldn’t really remember anything of her mother. Instead, she grew up with her daddy’s stories and her nannie’s photos showing what a kind and beautiful woman her mother had been. Nannie made a picture book with photographs of her son and daughter-in-law on their wedding day, holidays and holding a tiny baby Sarah in the hospital. She even gathered a few photographs of her daughter-in-law as a little girl. When Sarah was still very small they would look through the photographs and point at the important details. The blue jumper with a cat on the tummy, the yellow car in the driveway with one, two, three wheels. When Geoff would arrive home after work, his mum would already have her jacket on, muttering about being late for the bus as she scuttled out the door and home to her husband waiting for his tea to be plated up. He waited every night, as though he didn’t know how to use a ladle.

Life his father, Geoff was a hard worker. He worked for forty six years as a forklift driver for the same firm who put him through his tickets. When he retired his family organised a big surprise party and there was a cake with his face on it. He couldn’t have imagined anything worse. But he enjoyed seeing everyone else having fun. His granddaughters and their Granny Lin twirling on the sparce dancefloor while he looked on with Sarah.

But years before retirement and just after the funeral, when he was just in his twenties he knew he had to ask his boss for a chat. He prepared by writing notes on the inside of a cereal box. It was quite out of the ordinary to ask the boss for a chat. Never mind to take in a torn up cereal box. But given the circumstances his boss listened generously. If Geoff could collect Sarah from nursery at 1pm everyday, her nannie could watch her in the afternoons at Geoff’s house. Geoff would return to work after dropping them at the cottage but he might need longer at lunch-time to make the trip. He really needed the full days pay so he’d make the hours up however he could. If he had to stay late, Sarah would already be home and his mum could put her to bed. What his dad would do for tea he didn’t know but it was the only way the plan could work. And he really needed the plan to work. It was the most Geoff had ever said to his boss. Perhaps the boss felt sorry for him, perhaps he didn’t want to lose a good worker. Perhaps it was another reason all together but he simply said, “Aye aye ma loon, fitiver yi need” and that was it. Easy as pie.

Everyone settled into the new routine as well as could be expected with broken hearts. It was Summer when Sarah’s mum died, Autumn went by unnoticed. One average Tuesday lunchtime when Sarah was collected from nursery, she was clutching a note with coloured-in fairy lights, robin red breasts and snowmen around the border. Linda, who worked at the nursery was handing over Sarah that lunchtime. Geoff had known of Linda for many years but had never thought much of her one way or another. She had a little boy with a man who worked in the same yard as him. A man who didn’t see his boy very often.

“Are you going to give that to Daddy?” Linda asked Sarah pointing to the letter. Sarah didn’t want to relinquish her prize but Geoff expertly swiped it and stuffed it in his pocket out of sight. He was eager to get back to work.

“Geoff.”

He turned to face Linda and she caught his gaze with her soft and unmade up eyes.

“I hope you’ll make it.” She paused but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say and suddenly the silence between them was awkward. She looked away, “It’s the Christmas show. You can bring someone, a friend or, well… you know. It’s just, the kids work really hard. It’s nice, you know. For this time of year.” She looked at him again. “I hope you’ll come.”

Geoff thought about the Christmas show the whole drive back to his mum’s house as Sarah garbled indecipherably in the back seat. He didn’t know how he’d missed it. He was supposed to know these things. As was protocol he waited outside his mum’s house with his engine running whilst she stood in the doorway and patted down all her pockets between wild gestures to Geoff and Sarah who remained inside the car. Nannie popped back inside and returned with an extra bag which Geoff was sure she didn’t need. She finally joined them in the car throwing a cling-filmed sandwich on the backseat for Geoff. She proceeded to tell him all about her mornings work. The people she had met on her errands, the shops she had visited on the high street. It was just a normal Tuesday.

When they arrived at Geoff’s house, following their new tradition his mum bundled out of the car with her many bags and Geoff’s house key poised for the front door. When the door was opened and her bags were dropped she came back to the car to wrestle with the car seat and refuse any help from Geoff. She told Sarah about all her plans for their afternoon. The food they would cook, the walk they would take and the programmes they would watch until daddy got home from work. The car door slammed and Sarah safely made her way into her home with her nannie. Everything according to plan.

But before putting the car into gear to set off in the direction for work, Geoff took the note out of his pocket and read his invitation to Sarah’s first Christmas concert. There was a photocopied handwritten list attached which politely requested the last bits of costume for each child. Under Sarah’s name it said: “Mrs Claus – red/black wellies or boots.” And all of a sudden, as though a dam burst Geoff let out the most blood curdling wail sitting in his car outside the little cottage that he shared with his daughter. It was quite extra-ordinary. With the engine still running he cried all the tears that he had held onto for the past five months. He cried for Sarah and he cried for himself and he cried for his dear wife who wouldn’t see her little girl play Mrs Claus in her first Christmas show. He cried with the guilt and shame that life was going on without her and that one day he might be happy again. That one day he might be an old man who loves an old woman, like Santa loves Mrs Claus.