Her exit had been thunderous and swirling, but as she sat in the wicker chair on the porch and watched the ice melt in her drink, Mrs Claus felt none of the satisfaction that aggrieved righteousness usually brought her. The patronising old bastard was becoming more intransigent with every year; and not for the first time she feared that they had finally assumed the roles they would take to their graves, she of the worrying nag, and he of the avuncular pedant. She tried to remember the young Nicholas, before the flying reindeers and the elves, as he had been that morning when she’d hidden behind the larches and watched him chop wood with his shirt off.
The argument, inflamed by appeasement, seethed to the surface once more, and she was yelling before she could stop herself. ”I can see the stable roof, Nicholas! Pretty little red tiles! And do you know why I can see the stable roof? I can see it because it doesn’t have any snow on it. For the first time ever. This is bloody North Pole and I can see the pretty little red tiles because there’s no bloody snow!”
Saint Nicholas sighed at her elbow and she turned her nose up and away. ”As I explained before,” he said slowly, ”it’s a mild winter. A mild winter doesn’t imply global warming.” He stroked her hair, but she wriggled free.
”Don’t touch me!” Tears were imminent. ”Don’t touch me and tell me it’s a mild winter. You always say I’m exaggerating or … or … blowing things out of proportion. Don’t touch me! Does a mild winter melt my ice dressing table, that you made me in 1913 when you still did nice things for me?” She poked a trembling finger out at a snow-dune beyond the garden fence. ”Does a mild winter do that?”
Santa Claus followed her gaze, and had to admit that it was unusual. A polar bear, brownish and frantic, was desperately flailing at its ear with a clumsy back leg, finally giving a despairing roar and plunging its head into the slushy snowdrift.
”Fleas, Nicholas,” she said with shuddering sigh. ”Yesterday a bear ran through the wall of the garage and starting drinking our antifreeze. They’re going mad. They … ” She was cut short by the excited shrieking of elves. They swept past the porch, whooping like a war-party of shin-high Apache braves, their leader holding a curiously encrusted candy-cane aloft. ”And that’s another thing,” she said. ”When are you going to tell them about flies? I spoke to little Peanut this morning and she still thinks the black crunchy things sticking to her sweets are a new kind of currant. They’re eating hundreds of flies, and that’s just not normal.”
But Santa wasn’t listening, because Gossamer and Daffodil had emerged with his itinerary.
”It’s not looking great this year, Santa,” said Gossamer. ”We’ve been liaising with British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government and it looks like you’ll have to skip the United Kingdom altogether.”
”The Muslim community,” nodded Daffodil. ”Christmas excludes them. We’ve tried going with secular decorations in shop windows — things that aren’t quite as confrontational and inflammatory as shepherds and mangers — but Blair’s people are still jumpy.”
When Mrs Claus regained the faculty of speech, she was beside herself. ”Didn’t they go to Britain because it espouses tolerance?”
”Pretty much.”
”Well then, how is it that they can demand tolerance for themselves while begrudging the beliefs and traditions of their hosts?”
”I just work here,” said Daffodil. He turned to Santa and brightened. ”The good news is that you can go to Iraq this year.”
”Yes!” cried Gossamer. ”The Americans have opened what they’re calling an Aerial Festive Gifting Ordnance Delivery Channel. It’s patrolled by helicopter gunships, and they can guarantee us that it will be open for at least an hour on Christmas Eve.”
Daffodil nodded. ”They’ve spent nine months in shape recognition exercises, learning to distinguish the outline of a sleigh and reindeer from that of a Chinese MiG. Just don’t make any sudden moves. Also you can’t actually touch down. Maybe consider palettes fitted with parachutes. Don’t linger and you’ll be fine.”
”I’m screaming full of white phosphorous,” sang Daffodil, and Santa glared at him. ”Sorry.”
Mrs Claus sighed and swigged back her drink. ”Show my a letter, Nicholas. Show me a letter from a child that will restore some of my faith in the whole damned sordid business.”
He rummaged in his sack, and produced one from South Africa. ”She’s called Manto, and she lives in Pretoria.” Mrs Claus read silently …
Dere Santa I hav been a very gud gurl, all I want for Xmas this year is a Mathias Rath action figure, with realistic dispensing arm action, and maybe a string to pull that makes him say ”ARV’s are Satan’s suppositories”. Then he can play with my Xena Warrior Princess action figurine, for example she can get tabulr tuberbilbo tubalcalosis TB while behedding a robber, and he can do klinical trials on her and they can kiss. And I want a new pink hat. And I want to be Pope. And I want a pony. I have drawrn a pikcher for you of me, that’s me with the lightning coming out of my eyes, those are my healing rays what I shoot out and what catch germs on fire, KACHOW! (Dere Santa, that was obviously the sound of a lightning, not a sneeze. I have never sneezed in my life. I think it is inappropriate and unprofessional to insinuate that I have ever sneezed. You are unpatriotic. Just LEAVE ME ALONE! JESUS CHRIST, why does EVERYBODY always want me to solve everything?!) XXX Manto
Mrs Claus fumbled for the bottle, and poured herself a double, without ice.