A phantasmagorical christmas story about two estranged Victorian brothers who have not spoken for half a century despite living in the same house...and their long dead sister. Here is the opening;
Have
you ever eaten chocolate under seawater? My friends, this is a queer tale I’m
about to tell. It is a story, most sadly, told only once a year and I am much
saddened by that. Nevertheless,
despite my curious opening expression, it is a plain story. However, as it is Christmas Eve, time is not my friend tonight for the
day we have been anticipating is nearly upon us. Given this traditional
occasion then, let us commence in the time-honoured manner. Are you sitting
comfortably? Good, then I will begin. Once upon a time, in a place that
includes where you are now, there were once two elderly brothers... ------- With one of Mr Bunty's porkiest of large, 'good-will' pork pies resting
inside his plump round belly, Mr Edward Kent exited from The Merry Horse, a
fifteenth century ale-house of above average reputation, tugged his
Herring-bone dark tweed coat and scarf respectively around his chest and thick
neck, smacked his top hat so as to ensure a tighter fit over his pink dome and
squarely faced the dark and oily yellow fog which enshrouded London. On toes
yet to be blessed and gently roasted, he began the journey back to his house by
Clarkenwell, East Central on Christmas Eve in the year of our Lord 1881. He was a stout, barrel-bodied fellow, with pale green eyes; ears and
nostrils choked with white hairs and no neck at all to speak of. A broad set of
whiskers which, from the moment he set foot upon the narrow pavements, began to
accumulate dampness by virtue of the fog, encapsulated his entire face giving
him the timeless look of an earthbound Santa Claus. His bright rosy cheeks and
deep, but kindly, booming voice, once you had heard him, did nothing to dismiss
this observation either. Nearing retirement age and with three brandies warming his blood, an
'after work' extravagance, he squinted and scented his way myopically through
the warren of dark skeletal passages and streets known locally as little
England. His principal form of illumination, for the gas had not yet been lit,
was offered by occasional candles which flamed in side windows and which
temporarily illuminated the murkiness as he moved ever on leaving a swirling
pattern in the oily yellow fog just bright enough for an angel to follow. His solid white cane impatiently tapped the buildings on his left as he
stuttered along, his mind the hub, on no one person, item or place. He had been
walking the same journey at the same time for forty-eight years and it was safe
to wager that his polished and clipped brown boots knew the way. So on he slipped and stumbled through the freezing gloomy evening, his
sure-footed footsteps tapping while the occasional Christmas carol strained
into his ears from places warmer than where he was, physically if not
spiritually. A stranger or a companion would have certainly heard him muttering
to himself as he whistled his way along the slender and slippery pathways. However, although the effort of his journey could be likened to a
well-oiled machine, his cane was not. It was too bright, too new, too fresh and
certainly did not match the dress of the fellow driving it. There were no
bruises, no marks of battle, damage or grime. Although it was a few months old,
even a clever observer would not have been able to gain much information even
if he had been allowed a closer examination of that particular piece of oak. For much of his sixty years he had witnessed the folly of the unfortunates
of London. Their animal-like joy, cruelty, pain and love. As he had lived,
breathed, worked and grown old, he had seen Saturn's brutal death and its
opposite, sweet life born, acted noble and pitiless in turn and seen seasons
born and die like men. An endless and cruel kaleidoscopic merry-go-round.