Ted Cusack follows the exit sign that directs him down a corridor between HMV and Footlocker, but when he gets to the end it takes a sharp right turn and stops in front of a pair of grey steel doors that are marked ‘Emergency Only’.
‘Bugger.’
He rests his plastic shopping bags on the floor and rubs at the red marks the handles have made on his fingers. He hates shopping at any time of the year but this is ridiculous, he thinks. What possessed him to come to the shopping centre on the last Saturday before Christmas and what had he been thinking when he bought all of this food? He looks down at the bulging carrier bags at his feet. He has enough there to last him a week. And it’s not as if he needed to get anything that he couldn’t have got in the local shop. Sometimes he thinks that he only does the things he does because they’re the things he would have been doing if Carol was with him. Her routine is his routine.
Instinctively, he pats his trouser pocket to check for his wallet then picks up his bags and turns to walk back up the corridor to the mall. He sees the young boy, standing facing the wall leaning on his raised arms, crying. He thinks that he looks about seven or eight years old and his first thoughts are to go to him. No, his second thoughts are to go to him, his first thoughts are God almighty, what will people think if they find an old man in a corridor with a seven year old boy balling his eyes out. He really wishes Carol was here now, she’d know what to do, but he can’t just ignore the child and sneak past, and anyway that might look even worse. He’ll have to do something, say something anyway, so he steps closer to him.
‘Why are you crying’ he says. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
As soon as he speaks he knows his words sound cross so he tries to soften them with a smile as the boy turns to look at him.
‘Well?’ he says.
There’s that tone again. He widens his smile until he realises he must look really creepy and shuts his mouth again.
The boy doesn’t seem surprised to see him standing there. He’s stopped crying and his breathing is gradually returning to normal with a last hiccupping sob.
‘I know you,’ says the boy.
‘Do you?’
‘You’re the...you’re Mr Cusack. You live on my road.’
‘Do I now?’ He knows the boy was about to call him The Grump. Carol had told him that that was the nickname he’d been given by the neighbours’ children. ‘And what’s your name then?’
‘Jamie.’
‘Jamie? And what age are you Jamie?
‘Nine.’
‘Nine? You look an awful lot older than nine,’ he lies. ‘I thought you might be ten or eleven maybe. And why are you crying?’
‘Because of Santy,’ says the boy.
‘Santy? What about him?
‘He’s a fucker.’
‘There you are!’ It’s his mother. The look of panicked worry on her face melts into relief as she finds her child then changes again into polite recognition as she notices Ted Cusack standing beside him, but on the way to recognition it passes for the tiniest fraction of a moment through horror. She’s quick to conceal it but it was there and he saw it.
‘Mr Cusack?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m tenderloin,’ she says as she kneels in front of Jamie and dabs at his cheeks with a scrunched up tissue.
Did she really say tenderloin? ‘I’m sorry what?’
She looks up at him. ‘I’m Glenda Moyne, Jamie’s mam; we live on your road.’
‘Oh yes,’ he says, ‘I know. Jamie was just a bit upset...about Santy.’
She looks into her child’s face. He thinks she might be a bit embarrassed and when she stands up and turns toward him he sees her cheeks are pink.
‘Santy...in the grotto,’ she nods her head back towards the shopping mall, ‘told him that he might not have enough money for all the toys that every child wants this year.’ She smiles a little smile. ‘You know how things are at the moment, with work and the cutbacks and all.’ She reaches out to her side and takes Jamie’s hand in hers.
‘Oh I do, I do,’ he says, but he doesn’t really. His house is paid for and he has a monthly pension that he can’t spend, but having plenty of cash in his pocket makes him feel secure. He gently presses the back of his hand against his trouser pocket to check for his wallet. ‘It’s not easy,’ he says.
‘He’s not even the real Santy,’ says Jamie and they both look down at him. ‘He’s only one of his helpers so how does he know how much money Santy has? And what does Santy need money for anyway?’
‘That’s enough Jamie,’ she says.
‘He’s a fucker.’
‘Now that’s enough!’ she shouts. He can see she’s angry now. Angry and embarrassed.
Jamie pulls his hand out of hers and goes back to stand facing the wall, arms folded tightly in front of him, forehead resting against the cold concrete.
‘Don’t mind him, he’s just a bit upset,’ he says.
She’s about to turn to the boy and then stops. ‘How’s Caro...Mrs Cusack? Is she any better?’
‘Not really,’ he says. ‘They’re keeping her in for the moment, until after Christmas anyway.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Well please God she’ll be better in the New Year.’
‘Yes,’ he says. But he knows she won’t.
‘Well I’d better get back to what I was doing,’ she says, ‘I don’t know where the time has gone.’ She reaches into Jamie’s folded arms and comes out gripping one of his hands in hers. ‘Say goodbye to Mr Cusack,’ she says to the boy.
He doesn’t even look up. She smiles apologetically and turns to walk away.
‘Eh, as a matter of interest...’ he calls after them and she stops to turn around. ‘What was it he wanted that Santy can’t afford?’
‘Ah, don’t mind him,’ she says, ‘he has a list as long as his arm.’
‘A Nintendo Wii,’ says Jamie. ‘All my friends have one.’
‘They do not,’ she says tugging his hand. ‘Don’t mind him Mr Cusack. A happy Christmas to you, and wish Carol...Mrs Cusack a happy Christmas for me, would you?’
‘I will,’ he answers, but she’s already gone.
He looks down at the bags still in his hands and stoops to rest them on the floor. He holds his red welted hands up in front of him and rubs them together but it doesn’t help the ache in his fingers. He picks up the bags again and shuffles out of the corridor to battle his way across the maelstrom of bumping, barging people ignoring the tinkling Christmas music to the opposite side of the mall and another corridor identical to the one he’s just left, apart from the big green sign that says Car Parks.
He has to rest his hands again and steps into a shop doorway for a moment. As he bends to drop his bags he glances in through the window at a display of computers and enormous flat-screen televisions. In the middle of the display is a pyramid of white and blue boxes with a picture of a fat Santa sitting on top of them. The fat Santa has a speech bubble at the side of his mouth that says ‘Nintendo Wii – Fun for all the Family - €159.99.’
He pats his trouser pocket and feels the comforting bulge of his wallet then picks up his bags and walks away. €159.99 for a bit of plastic, he thinks. It’s no wonder Santy has no money.
