Looking for Jake and Other Stories

So I’d been getting all that ready, but then the most extraordinary thing happened. I won the lottery!

I mean, I didn’t win the lottery. But I was one of a bunch of runners-up, and it was a peach of a prize.

An invitation to a special, licenced Christmas™ party in the centre of London, run by YuleCo itself.

When I read the letter I was shaking. This was YuleCo, so it would be the real deal. There’d be Santa™, and Rudolph™, and Mistletoe™, and Mince Pies™, and a Christmas Tree™, with presents underneath it.

That last was what I couldn’t get over. It felt so forlorn, putting my newspaper-wrapped presents next to the aspidistra, but ever since YuleCo bought the rights to coloured paper and under-tree storage, the inspectors had clamped down on Aggravated Subarborial Giftery. I kept thinking about Annie being able to reach down and fish out her present from under needle-dropping branches.

Maybe I shouldn’t have told Annie, just surprised her on the day itself, but I was too excited. And if I’m honest, partly I told her because I wanted to make Aylsa jealous. She’d always made such an issue of how she didn’t miss Christmas™.

“Just think,” I said, “we’ll be able to sing carols legally—oh, sorry, you hate carols, don’t you . . .” I was awful.

Annie was almost sick with excitement. She changed her online nick to tistheseason, and as far as I could work out she spent all her time boasting to her poor jealous friends. I’d peek at the screen when I brought her tea: the chat boxes were full of names like tinkerbell12 and handfulofflowers, and all I could see were exclamations like “noooo!?!?!? crissmass?!?! soooo kewl!!!!!” before she blocked the screen demanding privacy.

“Have a heart,” I told her. “Don’t rub your friends’ noses in it,” but she just laughed and told me they were arranging to meet on the day anyway, and that I didn’t know what I was on about.

When she woke up on the 25th, there was a stocking™ waiting for Annie at the end of her bed, for the first time ever, and she came in to breakfast carrying it and beaming. I took enormous pleasure in waving my YuleCo pass and saying, perfectly legally, “Happy Christmas™, darling.” I was glad that the ™ was silent.

I’d sent her present to YuleCo, as instructed. It would be waiting under the tree. It was the latest console. More than I could afford, but I knew she’d love it. She’s great at video games.

We set out early. There were a reasonable number of people on the streets, all of them doing that thing we all do on the 25th, where you don’t say anything illegal, but you raise your eyebrows and smile a holiday greeting.

Technically it was a regular weekday bus schedule, but of course half the drivers were off “sick.”

“Let’s not wait,” Annie said. “We’ve got loads of time. Why don’t we walk?”

“What have you got me?” I kept asking her. “What’s my present?” I made as if to peer into her bag, but she wagged her finger.

“You’ll see. I’m very pleased with your present, Dad. I think it’s something that’ll mean a lot to you.”

It shouldn’t have taken us too long, but somehow we were slow, and we dawdled, and chatted, and I realised quite suddenly that we were going to be late. That was a shock. I started to hurry, but Annie got sulky and complained. I refrained from pointing out whose idea walking had been in the first place. We were running quite a while behind time as we got to central London.

“Come on, ” Annie kept saying. “Are we nearly there...? ”

There were a surprising number of people on Oxford Street. Quite a crowd, all wearing that happy secret expression. I couldn’t help smiling too. Suddenly Annie was running on ahead, then coming back to haul me along. Now she wanted to speed up. I kept having to apologise as I bumped into people.

It was mostly kids in their twenties, in couples and little groups. They parted indulgently as Annie dragged me, ran on ahead, dragged me.

There really were an astonishing number of people.

I could hear music up ahead, and a couple of shouts. I tensed, but they didn’t sound angry. “Annie!” I called, nonetheless. “Come here, love!” I saw her skipping through the crowd.

And it was really a crowd. Was that a whistle? Where’d everyone come from? I was jostled, tugged along as if all these people were a tide. I caught a glimpse of one young bloke and with a start of alarm I saw he was wearing a big jumper with a red-nosed deer on it. I just knew to look at him he didn’t have a licence. “Annie, come here, ” I was calling, but I got drowned out. A young woman next to me was raising her voice and singing a note, very loud.

“Weeeeee...”

The lad she was with joined in, and then his friend, and then a bunch of people beside them, and in a few seconds everyone was doing it, a mixture of good voices and terrible ones, combining into this godawful loud squeal.

“Weeeeee...” And then, with impeccable timing, all the hundreds of people sort of caught each other’s eyes, and their song continued.

“. . . wish you a merry Christmas we wish you a merry Christmas... ”

“Are you mad? ” I screamed, but no one could hear me over that bloody illegal rumpty-tum. Oh my God. I knew what was happening.

We were surrounded by radical Christmasarians.

I was spinning around, shouting for Annie, running after her, looking out for police. There was no way the streetcams wouldn’t spot this. They’d send in the Yule Squad.

I saw Annie through the crowd—goddammit, more people kept coming—and ran for her. She was beckoning to me, looking around anxiously, and I was batting people out of the way, but as I approached I saw her look up at someone beside her.

“Dad,” she shouted. I saw her eyes widen in recognition, and then—did I see a hand grab her and snatch her away?

“Annie!” I was screaming as I reached where she’d been. But she was gone.

I was panicking: she’s an intelligent girl and it was broad daylight, but whose was that bloody hand? I called her phone.

“Dad,” she answered. The reception was appalling in this crowd. I was bellowing at her, asking where she was. She sounded tense, but not frightened. “. . . ok . . . I’ll be . . . see . . . a friend . . . at the party.”

“What?” I was yelling. “What?”

“At the party, ” she said, and I lost the signal.

Right. The party. That’s where she’d make her way. I controlled myself. I shoved through the crowd.

It was getting more bolshy. It was turning into a tinsel riot.

Oxford Street was jammed; I was in the middle of what was suddenly thousands of protestors. It took me anxious ages to make headway through the demonstration. What had seemed an anonymous mob suddenly sprang into variety and colour. Everyone was marching. I was passing different contingents.

Where the hell had all these banners come from? Slogans bobbed overhead like flotsam. FORPEACE,S

OCIALISM ANDCHRISTMAS;HANDS OFF OURHOLIDAYSEASON!;PRIVATISETHIS.One placard was everywhere. It was very simple and sparse: the lettersTM in a red circle, with a line through them.

She’ll be ok, I thought urgently. She said as much. I was looking around as I made my way toward the party, only a few streets away now. I was taking in the demo.

These people were crazy! It wasn’t that I didn’t think their hearts were in the right places, but this was no way to achieve things. All they were going to do was bring down trouble on everyone. The cops would get here any moment.

Still, I had to admire their creativity. With all the costumes and colours, it looked amazing. I have no idea how they’d smuggled this stuff through the streets, how they’d organised this. It must have been online, which means some pretty sophisticated encryption to fool the copware. Each different section of the march seemed to be chanting something different, or singing songs I hadn’t heard for years. I was walking through a winter wonderland.