Looking for Jake and Other Stories

I went by a contingent of Christians all carrying crosses, singing carols. Right in front of them was a group of badly dressed people selling copies of a leftwing newspaper and carrying placards with a photograph of Marx. They’d superimposed a Santa hat on him. “I’m dreaming of a red Christmas,” they sang, not very well.

We were beside Selfridges now, and a knot of people had stopped by the windows full of the usual mix of perfume and shoes. The demonstrators were looking at each other, and back at the glass. Over on a side street, a few passersby were staring at the extraordinary spectacle. It brought me up short to see

“regular” shoppers—it felt as if there was no one but the marchers on the streets.

I knew what the Selfridges-watchers were thinking: they were remembering (or remembering being told— some of them looked too young to recall life before the Christmas™ Act) an old tradition.

“If they won’t give us our Christmas windows,” one woman roared, “we’ll have to provide them ourselves.” And with that, they pulled out hammers. Oh God. They took out the glass.

“No!” I heard a man in a smart wool coat shouting at them. A contingent of the demo was looking horrified, laying down its banners, which read LABOURFRIENDS OFCHRISTMAS.“We all want the same thing here,” the man shouted, “but we can’t support violence!”

But no one was paying him any attention. I waited for people to steal the goods, but they just shoved them out of the way along with the broken glass. They were putting things into the windows. From bags and pockets they were taking little creches, papier-mache Santas™, gaudily wrapped presents, Holly™, and Mistletoe™ and they were scattering them, making crude displays.

I moved on. A man stepped into my path. He was part of a group of sharp-dressed types at the edges of the crowd. He sneered and gave me a leaflet.

INSTITUTE OF LIVING MARXIST IDEAS.

Why We Are Not Marching.

We view with disdain the pathetic attempts of the old Left to revive this Christian ceremony. The notion that the government has “stolen” “our” Christmas is just part of the prevailing Fear Culture that we reject.

It is time for a reevaluation beyond left and right, and for dynamic forces to reinvigorate society. Only last month, we at the ILMI organised a conference at the ICA on why strikes are boring and hunting is the new black . . .

I really couldn’t make head or tail of it. I threw it away.

There was the thudding of a chopper. Oh shit, I thought. They’re here.

“Attention, ” came the amplified voice from the sky. “You are in breach of section 4 of the Christmas

™ Code. Disperse immediately or you will be arrested.”

To my astonishment this was met with a raucous jeer. A chant started. At first I couldn’t make out the words, but soon there was no mistaking them.

“Whose Christmas? Our Christmas! Whose Christmas? Our Christmas!”

It didn’t scan very well.

I passed a group I recognised from the news, radical feminist Christmasarians dressed in white, wearing carrots on their noses: the sNOwMEN. A little guy ran past me, glancing around, muttering, “Too tall, too tall.” He started to shout: “Anyone 5 foot 2 or under come smash some shit up with the Santa’s Little Helpers!” Another shorter man started furiously remonstrating with him. I heard the words “joke” and

“patronising.”

People were eating Christmas™ pudding, slices of turkey. They were even forcing down brussels sprouts, just on principle. Someone gave me a mince pie. “Blessed be,” yelled a radical pagan in my ear, and gave me a leaflet demanding that once we had won back the season, we rename it Solsticemas. He was buffeted away by a group of muscular ballet dancers dressed as sugar-plum fairies and nutcrackers.

I was getting close to the venue where the party was supposed to be, but if anything there were even more people on the streets now. The place was going to be surrounded. How would we get in?

Figures were moving in on the crowd. Oh shit, I thought, the police. But it wasn’t. It was an angry-looking, aggressive bunch, smashing car windscreens as they came. They were dressed as Santa Claus™.

“Fuck,” muttered someone. “It’s the Red-and-White Bloc.”

It was obvious that the R&Ws were out for trouble. Everyone else in the crowd tried to draw away from them. “Piss off!” I heard someone shouting, but they paid no attention.

Now I could see cops, massing in the side streets. The Red-and-White Bloc were drawing them out, chucking bottles, screaming, “Come on then!” like pissed-up Football™ fans.

I was backing away. I turned, and there it was: the site for the party. Hamleys, the toy store. The armed guards who normally protected it must have run ages ago, faced with this chaos. I looked up and saw horrified faces at the windows.

I should be up there, I thought. With you. They were the partygoers. Kids and their parents, besieged by the demonstration, watching the police approach.

And oh, there was Annie, shouting to me, standing under Hamleys’ eaves. I wailed with relief and ran to her.

“What’s going on?” she shouted. She looked terrified. The Yule Squads were approaching the provocateurs of the Red-and-White Bloc, banging their truncheons in time on tinsel-garlanded shields.

“Bloody hell,” I whispered. I put my arms protectively around her. “There’s going to be trouble,” I said.

“Get ready to run.”

But as we stood there, tensing, something astonishing happened. I blinked, and out of nowhere had come a young man in a long white robe. Before anyone could stop him he was between the ranks of the Red-and-White Bloc and the police.

“He’s mad!” someone shouted, but all the hundreds and hundreds of people were beginning to hush.

The man was singing.

The police bore down on him, the R&Ws made as if to shove him away, but his voice soared, and both sides hesitated. I had never seen anything so beautiful.

He sang a single note, of unearthly purity. He made it last, for long seconds, and then continued.

“Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.”

He paused, until we were straining.

“Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.”

The R&W Bloc were still. Everyone was still.

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light...”

And now the police were stopping. They were putting their truncheons down. One by one they set aside their shields.

“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

More white-clad figures were appearing. They walked calmly to join their friend. With a start, I realised I was shielding my eyes. There was an implacable authority to these astonishing figures who had come from nowhere, these tall, stunning, uncanny young men. The white of their robes seemed impossibly bright. I could not breathe.

Now all of them were singing. “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is giv’n. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.”

One by one, the police removed their helmets and listened. I could hear the frantic squawking of their superiors from the earpieces they removed.

“No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin...” The singers paused, until I ached to have the melody conclude. “Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

The police were smiling and tearful amid a litter of body armour and nightsticks. The first singer raised his hand. He looked down at all the discarded weaponry. He declaimed to the Red-and-White Bloc.