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By Root 154 0

fist, shoved down between his woollen glove and his hot flesh. He has his list. He knows what his mum has to have. Some brussels. Some potatoes. Parsnips. Onions. Chipolatas. The biggest turkey they’ll let him have for two quid. Looks like he’ll get a huge one for that. And in his other glove is the tree money. He must buy some more candle-holders if he sees them. And a few decorations if he has anything left over. And some sweets. He knows how to get the bargains. She trusts him, mum does. She knows what Cathy’s like. Cathy, his sister, would hold out the money for the first turkey offered, but Jerry goes up to Portwine’s tothe chuckling ruby-faced giant who fancies his mum. Nothing makes a fat old-fashioned butcher happier than being kind to a kid at Christmas. He looks down over his swollen belly, his bloodied apron. (“Wotcher, young Jerry. What can I do you for?”) Turkeys! Turkeys! Come on love. Best in the market. Go on, have two. (“Ten bob to you, Jerry.”)

There’s a row of huge unclaimed turkeys hanging like felons on hooks in the window. Blood red prices slashed. Jerry knows he can come back. Cathy smiles at Mr. Portwine. The little flirt. She’s learning. That smile’s worth a bird all by itself. Down towards Blenheim Crescent. Dewhurst’s doing a good few, too. Down further, on both sides of the road. Plenty of turkeys, chickens, geese, pheasants. “Fowl a-plenty,” he says to himself with relish. Down all the way to Oxford Gardens, to the cheap end where already every vegetable is half the price it is at the top. The snow settles on their heads and shoulders, and through the busy, joyful business of the noisy market comes the syncopated clatter of a barrel organ. God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, The First Noël, The Holly and the Ivy cycle out at the same manic pace as the organ-grinder turns his handle and holds out his black velvet bag.

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” His hat is covered in melting snow but his arm moves the crank with the same disciplined regularity it’s turned for forty years or more. Away in a Manger. Good King Wenceslas. O, Tannenbaum. O, Tannenbaum. Silent Night. Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Cathy puts a halfpenny in his hat for luck, but Jerry’s never known his luck to change one way or another from giving anything to the barrel organ man. He pulls Cathy’s hand for fear her generosity will beggar them. “Come on. We’ll do that butcher right at the top. Then we’ll work our way down.” There’s no such thing as a frozen turkey here. Not in any Portobello butcher’s worth the name, and all the veg is fresh from Covent Garden. All the fruit is there for the handling, though the stall-holders affect shocked disgust when the middle-class women, copying French models, reach to feel. “No need for that, love. It’s all fresh. Don’t worry, darling, it won’t get any harder if you squeeze it.” Dirty laughterdoes the trick. “Ha, ha, ha!” Gin and best bitter add nuance to the innuendo. Panatella smoke drifts from the warm pubs. Chestnuts roast and pop on red-hot oil-drum braziers.

And Jerry looks behind him. “It was all true,” he says. “It really was. Every Christmas after the Blitz.”

“Well, possibly.” Miss Brunner’s attention was on the present. The box was big enough at any rate, in red, gold, and green shining paper and a spotted black and white bow. “Nothing beats Christmas for horrible colour combinations.”

“Of course, it couldn’t last.” Jerry contemplated the best way of opening the present without messing up the wrapping. “The snow, I mean. Turned to sleet almost immediately. By the time we got to our place at eighty-seven Ladbroke Grove, with the turkey, it was pelting down rain. I had to go back for the tree. At least I could hold it over my head on the way home.” He’d opened it. The brown cardboard box was revealed, covered in black and blue printed legends and specifications. Automatically, neatly, he folded the wrapping. He beamed his appreciation, his fingers caressing the familiar sans-serif brand name in bars of red, white, and blue. “Oh, blimey! A new Banning.”

Shakey Mo Collier grinned