Whiter than white

Viewed out of the corner of my eye, the man in the elf suit looked like the most forlorn man in the world. Try as I might, I couldn’t square the day-Glo quality of his orange shirt and bright green trousers with the pristine snowy desolation of the landscape around him as he stood there beneath the statue of Queen Victoria, rattling a tin for Macmillan Cancer Care. Even from a distance, I could hear it. It’s an interesting design feature; the less money there is in a collecting tin, the more noise it makes.

I had woken up that Saturday morning knowing that I had to run an errand, popping in to Oxford by train to pick up the last of the Christmas presents. A nice, quick trip – in and out in no time, unless of course I was lured astray by the glorious cornucopia of food in the Covered Market, the delicious, oozing cheeses, the warm gooey cookies, the golden pies, their lids struggling to contain the comfort inside. Woozy in my pyjamas, I lifted the blind in the bedroom ever so slightly and I could see out of my window, down to the thin white dusting on the back yard.

”Is it snowing?” mumbled Kelly, only her head visible, a periscope emerging from the duvet.

“It looks like it has, but it’s nothing. It doesn’t look like it’s going to settle”

Famous last words, as it turned out. In the time it took to finish that foolish prophecy, jump into the shower, throw on clothes and lift the Roman blinds in the front room, the sky outside had filled with flakes and the view from the front window was of people trudging through a thick wintry crust of snow on the pavements. The whole thing looked a bit like a Lowry painting, but where had it all come from?

By the time I had slipped and slid grumbling down the hill, crossed over the curved bridge and reached the market square I was sick of the Arctic conditions and I’d barely been out of the flat five minutes, though it felt like longer. My umbrella was pitifully ineffective; there was just too much snow and the wind was ghosting it in at an angle which slipped right underneath any protection its flimsy frame might have been able to offer. I was already beginning to lose sensation in my toes, and my parka was so covered in snow that I had started to look like the sort of living statue you see in Covent Garden or Las Ramblas. And then I saw the man in the elf costume on the other side of the square.

It’s hard to pretend you haven’t seen someone quite so conspicuous, but it didn’t stop everyone else who walked past him. If he’d been a living statue, rooted to the spot, he might have made more money. I did a series of complicated calculations in my head in a split second; I’d have to take my gloves off to get my wallet out, I’d need to take my headphones off to talk to him, I didn’t know if there was any money in my wallet anyway, I’d need to cross the square and risk slipping on the ice I knew perfectly well was lurking underneath the innocent looking snow.

But I did it. I opened my wallet and the only thing in there that wouldn’t have been an insult was a two pound coin. I juggled my headphones, my gloves, my umbrella, my wallet and fished out the money and headed gingerly over to him. I have a talent for making that sort of thing look even more difficult than it really is; anybody watching me would have had endless hours of amusement.

“You must have the shittest job in the world today.” I said. I didn’t even gesture around me, because there was no need.

“I know.” he said, smiling despite himself. He had a pleasant, happy face. I could see that in warmer climes he could have made a mint doing this. The expression said mustn’t grumble, a traditional English value I’ve always been very poor at putting into practice. You can probably tell that yourself by now.

My coin clinked into his tin. The thud of impact seemed to echo all the way across the square like a thunderclap, or maybe it just sounded that way to me.

“The funny thing is, this was the only day I could do over the whole Christmas period. I specifically asked for this day.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I gave it careful thought and said the only thing that seemed appropriate.

“Well, I hope you do really well today. And have a Merry Christmas.”

“Thanks. Merry Christmas to you too.”

As I trod with care down the road towards the station I found myself wondering; why had I done it? Was it because I felt sorry for him, or because I cared about his cause, or just because I wanted to make myself feel like a better person? All those calculations I made in my mind in a second that led to me crossing over, did most people not carry those out? Surely it couldn’t be that; there had been a few other people who completely ignored him in the time I had been there. I could almost imagine their relief that the man in the funny elf suit had found someone else to hassle instead of them.

Then I found myself thinking about something that had happened a few nights back on our team night out from work. We were all in Great Expectations, the Dickens themed chintzy pub near the centre of town, standing round the pool table, pretending we get on better than we do. I was chatting to Miles. He’s from Manchester, much older than us, on his second marriage and his umpteenth house. His shirts are all polycotton, short-sleeved with button down collars, even in the dead of winter, and his holidays – which he takes about four times a year – are always to destinations synonymous with the drug trade. We reckon that’s how he can afford them all. He has a face that looks lived in and a wardrobe that looks slept in, but he’s a good guy.

“You’ve got Barrett’s Disease? I’ve got that too. It’s a fucking pain, I’ve had the camera down me loads of times.”

“Really? How do you find it?”

“Oh, it’s all right now. When I first got it the wife read up on the internet and I had to calm her down, but apart from that it’s fine. The drugs work a treat and when I go to have the camera I ask them to knock me out. They give me that date rape drug and I sleep through the whole thing.” He gives a throaty cackle, a throwback to years of chainsmoking. “Yeah mate, if they offer you some Rohypnol next time you should definitely take it.”

I felt ashamed telling him that it was the other way round for me, that I had had to get Kelly to read up about it all online because I couldn’t be trusted to do it myself. All my medical information comes from Kelly; she’s the one who translates it from “you are going to die” into English. Without her I don’t know how I would manage.

“You know who else has got Barrett’s Disease? Alastair at work.”

The next day I mentioned this to Alastair.

“Yes, I’ve got that. I just take the drugs and see my consultant once a year. It’s fine. It’s funny really, I’ve got very high cholesterol too, so I’m on drugs for that as well.”

“Me too.” I tell him. All these people, with exactly the same problems as me and you’d never know. Because they don’t make a big song and dance about it, or retreat into the depths of their own navels, or write huge solipsistic chunks of prose about what it all means. I remember when my cholesterol was diagnosed, going round telling everybody the world might end. I remember when I got the medication I was convinced there would be awful side effects and that I wouldn’t be able to cope. It’s a wonder nobody tried to kill me before the drugs kicked in.

Most people don’t think about why they give money to charity, they just do it. Most people don’t worry about whether they’re going to get ill, or whether if they are ill if it’s going to get worse, or if they’re going to die. They just get on with things. They trudge through the snow, and they go to work, and they try to have a laugh with their friends and holidays with their spouses and fun with their kids. What’s so special about me that makes me think I’m any different?

At the end of my trip to the station I stood on Platform 4 and waited for my train, not quite sure what I made of it all. Further down from me, in front of the yellow line you are meant to stand behind, a father and his little boy walked up to the platform edge and I watched the man, very deliberately, with the tip of his cheap looking trainer, draw a smiley face in the snow. And I thought that I’m glad there are people that can still have an uncomplicated response to something lovely.