Looking for Jake (18 page)

 

We're so very disappointed that you don't consider our mission to improve the lot of the world's hungry to be a worthy one. We are motivated to try to help the poorest people on Earth, at a cost of nothing to our users. We consider this to be a winning situation for all sides. Without us, after all, the poor and the hungry have no voice.

It is a matter of great sadness to us that you do not share our vision, and that you have found it necessary to undermine our work. As you see, we have been able to trace you, through the sabotage to our website. We do not believe that this situation would be satisfactorily resolved through your country's courts.

We think it only reasonable to inform you that we take your conduct very seriously. We have our mission to consider, and we can no longer allow you to endanger those lives for which we work so hard.

We intend to discuss this matter with you. In person.

Now.

 

And that was all.

I waited in the cold, reading and rereading that message, looking around me in that quiet flat. Eventually I left. I debated taking the computer away, but it was too heavy, and anyway, it was really beyond me. I was never more than a day-to-day user. The kind of stuff Aykan had on there I'd never make head or tail of.

I called his mobile hundreds of times, but got only a dead signal.

I have no idea where he went, or what happened.

He could have broken that window himself. He could have written that email himself. He could have lost it completely and run off screaming into the night, with no one at all on his tail. I keep waiting, and hoping that maybe I'll hear from him.

He could be hunted, even now. Maybe he stays out of sight, keeps offline, uses pseudonyms, a thief in the night, letting dust blow over his online tracks.

Or maybe he was caught. Maybe he was taken away, to discuss the politics of charity.

Every week, some email or other recommends I visit An End To Hunger. The site is running well. Its problems seem to be over.

'TIS THE SEASON

C
all me childish, but I love all the nonsense—the snow, the trees, the tinsel, the turkey. I love presents. I love carols and cheesy songs. I just love Christmas™.

That's why I was so excited. And not just for me, but for Annie. Aylsa, her mum, said she didn't see the big deal and why was I a sentimentalist, but I knew Annie couldn't wait. She might have been fourteen, but when it came to this I was sure she was still a little girl, dreaming of stockings by the chimney. Whenever it's my turn to take Annie—me and Aylsa have alternated since the divorce—I do my best on the 25th.

I admit Aylsa made me feel bad. I was dreading Annie's disappointment. So I can hardly tell you how delighted I was when I found out that for the first time ever I was going to be able to make a proper celebration of it.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't got shares in YuleCo, and I can't afford a one-day end-user licence, so I couldn't have a legal party. I'd briefly considered buying from one of the budget competitors like XmasTym, or a spinoff from a nonspecialist like Coca-Crissmas, but the idea of doing it on the cheap was just depressing. I wouldn't have been able to use much of the traditional stuff, and if you can't have all of it, why have any? (XmasTym had the rights to Egg Nog. But Egg Nog's disgusting.) Those other firms keep trying to create their own alternatives to proprietary classics like reindeer and snowmen, but they never take off. I'll never forget Annie's underwhelmed response to the JingleMas Holiday Gecko.

No, like most people, I was going to have a little MidWinter Event, just Annie and me. So long as I was careful to steer clear of licenced products we'd be fine.

Ivy decorations you can still get away with; Holly™ is a no-no, but I'd hoarded a load of cherry tomatoes, which I was planning to perch on cactuses. I wouldn't risk tinsel but had a couple of brightly-coloured belts I was going to drape over my aspidistra. You know the sort of thing. The inspectors aren't too bad: they'll sometimes turn a blind eye to a bauble or two (which is just as well, because the fines for unlicenced Christmas™ celebrations are astronomical).

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. F
OR
P
EACE,
S
OCIALISM AND
C
HRISTMAS;
H
ANDS OFF OUR
H
OLIDAY
S
EASON!;
P
RIVATISE
T
HIS.
One placard was everywhere. It was very simple and sparse: the letters
TM
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.

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 left-wing 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 L
ABOUR
F
RIENDS OF
C
HRISTMAS.
“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 crèches, papier-maché 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 Christma
s
™
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.”