The Advent Calendar (4 page)

Then, as they watched together in silence, Alice caught her breath. A tiny child, no more than two or three years old, came to the tree from a different direction. He was carrying a large open bowl of what looked like milk or cottage cheese. He smiled at Abraham and Sarah, and Alice and Sam and walked straight past them in amongst the roots of the tree. The snakes took no notice of him but glided past his ankles and over his bare feet. He set down the bowl on the floor and, as he turned round to walk back into the garden, he laughed as the snakes began to drink. It was a strange and beautiful moment.

Abraham and Sarah then led them back by a different pathway to the front door of the house. Alice hadn’t said much in the garden: she was too busy soaking in the smells and the colour and the life. As they reached the end of that day, she did just have one question.

‘Sarah,’ she said quietly, out of Sam’s hearing, ‘I had a sense something was following me today. A kind of shadow. Is that something to do with the calendar?’

‘You’ve begun to see it, then,’ Sarah replied. ‘Don’t be afraid. It’s not from the calendar itself – in fact it’s always been there. The calendar is helping you to see it, that’s all. I’ll tell you some more tomorrow.’

They were outside now, in the cold December evening, saying goodbye. Alice waved as Sam drove off. They both wanted the drive home to be in silence.

They arrived home and the house was in darkness – Megs had an evening class on Mondays. Together they opened the door of the house. Alice ran ahead into the front room.

There, just as Sam had described it, was the third door: a garden gate made from wood. Only now the gate was open. The picture inside was a beautiful garden, a riot of colour and life and tiny detail. When Alice looked closely, tiny eyes looked out at her from the bushes and the long grass. When she stood close by the calendar, she thought she could even smell the scent of apples and the dew on the wet grass.

4 December

Sam sat on the tube wedged between two large ladies, each with an empty carpet bag on her knee. They were heading for a serious day’s shopping in the city. Like tennis professionals, they passed backwards and forwards their complaints about December: too much to do; too little money; no one to help out; the crowds in the shops. Sam resisted the temptation to turn his head from side to side and imitate the Wimbledon crowd. After two stations, he tuned out and checked his mobile phone. Five texts from Josie all asking him to get in touch. All sounded urgent. As each message came up, he pressed delete. Still no code.

After the excitement of last night, today felt kind of flat. Sam was enjoying the calendar so far – sort of. Weird but nice. He knew that Alice had been into it from the very first moment and the shock of the darkness. But Sam lived his life in so much of a dream world it had taken a few days to sink in. There was so much coming at him – so much he wasn’t thinking about – that it took a while for anything to get beneath the daily grind. After yesterday in the garden, something had begun to stir.

He emerged from the underground blinking in the half-light. The Christmas decorations and the streetlights shone through the early morning fog: they somehow looked indecent in the mornings. Each shop window tried to draw him in.

The man from Accounts shared the lift, swaddled in a bright green scarf and bobble hat. ‘Christmas. I ask you, what’s the point?’ he mumbled to no one in particular, bemoaning his weekend of shuffling round the shops. He got out at the second floor before Sam could reply. There was always a funny sense of gloom and pointlessness in the first weeks of December. Later on in the month the pace picked up. Parties and gossip and the prospect of a few days off lifted the spirits but this first week or so there was still work to be done. The Christmas decorations were enough to put you off your turkey sandwich.

Sam was working on what he felt was a particularly pointless project at the moment. The firm worked in public relations. Sam’s job title was junior account manager. He was a member of a team charged with persuading corporate clients to part with large amounts of cash for websites, advertising campaigns and the like. His boss, Richard, was the same age as Sam but a rising star in the firm, promoted six months ago. He had one smile for those above him in the pecking order and another for those below him.

Richard’s present project was a review of new markets for the firm’s partners. Most of the donkey-work was being done by Sam and Tizzy – his colleague. Their report was due in weeks ago. Every day Richard asked how it was going. Every day, Sam or Tizzy made up a different excuse: leaves on the line; no replies from suppliers; problems with the IT system. They dared each other to think of an ever-more outrageous reason. Before Josie, Sam and Tizzy were an item for three and a half days after the last Christmas party. That fling was in the background now – her present partner was a black belt in some obscure martial art – but every so often there was the odd spark between them.

Normally Sam had a thousand different ways to pass the time at work. He could get through a whole week effortlessly without producing anything. There were games to play on the computer, new websites to explore in the name of research, flirty emails sent backwards and forwards from the marketing department, gossip round the kettle (the nearest the firm got to a water cooler), urgent meetings at the coffee shop on the corner, office gossip with Tizzy disguised as a project meeting. Today he couldn’t be bothered even to look as if he was employed.

He switched on his computer and opened his inbox. ‘You have fifty-seven new varieties of spam,’ he groaned, clicking down the list pressing the delete button. Josie’s message was halfway down. It was gone before he realised – but he knew what it said anyway. There were two sharp reminders from Richard about that wretched report and five circulars. Nothing remotely interesting. The post tray came round: nothing. Coffee break. A bit of banter about the match on Saturday. A task-group meeting. Sam sat quietly, stayed awake, kept his head down. Tizzy kicked him under the table when his turn came to speak. He managed to make up something. A long walk at lunchtime on his own, not with the normal group today.

Tizzy ambushed him when he came back into work. ‘You OK, Sam? You don’t seem yourself today.’

‘S’pose,’ said Sam. ‘Nothing wrong really – but then nothing much right either. Something to do with the time of year I think. I can never work out what it’s about.’

‘Christmas? Season of goodwill and peace to all – that kind of thing. Speaking of which, Richard was really on the warpath this morning. You should have heard him sounding off after the meeting. He wants that report and wants it now! He almost turned purple.’

Sam managed half a grin. ‘You done anything yet then?’

‘As if!’ said Tizzy. ‘But I think we might have taken this one as far as it can go. I promised close of play tomorrow, absolute scouts’ honour. We’ve got to get moving. OK?’ She squeezed his arm fondly. ‘Let’s surprise the little toerag.’

‘S’pose,’ sighed Sam. ‘I’ll get to it. It’s not rocket science.’

Tizzy moved back to her desk. Sam tried to engage. He stared at the screen but it was all a blur. He swore that the hands on the office clock moved more slowly in the afternoon. There was a kind of stupor over the large open-plan office. The worker bees dozed gently in their cubicles.

The sharp ring of the telephone interrupted the nothingness of his day.

‘Hullo.’

‘Sam, Sam, it’s me, Alice. How’s it going?’

‘S’boring,’ Sam whispered. ‘How about you?’

‘Pants,’ said Alice. ‘Pants as anything. Have you got the code?’

‘Don’t think so,’ said Sam. ‘Hang on.’ He scrambled for his phone. Richard had just come into the other end of the room. He was looking in Sam’s direction. Sam looked serious, concentrating on his work.

‘There’s a new door, Sam. There was nothing when I went to school. When I came home this new shape had appeared. It’s tall and thin and made of brown wood. There’s a number 4 in the very centre.’

He took out his mobile. Richard was coming nearer. There was no doubt he was heading for Sam.

‘Hold on – I think something has arrived. There’s a new text.’

‘Tell me, quick.’

Time was short. Sam read the code to Alice. ‘Two, seven, colon, six. Got it?’

‘Got it.’

Sam put down the phone. He smiled what he thought was his most winning smile at the advancing figure of the boss, now just feet away, and fled down the corridor.

‘Sam,’ called Richard. ‘Sam, wait.’

‘Back in a minute,’ Sam called. ‘Left something in the stockroom.’

He knew it would be beneath Richard’s dignity to chase him through the office. Through the corner of his eye, Sam saw him stop to talk to Tizzy. He did not look a happy bunny.

‘Suffering shellfish, now what shall I do? No alternative,’ he thought. He would have to get something important from the stockroom, take his time, go to the loo on the way back and hope against hope that Tizzy had bought them more time.

Sam opened the stockroom door and gasped. A wave of heat caught him full in the face. It felt like opening an oven door. He shielded his eyes from the bright sunshine. Instead of the familiar shelves and boxes of paper and dim light of the stockroom, he was looking out onto what looked like…like a desert? In the middle of a London office? There was blue sky above. The barren landscape stretched away into the distance as far as he could see: sand and scrub. Hardly anything grew there at all, just clumps of dry grass and low brown shrubs. The landscape was still. Nothing moved.

His mind struggled to take in the change. Alice was waiting inside. She grabbed him firmly by the hand and pulled him through the door, closing it behind him. ‘Quick, you dummy. Someone might see.’

‘What happened?’ said Sam, brightening up. ‘I was at work. I was having the most awful day. Did you punch in the numbers without me?’

‘I had to,’ said Alice, defensively. ‘You did the same yesterday, remember. They said not to worry if we weren’t together. The calendar would find a way – and, look, it did.’ She peered back down the corridor. ‘Your office looks just like my school.’

‘What happened to you?’ said Sam, turning round and round. His eyes drank in the desert landscape. Even though hardly anything grew there it was much more interesting than his office. The stockroom door had melted in moments, as if it was made from ice.

‘Well,’ said Alice, enjoying the moment, ‘I got home from school as normal and saw the new door so I rang you at work. I punched in the code you gave me. It was a bit scary like it was two days ago but the weird feeling is beginning to go. I felt a slight tingling feeling as if something was starting but just at that moment, Mum came into the front room. I mumbled something and ran upstairs to my bedroom. I opened the door, saw this and stepped through and shut it behind me. Two minutes later another door appeared in exactly the same place and you arrived. My door melted as well. It’s so cool.’

Sam loosened his tie and slung his jacket over his shoulder. ‘S’warm not cool,’ he said. ‘What do we do next?’

‘The only thing I can see is that tower in the distance,’ said Alice. ‘Look, over there in the east.’

Sam screwed up his eyes. ‘How do you know that way is east?’

‘Because of the sun, you dimbo. Don’t you know anything?’

Sure enough, the horizon was unbroken all the way around: just scrub and desert as far as the eye could see. In just one point, Sam saw a tower, tiny in the distance but clearly man-made.

‘That must be it then. Shall we go?’

Although it was hot and dry it was not unpleasant for walking. Both of them knew that the strange world was much more interesting than the office or biology homework. They set off towards the tower.

The landscape around them was absolutely barren. No trees, no flowers, no weeds even – just dry grass and hardy shrubs. No water that they could see. Nothing lived there at all. For the first half-hour of walking, the tower looked just the same. After an hour it was much bigger on the horizon. They could see that it was about six metres tall, made of wood. It seemed to be enclosed by a high stone wall. It was a long, dry walk. As they came nearer, the shape of the wall was clearer. It enclosed an area about the size of a football pitch but in a great oval: there were no corners. In the very centre of the wall as they approached was a large brown door, arched at the top and set into the wall.

‘It’s the door from the calendar,’ Alice said.

There was no handle on the door. Sam walked up to it and pushed. Nothing. He knocked loudly three times and stepped back. The sound echoed in the still air. The door opened silently and swung towards them.

‘Aaaaaaaah,’ sighed Alice.

‘Whistling wombats,’ cried Sam.

The enclosure was a vineyard. There was row upon row upon row of vines in orderly formation beginning just inside the wall and filling the entire space, except for an area around the base of the tower. They were well staked and cultivated. The ground inside was well watered. In between the vines the grass was green; there were wild flowers and brambles against the walls. To the left of the door was an enormous barrel of the coolest, clearest water Sam had ever seen.

Side by side they stooped over the barrel, cupped the water in their hands and drank in silence. Sam felt his strength and life flowing back. He said later, looking back, that it was a turning point. The water was deeply refreshing not just after the long walk in the desert sun: it began to refresh other parts kind of worn out by daily life. It gave him an inner strength he couldn’t name. When they had drunk from the barrel, both of them splashed the clear water over their arms and faces, both more alive somehow than when they came through the doors.

While Sam was still washing, Alice turned to look properly at the vineyard. The vines were pegged out in neat rows leading away towards the tower in the centre. It was clearly a very ancient place. The stock of each vine was gnarled and old: innumerable branches had grown from each stem. They had clearly arrived at exactly the right moment. The branches now were laden with bunches and bunches of rich, red, juicy grapes, ripe and ready for harvest.

‘Do you think it’s allowed?’ said Sam as Alice reached out her hand.

‘I don’t think I can stop myself,’ said Alice, softly. She picked a grape from the nearest vine and bit into it. It was sweet and full of flavour: the richest, most refreshing taste she’d ever known.

‘Sam, Sam, you must try one.’

Sam followed her and tasted his first grape. His face burst into the most wonderful smile Alice had ever seen. ‘They’re amazing, so sweet, so – so good, if you see what I mean.’

Sam and Alice walked now towards the centre of the vineyard, eating as they went. Each row of vines led inwards to the tower, like spokes of a wheel. It looked as though they were the only ones here but there was clear evidence of activity at the centre. At the base of the tower, surrounding it, was a group of olive trees which gave shade and cover. In the centre of the olive trees, beside the foot of the watchtower, was a small stone house. In front of the house was a table made of olive wood. Four goblets stood at the centre of the table. Four olive-wood stools of were round the edge. Two of the stools were occupied already. On this day, Alice glimpsed a little more of what she called the sheer majesty of the two old people: their age sat lightly upon them.