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lightthewayofficial · 4 years

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Chapter One: Atticus

The Parish family have been in the service of the Klaus Foundation since 1853. Queen Victoria and King Albert, both partial to a Christmas celebration, had countless serving staff to make their holiday as spectacular as possible, William Parish being amongst them. Bill had shown a particularly commendable demonstration of seasonal good-will when he’d saved Queen Vicky from being set alight by one of the Christmas tree candles. Saving the British Monarchy from being burned alive was very much considered in line with the Christmas spirit, and he was thus knighted by the reigning Santa Clause (at the time, this was Georg Klaus II).

Parish continued to serve the British Royal Family into his old age. Whilst his children did not receive work within the palace, they were offered a coveted place at the Klaus dinner table and an invite to the Boxing Day Ball every year. After Bill’s daughter, Molly, managed to quickly avert a Christmas pudding related crisis- rather too much brandy, rather a lot of bushy beard in proximity of the pudding’s flame- it made sense for Georg II to employ the Parishes permanently. The Klaus Foundations’ fire-putter-outers. Today, the most recent generation of Parishes has recently hung up his fire hose, though, disappointingly, he didn’t get much of an opportunity to use it.

His son, Atticus Parish, is currently stepping off the District Line at High Street Kensington to meet his girlfriend, Saskia Harper-Smith. He is ready for a cigarette after a long day of photocopying, and he’s absolutely bloody starving, because a Pret-a-Manger crayfish salad may be delicious but it certainly isn’t filling.

I am that man. Enough of the pretentious third person- I am Atticus Parish. And if I have to spend one more day at that Advertising company, I may just start tearing the photocopy machine apart bit by bit, and throw all the pieces across the office. I feel like I could easily revert back to my caveman days if I slip, even just a little. One more ‘are you busy, Atticus? Could I trouble you to print 300 of these flyers?’ and I’ll be a monkey flinging poo at the zoo enclosure window.

Usually, the Christmas spirit is enough to pick me right back up. These past few weeks, I’ve seen Kensington High Street putting up its lights, colouring its shop windows with stockings and wrapping paper, litter the streets with after-school and after-work shoppers. It’s nice. I can smell cinnamon when I walk past Starbucks. I can wrap my scarf closer around my neck and sink into that seasonal feeling that usually has butterflies fluttering in my belly. Typically, I’m that person who’s sickeningly festive and starts playing Michael Buble in October.

What can I say? It runs in my family.

But there’s something different this year. And the year before that. And before that. Really, it’s since I left University. It’s like, whatever little switch that I have in my brain that automatically flicks on when 1st December rolls by has gone faulty. The fuse has tripped and I can’t turn it back on. These past few years I’ve been fumbling in the boiler room cupboard searching for the bloody thing with a little torch, and I just can’t find it.

Actually, I don’t think that feeling is just reserved for my missing Christmas Spirit. This disorientation has been a general feeling for a while. Sometimes, it seems like every single twenty-something year old feels the same.

An ambulance screams down the High Street. Boys in their school uniforms trapse out of Sports Direct, unable to afford any of the shoes they’ve had their eyes on all year. I turn left and step in a puddle that smells suspiciously of beer and piss. That’s just the fragrance of London.

I put in the keycode for Saskia’s apartment building, opposite the Indian Restaurant that I always have to go to to pick up the food because Saskia’s called shotgun. I take the steps one by one, very slowly, and I open the flat door with my key.

Saskia is home. This is unusual. She sits on the dogleg sofa with her tight-clad feet tucked under her bum. She extends a cigarette towards me before I even get to ask her how her day was.

I take the cigarette. She’s staring at the page of her book. “How was your day?” I manage to ask.

“Oh,” she sighs, in the way that says, oh, you know. Shit as usual. “Wine’s open on the counter.” “Brilliant.” I see the bottle of Campo Vecchio open on the black, marble top counter. I walk past Saskia’s abandoned Leboutins, towards the bedroom.

I leave the door open behind me as I remove a suitcase from our shared wardrobe and begin to throw in random pairs of underwear.

I hear movement on the sofa.

“What are you doing?” she asks, as if she already knows.

“I’m going to The North Pole,” I reply, a bit giddily.

“Don’t be daft.” I can smell her cigarette smoke, and it reminds me that I haven’t lit mine. I take a lighter from my jacket pocket and light the cigarette dangling between my chapped lips. “You haven’t told them you’re coming.”

I pause, pyjama bottoms in hand. “That’s true. I haven’t been back in about fifteen years. It’d be rude to turn up unannounced, wouldn’t it?” “It’s less that,” Saskia calls casually. “I’m sure they’ll be slobbering all over a Parish, back in the good old NP. It’s more that you might not have a job waiting for you there.” My packing slows as I begin to fold my pyjamas carefully. I tap my cigarette on the closest mug; the ash was very close to burning a small hole through my tartan PJs.

“Ever sensible. What would I do without you, Sas.” “Well, you’d better start thinking up the answer to that fast. Pole’s a long way away, sweet.”

I come to a stop then. Slowly turning around, I measure the view of my girlfriend, sat in her minimalist living room with smoke drifting around her straightened, dark-brown hair. She’s still burrowed in her book.

“I’m sorry, Sas.”

That makes her put down her book, looking at me over the back of the sofa with a frown. “What on Earth are you apologising for, Atticus? You and I both know we don’t love each other that way.” At this point, Saskia’s blunt delivery shouldn’t come as a shock. It does, even now, even after knowing her for five years. “I know. I mean. We’ve spoken about it. But that doesn’t make it less rubbish that I’m up and leaving.”

She turns back to her book.

“I’d rather you’d go if it’s your gut instinct, Attie. Your gut’s always been a good guide.”

“Only when you need help choosing from the takeaway menu.” She doesn’t laugh. I laugh to myself a little, though.

“What made you decide this now?” she continues. “You could pop back to your apartment and get some proper clothes. You haven’t left an awful lot here.” “It just struck me as I was walking through High Street Ken.” “Ah. The horrible commercial aspect of it all?” I’m on hands and knees, rummaging under Saskia’s bed. She has some of those amazing vacuum pack things with a few of my winter jumpers in. I pull one of the packs out and it’s rock hard, like a sachet of compressed cocoa powder.

“Sort of,” I say, voice coming out strained as I try and open the vacuum nozzle. “It’s just-” I pop the nozzle open, and it wheezes like an air mattress. “All the stuff in the news. The horrible political situation. Ice caps melting.” “Mmm.” “And what people need most is hope, a light to guide them, and instead it’s iPhones and Build-a-Bears.” “I like iPhones.” “And I like Build-a-Bears,” I continue, opening the vacuum bag and finding my warmest Edinburgh Woolen Mill knitted item. I have a fair few. “I’m not diminishing the power of a good present, of those little gestures. Of those things in life that make you happy. But the world is just so much more complex than our parents ever made it out to be, and now-”

There’s a thud from the apartment upstairs. The neighbours’ toddler has just started walking, and she keeps bumping into things. The comes a shrill cry as she registers that she’s fallen over.

“Now,” I continue, “even when there’s good intentions behind it, even when these material things are helpful or fun or good, or whatever, it’s hard to forget that it’s probably been made in some sweatshop. Or that the company that came up with it isn’t paying any taxes- or it’s burning down the Amazon Rainforest. Or that one action figure is wrapped up in layers of pointless plastic packaging.”

A deep breath. And then I fold a second jumper and put it in the suitcase.

“Oh. Sorry- mind if I steal your suitcase, Sas?” “No. Has all of this only just occurred to you? And when did you become such a pessimist, Atticus Parish? I’ve never known you to talk like this, and quite frankly it’s terrifying.” I’m searching through my shirts. Why don’t I own any turtlenecks? “I know, it really is terrifying.” “Does this mean that you’re officially pursuing the Parish family business at Klaus Foundation, then?” “I suppose it does.” I zip up the suitcase.

“I’m.” There’s a pause, and I hear here close her book whilst I’m zipping. “I’m happy for you, Atticus. It’s always mattered to you, spreading hope and joy and all those sorts of things. Much more of a natural at Christmas spirit than me.” I’ve forgotten my toothbrush. My voice echoes in the bathroom as I say, “How would you know? You could be a natural. You’re a Smith who’s never wielded a blacksmith’s hammer before. Have you ever wielded a hammer, Saskia Harper-Smith?”

“No, and I daresay I never will.”

I pull the heavy suitcase off the bed- I packed too many shoes, but never mind- and I suddenly catch my reflection in the full-length mirror. Red curls getting too long, nose still red from the cold outside. Looking more energetic than I have in a long time- which is only, really, the sort of thing you notice when you’ve been particularly sluggish for a long time. Suddenly, I feel like I don’t have the time to stop and think about all of this.

The sound of the suitcase rolling on the polished concrete floor is horribly loud. Saskia is standing, cigarette put out, only halfway finished. Her large eyes look suddenly larger and more childlike than they ever have before.

“Look after yourself, thank you,” she demands.

“Of course, darling.” I bring her into a hug. She doesn’t typically like them, but I do, and she acquiesces today. I feel her skinny hand pat me awkwardly between the shoulder blades.

“I don’t really know what I’m doing,” I mumble into the material of her cardigan.

There’s barely a beat’s hesitation before she replies, “Yes you do.”

✨✨✨✨

It’s been a very long time since I’ve been on the boat to Håperg.

This close to Christmas, it’s frankly irresponsible that I’m on this boat close to the darkest, coldest time of the year- and it’s remarkably lucky that these kind people have offered to take me. But here I am, and here they are, and I’ve done my best to offer them some of my tea from my flask as a thank you but they just smile and shake their heads politely.

Seagulls screech overhead. I’m always amazed by how far-out seagulls fly- I don’t know enough about their eating habits to understand what they’re doing here. They’re probably thinking the same of me. The water occasionally splashes over the side, though the current isn’t that bad. It’s the ice that’s the problem, and I can’t shake off that unsettling feeling that we’ll just be the miniature version of The Titanic and end up sinking out here. When I came out here as a child, I didn’t really think about my own mortality so much. Now, I’m looking around and all I see is the receding shoreline of Spitsbergen and the sun failing to reach the horizon, that weak, pinkish glow dusting the clouds. It’s a bit terrifying.

It’s perfect here.

I remember how much I loved it the first time, when I was six; the second time when I was ten. My lasting memory of both visits is the taste of chocolate and the cold scraping up my lungs. I loved it here, I loved seeing where my father came to work four months of the year. I won’t ever fully understand why he tried to put me off it, and I won’t understand how he almost succeeded.

I close my eyes and breath in, and let the gentle rock of the boat silence my thoughts. The old engine roars and the seagulls continue to sing. I watch the ripples in the water, the pink and the stars reflected in the mirror sea-surface.

It takes a good couple more hours for the boat to moor. The ocean is eerily still, the wind whistling in a high-pitched shriek. It picks up the ice in the air and whisks it around. It’s pitch-black out here now, as it will be for the next few months of the year. And this would be a frightening place, if not for the glittering lights of Håperg in the distance. Like fallen stars on the horizon. It’s just as welcoming as I remember it, an atmosphere of comfort and safety that could almost make you forget how unbelievably cold it is. And how many days it’s taken to get this far from London.

The two men who’ve brought me here from Spitsbergen busy themselves with docking safely. One of them takes my suitcase, completely ignoring my inarticulate complaints- complaints that are essentially just me waving my hands about uselessly. The other hums something tunelessly to himself, unknotting some rope and, amazingly, pulling away his fur-lined hood. These men are made of stronger stuff than me.

The step from the boat to the ice is high. The ice is slippery. I wobble in my descent and make a bit of a tit of myself, but that’s to be expected.

“First time, yes?” The man with my suitcase asks. I feel terrible, I had asked for his name, but he didn’t give it and I’m too awkward to ask again.

“Yes. Wait, no, sorry. This is my third time. But, the first in a very long time. I came as a child.” Through the flickering whisps of fur, I see the wincing expression of a young man. “Good. You remember the cold.” “Oh yes, hard to forget,” I call out over the wind.

We walk for a minute or two through the snow- no idea where- and I learn that his name is Jakob. He learns my name. He asks whether I’m expected at Klaus Lodge, and I say no. His jovial laugh makes me wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake. How incredibly presumptuous I’ve been, just turning up like this.

Jakob comes to a stop by a shed and some parked sleds. The poor sod still has Saskia’s bright pink suitcase in his hand as he whistles loudly with the other, thumb and forefinger in his mouth. At first, I have no idea what he’s trying to summon. It’s dark and the flakes of ice in the air make it hard to see anything except for Håperg’s distant lights. But then, I see them. They bound over and I can hear their excited yelps.

“Huskies!” I cry like a boy.

My new friend laughs. “You like dogs, I hope.” “I love them.”

I watch them run over, though I have no idea where from. There’s eight of them, and the front two are grinning with their tongues hanging out and breath blooming in clouds. There’s snow spraying around them like they’re jumping in puddles. And honestly, I haven’t felt such childlike joy in years.

They crash to halt and run circles around us, yelping in excited, high-pitched cries as they jump up at Jakob. He pays them no attention, walking soberly towards the sled and expecting them to follow, which they do. They’ve been trained well, even if huskies tend to be a little bit bonkers. That much I remember. One of the front runners is wagging his tail so hard the whole back half of his body is swinging from side to side.

“Blåbær will take you there.”

I run my gloved fingers through the frontrunner’s fur. He turns to nip playfully at me, perhaps also a bit defensively, before sniffing my hand and rubbing his face on my shoes. “I take it you’re Blåbær,” I call out to the dog over the roar of the wind.

“He is best.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Jakob loads me and my silly suitcase onto the sled so that we’re lying down in front of the handle and reigns. It makes me feel like a piece of luggage. And then I watch him hook up all the huskies, standing diligently in line and occasionally chattering to each other. And then I feel him take his stand at the helm.

And then we’re off, and I get just the smallest amount of whiplash from the sudden start. I also get a faceful of snow from the huskies’ paws. It’s in my eye, which hurts a lot, and it melts in my mouth, too. I cling onto the suitcase. The mountains start to take shape through the flurry. I look up- the stars are watching our journey to Håperg. And- my God. The Northern Lights. They’re doing a Mexican wave above our heads in greens and yellows and blues, like an 80s synth dream.

Something about it all has my heart radiating, making ripples of rightness through my chest. It has taken me too long to come here.

At least I’m here now.

#light the way #christmas #original fiction #story #lgbt

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