Isolation Chronicles – A Very Merry Pandemic Christmas.
1.
Nerys snuggled under her duvet. Twinkle snoozed in the crook of her arm. Nerys’s tablet was propped up so she could chat to Ash. Even chatting from her bed, Nerys made sure that her tablet was propped at an angle that gave the most flattering view of her; she didn’t want any hint of nascent chicken neck or crows eyes on
show.
“All I’m saying,” she said, “is that Lockdown 2 is a bit rubbish.”
“Lockdowns aren’t meant to be fun,” said Ash.
The government had announced that non-essential businesses had to close once more and that everyone had to stay at home where possible for the second time that year.
“And it’s only until early December,” added Ash.
“A whole month. I can’t go out and —”
“Have you looked outside? It’s dark, drizzly and cold. This is a good excuse to stay indoors.”
Nerys knew she was right but had built herself up for a good old moan and wanted to have one.
“We’ve had one lockdown, back in March or whatever. And it was novel and unique and there was that sort of wartime Blitz spirit and clapping for the NHS.”
“All claps gratefully received,” said Dr Ash earnestly. “Although I have some colleagues who might have preferred a pay rise to applause.”
“I thought you doctors were minted.” Nerys smiled slyly. “I mean it’s the only reason why I’m paying you all this attention. But, point is, we accepted it at the time. We coped. And now we’ve got Lockdown 2 —”
“I love the way you say it like it’s a movie sequel,” Ash grinned.
“Exactly. And a decent sequel should have a bigger budget and be more engaging and generally be a more fun experience.”
“And have a higher body count.”
“Ouch.”
Ash shuffled and slouched on her sofa. Ash didn’t seem to care about camera angles and lighting. The view up her face made her nostrils look huge and showed a wrinkle fold in her neck. Not that Nerys cared. Nerys wasn’t going to judge Ash based on an unflattering video call image. Other people were welcome to show off their flaws
on camera; Nerys held herself to different standards.
“You know what mistake you’ve made?” said Ash. “You think Lockdown 2 is a good sequel like Empire Strikes Back or Terminator 2 —”
“Or Bridget Jones 2.”
“Er, if you like. But, no, Lockdown 2 is a crappy unsuccessful cash-in like…”
“Zoolander 2.”
“Yes.”
“Legally Blonde 2.”
“If you say so.”
“Grease 2.”
“They made a second Grease film?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Why do I get the impression that you’ve seen a lot of rubbish films?”
“Did I mention that I’m trapped indoors for a month? Again?” said Nerys. “Channel Five is starting to show wall-to-wall Christmas movies. I fear I may end up watching them all.”
There was a crash from the floor below. Nerys sat up.
“Everything okay?” said Ash.
“I think it’s Jeremy. Of course it’s Jeremy. He’s been trying to brew homemade mouthwash in his bathtub, I believe.”
“You think he’s okay?”
“Physically? Or in the head?”
“Look, I’ve got to get ready,” said Ash. “Some of us have to go to work.”
“Now you’re just bragging.”
“And, remember, this lockdown will come to an end and maybe then we spend some time with loved ones at Christmas.”
“I was going to ask you about Christmas dinner…”
“Yes, please,” Ash said swiftly. “You cooking?”
“Probably. A big roast turkey.”
“With all the trimmings? Stuffing. Roasties. Pigs in blankets. Sprouts.”
“I never really saw the point of pigs in blankets,” said Nerys.
“What?” said Ash agog. “A Christmas essential.”
“We never used to have them, I’m sure. Christmas Day, a huge amount of meat. Who thought we needed more meat? And not only that but bits of pig wrapped in even more bits of pig!”
“It’s amazing that they didn’t ask you to do the voiceover for the M&S Christmas ads. ‘These aren’t just ordinary bits of pigs…’”
There was a further crash from downstairs. Nerys momentarily wondered if she was listening to Clovenhoof’s death throes as he drowned in a bath filled with mouthwash.
“I think I’d better go too,” said Nerys reluctantly.
“Just keep thinking of Christmas,” said Ash. “Wait till you get your Christmas present from me. Then you’ll see just how minted we doctors really are.”
2.
Clovenhoof staggered into the living room frantically trying to rub the searing pain from his eyes. Mouthwash experiment #17 had not ended well. He thought he’d really cracked it this time. He’d followed all the instructions Persephone had given him. Well, he’d read the instructions and understood the spirit of them and then
applied them to his process. Clovenhoof was not one for slavishly following instructions when it came to science projects. He saw himself as very much a ‘jazz scientist’, following the general beat and throwing in improvisations and artful twiddles wherever he saw fit.
But he’d included the anti-bacterial agent and he’d added the mint and aloe vera flavourings — Persephone suggested one or the other, so he went for both — and he’d added sweetener, choosing two kilos of caster sugar over a pinch of saccharine and then he’d added the alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. Everything was made better
with lots and lots of alcohol.
Who knew that highly alcoholic sugar syrup pumped under pressure might explode?
Clovenhoof blinked furiously and tried to see. He could really feel the minty freshness on his eyeballs. He wouldn’t have been surprised if his eyeballs were glowing like the teeth of toothpaste models.
He staggered to the curtains and wiped his face on them and then turned to his computer to see if the internet could tell him what he’d done wrong this time.
In fact, there was a little icon on his desktop called TeachMe. It was a recent arrival and, in his current minty fresh agony, it might have the answers he needed.
There was a string of colourful beeps and boings and Clovenhoof was faced with a grid of faces on a video call. He tried to focus on them but his eyes were still reeling from the mouthwash attack.
“Is this TeachMe?” he said.
“It’s Mr Clovenhoof,” said a vaguely male blob.
“You know me?” he said.
“Are you covering the lesson?” said a vaguely female blob.
“And why are you signed into my account?” said the familiar voice of Spartacus Wilson.
Clovenhoof rubbed his eyes vigorously — which fucking hurt! — and forced himself to focus.
“Oh, you’re all school children,” he said.
“Are you covering Miss Weeple’s drama class?” said a girl, Peroni Picken.
“They says she’s got the corona,” said a boy, Kenzie Kelly.
“But everyone knows she’s had another nervous breakdown,” said a lad, PJ McTigue.
“And this is…” He was about to ask what this was but it was now abundantly clear. It was a video conference of twenty-odd teenagers, many he’d known since they were little kids, back in the days when kids had the decency to only come up to your waist and not have spots or embarrassing facial hair. Before him were a bunch of
variously gangly, tubby, dangerous looking near-adults.
“So, this is a drama lesson!” he declared.
“Did you call us by accident?” said Spartacus.
“Spartacus, my dear chap, are there really ever any accidents?”
“You’re an accident,” said Spartacus automatically.
“Ten million sperm and he was the fastest,” said Araminta Dowling, drawing laughs from the others.
“Shows what you know,” Clovenhoof sneered. “I didn’t come from a sperm. I was created by a mere thought from the Big Guy but… maybe that’s a story for another day. What are we doing in drama?”
“We’re looking at language and subtext in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible,” said a young man.
“Do what?” said Clovenhoof. “That sounds boring. I thought drama was about running around and pretending to be a tree.”
“Maybe in year 7,” the young man said sniffily.
It took Clovenhoof a moment to recognise him. In the past year or so, the lad had shot in and shot up, transforming from doughy punchbag to someone who looked offensively handsome.
“Thor Lexworth-Hall?” said Clovenhoof. “Blimey. You’ve grown. Boys and girls, I remember when Thor’s turn as the fatted calf in our primary school play was the talk of the town.”
“My little sister still has nightmares about it,” said Jefri Rehemtulla cheerfully.
“And Mrs Kringle was impressed by your Bottom in year 8.”
This drew some much-deserved sniggers.
“Clearly, this lad was born to play animals. Keep up with the drama and you could have a long career as one half of a pantomime horse.”
“There aren’t going to be pantomimes this year,” said Pixie Kaur.
“You not putting on some Christmas show or a nativity?” said Clovenhoof.
“Social distancing. Miss Weeple says that the creative arts have been killed by the pandemic.”
“Balls to that,” said Clovenhoof, who was nothing if not creative and certainly regarded himself as something as an artiste. “Plays are fun and people need entertaining.”
“Is that person who needs entertaining you?” asked Spartacus.
Clovenhoof paused. The immediate answer was, of course, ‘yes’. The primary reason he did anything in this mundane world was to entertain himself on the slow journey to eternity. But now, the more he thought about it, the more he realised that there were people who needed entertaining.
“We’re going to put on a Christmas play,” he declared. “A real one. A nativity.”
“Nativities are for little kids,” said Araminta Dowling.
“Yeah, but this one will tell the true story,” Clovenhoof declared. “And Thor will be the donkey.”
“I don’t just play animals,” the boy complained.
“Or the camel. I don’t mind. And Spartacus can make the costumes. I will write it and you will all star in it.”
“Is this part of our GCSE course?” asked Jefri.
“This is your GCSE course,” said Clovenhoof because it sounded like the cool thing to say. He winked at Spartacus. “Me turning up was no accident at all, my young friends.”
3.
Ben looked in the makeshift pen in the back of Animal Ed’s shop and the three animals snuffling and nipping at each other.
“Okay,” said Ben slowly. “I’ve got three questions.”
“Go for it,” said Animal Ed, in the resigned tones of a man who knew there would be questions.
“One. Why me?”
“Ah,” said Ed. “You see, I thought of you straight away. You’ve already got the set-up. You’ve got those chickens in your back garden and they’re doing mighty well and I thought to myself, there’s a man who knows how to care for animals and is all about doing the ‘Good Life’ thing of raising his own critters in his back
yard.”
“Uh-huh,” Ben said. “Not that you thought I’d been an easy mark to off-load your unwanted animals onto?”
“Not at all, valued customer.”
Ben watched the cute animals at play. “Okay, question two. You said that people were crying out for pedigree dogs and —”
“Well, exactly,” said Ed. “With restrictions on transportation and problems for legitimate breeders, prices have skyrocketed. I was hoping to get a grand apiece for these little pups. Easy money and Bob’s your uncle, et cetera, and I thought the pictures weren’t great but puppies are puppies and…” He trailed off.
“Because — and this is kind of the big question,” said Ben, “because these… these are piglets, aren’t they?”
Ed’s expression was painful and embarrassed. “It was quite a blurry photo. And one tiny baby quadruped sort of looks like another. And I bought them sight unseen.”
“You literally bought a pig in a poke.”
“Well, they came in a crate but yeah.”
Ben looked and then a laugh escaped his lips. In a year devoid of much to laugh about, it was nice to take some genuine pleasure from the stupidity of another. He laughed some more.
“All right, all right,” said Ed. “Will you take them?”
“How much?” said Ben.
“A hundred quid each.”
Ben snorted. “You didn’t want them in the first place. I’ll take them for nothing and save you the cost of housing and feeding them.”
“You’re robbing me.”
“You know I’ll be buying the feed from you anyway.”
Ed considered this. “All right. Pigs are free. Me as your sole provider of pig feed and, to seal the deal, you can stand me a pint at — oh.” He stopped.
“Lockdown,” Ben reminded him. “No pubs. But, when it’s over, a pint on me at the Boldmere Oak.”
Ed’s look turned serious. “Didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“The Boldmere Oak’s closed down.”
“Well, I know.”
“Nah, mate.” Ed put a hand on his shoulder. It was such an earnest gesture that Ben didn’t automatically shrug it off and wipe himself down with anti-bacterial spray. “The Boldmere’s closed. For good. Lennox has gone bankrupt.”
“Yeah?” said Ben, doubtfully. “For now, maybe. That pub opens and closes more times than Jeremy’s fridge when he’s got the munchies.”
“He’s sold it, Ben,” said the pet shop owner. “Had to or the banks would be coming after him. This year has just killed small local businesses.”
Ben looked round the Aladdin’s cave of merchandise Ed kept in his shop. The pet supplies, the long-life food products, the eclectic array of hardware and tools. An increasing space in the shop was taken up with masks and plastic aprons and other bits of pandemic paraphernalia.
“You’re making money though, right?” said Ben.
Ed jiggled his head. “I’m surviving. Some people must be making a whopping profit out of this pandemic. It’s not your local high street businesses though.”
Ben nodded. “Poor Lennox.”
4.
Clovenhoof saw the bar furniture being carried out of the Boldmere Oak and into a lorry parked in the beer garden. He had heard the place was closing but the fact hadn’t hit him until he saw the dark, stained tables and grubby stools being removed.
“Wait!” he cried and ran forward as fast as his hoofs could carry him. He grabbed at a rectangular table much to the startlement of the two men trying to carry it. “You can’t take this! It has such memories attached to it. It’s a piece of history.”
“You what?” said one of the men.
“Look. Here.” Clovenhoof ran his fingers over a groove. “This was from when I had a bet with Ben and Nerys that I could pick up a beer mat by headbutting the table and making it stick to my forehead.”
“Drunk, were you?” said the man.
“And how! And here!” He ran over to a short bar stool. “Still got the rip on it from when I stood on it to show everyone my Cossack dancing. You can’t take it.”
The men looked past him. Lennox was stood in the doorway to the pub. It was rare to see him during pub opening times wearing anything other than a crisp shirt and maybe even an apron but Lennox was currently dressed in jogging trousers and a shapeless jumper. He looked so very ordinary.
“Let them do their job, Jeremy,” he said.
The men moved on.
Jeremy looked bitterly at the furniture stacked outside the pub.
“I know how this is going to go,” he said, wisely. “You’ll close for a bit. It will be like when the mayor tried to shut you down or when I half demolished that end of the pub to make my presidential palace. You’ll close for a bit, engendering a little period of ‘oh no, what will happen to the Boldmere?’ jeopardy and then, when no
one’s looking, it’ll re-open again. This place always bounces back. The universe can’t cope with permanent change.”
Lennox shook his head.
“I’ve been losing money all year. Two lockdowns and restrictions on numbers. I’ve got debts and they need paying off somehow.”
“But where will I go for a drink, Lennox? Think of me!”
His generally genial face hardened for a moment.
“I know you’re the Fallen One and therefore expected to be something of a twat, Jeremy, but this isn’t about you. My parents started running this pub before I was born. This was my life. I’ve got to get out while I can and —” He took a deep and worried breath. “— get a new job where I can.”
“Where are you going to get a job at your age?”
“I’m still in my forties, thank you very much.”
“Exactly,” said Clovenhoof.
“I’ve got decades of experience in the hospitality industry. Real skills.” Lennox looked at the world around him. Clovenhoof wasn’t sure what he was seeing. “Things don’t look very hospitable at the moment, I agree, but something will turn up.”
“If you need a place to stay…”
“What? Bunk up with the Prince of Darkness? Nah, you’re all right, mate. My niece has got a spare room at her place and, with the funds from this place, I’ll be able to put a deposit on some place. The new owners are turning this place into flats so maybe I’ll end up living here.”
“Flats?” said Clovenhoof, disgusted. “Who needs flats? We need pubs. And which other pubs have a fridge dedicated just to Lambrini behind the bar, eh? You’re not just any barman, Lennox. You’re my barman.”
“Now, that almost sounded like a compliment,” Lennox grunted. “In fact, I might still have some Lambrini in stock if you’d like to take it off my hands.”
“Would I!”
As Lennox turned to go in, Clovenhoof spotted the big projection screen at one end of the beer garden.
“What’s happening with the cinema screen?”
Lennox pulled a face. “I rented it for six months. I had hoped that our outdoor zombie triple bill screening would be successful and beer garden cinema would be a viable business prospect.”
“That was one hell of a night,” said Clovenhoof.
“Oh, yes. The protesters, the fighting, the fire…”
“See? It was brilliant, wasn’t it?” agreed Clovenhoof. “Tell you what, I’ll buy it off you.”
“It’s rented.”
“I’ll sub-let it off you then. I’m planning an entertainment extravaganza at the care home. A big show that the St Michael’s school kids are going to help me put on.”
“Oh, you started that trend, didn’t you?”
“What trend?” said Clovenhoof who had no idea.
“You’re not the only one standing outside the patio window making a fool of themselves for the entertainment of the senior citizens trapped inside.”
“Really?”
“At least that’s what Nerys Thomas told me when I saw her. She and her little dog had matching spangly waistcoats.”
“They what?”
5.
Clovenhoof trotted hurriedly towards Southview care home and called Persephone as he went.
“Hello, Jeremy,” said Persephone.
Before she could utter another word, Jeremy demanded, “Is it true then?”
“What?”
“Have you been seeing other people behind my back?”
“Pardon?”
“Other visitors in the garden. Other entertainers.”
“We have had a few, Jeremy, yes. There’s a —”
“I thought you and me had something special,” he said, the emotions catching in his throat.
“I think it’s lovely. All these people coming to do a little star turn for us.”
“So, I’m just one of many, eh?”
“Don’t be daft, you silly man. Are you actually jealous?”
He thought about it. “I dunno. Are the others any good?”
“Frankly, no.” said Persephone. “This woman’s just chasing her little dog around the garden. I don’t know if it’s meant to be performing tricks or something. Does sniffing the flower borders count as a trick? She’d do a lot better if she wasn’t trying to take selfies of herself while she was doing it.”
“That’ll be Nerys.”
“I don’t think she’ll be on for long. There’s another woman here. She’s got a lot more sequins. I think she’s going to do something with hula hoops. She’s looking very impatient. She’s doing selfies too.”
“Possibly Tina,” Clovenhoof guessed. “Hang on, I’m nearly there.”
He hung up and power-walked the last hundred metres. He then had to stop for a breather because Clovenhoof’s lockdown diet of takeaways had given him a Santa Claus physique and the lung capacity of a small paper bag.
It took him a good minute to realise that Samael, the Angel of Death, was leaning against the wall at the bottom of the care home drive. The archangel was watching him with interest. Clovenhoof glanced towards the care home.
“What are you doing here, crow-wings?” he said suspiciously.
“Notionally, I am everywhere,” the angel replied. “Death is ever-present.”
“You know what I mean. If you’re even thinking of going in there, I will pluck you and use your feathers to make a pillow.”
Samael was amused. “Actually, I was watching you. You know, any mortal man in your current state of fitness, I’d be making a mental note to pay him a visit in the next few years. It’s almost as if you’re testing the limits of your immortality.”
“It’s been a tough year, all right?” said Clovenhoof. “Not many chances for exercise. And I’ve been supporting local businesses.”
“That belt looks like it’s doing most of the supporting right now. If it snaps under the pressure, the whiplash will probably take someone’s eye out.”
“Ha bloody ha.”
Samael prodded a dewy spider’s web in the bush next to him and stood. “I must be about my rounds.”
“No rest for the wicked?” said Clovenhoof.
Samael looked pointedly at him. “Well, quite.”
Clovenhoof didn’t even bother watching him go. Still half-winded he made his way up the drive and round to the rear garden. Expectations of seeing a piss-poor dog show from Nerys or a lacklustre hula demonstration from Tina were unexpectedly confounded. What he was treated to was the sight of two women, one in a sequin covered
leotard and ostrich feather cap, the other in stockings, a sequined waistcoat and a top hat rolling around on the damp ground and trying to claw each other’s eyes out. It was like a no-holds-barred bust-up between a stage magician and her assistant.
Tina straddled Nerys’s waist and was trying to drive Nerys’s head into the muck. Nerys was clawing up clods of earth and slapping Tina across the face with them. Twinkle the Yorkshire terrier (indeed dressed in his own dinky waistcoat) ran round in circles and yipped at the combatants.
“Shameless attention whore!”
“Limelight hog!”
“Talentless prostitute!”
“Virtue signalling bitch!”
Sequins scraped off, elasticated straps snapped and mud was spread pretty much everywhere and anywhere.
Clovenhoof’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Aren’t you going to stop it?” asked Persephone.
He saw her through the day room window. She was the only person in there whose eyes weren’t focussed on the mud wrestling.
“I hadn’t planned to,” said Clovenhoof honestly.
There was conversation inside.
“Pam here wants to know if this is all part of the act.”
In truth, the catfight between the long-term rivals could have been seen as a weird piece of performance art but neither Nerys nor Tina was that highbrow.
“Not really,” he said.
“In that case, Pam wants to put a ten pound bet on the one with the feathers.”
Clovenhoof nodded readily. “I’ll take that bet. Nerys might not be the fittest of the two but she’s got Welsh rage and bitterness on her side.”
A window was opened high above and a carer shouted, “Stop it, you two! I’ve called the police! I’ll not be having this behaviour in our back garden!”
Nerys and Tina paid no attention to the warning. Both clearly felt they had the upper hand and if Twinkle obeyed Nerys’s instructions to join in, she might have won. Less than a minute later a bucket of cold water was thrown down from on high by a carer. There were chilly gasps of horror but the act only seemed to inflame their
rage and the water only added to the slippery and slick wrestling arena.
Even when the police arrived, it took three burly officers to tear the two of them apart.
One of them looked accusingly at Clovenhoof as the women were hauled away in handcuffs.
“I’m just an innocent bystander,” he said. “Maybe I could take the little dog home.”
And he chased Twinkle round the garden to show willing.
6.
Nerys and Tina sat across from each other in the foyer of Lichfield Road police station. Each had been given a police-regulation grey blanket to cover their scantily clad, soaked and shivering bodies. Tina was repeatedly prodding her temple and hissing as though she had a massive bruised lump there (she didn’t). Nerys couldn’t
understand why Tina would be prodding it repeatedly if it hurt that much. However, Nerys was doing much the same with the swollen ache in her lower jaw where Tina had socked her with a backswing of her hand.
The arresting officers, after taking statements had put them in reception for ‘social distancing’ reasons and had seemingly completely forgotten them in the intervening hour. Maybe this was their punishment, to be made to sit and wait, cold and miserable.
“You have to ruin everything,” said Tina.
“Me?” said Nerys. “Me? Ruin? I think you’ll find I was doing a fine job of entertaining the residents before you tried to upstage me.”
“I’ve been doing daily performances for the past week. You and that… thing you were attempting with your pet gerbil —”
“It’s a Yorkshire terrier.”
“— it was pathetic. Why do you always have to copy me?”
“Copy?” said Nerys, indignantly. “Never. I am making my way in the world, shining a light of good acts. It’s only when you start muscling in on my turf —”
“Turf! You’re not the bloody Kray twins, Nerys, even though you do look like one. You’re a sad lonely stay-at-home housewife —”
“I’m not a housewife!”
“You’re married, aren’t you?”
“Only legally.”
“And you work from home. House. Wife. Posting things on social media and acting like you’re one of the Kardashians. And not one of the good ones. You’re the Kourtney Kardashian of sad social media moms.”
“I’m not a mum!”
“I’ve seen you and that dog. It’s obscene.”
“At least I’m not some cynical and selfish slag of a wannabe influencer.”
“Wow,” said Tina, holding her hand up, manicure nails spread as though to ward off the insult. “Did you just attack me for choosing to live my life in the way I want and trying to build up my self-esteem? I knew you were callous but I didn’t know you engaged in prejudiced slut-shaming. That’s very hurtful.”
“Come on!” said Nerys, sensing she was on the argumentative back foot. “You treat sex and sexual conquests as warfare tactics.”
“And you don’t? Everything I do in life, you try to emulate, but you always have to sink lower. You make every charitable act I perform into part of an ongoing battle and you always have to lower the bar of decency.”
“Only because you try to lord it over me.”
“I don’t have to try, sweetheart,” said Tina. “Sewing scrubs for the NHS, shopping for the elderly, raising money for charity, supporting a book club, helping with the live-action roleplaying. Everything I do to better myself or others, you have to taint.”
“Maybe if you stopped trying to rub my face in it, I would leave you well alone.”
“I never rub your face in it…” Tina began to say but Nerys simply pointed to the muck and grazes that ran up her cheek.
They huffed in unison and looked away from one another.
Tina looked at the clock on the wall behind the partitioned counter. An hour and a half they’d been sat here.
“I’ve not seen you gloating about your surgeon boyfriend recently,” said Nerys.
“Sigfrid?” Tina held her nose high, dignified. “We’re not an item. I don’t think he every truly understood that we were. His English wasn’t the best. Not for a surgeon.”
“Oh? I thought you were still in an on-off relationship with Jacob Bloom.”
“Definitely more off than on since his wife kicked him out last year,” said Tina. “Forbidden fruit hardly seems as tempting when it’s no longer forbidden and has moved into its own house. Especially when the forbidden fruit in question has strongly hinted that you should do some of his cleaning and laundry for
him.”
“Chauvinist pig.”
“Rich chauvinist pig though,” said Tina. “He’s been coining it in of late.”
“Oh?”
Tina leaned forward as though to whisper conspiratorially though there was really no one around to listen in. “Got himself one of those supply contracts with the NHS which I think one of his ex-wife’s political contacts wangled for him.”
“Really?”
“Set himself up as JB Meditech but basically he’s just using the store rooms at his stables as a warehouse.”
“JB Meditech?” Nerys had heard that name before but couldn’t quite remember where.
“All that newfound wealth is going to his head,” said Tina. “Think he might have found himself an even younger girlfriend somewhere.”
“Well, it’s not like he’d want to get an older one than you,” said Nerys.
Tina scowled. “You know you’re no spring chicken yourself, Nerys.”
“I’m still a young woman,” Nerys countered automatically.
“We’re both on the wrong side of thirty,” said Tina.
“Very nearly the wrong side of forty,” Nerys admitted.
They both reflected on that sad truth for a moment.
“Are we going to keep this rivalry up forever?” said Nerys.
“Until we’re wrinkly undignified slappers making fools of ourselves in front of unattainable young men you mean?”
Nerys puffed out her cheeks in dismay. “Apart from the wrinkly bit I don’t think we’re far off that already.”
Tina laughed and gripped at her stomach. “The sagging skin under this leotard. It’s like a bloody hammock.”
Nerys grunted in appreciation. “Oh. It’s like my skin elasticity just gave up and left.” She poked her breasts. “These two saggy bastards are like migratory birds. Hell bent on going south for the winter.”
“Tell me about it.”
Nerys shook her head wearily. “Maybe…”
“What?”
“Maybe you and I should stop trying to compete with each other.”
“What?”
“We’ve got enough to deal with in life, not least of all those sickeningly perky younger women.”
“Bitches.” Tina pouted and thought. “All this bickering is counter-productive.”
“We could end up in court for what happened today.”
“Maybe a truce then,” said Tina.
“Yes, a truce,” agreed Nerys since a truce was an easier pill to swallow than a complete end to hostilities. “It is coming up to Christmas after all and this year has been a bitch enough as it is without us adding to it.”
Tina leaned forward again and held out a hand.
“A truce.”
They shook on it.
7.
Even though the country was in lockdown and everyone’s life was on pause, a powerful sense of industry came over four-hundred-and-something Chester Road as rainy and chilly autumn began to slide towards equally rainy and chilly winter.
In the second floor flat, Nerys Thomas’s life revolved around a tight schedule of screen appointments. There were the shifting shifts manning the virtual call room for Dukoko deliveries. There were various on-line fitness lessons — aerobics, pilates and yoga. Depending on Ash’s hospital shifts there would always be a lengthy chat
with her and, where tiredness allowed, a TV or movie watch party together.
Ben divided his time between his flat and the rear garden. In his flat, mostly filled with his stock of second hand books, Ben labelled and packaged books for customers nationwide and handed them over to couriers who collected them from his doorstep. In the garden, he tended to his four chickens and the newly arrived piglets which
he had called Napoleon, Snowball and Minimus, names he had taken from pigs in a book he’d read as a schoolboy and vaguely recalled enjoying. A sturdier pen had been built around the garden farm and the pigs and chickens appeared to cohabit peacefully. The rest of Ben’s time was fixedly devoted to cleaning himself and his home to prevent the spread of any unwanted pandemic infections.
Across the corridor from Ben, Clovenhoof, a man who had no conventional employment, was the busiest of them all. His personal projects were wildly idiosyncratic and, for the most part, seemed to offer no purpose at all.
The most valid-seeming activity was his continued visits to Southview care home. He’d spend long afternoons in the garden, often beneath an umbrella and cavort and mime and frequently shout in his attempts to communicate with Persephone. Given that much of his communication was about his mouthwash project and ‘cetypyridinium
chloride’ was an absolute bugger to mime, the whole thing was quite exhausting.
Back at the flat, his efforts to make his own mouthwash did indeed continue. Despite the knowledge that there were several viable vaccinations against the virus coming into production, he had seized upon the discovery that certain mouthwashes had virus-killing properties and he was intent on brewing his own to give to friends and
neighbours. Quantities of cetypyridinium chloride and alcohol and increasingly varied flavourings were sloshed and mixed in his bathtub. (This didn’t mean he had stopped using his bathtub; it just meant that after every shower, his hoofs had a tingling minty freshness and shine.)
While his mouthwash concoctions brewed he worked long hours on the script for what he was certain would be The Best Nativity Play Ever Performed. He tapped it out, line by painful line and to make sure he was doing the author thing properly he spent a lot of his time drinking coffee and staring dramatically into the distance and
using a fountain pen to write words of wisdom in a fancy notebook.
Ben and Nerys when passing on the landing could hear shouted exclamations at all hours.
“We need sheep! Can’t be a play without sheep!”
“Of course! We’ll hang the Angel Gabriel from the screen with bungee cords!”
“How far does the pantomime horse’s head need to be from its arse to comply with social distancing?”
“It needs more mint, damn it! More mint!”
During the week, Clovenhoof gathered his Year 10 drama class together for another rehearsal. Year 10s had been told stay at home for the last four weeks due to outbreaks at the school. Technically, they’d only need to take two weeks off but after the first two week isolation they came back for one day, only for a student to be sent
home with a wracking cough and no sense of smell and they were immediately sent home again.
In those four weeks, no real teacher had been told to cover Mrs Weeple’s lessons and so Clovenhoof had free rein to devote all of their time to practising his masterpiece of a play.
“Remember,” he told them, “you’re performing this live in front of a real audience next Saturday. Now, your audience might all be old codgers and they might be short-sighted and not even be able to remember what they had for dinner the day before, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be giving them the performance of your
lives.”
“We’re doing this outside?” asked Araminta Dowling. “Together? In the same place?”
“Yes.”
“But won’t we all catch the ‘rona? We’re meant to be isolating.”
“That’s all covered,” said Clovenhoof. “I have artfully written it so that no two people need to get within two metres of each other. And you’ve got no worries, my little angel, because you’re going to be suspended six feet off the ground.”
“I’m what?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve done some careful calculations. Ten strong bungee cables and a pair of bricks tied to your feet. You’ll be perfectly balanced.”
“That sounds really dangerous.”
“Real art is dangerous, Araminta. Right, everyone. Let’s go from the arrival of the shepherds. And cue Spartacus.”
“Who is this, come to our humble stable door?” said Spartacus as Joseph.
“We are shepherds who have come to see the newborn king,” replied Jefri the shepherd.
“This really isn’t a good time,” said Spartacus. “My wife’s just told me the baby might not even be mine.”
“That’s okay,” said Jefri. “We’ve all got stinky sheep shit on our sandals anyway so we’re going to stay at least six feet away from each other anyway.”
“And we’re wearing masks to cover the smell,” said Shepherd #2.
“Seamless,” said Clovenhoof, delighted with himself.
8.
Nerys came out into the garden to inspect the livestock. The pigs were growing fast and busily demolishing the food Ben poured out for them.
“So, are you fattening the pigs up for slaughter?” she asked. “Or are you just raising them as weird pets?”
“I don’t know,” said Ben honestly. “It’s not like they lay eggs or do anything else useful. I thought about using them to hunt truffles but apparently you don’t get many truffles in the Birmingham area. They’re such intelligent and inquisitive creatures though.”
Nerys, who could only see three grunting, slobbering, fleshy things, struggled to share that opinion.
“Now would have been the right time to have been raising some turkeys in the garden. Christmas is just around the corner.”
“It’s sad. Only seeing animals as something to be utilised.”
“Of course, it’s going to be a quieter stay-at-home Christmas this year,” she said. “Maybe a chicken would be enough for dinner…” She looked around her for the four chickens. “Where are they?”
“Mrs Cluckington and her friends are in their house,” said Ben, pointing to the plastic children’s playhouse which served as their home. “There’s a bird flu outbreak and all responsible poultry keepers have been asked to keep their birds indoors.”
“Bird flu?”
Ben nodded with the eagerness of someone with horrible news. “Bird flu outbreaks in England. This year finds new ways to take things away. Corona, bird flu, we’re heading for a no-deal Brexit, Lennox is out of business. And, no, you’re not eating one of my birds for Christmas.”
“You make it all sound so bleak,” said Nerys. “Makes you wonder what the point is of carrying on.”
Ben opened up a taped box and took out another paper sack of pig feed. A scrap of paper tumbled to the ground.
“Individual acts of niceness?” he suggested and scattered the pellets for his new pets.
“Oi, Kitchen!” yelled Clovenhoof from his kitchen window above. “I need your pigs!”
“I’ve already told Nerys that we’re not killing anything for Christmas dinner,” he replied.
“No, not that. I need sheep.”
“They’re not sheep, Jeremy.”
“I know that, doofus. I need sheep for my brilliant nativity extravaganza.”
“But they’re pigs!”
“Yes, but I reckon if I tape some white bathroom mats to their backs, they’d pass a casual inspection.”
“That’s mad.”
“I think you mean genius. Now, do either of you have any white bath mats?”
“We bought you bath mats for your birthday two years ago,” said Nerys.
“Yeah, well they’re not white anymore,” said Clovenhoof.
“What colour are they?”
Clovenhoof disappeared for a moment and then came back. “Brown?”
“Jesus Christ,” hissed Ben.
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Clovenhoof. “Nerys, do you think Twinkle would be up for the role of baby messiah?”
“Can he wear his sequinned waistcoat?” she asked.
“The baby Jesus wasn’t known for his shiny outfits,” said Clovenhoof.
“Is that a no?”
“It’s innovative. That’s what it is.”
A breeze blew the scrap of paper on the floor onto Nerys’s shoe. She automatically picked it up. It was a crumpled order sheet. She stared.
“What’s this?” she said.
“What?” said Ben.
“It fell out of that box.”
Ben looked at it.
“Is that a yes on the doggy messiah and three pigs in sheep’s clothing?” Clovenhoof called down.
Ben pointed at the header on the order sheet. “JB Meditech. Ed’s making PPE aprons for them from old fish pond liner or something.”
“That’s Jacob Bloom’s company. Tina told me.” She slapped herself on the forehead. “They’re the ones charging the hospital extortionate amounts for PPE.”
“Whilst simultaneously orchestrating anti-mask protests?” Ben grunted. “Talk about playing both sides.”
“What a bastard,” she said, pulled out her phone and scrolled for contacts as she headed back indoors.
“So Twinkle is Jesus, yes?” Clovenhoof called.
“When’s the play?” she called back.
“Saturday.”
“Fine. But don’t lose him.”
9.
Like Cold War spies, the three of them met by the duck pond in Sutton Park. Nerys, Ash and Tina stood at an appropriate distance from each other at the side of Blackroot Pool. Ash and Tina had both brought bread for the birds. Ash had the end of a loaf of sliced wholemeal. Tina had some glossy seeded focaccia that looked like she
had bought specifically for the ducks.
“You not brought any bread?” said Tina.
“Don’t want them coming near me,” said Nerys. “Bird flu.”
“Bird flu?”
“Ben said.”
“I don’t think wild ducks are going to give you bird flu,” said Ash. “So, what’s all this about? I’m missing fifty zees under my duvet for this.”
Nerys gazed across to the far bank.
“Jacob Bloom is the one selling PPE aprons to Good Hope Hospital.”
“Oh, did I tell you that he’s got himself a new girlfriend?” said Tina sulkily. “Two actually. He has them on a rota. Says he’s not breaking lockdown restrictions because he uses different bedrooms when they come over.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Nerys who didn’t really care, “but I wanted to talk about PPE.”
“Half his age. Both of them. Separately, I mean, not combined. Obviously.”
“PPE,” said Nerys again.
“What about it?” said Ash.
“He’s got loads of suppliers. Little guys. Like Animal Ed. He’s got at least a hundred percent mark up on the PPE he then sells to the NHS. Probably more.”
“So, he’s a pandemic profiteer,” said Ash sadly. “They exist.”
“But it’s not fair.”
“The man’s a bastard,” said Tina and threw a lump of Italian bread into the water, nearly concussing a goose.
“Exactly.”
“Leaving me for younger women.”
“Erm, that’s what happened when you stole him from his wife,” Nerys pointed out.
“Yes, but his wife was a bitch and I was plenty young enough for him. Just the right amount.”
“If I could circle this conversation back round to the PPE…” suggested Ash. “What do you intend to do about this situation? Because there’s not really anything to be done.”
“Yes, there is,” said Nerys. “I want to steal it.”
“What?”
Ash looked shocked but Tina was already smiling. “Oh, I like that.”
“I want to steal his PPE. We know he stores it at his stables. Tina knows the layout.”
“I do,” she said.
“We go in, load it up in the back of a car —”
“And what?” said Ash. “Give it to the hospital? Like some pandemic Robin Hood?”
“Precisely.”
“It’s criminal!”
“But it’s not immoral.”
Ash frowned. “It’s… very grey morally speaking.”
“I like it,” said Tina.
“You just want revenge,” Nerys said.
“Yes, and to help those in need.”
“You’re both mad,” said Ash.
“So, you won’t help?” said Nerys.
“He’s taking tart number one out for a meal on Saturday afternoon,” said Tina. “The place is certain to be empty.”
“What meal?” said Ash. “Everywhere’s closed due to lockdown.”
“Oh, he’s got a friend with a country restaurant over Tamworth way. Opens up for illegal private banquets during lockdown.”
“Banquets?” Ash angrily frisbee’d a slice of wholemeal across the pond. “Right. Count me in.”
“Excellent,” said Nerys.
Tina giggled and did a shimmy of excitement. “It’s like that movie where the women all get together to do a heist. Um, Ocean’s Eight.”
“There’s only three of us,” said Nerys.
“Ocean’s Three then.”
“None of us are called Ocean.”
“Tina’s Three then.”
“Why’s it Tina’s Three? It was my idea.”
“But it sounds better. It’s that thing. Alliteration.”
“But it’s my plan!”
“Stop arguing the pair of you,” said Ash firmly. “We’re called the Three Banditos and that’s final. Now, we need to actually work on a plan. Times, contingencies —”
“Wardrobe,” said Tina and Nerys as one.
Ash held her lips and said nothing.
10.
The setting up for the nativity play was a considerable undertaking that took much of Saturday morning. Animal Ed was over bright and early with the cinema screen in the back of his delivery van. The scaffolding and canvas construction was put together and placed by the fence furthest from the care home windows. Once set up, scenes
of ancient Palestine could be projected onto it as a background. Clovenhoof had got the school kids to work up some images of deserts and ancient cities and starry nights over Bethlehem.
Some stout poles and bedsheets were tied together to create something that didn’t look particularly like an inn or a stable but gave the general impression of a non-specific something where the stable should be.
The van was sent off again to collect Ben and his mini menagerie. Thor-Lexworth Hall and PJ McTigue were going to be the nativity donkey in a costume created by Spartacus. Three pigs dressed as sheep and some general noises from the human players would round out the animal cast. Ben also brought his wireless security cameras and
positioned them to catch the best of the on stage action. Ben wasn’t too sure why Clovenhoof needed that. Ever since Ben’s inadvertent Sex Goblin antics, the cameras’ unprotected on-line server had a small and committed fanbase. Ben was convinced that gentle scenes of chickens at play would be far more popular with internet denizens than any nativity play but Clovenhoof was of the opinion that the afternoon show was a one-off event that the internet was eager to see.
The year 10 students of St Michael’s School began showing up in ones and twos in late morning. A few were already dressed in their costumes. Bed sheets and duvets had been artlessly transformed into robes and desert garb. Looking at Jefri Rehemtulla’s outfit, Clovenhoof felt it unlikely that any Judean shepherd’s would have been
wearing a robe that proclaimed their love for West Bromwich Albion football club but he felt it was a minor historical inaccuracy and would probably go unnoticed.
“I keep tripping over this bloody dress,” declared Peroni Picken AKA the Virgin Mary and Mother of God.
“You’re fine,” said Clovenhoof.
“It’s about a foot too long, Mr C,” she said.
“I only made it to the measurements you gave me,” said Spartacus AKA Joseph. “If you’d let me measure you up in person…”
“I don’t want you ‘measuring me up’, you perve.”
“Is that any way to talk to your husband, eh?”
“Hang on,” said Clovenhoof and ran to the pile of supplies and stage props and returned with the perfect solution.
“What the hell is that?” said Peroni.
“It’s my social distancing bumper,” said Clovenhoof.
“It’s just a bunch of those foam swimming pipes stuck together. And it’s burned.”
“Yeah, pool noodles are slightly flammable. Now, hitch up your skirts and climb into it. It’ll lift your dress off the ground.”
“It’ll look stupid.”
“Impressive is the word you’re looking for, my stage diva. Now, what’s your problem, Thor?”
Thor Lexworth-Hall had come over. He was wearing what looked like furry fisherman’s waders, secured in place with braces. On the video lessons, the youth had clearly gone through a transformative boy-to-man growth spurt but in the flesh the change from rotund bully magnet to young hunk was more obscenely evident. Thor now towered
over Clovenhoof, six-foot-something of handsome, young vibrancy.
“This costume is ridiculous,” he said.
“How so?” said Clovenhoof.
Thor waved PJ McTigue over. PJ, the back end of the nativity donkey, staggered over with the body section of the donkey held high so he could just about see through the donkey’s torso. Thor grabbed the front end of the wire and polystyrene frame and pulled in against his waist to make the costume complete.
“Looks great,” said Clovenhoof.
“Are you blind, sir?” said Thor. “The body is over two metres long. I don’t look like a donkey. I look like some sort of over-grown giant ferret.”
Spartacus tsked like a true tradesman. “It’s your basic social distancing regulations. S’gotta be two metres between the two of you. No one will notice if they only see you from the front. Perspective, like.”
“It’s laughable,” said Thor. “I’m not doing it.”
“Thor, Thor, Thor,” said Clovenhoof in a conciliatory tone. He went to pat the boy’s shoulders, realised he couldn’t reach, momentarily considered patting his chest but felt that such contact might seem a little too intimate and so settled for twanging the boy’s braces instead. “The costume is laughable. You’re right. But you’re
going to sell it to the audience.”
“Sell this?” said Thor, incredulous.
“With acting, young man. With stagecraft. And I don’t think I could trust anyone else to do that but you.”
Thor hesitated and then gave a solemn self-important nod. “Show must go on, sir,” he said.
“Precisely.”
“Sir!” came a shout from the rear of the lawn. Araminta Dowling, in white angel robes and a tinsel halo, was looking less than impressed.
“What is it?” said Clovenhoof.
“I don’t think I like this,” she said.
Clovenhoof stomped over, feeling the frustration of theatre directors since the dawn of the performing arts.
“Bloody divas,” he muttered before giving Araminta a false and cheery grin. “What is it, my angel? Is your robe too white? Is your halo too sparkly? I can assure you, you are the living spit of the Archangel Gabriel. Trust me, you look more noble and holy and infinitely more intelligent than that horn-toting
buffoon.”
“This,” said Araminta and tried to waggle her heavy foot. She was tottering round on breeze blocks that had been tied to her shoes. “It’s stupid.”
“They’re counterweights,” said Clovenhoof. “Very important. And it’s not my fault you were otherwise too light. Because we need it for this…”
Clovenhoof went to the bungee cords that had been strapped to the scaffolding of the cinema screen behind her. Plaited bunches of cords were attached to the top, fifteen feet above them and secured under tension to another bar at head height.
Clovenhoof made effortful noises as he disconnected the hooks at the bottom and used his considerable weight to hold them under tension and stopping them from pinging off into the sky.
“Because…” he grunted, bringing it across. “… if I’ve done my calculations… you’re wearing the harness, right?”
“I’m not sure about — woah!!”
Araminta warbled as Clovenhoof hooked the stretchy cords to her secure belt and let go. Araminta rose five feet into the air and wobbled gently up and down like a lazy infant in a baby bouncer. The breeze blocks on her feet maintained the tension and stopped her swinging too far.
The piglets in their nearby enclosure squeaked with excited alarm at the sight of the hovering archangel.
“This feels weird,” said Araminta.
“Just pre-performance nerves,” Clovenhoof assured her and then answered the buzzing phone in his pocket.
“It all looks very technical,” said Persephone.
Clovenhoof’s neighbour had an amused lilt to her voice but he couldn’t help noticing the frailty she had developed since falling ill was still very much in evidence.
“Technical?” he said. “Literally hours of planning have gone into this show. It’s a futuristic entertainment miracle, Persephone.”
“Yes, and speaking of technical, Justine the home manager wants to know the address she needs to type in to get the sound in here.”
Clovenhoof gave her the details of Ben’s camera server website. That would not only give them the feed from the cameras but the audio from the microphones too.
“Wonderful,” said Persephone when it was up and running.
“Oh, and while you’re there, do you think you and your fellow inmates would like to trial some of my new experimental anti-viral mouthwash?”
“Oh, you’ve made it at last, have you? And you followed my instructions?”
“Absolutely. I definitely followed the majority of your instructions. And I’ve already done human testing for safety. Ben said it barely stings at all.”
“It stung quite a lot,” Ben shouted from over by his pig pen.
“But I fixed that with extra alcohol,” Clovenhoof shouted back.
He ran to his supplies, pulled out four plastic milk bottles now filled with lovely amber-green mouthwash and ran round to the front door. He rang the doorbell and then stepped back so the carers could take it without coming too close.
“I must get off now,” he said to Persephone. “A few things to set up still.”
“Oh, we’re all looking forward to it,” she replied.
There were only some last minute checks to be made. The projector was plugged in and turned on, projecting a night-time scene of Bethlehem onto the screen. The human cast of kings and shepherds and innkeeper and such were marshalled to one side. The piglets (who were fascinated by the pendulum motion of the swinging archangel) were
given their fleecy sheep costumes. Twinkle, wearing his shiny purple waistcoat, was thrust into Peroni’s hands. It was hard actually reaching Peroni now as the pool noodle support made her skirts fly out, as though she was wearing a parasol umbrella instead of a dress. The extra-long donkey had its head put on and steered into position.
Everything seemed to be in order.
Clovenhoof noticed a figure at the corner of the building and momentarily thought it was one of the children but he realised his error. The wings were a big giveaway. He marched over to Samael.
“What are you doing here?”
“Observing.”
“Forgive my rudeness, but I don’t actually want the Angel of Death hanging around my nativity play. Some might consider it bad luck.”
“I was just keen to see how this might play out.”
“Well, you can’t,” Clovenhoof snapped. “If you haven’t got legitimate business here then you should piss off.”
“Maybe I have,” said Samael smoothly. He gestured at everything around them — the huge screen, the bulky costumes, the array of animals and technical gear. “Frankly, anything could happen in the next hour.”
Clovenhoof didn’t want Samael to think that his words worried him. Of course, they didn’t. Clovenhoof was the fucking Prince of Darkness. Nothing worried him. Nonetheless, it didn’t stop Clovenhoof scowling, giving the archangel an ineffectual shove in the chest and going back to his business of shouting at
children.
11.
The Three Banditos met at their socially distanced muster point, which was a supermarket car park.
Nerys got out of her car in the quiet corner by the bottle bank at the same time as Tina and Ash. They walked towards each other, casting a critical eye over each other’s outfits. In Ash’s case it turned out to be an incredulous eye.
Two of the three Banditos had been drawn to a Mexican-inspired outfit, interpreted broadly as high-waisted trousers teamed with a cropped jacket. Nerys wore a colourful embroidered bolero and Tina had a gold coloured shrug (slightly mother-of-the-bride, Nerys decided). Not sharing the theme, Ash wore jeans and a leather bomber
jacket. Nerys added to her ensemble with a large pleated cravat. Tina wore a bow tie. The only thing around Ash’s neck was her hospital ID lanyard. Nerys and Tina also had eye masks.
“Masks? Seriously?” said Ash.
“Masks, yeah,” said Tina. “Like Zorro. I think we look good.”
Nerys bristled slightly at the fact that she and Tina had come up with the same idea, although Tina had clearly cut holes in a sock or something, whereas hers was the genuine article, from Anne Summers.
“Perhaps we might save wearing the masks until a bit later. Everyone will think you’re protesting against wearing masks against COVID otherwise.”
Ash had a point, so Nerys and Tina dropped their masks to hang around their necks.
“On with your, er, proper masks now, so that we can all go in the same vehicle,” said Ash and pointed to the small van she’d come in.
“You own a van?” said Nerys.
“Borrowed it,” said Ash.
Tina tapped the side of her nose. “‘Borrowed it’. Right. Smart. Stolen wheels for a quick getaway.”
Ash looked at her like she was mad. “No. Borrowed it from a mate. If we’re stealing stock, we’ll need the space.”
Clovenhoof looked through the window of the residents’ lounge and saw that there was a crowd gathered around the table containing his mouthwash. Someone had brought a tray full of glasses and Persephone poured them all a sample.
Clovenhoof wondered where they would spit it out. Perhaps there was a bucket somewhere that wasn’t visible to him from outside. If you lived in a home with a bunch of other people, perhaps the rules of polite society changed a little. He watched for a few minutes but didn’t see anyone spit it anywhere. He did see some of them go
for a top-up. He thought about phoning Persephone and asking, but there was a howl of pain from his cast, and he looked over to see that Spartacus had a bloody gash across his forehead, apparently caused by the breeze block attached to Araminta’s foot.
“I need to fasten up your hem with a safety pin, you idiot!” he yelled. “Now hold still while I sort you out.”
Araminta slowed her swinging while Spartacus fixed her hemline.
“Need a fresh tea towel,” said Clovenhoof, pointing at the blood that soaked Spartacus’s headdress.
“No time!” yelled Spartacus, who ran round making last minute adjustments to all of the costumes. He shuffled the tea towel bandana round, so that a cleaner part was over the wound. This had the effect of making more of it turn red, but his attention was now on an uncovered donkey hoof, which he tried to tie back into place while
PJ stomped his feet.
The Three Banditos sat in the front of Ash’s van. Tina gave directions to Jacob Bloom’s stables, which were on the other side of town, in a portion of Sutton Coldfield that almost bordered on actual countryside.
“Very fond of his horses,” she reminisced. “Or at least the smell of the stables. All that leather...”
“Are there any alarms or cameras?” asked Ash.
“God, no!” laughed Tina. “Turn here.”
They pulled into a gateway.
“This gate will be locked,” said Tina. “Everything is secured against stealing horses, so as long as we can carry the PPE back here, this should be simple.”
Ash retrieved a pair of bolt croppers from the back of the van.
“You brought bolt cutters,” said Nerys, impressed.
“I thought we might need them,” said Ash.
“You put a lot of thought into this.”
Ash gave her an honest look. “Some of us came equipped for thieving as opposed to coming dressed as a Mariachi band.” She broke open the chain that held the gate in place.
“I don’t look like a Mariachi band,” said Tina.
“You so do,” said Nerys.
Ash drove the van inside and pushed the gate closed.
Nerys and Tina pulled their Zorro masks on.
“Now, where are we looking?” said Ash.
Tina directed them around the back of the stables, to a locked building. Ash pulled the van outside and with a roll of her eyes, put on the spare mask that Nerys pulled from her bag.
Nerys pointed at the flaking paint on the crumbling wooden door of the building. “If this was in the city, Spartacus Wilson and his mates would have got through this door while they were pre-schoolers. It’s like they want us to break in.”
“Rich people,” said Ash, stepping backwards. “Notoriously tight when it comes to the basics.”
She lifted a leg high and slammed the bottom of her boot against the part of the door where the lock was. The door split open, leaving a three inch sliver hanging wonkily on the frame.
“That was...amazing,” said Nerys, huskily.
“Let’s take a look, shall we?” Bolt-cutters, door-kicking… Ash was like a kickass military commander. It was a very hot look.
There were dozens of pallets inside with plastic wrap holding cardboard boxes in place.
“There’s more than I expected,” said Ash. “We can’t take all of this in the van.”
“Then let’s take what we can,” said Nerys firmly. “Is some of this stuff better than others?”
Ash bent to peer at labels. “Everything is labelled up as JB Meditech. Some of the boxes have other labels underneath, let’s see where it’s come from.”
Nerys found a pallet that had an unmistakeable whiff about it. “I reckon this one is from Animal Ed’s. It’s got that pet shop smell.”
“Aprons made from pond liners?” said Ash with a shrug. “I’ve got no problem with that, actually. Should be good and thick, whereas this,” she pointed, “is a pallet of plastic gloves from a company called Houseworkables and I would suggest that they are not up to the standards needed by medical
professionals.”
They loaded the van with the booty that Ash declared most useful and Nerys pulled the remains of the door across the doorway as they left. As they got back into the van, there was the sound of a vehicle from the other side of the stables. They all glanced at each other in alarm. Car doors slammed and they clearly heard Jacob
Bloom’s voice braying at an unseen visitor.
“I must show you Zephyr, dear. A favourite stallion of mine.”
“You said he was out at a restaurant!” Nerys hissed at Tina.
“Maybe he grew a conscience and decided not to go!” Tina hissed back.
“Maybe the police raided the place and shut it down,” said Ash. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“You’ve not lived until you’ve had a powerful beast between your legs, my dear,” said Jacob’s voice. “Come and see!”
Tina rolled her eyes and whispered to the others. “I recognise that line. He’s currently so horny that he didn’t even care about the broken chain on the gate! If we wait for two minutes he’ll be screwing his latest bimbo in the spare stable and we can easily drive past.”
They climbed into the van and waited, all of them on tenterhooks. Tina gave the signal to Ash and she started the engine and zipped round the side of the building. They all saw with horror that Jacob Bloom had parked his Range Rover directly across their path, so they could not go round it. Ash slowed, but did not stop. She drove
into the Range Rover, pushing it out of the way with the bumper.
“Holy shit, Ash, that’s an expensive car you’re mashing the side of,” said Nerys.
“Do I need to remind you that we’ve broken in and stolen a load of stuff?”
“But your friend’s van. The bumper!”
“We can’t afford to be caught.” Gears crunched and bodywork groaned as she reversed bac to go round.
Shouting came from outside, and they saw Jacob Bloom with his trousers flapping loose emerging from a stable.
“Let’s go!” yelled Ash in delight, and they powered out of the gate, leaving him splattered with mud, when a wheelspin from the van added the final insult. Tina gave Jacob a coy wave.
“This is crazy,” said Nerys.
Ash had a faint half-smile on her face. “I should point out that when I said I’d ‘borrowed’ the van, I hadn’t really asked the owner first.”
“You are a criminal!”
“Us doctors need to work off our stress somehow.”
“I am so hot for you right now,” said Nerys.
“Not while I’m driving, hun,” said Ash. “We need to get this van off the street.”
“Are we going to put it through a crusher?” asked Tina, who was clearly getting carried away.
“No, when we empty the stolen goods and swap the number plates back, then it needs to go back to its rightful owner,” said Ash.
“She swapped the number plates!” gasped Nerys in delight.
Tina gave her a scornful look. “I can’t decide which is weirder. This new lesbian thing you’ve got going on or the fact that you’re turned on by this bad girl routine.”
“Come on. It’s sexy. Admit it.”
“Slightly sexy,” Tina admitted.
“We could go to the hospital and unload,” said Nerys.
“Too risky, they might look there,” said Ash.
“I know,” said Nerys. “Let’s take it to Animal Ed’s lock-up. We can hide it there, no problem.”
“Good plan. I’ll sort it out after my shift and —”
There was a loud and worrying clonk and then an unbearably loud scraping sound. Ash pulled to the side of the road swiftly.
“Bumper trouble,” she said.
“I knew you shouldn’t have rammed that Range Rover,” said Nerys.
“I thought a moment ago you said it was sexy,” said Tina. “Quick. Everyone out. Let’s carry what we can.”
12.
Clovenhoof answered his phone. It was Persephone.
“I think your donkey’s gone full method,” she said.
“Is that a euphemism?” he asked.
“No, I’m talking about method acting, you silly sausage!” she said with a giggle.
“It’s PJ. He hasn’t been the same since he saw Christian Bale do a Brummie accent in that racing film. Are you drunk?”
“Drunk? I’m no drunker than I ought to be on this fine afternoon. Drunk with minty fresh breath is what I am!”
Clovenhoof stepped a little closer to the window and saw that most of the oldies now held glasses that were filled to the brim with his mouthwash, and they were definitely not spitting it out.
“Huh. Well enjoy!”
“We will! And you might want to tell the back half of the donkey that we don’t need to see him pooing.”
“What?”
Clovenhoof found a crowd gathered around the weirdly long donkey.
“This is it, PJ, you can find someone else to partner up with you,” said Thor at the head of the donkey.
“It was just a mime!” PJ argued. “I just wanted to feel my way into the part. What else does a donkey do? Thor’s half gets to do all the interesting stuff, the eating, the facial expressions, the talking.”
“This is not a talking part,” said Thor.
No. It’s all about physical acting, that’s why —”
“—This is a poo free nativity play!” declared Clovenhoof. “If we get thrown out at this point then it’s game over. Now, it’s time to get started. Take your positions everybody.”
Clovenhoof strode to the centre of his stage area, which was of course the entire rear gardens of Southview care home. He bowed to the residents in the lounge and he bowed to the cameras, streaming the event to the internet.
“We proudly bring you our pandemic nativity extravaganza. Take it away kids!”
He bounded to the front, so that he could direct his cast. He held up his hands to frame the scene as he imagined the camera would be seeing it. Mary and Joseph trudged across the grass, accompanied by the donkey. Mary had more than a touch of Scarlet O’Hara, with her giant flouncing skirt, but either way, she was a winning
character, so it was probably fine. A less classic role was that of the donkey with the undulating body and the desperation for a bigger part. It wobbled across the lawn, braying forlornly from its rear end.
As Mary and Joseph tried to find themselves somewhere to stay, Clovenhoof checked the scenery, cast up onto the large screen. He nodded in approval. Charged with finding a carousel of pictures that showed desert, his drama class had done him proud. Some of the images featured pyramids and gazelles, but that all added to the
richness. A picture flashed up on the screen for a good few seconds and was replaced by another, before Clovenhoof could place what he’d seen. It was a Walls Viennetta ice cream. Clovenhoof smiled.
“Ah, dessert,” he said.
Nerys, Tina and Ash crouched behind the bins just up the road from where they’d abandoned the van. Crouching with huge bundles of plastic aprons in your hands was not the easiest of tasks.
A Range Rover drove past for the third time.
“How the hell has he found us?” hissed Tina.
“No idea, but I can’t afford to get tied up in this,” said Ash. “I’m on shift in an hour. I say we make a dash for it when he’s out of sight. We’ll nip in somewhere when we hear him coming past again, we can’t just wait here all night.”
“All right, but I do think we should put our Zorro masks on, just in case,” said Nerys.
“You just want to wear a mask for the hell of it!”
“There is nothing wrong with a bit of dressing up and make-believe.”
13.
Clovenhoof watched as Jefri walked down the slope of the residents’ rockery in his West Bromwich Albion robes, his arm held out towards the brightest star in the sky. His other arm held the garden cane with its pipe cleaner hook on the end.
“I think I might leave the sheepdog in charge. Something interesting is happening over Bethlehem way. I know that my sheep will be fine while I’m away, won’t you, Ewey, Dewey and Minty?”
At this point, Jefri pulled the cord that opened the door on the piglets’ pen, so that they could make their entrance as the flock of sheep. Ben tried to stay out of sight as he helped shoo them on stage. Clovenhoof thought that the pigs looked quite magnificent with their bathmats lending them a bobbled woolly appearance. They
squealed more loudly than sheep normally would, but they more than made up for that by rushing forward to centre stage, and Clovenhoof could almost hear his audience cooing in appreciation. They headed straight for the ground underneath Araminta, jumping in excitement as she swayed above them. Were they trying to nip her toes?
“Get off!” she shouted and waggled her feet to deter them.
This had the unfortunate effect of loosening a shoe, which plummeted earthwards with the weight of the breezeblock fastened onto it.
Without the counterbalance, Araminta shot up, propelled by the tension of the bungee cords. Clovenhoof watched her trajectory, worried that she might be catapulted out of sight. He definitely couldn’t afford the time to go and search for her. Happily, she ended up suspended round the back edge of the scaffolding that held the big
screen.
“It’s all right everyone!” Clovenhoof announced to the cameras. “The breeze block didn’t hit any of the pigs. I mean sheep! No animals were harmed!”
He scuttled round to the back of the screen.
“Get me down!” hissed Araminta.
The poor girl was hanging upside down by her feet in a tangle of bungee cords and steel bars. She was spending most of her energies trying to stop her angelic robe falling over her face and blinding her.
Clovenhoof stood on tiptoes and tried to grab her but she dangled several feet out of reach.
“I can’t get you.”
“Find a ladder!” she wailed.
“I haven’t got time. You’re needed on stage.”
They were now missing an Angel Gabriel. Clovenhoof momentarily considered stepping into the role himself but there were depths that even he wouldn’t stoop to. He wondered where the real one, the insufferable twit of an angel, was right now... then a thought seized him.
“Hang on,” he said to Araminta and dashed off.
“Ah-ha!”
Samael was loitering at the corner of the building, enjoying the theatrical proceedings.
“You!” shouted Clovenhoof. “To me, now!”
Samael looked over. “I’m sorry? Can I help?”
“Just for once, you actually can, yes,” said Clovenhoof. “I need you to take on the role of Gabriel for the nativity.”
“Hah! You’re joking of course. I don’t even have a horn.”
“To be honest, the horn doesn’t figure so much in nativity plays. That’s more of a Christmas card thing,” said Clovenhoof.
“So, I’m just to announce the birth of Christ and then brag about it for the rest of eternity?” Samael stroked his chin. “That might annoy our mutual celestial friend.”
“Possibly,” Clovenhoof admitted. “But I’d be really —"
“I’ll do it.”
“Really?”
“Of course,” said Samael. “I can multi-task. I have acting range. I’m not just the ‘death guy’, you know.”
“We’ll need some razzamatazz. Don’t hold back on the sparkles. Get going, it’s your cue!”
Samael jogged around to the back of the screen, only it was more like skulking at speed in his dark robes. Once there, he took a moment to adjust and Clovenhoof watched as he rose up and over the screen on angelic wings. He shone brightly as he flew, the grey, sometimes black hue of his robes and wings dispelled with a searing
white light.
“And sparkles!” Clovenhoof prompted. “Give some sparkles.”
“Fuck me, that’s impressive,” said Mary, Mother of God, entirely unscripted.
Samael made expansive gestures and tottered daintily on the spot. Clovenhoof was reminded of Tinkerbell in the Peter Pan cartoons.
While Samael dazzled the audience for a few moments, Clovenhoof went over to have a stern word with the donkey who thought that nobody could hear him whispering loudly to the Messiah that he was a good boy who looked lovely in his little waistcoat.
Nerys, Tina and Ash jogged along the road, with arms full of PPE.
“I can hear his car coming back,” said Tina. “we need to hide!”
“Down here!” said Nerys, jerking her head towards the care home.
They ran down the shaded drive to get out of sight of the road but to no avail. A brown Range Rover with a dented front end stopped abruptly at the bottom of the drive.
“Shitbiscuits!” squeaked Tina.
“Stop, thieves!” said Jacob Bloom, hopping out, phone in hand. “I’ve called the police. Don’t think I haven’t!”
“I’m too pretty for prison,” said Ash and ran for the side gate that led round to the back of the care home.
Nerys opened the gate to the back and ushered Tina and Ash through before closing it again. She levered a bin against it just before Jacob Bloom slammed into it. He was not a big man and there was a soft cry of pain before he began hammering on it, at first with his fists and then with something heavy.
“He’s going to break through,” said Tina.
“Is that you, Tina?” he shouted back. “I should have known.”
“No,” said Tina with what Nerys assumed was meant to be a Mexican accent. “I ham ze bandeet queen!”
“Oh, yeah, that totally fooled him,” sighed Nerys.
The gate panelling cracked and splintered and somewhere by the roadside there was the whoop of a police car.
“Run,” suggested Ash.
The three of them pelted down the side of the big house and into the back garden. They stumbled through three youngsters in makeshift robes and cardboard crowns and came face to face with a fiery angel of God.
“Behold!” bellowed the Angel Gabriel.
“… the fuck?” said Nerys.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” said Tina and flung herself on the floor in immediate penitence.
The Angel Gabriel looked momentarily confused, glanced at the child kings who had been pushed aside and tried his line again.
“Behold! The Magi approach! They bear gifts for the new messiah!”
Nerys looked at the angel. Nerys looked at the wandering pigs in bath mats. Nerys looked at the stunned Mary and Joseph (one who appeared to be wearing an eighteenth century bustle and one who had a red cut in his forehead). Nerys looked at Clovenhoof who was giving them two mighty thumbs up from the wings. Nerys looked at the
canine baby messiah who was, against all realism, being given a tummy tickle by the back end of a donkey.
She blinked.
“Yes!” she declared loudly. “We three kings of orient are!”
“Oi! We’re the kings!” said a young Pixie Kaur, picking up her dropped crown.
“Yeah, well we’re the real ones,” said Nerys, “all the way from… Mexico.”
“Andale! Andale!” cried Tina weakly.
“Oh,” said Joseph. “So, er, you’ve got presents for Twinkle? I mean, Jesus?”
“Some lovely PPE,” said Ash with a cheery smile for the elderly audience inside the home.
“Don’t you want the frankincense?” asked the girl king, Pixie, by Nerys’s side.
“I’ve got a present for you too,” said Nerys, who couldn’t wait to dump her PPE in front of the manger.
“But it’s not wrapped up in Christmas paper!” said the Virgin Mary.
Nerys almost paused in her striding towards the barking messiah to explain the wrongness, but decided to leave it.
“All right Twinkle, mommy’s coming. I bring gifts for the baby,” said Nerys, holding aloft a box of plastic aprons. “Here we are Baby Jesus, have some frankincense!”
“Doesn’t gold go first?” asked Tina from behind.
“You’re gold then! Go, go, go.”
Here’s some lovely gold from me, sweetie pie!” said Tina. She put down a wrapped bundle of masks.
Nerys lifted Twinkle out of the barbecue manger and he stopped barking.
“We have brought our gifts!” declared Ash. “And more usefully, I will carry out a post natal examination and check for correct hip alignment! Over here.”
“Good improv!” said Nerys.
Peroni Picken frowned at the unscripted removal of her baby messiah and her huge skirt wobbled with her annoyance.
14.
Clovenhoof was very impressed with this turn of events. The utterly unexpected arrival of the Mexican wise men was a masterstroke. All of this was overseen by Samael’s portrayal of the Archangel Gabriel who was most definitely making the most of his spot in the limelight. He had moved on from casting a general heavenly glow, and
was now throwing a spotlight onto whichever part of the performance he thought deserved the audience’s attention.
Speaking of the audience, Clovenhoof could see that they were getting more than a little rowdy. The mouthwash had all gone, and the lounge was filled with oldies drunkenly stumbling into each other, and shouting (encouragement or abuse?) at the performers.
“And who’s this”? called Samael, like a cheesy game show host. He shone a spotlight on someone new who had entered the stage area.
It was Jacob Bloom. Clovenhoof had no idea what this meant, but he looked angry about something. There were a couple of police officers behind him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he called to the Mariachi kings. “That’s stolen goods you’ve got there!”
“They belong to Jesus now!” said Peroni, desperate to get the story back on track. She made a shooing motion with her hands and turned to her husband, Spartacus. “Joseph, see this man off the premises, he will wake the baby.”
The baby in question was in the arms of Nerys who was trying to sneak away while the spotlight was on Bloom.
Samael changed the focus of his stage lighting, perhaps deciding that the audience might want to see the reaction of the Mariachi kings to the accusation.
Nerys blinked at the brightness and stood tall. “Jacob Bloom? Well known local businessman and pandemic profiteer? What are you asking, exactly?”
“I’m asking for the return of the goods that you took from me.
“The cheap PPE that you plan to sell at a huge profit to the NHS, you mean?”
“I’m not sure you know how businesses work, my dear. Any supplier will have overheads, and of course require a return on investment.”
“Yes, my dear,” said Ash scathingly. “But I’ve seen the paperwork.” She held up a sheet of paper for all to see. “You are making thousands of percent profit on these!”
There was a loud banging on the windows of the residents lounge. Booing could be heard from the tipsy oldies.
“Look, just give it back!” snarled Bloom. “I don’t have to justify my actions to a bunch of kids and whatever dementia patients are inside this institution.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand towards the residents lounge. Clovenhoof saw Persphone peel away from the window and speak to one of the carers.
“Maybe not, said Ben, standing up from his pig pen, “but all of this is being streamed live on the internet.”
Clovenhoof wished he had access to one of those decks where he could press a sound effects button. In lieu of that he shouted out “Dun, dun, DURNN!” to mark the moment when Jacob Bloom realised that he was out of options.
Bloom glanced around, presumably wondering just how much of a villain he currently appeared to be. He looked for the cameras.
“Well,” he said, with a small cough. “Well. Of course it’s Christmas, so what I was actually going to do was to donate it to the hospital.”
Ash stared at him. “All of it, obviously, yeah? This stuff here and what’s still in your stable?”
“Er, yes. Of course,” he said in a strangled voice.
“Good,” said Ash.
“Now,” said the police officer to Jacob Bloom, “you did start off by saying this all happened while you were on your way back from a restaurant, sir…”
Nerys, Tina and Ash started to walk away, but Clovenhoof wanted to capitalise on the moment.
“Cue the grand finale!” he ad-libbed.
He stabbed at his phone, looking for a rousing tune to cast to the sound system. He couldn’t find anything suitable, so he fell back on his karaoke performance of Beyonce classics, singing the words and inviting the rest of the cast to join him.
While Clovenhoof was entreating all the single ladies to put their hands up, Ben hurried across the lawn, wanting to get his pigs back into the pen for safety’s sake. Clovenhoof tried to demonstrate that his footwork had improved loads, and that any previous injuries inflicted during his legendary performances were old news, but
Ben was determined to round up the pigs.
Jefri Rehemtulla handed Ben his West Bromwich Albion duvet cover, and the pair of them went into a dive holding it between them like a net. They came up triumphant, holding the wriggling trio all wrapped up.
Samael swung his angelic spotlight around and leaned in to speak to Clovenhoof.
“You know, that was quite fun.”
“What? Being a spangly show off instead of an utter killjoy?”
Samael shimmied with Clovenhoof. “I might make some suggestions to Gabriel himself. You know, swapping roles from time to time.”
Clovenhoof guffawed. “I’d love to be there when you tell him.”
“Can someone get me down now?” called a weak voice from behind the cinema screen.
Clovenhoof jiggled and jived to the patio window and put a big smooshy kiss on the window for Persephone. She put pale fingers to her lips and blew him a kiss back.
“Merry Christmas everyone!” he yelled. The cast whooped and the audience cheered.
“And 2020 can piss off!” yelled Ben which drew an even louder cheer.
Nerys nudged Ash and pointed at Ben with his three porcine charges wrapped in a duvet cover.
“What is it?” said Ash.
“It’s actual pigs in actual blankets!” she said.
“Ah, Christmas is truly complete,” said Ash and, for a few seconds, totally forgot about appropriate social distancing.
