My saintly mother, God rest her soul, had a somewhat annoying habit of swearing by adages better left to old spinsters than sensible mothers of four, but one such maxim she was overly fond of was that bad things always come in threes.
I believe the last time I heard her vocalise that particular saying was after David was born, bringing the total of screaming lads in the house to a trio. Personally, after the birth of my sister Estella a year later I was of the opinion that one sister was quite enough for any person's maintaining a state of sanity; no need for three, thank you very much. But perhaps there was an element of truth in what she said; three Spirits of Christmas, for example, are surely more than the average allotment of ethereal sightings allowed to the average corporeal.
I do hope that Mother was incorrect in her steadfast assertion of those old proverbs' veracity, however, for I want no such third bizarre holiday shopper as the first and second that have seen fit to grace me with their presences these last two days (I am beginning to wonder if perhaps I am not haunted as was Ebenezer Scrooge in that infernal storybook). However, they are both due to return here tomorrow, and I dearly hope that three is the charm (another of Mother's advisory axioms) and that I shall be hereafter rid of them and all such like them.
The doctor of Monday evening was queer enough in his own way, but this chap tonight…there are no satisfactory words to describe him, at least none that I could use in the company of gentlefolk.
I had only just returned from suppering with Gilbert at the café down the street – nothing like piping hot shepherd's pie on a night cold enough to freeze Lord Nelson's ears off in Trafalgar Square – and found Higgins waiting for me in my department when I returned. I had while tramping about been at least half-frozen and was now wishing for some of Uncle's Columbian coffee (which he of course refused to allow anyone access to besides his parsimonious self, and heaven knew the drink would never be able to thaw his soul sufficiently!).
"Fellow was by here earlier ta see you." Percival Higgins is only two years my senior in age but at least three years my junior by way of quick-wittedness; which is why Uncle assigned him to the children's clothing department; neither the little ones nor the deluded parents who believe their darling angels would love new sweaters and undergarments for Christmas are intelligent enough to realise their clerk's diminutive mental acumen.
"Oh?" I expertly dodged a (extremely) heavy-set woman who was dragging a squalling five-year-old behind her, and then was forced to hop over a wandering wooden car that had escaped the toy section and was meandering merrily along the floorboards in a malicious attempt to trip anyone who stepped in its path – or road, I supposed the case was.
"Mmhm. Doctor fellow. Tall, moustached, thirtyish," Higgins drawled laconically. He handed me a small paper on which he had written the name, together with a scribbled note saying that the Doctor would be back the following evening to see the walking-stick I had set aside for him, that he had a late house-call tonight and was unable to wait for my return.
Fine by me; one fewer slightly-mad customer to deal with never did harm to any poor clerk at Christmastide.
"Very good. Thank you, Higgins," I replied patiently, attempting to dislodge his grinning person from my department as his perpetual smile was beginning to annoy me. Besides, such brainless joviality belonged in the children's department and not mine.
"See the new Christmas tree over in Jacobson's department?"
"Yes, Higgins." Why don't you go back and look at it again if you love it so dearly, Higgins?
"Guess I'll be gettin' back to my department, then," he continued, bending to pick up the errant wooden car and giving it a loving pat. "These are really popular this year with the little 'uns, you know?" he asked over his shoulder by way of intelligent parting conversation.
I shook my head and set about organizing the register and the surrounding papers before I was flooded with the post-dinner crowd. Three days until Christmas, and one would think that every store and boutique in town were sold out of gifts, were one to judge simply by the way people have been behaving. I suppose I should be grateful that I am not working on Bond Street; from all accounts the traffic there is simply murder.
I was accosted not three minutes later by two gentlemen desiring to purchase cigars for their employers and being entirely too fussy about the manner of packaging the disgusting things were packed in. After being set upon by a young couple seeking a gift for the lady's father, two young women wanting my opinion upon which colour of neck-tie would look best with the waistcoats they had chosen for their husbands (do I look like a fashion plate myself? That is most definitely not my department, literally and figuratively), and a man who obviously despised the entire affair of Christmas and all its fripperies and snapped up the first thing I suggested as a present to his brother (other than socks), I breathed a long sigh and leant back for a moment's peace before the next onslaught arrived.
It was then that I noticed him.
'Twould have been rather hard not to do so, as he positively towered over ninety percent of the people in the emporium, myself included. I do believe it is thoroughly unfair for Nature to have bequeathed upon some people an excess of six feet in height and to have left the rest of us rather under the mark. It simply is not right.
This man was conspicuous not just because of his height, but also due to his expression, which was one of absolute intense discomfort…as if he had just walked with the toothache into a dentist's waiting-room instead of into a festive, bustling Christmas shopping centre. I wanted desperately to laugh but thought better of it. The fellow did look so utterly miserable that it was by far the most comical picture I had seen all the day, other than the excitement of this morning when Gilbert dropped a seventy-guinea watch and then stepped upon it, cracking the crystal in three places. His face was highly entertaining to onlookers, though I am certain he found it considerably less amusing.
My counter was still momentarily unoccupied, thank heaven, leaving me free to watch the man as he sidled along the wall, edging behind and around and between racks and furniture and decorations, and doing his utmost to not touch any of the laughing, jostling throng that surged round him in a sea of brightly-wrapped, be-ribboned-and-bowed humanity – all the while with an expression of supreme disgust adorning his features, which were angular and striking.
I watched in amusement as he darted through a gap in the crowd like a goldfish after a water-bug, nearly making it to my counter before being bowled over by a rotund man in a screaming green plaid waistcoat, who was hurrying toward the door with a three-foot wrapped parcel in his fat little hands. The gentleman – for I could see from his very fashionable dress that he was indeed a gentleman – glared after the fat fellow as he burbled an apology and hurried on his merry way. Then he turned and stalked over to a rack of fine gold and silver tie-pins. For a moment the man studied the items with languid disinterest and then wandered aimlessly to the next rack, that of silk handkerchiefs in various prints.
He gave an exclamation of disgust, though I doubted the expressive noise was aimed at the merchandise, but his next actions were blocked from my view by a throng of demanding customers who apparently refused to read the signs that clearly told in the Queen's English where different departments were located within the emporium and instead expected me to leave my post and direct them to the various places of interest. I am a clerk, not a tour guide, and if they could not read perfectly clear signs then they needed to not be out and about the city at this hour, but rather at home with their primers.
I did not tell them that. Though I wanted to, in no uncertain terms. Honestly, the idiocy of the modern human race astounds me at times.
By the time I returned to my counter, the tall thin gentleman was still wandering around, occasionally knocking into the odd customer and then muttering no more than courtesy demanded as an apology, all the while looking awfully ill-at-ease and in absolute pain at the activity of holiday gifting.
A fellow scarcely older than I paused in front of me, obstructing my view, and after blushing to the roots of his blonde hair asked me if I could tell him where the engagement ring department was. I sighed and pointed the young fool in Gilbert's direction and then turned round again – to discover that the tall gentleman had appeared and was dolefully inspecting the items for display upon the counter in front of me.
I recognised the evident symptoms of a man who despised shopping for anyone, and especially shopping while not knowing what to purchase as a gift. In my opinion, the worst part about this season is the obligation that people must show their appreciation for friends and family in some tangible, monetary way rather than simply showing a greater amount of love or unselfishness toward said family and friends, something that would have far more lasting consequences than baubles and trinkets, in this pecuniary world.
The gentleman was massaging his temples with an expression indicative of an approaching migraine (another common holiday-shopping symptom I have noticed), and finally I took pity on the poor fellow and leant over the counter towards him, adopting my best professional air.
"Might I help you find something, sir?" said I pleasantly.
For the first time he looked directly at me, and the sharpness of his grey gaze fair unnerved me, I freely admit – he looked rather too potentially explosive to be someone to comfortably talk to up close. His words, however, were anything but intimidating and the feeling of unease passed as quickly as it had come in favour of amusement at the man's expense.
"Find something…yes, that would be very much welcomed," he muttered absently, glancing around at the thronging crowd of men and women in holiday finery with great unease.
"A gift, I presume?"
"Why else would I be wandering about in this…zoo?" the man growled. I watched in wary amusement mingled with a bit of horror as he glared ferociously at a cherubic little fellow of about five years, who was wandering by holding an oversized, half-eaten chocolate likeness of what I could only presume had once been a snowman, before his head was jaggedly bitten off.
"Erm…right," I replied cautiously, for though the sentiment (or rather lack of it) was fairly atypical of holiday shoppers I for one wholeheartedly agreed with it, after a very long week of demanding customers and irritable family members. "A gift, then. What sort of present did you have in mind, sir?"
Those piercing eyes went unaccountably blank, and the fellow blinked twice as if processing what I said very slowly – which could not be the case, as no man with eyes like that is anything short of genius. "Erm…any sort, I suppose…" He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "I've really no idea, at any rate. I say, is it always this ridiculously chaotic in here?"
I grinned, watching a fight break out between two rather feisty grandmothers over the last toy trumpet in Jacobson's department. "No, only at the holidays. You should be here on Christmas Eve, sir – I'd wager that the Afghan war zones are quieter than this place is on that night."
The fellow's thin lips quirked to one side, as if he were going to smile but couldn't quite make it due to a lack of practice. Then his face fell disconsolately, as he obviously remembered the reason why he was standing in front of me. "Yes…I need a gift," he stated abruptly.
I nodded.
"A Christmas gift," he added helpfully, as if I had not realised the fact by now.
Peculiar fellow, but from the sharpness of his dress he obviously had the money to spend if he so chose; who was I to judge his eccentricities?
I nodded again.
"Perhaps I could better aid you if you were to tell me whom the present is for, sir?" I nudged.
"For?" The man blinked as if coming out of a daydream and frowned as a raucous burst of laughter sounded through the emporium. "Oh…yes, yes of course. Well, it is a gift for a friend, you see."
That narrowed the field immensely.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and merely sighed patiently, having dealt with this sort of thing rarely (thank heaven) but with fair predictability this close to Christmas – the time we appropriately termed the Twelve Days of Panic, in which most people were either so desperate to simply purchase a gift that they were rather uncaring what said gift was, so long as it was prettily wrapped with a large bow; or else they would disregard the rest of the panicking world and debate exactly what the perfect gift was from opening until closing time, without a nudge from your friendly store clerk.
These last types of customers invariably ended the evening with the rest of the populace standing chafing behind them, either threatening harm to the customer for holding up the line or harm to mine for allowing said customer to stand there and debate aloud which colour of necktie to purchase for his son or grandson or nephew or dustman's third cousin.
"Male or female friend?" I prodded helpfully.
I'd no idea what I had said that could possibly induce such horror, but the man's thin face flushed scarlet in a sudden scandalised expression of revulsion. "Male, of course!" he exclaimed in disgust, casting a distasteful look at an amorous young couple who swept by on their way out the door, peeking optimistically above the frame in hopes of espying mistletoe.
I pinched my nose in exasperation – did a fellow have to physically pry the information out of this chap? "How close a friend, sir? That could make a difference as to what you might care to purchase," I sighed slowly, attempting to rein in my impatience; no other customer was in sight, and I was in no hurry to be rid of the fellow. Yet.
Again the fellow peered blankly at me. "How close?" he repeated. He ran a finger around his collar as if nervous and then backed hurriedly away from the counter when an elderly man dawdled along the glass expanse, peering into the cases eagerly and entirely oblivious to the people and conversation around him.
"Yes," I answered over the balding fellow's head as he ambled on his merry way. The tall gentleman shuffled back to the counter as I continued. "As in, merely an acquaintance?"
"No, rather more than that…I think," he said hastily, eyeing a fine writing set in a soft, velvet-lined case that sat on my counter, reserved for another customer.
"A close friend, then."
"I…I suppose one might say that, yes," he muttered uneasily. I noticed that the man continually glanced about as if fearing to be overheard by someone. Were such a notion completely incongruous with the fellow's (over)confident nature, I should have judged him to be a bit on the paranoid side. Honestly, the chap was most bizarre.
"Have you any idea at all what you would like to get him?" I asked patiently.
"None."
I nearly sniggered but stopped myself only just in time. The fellow sighed and fixed me with a look that was half-helpless, half-annoyed, and both parts equally amusing. I was about to suggest a cheap gift when my customer leant across the counter, dropping his sharp voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper. I inclined my head, for he was considerably taller than I (another reason I strongly dislike the man), and listened with some wariness.
"You are obviously a bright lad, my boy – tell me something," said he, apparently quite seriously and with an earnest intensity that I found a bit strange. "Exactly…exactly how does one go about the purchasing of a Christmas gift?"
I resisted the urge to plant my face either into my hand or against the sharp metal of the cash register. He could not be serious.
Why, why, why did all the…nutters is the only sufficiently vivid word that comes readily to mind…come to me?
To be continued.
