A Christmas Payroll
Seasonal Flash Fiction
I do hope my Substack friends and (and the ghost of Charles Dickens) will forgive me a little poetic licence and some festive fun in this tale of Christmas, past, present and future.
Doom looked up from the piles of papers on the oak desk and muttered, to nobody in particular, “It is colder than the day of Marley’s funeral. It has been seven long years and I am still shivering. Put another log on the burner”.
In his usual spot by the fireside, Deming looked up at his business partner, shaking his head at the disorganised stacks of legal work. He decided he should be the one to bring order to the affairs of their dwindling number of clients.
“Why don’t you move closer to the fire, old friend? We could draft this eviction letter together”.
As he said the word ‘eviction’, Deming trembled, chilled by the lack of warmth in their longstanding client, Scrooge. Not for the first time, he wondered when his account would be settled. If it was, their legal practice, as underwriters and purveyors of words - both legal and, strictly speaking, illegal - ‘Doom and Deming’ established in 1835, might survive until the turn of the new year, 1844. But Scrooge had a reputation for not settling his accounts until pressed. What was it their client Dickens had said about him in the letter they had filed deep in the archive?
“Scrooge (is) … a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire”.
Harsh, but fair, Deming thought to himself.
“Right, Doom, let’s get some words flowing".
Doom looked pensive for a moment, sharpening his quill, testing it, the green ink he favoured running blotchily onto the parchment. The scratching sound irritated his partner, that much he knew, which was why he favoured it. Sometimes, you had to poke the wasps’ nest to get the mild-mannered Deming to come up with the required words. Not too much of the ‘if it so pleases you’ and the ‘in a time and a manner most suiting to both parties’. The practice needs a bit more ‘get it finished by Monday, good Sir, or feel the wrath of our full vocabulary’.
“Right, let’s get the Cratchits sorted, though it is a desperate time to push a man and his family out on the streets”. Doom shook his head sadly. His inclination might drift towards words that spared misunderstanding but this letter was not one he would draft with relish. Their market town legal practice had, after all, a heart, unlike their pecunious but ‘careful’ client, Scrooge.
“You start it off, Deming. Some of your gentleness to cushion the hard facts”.
“Sir,
Every year in the seven that have passed since Marley’s untimely death - plus the three before that - you have worked satisfactorily as my clerk. I commend your loyalty and diligence.
However, at this time of year, your behaviour becomes unbearable, with your ‘Merry Christmases’ and your pleading, hand-wringing attempts to secure a day off on the 25th of December. These appeals just will not do.
I must let you go and you shall be required to leave the quarters I generously rent to you at twice the market rate. There are plenty of clerks who will willingly pay three times the rate and work without breaks.”
Deming shook his head, a tear glistening on his cheek as he edged a little closer to their fire.
“I just can’t do it, Doom. You finish the damn thing off”.
It had been a busy month and both Doom and Deming were exhausted. Mind you, it being 11.30 on a cold winter morning, they had both consumed two beakers of hot port and lemon so the drowsiness induced by the warm fire was inevitable.
They drifted into dream-filled repose.
What the Dickens?
Oh, it’s you, Dickens.
The writer was paler than usual, ethereal perhaps.
Stop playing with words, Doom, I am here to warn you.
But Dickens, don’t you have somewhere to be; it is the night before Christmas, after all.
I have but a Bleak House to return to, and a small garret room without decoration. But that is a Tale of Two Cities. What I have to say is much more important than that. I have Great Expectations that Our Mutual Friend will settle his account, unexpectedly of course. It will be the end of your Hard Times.
Doom furrowed his brow.
(in a parallel slumber replete with ghostly imaginings, Dickens is offering the same wisdom to Deming)
Invest Scrooge’s money, for it is a goodly stash, in a space for writers, a place of welcome and community where ideas are shared and words flow. Become the writer you always dreamed you would be.
(Dickens drifted off into the half-light, candles flickering as he mulled over characters’ names … Fuzzletfit, Puzzlezit … mm, Chuzzlewit … perhaps)
The two aspirant writers were woken abruptly by insistent banging on the door.
“We’re doomed”, yelled Doom in sleepy alarm.
“Is it the bailiffs?”, whispered Deming, as he slowly came to.
Deming had barely turned the rusting key in the lock when Scrooge ran into their offices, yelling and caterwauling. If they didn’t know him to be the cantankerous old grizzle-chops that he undoubtedly was, they could have sworn that was the hint of a smile.
Perhaps it was wind?
“Merry Christmas, you fine gentlemen. Why are you working on a holiday? I am so glad to find you here, though. Here, 30 guineas, my account settled in full, with a little extra for you both … an investment in your futures. Open that writers’ club you once talked of, you’re wasted here. My nephew can do my legal work and lovely, loyal Bob Cratchit can have a pay rise and take on some of the paperwork. Not at weekends though, and I think he should work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, don’t you?”.
“But … but, Scrooge, dear Sir, the eviction letter?”.
“Not needed, for I shall gift the Cratchits that house. Oh, but they deserve it so. And Tiny Tim, bless him, needs somewhere to recover after the operation I shall be paying for”.
Doom reached for the port bottle at precisely the same moment Deming stretched his hand towards his beaker. “Well I never”, they exclaimed in unison.
“See you at my nephew’s party later, gentlemen”, bellowed Scrooge chirpily as he headed out the door. “Got to go, that turkey won’t buy itself”.
Doom and Deming sat open-mouthed, almost forgetting their dreams.
They started to speak at the same time, “Clear those piles of paper from the desks, we have Stacks of writing to do”.
The End
This is delicious
Absolutely and delightfully brilliant Barrie, what a clever tale. From a master of bringing community together here you are now succeeding in blending communities from literary pasts... I am in awe...!