Stayed Behind

A Willerby Christmas Tale

It snowed all night and the next morning the Smith family woke to light at the edges of their closed curtains.

Dan and Sally wrapped Sammy in his duvet and sat him on the sill of their bedroom window so they could all look out on the transformed landscape together.

Snow levelled the shallow hills and dips of the landscape, smoothing the earth and joining it seamlessly to the distant horizon.

The paths and shortcuts within them were gone and the houses huddled beneath thick white robes crowned with jagged icicles. The path of Main Street, Willerby’s only surfaced road, could only be traced by the vague, humped masses that would not be revealed as cars until the thaw.

The cold world beyond the windows and walls sung the weight of solemn silence that – for a moment - cowed even Sammy.

Then, “it’s today, isn’t it?”, he asked.

Dan looked over at Sally who nodded.

“Yeah, it is, superstar,” he said, ruffling his son’s curly hair. “Yeah, after breakfast it is.”

…

Cheered by the twinkling LED lights on the tinsel kitchen tree, the Smiths cooked and ate the full monty to a Christmas playlist -bacon, sausage, eggs, black pudding, hash browns, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast.

Then, the plates in the dishwasher and the pan soaking in the sink, Dan filled a thermos with bright red tomato soup and packed a lunch of cheese and pickle sandwiches while Sally wrestled Sammy into his yeti snowsuit and sunshine-yellow wellies.

After a final check they’d remembered to pack the parcel, they left their comfortably cluttered house to join the snow altered world.

Sally and Dan on wooden snowshoes towed Sammy on a bright red plastic sledge they’d bought from a supermarket too late in the last winter to get to use.

New light whispered in the new day.

Although there was smoke from chimneys and lights on in windows, they saw nobody before reaching a wooden signpost that usually said, “public bridleway”, but that morning read “Goblin Land” in a carved cursive script.

“Do you think she’ll be there?” Sally asked Dan as they turned away onto one of the ways of the secret commonwealth.

“Yeah,” said Dan. “I think she is – David and Maude say she’s real and they always know what’s going on here - but I don’t know whether she’ll want to see us.”

“It’d be a shame to go all the way and not meet her,” said Sally, “but even if we don’t this is still an adventure, right Sammy?”

“Yeah!” Sammy said, “I’m so excited to see the goblins again!”

“We’ll certainly do that,” said Dan, and on they walked.

The work of snow on distance and time muddled borderlines between worlds but after about an hour of walking Dan and Sally agreed they’d crossed over. Ten minutes later the smell of hearth fire and arrows of rising white smoke in the dawn sky confirmed it.

“There’s the river and the bridge,” said Sally as they crested the top of the final shallow hill, pointing down at a frozen wide meander on which a handful of goblin elders were watching warmly bundled goblin children skating circles on the ice.

Sammy waved, so excited he bounced up and down.

“Hello!” He called, standing upright on his sledge, “I want to do that too, can I do the skating with you?”

“If you do your best manners and ask without shouting, they might let you,” said Sally, look – we’re at the top of a hill – you can sledge it yourself if you’re brave enough.”

“I am brave!” Sammy said as he sat down and pushed off.

When his parents reached the frozen river Sammy was already being welcomed with coos of recognition and embraces from the adults and jumping high-fives from the children who were soon strapping him into a pair of leather and bone skates.

“Do you mind if he stays with you for an hour so?” Dan asked Tamif, who he already knew well.

Tamif shrugged and nodded. “Course,” she said, as if it were an unnecessary question, because goblins saw their children as a communal resource, joy and pride.

While it was vaguely known who had sired and birthed each beloved infant, goblin villages raised goblin children together and immediate responsibility for each one fell mainly to whoever was closest.

The goblins at the frozen river saw nothing unusual or improper in Sally and Dan leaving Sammy while they went to call on the Under-Queen in her cottage nestled behind the wall next to the gatehouse.

…

Slim and tall for a goblin at around four feet, Gytha welcomed Dan and Sally into her kitchen with an easy smile and sat them down on a comfortable leather sofa next to an open fire burning on an iron grate beneath a steaming copper cauldron.

The last time Dan and Sally had visited the village it had been ruled by a different queen, but the change was not unusual enough to be remarked upon. Goblin leadership was fluid with who did the leading dependent on the village’s ever-changing priorities and who had capacity.

Dan – who had been learning the language - greeted Gytha in her own tongue and would have tried to fumble his way through his questions too had she not taken mercy and replied in near fluent English.

“Yes – she still here,” Gytha said, scooping steaming clove and cinnamon spiced wine into mugs with a deep wooden label, “she live on other side of the village.”

“Thank you, this is so good,” said Sally taking a sip, “anyway, she’s real – we weren’t sure if she was just a sort of legend.”

“She here a long time,” Gytha said, “before me – been here long time before that.”

“Can we see her?”

Gytha rocked her head from side to side. “Maybe,” she said, “but maybe she don’t want to see you? Don’t know. She goblin now. Some don’t like human. Best ask.”

“Can we do that?” sally said, “Ask I mean? We brought something for her.”

Gytha nodded, reached into the front pocket of her leather apron, pulled out a battered Nokia 3310 and began finger-stabbing her way through her contacts.

“She has a phone?” Dan asked.

“Yes she needs one for when need her,” said Gytha, “calling her.”

She answered on what must have been the first ring or near enough.

Gytha spoke too too rapidly for Dan to follow, but she didn’t keep them in suspense, smiling and nodding at them as she hung up.

“She want to see you,” Gytha said, “she say go round now – I go with you, she got something I need.”

The walk from Gytha’s cottage took just a few minutes.

In winter goblin villages slept late unless they had good reason not to, and most of the community was only just beginning its comfortable, slow waking.

They passed a café and saw a goblin in a chef’s whites pulling open its wooden shutters to display trays of steaming hot cakes. He rang a bell hanging from a chain, which brought those children not skating on the river running, calling and jostling at each other as they came.

They went through the village square, passing a huddle of elderly looking goblins being led through morning exercises by a grunting, muscular, squat figure who didn’t look too many years younger than his students.

Then, Gytha led them through a low arch and into a winding maze of narrow streets where the buildings overhung the cobbled street so steeply they were clean of snow.

She stopped outside a peeling red door and rapped on it gently with an iron lizard-tongue knocker.

After a moment it swung open and, standing there, her breath a white cloud in the cold air, was what both Dan and Sally assumed at first to be another elderly goblin lady.

She was – like Gytha – tall and wore a green felt cap covering her hair and ears.

Both her nostrils were pierced with silver hoops and her dark eyes moved with the sharp, childlike quick curiosity goblins did not lose as they aged.

She was thin and wizened with lines so deep in her skin it was if her face were made of thin, brown paper.

Then, to Dan and Sally’s mild astonishment she opened her mouth and spoke to them in perfect received pronunciation English.

“Well, hello – I’m Elizabeth, gosh what a treat – I haven’t had human callers for so many years – come in, come in, it’s freezing out there. Sit down by the fire.”

“I came here with my husband,” Elizabeth said after they were settled and drinking more spiced wine. “I don’t know, perhaps seventy years ago? At my age you do lose track of the years a bit – he was a missionary – sent by the Church to bring Christ to the heathens I suppose. Now that seems so silly but at the time there was such a lot of that sort of thing. We did months of training in this big house in Oxfordshire – the men about how to preach scripture and gospel – mainly scripture it always seemed to me - to goblins or elves or dwarves – all sorts, such a pompous buzz, all the men filled with wild-eyed enthusiasm. The wives had classes on cooking over open fires, cleaning without the sorts of soap we were used to. All useless to me when I got here, I found it much easier just to go and ask someone next door. The medical classes were helpful though – oh goodness before I forget– Gytha I’ve got the ointment for your joints made up – it's in the kitchen on the side. Don’t forget it when you go.”

Gytha nodded and smiled at her, then looked round to Dan and Sally.

“She goblin now,” she said, with pride. “All goblin!”

“Thank you, Gytha,” said Elizabeth. “That’s nice of you to say but I’m not and don’t need to be.”

“Is your husband still around?” Sally asked, carefully.

Elizabeth shook her head.

“No long gone– he disappeared. We can’t have been here for more than a couple of years when he vanished on one of his jaunts into what he called the wilderness. He said he thought the town and village goblins were too far, what was it he used to say, let me get it right,” she paused for a moment, leant back in her armchair, her eyes closed, “steeped in sin,” she said, “that was his phrase. He was full of words like that. He said he thought he might have better luck saving the souls of those living out further – less corrupted, he said. I never understood it. I read my Bible – I still do – and the Jesus I learned about never called people names or judged in the way they all did in that dreadful college.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sally.

Elizabeth frowned and shook her head slowly. “It’s not right to speak bad of the dead, and I’m sure he is dead and has been a very long time, but he was a silly, prideful man and not a good husband – to be honest I never thought he would be, but I didn’t feel I had much choice when he asked. My family you see – we were rich but then we weren’t – and he came from a good family.” She sighed. “It was just how things were.”

“And after he went,” Dan said, “you stayed behind?”

Elizabeth nodded, smiling now. “Yes, that’s right – I stayed behind. It was never a deliberate plan. It all happened mainly by accident. First, I stayed because I was being a good wife waiting for my husband and if felt expected, and then it was a year or so and people round here kept asking me for help with breaks and cuts, fevers and whatnot – and then quite suddenly this was home and there was never a good enough reason to go back and always another reason to stay.”

“You home here,” said Gytha.

“Yes, love, home here,” Elizabeth said, then said more in Goblin-tongue.

It was brief, but whatever it got Gytha on her feet, kissing the old lady on the cheek and rubbing her shoulders.

“Do you think me awfully rude for not having lots of questions for you?” Elizabeth said after another round of wine and tales of the life she’d made so far from where she began. “I don’t mean to be, but I just wouldn’t know where to start, what to ask about.”

“Not at all,” said Sally, looking over at Dan, “we came to hear from you, and we probably should be going now. We don’t want to overstay our welcome.”

“I see you’ve noticed I’m noddding,” Elizabeth said, grinning, “I get rather tired these days and as lovely as this has been, I’d rather your last recollection of me wasn’t an old lady fast asleep snoring in her parlour.”

“Thank you so much for seeing us,” said Dan, “it’s been wonderful.”

As they got to their feet and reached for their coats on the antler pegs by the door there was a knock and then Sammy’s voice, loud, excited and clear. “Mummy! Daddy! I did it all on my own! I fell and only cried a bit and then did it again!”

“Your boy?”, Elizabeth asked, “well by all means let him in. Tired as I’m getting, it’d do me good to see a human child – I haven’t seen one in.., well.”

“Do you have children?”, asked Sally over her shoulder as she opened the door.

“I did” said Elizabeth, softly. “Just one. He didn’t live.”

“You found her!” Sammy called as he burst into the cottage, shedding ice and snow on the flagstones. Then he stopped, puzzled for the same reasons his parents had been when they’d first seen Elizabeth. “Did you? Excuse me, old lady, are you the lady?”

“I am, darling,” Elizabeth replied, “and you must be Sammy.”

“That’s me,” said Sammy saluting and clicking his heels together as he stood to attention.

“Have you had a nice time on the river?”

“Yeah!” Sammy said, twirling and leaping, “I did the best spins and jumps! Everyone said I did!”

They all sat down again, and by the time it was really time to go Sammy was snuggled up against Elizabeth, asking when he could next visit and if he might stay the night when he did.

“Did you give her the present?” He asked.

“Good remembering, Sammy,” said Dan, “no we didn’t – do you want to give it to her?”

Sammy nodded and fetched the brown parcel with the red ribbon and handed it carefully to Elizabeth, who sent Gytha to the kitchen to get a knife.

Elizabeth opened it carefully and peered at what was inside for a long time.

“How wonderful,” she said. “A Christmas pudding. Sammy, when I was about your age, I loved pudding, but my daddy wasn’t like yours – he was cruel and said eating puddings even at Christmas spoiled children, so he’d never let me have any. But one year one of our maids – this is when we were rich – she brought me one her mummy had made for me at home, and she guarded the door of my room while I ate it. It was the best present I ever had. Thank you – I’d forgotten there were times before I came here when I was happy, and it feels good to be reminded there was sweet in the bitter, even then. A few more moments like that and I think Christmas would be a thing I missed. We don’t have it here. Thank you and merry Christmas – it does feel good to say that.”

…

The setting sun shadowed the snow red as Dan, Sally and Sammy crossed the river, and when they reached their own world, it was getting dark.

By the time they reached Willerby, the sky was black and heavy with the promise of more snow.

They trudged past Jack’s frozen pool, past the brightly lit Green Man pub and past the looming silhouette of the church with its bright Christmas star shining at the top of its tower. The first flakes began to fall at almost the exact moment they reached home.

Sammy was almost asleep and made only the most token protest as Dan and Sally changed him into his pyjamas and laid him down gently in his cabin bed amongst his menagerie of soft animals.

“Do you think she’s had a happy life?” Dan asked Sally later just before they turned out their own light.

Sally thought.

“Perhaps that’s not the right question,” she said. “It sounds like she made her own life – and that it was a good one – a life that mattered. Is there more?”

“No, I suppose not when you put it that way,” said Dan, yawning.

Then after another silence, “Christmas is a week away, you know,” he said.

“Oh, wow,” said Sally, “so much to do before we get there – so much on the list, so little time.”

“But we will,” Dan said, “we always do, don’t we?”

“Yes,” said Sally, “we’ll do it all. It’s going to be wonderful. Night, Dan.”

“Night, Sal – sleep well.”

…

They all slept well and woke to a day of more snow, of sledging and hot chocolate, dark ales and mulled wine.

Not all the jobs on the list got done and some other jobs did.

It didn’t matter.

They had a wonderful Christmas anyway, because it wasn’t exactly what they planned.

…

“I never love England more than when covered in snow.”

Laura Marling