Page 2

The snow had begun to fall again, thin and drifting, from a sky the colour of slate. Sean turned up the collar of his coat and pulled the boy’s conical woollen cap down over his ears. He saw another street-corner Santa ahead and cursed silently. If he had seen the man in time he would have taken the boy by a side street. But then in the side street you’d probably find another Santa there too, especially now, three days before Christmas. 

Besides, how long could you feed a phobia? At some stage the boy had to learn to face his fears. Yes, but, he cautioned himself, not all at once. Go slow.

He could feel David tense up all the way through the boy’s hand and his glove. This time it was worse because this Santa was on this side of the street. For a moment he considered taking the boy across and re-crossing, but that would have been really too ridiculous. Besides, the entrance of the store was only just beyond the Santa, so if they went across the street they would just have to come right back again.

"Ho ho ho," said the Santa, and tolled his ridiculous bell. He beamed at them, a fat red man in a white beard. This was bad enough. But he was fatter than the last Santa, and redder, and more jovial, and that made things much worse, because the boy was more frightened by fat red Santas than by thinner and paler and more morose ones.

"Dad -"

"It’s all right, Davey." He dropped a note at random into the Santa’s little plastic chimney and smiled. "Sorry," he said, almost pulled off balance by the boy’s frantic tugging. "He gets a little nervous –"

The Santa smiled widely. His teeth were discoloured. He shook his head a little side to side and was still tolling his bell when they entered the store.

It was easy enough to see the Santa in the store, with his line of children, and easy to avoid that section though a smiling store assistant tried to usher them that way. "We’ll be all right," he said, and took David up the escalator to the real shopping section.

Later, he phoned his oldest remaining friend from the days before the army. The friend was a psychiatrist, bald and portly and suffering from high blood pressure and incipient diabetes, but he was still a friend.

"So," said the friend, across the hundred-odd kilometres of snowing darkness between them, "and you haven’t noticed this before?"

"How could I? I’ve only had him since January. You see many Santas around in January?"

"Her mother didn’t mention it?"

"Her mother didn’t mention anything to me. Her mother didn’t talk to me if she could avoid it."

"Ah. And he’s scared of Santa, and what else? Only Santa?’

"Hell. Santa and darkness and being alone and I expect every day to find something new he’s scared of. " He looked out of the window at the darkness. Snow floated down in the light, glinting momentarily. "I don’t know what he’s scared of."

"When did you first notice he was scared of Santa?"

"Early this month." They had gone out to the store and he had seen the Santa there, and there was as yet no line of kids standing in front of the Santa, so he had taken the boy along and walked over, thinking to give him a little treat. But the shivering had started right then, shivering so intense he had felt it all the way in his own shoulder. He had turned and seen the boy’s face, white and sweating. "Dad...no."

"Davey? What’s wrong?" He had crouched down and looked the boy in the eyes, with alarm and puzzlement. It had seemed to him that his son was about to faint. "Davey?"

"I can’t...not him. Not Santa...Closs."

"He said Closs?" asked the psychiatrist. "Not Claus, Closs?"

"How does it matter? Closs, Clause, whatever. His teeth were chattering all over the place." Sean had fought down his irritation long enough to take the boy away from the Santa, who had been staring at them with some puzzlement. Later he had asked the boy what had bothered him, but he had only shaken his head and refused to speak.

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