30 November 2020. It was a cold, misty damp night as 40 year old Ebony Misere pulled down the grubby shutter over the door of her struggling bookshop in Huddle Lane; a street of small independent shops that she remembered had once been a lively thriving community.
She had spent most of the day behind closed doors, bringing her accounts up to date and working out how, or if, she could make a profit when she re-opened. Tonight, the row of shops was quiet; most of them closed by Lockdown 2. Arriving home, she decided on an early night.
She awoke suddenly at 11:00, to find a ghostly shape hovering at the foot of her bed. ‘Who are you?‘ she screamed. ‘They won’t see me’ said the figure ‘Do you not recognise me?’ Ebony peered at the apparition. ‘Uncle Joseph?’ she said, not quite believing what she saw, ‘but you’re dead!’. ‘Dead and doomed to walk this earth in these chains as a punishment for my lack of compassion and humanity’ he said, giving the
chains a rattle just to make his point.
Ebony only vaguely remembered Uncle Joseph, he had been her grandfather’s business partner in the little bookshop she now owned – Maley & Misere – his name still on the faded shop front. She remembered him as a grumpy old man who was only interested in making money and didn’t care for anyone else. Joseph Maley rattled his chains and brought her back to the present. ‘Tonight, at midnight, you will be visited by three spirits’ he said. ’Take heed of their message, for they will show you the error of your ways and save you from becoming as I have’. Then he was gone. ‘What a cheek!’ thought Ebony ‘I’m not like Uncle Joseph at all, he was a miserable, miserly old man who never cared or helped anyone’.
She scarcely had to time to consider what she had seen, before a second spirit appeared. ‘I am the spirit of Christmas Present’ it said ‘come with me for I have much to show you’. Ebony found herself back in front of her own little bookshop. It was Christmas Eve and the shops were just closing up for the holiday. She looked at the rest of the street. ‘To Let’ signs hung over the closed doors of shops not able to trade for so long this year and other shops were obviously struggling to keep going. There were no merry Christmas parties in the local pubs and restaurants, no crowds of shoppers, only a few decorated shop windows brought some light to the street. ‘It would be lovely to have some of that Christmas spirit’ thought Ebony.
The spirit faded and a dark cloaked figure appeared from
the mist. It pointed a bony finger and Ebony saw the years
flying by. Suddenly she was back in front of the bookshop on
a dark, wet Christmas Eve afternoon. The paint was peeling,
the yellowing books sat covered in dust in the window and a
battered for sale sign hung above the door. Looking down the
rest of the street, she saw only empty boarded up shops, no
happy smiling faces and no excited children.
Ebony looked pleadingly at the spirit. ‘Am I too late’ she asked
‘Can I do something to change things? I can re-open the shop
in two days, please please tell me that I can change Christmas
this year’. ‘These things are yet to come’ said the spirit. ‘If you
truly want to change then you have a chance to do so’. Ebony
hardly slept. So many ideas were going through her head, and
by 7 o’clock the next morning, she was in the shop.
Realising the amount of work that had to be done, Ebony
called her two part time employees back off furlough.
Somewhat reluctantly, they agreed but when they got to the
bookshop, they couldn’t believe what they saw. Everywhere
had been cleaned, there were piles of books just waiting to
go back onto the shelves, there was a space in the middle
of the shop for some seating arriving tomorrow and the
bookshop window was starting to look a lot like Christmas.
Ebony was so full of life, they hardly recognised her. ‘We can’t
get everything done before we re-open’ she said, ‘and I have
a shopping list for when we do from the local shops, but let’s
do what we can’.
The end of lockdown dawned, and Ebony was at the bookshop
very early. By 8 o’clock the shutters were up and the new look
shop was ready to greet customers. A tray of freshly made
mince pies arrived from the nearby bakery ‘just to celebrate
re-opening’ and as soon as her fellow traders opened Ebony
was out shopping. Christmassy flowers from the florist to go
into the window display, candles and decorations from the
gift shop, cards to wish their customers a ‘Merry Christmas’
and a special deal for if they spent over £15 and came back in
January. Each one had a little card to let her customers know
where they had been bought. Inside the shop, the books were
properly arranged on the shelves, cookery books stood open
at recipes for mince pies and yule logs, craft books at ideas for
cards and crackers and newly published novels languished in
a ‘relax after Christmas’ section. Next to the newly acquired
seating was a children’s book section, with stories of Santa
and reindeer and snowmen just waiting to be picked up.
As she went to close up shop on Christmas Eve, she thought
about the whirlwind three weeks. The street had taken on
a new life. The shopkeepers had all rallied round to give the
street a Christmas ‘makeover’. The shops had been busy
following their new collaboration and the shoppers had
turned out to support all the friendly, brightly decorated
independent shops. And there were so many plans going
forward as the whole street worked together. ‘What’s that
song that Grampy used to sing?’ thought Ebony. ‘Ah yes,
you’ve got to keep the customer satisfied.’
www.csaccounting.co.uk
…continued from previous
On the stroke of midnight, the first spirit arrived. ‘I am the
spirit of Christmas Past, come with me’ said the figure.
Ebony was soon standing in front of the bookshop as it had
been over thirty years ago. Her grandfather was in the shop,
surrounded by happy chatty customers and even some of the
other shopkeepers popping in with plans for Christmas in ‘the
street’. ‘That gives me an idea’ thought Ebony.
When she got home, Ebony went straight to her bookcase
and pulled down an old leatherbound book from the top
shelf. The inscription read ‘ To my beautiful Ebony. With Love
Grampy’. She turned the page and read the first line ‘Marley
was dead, to begin with’. ‘I reckon he knew a thing or two did
Mr Dickens’, thought Ebony.
