XMAS SPIRIT

The featureless bleakness of the landscape discomfited him. The train rattled on, through greys, duns and dark browns. A shaft of pink sunlight relieved some of the gloom, but not his personal feeling of dismal hopelessness. Xmas again, and the endless round of enforced bonhomie. Take today, for instance. He was meeting half a dozen of his peers for Xmas lunch. He went through them all in his mind. Blanco, that oily, smug know-all with the boot-blacked hair. Milner, a treacherous cove whose halitosis would stop a bus. Dolcis, fat and flatulent. Booch, a grey man who should have been a funeral director. Index, a wall-eyed, pock-marked chap with a shock of orange hair that made him look as if he had just been electrocuted. Bose, a man of slack dentures and the face and manners of a horse. You had to be careful not to stand too close to Bose, if you didn’t want to catch a face full of spittle. To think he had to exchange pleasantries and wish the compliments of the season to this lot. Like most solipsists, he was quite unaware of what these dear colleagues thought of him. ‘Face like a jar of Branston pickle’ said Blanco. ‘Bad-tempered, surly cove,’ opined Milner. ‘Handsome, like a pumpkin,’ said Booch. ‘All the social graces of a dugong,’ remarked Dolcis. ‘Intelligent, but so was Hitler,’ observed Index. ‘All the dresh shensh of Max Wall,’ spluttered Bose.
He walked into the reception area. The receptionist greeted him. ‘Mr Blanco will be with you in a minute, if you’d care to wait.’ Behind the stud partition that divided the reception area from the main office came the sound of ribald laughter. Blanco, leading Milner, Dolcis and Bose, stepped into the reception. ‘My dear fellow,’ said Blanco. ‘How wonderful it is to see you. I can’t tell you how much we’re all looking forward to dining with you, especially Bose here.’ ‘The feeling’s mutual,’ the other said, ‘I was just thinking that on the train coming in.’