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PREFACE
I have endeavoured in this Ghoastly little fic, to rephrase the Ghost of an idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themself, with the mods, with Yuletide, or with me. May it haunt their AO3 account pleasantly, and no one wish to delete it.
Their faithful Fangirl and Servant,
Y. G. (for Yule Goat! No spoilers here.)
December 2011
*
The ficus was dead: to begin with. It had been left too long alone in this dingy basement flat without Sue murmuring salacious suggestions into its spiky leaves. Or watering it, for that matter. With nothing but a spider plant for companionship, Sue would probably have given up the ghost herself.
“Alas poor ficus, I knew you not particularly well,” she lamented, before dumping it unceremoniously into a plastic bag and leaving it out on the front step, to be binned in the morning. It was only a houseplant – nothing to get upset about, really. If anything, she should be feeling relieved that she hadn’t gone for those goldfish after all. And yet, curling up under a blanket on the couch to watch Eastenders, she couldn’t quite shake a vague feeling of unease. She had been that plant’s only friend. And now it was indisputably, irrefutably dead. A life wasted brightening up a kitchen in which human beings rarely set foot. The tragedy of it all was so great, she dozed off before anyone had even been punched in the Vic.
*
She woke with a start forty minutes later, telly still burbling quietly in the background. From where she lay, she could hear a rustling of plastic at the front door, an indistinct shuffling and scrabbling. Surely no animal would disturb the ficus in its last great sleep? Was this the fate she had left it to? No wonder it was angry with her. A sense of dread seized her as the noises grow louder. She sat slowly, drawing her knees to her chest underneath the blanket. Suddenly, with a loud clatter and bang, the front door was thrown open. The wind howled outside, in implausible contrast to the unseasonably settled weather of late. But she didn’t believe – it wasn’t – it couldn’t possibly be –
Giles strode through the door to the living room.
“Bit parky out there tonight, isn’t it?” He blew into his cupped palms and rubbed them together, before concern creased his face. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Haven't, as it happens,” Sue said, closing her eyes briefly and letting her head fall back against the couch. She knew she shouldn’t have had that cheese after dinner. More of gorgonzola than of ghoul about this, frankly. Such was her relief not to be looking at the spectral reincarnation of a dead houseplant that it took her some seconds to register irritation at the presence of Coren in her ill-frequented London abode. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“I’m here to complain about you agreeing to this…hogwash,” he said with a vague wave of his hand. He had an expression that Sue liked to think of as his comedy cross face (he was genuinely cross: that made her laugh.)
“Is it really not possible for you to adhere to the terms of the restraining order, Giles? I don’t want to have to bother the police again.”
"The Supersizers Do Christmas, for crying out loud," he said, dropping onto the end of the couch. "Ludicrous."
"Couldn’t you at least have knocked? I understand the general etiquette is that you wait to be invited in, even if you do know where the spare key is hidden."
“Seriously, there is nothing more naff than an ill-thought-through Christmas special. Also, I’m not a vampire, Perkins. If I have to stand on ceremony with even my oldest and dearest friends, then what has this once glorious empire become? That's what I want to know."
"Address that question to one of your oldest and dearest friends, in that case, and get your filthy feet off my beautiful coffee table before I have your legs off at the knee."
"Are you honestly prepared to perpetrate the irreparable damage to your reputation as a serious broadcaster that is the necessary corollary of the Half-Jewish Half-Atheist Supersizers Do a Frankly Embarrassing Christmas Special?”
"I'm not a serious broadcaster, I’m agnostic and I love Christmas specials. Your argument, as ever, crumbles at the foundations,” she said, standing to physically remove Giles’s feet from the table. “Really though, why are you here?”
“I’m cold, I’m bored and my house is full of children. If you don’t give me a glass of wine and five minutes of vaguely suggestive conversation urgently, I’m going to die.”
“You get a glass of wine and I get five minutes of silence first, otherwise I will have to kill you.”
“A compromise,” he sighed, disgusted. “Is it nice wine?”
“Tesco two-for-a-tenner.”
“Oh, what the hell. Deal.”
*
Sue woke with a start for the second time that evening. Relieved by the absence of ethereal scrabbling at the door, it took her a moment to discern what had disturbed the sleep of the just, or at least the sleep of the stuffed with cheese (in her case) and the moderately sozzled (in Giles’s, sprawled across her couch, dribbling into a cushion.)
The television was playing the national anthem.
Curious, she thought, one hand trying to ease out the crick in her neck. Did they really still play God Save The Queen at the end of daily programming on the BBC? Was there even an end to daily programming? Or a Queen? Or a God? Just at the point of another tumble into existential crisis, the anthem came to an end, and a gentleman dressed in dinner jacket, bow tie and profoundly unironic moustache appeared on the screen.
“Good evening,” he intoned, RP English perfect to the point of parody. “This is the past.”
“Oh dear,” Sue sighed, a sense of something horribly familiar prickling at the edges of her consciousness.
“…get up in a minute,” Giles muttered, turning his face into the cushion.
“Giles. Wake up.”
“The British Broadcasting Corporation is delighted to present to you Mister Giles Coren and Miss Susan Perkins in a special Christmas edition of their occasional documentary series, Cuisine Through the Ages. “
“Giles,” she barked, and he sat bolt upright, blanket tangled about his legs.
“…up for hours. Come on. What?”
“You’re drunk. And on you’re on TV.”
“God, not again,” he said, rubbing his eyes. On the screen, a version of Sue, dressed in twin set and pearls, hair immaculately set, was smiling benignly. "What on earth are you wearing?"
"It's pink, isn't it? The cardigan. Dear lord."
"I don't remember recording this. How much did I have to drink?"
"Two-for-a-tenner," Sue said absently, as a Giles scrubbed within an inch of his life materialised, dressed in a blazer and a festive tie.
"Welcome along," the Giles said, accent an exact, clipped-vowelled mimic of the BBC announcer. "We do hope you will be able to share with us in a little Christmas spirit," he continued, raising a glass of sherry towards the screen as Stepford Sue tittered appreciatively in the background.
"What on earth am I doing? Get a grip, Susan," she told the screen sternly.
"You realise she can't actually hear you. They're not hidden inside that box," Giles said.
"We can hear you perfectly well, thank you very much," Stepford Sue advised sniffily. "Now do be quiet and pay attention to our fascinating documentary programme. Mister Coren has a great deal of interesting information to impart, specifically for your benefit."
Three full minutes passed. Sue stared at the screen in baffled silence as clone Giles, standing in front of a blackboard, explained the history and composition of suet pudding, the entire lecture addressed into one static camera. Her 50s doppelganger simpered sycophantically in the background, handing him occasional visual aids. The whole thing was considerably more terrifying than any zombie ficus and Sue could feel a sense of panic rising around her.Perkins and Coren's Cuisine Through The Ages. What possible use could there be in her seeing this? In anyone seeing this?
Just as she reached the very end of her tether, Giles leaned forward, lifted the remote control from the coffee table and switched the television off. "Codswallop," he muttered, lying back down on the couch. He was snoring steadily in an instant. Sue stared at him, and then back at the TV, the red stand-by light glaring at her in a fury of expanding carbon footprintage.
Oh, she thought, I see. With a yawn, she curled back up to sleep.
*
It seemed to be Christmas morning in Sue's flat. Presents were piled high under a tastefully decorated tree and the room reeked of cinnamon and spice. Odd. Sue hadn't spent Christmas here since 1997.
"Why are you celebrating Christmas in the middle of October?" Giles asked.
"I'm not sure, but I'm just so relieved I've not been forced to wake with a start again that I don't want to ask too many questions."
"Opting for suspension of disbelief, are you? You'll regret that at the end of the fic when it turns out this was all a dream."
Sue was sure the horror she was feeling was written all over her face. "She wouldn't. Would she?"
"Maybe she would do it ironically."
"Oh god, don't even say it. Best not to dwell. Do you want a sherry?"
"Why not? It's Christmas after all, as my rabbi would say."
Everything seemed very real, including the delicate sherry glasses she had never owned, the bottle of amontillado probably stuffed with the hallucinogens that had given rise to this vision and the gifts she hadn't bought which Giles was currently engaged in shaking, sniffing and prodding.
"Oi, hands off. They're not for you, matey."
"This one is," Giles protested, holding up a slim, rectangular package. Sue took it out of his hands to examine the tag.
"To my darling Giles, with all my love, Sue," she read. "Some of the details in this sequence are a bit off, if you ask me."
"Oh, shut up," Giles advised, putting his empty sherry glass down on the carpet. "A present's a present. Give it here." Not being an unwrapper of the "save the paper for next year" genus, it took less than ten seconds for him to reveal another remote control. "You…shouldn’t have?"
"As you know, I didn't," Sue pointed out, receiving a pout from Giles in response. "Oh, get on with it," she said, and Giles pointed the remote at the TV.
On the screen, a series of scenes appeared one after the other, depicting friends, family and strangers, clustered round their own television sets, glued to The Supersizers Do Christmas. People laughed, they cried, they clutched each other and poured booze into their mouths as if participating in a supersizers-related drinking game (one finger for a Perkins double entendre, two fingers for Giles talking with his mouth full, down it for a drunken kiss.)
"My very own montage," Giles deadpanned, clasping his hands together in mock delight. "How did you know?"
"Seriously, are you watching this? You just said something fairly witty. They must have finally seen sense and employed writers."
"Hilarious. Look, if this is some It's-a-Wonderful-Life-type mechanism for persuading me to embrace the full horror of the televisual festive season, it's really not going to work."
"Do you honestly believe I would show you pictures of people looking happy if I was trying to convince you to do something? You must think I don't know you at all."
Images continued to spool out on the screen, commoners lined up along Pall Mall waving tiny union jack flags, world leaders shaking hands and smiling, citizens of all nations united in peace and plenty, Giles and Sue's faces beamed onto the side of the moon. If this montage was right, their work could really mean something. The Supersizers Do Christmas could be important. It could save lives. It could change the future.
Giles crossed his arms and tapped the remote thoughtfully against his chin. “I have to admit, it appears to be making more of an impact than any of the shows we’ve done so far, even the one about the Royal Wedding.”
Sue sipped her sherry. Could she really sense a change, a shift in Giles’s perception – in his personality, even?
"Fuck it. I'm still not doing it. Christmas specials are tosh, end of," Giles said, pointing the remote control at the screen again and pressing the button.
Perhaps not.
"Do we have to go back to sleep now?" Sue asked, putting her glass down with a sigh. "I was enjoying that sherry. I'm not sure I can really face another abrupt awakening."
“Stop complaining, woman. Only one person requested this fandom, you know. You’re lucky to be here at all.”
Fair point, Sue thought, settling back down in her armchair. Yuletide comes but once a year, after all.
*
Silence. Darkness, broken intermittently by the soft glow of a tiny light. Vague lingering traces of heat, as if it might have been warm here several hours ago. A tremulous voice sounded out from close beside her. "Sue?"
"Yes, you enormous buffoon, I'm right here." She reached out a hand until she found Giles's palm (slightly sweaty) and clasped it tightly. "This has to be the scary part."
"The scary part of what?"
"Of this embarrassingly overused story construct. To drag this out for Yuletide, of all things. What on earth can she have been thinking?"
"She was probably busy. Work commitments. Personal issues. The turnaround time was really quite short this year, you know."
"Come on, that’s no excuse. Five weeks is plenty of time to write a thousand words if you ask me. Anyway, are you ready to see your untimely demise?"
As she spoke, Sue was aware of distant sounds that she couldn’t quite make out, like neighbours moving around in the flat upstairs. Could she hear voices? Was that the smell of…coffee?
"Don't talk rot. I am sufficiently well-pickled to endure for some time yet."
"You’ve made a concerted effort, that I don’t dispute. But the narrative demands that a protagonist bear witness to his eternal resting place, thereby learning an Important Lesson. "
"Me dying as a result of my failure to participate in a light entertainment programme seems somewhat far-fetched, even for this story."
"Maybe you have a point. There has to be something else that can convert you, in that case. I mean, you’re clearly the Scrooge character."
"You wound me, Perkins. Nothing could be further from the truth. Beneath this crotchety exterior, the severe anger management issues, the history of unjustifiable vitriol on twitter leading me into difficulties with my employers and the courts and the accusations of anti-Polish xenophobia, I'm a fluffy teddy bear. Also, I'm extremely handsome, let's not forget."
All around them, light flickered on, illuminating Giles striking what he no doubt presumed to be an especially flattering pose.
"Yes, I see. Occult visits in the night showing visions of the past and the future really would be mere pebbles against the rock face of your vast and immoveable ego."
"Quite." A familiar chime sounded, very close to Sue’s ear. "So what is the point of all this, then?" Giles asked, looking around. There seemed to be plenty of space. Off in the distance, Sue could just about make out a dark-coloured rectangular frame.
“I think–“ Sue began, and then, “ah, yes,” as a distant whirring was followed by the unmistakeable tip-tap of fingers on a keyboard. She looked up. Above them, a face hove into view. “Hello,” Sue said. Beside her, Giles jumped.
“Good lord! I had no idea you were up there,” he said.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to freak you out,” came the response.
“This will be Christmas future, then?” Sue asked, the pieces finally slotting in place.
"Christmas present, by now," Cephalopod pointed out.
“Assuming you celebrate Christmas, of course,” Giles said, “which is a bit of a risky assumption, since you didn’t say anything about it in your letter.”
“Oh dear. Let’s say “Yuletide present” and leave it at that, shall we?” Sue asked. Giles shrugged. Above them, Cephalopod grinned (she wrote, hopefully.)
“So you’re the point of all this, then?” Giles asked. “Do you have an Important Lesson to teach us? Perkins here seems to believe that I, as the Grinch, require a revelation.”
“Actually, I’m not sure that’s how this is going to play out, Giles.”
“Oh, for goodness sake. If I’m not to become a new and improved Coren, what on earth are we all doing here?”
Sue looked up again. Cephalopod looked down into the screen. “Dance, my pretties. Dance!”
“Yes, I rather thought you were going to say that,“ Sue grinned. Looking back at Giles, she held out a hand. “Shall we?”
“Delighted,” Giles replied. He pulled Sue into his arms and off they waltzed, beyond the screensaver, over the fourth wall and on into Yuletide oblivion.
*
Sue and Giles had no further intercourse with dead houseplants, mystic televisions or the hanging of plot-related lamp shades, but lived upon the Narrative Coherence principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of them, that they knew how to keep Yuletide well, if any set of RPS characters possessed the knowledge. If only that could be said of us (or at least, your author) and all of us! Happy Yuletide, Cephalopod. And Happy Yuletide, every one.