The Night Before The Christmas Before I Was Married

It's difficult to explain, I suppose, how I ended up here in the middle of a crowded shopping centre covered in blood and punching Santa Claus repeatedly in the face with security guards running towards me. Quite surprisingly, it's a much shorter story than you would imagine.

Home for the holidays. You meet people. People you know, people you once knew, people you have tried hard to no longer know.

I was on High Street cutting through the crowds like a drunken elf through a bottle of brandy when it stared;

Prod. Prod. Prod.

I kept weaving and walking through the masses, trying to work out what it was I was supposed to be buying for Aunty Betty but it kept at me.

Prod. Prod. Proooooooooooood.

I stopped in front of a window displaying a cacophony of confectionary and absently brushed at my shoulder. The prodding stopped and was almost instantly replaced by a tongue in my ear.

"I can't believe you did that in front of all those people," I said, dumping two steaming cinnamon latte's on the table of the coffee house we found ourselves in a few minutes later.

Christine laughed in that way I remembered and we started talking about when we used to be together. She wasn't anything like I remembered her being, not the girl I had built up in my mind. Not the girl I had made the decision to dump because... I couldn't remember exactly. She linked arms with me when we finally left the coffee house and it felt good. Natural. Christmassy.

I smiled and it started to snow. Really snow, flurries of the stuff billowing like bastard duvets from the sky. We took shelter in a doorway and Christine leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, her perfume was intoxicating and I should never have let her but it's always retrospect that gives you clarity isn't it?

So that's us - freezing, huddled in a doorway, snow trying it damnedest to bury us where we stood, my lips brush her forehead, my hands so cold that my thumb-ring drops to the ground. I stooped to pick it up and then the next thing I know I'm relating the story to my brother.

"Only you could manage to get engaged to Crazy Christine?" he howls with derisive laughter.

"I don't think I said anything," I said, and scratched at my earlobe. "She did all the talking."

"It takes a special talent to pull off something as mindblowingly stupid as this having only been in the city for," he looked at his watch. "Five hours is it?"

"Four and a half," I said, reaching for the mulled wine. I had a feeling I was going to need it.

In all honesty it's unlikely that the mulled wine fuelled our actions. It's more likely it was the Stella Artois or perhaps the Cabernet Sauvignon. Either way the alcohol hit me nearly as hard as I knew my actual fiancée would hit me when she arrived the next day and found out I had handed the ring she bought me for my birthday to an ex-girlfriend.

I had a feeling it was going to get awkward.

And I was right.

The doorbell rang and it was Christine. My brother shoved me forward to deal with the situation and, fuelled by alcohol and a resulting lack of self-consciousness I knew I could deal with the situation.

"I don't love you," I blurted. "I didn't even propose you crazy bitch, why would I?"

Never, ever call a woman a crazy bitch when she really is a crazy bitch.

And never, ever, ever call a crazy bitch a crazy bitch when you are standing with your legs slightly parted and partially arseholed. She raised her knee with a practiced precision rendering me speechless and gasping for air on the carpet.

"Don't think you can get away with this," she leant down, hissing the words close into my ear so specks of her saliva caught in the tiny hair inside. "When Daddy hears about this..."

"Gnnnnng?" I tried to say.

"Do you know what a shotgun wedding is?" She grabbed the ring she had taken from me and shoved it into my panting mouth. I rolled over so that my back was towards her and lay, inhaling carpet fibres and breathing heavily whilst she made her exit, slamming the door behind her.

After a brief but necessary recovery my drunken brother and I resolved that decisive action was required so, with less than twenty four hours until my fiancée arrived I went to head Christine off at the pass. We called a taxi and cracked open another can of lager for the road.

"So, you see, I can't marry your daughter," I explained as calmly as I could to her father. "It was just a bit of a misunderstanding."

He looked at me for a moment, digesting the information and inhaling the alcohol fumes pouring from me. He pulled his big white fake beard down a little and spoke.

"Seems pretty straightforward to me," he said, the red hat with its white trim slipping backwards on his head. "You proposed to her. You marry her. It's that simple."

"What? Are you bloody insane?"

He stood up and leaned in close to me, the stuffing inside his coat pushing against my stomach.

"No swearing in front of the kids," he whispered in a way that was distinctly un-jolly. "Or I'll be forced to teach you a lesson."

There wasn't much else to say. There was no reasoning with stupidity on this scale. I took my mobile out of my jeans' pocket and dialled my fiancée's number. I have found over the course of our relationship that honesty is the best policy. I put my hand theatrically over the mouthpiece and leaned towards Christine's father.

"Just going to give me actual fiancée a call," I said conspiratorially then removed the hand as she answered. "Hi darling... delayed? Oh shame, I was looking forward to seeing you... yes... not too bad... yes... no... mmm, I got Aunt Betsy that toffee you mentioned... ah, just one thing... there's a girl here thinks I'm engaged to her... yes I am pretty drunk... no I wasn't when it happened... yeah, it'll all be sorted when you get here, I'm with the crazy bitch's father now..."

Santa hit me hard with the open palm of his hand, smashing the phone into my ear and knocking me to the ground. The children stared, some gawping, all of them swimming around in my blurred vision.

"You mad bastard," I touched my ear and found pieces of the plastic casing of my mobile phone sticking out of it, blood starting to run from the Santa-inflicted wounds.

He came at me fast, his knee going to my chest, his arm pulling back ready to punch.

"I told you," he said, glancing up at the collection of infants. "No swearing in front of the kids."

But the old man was too slow. Adrenaline kicked in and I caught his punch, deflecting it past my good ear before rolling over and tipping him onto his back and hitting.

And hitting and hitting and hitting.

And hitting.

You've probably got a picture in your mind now of me. This prize fighter beating an old man to death like some psychotic. But you'd be wrong. The problem is that I hit like a girl.

I would maintain that I don't run like a girl or throw like a girl, but hitting - something I had never really done before - I discovered quickly was done in the manner of a six year old girl in a pink dress and pigtails.

Soon the kids became bored. Some of them walked off.

"Mummy," one said without taking his gaze from us. "Do you think that man didn't get what he asked for? I liked the Santa from the other shopping centre better."

"No darling I don't think he did," she replied. "But look - I think those security guards are going to help Santa out. Shall we go and get some ice cream?"

I looked up through the dissipating crowd and the finally saw the security guards and bolted - through the food court, hurled myself through Marks and Spencers out the doors and into the waiting taxi.

"Sorted?" asked my brother.

"Sorted." I said, my chest heaving.

He handed me a fresh can of lager.

"Merry Christmas you arsehole."