A Very Unexpected Christmas Dilemma.

A Very Unexpected Christmas Dilemma.

By Christopher Harris.

It was the sort of Christmas Eve scene that belongs on a cosy Christmas card. The roaring fire, the ancient stone walls hung with quirky vintage artefacts, the warm laughter and seasonal goodwill from familiar customers, anticipating tomorrow's day of joviality. The Red Lion in Denham, East Sussex, looked and felt like the beating heart of a perfect English village. But behind the bar, Martin, the bearded landlord, was anything but jovial.

It had been the worst trading year he could remember. Pubs were shutting down all over the country, a heady mix of rising costs, taxes and changing lifestyles. Martin had hoped that the Christmas season might bring some financial cheer, but the gloom remained as the punters continued to remain at home. Red reminder letters sat on his desk in his cold office, another radiator not working, stubbornly unopened but remorselessly etched in his mind. After all, he knew instinctively what the damage would be, without needing to see it in print.

All the locals could see how close The Red Lion was to the edge. The heating was not switched on until just before opening, and it took an age to warm up; the logs on the fire were in shorter supply than last winter. Popular drinks regularly ran out because Martin dared not order stock he might not sell. His excuse about the brewery messing up the delivery was beginning to lose credibility. Crisps had dwindled to the least popular flavours. A noticeable gap had appeared on the bar shelves where the savoury jars used to sit. The whole scene was depressing, the villagers' beloved pub and much-loved landlord on its knees.

He only had a skeleton staff now, and ended up doing most of the work himself, pulling pints, clearing tables, running food, and apologising constantly. But it kept his mind occupied, and the day went faster. The chef had left months earlier, leaving Martin and the underqualified assistant to muddle through the dwindling menu options. Everything was a false economy, and he knew it. The cost cutting that kept the pub afloat was only chipping away at his remaining trade, driving customers away. But he was helpless with options seemingly non-existent.

Still, Christmas Eve had brought a slight relief to the decline. The villagers had spent well, laughed loudly, and, for a moment, it was like old times. They spilled out into the snowy streets in a cheerful, slightly chaotic stream. Someone was already persuading someone else to host after party drinks. Martin pleaded for them to get home quietly and safely, but the shouting and drunkenness would fill the air for a while yet. Finally, after the last goodnight and the last echo of singing faded, he wrestled once again with the heavy bolt on the front door.

On his way back through the bar, he noticed an envelope on a bench.

He picked it up absentmindedly, placed it behind the bar and carried on cleaning. As he wiped down the counter something began to niggle at him. The envelope was thick, almost like a pair of heavy gloves. Whoever left it would surely come back as soon as they realised. It was nearly 2 am when he’d cleared, and nobody had returned.

Then the pub had fallen into its quiet nighttime stillness, a time Martin increasingly dreaded, with nothing to occupy his mind but thoughts of doom. Tossing and turning, his mind returned, as it always did, to the bills, how he could cut costs further, maybe jacking the whole thing in.

A new cog had entered his thought cycle of doom, the envelope.

It eventually got the better of him as he crept downstairs in the cold, retrieving it from behind the bar. He turned it over in his hands, hesitated, then guiltily opened it.

Inside was five thousand pounds in twenty pound notes.

He stared, dumbfounded. Five thousand pounds. More money than he had seen in one place since the good old days. An early Christmas present, he muttered, half joking to himself. He locked it in the office safe and stood there in the dark. Normally, he would take it to the police the next day, but these were not regular times. He was skint.

The next morning, Christmas Day, he opened for the lunchtime trade. The pub would traditionally close for the evening. Martin planned to demolish that bottle of scotch sitting on the mantelpiece in his office. A proper night's sleep surely after that! He kept waiting for someone to appear and say, ‘I think I left something behind last night.’ No one did. By the end of the service, no one had mentioned losing anything. But there had been an odd atmosphere.

The build up to New Year’s Eve was torturous. Martin grew increasingly aware of the looks from regulars. They could not possibly know about the envelope, but his paranoia said otherwise. His nerves were on edge, and the cracks were beginning to show. A regular complained about how cold the pub was. Another complained the top brand lager was not available, adding it never was these days. Then someone at the bar joked that The Red Lion was on its last legs, a sort of underhanded, surreptitious criticism.

Martin laughed along, but inside, it felt like a punch in the gut.

Meanwhile, the envelope sat innocently in the safe. Five thousand pounds would pay off the bills and would see him through the traditional January lull. Thinking time, maybe source an investor. But the thought of keeping it simply set off the rage of guilt that was now beating about his conscience.

His mind was a whirl of far fetched possibilities and scenarios. Who loses five thousand pounds and does not come looking for it? Who walks away from that amount without noticing? It was the mystery as well as the conundrum that gnawed away at him.

As the days dragged toward New Year’s Eve, Martin’s internal arguments grew frantic. Perhaps it was dodgy money. Perhaps someone could not risk claiming it. Maybe fate had handed him a lifeline or karma was finally paying him back for all the unpaid pints, the late night counselling to sentimental and broken drunks, the bad behaviour from staff and customers he had always been far too lenient with.

His beloved daughter Lottie, away with the grandchildren, would know what to do. He’d wait until the 30th, when she returned, and seek advice. But he couldn’t possibly get her involved in something potentially murky. Having them around would at least break up the loneliness, a distraction.

He had always slept well after long shifts, but now his sleep was becoming as broken as his spirit. He would swing one way, convinced he ought to keep the money, then fall asleep again and wake confident he should do the opposite. His conscience would not leave him alone. That weird sound of hollow snow, the silence outside seemed to pervade his thoughts and accentuate his misery.

By the twenty-ninth, he forced himself to tackle the red reminders, hoping this might jolt some firmness into his deliberations. He spread out every bill, every warning. A letter from the brewery said that if he did not settle his account, they might suspend supply. He’d used the brewery for decades; he knew the staff—the humiliation.

He could walk into their yard now, with some of the cash, and settle the bill. But then the guilt returned just as fiercely. He knew if he kept it, even if nobody ever found out, he would know. How could he live with that?

What would his father have said? What would his mother have said? They had raised him to be many things, but not dishonest. But was it dishonest?

By the 30th, he had given up waiting for a sign: only the snow, the dread. Oh, the relief when Lottie returned, he nearly cried. She could see the brokenness in her father; she instinctively gave him a huge hug.

‘What is up, Dad?’ Lottie said almost casually to try and break the uncomfortable silence, adding as she put the kettle on, ‘Wasn’t it amazing of the villagers to club together that money for you?’

Martin froze. ‘What money?’

‘That five thousand quid. The collection.’

He stared at her. ‘What five thousand quid?’

‘Didn’t you get the envelope, Dad?’ she said, turning to look at him properly. ‘They all chipped in. Everyone knows the pub is struggling, but it is the heart of the village, and everyone is desperate for it to remain open. They wanted to help you. They signed a card and everything. Everybody’s been so generous.’

Martin blinked. ‘There was no card.’

Lottie frowned. ‘Oh, you are joking, so you thought someone had left it.’ She knew in that second the integrity of her father, his financial woes, his isolation, and therefore what a torturous few days he would have had. ‘I could swing for that Paul Norris, it’s not like he had anything else to do all Christmas.’

Martin suddenly saw the dirty looks from the regulars since Christmas Eve in a whole new light. Not suspicion or judgement. Simply waiting for him to acknowledge the gift and not be so ungrateful, it must have been a considerable effort to raise that sort of money.

Lottie laughed softly. ‘Dad. They were waiting for you to say thank you.’

His face flushed with warmth and embarrassment. ‘I thought it had been lost. I thought someone had left it. I’ve thought of nothing else.’

The knot inside him unravelled. The money would not solve everything, but the kindness and devotion of his regulars filled him with the most tremendous sense of pride and hope he had ever felt. He would redouble his efforts now that he thought the community had his back. A problem shared is a problem halved.

New Year’s Eve, the Cash and Carry was open, so he drove his van there and filled it with the snacks he had been avoiding buying for months. He ordered the large barrels of the popular beers he had been too afraid to commit to, and on the way back, picked up extra logs. A spring in his step, his family at home, and an evening with, what now felt like his new extended family, his generous and loyal customers.

Back at The Red Lion, the twenty four hour heating made the fabric of the building creak as it drove the cold and damp out. Lottie helped him in the kitchen. Together, they made generous trays of sandwiches and sausage rolls. The kitchen itself stayed closed for the night.

Martin wiped the large menu board clean, stood back, and wrote Thank You For Your Support, Denham.

He looked at the words for a long moment. Outside, the snow still fell. Inside, for the first time in months, The Red Lion felt alive again. The pub was still in trouble, but he was no longer facing it alone.

And that, he realised, made all the difference.