The title derives from a campaign in Britain some years ago to counter the practice of giving a puppy as a Christmas present and then the recipient getting rid of it soon after. The slogan was
'A dog is for life not just for Christmas'.
The title of this tale refers to a family, as in
'A family is for life not just for Christmas'.
I should point out that while the tale begins at Christmas and ends two years later at Christmas, most of the story has nothing to do with Christmas!
This story is in five parts, all of which are finished. They will be submitted on consecutive days. It is fiction. I should also say that the story is a slow burn, so patience might be needed. If you get bored there is no obligation to keep reading, I won't be upset! No sex in this part; there will be some later.
Grammar and spelling are British English.
Mince pies are small spicy dried fruit pies (they taste much better than they sound).
Biscuit = Cookie
Quid = Pound Sterling.
Hen = Scottish term of affection for a woman or a female child.
'Mam' is not a misprint, it's what Scots call their mothers. In England it's 'Mum'. In America it's Mom, so that's three vowels used up. I know of nowhere where people call mothers Mim or Mem, but I am willing to be corrected!
Oh, there is a joke about the upper echelons of Edinburgh society, that they think 'sex' are what coal comes in. On that basis perhaps "Mem" is what upper class Edinburgh children call their mothers. Though I doubt it somehow!
*****
Chapter One
It's no use dreaming of a white Christmas where Michael Stewart lives. The North West of England is mild and you're lucky to get snow at all during the winter, and certainly it's rare at the festive time. So this early Christmas Eve afternoon was grey, slightly damp and warm for the time of year.
Michael owned a small company, 'Stewart Research and Development', researching, providing specialist electronic devices of various kinds, dedicated computers really, the sort that go into washing machines, cars, mobile phones and all sorts of industrial machines. Michael Stewart was his name but everyone except his mother called him Mike.
He was leaving the office where he'd been checking on the progress of some long programmes they were going to leave running over the holiday period.
The rest of the staff had gone to the pub at lunchtime and he had told them he did not expect them back. It was no hardship to stay in the office when everyone else was enjoying the afternoon. He would be going back to an empty house as he had every night since his wife left him over six months earlier after four years together. Somehow to be alone on Christmas Eve seemed worse than other days.
His older sister Catherine was not returning from the USA until the next day, Christmas Day, on the overnight flight arriving early morning at six thirty. They would have Christmas Day and Boxing Day together though he suspected she would want to sleep off her jet-lag before they had Christmas dinner together.
Christmas Day is a day for family celebrations and he had everything ready for Catherine. He had made mince pies the day before and a cake a month earlier. Catherine liked his mince pies. The wine cellar was full to bursting and he had bought some very expensive port, a drink she loved, as well as a variety of soft drinks.
He had also stocked the freezer and the fridge so he would not need to shop until the New Year, when he would be journeying north to Troon on the West Coast of Lowland Scotland, for the Hogmanay celebrations.
The whole family, Mike's brother and his wife with their two teenage boys, and his younger sister and her partner would be there, joining his mother and father who always hosted the celebrations. Mike's parents were retired and his father had sold up his business to leave him, shall we say, well placed for the rest of his life. The house was large, large enough for the whole family and with room to spare.
Mike had bought a Christmas tree and decorated it the day before Christmas Eve. His family had never put up decorations until the eve of the feast, but this time he had suspected he would not have time any nearer the day.
He had visited Duncan House earlier in the day and given out Christmas presents to the folk there. Since his ex-wife's departure, he had been visiting The Home twice a week giving a hand with the more disabled residents and having a laugh with the more aware.
The place was a home for the severely disabled mentally or physically, where they helped each other, and though there were members of staff on the premises, the residents had as much a measure of independence as they could manage.
He always thought going there was more a privilege than a duty; it put his own comfortable though lonely life into some sort of perspective. Indeed he would have gone there on Christmas Day if Catherine had not been coming.
He had to visit the supermarket that lunchtime for some last minute supplies he had forgotten. He took the car so he could leave the stuff in it, and left it in the supermarket car park while he walked back and closed up shop, set the alarm and locked up the office car park.
Dusk was falling as he began the quarter mile walk back to the supermarket; it began to rain and the rain became heavier the further he progressed. He avoided the crowded main street, preferring to walk along the parallel back street which was deserted.
He was quickening his walk to get out of the rain he saw a young girl walking towards him. She was dressed in jeans and a white tee shirt which were soaked by the rain. The girl was clearly distressed and was crying, and as Mike got nearer he stopped in horror. Her cheek showed a livid bruise and her lip was swollen on one side.
She could only have been about fourteen years old.
She stopped in front of him.
"Please?" was all she said.
"Good God," he gasped, "what's happened to you? An accident? Where are your parents?"
"Please?" she repeated. "My Mum... Sister... Brother..." She turned away.
"Wait!' he said. "What's your name?"
The girl turned back to him. "Shania Sonter," came the reply. The girl stood waiting, sniffing and sobbing.
"Tell, me, Shania, What's happened and how can I help?"
The girl smiled a lop-sided smile with some hope dawning in her tired, wet eyes.
"It's my dad," she said. "He beat Mum up and I tried to stop him. We've run away."
She turned away and gestured to a spot about fifty yards behind her at the entrance to a yard behind one of the shops.
"Show me," he said, and she immediately took his hand and led him to a dark corner of a yard under a small wooden roofed area where the shop's waste bins were housed. There, huddled in a shivering group was a woman, a younger girl and a little boy.
The woman was sitting on a large suitcase and the girl on a smaller one. The boy was on his mother's knee, fast asleep.
As Mike came to a stop in front of the little tableau, he was struck by the silence of the group. The woman looked up and he couldn't help his angry intake of breath.
The woman's right eye was nearly closed and a nasty blue, black, yellow bruise was spreading round the socket. Her lip was swollen like her daughter's and had been bleeding, her nose also. She looked up into his eyes blankly, vacantly.
"He did it last night," Shania said matter-of-factly. "Came home drunk again. He was shouting at Mum and I heard the fight start, so I went downstairs. He was punching and kicking Mum, so I jumped on him, but elbowed me off and knocked me down. Then he hit me and I got a kicking as well.
"We got out when he fell asleep, before he woke up. Been walking ever since. We've nowhere to go." Her comments were delivered staccato with a hopeless shrug.
"You have now," he growled. "Wait here. Don't move."
The woman was suddenly animated.
"Please not the police! They didn't help last time. They'll take my children away!"
"Not the police," he snapped. "I live alone. I've plenty of room. You'll stay with me."
It was true. He'd had the house built when a very lucrative contract was signed off. Cheryl, his ex-wife had badgered him for it.
The woman shook her head. "I couldn't. I don't know you."
"Listen," he said with rather more patience, after all he was not angry with her.
"One, from what I can see, things can't be worse than they are now; two, I have a spare mobile phone so you can call for help if I'm an axe murderer; three, your man will never find you where I live so you'll be safe. You can stay as long as you need to get back on your feet."
"We've no money; we can't pay you. You'd be better leaving us alone."
"Do you want me to leave you alone?"
Silence.
"That's settled then. Wait here. I'll get the car."
To his surprise, they were still there when he drove back to them. He put their cases in the boot and watched as the oldest girl helped her mother put the two young ones in the car before getting in themselves. The children were in the back, and woman in the front.
They belted themselves into the seats, Shania doing it for the younger ones, and then he set off. The journey would take about thirty minutes along the busy roads.
