The Elf Service, Episode 11

In which Irving Jefferson delivers an unexpected Christmas present

All over the city children post letters to Santa Claus and they go undelivered and unanswered. Until Irving Jefferson founds the Elf Service, that is. The Elf Service is the story of charity, journalism and mayhem, the extraordinary story of an extraordinary young man, his extraordinary plan to make Christmas happen for the children of his city and all the extraordinary ways in which that plan goes extraordinarily wrong.

It says much about the human condition that we remember nothing so well as upset. No matter how much praise might be heaped on us, none of it will stick in our minds quite as immovably as a single criticism. Like the princess with the pea under her mattresses, we toss and turn through the empty night, staring at the unresponsive bedroom ceiling, rattling round and round in the empty hollow of our memory that one cutting remark. For years they haunt us. Decades. And caught on some new sharp corner of life even an old scar can still smart.

And most hurtful of all are the criticisms that we suspect to be true. Self knowledge is never anything we want to learn from other people. The thought that someone might have seen through to our actual inner self and assessed it all too accurately, or, worse still, seen some truth about us that we had not yet realised for ourselves… How injuring. How infuriating.

All of which might explain why, the morning after the charity auction, where Maddie Sharp had implied that he was too much enjoying all the coverage of himself and the Elf Service, Irving Jefferson chose to focus his speech to his staff on the subject of publicity.

“Publicity is to us,” he said, raising an admonitory finger, “Is to us what funding is to most other organisations.”

He was pacing back and forth on a low stage at one end of the bierkeller cum grotto in the cellar of the Metropolitan Hotel that was now the headquarters of the service. In reality the ceiling here was much too low to have any kind of stage and when there had been entertainment here, when the place had been a bar, it had only been from very short performers. Or ones who sat down, often quickly after banging their heads.

Now the stage was used almost only for sedentary displays. The Service had acquired a mock throne from the Krampus Department Store (a present from Otto, the founder) on which a member of staff dressed as Santa Claus could sit for photos. Beside the throne was a small table with something on it covered with a red cloth. Behind it was a Christmas tree whose tip was bent over under the ceiling, so that the star on top actually hung downwards.

Jefferson was standing on the stage and, what’s more, pacing back and forth. The audience - the volunteers of the Elf Service - winced involuntarily every time he passed under one of the low arches, even though he ducked without fail, only his piled, curly hair brushing against the odd faces that leered out of the gothic stonework.

“Other charities may hire their staff, with all the bureaucracy that entails, but we Elves are volunteers! The present we give to this city is ourselves, our time, our devotion. But how do we recruit volunteers? Through publicity. How do we entice our benefactors? Through publicity. How do we solicit our letters? Through publicity.

“It is, of course, in the nature of charity to be secret, to be personal, to be unassuming, but we must flout that custom. We must be seen, be heard, be present! The present we give to this city is our presence, to give them the means of giving of themselves too.

“We have all joined the Service to do what we can for others, even when the labour is hard, even when the season is jolly, we do what we must, and what we must do, whether we like it or not, is publicity!”

“Mr Jefferson!” Miss Saltadora had come pushing through the gathered staff up to the edge of the dais, “Mr Jefferson, the press are waiting.”

“And so our work continues,” said Jefferson to polite laughter, “We’re going to have a short press conference here, but don’t let us disturb you working - it’ll do the ladies and gentlemen of the press good to get to see everyone at work - they get to do so little of it themselves.”

More polite laughter. The Elves started to drift away to their positions at the long table in the centre of the room, as a line of reporters and photographers came trooping in past them.

“Miss Sharp,” said Jefferson to Miss Saltadora, “From the Argus?”

“I didn’t see her,” said Miss Saltadora, “Not this morning at any rate. I saw her last night. Although so did you.”

“The girl?” said Jefferson, cutting her off. He had long ago realised that Miss Saltadora would just keep talking if you let her, but didn’t seem to mind at all if you didn’t.

“Oh yes, I have her back round the corner, where your desk is,” said Miss Saltadora, “Poor little mite, I don’t think she’s ever been anywhere like the Metropolitan before. She seems quite taken by surprise by everything.”

“Well, we’ll have another surprise for her in a minute,” said Jefferson, “An even nicer one, I hope.”

He turned back to the assembling press. Archer was there from the Argus, at least, and Johnson from the Post. He was starting to get to know them all now.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you all for attending,” Jefferson raised his hands in salutation and started pacing across the stage again. Every photographer there hefted their camera, ready to snap the moment that this wunderkind smacked his head against a gargoyle and came plummeting to earth.

“As you’re all very much aware, the Elf Service has, with your invaluable help, become the sensation of the season. And thank goodness - and thank you - that it has. For what is the sensation of this season, after all, but charity? That is Christmas. Good will to all men, generosity, the giving of gifts.”

There are rich and poor in this world, there are those born with talents suited to their times and those who fate scorns, there are those who dream great things and those who accomplish small, but each of them has a place that fits them. They do not always find it, nor does it always suit their ambitions, or equal their gifts, but there is a place where they suddenly appear correct, a hole in the world in which they fit, neatly and satisfyingly.

For Irving Jefferson that place was on a stage talking to an audience. It didn’t matter what stage, it didn’t matter what audience, it didn’t matter what he was talking about. All that mattered was that he was here and they were there and they were listening to him.

It’s entirely possible that he wasn’t quite aware of this, that he didn’t notice how his high shoulders suddenly relaxed, how his chin came up, how his whole body loosened like a boxer shaking out before a fight, but to even a casual onlooker it was evident. This, up here, was where he fit.

“It is the sensation of the season to consider others,” he was saying,  “And to consider ourselves, and to consider how we all live in each other’s lives. How what we do affects others, for good or ill. How we might injure each other and we might help each other, how we might have wronged each other and how we might make right.

“Regret is a great engine of generosity, ladies and gentlemen, and guilt a fount of charity. Don’t we at the Elf Service know it, and don’t we trade on it? And you’ve abetted us too, helped us publicise the great sadnesses in our city to rouse the responsibility of our neighbours to do something about it. And through us, through us all, great things have been achieved.

“This is the first letter that was ever given to me as director of the Elf Service,” Jefferson took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and flourished it, “Our first letter to Santa - a letter sent by a little girl who had nothing and wanted even less. A girl without a home, without parents, without Christmas, who only wanted a doll to play with… but you all know this, thanks to Miss Sharp of the Argus.”

Jefferson paused for a moment, scanning the faces of the journalists in front of him, in case Maddie Sharp’s might have intruded among them while he was talking. It hadn’t.

“Because she, with the help of our faithful newsies, found the writer: Midge!”

He flung out a hand dramatically towards the far edge of the stage where Miss Saltadora shoved a mute Midge into the light. The little girl had not at all understood what was going on, but had put up with being scrubbed clean and thrust into a new dress with all the wary perseverance of someone to whom confusing and outlandish things were constantly happening. She still didn’t really understand and stood, staring out at the crowd in front of her, waiting for someone else to do something.

Jefferson did. He bounded towards her, putting a hand on her shoulder, and turning her a little to give all the cameras in the audience a good shot of her face.

“The little Midge who lives in the bottom of a cupboard up in a boarding house in the Market,” he said, “A little girl who asked for nothing more than a doll, didn’t you?” he said this to Midge, who stared back at him, mutely. He had just said that before, they all knew that already, what was he saying it again for?

“Nothing more than a doll,” said Jefferson, when he realised Midge was not going to contribute, “Because she dare not dream of anything greater. But what of that seasonal sensation, ladies and gentlemen? What softness might it knead into the hardest of hearts, of what regrets and responsibilities might it remind the stoniest of souls? Why it might even soften the heart of the sort of man who would abandon his own family, it might give a pang of regret to a man who would let his own child go begging in the gutter for scraps, a man like Midge’s father!”

And Jefferson flung out his other hand, to other side of the stage, and up out of the shadows came a bent figure - hard to tell whether bowed under the weight of guilt or just avoiding the low ceiling - a middle aged man with an old man’s face, partially hidden by a scrubby beard, a battered hat turning in his hands.

“Michael McNulty,” said Jefferson, “Midge’s father, a man who has led a hard life, who has even been incarcerated - not for anything serious,” he held up a conciliatory hand, “But the generosity of Christmas is the generosity of forgiveness as well as of gifts. And what greater gift can there be, than this?

“Midge,” Jefferson turned her towards the man, “This is your father. Michael, this is your daughter.”

“I”m awful sorry,” said McNulty to the crowd and then, remembering, to Midge, “I’m awful sorry, little ‘un. Will you forgive me?”

Jefferson didn’t wait to hear any answer from Midge, but, pushing her across him at McNulty, said:

“The sensation of Christmas. The sensation you’re feeling right now, ladies and gentlemen, the sensation of giving, of generosity, of good.”

Miss Saltadora appeared at the other side of the stage, having edged her way through the crowd and beckoned McNulty and Midge back down out of the way.

“There is plenty of generosity in our city, ladies and gentlemen, I see it everyday, I know it, enough generosity to cover all the misery and hardship if we wanted to and enough to help the Elf Service grow to try and do it.

“Yes!” Jefferson stepped to the back of the stage, next to the little table beside Santa’s throne, “This is why I’ve called you here, ladies and gentlemen, not just to witness that great generosity to little Midge, but to witness this great generosity from our city to our city.”

He grabbed hold of the red cloth covering something on the table and, with a flourish, whipped it off, revealing underneath a model of a skyscraper.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, beaming, “I give you: The Santa Building!”