The Elf Service, Episode 9

In which the Elf Service moves up, and down, in the world

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.

The next morning a small deputation arrived on the steps of the Central Post Office. Small in number and small in size, as it consisted of Master Samuel Moutjoy, a little boy bundled into a fur coat that made him almost spherical and his equally ovoid Nanny, a tiny, jolly woman called Meggie.

Young Master Samuel was clutching something wrapped up in brown paper and coloured string.

He struggled gallantly up the monumental steps, refusing Meggie’s help, but allowed her to accost an official on his way into work. Where might they find the Elf Service?

Delighted by the solemn, business-like manner of Master Mountjoy and the oddness of the little group, the man decided he could be a little late to his post and accompanied them himself across the great, echoing central hall to a side door marked ‘Post Office Staff Only’.

Such was his vague apprehension of the adult world, that Samuel was expecting whatever was held secret behind this forbidding door to be even more extraordinary than the lofty temple to the mails they had just walked through. If those were the wonders they shared with the public, what greater grandiloquence might they be hiding back here?

It was much to his surprise then, that he discovered not a magical, hidden palace but instead institutional lino, paint long scraped by tea trolleys and push carts and a steady, half-panicked bustle of harassed office workers. Of course, this was no less extraordinary to him. He had never been anywhere like this, had never seen an office, never posted a file in an inbox, never worked a date stamp (for a brief moment he almost asked to stop so he could have a go and then clutched his little parcel to him, remembering his mission). He gazed about, wide-eyed.

And the Post Office gazed back. Wherever this little troupe went, all bustle ceased for an moment. Gossip was stilled, stamping stopped. Workers gathered in doorways, peered through hatches, suddenly discovered forms that needed delivering in precisely the direction Master Mountjoy and his heralds were going.

Down to the sorting rooms, in fact.

There they acquired further officials, a foreman who guided them through the impenetrable labyrinth of pigeonholes to the far distant corner where the Elf Service was.

Only it wasn’t.

The space was still there, where the walls of cubby holes had been pushed apart to make room. The tables were still there, mismatched and ramshackle. Jefferson’s massive desk was still there. But the Elf Service itself was gone. The ladies in hats, the newsies, Jefferson himself, none of them there at all.

Apart from one small child, a military officer’s cap pushed back on his head, who was rummaging through the drawers of the desk. He looked up as the Master Samuel and his entourage approached.

“He forgot his pen, didn’t he?” said the child in his hat, “And what have you forgotten?”

“The Elf Service?” said Meggie the nanny.

“Moved, haven’t they?” said the boy, climbing on top of the desk to see them all better, “Skedaddled. Done the flit.”

“Not closed?” said Meggie.

“Closed?” said the boy, “No - gone up in the world.”

“I have a present,” said Samuel, holding up his package, “It’s for Mr Jefferson.”

“Then we better get it to him, hadn’t we?” said the boy in the cap, jumping down off the desk, “Captain Blood,” and he held out his hand to Samuel.

“Samuel Aloysius St John Mountjoy,” said Samuel shaking the proffered hand from around his package.

“I’ll call you Sammy, if that’s alright?” said the Captain, who evidently didn’t care whether it was alright or not, “Follow me, Sammy boy.”

And, throwing an avuncular arm about Samuel’s shoulder, despite being shorter than him and barely much older, he led them from the Post Office basement.

Out on the street their caravan diminished a little, although the foreman stayed with them, opining that it was his official duty to know where the Elf Service had moved to, and he brought with him a postal worker with a sack of fresh letters for Santa Claus.

They were still a distinctive sight, however, the two postal workers in their official uniforms and the little nanny in her apron, being led by the two boys, one stumping along in expensive furs, the other ragged and skittish, dancing out ahead of them, announcing their coming.

It is in the manner of city life that one has to be discerning about who one notices. Such is the constant rush and deluge of humanity, of every kind and station, all pursuing their own individual business in their own individual way, that to notice them all would take all one’s time. A profitable and enjoyable time, for the most part, but caught up in the pouring horde ourselves, with our own business and ways, we barely have the time to acknowledge ourselves, let alone our fellow man.

So it is that people tend to only see themselves. Their fellows, their peers. Like dogs and babies, who pay attention to each other above anything else, so we tend to notice those most like us. Delivery boys whistle sharply at their fellows and city gentlemen touch their hats to each other. Tradesmen exchange notes on customers and ladies pause and compare the weather. The homeless gather out of the main stream to discuss the day’s doings and the tourists run up against each other like flotsam in the flood, creating little dams around which the onrushing pedestrians eddy and swear. In all this great ferment of people, we see first those we recognise and take note of them.

Which is how it went with Master Samuel Moutjoy and his followers. 

Other nannies, out with great sprung prams like rickety galleons in which rode tiny, placidly curious emperors, spotted Meggie and gravitated to her, curious to know what was happening and what the gossip was.

Off to see the Elf Service, they heard, because the boy had a present for the founder. And any fresh diversion was a pleasant relief from another visit to the playground in The Gardens and they joined the company.

Other workmen, messengers and deliverymen, saw the postal workers, out in their uniforms and wondered what was up. The Elf Service? They’d heard about it, of course, read Maddie Sharp’s piece yesterday, it was interesting enough, and they had ten minutes to spare, probably, no one would notice they were gone.

Other news boys and girls, called out to the Captain, who they all knew, “What’s the news?” because if you spend your day shouting headlines you get a nose for when one’s developing.

“Going to the new offices of the Service, aren’t we?” he told them, “Young fellow here’s got a present for Jefferson, hasn’t he?” and he made Samuel hold the package up in front of him, so that now they were all marching behind it, like the spoils of victory borne up before an army.

And so as they turned onto the main street, with The Gardens and the Old Town up on the hill to their right, they had swollen into quite the parade of all the town, from babes in arms to unoccupied old men and everyone in between. Everyone, that is, with nothing better to do. And as with anything untoward and interesting that broke into the everyday, the more notable it became, the more notable it became.

Word even reached down into the wine cellars of The Metropolitan Hotel, which was where Irving Jefferson was, because if you surround yourself with newsies you pretty quickly get to know anything of interest happening anywhere in the city.

Irving Jefferson was in the wine cellars of The Metropolitan because that’s where the Elf Service was now. So impressed had Savoir, the owner of the hotel, been with Maddie Sharp’s profile in the Argus, he had immediately offered the Service the use of his premises as an office.

From mail sorting basement to cellar might not sound like much of an improvement, but it was, at least, larger. And, in fact, slightly more salubrious. This was a section of the cellars that had been left largely untouched and unused for some years, but like everything at the Metropolitan, that did not mean that it was uncleaned and uncared for. It was roomy, warm and perfectly serviceable.

Moreover, it suited Jefferson’s vision of the Service perfectly and not only because being headquartered at The Metropolitan had a certain cachet. This part of the cellar had once been a basement bar styled as a bierkeller. There had been a brief fashion for them in the city a decade or so ago, and Savoir was never one to miss an opportunity to bring people into the hotel. But the fad had faded, and so had the pub. He closed it up and opened a rooftop cocktail bar instead. When you rode the rollercoaster of fashion you had to go where it went, low or high.

What this meant, however, was that the cellar was perfectly Christmassy: all low arches and corbelling, all pine benches and rafters. It was full of little booths and corners, as well as long central tables running down between the pillars. 

Already those tables had become the production lines down which the construction of Christmas was being run, the letter arriving at the end of one table, travelling down it being scrutinised and categorised and analysed and then back round and up the other table to be reconciled, apportioned and sent back out again at the other end, off to be fulfilled.

And already the cellar was being decorated too, hung about with swags of greenery and little lights, made into a busy grotto, a true workshop full of fluttering Elves.

So up from his seasonal cellar issued Irving Jefferson, up onto the street outside The Metropolitan, there to meet the deputation of Master Samuel Mountjoy. They had acquired a small street band from somewhere that was now playing carols to the accompaniment of the ringing of delivery boy’s bicycle bells and the bawdy, mis-heard lyrics of the newsies.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please!” said Jefferson and the squalling died down, one cracked trumpet a little later than everyone else, “Let us not disturb our kind hosts The Metropolitan hotel too much, not after they have been so generous in helping the Elf Service.” A little cheer went up from the crowd.

“Now, how can the Elf Service help you?” he bent a little towards Samuel, who was being towed forwards by the Captain, Meggie following them close behind.

“I have a present,” said Samuel, proffering his package.

“A present?” said Jefferson, going to take it, “For me?”

“No,” said Samuel, not letting go of it, “For another little boy. Or girl. If they like trains.” He considered this a moment, “They might, I suppose.” He then added, conspiratorially, “It’s a train, you see. It’s mine but Meggie - that’s Meggie - told me about you giving presents and I thought someone might like it.”

“Of course,” said Jefferson, “Of course it’s for a letter writer and of course you thought of them and of course they will like it. And that means,” he dug into his pocket, “That I have something for you, our certificate, showing that you are a benefactor of the Elf Service.”

He pulled out of his pocket a piece of card in the shape of a large stamp, with a picture of Santa Claus on it and handed it to Samuel, taking the package from him in exchange. He took Samuel’s free hand and turned him to the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, here is both the smallest benefactor to the Elf Service and the greatest gift. Here is the spirit of our project and the spirit of our city all wrapped up in one grand gesture and one little package. If each one of you can do what Samuel here has done: what a city we shall be and what a Christmas we shall have!”

And the crowd cheered and the band struck up again and Irving Jefferson, Samuel’s present held aloft before him, gazed on what he had done with satisfaction.