CHRISTMAS
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Benny hated Christmas, that's one of the reasons why he volunteered to take a load to Dunfermline late on Christmas Eve. But he got more than he bargained for when he parked up for the night.
• "Jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way . . ." — the plaintive voices of the kids carol singing their way down the road outside the truckstop brought Benny awake with a start. His head came into sharp contact with the roof of the cab. Despite the woolly hat he wore against the chill in his unheated wagon, it didn't improve his already foul temper.
Benny hated Christmas. Mind you, it wouldn't be easy to come up with much that Benny actually liked. Take his name for instance. For generations members of the Scrooge family had been putting up with smart alec comments along the lines of: "I suppose your first name's Ebenezer, eh?" At which point the long-suffering Scrooge would smile, explain that his name was actually Arthur, or Clive and no, actually, he wasn't a miser, or he didn't think he was, and the conversation would move on.
After years of Ebenezer jokes, Benny's father (in this case a George Peter Scrooge) decided he could take no more ribbing and decided against all advice from family, friends, and the registrar, to inflict his firstborn son with the name Ebenezer.
Whether the name affected the child or the child simply suited the name the family never knew. In any case Ebenezer (Benny) Scrooge emerged from Grimeshaw Comprehensive as a surly, introspective teenager with a reputation for living up to his Christian name in the tight fisted stakes. The Scrooge clan has been in haulage since the days that horsepower equated with fertiliser and had developed a small but solid operation specialising in long-distance work. Traditionally members of the family would join the firm as fitters or loaders and work their way up the hard way until they were ready to take over the reins.
AWAY FROM HOME
Benny (it had taken some bitter playground scraps to get the diminutive form of his hated name into general use) started off the same way, but after only a few weeks in the workshop (at which point the company's valued foreman fitter promised either to resign or feed Benny into the shot blaster feet first) George Scrooge invested in an intensive HGV1 course and put him out on the road.
The solitary life suited Benny well; his younger brother Phil took on the role of proprietor-in-waiting and everyone at Scrooge Transport (estd 1861) breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Transport cafe owners from Canterbury to Carlisle learned to start preparing a single egg on two toast and a cup of tea (milky, three sugars) as his battered rig lurched into view.
When a rush trunking job came up which entailed being on the road over Christmas, it seemed inevitable that Benny would take it, albeit with his usual degree of charm. "I'll have a better time in me truck than singing stupid carols, eating stupid turkey and wasting me hard earned cash on stupid presents," he grunted round a cheese roll as Scrooge senior was trying to decide between risking a mutiny among the troops by getting them to work over the holiday or turning away work. "Well, if you're sure Benny," said George, already picking up the phone to confirm that Scrooge Transport would be happy to oblige the valued customer. "I'll get your mum to pack you a Christmas hamper and you inake sure you phone us on Christmas morning. Old man Harrison says he'll pay a good premium if we get those spare parts up to Dunfermline by Boxing Day night, but his lads can't get the last batch ready until late on Christmas Eve and. . . "Look, dad," said Benny, cramming the last fragment of cheese into the corner of his mouth with a grimy thumb, "I've said I'll do the run. Let's not make a big thing of it." He slurped down the last of his tea, slammed the mug down and stomped into the yard.
Gazing at his retreating back through the grimy window of the Portakabin, Scrooges senior and junior stood in silence as Benny climbed into his cab, fired up the big diesel, over-revved it, crunched into gear and pulled away. "I dunno dad," said Phil, "he may be a grumpy sod but I still don't like the thought of him dossing down in his wagon over Christmas." George Scrooge patted his younger son on the shoulder as he went back to his desk and began to sweep Benny's breadcrumbs into his wastepaper bin. "Come on Phil," he said, "you know as well as me that your brother's never been what you'd call cheerful, but at Christmas. . ."
Phil nodded. "You go and tell the lads that they can calm down; no one's going to have to work over Christmas. No one who doesn't want to, anyway," said George.
. Benny pulled his woolly hat down well over his ears and the ex-army sleeping bag up over his shoulders. Maybe he shouldn't have kicked the cab heater quite so hard, but it usually cured that dodgy fan. He was sure that was frost forming on the inside of the cab's windscreen.
At least the noise of those kids singing had stopped. Probably conning some soft-hearted idiot out of mince pies and hot chocolate he thought sleepily as he tried to make himself comfortable on the worn-out bunk. One thing about being on the road at Christmas, he thought; as well as missing all the false good humour, he had the truckstop to himself. The last thing he needed tonight was company. . .
It seemed only minutes later that he was woken up yet again, but this time by the noise of wheels crunching over gravel, and it sounded like they were right next to his rig. After a moment he realised that there was no engine noise. Sleepily, Benny wriggled caterpillar-like in his sleeping bag until he could peer out through the nearside window. He squinted through the frost-covered glass and impatiently rubbed a patch clear with a piece of old workshop cleaning cloth he had saved.
The next second he was wide awake and half out of the sleeping bag, falling back on to the bunk in surprise. What the hell was a damned cart and a pair of shire horses doing at a truckstop at nearly midnight on Christmas Eve? As he tried to gather his wits Benny was suddenly startled by a knock on the door of his cab. Without thinking he reached forward and opened the door. A large figure, muffled in a huge black overcoat, surged into the cab and settled himself on the passenger seat, turning round to loom over Benny. "Now then young Ebenezer, thee and me, we need to have a serious talk." Scrunched up in the far corner of the bunk, knees drawn up to his chest and the sleeping bag pulled up to eye level, Benny's usual gruff voie deteriorated into a squeak. He swallowed hard: "Who the hell are you and how do you know my. . ."
"Ebenezer!" the stranger stopped Benny's babble in mid-flow and the air in the cab seemed suddenly to grow colder. "Do not use words like hell lightly. Now hold your tongue and listen to me." The stranger's face was lost in shadow below the brim of a battered bowler hat. Suddenly his eyes were glowing like hot coals. By now Benny was scared out of his wits.
The stranger's hand shot forward to point straight at Benny's nose. Benny's mind went a total blank as he stared at what was surely the hand of a corpse well past its sell-by date. "Ebenezer, my name too is Scrooge. And I am here to bring you a solemn warning. Nigh on one hundred and thirty years ago I set up in business as a carter. You are my great, great grandson. Like you, I took little pleasure in my trade and paid little heed to the welfare of my steed. Your steed," he gestured at the battered sleeper cab, "may seem like some magical device, but you mistreat it just as I mistreated my horses. Your nature is as sour as was my own. I have even come to forgive that young scribbler Dickens for taking our family name and making it a byword for all that is mean and miserly. But while my misdeeds condemned me to. . . another place, there is yet time for you. Repent lad!"
The wraith leaned forward. Its voice took on a sense of urgency, almost pleading. "Your kin have shown that not all Scrooges have taken on my mean character. Indeed, thou art the first to follow so closely in my footsteps. Repent I say. Be kind to your wagon, as I now am to mine. It gestured with its skeletal hand to the great shires. "Be kind to your kin and your fellow hauliers. Mend your ways before it is too late. If I have cause to visit thee again you will not like the place we will have to journey to together. Now sleep, and when you wake on Christmas morn let it be the start of a new life . . ." Benny immediately fell into a deep sleep.
It was well into a bright Christmas morning before another thud on the cab door woke Benny.
"Whassat?" He muttered rubbing his eyes. "Merry Christmas, Mr Driver!" The child's voice drove the half remembered nightmare from his mind. Clasping the sleeping bag round him he leaned forward to open the door. Half a dozen rosy-cheeked youngsters stood in a semicircle round the cab door, looking pleasantly dishevelled from the snowball fight that had woken him.
One little urchin came forward, going on tiptoe to reach up to the cab with a paper bag full of sweets. "Would you like a humbug?"
Benny sneered. "Baaah — humbugs is it, you little toerags? Gant, get out of here and let me get some sleep!" Benny, who was even grumpier than ever as he tried to shake off the odd feeling that he really shouldn't have done that, slammed the door. Realising that he was now wide awake and hungry, he wriggled out of his sleeping bag and pulled on a battered pair of boots (he rarely bothered to undress when sleeping in the cab). He decided to check if those "blasted kids" hadn't been up to mischief with the rig before heading North again and finding a motorway services to phone home and have a spot of breakfast. On second thought, he decided as he climbed down to the freshly snowcovered ground, that he wouldn't bother to phone. Let 'em worry.
It was his final thought as his boot came into contact with, of all things, a large, fresh, and very slippery horse dropping. Benny's feet went up, his head came down, hitting the corner of the cab step.
Suddenly he was standing up, though he could not remember how he got there, looking down at. . . himself. From the state of his lx)nce he decided that he couldn't have felt a thing. Somehow he wasn't at all surprised by the sudden sound of heavy horses thudding through the snow and the rumble of iron-shod wagon wheels.
Continued on page 27.