Holly's Smile

Thomas woke up earlier than normal, he put his feet out of bed and into the slippers carefully placed the night before. Thomas was a lifelong bachelor and fastidious in his habits and placing his slippers just so, was just one of his many habits, including his need for the toothbrush glass to be 3 inches back on the bathroom shelf. Everything in Thomas’s life was set, he was a creature of habit. His small flat, was like a new pin. Thomas had a routine for cleaning, and kept to it rigidly. He had a rota for the chores. Monday was washing day, Tuesday shopping and cleaning the bathroom, Wednesday, cleaning the living room and inspecting electrical goods for faults, Thursday the bedroom was cleaned, Friday the kitchen and more shopping. Saturday he cleaned everywhere he hadn’t cleaned in the week, and then he would walk to the library and exchange his books, and Sunday was for pottering around and making sure everything in his life was as it should be.

It was Saturday and it was Christmas. Thomas hated Christmas, everyone rushing around, shops packed with Christmas shoppers, noisy, fractuous little brats with their silly Mothers trying to placate them. Incessant Christmas music coming from the tannoy in the shopping arcade. Yes Thomas hated Christmas with a vengeance.
Well it wasn’t exactly Christmas, it was Christmas Eve, and he had more reason to hate it this year. The library had a notice pinned to the door when he had visited the previous Friday, that it would be closed on Christmas Eve. This news was met with disgust by Thomas and now as he got out of bed he was still seething that he could not go to the library as usual on a Friday. He went into the kitchen and put the egg he had laid out the night before into the pot of water, and popped two slices of bread into the toaster also pre-prepared. He did this every single morning of his life. He sat down at the kitchen table still spitting nails about the library. Although there was no one else there Thomas was talking aloud. “Bloody Christmas, now what will I do with no library, bloody inconvenience.” As he ate his breakfast he thought he would use the time to go the Shopping Arcade. “The bloody Shopping Arcade will be open, even if the library isn’t” he said aloud. He dressed and looked out of the window, it was a clear crisp winter morning, the winter sun shining through the window into this plainly furnished flat, brightening it, as the sun has a way of doing. “Too cold for snow he” he thought “I better put my coat on before I go out”.

As he walked along, he was still moaning to himself about the inconvenience of the library being closed that he didn’t notice the girl walking along beside him. She was around eight years old and had the distinctive features of a child with Down’s Syndrome. Thomas felt uncomfortable, he didn’t like children, never had. Although he had no friends he had an acquaintance he chatted to in the library and he had surmised that Thomas had been born at age forty. Thomas increased his pace in the hope that he could get to the shopping arcade and lose the child. As he quickened his pace the girl also quickened hers. Thomas stopped and said “are you following me, where is your Mother”. The girl, looked at Thomas and smiled broadly and said “I like you, you look funny with your hat pulled over your grumpy face.” Thomas was taken aback, he didn’t know what to do or say. He looked at the girl, she was short and dumpy and it was plain to Thomas that she was a Down’s Syndrome child. Her face was bathed in the light of the bright winter sun, making her squint her eyes as she looked up at Thomas. Just then a woman came hurrying over. “Holly” she said, “where have you been, we have been frantic”. The girl turned around and looked at her Mother and said “I am OK Mum, I am talking to my new friend” the girl turned to Thomas and said “What is your name?”
“Thomas” he replied.
“Merry Christmas Thomas” she said.
“Come along now Holly” said her mother and apologised to Thomas explaining that Holly always spoke to people when they were out.
Thomas said “It’s OK”.
As Holly skipped away with her mother at her side, she turned back and waved at Thomas with the most beautiful smile which lit up her face, demonstrating the utter inner happiness she had in spite of her lot. Thomas found himself waving back, and his mouth creased into a smile, he turned towards the Shopping Arcade and in that moment he realised that it didn’t really matter that the Library was closed.