Chapter 8

“So there’s no guarantee for our future as far as matching soul mates are concerned?” Jennifer asked.

“No, you can’t beat choice by free will. When we are adult, we Future Santas leave home for a while, to enjoy living a normal family life among normal people, where we can begin to raise our families in the world that is real to you. It gives Father Christmas a perspective that the elves and other helpers can never have.”

“Dad said that you were building a house near the depot? Is that for your future family?”

“Yes, that is all part of the plan, Jennifer. We, the children of Santa Claus always live and start our families just as if we were normal folk. My father, for instance, lived in the Palatinate, part of Bavaria, in south-western Germany. It is a beautiful place, gentle farming and pasture land in the rolling foothills of the Alps. He moved there because was attracted to his soulmate, a French nurse who was working there in a local hospital. He observed her from afar, like me, afraid of beginning the courtship. I guess I follow more than one family tradition.”

“That does sound familiar, Junior. Did he stalk his nurse like you did me?” She smiled at him, and Junior had half a mind to switch the plane over to automatic pilot while he kissed her to his heart’s content. But not even Santa’s son would take such a chance over the polar icecap.

“Mmmm, well eventually he introduced himself to the French nurse but, he had barely begun his courtship, when World War I broke out and they found themselves on different sides of the barbed wire in that terrible war.”

“Oh, could he not simply whisk her away through the portal?”

“No, they had never even met before and you can’t just kidnap people, even someone you love, can you? My father was born and raised in Prussia, with my Grandfather, who was brought up in Russia, while my English Grandmother was brought up in Oxfordshire. My grandparents didn’t have the difficulties that my parents had, who could have lived anywhere, but had decided to move to Prussia where they raised my father. So, the first World War was on and my father was conscripted and had a strong sense of duty. He naturally joined the Air Corps.

He visited the nurse as she imagined she was in a dream state, just as I visited you, but she rejected him, again and again, as they were on opposite sides all through the war. Finally, in 1920, she married a French war hero, a veteran of aerial combat, and my father was bitterly disappointed. He returned home to Prussia, but by then his village had been handed over to Poland as they carved up Europe after the war. There he met and married my mother, Hilde, who was also of German birth, but again caught up in the border changes arranged during the armistice.”

“And then they had you, born sometime in the 1920s?”

“Yes I was. Things weren’t good there in the twenties and thirties, with war almost inevitable, so we moved to Austria for a couple of years when I was too young to remember it. Austria soon hotted up, so Grandmama insisted we go to Oxfordshire, where her family had kept a cottage for us.”

“So that’s why your English is so good?”

“Ah, all languages are our forte, Jen. We’re just coming into land now.”

“You’re an only child, you said before, Junior. If they were not naturally meant to be together, do your parents get on all right?”

“Oh yes, they are fine. We are a smaller than normal family for the Clauses, but they are a happy enough couple. Naturally, my Mother wants to boss my life.”

“Ha! You know my mother! I guess all mothers are the same, mine even going as far as arranging having my ex-boyfriend around for me! I’m sure she thought it was for the best.”

“Well, that’s another reason why I left when I did, Mother wanted me to marry a Polish girl who she picked out for me.”

“Oh dear, and by leaving home, you put more workload back on your Dad?”

“Yes. Something like that.”

“How will he be with you tonight, especially with you bringing me here?”

“He’ll be all right once we get stuck into the delivering. It’s Mother that is the one that I worry about. I think I better warn you that, like your mother, my mother has probably invited the poor girl along.”

Junior landed smoothly and taxied the plane into a huge hangar, which had several small planes like theirs parked inside, sheltered from the snow.

“Ah, it looks like the Santas are starting to arrive,” Junior said, glancing around at all the planes.

“I thought there was only one Santa Claus?”

“There is only one true Santa, my father, but sons, brothers, fathers, grandfathers, cousins and uncles all help out. We have dozens of sleighs. When we first started out, hundreds of years ago, I can imagine the world population of children was much smaller than now.”

There was a reindeer sleigh ready at the hangar to take the couple up to the big house.

“Do they know that I’m coming, Junior?”

“They know I am bringing someone. They know everything. We are here. Relax, they will love you.”

Junior escorted Jennifer arm in arm from the sleigh up the steps into a grand lodge built from huge pine logs. Inside she was formerly introduced to Father Christmas and Mother Christmas.

Father Christmas was business-like and greeted her formally as “Miss Webster”, with a handshake. He didn’t seem to have any accent at all.

Hilde, Mother Christmas, was German and made it clear that she didn’t like Jennifer. She flat out refused to shake hands with her, saying quite loudly to Junior, “Vell, zis girl had her chance years ago und she made her choice, I zink you vill be so much better off with Beata, dear.”

“Mother,” Junior said quietly, “I do not want to marry this girl you’ve picked out for me. Jennifer is the one I love and I want you to give her a fair chance to consider what I offer along with my hand in marriage.”

“Jennifer’s too villful. I know ze prophecy named her but she had plenty of opportunities before she vent off viz that other boy, Scott. She is still seeing him, only in ze last couple of days. You don’t have to believe me, you only have to look at zeir timelines, she even kissed him not half an hour ago!”

“I was just saying a final goodbye and forgiving him with a peck on the cheek,” Jennifer offered meekly. Junior listened and nodded, his mother ignored her.

“I was there too, Mamma,” Junior said, holding onto Jennifer’s hand, “and Jennifer was just as surprised about Scott being there as I was. I took my eye off the ball by being too shy to approach her eight years ago in her early twenties, and I lost her to Scott then through my own fault, my own temerity. But I have found her, we are acquainted, and she is with me now.”