But of all the things that made him different, he could see this was the most important. It was why he wore clothes that other kids laughed at—because they’d had this talk about fashion, and they’d agreed that fashion was stupid—and why he listened to music that was old-fashioned, or that no one else had ever heard of—because they’d had this talk about modern pop music, and they’d agreed it was just a way for record companies to make a lot of money. It was why he wasn’t allowed to play violent computer games, or eat hamburgers, or do this or that or the other. And he’d agreed with her about all of it, except he hadn’t agreed really; he’d just lost the arguments.

‘Why don’t you just tell me what to do? Why do we always have to talk about it?’

‘Because I want to teach you to think for yourself.’

‘Was that your plan?’

‘What plan?’

‘When you said the other day that you knew what you were doing.’

‘About what?’

‘About being a mum.’

‘Did I say that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh. OK. Well, of course I want you to think for yourself. All parents want that.’

‘But all that happens is we have an argument and I lose, and I do what you want me to do. We might as well save time. Just tell me what I’m not allowed, and leave it at that.’

‘So what’s brought all this on?’

‘I’ve been thinking for myself.’

‘Good for you.’

‘I’ve been thinking for myself, and I want to go round to Will’s house after school.’

‘You’ve already lost that argument.’

‘I need to see someone else who’s not you.’

‘What about Suzie?’

‘She’s like you. Will’s not like you.’

‘No. He’s a liar, and he doesn’t do anything, and—’

‘He bought me those trainers.’

‘Yes. He’s a rich liar who doesn’t do anything.’

‘He understands about school and that. He knows things.’

‘He knows things! Marcus, he doesn’t even know he’s born.’

‘You see what I mean?’ He was getting really frustrated now. ‘I’m thinking for myself and you just… it just doesn’t work. You win anyway.’

‘Because you’re not backing it up. It’s not enough to tell me that you’re thinking for yourself. You’ve got to show me, too.’

‘How do I show you?’

‘Give me a good reason.’

He could give her a reason. It wouldn’t be the right reason, and he’d feel bad saying it, and he was pretty sure it would make her cry. But it was a good reason, a reason that would shut her up, and if that was how you had to win arguments, then he’d use it.

‘Because I need a father.’

It shut her up, and it made her cry. It did the job.

November the nineteenth. November the fucking nineteenth. That was definitely a new record, Will noted darkly. Last year it had been November the fucking twenty-sixth. He hadn’t made it through into December for years now; he could see that when he was fifty or sixty he’d be hearing his first rendition of ‘Santa’s Super Sleigh’ in July or August. This year it was a busker at the bottom of the escalator at the Angel station, a cheerful, attractive young woman with a violin who was obviously trying to supplement her music scholarship. Will scowled at her with all the hatred he could muster, a look intended to convey not only that he wouldn’t be giving her any money, but that he would like to smash up her instrument and then staple her head to the escalator steps.

Will hated Christmas, for the obvious reason: people knocked on his door, singing the song he hated more than any song in the world and expected him to give them money. It had been worse when he was a kid, because his dad hated Christmas too, for the obvious reason (although Will hadn’t realized it was the obvious reason until he was much older—back then, he just thought that his dad was as sick of the song as everybody else): it was a terrible reminder of how badly he had failed in his life. Quite often people wanted to interview his father about ‘Santa’s Super Sleigh’, and they always used to ask what else he had written, and he would tell them, sometimes even play them things, or show them records which featured another of his songs. They would look embarrassed, cluck sympathetically and tell him how hard it was for everyone who was famous for only one thing, a long time ago, and ask him whether the song had ruined his life, or made him wish he’d never written it. He would get angry, and tell them not to be so stupid and patronizing and insensitive, and when they had gone, he would complain bitterly that the song had ruined his life, and say he wished he’d never written it. One radio journalist even went away and made a series called One-Hit Wonders inspired completely by his interview with Charles Freeman, all about people who’d written one great book, or appeared in one film, or written one famous song; the journalist had had the cheek to ask him for another interview and, perhaps understandably, Will’s father had refused.

So Christmas was the season of anger and bitterness and regret and recrimination, of drinking binges, of frantic and laughably inadequate industry (one Christmas day his father wrote an entire, and entirely useless, musical, in a doomed attempt to prove that his talent was durable). It was a season of presents by the chimney too, but even when he was nine Will would gladly have swapped his Spirographs and his Batmobiles for a little peace and goodwill.

But things changed. His father died, and then his mother, and he lost touch with his stepbrother and stepsister, who were old and dull anyway, and Christmas was usually spent with friends, or girlfriends’ families, and all that was left was ‘Santa’s Super Sleigh’ and the cheques it carried to him through the snow. But that was more than enough. Will had often wondered whether there was any other stupid song which contained, somewhere deep within it, as much pain and despair and regret. He doubted it. Bob Dylan’s ex-wife probably didn’t listen to Blood On The Tracks too often, but Blood On The Tracks was different—it was about misery and damage. ‘Santa’s Super Sleigh’ wasn’t supposed to be like that at all, but he still felt he needed a stiff drink, or counselling, or a good cry, when he heard it in a department-store lift or through a supermarket tannoy in the weeks leading up to 25 December. Maybe there were others like him somewhere; maybe he should form a Successful Novelty Song support group, where rich, bitter men and women would sit around in expensive restaurants and talk about doggies and birdies and bikinis and milkmen and horrible dances.

He had no plans for this Christmas whatsoever. There was no girlfriend, and so there were no girlfriend’s parents, and though he had friends on whom he could inflict himself, he didn’t feel like it. He would sit at home and watch millions of films and get drunk and stoned. Why not? He was as entitled to a break as anyone else, even if there was nothing to break from.

If the first thing he had thought of when he heard the busker at the tube station was his father, the unexorcizable ghost of Christmas past, the second was Marcus. He didn’t know why. He hadn’t thought about him much since the trainers’ incident, and he’d had no contact with him since Fiona dragged him out of the flat the previous week. Maybe it was because Marcus was the only child he really knew, although Will doubted whether he was soppy enough to swallow the repulsive notion that Christmas was a time for children; the more likely explanation was that he had made some kind of link between Marcus’s childhood and his own. It wasn’t as if Will had been a nerdy kid with the wrong trainers; on the contrary, he had worn the right shoes and the right socks and the right trousers and the right shirts, and he had gone to the right hairdresser for the right haircut. That was the point of fashion, as far as Will was concerned; it meant that you were with the cool and the powerful, and against the alienated and the weak, just where Will wanted to be, and he’d successfully avoided being bullied by bullying furiously and enthusiastically.