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The shop looks ransacked. There are books strewn across the floor, the shelves are cleared apart from a few with titles too terrible to even give as joke gifts, like The Complete Guide to Mantelpieces and The Inner Basket. The History of Screaming sits alone, until a wild-eyed man comes rushing in and looks around with neck-jerking speed; grabs it off the shelf; squeaks quietly as he stares at it for a moment, before shoving a hand into his pocket and coming out with a crumpled twenty pound note, which he thrusts at Manny. He has to lean over Bernard - slumped over the desk, possibly unconscious, his hand curled around a bottle of something thick and yellow, with a lit cigarette still smouldering between his fingers - to get his change, before he waves him off with a downright merry smile.
"There. That's the fiftieth book we've sold today! I knew that new 'Tempocalypse! This Time It's Christmas' display would bring people in."
Bernard mutters something that sounds vaguely threatening. "Hmm?" Manny says, still hovering by him like some kind of yuletide wasp.
"I said well done! Have a drink," Bernard says, raising his head up enough to be intelligible, and pushes the bottle towards him.
"Oh, thank you!" Manny says, and reaches for the bottle. Bernard snatches it back, looking horrified.
"Who said you could have a drink? Back to work! Look at the state of those shelves!"
"Bernard, we've talked about this. We're having a Christmas Sale," Manny explains, slowly. "We have to draw in customers, so we can sell books, so you can have your Spanish anti-freeze to marinate in."
"Well, it's a disgraceful business. And besides, I have some kind of delicious... thick wine, I don't need your so called 'customers'."
Manny looks at the bottle for a moment. "That's eggnog. Where did you get that, anyway?"
"This? I found it under your bed when I was changing the batteries in the baby monitor. Go dust something, it's filthy in here."
"That was meant for tomorrow!" Manny says, but storms off to start rearranging the books without further comment and Bernard slumps back over the desk in contented relief - for all of seven seconds, before Manny starts humming, something happy and tuneful and sounding suspiciously like a carol song, and with a nauseating amount of effort Bernard opens one eye to glare at him. It doesn't work; Manny continues like the oblivious blithering beard he is, and Bernard suddenly sweeps his arms across the desk, looking for something to throw at him, and something heavy hits the floor with hard thud. Manny, at last, looks at him.
"If you don't stop that godawful noise I'm going to have you stuffed and turned into a gramophone," Bernard says, and for a moment Manny looks actually hurt.
"I'm getting in the mood! Look, it's snowing outside."
Bernard looks, levering himself off the desk so he can lounge back in a vaguely upright position. It is. It looks positively charming, from what he can see through the haphazard piles of books and grimy windows, as dusk falls and slow, fat flakes of snow drift down.
"Bah," he says. "It's getting dark already."
"It's only just gone three," Manny says, and comes over, before he disappears for a blissful moment as he bends down to get whatever idiotic thing just fell off the desk. When he stands up he's holding a potted plant that could be generously described as a small pine tree - one that's mostly brown, and mostly made up of bare branches, and set in soil that's as cracked and solid as concrete. Manny dusts off a single sequinned star before putting it back on top, and smiles. Bernard stares at it.
"I was thinking," Manny starts, hesitating in front of the desk, his hand on the back of the chair like he's considering loitering for even longer.
"No," Bernard says, and Manny sits down anyway.
"We could close the shop early! We could open a bottle of brandy and sit by the open fire roasting chestnuts and telling ghost stories!"
Bernard gives him the same look he gives Carollers. It's been known to make small children up to seven years old cry.
"Come on, Bernard, it's Christmas Eve! It's my favourite time of year!"
"Is that what all this shite is about?" Bernard says, gesturing towards the limp tinsel that hangs over the chalkboard, before pushing the end of his cigarette into the soil of the plant pot. "I thought you'd taken up gardening."
Manny picks up the tree and cradles it to his chest. "What's the matter with you, anyway? Get coal in your stocking when you were a kid?"
"Bah! What luxury it would have been to get coal! We were lucky if we got two sticks we could rub together for warmth! And we were thankful! We'd sit up for hours singing awful songs until Father Christmas arrived and gave us each a sock before sending us up to bed. I had to save up for years to get a decent pair!"
"I just thought it would nice to have a quiet Christmas here, that's all," Manny says, and looks away. Bernard recognises that look. It's the one Manny has when he's simmering a degree below boiling point.
"I'd rather move to the North Pole and freeze to death," Bernard says, carefully, and watches as Manny 's face twists before he jumps to his feet.
"Right, that's it, I'm going to Fran's. She invited us over for pre-Christmas drinks, but I assume you're not interested! I sincerely hope you enjoy the North Pole, because if you don't change terrible things are going to happen!" Manny storms out of the shop, still carrying his plant pot, and pulls the door behind him with enough force that it sticks in the frame.
"Fine! I will be gone when you get back! I'll marry a beautiful Eskimo girl called Matilda and we'll eat reindeer for dinner every night and ride huskies into the sunset and I'll never have to lay eyes on another beard again!" Bernard yells after him.
The door blows open. Manny appears after a moment, looking sheepish, and reaches in to slam it properly.
Hours pass, and night settles in with piling snow and a rolling fog. Bernard is hunched up on his chair, snuffling in his sleep, with a threadbare blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a single candle burning low and unnecessary as the ceiling light continues to be on. The door opens, and a figure in white robes steps in.
"Closed!" he yells, without moving.
"No, you're not," a man says, and he looks up to glare at him. He's got holly in his hair, and some kind of glittery belt around his waist. Bernard eyes him with drunken, squinting suspicion.
"Well, flip the sign as you leave," Bernard says, and turns back to wallowing in his righteous misery.
"Actually, I'm here for a reason," he says, stepping closer with a sense of purpose that makes something vaguely in Bernard's lower back get horribly tense, like some deadened sense of fight or flight that attempts to activate, before realising the futility of doing anything sensible with this body of smoker's lungs and alcoholic's limbs and gives up in a shiver of impotent despair.
Bernard ignores it completely. "Is that reason anything to do with teaching me the meaning of Christmas?"
"Maybe, I don't know," he says, softly and with a slight slur, and stops in front of the desk. "I need a book. A book about... Christmas."
"No," Bernard says, and fights his way out of his blanket cocoon to light a cigarette. The man - a student, by the looks of his stupidly large glasses and a weak attempt at what Bernard suspiciously thinks might be designer stubble - stares fixatedly at the single sequinned star that still sits on the desk, looking disgustingly cheerful in its innocent twinkling shine...
"Christmases," he finally says, and Bernard jumps. "Like, at least... thirty of them."
"Thirty Christmases," Bernard echoes flatly, and the student nods rapidly, causing the drooping wings attached to the back of his costume to flap sadly.
"Yeah! Exactly that! It needs to be like, about the past, full of moving childhood moments and sad adolescents being horrible to each other and stuff."
"Oh, I don't know, try that section over there labelled Things To Burn."
"Awesome," he says, grinning, and the bile reserved solely for people who use the word awesome to describe anything other than cathedrals and other large structures begins to boil horribly. Bernard grimaces. "Wait, where?" the man asks, looking around the shop.
"Forward," Bernard says, and the student steps away. "Forward, forward, left, forward, right, forward," Bernard calls, until he's out the shop and heading towards the road, and with a gust of wind the door slams shut behind him. Bernard shuffles back down into a pile of huddled misery as the candle finally splutters out.
"Bah, humbug," he says, and picks up another bottle of wine.
An hour later the door suddenly crashes open with a blast of icy wind, and the fog spills into the shop. The lights, for a moment, flicker, before a figure suddenly lurches in - and grabs onto the doorframe for support.
"I..." Fran starts, drawing in a deep breath and wincing as she holds up a half-empty bottle of wine, "am the ghost of Christmas presents."
"You don't look dead," Bernard says, narrowing his eyes at her.
"I feel like I am," Fran says, and staggers into the chair in front of the desk. Bernard leans over to grab the bottle from her as she tilts violently, grabbing onto the desk at the last moment. "There's a definite sense of something having died and then been reborn in my stomach."
"That's Easter," Bernard says, and holds the wine out of her reach as she tries to grab it. She glares at something over his shoulder. "Is this my Christmas present?"
"No," she says, and tries to think as Bernard pours a glass, and peers at it suspiciously. "I got you something much... bigger."
"Is it a pony? I've always wanted something that could trot around the shop and leave great piles of shite all over the floor," Bernard says, and swigs from the bottle.
"No, listen, shut up, I'm here for a reason," Fran says, sitting up suddenly - before grimacing, and swiping the glass off the desk to down it in one gulp. "It's about Manny."
"Urgh," Bernard says, and tops up her glass when she holds it out. "You spoil that boy. It's disgusting, seeing a grown man so giddy."
"There's nothing wrong with enjoying Christmas," Fran says, and Bernard glowers at her. "But Manny-"
"-Aha!"
"But Manny wants to spend Christmas day at mine, because you're being so horrible, and I can't!"
"Ah, you see, that's the problem! He's insufferable! No one in their right mind would want to spend a whole day with him, exchanging thoughtful gifts and eating delicious food and singing Christmas songs until our ears fall off. No one!"
"No, Bernard, I have plans. I'm seeing family," Fran says, looking pleased with herself.
"What plans? What family? You've only got us. It's always only been us. How dare you bring this so called 'family' into this."
"Never you mind. Now apologise to Manny, and let him have a proper day here, and I promise I'll never tell him about what you did to his tree."
"You wouldn't dare," he says, narrowing his eyes.
"Try me," she says, and leans on the desk to hold his gaze, unblinking.
They glare at each other, and then Fran reaches over to flick his ear.
"Ow! Fine, he can have his stupid Christmas!"
"Aww, that's very sweet of you, Bernard," Fran says, patting his hand as he looks at her with utter revulsion. "I've got to pack, I'll send Manny back over and you can tell him the good news yourself."
"I hope these relatives of yours turn out to be hippy nudists who only eat raw vegetables and nut loaf," Bernard says, as she grabs the wine bottle back from him and heads for the door.
"Be nice to Manny!" she calls, and pulls the door shut behind her. Bernard glares at it, considering his options, and pulls off one of his shoes to fling it after her - it hits the light switch instead, and the shop plunges into darkness just as Bernard starts to look for his cigarettes.
"Bugger it," he says.
An hour later and Bernard is still stuck to the chair, dozing with an unlit cigarette stuck to his bottom lip. The shop is silent and dark, and a shadow passes in front of the windows - it stops in front of the door, and then, slowly, with a great amount of squeaking, the handle twists until the catch clicks back, and the door swings slowly inwards with a long, loud creak.
A hooded figure steps into the shop, holding a large scythe that glints viciously in the darkness. Bernard squints at for a long moment before his eyes fly wide and he flings himself out of the chair, crashing to the floor with a cry of horror.
Manny pushes his hood down and flicks on the light switch.
"Bernard?" he calls from the doorway, trying to peer around the side of the desk. Bernard grabs onto the edge and hauls himself to his knees, so he can glare at Manny properly.
"Are you trying to kill me?" Bernard yells, the cigarette bobbing angrily with every word.
"What? No, I came to apologise. Do you like my scythe? I found at the side of the road. I thought we could hang it over the desk as a warning for any customer who asks if we've got that new children's book you hate," Manny says, edging into the shop and studying Bernard's face with a kind of hopeful smile.
"Is it a present?" Bernard asks, eyeing it suspiciously.
"Er. Yeah, if you want," Manny says and Bernard struggles to his feet to consider him for a moment, before reaching out to take it. "Does this mean - we're doing Christmas?"
Bernard presses his lips together, looking up at the blade, until, "Fine!" he yells, and Manny throws his arms in the air in celebration. "But you're doing the cooking! And the cleaning! And buying me some actual presents! And make that bread sauce from scratch! And if you start singing, or humming, or so much as think to some kind of melody I will strangle you with this tinsel, stick a bow on you and ship you to a volcano!"
"Yes, yes, of course," Manny says, grinning so widely Bernard has the strange urge to see what the swing on the scythe is like, but then Manny's rushing past and taking it from him as he dashes into the kitchen, calling behind him, "I'll just get started on the dinner, shall I? It's almost time to put the turkey in!"
"You do that," Bernard calls, and sits back down. "I'll just wait here and hope the actual Grim Reaper shows up for lunch."
"Oh, and I did get you another present," Manny says, appearing through the curtain, and plonking a gallon bottle of red wine in front of him. "It's homemade. You know, for the personal touch. I've tried it and I think it's rather good, actually."
There are tears in Bernard's eyes.
"Get it off my hand," he says, through clenched teeth, and Manny rushes forward to lever it off. Bernard whimpers, and clutches his fingers to his chest.
"Er, sorry," Manny says. "Would you like a glass?"
"A straw. No, two straws - no, make it five. I plan to finish this before the starters are served," Bernard sneers, and when Manny's gone he lifts it up to try it - a look of surprised delight crosses his face, before being quickly rearranged to an unimpressed sneer as Manny comes back with the straws.
"Oh! Did you like it?"
"It'll do, I suppose," Bernard says, looking away, and somewhere a clock strikes twelve.
"Merry Christmas, Bernard," Manny says, smiling fondly as he looks around the shop.
"Yes, that, to you too," Bernard says after a pause, and then, "Can you smell burning?"
Outside, a lone figure watches through the window, looking ghostly pale in the moonlit snowy streets. It tries to make ghostly noises, and rattle the doorknob, and bring warnings of terrible doom, but the occupants inside are too busy yelling at each other and flapping their hands at the rolling smoke to notice.