TALE #6: MIRACLE IN MUIRHOUSE
This winter, the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh has commissioned a series of Christmas stories from some of Scotland’s best-loved writers, performances of which are available to view online. We are publishing extracts from these festive tales in print, and once you’ve read them we hope you will feel inspired to visit the Lyceum website to find out what happens next...
It is a cold, rainy night, and a dark cloud is hanging over an ordinary wee house, down an ordinary wee lane, in the middle of an ordinary wee street, in Muirhouse, Edinburgh.
Jessie Mckenzie is sitting at the kitchen table, with her half-eaten sandwich and untouched glass of juice, staring at the pile of Christmas cards she hasn’t the heart to write. What’s the point, she thinks, will there even be a Christmas this year? She hears raised voices and a slammed door from upstairs. Her mum and dad have argued before, but never for as long as this. The house feels empty and lifeless. You see, by this time on Christmas Eve, people should be arriving for the party, but that’s been cancelled. It feels, to Jessie, like Christmas has been cancelled! She lifts a piece of ice out of her drink, watches it slowly melt into her hand, and begins to smile. It reminds her of last year. That was a different story altogether. In fact, it was more than a story, it was a miracle. A miracle in
Muirhouse.
So come with me on a wee trip down memory lane, well, down a wee lane in Muirhouse, on December 24th 2019...
The Mckenzie’s Christmas Eve party was a neighbourhood tradition and last years’ started off like any other. There wasn’t much to them that Jessie could see - apart from a buffet that took over the kitchen table, and lots of people talking and drinking, and the fact that the more they drank the louder they talked. On the plus side, it meant bedtime was a lot more relaxed. Well, it wasn’t possible to sleep with all the noise going on anyway. Something both she and her little brother Joe had agreed on, back then, was how wonderful a Nintendo Switch would be. They had suggested having one to share, but were told it was far too expensive and that Santa had ran out ages ago. Besides, sharing something between them was sure to be "a recipe for disaster.” That was probably true, she’d thought, as she looked out of the bedroom window into the frosty back garden.
“The lights on the den look really good in the dark!”
The "den” she was referring to, was of course, the garden shed. And like every Christmas, their mum had covered the outside with fairy lights.
She turned to her brother, “Did you hear what I said?”
“What?” replied Joe absently, unable to tear himself away from his comic. “Amazing facts about Santa. Did you know that his sleigh is the fasted vehicle ever