A CHRISTMAS TALE IN 25 PARTS: PART TEN

Old Marley had tried his best, he really had, but, having been dismissed as being the result of “having eaten far too much cheese” or perhaps “a dodgy prawn vol-au-vent” he realised that he lacked what he would later find out were known as “sufficient production values” and so he had to try another tack.

He’d thought that the thick fog had been rather impressive, even if he said so himself. Unfortunately these modern people were far too in tune with things like “weather forecasts” and “atmospheric conditions” to read anything supernatural into some “freak weather conditions.”

Mr Snatch had, in fact, barely even noticed the fog at first, as he raged and railed against the names making up the members of his guest list once they had all made their excuses and drifted off into the night.

Within mere minutes of having had that awkward “scene” with that ridiculous little char, the room had emptied and all of his guests had left him with a room full of food and a lot of gormless looking entertainment and catering staff all looking at him as if they wanted him to tell them where to go.

Naturally, he told them, and not in a particularly polite manner, having first bellowed the question which clearly warned them that a volcano of rage was about to erupt:

“What are you looking at?”

Seeing as not one of them was actually trying to catch his eye at all at that moment, the question told them all more about their employer that it said about them, but few of them were giving that much thought as they ran for the exits. Their minds were full of thoughts of posting the videos and photographs which they had surreptitiously taken on their various electronic devices on the social networking sites, and wondering whether any of the news outlets might be willing to push a few quid in their direction for the story and the illustrations.

And so, Mr Snatch found himself alone at the top of a high tower without even a dog that hated him for company.

He walked around the empty room, looking at all of the food and the drink which would now be going to waste, and at the lavish decorations that now seemed to be dangling and twinkling far more forlornly than they had been doing just a few minutes earlier, whilst mentally totting up the cost of it all in his mind and wondering whether he could write any or all of it off as a tax loss.

If the worst came to the worst, of course, he could always charge it to whichever of his charitable organisations the supposed “fund-raiser” had been meant to be in aid of, but he realised that one or two of his planned investments might have to be funded out of his own pocket over the next couple of weeks, and that was unfortunate.

Certainly none of the homeless charities would be seeing any benefits from this Benefit any time soon, not if he could help it. Not after inflicting this humiliation upon him. As ever, Mr Snatch was already finding ways and means to blame anyone and everyone but himself for what had happened, and he made a mental note to make sure that that ridiculous girl got the full force of his retribution when it came to the post-mortem he planned to hold in regard to this fiasco.

It was because her was in this self-absorbed frame of mind that he failed to notice Old Marley’s theatrics, which didn’t surprise Old Marley. After all, his previous attempt and an intervention had, at least, been with someone who had known and recognised him. He didn’t have that kind of history with this particular piece of work, and he struggled to get on his particular wavelength.

After going through his usual routine of wailing and moaning and rattling a few chains, all he saw was the man tapping furiously away at some little box sending messages to something called “maintenance” to schedule a few jobs the following day.

Even the ghostly ethereal fog didn’t seem to have phased him much, as a quick call to his chauffeur, and a brief look at a weather forecast, seemed to leave him nothing like as terrified as he ought to be by now.

Marley sat down in a chair and released his jaw and decided that he needed a bit of a think.