The Twelve Days of Christmas: 10
On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: ten lords a-leaping.
My true love was going through a nihilistic phase. It happens occasionally. So whilst I will confess that I was momentarily taken aback to find ten mannequins dressed in robes, fake ermine and long wigs piled in the back of a hire van parked outside our flat, I wasn’t perhaps too surprised to also find a scrawled note taped to the steering wheel.
“Am at Beachy Head. Meet me there. Have paid for van. Bring mannequins.”
At this point, any reference to Beachy Head would have made most people fear the worst, thanks to its unenviable reputation as this country’s foremost suicide location and beauty spot. But as I turned my key in the ignition, put my foot on the accelerator and pointed the van in the direction of Eastbourne, I knew that the only things going off the cliffs would be a few demons. It’s cathartic, apparently.
It was dusk by the time I pulled the van into the tourist car park. I rolled down the window and called out to my true love, who was sitting on the grass verge awaiting my arrival.
“I’ve got your mannequins for you.”
“And I’ve got the ten commandments,” my true love shouted back with unrestrained glee, approaching the van and waving some large sheets of paper at me.
With daylight fading fast, we shared the task of carrying the cheap plastic mannequins from the car park to the edge of Beachy Head. It required a few journeys back and forth, but eventually the parade of ten eerily featureless models was ready for final inspection.
Catching my breath, I turned to my true love and finally posed the question that anyone else would have raised many hours earlier.
“So, humour me … what the hell are we doing standing at Beachy Head with ten dummies dressed as escapees from the House of Lords?”
“It’s all about laws. Rules. Commandments,” my true love answered confidently, as if this sort of behaviour was a perfectly acceptable part of everyday normality.
“No, you’ve completely lost me, I’m afraid. And I’m cold. And I want to go home. Now.”
“Look. In the song, the ten lords a-leaping represent the ten commandments, right? The ultimate laws about how to live one’s life. We’re all hidebound by rules from day one, from the moment we can understand our mothers wagging a disapproving finger at us and mouthing the word ‘no’. But now, I want out of it. I want out of it all.”
Slowly, my true love began walking down the line of slightly windswept law lords, pinning the pieces of paper to the front of their robes. On each sheet, a thick marker pen had been used to inscribe one of the ten commandments in almost obsessively neat block capitals - from ‘THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME’ through ‘HONOUR THY FATHER AND MOTHER’ to the final ‘THOU SHALT NOT COVET ANY THING THAT IS THY NEIGHBOUR’S’.
With all the mannequins dressed in their regal finery and adorned with each of God’s holy laws, I unwisely chose this moment to query some of the finer details.
“Er, that last one - shouldn’t it mention something about not coveting thy neighbour’s wife, manservant, maidservant, ox or ass?”
My true love glared at me.
“I’m using the abridged version, OK?”
“Fine. Just checking.”
The sun was finally disappearing below the horizon as we carried the plastic figures the last few feet to the brink of the cliff. One by one, we threw each mannequin high into the air - shrieking with a mixture of hatred and manic delight as they were sent to their death - and listened for the sound of them crashing onto the rocks some five hundred and thirty feet below. All the rules were being well and truly broken.
Crazy? Cathartic? Yes, absolutely. But a peculiar kind of sense? Definitely. Much as I sometimes hate to admit it, my true love and I are made for each other.
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