Doreen doesn’t want the new year to start. She can’t bear to think about it. She wants to go back to the beginning of the last one. She wants to start it again and make it end happily – she wants her son Pete to fail his A-levels so that he won’t go to university; she wants him to have no friends so that he won’t be tempted to go out in a car with one of them, she wants him to develop agrophobia so that he will never leave the house, she wants him to develop some as yet unknown disease where he never grows up, never changes, always loves her, never wants to go…
Hilltop Radio has a new base. They got wind that their secret broadcasting station was about to be found so they quickly chucked everything into the back of a van one night last week and moved. They are still on a hill – but it’s a different hill and not quite as high up so anyone living on the new estate by the Catholic church can’t pick them up anymore. They are running a competition – if one of the DJs spots a Hilltop Radio sticker on your car window and you phone in when they mention your car registration number you win £5.00. Stickers are hard to come by – you really need to know someone who knows someone or hang out in the car park behind Save Rite where they give them out from a secret blue Ford Capri on Thursday nights.
People always split up at Christmas or New Year. Last year it was Roy and Alison. Roy ran off with the caller from The Country Bumpkins Ceilidh band at midnight on New Year’s Eve. This year it’s Sharron (from the accountants) and Malcolm (the mechanic). Sharron has found a new job in London but Malcolm doesn’t want to move. Sharron is secretly glad, Malcolm still doesn’t really believe that she will leave.
Phil has gone back to school. He started back this morning. He left with a tear in his eye. He hates January, always has, but this year it feels worse because he hates his job too and had such a great Christmas with Pam and Thomas. This was the first Christmas that Thomas really understood about Father Christmas and presents. They left a mince pie and a carrot out for Santa and Rudolph on Christmas Eve. Santa ate half the mince pie, took the carrot and left Thomas a thank you note. Thomas had a ‘Mousie Mousie’ game, loads of Lego, a train jigsaw, and a sit on tractor. Phil tried to hide his tears from Pam and Thomas when he left for work. He knows that if they are going to have a wonderful Christmas again next year he must carrying on teaching, must carry on feeling sick on each Monday morning.
The other Phil (estate agent Phil) also had a great Christmas, his first with Joanne the hairdresser. He bought her a necklace, it was high risk but she loved it, or at least said she did, which is sort of the same. Phil thinks she might be the one. Joanne thinks Phil might be the one, even though he has terrible taste in jewellery.
Simon can’t wait to go back to college tomorrow so that he can see Emma again.
Ian can’t see how this year is going to be any different from last year.
Dodgy John has an idea for selling bits of the Town Hall in presentation boxes and snow globes.
Walter, Phil and Sid are still sitting on the bench opposite the Town Hall. This year will be the same for them, except that the Town Hall is being knocked down next week and Sid has a worrying cough.
The View Through The Clouds 