Paul Murray / Features / Untitled Books

"Happy Christmas (War is Over) is playing on the shop PA. It's actually a very moving song."

Paul Murray

Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies, spends a week perfecting the art of Christmas shopping, battling with the cat and self-medicating with Toblerone.

Monday

The week begins with a trip to the vet. A couple of weeks ago our cat, Reggie, got fixed, and tonight we have to take him back to make sure all is well. Reggie is what you would call a spirited (frenetic, diabolical) sort of a cat, and some of us, while empathising with the loss of his manhood, had been privately hoping that it might slow him down just a little. Post-op he is more energetic (insane, malefic) than ever, and I wonder if it's possible that, you know...they've grown back?

That doesn't happen, the vet says calmly. Okay, it's just that sometimes he seems a little, uh, violent? And sadistic? Normal kitten behaviour, the vet assures me. As we speak said kitten is scaling my leg using its claws until he gets in a good position for chewing my hair. That's fine, I say through the pain. I just wondered.

The last time he was here we discovered that Reggie was the vehicle for a travelling army of mites, worms and other critters, for which he was prescribed with a battery of surprisingly expensive medicines. Now, to his horror, the vet is looking into Reg's ear, to see that somehow a mite is still there. How can this be, he says. In my whole career, this has never happened before. I just don't understand it. I gave you the medicine, didn't I? Didn't I give you the medicine?

His implication is clear: that he gave us the medicine, but we did not give the medicine to the cat. We have been neglectful owners. But we did give him the ear medicine, we did! In fact for the last three weeks, every single night has climaxed with a battle to hold the cat still so we can inject goop into his stupid rancid ears, which has resulted in actual scarring to and more than one fight among the human part of the household. ('You're holding his ear wrong!' 'You didn't warm the goop up first!')

We finally convince the vet to give us one more chance before calling the social workers. In the reception the vet's assistant sings out Reggie's plight to the other pet owners as he rings up the surprisingly expensive ear medicine on the till. Dog-woman and man-with-box-of-hens smile smugly. Our ears burn with shame, as if we too were infested with indestructible mites.

Tuesday

It's the Tuesday before Christmas, and I wrap up work early and go into town to do some shopping. Before I can get to Christmas presents, though, there is my father's birthday to take care of. My sister has been busy having a baby, so I've promised to get my dad a gift from both of us, which is why, three weeks after his actual birthday, he hasn't got anything. 'It's just been a really busy time,' I tell him, 'what with the baby and everything.' 'Yes, yes, of course,' he says agreeably, and resists pointing out that my role in the baby's birth and life so far has been minimal at most. After thirty odd years he is used to this level of service. Anyway, he raised me, so ultimately it's his fault.

My mum has tipped me off that he wants a new electric razor, so I head in to Argos, which apparently is where you get these things. Or rather, I go online, select and reserve a Phillips Electric Shaver, and then I go into Argos. This is about the most organised thing I have ever done. But then I get the crisis of confidence I always get when trying to presents for anyone. Is a Shaver the same as a razor? What if it's some kind of code-word for Lady Razor? And where's the present-list I spent so much time working on last night, as a way of avoiding doing the cat's ears? Suddenly I remember how much I hate shopping. Christmas crowds jog me and jostle me. Light glints disorientingly from tinsel and mirror-balls. John and Yoko's Happy Christmas (War is Over) gloops from the mall PA. Blow it out your ass, John Lennon. And FYI war isn't over, so f**k you. This mental breakdown lasts right up until the Argos guy hands me the Phillips Electric Razor to me. On the box is a smug-looking clean-shaven man. Hurrah! Determined not to lose my momentum, I speed to the mothers'-scarf shop, where I look for a scarf for my mother. Happy Christmas (War is Over) is playing on the shop PA. It's actually a very moving song. Maybe over the holidays Al-Qaeda and Omar al-Bashri and like the British arms industry will happen to hear it and think about where they're going with the whole war thing. I pick out and buy a scarf in less than an hour, which, given that I have no idea what constitutes a good scarf in my mother's eyes, is pretty good going.

After dropping my presents home, I head out to meet a couple of writer friends for lunch. As ever, the conversation turns to the state of the publishing industry and the increasing difficulty of making a living from writing novels. 'It's like trying to squeeze medicine into a cat's ear!' I exclaim. My friends look blank, failing to realise that this is actually a very good analogy.

The lunch runs long and relocates itself mysteriously into the pub, with the result that I get home shortly after one a.m. My girlfriend has to stop me, in my superconfident but under-coordinated state, from running after the cat with ear medicine. 'I'm trying to help him!' I protest. 'You're just frightening him,' she says. It is agreed that it would be a good idea for me to sleep in the next room.

Wednesday

After yesterday's long-running and not entirely alcohol-free lunch, today gets off to a slow start before coming to a full stop.

Thursday

The weather has turned really cold and the footpaths are covered with frost. Would this be an acceptable excuse for not giving people Christmas presents? Hmm. Probably safer to take my chances with the frost. I pick my way along the quays, doing my best not to fall into the river, although it would probably help my hangover, now into its second day.

One of the benefits of the recession is that the shops, which from 2001-2008 were at Christmas-Eve levels of crowdedness every single day, are now, on Christmas Eve, relatively calm. Also, I have my present list and am pursuing my gifts with surgical precision. Gift for significant other: taken out with a single shot. Gift for baby niece: terminated with extreme prejudice. I even buy a backup box of chocolates for unexpected situations. I am a ruthless present-buying machine.

'Are you all right?' my brother says when I meet him later.

'I'm better than all right,' I tell him. 'I'm totally in the zone. Do you have any presents left to buy? You should let me get them for you, because I am so in the zone it's scary. I'm so in the zone it's like I've found another zone inside the first zone? And I'm in that zone as well?'

'This is like that episode of Beverley Hills 90210 where Steve starts taking steroids,' my brother says.

'Look at this,' I say, waving the box of chocolates at him. 'A back-up present. A freaking back-up.'

'Maybe it's swine flu,' my brother conjectures concernedly. 'You should have some food, maybe that'll help.

My brother is back from Bristol for a very brief stay. After lunch he comes back to the house, which he hasn't seen before. 'What's wrong with your cat?' he says, as the cat climbs up his face to chew his hair. 'He has itchy ears,' I say. My brother starts screaming. 'You get used to it,' I tell him.

Friday

Christmas Day. Driving in Dublin is rarely fun, but Christmas Day is different; what traffic there is marked by an uncharacteristic goodwill-to-all-men type sentiment. You first. No, you. It's like everyone's been listening to Happy Christmas (War is Over) by John and Yoko. I, however, am listening to the Beach Boys. My car refuses to recognise any media other than cassettes (and isn't fooled by those cassette-converter dealios) so driving has become a kind of voyage into the past, as I trawl through the tapes of my youth. 'When I Grow Up to Be A Man' is a song from their nebbish early days. It features as a coda Brian Wilson musing, 'Walk past forever...it's kinda sad' while the other Beach Boys count off the years: Thirty! Thirty-one! Lyrically speaking it's trite at best - the passing of time and inexorable march towards death is 'kinda sad'? - yet somehow achieves a cumulative effect as regards life's ineluctable relationship with loss that is up there with A La Recherche de Temps Perdus.

My brand-new niece, who is 25 days old today, is visiting with her parents when I arrive. She has already had a busy day, having been press-ganged into playing the infant Jesus at Christmas Mass this morning. 'We were worried she might poo on the priest,' her father says, 'but she didn't.' After that high point, the day unfolds in its slow traditional way. Presents are exchanged; certain parties' in-the-zoneness, gift-buying-wise, is duly acknowledged; my mother's delicious turkey/vegetarian equivalent is eaten; the annual scratchcards are distributed and as usual my sister's dog is the major winner.

My brother has just been in LA, where he met, among other people, Megadeth's former tour manager. I learn that Dave Mustaine, presiding genius of Megadeth, now has his own brand of coffee, called Legends. I guess even metallers have to grow up someday. Believers who worry that Dave has gone Tasteful will be relieved to hear that the packaging is adorned by a silhouette of Dave Mustaine playing guitar, except for Dave Mustaine's Holiday Blend, which features a skeleton wearing a Santa hat.

Saturday etc.

It turns out that my brother was right, and my extreme in-the-zoneness on Christmas Eve was an incipient illness after all. I come down with a grisly cold, which has the agreeable side-effect of allowing me to spend the next four days on the couch, living on Lemsip and Toblerone and a heady swirl of books, TV and films. Highlights include The Dream-life of Angels; James Mason's Irish accent in The Reckless Moment; The Curtain by Milan Kundera. Ship of Fools, Fintan O'Toole's account of the many shades of corruption and ineptitude among those running this country, keeps me simmering away in spite of the cold snap. Best of all though is Season 5 of Frasier. There's a great moment when Niles and Frasier duck out of their father's invitation to see Chimps on Ice in favour of a party thrown by the ultra-exclusive Safari Club the pair are obsessed with: 'Last year, they made camp at the base of Mount Everest, then had their servants climb it while they held a wine tasting.' The episode was written by David Lloyd, one of the show's presiding geniuses, who died this November.

Outside, there has been heavy snow - unusual in Dublin - and the day after New Year's we venture up to the park, which has been transformed into a winter wonderland. Kids are sledding down the hill at the magazine fort; a smiling husky is refusing point blank to get back into the car. The beauty is astonishing. I get a call from M, who's driving back from the West: 'Are the roads okay? On the news they were saying it's been snowing there too.' 'Snow is general all over Ireland,' M returns, quoting the famous last paragraph of JJ's 'The Dead'; and then, 'Yeah, it's not so bad, just slow.' Well, take care anyway, I tell him. And happy New Year. And the same goes to anyone who happens upon this. Let's hope it's a good one....

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Paul Murray is a graduate of creative writing at UEA, His first novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. His new book, Skippy Dies, is published by Penguin.

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Wednesday, 27 January, 2010