Ruth's First Christmas Tree: A Ruth Galloway Short Story

a sheepskin jacket and looks rather like a successful football manager. A curly-haired dog is sitting in the passenger seat.
    ‘Ruth. What brings you here?’
    ‘I’ve come to collect my Christmas tree.’
    Clough laughs. ‘Been buying from Leaf, have you? Let me guess who pointed you in his direction.’
    Bloody Cathbad. It’s only four-thirty but it’s pitch-black and the snow is drifting around the deserted lot. Where is Ruth going to find her perfect Christmas tree now?
    ‘What happened to Leaf?’ she asked.
    ‘He was selling without a licence,’ says Clough. ‘Got a tip-off that we were on our way and did a runner. Trees, girlfriend, mood music and all.’
    ‘What about my tree?’ says Ruth. ‘I’d already paid him.’
    Clough smiles pityingly. ‘He’ll be halfway to Glastonbury by now.’
    Ruth sighs. She has to pick Kate up at five. Where is she going to find a tree between here and the childminder’s house? She asks Clough.
    ‘Try the garden centre. They’ve got some nice ones there. Trace and I can’t risk a tree this year, what with Chummy there.’
    He indicates the dog, who is grinning out of the half-open car window. ‘He chewed up our new leather sofa last week. Trace wasn’t best pleased.’
    *
    Ruth drives home through the slanting snow feeling resentful about Cathbad, Christmas and druids everywhere. Ruth lives on a beautiful but lonely stretch of coastline known as the Saltmarsh. There are three cottages in the row but two are currently empty; one is a holiday home only occupied for a couple of weeks a year, the other belongs to an Indigenous Australian called Bob Woonunga, who is currently stretched out on a beach in North Stradbroke Island. But as Ruth approaches, the security light flares into life, almost shockingly bright, and Ruth sees a figure silhouetted against her front gate. The figure, looming out of the swirling snow, looks sinister in the extreme, cloaked and hooded like the grim reaper, but Ruth finds herself smiling in mingled exasperation and pleasure. Cathbad.
    As soon as she has parked, Cathbad appears at the car window, smiling at Kate, who is sitting in her baby-seat next to a rather scruffy-looking Christmas tree.
    ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you,’ says Ruth.
    ‘Interesting phrase,’ says Cathbad, brushing snow off his hood. ‘A bit like “bone of contention”. Why is it always bones, I wonder.’
    At another time, Ruth, whose expertise is bones, would be happy to discuss this point, but now all she can think about is her perfect Christmas disappearing on the back of a caravan together with Leaf and Raindrop.
    ‘Your druid friend disappeared with my tree,’ she says.
    ‘But you’ve got a tree,’ says Cathbad, pulling faces at Kate.
    ‘Tree! Tree!’ shouts Kate.
    ‘This is a second-best tree from the garden centre,’ says Ruth. ‘My first tree was special. Apparently the goddess of the forest had breathed on it.’
    ‘That’s certainly special,’ agrees Cathbad. ‘Do you want a hand getting this one out of the car?’
    Together they haul the tree out of the car, and in a reasonably short time it is installed in Ruth’s untidy sitting room. Flint comes up and sniffs it suspiciously.
    ‘Shall we decorate it?’ says Cathbad. ‘Have you got any decorations?’
    ‘Yes,’ says Ruth proudly. ‘I bought them last week.’ She has even bought fairy lights – tiny lanterns in red, green and gold – tinsel and a box of baubles.
    ‘People say the idea of putting up a Christmas tree originated in the nineteenth century,’ says Cathbad, selecting a golden Santa from the box, ‘but it’s far older than that. It’s linked to the pagan tradition of the Donar Oak.’
    ‘What’s the Donar Oak when it’s at home?’ asks Ruth, handing Kate a string of tinsel.
    ‘It’s a legendary oak tree sacred to the Germanic tribes,’ says Cathbad. ‘Also called Thor’s Oak. Donar probably comes from the German word for thunder, “Donner”.’
    ‘Isn’t that one of Santa’s reindeer?’ says Ruth, rescuing Flint, who has become entangled in the tinsel. She helps Kate twine the sparkly thread through the branches.
    ‘Yes,’ Cathbad grins. ‘Dasher and Dancer, Donner and Blitzen. It’s all linked. Anyway, when Saint Boniface came to convert the German tribes, he chopped down the Donar Oak. When he wasn’t killed by a thunderbolt, they all converted to Christianity.’
    ‘What a shame,’ says Ruth, who has taken a dislike to the