Lost Christmas by David Logan

foil takeout container resting on his chest, staring through heavy-lidded eyes at
Antiques Roadshow
on the television in front of him.
    On-screen a book expert wearing a pair of white gloves, like a snooker referee, was holding a small maroon-coloured hardback in his hands, rotating it slowly, reverentially opening the pages and breathing in its musty, hundred-year-plus odour. A woman in her late eighties with a neat white bob was sitting across from him, listening intently to what he had to say. Frank watched, sucking up a prawn as he did, sauce dribbling down his chin.
    â€˜What we have here,’ said the expert, ‘is a very earlyedition of Oscar Wilde’s
The Happy Prince
. I remember reading this as a boy. It’s a marvellous story.’
    â€˜My father bought it for sixpence during the war,’ said the old woman with the neat white bob.
    â€˜Sixpence,’ said the book expert with a patient smile in his voice.
    â€˜It was a lot of money then,’ added the old woman. ‘For us, anyway. We were very poor. We lived in Coventry. Lost everything in the Blitz in forty—’
    But the book expert didn’t want to hear her life story. He was more interested in the small, thin book, which he now lay on the table in front of him. He put his hands together as if he was about to start praying, resting the tips of his index fingers on his chin.
    â€˜Wilde published
The Happy Prince
in 1888 in a collection of short stories. This edition was released by Raven Publishing some seven years later. So not a first edition, but interestingly Raven Publishing didn’t exist for very long, and the illustrator they commissioned for their Wilde series was Arthur Rackham, quite early in his career. He had only been illustrating for about two years when he worked on this. Sadly Raven went bankrupt almost immediately afterwards.’
    â€˜Oh dear,’ said the sweet little old lady, but what she really meant was
howmuchhowmuchhowmuch?
    â€˜You probably want to know how much this is worthtoday,’ said the book expert, nodding knowingly. They all just want to know how much. ‘This is in reasonable condition, a little wear and tear on the spine but nothing too serious. I would think this could fetch somewhere in the region of …’ He paused for maximum effect. The old woman with the neat white bob was hanging on his every word. So too was Frank. ‘… Forty thousand pounds.’
    The old woman was looking at the book expert open-mouthed. Frank was staring at the TV screen open-mouthed. Then suddenly he leaped to his feet. His king-prawn bhuna landed face down on the carpet with a splat! Frank hurried over to the packing boxes lined up against the wall and started riffling through them one at a time. He dumped the contents of each on the floor around him, clearly looking for something specific.
    Back in the park, Anthony let go of Frank’s hand and slumped back against the green wall. His whole body was shuddering from the experience of seeing inside someone else’s head. His face was a light beige colour and a film of greasy sweat clung to him. He pushed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in an attempt to alleviate the drilling in his brain. The shaking eased off after a few moments and he caught his breath. The pounding in his head eased off too.
    â€˜Was that it? That were impressive. So?’ asked Goose, eager to prove Anthony a fraud.
    Anthony took several deep breaths and the colour started to return to his face. ‘A book.’
    Both Goose and Frank were unable to hide their astonishment.
    â€˜What book?’ Goose was cross. This was not the answer he had expected.
    â€˜
The Happy Prince
by Oscar Wilde,’ said Anthony. He could see from the looks on their faces that he was right, but he knew that already.
    Frank started to laugh, which made Goose even angrier. ‘Bloody hell!’ said Frank. ‘Bloody hell!’ he said again.