“The Further Adventures of Clarence Odbody”

It's a pleasant day in Heaven. Of course, by definition alone most days in Heaven are quite nice, but this one is particularly lovely. Clarence Odbody, an angel of the first class, has a meeting with a higher being named... well, most of the angels find his name near-unpronounceable, so a lot of the time he is referred to simply as Bob.

Bob is something of a big deal in celestial circles. Years ago, before he earned his wings, Clarence could only dream of meeting Bob. Now, having saved George Bailey's life and many others since, proving his worth as a guardian angel in the process, Clarence has an appointment. Best not be late.

When he gets to Bob's office, he is seated by the secretary in the waiting area. He picks up a dog-eared copy of Good Housekeeping from the small table, but it can't hold his interest. Usually the 'good book' is recommended reading material in this part of town, but the secretary seems content to scatter women's magazines over the coffee table and hide behind her own Marie Claire.

Ten minutes slowly tick by. The funny thing about time in Heaven is that, every now and then, it can drag by in the most unheavenly of ways. Clarence is finally called into the office and, straightening his halo nervously, he follows the secretary through the door.

“Her name is Sarah Carroll,” Bob begins, not even bothering to greet Clarence. Bigwig, Clarence thinks. But he only thinks it quietly, because Bob may well be able to read his mind.

“Sarah Carroll, rightio,” he smiles and nods. Bob ignores him and carries on.

“Forty years ago, she was born under a certain star.”

“Oh?”

“Not as special as the Bethlehem one, obviously, but... well, astrology isn't my strong suit, but I have it on good authority” – meaning up on high – “that she is meant to achieve something tremendous in her lifetime, but so far everything has been quite average.”

“I see...”

“You do? Fantastic, I am glad. Well, I suppose I needn't explain further. You know what to do.”

“Beg your pardon, sir?”

“Well if you claim to understand the situation, there's no point in wasting any more time, is there.”

Clarence's heart sinks. Is it too late to admit he's jumped the gun a bit? From the look on Bob's face, he reckons it is. Sighing inwardly, he leaves the office, hoping that he can complete this mission with his initiative alone. He follows Bob's secretary further into the building, until he reaches his last stop before leaving Heaven. Not the Pearly Gates as such, they're the big flashy entrance; the exit is more subtle. The place that celestial agents go to prepare for missions on Earth, one of the perks that comes with being Angel First Class; the Changing Room.

The Changing Room is one of Clarence's favourite things about the whole business. As much as he loves the nightgown that his late wife gave to him, 17th Century garments tend to date a man very quickly on Earth in the present day. Along with the wings, comes the ability to alter your appearance and adapt to your earthly surroundings. In the half century since his promotion, Clarence has had a lot of fun in the Changing Room.

Today, he is in the mood to be dapper. Not too dapper, mind; he knows his age and doesn't want to look silly. Going through the rails of various guises, much like a shopper in the January sales, he eventually selects woollen trousers, a crisp white shirt, a smart coat and a trilby. And brogues, naturally.

“You're crystal clear on this?” Bob asks. He hands Clarence a small leather notebook, which Clarence accepts gladly. Any clues welcome, but he'll be damned (though not really) if he'll admit to needing them. He's spent ages building up this reputation; at the moment he's on a par with Lady Di.

“I've done it a million times before,” Clarence exaggerates, “and I'll do it a million times again. I'm an Angel First Class, you know.” He winks at Bob and snaps his fingers, beginning the rapid descent to Manchester, England, Earth.

Time to meet Sarah Carroll.

This time of year is always popular for ghosts. At the bottom of her glass, Sarah can see ethereal faces looking up at her, their faces shimmering in the slowly melting ice. She feels like a latter-day Ebenezer, perched on her barstool, being visited by spirits. Well bugger off, spirits, she thinks, I've no patience for you today.

“Excuse me, love,” a man next to her says, “do you have the time?”

“Half past one,” she tells him. There is a clock almost directly in front of them.

“Half past one, thank you...” the man is quiet for a moment, then continues; “do you not think it's a tad early to be partaking in the Christmas cheer?” He gestures to her glass. Her third this afternoon.

“That's hardly any of your business,” Sarah coolly tells him.

“No, of course.” He tips his hat and turns to leave. “Merry Christmas, my dear.” Sarah says nothing in reply. She just looks back down into her glass, back to the ghosts. Her mum's in there, so is her fiancé. He's not just there amid the ice cubes, though, oh no – Harry is everywhere she looks, has been since the day he died.

Two o'clock comes, and lunchtime is over. Sarah spends a good minute getting her coat on and stumbles out into the daylight. It's a short walk back to work, but she nearly falls over several times on the slushy pavement.

Clarence watches from a bus shelter across the street as she enters the building. Then he sits down, retrieves the small leather book from his coat pocket, opens it up and begins to read. It is a year planner, but the dates on it are all skewed – days and months don't seem to run in order. It takes Clarence a moment or two to realise that it is a life planner, a diary of Sarah Carroll's existence up until now.

He flicks to the beginning and reads about her unremarkable birth (special star aside, that is), her childhood, the death of her mother when she was a teenager, the general absence of her father, the various soul-destroying jobs and bad boyfriends... the story begins to perk up when she meets Harry, but then he gets killed off by a wayward bus soon after their engagement.

“Poor girl,” he mutters to himself as he thumbs through the remaining pages, the ones that chronicle her increasingly frequent taste for the sauce. “Poor, poor girl.” He comes to the end of the story so far; the rest of the pages are blank, Sarah's life planner has no plan. No bright future.

Inside the building, Sarah sits in her small office, head in her hands, willing her newest headache to go away. Her boss stands in the doorway, expressing sympathy for the terrible year she's had but also simultaneously telling her for what feels like the hundredth time how they are a popular woman's magazine and they can find another illustrator like that (she makes the point of like that by clicking her fingers) if Sarah no longer feels like a team player. Sarah wants to throw up on his very expensive shoes, but she doesn't.

The afternoon passes much like any other in that Sarah gets very little done and her head doesn't stop spinning the whole time. It's a shocker that she's not been given the sack already. The working day ends, and she is in the process of shutting down her computer when there is a knock at her office door. For a second she thinks it might be Nick from Advertising – he seemed to be interested in her before she met Harry – but it isn't him. Nor is it her battleaxe of a boss. An elderly gentleman is stood in her doorway, trilby in hand. Sarah doesn't know why the word 'gentleman' applies, but it certainly does. Maybe because he just looks so... well, so gentle.

“Can I help you?” She asks, only then realising that he is the man from the bar earlier; the one who asked for the time and stuck his nose in where it wasn't wanted.

“Yes!” He smiles at her and steps into the office. “Is this where you work? It's very impressive.”

“Thank you,” Sarah says, picking up her handbag and draping her coat over her arm.

“It must have taken quite a bit of graft to end up with a nice office like this, in such a posh-looking building...”

“I suppose so,” she nods in agreement, rapidly losing her patience. “I'm sorry, but is there something you want?”

“Oh, yes, of course, I do apologise...” Clarence fiddles with his trilby. “I was just wondering if I could borrow you for a short time.” He doesn't expect her to say yes straight away, in fact he has a whole plan of action under his hat to convince her. It is an odd request, he supposes, just appearing quite literally out of the blue and asking to spend time with a stranger. It would definitely look a bit odd to a mortal, Clarence is aware of that, what with him appearing to be so old (when in fact he is even older). But at least he doesn't pose a physical threat, which is what people are always so concerned about these days.

“Alright then,” she says, surprising him, “let's go for a drink.” No, no, no, he thinks. Best steer clear of the tipple for now.

“How about a walk instead?” He suggests.

“Come on then,” Sarah leads the way out of the office, down into the foyer and out into the evening.

It's been dark for a few hours already, the streetlights are all on, bathing the roads and trees in a soft glow that makes them look like something akin to chocolate orange. At the bottom of the avenue, a young couple walk arm in arm. Young love at its bittersweet best. On the other side of the road, a mother carries a gargantuan shopping bag on one arm and her young daughter on the other.

“I love this time of year,” Clarence says. “Don't you?”

Sarah pulls her coat collar up, shivers, and shakes her head.

“My fiancé died last Christmas,” she tells him very matter-of-factly. “So I'm not really jingling any bells or anything of the like.”

“Hmm, quite understandable,” Clarence nods sagely. As an old man, he knows a thing or two about death. As a supernatural entity with centuries of life experience, he knows even more. Personally, he's always tried to take tragedies like loss and turn them into something less wasteful – after the deaths of his parents, he threw himself into life, wanting to make valuable memories out of every moment. Evidently, Sarah Carroll is more one for wallowing.

“And my mum's gone too,” Sarah continues, “so I'm pretty much on my own.”

Clarence shakes his head. It's such a pity – but such a grim outlook can hardly help, can it?

“What would your mother say to you, if she were here?” He asks.

“She'd probably sing a few lines of 'Chiquitita' to try and cheer me up,” Sarah tells him. “That always worked.” Clarence smiles, as if this is a nice notion, although he has no real idea of who or what ABBA are. They're huge on Earth but the radio stations in Heaven are more Mama Cass-heavy.

Clarence and Sarah walk in silence together for a while longer. Then, without either of them saying a word, they go into a coffee shop and sit in the window. He knows now why she agreed to come and walk with him, despite the fact that they'd never met. She's lonely.

They begin to talk about work. Clarence tells her that he is a retired social worker, which is not so much a lie as a re-imagining of the truth. She begins to tell him how she never wanted the job at the magazine, that she's always loved illustrating but she always had other plans than to simply sketch high heels and cocktail glasses to decorate the columns of a glossy mag.

“In my bedroom, in a shoebox in the back of the wardrobe, is half a notebook full of notes. I was going to write a children's book, see. Mum always used to say I had such an imagination. There was a time that I was so excited about it...”

“Then what happened?”

“What happens with everything else – it just never came to life. So I had to come back down to Earth.”

“Earth's not such a bad place to be,” Clarence says, but he's not sure if she hears him. She is too busy fidgeting with her napkin. When she excuses herself a moment later to go to the Ladies, Clarence quickly grabs the diary from his pocket and flicks to the future pages. Something new is written under next year – The Adventures of Ollie and Ellie, by Sarah Carroll. It sounds not unlike a children's book to Clarence. What's more, new words are appearing on the page before his very eyes – lists of awards and special mentions of S. Carroll for her work in children's charities and aid work. From what he can gather, Clarence believes he could have been sitting across from the world's next J.K. Rowling.

But how to set her back on the right path? Surely it can't be enough to just tell her what he knows. She wouldn't believe him and besides, nobody does the right thing just because somebody has told them it's the right thing. What can lead her out of the dark and help her see the light?

Clarence remembers once writing No man is a failure who has friends to George Bailey. This case is not dissimilar. Sarah Carroll's life is so devoid of love, she has nobody to guide her. Nobody but Clarence Odbody.

When Sarah returns from the toilets, Clarence makes a casual comment about her pretty hair. A few moments later, he compliments her eyes. She's a few centuries too young for him, but he thinks that it would be no bad thing if the Fates pushed her under some mistletoe and into the arms of a young gentleman...

The magazine staff Christmas party.

Nick from Advertising is there, chatting to various people and stepping from one foot to another to the beat of the cheap, tinny disco music. Sarah watches him from across the room, hiding a coy smile with her glass of lime and soda. It shocks her when she realises that the prospect of flirting doesn't fill her with feelings of guilt. Of course not, Clarence's voice echoes in her mind. You've been so sad for a whole year – grief is giving way to life again. Nick from Advertising walks over and gives her what he probably thinks is his best smile.

They exchange small talk briefly, and it isn't as painful as Sarah had feared. Soon enough, Nick from Advertising is bold enough to ask her something. It is a simple question but it could mean any number of things, the answer to which she is unsure of until it leaves her lips.

“You dancing?”

“You asking?”

The End

Merry Christmas!