The Outback

There is a place where elves are made. Where costumes are donned and make up is applied. Where the magical grotto day begins and ends.


It's 'out back'.


Through doors I had never noticed before in the middle of the shopping centre, you are taken to a cold dimly lit corridor. The corridor leads to a dirty plastic curtain. The curtain leads outside to the large recycling bins and badly parked delivery trucks. Walking around the trucks leads to a combination locked door. Typing in ******* leads to a sad room with two tables of six chairs, several copies of The Sun, a vending machine that doesn't work and a fridge that doesn't shut. Going through the door marked female leads to heavily padlocked lockers and a bathroom covered in traces of red facepaint.


We elves share this 'area' with the cleaners and service people of the shopping centre. There are extended bursts of bad language drifting through the air. Swear words sound much more shocking when you're dressed as an elf. You should try it sometime. 


It is also the most cosmopolitan area of Belfast I have ever been to. If we must have people from other countries we like them to do jobs we don't want to. There a regular lunchtime conversations about burial rites in Nigeria and fashion trends in Poland. In any other country this would not seem in any way remarkable, but keep in mind Northern Ireland used to be so homogeneous that my brother tried to lick the first black person he saw in London because he thought he was made of chocolate. My brother was 27*.


Out back is probably the most incongruous place to walk around in dressed as an elf. But I'm beginning to forget I'm wearing a costume. We sit there at lunch, three elves and Santa, eating our sandwiches. We tend to keep ourselves to ourselves. No-one else seems to want to sit near us. To be honest, I prefer being in the grotto.


*This may not be true.