Make A Christmas Wish: A heartwarming, witty and magical festive treat

Before Livvy died, everything was going to be so different. I wasn’t proud of myself for doing it, but I had met and fallen in love with Emily. I’d been planning to tell her, but then Livvy found out anyway: You bastard. How could you? The very last words my wife said to me. In the circumstances, they were no more than I deserved, though Emily tells me I’m too hard on myself. But if … if I’d supported her more in the beginning, if I’d understood the toll of looking after Joe had exacted on her … My world is full of ifs.

I can remember the day I first met Livvy as clearly as if it was yesterday. It was our first term at uni in Manchester, and there was this bright, vivid, red-headed girl standing in the student bar, downing shots in a competition and drinking all the boys under the table. I was too shy to talk to her that first night, but gradually I found myself more and more drawn to her, and to my surprise my interest was reciprocated. It was Livvy who took the initiative from the first, kissing me suddenly and fiercely one night when we’d sat out all evening staring at the stars together. She was so unlike anyone I’d met: a free spirit, spontaneous in a way I wasn’t. She breathed life into me, showing me there was more than the staid and rather restrictive outlook my parents had given me. It was a magical, wonderful time. Since she’s died, I often think of those days and wonder how it could have gone so badly wrong.

But it did, and instead I’ve spent the last year picking up the pieces of my life. Even though our marriage was a sham by the end, I was devastated when Livvy died. I never got to say sorry that a love that had started out with such hope and promise had disintegrated in the way it did, and now there was no possibility of ever putting it right.

And now here we are and it’s coming up for Christmas again, and I owe it to Joe to try and make things cheerful even though it’s the last thing I feel like doing. I’m never sure how much of what’s happened he’s taken in, and wonder what is going on inside his head. He says things like, ‘My mum is dead,’ deadpan to complete strangers, showing no emotion. Emily says we just have to support him the best we can. So today, though I’m not sure I have the stomach for Christmas decorations (last year the lights seemed to twinkle malevolently at me as if proof of my guilt), Emily and I are putting up the Christmas tree. We always put the tree up a fortnight before Christmas, and Joe with his obsessive need for order has had it written on the calendar for weeks.

Actually, it turns out to be fun. It’s been a really blowy day, and after Joe and I put flowers on Livvy’s grave first thing, we went for a wet walk down by the canal. We get back home and make hot chocolate and sit by the fire drinking it, feeling cosy and warm, till Joe starts insisting it’s time to decorate the tree. I’d thought he might not want to do it today, on the anniversary, but he is insistent. ‘We always decorate the tree two weeks before Christmas,’ he says. ‘Mum won’t like it if we don’t.’

It makes my heart ache to hear him speak about her in such a matter-of-fact way. He must be grieving for Livvy, but it’s hard for him to articulate it.

‘Five thirty,’ Joe says now, pointing at his watch – time is very important to him – ‘if we don’t do it soon, it will be dinner time and too late.’

‘OK, Joe,’ I say, ‘let’s get on with it.’

The wind is howling down the chimney now, and the kitchen door rattles. This is an old house, with ill-fitting doors and windows. We’ve always meant to get double glazing, but I like the old sash windows, and wooden frames. They give the place character, though on a night like tonight I’m not grateful for the draughts blowing through the house.

Joe in his methodical way is sorting out how to decorate the tree. After the lights go up, he insists that certain decorations, like the Santa he made for us when he was five, and the reindeer Livvy once bought him at a Christmas market, take pride of place. Then he organizes the baubles according to a colour scheme: gold, red, silver hung in serried rows round the tree. This is something Livvy used to do with him, and I had no idea he had it down to such a fine art. Emily and I are there to do things the way Joe likes them, and I am finding it quite soothing.

After the baubles, Joe makes us wrap the tree in tinsel – he won’t let us use red because ‘it doesn’t look right’ – and I mean literally wrap it. It is starting to look overloaded, but he won’t hear of us taking any off.

We’ve just put the last bit of tinsel on the tree, when Joe suddenly looks at Emily in that disconcerting way he has and asks, ‘Are you my mother now?’

Oh God. I’m not ready for this.

I have tried really hard to introduce Emily into our lives slowly. Luckily Joe already knows her from the swimming club we go to on a Monday evening. Joe was always so full of energy in the evenings, I started taking him as a way to tire him out before he went to bed. Being Joe he takes it very seriously, and won’t leave the pool till he’s completed a hundred lengths.

It was there that I first met Emily. After a messy divorce, she took up swimming, not only to get fit, but, she told me later, to do something positive for her. I swam to disperse my demons. The pool was the one place where I forgot about everything, and it relaxed me. And every week there was this pretty petite brunette in a red cap and black costume, swimming in the same lane as me. Somehow we bonded at the deep end, and though we never intended it to, one thing led to another.

A huge gust of wind howls down the chimney, making the flames flare up, and I feel a whoosh of cold furious negative energy hit me right in the solar plexus. At the same time the lights on the Christmas tree flicker on and off. The other two don’t seem to notice, as they’re engrossed in putting the rest of the decks away. I go and fiddle with the plug and the lights come back on.

Emily stands back and looks at the tree, ‘There, doesn’t that look lovely?’ she says.

Joe smiles.

‘Now we can start Christmas,’ he says.

Livvy

‘How do I do that?’ I say.

‘You’re a ghost,’ explains Malachi. ‘You have powers, try them out.’

‘What, like this?’ I say, and I let out a huge scream that gratifyingly causes the Christmas tree lights to flicker and go out.

‘What the–?’ Adam says, going to the plug and switching them back on.

Now I’ve got their attention. I run through the house screaming at the top of my voice, causing lights to go on and off, but all that happens is that Emily jokes about power surges and Adam says, ‘Maybe there’s a problem with the wiring. I’ll call an electrician in the morning. We must get it sorted before Christmas.’

I’ve run out of steam. Defeated, I go out into the garden, and stare disconsolately at the moon.

‘Well, that was a waste of time,’ I say as Malachi lopes up next to me again.

‘You’re not a very patient person are you?’ he says. ‘It will take time.’

‘Why can’t they see me?’ I say. I so want Adam and Joe to know I’m here. I’ve turned away from the moon and am staring in at the lounge, where Joe looks happy to be with Adam and his new woman. I feel shut out and cold and sorry for myself. Why am I still here, if none of them need me? Joe clearly likes the new woman otherwise he wouldn’t be decorating the tree with her. He’s particular like that. I thought maybe I’d hung around for Joe. But it turns out he is even less like other people than I thought, and doing quite well without me. It reminds me of all the times I felt so useless as a mum even though I tried so hard to get it right; now I’m dead, I’m worse than useless. I stare through the window and the memories come crowding in.

I think it was that first Christmas with Joe when I finally realized something was wrong with him. Always a difficult baby, at nearly a year old he still wasn’t sleeping through the night, and I found it difficult to bond with him. He was often fractious when he was awake and I was exhausted with the effort of looking after him. I felt guilty – after the miscarriages I should have been thrilled with my new baby – but when I mentioned it to Adam, he told me I was imagining things.

‘All babies cry,’ he said. Like he knew anything about it. He was working really hard to pay off our crippling mortgage, spending long hours away from home, frequently away on business. It wasn’t his fault; he just couldn’t see how hard it was for me.

‘Yes, but not like this,’ I said.

Adam didn’t listen. No one listened. My nearly retired doctor, who was kind, but overworked, had I think dismissed me as a neurotic mother. Not difficult after those early weeks when I cried all the time and was eventually diagnosed with postnatal depression. My mother always thought I looked at the cup half empty. My friends thought I just had a difficult baby.

But that Christmas it all changed, at which point even Adam had to believe me.

That Christmas was when Joe started banging his head every night. We’d put bumpers round his cot as we were told to do, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I’d put him in bed every night and, thump-thump-thump, it would start. It was distressing to watch, but if I tried to cuddle him or take him away he cried. I sometimes felt as though my touch was toxic to him.

Then there was the way he didn’t seem to respond to his name, or smile very much. I felt so sure it wasn’t the way he should be developing, I started looking things up, though Adam told me I was looking to find something that wasn’t there. But he had to admit things weren’t right when we were unwrapping presents after Christmas dinner and Joe completely freaked and threw himself on the floor, screaming. Nothing would console him. Not Adam, who could normally calm him down, nor my mum, who prided herself on her perfect touch with babies. And certainly not me. How could I not feel useless?

At first no one could say what was wrong, though I stuck to my guns and kept asking. All anyone could tell us was that Joe wasn’t developing the way he should. He had only just learned to crawl, and wasn’t making any attempt to stand up. As he grew towards toddlerhood, he reacted even more badly to my touching him. It broke my heart to hear him scream when I went to hug him, and I was covered in bruises where he lashed out at me. It was as though he were locked in his own little world.

I began to avoid mother and baby groups, unable to be sure that Joe would play nicely or kick off by throwing toys, hitting the other children or banging his head on the ground. As the babies in my antenatal group grew, it was becoming more obvious that Joe was different. I’d lost my first two babies, and now this. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a mother.

It wasn’t until Joe was nearly three, after months of consultations and meetings with experts, that we found out why.

‘Asperger’s? What’s that?’ Adam asked, looking pale.

So they explained as kindly as they could. How Joe found it difficult to interact socially, how he wouldn’t have the emotional and social cues that other people did, which could make him appear unsympathetic and different to the other kids. How it was likely he wouldn’t last in the state system at school.

‘Oh shit, shit,’ said Adam.

‘But how? Why?’ I wanted to know.

And then Adam told me about his brother. The one no one ever discussed and who I didn’t know existed till then. He lived locked away in a home because Adam’s parents couldn’t cope with their secret shame.

I was flabbergasted. I should have known this sooner.

‘I’m sorry,’ Adam said over and over again, his face pale with distress, ‘I should have told you, but – Mum and Dad, they never want to talk about it. And I’ve never felt able to either.’

What did it matter either way? Would it have made anything different? I’d have still chosen to have Joe; after all Adam’s turned out OK. It’s a lottery. And we just lost.

Malachi jumps up next to me. ‘Don’t give up so soon,’ he says with an unexpected kindness in his voice. ‘Listen to me and everything will work out.’

‘Listen to you, how?’ I say, unconvinced.

‘Let me take you on a journey,’ he says. ‘There’s a lot you need to learn.’