The Christmas Surprise

by Jenny Colgan

  ‘Now here’s the thing,’ said Faustine, slightly nervously.

  The entire village was watching them.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Rosie suspiciously. Stephen looked at her just as the man holding the baby stepped forward.

  ‘It’s to do with the concept of being godparents …’

  ‘You are KIDDING me,’ said Rosie.

  Stephen had led her to one side very quickly.

  ‘You see, what godparents do—’

  ‘Is send presents at odd times of year because they can’t remember birthdays!’ said Rosie. ‘I should know, I’ve got three. You buy them a nice christening present, then put them up in their gap year! THAT’S what godparents do.’

  Stephen ignored her and went on. ‘There’s another element to the whole concept …’

  ‘FINANCIAL,’ said Rosie quickly. ‘We agreed to support the family. With money! So they can feed the baby.’

  ‘It’s slightly more than that …’

  ‘I realise that,’ said Rosie. ‘Except, obviously, you’re not serious.’ She realised she was babbling. ‘Because of course he has his grandparents here, who can—’

  Stephen was shaking his head.

  ‘They don’t … they can’t …’ He took a deep breath. ‘You have to realise, Rosie. This baby – he can’t work in the fields. Not with one arm. He can’t be a fighter or a hunter, he just can’t. They can’t look after him.’

  ‘We can help them.’

  ‘That’s not the kind of help—’

  Rosie looked at him.

  ‘We can’t just take a baby.’

  Stephen bit his lip.

  ‘“Will you care for them, and help them to take their place within the life and worship of Christ’s Church?”’ he quoted.

  ‘Yes, but that’s just something you say, like renouncing the devil and all his evil works.’

  Stephen held her hands.

  ‘Remember how happy we were at Christmas?’

  Rosie nodded, painfully. So much had happened since.

  ‘I always remember someone saying how ironic it is that Christmas is celebrated in the home but we’re celebrating the birth of a homeless child.’

  She just looked at him. In the trees, strange birds called, insects made noises. The crackle of the fire and the chattering of the villagers could be heard. Somewhere a woman was crying. The bush was never quiet. She held his gaze for a long, long time, until finally Stephen spoke softly.

  ‘They can get the local official. For a fee, he can handle the paperwork.’

  ‘This is RIDICULOUS. It’s off its head! Don’t be daft, we can’t have a baby.’

  There was another long pause in the chattering dusk. Somewhere far away an animal howled. Rosie found tears coursing down her cheeks.

  ‘We can’t have a baby,’ she said, for the second time in three days. The words were stones in her mouth.

  ‘Nobody wanted this,’ said Stephen. ‘But …’

  They looked at each other for a long time. Everything else seemed a long way away.

  ‘This is going to be … you know, this is a big deal,’ said Rosie softly, shaking all over.

  ‘Parenting,’ said Stephen. ‘But you know, we were—’

  ‘Yes. All parenting. And this might be more complicated than most. Adoption can be very difficult.’

  ‘So can having your own kids,’ said Stephen. ‘Look at those awful Mountford brats.’

  With a sudden wobbly smile, Rosie thought of the Mountford family, the richest in Lipton. The father ran a car dealership in Carningford, and the children always had the newest toys, the most up-to-date technology, and as many sweets as they could cram into their gobs. Rosie never liked to say anything about them at home, partly because they were children, and partly because they were splendid customers, but the way they ordered everyone else about, and made all the other children of the village dance to their whims in order to win an invitation to one of their infamous birthday parties, which had in the past featured circus animals, chocolate fountains and carousels (Edison had never been invited), was absolutely cringe-inducing.

  ‘It’s true,’ she said, her mood lightening a tiny bit. ‘We couldn’t possibly do a worse job than the Mountfords.’ Her heart started to beat incredibly fast.

  ‘We could,’ Stephen began slowly. ‘We could …’ He stared straight into her eyes.

  ‘I think,’ said Rosie, ‘I need to meet him properly.’

  Rosie approached carefully, her heart beating like a drum. She thought back over the months of emptiness, the terrible gap in her heart, the dreadful sense of her potential wasted. She had never been one of those people who cooed over babies, never believed that all she needed to fulfil her in life was a little bundle wrapped in Baby Gap. But the knowledge that she wasn’t having Stephen’s baby had broken her heart, totally and surely, and she knew that deep down she hadn’t begun to come to terms with it.

  The grandfather did not say a word; simply held out the child. The entire village was watching, and Rosie sensed that they were all holding their breath as much as she was.

  She took the warm bundle into her arms. His little face screwed up, snuffled a little, then, even though he was already sleeping, his mouth opened into a tiny tiger yawn. Rosie propped him up, her hand strong on the back of his neck, and laid his tiny head against her shoulder. The baby moved a little, nestled, found a perfect hollow in her shoulder Rosie had not even known was there, and curled his head straight into it.

  The man was talking to her, but Rosie couldn’t hear him. She leant in closer, but she still couldn’t hear his voice or make out what he was saying.

  ‘Apostil,’ said Faustine, then she said it again, louder, when Rosie clearly didn’t understand. ‘His name is Apostil. Ah-pos-teel.’

  ‘Like Apostle?’

  ‘No, like Apostil.’

  Even through the flood of emotion, Rosie’s first, ridiculous thought was that they were going to be having a lot of conversations like that in the days and years to come.

  The villagers melted away, seemingly satisfied that the matter had been settled, except for the wet nurse, who lingered at a distance. Rosie was incredibly grateful to be left alone with the baby.

  She walked up carefully to Stephen, holding the tiny form in her shaking arms. He gazed at them both.

  ‘Do you want to hold him?’ she whispered.

  Stephen stared at the bundle for a long time.

  ‘Here’s the thing,’ he said, swallowing. He rested a little more heavily on his stick, as he did when he was nervous. ‘The thing is … you have to be sure, Rosie. You have to be sure, right now. Because if you … if you hand him to me … if you hand him to me now …’

  He looked her straight in the eye.

  ‘There’s no going back. He’ll be ours.’

  She stared at him intently.

  ‘Did you think this might happen?’

  Stephen shook his head.

  ‘I only ever wanted the same for Célestine as you would have had.’

  His face twisted into a smile that contained a trace of the old Stephen.

  ‘Also, I may be wrong, but I suspect this is really going to screw with our holiday.’

  She held his gaze.

  ‘You want me to give him to you?’

  Carefully, Rosie handed over the tiny, precious bundle. Somewhere a soft voice started to sing something that sounded like a lullaby.

  Salay salay chinkama

  Tulay salay wawama

  Chinka lolo wink wa salay.

  More voices took up the quiet refrain on the still air. Stephen held the baby tentatively, supporting his head as Rosie showed him. He looked straight into the child’s face, and as he did so, Apostil woke up. To Rosie’s surprise, he didn’t cry, but instead met Stephen’s gaze with a calm, measured look of his own. She crept closer, unwilling to interrupt this moment. Man and boy stared at one another.

  ‘He recognises you,’ she whispered.

  ‘I
think he’s older than me,’ said Stephen wonderingly. ‘Look at him, Rosie. Look at that child and tell me he doesn’t know everything in the universe.’

  Rosie glanced up at the huge stars that were appearing overhead.

  ‘Well he did just get here from there.’

  ‘I think maybe he’s a genius,’ said Stephen, unable to tear his eyes away. ‘We’ll probably have to make special provision for him.’

  Rosie grinned as there was a sudden loud noise.

  ‘The genius just pooed all over your shoes.’

  ‘And I don’t even mind,’ said Stephen, still transfixed. ‘Look at me, standing here, all not minding.’

  Apostil blinked his huge eyes twice, slowly.

  ‘I agree,’ said Stephen. ‘You must feel better.’

  Rosie smiled.

  ‘Hang on, the van brought nappies. Not many, though. Give me a minute.’

  She went off to find them – Faustine had kindly put them by their tent – but paused and turned back to look. Father and son, she thought, frozen in time, both utterly absorbed in one another; and she snapped a quick picture on her phone. Her first baby pic.

  It hit her then like a ton of bricks. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. A family. I have a family. Everything I wasn’t sure I would be able to have. Sometimes, even, knowing Stephen’s fear of tradition and being tied down, she had had the tiniest suspicion in the base of her mind that he wouldn’t be that fussed if they couldn’t have children, even though that was ridiculous; he wanted her to be happy. But now … look … in the most unlikely of settings … here they were. My mum, she thought. Oh my God, I have to phone my mum. Then she stifled a giggle at the thought: and Stephen’s mum. Nobody here, of course, could possibly have any idea that the future Lord of Lipton had just been born.

  She was still giggling, a little hysterically, as they changed the baby. The wet nurse looked covetously at the towelling nappies, so of course they gave her half. Apostil was, apart from his little arm, the most beautiful infant, Rosie thought. A pale coffee colour, which she knew would darken with time; great dark grey eyes with heavy lids and thick black lashes; a perfect round bow of a mouth and a little button of a nose, and soft black hair whorled on his head. He was utterly exquisite. Even though they were both exhausted – and the other members of the team were trying to sleep across the way in another canvas tent – they lay awake, looking at each other and occasionally tearing up a little, unable to believe the little miracle that was lying between them. When he woke, the wet nurse came and fed him. The medical team had brought powdered milk, but they didn’t want to use it quite yet; they would make sure the wet nurse had plenty of extra food and nutrients.

  ‘What are we going to tell people?’ said Rosie, twirling his tiny hairs around her finger, planting kisses up and down his shoulder blades.

  ‘We shall tell them precisely the truth,’ said Stephen, kissing them both gently. ‘That out of the worst of things, sometimes the best things can come.’

  Chapter Seven

  Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume

  Breathes a life of gathering gloom

  Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying

  Sealed in the stone-cold tomb

  They buried Célestine in the morning. There was wailing, and singing, and food brought from all around, and Rosie and Stephen stood frozen in the middle, witnesses to the pain, even as friends and relatives came and blessed the baby and wished them well.

  Rosie wished she had thought to take a photograph of Célestine, but of course it would hardly have been appropriate. She stood next to the girl’s parents, with the uncomfortable realisation that they were barely older than herself. The father was strong and proud. The mother could not hold the baby, could not bear the pain, and Rosie understood.

  ‘One day,’ she said, as Stephen translated, ‘may we bring him back to meet his grandparents?’

  The woman nodded fiercely.

  ‘You are the least crazy grandparents Apostil has,’ said Stephen.

  They did have two photographs, both taken by Stephen on his previous trip: of the two boys, Jabo and Akibo, grinning fiercely and nervously, and peeping out from behind them, Célestine. Rosie snapped images of the photos to take with them, crying all the while.

  ‘She was only a child,’ she said.

  ‘Ssssh,’ said Stephen, his face serious. ‘I know. And now we owe it to her to raise her boy the best we can. He’s our boy now.’

  The way he said ‘our boy,’ made Rosie’s heart burst.

  The village sang, and a white missionary priest with a strong South African accent came by, looking harassed and tired out, his eyes tinged a notable yellow from repeated bouts of malaria. He said a Mass in a hurry, barely stopped for a cup of tea and was on the point of dashing off again when Stephen asked him if he would baptise the baby.

  ‘The baby lived,’ the priest said gruffly. ‘I heard. And what, you’re here to buy it?’

  ‘No,’ said Stephen. ‘Not quite. I owed this family a debt.’

  The priest pulled down his glasses and peered at Stephen aggressively.

  ‘Oh yes? And now you want me to sign all your paperwork and give you certificates and make things easy for you to take away a baby and leave behind a mess.’

  ‘No, Father,’ said Stephen simply. ‘I just wanted you to bless this beautiful baby. But it is up to you.’

  The man peered crossly at Apostil, who was snoozing, waking up, looking around him, making little purring noises, then dropping off to sleep again.

  ‘What’s wrong with this child’s arm?’ he said.

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Stephen. ‘But if there’s anything we can do for it, we will.’

  The priest harrumphed.

  ‘Africa is not your shopping ground,’ he said.

  ‘I realise that, Padre,’ said Stephen quietly. Rosie looked at him, impressed by how hard he was struggling to keep his temper. ‘It is not why we came.’

  The priest looked them up and down more closely.

  ‘Don’t I know you?’ he said shortly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Stephen reluctantly.

  ‘I do know you. You were here before. You’re that boy who got blown up.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The priest shook his head.

  ‘Idiot you were.’

  Stephen stared straight ahead, his gaze stony. There was a pause.

  ‘But you were a good teacher, hey? I remember you now. You were good. Good with the boys. Is this a boy?’

  Stephen nodded.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘It’s Apostil … apparently.’

  ‘Apostil. Is that it?’

  ‘Um …’ Stephen looked at Rosie for inspiration.

  ‘Oh goodness, names!’ said Rosie, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘I hadn’t thought … My goodness. Well. We should have Stephen in there too.’

  ‘I’ve never liked it.’

  ‘I like it. Stephen. Stevie. Steve-Steve.’

  ‘Stop it! No.’

  Rosie smiled.

  ‘Okay. Akibo, then.’

  Stephen nodded. ‘Yup. Good. Anything else?’

  Rosie thought about it.

  ‘Do you know what would be nice? For Lilian?’

  ‘Henry?’ guessed Stephen immediately.

  ‘No,’ said Rosie. ‘I think she’d be a bit annoyed about that. She likes to have dibs on the only Henry on earth. She gets really cross when the Fonz is on TV.’

  ‘Seriously? She hates Fonzie? Oh. Okay.’

  The priest cleared his throat and looked pointedly at his watch.

  ‘I was thinking Edward,’ said Rosie. ‘Neddie. After her brother who died in the war.’

  Stephen thought about it.

  ‘Yes. Okay. Yes. Do that, it’s lovely.’

  And immediately following the funeral of his mother, with Faustine and the local doctor as godparents, they christened Apostil Akibo Edward Lakeman, and without their even asking, the missionary priest drove four h
ours back along the dreadful dirt road through the woods later that day with a birth certificate signed and stamped, naming them both as parents. When she saw it, Faustine’s eyes widened and she told him he had just saved them a quite insane amount of paperwork. Rosie went to the van and gave him her emergency bag of sweets, minus the chocolate, which she’d smuggled to the wet nurse. He was touchingly pleased.

  After that, everything changed more rapidly than they could have dreamed of. The holiday company very kindly let them cancel their reservation, which was useful, as they needed to book a hotel room in the capital and sort out the rest of the paperwork. And, of course, fill everyone in back at home.

  The next few days were a blur of hotel rooms, bad phone connections and long days spent in stifling buildings in the capital. After the quiet and calm of the bush, the city was more familiar, with its traffic and bars and mobile phone shops and policemen and general sense of business. But there was work to be done. And some of it Rosie could absolutely savour.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘G’day! I thought you were on that safari holiday!’

  ‘Ah,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Did you see any tigers?’

  ‘Mum, this is Africa, they don’t have tigers.’

  ‘Oh. Elephants.’

  ‘No. No elephants. We heard lots of hyenas.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And parrots. We saw a lot of parrots.’

  ‘We got parrots! Sydney’s full of parakeets! I wish you’d come here instead.’

  ‘Mum, shut up a minute. Look. This is costing me a fortune to phone that I don’t have, so you have to listen.’

  ‘GRAMMA! WANNA TALK AUNTIE ROSIE.’

  ‘She’s busy talking to me.’

  ‘SHE ALWAYS TALK TO ME!!!’

  ‘Uh, hi, Meridian,’ said Rosie, resigning herself to a long conversation about Spider-Man.

  ‘I IS IRON MAN,’ said Meridian self-importantly, settling herself down for a chat. Rosie could hear her shifting around down the telephone.