“Yeah, but why does Jack need differentiated teaching?” insisted Kate.
Seema said nothing, just giving her friend a sympathetic look.
“Do you think Jack’s okay?”
Seema snorted. “Of course he’s okay. What do you mean?”
“Sometimes I just think . . .”
“Listen,” said Seema firmly, “All our kids are completely different. They are different to each other, to their brothers and sisters, to everyone. They are who they are,” she explained. “And they’re all ‘okay,’” she added with weight, putting her arm around Kate’s shoulder. “Don’t worry.”
“Sometimes I feel like I don’t notice things I ought to notice, with Jack.”
“How can you not notice what you haven’t noticed?” asked Seema with irreproachable logic.
Kate tutted. “You know what I mean . . . I just worry that—sometimes, with everything going around my head—I’m so wrapped up in myself, I’m not seeing stuff that’s obvious to other people. Important stuff,” she admitted. “Being a rubbish mum, basically, and now it’s nearly Christmas . . .” She explained her thoughts of the previous evening to Seema, and her ambition to make Jack’s Christmas amazing this year.
“That’s brilliant,” said Seema. She gave her friend an encouraging smile. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that. What we need is a cunning plan.”
“What? I didn’t mean now,” said Kate, wearily. She was leaning heavily against the kitchen counter, cradling her tea mug in both hands, her eyelids drooping with fatigue.
“Why not now?” said Seema. “Hang on.”
She disappeared into the closet under the stairs and came out carrying an armful of stationery.
“Right,” she said, dumping it on the kitchen table. “Sit down.”
Kate sat.
“Pick a color,” Seema ordered, fanning out a fistful of colorful cards for her to choose from.
“Erm, why?”
“Planning. Planning always involves stationery. This is something I know. And I happen to be well equipped with the stuff.”
“You’re not kidding. Does Krishna use any of this?”
“On pain of death, certainly not. This is my stuff.”
“Then I am honored,” said Kate, pulling a piece of red card out from the selection Seema was holding.
“Good choice. Now,” said Seema, selecting a silver pen. “First, the heading.”
Quickly, Seema had marked out a series of lines on the card in pencil, and was now working on an elaborate calligraphic header with a pen that produced a thick, flowing line of silver.
“Jack and Kate’s Christmas Miracle,” Kate read out as Seema swiftly and expertly created the words.
“You are so good at this.” Kate marveled. “I was thinking about doing something like this, but—well—I didn’t have all the gear, for one thing.”
“I know. Now we just need . . .” She started another line and—using a gold pen this time—she continued, with the words, In 25 Easy Steps. “And then we’ve got these,” she said, waving a set of oblong stickers. “These are for the daily things. So, what are they?”
“What are what?”
“The twenty-five easy steps. Come on, you were saying about going to see the Christmas lights? That can be one of them.” She grabbed a pen and wrote it on a sticker. “What else?”
“I dunno, the nativity play at school, for example?”
“Perfect,” said Seema, writing it in and putting it on the red sheet.
“Is that the right date?”
“’Course.”
Kate was in awe of Seema’s organizational skills. If she had been asked, she might have been able to hazard that the nativity would be during the school term—probably this side of Christmas—but that would have been about it.
“What else?”
“It’s a big ask—a return to life,” explained Kate to her friend, desperate for her to understand. “I’m not even sure what I mean. But achieving it—well, it’s little stuff isn’t it? Just things that are happy, joyful . . .” She grabbed a pen and wrote, jotted a few down, some of the daft things she used to do with Tom or when she was a child. She put in serious things, stuff that they had to do anyway but was about Christmas: the chores, the silliness, all the things that were not part of the daily grind. A little parcel of joy—one thing for each day, counting down to Christmas Day where she simply wrote two words: Be happy.
Seema was looking over her shoulder as she scribbled. “Nice,” she said. “You need more. What about snowball fights, sledding, maybe?”
“We’d be lucky,” said Kate. “In Bristol? We haven’t had snow for years. Not proper snow.”
“It might happen. Put them in,” said Seema. “You can just pick from the list, look, they just peel off.” Her voice cracked.
Kate looked up at her friend sharply and was touched to see she had a strange smile on her face and tears in her eyes.
“I can’t tell you how long I have been waiting for you to see these things,” she said, her voice wobbling with emotion. “Since I met you—it’s been nearly four years you realize?—I’ve been waiting.”
“For what? For me to do what?”
“To . . .” Seema waved her arms, searching for the words, “to stop shutting yourself off. You’ve been focusing on Jack and not allowing yourself to feel anything. Him? He’s fine, other than having to make do with just a tiny part of you. You’re half alive, Kate. It’s time to come back.”
Kate blinked. She didn’t know what to say, so Seema went on: “This Tom—I think I would have loved him if I’d known him—he would hate to see you doing this to yourself—to both of you.” Seema took a deep breath, considering her friend carefully. “Look,” she said, “you know the safety instructions when you get on a plane?”
“Yes. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“When the oxygen masks come down from the ceiling you’ve got to put your own one on first, haven’t you? That’s what they tell you. Before you can do anything to save your loved ones, right?”
“Okay, I get it,” muttered Kate. “A bit of a tortured analogy, but fair enough. I get it. To help Jack I have to help myself be well first. What’s your point in connection with this though? I’m doing Christmas cards with Jack, outings, shopping, carols . . . that’s me doing it too.” It felt her friend was criticizing and she had never experienced that from Seema before. It hurt. “I’m trying, Seema,” she said.
“You are,” Seema reassured her, sitting back down at the table and grabbing a pen. “Very trying. Now pour us a glass of wine. Tea’s not good enough for this job and you’ve got some important gaps to fill in your miracle plan.”
Holding two large glasses of Pinot Grigio from her friend’s well-stocked fridge, because Seema insisted Prosecco was for weekend nights only, Kate stood at her shoulder and peered at what she had added.
“I’m not doing that,” she complained, spilling the wine as she gestured at one of the stickers Seema had written.
“Ohmigod, I’m definitely not doing that,” she exclaimed, pointing at a slip of paper. “You lot are too mental for me.” Seema and her gaggle of friends had a tradition of going “out, out,” which meant pre-loading at one of their houses, massively glam clothes and makeup, cocktails, nightclubs, and mayhem, which generally didn’t end until someone cried, someone else threw up, and they all got a taxi back in the early hours of the morning.
“Shh,” said Seema dismissively. “You absolutely should do a ‘going out, out’ night. Anil will babysit. Jack can come here. Now, am I in charge or not?”
“Not, actually,” said Kate, but she was genuinely rattled, her heart pounding and palms sweating.
Seema put a hand on her arm. “Be brave,” she said.
“But this is all stuff I don’t . . .” She stopped, pressing her hand to her mouth.
“It’s all stuff that’s outside your comfort zone, yeah.”
“Well, maybe not the drinking mull
ed wine, I’m quite good at that,” she joked weakly.
Seema ignored it. “It’s all stuff that’s difficult because change is difficult. This isn’t about finding twenty-five mildly fun things to do between now and Christmas, this is about changing your life—changing Jack’s life—for the better.”
“I know,” said Kate. “It was my idea,” she insisted, but then sagged slightly. She was tired. This was hard. “So when do I have to do this ‘going out on the pull’ thing?” she asked, with resignation.
“Before Christmas, obviously,” said Seema, “but it’s the pinnacle really, I want you to do the other stuff first. Building up to it.”
“Like the beauty spa thing? The hair? The manicure? That’s a bit ambitious. I don’t have any money.”
“Don’t worry,” said Seema, who was the queen of the spa treatment and fully intended to sort Kate out herself. “I have a cunning plan.”
“Oh dear,” said Kate. Now she was very worried indeed.
“Finished!” claimed Jack loudly, holding up his plate for Kate to see. “Can I have my advent calendar now?”
“You’ve eaten the skin too, good boy,” said Kate, giving him a smile. She had taught him not to waste food. They didn’t have the money for that. “Go on then, where’s number one?” She had managed to get the first Christmas Miracle note into the pocket while he was eating.
“There!” he said, reaching to his full height to slip his little hand inside. “Yay!” he said, pulling out the bright gold coin and trying to pick the foil off. Failing, he went to bite it instead.
“Let me,” said Kate, taking it from him and popping it off, first one side then the other. “What else is in there? Can you feel all the way to the bottom?”
Jack delved back into the pocket and pulled out the sticky note.
“What does it say?”
“Argh,” he complained. “I’ve done my reading already today,” but he opened the scrap of paper and frowned at it. “See—the—Ch . . . Ch . . .”
“Christmas,” prompted Kate, quietly.
“Oh yeah, ‘See the Christmas—licked . . . lig . . .’”
“You can do it, we’ve done the ‘gh’ sound, haven’t we?”
“I can’t remember,” said Jack, on the edge of a wail.
Kate relented. “It says ‘See the Christmas Lights,’” she said, hugging him to her side as he held the paper, his mouth full of chocolate. “It’s Tuesday tomorrow and you go to Helen’s after school don’t you? So, I could collect you from there and I thought we would go back into town and see the Christmas lights go on,” she said. “Would that be fun? That bloke who plays a doctor on the telly is pushing the button, I think, and there’ll be a big countdown, and then the whole street will be lit up ready for Christmas shopping.”
“Are we going to be out late? Will it be dark?”
Kate nodded.
“Cooool!” said Jack.
“So,” she said, “given that we’re out late tomorrow, I think it’s bedtime, don’t you?”
And that was just day one, thought Kate as she supervised tooth brushing and face washing. Twenty-four days to go until Christmas Day and she had a plan. She was determined, every day in the lead-up to Christmas this year, they would do something Christmassy. It would be a mini-celebration of life, the universe, and everything. Miracles happened, but not often. It helped if you could give things a nudge in the right direction. She was determined that was what she was going to do.
24 Days ’til Christmas
The bus from work had been held up by a stand-up argument between a taxi driver and a cyclist, an amusement and irritation to passengers and passersby. In the end there had been quite a crowd, cheering, barracking, offering their views, shouting at whichever protagonist they felt was most in the wrong. The delay had set Kate’s heart rate soaring. She had had to clench her fists to avoid jumping out of the bus and knocking their heads together. Too often recently she had been charged the extra fifteen pounds for being late to collect Jack from Helen.
By the time Kate had jumped off and jogged to Helen’s house, she was sweating, her hair was sticking to her forehead, and her face was beet red.
“It’s brilliant,” she exclaimed, as Jack proudly showed her his salt dough decoration, which was resting on a baking tray in Helen’s kitchen.
“He has to dry out,” Jack explained. “And then I can paint him next week, can’t I, Helen?”
“You can,” she said, ruffling his hair. “Now run and get your stuff,” she told him, “so your poor mum can go home and have a rest.” She turned to Kate. “He’s been fine. A bit tired.”
“Him and me, both,” admitted Kate, wondering whether the Christmas lights plan was a good idea. “Father Christmas or snowman?” she hissed under her breath, gesturing toward the baking tray once she was sure Jack couldn’t hear.
“Hard to know at this stage,” whispered Helen. “Painting should clarify things.”
“Can we hang him on our tree, Mum?” Jack asked as he came back in, dragging his backpack on the floor.
“Don’t drag,” said Kate, automatically picking the backpack up and slinging it over her own shoulder. “I’m sure we can find a really good place for him.”
“He has to go on a tree,” insisted Jack. “We’ve got to have one. We are going to have a tree, aren’t we, Mum?”
Kate looked at Helen in desperation but got just amused sympathy.
“People don’t have to have Christmas trees,” she ventured. “Our living room’s not very big, is it? We might be better off with, maybe, a branch with some decorations on it?” she said hopefully. “That can look really pretty.”
“A tree, a tree,” wailed Jack, instantly plunged into despair.
“We’ll see,” said Kate. “Let’s just . . .” She threw her hands up. “We’ll see.”
Jack was tired and whiney. She wondered again about the plan to see the switching on of the Christmas lights, but when she suggested they go straight home, he was furious.
“Okay, okay,” she said, “keep your cool, monkey boy, but early night tomorrow for both of us, I think.”
On the bus, he slumped against her side and even had a little nap on the journey, lulled by the warmth and the motion of the bus. Waking just before their stop, he looked out of the window, gleefully pointing out some of the shops’ Christmas window displays. Kate was glad they had come. So what if he was tired and grumpy this evening? It was Christmas, and he was only six years old. If he wasn’t on top form at school tomorrow, so what? At his age, he wasn’t taking life-altering exams or anything. The only compulsory exams were tests to see whether the teachers were any good, and Kate firmly resisted any attempts to pressure him with those.
The town center was packed. Office workers had clearly decided to stay and enjoy the show, delaying the usual rush hour. Ironically, Kate and Jack ended up standing on the little bit of pavement outside Portman Brothers where she sold her trees.
Waiting for the local minor celebrity, who starred in a long-running soap filmed in Bristol, she wondered, standing there with Jack pressed to her side, whether she would see the man with the woman in the wheelchair this year. The man with the eyes that turned up at the corners and twinkled when he smiled. Would the young woman be even more unwell? Would she even be there? From tomorrow she would start looking out for him when she was at work. He must work near here. In previous years she had seen him most mornings and evenings but not every day. Sometimes they even exchanged a smile. But what if he was gone? What if they had both gone? Changed jobs, moved away . . . or worse?
At the thought, Kate’s stomach gave a lurch of loss that she didn’t quite understand, and she tried to push the thought of the twinkly-eyed man and his poorly sister out of her mind so she could focus on making sure that Jack enjoyed the show.
As always, the buildup was huge, and the moment itself was an anticlimax. The crowd cooperated gamely with the countdown and when they got to “one” the soap opera doctor made a big
deal of flicking the switch, and the same old decorations they had every year flickered into life; tiny pinpricks of green, white, and red light, picking out Christmassy designs on the gantries that ran overhead down the street—a Santa’s sleigh, a snowflake, a pair of bells . . . Kate had had plenty of time to study them from her freezing vantage point on the pavement over the previous three years, and they had little charm left for her now. But Jack oohed and aahed, and she was glad she had brought him even though, as always, being surrounded by the more conventional, happy families made her feel bitter and inadequate.
How could she compete? Gazing over the crowds of excited children with their parents and grandparents, she saw a mother with twins of perhaps four years old. She wasn’t stressed, as Kate would have been. She held the hand of one while the other took a turn on her father’s shoulders, grabbing his ears with no fear of falling, his hands reaching up to hold her steady as she giggled and bounced. She imagined Tom being with them, as he should have been, holding Jack up so he could see, backing her up with the unpopular “mum” stuff like insisting he wore his hat, having silly in-jokes with him that no one else got. Tom had been a great dad. They were lost without him. Kate was lost without him.
The crowd was starting to move, to disperse, and she became aware she was being jostled from all sides. She looked around. It was nothing in particular, she quickly realized, just sheer weight of numbers as people started to leave, but she glanced down at Jack anxiously. He didn’t like being touched. His happiness at being there, out late on a school night, had kept him going, but now Kate saw the usual, worrying signs. He had shrunk into himself, his little face blank and pale.
“Jack?”
Nothing. His eyes were glazed, he hunched over slightly, his hands coming up to cover his ears.
“Jack?” she said again, more urgently, putting a reassuring hand on his arm, pulling him to her. Their eyes met briefly. She held his gaze. “You’re fine, monkey boy. You’re fine.”
She had him. She would get him home. He needed to be out of there, and fast.
25 Days 'Til Christmas Page 3