Make a Christmas Wish

by Julia Williams

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I whisper to Emily. ‘I knew this was a con.’

  But nonetheless there’s a strange ripple of anticipation running through the audience, and I can’t help getting swept up in the atmosphere though my scepticism is rewarded by Zandra’s first attempt.

  ‘I’m getting a J – Jamie? John? Someone wants to talk to John,’ Zandra says with confidence.

  No one responds.

  ‘I’m sure it begins with J,’ Zandra says, looking puzzled.

  A young woman in the front leaps up.

  ‘I’m Jane,’ she says.

  ‘Jane! Of course!’ Zandra snaps her fingers. ‘I could feel something wasn’t quite right. I have your brother here.’

  Jane swallows and looks a little pale.

  ‘I’m getting … he died, violently … in a bike accident, am I right?’ She looks triumphant, but Jane shakes her head.

  ‘No, he committed suicide,’ she whispers.

  ‘On a motorbike,’ Zandra persists.

  ‘By swallowing pills,’ says Jane, looking fed up.

  Zandra can feel she’s losing her audience, so she waves her hands and says, ‘The way of his passing isn’t important, it’s the message I’m getting.’ She shuts her eyes as if concentrating hard.

  ‘Jane, your brother is sorry. For all the hurt he caused you. He never meant to do it. He loves you very much.’

  Jane starts to sniffle a bit.

  ‘I love him too,’ she says. ‘And I forgive him.’

  This is greeted with more rapturous applause, and by the time Jane sits down, apparently satisfied that her brother Jimmy’s spirit is finally at rest and he’s now passed on to a better place, the audience seem to have forgotten the dodgy bit at the beginning.

  Her next attempt is a little more convincing. She gets a man called Andy to stand up and after a couple of false starts we learn that Andy’s mum is happy and well and he isn’t to worry about her.

  After that it’s a constant litany of people apparently being put in touch with their loved ones, but there’s a sameness about the conversations which makes me suspicious.

  By the time the first half is over, I’m convinced we’ve made a mistake coming. There is nothing for us here. Zandra is pandering to desperate people who only hear what they want to. Emily and I spend most of the interval in the bar, trying to work out how she managed to know just enough about the people who stood up to make it sound half convincing.

  I hear a voice, which I think I recognize, and turn to see a woman who is spectacularly drunk stagger behind me knocking glasses over.

  ‘She knew, she knew my dad,’ the woman is slurring.

  I am so reminded of Livvy, it’s painful. Oh God, the times she did that to me in public. The times I had to cover up for her: ‘Livvy’s unwell; Livvy’s feeling under the weather’ – the euphemisms I used. I feel a punch in the gut, and then I get the distinct impression that Livvy is right here, standing next to me. I shiver, but the moment passes, and the interval is over and we return to our seats.

  To begin with, the second half of the show proceeds very much like the first half. I’m amused to notice Mrs He-Hid-The-Share-Certificates is given short shrift by her supposed husband, but generally people seem happy with what they are told. Most of the audience seem to have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker, and I imagine I must be the only cynic here.

  The show appears to be winding up, and then something very different happens. The curtains seem to blow a little, though there isn’t a breeze in the theatre, and Zandra’s whole body starts to shake. I think she’s having some kind of fit, but suddenly she stands bolt upright, and stares ahead, speaking in a male voice which doesn’t sound like hers. It must be some kind of projection. The audience, which had been getting a bit rowdy, hushes down again.

  Then Zandra turns and looks in our direction.

  ‘I’m getting a name. A female name, beginning with E. Someone wants to talk to, is it Emma? No, not Emma, Emily.’

  Emily goes pale, and stands up.

  ‘I’m Emily,’ she says.

  ‘I’ve got someone who wants to talk to you,’ says Zandra in her spirit voice. ‘And she seems a bit cross.’

  Emily gasps, and I bite back a sudden presentiment of fear. Could Livvy really be coming through?

  Zandra’s voice subtly changes, and then she speaks as a female again, but it’s not a voice I recognize.

  I breathe again. This is part of the act, it’s not Livvy.

  But then Zandra says, ‘Hello Emily. It’s Mum.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Emily

  Emily stood up in stunned disbelief when Zandra said her name. Surely there must be another Emily in the audience? She couldn’t take in that Livvy might actually be there, wanting to talk to her, and that this wasn’t some huge trick. Heart racing, Emily tried to tell herself that nothing was going to happen when the spotlight focused on her. But then, the voice she heard wasn’t Livvy’s: it was her mum’s. Emily gasped. It couldn’t be. After all this time, she was actually going to speak to her mum? She grasped hold of the seat in front of her to steady herself.

  ‘Mum?’ she said, willing herself not to faint.

  Five years of missing the chief cheerleader in her life. Emily had so often wanted to be able to reach out, speak to her, ask her advice. And now, apparently, here Mum was, wanting to talk to her only daughter.

  ‘Is that really you?’ Emily asked hesitantly.

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Mum, sounding a bit grumpy. ‘Who were you expecting?’

  Thousands of questions flooded through Emily’s brain. Was she OK? Where was she? Did she miss them? But she found herself paralysed, unable to speak. Then Mum – if it really was Mum – said, ‘I don’t have much time. I’m just passing through. I’ve just come from having a nice cup of tea on the allotments, and I need to get back to my friends. I’m only here to let you know you’ve got stuff to deal with.’

  ‘Erm—’ First conversation with her dead mother in five years, and Emily was getting a telling-off. That wasn’t the way it was meant to go. She felt 13 again, caught out sneaking behind the bushes in the local park having a crafty fag.

  ‘I can’t help telling you. I’m a little disappointed. I thought you’d know better than to mix yourself up with a married man. Even though I do understand the circumstances.’

  Despite getting a scolding in front of hundreds of people, Emily couldn’t help smiling at that. Typical Mum. Never short of an opinion about Emily’s love life, never afraid to pull her punches if she thought Emily was making a mistake on the boyfriend front. She hadn’t been that sold on Graham.

  Then Mum’s tone softened. ‘But love, I’m worried about you. This isn’t the way to start a happy new relationship. You’ve done someone else a great wrong.’

  ‘I know,’ whispered Emily. ‘So how do we put it right?’

  ‘You have to listen to Livvy,’ said Mum. ‘Or face the consequences.’

  Which was so exactly what Emily had been thinking all this time, it was all she could do not to run on the stage and hug Zandra then and there.

  ‘Livvy,’ Emily said, feeling cold all over. Livvy had the power to hurt her and Adam, she could feel it.

  ‘Yes her,’ said Mum. ‘She’s got some issues of her own to sort out. But you need to help her. So don’t ignore her when she does come through.’

  ‘Why isn’t she here now?’ Emily asked.

  ‘She’s a bit – erm – indisposed.’ Mum sounded almost embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I have to go. I want to get back to the allotment. You take care, love.’

  ‘Mum, wait,’ Emily said, desperate to keep the connection for longer, but then she was gone, leaving Zandra blinking in the spotlight. Zandra looked a trifle confused, as if she didn’t quite know what had happened, but she recovered quickly and moved on to the next person in the crowd.

  ‘I’m getting a – yes, a message is coming through for is it Imelda?’

  ‘That’s me!’ a woman sh
outed from the back of the auditorium, but Emily wasn’t listening. She sat down trembling and turned to Adam.

  ‘What was all that about?’ she said.

  Adam

  Emily looks white as a sheet when she sits down. She doesn’t talk about her mum much, but I know how Emily misses her still and I can tell she’s shaken up.

  ‘How?’ she whispers. ‘How can Zandra know all that?’

  ‘It’s some clever trick,’ I say. ‘Maybe it was something in the form you filled in.’

  But I’m not sure any more. That was horribly convincing.

  ‘I just don’t buy that,’ says Emily. ‘She knew about Livvy. And she always used to say she was going to the allotment. It was like her calling card. How on earth could Zandra possibly know that?’

  It is odd, I have to agree. And it makes me feel pretty uncomfortable. I’d thought this would all be nonsense and had mainly gone along to placate Emily. But I’d noticed that the temperature had dropped when Emily was talking to her ‘mum’. Granted that might be some special effect arranged by the theatre, but it hadn’t happened when anyone else had spoken to Zandra, so why did it for Emily? And Zandra had appeared completely out of it and not a little disorientated when she came round. That hadn’t happened earlier either. If she was faking it, she was extraordinarily good.

  There’s a bit of me that’s disappointed too. If there really are dead people out there, who Zandra is somehow able to channel, and Livvy is one of them, why hasn’t she come through? I’m not sure if I want to believe that she’s a ghost and she’s haunting us, but if she is, I want to be able to tell her how sorry I am for the way things ended. There have been many times over the last year when I’ve taken myself alone to her graveside, and told her as much. It’s my private way of trying to atone for what happened. But dead is dead, and if it’s forgiveness I’m seeking, I’m not going to get it talking to a headstone. Now for the first time the possibility hits me that Livvy might actually still somehow be around. And if she is still here, it would be good to be able to communicate properly, the way we never could when she was still alive. Talking to a gravestone doesn’t have quite the same effect.

  The rest of the show passes in the same vein as before, and I’ve more or less gone back to my position that it’s all made up, and Emily’s been tricked somehow into handing out personal information, when just as Zandra is winding up the show she goes suddenly limp and starts shaking violently. And then a male voice calls out, ‘Hey guys, it’s DJ Steve here, come to show you how the dead party!’

  The theatre fills with the sound of rap music, the lights start flickering on and off, and I get the distinct impression that Zandra isn’t alone on the stage …

  Livvy

  Party, party, party. I’d forgotten how much fun it was. And it turns out that spirit drinks do the business just as much as their earthly counterparts do. Vodka never tasted this good when I was alive. I’m fired up with all the people here. All having the best time. God, I wish I’d known about this place earlier. I wouldn’t have spent the last year moping around.

  My new best friends introduced to me by Lenny, Sanjay and Keona, two troubled twenty-somethings who apparently had a suicide pact, keep tempting me to more shots, and then we’re on the dance floor rocking our moves.

  From time to time Psychic Steve, or DJ Steve as he also likes to be known, stops and says, ‘We have a call for Albert. You’re wanted upstairs. Your wife wants to know where you left your share certificates.’ And Albert staggers up to the mike and says ‘Silly cow, as if I’d tell her that,’ before vanishing. Or he stops still and actually channels through to someone in the theatre upstairs. We can only hear one side of the conversation. One little old lady in a sari, who barely speaks a word of English, is crying with happiness because she’s talked to her long-lost daughter and another is shouting, ‘I’m free,’ now she’s given her ex what for. Everyone hugs her delightedly as she says her goodbyes, and then she turns to face a light, pausing and smiling at everyone before fading beatifically away.

  With so many shots under my belt, I can’t remember the reason why I’m here. I decide to take a break from dancing and wander up to DJ Steve, who gives me a wink and says, ‘Hey babe, how’s it hanging?’

  ‘Great,’ I say. ‘In fact, it’s better than great. I can’t believe Malachi never told me about this place before.’

  ‘Yeah, well Malachi isn’t the partying type.’ He shrugs.

  ‘Too right he isn’t,’ I say. ‘All he ever does is nag me.’

  Steve looks at me thoughtfully.

  ‘If you ever get sick of dull old Malachi, come and find me,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to follow the rules, you know, and you look like the kind of girl who can handle it.’

  He winks at me again and then gets distracted as someone is badgering him about getting through to their uncle.

  I wander off to find Keona and Sanjay, but they seem to have got lost in the crowd. So I decide to sit down for a bit. Meeting all these new people has me ridiculously tired …

  It turns out it’s quite easy to doze off in a nightclub for ghosts when you’ve had a few. I deserve a nap, I think. I’ve hardly slept since I died.

  There’s a tap on my shoulder, and I jerk away. A dark-haired middle-aged woman with a kind smile is standing before me. She reminds me of someone, but I can’t think who.

  ‘You missed your slot,’ she’s saying to me, through a fog. ‘I had to go through for you, and now I must go back.’

  She fades before my eyes.

  Lost my slot? What does she mean? And then I remember. Damn. Emily and Adam. I was supposed to prove to them I’m still here. Not get pissed. Oh bugger. Malachi is so going to have something to say about this.

  The party is still in full swing, people are dancing energetically, and DJ Steve is ramping up the volume. Just as well the living are so deaf and blind to what’s all around them, otherwise someone might call the police.

  I go up to him and say, ‘I know I missed my turn, but is there a way we can give them a taste of all of this, so the sceptics in the audience can be converted too?’

  ‘Sorry, doll, it’s not part of my remit,’ he says, turning back to his decks.

  Then he sees the look of disappointment on my face.

  ‘Although … technically I’m not supposed to, but I could do with a laugh,’ Steve says. ‘And for a babe like you, I’d happily do anything.’

  I blush and feel quite overcome. He really is rather good-looking.

  ‘Can you do that?’ I say. ‘It’s not against any rules or anything?’

  Steve gives me a crooked grin. ‘I’ve never been one for playing by the rules, me.’ He looks a little the worse for wear. I wish he was my spirit guide. He’s a whole lot more fun than Malachi.

  He holds up his hands. ‘People. Listen up. Who fancies bringing the house down?’

  Chapter Twelve

  Livvy

  And bring the house down we do. There are people swinging from the chandeliers, climbing the curtains, and an intrepid crew get hold of the spotlights and start shining them on the audience, who are caught somewhere between a laugh and a scream. I hear several gasps as the stage lights up like a disco on acid.

  Meanwhile, stage hands rush on the stage, to try and hustle Zandra off it, but Zandra – or rather Steve – who is now controlling her, lands a right hook on one of their faces and the rest back off. People started to throw things around, and hundreds of us pour off the stage and into the audience who are belatedly waking up to the realization this is not part of the show, and are now screaming for dear life. The lighting crew dim the lights as we go among the audience blowing on their necks, and tapping them on the shoulders. It’s the most fun I’ve had since I died; I had no idea that being dead could be such a blast.

  And then I see Adam and Emily, in the middle of the crowd, and I stop short. They are both looking stunned and clutching hold of one another. Nice one, Livvy, you’ve just brought them even closer toget
her. I feel ashamed of what I’m doing. I came here with a purpose, and I’ve got distracted and nearly let the best opportunity of talking to Adam since I died slip through my fingers.

  I run to Steve, who’s still busy fending off the stage hands, and shout over the chaos, ‘Please! Can I go through? There’s someone I need to talk to.’

  Steve shrugs his shoulders, as he knocks another of the stage crew back into the wings. ‘Sure, why not,’ he says.

  ‘Are you going to get into trouble for this?’ I ask, thinking how Malachi is going to respond.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says, ‘but hasn’t it been fun? You should come to Underworld more often. You’ve really livened things up.’

  And then he winks at me, and I can’t help winking back. I feel a blast of energy between us before I am tugged forwards, and with a jolt I realize I am standing on the stage in Zandra’s body, scanning the crowd once more for Adam. It feels odd having a body again. I stare in awe at Zandra’s hands – hands, how strange they seem. Then I remember why I’m here.

  ‘Adam!’ I shout desperately above the din. Steve is trying to calm people down but it’s pandemonium as people are climbing over seats in a desperate and futile attempt to get out.

  ‘Adam!’ I scream with all my strength. Shit, he’ll never hear me over this racket. The mayhem is continuing apace, and the flashing lights are getting wilder and wilder, so I run to the front of the stage and yell, ‘Adam!’ one last time. This time he hears me and stands up, white as a sheet.

  ‘Livvy?’ he says incredulously. ‘What the hell is happening here?’

  I can’t believe after all this time, I finally have a connection; he knows I’m really here. I feel a moment of overpowering joy. At last we can talk to each other. I want to say something, but I’m so choked I can’t quite find the words. There he is, my lovely Adam, scarcely looking a day older than the day we met twenty years ago. I am so overwhelmed by his presence I don’t know what to do. I know I should be saying sorry, but I stand there speechless. I am so focused on Adam, I haven’t noticed Emily straight away, but when she gasps I see Adam is clutching tight on to her. There is a sharp stabbing pain in my gut, and all my bitterness and anger about Emily rises to the surface. I had only planned as far as talking to Adam, but all I can see is Emily standing in my way, and I am overcome. Adam left me for her. He left me. How could he?