Make a Christmas Wish

by Julia Williams

  ‘OK,’ says Malachi. ‘Maybe this will make you change your mind. Let’s see how things would have worked out if you hadn’t died.’

  And then I’m back in the car park. Frantically texting Adam. I’m so angry with him, I am not paying any attention to my surroundings. How could he do this to me and Joe? How could he? I step out in the road without looking, and too late I see the car coming towards me. This time I feel every bruising inch of impact as I fly through the air, screaming, and hit the shopping trolley. Oh God, it hurts.

  And now I’m lying on the ground, surrounded by anxious faces, and the driver standing stunned, saying tearfully to his dad, ‘I didn’t see her, I didn’t see her.’

  I’m in so much pain, at first I don’t appreciate that the voice I hear screaming is me. Everything hurts and throbs, and all I can think about is Adam and Joe. What will become of them? I have to survive this, I have to.

  ‘Call nine nine nine,’ I hear a voice shout.

  ‘They’re on their way,’ another responds.

  I’m drifting in and out of consciousness, but I hear the sirens, and realize in a detached kind of way they are coming for me. If I can just hang on a bit longer. I feel like darkness wants to envelop me though, and it’s very tempting. In an odd moment of lucidity I wonder if I am on the brink of death, till I hear a calm, kind voice saying, ‘Stay with me, Livvy, stay with me,’ and I am being prodded and poked from all angles. It hurts, and I scream out in pain, but I am going to stay with them. And then I’m on a stretcher, and being transferred to an ambulance. Someone has put a mask on my face, and given me an injection, and the pain is starting to recede. I am vaguely aware of the blue light going, and having the absurd thought that Joe will be cross to have missed a ride in an ambulance, before everything fades into blackness.

  Then I’m awake in a hospital bed with lights shining in my eyes. I don’t appear to be in any pain, but there’s a drip attached to my arm, and I feel as I have just been through a pummelling. A friendly black face swims into view and a cheerful voice says, ‘Well you gave us a fright and no mistake. There are two people here who are very glad to see you.’

  I open my eyes properly and see the welcoming sight of Adam and Joe. Adam is crying and holding my hand tight, and saying, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ and Joe is saying loudly, ‘Is Mum going to die?’

  ‘No, she’s not,’ says Adam firmly, and I look into his eyes and see the love that I’ve been missing. He takes my hand, ‘Oh Livvy,’ he says, a catch in his voice. ‘I nearly lost you, and I’m so sorry.’

  No, I’m not dying. I’m not dead. And though I know we still have to face up to what Adam’s done, I don’t care. I have my two boys back with me. Where they belong.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Christmas Present

  One Week to Go

  Adam

  Emily and I are busy getting things ready for the seance. It feels surreal. I am about to have a seance to try and talk to my dead wife. Two weeks ago, the idea of such a thing would have been crazy, but now? Emily and I have been going over and over the events at the theatre, yet we cannot find any rational explanation for what has happened. I remain sceptical about Zandra’s ability either to reach Livvy if she really is there, or whether I’ll be able to talk to Livvy the way I want to. If she does come through, if she is prepared to listen, I need to apologize for what happened; I need her forgiveness.

  If … Livvy alive had an appalling ability to hold on to grudges. God knows what she’ll be like now she’s been dead a year. But if this is the only way we can stop her causing trouble, so be it. Besides, despite everything that’s happened, I genuinely want her to be happy. It used to tear me up inside seeing how unhappy she was. I tried to help her, but she would never admit to us or herself that she had a problem, and in the end I was too hurt by her constant rejections to try any more. How do you keep on coping day in and day out, watching someone you love pressing the self-destruct button, knowing they won’t listen to you? That’s how I justified it to myself, but now I wonder if I could have, should have, tried harder.

  We’ve moved the table to the centre of the room.

  ‘Do you think we need candles?’ asks Emily.

  I think about all the films I’ve ever watched in which a ghost arrives and blows out the candles. If that happened we’d both be freaked out.

  ‘Best not,’ I say.

  I’ve also sent Joe to Felicity’s for the night. I haven’t told either of them what we’re up to, and Emily hasn’t told Kenneth. I can’t risk Joe going off on one, and neither of us wants Felicity or Kenneth to think we’re going mad. Despite what they’ve both witnessed, they’ve been rationalizing the event ever since, Felicity convincing herself that she never saw the table move, and Kenneth that we had all imagined it. Luckily, Joe is happy at Felicity’s, where the atmosphere is always calm and ordered. He generally visits once a fortnight anyway.

  ‘This is insane,’ says Emily as she reorganizes the chairs.

  ‘I know,’ I say, kissing her on top of the head. ‘But we have to try it.’

  The doorbell rings and in sweeps Zandra, and a plump little twittering man wearing an ill-fitting suit, who I assume is her manager before discovering he’s actually her husband.

  ‘Sandy, are you sure about this?’ he is saying. ‘I think you might be biting off a bit more than you can chew here. You were exhausted after the incident at the theatre.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that, Norman,’ says Zandra, putting him in his place, which I suspect is where he spends a lot of his time.

  She comes into the lounge, and looks approvingly at the way we’ve set things up.

  ‘Let’s dim the lights, shall we?’ she says. She refuses a drink. I sense she’s nervous and wants to get on with it.

  First of all she insists on a tarot reading.

  ‘I need to get a feel for what’s going on here,’ she says. ‘Livvy seems an unhappy soul, and there must be something stopping her passing over. The tarot cards may offer us a clue.’

  I look at Emily. I can just about swallow a seance, but tarot cards – really? I try hard to tamp down my cynicism.

  We sit down opposite Zandra, who asks me about Livvy, and I give her an edited version. I’m not comfortable telling her all my secrets.

  ‘Let’s see,’ she says, and shuffles the deck. She lays down three cards, then turns them over one by one.

  The first is called the Lovers.

  ‘Aah,’ she says, ‘there are difficult decisions to be made here. There’s a struggle going on.’

  I grimace at Emily. She could have worked that out from what I have told her.

  The next card is the Wheel of Fortune, which she explains signifies good luck, but then she turns the card over and says, ‘But in this instance it might mean bad things are going to happen.’

  Too late, they seem to be happening already.

  When she gets to the third card, she blanches and hurriedly reshuffles the cards.

  ‘Something’s not quite right,’ she mutters, and deals again. This time she gets the Empress first time around, signifying marriage and fertility. She breathes a sigh of relief and turns over the second card. It’s Death, which makes me wince, but Zandra smiles and says, ‘Death doesn’t have to be bad, it can mean change.’ She turns over the third card, and gasps.

  ‘What is it?’ I say.

  ‘The Hangman,’ she says. ‘It turned up before, but I thought it must be wrong.’

  ‘Why?’ Emily wants to know. Zandra is looking quite agitated, and it’s a little unnerving.

  ‘Because it can mean sacrifice,’ she says. ‘You may have to lose one thing to obtain another.’

  I shiver. I am trying to convince myself this is nonsense, but there’s something about the way she says it that puts the wind up me. Zandra meanwhile is focusing on reshuffling.

  ‘The tarot isn’t clear today,’ she says, ‘it’s as if I’m getting interference.’

  She has another go with Emily, and
gets the Lovers, the Wheel of Fortune and the Empress, which seems to make her happier, and she gives a more confident prediction that Emily and I will have a happy future, if we can resolve the issues of our pasts.

  ‘That’s a very big if,’ I mutter.

  Zandra seems more fake here, in my living room, than she did on stage. If I were a ghost, I’m not sure I’d choose to come through her, but her alarm about what she has seen in the tarot cards feels genuine, and makes me uneasy.

  She puts the cards away, and then says, ‘Are you two ready for this?’

  I look at Emily, who smiles, and say, ‘Ready.’

  ‘We need to hold hands, and shut our eyes,’ she says, ‘and if we are open enough, the spirit of Livvy will come through.’

  Feeling utterly ridiculous and desperate to get this over with, I join hands with Emily and Norman, while Zandra says in sepulchral tones, ‘Livvy, are you there? Adam wants to talk to you.’

  Emily

  Emily didn’t know what she’d been expecting. But the first ten minutes of the seance were, well, boring. They sat in silence in the semi-darkness, with their eyes shut. Any minute now Zandra was going to start saying, ‘Om …’

  Emily glanced surreptitiously around the room. Zandra seemed to have gone into some kind of trance. She sat leaning slightly backwards, and although her eyes were open, they stared out unblinking. She was barely breathing, and her face had turned a slightly greenish hue. It was mildly unnerving, and Emily found herself having to look away. She glanced at Norman, who managed to look nervous and pious at the same time, while Adam had a look of rigid intensity on his face. The room was silent except for the sound of Norman’s heavy breathing. Nothing was going to happen. This was utterly ridiculous.

  Emily stifled the urge to giggle. What were they even doing here? Her earlier scepticism returned. Did they really think Livvy was going to speak to them?

  ‘Livvy are you there?’ Zandra intoned.

  But there was only silence, and the sound of the wind coming down the chimney.

  Norman’s hand gripped Emily’s tightly. It was horribly sweaty and slippery, and Emily wished she wasn’t holding it. Hysteria rose in her gullet. They’d simply got carried away by the odd things that had been happening, and started to believe in ghosts, when of course there were no such things. Zandra and Norman had fed on that weakness, and were going along with this to make money out of them both. They must be laughing all the way to the bank. This was arrant nonsense.

  Then she heard it. A voice whispering vehemently in her ear: ‘I’ll show you nonsense!’ The next thing Emily knew, she could feel it again: that horrible sensation of cold and the nasty spiteful presence. Oh God. It was real, Livvy was actually here. All Emily’s rational thoughts flew away as she was overcome with cold blind panic.

  A hard sharp slap on her cheek made her yelp. She leaped out of her chair at the exact moment when a bulb in the chandelier light above the table exploded and shattered, just where she’d been sitting.

  ‘What the—?’Ashen-faced, Emily turned to look at Zandra, whose voice had suddenly changed. She stood up and looked at Emily with those ghastly staring blank eyes. To Emily’s fevered brain she didn’t look human any more.

  ‘Get out of my house!’ Zandra said, and then collapsed back in the chair.

  Now it was official. Emily wasn’t just scared. She was terrified.

  Livvy

  Zandra is one big fat disappointment. I thought she had a connection with the dead. She can barely hear me, though I’ve been shouting in her ear for ten minutes. Maybe she needs Psychic Steve by her side, but I have it on reliable authority from Malachi that Steve is recovering from an all-nighter and is not currently available. I think Malachi wants me to manage this alone. I know he wants me to try and find some common ground with Adam. But honestly? I got here long before Zandra did, and the sight of Evil Emily making up to Adam, asking if he’s OK, touching his arm in a way that is obviously false, makes me sick. Why can’t he see what she’s like? It’s so obvious she’s a woman on the shelf, who wanted to take someone else’s man because she couldn’t get one of her own. Before he knows it, she’ll be presenting him with squalling brats and poor Joe will be pushed out of the equation.

  Malachi has shown me a different version of the present, and hinted that there might be a way back, but doesn’t seem keen I should take it. But what if he’s wrong, and rather than accepting my lot, I’ve actually returned to chase Emily out of Adam’s life? I feel I’ve been given another chance to make things better for me, Adam and Joe. This time I won’t drink. This time I’ll get help, and Adam will fall in love with me again. I know he still has feelings for me. The way he held my hand in the hospital in the vision Malachi showed me wasn’t a lie. He loves me still, deep down; I just need to remind him of the fact.

  And so I slap Emily and make a lightbulb explode above her head. I don’t want to hurt her, just scare her a bit. Make her see being with Adam is too much, so she can leave him for me.

  I thought I might be able to come through properly if Zandra opened her mind enough. But for all her ‘I can speak to the dead’ business, she is fantastically small-minded about the whole spiritualism thing, and seems to only half believe it herself. So, after a huge effort, all I can do is shout at Emily through her before collapsing in a small heap. Zandra seems equally worn out with the effort, and comes to several minutes later, looking confused.

  ‘Did Livvy come through?’ she asks.

  ‘Not exactly,’ says Adam, grim-faced, ‘but she did send us a message.’

  He points to the lightbulb, smashed on the table, and Zandra goes pale.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

  ‘What?’ says Adam.

  ‘You have one angry spirit there,’ says Zandra. ‘I don’t think I can help you any more.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’ says Adam. ‘Do we just have to put up with this?’

  Zandra looks at him intently.

  ‘I don’t think Livvy wants to listen to reason,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t normally suggest this, but if I were you, I’d seriously consider an exorcism.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Emily

  An exorcism? That sounded a bit drastic.

  ‘I really don’t think that will be necessary,’ Emily said. ‘I’m sure Livvy didn’t mean any harm. She was probably trying to frighten me.’ Which, to be fair, she’d more than succeeded in doing.

  ‘She’s very angry,’ said Zandra. ‘And it’s only going to get worse. I’d really think about it, if I were you.’

  She and Norman gathered up their things and beat a hasty retreat. Emily got the impression they couldn’t wait to be out of the house. Zandra even waived her fee.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly charge you. It wouldn’t be right, not in the circumstances,’ she explained.

  They dashed off leaving Adam and Emily staring at one another in disbelief.

  ‘Are you OK?’ said Adam. ‘I can’t believe that just happened.’

  He pulled Emily close to him and kissed her. She felt warmed and comforted by his embrace. It felt normal and right in circumstances that were anything but.

  ‘Me neither, but I’m fine,’ Emily lied. In truth, she was scared witless, but it wouldn’t help Adam to know that. ‘A bit shaken, but fine.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear it if something bad happened to you,’ said Adam. ‘If Livvy hurt you …’

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen to me,’ Emily said, with more conviction than she felt. ‘Livvy was probably just making a point.’

  In reality Emily wasn’t at all sure. At the moments when she’d imagined she could feel Livvy close by, Emily had felt her exuding waves of malicious energy. And she had exploded a lightbulb on Emily’s head, which was drastic by anyone’s standards. The fire flared in the grate as if to prove her point. Was Livvy still there, watching? The thought made her shiver.

  Adam was clearly shaken up by the lightbulb too.

 
‘This is a nightmare,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what was going to happen there, but at the very least I was hoping we could talk to Livvy. But now I don’t know what we’re going to do. Livvy seems determined to get rid of you.’

  Emily noted wryly that Adam was no longer trying to find excuses for what was going on and, like her, she could see he was genuinely scared.

  Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself together.

  ‘She can try,’ she said, kissing Adam, ‘but bad luck for you, I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ says Adam, and kissed her back with such enthusiasm, Emily remembered that she was alive, Livvy was not, and Adam had chosen her not Livvy. She was damned if she was going to be pushed around by a jealous ghost.

  ‘Come on, the night’s still young, Joe’s out for the evening, it’s nearly Christmas,’ Emily said. ‘Let’s do something normal, and go to the pub.’

  Livvy

  So Emily wants to play hardball does she? I know I’m here to get Adam and Joe back, but I feel like a gauntlet’s being laid down. I need to teach Emily a lesson before I go any further. We’re fighting over Adam now, and I’m determined I’m going to win this particular battle. And as to me not wanting to hurt her, Emily is clearly more naïve than I thought. If I had real fingers that could actually throttle, I’d have no compunction about putting them around Emily’s perfect little neck. Well, maybe that’s a little extreme, but it’s cathartic to fantasize.

  I follow Emily and Adam to the pub at a discreet distance. It’s sleeting, and there’s a cold wind blowing, and they’re huddling together for warmth. It makes me so angry to see them together, I am more determined than ever to split them up. I wonder what my next move should be. Perhaps if I’m with them all the time, if Emily gets the idea that nowhere is safe from my presence, maybe she’ll do the decent thing and let him go.

  Maybe.