| Annus Mirabilis
“There!” he said, and, sure enough, the evening star suddenly gleamed. “Wish now!” There was no need to tell her that it was just the weather control satellite catching the late sun. Time enough for that when she grew up. His own wish, silent but fervent, was that the weather lottery would favour them this year. Snow on Christmas Day might cheer them all up a bit. And it was certainly cold enough: if it didn’t snow here, it would be close. “There’s nay such thing as Father Christmas,” sneered Old Tom behind them. “How many time have I got to tell you, that’s the kind of superstitious claptrap we left Earth to get away from.” He felt Charly stiffen in his arms. At six, she was old enough to sense the tension between him and his father-in-law. It was useless arguing with him, and anyway the colony council had decided that the children did need this sense of wonder and mystery, the thrill of anticipation — which, of course, was why they had sanctioned the generation of snow in one area each Christmas, in a planet colony site chosen for its temperate to sub-tropical climate. “Dinner’s ready. Bring the child in before she catches her death. You two must be nithered. Bloody mazed, these youngsters…” Old Tom’s muttering was cut off as the door banged shut behind him. Tom’s broad Tyneside drawl reminded Jack irresistibly of his wife; only in Jill’s mouth, the flattened vowels and glottal stops sounded pretty and attractive. A deep well of longing opened up within him. He wondered where she was, even if she was alive or dead; no, that was no good, she was alive, she would come home again; and instinctively clutched his daughter tighter. She seemed to feel his distress, and put her arms round his neck, hugging him back. He kissed her tenderly. “Come on then, little lass, let’s go and have some dinner” he said, taking her arms from around his neck and standing up. “Then we can hang up your stocking and see if Father Christmas heard your wish.” “You can’t get my wish in a stocking,” she replied solemnly. He looked down at her, at the fine elfin features and the big brown eyes — so like Jill’s — and turned away abruptly, as tears filled his own, and led her into the house.
He woke in the night, chilled in his lonely bed, and stumbled out to get another blanket. While he was rooting sleepily in the cupboard, he found he had been dreaming of Earth. He had only been a couple of years older than Charly was now when his parents had emigrated, and his conscious memories of Christmas had become attenuated over the years. Now, they came back in astonishing detail, and he remembered the television, and its promise of a cornucopia of toys and sweets, the crowded shops, and his mother dragging him away from the beggars in the streets…and Christmas morning, waking up at five o’clock out of sheer excitement, to find a whole heap of presents under the tree, too many to go in his stocking. And under it all, the hollowness: his father too tired to play with him, even when he was home all day, like on Christmas day, his mother always frowning and counting the coins in her purse; and then the first frugal Christmases here, where there was nothing much extra to have as a luxury. And then the greatest of all gifts: Jill’s love, and their daughter Charly… Jack drifted off to sleep, snug under the extra blanket.
“Daddy, daddy, Father Christmas was here! I just saw him.” Jack woke to an unearthly glow in his bedroom, and his daughter bouncing on his bed. “He was just here! I saw him, and his sleigh, and the reindeer…” Charly had to pause for breath. So they had the snow! And the post bus was always a sleigh in the snow area, with the driver dressed up in a red suit and a big white beard. “Let’s go and see what he’s brought us then,” he said, scooping her up and wrapping the extra blanket around both of them. As they stepped through the door, Tom’s bedroom door opened. “What’s all this noise, then?” he grumbled, yawning. “Father Christmas was here. I saw him! And we’re going to see what he brought us. Come on Granda’, you can come too.” Charly wriggled out of Jack’s arms, and rushed to the front door, dragging it open and letting in a flood of cold air. But there was nothing in their mail box. Disappointment momentarily darkened her face. Then she remembered the stocking, hung from the mantelpiece the night before, and rushed into the sitting room, throwing the door wide so that it swung back in the faces of the two men as they followed her. Jack pushed the door open again, and there was his daughter, stock still in the middle of the floor, the presents in their gaudy wrapping beneath the tree ignored. Because someone was kneeling before the fireplace, stirring up the fire, who turned and stood as they entered, dropping the poker in the hearth. “Hello, princess! Hello Jackie! Dad.” “Mummy,” shouted Charly, and the tableau unfroze, and there was a confused time of hugging and tears and unbridled happiness. And then, when Old Tom had gone off to make some breakfast coffee, Jill picked up her daughter, held her tight in one arm, took off her cap and tossed it into one of the armchairs, then reached out to Jack, looking into his eyes. “It’s all over, Jackie. I’m home for good, yer kna!” Emotion thickened her voice and her accent as Jack surrounded them both with his arms. And Charly, with her face buried against the rough material of her mother’s uniform, said a silent thankyou to Father Christmas, who did exist, and did grant wishes, even if they were too big to fit in your stocking.
Annus Mirabilis is copyright © 1991 Paul Brazier & Juliet Eyeions
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