I work as a financial director helpfully has its year end in December, so while everyone else is on the downward run to Christmas, I am working pretty much to the bitter end. By the time Emily and Joe get up I’m feeling shattered, but there’s no rest for the wicked, so after Emily makes pancakes for us all we pile out of the house together. Emily, who works in IT for a hip design company in London, heads to the station, while Joe goes off to college. I walk part of the way with Joe and, just as I say goodbye, he says, ‘Where do you think Mum will be this Christmas?’
Although I am used to Joe asking questions like this since Livvy died, it never fails to get me. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I can hardly tell Joe that I think Livvy is gone for good.
I mutter something about her always being with us, and Joe brightens up and says, ‘I think she’s a star in the sky watching over us. Just like Grandad.’
When Joe was eight, Livvy’s dad died. They were very close, and it hit him hard. After that he used to worry terribly that something would happen to me or Livvy, and, tapping into his love of astronomy, Livvy came up with the idea that when we died we’d watch over him as stars in the sky, which seemed to comfort him. He hadn’t mentioned it for years, but it was as good an explanation as any.
‘Grandad’s star is Orion,’ explains Joe. ‘Because he liked hunting and Orion is the Hunter. Mostly it’s too cloudy to see him properly, and all you can see is the three stars on his belt. But sometimes you can see the whole thing, and it’s so cool, Dad, he looks like a hunter, with a bow and arrow and everything. And Mum’s star is Venus. Although technically Venus is a planet – but anyway – Venus is the morning and evening star because she’s the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing at night. Just like Mum used to get me up in the morning and put me to bed at night when I was little. If I look at Venus, that’s Mum watching me.’
‘I’m sure she is, Joe,’ I say in relief. I pat him on the shoulder, and he goes on to college, while I make my way to work.
By 11 a.m. I have had three cups of coffee, and am flagging badly. I seem to have been looking at the screen forever, not getting anything done, when I get the distinct impression there is someone standing behind me. I look round. Nothing. Why would there be? Everyone else is gossiping about the office Christmas party this afternoon, not even bothering to focus on work. There’s an air of jollity about the place which I’m not sharing. I’ve got so much to do that I don’t want to go to the party. A year on and celebrating Christmas somehow feels all wrong. It’s been a year, but still my sadness about what happened to Livvy hangs over me. Emily and I are going through the motions for Joe. He needs the order, the stability; at least that’s what Livvy always said. And his routine and order have been spectacularly shot to pieces this last year.
If it hadn’t been for Livvy managing to get him into that college, I’m sure he’d be in a much worse state. That was one thing she always got spectacularly right. From the moment of Joe’s diagnosis, she worked hard to make sure he always had the best support at school. She gave up the job she loved in advertising so she could stay at home with Joe and fought every bit of red tape, and unhelpful officialdom, to make sure Joe got everything he needed. Without her, Joe would never have come this far. I used to worry terribly that she was making Joe such a focus that she didn’t have much time for herself, and tried to get her to go away on the odd girlie weekend. But she always found it hard leaving Joe, and said she didn’t mind about work, Joe needed her. Perhaps I should have pressed her on that. Sometimes she did seem sad and overburdened but, try as I might, I could never get her to share her thoughts with me. Looking back I can see I failed her there. She made Joe her world, and sometimes I think that was a mistake. She left friendships slide, and didn’t develop any outside interests the way I had. I should have seen that, I should have helped more. But to my deep regret I didn’t.
A familiar mixture of grief, guilt and self-disgust washes over me. I want to put my head in my hands and wake up. But these spreadsheets need doing, and at least they’ll distract me. So I plough on. And then …
… my computer freezes.
Suddenly it’s as though someone has taken over the keyboard. A new window opens up. It’s Livvy’s Facebook page. I’m reminded I should have closed it down after she died, but I don’t have the password. Besides so many people have left tributes there over the last year, I can’t bring myself to. And secretly I go on it sometimes, and look at pictures of us in younger, happier times. Emily says I’m being morbid. Maybe I am.
The screen seems to have frozen on one particular picture. It was from our first trip abroad, when we went Interrailing round Europe. There Livvy is in a café in Venice, sunkissed, her auburn hair flowing in the breeze, laughing in delight. I remember that day well. We’d overdosed on sightseeing and spent the day wandering the streets, buying knick-knacks in shops, stopping for ice cream in tiny little piazzas; we ended the day sitting in this café, watching the gondolas plying their trade on the canals. It had been perfect, glorious; and there she is captured on my screen; a record of our happiness frozen in time.
I sit and stare at the picture, and have a moment of brief joy, thinking that not all my memories are tainted, followed swiftly by a familiar stab of pain that Livvy isn’t here and I can’t tell her. I stare for a long time feeling immensely sad, and then shake myself out of it. This isn’t going to get my spreadsheets done.
The screen still seems to be frozen, so I press alt, control, delete. Nothing happens. And then an instant message pops up.
It says: I’m sorry.
What? I go cold all over. Is this some kind of sick joke? Maybe one of my colleagues is playing a prank on me. I look around but everyone seems to be chatting cheerfully about the party. Besides, why would anyone do something like this?
Who is this? I reply cautiously. But there’s no answer, just a cold breath on my neck and a chill up my spine.
Emily
Emily was working late. Being in IT meant she had to be flexible, and tonight she was needed to help sort out the office mainframe, which had overheated. Adam had invited her to his company’s work do, and she was still in two minds as to whether to go. Emily had met a couple of Adam’s workmates, but she knew that Livvy had been a popular figure in the office, in and out of there since Joe was tiny. It made Emily nervous to think that people might be judging her, though Adam told her she had nothing to worry about. Emily would much rather go out somewhere just with Adam, particularly as Joe was spending the evening with his new friend, Caroline, a girl he’d met at college. Adam hadn’t been all that keen on going either, but his work colleagues had been a great support to him after Livvy had died, and he felt he had to show his face, so Emily thought the least she could do was keep him company.
‘Come on, Ems, it will be fine now,’ said her boss, a skinny bearded twenty-something called Daniel, who ran Digit AL, the small company she’d found herself temping at for the last few months. ‘Some of us are going for a drink – do you want to join us?’
‘Thanks Dan, but I’ve got plans.’ Emily liked the atmosphere of the place, which was run by geeky lads, most of whom looked barely out of their teens. They were a lot of fun though, and on another occasion she might have been tempted to join them; she found their company energizing. But she was already late for Adam’s party, so she closed down her computer and set off across a chilly, frosty London, squashed on busy trains full of people in cheery Christmas mode. Emily wasn’t quite feeling the Christmas vibe this year – there seemed to be a lot of tricky moments to get through before the day itself, and she still wasn’t sure she and Adam were getting it right with Joe.
Emily’s heart was in her mouth as she entered the room. She’d never been big on work parties – Graham had always made it spectacularly clear that she wasn’t terribly welcome at his. And Adam’s office was small and closely knit and everyone knew each other’s families. She felt that people were curious about this new woman in Adam’s life.
Adam had kept his problems at home very much to himself so nobody at work had