A FORTUNATE MISTAKE…
I grew up in a single-parent householdwithout a father. My mother and grandmother raised me.
The longing for a father settled into my soul as early as nursery school. By the time I reached the first years of primary school, the ache had pressed even harder.
I remember distinctly how I used to envy my peers striding proudly along, hand in hand with their tall, sturdy fathers. They played together, rode bicycles through the park, and tinkered with cars in the drive. My heart stung most whenever I watched those fathers scoop up their daughters or sons, showering them in kisses and laughter. Their homes rang with a domestic joy I watched from the outside, thinking to myself, “What happiness that must be!”
I had seen my own fatheronly once, caught eternally in an old photograph. He, too, smiled like all those other fathers. But not for me.
Mother would tell me he was an explorer, living somewhere up in the far north of Scotland. So far north, she explained, it was impossible for him to visit. He had gone away to work but unfailingly sent birthday gifts from his distant post.
When I reached Year Three, disappointment landed heavily upon me. I overheard Mother confessing to Gran that she couldnt keep up the pretence. She couldn’t pass off presents as being from a father who, in truth, had abandoned us. He was well off, she said ruefully, yet never once rang me, nor wished me happiness on my birthday or at Christmas.
“William loves these holidays so,” Mother told Gran. “Theyre the only times he feels any comfort, the only days he senses supporteven if only from a distant and mysterious father.”
After hearing that, I told Mother and Gran before my birthday that I didnt want any gifts from a father who didnt exist. “Please, just bake my favourite Victoria sponge, and nothing more.”
We lived modestly, just managing on Mothers and Grans small weekly pay packets. When I started university, I found work on the sideshifting boxes at the train station and helping out at local grocers.
Once, my neighbour Colin offered me a job taking his place as Father Christmas during the festive days, visiting children at nursery schools and in their homes.
I immediately declined the nursery option. That seemed far too complicated for methe thought of stage performances and pairing up with a Snow Maiden made me flinch. But the idea of popping into homes for solo visits on Christmas Day with the bells and cheer of Father Christmas did appeal. I accepted.
Colin handed over a well-thumbed notebook packed with riddles, verses, and addresses of families expecting a visit. The routine was straightforwardnothing like those daunting university exams. Yet my nerves still rattled, fearful Id make a fool of myself.
To my surprise, my first outing went off brilliantly. I returned home at the end of the day, exhausted but brimming with priderelieved I hadnt disgraced myself. Id earned more in one day than I used to in half a years worth of heavy lifting over weekends.
So, every winter, I donned the Father Christmas suit. In summers, I joined student construction crews around town, doing my best to make ends meet.
While at university, my personal life never quite settledstudies and odd jobs consumed most of my energy. There were girls, of course, but nothing ever quite lasted.
“Ill finish my degree, land a decent job, get my life sorted Then I can think about a family,” Id often dream.
After I graduated and began working as an engineernot high up yet, but gratefulI started saving up for a second-hand car. Our household managed a simple middle income by then, but even so, cars were expensive and just out of reach. The urge was strongI wanted my own four wheels.
So I decided, once again, to play Father Christmas.
Mother retrieved my old red suit from the back of the wardrobe, peeled off its old plastic cover, and gave it a makeover. She added so many glittering bits, it practically sparkled anew. The freshly-brushed white beard hid my face perfectly.
After I put on thick, bushy brows and admired myself in the mirror, Mother sighed. “Will, it’s high time you had children of your own, instead of entertaining everybody else’s.”
“Plenty of time yet,” I replied lightly, giving her a peck on the cheek. “Wish me luck, MumI’m off, then!”
The week before Christmas, I placed an advert in the local paper, which brought me fifteen bookings.
After ticking off six visits from my list, I checked my next family: “6, Orchard Lane, Flat 19.”
I hopped off the bus and made my way to Orchard Lanea nearly forgotten edge of the town, cast in weak lamplight.
Finding No. 6 was easy. I climbed to the second floor and rang the bell.
A little boy, perhaps five or six, opened the door.
“In the forest glen, under holly and oak, I dwell in my little cottage” I began, but he interrupted, “We didnt invite Father Christmas!”
“Im never truly invitedI visit good children when I please,” I answered quickly, though thrown off-guard. “Your mum and dad home?”
“No. Mums gone to see Grandma Annie in the next houseshes giving her an injection. Shell be back soon.”
“Whats your name, then?”
“William,” he answered.
How odda namesake, I thought, more surprised than I let on.
I caught myselfno sense telling him I was also William. After all, I was meant to be Father Christmas.
“William, wheres your Christmas tree?”
“In my bedroom.”
He took me by hand and led me in. The little flat was furnished humbly, almost bare. On the coffee table by the bed stood a single pine branch in a large jar, decked with miniature baubles and a tiny string of coloured lights.
Next to the branch, two framed photos stood side by sidea man and a woman.
I peered closerand my heart stopped. From one photo, I stared right back at myself.
“But… that can’t be”
I inspected the frames intently. Yesmy old university photo, windblown jacket and all, graced the one on the left.
On the right, a womanEmily Garton.
Wed met one summer working on a student construction crew.
Her photo wasnt the girlish one I’d remembered; it showed a lovely but somber womanmuch changed, though unmistakably Emily.
“Whos this?” I asked, barely recognising my own voice for nerves.
“Mum.”
“Yours?”
“Mine.”
“Is she called Emily?” I blurted.
He stared, wide-eyed, “Oh, you guessed! You must be the real Father Christmas! I didnt think they existed!”
“And this?” I pointed at my own mug, already suspecting the truth.
“Thats my dad. Hes a real explorer! Mum says he works far away on a giant ice floe. He left when I was very small, so Ive never seen himnot even a memory, really. But he always sends gifts on my birthdayand at Christmas, I always find one under my pillow, because Father Christmas likes to hide them there.”
My mind reeled, haunted by memories of my own childhood with its mythical explorer father.
Was it something mothers everywhere diddeclaring absent fathers explorers, sending them off to distant Scotland or even beyond?
And here, I too had become the absent father.
I felt an awful wrench insideas if fate had pierced me right through.
I remembered my passionate, but brief, affair with Emily
Wed swapped numbers before parting, but when I got home, I never calledand my phone was stolen days later. Shed never know how often she crossed my mind, but lifestudy, new friends, casual romanceshad pushed her out.
Now, here she was, living in the same town. Not only had she remembered me, but shed raised our son alone and kept my photo beside hers.
I wanted to confess to William that I was his father, when suddenly the door opened and Emily herself stepped inside.
“Sorry, love,” she said quickly to her son, “I was held up. Grandma Annie needed an ambulance; had to take her to hospital.”
She caught sight of me, surprised. “Oh! But we didnt invite Father Christmas!”
Tears of happiness streamed down my cheeks. I ripped off the red hat, beard, and shaggy brows.
“Will?!”
She collapsed onto the hallways pouffe, sobbing uncontrollably, so much that little William looked a little frightened.
But catching her sons gaze, Emily quickly recovered.
I explained to William Id flown down from the frozen north, dressed as Father Christmas, to deliver a special surprise for him and his mother.
His delight was boundlesshe laughed, recited poems, even sang songs for us. Then he clung to our hands, afraid I might disappear again.
Hed forgotten all about the present, knowing that Father Christmas would hide his dads gift under the pillow.
He fell asleep, and Emily and I talked through the night, as though the years apart had vanished entirely.
At dawn, I dashed to the shop for another present, only then realising I’d made a mistake. Id gone to house 6A, not 6. In the dark, Id missed the little letter Abut found the right home all the same!
It was, in truth, the very door destiny meant me to find.
“What a lucky, life-changing mistake,” I mused, smiling.
Now there are three of uswe are perfectly happy!
Gran and Mum are endlessly proud of their grandson and great-grandsonWilliam Willson!
