GUESS WHO’S COMING TO STAY
The story of one unexpected Christmas baby
My mother was facing her first Christmas as a single parent with four children
This is a tale of two very different Christmases. The first took place in a London hospital where my father was being treated for leukaemia. The stark lines of the ward had been softened with tinsel and paper chains; the staff wore reindeer antlers and valiant smiles. The year was 1989 and radios played Do They Know It’s Christmas? I was eight years old, and had chosen Dad’s present with great care: a grey flannel and a bar of Pears soap. I wanted to get him something he could use in the hospital, but he wasn’t to be there much longer. He died just days into the new decade, and 1990 stretched ahead as a sad and difficult time for my family.
A year later my mother, Harriet, was facing her first Christmas as a single parent. There were four of us children – Chris, who was 16, Natasha, 15, Harry, 13, and me, aged nine. She has told me since how much she dreaded it: the moving Christmas carols, the images of happy families on TV, memories of Christmases she had shared with my dad. Most of all, she worried that we children would have a depressing Christmas without our father, a cloud of gloom hanging over the day.
To make things better, she threw all she had at making it a jolly day. The tree was even bigger than usual, its angel squashed against the ceiling; the fridge door wouldn’t close for all the cheese and goodies inside; the presents were extravagant (a Gameboy! A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gift set!). Friends from the local church circled their wagons around us, too, visiting often in the run-up to Christmas and ensuring that the house was lively with games and laughter.
But still, underneath it all, was the gnawing fear that the day itself would be miserable: that the meal
She was the easiest baby, happy to be passed around and even dressed with a Christmas bow on her head
[continued from previous page] could end in tears; that my teenage siblings might take to their bedrooms and wish to be left alone. It might have turned out that way, but for the call we received the night before Christmas Eve. I remember my mother’s voice sounding incredulous on the phone. ‘Tomorrow? Christmas Eve?’ Then: ‘Yes, yes, of course we’ll be there.’
On the other end of the line had been the social services department of an inner-london borough. For a few years, Mum had done periods of foster-care work for the borough, taking in children who had been removed from their parents. Calls about new children could come at any time of the day or night. They arrived just in the clothes they were in, and my mum – the kindest person I know – would immediately make them feel safe and looked after. We’d always had older children come to stay, and on hearing Mum on the phone, I thought I might get someone my age to play with on Christmas Day. But no: the new foster child was a little younger. Her name was Molly and she was three days old. It had been decided before she was born that she wouldn’t be able to stay with her birth mother, but no arrangements had been made for where she would go. So we were called, in a bit of a panic, and asked to take in this tiny baby for Christmas.
Meeting Molly
The next day, my mother and I made the long journey from our home in Surrey to a hospital on the other side of London: three trains, a bus and a walk through hail and rain. Once there, we were given a few bottles, a couple of Baby-gros, a pack of nappies, a £500 Mothercare voucher – and Molly. She had the lightest dusting of blonde hair and very big eyes, when she cared to open them. Given the blustery conditions outside, social services decided to call us a cab home. Without a car seat, I held her on my lap the whole way, watching her sleep and marvelling at her already luscious eyelashes. Baby, It’s Cold Outside came on the radio and we sang along.
The arrival of Molly back home caused great excitement. She was tiny, adorable and the perfect Christmas present for us all. Instead of fights over what to watch on TV, there were battles over who would hold Molly, bathe Molly, change Molly’s nappy. She was the easiest baby, rarely crying, happy to be passed around like a parcel and even dressed with a Christmas bow on her head.
On Christmas morning, we walked as usual to the village church, the baby wrapped in a big blanket as we didn’t have warm clothes for her yet. The vicar had heard about Molly’s arrival, and asked us to bring her to the front of the church to be blessed. It was an extraordinary moment – people gathering round to pray while Molly eyed them serenely. We left to the strains of Away In A Manger. It was the opposite Christmas to the one we had expected – not gloomy and sad but filled with joy. Having a baby was a blessed distraction from the fact that my father wasn’t there. I remember feeling terror that they would soon take the baby away and the spell she had cast would be broken. But winter turned to spring and Molly stayed with us. By autumn, she had a mass of blonde curls so unruly we called her Scrambled Egg. All four older children doted on Molly. She had us wrapped around her finger. By her second Christmas with us, the idea of Molly ever leaving became impossible. She was being fostered with a view to someone eventually adopting her, and Mum was determined that would be us. Molly’s birth mother, knowing she could not look after her herself, gave her blessing for Molly to be adopted. There were numerous visits from social workers and the assessment process was rightly rigorous. Though we were the only family Molly had ever known, there were many others hoping to adopt – and my mother was a single parent, already 45, with four older children. Mum tells me now she was terrified that Molly would be taken away – a baby who you love every bit as much as your other children.
Family for ever
Our day in court to find out whether Molly would officially be ours was finally set for April 1993, over two years after that first Christmas. We all travelled up to London to the forbidding façade of the High Court. I felt dazed as we climbed the steps, fearful there was a chance my little sister would not come home with us. However, the judge said he was pleased to make the adoption order – and even invited Molly into his chambers afterwards to try on his wig. From there, it was a trip to Selfridges to buy a tricycle for our Official Sister, and lunch at Mcdonald’s. Molly kept her birth name and we added a new middle name – in memory of my father we called her Lotte, after his mother. Though I’m nearly a decade older than Molly (who is now 26), we are very close. She is hilarious, thoughtful, sensitive and kind – a gem of a person. I cannot believe our luck that she happened to come to us, and cannot imagine life without my little sister. She was the best Christmas present ever. ◆ Clare Foges’ children’s book, Bathroom Boogie, is available now, published by Faber