Driving Home for Christmas

by Emma Hannigan

  Copyright © 2012 Emma Hannigan

  Extract from The Heart of Winter © 2014 Emma Hannigan

  Extract from The Summer Guest © 2014 Emma Hannigan

  The right of Emma Hannigan to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2012 by HACHETTE BOOKS IRELAND

  This Ebook edition published in 2014 by HEADLINE REVIEW

  An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN 978 1 4722 0927 6

  Cover photographs © Alamy; car © Getty Images

  Cover: www.headdesign.co.uk

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Also By

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  1. It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

  2. Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly!

  3. The Fairytale of New York

  4. Little Drummer Boy

  5. Last Christmas

  6. It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

  7. Rudolf, the Red-nosed Reindeer

  8. Grown-up Christmas Wish

  9. Ding Dong Merrily on High

  10. Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

  11. Joy to the World

  12. Mary’s Boy Child

  13. O Christmas Tree

  14. The Sounds of Christmas

  15. All I Want for Christmas Is …

  16. Hark! the Herald Angels Sing …

  17. O Come, All Ye Faithful!

  18. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

  19. I’m Getting Nothing for Christmas

  20. Lonely this Christmas

  21. Mistletoe and Wine

  22. The Power of Love

  23. Step into Christmas

  24. Pipes of Peace

  25. Walking in the Air

  26. Blue Christmas

  27. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

  28. Driving Home for Christmas

  29. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

  30. ’Twas the Night Before Christmas …

  31. Merry Christmas, Everyone!

  32. O Holy Night!

  33. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

  34. We Wish You a Merry Christmas

  Epilogue

  Emma Hannigan’s Christmas Biscuits

  Sneak peek of The Heart of Winter

  Extract from The Summer Guest

  Discover more novels from Emma Hannigan

  About the Author

  Emma Hannigan is the author of eight bestselling novels, including The Summer Guest and The Heart of Winter, and a bestselling memoir, Talk to the Headscarf which charted her journey through cancer. Emma lives in Bray, Ireland, with her husband and two children.

  For more about Emma, visit her website www.emmahannigan.com, find her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorEmmaHannigan or follow her on Twitter @MsEmmaHannigan.

  Also by Emma Hannigan

  Keeping Mum

  The Pink Ladies Club

  Miss Conceived

  Designer Genes

  Driving Home for Christmas

  Perfect Wives

  The Summer Guest

  The Heart of Winter

  The Wedding Weekend e-novella

  Talk to the Headscarf

  About the Book

  Christmas at Huntersbrook House has always been a family tradition – log fires, long walks through the snowy fields and evenings spent in the local pub. And this year the three grown-up Craig children are looking forward to the holidays more than ever. Pippa to escape her partying lifestyle and mounting debts in Dublin; Joey the demands of his gorgeous girlfriend who seems intent on coming between him and his family; and Lainey to forget about her controlling ex and his recent engagement to another woman.

  But with the family livery yard in financial trouble, this Christmas could be the Craig family’s last at Huntersbrook as they face the prospect of selling the ancestral house.

  As the holiday season gets underway, the family need to come up with a way to save their home, and face the problems they’ve been running away from in Dublin. And what better place to figure things out than around the fire at Huntersbrook House?

  For Sacha and Kim with love.

  The most precious gifts I’ll ever receive.

  Acknowledgements

  I absolutely adore Christmas time, so writing this book was a true treat.

  Massive thanks must go to my lovely editor Ciara Doorley who continues to teach me so much. Thanks also to Hazel Orme for further editing, help and encouragement. Big Christmas hugs to all the lovely people at Hachette Books Ireland, especially Breda, Joanna, Ruth, Margaret and Jim. I love working with you all and am honoured to be part of the gang.

  Tinsel and huge thanks for my wonderful agent Sheila Crowley of Curtis Brown who is always on my side. Thank you, lovely lady.

  I am of the personal opinion that the world can never contain too much glitter. If I ruled the world everything from lampposts to shopping baskets would be encrusted in Swarovski crystals. So needless to say, Christmas is a wonderful time for unleashing that inner tackiness that I’m forced to quash in everyday existence.

  My husband Cian is my polar opposite when it comes to naff decorations. As far as he’s concerned one Christmas tree in the world is too many. So my sincere thanks must go to him for putting up with my decoration obsession. Last year we had six trees in total at home. I’m hoping to up that this year – even if it means erecting one in the bathroom. I admire Cian’s lack of violence toward my many dancing, singing and jingling animals. Admittedly they can be terrifying, especially late at night after a couple of drinks when the dark silence is broken by the tuneless noise of a yuletide-themed creature. He doesn’t share my delight in my personal favourite, a penguin that shuffles while singing ‘All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,’ as it clangs tiny symbols attached to his flippers. Cian, you’re quite right to point out that penguins don’t have teeth nor should they wear ‘creepy knitted scarves’ and play percussion instruments, badly. But I guess at this point in our lives you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that grumbling about my decoration obsession only encourages me to buy more. Thank you for sticking by me over the years through sickness and health, in good times and bad, in spite of my unabashedly hideous taste in Christmas decorations.

  Massive thanks to our son Sacha and daughter Kim for being the coolest kids on the planet. You give me so many reasons to keep going each and every day. More than that, you take the blame for some of the gaudy garlands and share my love of all things tacky.

  Thanks to Mum and Dad for making each and every Christmas magical and memorable. You’ve passed on a love of togetherness and taught me what it means to be part of a caring family. Timmy and I are so lucky to have you both as paren
ts. Family is the greatest gift of all.

  Thanks to my brother Tim and his partner Hilary, who always buy extremely noisy presents for the kids at Christmas – the glockenspiel and electronic drum machine were particularly noteworthy last year. Believe me, it’s all chalked down for future reference.

  Christmas kisses to all my incredible extended family and ever-present friends who bolster and support me all the time, with a special mention to our au pair Camila.

  Cathy Kelly is always there and my angel on earth, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  I’ve had the unexpected privilege of getting to know Katie Taylor this year. She’s my hero – an inspiration to women and living proof that dreams come true. I am humbled to call her a friend. Thank you for lifting the hearts of the nation by winning gold at the Olympics and showing the world what can be achieved.

  Thank you most sincerely to all my amazing readers who contact me and send me heartfelt letters and messages each and every day. Without you all I wouldn’t be in a position to write. I’m holding out a cracker for you to pull with me!

  In my mind Christmas is about showing the people around you how much you care. It’s about making the effort to invite family and friends over for a drink or a bite of food. It’s about looking back over the year you’ve just come through. And most of all it’s about looking forward with positive excitement to all the surprises that lie ahead during the next twelve months.

  I hope your home is dripping in decorations. I call on you all to embrace your inner glitter. Please, wear that silly paper hat, read aloud those terrible jokes. Spread the Christmas cheer!

  I hope you enjoy Driving Home for Christmas. I’ve adored writing it – I was able to continue to languish in that wonderful yuletide zone for longer than usual this year! How great is that? If you could possibly read Driving Home for Christmas in front of the fire with a group of mechanical bears dressed in stripy knitted hats and scarves, preferably singing and dancing at the same time, I’d be so proud. If not I’ll just imagine that you are, if that’s okay with you?

  Merry Christmas one and all and I hope your dreams come true in the months ahead.

  Love and Christmas light to you all!

  Emma

  Prologue

  Dear Maggie

  I know it’s been a few days since I last wrote but it’s all been a bit busy here at Huntersbrook. Your grandchildren all made a recent appearance so at least I can fill you in there. Young Joey was here with that madam of a girlfriend again. I know I’m the housekeeper and my job is to keep the place tidy, but that one seems to think I’m her personal slave.

  If you were still here she wouldn’t be swanning around doing the Lady Muck act, I can tell you. Your Holly might be able to crack the whip when she has to, but even she seems to be no match for this Sophia one.

  Lainey was home for the hunt at the weekend. I popped over to have a bit of a chinwag and help Holly and Paddy with the teas and coffees. I never get tired of the spectacle of the hounds sniffing around as the horses and ponies dance and stamp in excitement as they wait for the Master to sound the horn. They’d a fine big crowd, which was great. At least this recession isn’t stopping people enjoying the outdoors.

  Lainey tells me she has a new friend at the office, who sounds like a bit of craic. It’s about time that girl got out and had some fun while she’s still young. I know she’s a great horsewoman but that mare won’t help with the loneliness when she’s too old to fling herself around the fields.

  Old Mr Cromwell was here lashing into the refreshments as usual. I’d swear he inhales the tea and sandwiches, they disappear so fast. He still asks after you every time I see him. God bless him, it’s more than fifty years since your Stanley passed away and the poor old divil still seems to hold a torch for you. I told him you’re having a wonderful time in Australia with Sid and how much you enjoy living in a vineyard, but he goes selectively deaf when I mention that. No fool like an old fool, eh, Maggie?

  Pippa’s still Pippa. What more can I say? Lives the high life, that one. Maybe she took all the fun and left her poor older sister with none. Do you think that’s the way it works in families? She’s off to New York now. Christmas shopping with the girls, she says. I don’t know what’s wrong with the shops in Wicklow but, as she’d be quick enough to point out, I haven’t a clue! Holly asked her how she was funding it all and she did her usual flick of the hair and said, ‘You worry too much, Mum.’ You can’t help but love her all the same. I’m probably just jealous because I’m still here doing the same thing I’ve done for nearly half a century.

  I’d better press on – those stairs won’t Hoover themselves. It takes me a lot longer now. I’m not as young as I used to be!

  Mind yourself, Maggie, and don’t forget to write back. I know it’s been eleven months since I started this email lark with you, but I’m still terrified of hitting the wrong button and sending my letter to outer space.

  Thank you for saying you enjoy my turn of phrase when I write. I suppose I’m using our little exchanges to put that writing course I did to some use. I never did manage to sit and write that novel! But at least I feel it wasn’t totally wasted now.

  I’ve remembered to do that spell-check thing you mentioned this time. I still laugh when I think of that error in my last email – what a difference one vowel can make in a word.

  Bye for now, Maggie,

  Your trusty friend,

  Sadie

  1

  It’s Beginning to Look a

  Lot Like Christmas

  Lainey could just about recognise a mutilated rendition of Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ as she stepped into the lift. She had to put up with it until the doors slid open to reveal over-the-top decorations with fuzzy polar bears in an array of stripy knitted accessories and more glittery baubles than you could shake a sparkly wand at. She had never been a shopping fan, and immersing herself in the pre-Christmas madness was possibly a step too far. This had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, which had evolved just before she and Jules had come out for lunch.

  Lainey had grown up in the Wicklow countryside and was more comfortable in the family home, Huntersbrook House, than she was in the bustle at House of Fraser.

  ‘Lainz! Isn’t this magical?’ Jules rushed over and linked her arm.

  ‘Our ideas of magic are poles apart, Jules. Give me a frosty field just begging to be cantered across any day,’ Lainey said, as the in-store music and warmth engulfed them.

  ‘You’re so funny! You sound like something from that film about the talking pig! There’s to be no Mrs Farmer Brown with me at the office party this year,’ Jules insisted. ‘You’re going to rock up in the most sexy gear.’

  ‘That sounds great,’ Lainey said, beginning to quiver.

  ‘This is the best place to start,’ Jules assured her. ‘It’s a bit like a selection box for clothes. A little taster of a whole pile of shops.’

  As Jules snatched up garments and held them aloft, Lainey watched awestruck. This girl was a purchase-pro. Not only was she totally in her own comfort zone, but she was precise and speedy with it, moving with the stealth of a panther zoning in on her prey. Lainey could almost hear Sir David Attenborough’s excited whispering: ‘As she assesses the rails, engaging with her Yuletide instincts, she adapts immediately, clicking into outfit-for-the-office-party mode. The straight males of the species shy away from the fashion outlet, knowing their presence is superfluous. After they’ve been snapped at in this situation, they know to leave the female to her task, instead congregating at a nearby electrical or music store until she has secured an item that isn’t that-old-thing. When possible, the male takes their young with him, as the normally protective and nurturing female can become irrational and mildly violent.’

  ‘You haven’t picked up a single thing. Don’t you like the stuff in here?’ Jules asked, breaking her reverie.

  ‘Eh, yeah. Well, it’s not really that,’ Lainey felt pressurised, like a fawn confronted by a pack
of coyotes. ‘I’m just not great in shops. I tend to feel as if my throat is closing and I’m going to fall down in a big messy heap to be left for dead under a pile of hangers. I really meant it when I told you in work that I don’t do the clothes thing.’

  ‘Gosh!’ Jules was astonished. ‘You really weren’t joking when you said you’ve worn the same black dress to the office party for the last three years running.’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Lainey said, flushing. ‘I don’t mind coming shopping with you, but please just do what you usually do. I’ll watch.’

  ‘Poor Lainz,’ Jules said, stroking her arm and looking at her as if she’d just divulged a terminal cancer diagnosis. ‘I’ll help you. I mightn’t be as good as you in the office but I certainly know how to shop! Come on!’

  Lainey was catapulted into a cramped dressing room with an opaque glass door and instructed to take off her work suit. She wasn’t sure about stripping in the company of a colleague but she hadn’t the foggiest idea how to say no without offending her. But Seth had told her a million times how awful she was at picking clothes so she probably needed any help she could get.

  ‘What size are you, Lainz?’ Jules called.

  ‘My suit is a twelve,’ she said. With a dry mouth, Lainey wondered if she should’ve said sixteen. If Jules tried to dress her in her own style, things might get sticky. To say the girls were polar opposites was putting it mildly: Jules went for the least amount of clothing possible in every situation while Lainey was practicality’s demonstration model.

  ‘I have two dresses which I think would be über-stunning on you,’ Jules said, reappearing. ‘But I’m leaning towards the red.’

  ‘Really?’ Lainey said, hoping that she didn’t look as uncomfortable as she felt. ‘I don’t think I’ve worn red since I was a teenager. Seth, he’s my ex-boyfriend, hated that colour. Said it made me look like a tomato.’

  ‘When did you break up?’

  ‘Just over a year ago.’

  ‘Are you still in contact? Do you meet for the odd shag, coffee or beer?’