The Perfect Gift

by Emma Hannigan

  When her mobile phone rang a few minutes later, Róisín glanced at the screen and knew she needed to gather herself, and quickly. Wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, she answered with as much cheer as she could muster.

  ‘Hi Mum,’ she managed.

  ‘Happy birthday, love! How are you?’

  ‘Good, thanks,’ she lied.

  ‘You sound a bit muffled. Is everything OK?’

  ‘Oh I’ve just had a sneezing fit. I’ll have to start taking spoons of Manuka honey again. I’d say it’s that blasted hayfever starting up.’

  ‘Oh,’ Keeley said. ‘Poor you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Mum.’

  ‘Now, I know we’ll be seeing you this evening at our place, but I wanted to hear your voice before then. I wish you could take the day off. Do you think you can?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘But there’s so much to do and I wouldn’t relax.’

  ‘Alright then. I’d better let you go. You’re sounding very distracted there.’

  ‘Sorry, Mum. I’ll chat to you properly later, OK?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Róisín hung up. Her head was thumping and she was feeling totally overwhelmed. She wished she could go home after work and curl into a ball and cry. She couldn’t let her mum and dad down, though. She thought of Keeley and Doug. They were the one constant in her life. With her corkscrew chestnut-coloured curls and her warm smiling brown eyes, Keeley Daly was one of life’s true ladies. Róisín’s dad, Doug, was her mum’s perfect companion and she hadn’t lost hope that some day she’d find a love like they had.

  ‘You two are like two peas in a pod,’ she said, at their ruby wedding anniversary dinner last year.

  ‘More like Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee,’ joked Keeley.

  ‘Or Homer and Marge,’ said Doug.

  ‘You’re as wonderful to me as Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh,’ Róisín said.

  ‘Or Baby and Johnny from Dirty Dancing,’ Róisín’s sister Liv piped up, to much laughter.

  Róisín couldn’t ruin the birthday get-together her parents had planned so she’d just have to push the shock of Mr Grace’s announcement to the back of her mind for now. After all, she thought as an image of Jacques passed through her mind, she was the queen of keeping secrets.

  When Róisín had envisaged her thirtieth birthday ten or twenty years ago, she hadn’t imagined it taking place in her parents’ back garden in Ballyshore with her sister Liv’s four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter as the main attraction. Although she adored Billy and Jess, a sedate gathering with the inevitable discount-store bunting threaded gaudily around the trees and music by her mother’s idol, Barry Manilow, being pumped from a crackly speaker at the kitchen window wasn’t even close to what she’d thought would happen.

  Having spent two years immersed in the culinary culture of Bordeaux and the surrounding areas, she knew she had almost alienated herself from her childhood environment in the west of Ireland. She’d loved everything about Bordeaux, from the cuisine to the fiery dark-eyed men who had entertained her. She’d struggled to settle back here in the rugged isolation and simplicity of Ballyshore, and her initial frustration hadn’t been helped by the heartbreak and disappointment at having to exit her life in France so suddenly.

  For a moment in time she’d genuinely believed her future happiness could be found by marrying Jacques, and having beautiful, bronzed Breton children with names like Fabienne and Stéphane. But it had turned out that Jacques wasn’t ready to commit to her. When things had gone pear-shaped, she’d packed up everything bar her pride and returned home shattered but tight-lipped about the events leading to her return.

  Her parents and younger sister were thrilled to see her back and welcomed her with open arms. Not for the first time, she saw how amazing her family truly were. They pulled out all the stops to ensure she stayed around, too. Her childhood bedroom had been renovated to become part of her mother’s B&B, but it was instantly removed from the busy rental list and she was assured she could stay as long as she wished.

  The excitement of starting a new business a year after she’d returned home had taken the heat off the fact she was dying inside. Róisín couldn’t tell anyone the real reason she’d left France and nobody pushed the point. But why would they? Any time Jacques was mentioned, she’d firmly assure people it was all for the best.

  ‘It’s difficult to mix two cultures. It wasn’t meant to be so it was best to face the music sooner rather than later,’ she’d assured her mother, arranging her face in a convincing smile.

  ‘But don’t you miss him, love?’ Keeley asked, not long after she returned.

  ‘Of course,’ she’d sighed. ‘But it’s more of a case of breaking the habit than being heartbroken.’

  When her mother had nodded and looked as if she understood, Róisín had learned something new – it was easy to hide her feelings once she did it with a smile. The same lie had worked on Jill. She was astonished that her best friend had swallowed it hook, line and sinker. But she had. Smiling and making herself go on a few boozy nights out, where she giggled in company and cried herself to sleep in private, was all it took to convince everyone that she was glad and even relieved to be home.

  Her main therapy at the time was to throw herself into her new business. Sourcing special cured meats, tasty cheeses and delectable wines for her emporium had been such a joy. Róisín eventually managed to convince herself that Nourriture was her reward, and her exchange for the life she’d lost in France. She’d even tried to convince herself that she’d get over Jacques some day. That he would seem like a distant and very sweet memory. She was still waiting for that closure.

  Channelling the smile she’d grown so accustomed to plastering across her face, Róisín took a deep breath and resolved not to talk to anyone about the bombshell Mr Grace had just lobbed at her. But deep down, she wasn’t sure how long she could continue with the façade if Nourriture was taken from her.

  Chapter 3

  The sound of Mo’s key turning in the front door made Nell jump. She’d been recording the tides and taking snapshots of the bay and time had run away with her. She’d always been an early riser, but after forty-six years of running Ballyshore lighthouse she was well and truly a servant of the sea.

  ‘Good morning to you, Nell my love,’ said Mo cheerfully. ‘That’s a grey start out there, but I don’t need to tell you that.’

  ‘Hello Mo,’ she said politely. ‘The light has changed, mind you. We’ll start to see an even longer stretch in the evenings before long.’

  ‘True, not that it bothers me,’ Mo said as she hung up her coat. ‘Once I get to see my soaps and read my books, I don’t care if it’s winter or summer.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Nell said as she hid a smile. By ‘books’ Mo wasn’t referring to a Russian spy novel or the latest bestseller, she meant the weekly women’s magazines she pored over and whose information she regurgitated at Nell from time to time. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, Mo, I’ll go and have a look at the garden.’

  ‘I’ll call you for your cup of coffee when I’m on my break,’ Mo called after her.

  Nell knew she could probably manage perfectly well without Mo. In fact, for several weeks after she’d started, she’d told the woman not to return. But Mo had selective hearing along with an unquenchable desire to witter on, no matter who her audience might be.

  Most of the lighthouses in Ireland were the responsibility of the Commissioners of Irish Lights, but a small number, including Ballyshore lighthouse, were run by local authorities. So although Nell didn’t actually own the place, nobody would dream of asking her to leave. Her job was specific and constant and very few people would survive the isolation. Mo’s little Micra was one of the only vehicles besides Nell’s to bumble along the rugged coast road to the lighthouse. Mo was always at pains to remind Nell just how secluded it was, as if she could coax her to live in the town.

  ‘If it was any more windy out there, I’d be
swept away,’ Mo would announce. ‘And Lord only knows how long I’d be bobbing about in that sea before my John-Joe would notice. But he’s still the light of my life.’

  ‘I’d notice that canary yellow car you insist on driving in a split second,’ Nell said. ‘And your John-Joe would realise fairly swiftly if his dinner wasn’t on the table.’

  Mo laughed when she said things like that, but Nell wasn’t trying to be funny. She detested Mo’s car. It was one of those gimmicky, new-fangled ones that was only really useful for one person, and the colour made her eyes water. As for her husband, John-Joe … he was the most useless creature on God’s earth. He’d been ‘unable to find work’ for the past forty years and had no problem sending his wife off cleaning pubs, houses and indeed her lighthouse. Nell often wondered where the worthless creature had actually looked for a job – at the bottom of a pint glass? On the pattern on his dinner plate? He moaned if his dinner was five minutes late and continuously visited the doctor with invented illnesses that sent poor Mo into a panic.

  ‘He’s really unwell today, Nell,’ she’d said just before Christmas. ‘He thinks he has gallstones. He’s in terrible pain.’

  ‘Has his skin turned yellow? Is he doubled over in pain and unable to move?’ Nell asked.

  ‘Well, his poor eyes were very glassy and he said he couldn’t manage another piece of bacon and French toast this morning. He’s headed for the doctor as soon as I finish my work and get back to fetch him.’

  ‘Why can’t he go by himself? It’s only a few hundred yards away from your house.’

  ‘Ah now Nell, I couldn’t let him walk when he’s got suspected gallstones, could I, love?’

  Nell wanted to grunt that she would happily get that man moving with the help of a cattle prod, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

  Needless to say, the following week there was no mention of gallstones. It had turned out John-Joe had gotten a clean bill of health from the doctor – again.

  ‘He put the pain down to a dodgy hot port at the pub,’ Mo said innocently. For a perfectly intelligent woman, Mo baffled Nell at times. How could she accept her good-for-nothing husband’s guff? All she could concede was that love was blind. In her opinion, in this instance love also seemed to be deaf and dumb, but at the end of the day John-Joe wasn’t her concern, thank the Lord for small mercies.

  Nell kept her cool by not asking about John-Joe (ever) or even commenting when Mo told her about him. He only came to the lighthouse once a year for mince pies. That gesture was purely for Mo as Nell knew she looked forward to the occasion. On that one day a year, Nell resisted the urge to put arsenic in the mincemeat and did her best not to scowl at John-Joe as he chomped open-mouthed at her kitchen table.

  Today as she made her way outside, pulling on her favourite bright green waterproof overalls, Nell closed her eyes and inhaled. She’d never tire of the fresh saltiness of the west of Ireland air. She knew the people in the village thought she was some sort of madwoman, living out in a lighthouse all alone, but quite frankly she didn’t give a toss what anyone thought of her. This was the best move she’d ever made and she didn’t regret a single day she’d spent here.

  From Dublin originally, Nell had grown up in a very different setting. Instead of the magical expanse of the Wild Atlantic Way, she’d been raised in the concrete bunkers of the inner-city flats. The only view she’d known was shrouded in pollution and decorated with graffiti. Then, on that fateful day all those years ago, she’d made the decision to leave Dublin and everyone she knew. Scouring the papers, she’d come across the advert for a lighthouse-keeper. Her geography wasn’t the best, but even she knew that Ballyshore was in the middle of nowhere.

  The interview for the job was different from most in that the man, a local government representative, had pretty much asked her if she could stick living there.

  ‘With this post, it’s not really a case of whether or not we want you, more to the point it’s if you think you can bear to be stationed out here. I’m not going to lie to you, it can be pretty bleak. You’ll be the fourth person in as many months to take this post.’

  ‘How much would you pay me?’ she asked.

  The wage seemed too good to be true, but Nell held her poker face and said she was happy to give it a shot.

  The man handed her a thin book with the order of work typed up and wished her well. She raised an eyebrow as he drove off at high speed but looking back on it, he’d probably thought she wouldn’t last spitting time. Back then she hadn’t looked the way she did now. Her waist-length hair had been ash blonde rather than snow-white. Her weather-worn skin had been blemish-free and she certainly hadn’t half the wrinkles she saw staring back at her these days. Her now calloused hands were smooth with just a hint of yellowing from nicotine staining.

  In the greater scheme of things, not much had changed. She’d given up her twenty-a-day smoking habit purely because it was far too much hassle walking to the nearest shop, which was six miles away. She’d grown into her angular features and was fairly uninterested in the finer details, such as blemishes or lines.

  Still, she mused, she’d no desire to look like one of those women who put all their energy into looking twenty years younger. What was the point? She was in her mid-seventies, whoop-di-do. Weren’t women of her age supposed to have lines and white hair?

  She hadn’t planned on staying here for ever, but somehow that’s what had come to pass. Once she’d proven she could hack the job, the council offered her a car.

  ‘A little run-around would give you a lot more freedom. It would help with access to schools for your daughter, too.’

  She’d raised an eyebrow and nodded. The thought of going to the village and having to sit in a car with some nosey instructor didn’t appeal to her, but she knew she needed to do it for Laura.

  It still hurt her to think of Laura … That was the most notable difference between now and back then: Nell wasn’t alone in those days. She’d had her baby girl to keep her company. In actual fact, Laura was the main reason Nell had moved to Ballyshore. All she’d ever wanted was to protect her. Being shunned by her father was something her daughter had to deal with, but Nell couldn’t allow her to grow up in a small-minded community where pitying stares and hushed whispers followed them. She’d only ever done what she’d thought was right.

  As she pulled on her woolly hat and gardening gloves, she forced all thoughts of the past from her mind. The wind felt icy, even though it was May. She crouched to inspect her garden. She hadn’t known the first thing about growing stuff until she came here. Living in the inner-city it wasn’t something her family had ever thought of doing, but here, with the scenery and the rural setting, it seemed rude not to join in. She was glad of it now. Gardening was her therapy. She could plant things and look forward to seeing them flourish and grow. It was like having friends who didn’t pass comment or judge her.

  Today she’d planned on planting the huge bucket of late-flowering bulbs she’d bought. Daffodils were Laura’s favourite, but she liked to keep the colours going as far into the autumn as possible. She rested on the handle of her shovel and gazed out at the sea and up at the sky. The water looked like rolling mercury as the wind herded it in. A proper bit of sun would be a welcome luxury for sure.

  Knowing Mo would be delighted with a cup of coffee and a chat, she decided to go back inside. Her back was acting up a bit anyway.

  ‘I think there might be a spot of rain on the way,’ she told Mo.

  ‘I was going to say … but I know you well enough at this point to hold my own counsel.’

  Nell grinned at the irony of the comment as she removed her heavy boots. The day Mo learned to hold her tongue, there’d be snowballs in hell.

  ‘Coffee?’ Nell said.

  ‘Oh yes, dear. That’d be lovely. I don’t suppose you’ve any of those nutty chocolate biscuits in your tin?’ Mo asked, eyeing the goodies cupboard hopefully.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ she said. ‘Did your
John-Joe enjoy the ones I sent him?’

  ‘Oh I’m so rude, I should’ve told you. He gobbled the whole packet inside a single afternoon. He said to tell you they were your best find yet.’

  ‘He says that every time I send him anything,’ Nell said dryly. ‘I suppose I should only worry when he doesn’t say it.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Mo as she accepted a plate of the cookies and a mug of tea. It always intrigued her that Mo and John-Jo seemed to believe she had some kind of talent for finding things. Nor would it ever occur to them to purchase the things themselves. Mo bought the same products every week, so Nell’s bit of diversion was always greeted with awe.

  ‘I took your advice and we ate that Christmas pudding I won at bingo back in December. I’m ever so glad you told me not to throw it away. It was quite delicious. John-Jo loved it once he got his head around eating it at the wrong time of the year,’ Mo said.

  ‘There’s never a wrong time of the year to eat pudding, if you ask me,’ Nell said. Mo nodded. ‘I’m not a massive fan of microwaves as you know,’ Nell said, ‘but nothing else heats pudding quite like it.’

  ‘Unless you fry it in bubbly butter,’ Mo said licking her lips at the thought of it. As she laughed, Mo’s chins wobbled and her large tummy bobbed up and down.

  Nell offered Mo some squirty cream from a can to put in her coffee, which she accepted. This was one of the only throwbacks to her time in the flats in Dublin. Her ma used to buy it for special occasions, along with a tub of sugar strands.

  Nell squirted a large rosette of cream into her coffee.

  ‘I’ve never met another person who does that,’ Mo said, shaking her head. ‘And there’d be more fat on a sparrow’s knee than your entire body.’