The Christmas Party

by Karen Swan

  He gave a wry smile. ‘Your father was always very indulgent of you.’

  Indulgent? Was that the word, she wondered? It grated, feeling somehow sharp.

  ‘And Pip? What did she get?’

  ‘Similar: she got the stables and contents, which was all she ever wanted too. As well as Granny’s emeralds, which, I mean . . .’ She tutted. ‘Lost on her. She’ll never wear them.’ She frowned, looking into his arctic-blue eyes again. ‘But don’t you see? That’s why it’s so odd, him doing what he did to Mam and Willow. It’s like he got it all the wrong way round – a typo or something. It’d have made much more sense for Willow to get the Dower House; after all, it’s not like she’s ever even here any more.’

  ‘So why did he do it then?’

  ‘O’Leary thinks he was trying to save Mam from the burden of the pressures of the estate.’

  ‘By placing them on his youngest child instead?’ He frowned. ‘Odd call.’

  ‘Exactly what I thought.’

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘Well, perhaps he felt difficult choices will have to be made in the future and your mother isn’t the one to make them,’ he suggested tactfully. ‘When you’ve lived somewhere for a long time, sentiment and nostalgia can be hard to push past – though it seems hellish hard on Willow, putting all the burden onto her.’

  He thought about it for another moment more, then gave a shrug as though discarding the topic and bent his head to kiss her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. She felt him stir against her but she pulled away. ‘I’m really not feeling in the mood tonight,’ she murmured, rubbing the backs of her hands apologetically up his cheeks, feeling the stubble against her skin. ‘Can’t you hold me?’ she whispered. ‘I just want to be held.’

  His lips kissed her hair, his stubbly chin nuzzling her neck. ‘I always want to hold you. I just don’t know when I can get away again, that’s all. It’s been hard enough getting here tonight.’ He looked up at her with doleful eyes. ‘God, you know how much I miss you, Ottie. Being apart is like a form of torture. Having to pretend . . . Some days I think I’m going mad with longing for you.’

  ‘I know. Me too. But—’

  He put his hands under her arms and lifted her up slightly, just enough to hoist her off his lap and lower her down onto her back on the sofa. ‘It breaks my heart to see you so upset like this. Let me make you feel better. Please, darling, let me . . .’

  His lips grazed her shoulder, her gown completely splayed open beneath her now as he travelled down, fluttering kisses on her bare skin. She scrunched her eyes shut, feeling confused, not wanting to want this. It wasn’t the right time; she was upset. But then again, this was the story of their life together – there was never enough time. They couldn’t keep Shula waiting.

  It was the dead of night but the room was bright, the full moon climbing past her window and throwing shadows on the old rose-printed walls. The leaded bars on the windows created grids on the carpet, a faint crackle on the panes betraying a frost that was being worked up outside.

  Willow tucked her knees up and pulled the eiderdown higher over her shoulder as another shiver rippled down her body; it was always a shock adjusting to Lorne’s signature chill after months in the capital’s centrally heated embrace, but she knew this freeze had nothing to do with single-loop heating systems. It was coming from inside her. She was frozen from the inside out, the fire that had first raged inside her as she stood in the study three years earlier cooling over time like magma, into something immovable and permanent. A new landscape.

  The worst of the afternoon’s shock had passed – that tight-chested constriction, the dizzying black swirl of her mind – and now the revelation was beginning to settle and become simple fact: Lorne was hers.

  It was a poisoned chalice, she knew that. Contained within the ‘gift’ of almost five hundred acres and a thirty-thousand-square-foot castle was not just debt – far more than she could ever hope to pay – but the termination of a legacy and dismantling of a heritage. The buck had had to stop somewhere and it was going to finish at her feet. Her father could easily have left the estate to his wife to dispose of – though she had lived here almost her entire adult life and raised her family here, she wasn’t Lorne by blood; the guilt for dismantling the estate would be dramatically less than if he’d had to do it. Or he could have passed it to Ottie, the eldest child and traditionally, rationally, the heir. Or to Pip, his favourite child, the tomboy, the son he’d never had. But no, he’d chosen her and she knew why. She knew why exactly. It was as devastating and comprehensive a rejection as he could ever have wanted to deliver and the force of it had felt physical, knocking the breath from her all over again, robbing her of words, protest, voice, presence.

  But now, as the minutes ticked and the hours slid by, the other dimension to her father’s bequest was beginning to present itself. Her family couldn’t turn back the clock and unlearn what they all knew or undo what they’d all done; the die had been thrown and this was where their lives had landed: together but apart; divided by Lorne, the very thing that had once united them.

  And if she was going to have to be the one history recorded as breaking up and selling the estate – and really, O’Leary had presented her with no other viable alternatives – then wasn’t there also a silver lining? If she sold Lorne, she’d be rich. She could go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. Wasn’t that worth the shame and the guilt that had been placed at her door? After all, her life had already changed anyway, the horrors of three years earlier, forcing her to move away from here and everything she had ever known and loved. It was simple enough – she had turned her back on this place once before. Now all she had to do was do it again.

  Chapter Six

  ‘A beer, thanks, Joe.’ Pip nodded to the barman, sagging against the counter and dropping her head wearily.

  ‘You’re back in the saddle then?’ Joe asked, reaching for a pint glass, one eyebrow arched bemusedly at the sight of her, rain dripping from her onto the bar. She was still in her kit and boots: her long Driza-Bone mac almost down to her ankles, fleece and face flecked with mud, the tough suede rancher hat soaked from its usual conker colour to a dark chocolaty shade.

  ‘Yep,’ she sighed. It had been her first day out with clients since her father’s death and it had been a mistake. It had been in the diary for months and Kirsty had offered to take it for her but she had declined, thinking ‘getting back to normal’ would be good for her; she had thought it would be easier than trying to busy herself around the yard. What was she waiting around for anyway? Her father was buried, his last wishes made known – they couldn’t just keep moping around the estate with pale, teary faces. Life had to resume sooner or later, although in her mother’s case, it was clearly going to be later. She had been stunned enough by losing her husband so suddenly, but the reading of the will seemed to have hit her even harder.

  ‘Long day?’

  ‘You could say that. I’ve just finished a trek over to Americas Point with a family from Sligo.’

  ‘In this weather?’ he chuckled, casting a lazy glance out the window at the driving rain. ‘Still, it’s nice that way,’ he said mildly, pulling on the tap.

  ‘Aye, ’tis. But it wasn’t the view that was spoilt,’ she said, reaching for the nearest bar stool, her ‘usual spot’. It was still early and there was no one else in yet, apart from Stan Burr sitting in his usual place by the fire, checking up on the day’s races.

  ‘No?’

  She shot him one of her unimpressed looks. ‘One of the kids was so terrified, it took a half hour just to get him to put his foot in the stirrup. I practically had to strap him on with webbing in the end.’

  Joe frowned. ‘Why’d they book a pony trek if the poor kid’s terrified of the animals?’

  ‘They thought it’d help if he “confronted his fears”,’ she said, putting quotation marks in the air. ‘Anyway, his brother was entirely the other way, a cocky wee thing wanting to jump all the hedges – to the point w
here I had to grab the bridle at one point, to stop him from taking a run at one and almost going over the cliffs on the other side.’

  ‘Jeesht.’ Joe grinned.

  ‘And as for the mother, turned out she’s highly allergic to horses and spent the whole trek back with her eyes swollen shut.’

  ‘Oh, sweet Mary,’ Joe chuckled. ‘You copped a bad lot today then.’

  ‘The absolute worst. Honestly, I must be mad,’ she said, taking off the hat and running her face through her hands. A piece of straw fell from her hair onto the bar and she picked it up absently, running it through her fingers.

  ‘Still, look on the bright side – you’re out in the air with your animals. That’s all you ever wanted, right?’

  Her eyes flickered up to him and down again. ‘I guess,’ she sighed. ‘Thanks,’ she said as he set down her pint and she handed over the cash. She watched as he walked over to the till.

  ‘Why the hesitation?’ Joe asked, handing back her change. ‘Thought you loved working with horses?’

  ‘Not all working with horses can be considered equal.’ She took a deep slug of the drink, not caring about the little foamy moustache it left her with as she lowered the glass. Taking her time, she dabbed it off. ‘I don’t think Sheikh Mohammad’s stable staff ever had to deal with traumatized kids and anaphylactic mothers in a day’s work.’

  ‘So that’s what you wanna do, is it? Get into racing?’

  ‘No, not racing.’

  ‘What then?’

  She gave a deep weary sigh, running one finger around the rim of the glass. She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud: Bloodstocks. Breeding. Running her own stud. It always sounded so . . . implausible. Impossible. A rich man’s game. ‘I dunno. Just . . . not quite this.’

  Joe picked up a glass and began polishing it. ‘I heard your da left you the stables.’

  She gave him an arch look. ‘Did you now? And how’d you hear that then?’ The gossip in this village was ferocious. There was no such thing as a kept secret in Lorne.

  He cracked a grin. ‘Oh, you know, the usual. People chattin’.’

  Yes, she knew. She gave a shrug. She didn’t care if people knew one way or the other, although she wondered what the response had been when they’d heard it was Willow, and not Serena or Ottie, who was now the lady of the manor.

  ‘So you can do what you like with it then, can’t you?’

  ‘With what?’ she frowned, tuning back into him. ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘The business. If it’s legally yours now. I thought it was your da who always wanted it to be a trekking business.’

  ‘Well, sure, he said there’s no point in living on the Wild Way and not making a penny from it.’ It was the same thinking that had seen him establish the camping business too, providing jobs and homes for two of his daughters and keeping them close. Not the third one though. She’d bolted like a horse spooked by a mouse.

  The door to the pub opened and Pip looked around to the sound of laughter spilling in. A small group was stamping the mud from their boots, each of them sheltering beneath a copy of the local paper, which had a photo of her father’s face on the front of it.

  ‘Evenin’ all,’ Joe nodded, taking in their excitable moods.

  Pip felt her day take another turn for the worse. ‘Great,’ she muttered under her breath, turning back again.

  ‘Hey, Joe. Pip.’

  ‘Taigh,’ she muttered, taking a sip of her beer.

  ‘Four beers and a G and T, please, mate. Don’t s’pose you’ve got any of that fancy rhubarb stuff left, have you?’

  ‘That’s an expensive date you’ve got tonight, Taigh,’ Joe quipped, reaching for the bottle of Arrowsmiths.

  Pip rolled her eyes and stared down into her drink. It would be just like Taigh to confuse expensive with classy.

  ‘And I’ll just grab some –’ Taigh went to reach past her and she leaned way back, well out of the way – ‘menus. Thanks.’ He looked back at Joe. ‘What’re the specials tonight, Joe?’

  It was another of Taigh’s jokes. The Hare famously didn’t do specials. The punters ate whatever was in season and had been delivered by the farms that week.

  ‘Pheasant stew or steak pie,’ Joe said by rote.

  Pip tapped her finger slowly on the bar as Taigh pretended to procrastinate.

  ‘I’ll bring your drinks over,’ Joe said, sensing her ill-concealed irritation. ‘It’s quiet at the moment.’

  ‘Thanks. Weather’s keeping everyone in, I guess. Only nutters would go out in this.’

  ‘Ha!’ Joe barked amusedly. ‘Hear that, Pip?’

  ‘Oh, I heard,’ she replied in her best bored voice.

  Taigh went to turn away, then stopped and faced back to her again. ‘Pip, uh, how’re you doing? You holding up okay?’

  She swivelled round on her stool to face him directly. ‘Me? Oh, I’m just peachy,’ she said sarcastically. ‘It’s been a cracking week.’

  His mouth opened to say something in reply but he appeared to think the better of it and merely nodded instead, glancing at Joe, who was regarding him with a sympathetic look. He went to join the others at the table by the fire.

  Pip wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of watching after him, but she’d already spied his latest date anyway – a dirty-blonde in tight jeans with too much eyeliner who lived over in Dunmorgan. Pip knew this because the girl – Laura? Lorna? Yes Lorna Delaney – occasionally ran the local stores for her parents, where Pip would quite often take a detour with clients if they wanted a drink or ice cream on the trek home. She had what Mrs Mac would call a ‘reputation’.

  ‘Another?’ Joe asked as she finished the beer.

  She hesitated. She really fancied another one. Today had left her feeling flat and frustrated. Yesterday had left her feeling confused. (What the hell had her dad been thinking, leaving the estate to Willow? She still couldn’t get her head around it.) The week generally, devastated. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back, yet, to her small, quiet digs above the stable block. On the other hand, she had no desire to listen in to that lot’s preludes to seductions either. ‘No, I’d better not,’ she sighed, picking up her hat. There was a bottle of Pinot Noir at home. ‘Got paperwork and stuff to deal with.’

  ‘Ah,’ Joe nodded, not prying further. Death always involved paperwork. ‘Good luck with that.’

  She shrugged her eyebrows in reply and turned away.

  ‘Oh, hey, Pip, before you go – I meant to ask: will we see ya at the Mullanes’ party on Friday?’ Joe called after her.

  She looked back at him blankly. ‘The Mullanes?’

  ‘Remember they said they’d throw a bash to celebrate their win at Aintree? It’s this weekend. Terry came in himself here just a coupl’ a days ago, wondering.’ She walked slowly back towards the bar again and he lowered his voice a little. ‘He was in Dubai when your da passed, so he’s only just heard the news. He feels hellish bad for missing the funeral.’

  ‘He wasn’t to know,’ she said stiffly, hating how her throat seemed to close up with every mention of her father, how – for someone who hated tears – they felt permanently poised at her eyes, ready to fall.

  ‘He talked about cancelling the party altogether, you know, as a mark of respect ‘n’ all.’

  ‘Jeesht, no, he mustn’t do that,’ she said quickly. This party had been in the calendar for months. Practically every local in a ten-mile radius had been invited to celebrate the ‘great stock’ that was bred and raised on this very soil. ‘Dad would have hated any party to stop on his account.’

  ‘That’s what I said to him. Still, he’s in two minds.’

  ‘Tell him I said not to be.’ Her voice sounded thick. Her father had been so looking forward to the party himself.

  ‘Will yis go then? Terry’s really hoping you’ll make it.’

  Pip looked up at him, realizing too late that her eyes had filled up with tears again and were shining in the lights. ‘. . . Maybe . . . I’m
not sure.’

  Joe reached over the bar and squeezed her hand comfortingly. Her tears – unlike her scorn – always seemed to alarm people. ‘Hey, no pressure. It’s early days. See how ya feel nearer the time.’

  ‘Thanks, Joe,’ she said in a croaky voice, pulling her hand away quickly and putting on her hat. She turned away, dipping her head to hide behind the brim as she rushed over to the door, eager for the camouflage of rain upon her face. Some people she would never let see her cry.

  Back home, she watched the ready-meal for one going round and round on the microwave plate. Is there anything more pathetic than this? she thought to herself, as the bell went and her stomach growled appreciatively.

  Slinki, her cat and chief mouse-catcher, wound herself in figures of eight through her legs as she tried to pull off the plastic cover without scalding herself on the steam. ‘Oh, Slinki,’ she tutted exasperatedly, almost falling over her as she turned to put her dinner on the tray. ‘You’ve already eaten. I haven’t.’

  She picked up the tray and took it over to the small sofa, sinking down into the cushions with a sigh and picking up the remote. Slinki jumped up onto the arm of the chair and mewed plaintively. ‘No, listen to me – chicken tikka masala is not what your intestines want, no matter what you think your stomach is telling you. Believe me.’ Pip groaned at the thought. ‘Urgh, it really doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘Are you talking to your cat again?’

  ‘Wha—?’ Pip almost dropped the tray all over her lap as she looked up to find a disembodied head peering around the doorway at the top of the stairs. ‘Jeesht, Willow! What in hell’s name?’