The Christmas Party

by Karen Swan

  They diverted to the Mullanes’ place on the way past so they could collect Pip’s car. Willow hadn’t wanted to revisit the scene of the accident so soon, but she’d also known there’d be no better time to do it – it was early enough that none of the Mullanes would yet be awake and they could come and go unnoticed and not have to answer the litany of questions that would no doubt soon be coming their way.

  Ottie had stared down at the lake, just visible from the drive, while Willow got Pip’s car started, and she’d tried not to imagine the horror of last night. But in the headlights, she could see the pontoon bobbing on the crystalline surface, the water still and dangerously dark. It was the sight of the lawn that had appalled her most, its blanket of frost trashed with the hundreds of booted footsteps like smashed glass, as though bearing witness to the mob, the crush, the panic . . .

  Ottie followed behind her sister’s car all the rest of the way back home, their headlights bouncing off hedges and stone walls, occasionally glancing off the cataracts of old sheep. They passed the Lorne village sign and a staggering runner wearing all the layers he must have packed in the pre-dawn chill, his backpack all but empty. Willow slowed down so as not to crowd him on the dark, narrow lane. Ottie waved politely at the steward on duty for this stretch of the Ultra. How long had he been on shift for – all night, or had he just come on? It wasn’t yet seven in the morning but the race had carried on throughout the night, the competitors having run through all day yesterday and last night, with as little as three hours’ sleep to sustain them.

  Vaguely, she wondered how Bertie was doing as she hooked a left just before the main castle gates, down the lane that led to her campsite. She didn’t know how he could do it, especially at his age. She’d been so relieved to have her done her duty when she’d clocked off last evening; one day of volunteering was quite enough for her, and she still felt chilled from standing on the Way in the wind and rain all day yesterday.

  Her little car bumped along the rough track, the rolling fields either side rising up like puddings as the land gently dropped away and down. It was still too dark to see the glistening sea, to gauge its mood and know whether today it would pound or caress her little curved stretch of beach. Not that it mattered either way, she wouldn’t be around to see it. Today would be spent under strip lights, listening to beeping machines and smelling antiseptic.

  As she rounded the bend, her headlights swung over the patchwork of tents in the field, before homing in on her cottage as she approached the narrow parking spaces. She felt her heart give a flutter at the sight of it. Her little home. It was opposite to the castle in every way: long, low and narrow, it was whitewashed and opened to the rafters inside. It stood side-on to the lane, the pink front door set in the gable end wall. The cottage was dug into the gentle slope, and from here, it was impossible to see the little room tucked below the ground-floor level on the far side that had once been a store for the boats. The garden was almost ridiculously small given the acres of free space and fields that surrounded it, but the coastal winds and salty air made it all but impossible to grow anything and she was just grateful the stone wall provided something of a windbreak when she was lying on a towel in the summer.

  She cut the ignition and jumped out. She needed a shower and a desperate change of clothes – she’d literally grabbed her keys and run from the house when she’d received Willow’s call – but there wasn’t much time; Willow was simply going to collect their mother from home, then scoop her up from here on the way back to the hospital again.

  She set the flashlight on her phone and pushed open the squeaky gate, walking up the narrow path and noticing with a flash of instant annoyance the red tent still pitched in the topmost corner of the garden. She frowned, remembering the American and the trouble he’d caused her, his silent insolence, the way he seemed to judge her without saying a word. She’d pretty much forgotten all about him. It had been such a full-on weekend. What was his name again? Gilman? . . . Gilmore? He was supposed to have gone by now; she’d explicitly said he could stay for the one night only: sleep there Friday night, run through Saturday, be gone by Sunday. It was now Sunday.

  Well used to campers trying to push their luck by overstaying their bookings, she crossed onto the grass and cleared her throat. She waited a moment and then did it again. When there was no response, she scratched her nails against the nylon. ‘Mr Gilmore?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Mr Gilmore, I’m afraid you’re going to have to move this pitch now. We agreed it was for one night only.’

  She waited for the apology, sign of life even, but nothing came. Was he asleep?

  ‘Mr Gilmore,’ she said tetchily, not in the mood for this as she crouched down and tugged up the zip. She was in the middle of a family crisis. She did not need inconsiderate tourists impinging upon her goodwill or hospitality right now.

  She peered into the tent.

  It was empty. Or at least, he was not in it. But there was a sleeping bag and mat, a camping pillow and, lying neatly atop it all, in a zipped-up Ermenegildo Zegna hanging bag, the suit he had travelled in, she presumed.

  She came back out with a sigh, zipping up the tent again. The crafty sod was clearly still running, having oversold his ability to her by saying he could complete the course and be out of her way within twenty-four hours. With a curse, she strode up to her front door and let herself in with a kick. She needed her privacy and, frankly, a little respect. They had made a deal and he was reneging on it. If that bloody tent was still there when she got back here later, she resolved she would cut it up with scissors and stuff it in the bins herself – suit and all.

  Chapter Eleven

  Willow stood by the door, feeling time not just standing still, but shifting into reverse. She felt like a child again, the familiar smell of her parents’ room as comforting as a blanket and just as soft. Her mother was sleeping, curled up on Dad’s side of the bed and wearing one of his cashmere jumpers, the framed wedding photograph just beyond the reach of her curled fingers on the bedspread.

  Willow felt her courage fail her as she saw the peace in her mother’s face as she slept and she let go, just for a moment, of all her anger, all her bitterness. Standing there, it was easy to believe she was as she seemed: the passive and gentle mother she remembered of her childhood; the mother who had delightedly celebrated the onset of every weekend with a freshly baked ‘Friday Cake’, who had made their Sunday-best dresses with cottons bought from Liberty of London, who had read them stories lying on the sofa together on rainy afternoons and made lawn picnics on the sunny ones. It was easy to remember, in that quiet and still moment, the sheer simplicity of the love she had once had for her. Before she had known better . . . But she knew that when those green eyes opened, that purity of emotion would fall away. They were broken, the two of them, and her mother either didn’t know it or didn’t care.

  Neither option seemed viable. Could she really not care? But then, could she really not know? Did she honestly accept at face value all the lies Willow had told about wanting a ‘bigger life’ and big city excitement – cover stories that had never fully washed with her sisters or father? Had her mother really never once asked herself, what if . . . what if . . .?

  But standing there – caught between two worlds – there was a dark and uncomfortable question hovering at the furthermost reaches of Willow’s own mind: what if it hadn’t been kindness that had motivated her to let her mother sleep through Pip’s crisis this morning? What if, at heart, she had wanted to punish her, to cast her out of the loop in the way Willow had been? Was she a monster now, too? Was she capable of such conscious cruelty?

  She wasn’t even sure she knew. Grief could be a twisted mistress without anger in the mix as well, and they were all messed up, one way or another; living under the Lorne curse had taken a toll on them all.

  Willow crossed the room, hearing the floorboards creak underfoot, the heels of her boots muffled on the layered rugs. She sank onto the soft mattress and l
et a hand cup her mother’s shoulder; she was warm, her slight body heavy on the sheets. Her eyelids fluttered, dazed, but as her green eyes met Willow’s blue ones, time clicked back into its gallop again, pushing out the past. There was only now. Only this. Only them.

  ‘What is it?’ her mother gasped, waking instantly, her sleepy blush already in retreat as she was alerted by her daughter’s foreign intrusion into this room.

  Willow blinked. ‘. . . It’s Pip.’

  Ottie was waiting for them by her garden gate when they stopped at her house – she’d showered and changed too – and in tense silence, they sped through the sleeping county. Briefly Ottie tried to keep a conversation going from the back seat, but her mother wouldn’t be reassured until she had seen her child with her own eyes, and the silence became easier to sink into, all of them staring out of the windows with glassy stares.

  In spite of Willow and Ottie’s endless activity through the night, it was not yet eight on Sunday morning and apart from a few Ultra race stragglers, some early-bird cyclists and the milkman, they had the roads to themselves. It was just over half an hour to the hospital and Willow pulled into the car park an hour and fifteen minutes after they’d left it, just as the sun peeped over the horizon. The morning was dawning clear after yesterday’s storm and a growing red blush would soon tint the sky. Willow took it as a hopeful sign, a token of a bright, new, beautiful, glad-to-be-alive day.

  ‘You two jump out while I park,’ she said to her mother and Ottie, dropping them at the entrance doors.

  Her mother hurried out without seeming to acknowledge what she’d said; Ottie shot her a worried look. ‘Don’t be long,’ she murmured.

  There was no hope of that, no chance of even a few minutes’ respite driving around in circles, looking for a space. Instead, the car park was almost empty and Willow parked quickly, finding herself back in the building and back on the ward where Pip was being monitored, only moments after the others.

  ‘– if I’d lost you too.’

  Willow stopped in the doorway at the scene. Her mother was reaching over the bed, heaving with sobs, Pip somewhere engulfed in her arms.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Pip’s voice was muffled, but even when their mother moved away, drawing back to take a better, disbelieving look at her, her voice remained weak and thin. ‘I never meant to put you through—’

  ‘I can’t believe this has happened to us. Why is this happening to us? My baby girl!’

  Pip kept her gaze down. Willow noticed the first hints of colour were returning to her cheeks, that she looked marginally better than she had when they’d left. She was still covered in the heavy blankets; the doctors had treated her with warming fluids all night but now she’d had the special hot bath too. She was out of danger but she still looked like someone who had teetered on the precipice.

  A nurse orderly edged past her and Willow stepped out of the way of the door. The orderly was carrying a small neat pile of clothes and she set them down carefully on the table at the end of her bed. Everyone’s eyes came to rest upon them – they were the clothes Pip had been wearing last night: tattersall, jeans, underwear, already washed and ironed. Willow saw that something was missing though – her boots – and she realized they must still be sitting on the lawn where her sister had torn them off, tiny monuments to an act of gross stupidity.

  ‘Thank you,’ her mother said gratefully as the orderly nodded and left again. She stared at the folded laundry as though it was toxic, responsible for global warming and suicide bombs. ‘. . . What made you do it?’ She looked back at her middle daughter – the defiant, strong one, the tomboy, nobody’s victim.

  Pip kept her eyes downcast, nibbling on her lip nervously. Willow was amazed – she hadn’t seen that particular little tic since childhood. ‘We had a bet.’

  ‘A bet?’ Their mother’s voice sounded suddenly faint.

  ‘Shalimar for Sean Cuneen’s best horse. First to the pontoon.’

  It was a long time before their mother spoke. ‘I see,’ she said quietly, staring at the spot behind Pip’s head for a long, drawn-out moment, before pressing her palms against the mattress and slowly getting up from the bed. Her eyes were becoming red-rimmed, the colour draining from her as it returned to her daughter.

  ‘Mam, I’m sorry. I know it was an eejit thing to do,’ Pip said urgently, reaching a hand towards her. ‘I’d been drinking. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

  Her mother looked down at her, suddenly cold. ‘Your life means so little to you, you’d gamble it on a horse?’

  ‘No! I was trying to make my life better. And it wasn’t just any horse. I was going after my dream, Mam.’ A single tear rolled down Pip’s pale cheek.

  ‘No dream is worth dying for, Philippa.’ Her voice was calm and measured, but as she walked to the doorway, Willow saw she was visibly trembling.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Pip called.

  ‘I’m sorry but I can’t . . . I can’t look at you right now. I need to get some air.’

  ‘Mam!’ Pip cried as she brushed past Willow, out into the corridor, and bumping unseeingly into a doctor as the tears began to flow.

  ‘Fuck,’ Pip whispered.

  ‘I’ll go after her,’ Willow said, but Ottie shook her head.

  ‘No, let me. It’s probably better if I go.’

  Willow heard the rebuke in the words and she felt herself recoil. Become smaller.

  ‘Why’s Mam upset with you?’ Pip asked weakly as Ottie dashed from the room.

  There was a small silence. Willow felt sick. ‘Probably because I didn’t call her immediately to say you were here.’

  Pip’s shocked look made her feel worse. ‘Why not?’

  Willow swallowed. ‘I was trying to save her from unnecessary worry. You were coming round, the paramedics said your signs were good for a full recovery.’ She winced at the memory. It certainly hadn’t looked good as they’d wheeled her off the ambulance – tubes, foil blankets, blue lips, paper-white skin.

  ‘Right,’ Pip murmured, looking ashamed and sinking deeper into her pillows.

  ‘Obviously if things had been worse, I wouldn’t have hesitated,’ she said quickly. That much was true, she knew it was. She had wanted her mother to know what it felt like to lose control of her own life, her own family – just for a moment. ‘But the doctors said you were stable and I thought it was better for her to rest. I knew it’d be so worrying for her when she was finally told and what was the point in her sitting up through the night when you weren’t even conscious? After everything she’s gone through with Dad—’

  ‘Oh, Will, what have I done?’ Pip sobbed, huge tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.

  Willow dashed across the room and hugged her; Pip’s grip was weak but her sorrow and regret palpably fierce. ‘We’re all just so relieved you’re okay.’

  ‘I hate myself, I can’t believe I’ve done this to you all.’

  Willow pulled back and sank onto the side of the bed, taking Pip’s hands in her own. They felt warmer now. ‘No hating allowed,’ she said simply, squeezing them. ‘But this bet – you have to explain it to me. Why did you take it? How could it have been so important?’

  ‘I didn’t take it, Sis, I was the one who extended it.’

  ‘You wanted another horse that badly?’

  ‘No, not just any horse. The right horse. All my life I’ve wanted to breed my own stock. It’s my dream.’

  ‘But you’ve never said,’ Willow frowned.

  ‘What was the point? It takes serious money – money we don’t remotely have and never will.’ She sighed. ‘I know I’m lucky getting to work with horses. It’s great; I’d go mad without them . . .’

  ‘And none of us would ever want to see that,’ Willow teased.

  Pip cracked a weak half-grin. ‘But trekking tourists along the Way isn’t enough. And with Dad dying, so suddenly, so young, it’s made me realize – I can’t keep putting off how I really want to be living my life. I’ve got to make it happen
somehow. Take a chance. When I bought Shalimar, it was always with a wing and a prayer that I could use her as my brood mare. She’s got such a great bloodline.’

  ‘How did you afford her then?’

  ‘Because of a ligament injury. The previous owner was going to have her put down. I had to beg him to let me have her and even the vet thought it was a long shot. It took seven months of bloody intense, daily physio to get her back on her feet again. She’ll never be rideable but that’s fine, I’ve got plenty of other horses for that. She’s by far the best horse I’ve ever had.’

  Willow watched her sister’s eyes shine. ‘So who would you mate her with?’

  ‘That’s the big question,’ Pip said wistfully, staring into space. Her eyes slid back to Willow again. ‘You know Shula Flanagan’s horse, Dark Star?’

  Willow wrinkled her nose and shook her head. ‘Uh . . . no, sorry. I just about know the names of your lot.’

  ‘Well, he was a below-the-radar novice. Tall, dark, oh my God, so handsome. Longest eyelashes. Soulful eyes.’

  Willow swallowed. Was she describing a horse? Or Connor? ‘. . . Was?’

  Pip’s brow furrowed. ‘Until his father won the Grand National.’

  Willow gasped. ‘Dark Star is Midnight Feast’s son?’

  Pip nodded. ‘And no one gave a damn about it until Midnight went and won that bloody race and then, suddenly, his value sky-rocketed.’ She weakly swept her arm upwards.

  ‘But could you have afforded him even before that?’

  ‘Yes! He was so nearly mine, Will. We were that close.’ Pip pinched her fingers together.

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and Dad. He approached Bertie for me.’

  ‘Bertie?’ Willow echoed, feeling that familiar tension set in her bones at the mention of that man’s name.

  ‘On one of their golf days. Shula hardly ever rides him anyway; they’re never bloody here, always off in Barbados or Gstaad or something. Dad had pretty much got him to agree a price when Midnight went and won the biggest bloody race in the world and all of a sudden, the deal was off and they wanted seven figures for him. They had no idea what quality they had in him before then,’ Pip said, stabbing the air viciously. ‘They’re just philistines. They needed to see a flashy trophy before they believed he had any value.’