The Christmas Party

by Karen Swan

  ‘You. My lovely boy,’ she whispered after a while, pulling back and patting him lovingly, drying his muzzle that was now wet with her tears. She nuzzled his whiskery nose with the palm of her hand. ‘Don’t worry – I won’t make the same mistake twice. You’re staying with me whether you like it or not. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives here, just trekking up and down these paths.’ He whinnied, hot air blowing into her hand and she laughed. ‘That’s right. We are.’

  She gave him a kiss above his eye and huddled forwards again, breaking into a coughing fit as she went upside down. ‘Now, how about that leg?’ She tapped at it again and this time he lifted it up, allowing her to clean out his hoof. ‘Thank you,’ she said in a sing-song voice, beginning to hum softly as she worked.

  She had moved onto the back leg, hunched over and red in the face, when, through the open door, she heard the van pull up outside the stable block and saw a set of feet step out. She frowned as she looked between Magnus’s legs – everything looked so different upside down. She saw the feet stop, turn in to face the van, then switch around and walk towards the building.

  She scowled as she realized who it was: Taigh O’Mahoney, here on his latest mercy mission.

  ‘Ssh,’ she whispered to Magnus, stepping behind him in the stall and listening as she heard him climb the stairs to her flat.

  ‘Hello!’ he called out, his voice faint and sounding surprisingly distant through the stone walls. A pause, and then footsteps on the wooden boards overhead. ‘Hello? . . . Pip?’

  She cast a sly glance at Magnus, his giant eyeball already swivelled onto her, no doubt wondering what she was doing, sniggering into his mane. ‘Ssh, don’t rumble me,’ she whispered to him.

  ‘Pip . . .? Anybody home?’

  She closed her eyes as the giggles took hold upon hearing the confusion in his voice, the bewilderment that she might have dared to leave her own flat.

  There was another silence, and then the sound of boots clomping back down the stairs.

  Quickly, she ducked below the stall, trying to push Magnus’s rubbery lips away from her head as he tried to nibble her hair. ‘Get off,’ she hissed, hearing Taigh walk into the stable block, the space filling up with the silence of incomprehension as he took in the sight of the horses, all nodding over their doors.

  ‘Hello, Whiskey,’ she heard him say, wandering over to her grey mare in the nearest stall and patting her hard on the neck. ‘Not been put out yet? Where’s she gone, hey? Where’s that troublesome mistress of yours gone?’

  Pip hitched up an eyebrow as he spoke to her horse. She was not troublesome, thanks very much. She was simply not a victim. And not his patient.

  She listened as he rummaged in his pocket for a treat. ‘. . . have to be a mint, I’m afraid. I’m all out of sugarbeet. Funny that.’ He gave a low laugh and she knew Whiskey was tickling his palm with her bristly whiskers. It was something of a party trick of hers; she was the most terrible flirt.

  Magnus moved jealously, pawing the ground as he saw Whiskey being given treats, and knocking Pip with his big belly, almost toppling her. She staggered forwards, one hand falling heavily against the stable door. She froze.

  Shit! Had he heard? She couldn’t see if he was looking across, or even walking over . . .

  ‘I’m sorry, boy, that was my last one,’ Taigh said. His voice still sounded like it was across the room.

  As quietly as she could, she shuffled over to the side of the stall and held her breath, her thighs beginning to burn from her unnatural squatting pose. Her body wanted to straighten up and she was beginning to feel a tickle build in her throat, the urge rising to cough again, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  She slapped her hand over her mouth and tried to control her breathing, to stay calm, her eyes beginning to water from the effort of containing the cough. She rolled her eyes as she heard him still talking to Whiskey, as though he knew she was there and was determined to simply flush her out by stalling. What was wrong with the man, anyway? Anyone walking in right now would take him for a fool, talking to the horses like this.

  After what seemed an age – but had probably only been two minutes – she heard the sound of his bag being picked up off the floor again, the rustle of his postman’s uniform. She listened to his footsteps on the cobbles becoming dull on the hard-standing of the drive, and she waited for his van to start up. Only when it had pulled away, did she straighten, lurching forwards almost immediately as the hacking coughs were finally released.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she wheezed, leaning against the wall, eyes streaming, as she recovered. ‘That’s what comes of hanging upside down for ten minutes. That was all your fault,’ she said, pointing an accusing finger at Magnus. He whinnied in protest. ‘Yes it was, don’t give me your lip. And as for you,’ she said, pinning a glare on Whiskey across the other side of the stables. ‘Don’t go giving me the big eyes act. We need to have words. You need to pick a side, lady. Pick. A. Side.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Willow, what are you doing?’ her mother asked, coming tentatively down the stairs and finding her youngest daughter pacing across the great hall.

  Willow stopped practising what she was going to say and opened her eyes, dropping down her hands which she realized she’d been wringing. ‘Nothing.’ She saw with some astonishment that her mother had put on a little make-up today, and that an attempt had been made to style her hair.

  ‘I clearly saw you talking to yourself,’ her mother said with a watery smile, walking straight over to the cloakroom and bringing out her navy coat. It was Max Mara, with a little grey faux-fur collar; she and her father had bought it in Florence during an anniversary week away several years ago now.

  ‘Oh, that. I was just . . . doing a shopping list.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ her mother exclaimed in disbelief, doing up the buttons with fumbling hands.

  ‘Yeah, Mrs Mac needs butter, an onion, kitchen roll and matches. Butter, onion, kitchen roll, matches,’ she said, almost as a chant.

  ‘Just write it down if you don’t think you’ll remember.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Are you going out?’ Willow asked, changing the subject instead. It was almost a source of amazement to her how easily she was able to draw the wool over her mother’s eyes. Either that or her mother was wilfully blind.

  ‘Yes, it’s my first day back teaching the floristry class. Everyone wants to get on with their Christmas decorations.’

  ‘Oh of course,’ Willow said with practiced surprise, having not remotely forgotten at all; she had been anxiously waiting all morning for her mother to emerge from her room and go out. Connor would be arriving shortly and there was no question of them encountering one another again until this deal was decided one way or the other. Her conversation with Pip last night had left her cold and uneasy – learning he head undercut the deal by a million euros the day he and her father had been due to sign . . . How could she possibly trust him? And if she took the chance to do just that, how could she tell anyone until it was signed off? The sale could fall apart again at any moment, just as it had with her father.

  ‘. . . It should all be okay,’ her mother mumbled, more to herself than her daughter. ‘Mrs Mac said she ordered the supplies for me.’

  ‘It’ll be fine. Everyone will be pleased to see you out and about again. A bit of normality will do you good.’

  ‘Whatever that is, these days. It’s been one thing after another lately,’ her mother said, fumbling with the top button. ‘Even getting dressed feels like an impossible task.’ Her hands fell down from the coat in defeat, the top button still undone.

  Willow felt a flicker of sympathy rise within her for the mother she wanted to hate. She seemed so broken. ‘You’re doing the best you can,’ she said flatly, making no move to help. As the baby of the family, she knew her words or actions had never carried weight – she had no authority to change moods or lessen suffering.

  They stood in spinning silence for a moment, eyes ave
rted, arms hanging limply by their sides.

  ‘Okay, well, it wouldn’t do for the teacher to be late,’ Willow said, drawing in her breath and trying to rally. She caught sight of the time on the grandfather clock. It was ten past. God forbid Connor should be early. She needed her mother out of here. Fast. ‘Christmas wreaths are waiting to be made. Onwards!’

  But, staring at the door, her mother made no move towards it.

  ‘Onwards,’ Willow repeated, this time taking her mother gently by the elbow and walking her quickly towards it. ‘You can do this. It’ll be good for you.’

  ‘. . . Yes.’

  She watched as her mother picked up the bag of supplies Mrs Mac had left by the door for her – gardening twine, cutters, scissors, wire – and walked slowly down the steps and over the drive to her trusty old Land Rover, affectionately known as Tinpot. It was air-force blue, a willow basket kept permanently on the back bench seat for shopping odds and picking up kindling on her walks with the dogs; whenever Willow saw it, she was reminded of her mother stopping by the roadside on their way home from school to pick wild garlic or elderflower, sprigs of magnolia blossom or ox-eye daisies. It was a totem of the mother she’d been before.

  She waved as her mother reversed, spinning the car round in an easy arc – a few stray stones flying up from the compacted gravel – and disappeared through the hornbeam allée, up the drive. Willow waited with the smile fixed on her face until she was out of sight and almost at the gates, before she went inside again, sagging against the door with a sigh of relief. For a horrible moment, she’d thought her mother was going to bail and not go out at all.

  She closed her eyes and tried to bring her mind back to the business at hand.

  ‘I want a clause written in . . .’ she murmured under her breath, hands wringing as she returned to pacing the hall. No, wait, did that sound too . . . amateurish? Was there a professional term for this?

  She tried again. ‘If you renege on this agreed amount—’

  Mrs Mac, who had come in from the dining room and started dusting and polishing, glanced over. ‘What are you up to, missy?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like nothing.’

  ‘Really, I’m fine.’

  ‘You’ve been like a cat on a hot tin roof all morning. I know you’re up to something.’

  Willow sighed. Much like with Pip, lying to Mrs Mac was always a futile exercise.

  ‘It’s a secret.’

  ‘I can tell that,’ Mrs Mac said as she rubbed hard on a section of the potboard where a candle had dripped.

  ‘I can’t tell anyone.’

  Mrs Mac shot her an offended look. ‘What is it?’

  She blew out through her cheeks. ‘I’m selling the castle.’

  Mrs Mac fell still, straightening up slowly, her hands automatically falling to their default position on the back of her hips where she got backache. ‘I see.’

  Willow saw the disappointment flood her eyes and it was every bit as devastating to see as she’d feared. ‘I have to. There’s no other options, we all know that.’

  ‘It just seems awful soon, that’s all. It’s not been two weeks since—’

  ‘I know.’ Willow felt her knees weaken. It felt like an accusation: too soon. Unseemly rush. A rash decision made in haste, regretted at leisure. ‘But another two months wouldn’t make any difference, would it? Or two years? There’s never going to be a right time for us to go.’

  Mrs Mac nodded as though in agreement but she didn’t speak. She didn’t appear able to.

  Willow felt the void widen, become deeper, her panic setting harder like concrete. ‘I don’t know why Dad’s left it to me to be the fall guy, but I’m only doing what he would have had to do himself.’ Her tone was defensive.

  ‘Aye, well, that’s true enough, I suppose,’ Mrs Mac said after a moment, hearing the tremor in her voice. ‘. . . And does your mam know?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Willow swallowed. ‘No one does. It’s all happened so fast, I just need to . . . get my ducks in a row before I start telling people about it yet. It could all still fall apart.’

  ‘Well, it did once before.’ A warning note sounded in her voice.

  ‘You knew about that?’ Willow asked, surprised.

  ‘Of course.’

  Willow nodded. ‘Of course.’ There was no one her family trusted more than Mrs Mac. She wondered whether to reveal she was selling to the same buyer? She sensed it would be very poorly received.

  ‘So I take it you’re expecting them shortly then?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You mean, apart from the fact you’re wearing grooves in the floor and almost threw your poor mother out the door?’

  ‘Oh. Is it that obvious?’ Willow bit her lip.

  The housekeeper gave a snort. She always had been able to read them like books, ever since they’d been little. ‘Well, you’d best hide the buckets before they get here. The leak’s got worse in the ceiling above the back hall,’ Mrs Mac said, fussing with the duster. ‘That storm at the weekend didn’t help. Another one like that and you’ll end up with bits of the ceiling coming down, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s soaking to the touch. Ye should call Patrick.’

  ‘I already tried. He’s fully booked till after Christmas now.’

  Mrs Mac tutted. ‘I’m not sure it’ll last till then.’

  Willow felt the spike of anxiety that came every time she considered the reality of running a seven-hundred-year-old historic building and, in spite of her reservations and doubts, it only confirmed that she needed to make the sale as quickly as possible.

  Mrs Mac pointedly looked at her blow-dried hair and best skinny jeans, mercifully included in the emergency bag Shaz had packed for her. ‘Would I be right in thinking the buyer’s that good-looking young man you were flirting with on the drive yesterday?’

  Willow’s jaw dropped down. ‘Were you spying on me?’

  ‘Hard not to, when your mother was flapping and squawking about in here like a headless chicken.’

  ‘Yes, well, I was not flirting. That was business.’

  ‘If you say so. But you’d best get to confession this week, all the same.’

  ‘Mrs M!’ Willow gasped as the older woman shot her a dark smile before turning back to polish the potboard again, seemingly not noticing that it was already gleaming.

  In spite of the wisecrack, Willow felt sick as she watched the housekeeper work. Her response had hardly been a ringing endorsement that Willow was doing the right thing – and hers was probably the mildest reaction she was going to get from anyone: her mother, Pip, Ottie, the entire village . . .

  ‘Hey, Willow, have you got a minute?’

  She looked up to find Ferdy Hopwood standing in the doorway to the music room. He was the chief valuer leading the inventorying for the sale. He and three specialists (in Fine Art, Furniture and Decoratifs) had arrived yesterday lunchtime and were sweeping through the castle, photographing and documenting every objet in the house like forensic specialists in a crime scene. ‘Tim wants to know if you’re wanting to include the harp in the sale?’

  ‘Oh, I—’

  The knock at the door loudly echoed through the hall – as a little girl, it had always reminded her of the opening scene to The Addams Family – and she stared at it with her hands plastered over her mouth, unable to move, to think, to act. Connor was here again, right now, on the other side of that door. Oh God. She had a sudden urge to run, to pretend to be out. She needed more time. Everything was progressing too quickly. On the one hand, her head was telling her to do it – act decisively, make the deal, take the money, move on, go back to her life in Dublin. On the other, her father had gone to his grave hating this man; he hadn’t been dead yet two weeks and already she was selling to his enemy?

  For the first time, she realized it didn’t matter how justified she felt – look what her father had done, burdening her with all this! She could sell to whom she pleased! – actually going throug
h with this was going to take more nerve than anger.

  Mrs Mac stopped her polishing and looked over at her quizzically as she stood rooted to the spot. ‘Well, aren’t ye going to open it then?’

  ‘Yes, of course, I . . .’ She felt flustered, turning a dizzy circle on the spot. She tried to focus. ‘Ferdy, can I come and find you in a bit? Ottie might want the harp; she used to play it. I’ll have to ask her.’

  ‘Sure.’ He nodded and disappeared from sight again, and with a deep intake of breath, she opened the door.

  Her stomach somersaulted at the sight of him today. He was in a dark grey suit, no tie, his beautiful car gleaming on this dull day behind him.

  ‘Miss Lorne.’ No smile. A professional, even taciturn, demeanour.

  ‘Mr Shaye.’ She stepped back to let him in, hating the effect he had on her even though she now knew he was as ruthless as he was beautiful.

  She saw Mrs Mac stand straight as he came in, his eyes instantly scanning up and around the great space before falling to her. The housekeeper had the polishing cloth thrown over one shoulder and a feather duster and can of Pledge in either hand, and yet she still somehow managed to look intimidating.

  ‘This is Mrs Mac, our housekeeper,’ Willow said. ‘Mrs Mac, this is Connor Shaye.’

  ‘Mrs Mac.’

  ‘Mr Shaye,’ the old housekeeper nodded, her signature warmth nowhere to be found as she briskly turned away and began spritzing a cut-crystal vase on the guéridon table in the centre of the room; it usually held extravagant sprays of flowers her mother had cut from the gardens, but there had been nothing in it since the calla lilies at the funeral. Clearly Mrs Mac wasn’t hoping her job would pass on with the deeds to the new buyer.

  Willow looked back at him with an embarrassed smile, finding his gaze back on her again and wishing they didn’t have an audience. ‘Uh, well . . . I imagine you’ll want to reacquaint yourself with the place. It’s been a while since your last visit . . .’

  At her words Mrs Mac straightened up abruptly and looked at them both with a frown. Reacquaint . . . a while since your last visit . . . Willow realized too late she had already unmasked him as her father’s rogue buyer.