Coming Home for Christmas

by Patricia Scanlan

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Alison protested miserably.

  ‘Have you told them at home about work?’ Melora drained her cocktail.

  ‘Nope. Although, in fairness, my mam would say something like “Let it go, the Universe will provide, when one door closes another door opens if you let it.” She has a great outlook on life in that regard. My dad would worry a lot more. But it would still upset them, and I don’t want to ruin the party and Christmas. Have you told yours?’

  ‘Naw, it would only worry them too. And my dad’s not been well. They don’t need an unemployed daughter to be concerned about. They’ll want me to come home and, honey, I just couldn’t face a cold Chicago winter living back with my folks – even though I love them,’ she added hastily.

  ‘I know, it would be like taking a backward step, going back to your childhood almost. I’m not going to say a word. I’ll just let on everything’s fine.’ Alison frowned as she pronged an olive and chewed it.

  ‘Things will work out for us both,’ Melora said stoutly.

  ‘Sure,’ agreed Alison heartily. ‘We’ll be fine. Just fine.’

  Three days later, her best friend had jetted off to LA relieved at least that Alison was subletting her studio.

  Tears slid down Alison’s cheeks as she remembered their night out and their upbeat talk. Things were far from fine, she reflected, as the hailstones continued their onslaught. Her own apartment was awaiting a new tenant. She’d pulled in every contact she had, targeted dozens of firms, even cold-called executives to try and sell herself and get a job, but recession was embedded and firms were being inundated with applications from high performers who’d lost their jobs in the financial and economic meltdown. And so far, five weeks down the line from the day she’d arrived at her Wall Street office to discover that the owner and CEO of her company had drunk a bottle of whiskey, swallowed a fistful of sleepers and died in the early hours of the morning – she hadn’t had a whisper of a job.

  Daniel J. Hamilton, charismatic CEO and founder of Hamilton & Associates, had taken a hit when Lehman Bros. had collapsed, but he’d restructured the company’s finances, tightened up their operation and kept going, until the news had filtered along Wall Street that another disaster with highly respected financier Bernie Madoff was on the cards – far more damaging than the Lehman debacle. Hamilton, over-extended as he was, knew he couldn’t claw his way out of this second catastrophe. He was an honourable man who had always dealt with his clientele with the height of professional integrity. He could not face telling his many clients, some high profile, his employees, and his family that they had lost fortunes because of the investment advice his firm had given in good faith, investments he’d believed in and invested in himself, investments he’d urged his employees to put their bonuses in. He’d locked himself in his office with a bottle of Jack Daniels and the sleeping tablets his doctor had prescribed for him the previous month, written a note to his wife and children and become another victim of unscrupulous, unprincipled men who thought they were above the law.

  Alison and Melora, along with the other dazed employees, had been told by the financial director that their jobs were gone, the business was bankrupt, the receivers were being called in and they should collect their belongings and go home. Alison had gone from being a highly regarded senior vice-president with a very affluent lifestyle to being jobless and, it seemed, unemployable, in the blink of an eye. And she wasn’t alone or the worst off by far. She’d seen grown men cry at the thought of having to go home and tell their wives and children they had no job and would no longer be able to pay their mortgages, college fees and health-care bills. She’d seen the fear in their faces as all their security had been pulled from under them in the space of a ten-minute speech. People like them – highly educated, highly qualified professionals – didn’t get made redundant. This was America, the land of milk and honey, the land of golden opportunity. The shock and disbelief were palpable. The TV cameras had filmed them leaving the offices, and they’d been on all the news channels for a day or two and then it had been someone else’s turn.

  Now, here she was standing on the pavement, about to hail a taxi to take her to a cramped little walk-up, most of her possessions in storage, and she felt lonely, scared and oppressed. Strange, unfamiliar emotions that rattled her confidence and brought her to the edge of panic. What was she going to do if she couldn’t get a job? How long could she last without an income? There were jobs in Hong Kong, Singapore, and other foreign destinations – she’d scoured the internet looking at the positions on offer – but the idea of uprooting to another country and starting afresh was unnerving and not one that she relished. She’d done all that when she was younger. Now it didn’t seem as exciting a prospect. Her mother might well say that the Universe would provide, and it looked as though Alison was going to have to put the theory to the test, even though she didn’t want to. Trusting in providence was not her forte, she thought wryly. She liked to be in control.

  Suddenly, although she’d been dreading the thought of going home to Port Ross, Alison wanted to be there more than anything. Wanted to feel her mother’s warm, loving hug and listen to her words of wisdom, and inhale the familiar woody scent of her father’s pipe, knowing that there was one place at least that she would be welcomed with open arms. Port Ross, the small fishing village on the north-east coast of Ireland just thirty miles from Dublin where she’d grown up, seemed far more inviting than the bitterly cold, noisy, grimy, bustling city street she was standing on.

  Her parents lived in a homely dormer bungalow right on top of a cliff at the sea’s edge. The sound of the sea caressing the beach had lullabied her to sleep every night, and the orange gold of the sunrise painting the sea and sky had woken her each morning, along with the smell of her mother’s homemade brown bread and scones wafting up the stairs.

  Her older sister, Olivia, still lived in the village, with her husband and three little girls. They’d be fast asleep now, after a supper of hot chocolate and buttery toast in front of the fire, a tradition Olivia had carried on from their own childhood. God, she’d love to be sitting in front of a real fire, watching it roaring up the chimney, listening to the crackling song of the wood as it blazed merrily, sipping creamy hot chocolate and eating toast dripping with melting butter and jam, Alison thought longingly.

  Impulsively, she pulled out her cell phone. It was night time at home, but Olivia would get the message in the morning Alison thought, hailing a taxi that had its light on. She gave the midtown address and settled back against the seat, her fingers flying over the keys.

  Hi O. How U? How are the plans for the surprise party going? Can’t wait 2 C every 1. So glad I’m coming home. A xx

  Chapter 2

  ‘Do you see her now? She can’t walk in those high heels, and that one there, she’s flat-footed.’

  Holy Mother!, Olivia Hammond thought in dismay as she gave her elderly uncle a dig in the ribs. ‘Shush, they’ll hear you,’ she hissed, noting the amused glance of one of the nurses hurrying past them along the busy hospital corridor where they were sitting.

  ‘Not a’tall, girl, wasn’t I whisperin’?’ Leo Dunwoody declared indignantly as he sat beside her, his arms folded, taking a great interest in all that was going on around him.

  ‘Do you see the one in the pink- and blue-striped top over there? She’d be one of the lower orders; she wouldn’t be a real nurse now,’ Leo observed knowingly. Although he thought he was whispering, the people on either side of them could hear him.

  ‘Mr Dunwoody, we’ll take you now.’ A ‘real’ nurse popped her head out of the Breathing Test Room opposite them, and Olivia watched with fond exasperation as the elderly man stood up and made his way into the room with a cheery wave of his walking stick.

  ‘Right, lassie, we’d better get on with it, I suppose,’ he boomed as the door closed behind him. Olivia exhaled a long, deep breath and stretched her legs in front of her. The plastic chairs were uncomfortable, and they’d b
een there for the past three-quarters of an hour. The appointment was for eleven, but Uncle Leo preferred to be early wherever he was going. That was all very well, but Olivia was pushed for time. She’d taken flexi-time to bring him to his appointment, time she could ill afford. She job-shared in the administration department of a busy third-level-education college, and exam time was always hectic.

  There was a hot-drinks machine further along the corridor, and she walked to it, rooted in her bag for some loose coins, dropped them into the slot and selected a cappuccino. She’d only taken a few gulps from her coffee at breakfast time, between trying to get lunch boxes ready and dealing with the trauma of her youngest daughter, Ellie, dropping her baby tooth into the cat’s food dish and the twins having a row about their Nintendos while she was out the back hanging out the clothes which probably wouldn’t dry anyway in the cold. And it looked like rain, she thought gloomily. She sipped her cappuccino and tried to suppress a yawn as her phone rang. Her mother’s number flashed up on the screen.

  ‘Hello, love, how did Leo get on? It was so kind of you to offer to take him.’ Esther Dunwoody’s voice floated down the line.

  ‘Hi, Mam, we’re still here. They were late and we were here three-quarters of an hour beforehand – you know Leo,’ Olivia moaned.

  ‘Ah, God love you,’ Esther sympathized.

  ‘And not only that – you know the way he’s deaf and he thinks he’s whispering and the things he’s saying. My nerves are shot wondering what he’s going to come out with next. He told me this morning I could do with getting my hair cut, I was looking a bit like a scarecrow.’

  Esther chuckled. ‘He’s himself. Tact was never his greatest quality. Anyway, I was just ringing to say don’t bother cooking dinner for yourself and the girls, I’ll put your name in the pot, and why don’t you tell Michael to come straight from work—’

  ‘He was coming anyway. He wants to lick the wooden spoon when you’re making the puddings. He’s worse than the girls – they’re so excited.’ Olivia grinned.

  ‘Honest to goodness, Livvy, I’ve never been this late making the puddings, I’m getting old. I’m going to buy them next year.’ Her mother sighed. ‘I forgot to get eggs. Will you get me a dozen? I want to make a small cake for Leo later in the week while I’m at it. I know he’s partial to Christmas cake.’

  ‘You’re a big softie, Mam. I’ll see you in a while,’ Olivia said, delighted with her mother’s offer. Not having to cook dinner would be a great help. She needed to make a start on tidying up the spare room for her younger sister’s arrival. There was a mountain of ironing that needed tending, and she was anxious to get a move on wrapping the Christmas presents that lay at the end of the bed, and one that needed changing before Alison came home for their mother’s surprise party.

  There was so much to do, and she hadn’t even thought of writing a Christmas card. Leo had remarked when she’d collected him this morning that he hadn’t got hers and Michael’s yet. She’d try to get down to them tonight, she promised herself. The mail sign on her phone was flashing, and she knew her inbox was full. She might as well do a bit of deleting while she was waiting and put her time to good use.

  Her fingers raced over the keys, and when she’d deleted her sent items and half a dozen messages in her inbox, three messages gunned back in rapid succession. One was from her sister. Olivia opened it, noting that it had been sent the previous day. She really should delete her messages more often, she thought, as she read it.

  Hi O. How U? How are the plans for the surprise party going? Can’t wait 2 C every 1. So glad I’m coming home. A xx

  Olivia frowned. Bully for you! she thought crossly. Nice for Alison to breeze in from New York like the homecoming queen, be made a fuss of at the party she hadn’t had to lift a finger to organize, and then breeze out because she couldn’t take time off work to spend Christmas with her family. No fear of her being at home to bring their uncle to the chest clinic, or help out with the cooking and shopping when both their parents had been felled by a particularly nasty flu a couple of weeks ago. Alison was too busy acting like a character out of Sex and the City to give a hoot about what was going on in boring old Port Ross.

  Olivia scowled as she deleted her sister’s text. Alison had demurred at first about coming home to celebrate her mother’s seventieth. Did she not know how lucky she was to have a mother as good as Esther? She wouldn’t always be with them; significant birthdays should be celebrated, Olivia had pointed out a touch sharply when the discussion had taken place over the phone earlier in the year. Her younger sister wouldn’t think twice of flying to Hawaii or LA for R&R. She could damn well get her ass in gear and come home for her mother, Olivia had insisted, annoyed that she’d had to push her sister to come to such an important family event.

  ‘OK, OK, I was hoping to bring her and Dad over for a few days. They always enjoy their trips to New York,’ Alison had argued, clearly irritated at Olivia doing her bossy older sister act.

  ‘That would be fine if it was an ordinary birthday, but seventy is an important birthday, and we need to mark it in a special way with all the family,’ Olivia declared, frustrated that she had to point out the obvious.

  Alison had agreed after that and, being her generous self, offered to pay half the cost. That was one thing Olivia couldn’t fault her sister on: she was generous to a fault with her money, even if she was less than giving with her time. What a charmed life Alison led, with only herself to worry about. She worked hard, but she played hard too, and her free time was hers to do with entirely as she wished.

  Olivia hadn’t enjoyed free time in years. Three young children, elderly relatives, a busy husband, a household to run and her own job left her constantly chasing her tail. She was lucky to get a read of Hello! in the bath, she thought ruefully, remembering some of the descriptive emails her sister had sent while skiing, or scuba-diving, or meeting wealthy hunks at parties in the Hamptons.

  Olivia had flown out to stay with Alison for long weekends several times over the past few years because Michael, her husband, had insisted she needed a break. The difference in their lifestyles always fascinated Olivia. There was absolutely no comparison and, if the truth were told, she felt her life was deadly boring in contrast, and she always came home unsettled and dissatisfied, knowing that she was hurtling towards forty and middle age. It would take her a month or so to get into her routine and settled down and to regain some sort of equilibrium.

  Although, in fairness, she reminded herself as she sat impatiently waiting for Leo, when she’d arrived home after the last visit and her three little girls had hurled themselves into her arms at the airport and Michael had stood, thumbs hooked into his jeans and a big smile on his face, she’d felt an unexpected surge of happiness, which was enhanced even more when her mother hugged her tightly and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re home, love. I missed you terribly, even though you were only gone for a few days.’ Olivia smiled at the memory. She and Esther had a very close bond, and it was her dearest wish that her own daughters would have as close a bond with her when they were adults.

  ‘Well, I’m gaspin’ after that. Bring me home like a good girl and make me a nice cup of tea.’ Uncle Leo limped over to her, red-cheeked, white hair sticking up, wheezing like a train. ‘Or would you like to get me one of those Snack Box things? I’m hungry too.’ He flopped down wearily on the chair beside her, puffing and panting. ‘They gave me a right going-over in there. I’m banjaxed. You must be hungry too after all that waiting. I’ll treat you to a chippie, and I want to buy a few sweets for the girls.’

  Olivia’s heart sank. Friday was the worst day for the queues in the chipper, and the precious window she’d been carving for herself to get the spare room sorted before the girls got home from school was rapidly dwindling away.

  ‘And do you know what I want you to get me? I want you to get me a nice pair of gloves for your mother, and a pair for your da – and would the girls wear gloves? It’s been a fierce cold winter an
d I want something useful for them for under the Christmas tree. I could put twenty euros each down a finger for them.’ Leo looked at her enquiringly, his blue eyes, bright and lively, belying his eighty-two years. Her heart softened. He loved the girls and took a great interest in the tapestry of their lives, and they loved him as much as they loved their grandparents. Childless, his wife Kitty had died ten years previously.

  ‘Gloves would be great,’ she said kindly, taking his arm to walk down the corridor.

  ‘I’d say that lady’s up from the country. See, she has her case with her. Probably an overnight job,’ he commented in a fairly stentorian tone, raising his hat to an elderly woman sitting on one of the chairs. The woman caught Olivia’s exasperated gaze and smiled back.

  ‘Come on, Uncle Leo, let’s go get a Snack Box.’ Olivia sighed, remembering she had to stop at the shops and get a dozen eggs for her mother while she was at it. She was going to have to try and get her uncle’s Christmas shopping done, and she needed to order the flowers and cake for the surprise party. The sooner Alison was home the better: she could sort out the flowers and decorate the private room Olivia had booked in the Golden Dragon, the popular Chinese restaurant on the Dublin road, a mile or so out of the village.

  Esther loved having a meal there, and she and Olivia would try and eat out there every six weeks or so. Her mother wasn’t expecting a birthday bash. As far as she knew, they were having a meal out in the restaurant with the girls. She had no idea that Alison was coming home. That would be the best surprise of all for her, thought Olivia, and her sister didn’t even appreciate the fact. Sometimes Olivia felt like the prodigal son’s brother, the one who was taken very much for granted and never had a fatted calf cooked in his honour despite all his good work.

  Oh, get over yourself! She scowled, annoyed at her childishness, then linked her uncle’s arm in hers and was rewarded with an appreciative pat on the hand.