by Cathy Kelly
‘I thought you were in love,’ her cousin remarked. ‘You’re not sounding like it.’
Taking a sip of Guinness gave Hannah a moment before she had to respond. She didn’t want to discuss her own life, and saying that all men were lying, cheating scum might give Mary some hint that everything in Hannah Campbell’s garden was not rosy. ‘Men are all right,’ she said. ‘I’m very fond of them but I’m not in love right now.’ Her nose would grow longer any minute, like Pinocchio’s. ‘I’ve been seeing somebody, that’s all.’
‘Real love is wonderful,’ Mary said, eyes glowing again. ‘You were in love with that Harry, weren’t you? What went wrong there?’
‘I trusted him,’ Hannah said bluntly. ‘Don’t make that mistake, Mary. For your sake and for the girls’.’
Christmas Day dawned cool but dry with a pale sun casting watery light along the front of the house. There was still no sign of her father. Hannah didn’t ask where he was. She could guess. Sleeping off a gallon of porter in the back of the car, still half out of his skull. By ten thirty, the girls were tiring of their presents from Santa and they all trooped to morning Mass in Hannah’s car. Hannah, who hadn’t been in a church for ages, kept standing up in the wrong places and sitting down when she should have been kneeling, earning herself a reproving stare from six-year-old Krystle.
‘That’s wrong,’ she hissed at Hannah with the piety of a child who was in training for her Holy Communion.
‘Sorry,’ said Hannah meekly, holding on to Courtney’s small hand and trying not to laugh at Krystle’s stern face. Courtney had taken a shine to her auntie and insisted on sitting beside Hannah, holding on to her new crying, nappy-wearing doll with the other chubby little hand. Occasionally, she’d give the doll to Hannah and would sit, thumb in her rosebud mouth, leaning against her new friend, utterly content. It was nice to sit there with Courtney’s little body against hers and look around at all the people, Hannah thought.
She felt vaguely guilty about not having been to Mass for so long. Religion hadn’t seemed important in her life and yet, today, with Anna, Mary and the children beside her and with the hard-working people she’d grown up with united in worshipping God, she felt as if she’d been missing something. She was what Leonie called a submarine Catholic – they only came up when there was trouble. It might be nice to go more often, she decided.
The elderly Ford was parked outside the house when Hannah drove up. He was back.
‘Don’t be giving out to your father, Hannah,’ warned her mother in a low voice so that Mary wouldn’t hear. ‘I don’t want a row. This is Christ’s day, so let’s pretend to be a normal family.’
Once, Hannah would have fought with her mother for even daring to say that to her. He’s as bad as he is because nobody ever says anything to him, she’d have hissed. If he didn’t get away with spending every penny he gets on drink, then we’d all be a lot happier.
That was a different Hannah. This one didn’t want a fight today, she wanted peace and goodwill to all men, and if that meant managing a cold smile for her father, then she’d do it.
The children rushed into the house and stopped in fear at the sight of Willie Campbell slumped in the armchair beside the fire. As fat as his wife was thin, he was an almost comical figure with his threadbare tweed jacket and a shirt that had probably been white when he’d put it on but was now stained with beer. He still had a full head of thick dark hair but it was growing grey now, the same colour as the eyes that roamed over the visitors. Guilt and remorse were written all over his face.
‘Mary,’ he said slurring his words slightly. ‘Welcome. And little Hannah. Have you got a kiss for your old father?’
Hannah looked at the hopeless creature in front of her and wondered why she’d made him into such an ogre in her mind. He wasn’t bad, she realized. Just weak. Weak and a drunk. It wasn’t his fault he’d given her a lifelong distrust of other men. It certainly wasn’t his fault that she was so hopeless with men that she kept picking ones who’d let her down just like he’d done all her life.
‘Hello, Dad,’ she said, making no move to embrace him. ‘Long time no see. Happy Christmas.’
‘Happy Christmas, Uncle Willie,’ said Mary, dragging the two girls over to their uncle. She hugged him but they were not keen to do the same.
‘Come on, girls,’ said Anna firmly, taking them by the hand and leading them away. ‘Let’s go up to your bedroom and take off those coats. Willie,’ she said to her husband, ‘go and have a wash and change your clothes. This is Christmas Day and you could do with a fresh shirt. If you want to have a rest, we’ll wake you for dinner.’
Nothing had changed, Hannah thought. Her mother carried on as usual, giving her father a way out with the usual coded messages, messages telling him he could sleep his hangover off and that he’d be welcome at the table when he was clean and sober. It was her version of see no evil, hear no evil. When she’d been growing up, Hannah had raged against this, what she saw as her mother’s blind acceptance of his alcoholism. Stop making excuses for him. Leave, get out! Or make him leave! she wanted to scream in frustration. But her mother wouldn’t. Her marriage was all she had and she’d been brought up to accept what she’d been given in life.
Perhaps it was having been away from home for so long, or maybe it was because she’d changed too, but Hannah no longer felt the need to fight with either of them.
‘I’ll make you a cup of tea to bring to bed, Dad,’ was all she said now. Her father looked at her gratefully.
‘Thanks, love.’
When he’d shuffled off to the bedroom he shared with her mother, Hannah heaved a silent sigh of relief. She felt as if she’d passed some sort of test. Not his test but one of her own making. Accepting who you were in life meant accepting your parents for what they were. She’d managed it, just about.
They had dinner at five and it was great fun thanks to the presence of the two small girls. Getting Courtney to eat anything green was a trial and Hannah was in charge of that mission.
‘Don’t wan’ it!’ Courtney would say petulantly, throwing her Winnie the Pooh fork across the table with great force when presented with a bit of broccoli.
‘Me neither,’ declared Krystle.
‘I’m surprised at you, girls,’ Willie remarked, ‘not eating your dinner when you know that Santa is watching.’ He’d said very little during the meal, merely mentioning that everything was lovely and eating ravenously.
‘We’ve got our presents already,’ Krystle said smugly.
Willie raised his eyebrows. ‘But he can always take them back, can’t he, Mary?’
The broccoli was consumed with great zeal after that. Nobody was more amazed than Hannah at her father bothering to get involved with the children. He’d never been much good with kids, had he? She tried to remember and somehow a hazy memory came back of when she’d been little and had loved sitting on his knee listening to him tell stories. He’d had a big rust-coloured armchair and she used to curl up in it when he wasn’t there, missing him. She had to pretend to sneeze to conceal the fact that her eyes had brimmed with tears.
‘You’re not getting a cold, are you, Hannah?’ asked her mother.
‘No, Mam, I’m not.’
There was never any alcohol in the house, but her father still seemed to sink into a tipsy haze that evening, although Hannah never saw him with a drink in his hand. He must have some hidden somewhere. The following day, he went off at lunchtime and didn’t come back. The three women had a lovely day, playing with the children, talking, and going for a long walk up the mountain before returning home in the dusk to make steaming hot cups of tea and rest their aching legs in front of the fire.
That night, Hannah woke up at half two to the sound of someone at the front door. She shivered, feeling as if she was a kid again at the sound of her father’s key in the lock. You could never tell what sort of mood he’d be in: happy and giggly, or in one of his dark sombre moods when he blamed everyone but himself for th
e fact that he had no job and no future.
‘What about us? We’re your future and you’re not looking after us or Mam,’ Hannah always wanted to scream at him. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something.’ She hated the way he’d wasted his life in a haze of alcohol.
Afraid he’d make noise and wake up the kids, she got up silently and went into the kitchen. She found him sitting on the floor, trying to take his shoes and socks off quietly.
‘Hannah,’ he said in a stage whisper, ‘will ya make me a cup of tea? I’m dying for one. It’ll kill the hangover for the morning.’
He looked ridiculous on the floor, and harmless, his big face smiling and his legs splayed out like a child playing with his toys as he struggled to unlace his shoes. He was hardly a role model, she thought wearily, putting a few extra sods of turf on the fire and switching on the electric kettle. But he was her father, not the devil incarnate.
‘Sit on the chair and I’ll do your laces,’ she commanded. ‘And be quiet.’
‘Yes, Hannah,’ he said obediently. ‘You were always like your mother, a great woman to have in charge.’
The following morning, she packed her suitcase into the boot of the Fiesta feeling like a different person from the uptight woman who’d arrived three days previously. Real life courtesy of the West of Ireland always did that to her. It shifted the world on its axis somehow, made problems look differently when the backdrop was different.
Her mother stood beside the car in the misty morning air with her arms full of oddly shaped packages and jars wrapped in newsprint.
‘There’s rhubarb jam – four jars of that – and some free-range eggs from Doyles up the road. I’ve put in a loaf of brown bread and some of yesterday’s bacon because nobody would finish it and it’ll go to waste here. Mary’ll be gone tomorrow.’
‘Where’s she going?’ Hannah asked, stowing the packages carefully in the boot.
‘Off to her fancy man, I’ve no doubt.’
Hannah straightened up in shock. ‘So she told you. I thought you’d be furious with her.’
Her mother shrugged. ‘No point in that. What can’t be cured must be endured. Did you ever hear that one?’
‘You never cease to amaze me, Mam,’ Hannah said finally. ‘Just when I think I know how you’re going to react, you do something else.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like telling Mary that I have my life all sorted out and how proud you are of me…’ Hannah’s voice trailed off. She was sorry she’d started this now. All through the holiday, she’d wanted to ask her mother about what Mary had said and now that she had, she regretted it.
‘Did you not think I’d be proud of you?’ demanded Anna harshly. ‘When you’ve got out of this place and made another life for yourself? Wouldn’t I have loved to do that myself if I could? Of course I’m proud of you, but you could never see it.’
‘You were always so tough on me,’ protested Hannah. ‘Stuart was your golden boy.’
Her mother snorted. ‘Lads will always be golden boys because they have it both ways. They’re men and they get what they want in life. If a woman gets what she wants, she’s seen as some tough old bird who couldn’t get a man. Stuart didn’t need help, you did. I didn’t want you turning out soft. I treated you hard to make you hard, so you wouldn’t go through what I did,’ explained Anna.
‘Oh.’
They stood there for a moment. Anna had never been an affectionate woman; it wasn’t in her nature to grab people just for the hell of it. Today, Hannah decided to ignore that. She put her arms around her mother’s stiff frame and held her tightly. Anna Campbell relaxed and stayed there for at least a minute before pulling away.
‘You better be off, Hannah,’ she said gruffly. ‘The world and his granny will be on the road today heading home, so you should leave now.’
‘I’m going,’ Hannah said with a grin. ‘Phone me, won’t you?’
‘You’re never there!’ her mother said. ‘Always out gallivanting. That’s my girl.’
The journey wasn’t any shorter on the way home, but it flew past. Hannah drove with a song in her heart. The trials and tribulations of the weeks before had vanished and she felt reborn, revitalized. So what if Felix had a commitment problem? It was his problem and not hers. She didn’t need him. She was a strong, intelligent woman who came from a long line of similar women. What did a handsome playboy actor matter to a woman like that? Driven with the desire to forge ahead, she began planning her new life and career.
It was time she put down roots, time she bought her own home. If she hadn’t wasted all that money buying stupid party dresses so she’d look nice for Felix, she’d practically have her deposit money now. Well, it wouldn’t take too long to replace the extra cash. If hard work and long hours were all it took, she could manage that. She’d have a career, her independence and a place of her own. Felix could go hang.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
How Kirsten got out of Christmas dinner, Emma would never know. But whatever the combination of words were, they convinced Jimmy O’Brien that his dear, sweet younger daughter was ill and couldn’t possibly leave her sick bed simply for a bit of roast turkey and stuffing and a bit of family bonding.
‘Poor love, she’s worn out,’ he said, hanging up the phone and coming back into the kitchen where Emma, hair stuck to her forehead with perspiration, was basting the turkey for the tenth time that day. ‘I think she’s…’ Jimmy winked at his wife, ‘you know. Pregnant. She doesn’t want to say anything yet, but I’m sure of it. She did say she was feeling nauseous.’ He swelled up like a bullfrog with pride.
Emma slammed the oven door shut venomously. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that the deeply unmaternal Kirsten wasn’t pregnant. Hungover, more likely. Every Christmas Eve, she and a crowd of her old friends hit the Horseshoe Bar for a riotous evening of champagne cocktails, followed by a party in one of their houses until the wee small hours, or at least until Santa was at home in bed, having delivered his wares. One poor mug had to be designated driver to ferry the plastered revellers from the Shelbourne to their homes. Usually, Patrick drew the short straw.
Emma would have bet the very nice lilac mohair jumper Pete had given her that morning that her sister was lying in bed at that precise moment, gulping down Alka Seltzer and whining that she’d never drink another cocktail ever again. The cow. Kirsten knew that Emma was dreading the ritual O’Brien Christmas.
Every year, they all went to Anne-Marie and Jimmy’s house for dinner, along with Great Aunt Petra and Jimmy’s unmarried brother, Eugene. Torturous at the best of times, it was going to be worse this year, Emma was convinced of that. Her mother had been behaving quite normally for the past few weeks and there’d thankfully been no recurrence of the Laura Ashley incident. But Emma was sure it was only a matter of time until it happened again. It couldn’t have been a one-off, she was painfully sure of that. Christmas, with all the fuss and excitement, was bound to be the trigger for another attack.
In her usual ostrich fashion, Kirsten had refused to discuss it at all, but she’d known how nervous Emma was about the family party. It was pure meanness on her part to cry off at this late stage. It wasn’t as if she’d have had to do anything either. Emma had gone with her mother to the supermarket three days previously and bought all the food for Christmas. It was unheard of for her mother not to have ordered her turkey a month in advance, complete with spiced ham and a load of sausages. But this year, she had nothing organized and Emma had ended up doing everything. Her father wouldn’t notice that the Christmas pudding wasn’t home-made, she decided, if enough brandy was poured on to it. Kirsten could have helped a bit if she’d been there, even if it was only to put their father in a rare good mood.
‘I’ll phone Patrick,’ Emma announced suddenly, ‘ask him how she is. You know Kirsten, complete hypochondriac. She’s probably just got a cold.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ growled her father. ‘Your poor sister is in he
r sick bed and you think she’s just got a cold. And all because you don’t want to help your mother cook the dinner. Laziness, that’s what it is. In my day, we were damn lucky to get a Christmas dinner, never mind be complaining about having to cook it.’
Emma opened her mouth to protest that, actually, she was the one doing all the cooking while her mother had been fiddling about with a tin for ages. Turning away from her father, she caught a glimpse of Anne-Marie’s face: it was a picture of confusion. In one hand, she held a tin of the mushy peas Uncle Eugene consumed by the bucketful. In the other, she held the egg whisk. The tin-opener lay abandoned on the counter. She was trying to open the peas with the egg whisk, God love her.
‘Forget it, Dad,’ Emma muttered. ‘I won’t phone Patrick. You’re right.’ It was easier to placate him. She’d phone later, secretly.
He stormed off and Emma gently took the tin and the whisk away from her mother.
‘Mum, you’ve done everything so far, why don’t you sit down and talk to Auntie Petra for a while? I’ll bring you both a nice glass of sherry and you can watch the carols on the telly.’
Emma wasn’t sure whether sherry was good for people with problems like her mother’s, but if it calmed her down and took that sad, bewildered look off her face, then a good glass of sherry was ideal. A strong drink might also dilute the effect of Petra’s caustic tongue.
She left the two women sitting happily listening to some sweet child soprano singing ‘Hark, the Herald Angels Sing’ on RTE1, each with a giant glass of sherry. In the kitchen, she checked that everything was cooking away nicely and then phoned Pete’s home. He was having dinner with his family. The festive theory was that every second year, they had dinner with one family but Emma was tired of Christmas in the war zone of the O’Briens’.