I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  Leaving all the bad stuff behind. Leaving it behind for good.

  It was halfway through the morning, three sleeps before Christmas. The day was damp and chilly, and had been pretty unremarkable so far. Gavin Connolly was making his way home in his small white van, having finished his Tuesday deliveries. He was trundling along the coast road that encircled Roone’s twenty-eight square miles, lifting a hand to the walkers and cyclists and other motorists he encountered, as every driver did on the island.

  As he drove, he hummed a tune he’d heard issuing from Maisie Kiely’s radio just a few minutes earlier, the one about Mary having a little baby, all glory hallelujahs. Mary Somebody the singer was called too, English, he thought, the song washing over him as he’d handed over Maisie’s usual order of seven good-sized potatoes, half a dozen carrots, three onions and two litres of apple juice, along with an extra request this week for parsnips and Brussels sprouts. ‘I could set my clock by you,’ Maisie said, the same thing she told him every Tuesday morning.

  It was while he was passing by the second largest of the island’s beaches that the day stopped being unremarkable. He glanced to his right and saw what he always saw at this time of year – grey sky, silver sea, wedge of shortbread-coloured sand with ribbons of seaweed in various shades of green and purple and brown strewn across it – but for the first time since coming to live on Roone he felt compelled to stop. No, more than that: he felt an almost overwhelming urge to get out of the van and make his way down to the beach and walk across it to the edge of the sea.

  He stopped humming and pressed down on the brake pedal and tapered to a crawl. He travelled another fifty yards before pulling in by a little lane and turning off the engine. He sat in the silent van, contemplating the sea and trying to figure out why it had suddenly become irresistible to him.

  It made no sense. Despite packing his bags in Dublin three years earlier and relocating to a small island on the other side of Ireland where he was surrounded by beaches, Gavin wasn’t generally given to spending much time on them. To put it bluntly, he didn’t much care for them, these strips of sand or pebbles, or a mix of both, that featured so prominently on Roone.

  He wasn’t what you’d call a swimmer. He knew how to do it, if thrashing about with arms and legs and managing not to sink could accurately be described as swimming – but he had no real interest in the exercise, and so far he had successfully evaded Nell Baker’s offers to teach him properly.

  To tell the truth, swimming had largely lost its appeal since he’d fallen into the sea while disembarking from lobster fisherman Willie Buckley’s boat on his first trip to Roone as a holidaymaker, an incident he’d been anxious to put behind him as quickly as possible – not that Willie and his buddies were inclined to let him forget – but the memory of it insisted on returning to him on the infrequent occasions that he poked his big toe into salt water after that.

  Of course, beaches were more than simply launching pads for a bout of swimming. At the height of a good summer, Roone’s sandy borders were largely hidden under the oily limbs of reclining tourists, every one of whom seemed to be in search of the obligatory holiday tan – but, blessed as Gavin was with the pale, freckly complexion typically associated with the Irish native, lying in the sun for any length of time, whether slathered with factor 50 or not, was a practice he considered both unaccountably boring and vaguely dangerous. Besides, a tan was completely beyond his skin’s capabilities, so he never bothered trying to acquire one.

  Which left the option of a beach walk, barefoot or otherwise – but while he was an avid walker whenever he got the chance, Gavin’s terrain of choice was a country road or lane where he could be sure of a relatively smooth surface underfoot, rather than a beach full of undulating rows of compacted sand, or pebbles that tended to collapse under each footfall.

  All things considered, he tended to keep as much distance as he could between himself and the outer edges of Roone. Whenever Laura and the children were gathering buckets and spades for a day on the beach, Gavin made himself scarce. All the more reason, then, for him to sit in his stationary van on this particular December morning and wonder why he was feeling such a magnetic pull towards the sea.

  And yet he couldn’t truly claim to be altogether surprised. After three years of living full time on the island, he was familiar enough with Roone to know that things often happened there for which no logical explanation could be found.

  Wasn’t he harvesting apples from one of the trees in their orchard all year round, and wasn’t their juice renowned throughout the island for curing insomnia and psoriasis – and, if Betty Geraghty was to be believed, corns too?

  Wasn’t there a sign that read The Statue of Liberty 3,000 miles stuck into the ground just beyond the cliff barriers and pointing towards America on the island’s west side? Hadn’t it been there for as long as Roone’s oldest resident could remember, and nobody at all able to say who had erected it? Hadn’t Kerry County Council taken it down more than once, only for it to reappear before the week was out, until they’d finally given up and left it there?

  And hadn’t Maisie Kiely read his wife’s tea leaves last year and predicted Poppy’s arrival, despite Laura’s laughing protestation that two sets of twins were more than enough for any mother? A third girl, Maisie had insisted, peering into the depths of Laura’s teacup, and so it had come to pass – along with the dreadful other development that Maisie hadn’t foreseen, that none of them had seen coming.

  But Roone was unique, no doubt about it – and, like the rest of its year-round residents, Gavin had become accustomed to, and had come to respect, the many whimsies of the island.

  No breeze at all, the sea like a mirror this cold, calm morning, its surface sprinkled with the usual fishing trawlers, the last of the brightly coloured holiday craft having disappeared around the end of September. Little plashy harmless waves rolled onto the sandy shore, a hundred yards or so from where he was parked. If you wanted proper breakers you had to go to the far side of the island, where the Atlantic had full rein.

  Nobody about at this hour, too early for the group of half a dozen over-sixties, the hardy souls (Maisie Kiely included) who walked the beach end to end each afternoon practically all year round, unless the weather was particularly shocking. And no sign this morning of seventy-something Con Maher, retired creamery worker, who peeled off his clothes and pulled on his ancient, bagging togs and raced into the sea for a three-minute dip every single day of the year. Con had probably been and gone by now.

  Gavin wound down his window and took a few mouthfuls of the sharp, briny air – now that he did like, so wholesome and clean it tasted, far cry from what had been filling his lungs every day in Dublin. He closed the window and got out, banging the door shut behind him and leaving it unlocked as he ambled down the narrow lane that led to the beach.

  He made his way to the water’s edge, hopping over the long, curly swathes of seaweed, skirting the occasional salty puddles, leaving a series of damp prints in his wake. Only half listening – because by now it was so familiar – to the rattling suck of the sea as it drew away from him, the moment of anticipation as it paused, the rushed exhalation of its return. The elemental moon-directed never-ending movement of the tide, the background music of his past three years. Keeping to its routine, as reliable as Con Maher.

  When he was within a yard of the water he stopped and dropped to a squat, puzzling again as to what impulse had led him there. It occurred to him that it might have been his own subconscious, not in any particular hurry to get home, wanting to delay it for a few minutes.

  Such a tragic state of affairs, when up to a few months ago the home he’d created with Laura and their children was his favourite place in the world, the place he couldn’t wait to get back to anytime he had to leave it. Now his overriding emotion each time he returned home was wariness: these days, it seemed he couldn’t do or say anything right as soon as he set foot inside the place.

  It wouldn’t last, he k
ept telling himself. It would pass, this troubling time they were going through. It would pass, it would have to, and they’d be happy again.

  A gull gave a sudden scream high above him: he lifted his gaze to follow its swoop across the sky, and a soft drizzle began to pat his face. First rain in over a week, if you could call it rain. He eyed the dark clouds moving in over the horizon, coming to replace the cauliflower-coloured sky that currently covered Roone. A storm on the way, according to Annie Byrnes’s bones, far more accurate than the Met Office when it came to predicting the weather.

  A bad one, Annie had said, here this side of Christmas. We’ll be battening down the hatches, she’d told them. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad, hopefully it would be over before Christmas as well. No sign of it yet, though, the clouds the first indication of more sinister weather, but Annie’s bones were rarely wrong.

  He glanced down to check his watch. Better not stay too long: Laura would be wanting her nap. He got to his feet, wondering what way he’d find her today, then catching the thought and flinging it from him, reminding himself of all she’d been through since March. Have patience, give her time.

  He gave a final sweep of the beach – and there the small thing suddenly was, not half a dozen yards off to his right. Part in and part out of the water, each soft, incoming wave nudging it onto the sand, each pull back causing it to roll helplessly towards the sea again.

  Here it was, the reason he’d been summoned: here was what he’d been sent to find. He knew it as surely as if someone had said it aloud.

  The object was soft and floppy, no corners or angles to it. There seemed to be a broken quality about it, as if someone in a fit of rage had dashed it into the sea, wanting to put an end to it. In those first few seconds, while he was still far enough away for recognition to be uncertain, the sight of it gave Gavin a heart-flick of fright.

  Everything about it – the shape and colour of it, the soggy bump of it onto the sand, the way it tumbled and rolled back – suggested to him a far more dreadful delivery from the sea than the usual offerings it threw up: driftwood, lengths of bleached bone, fragments of ragged clothing, rusted umbrella spines, remnants of burst footballs, battered rubbery flip-flops, skeletal kites, dented sun-cream bottles, tattered remains of lobster pots.

  This was different. This was nothing like any of them. Gavin stepped cautiously towards the limp bundle, skin crawling with apprehension, wishing all at once that Laura was there with him – she was formidable in an emergency – but of course she was at home with the children. He looked to right and left again. He willed someone to appear but nobody did. He was completely on his own.

  Up close, his fears were confirmed. No mistaking the lifeless little shape now, no chance he’d been wrong. It lay face down, small limbs splayed on the sand, out of reach finally of the receding tide. He crouched beside it, sick with dread. He forced himself to reach towards it, abdomen clenched, toes curling in their runners. He touched it: its cold clamminess made him shudder.

  He turned it over.

  It wasn’t a baby.

  Relief washed through him. He gave a grateful bark of a laugh. He picked up the sodden rag doll – the precise size of a newborn but, aside from its rubbery head, made of cloth after all. No skin or bone or blood here, no silenced little heart. Its painted mouth smiled up at him, undimmed by its time in the sea.

  ‘Hello,’ he said aloud. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’ Round pink cheeks, black strokes of lashes above the oval blue eyes, little brown dots of freckles dancing haphazardly across the snub nose. White hair standing up in stiff spikes. ‘Thank God,’ he told it. ‘Thank God you’re not what I thought you were.’

  He squeezed it out as best he could. Salt water spilled from its padded limbs and squat little torso, from the pink knitted dress that was miraculously still in one piece. Couldn’t have been that long in the water, a few days at the most, he reckoned. Fallen from a boat, maybe, or left forgotten on a rock and washed out to sea. And now washed back in again.

  All the way home the doll bobbed and jumped damply from the rear-view mirror he’d draped it over. They mightn’t fancy it, any of his girls – the twins had a pile of dolls already, and Poppy was practically joined at the hip to her rabbit – but he couldn’t have left it there on the beach. If all else failed, they’d give it to Charlie.

  He reached the house that he still thought of as Walter’s, probably because they’d named it after him when they’d opened the B&B. Walter’s Place, they’d called it, since everyone on Roone still referred to it as that. He turned into the driveway, whistling the tune that was back in his head. He parked in front of the shed and got out, bringing the doll with him. He walked around the side of the house and entered the way he always did, through the scullery and on into the kitchen.

  His wife turned from the stove. She looked closed up, like she always did these days, and he yearned once again for the gregarious, big-hearted woman he’d fallen in love with. His two-year-old daughters, seated in front of bowls of banana chunks at the table, yelled, ‘Daddy!’ in perfect unison, like they did each time he reappeared, whether he’d been gone for two minutes or most of a day. Poppy, propped up with cushions in her playpen, flapped her fat little arms at him, crowing in delight. His daughters, at least, were pleased to see him.

  He held the doll aloft. ‘Look what I found,’ he told them all.

  ‘Where is she?’ Laura asked.

  He turned, waggled the doll at her. ‘Right here. Found her on the beach.’

  Laura gave him a scathing look. ‘I’m not talking about that.’

  It took him a second, two seconds. He lowered his arm slowly. The smile slid off his face.

  ‘Blast,’ he said.

  He’d forgotten his mother.

  She slept on the plane, although she hadn’t thought she would, so keyed up she’d felt as she’d boarded the steps and threaded her way down the narrow aisle to her window seat. When the plane had begun to move she’d been horribly fearful, not knowing what was ahead, what to expect. The sudden forward rush on the runway had her gripping the armrests – was that supposed to happen? The tilt as the plane left the ground made her squeeze her eyes closed, not daring to look out at a view gone topsy-turvy – but once they levelled off, once the cabin crew began to move around the aircraft, she forced herself to relax.

  She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, not inclined to engage with the man next to her. She had no book, and no appetite for the magazine that poked from the seat pocket in front of her. With her head so full of the trauma of the previous weeks and months, and the uncertainty of what lay ahead, reading was completely beyond her. Eventually, maybe an hour into the flight, she fell asleep.

  When she woke, a stewardess was telling her to fasten her seatbelt for landing. She was stiff from the cramped space, and cold from the plane’s air conditioning, which felt like it was on full blast. Goosebumps were rising on her bare arms, her toes curling in their thongs.

  Her sweaters were all in her case, which was checked through to London. Her jacket was out of reach in the overhead compartment, along with her hand luggage. Easily known she was a novice traveller; probably plain as day to all the other passengers. She’d grin and bear it, and tell herself she was lucky to be out of the steam room that was Queensland in December.

  The plane dipped and bucked as it descended, making her stomach lurch and her ears block unpleasantly. She shifted in the seat – why was there such little room? – and yawned the last of the sleep away as she made circles with her neck, trying to work the ache out of it.

  Her eyes were still gritty with fatigue. She longed for a bed, or anywhere she could stretch out to ease her cramped muscles. Stupidly she hadn’t even tried to sleep last night, thinking it hardly worth the effort when she had to be up before three in the morning. What had she been thinking, with so many travelling hours ahead?

  Her heart sank at the thought of two more flights, the next nearly twice as long as this one. She reminded hers
elf that each hour on a plane was taking her further away from Australia, further away from the man who had ripped her heart in two. She’d concentrate on that, focus on the gap between them that was widening more with each mile she travelled.

  She risked a look through the window and saw skyscrapers huddled far below, hazy with smog. She thought of the passengers on the planes that had left Boston on a bright September morning in 2001. Did they know, had the hijackers told them, they were going to die, or did the horror bloom slowly as they approached New York, as they flew much too close to the twin towers of the World Trade Center?

  She shuddered, trying to dislodge the thought, trying not to follow it through to its hideous conclusion.

  ‘You OK?’

  She started at the closeness of the voice, almost in her ear. She turned.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to give you a fright. Thought the turbulence might be bothering you.’

  He was Pa’s age, or maybe a bit older. Grey hair, a grizzle of white on his chin. Navy sweater, blue jeans. Face full of pores and crinkles, nose big and squashed-looking. They hadn’t exchanged a word up to now.

  ‘Soon be there,’ he said. ‘Ten minutes, fifteen the most. Always a bit bumpy on the way down, nothing to worry about.’

  ‘My first flight,’ she told him. Her mouth felt dry. She could have done with some water.

  ‘Your ears popping?’ he asked, and when she nodded he reached into the seat pocket in front of him and drew out a roll of mints.

  ‘Suck it slowly,’ he said. ‘Keep swallowing.’

  It helped a bit. The plane swooped sharply, causing a collective murmur of alarm that rippled through the cabin.

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ her companion repeated, and she tried not to worry.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked, to take her mind off the movements. ‘In Singapore, I mean.’

  ‘Two hours earlier than Australia,’ he told her, and she sent the hands of her watch the wrong way around, back to just before two in the afternoon. It was as if they were being given a chance to live that couple of hours again. Imagine if she could turn back more time, if she could rewind the last seventeen years to the day when a woman in a Brisbane hospital had given birth to a baby she didn’t want.