I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  She had a polished, precise way of speaking that suggested a good education, or maybe lots of money, or both. She took a seat next to Tilly on the bench, bringing with her a scent that reminded Tilly of the white jasmine that was in full bloom everywhere at home.

  ‘I flew into Dublin yesterday,’ Tilly told her. ‘I was supposed to fly direct to Kerry from London but I fell asleep in the airport and missed my flight, so they put me on a Dublin one, and then I got a bus to Kerry.’ She’d say nothing about the stolen purse; she was ashamed of her carelessness.

  ‘Oh dear, poor you – as if your journey wasn’t long enough. Travel can be so exhausting, can’t it? But you’re almost there now.’ She opened her bag and took out a gold-coloured powder compact, and gazed critically at herself in its mirror. ‘Lord, I look a fright.’

  She dabbed at her face, found lipstick and stroked it on, pushed her hair into place. ‘I have a son and a grandson living on Roone,’ she said, snapping the compact closed, crossing one ankle neatly over the other. ‘They moved to the island a few years ago, after my son’s wife died.’

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘Yes, it was very sad. She was young, of course, it was cancer … but my son met an island girl, and they married two years ago. He’s very happy now.’

  She didn’t ask, but Tilly felt obliged to supply information in return. Isa was tapping on a mobile phone now, and paying no attention to them.

  ‘My sister,’ Tilly began. ‘She lives on Roone, but I … Well, we’ve never met. I was adopted. It’s kind of a long story. I’m going to find her.’

  The woman’s eyes widened. ‘My goodness,’ she said softly. ‘What an amazing journey you’re making.’

  And completely without warning, Tilly’s face crumpled. She dipped her head, mortified, and scrabbled about in her pockets, but found nothing.

  ‘Here—’

  She pulled a tissue from the offered pack and blotted away her tears. How ridiculous. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s just been a long trip—’

  ‘My dear, don’t dream of apologising. It’s simply lack of sleep. I can never function if I don’t get my eight hours.’

  Tilly pressed the tissue to her eyes. What an amazing journey you’re making. If she knew what had prompted this trip – if she knew it was as much about running away as it was about trying to find anything, or anyone – she might have something entirely different to say.

  ‘Tilly?’

  She raised her head. Isa handed her a dark green mug from which curls of steam were rising. ‘Tea,’ she said. ‘Drink.’

  Tea, it would appear, was the drink of choice on this side of the world. Tilly thought of Breda’s pot that never got a chance to empty fully, and Amanda in Heathrow saying there was nothing like a cuppa to make things look brighter.

  Isa’s tea was different. There was no milk here, just a pale golden liquid that tingled with cinnamon.

  ‘Vanilla chai,’ she told Tilly. ‘Good to keep the cold out.’

  ‘It’s nice … thank you.’ As she raised it to her lips again the phone on the desk rang.

  Isa pushed up a sleeve to glance at the oversized watch on her wrist. ‘Leo,’ she announced. ‘He’ll be over there by now.’

  She lifted the receiver. ‘Yes,’ she said, and then ‘OK,’ and then, ‘OK. Happy Christmas to you.’

  Happy Christmas. If it was Leo, and she was wishing him happy Christmas, it was because she wouldn’t see him again until it was over.

  She replaced the receiver with a soft click. She regarded her two companions. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said simply. ‘He can’t risk another crossing today.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ the dark-haired woman said. ‘What a shame. Oh well, these things happen, I suppose.’

  She was so matter-of-fact about it, so resigned about having to turn around and drive all the way back to Dublin. Despite having half expected the news they’d just received, Tilly’s stomach plummeted in dismay. Nothing for it but to give Paddy a ring.

  The older woman turned to Tilly. ‘What about you, dear? You’re in a bit of a pickle now, aren’t you?’

  ‘I told her about the village pub,’ Isa put in. ‘They have accommodation.’

  ‘You mean the next little village, on the way to Dingle?’

  ‘Yes, Kilmally. The pub is O’Loughlin’s, halfway along the street on this side.’

  The woman wound her scarf around her head. ‘Come along then,’ she said to Tilly. ‘You can sit in with me and we’ll check it out. I thought I’d have to go all the way to Dingle, but this would be so much more convenient. We can hole up there until the ferry gets going again.’

  Tilly got uncertainly to her feet. ‘You’re not going back to Dublin?’

  ‘Certainly not – one of those journeys a day is more than enough.’

  Now was the time to admit that she probably couldn’t afford to stay in a pub, that she was going to have to make other plans. But even if it was only half a mile away, the village was in the right direction, and she could wait there until Paddy was able to return to fetch her. At least she could save him having to come all the way back to the pier.

  The three of them left the little place together, Isa locking the cabin door behind them. They bowed their heads against the wind that whipped around them and the icy spears of rain that were now falling. Tilly wrapped her jacket tightly about her and followed her companion to the black car that was parked neatly behind the green Jeep.

  ‘Happy Christmas!’ Isa shouted cheerfully, climbing into the Jeep – and Tilly wondered exactly how happy it was going to be.

  By the time the girls and Poppy were being put to bed, just before seven, the phones had been down for quite a while. The first they’d known of it was around four o’clock, when Gladys had attempted to ring Joyce, the friend who’d invited her for Christmas dinner, to tell her of the change of plan.

  I can’t get through, she’d said. I’m getting no sound at all – so they’d tried to call Joyce on the landline, and on Gavin and Laura’s mobiles, with similar results.

  There must be a mast down on the mainland, Gavin had told his mother. It’s happened before. They’ll get it up and running again, but it might take a day or two.

  Gladys, of course, had been most put out. Why would mobile phones and house phones be gone at the same time? That makes no sense. Don’t they work on different systems?

  The storm might have knocked a telegraph pole here too, he’d explained, but really he didn’t have a clue. Neither he nor Laura concerned themselves unduly with technology: when they’d been setting up the B&B it was Nell who’d put it online for them, using the same holiday-accommodation website she’d used to advertise her own house rental a few summers earlier.

  But how am I to contact Joyce? Gladys had demanded, and they’d had to tell her there was no way. Mobile phones down meant Internet gone too: when Roone lost its phone signals, it became to all intents and purposes cut off from the outside world.

  Generally not a problem for the island community, well used to the quirks of their surroundings – and such problems tended anyway to be short-lived, service generally resumed within a day. Of course, this being Christmas Eve, they might have to wait a little longer than usual for things to get back to normal.

  It’s simply not good enough, Gladys had said crossly. Joyce will be so worried. I can’t believe there’s no other way to get a message out in this day and age.

  Maybe she expected them to have a stock of carrier pigeons at the ready in case of communication emergencies. Honestly, the fuss she’d made. Joyce would no doubt get over the trauma of being deprived of a dinner guest – and the turkey breast, or whatever she’d planned to dish up, would last her twice as long. The world as Gladys knew it would spin on, phones or no phones.

  But for the moment it looked as if everything was spinning a little out of control – or at any rate, the weather was. The storm had been gaining intensity all afternoon, no sign of it abating. Looked like they were in for a wild
night of howling gales and lashing rain. More than one telegraph pole down on the island, Laura guessed, pulling closed the curtains in the girls’ room. A few trees too, possibly. Hopefully nobody hurt.

  She turned back to her toddlers, who were clambering into the bed they’d been sharing since they’d vacated their cots six months earlier. Two separate beds they’d been put into – but from the start they’d favoured sharing, and after two weeks Laura had given in. Fewer sheets to wash, if nothing else – and she was pretty sure that it wouldn’t be long before they were demanding their own space.

  She sat on the side of the bed, just below the hump of their intertwined legs. ‘Now you know who’s coming tonight, don’t you?’

  ‘Thanta!’ they chorused, eyes sparkling.

  ‘That’s right, and he’s on his way now. So you need to go straight to sleep after Dad’s stories.’

  Gavin was the unacknowledged king of the bedtime story, working his way patiently each evening through as many books as it took to close all four eyes. It was Laura’s time to stretch out on the sitting-room couch as the boys watched television or read their comics for a further hour.

  She wouldn’t be stretching out on anything this evening, not with Gladys already parked in the sitting room with her bag of knitting. She wouldn’t be doing anything much for the rest of the night, the storm putting paid after all to her party hopes. With the phones down, nobody had been able to cancel – but who in their right minds would venture out on a night like this, unless they had absolutely no choice?

  Shame, particularly as she’d already broken the news to Gladys, who as usual had had plenty to say. Why on earth would Laura draw a party on herself on Christmas Eve – hadn’t she enough to be doing getting ready for tomorrow? And of course – the incredulity replaced now with martyrdom – it wasn’t Gladys’s place to say, but wouldn’t it have been nice to arrange a little something during her visit, instead of waiting until she was supposed to have left? But now that she wasn’t gone after all, maybe Laura would prefer if she stayed out of the way while the party was going on. She was the last person to barge in where she wasn’t wanted, she’d be quite happy in the kitchen. And so on, and so on, all of Laura’s protestations and assurances in vain, now that it wasn’t happening.

  Preparations had been abandoned. No point in assembling the mince pies on a baking sheet, ready for the oven; no need to whip the accompanying cream. And the big pot of mulled wine, four bottles’ worth, that had been sitting at the back of the cooker since early morning, complete with Nell’s instructed additions of cinnamon stick and orange slices, was also surplus now to requirements. Such a waste.

  Still, it was Christmas Eve. Maybe she’d decant some of the wine into a smaller pot in a while. Gladys might even be persuaded to have a glass, might knock some of the contrariness out of her. Despite her frequent declarations that she wasn’t much of a drinker, she could swill with the best of them when she had a mind to. Look how she’d had no bother ordering herself a hot port in Mannings Hotel earlier.

  Laura got to her feet. ‘I’ll send Dad in,’ she told the girls. ‘See you in the morning.’ She bent and kissed two warm cheeks, rested her hands briefly on their identical mops of blonde curls, her exact hair colour before the chemo. ‘Sleep tight, sweethearts. Happy Christmas.’

  On the landing she met Gavin emerging from their room. ‘She’s asleep,’ he told her – but he was still in the black books so Laura ignored him and tiptoed in. Poppy lay on her back, her face lit softly by the fuzzy glow of the little lamp that sat on the floor by her cot. Blankets kicked sideways, limbs spread starfish-like, the whole of her small body surrendered to sleep. Rabbity rested as always in the crook of one arm. Her pale blue soother bobbed gently, mouth working on it even in her dreams.

  Laura rearranged the bedding, tucking it around the tiny toes. Impossible to hear the puffs of Poppy’s rapid exhalations above the howling of the wind, but she placed her palm lightly on the little chest and felt the rise and fall. She crossed to the room’s side window and parted the curtains an inch to peer out. Below were the black shapes of the apple trees, branches being flung about even more wildly than before. Like the whips of a dozen lion-tamers they were, lashing and thrashing madly, the small solid hump of the shed just visible beyond them. She hoped the animals weren’t too nervous.

  Nell and James’s house sat across the field, the light from their sitting-room window blurred by rain. On a clear night Laura would see fainter lights from other houses further along, but tonight nothing much was visible.

  She could only imagine what the sea must be like by this, churning and leaping like a mad thing. Hopefully the buildings closer to the village, separated from the water only by the road and a low wall – the church, the hotel, the line of fisherman’s cottages – wouldn’t suffer any consequences.

  She checked her watch, squinting in the dim light: twenty past seven. Might as well face the music downstairs. She left the bedroom and pulled the door ajar. As she passed the girls’ room she heard Gavin say, ‘I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!’ Pretty appropriate sentiment for the night that was in it.

  In the sitting room Gladys’s knitting needles clacked busily, a strip of something navy emerging from them. ‘Would you fancy a glass of mulled wine?’ Laura asked. ‘I’m putting some on to heat.’

  Gladys looked mildly shocked. ‘Oh no, thank you, dear. A cup of tea will be fine for me, if you don’t mind making it. And you might put another little bit of coal on the fire too, as you’re up.’

  Poor helpless Gladys. Well able to get herself and her suitcase from Dublin to Roone, but incapable of hauling her backside off the couch if there was a way at all to avoid it. At least she’d stopped giving out about the smell of the books.

  The coal scuttle was down to its last shovelful: Gavin could refill it when he came down. Laura tipped what was left into the fire, causing a small flurry of sparks to leap onto the hearth. Gladys pulled her feet hastily out of the way – ‘Oh, careful!’ – presumably because they might spontaneously combust if a spark dared to land on one: now there would be a Christmas to remember.

  In the kitchen Laura found the boys kneeling side by side on the bench by the window, elbows propped on the sill as they gazed out. Charlie was stretched out behind them, front paws resting on Seamus’s calves – pretending, as he always did, to have forgotten the no-dogs-on-the-furniture rule.

  All three heads turned at her approach. ‘Down, Charlie,’ Laura ordered, and down he hopped, throwing her a baleful look, and padded to his basket.

  ‘Why don’t you come into the fire?’

  ‘Nah – we’re alright here.’

  Maybe avoiding Gladys too. She ladled some of the wine into a smaller pot and lit the gas under it.

  ‘What if the wind makes Santa’s sleigh crash into something?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Yeah – or what if it blows all the stuff out?’

  She regarded their anxious faces. Bless them, ten years old and still concerned about Santa. ‘He’s well used to storms,’ she told them. ‘There’s a storm much worse than this somewhere in the world every single day.’ She wondered if this could possibly be true. ‘Has there ever been a Christmas when Santa didn’t come?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘In fact, maybe you should start getting ready for bed now, in case the wind gets him here a bit early. You could read your comics until you feel sleepy.’

  ‘We forgot to collect the eggs,’ Ben said.

  She held the kettle under the tap. ‘Well, they’ll have to wait until tomorrow – there’s no way you can go out in that.’

  ‘How ’bout Charlie? He might be scared if we leave him down here all by himself tonight.’

  At the mention of his name Charlie’s tail wagged. He didn’t seem particularly scared. His basket sat by the stove, his water dish nearby. He wasn’t a pup any more: she was pretty sure he’d be perfectly content in the kitchen for the night, wind or no wind.
/>   But it was Christmas Eve.

  ‘You can bring him up, just this once,’ she said, ‘but he sleeps in his basket, not on a bed. You can tell Dad I said it would be OK.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum!’

  They grabbed the basket and scampered off, whistling for a delighted Charlie to accompany them. When the water in the kettle rumbled she made tea in the little china pot that Gladys had given her the previous Christmas. She filled a single glass with warm mulled wine and left the rest simmering. Let Gavin get his own, if he wanted it.

  By eight o’clock the three adults were settled in the sitting room. Gavin sat with his mother by the fire, Laura on the smaller couch in the bay window, her feet on a little low stool, her eyes half closed as she listened to the rain still lashing against the window, the wine sitting pleasantly inside her. Christmas might just pass off peacefully, if she could manage to hold her patience with mother and son.

  ‘Refill?’

  She hadn’t noticed him getting to his feet. She handed him her glass wordlessly, and off he went. He was trying, she’d give him that.

  ‘Such a night,’ Gladys said. ‘I’d say I won’t get a wink of sleep.’

  Laura hid a yawn behind her hand. ‘You should have a glass of wine,’ she replied. ‘That would do the trick.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve just told Gavin I might have a tiny drop.’

  Hadn’t taken her long. ‘And there’s no rush in the morning, Mass isn’t until eleven.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be up early, dear, to give you a hand. You couldn’t possibly do it all on your own.’

  ‘Whatever you like, Gladys.’ Deep breaths, serene thoughts. She ran through the morning tasks. Get the kids washed and dressed and fed as usual. Stuff the turkey, prepare the vegetables, boil the ham. Ready the pudding for steaming. Scoop balls from the melon, the least complicated starter she’d been able to come up with.

  Whip the cream for the pudding; make the brandy butter that Gavin preferred. Find the crackers and the red candles and the candlesticks. And have another hunt for the crib if there was time. Christmas wasn’t the same without a crib.