I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  Introductions were made. He and Tilly shook hands. ‘Saw you earlier,’ he said. Funny, Laura thought, she’d made no mention of it. ‘You’re sisters?’ he asked, eyebrows rising. ‘No way.’

  ‘Hot chocolate?’ Nell asked him, already pouring milk into a saucepan.

  ‘Thanks.’ He pulled out a chair and sat – and immediately Tommy clamoured to get onto his lap. The adored older brother, despite the gap of sixteen years between them, despite them only having a father in common. ‘Hey, buddy,’ Andy said, hoisting him up.

  Good-looking boy. Wouldn’t be long before another girl gave him the eye. His first term of college just over: maybe some of his fellow students were already sizing him up. Wouldn’t take him long to forget Eve.

  They talked of the storm, and the damage it had done. Nell told them about the roof that had blown off Annie Byrnes’s hay barn and landed in Tony Kennedy’s yard, six fields away, and the telegraph pole that had toppled outside the creamery, narrowly missing Phil Doran’s van that was parked a few yards away, and Jupiter, her own little boat, which had been smashed to pieces on the beach.

  ‘Ah no,’ Laura said, ‘your lovely boat. We had many a trip in it,’ she told Tilly. ‘My boys loved it – they’ll be sorry to hear it’s gone.’

  ‘It was the worst storm I remember,’ Nell said. ‘Lots more trees are down around the place too, and of course the hotel roof will take a few weeks at least to repair. Poor old Henry.’

  They marvelled at the snow, and enquired about winters in Tilly’s part of Australia. In the middle of the chat, the radio sprang suddenly to life: power had been restored to Roone.

  ‘How long will you stay here?’ Laura asked Colette.

  ‘I’m not sure. They’re trying to persuade me to hang on for New Year.’

  ‘You must,’ Nell put in. ‘You missed Christmas, or practically missed it.’ She turned to Tilly. ‘New Year is great here. Everyone gathers at the pier and Father William rings the church bells at midnight, and there’s a big singsong. You’ll love it.’

  ‘She would,’ Laura said, ‘if she was here. She’s flying home on Wednesday.’

  ‘What?’ Nell exclaimed. ‘But that’s only a few days away, and you’ve only just arrived. And such a long trip, too – you must still be jet-lagged.’

  ‘And to have your money taken as well,’ Colette added.

  A beat passed. ‘What money?’ Nell asked.

  Laura looked at Tilly. ‘Your money was taken?’

  She flushed. ‘I – my purse was stolen,’ she said. ‘In Heathrow, when I fell asleep.’ She looked deeply uncomfortable, wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Colette said. ‘I assumed you would have told her.’

  ‘I meant to, I just …’

  But she hadn’t told Laura. She’d told Colette, who wasn’t related to her at all, and she hadn’t said a word to Laura.

  Tilly ducked her head towards Poppy. Laura regarded the pale hair that screened her face from them. ‘Was anything else taken?’ she asked.

  ‘No, just the money.’

  ‘All your money?’

  ‘I had some in my pocket, and I got a refund on a coach ticket … But it’s OK, I don’t need money, it was just in case—’ She broke off.

  Laura waited.

  ‘In case I needed it,’ she finished.

  In case Laura had sent her away. In case she’d had no place to stay.

  Nell stood. ‘Refills,’ she announced, but Laura got up too.

  ‘We need to be getting back. I must feed our two travellers before they head off.’ She reached for Poppy, and Tilly handed her over without a word.

  Nell accompanied them to the front door. ‘Come for brunch tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Bring Susan.’

  ‘Lovely – elevenish?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  They walked down the path, the snow already going slushy. The sky was clear, a thin sun doing its best to soften the chill.

  ‘You should have told me about your purse,’ Laura said, as soon as the front door closed after them. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Tilly walked out the gate and turned towards Walter’s Place, slightly ahead of Laura. ‘I didn’t want to be a nuisance. I didn’t want you to feel you had to give me money. It was enough that you took me in.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Laura said, and waited until Tilly stopped. ‘Look at me.’

  Tilly turned.

  ‘Listen,’ Laura said, ‘I know we’ve only just met, but we have met, and we are sisters, and I thought we were getting on pretty well. I told you things this morning. I said things that I haven’t said to anyone else. So stop thinking you have to be this perfect person or I’ll send you away. I’m not going to send you away. Whatever you say, or whatever you tell me, that’s not going to happen.’

  Tilly said nothing.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘So is there anything else,’ Laura asked, ‘that I should know?’

  For a second Tilly made no response. And then she said, in a kind of a slithery rush, ‘I’m pregnant. It was an accident, and my parents don’t know. I don’t want to go home, I want to stay here.’

  They prepared lunch – cold turkey, potato croquettes, grilled tomatoes – and fed everyone.

  After that they all stood on the doorstep and waved as Gavin drove Gladys and Larry to the pier.

  And now Laura was settling the four older children in front of a Shaun the Sheep DVD in the sitting room, and Tilly was waiting in the kitchen, her heart in her mouth, for her to reappear.

  We’ll talk, she’d said, after lunch. That was all, four words, not nearly enough to give any clue as to what she was thinking, or how she’d taken the news.

  Had Tilly ruined everything? Despite Laura’s promise that she wouldn’t send her away, was this just too much? Was Tilly about to be packed off and told never to show her face on Roone again?

  She swept the same bit of floor she’d been sweeping for the last several minutes. There was nothing else she could think of to do, and she had to do something. If she sat down and thought about it she’d feel sick.

  Laura had had cancer, just a few months ago. Tilly knew people who had died from cancer – everyone knew someone who’d died from it. And even though Laura had got the all-clear, she was still terribly anxious about it. She’d told Tilly as much – and now Tilly had dumped a whole new worry in her lap. Who could blame her if she washed her hands of it?

  The door opened. Tilly almost dropped the broom.

  ‘Right,’ Laura said, depositing Poppy in her playpen, taking a seat. ‘Tell me everything, the whole kit and caboodle.’

  So Tilly propped the broom against the wall and told her everything, and Laura listened without interruption until she’d finished.

  ‘So,’ she said then, ‘let me get this clear. This teacher – what did you call him?’

  ‘John Smith.’

  The name, Tilly realised, had lost its power over her. Somewhere between Australia and Ireland it had become meaningless: it had gone back to being simply the name people used when they were trying to become anonymous. It was actually, she thought, a really boring name. It was a name designed to be forgotten.

  ‘So this John Smith took advantage of you—’

  Tilly felt a wash of heat on her face. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t blame him. I – I wanted it too. I didn’t object when it happened.’

  ‘Tilly, you were sixteen.’

  ‘… Yes.’

  ‘And he’s what – late twenties? Thirty? Older?’

  ‘I don’t know … around that.’

  ‘So this older man, in a position of authority, asked you, one of his sixteen-year-old students, to meet him outside school hours, to talk about, what – something he’d asked you to write?’

  ‘An article, he said his friend had a magazine …’ She trailed off, cringing again at the thought that she’d bared her soul to him with the piece she’d written. She remembered wondering if the
friend even existed, or if John Smith had invented him. She remembered being thrilled at the notion.

  ‘So,’ Laura was saying, ‘he got you to meet him under false pretences, and then he initiated sex with you.’

  ‘… Yes.’

  ‘And I’m going to assume it was your first time.’

  Tilly nodded quickly.

  ‘And it happened more than once.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did he ever use protection?’

  ‘No.’

  How sordid it all sounded now. She recalled her devastation when he’d vanished, when Mrs Harvey had walked into the classroom instead of him. She remembered how she’d held in her tears until she got home, how she’d sobbed her heart out in the shower so nobody would know. How she’d cried herself to sleep for ages afterwards.

  She could hardly remember what he looked like.

  ‘And when was your last period?’

  ‘Around the middle of October.’

  ‘I presume you’ve seen a doctor, or done a pregnancy test?’

  ‘I did a test.’

  The terror of the twin blue lines had made her retch. Up to that minute she’d been tamping down her dreadful suspicions; she’d been telling herself she was being ridiculous. The blue lines had taken away her hope. The blue lines had thrown her into a panic. She’d booked her ticket to Ireland the next day, reaching blindly for the only escape route she could see.

  ‘Give me your hand,’ Laura said, and Tilly put it into her sister’s.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Laura said. ‘You were sixteen. He was the adult. He behaved abominably. He took advantage of the fact that you were young and innocent, and probably making it clear that you fancied him, but you did nothing wrong.’

  Tilly looked at her wordlessly. It wasn’t true, of course. She’d gone to meet him hoping for something to happen. She’d wanted it as much as he had. She hadn’t resisted when he’d begun.

  ‘You should report him,’ Laura said. ‘You should tell the head of your school what happened. He’ll do it again, unless he’s stopped. He’ll do exactly the same to another girl in the next school that takes him in. Tilly, he should be facing criminal charges.’

  Criminal charges: that meant a court case. The thought horrified Tilly – everyone discovering what had happened, what they’d done. What she’d done.

  ‘Look,’ Laura said, ‘we can leave that aside, but you do need to think about it.’

  ‘I will.’

  She wouldn’t.

  ‘Now,’ Laura went on, ‘as to your staying here …’ She paused, holding Tilly’s gaze. ‘Am I to take it,’ she asked, ‘that your parents know nothing about this pregnancy?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tilly whispered.

  ‘And they’re expecting you home in a few days.’

  ‘… Yes.’

  ‘And can you imagine,’ Laura asked softly, ‘how they’d feel if you didn’t go home?’

  Tilly couldn’t answer. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to consider the hurt she’d cause. But of course she had thought about it, couldn’t help thinking about it, couldn’t help remembering Pa handing over the dollars the day before she’d left, Ma getting up in the small hours to wave her off, neither of them dreaming for a second that they might not see her again – or not for a long time.

  How could she do it? How could she be so despicable? But what choice did she have, when her reappearance, and all that would follow, was bound to cause them even more hurt?

  There was a faint booming sound – an explosion, a collision – from the sitting room, followed by a spatter of laughter.

  ‘I can’t,’ Tilly said. ‘I can’t go home and face them, I just can’t. It would kill them.’

  ‘So you’re going to – what? – call them and say you’ve decided to stay in Ireland, just like that?’

  Tilly took a breath. ‘They don’t know I’m here.’

  Laura frowned. ‘What? They don’t know you’re on Roone?’

  ‘They don’t know I’m in Ireland. I was afraid they wouldn’t let me come if I told them.’

  ‘So where do they think you are?’

  ‘Bali.’ She told her about the family who owned the restaurant where she waitressed.

  ‘Good Lord,’ Laura said faintly. ‘So your parents don’t know you’re pregnant, and they think you’re thousands of miles from here.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tilly looked down at their still-connected hands. ‘I’ve made such a mess of everything,’ she said. ‘I bet you wish I’d never come.’

  ‘You can cut that out right away,’ Laura said sharply. ‘Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help a bit. It’s true you’re in a mess, so now we need to figure out what to do.’

  Tilly clung to the ‘we’. She looked up. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me yet – I haven’t done anything. I need to think about all this. How are you feeling, by the way?’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘No morning sickness?’

  ‘I did at the start, a bit, but it’s gone now. I’ve gone off coffee.’

  ‘I went off oranges when I was expecting the boys. Couldn’t look at them. It might be no harm to let Dr Jack have a look at you.’

  ‘A doctor?’

  ‘Yes, just to make sure things are OK, and to give you some advice.’

  ‘Yes … OK.’ The thought of being examined by a doctor, of having to answer his questions, was unnerving, but she could hardly refuse.

  ‘I’ll give him a ring tomorrow – or we can drive to his clinic if the phones are still out.’ Laura glanced at the clock on the wall and got to her feet, releasing Tilly’s hand. ‘Right. Susan will be here in an hour or two. Can I leave you in charge while Poppy and I grab a nap?’

  ‘Of course.’ That much at least she could do.

  ‘Send one of the boys up to wake me if we’re not back down by half four, or if Susan arrives before then.’ Laura lifted Poppy from the playpen. At the door she turned. ‘You should ring your parents when the phones come back,’ she said, ‘and tell them where you are. You should do that much anyway.’

  And without waiting for Tilly to respond, she left. Tilly sat on, watching the flickers behind the stove window as occasional small eruptions of sound – crashes, bangs, more laughter – continued from the sitting room.

  She thought about phoning her parents and telling them where she was. Admitting that she’d lied to them again, shattering their trust in her once more. She’d have to call them, she knew that – she wasn’t simply going to disappear, she wouldn’t be so cruel – but not yet, not until she had to.

  Eventually she rose and got the coal bucket from the scullery and added another shovelful to the stove. Charlie, dozing in his basket, lifted his head and looked at her.

  ‘It’s a dog’s life,’ she told him, and he stretched all four legs at once and yawned. She replaced the bucket and looked through the little scullery window and saw Gavin, back from the pier and heading towards the henhouse. The sight reminded her of the old man she’d seen there, and Laura’s rather strange reaction when Tilly had mentioned him. He must be a relative, with his picture hanging in their hall. Maybe they’d fallen out.

  Back in the kitchen she resumed her seat at the table and sank her head into her hands. This trip was so full of happenings: it was pulling her in every direction, making her feel so much. She was worn out from it.

  But at least now Laura knew about the pregnancy, and she hadn’t sent her away, and she was going to help. Laura, she realised, knew more about her than anyone else, even Lien – and Laura, she suspected, was very good at finding solutions.

  Of course, there was one thing Tilly hadn’t shared with her. Couldn’t share.

  Saw you earlier, he’d said in Nell’s kitchen, his smile making her want to turn somersaults all around the room. His hand when he’d shaken hers was cold after his walk: she’d had the urge to tuck it under her layers of T-shirts and sweater, to press it to her stomach and warm him with h
er skin.

  And his face, anytime she’d dared to glance at it. And his voice, and the way he’d lifted his little brother onto his lap – Hey, buddy – and the way he’d thanked Nell when she’d put the hot chocolate before him. Not a bite of gingerbread could she eat, even before he’d appeared, such havoc he’d been playing with her insides.

  She was in love, or something, with a boy – a man – she’d set eyes on for the first time today. She was pregnant. As far as hopeless situations were concerned, this one deserved a medal.

  ‘Look at us,’ she said. ‘Ladies of leisure.’

  Beside her, Poppy waved her arms about and pumped her fat little legs in the air.

  ‘Aerobics,’ Laura said, ‘very good. Twenty minutes of that every day, you won’t go far wrong. And never, ever smoke, or I’ll ground you until you’re sixty.’

  Poppy brought her fists to her nose and rubbed, and sneezed – and immediately afterwards yawned.

  ‘I know,’ Laura said, around her own answering yawn, ‘but we have to get up in a minute, because your nice granny is coming to see you – and guess what? You’re not going to be the only baby in the family for much longer, so make the most of it.’

  What time was it? From what she could see, twilight was well advanced outside: it must be four, or after it. The clock radio was tilted the wrong way; she reached across and adjusted it, and saw that it was twenty past four. She’d slept, they both had, for nearly two hours. Now they were lolling in the double bed, having a somewhat one-sided chat, and Laura was taking stock.

  Gladys and Larry would be on the train to Dublin by now. She tried and failed to imagine their conversation. She and Gladys had never become properly acquainted. They’d never sat down and had a heart-to-heart about anything. She knew nothing about her mother-in-law’s interests: did she ever go to the theatre, was she a member of any club, did she have friends other than the Joyce she’d been planning to have Christmas dinner with?

  She had a gentleman friend for the next couple of days. Presumably she’d take Larry out and about a bit, show him a few art galleries maybe, take him to a play or a concert. They could have quite a time, the two of them.