I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you gave me money. That was all I ever got from you.’

  He’d given Diane the same ultimatum he’d given Susan. He’d told her to get rid of the baby, not wanting any more children, not wanting another Laura – and instead Diane had gone as far away from him as she could.

  Why hadn’t she taken Laura? Why had she left her with a man who didn’t want her?

  No more. She couldn’t stand any more of it. She slid off the stool.

  ‘Forget the tea,’ she said.

  She left the room, aware that he was following her. Shuffle, shuffle behind her. At the front door she stopped, turned back.

  ‘Congratulations, by the way,’ she said. ‘I hear you’re going to be a father again. You must be thrilled.’

  He didn’t react. He said nothing at all in reply. She might as well not have spoken. She looked at him. She looked at the man who had brought her into being, and she realised that all she felt for him was pity.

  ‘You’re going to end up alone,’ she said. ‘You’re pushing Susan away, like you pushed away my mother. You’re going to die alone.’

  He reached past her and opened the door. She got a whiff of turpentine.

  She walked from the house and didn’t look back. Before she reached the gate she heard the door closing.

  That’s that, she thought. That’s the end of it.

  It didn’t take an hour or so, it took two hours.

  First there was Nell.

  ‘Take it easy on the road,’ she said. ‘Watch the bad bend at Tiernan’s – and make sure you put on the handbrake in Leo’s driveway, that hill is very steep. And slow down at the crossroads by the lighthouse, it’s a tricky one.’

  ‘Maybe you should come along,’ Andy said, ‘to keep an eye on me.’ Loading the last of the orders into the little white van that had Walter’s Place Fresh Produce in orange lettering on its side, above a cartoon drawing of a basket holding carrots, onions and lettuce. ‘You could sit in the back,’ he said, ‘on top of the cabbages.’

  ‘Don’t be so smart, young man – I’m just making sure you bring Tilly home in one piece, or we’ll all be in trouble. Tilly, will you be warm enough? That jacket looks very light.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I could give you a loan of my padded one – it’s like a blanket. Wouldn’t take a minute to get it.’

  ‘Honestly, this one is warm enough. I have two sweaters under it.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure … Andy, that front tyre looks a small bit flat to me. Should you go by the village before you start, and check the pressure?’

  ‘I think,’ Andy said, ‘Tommy is looking a bit cold’ – which finally sent both of them back home across the field.

  Then there was Lelia in the café, their first delivery.

  ‘What’s the news from Dublin? … And how are you and Susan coping with the little ones? You seem well used to babies, Tilly – did you say you have younger brothers or sisters? … Now, I want to give you some honey to bring back home with you. It’s great for sore throats or head colds – are you allowed to take it in your suitcase? Make sure you wrap it up well – put it in a plastic bag: you’d have an awful mess if it spilled … I used to get all my honey from Walter when he was alive, beautiful stuff it was, lavender and hawthorn mostly, everyone was mad for it … Here, Andy, drop these few scones up to Cathy Considine, would you? She’s got Julie and the Frenchman home for Christmas, and God knows poor Cathy’s scones would break a window if you didn’t have a stone to hand. You needn’t tell her I said that.’

  And after that there was Maisie Kiely, in the third cottage past the turn for the lighthouse.

  ‘Who’s this now? Oh, you’re the girl from Australia – weren’t you very brave altogether to come all that way on your own? I was on a plane once. I went to the Isle of Man for a holiday with Jane Corbett. We got free peanuts on the way but I couldn’t eat them at all, far too salty, so Jane had mine. It rained non-stop on the Isle of Man, and we never saw a single cat, with or without a tail, so I didn’t bother going away again, I can get all the rain I want right here … How long did it take you to get to Roone, and were you not exhausted from all that flying, and could you sleep on the plane? … And what did you think of our snow? We were all flabbergasted to see it, we never get it normally. I couldn’t go for my walk on the beach – there’s a few of us who try to get out every day, winter and summer, but we couldn’t chance it that day, although we did get out the day of the storm, just home before it got bad … Andy, would you ever tell Nell I want a perm next week, whenever she can fit me in? And it’s seven potatoes I get, not eight, Damien doesn’t eat them at all, so I’ll give that one back to you, or it would only go to waste … And I hear Gavin’s apple tree that was knocked in the storm was the year-round one – isn’t that an awful shame? What’ll we do for our winter juice now, I wonder?’

  And wherever they went, it was the same. Everyone wanting to talk, everyone asking Tilly about Australia and Andy about college. And when they’d covered all the houses on the east of the island they took the link road to the other side and called to the Considine house, and met Cathy.

  ‘I heard the news about Gavin’s mother, the poor woman. What’s this happened to her again? … I heard Dr Jack was sent for on Christmas morning. You’d think he’d have sent her straight to the hospital, wouldn’t you? I mean, the poor woman must have been on the way out, mustn’t she? Surely to God that was a warning … And what’s this your name is again, dear? … I’ll take a few more carrots if you have them, Andy, we have a full house here – they all came home for Christmas. Julie, our youngest, married a Frenchman in August, René his name is, sounds like a girl’s name to me but of course I wouldn’t say it, and Val and Patricia came too … This was the old schoolhouse – we bought it when they got the new one built, eighteen years ago next April. Julie was only five at the time. We had to do quite a bit with it, of course … What’s Lelia sending me scones for? She knows I’m well able to bake my own, she’s often had one here.’

  And then there was Father William’s little house, tucked into the side of a hill, and Josie Jordan, his housekeeper.

  ‘When were those parsnips dug up? Father likes his vegetables as fresh as possible. And the potatoes are Golden Wonder, aren’t they? We got the Records one time and Father didn’t care for them … My son Cathal is in Australia, Melbourne he’s in. Would that be far from you? He’s a teacher – he was living in Dingle but he couldn’t get a job, only a day here and a day there, sure what good is that to anyone? He’s working in a big school now, doing very well, loves it, although he got a bad sunburn when he went first. He met a girl from Tipperary – she’s a nurse over there. We do the Skype once a week … he taught me how to do it last time he was home. He’s always on at me to go for a holiday, but what would Father do without me? Sure the man wouldn’t manage at all. Oliver, my late husband, used to say a man is no good in a kitchen, and I’m inclined to agree with him. Not a man’s job really, is it, cooking a dinner?’

  They liked to talk, the people of Roone. And even when it was just the two of them trundling along the island roads, Andy turned out to have plenty to say too.

  ‘When we came here first I was miserable. I hated my dad for making me move. I still missed Mum all the time, and I missed my friends from Dublin too.’ Not looking at her as he spoke, keeping his eyes on the road. Maybe that made it easier. ‘I was a nightmare to live with for the first few years. I practically shut him out – I’d hardly talk to him. I feel bad when I think of it now – I mean, he missed her too, and I didn’t make it easy … Nell was originally engaged to my uncle Tim, Dad’s younger brother. Dad was the one who introduced them when Tim came on holidays. They were all set to get married, they had a big wedding planned, here on the island – and then they had some kind of a row and they called it off, and now she’s married to Dad. Weird, isn’t it? Tim is married now too – they live in Dublin, they’ve got two kids … Nell had a c
rash here, right at this spot, a couple of years ago. That’s why she’s nervous of me driving. I was in the car with her – we were going to our old house, the one Dad bought when we moved here. It wasn’t Nell’s fault. An Italian tourist came around a bend on the wrong side of the road and went straight into us. We were a bit bashed up – it’s where I got this scar – but nothing too serious. Nell’s car was a write-off, though … That’s where we lived, in that cul-de-sac. We were there for about three years, until Dad married Nell. On their wedding day a little girl was kidnapped here. She was on holidays with her family – they were renting a house just four doors down from us. You might even have heard about it – it made news all around the world. She was found after a few weeks on the mainland and she was fine … I got a job at Mr Thompson’s house, the summer he died. He’s the man who used to own the house you’re staying in. Nell told me he wanted someone to clear out his attic. Looking back, I’d say she thought it might help me or something, I don’t know. Anyway, I liked the sound of making a bit of pocket money so I called to the house and said I was interested. I’d hardly spoken to him before that, I didn’t really talk to anyone here if I could avoid it, but he took me on, and there was just something about that attic – I mean, it was a real mess, cluttered with all sorts of ancient stuff, everything covered in dust – but I liked the feel of the place. It was so quiet, you couldn’t hear a sound from outside. I looked forward to going up there every day … I was the one who found him – Mr Thompson. I called around there, I was going to give a fresh coat of paint to his henhouse. I’d finished the attic, and I just wanted to do something for him, I suppose, in return for his kindness to me. He was a very kind man – and … I found him.’

  He stopped talking then, and the silence went on a while.

  ‘That must have been tough,’ she said.

  ‘Yup.’

  He drove carefully, taking no chances. Not showing off like he might have done with a girl sitting in the passenger seat. His fingers were broad, the nails short. He wore the same brown jacket, but no woolly hat today. Tilly presumed Nell cut his hair.

  He showed her things along the way. The road sign on the cliff pointing out to sea, telling them that the Statue of Liberty was three thousand miles away. A joke, Tilly assumed, to amuse the tourists – but he told her that nobody had erected it, that it had simply appeared one day. ‘That’s what they say, anyway.’

  As they drove past the cemetery he slowed down and asked, ‘What do you smell?’ When she said chocolate, he smiled. ‘With me it’s oranges. Everyone smells one or the other here, but there are no plants anywhere on the island that have those scents, and the nearest chocolate factory is on the mainland.’

  Roone definitely seemed a bit different. ‘You don’t think the island is … enchanted or something, do you?’

  He threw her a look. ‘Nah. But sometimes it’s hard to explain stuff that happens here.’

  She wanted to hear about more things that couldn’t be explained, but they’d reached the next customer’s house, and the subject was dropped.

  It was approaching noon when he turned the white van into the field beside Walter’s Place. Rain that had begun a little earlier was spattering the windscreen. He switched off the wipers, cut the engine. ‘You’re easy to talk to,’ he said. ‘You’re a good listener. You were probably wishing I’d shut up.’

  She hadn’t been wishing he’d shut up. She’d been wishing they could stay in the van for about a week. She couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of listening to him. He’d made her forget her troubles for two hours.

  Rain drummed on the roof of the van. She looked out at the blurry field with the henhouse at the top. She’d collected the eggs earlier, filled the basket with twenty-two big brown ones as the hens pattered and squawked around her.

  ‘I saw a man,’ she said. ‘Up by the henhouse, the day I arrived.’

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw him turning towards her.

  ‘He was oldish, around seventy, I’d say. He wore a hat, a kind of a flat hat. He was just … standing there. He saw me – I was looking out my bedroom window – and he smiled and lifted his hat.’

  ‘Mr Thompson used to do that.’

  Rain, beating a tattoo on the roof.

  ‘But he died,’ she said, ‘so it wasn’t him.’

  ‘No … Must have been one of the locals.’

  Must it, though? Didn’t strange things happen here? Couldn’t she have seen someone who was dead but who hadn’t left?

  ‘I saw the painting your dad did of him,’ she said. ‘The one that’s in the hall. He looked—’

  She stopped. She shook her head. He’d think she was daft.

  The rain was lightening off. She reached for the door handle. ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘for showing me the island.’

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ he replied, getting out too. ‘It couldn’t have been Mr Thompson,’ he said. ‘It was someone who looked a bit like him, that’s all.’

  ‘Sure, I know that.’ She glanced towards the house. ‘I’d better go in. I’ve left Susan on her own long enough.’

  ‘Same time tomorrow,’ he said, zipping up his jacket as he turned away, slipping the van keys into his pocket.

  ‘Drop by later,’ she said, ‘if you’re at a loose end. The girls would love to see Tommy.’

  Two days left. She had nothing to lose.

  She took her time walking home, got there by half ten. The boys were still in pyjamas, watching cartoons and eating biscuits in the sitting room. Gavin was reading the paper in the kitchen.

  ‘Did you sleep?’

  ‘I did, a bit.’ She didn’t know whether to believe him.

  ‘Joyce dropped by,’ he said. ‘She left her number in case you need anything.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘How was your father?’

  Laura unzipped her jacket. ‘He was the way he always is.’ And nothing more was said on the subject, by either of them.

  At ten past noon a hearse drew up outside the house. Two men dressed in black suits and dazzling white shirts shook Laura’s hand and told her they were sorry for her loss. She joined the boys in the sitting room while Gavin brought the men upstairs, and a few minutes later his mother was taken away in the oak coffin he’d selected for her. Laura looked out the window and saw a small knot of people gathered on the path. They blessed themselves as the coffin was slid into the hearse.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said, when she heard the front door close.

  Gavin stood silently in the hall. She couldn’t read his face.

  ‘What time did they say for the removal?’

  ‘Half five to half seven.’

  ‘Maybe you should lie down. It could be a long night, we might get people visiting again.’

  ‘I don’t want to lie down,’ he said. ‘I might take the boys somewhere.’

  The boys, not her.

  ‘Where were you thinking?’

  ‘I was thinking the zoo.’ He looked at her, daring her to tell him he shouldn’t.

  The zoo. It was the place they’d met, when she’d returned his book. The African Savannah, to be precise. I’m looking for Gavin Connolly, she’d said. You’ve found him, he’d said. It was as good a place as any to put down a few hours.

  ‘Is it open today?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s open.’

  ‘Would you mind if I came too?’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  So they took the bus, and were there soon after one. The day remained overcast and chilly but the rain stayed away. They took in the Reptile House and the Flamingo Lagoon and the Kaziranga Forest Trail. They did the Gorilla Rainforest and the Chimpanzee Island and the Elephant House and the African Savannah.

  ‘This is where we met,’ she said, watching a giraffe yanking leaves from a tree – but Gavin was talking to Seamus and didn’t hear.

  Along the way they encountered a few of his old colleagues, most of whom hadn’t read about Gladys’s death in the paper that morning �
�� or if they had, they made no mention of it. After a late lunch in one of the zoo’s cafés, with desserts on the house from Annie behind the counter, it was time to go back and get ready.

  Laura sent the boys and Gavin off to change while she stripped and remade Gladys’s bed. She wondered what they’d do with the house, which was now Gavin’s. Sell it, she supposed, give them a bit more financial security. Put some of the money away for the children’s education, invest in a new three-piece suite for the sitting room. Buy a few decent decorations for next Christmas, a new crib to replace the one that she’d failed to find.

  The funeral home was a challenge. Two hours of standing beside Gavin as people who were mostly strangers to her trickled in and shook her hand and told her they were sorry for her trouble. Gladys lying in state a few feet from them, surrounded by candles and flowers, while the boys in their good grey trousers and navy blazers sat as far away as they could get from the coffin and tried to look as if they had nothing at all to do with the proceedings.

  Afterwards there was the church, which mercifully was just across the road, and more hand-shaking and small-talking. Gladys, after all, had got to know quite a few people in her seventy-one years on earth.

  When they finally emerged it was to the rain that had been threatening all day. It was falling in sheets, thundering down on the tarmac. Gavin was despatched to get the car, and became soaked in the process. They crawled home with the wipers slashing water from the windscreen.

  They raced through the deluge to the house, the boys whooping at the drama of it, their departed grandmother temporarily forgotten.

  The others went to the kitchen in search of something to eat while Laura shook off her shoes and shrugged herself out of her damp jacket. The only advantage of the rain was that it might put people off calling to the house for tea and cake, which they’d felt obliged to offer at the church.

  She must dry their things for the funeral tomorrow – she’d put them on the clothes horse, leave them in front of the fire tonight and hope for the best.