The Mistletoe Matchmaker

by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

  Cassie sat down and looked around, half laughing and half impressed. ‘Is this for real?’

  ‘Totally. I thought you’d like it.’

  ‘Well, yeah, it’s certainly – quaint.’

  ‘They do a great gin and tonic.’

  ‘At this time of day? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Oh, come on. It’s nearly Christmas. It’s not about the drink, anyway. PJ, the barman, does an amazing dance.’

  He raised his hand and the barman, who’d been hovering, re-approached the table. Shay introduced them, and ordered two gin and tonics with ice.

  PJ, who was wearing a white coat and a natty tartan bow tie, had an oiled comb-over that made Cassie’s fingers itch for her scissors, but his watery blue eyes were very kind. At the back of her mind, she wished Shay wasn’t being quite so hearty. There was a patronising note in his voice when he made the introductions, and it seemed to her that PJ was aware of it. Though, maybe, hanging round pensioners was making her over-sensitive. Anyway, if PJ was upset, he certainly didn’t show it. Instead, as Shay had said he would, he went into a sort of dance.

  The spotless white napkin that hung on his arm was flicked deftly over the surface of the table. Olives and salted almonds in little bowls appeared, as if by magic, and PJ glided away to mix the drinks behind the bar.

  Ice, gin, tonic, and limes were produced, measured, poured, and cut, as precisely as if his every move was choreographed, and when he reappeared at the table, the tray with its two highball glasses was poised, shoulder high, on the splayed fingers of one hand.

  Restraining an urge to applaud, Cassie thanked him. Then, as he flitted off again, she turned back to Shay. ‘Well, that was impressive.’

  ‘I know.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to us.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  Sipping her perfect gin and tonic, Cassie leaned back and relaxed. Despite its décor, the Royal Victoria had succumbed to piped music and, in the background, she could hear Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl singing ‘Fairytale Of New York’, which, judging by the number of times she’d heard it on the car radio, appeared, despite its raucous lyrics, to be Ireland’s favourite Christmas song. Irish radio didn’t seem big on Rudolph and ‘Happy Holiday’. It was more about missing your silver-haired granny and crying into your beer.

  Ever since she’d talked to Fury O’Shea she’d been thinking about Dad and Uncle Jim growing up over the butcher’s shop, then taking off to Canada. How come Uncle Frankie hadn’t left as well? It wasn’t her business, really, but ever since she’d arrived, Ireland had felt more and more like home. Didn’t Dad miss it? And, if so, how come he never visited?

  She looked at Shay. ‘Did you ever think of emigrating?’

  ‘Not me. I’m an only son. They’d never let me go!’ He took her hand. ‘You know what I like best about you? That you’re footloose and fancy-free and you take life exactly as it comes.’

  Cassie knocked back her gin and tonic. ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking how much I feel at home in Finfarran.’

  She was about to pursue the conversation when Shay looked into her eyes. ‘So, here’s a thought. How about ordering some more of these, taking a room for a couple of hours, and saying our goodbyes in style?’

  Cassie blinked, unsure that she’d heard him right. ‘Goodbyes?’

  ‘Well, I’m going to be out of here for Christmas, and you did say you’d only be round for another couple of weeks.’

  She pulled back to look at him properly. ‘I said that’s what I thought. I haven’t actually planned when I’m leaving.’ She hadn’t actually taken in the fact that he’d be away for Christmas either. But of course he would. He’d go home to his parents for Christmas Day. Still, she’d assumed that he’d spend time with her afterwards. When they might go to bed, which they hadn’t done yet. Maybe he’d even invite her down to Limerick, say for New Year’s. Or for what people here in Ireland called Stephens’s Day.

  She’d never thought they were going to spend their lives together. But the idea that he’d take her to a hotel room, and then disappear, was a bit much. ‘So that’s what you can do in the Royal Victoria? Book a room and shag for a couple of hours?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Cassie. No, it’s not. It’s just that I happen to know the duty manager.’ He reached over and lifted her chin with his forefinger. ‘I wouldn’t take someone like you somewhere like that. Give me credit for a bit of style.’

  Cassie jerked away from him. ‘Oh? Okay. Top marks for style, Shay. Zero for class. Falling into bed together isn’t how I normally choose to say goodbye to someone. Mostly, I settle for a handshake.’

  She saw him flush slightly as he set his glass on the table, and the shrug he gave was petulant. ‘Fine. Okay. Forgive me for picking up the wrong signals.’

  ‘And exactly how did I signal that I was up for this?’

  ‘Travelling to see life. That’s what you told me.’

  He’d regained his composure now, and was sitting back again. A hundred replies surged into Cassie’s mind but, out of the corner of her eye, she could see that the barman was watching them unobtrusively.

  Standing up, she reached for her coat. ‘Well, I’ve seen all I want of you, so I think I’ll be leaving.’ Shay didn’t move a muscle, and she’d almost left the table when she stopped and looked back at him. ‘You’re married, aren’t you?’

  It had only struck her at that moment, dozens of small clues coalescing as she’d shrugged herself into her coat.

  ‘No.’

  Shay met her accusing stare blandly, and for a moment Cassie was about to apologise. Then he raised his glass to her. ‘There is a fiancée in Limerick, though. Well detected.’

  She walked away, consciously trying to move casually. When she reached the looped-back curtains at the entrance to the lounge, PJ appeared beside her. ‘Is everything all right, Miss?’

  ‘Fine, PJ. Thank you. The drinks were perfect.’

  ‘I hope we’ll see you here on another occasion. We’re an old-fashioned place, you know, and we value our guests highly.’

  To her surprise, Cassie found herself welling up. She blinked, hoping PJ hadn’t noticed. ‘Thanks. Yes. Maybe I will come by another time. You can make me an Old Fashioned.’

  ‘I’d be glad of your opinion of it. I always favour Canadian whiskey because of that touch of rye.’

  ‘It’s my dad’s favourite.’

  PJ permitted himself a smile. ‘Well, I hope I’ll have the opportunity of making him one, too, if he comes home for a visit.’ Seeing her surprise, he inclined his comb-over and lowered his voice discreetly. ‘You’re Pat and Ger Fitzgerald’s granddaughter, aren’t you?’

  Cassie kept a straight face till she reached the pavement. Then, as she dabbed her eyes and blew her nose, she found herself giggling. Carrick might be bigger than Lissbeg but, obviously, that made no difference to the reach of the Finfarran grapevine. What would PJ have done, she wondered, if Shay had tried to take Pat and Ger Fitzgerald’s granddaughter up to a hotel bedroom? Gone for him in a rugby tackle and wrestled him to the ground?

  Swinging her knapsack onto her shoulder, she made her way to the car park. Right now, she was still feeling shocked and a bit upset, but she could imagine that, in time, she’d be telling the whole story as a joke against herself. Not yet, though. And definitely not if Bríd was in the audience.

  39

  Conor used to wonder why the Christmas book display was always so predictable. Each year he’d be sent to lift down the box of decorations from the top shelf in the kitchenette, and Miss Casey would set up a stand near the desk with an array of books under a sign that said ‘CHRISTMAS TITLES’. She’d put the books on the stand, he’d wreathe it round with chains of silver beads and, once again, people would be greeted by Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and a range of what Miss Casey called Golden Age detective stories, with names like Tied Up in Tinsel and Murder for Christmas.

  Over in Children’s
Corner there’d be another stand – this time without chains of beads, in case anybody swallowed one – with copies of The Polar Express, The Tailor of Gloucester, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

  He understood the predictability now, though. According to Miss Casey, there was no point in going for other titles. People liked rereading old favourites at Christmas, and that was that. You got overspill, so Pickwick Papers could be slipped in on the adult stand; or maybe the Puffin Classics edition of Alcott’s Eight Cousins, that had a picture of a girl ice-skating on the cover. But, otherwise, it was same old same old.

  One year Miss Casey had put up a book called Christmas at Candleshoe, which had nothing to do with the festive season but had a character whose name was Gerard Christmas. And, by the sound of it, all hell had broken loose. Apparently, things were made worse by the fact that the author, a guy called Michael Innes, wrote detective stories which many people in Lissbeg quite liked. But the Candleshoe book didn’t feature his famous Inspector John Appleby, and even though the following year Miss Casey put up another one, called There Came Both Mist and Snow, which was set at Christmas and did have Inspector Appleby, she swore that several readers hadn’t forgotten, or forgiven her.

  As time passed, Conor realised that Christmas reading really was kind of sacred. Particularly when it came to kids’ books. Today, as he drove the mobile library along the southern side of the peninsula, he was carrying three copies of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, four of Roddy Doyle’s Rover Saves Christmas, and several of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen in the children’s section, and a bunch of Agatha Christies that included Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Star Over Bethlehem, and The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. And he seemed to have put through a hell of a lot of requests for celebrity Christmas cookbooks, and lifestyle titles about designing your own festive wrapping paper, and turning your boring old year-round home into a world of magic and sparkle.

  The world beyond his windscreen today was grey and nondescript. Plenty of thin mist and no sign of snow. Even so, there was a crowd of kids playing in the schoolyard as he cruised down towards a seaside village. Beyond the yard was a little pier and a narrow cove where gulls and gannets were floating above choppy grey waves. As Conor pulled in by the school gate, the children formed a straggling queue, and the classroom assistant, who’d been supervising their play, came to greet him.

  It was a two-room national school, exactly like the one he’d been to himself, and it had two entrances to the lobby, with ‘Girls’ carved on the lintel over one and ‘Boys’ over the other. According to his mam, the boys’ doors used to be on the right because the Church said that a man’s place was at the right hand of God, while women hung round on his left. By his day, though, anyone could go through either door, and the second one here, which had two wheelie bins pushed up against it, was clearly never used.

  Conor dealt briskly with the queue, handing out loans and taking returns from gloved or mittened hands, and then helped Marian, the classroom assistant, to carry a box of copies of The Night before Christmas through to the lobby. Several of the kids ran alongside, explaining that their last week of term was going to be an orgy of art and craftwork, drama and writing, based around Clement Clarke Moore’s poem.

  One small girl with a drip on her nose solemnly explained to Conor that it was really called A Visit from St Nicholas because that was a name for Santa Claus in the old days. Each springy curl of her red hair was touched by a droplet of mist, and the blue eyes in her freckled face were tightly screwed up with the effort of communication. Conor squatted down and nodded in encouragement, thinking that, when Aideen was at school, she must have looked exactly like this.

  ‘And Santa Claus is a name that comes from St Nicholas because, in the old days, they didn’t know how to pronounce it. And the people in the book have a mouse in their house, and I’m going to put it in a picture.’

  He left Marian unpacking the box of books, surrounded by excited kids, and returned to the van, where a new queue had gathered, this time composed of adults. One asked if he’d seen the preparations for Ballyfin’s Winter Fest. The Harbour Hotel there had a glassed-in Winter Garden, overlooking the ocean, and the manager had arranged for decorations to be sent down from Dublin. ‘They’re going to do the whole thing in silver and white, and have a 1920s jazz band.’

  Conor couldn’t see what a 1920s jazz band had to do with Christmas but, according to the queue, Ballyfin was going for a speakeasy theme. Their Snow Queen was going to be dressed as a flapper entirely covered in swansdown.

  One of the women, to whom he was handing an Agatha Christie, shrugged dismissively. ‘It’s bound to be synthetic and she’ll probably end up scratching. But, sure, Ballyfin would put its granny out in a G-string if it meant they’d get their mitts round that trophy.’ Did Conor know, she asked, that the hotel was going to be giving out free cocktails? ‘They’re calling them Ballyfin Icebreakers, and, basically, they’re just masses of sugar whooshed up with blue Curaçao.’ She knew, she said, because her nephew, who worked at the Harbour Hotel, had had to invent them.

  As Conor drove away from the seaside village, he told himself it was no wonder the Lissbeg crowd were failing to get a big prize donated for their raffle. The entire peninsula seemed to be losing the run of itself, and no one was going to give anyone else a hand up the Winter Fest ladder.

  For the last few weeks, on mobile days, he’d been bringing a packed lunch to eat in the van. There was a pendant he wanted to buy for Aideen for Christmas, and he’d calculated that not having pub food would pretty much save him the price of it. Up beyond Finnegan’s Bar, where he’d normally take his lunch break, there was a lay-by where tourists were supposed to stop and take photographs: it was a good place to park the van so, with his mind on his peanut-butter sandwiches, Conor whizzed past Finnegan’s and bowled on down the road till he came to it.

  He’d hardly opened his sandwich box when there was a thump on the van door, and a face appeared at the window. ‘Name of God, Conor, you’re treating this yoke like a race-car!’ His brother Joe stumped round to the passenger side, and climbed into the cab beside him. ‘I was waiting for you back in Finnegan’s car park.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I wanted a word.’

  ‘And you couldn’t have a word with me at home?’

  Joe looked shifty, and nicked a sandwich. ‘Well, no. I wanted to run something past you before talking to the folks. I think we’re going to need a family conference.’

  This was rich, coming from Mr Say-Nothing-You’ll-Only-Upset-the-Parents, but Conor contained himself.

  Having nicked another sandwich, it took Joe about ten minutes to explain himself, and Conor, who by that time had moved on to a KitKat, was left kind of gobsmacked. ‘You’re getting married?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘To Eileen Dawson?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ve never even seen you out with her.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, I don’t go round jumping on desks, proclaiming my feelings like you do.’

  Conor hadn’t actually intended to jump on a desk to propose to Aideen in the library. It had just happened, and it was only later that he’d realised he’d never hear the end of it. Especially from Joe. Staring at his brother, he bit into his KitKat. Eileen Dawson’s dad owned a big business that sold farm machinery, with branches in three counties. ‘And Dawson’s offered you a job?’

  ‘Full-time, with a serious salary. But he wants to base me in Cork.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘No, hang on. I’ve told him it isn’t going to work unless you’re on board. And you’re not to feel pressured. But . . . if you could commit to the farm, I’d chip in a labourer’s wage. So you wouldn’t be working on your own. And I could see about a bit of investment.’

  ‘Like, in farm machinery?’

  ‘Well, yeah. Dawson would be up for that. And, the thing is, Conor, this wouldn’t necessarily be forever.’

  ‘Wha
t – your marriage to Eileen?’

  Joe reached over and clipped him round the head. ‘No, you plank! The farm arrangement. I mean, at some point, if you wanted to do your librarian thing, we could always put in a manager.’

  Conor folded the chocolate wrapper carefully against his knee. His toes were curling with excitement. This could work.

  Joe looked at him anxiously. ‘Honestly, Conor, I don’t want you feeling pressured.’

  ‘God, no. It would actually do the opposite. I mean it would give me breathing space. Like, if Aideen and I got married next year, say. And I stuck with the farm for a few years after that. If I had a man with me, and I went for it full-time, and you bunged in some investment . . .’

  ‘Eileen was talking about next year too. We could have a double wedding.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. And if she’s up for it, her old man will be. He’s a decent codger, old Dawson. I’d say he’d splash out on a really boss wedding.’

  Conor blinked. ‘I don’t know what Aideen would think.’

  ‘Well, no. We’d have to take it step by step and see how the girls feel. But I know Eileen will love her and I bet she’ll get on with Eileen. At least, I hope to God she will, if they’re going to end up sisters-in-law.’

  This was all happening a bit too fast for Conor. Two things were clear, though. With him working full-time, and Joe helping with the money, the farm could get back on track, and so might Paddy. And even if it did mean parking the librarian thing, he’d be able to fulfil Aideen’s dream of being a farmer’s wife.

  40

  Hanna looked up as Jazz walked in, bringing a breath of chilly air with her. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and the furry collar of her coat was turned up around her ears. Hanna moved to kiss her, exclaiming at the touch of her cold cheek. ‘You didn’t walk here, did you?’