Everything was settled. Aideen was coming to the farm for her Christmas dinner, and Joe’s Eileen had been invited along for the tea. They’d have plenty of time for talk, and to get the measure of each other, and they’d all start down a new track in the New Year.
As he whizzed along between high ditches, a car swung onto the road from a turning up ahead, and sped past him. The driver was Dekko, Dan Cafferky’s mate, but it was too late to salute him and, anyway, he’d been going so fast that Conor had instinctively tightened his grip on the handlebars. The turning was one that he needed to take himself so, leaning over, he swung to the left, consciously avoiding Dekko’s tyre tracks for the pleasure of tracing his own single curve on the gleaming snow.
As he straightened up and sped on, he saw what looked like a log or a bag of rubbish up ahead of him. Then, squinting through his goggles as he came closer, he realised it wasn’t a log or a bin bag. It was a body in a dark coat, huddled at the side of the road.
Braking so hard that the bike skidded, he jumped off, pushed up his goggles and ran towards what he could now see was an elderly woman. He knelt down beside her and it was Nell Reily. There was colour in her face and, though her lips were pale, she didn’t seem to be freezing. So she couldn’t have been there too long.
Conor got his arm under her shoulders and half lifted her. But before he could move her further, she caught hold of his hand. ‘Take it easy, there. I’d say my ankle’s broken. Maybe the wrist on that side as well.’
‘Jesus, Nell, were you knocked down or what happened?’
‘It was only a car went past me too fast and I lost my balance.’ Laughing weakly, she gestured at a couple of envelopes beside her on the snow. ‘Wouldn’t Christmas cards drive you mad, Conor, all the same? We had two arrive in the post today from people I hadn’t sent one to. So I told my mother I’d walk down to the box below at the cross. And didn’t I know well that they’d never have got there in time for Christmas anyway!’
She was beginning to shiver violently, and Conor looked round, feeling frantic. He couldn’t put an old woman with broken bones up on the Vespa behind him, and even if he got his jacket round her, she mustn’t lie here in the cold while he called for help. Then, with a gasp of relief, he saw a car edge round the corner. When it pulled up beside them, Cassie leaned out and asked what was wrong.
45
The A and E Department at Carrick’s Mary Mother of God Hospital was crowded, but Nell, who had been a nurse there in the past, was philosophical. Once you were triaged, you were on a list, she told Cassie, and you’d get dealt with eventually. ‘I’d say I’m in a queue for X-ray and, by the look of the lot that’s got here before me, I’ll be here a while.’
Among the groups and individuals sitting waiting for attention were numbers of people who appeared to be the worse for drink imbibed at Christmas parties. Others, like Nell, were victims of the unusual icy weather conditions. Interspersed between them, subdued kids were attended by anxious mothers, and a large man in a reindeer suit sat with his head between his knees and his antlers dangling from his hand.
Nell was eager for Cassie to go home and leave her. Conor, she said, had called her nephew Paul in Ballyfin, who would come and pick her up, once they knew how things stood. He’d be back in the house now, keeping an eye on her mother, and Nell would give him a shout, as and when.
Not wanting to abandon her, Cassie hung on for an hour or so, fetching one coffee after another from a machine in the corner. And Nell got more and more concerned by the thought of her driving home through the snow. ‘It gets dark awful early, these days, and I wouldn’t like to be the cause of you coping on the motorway and you not used to the left-hand car.’
It was hardly mid-afternoon, yet the lights in the waiting area had been turned on, and beyond the plate-glass windows, the low, scurrying clouds loomed dark as lead. So, with one eye on the window and the other on the weather forecast on a TV screen above the reception desk, Cassie decided Nell was probably right.
As soon as the decision was made, Nell relaxed, and before Cassie left, she asked her to fetch her a magazine, saying she supposed she’d better get used to reading, as she wouldn’t be doing any lacemaking for a good while to come. ‘And it’ll be Christmas at the nephew’s this year, I suppose, but what matter when I didn’t break my neck!’
Leaving her ensconced with a copy of Woman’s Way, Cassie left the crowded reception area and went to find a washroom before going back to the car. She emerged having dried her hands on the most powerful air-drier imaginable, and told herself wryly that, if the X-ray department was equally ultra-tech, Nell would be fine.
There was an overhead sign just outside the washroom, showing the way to the hospital’s coffee shop. With luck, they’d serve something better there than the ghastly stuff from the drinks machine and, now that Cassie thought of it, she discovered she was starving. It should be at least an hour before dusk fell properly so, following the colour-coded lines on the floor, she set off down a corridor to grab a coffee and a snack.
Pretty soon, the lines became obliterated by scuff marks caused by trolley wheels, and Cassie realised she’d turned the wrong way. Irritated, she retraced her steps, glancing occasionally through open doorways, where rows of bored or worried-looking people sat slumped uncomfortably on plastic chairs or struggled hurriedly to their feet when their names were called.
The signs over these doors read ‘MCATTS’, ‘Walk-In Sex Health’ and ‘Orthopaedic Outpatients’. As she passed, it struck Cassie that everyone waiting looked extremely dapper.
With a grin, she remembered hearing of kids who were warned not to go out with holey vests on, lest they’d find themselves in a hospital where their iniquity would be revealed. Clearly the same principle applied here in the outpatients’ clinics where, unlike the A and E patients, people had known when they’d set off this morning that they’d end up stripped to their underwear, or with some supercilious stranger peering at their feet.
She was speeding up, thinking she’d found her way again, when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar shade of blue. There, to her amazement, was Ger, emerging from a clinic, carrying a piece of paper in his hand. He looked very small and wizened under the hospital’s harsh strip lighting, and he was wearing the blue V-neck sweater that she and Pat had bought him in the mall.
The first thing that occurred to Cassie was that this was none of her business. She hadn’t expected to encounter her grandad here, but that wasn’t surprising. After all, she’d hardly seen anything of him since she’d arrived in Ireland, so she couldn’t expect to know where he’d be on any given day.
But, having seen her, Ger stopped dead and appeared to panic. At first it seemed that he would bolt. Then he shoved the piece of paper into his pocket, scuttled across the corridor and edged her into a corner, as if trying to make sure that they weren’t seen. And then, once he’d got her there, he seemed unable to speak.
Feeling that she could be stuck for life between her grandad and a fire extinguisher, Cassie asked if he fancied a sit-down. There was no reason to think he would, but she had to come up with something. After a moment, in which he seemed to be trying to make up his mind, he nodded, and led the way unerringly to the coffee shop she’d been searching for.
As she sat opposite him with what proved to be yet another cup of horrible brown liquid, Cassie had no idea what to say next. Then, as if producing evidence in court, Ger pulled out the piece of paper and flattened it on the table. He didn’t have long to talk, he said, because he had to go for a blood test.
Cassie registered suitably polite interest. Ger folded the paper again, and thrust it back into his pocket. ‘They give you the form in the clinic and you take it up to Bloods.’
‘Right. Well, I suppose they have to have a system.’
‘Oh, they’re fierce organised, all right. You couldn’t better them.’
There was a pause in which Cassie tried to visualise the sign over the door from which he�
��d emerged. But either she hadn’t seen it or she hadn’t been paying attention. Taking a deep breath, and feeling fairly certain it hadn’t been Walk-In Sex Health, she asked him which clinic he attended.
‘Just a heart place.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s my age, really. They diagnosed a kind of a heart-failing problem.’
‘Wow. I’m sorry.’
‘Yes. Well, that’s all it is. After we came back from Canada I had to go down for tests in Cork. One thing and another, you know, till they worked out what was the problem. And now I have to come here to the clinic, till they fix on the medication.’
‘And that’s – okay, is it?’
‘God, yes. Not a bother on me. They balance it out, you see, till they’d have the formula right. Optimisation, they call it. Two of the pink pills and three of the yellow ones, say. Morning times or evenings, whichever works best. Then that’s what they’ll stick to. But they’ll keep an eye on it. To make sure it’s all game ball.’
As Cassie had spoken hardly six words to him on any previous occasion, it felt weird to be sitting there discussing his medication.
Ger tapped the pocket into which he’d pushed the form. ‘You mightn’t like the syringes, or the fella in there with the needle, but you’d have to admit they do a grand job in Bloods.’ Then, leaning forward, he lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘The thing is, though, that I haven’t mentioned the old heart to your granny. I wouldn’t want to worry her.’
Cassie was nodding sympathetically when, suddenly, she remembered a conversation with Pat. It was after the Turf-Cutter’s Donkey disaster. They’d been sitting at the table. She’d just told Pat that Shay was a cheater. And Pat had said that women never saw what was right in front of their eyes. Cassie’s eyes widened. Pat had been so vehement. And so sad . . . She blinked in horror, but Ger didn’t seem to notice.
Instead he lowered his voice even further. ‘No, you see, I wouldn’t want Pat troubled. Not before Christmas. She’d only get upset.’
Choosing her words carefully, Cassie asked him if not telling Pat might be worse. ‘I mean, if she doesn’t know where you’ve been going, she could be imagining all sorts.’
Ger frowned. ‘Like what?’
‘Well, I dunno. That you had some other reason for disappearing off to Cork.’ Then – seeing his puzzled expression – she threw caution to the winds. ‘Look, okay, you might as well know this. I reckon she thinks you’re having an affair.’
There was an astonished silence in which Ger looked completely blank.
Out of the corner of her eye, Cassie saw that a woman at the next table was trying to eavesdrop. Lowering her own voice, she leaned forward. Inevitably, the woman strained harder to hear them, and Cassie found herself cupping her mouth with her hand. ‘I’m not just making it up. Really. The other day, we were talking and . . . Honestly, Ger, I know I’m right.’
For a moment Ger’s face expressed nothing but outrage. Then, as he stared at Cassie, she saw dismay dawn in his eyes. ‘But why would she think that, for God’s sake?’
It seemed a bit mad to mention Judge Judy. Anyway, it couldn’t just be about that. There must be some other reason, to do with Ger and Pat’s relationship. Perhaps Ger had a history of cheating, and Pat had spent half her life ignoring the truth. But, curious though Cassie was by nature, she wasn’t about to interrogate her grandad about his marriage. Anyway, the point was that, whatever might have happened in the past, he certainly hadn’t got up this morning and put on his blue sweater to go philandering. This was about what was going on right now.
Casting a cold glance at the inquisitive woman, she reached out and grasped Ger’s hand. ‘I don’t know why Pat should think so. But she does, Ger. And you have to reassure her. You have to tell her what’s really going on.’
46
Christmas Eve in Phil’s office started on a note of hysteria. The pottery that had promised to provide beakers for the vital Winter Warmers had failed to deliver.
When Bríd looked into the office to pick up some labels she found Phil shouting blue murder on the phone, and Ferdia in the background, looking resigned. ‘Should I come back later?’
He threw her a deadpan look. ‘It’s the Pretty Pots crowd, miles out beyond Carrick. Their van’s had a flat.’
The original plan had been to get beakers from a potter who worked in the Convent Centre but as she hadn’t had anything deemed suitable Phil had gone further afield.
She finished the call and clutched her head. ‘What can you do when people won’t keep their word?’
‘Look, leave it to Aideen and me. We’ll sort something. Aideen’s going to be handing the punch out anyway. We’re leaving it till the last minute to make it up.’
Phil ran a hand through her hair and adjusted her zebra specs. ‘Would you, Bríd? Thank you! And, yes, don’t go putting it out till you see the judges coming.’ The journalists and reporters, she said, would be arriving simultaneously, and Ferdia would corral them, and present them with press packs, before turning them loose. ‘Actually, hold back on putting on the punch until I give you the signal. I don’t want the stall mobbed before they get a drink.’
The idea of the stall being mobbed had sounded way over the top until Bríd went out to the garden and found that the Winter Warmers were now the star of the show. The stall was the first thing the press and the judges would see when they walked down the red carpet and, as she told Aideen later, it was just as well that it wouldn’t feature pottery beakers made more than thirty miles away, given that the carpet itself was sponsored by a firm Phil knew in Cork. ‘I dunno if she thinks she’ll get the judges so pissed that they won’t notice, but it’s crazy to greet them with stuff that hasn’t the slightest connection to Lissbeg.’
‘Well, Dekko provided the brandy for the punch.’
‘And that’s the point, isn’t it? The brandy’s Spanish and Dekko’s a Dub who doesn’t even live here.’
‘Still, it was nice of him to donate it.’
‘Um.’ Bríd looked at the raffle display, which had been relegated to a corner of the garden when the punch stall was set up. ‘What about the crib that Fury O’Shea donated?’
She could see Aideen about to enthuse about how it was Cassie who’d asked for it, and stopping, in case she might say the wrong thing. Bríd made a face at her. ‘I can give credit where credit’s due, you know. It’s a brilliant raffle prize. But it’s not exactly featured, is it? And I know they’ve hardly sold any tickets yet.’
The garden was looking lovely, though. The trees and the herb beds were glistening white, and the gravel paths had been cleared of snow, so people could walk round in comfort. The other outdoor stalls, surmounted by Dan’s castellations, were festooned with holly and trails of ivy, and already being set up with food and drink. And, according to the weather forecast, the day was due to be chilly, but bright and dry, with no danger of more snow before nightfall.
Inside the Old Convent Centre, all the offices and studio spaces were decorated with holly and ivy too. Several of the designers and artists had resisted Phil’s medieval theming. Instead they’d produced their own sumptuous Christmas effects, featuring winter landscapes, polished wood, and handcrafted jewellery displayed on frosted mirrors. Rich scents of wax and honey drifted from a candle-maker’s workshop, and bars of rosemary and lavender soap were piled up in the Edge of the World Essentials’ reception area, where the Turners’ R and D team were preparing to ask for feedback on their prototype package design.
Other stalls were set up in the old refectory, where the Lissbeg Choristers were due to sing carols during the afternoon. They, too, had dug their heels in, and monks’ habits, sourced by Phil, had been quietly dumped in favor of their usual black trousers and wined-red shirts. Most of the other volunteer helpers had followed suit and worn ordinary clothes with the addition of official badges, the occasional pair of elf ’s ears and sparkly reindeer antlers.
Cassie’s face-painting was just one of th
e activities organised for children up and down the corridors and, in the end, to everyone’s surprise, Charles Aukin had offered himself as Santa Claus, complete with vast polished boots and a long silver beard.
In fact, there seemed to be two separate events happening simultaneously – Phil’s competition entry, demanding immediate attention, and a less obvious, slightly-higher-tech-than-usual version of the normal Christmas Fête.
And in the midst of it all, Cassie seemed to be everywhere, providing answers to multiple last-minute problems.
The fact that Bríd appreciated the raffle prize didn’t mean she’d changed her opinion of Cassie. If anything, she’d been finding her even more irritating lately. Take the raffle, for example. When you came to think of it, marching into someone’s home and demanding a prize was just about the height of her. It was hard to imagine why Fury had been so accommodating.
The truth was that Fury was a bit like Cassie, the way he was so sure of himself. So maybe that was why the two of them had ended up in cahoots. They were certainly thick as thieves today, with Fury whistling at Dan to produce a hammer and nails and a stepladder, and herself holding it steady and giving orders about decorations. It was like there was nothing and nobody that Cassie didn’t want to organise.
Fury had turned up with The Divil at his heels and a sack of mistletoe. As soon as Phil spotted it, she’d rushed up, full of excitement, and practically kissed him on both cheeks. ‘You are such a star! And this is so medieval! Well, ancient, really. Druidic. Mistletoe from the dark depths of our own forest. Grown on the gnarled branch of an ancestral oak.’
Fury snorted. ‘Holy God, is there no end to your ignorance? It’s not a forest plant at all, it grows best in the open. What it wants is a man-made habitat and a host like a hazel or an apple. That whole druidic oak story was invented by some chancer who knew feck-all about druids or trees.’ Then he’d lounged away before Phil could say another word.
The Mistletoe Matchmaker Page 25