“Get your stockings, then,” their mum encouraged, not that it was necessary. They already had their hands inside them and were pulling out the usual collection of chocolate coins, satsumas, miniature colouring books and…
“Christmas socks!” Tom unrolled them and pressed where it said ‘press’. The socks gave him a tinny rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’. “Oh, these are great.”
Katie eyed him in horrified dismay, which turned to pure horror when she discovered a pair of musical Christmas knickers in her stocking. By that point, their mother was crying with laughter, and their dad also looked like he was coming round a bit.
“I’ll go make a pot of tea, Jack,” he said and ambled away to the kitchen.
Tom and Katie carried on digging in their stockings, knowing the ‘real’ presents—the ones that were personal to them—would be buried right down at the bottom. Or, if the present was too big to fit in the stocking, there would be a clue to what it was, like when Tom got his Xbox, there was a game in his stocking. Didn’t he feel a fool saying ‘but I don’t have an Xbox’ without thinking it through. Still, he didn’t mind looking daft for that reason.
This time around, there were no Xbox games, or bike locks. There was, instead, a small red envelope. Tom glanced Katie’s way; she had one, too. They shrugged at each other and tore them open.
“No way. Mum…” Katie shrieked, leapt to her feet and threw herself on her mother.
“Wow. You so did not buy me these.” Tom blinked in disbelief at the picture that had fallen out of the envelope, of the gun metal alloy wheels he’d been pining over since he bought his Astra. And, of course, he knew how much they were—almost a month’s wages. “These are really expensive.”
“We know,” his dad said.
“How—”
“Not your problem. All you need to worry about is getting the car into the garage to have them fitted.”
“Dad.”
“I’m not arguing with ye.”
And that was the end of the matter.
“Thank you, Father Christmas,” Tom said graciously.
“He says you’re welcome.”
“What did you get, Katie?”
“I’m going on holiday, our Tom.”
“Are ye now? Where you off to?”
“Mallorca, two weeks, all inclusive.”
“Nice. On your own?” Tom was tormenting, and she didn’t even deign it with a reply. Of course it wasn’t on her own. These days, she never went anywhere without Andy.
“Your turn, then,” Katie said, finally releasing her mum from the snuggle grip. Tom passed over their mum and dad’s stockings, and then he and Katie sat together in front of the fire, watching, waiting, hoping they’d got it right. They still shopped like kids—they hadn’t long been adults—but they’d gone in together and bought their mum a Pandora bracelet and the very first charm to go on it.
“It symbolises generosity, Mum,” Katie explained.
Their mum smiled tearily. “Here. Help me fasten it, sweetheart, will you?”
Katie did the honours. Their dad was still fighting with the tape on his present, and this was the one they were worried about, because they shouldn’t have known about it in the first place. It happened a long time ago, when they were around ten and fourteen, they thought, and it was when their dad was made redundant from his last job. With him in the same situation again, it had prompted Tom and Katie’s memory of the arguments that nearly ended their parents’ marriage, because their dad had pawned his watch and wedding ring to pay the bills.
Their mum went ballistic. The watch was worth a lot, and the ring was irreplaceable, and in return he’d got enough money to pay the bills for one month. It was a stupid decision, which he’d admitted since, and of course, there was no way of getting back the watch and the ring. They were long gone. But with a little online research, Tom had found the same watch for sale on eBay.
They’d never seen their dad cry, but he was crying now. Tom and Katie watched their mum pull their dad close, and they hugged and sobbed. Tom turned to Katie and grinned.
“Happy days,” he said.
“Yep,” Katie said, grinning back. They gave each other a high-five and went to pour the tea.
Chapter Eleven:
Losing Faith
No hangover, thank goodness, although it had not been a good night, and Michael had been up for half of it, but he’d arranged to go to early morning Mass and then he was going to be brave. He was going to wish Peter a Merry Christmas even if it earned him a punch in the face.
“Do you want me to come?” Seamus asked as Michael pulled on his coat, ready to leave for church.
“To Mass?”
“Well, I mean afterwards, but aye, Mass too.”
Michael shrugged. “I’ll be OK.” He wasn’t at all sure of that, but he didn’t want to put Seamus out, not when he had a house full of people.
“So we’re off to church, then?” said another voice from behind Michael. He turned to find Patrick and Aidan already in their coats.
“You’re all comin’?” Michael asked. His eyes were so wide open in astonishment that he was getting cold eyeballs.
“It’s Christmas,” Patrick said.
“Maybe I won’t bother going to me mum’s.”
“It’s up to you,” Seamus said. “But we’re still all going to church.”
“All right then,” Michael mumbled, not happy with the situation, when he was pretty sure they were only doing it for him. However, Dee soon put him right on that one.
“It’s not for you,” she said breezily, racing ahead so she could claim shotgun in Patrick’s hire car. “Well, not just for you.”
“Huh?”
“They need some space,” Seamus explained, pointing back at the house, now only occupied by Harrison, Paulo, Pru and Tess. Now Michael got it.
“Besides,” Dee said with a shrug, “let’s see ’em try to give my dad and Shay a hard time.” With that, she climbed in the car next to Patrick, leaving Aidan and Michael watching on in bewilderment.
“She’s brassy,” Aidan said. Michael nodded dumbly. He had no idea what was going on. He just wanted to go to church, not cause a scene. Reluctantly, he joined Aidan in the back of the car, and Patrick followed Seamus’s pickup out onto the lane.
“I didn’t know you were Catholic, Dee,” Patrick said, once they were out on the main road.
“We’re not. We’re kind of nothing?”
“Right. So you’ll just be sitting there idle while we all take communion.”
“Guess so.” Dee looked behind her and gave Michael a smile. “They’re not gonna cause trouble in the church,” she assured him.
Michael turned away and stared out of the window. He wanted to escape all the craziness, go somewhere else for the day, away from Peter, and Harrison, and Chancey, and…everyone.
There were very few cars outside the church, although there was one in particular that made Michael’s stomach erupt with manic butterflies. Tom’s white Astra. Seamus drove past and parked a good fifty yards up the road; Patrick pulled in behind him.
“What’s he doing?” Aidan asked.
“I’m not sure,” Patrick replied. He got out and met his brother halfway between the two vehicles. Michael watched them talking, about what was anyone’s guess. Patrick nodded and returned to the car. “Right then, are you ready?”
Michael definitely was not. Eight o’clock on Christmas morning, he wanted to run away, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, he was hungry and it was making him grumpy. For all of that, he still followed the Williamses and their respective partners into the church. Dee hooked arms with him and gave him another smile of encouragement. She tried to pull him onward, but Michael resisted.
“Hold on,” he said. Dee stopped and waited while he dipped his finger in the holy water and crossed his forehead. After that, she allowed him to lead the way down the aisle, stopping a few pews from the front, where he crossed himself before he sidestepped into the pew
and immediately dropped to his knees.
Dee knelt at his side and whispered, “What’re we doing?”
“Praying.”
“Oh, OK.”
She stayed quiet after that, but Michael’s mind was such a mess he could barely think let alone pray. He’d seen Tom sitting on the other side of the aisle and a couple of pews closer to the front. Seamus, Chancey, Patrick and Aidan were in the pew behind them. He was surrounded by people who had gone out of their way to protect him, and still he felt persecuted.
I can’t do this. His lips formed the words. He looked at Dee and said it again, a desperate hissed whisper. “I can’t do this.” He stood up, edged his way to the other end of the pew and fled as quickly as was possible without running, passing his mum in the vestibule.
“Michael?”
“I can’t stay, Mum. I’m sorry.” He heaved the door open and ran down the path, dodging people coming the other way. Out of the gate and on he went, past Tom’s car, Patrick’s car, Shay’s pickup, through the town, no thought to where he was heading except away from Omagh and the hell of being treated like a criminal.
Michael had somehow gone around in a circle and was halfway home before his legs gave out. Panting for breath, he stopped at the humpback bridge over the spring that eventually meandered its way through the farm, but here it fed a pond, dull, grey-green, not a duck in sight. Michael crossed the bridge and climbed down onto the narrow bank, slipping and sliding on the muddy path and not caring if he fell into the spring and froze to death or drowned. At the edge of the pond, he crouched and stared into the murky water with not a thought in his head beyond knowing he was the lowest he’d ever been.
He’d never once doubted the existence of God. Not even at school, where most of the kids thought religion was old-fashioned. Their words had washed over him without effect. He knew God was real. He knew Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary to save mankind. He’d felt the Holy Spirit, on Christmas morning especially.
But why would God give him these desires? Was it really just a test of faith? Because until now, his faith had been unwavering, and he was sick of confessing to sins that deep down he didn’t believe were sins at all. He scooped up a handful of stones and threw them, one by one, into the pond, trying to remember, to forget, to just not feel like this.
“It’s a grand spot for a bit of thinkin’.”
The voice—Patrick’s—would have startled Michael at any other time.
“No ducks, though,” Patrick observed, crouching at Michael’s side. “Shame, that.”
“Do they migrate?”
“I don’t think so. There used to be thirty or forty of them here all the time. I’d bring Archie—our red setter—down here, and he’d go mad, chasing after them. He never caught any. They’d take off before he was anywhere near, and the one time he got close to ducklings, he just sniffed at ’em and licked their feathers.”
Michael smiled at the story, welcoming the reprieve from the horrible confusion inside.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Patrick asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” His belly was rumbling and cramping with hunger. His legs were hurting from being bent double for so long, but maybe that was part of his punishment, for doubting. “Do you believe in God, Patrick?”
“I believe in something. I’m not sure what, and I don’t think we just pop in and out of existence.”
“So you believe in eternal life?”
“Something like. It’s not as hard to let go of the people you love if you remember they’re no longer suffering. Whether that means they’re in heaven or someplace else doesn’t really matter.”
“But you’re a Catholic?”
“My mam was a Catholic, and we went to a Catholic school, but she didn’t make us go to church or anything, even though she went to church every Sunday, and she got a lot out of it. She had that mentality, you know, where she thought you could get away with the little things so long as you got the big things right. Like after I was born, she went on the pill. She only confessed the once, because she said she only made the decision once. But she was devout in most ways. She prayed every day, took Holy Communion, read the Bible, but she didn’t just blindly believe.
“I remember her saying once—and she got in a lot of trouble for it—that it wasn’t God who made Man in His likeness, it was other way around. There’s all these things we’re told are sins, and we’re going to hell if we don’t repent, but actually, it wasn’t God who decided they were sins. It was people.”
“Does that include being gay?”
“Well, young Michael, that’s quite a big question for a Christmas morning, but think on. Did you choose to feel like this?”
Michael shook his head. “I don’t want to feel like this, like there’s something evil inside of me, and it doesn’t matter what I do, I’ll always be wrong in God’s eyes.”
Patrick didn’t reply, and Michael moved his head a little to the side to see why he was quiet. He was different from Seamus, much gentler, and always happy, like he’d realised something that everyone else had yet to catch on to. He was a good-looking fella, too, with his flame-red hair and emerald-green eyes—not a patch on Tom’s eyes. Patrick’s were brighter, and they sparkled in the light, whereas Tom’s were mysterious and dark, as if they had absorbed all the bad in the world. Tom had taken the full hit of the hate that had come Michael’s way, tried to shield him, stuck up for him. He wasn’t wrong in Tom’s eyes.
Finally, Patrick rose to his feet, winced and laughed. “Gravedigger’s knees,” he said. “I’ll be as bow-legged as me boss by the time I’m forty.”
Michael smiled. “And Aidan will still adore you.”
Patrick’s blush made his freckles all but disappear. “So,” he said, “I think your man…what’s his name?”
“Who?”
“Up on the bridge.”
Michael frowned and looked up at the humpback bridge over the spring. The low sun lit the bridge and the figure standing on it from behind, casting both as dark featureless silhouettes, but he didn’t need to see his features. “Tom.”
“Aye, him,” Patrick confirmed. “I think he’s waiting to make sure you’re all right.”
“How long’s he been here?”
“The whole time. We came in his car. He thought someone was after you.”
Michael closed his eyes and sighed. “They’ve left me alone since—” He stopped before he spilled everything. Seamus thought it was only the stuff online, and Patrick would be bound to tell him. Instead, he finished with, “Since Tom stepped in.”
“So nothing happened in church?”
“No. I just panicked that Seamus was gonna kick off.”
Patrick nodded knowingly. “Aye. He does that. I’ll have a word with him in a while.” He patted Michael on the shoulder and moved off, towards the bridge.
“Where’re you going?”
“Back to church. I’ll leave you in Tom’s capable hands. I’ll tell the others you’ve gone for a wee drive, all right?”
“But…don’t you want a lift back?”
“Ah, no. It’s only a short walk. See you later.”
Michael watched Patrick retreat along the bank—without slipping on the mud—and climb up onto the bridge. He paused next to Tom for a few seconds, repeated the pat on the shoulder, and set off in the direction of the church.
Tom stayed where he was, as did Michael. He couldn’t tell if Tom was watching him, but he was watching Tom, wondering why he was here again, when he didn’t have to be, especially after—
“Oh, God.” Michael covered his face with his hands as the gaps in his memory of the previous evening began to fill. He knows I’ve got a crush on him. Shite. And yet, he was here. Michael dragged his hands down over his face, clasping them together, as if in prayer, when they reached his chin. He was certain now that Tom was watching him, because he had moved to the gap at the side of the bridge, and he was stepping down onto the bank, and… “Ooh!” M
ichael grimaced as Tom lost his footing and slid dangerously close to the spring, going down on one knee in the mud. Without thinking, Michael hurried towards him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tom said, grinning and blushing the most spectacular pink that made his lush red lips redder still. His blonde hair, backlit by the sun, was a glowing halo. He was so handsome, Michael would give almost anything just to kiss him one time. “Are you OK?” Tom asked.
Michael nodded. “I’m better now.”
“Good.” Tom smiled, and Michael’s knees turned to jelly. He was pretty sure he was blushing as brightly as Tom had been a moment ago. “So…Mike. I wondered if—and you can say no, it’s perfectly fine, but…I, er…” Tom stopped, shoved his hands in his pockets and looked into the distance. “Would you like to come up to Derry with me and visit my grandad?”
“Today?”
“Well, yeah. Now, or after breakfast. Have you eaten?”
Michael shook his head. “Not before communion.”
Tom smiled. “I think we might be the only two people our age in the whole of Omagh who care about the Body of Christ being the first thing to pass our lips.”
“Aye, maybe.” Michael’s doubts started to resurface, and he forcefully pushed them from his mind. Ever since he could remember, Tom had been in church every Sunday, just as he was himself, and the last thing Michael wanted to do was give any hint that one of the very few things they had in common wasn’t actually something in common at all.
“So, how do you fancy coming back with me for breakfast first?”
“To your house?”
“Yeah. We just have tons of toast with butter, and honey or jam if you want it. And tea. Like, gallons of tea. We’re still stuffed at dinnertime.”
Michael was enraptured. Tom was inviting him to share part of his family’s Christmas tradition, and it made him feel special, like he mattered to someone again. “You’re sure your mum and dad won’t mind?”
“Oh, they won’t care at all. Like I say, there is tons of toast.” Tom turned and started walking, assuming Michael would follow, which he did. “Besides—” Tom glanced back at him “—my mum’s been worried about you.”
Seeds of Tyrone Box Set Page 69
