A Very Irish Christmas

by Claudia Carroll

  Then the most bizarre thing: Dad leads me by the hand out of my old bedroom where I’ve been dozing and together we go down the stairs, where everything looks completely different. The stair carpet on the hallway for a start: it’s a revolting sludgy brown one that I haven’t seen since before I left home. Which was back in the dim, distant 1990s when I was still living here with my family.

  Not only that, but the photos on the walls are all different too; in the very spot where Mum always keeps my graduation photos, there’s just baby photos of Jess and me. And not a single photo of Jess’s wedding, or her kids, nothing. Again – weird. Mum doesn’t let anyone leave this house without spending a good ten minutes admiring her granddaughters’ photos.

  ‘Dad?’ I say turning back to him, yet somehow he’s vanished into thin air. Stranger still: now there’s daylight streaming in through the hall windows and it’s suddenly so bright it could be the middle of the day. Next thing, the living room door is flung open and Jess bursts out.

  ‘Ahh, Carole, you’re finally up!’ she says, as I look mutely back at her. ‘Mum was going to come upstairs and throw a bucket of water over you if you didn’t wake up soon.’

  ‘Jess, thank God!’ I say. ‘I’ve been having the most insane dream …’ But I break off. Because this is even weirder yet – Jess is looking utterly transformed. Younger somehow and at least a good two stone lighter. Her clothes are different too. She’s wearing the same Goth gear she used to streel around the town in, back when she was about nineteen and my younger rebel sister. She even has the same jet-black lipstick that used to terrify small kids on the street whenever they saw her.

  ‘You’re staring at me funny,’ says Jess. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Jess,’ I say slowly, ‘look at you! You’re so young and thin and …’ I search around for the right word and there’s only one I can come up with: ‘Carefree, Jess. I mean, look at you. You look like you haven’t got a single worry in the world!’

  To hammer the point home, I grab her by the shoulders and turn her to face the mirror in the hallway. And that’s when the real shock hits me.

  ‘What in the name of arse are you talking about?’ Jess is saying, but I’m too transfixed by my own reflection to hear her properly. ‘Me? Not having a worry in the world? Are you kidding? I’ve got millions to worry about!’ she goes on. ‘Like the fact that I didn’t get to college like you did and I hate my job in the bank, working with the most boring gang you ever came across and now we have to have Christmas dinner with the folks and all I want to do is nurse my hangover in front of the telly, but of course the Mother Ship is going to insist we watch The Sound of Music for like, the two thousandth time …’

  She rambles on, but I can’t bring myself to answer.

  ‘Sweet Mother of God, I’m seeing things,’ I eventually say, staring numbly at my own reflection in the mirror. ‘Look at me, Jess, just take a look at me! Do you see what I’m seeing?’

  I must be hallucinating – that’s the only reason for it. Because the image that’s staring back at me is of my twenty-one-year-old self. All the lines and wrinkles around my eyes have completely disappeared and my hair is long, scraggly and with, I wish I were kidding, a giant purple-pink streak running down the length of it. Not only that, but I’m wearing jeans, actual stone-washed denims with patches cut out of them and a big, warm, bobbly pink jumper that I remember from decades ago.

  ‘You look like shit.’ Jess shrugs, hovering at my shoulder. ‘But then weren’t you out on the piss last night with Jack?’

  ‘Jack?’ I say, turning to her, utterly stunned. ‘Did you just say Jack?’

  ‘Yeah. Your boyfriend of the last four years, remember? Jeez, how much did you have to drink last night, that you can’t even remember Jack Burke?’

  ‘I think I’m going mad,’ I say, shaking my head in total shock. ‘I think I’m having some kind of a nervous breakdown. I’m a grown woman in her forties, Jess. What the hell am I doing here, dressed like this? I must be insane. There’s no other explanation for it.’

  My worst fears are confirmed when the kitchen door is flung open and out comes Mum. Except this is Mum circa the 1990s, with an unfortunate bubble perm I remember from all those years ago and dressed in the exact same sensible trouser suits she always used to wear.

  ‘There you are, girls,’ she says, rolling her eyes in exasperation at the pair of us. ‘Now come on, I want to serve up Christmas dinner in exactly two hours and I need help. Jess, get in here and start making gravy and as for you, Carole, you’re on washing-up duty. Serves you right for spending most of Christmas morning in bed.’

  ‘Mum,’ I say numbly, ‘Mum, just look at you … you’re so young!!’

  She looks pleased at that for a second, but quickly brushes the compliment aside.

  ‘Now, missy, you needn’t think that you can flatter me to get out of the washing up. Come on, the pair of you. Your dad is absolutely starving.’

  ‘Mum,’ I say, ‘I’m – I’m just a bit confused here. You have to help me … and not think me mad when I ask you this.’

  ‘When you ask me what?’

  ‘What year is this?’

  ‘Oh, Carole, what are you like?’ she snorts. ‘You must still be drunk – that’s the only explanation for this ridiculous talk. It’s 1996 of course. Christmas Day, to be exact. Now get into that kitchen and start chopping the Brussels sprouts.’

  Mutely, I follow her into the kitchen. Our old kitchen, just the way I remember it, before Mum got the new extension put on. Same grotty lino on the floor, same woodchip wallpaper with actual stippling on the ceiling. But that’s not what’s making my jaw drop and my head start to swim all over again.

  Because sitting at the top of our kitchen table, just like he always used to, is Dad. My darling dad.

  ‘Dad!’ I gasp. ‘You were in my room earlier … and now you’re here!’

  ‘Course I’m here,’ he says, glancing up from the Radio Times and giving me a little half-wink. ‘Sure, where else would I be?’

  ‘I thought I dreamt you up …’ I say, staggering, physically staggering into an empty chair beside him.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ He smiles. ‘I want my Christmas dinner, same as the rest of you.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It’s true. It’s really true. I’ve checked about two thousand times and it really is Christmas, 1996. John Major is the Prime Minister. Bill Clinton is in the Oval Office. Mind you, Dad had to show me the paper loads of times before I believed him, and even though there’s a part of me that knows I’m dreaming, still and all, it’s certainly the nicest dream I’ve had in the longest time, so much so that I don’t want to wake up. Ever.

  Because this is amazing! Mum, Dad, Jess, and I all sitting down together at our ‘good’ dining table for Christmas dinner, chatting and rowing and talking over each other just like I remember. Mind you, I keep hopping up out of my seat and going to hug Dad spontaneously, telling him over and over again just how much I love him and miss him.

  ‘You must have banged your head at whatever party you and Jack were at last night,’ he says, grinning at me. ‘Now stop acting weird, like you’re concussed or something, will you? If it’s all right with you, I’d like to finish my plum pudding in peace.’

  Later on, I help Mum with the washing up because believe it or not, our family were dishwasher-less back in 1996. The TV is on in the background, and the sight of it makes me giggle; it’s so different to the sleek plasma screen I bought Mum for her last birthday. Sky News comes on and as ever when there’s news on, my attention is caught. There’s a snippet from the Queen’s Christmas message, followed by a shot of all the royals trooping off to church at Sandringham.

  ‘Poor old Princess Diana,’ Mum says, glancing at the TV. ‘Must be hard for her being away from her two boys at Christmas.’

  ‘Mum,’ I say, ‘what are you talking about? Diana is dead – you know that! You didn’t leave the TV room for the entire week she died
and you even signed the book of condolence for her.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ Mum snaps at me. ‘Princess Diana, dead? I never heard such nonsense. You’ll be telling me next that idiot Tony Blair will get into power.’

  And you should see me! I look young and alive and now that I’ve got more used to it, I’m actually starting to like the big pink streak in my hair. I’m thinner than I can ever remember and I’m back. Living here in my parents’ house, in my old bedroom, still in college and facing all the choices that once lay ahead of me.

  But I left the best bit till last. Because later on Christmas night, the phone rings – the landline.

  ‘Jeez,’ I say stunned, as Dad hauls himself up from the sofa to answer it. ‘Is that the phone? Who actually rings a landline in this day and age?’

  ‘What are you talking about, love?’ says Mum, mystified.

  ‘Well, don’t people just call a mobile number now?’

  ‘Mobiles?’ she says with a dismissive snort. ‘Those awful old things? They’re like the size of car batteries and I’ll never get one, as long as I live.’

  ‘Only drug pushers have mobiles,’ says Jess, clicking through the channels on TV. ‘Or else gobshites.’

  I look at her, stunned. But then back in real time, Jess is utterly addicted to her phone, and is always first in the queue at an Apple store whenever there’s some new iPhone about to be launched.

  ‘That’s Jack on the phone for you, pet,’ says Dad. ‘He says he’ll drop over later on to wish us all a Happy Christmas.’

  ‘Jack?’ I say incredulously. ‘JACK, Jack?’

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ says Jess. ‘You can’t even remember your own boyfriend?’

  ‘Such a gentleman,’ Mum says fondly. ‘Always so polite and mannerly to your dad and I.’

  ‘He’s a keeper all right,’ Dad says, and I could swear he winks at me as he says it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It’s official. I LOVE being this age all over again. But most of all, I’m loving having an actual boyfriend once more, after all this time. Mind you, it was bloody awkward when I first set eyes on Jack after all these decades. He came into our hallway on Christmas night, as tall and attractive as ever I remember him, laden down with gifts and wearing that same student-y duffel coat I always used to love on him. He smelt citrusy and sharp and had that same easy charm about him that I once loved so much. He hugged me tight, but all I could do was stare at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘Jack!’ I keep saying, like I’m stuck on a loop. ‘It’s YOU! It’s really you.’

  ‘Hey, of course it’s me.’ He grins. ‘Unless you’ve got any other boyfriends secretly stashed away that I don’t know about?’

  ‘Don’t let me go just yet,’ I say, not releasing him from the hug. ‘You’ve no idea how long it’s been since a guy hugged me like this. I just want to savour it for a bit longer.’

  ‘Carole,’ he says nuzzling into my ear. ‘What are you talking about? You and me were out just last night – you can’t have forgotten already.’ Then he dropped his voice down to a whisper. ‘We did quite a lot of naughty things under the mistletoe, if you remember … I certainly do.’

  He pulls back and all I can do is stare at him, marvelling at all his youth and handsomeness.

  ‘Hey, you’re looking at me in the weirdest way,’ he says, tucking me under the chin, as he pulls off his thick duffel coat. ‘You sure you’re OK?’

  ‘Oh, Jack, you’ve no idea …’

  What I really want to say here is unsayable. I want to say how much I really did love him once upon a time and that back in my world, back in the future, he’s married to a solicitor called Zoe who I knew vaguely from college and who none of us ever liked, and they have two teenage sons, twins, or at least so I heard. I want to tell him how good it is to see him again and how lovely it is to actually be in a relationship with him. But I can’t, can I? Because otherwise I’ll be committed to the nearest nuthouse.

  He joins my family as we all crash out in front of a roaring log fire and a packed schedule of telly-watching for the night ahead. Mum passes around a giant tin of Quality Street and Jack discreetly holds my hand and it’s magic. Just Christmas magic.

  The next day, I wake up back in my old bedroom with all the old wallpaper and furnishings. I rush to the mirror, to double-check that I’m not dreaming and that I’m still somehow back in 1996. And I really am! I’m just marvelling at my unlined face and the fact that I can fit into skinny jeans again, when Jess bursts into my bedroom, wanting to filch clothes for a party she’s going to.

  Which is where I discover yet another advantage to being this age once again. Because not only am I all young and loved up, but better yet, I get to play God with Jess’s life too.

  ‘It’s on New Year’s Eve,’ she tells me, ‘and it’s going to be a whopper. All the gang from the bank are going to be there, and you know that guy I was telling you about? Dave? Who comes in to fix our photocopier?’

  ‘You mean Useless Dave?’ I say.

  ‘Why are you calling him that?’ she asks, turning to me mystified. ‘You’ve never even met him.’

  At warp speed, my mind fast-forwards back to the future. To poor old Jess, stuck in that horrible house in a rough area, a separated wife with her two daughters desperately trying to keep the show on the road, while Useless Dave crashes out in her TV room, watching Netflix and doing feck all else, as far as I can see. I think forward to the angst and anguish that this guy has caused her and in a moment, my mind is made up.

  ‘Sit down,’ I say to Jess, bossily plonking her down on the bed beside me. ‘And just listen to me: don’t ask me any questions, just trust me when I tell you that Dave Finnegan is Bad News. Very bad news. If you go down this road, you will live to regret it every single day of your life. You’ll end up in a housing estate, supporting him and your kids and you’ll have a broken marriage by the time you’re forty. You can do better, Jess! SO much better.’

  ‘But …’ she says, puzzled, ‘how can you know all this about Dave? You’ve never even met him.’

  ‘Trust me,’ I tell her with a firm smile. ‘I’ve got a crystal ball.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  But all good things must come to an end and soon, far too soon for my liking, I find myself back in my old bedroom again in the dead of night. I wake with a start, sensing that I’m not alone and it turns out I’m right. Switching on the bedside lamp, I see that Dad is here with me, just like he was before, sitting in the armchair in the corner of the room. Except he’s not quite how he was earlier, when it was Christmas Day and we all sat around the TV with Jack, chatting and laughing and eating FAR too many Quality Street sweets.

  Now he’s back to the older version of Dad, the one I remember from when he first appeared to me.

  ‘Dad?’ I say, with my head swimming. ‘What’s going on? Why do you look so much … older?’

  ‘Because I am, pet,’ he says calmly. ‘When you last saw me, you were only twenty-one, remember? So that’s how you saw me, as I was when you were that age and I was only in my early fifties. But things are a little different now.’

  ‘Different?’ I say, sitting bolt upright. ‘Different how?’

  ‘Take a look in the mirror, love,’ he says, ‘and don’t be surprised. Because there’s something else that you need to see tonight. Something very important. And we need to go now. Before it’s too late.’

  I try to leap out of bed in one sharp movement, but somehow it’s hard for me. My bones are aching and my back hurts. My back? Weirder and weirder. I’ve never had a stiff, sore back in my life.

  I don’t so much walk as hobble over to the mirror, while Dad sits there, calmly looking on. But the minute I catch sight of myself, an involuntary gasp comes out of my mouth. Because it’s not me looking back at my own reflection at all. Instead there’s a shrivelled old woman, looking seventy-plus, beadily reflecting my gaping mouth back at me. My hair is short, cropped, and grey – and gone is my t
wenty-one-year-old firm skin and tight little right-weight-for-my-height body.

  ‘Dad?’ I stammer. ‘What the hell is this? What’s happened to me? I’m not twenty-one any more, am I?’

  ‘No, pet, you certainly aren’t,’ he says evenly. ‘But then, none of us are, are we? At twenty-one, you made the choices in life that you made, and now we need to see the consequences.’

  ‘I don’t understand …’

  ‘Come with me,’ he says, getting up slowly and taking my hand in his, just like he used to when I was little. ‘And let me show you the ghost of Christmas Future.’

  It’s the most insane feeling. I hear a whooshing sound in my ears and the whole room darkens for a moment before I can open my eyes again. But when I do, I’m not at home any more at all.

  Instead, for some insane reason, it appears to be daytime and I’m in at work. It’s definitely the news station at Channel Ten – I’d know it anywhere. Although it looks a little different; the camera equipment looks so completely high-tech that it’s beyond recognition and everyone is busy bustling around with headsets and iPads, ignoring me.

  ‘Dad?’ I ask as my head swivels around to look for his reassuring figure. The one constant who’s been there for me throughout this whole, bonkers night. But there’s no sign of him. Instead, Maura, my PA rushes over to me, shoving a studio running order in my face. Except it’s not really Maura at all. The Maura I know is a thirty-something single girl with swishy blonde hair and immaculate make-up who’s on Tinder morning, noon, and night, trying to meet a fella. Whereas this version of her is so much older and exhausted-looking.

  ‘There you are, Carole,’ she says, sounding stressed out of her mind. ‘Thank God. We’re all just about to go home and you’re the only one who’ll be here for the Christmas Night six p.m. bulletin. So here’s a list of the breaking news stories …’