I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  Amazingly, Tilly didn’t feel tired any more. Somewhere along the way she’d gone beyond tired. She looked a mess though: deep shadows under bloodshot eyes, cheeks drained of the scant bit of colour she’d had to begin with, hair in dire need of attention. She looked, she thought, like someone coming out of a long illness – or maybe heading into one. In an airport toilet she’d brushed her teeth, splashed her face, slicked on lip gloss. It had made little difference.

  She’d lost all track of how long she’d been travelling. Time had ceased to be logical, with planes and airports and sleep and food all messed up, days and nights blurring into one another. She’d work it out when she arrived, after she’d slept, and got her brain back.

  She changed most of her sterling in an airport bank, and got sixty euro in exchange. She’d hang on to it like glue.

  ‘Have some more, dear.’

  She turned to the proffered bag and helped herself again. ‘Thanks.’

  In Dublin airport she found a water fountain and refilled the bottle she’d saved from the flight. Refilled it three times, trying to fool her stomach into thinking it was full – but hunger was gnawing again by the time Mrs O’Carroll claimed the seat next to Tilly’s on the bus.

  Would you mind, dear? she’d asked, her accent different from Siobhan’s, different from the airport official’s. She’d indicated the two large shopping bags she’d hauled onto the bus. I can’t reach to put them up, she’d said, so Tilly had squeezed the bags into the narrow overhead compartment, and Mrs O’Carroll had spent the next ten minutes thanking her, as the bus eased out of its bay and headed for the airport exit.

  And they’d barely left Dublin behind – it had probably still been visible in the driver’s rear-view mirror – before her companion had learned pretty much all there was to know about Tilly’s trip to Ireland, and the reason for it. The reason Tilly gave her, at any rate.

  You’ve got a sister you’ve never met, living on Roone? And you’re after coming all the way from Australia, all by yourself, to find her? I don’t believe it. And your money was stolen in London? Do you have any left at all? God bless us, you poor creature – but you’re a brave young girl, and no mistake.

  Her voice had a beautiful rich musical lilt to it – and much to Tilly’s relief, was fairly easy to understand. And by the time they were halfway to Dingle, Tilly had been offered a bed for the night.

  You’ll have missed the last ferry to the island, it goes around seven in the winter, but you can stay with Paddy and me – we have piles of room since our lads grew up and left. It’ll be no bother at all, we love having visitors. And Paddy will have the dinner ready when we get home – I left him full instructions.

  Paddy would have the dinner ready. The thought of a home-cooked meal after so long without proper food made Tilly’s mouth fill with saliva – and in the meantime the two of them were making their way through a bag of pink mallow candies that were shaped like pigs’ heads.

  I get these every time I come to Dublin, Mrs O’Carroll had told her. You can only get them in Marks & Spencer’s, and we don’t have one in Dingle. Aren’t they lovely? Go on, have a few more. I shouldn’t be eating them at all, the size of me.

  She was on her way home from a two-day visit to Dublin. I do it every year, she’d said, come up for the bit of Christmas shopping and stay the night with Sean, our eldest, and his family. I know it’s a fair old trip, but it’s a chance to catch up with Sean and the lads. We don’t see that much of them.

  She’d listed her purchases for Tilly. New pyjamas for Paddy – he’s nearly coming through the seat of his old ones. A nice jumper for him to give back to me on Christmas morning – he’s no good to choose a present, and this way I can be sure he gives me something I like. A scarf for Joan next door, she’s great to feed the cats when we’re away. A box of the chocolate biscuits Paddy likes from Marks. Jigsaws for Áine’s two – Áine is our middle girl. She’s married to John and they live in Tralee. Her lads are mad for the jigsaws, bright as buttons the two of them, only four and five. A cardi for Áine and a book for John – Áine told me which one to get. And what else? Oh yes, slippers for poor Nancy down the road. She lost her Eddie during the year – she’s in bits since he went, God love her.

  Her first name was Breda. It’s Bridget in Irish, she’d told Tilly, laughing when Tilly confessed that she’d never heard of a language called Irish. Oh, that’s a good one! ’Twas beaten into me by the nuns at school, but I’m afraid they didn’t beat me hard enough, because I haven’t a word of it left now – although there’s plenty around Dingle who have lovely Irish. You’d love to be listening to them. It’s not a bit like English, it’s much different. You’ll have to watch a bit of the Irish-language telly while you’re here, so you can hear what it sounds like.

  She and Paddy lived just outside Dingle. We’re only a mile from the town. I walk in most days, although you’d want to have your wits about you on the road. They fly, some of the drivers – especially the young lads. Mad for speed, they are, and no sense of danger at all. It’s probably the same where you are, I’d say. Young fellows are the same the world over, think they know it all. Think they’re indestructible, God help them.

  She knew Roone; she’d often been there. We used to take day trips across when our lads were small – we’re only half an hour from the ferry port. Nice little island, everyone very friendly. The lads loved it, used to nag us to bring them. Paddy will run you to the pier in the morning, get you on the ferry.

  A drive to the pier: eleven euro saved. Mrs O’Carroll had brushed away her thanks. Sure wouldn’t anyone do it? Wouldn’t I want someone to be nice to one of mine if they were all the way over in Australia, and they got robbed like you did?

  Yes, Tilly was lucky in her seat companion. She looked out at the continuing rain, the sweet taste of the last mallow pig still on her tongue. ‘Any chance it might stop raining before Christmas?’ she asked.

  No response. She turned and saw that Mrs O’Carroll had nodded off, her rather odd-looking yellow beret tipped askew, her lower lip dropped to reveal a row of bottom teeth that looked too even and regular to be real. Worn out from two days of trekking around Dublin, shopping mostly for other people. Probably came up from Kerry yesterday laden with a whole other set of presents for her Dublin grandchildren.

  Cast from the same mould as Ma. Spent her time looking after other people, put herself at the end of every queue.

  Tilly sat back and closed her own eyes, and wandered into a place that was halfway between waking and sleeping.

  And found John Smith waiting for her there.

  Yes, it is my real name, he told them, first day he walked into the classroom. What were my parents thinking? Making them laugh: he was good at that. Making them play with their hair as he talked about Elizabeth Bennet’s prejudice and Jane Eyre’s passion and the rhyming scheme of the sonnets. Making them shift in their seats under his blue-eyed gaze, making them want him.

  Making her want him.

  He wasn’t permanent. He had materialised in July at the beginning of term three, after their regular English Lit teacher, Mrs Harvey, had gone on maternity leave. I’m not sure how long I’ll be with you, he’d told them, but let’s work on the premise that you’ll have me till the end of the year.

  It was his smile. It was the way he tilted his chair onto its back legs and folded his arms as they read passages aloud. It was the soft-looking shirts he wore, sleeves rolled to the elbows even in cold weather. It was the way he listened, really listened, as they debated whether Catherine Earnshaw had been right to marry Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliff, as they discussed the tragedy of the doomed love affair between Charles Ryder and Julia Flyte.

  It was the scent he left behind when he walked between their desks, a mix of wood and pepper and something dangerous. It was his dark brown leather jacket, scuffed at the seams. It was his teeth, and his laugh, and his long broad fingers. It was everything about him, everything.

  He was in his ear
ly thirties, they decided. No ring: clearly, he wasn’t married. He drove a red Jeep, which wasn’t the car of choice for a man with a wife and kids. He’d had his heart broken, they thought. She’d gone off with his best friend, or she’d drowned a week before the wedding – or she was married to his brother, and therefore out of bounds, because he was too honourable to tell her how he felt.

  Tilly listened to the conversations and didn’t join in. She was afraid her face would give her away if she talked about him. He was all she thought about. He’d come along at exactly the right time, when she was trying to push the mother she’d met a month earlier out of her head, when she was doing her best to forget about a woman who’d clearly forgotten about her, until Tilly had forced her to remember.

  No second meeting had been arranged in the Brisbane café, no suggestion of a follow-up communication of any kind. Her mother had simply paid the bill and shaken Tilly’s hand – I wish you well, she’d said, just that – and Tilly saved her tears for the bus and cried as quietly as she could all the way home.

  Pa had collected her from the bus station. Alright? he’d asked, looking at her swollen eyes and unsmiling face, and she’d got into the car, unable to answer, and spent the seven miles staring out the window, trying not to think. When they’d got home Ma had taken one look at her and said nothing at all, just told her dinner was waiting. Tilly had forced down the bowl of stew and gone upstairs straight afterwards, forgetting about the presents in her bag for them, and cried more tears until she’d fallen asleep.

  And while she was still feeling rotten, and trying to convince herself that it didn’t matter – hadn’t she’d done fine without her real mother up to this, and who cared anyway about a father who knew nothing about her, and an older sister who’d been casually dropped in at the end of their conversation – while she was trying to push the whole thing from her mind, along came John Smith, and thinking about him left room for nothing else.

  I like the way your mind works, he said, handing her back an essay on the shared characteristics of literary romantic heroines. It was three weeks into the term. She saw A minus scribbled at the top, the first A she’d got in anything. At break time she brought the essay into the toilets and pressed the pages to her face, and fancied she smelt his cologne on them.

  A few Saturdays after that she was coming out of the library in town when she almost walked straight into him.

  Hey, he said, grinning, watch where you’re going, miss. Olive-green shirt, blue jeans. She smelt his toothpaste; for a second they were that close. Blood rushed to her cheeks, she could feel the heat of it. A reader, he went on, pretending not to notice. Might have known. He glanced at her bundle of books – John Steinbeck, Kate Grenville, Thomas Keneally. Nice mix there, he said, can’t fault your taste. Tilly remained struck dumb, able only to stand there like an idiot, heartbeats thumping inside her.

  She was almost his height. His eyes were blue as the sky, and they were looking right at her.

  See you Monday, he said, walking past her into the building, and for the rest of that day she tormented herself with all the witty responses she might have given him.

  He must be a reader too: of course he was a reader. They had that in common.

  Can’t fault your taste.

  Thirty-two, or thereabouts. It was a crush, that was all it was. It felt like love but it couldn’t be love. He’d leave and Mrs Harvey would return and Tilly would be miserable for a while, and eventually life as she knew it would go back to normal.

  And then. And then. And then.

  It was the second week in September, the last day of term three. He called her as she was gathering her things together. A word, Tilly, he said, unless you’re rushing off. It was the end of the day, English Lit their last class.

  He waited till everyone else had left. Tilly stood by his desk, trying not to look too expectant and excited and fearful and delighted, aware of the sidelong glances she was attracting as the others filed out.

  I’ve been thinking, he said, when they were alone. I’d like to give you an assignment over the break, if that’s OK with you.

  That’s fine, she said. If he asked her to go to the moon she’d go.

  I want you to write an article, he went on. Five hundred words or so on a subject you feel passionate about, anything at all. I’ve got a buddy in New South Wales who edits a small literary magazine and I’d like to show him something you’ve written.

  It took her completely by surprise. Of course she was working harder for him than she’d done for Mrs Harvey, but despite the consistent high grades he gave her – nothing lower than a B plus – she’d had no idea he thought that highly of her writing.

  You want to? he asked, and she said yes, as casually as she could.

  Good. He reached for the leather jacket that was slung on the back of his chair. You’ve got two weeks, so take your time with it, don’t rush it. He stood. And I think it might be best if you kept it to yourself, he added. Wouldn’t want people to think I was showing favouritism.

  She nodded. Favouritism. Favourite. She was his favourite.

  So you could drop it into the staffroom for me, he went on, sometime after the break. OK?

  OK, she said.

  Lien was waiting at the gate. What did he want?

  To talk about my essay, Tilly said, the lie slipping out easily. He said I must try harder. He said I should go back over it during the break, try to improve it.

  Too bad, Lien replied, the lie accepted without question, because they never lied to one another.

  What are you passionate about? she asked Lien as they walked to the bus stop, and after some thought Lien told her shopping, and animal welfare, and her grandmother’s peanut brittle.

  Over the next few days she searched for a topic. What did she feel strongly about? What moved her to joy, or to tears, or to anger? In the end, the memory of crying her way home from Brisbane refused to budge, and she decided to write about finding her birth mother, and the sad little episode in the café. Out it poured onto her screen, a lot more words than five hundred; cutting it down took longer than writing it. When it was done she felt scrubbed raw, and lighter.

  She read it, and reread it. Was it too personal? Would he prefer something more universal, like the futility of war, or saving the planet? But she liked the idea of sharing this with him; she liked showing him a part of her nobody else knew about – even Lien had been given a very edited version of the episode. She wanted to see his reaction to it.

  The two-week break seemed to crawl by, fourteen interminable days without seeing him. On the first day of term four she knocked on the staffroom door at lunchtime. This is for Mr Smith, she told the teacher who opened it, handing over the envelope with his name on it that Lien thought contained her amended essay. During the English Lit class after lunch he gave no sign that he’d received it, or read it.

  For the next three days he continued to ignore it. Maybe he hadn’t seen it; maybe it was sitting forgotten on a shelf in the staffroom. Or maybe he’d read it and hated it. Or maybe he liked it, but he was embarrassed that she’d revealed so much of herself.

  She kicked herself for having written such a personal piece, for having pretty much bared her soul to him. She cringed at the thought that she’d unwittingly given herself away by choosing such an intimate subject. Or maybe it made her sound like a needy teenager, craving a bit of attention.

  On Friday, when she’d given up waiting for a response, when English Lit had become something she dreaded rather than looked forward to, he asked her to stay back at the end of class, like he’d done before. She rolled her eyes at Lien and waited with him again until the room was empty. Here it came, whatever he had to say.

  He pulled her envelope from his leather satchel and laid it on his desk. Sorry I’ve taken a while to get back to you, he said. I sent it to Doug to see what he thought; I wasn’t sure if it was what he’d want.

  She said nothing. Her toes curled in their shoes. He hated it.


  Is it true? he asked then, and she nodded.

  So you just met your mother recently?

  June.

  Wow. He shook his head slowly. Tilly, this is powerful writing. It’s not for Doug – it doesn’t fit in with his magazine – but that’s not to say it doesn’t have worth. It’s a wonderfully written piece. Doug thinks so too. We think it could be the kicking-off point for a short story, or even a novel … You have a lovely writing style, and you write from the heart, which is so important.

  She sat immobile, the words filling her with delight. Doug didn’t want it but he liked it; they both did. They thought it was wonderfully written.

  Tell you what, he said, let’s talk about this further. Can you meet me tomorrow to discuss it? There are some books I’d like to lend you – and just like that, they arranged that he’d pick her up outside the library where they’d met by chance several weeks before.

  Feedback on the essay, she said to Lien. He said it’s an improvement, he’s upped my grade – and Lien totally believed it.

  The following day she told Ma she was going to the library to study for her end-of-year exams. She took the bus into town, every bit of her jangling. She stood on the library steps in her favourite blouse and cleanest jeans, mouth dry, stomach churning. What if he didn’t turn up? What if this was all a big joke, and he was making fun of poor pathetic Tilly Walker, with her all-too-obvious crush on him?

  But he did turn up, just a few minutes after he’d promised. Hop in, he said, and she hopped into the red Jeep. We need to be careful, he said, pulling away from the kerb. If people saw us together, they’d get the wrong idea, you know? Best not give them the opportunity to jump to the wrong conclusion, right?