I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  He left the town behind, drove out into the countryside. Somewhere quiet, he said, where we won’t be disturbed. His car smelt of him. His hands on the steering wheel were tanned. He wore a red check shirt she didn’t remember seeing before. The radio was on, tuned to a talk station. She heard the words, but they meant nothing to her.

  He left the main road and took a series of turns, driving past fields and trees and farmhouses. She had no idea where they were. She didn’t care. She leaned her head back and waited for what was to come. For what she wanted to happen, but didn’t dare think it might.

  Eventually he pulled up by a small copse of trees. I come here sometimes, he said, when I want to be alone. It’s so peaceful. Come on, he said, pulling a rug from the back seat. You’ll like it.

  They walked into the little wood. Her heart was thudding so loudly he must have been able to hear it. He spread the rug on the ground in the middle of a small clearing. Now, he said, we’re completely private.

  And then he seduced her. Just like that.

  I know this is so unprofessional, he said, drawing a finger slowly along her cheek and across her lips, leaving a burn behind – but I find you completely irresistible, Tilly. Beginning to unbutton the blouse she’d put on an hour before. You’re like a flower about to bloom, he whispered, so delicate and untouched. Bending to graze the skin of her throat with his mouth, making her shudder as his hands worked their way down the buttons. Opening her up.

  You have a truly passionate heart, Tilly. I could see it blazing out of every sentence you wrote. Drawing her blouse down from her shoulders, bending to kiss the bare skin he uncovered. You need to be loved … You deserve to be loved. Reaching around behind her, his breath hot on her neck as he undid hooks, as he slid straps away – and with every word, every touch, she could feel herself melting, crumbling into the fire he’d lit in her.

  I won’t hurt you, he murmured, when he’d stripped her bare. I’ll be careful, he promised, when nothing was hidden from him any more. God, look at you, when she lay exposed and trembling beneath his gaze. You’re so beautiful, he said, as he shed his own clothes, as they fell one by one to the ground beside her. This will be wonderful, he whispered, as he dropped to his knees and eased her apart, as he laid his body on hers. Trust me, Tilly, he breathed, as he went where nobody had gone before.

  Hurting her, despite his promise not to. The pain taking her by surprise, making her cry out. Shush, he said, sweeping her into his rhythm, a hand gripping her hair, shush, Tilly, his skin tasting of salt, their limbs tangled together, sssh, the rug becoming bunched and damp beneath them, his smell mingling with hers, oh, oh, the leaves shivering on their branches above her as she came to a boil, pleasure mixed with pain, oh, oh—

  And when it was over, as she was clinging to the aftertaste of it, as he lay beside her, his palm resting lightly on her thigh, he turned to her and said, This must be our secret, Tilly: we’d both be in serious trouble if anyone knew. We must tell nobody, no one at all, not even your best friend. Promise me, Tilly.

  And of course she promised.

  Come back here with me, he said, after she’d dressed, after she’d run unsteady fingers through her hair, her mind still trying to comprehend what had just happened. Next week? Will you come back?

  So she went back. Six more Saturdays she took the bus into town and met him outside the library, pretending she was going there to study – and he drove out to the countryside, his hand on her thigh, and in the same little forest they did what they’d done the first time.

  And every Monday to Friday in between, Tilly sat in his class and tried not to picture his naked body, or think about the things he did when they were alone. The things he said to her.

  You don’t realise how beautiful you are.

  You don’t know what you do to me.

  I look at you and I’m lost.

  I’m so glad I was your first.

  Age doesn’t matter when you find someone you connect with.

  He didn’t talk about her writing again. She wondered if he’d made up the whole story, if Doug or the magazine even existed. She found the idea exhilarating, that he would have gone through that charade simply to get close to her.

  It occurred to her that what they were doing was probably illegal. At sixteen she was a minor, and he was a figure of authority, charged with her care during the English Lit class. This she found exhilarating too: they were flouting the law in the name of love – because of course it was love. There was no doubt now in her mind.

  In bed at night she made plans. They would marry as soon as she was old enough. He’d still be under forty, not old at all. Ma and Pa might have some reservations about the age gap, but the fact that he was a teacher would help them get over it.

  They’d have children, one of each at least. She would be a writer; she’d start with magazine features and progress to short stories, maybe novels.

  In class he treated her the same as everyone else, giving her precisely the same attention as every other student. She hugged her secret to herself, counting the days till they could go to the forest again.

  And then, the Monday after their seventh Saturday, Lien said, There’s a rumour going around.

  It was the sixteenth of November. School was over for the day. They were walking to the bus stop. What kind of rumour? Tilly asked, her heart tightening.

  About you and John Smith. Abigail Carson’s mother says she saw you getting into his car on Saturday, outside the library.

  Tilly laughed, the sound coming out all wrong. A kind of crowing, not her usual laugh at all. Abigail Carson made that up, she said. You know she fancies him.

  But why would she say she’d seen him with you?

  I have no idea. Maybe her mother saw someone who looked like me.

  She didn’t sound convincing, even to herself. It’s rubbish, she said. It’s not true.

  People think it might be though, Lien said, not looking at Tilly, staring straight ahead as the bus stop came into view.

  Well, I’m telling you they’re wrong.

  OK.

  She’d wear a scarf on Saturday: she’d wrap her hair in it, make herself different. She’d tell him they’d been seen. They’d change where they met. They’d work it out.

  For the rest of the week she kept as much distance as she could between herself and Abigail Carson. She became aware that people stopped talking as she approached – or did she imagine that? In English Lit she took care not to look at him, even if he addressed her directly.

  On Saturday she pulled a turquoise scarf from her bag as she approached the library steps and wrapped her head in it. As she waited she kept glancing around, but nobody seemed to be watching.

  He was late. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. After an hour she went home, her skin itching with dread, convinced that someone had said something to him too. That evening she went to do her usual shift in the Indonesian restaurant, but she was so absent-minded, mixing up orders and bringing the wrong bills, that Nadia’s mother sent her home early, saying she must be sickening for something.

  On Monday morning there was no sign of his red Jeep in the school car park when she walked through. She told herself it meant nothing: he was late, that was all. The day crawled along, English Lit straight after lunch. She couldn’t eat the sandwich Ma had made; when Lien asked if she was OK, she told her she had period pains.

  On the way back to class she realised that her period was five days overdue. She was like clockwork, never late by more than a day.

  The bell rang. She sat at her desk, her palms damp, her stomach bubbling with acid, her head aching.

  The door opened and Mrs Harvey walked in. Surprise, she said – but it came as no surprise. Hands up who missed me. A few heads swivelled towards Tilly, who pretended not to notice.

  When she got home from school Ma and Pa were waiting for her in the kitchen. This came, Ma said, holding up a letter that didn’t have a signature on it. And as Tilly read the few short typed sentences
of condemnation, from Abigail Carson or her mother, one or the other, she felt something bursting inside her – and it all came washing out then, along with a torrent of tears.

  I’m sorry, she wept, as they stood dumbfounded before her. I’m so sorry, I know it was wrong, I know we shouldn’t have done it, I know I’ve let you down, but it’s over, he’s gone, it’s all over.

  He’s your teacher, Ma said faintly.

  He’s not – he’s not any more. He’s gone, Mrs Harvey is back – I’ll never see him again.

  She begged them to take no action. She said it would ruin her in school, that she’d definitely be expelled if it came out. She told them they’d been careful, that there was nothing to worry about. And because they were uncomplicated country people they believed her, and agreed to leave it in the past.

  But she’d broken their trust: she’d betrayed it every Saturday for weeks. She could see it in the careful way they looked at her after that. Something had been lost between them: it was one more thing to mourn.

  It was 23 November, with two weeks left of the final term of the school year. She went through the motions each day. She sat through exams she didn’t remember afterwards, she responded to questions in class. She walked to the bus stop every afternoon with Lien, just like they’d always done, and John Smith’s name never once came up.

  She didn’t tell Lien about her missed period. She made no mention of the anonymous letter. And she didn’t tell her best friend that a few mornings after the letter’s arrival, she’d had to run to the bathroom to throw up the breakfast she’d just eaten.

  THURSDAY

  24 DECEMBER

  CHRISTMAS EVE

  Nobody had died. She had to keep reminding herself that nobody had died. If she didn’t keep doing that, there was every chance that she would slap a child – or two children – very hard, or collapse in a dead faint, neither of which sounded like particularly sensible courses of action just then, given that there was a baby clamped to her hip.

  She lowered Poppy into the playpen and turned back to the offenders. ‘How many times have I forbidden you two to go anywhere near those cliffs?’

  Silence. Two lowered heads.

  ‘Well? How many?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘I’ll tell you. Too many times to count, that’s how many. I’ve told you over and over to stay well away from there.’

  More silence. Shuffling of four feet.

  ‘Haven’t I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because they’re dangerous, that’s why.’ More silence. ‘Aren’t they dangerous?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And still you went – and in this weather too. Can you hear that wind? Listen to it.’

  The three of them listened to the wind as it whipped and shrieked outside. In her playpen, Poppy grabbed Rabbity by his long-suffering ears and whacked him against the bars, and yelled in delight at the sound.

  ‘Wasn’t so windy when we went out,’ Ben mumbled – and even in her agitated state Laura had to acknowledge the truth of that. How terrifyingly quickly it had blown up: not a breath when she’d risen this morning, not much more when the boys had gone on their usual ramble just after lunch.

  She imagined what it must have been like on the cliffs once the wind really got going, how easily two skinny ten-year-old boys weighing less than five stone apiece could have been picked up and tossed—

  She cut the thought off sharply. Nothing had happened. Nobody had died.

  I thought I should bring them home, Dougie Fennessy had said, landing the boys on the doorstep not five minutes before. It’s a wild one: Leo’s just called a halt for the day.

  This time of year, it wasn’t uncommon for Leo to suspend ferry operations for a time due to stormy conditions, stranding people on or off the island until more clement weather returned. Visitors to Roone could be put out at having to change their plans without warning, but locals accepted it as a matter of course, and adapted accordingly.

  Praise the Lord Gladys had got away, by the skin of her teeth it sounded like. Gav had driven her to the pier for the one o’clock ferry, the wind only starting up then, but still it must have been the last one to go across. How lucky were they?

  Laura had thanked Dougie and sent him home with a bottle of apple juice. The beauty of living on a small island, everyone looking out for everyone else’s children. No shortage of guardian angels here, both heavenly and human varieties.

  But Roone, for all its wonderful community spirit, was not without its dangers for children and adults alike. Chief among them had to be the Atlantic Ocean, washing up on every side. Benevolent when it chose – offering a livelihood, between fishing and tourism, to a goodly proportion of Roone’s population – but unpredictable as a wildcat, demanding always to be respected. Nell Baker’s grandfather and Walter Thompson’s father were among the many islanders whose lives had been claimed by the sea: both seasoned sailors but no match, when it had come to it, for a storm-tossed ocean.

  Then there were the cliffs, to the west and south of the island, the closest of them less than half a mile from the house. The bane of every parent’s life despite the safety fence, which could be scaled easily if you were any way nimble – Ben and Seamus were like monkeys.

  Still, all things considered, Roone had to be one of the safest places in Ireland to raise a child. I wandered all over it with my friends when I was young, Nell had told Laura. There wasn’t a square inch we didn’t explore. We knew every rock in the place, every cove, every lane.

  And that was the kind of childhood Laura wanted for her children; the kind she’d never had growing up in the heart of a city. She wanted them to enjoy the freedom of Roone, to roam about it until they knew it like Nell did. She just didn’t want them taking chances in the sea, or going anywhere near the cliffs, in any weather, until they were old enough and sensible enough to handle them with care.

  But she was lucky: most of the time they were good boys. They did their bit around the place – they took it in turns to collect the eggs and feed the livestock each morning and evening. When the B&B was running at full tilt at the height of the summer they’d pitch in when she asked them, and they helped out with Gavin’s deliveries when they had holidays.

  But they were boys, and a month ago they’d turned ten, and with the school closed for Christmas it was inevitable that they’d get up to some tomfoolery now and again.

  ‘I have a good mind to send you to bed before the party begins,’ Laura said.

  Their faces fell. The deal had been that they could stay up beyond their usual bedtime, in return for helping with the food distribution. It wasn’t the party they’d mind missing, with its wholly adult guest list: it was the coins that would undoubtedly get slipped to them as they offered seconds of mince pies and held out dishes of cream.

  ‘We’re sorry, Mum,’ Ben said.

  ‘Yeah, please can we stay up?’

  She looked at their beseeching freckled faces. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she told them. Of course they’d be staying up: Gavin wouldn’t manage all the running around on his own, and Laura had no intention of doing it.

  As if the thought of him were enough to conjure him up, she heard the click of the back door opening – and almost immediately it slammed shut again, making the cups jump on the dresser, and Poppy start in her playpen. ‘Sorry – wind grabbed it,’ he shouted from the scullery.

  His hair, when he eventually appeared, was tossed about his head. Laura should have sent him to Nell earlier in the week for a cut: now he’d have to wait till the salon opened again after Christmas. You’d think he’d remember things like that himself: sometimes it felt like she had six children.

  ‘Hey there,’ he said, feet already shed of his wellingtons, shucking off his jacket. ‘Going to be the mother of all storms tonight. Sea is whipping up like you wouldn’t believe. Mam was lucky she didn’t leave it any later to go �
� the ferry is cancelled for the rest of the day.’

  ‘I know.’

  As he was hanging his jacket on its customary hook he spotted the Christmas cake sitting on the dresser, the one Laura had iced the minute Gladys was out of the way.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘you finished it.’

  ‘I did.’ She waited.

  ‘It’s wonderful. Well done, your first cake. Good for you.’

  He must be blind. The icing was a disaster, messy and lopsided, the silver balls she’d plunked on top unevenly spaced, the whole affair as far from a thing of beauty as it was possible to get. Wonderful my foot.

  ‘Did you remember the green tea?’

  ‘I did.’ He dipped into the jacket pocket and handed the box to her before turning to the boys. ‘Hear that wind?’ he asked, but they didn’t reply.

  He took in their abashed stance. He glanced at Laura. ‘Something happen?’

  She told him, and he did his best to look shocked. ‘I’m very disappointed,’ he said. ‘You know you shouldn’t go near the cliffs, you’ve been told often enough. What would Santa have to say?’

  She could see his words floating away unheeded. She was definitely the bad cop in this family: he was a hopeless softie, incapable of disciplining them. Even at two years old, the girls were running rings around him.

  ‘Your mother went off OK?’

  ‘She did, no problem.’

  ‘Did you check on the animals?’

  ‘They’re in the shed.’

  ‘And the hens?’

  ‘Inside.’

  He loved animals. He’d been working at Dublin Zoo when they met. He’d fill their place here with four-legged creatures, open up a Roone Zoo if she gave him half a chance.

  He wasn’t doing too badly as it was.

  To be fair, he couldn’t be directly blamed for any of the livestock they’d acquired since moving to Roone. When they’d bought Walter’s house, the farmer who’d been looking after George the donkey and the hens returned them. They belong here, he’d told Gavin and Laura, it’s only right that they should come back – so they’d had little choice but to accept them.