I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  After twenty minutes or so the music stalled, and various drinks – mainly Guinness – materialised in front of the musicians; and in the interval that followed, the guitar player took a narrow metal flute from his breast pocket and played a plaintive solo tune that sent a fresh stillness through the room.

  Every so often someone would leave the pub, calling a general goodbye, and more would arrive, wet and windswept. Everyone seemed to know everyone else: it was like a giant family gathering. Tilly wondered what the bar was like the rest of the year. Could it possibly be as crowded and as lively, could its clientele be as good-humoured as this, all year round?

  ‘Ye wanted to see our rooms.’

  It was Ursula, Cormac’s wife, taking them in as she held a glass of amber liquid to her tight red front. ‘Follow me,’ she said, leaving Tilly and Colette to weave through the crowd after her.

  She left the bar through a door marked ‘Private’ and led them along a carpeted hallway that smelt of polish. The air was much colder there. ‘Dining room,’ she said as they passed a glass-panelled door on the right. ‘Ye can let us know when ye want breakfast.’

  They followed her up two flights of narrow stairs, past a family of ceramic geese making their way in formation along the wall, past a painting on the first landing of a thorny-crowned Jesus, and another of a pope Tilly didn’t recognise who looked out wearily at them. The higher they climbed, the mustier it smelt. At a bend in the stairs Tilly caught Colette’s eye: the older woman’s smile was resigned.

  ‘Number five,’ Ursula said on the second landing, standing back to allow them to enter a room with a pink-covered single bed, a sink in one corner, a narrow wardrobe in another, and no sign at all of an adjoining bathroom. ‘And six,’ she went on, as they gazed silently around the chilly, bare space, is up those stairs.

  Tilly hadn’t noticed the trio of even narrower steps that led off the landing to an unpainted wooden door. Behind it she discovered a tiny room whose ceiling slanted almost to the floor on one side, with a patchwork quilt covering a narrow bed that was pushed up against the window. There was a small locker at the foot of the bed and two clothes hangers suspended from a hook on the wall, and absolutely nothing else. No wardrobe, not even a sink.

  The place was as shockingly cold as a fridge. She couldn’t stand upright in most of it. She felt like Gulliver in Lilliput. She knelt on the bed and peered out.

  Even this early, the light was fading. Far below was a yard to the rear of the pub, metal barrels piled up against a breeze-block wall. Beyond it, giant slabs of black rock onto which sheets of water were being periodically dashed from the sea below them.

  She looked out past the shoreline, across the immensity of roiling water, and saw again the dark, humped shape of Roone in the distance. She thought of her sister somewhere on the island, preparing for Christmas. Wrapping presents, or stringing fairy lights around a banister, or doing some last-minute shopping. Planning to watch an old film on television later, or meet friends for a drink, like the people in the bar below.

  Or maybe she didn’t drink, maybe she never met her friends in bars. So little Tilly knew about her, so little information she’d been given. Nothing really, except that she was several years older than Tilly, and lived on Roone. Tilly hadn’t asked, too bewildered at this unexpected information, and her mother hadn’t volunteered any more.

  She pulled back the patchwork quilt, and the blankets underneath. The sheets looked clean at least, but they were icy to the touch. She wondered if she could request a hot-water bottle – what had Breda called it? A hot jar, maybe they’d have one downstairs.

  She left the room and pulled the door closed. No key was in evidence, and she hadn’t seen one in the other bedroom door either. Didn’t people lock rooms here? After her experience at Heathrow, the thought of leaving herself vulnerable again was dismaying.

  This was different, she told herself. This wasn’t an airport, with all manner of strangers passing through. And anyway, her case was still locked into the boot of Colette’s car, and her handbag hadn’t left her side since the robbery.

  Colette and Ursula were talking in the corridor. They turned at Tilly’s approach. ‘Everything alright?’ Colette asked, and Tilly said yes, everything was fine, determined to make the best of what was, after all, a godsend.

  ‘Bathroom is down there,’ Ursula said, indicating a door at the far end of the corridor. ‘Ye’re the only ones staying, so ye’ll have it to yourselves.’ Her breath smelt richly of alcohol.

  ‘Is there a bath?’ Colette enquired, and was told that there was, but that something called an immersion would have to be turned on, and there would be a wait.

  ‘And maybe one of the men would bring in our luggage?’

  ‘No bother; give me your keys and I’ll get it sorted’ – and Tilly watched Colette handing over her car keys, just like that. She found it reassuring that the older woman, who presumably valued the contents of her luggage, didn’t seem in the least concerned about their safety. It would appear they were in a place where people could be trusted not to run away with your valuables when your back was turned.

  ‘I’ll bring up a couple of fan heaters too,’ Ursula said. ‘The rooms get a bit chilly when they’re not used in a while. If that’s everything so …’ Already edging towards the stairs, and when Colette said it was, she made her escape.

  They remained silent until the sound of her footsteps had faded. Colette rubbed her hands together. ‘Cold up here, isn’t it? And it’s a bit rough and ready – but we’d best stay put, for tonight at least. The fan heaters will help; and make sure you wear a few layers in bed. We can head into Dingle tomorrow, when the storm has passed.’

  Tomorrow was Christmas Day: hard to keep remembering that, with everything so different and uncertain. And then she reminded herself that things could have been much worse. If she hadn’t met Breda on the bus, if Colette hadn’t come along to the pier, who knew what dire straits she might be in now?

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘For offering to pay for me here, I mean. I’ll pay you back if you give me your address. I’ll send you the money when I can.’

  Colette smiled. ‘There’s really no need for that: I don’t imagine our bill here is going to break the bank. Consider it a Christmas gift.’

  ‘Well … thank you.’

  The sound of the revelry below could be faintly heard: maybe that was why they’d been given rooms two flights up. Tilly didn’t imagine the crowd had any plans for an early night this Christmas Eve.

  ‘Listen to that wind,’ Colette said, and that could be heard too, even though the corridor had no window. The storm raged on, no sign of it losing any of its power. ‘Christmas will be interesting,’ Colette murmured. ‘Your first Christmas in Ireland – you’ll certainly remember it.’

  Tilly laughed. ‘I sure will.’

  She should be keeping a diary, she thought. She should be recording all the happenings, good and bad, of this strange journey she was on – although she doubted that she’d forget any of it, written down or not. When I was seventeen, she’d tell her children, and later her grandchildren, I had the most unusual Christmas ever. She might tell the story every Christmas – it might become a family tradition.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and a minute later Bernard appeared, bearing a pair of small electric heaters and two hot-water bottles.

  ‘Take these,’ he told them, doling them out, ‘before ye freeze to death. I’ll get the cases’ – and he was gone, thumping down the stairs again. They plugged in their heaters and stood cradling the hot-water bottles until he reappeared with the luggage.

  ‘I hope we’re not putting you out,’ Colette said. ‘I imagine you don’t normally have people staying at this time of year.’

  ‘Not at all – we couldn’t see ye homeless at Christmas. We’re officially closed tomorrow, but the three of us live on the premises, so we’ll be around – and there’ll be plenty of turkey, so ye won’t go hungry. But ye ne
ver know,’ he went on, folding his arms across his chest, ‘we might manage to get ye out to Roone tomorrow if it clears up.’

  Colette regarded him in surprise. ‘But there’s no ferry on Christmas Day.’

  ‘You’re right there, but we might find an obliging soul who’d run ye across in his boat.’

  ‘Really? That would be wonderful – wouldn’t it Tilly?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘I’m making no promises, but we’ll keep an eye out for ye.’ And off he went again, back to his noisy, happy bar.

  ‘Would you mind if I had a little lie-down?’ Colette asked when they were alone again. ‘I’m feeling rather tired.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Tilly didn’t feel in the least bit tired, but she could read her book. They agreed to rendezvous in a couple of hours – ‘tap on my door,’ Colette said, ‘if there’s no sign of me by seven. We’ll find something to do for the evening, I’m sure.’

  Tilly’s little room was warming up. It was pitch black now beyond the window, rain pelting hard against the glass. She drew the thin yellow curtains together and pulled off her shoes and slipped under the blankets with her book – but as soon as she lay down, sleep claimed her as swiftly as it had the night before.

  She was woken by a tapping. She blinked as she hauled herself from the bed – the light on, the room uncomfortably stuffy, the fan heater still whirring out its hot air, her clothes damp with sweat.

  Ursula, not Colette, stood outside. ‘You’ve been invited to dinner with the Corbetts out the road,’ she said, taking in Tilly’s crumpled appearance with a lightning glance. ‘Joseph will be over to collect ye in half an hour.’

  Tilly had no idea who Joseph was, and no explanation was offered. She squinted at her watch and discovered it to be a little after seven. She peeled off her sweaty clothes, planning a quick shower – but to her dismay there were no towels to be seen in the room, and she didn’t want to risk racing down the corridor in a state of undress, in case she encountered either of the brothers.

  She blotted herself dry with the shirt she’d taken off and pulled fresh clothes from her case, and attempted to smarten herself up by combing her hair and spritzing on perfume. Probably just as well there was no mirror in her room.

  Colette by comparison looked immaculate. She’d had a bath – the air in the corridor was scented with whatever she’d put into the water – and she’d changed from her jacket and skirt into a grey trouser suit. ‘Isn’t this nice?’ she said when Tilly appeared. ‘Aren’t people very good? We’ll have a proper dinner after all.’

  Joseph Corbett, it turned out, had been among those who had chatted with them earlier in the bar. ‘When I went home and told Sheila about ye, she put your names in the pot’, he told them, as they lurched in his well-worn Land Rover over the rain-puddled roads. ‘We’re not far, just a mile or so …’ and Tilly tried not to wonder, as they swerved sharply around another bend, as she grabbed the back of Colette’s seat in an effort not to be sent flying against the door, how much he’d had to drink before he’d gone home to Sheila. Did all Irishmen drive so recklessly, or had she just happened to meet the two who seemed to court death at every turn in the road?

  Thankfully, he managed to ferry them to his big old farmhouse without mishap – and after they ran through the wind and rain, skirting puddles on their way to the back door, after they were welcomed by Sheila, who took their coats and put them sitting straight at the table in the mercifully warm kitchen, the dinner was served. Thick slices of very salty bacon whose pink was striped with wide ribbons of fat, accompanied by scoops of mashed potato as soft as ice-cream that had bits of green mixed in with it.

  ‘Colcannon,’ Sheila told Tilly. ‘Cabbage and scallions, a drop of cream and a good knob of butter. There’s a song about it’ – and she launched into it as she filled plates with food for the three small girls with Joseph’s dark red curls who stared silently across the table at the visitors all the way through. The Irish, Tilly decided, loved to sing.

  The bacon, with its preponderance of fat, was a challenge. Seeing the rest of them, including Colette, eating it up without complaint Tilly did her best, but was forced to abandon the last slice, unable to stomach any more of its greasy taste. Seeing her push it to one side, Joseph reached over and transferred it to his plate.

  ‘Give it here,’ he said, without a trace of embarrassment. ‘Sheila will tell you I’m a divil for the streaky bacon.’

  ‘Oh, he is.’ Sheila ladled out seconds of colcannon. ‘He never leaves a bit behind. You’ll have another spoon of spud, dear?’

  Dessert was stewed gooseberries topped with warm custard. ‘I freeze the gooseberries in the summer,’ Sheila told them. ‘We all love gooseberries in this house, don’t we?’

  The oldest of the girls, who looked about ten, and whose name Tilly had forgotten, spoke up suddenly.

  ‘Did you ever see a kangaroo?’

  Tilly smiled. ‘Yes, lots of times.’

  ‘Have you a pet one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But could you?’

  ‘I suppose I could, if I wanted.’

  Pause. ‘Did you ever see a crocodile?’

  ‘Yes.’ She didn’t add on television; she suspected that part wouldn’t be half as satisfying.

  ‘And snakes?’

  ‘Oh yes. Lots of times.’

  ‘Could they kill you?’

  ‘Some of them could.’

  The other two listened solemnly to this exchange.

  ‘I got bitten by a snake once,’ Tilly told them. ‘I was young, about five or six.’

  ‘I’m five,’ the smallest girl said.

  ‘Was it very sore?’ the middle child enquired.

  ‘It was,’ Tilly replied, although she couldn’t remember how painful or otherwise it had been.

  ‘Did you nearly die?’

  ‘I did. Everyone was very worried.’ More artistic licence – the snake wasn’t poisonous, and was probably far more frightened of her, but where was the drama in that?

  ‘I got stinged by a wasp,’ the five-year-old announced. ‘It got in my sandal an’ it stinged me on my toe.’

  ‘It wasn’t a wasp,’ the middle girl said disdainfully. ‘It was just a fly.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  Sheila got to her feet. ‘I think it’s time for bed. Santa will be here soon, and he won’t want to hear any fighting. Joseph, will you put the kettle on while I bring them up? Say goodnight to our visitors.’

  By the time Tilly and Colette were dropped back to the bar it was almost ten o’clock, and the storm was still at the height of its power. The cars that had been parked outside when they left were all gone now, although the lights still blazed from within.

  ‘Ye’ll get some sleep tonight,’ Joseph remarked, pulling up. ‘Looks like they’ve cleared the place.’

  They thanked him and sped inside, where they found the pub deserted apart from Bernard, who was wiping down tables.

  ‘There ye are,’ he said. ‘Bit of peace and quiet for ye. We close early on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘I thought you were in for a long night,’ Colette replied.

  He shook his head. ‘Stephen’s Night will be the busy one – we’ll never get them home. Will ye have a nightcap before ye turn in?’

  ‘Only if we can pay for it,’ Colette said, and he grinned and put up his hands.

  ‘What’ll it be so?’

  Colette asked for a brandy, Tilly opted for water. ‘Sit yourselves over by the fire,’ he told them, and they settled on the seat that had been occupied earlier by the musicians.

  ‘You’ll join us,’ Colette said when he brought their order across – but he told them he was off to bed.

  ‘Making up for late nights this past week,’ he told them, bolting the front door, flicking switches that extinguished the main lights, leaving only the warmer glow of the wall lamps. ‘Help yourselves to seconds if ye want them –
and ye might turn off the rest of the lights before ye head up.’

  And so they were left alone, every drink imaginable within their reach, if they felt like it, and possibly a good deal of money in the till too, or on the premises at least – for where were the brothers going to deposit it tonight?

  ‘It’s been an interesting day,’ Colette murmured.

  ‘Yes, it has … We didn’t tell them what time we wanted breakfast in the morning.’

  Colette smiled. ‘Something tells me breakfast will be pretty informal.’

  They sat without speaking for a bit, the silence easy between them. Colette made another attempt to ring Roone, with no more success than her first time. Tilly gazed into the dying fire and wondered again if they would make it to the island the following day, and what the outcome would be whenever they did.

  ‘Do you know many people on Roone?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘I know a few at this stage,’ Colette replied, not taking her eyes from the fire. ‘My daughter-in-law is a hairdresser, the only one on the island. She’s lived there all her life, she knows just about everyone. And my son manages one of the bars, so of course he meets a lot of the locals too. I’ve met a fair few of them in the past few years.’

  ‘My sister,’ Tilly began – and then stopped. Even in this softly lit peaceful space, the phrase felt awkward in its unfamiliarity; it didn’t settle easily into a sentence. ‘It’s just … you might have met her.’

  ‘I might,’ Colette agreed. ‘It’s quite possible.’

  Putting no pressure on Tilly at all to say any more, leaving her completely free to drop the subject again and move on – except that Tilly didn’t want to move on. She said it then, the name that had imprinted itself on her brain when she’d heard it in the Brisbane café six months earlier. This was the first time she’d uttered it aloud, the name of the woman who shared a mother and a father with her.