I wish you all the very best, her mother wrote back. I can’t be there, but I wish you every happiness. She enclosed a cheque for one hundred Australian dollars and a silver bangle that winked with small blue stones. So Laura got married without her, while her father scowled his way up the aisle, and she determined to have nothing more to do with either of her parents from then on.
The months passed. Laura quit her childcare course and got a waitressing job, and kept inventing reasons to refuse her stepmother Susan’s regular dinner invitations. Aaron’s efforts to find a job proved fruitless, and he spent long hours alone in their flat, becoming increasingly morose. Laura would bring home doggy-bag dinners from her workplace; she’d spend her tips on scented candles and bottles of cheap wine; she’d tell him all the time how wonderful he was and how much she loved him and how happy he made her, and eventually she’d be rewarded with a smile, and a lifting of his spirits.
A week before Christmas, when they’d been married two months, Susan rang and invited them both to Christmas dinner. No thank you, Laura told her, we have plans. And there was a brief silence before Susan wished her a happy Christmas, and hung up.
Laura was well aware of how petty she was being, how immature and unfair it was to take out her anger towards her father on his innocent second wife. From their limited interaction, Susan came across as pretty inoffensive; but becoming her friend was a step too far.
In May Laura did a pregnancy test, and for a while their good news brought about a real improvement in Aaron’s outlook. He made a wooden cradle – and when Laura found out they’d need two, he made another. No one was as happy as them: they were lucky, they were blessed. She wrote again to her mother, and phoned her father’s house and gave the news to Susan, who heard it with what sounded like genuine delight.
Her mother’s response, when it eventually arrived, was more circumspect. Congratulations to you and your husband, she wrote. Your husband – she couldn’t even use his name. I hope everything goes well, she wrote. I hope you are feeling well, and looking after yourself. No evident happiness, no reference to her becoming a grandmother, no indication of impending travel plans. Laura shouldn’t have let it bother her, but she did.
And then, with just over two weeks to her due date, Aaron’s demons finally got the better of him, and there was to be no growing old together, and no more babies with him.
And the first person who rushed to be with her was Susan. As soon as the news reached her she came, whisking an incoherent Laura back home from the council flat, putting her to bed in her old room, every so often bringing her tea and tiny things to eat – two thin crustless fingers of buttered toast; a palm-sized omelette; three halved strawberries drizzled with honey; a few spoonfuls of homemade soup.
She sat for hours at a time by Laura’s bedside, holding her hand silently while Laura cried her heart out. She accompanied her to the hospital when Laura’s pains began – a week to the day after his death – and stayed with her throughout the whole heartbreaking, wonderful, excruciating, exhausting hours that followed. She looked after Aaron’s baby sons in those first grief-ridden weeks and months as if they were her own.
And even in the face of such devastating news Laura’s mother stayed away, returning to Ireland only when the boys were three. Bringing boomerangs and T-shirts and jigsaws, too late for Laura to forgive her. Much too late for anything but the most stilted of conversations while the boys flung the boomerangs about and knocked pictures off the walls.
And now Diane Potter’s second daughter had materialised. Just as abandoned as Laura – no, worse than that. Given away soon after she was born, by the sound of it, passed on to other people to raise. More rejected even than Laura had been, no experience at all of her real mother.
But given the mother in question, maybe the best thing that could have happened. Hadn’t she been spared two pretty useless parents? Better surely to have no contact with them at all, better to be handed over to strangers who wanted you.
And what was Laura to do now with this teenager who’d landed on her doorstep, this timid creature with their father’s eyes who’d travelled halfway around the world in search of her? What on earth was she to do? How was she to treat the second child of her parents, whose very existence had been unknown to her just a few hours ago?
She hadn’t the energy for this new development. She couldn’t face the questions that would inevitably follow a disclosure of the girl’s identity, the explanations that would be demanded. She simply wasn’t up to their dysfunctional background being laid bare for all to inspect. With everything else she had to contend with, a sister was the last thing she needed right now.
In a week, in less than a week, the girl – Tilly – would be gone home, and they could forget about her. She’d hardly be making a return visit, with the lukewarm reception she’d got this time.
But she’d come all the way from Australia. She’d found her way to Roone, all alone. She clearly did want a sister. And it wasn’t her fault, none of it was. Like Susan, Tilly hadn’t been the cause of any of the upheaval in Laura’s life.
‘Stop it,’ she said sharply – aware that she’d said it aloud only when the girls’ heads lifted in unison to regard their mother, when the boys turned from the complicated rings tournament they’d devised.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I was just talking to myself,’ and they went back to their various activities, too young to wonder about the implications of that.
Tilly wasn’t her responsibility, she told herself fiercely. She wasn’t under any obligation to her – she had enough on her plate without that. Wasn’t she putting a roof over her head? Wasn’t she feeding her for as long as she was staying here?
She’s seventeen, and looks younger. She flew thousands of miles by herself, and I’m refusing to acknowledge her.
Stop it, stop it. This time she was careful to shout it only in her head. Stop making me feel guilty. I’m doing the best I can here.
Colette knew who she was. Colette knew and, despite her promise not to say anything – and Colette was nothing if not discreet – it was surely only a matter of time before Nell and James knew too. Laura would deal with that if it presented itself.
Just then she heard a shout from outside, where the men were still working. Lord, what now? She glanced around the room, but the children seemed to have missed it.
A second shout followed, and another. In the act of retrieving rings from the board, Ben stopped.
‘What was that?’
‘Nothing,’ Laura said quickly. ‘Just someone calling someone else outside.’
Probably giving up for the day, too dark by now to see what they were doing properly. Had they unearthed any of the casualties? Had they taken any of them away yet?
‘Ben! Seamus!’ Gavin’s voice, nearer. ‘Everyone! Come out here!’
What was he thinking, calling them outside? ‘Stay where you are,’ Laura ordered – and a minute later there he was at the door, his hair grey with dust, his grimy face alight with happiness.
‘Quick, everyone!’ he cried. ‘Big surprise outside! Big surprise from Santa!’
They followed him, hurried through the scullery and went outside, blinking and shivering in the dusk – and there, to everyone’s astonished delight, were all four of the creatures they’d assumed lost to the storm, looking very much alive. George the donkey pulling placidly at the grass, like he always did, the goats bleating – presumably to be milked – Caesar snuffling hopefully in his feeding trough. Evie gave a screech and flung her arms around Maddie the goat, causing the little creature to skitter away in fright.
‘They just reappeared,’ James said, his face every bit as dirty and happy as Gavin’s. ‘Just walked in the gate this minute, all together.’
‘But how could they?’ Laura asked, as the children continued to race around, yelling happily. ‘Weren’t they in the shed?’ She turned to Gavin. ‘Didn’t you say you locked them in last night?’
‘I did – but the d
oor seems to be gone.’
Her mouth dropped open. ‘What?’
‘There’s no sign of it.’ He regarded the goats. ‘I’d better milk these two before they burst.’
And as he went in search of his milking bucket and stool, Laura wondered what was snagging on her memory – and then it came to her: Nell said that Con Maher had found a door on the beach. It must be from the shed, wrenched off in the storm. Could the wind possibly have been strong enough to rip a door from its hinges and whisk it away?
Of course it could. Hadn’t it ripped an apple tree from the ground?
‘Con,’ she said.
James looked at her. ‘Con? Con Maher? What about him?’
‘The door.’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s on the beach. Con saw it this morning.’
The comedy of it – a door flying through the night, like those whirling animals and bicycles in the Wizard of Oz tornado – struck her suddenly. Dangerous, of course – imagine if it had collided with anyone. But it hadn’t: they’d have heard by now if it had.
‘Must’ve fancied a swim,’ James said, completely deadpan – which was all she needed.
‘What are you laughing at?’ Ben asked, and as Laura told them about the flying door, making them all giggle, a new thought came to her.
It wasn’t Santa. Santa hadn’t had anything to do with it. It was Walter. Suddenly she was certain of it. He’d kept the animals safe, his beloved donkey and the others. Walter had got them out of the shed before the tree had fallen on it. That was exactly the kind of miracle that happened on Roone.
‘But where did they go?’ Seamus wanted to know. ‘Where were they all night?’
‘Who knows?’ Laura replied. ‘They must have found shelter somewhere. Get the vegetable peelings for Caesar, they’re on the draining board’ – and they sped inside and came out with the basin of peelings and tipped it into his trough, while the men packed up and set off for their respective turkey dinners.
Laura ushered everyone back into the warmth of the house. Going to be a bitterly cold night: Gavin would have to farm the animals out to neighbouring sheds. No problem, with places a-plenty to choose from, right on this road.
The turkey was cooked. Laura hauled it from the oven and left it to rest. She put the dinner plates in to warm and made the gravy.
‘Call the others,’ she told Ben and Seamus. ‘Granny is in the sitting room, Mr … Treblinka is in number two, and Tilly is in number three. Tell them dinner will be ready in five minutes. Bring up two torches, give them one each.’
As they went off, she said, ‘No – stop.’
They stopped.
‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘You set the table, put out side plates and cutlery – and make sure the girls don’t go near the oven.’
She climbed the stairs, still marvelling at the turnaround of events, still convinced that Walter had had a hand in it. Gone-but-not-forgotten Walter, who might still be in the vicinity after all.
Walter, who would never, she was sure, disown a member of his family, for whatever reason. Walter, who would be shocked and saddened at the notion of Laura refusing to acknowledge a sister, simply to get back at a mother who had hurt them both.
She decided to do what Walter would do. She summoned Gladys and the American to dinner. She changed hurriedly in her room, selecting the blue dress she’d been planning to wear for the party the night before. She left the room and stopped outside Tilly’s bedroom door and stood for a few seconds, listening to the silence from within.
She knocked.
She was woken by someone tapping on the door. She lay in the darkness, completely disoriented. Where was she? Which bed, whose house? She groped for a lamp and eventually found one. She located a switch and clicked it, but nothing happened, no light shone.
And then it all came back, accompanied by a wave of despair. She was on Roone, she’d made it to her sister’s house, where there was no electricity, and where she wasn’t wanted. It had all been for nothing: the whole trip had been a mistake of epic proportions. The three plane rides, the bus from Dublin, the drive from Dingle, the boat to the island, all wasted, all useless.
The tapping continued. She threw back the duvet and groped her way through the absolute darkness, the floor cold against her bare feet. She opened the door to find a light shining blindingly in her face; she put up a hand to shield her eyes.
The light was instantly lowered. ‘Sorry,’ her sister said. ‘You caught me at a bad time. We’re having a few … problems right now. It’s generally a bit of a … well, and you arriving when you did – I reacted badly, I should have been more welcoming. After you coming all that way, I mean.’
The words were thrown out in quick, awkward bursts. In the dim light from the torch that was now aimed at the floor between them, her sister’s expression was unclear, but her tone was different from before. It was warmer, softer.
Tilly cast about for a response. ‘I should have let you know. I shouldn’t have just arrived.’
‘No, that’s not – it doesn’t matter—’
‘I didn’t have an address. I only knew your name—’
‘Well then, how could you? You couldn’t have let me know.’
‘Still, it was wrong to just turn up like I did—’
‘What choice did you have though?’
‘Well—’
‘Look, it’s fine, it’s – and now you’re here.’
Their words stuttered to a halt. Tilly became aware that she was covered all over with goosebumps.
‘Anyway,’ Laura said, ‘I just wanted to say sorry for not being nicer – and of course I’ll tell people who you are. I’ll tell them as soon as you come downstairs. Dinner’s ready,’ she added. ‘Don’t be long. Oh, and take this.’ Tilly felt the torch being passed over, and then she was alone, her sister vanishing back down the dark corridor.
In the en-suite she splashed icy water on her face and brushed her teeth. She combed her hair with her fingers and applied a little eyeliner as carefully as she could in the torchlight. She spritzed perfume onto her wrists and behind her ears, and from her suitcase she pulled clean but crumpled jeans, two long-sleeved T-shirts and her favourite pink pullover.
As she put them on she allowed herself to hope that it would work out after all. She’d caught Laura at a bad time. Maybe the baby was teething, maybe the American had been making demands. It was Christmas Day, surely a busy time for any mother, especially a mother with so many small children.
She left the room and followed the torchlight along the corridor to the stairs. A savoury smell wafted up, making her mouth water. She realised that she hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast in Cormac and Bernard’s kitchen; so long ago that seemed.
The kitchen door was closed, the chatter of voices and the clatter of cutlery coming to her from the other side. Was she late? Had they already started? She stood in the hall, feeling unaccountably shy, remembering the children who’d stared curiously at her earlier, and the solemn unblinking gaze of the baby Laura had given her to hold. Poppy, like the flower.
And who else was on the other side of the door? The grumpy American – she’d forgotten his name – and Laura’s husband, and maybe the elderly man she’d seen by the henhouse. A lot of strangers to face.
Get it over with. She pasted on a smile, turned the handle and walked in.
The room glowed softly with the flames of several fat red candles in glass jars. They were everywhere: three of them clustered in the centre of the table, two more on a high shelf of the dresser, one on top of the fridge, another on the draining board, a pair in each of the deep windowsills. The candlelight made faces rosy, made jewels of the berries in the sprigs of holly that were dotted throughout the room, made shadows dance and leap about.
The big table was covered with a red cloth that Tilly was pretty sure hadn’t been on it earlier. The four older children sat at its far end, the two little girls facing one another, strapped into some kind of
booster seats, the boys next to them.
Closer to Tilly was a woman who looked around Colette’s age but with none of her trim elegance – tightly permed grey hair, plain features, plump, matronly figure – and across the table from her was the American in a navy suit, with just as dour an expression as Tilly remembered on his face.
There was no sign of the other man, the one who’d smiled up at her from the hen run. She would have liked him to be there.
Next to the matron there was a vacant place setting, and two more at either end of the table. Poppy sat propped with cushions in a wooden playpen, similar to one Ma and Pa had used for Robbie and Jemima. She was sucking on the ragged ear of a brown rabbit, an assortment of other soft toys assembled around her.
Laura was at the cooker, tipping vegetables into dishes. An apron was tied around her waist; beneath it she wore a dress that was blue, or maybe purple. A tall sandy-haired man stood next to her, in the act of drawing a carving knife repeatedly across a steel block. An enormous turkey sat on a platter nearby.
Everything stopped when Tilly walked in. A hush fell over the entire table as faces turned towards her. The carving knife was halted in its track. Even Poppy seemed to draw an expectant breath as she looked up. The only sound in the room was the gentle bubble of something on a hotplate. Under everyone’s scrutiny Tilly felt her face grow warm. She stood rooted to the spot, her hands curling of their own accord into fists, grateful for the soft forgiving light of the candles.
‘There you are.’
Laura approached, wiping her hands on her apron. She took Tilly’s arm and drew her a little further into the room.
I’ll be home for Christmas Page 23
