I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  Who was he? He was about the right age to be Colette’s grandson. Had she mentioned a grandson? Tilly couldn’t remember – she’d forgotten everything in the shock of encountering him.

  His face, though. His face was imprinted in her brain; it was saved in her memory. She closed her eyes as she walked and there he was.

  Blue. Blue his eyes were, beneath the woolly hat that had covered his hair. No scarf. Faint scar running down one cheek – oh yes, she hadn’t missed it. Biggish nose, pink-tipped like the girls’ from the cold, tiny dark freckles dotted on the bridge. Mouth perfect, skin on the pale side. Chestnut-brown jacket, blue jeans, hiking boots. Black gloves on the hands that held the shovel. Every detail right there, memorised as surely as a snapshot she’d taken.

  What was his name? She wanted to hear his name. What did his voice sound like – what accent did he have? She wanted to know everything, every single thing about him. She kept walking past houses and fields and barns, none of which registered.

  Snow? What did that matter?

  She turned for the beach, still in a trance. She stood by the water’s edge, unable to remember getting there from the road. She walked by the shore, unable to focus on anything but him.

  She’d never felt like this before. She hadn’t fallen in love with John Smith the first time she’d seen him. She’d thought he was nice-looking, she’d certainly fancied him, but there’d been nothing like this, nothing like this avalanche of emotion, this tornado that had engulfed her the instant she’d looked into his eyes.

  She walked up and down the beach, paying scant attention to her surroundings. Eventually she thought to check the time, and was astonished to find almost half an hour gone by since she’d left the house. Laura would be waiting for her.

  Her anticipation grew as she drew closer to the garden where she’d seen him. Would he still be there? Would they talk – would he say something this time? She could feel her heart thumping in her ears as the house came into view. Her skin tingled. She walked closer, rehearsing her smile.

  There was no sign of him. The path was clear of snow, he and his shovel gone. But it didn’t matter: she was going to meet him later. Please let him be living there, please let him be at home when they called.

  She turned in at the gate of Walter’s Place, everything still whirling and fluttering inside her.

  Would you credit it? This she had not seen coming.

  Love was in the air.

  I’m getting up, Gladys had announced when Laura delivered her tea, the bottom half of her already dressed in green tweed. It’s too nice a day to stay in bed.

  Too nice a day? Her curtains were still closed, her room in near-darkness. Had she even looked out?

  It snowed last night, Laura told her, setting her tray on the bedside locker. Everyplace is covered. She went to the window and pulled the curtains apart.

  Isn’t that lovely? But Gladys didn’t even glance in the window’s direction as she buttoned her white blouse.

  I’m hoping it won’t upset your travel plans, Laura said.

  That got her attention. My travel plans? She strode on her support-stockinged feet to the window and looked anxiously at the scene outside. Isn’t the ferry running?

  I’d say it is, but we’ll have to enquire about the buses and trains on the other side. I’ll send Gavin down to talk to Leo in a while.

  Lord, Gladys muttered, crossing to the wardrobe and taking out a grey cardigan, pursing her mouth at it before putting it back in favour of a paler grey one. Grey was Gladys’s default shade.

  There’s a thaw expected this afternoon, Laura said. I’d say you’ll be alright.

  No response. Gladys had pulled on her cardigan and patted her hair into place in front of the dressing-table mirror. Distracted, without a doubt. Could she be working up to another collapse?

  I’ll leave your tea, Laura said. You might have it while you’re getting ready.

  Hmm? Gladys looked vaguely at the tray. Oh. Yes. Thank you, dear, I’ll be down shortly.

  And as Laura was leaving the room, her hand on the doorknob, Gladys asked, her voice drenched in unconcern, turning this way and that as she smoothed her skirt, Is Larry up yet, I wonder?

  Ah. Ah. Larry.

  I think he’s getting up. I heard him moving around when I passed his door just now.

  Laura waited, but no more was said. Gladys was locating her shoes, slipping her feet in – was she humming?

  I’ll see you below so, Laura said, and went back downstairs, where she filled in a few gaps in the Potter family history for Tilly – and when Larry appeared shortly afterwards, she wondered if she should give the poor creature some advance warning.

  No, of course she shouldn’t. He was a grown man, able to look out for himself. Besides, what would she say – run for the hills, my mother-in-law has taken a shine to you? Hardly.

  Anyway, it might well be just what Larry needed right now, someone to massage his ego with a bit of attention. Not that it would last long, with Gladys heading off, all going well, in a few hours. But maybe Laura had got it wrong: maybe she’d imagined any romantic notions on her mother-in-law’s part. Maybe Gladys was simply bothered about the trek back to Dublin.

  She had not got it wrong.

  Gladys appeared in the kitchen five minutes after Larry, wafting clouds of lily-of-the-valley. She bade them good morning and took her seat at the table. She small talked with Larry and Laura until she was halfway through her breakfast – and then she made her move.

  So you’re off home on Monday, she said, and Larry agreed that he was. He had two more days in Ireland.

  And didn’t you say that your flight is from Dublin?

  Yeah, that’s right.

  I’m just thinking, she said, forking up her scrambled egg, the picture of innocence, you should come back with me today.

  Pardon? Today?

  Why not? I’d be glad of the company – and you could stay in my house, save a bit of money.

  Larry looked a little cornered, as well he might. I made a hotel reservation.

  Gladys waved away the hotel. You could cancel that, I have lots of room, you could come and go as you please. The island is all very well for a few days, but at this time of the year – breaking off to throw a glance at Laura, who was pretending not to listen as she scrubbed egg from a saucepan – at this time of the year, it can be a little quiet.

  As if she knew Roone well, as if she came often, in winter or summer. Laura wasn’t entirely without sympathy, though: Gladys had been on her own for donkey’s years, since Gavin’s father had gone to work one day and never come home, tumbling off scaffolding instead and breaking his neck. Could you blame her for latching on to widowed Larry now? Her last chance, she was probably thinking.

  He’d turn down her offer, of course. Laura couldn’t see him gallivanting across the country with a woman he’d laid eyes on for the first time yesterday. Anyway, the poor man had hardly been widowed a wet week. And he’d surely prefer an anonymous hotel to a place where he’d have to make constant small talk. Larry wasn’t exactly the king of small talk.

  But he hadn’t turned down her offer. Far from it.

  Well, sure, he said. I guess I could do that, if it’s OK with you.

  Of course it is. And I could take you around, show you a bit of Dublin if you wanted.

  So Laura had sent Gavin to the pier, and he’d come back to say that public transport was running as normal on the other side, so the pair of them were heading off into the sunset, or off on the two o’clock ferry anyway. Could you believe it?

  And then Tilly had reappeared, all pink and sparkling from her walk, and the two travellers went upstairs to pack, and while Laura was making up Poppy’s next bottle the girls ran in and demanded that she come outside to look at their snowman, so she’d left Tilly in charge and gone off to admire their heroic, amateurish efforts.

  And by the time that was done it was after eleven, and Gavin went off to check on the animals, and brought the chi
ldren with him.

  ‘When are we going to Nell’s?’ Tilly asked now, Poppy feeding in the crook of her arm, and Laura told her as soon as the bottle was empty. Keen to meet the neighbours, obviously.

  ‘I saw the fallen tree,’ Tilly remarked. ‘And Gavin told me about the animals escaping. That was wonderful.’

  Laura almost mentioned Walter, and her belief that he’d had some part to play in their survival, but decided against it. Might spook her to think there was a ghost around, even one as harmless as Walter.

  She thumped damp coffee grounds from the cafetière into the bin. ‘Larry sure drinks enough of it,’ she remarked. ‘He had three mugs for breakfast.’

  ‘You don’t drink coffee,’ Tilly said.

  ‘I used to love it, but I lost my taste for it.’ She rinsed the cafetière under the tap, letting the silence grow, wondering whether to explain. And then she thought, Why not? It wasn’t a state secret: everyone on Roone knew it.

  ‘I was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year,’ she said. ‘I had a mastectomy in April.’

  Tilly’s mouth fell open.

  ‘I’m OK, it’s just that it changed my tastes – the treatment did, I mean, the chemo. No big deal. These days I’m all about green tea.’

  ‘You had cancer?’ Her face, suddenly so stricken.

  Maybe Laura shouldn’t have mentioned it. ‘I’m over it now. I’ve got the all-clear.’

  ‘Have you? When?’

  ‘In September, when I finished my chemo. They just have to keep an eye on me for a while. I’ll be checked out every six months.’

  ‘And are you OK? Really?’

  Laura turned to her, the cafetière still in her hands.

  ‘Sorry,’ Tilly said, ‘it’s just … It must have been awful.’

  Her concern was genuine, you could see that. They might have just met, but she seemed to really care.

  And just like that, Laura realised that she’d met someone she could tell.

  ‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘I’m scared. I’m terrified it’ll come back.

  ‘It keeps me awake at night,’ she said. ‘The worry.

  ‘I can’t bear to look at myself,’ she said. ‘I hate how I look now.

  ‘I had long hair before,’ she said. ‘I loved it, I really miss it.

  ‘I’m hell to live with,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe Gavin is still here.’

  It was such a relief to be able to tell someone the truth. So good not to have to pretend she was fine, she was coping.

  And Tilly just listened. She sat there and listened.

  And eventually, while she was still telling the truth, Poppy finished her bottle and emitted one of her impressive gassy explosions, which Laura took as her cue to belt up.

  ‘Right,’ she said, stowing the cafetière in the press, taking Poppy from Tilly’s arms. ‘Let’s get you changed, missy.’

  ‘How can I help?’ Tilly asked. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘You can cut a bit of that Christmas cake and find tinfoil for it in the dresser drawer. I promised Nell I’d bring her a bit to taste.’

  ‘I meant,’ Tilly said, taking a knife from the block, ‘how can I help you?’

  Laura looked at her gratefully. ‘You’ve already done it. But you could give me some of that hair too.’

  Tilly smiled as she cut the cake. ‘You’ll be OK. You’re strong, I can tell.’

  ‘I am strong. I’ve had to be.’

  ‘And your hair will grow again.’

  ‘It will, I know.’

  It was good, how they could talk like this. It was making a difference – it was lifting her spirits.

  ‘Do you like baking?’ Tilly asked, wrapping the cake in tinfoil.

  ‘Hate it – Nell badgered me into making that. I’m useless. You could build a wall with my rock buns.’

  ‘I could make cookies while I’m here,’ Tilly said, ‘if you like. Ma says I make the best cookies.’

  ‘That’d be good. The kids would love you.’

  She was pretty, in a way. There was a – what was it? – a kind of fragility about her that was appealing. The slender frame, the long legs, the pale skin. The fair lashes above those almost turquoise eyes, the quick smile that poked a dimple into her left cheek. The blush that came and went, often.

  She was smiling now as she pulled on her jacket, the fresh sparkle still in her face from her walk. She looked, Laura thought suddenly, like something that was blooming, or about to bloom. Maybe it was her age, everything still ahead of her at seventeen.

  ‘We’ll go out the front way,’ Laura said. ‘The field might be too tricky in the snow, with Poppy’ – so they left the kitchen and went through the hall.

  ‘I saw him,’ Tilly remarked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That man.’ She pointed to James’s painting of Walter, which Laura had hung outside the sitting-room door. Walter in a white shirt and dark green bow tie, smiling out at them.

  Laura looked from his face to Tilly’s. ‘You saw him? Where? When?’

  ‘Yesterday. He was in the henhouse. I saw him from my bedroom window, not long after I arrived.’

  Walter in the field, yesterday.

  Walter.

  She couldn’t have seen him. Walter was gone. Walter had left the building.

  Laura could think of nothing to say in response, nothing at all. What could she say – that Tilly had seen a ghost, that she must have imagined it?

  But Walter hadn’t gone away, had he? He was still here, still watching over them. He’d saved the animals. It was just that the past few months had been so fraught and busy and frightening, Laura hadn’t had time to notice him. It had taken Tilly, a newcomer, to do that.

  But Tilly had seen him. Laura had never seen him. She’d known he was there, but he’d never made himself visible to her. Maybe Tilly was more susceptible to that.

  She pulled up Poppy’s hood, feeling Tilly’s eyes on her. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘or we’ll never get there.’

  They left the house, pulling the front door closed behind them. Laura searched for something to say to break the silence as they walked down the snowy path. ‘The apple tree that fell,’ she said, ‘bore fruit all year round, pretty much.’

  Tilly turned to stare at her. ‘What? But that’s not possible.’

  ‘I know. September is the time for apples here. All our other trees bear fruit then, but this one was different. It was special. And now it’s gone.’

  Tilly said nothing. Probably didn’t believe her, probably thought it was a story to impress the Australian visitor.

  ‘So what are their names again?’ she asked as they approached the house. ‘Colette’s son and his wife.’

  ‘James and Nell. And you’ll probably meet James’s son Andy, from his first marriage. He’s seventeen, or maybe eighteen now. And Tommy, who’s nearly two. It was originally Nell’s house: James and Andy moved in when she married James.’

  Someone had cleared the snow from the path. They walked to the door and rang the bell. Tilly hung back slightly. Shy, Laura thought. Not used to meeting so many new people.

  Colette appeared, looking as smart as she always did – cream tailored pants, blue fitted jacket, patterned scarf in violets and blues. Laura imagined all her immaculate clothes on padded hangers covered with cellophane. They wouldn’t know a wrinkle if it shook hands and introduced itself.

  ‘There you are,’ Colette said, smiling broadly. ‘All well?’ Looking brightly from one to the other.

  ‘All fine,’ Laura replied. ‘I know you two have already met – I wanted to introduce Tilly to the others.’

  They were ushered in and brought straight through to the kitchen. Tilly met Nell, who seemed genuinely astonished – it appeared that Colette had kept her promise not to tell – and Tommy, who abandoned his toy cars to stare solemnly at Poppy, who stared right back at him from her mother’s arms.

  ‘Isn’t this the most amazing thing?’ Nell said, taking jackets and laying them across th
e small settee by the far wall. ‘I can’t believe it. James will be sorry he missed you, but he had to open up.’

  ‘He manages one of the village pubs,’ Laura explained. ‘You’ll meet him soon enough. Hi, Tommy. Did Santa come?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What did he bring?’ He waddled off and returned clasping a chunky wooden train. James’s eyes, Nell’s smile. Good combination.

  ‘Sit,’ Nell said, opening a tin and lifting out cubes of a dark brown cake. ‘Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate? Juice?’

  Tea for Laura, juice for Tilly. ‘Could I take Poppy?’ Tilly murmured, and Laura handed her over. She still seemed a bit ill at ease – had Laura upset her by ignoring her reference to Walter?

  ‘Is Andy about?’ she asked Colette. Nice for Tilly to meet someone her own age while she was here.

  ‘He went walking with the dog – he should be back soon. My older grandson,’ she added to Tilly, who seemed more interested in smoothing Poppy’s bit of hair. Maybe she had a boyfriend back home, and wasn’t bothered about meeting Irish boys.

  ‘So tell me,’ Nell said, taking the chair next to Tilly’s, ‘how did you discover you had a sister?’ and Tilly told the story again in her quiet, hesitant way.

  As she spoke, as they questioned her, she played with the cake she’d been given – which turned out to be gingerbread – crumbling it between her fingers but actually eating very little. Watching her figure, no doubt, like seventeen-year-old girls the world over.

  When Tilly told her about meeting up with Colette, Nell turned to her mother-in-law. ‘You never said a thing.’

  ‘Tilly asked me not to,’ Colette replied, throwing a smile in Tilly’s direction.

  The front door opened. They all heard it. ‘That’ll be Andy now,’ Nell said, getting to her feet.

  ‘Hi,’ he said to the room in general, bringing a whiff of the outside in with him, bending to undo Captain’s lead. ‘Hi, Laura,’ he said. Poor thing, his smile still a bit subdued after Eve breaking his heart.