I’ll be home for Christmas

by Roisin Meaney

  She turned her thoughts to Tilly and her revelations. Pregnant at sixteen, seduced by her teacher. Running away to Ireland, letting on to her parents that she was going to Bali. Telling the whole thing to Laura, looking at her with the same hopeful expression that Charlie wore when he thought she had a treat for him. Did she expect Laura to wave a magic wand and make it all go away?

  Booked her flight to Ireland in a panic, no doubt, when she found out she was pregnant. Travelling to the only place she could think of, travelling to the only person she could think of who might help her.

  She had a return ticket, but she didn’t want to return. She wanted to stay here, presumably to go on living with Laura and Gavin until the baby came. She probably had some romantic notion about them all living happily together, like some hippie commune.

  She’d make a good mother, though. Look at her with Poppy – she was a natural.

  ‘What’ll we do at all?’ she asked aloud – and at the sound of her mother’s voice Poppy tossed her legs about some more.

  Just then Laura’s phone rang. She plucked it from the bedside table and pressed the answer key before the significance of it ringing dawned on her.

  ‘Finally,’ Susan said. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you since yesterday.’

  ‘The phones have been down – you’re the first call I’ve got since Christmas Eve. Where are you?’

  ‘On the ferry. We’ve just taken off.’

  ‘Did you drive?’

  ‘No, train and bus.’

  ‘Great, I’ll send—’ She broke off. ‘No, I’ll come and collect you myself.’ She’d tell Susan about Tilly before she brought her home, give her a bit of advance notice.

  She dressed hurriedly, dabbed on foundation and blusher, added lipstick, coaxed some life into her hair with wax. She put Poppy into a clean dress and tights and brought her downstairs.

  The sitting room was deserted, and smelt of crisps. She found everyone in the kitchen, the boys playing with the football board game that Gladys had given them for Christmas, the girls sitting on either side of Tilly on the window seat as she read to them from Chicken Licken. Charlie was under the table, gnawing happily on his new dolly.

  ‘I’m heading to the pier to collect Susan,’ Laura said to Tilly. ‘We might stop off for coffee – can I leave you on duty here for another while?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Do you know where Gavin is?’

  ‘Out in the field.’

  Still working, in the near darkness. Laura placed Poppy in the playpen. ‘She’ll need feeding in a little while,’ she said, ‘twenty minutes or so. I’ll get Gavin to come in—’ but Tilly said no, no, she’d do it after the story.

  ‘I feel like I’m putting you to work,’ Laura said, pulling on her jacket.

  Tilly smiled. ‘Go to the pier.’

  More at ease, it seemed, since she’d opened up to Laura. Her problems shared, two of them now to find solutions.

  ‘By the way,’ Laura said, her hand on the scullery door, ‘the phones are back’ – and by the slight dimming of Tilly’s smile she knew she was thinking of her parents, and the call Laura had suggested she make. She’d say nothing more, let Tilly make that decision.

  She found Gavin in the vegetable plot, forking up the frozen earth between the rows, banishing the last of the snow from them.

  ‘We have phones again,’ she told him. ‘Susan rang, she’s on her way. I’m going to collect her.’

  ‘I can go.’

  ‘No, I want to do it. Tilly will stay with the lads, and she’s going to do Poppy’s next feed. You might put your head in in a while, make sure they’re not killing her.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll bring Susan to Lelia’s,’ she said, ‘for a chat on our own.’ She hadn’t mentioned Susan’s news to him, plenty of time for that. Now there were two babies he didn’t know about.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘And I have a turkey casserole in the fridge, I forgot to say it to Tilly – will you put it in at gas six at five o’clock?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You won’t forget?’

  ‘No.’

  He was still in a huff about Tilly. Let him, she had bigger things to worry about. Driving the short distance to the pier, skirting the slushy puddles, she remembered that she still hadn’t thanked him for the necklace. Maybe that’s what had him in a huff.

  She drove past Andy, walking in the direction of the village with Gary O’Donnell and Clive Mason and the boy of the McDowds whose name she could never remember – Ollie? Donny? She tooted the horn and they waved.

  The ferry was approaching. She parked and sat watching as Leo steered it smoothly onto the ramp. She got out and waited while the few cars drove off – and here came Susan in their wake, the only foot passenger, pulling a navy blue case behind her.

  Grey coat, dark hair hidden under a black hat, pushing a red scarf down from her face as she approached. Not looking any different, now that she was pregnant.

  They embraced like they always did on meeting and leaving one another, hard, warm hugs that lasted. Susan smelt of the grapefruit scent she’d worn for years. ‘Good to see you,’ Laura murmured.

  ‘You too. Wish you weren’t so far away.’

  They drew apart. ‘How are you?’ Susan asked.

  ‘Can’t complain – you?’

  ‘Fine.’ But the word had little conviction in it. Before Laura could comment Susan said, with some surprise, ‘You had snow here too. I wouldn’t have thought it could.’

  Laura reached for the case and began pulling it towards the car. ‘It never did before, as far as I know. You missed the snowman at Walter’s Place – he’s practically a puddle now. We’re getting weird weather this Christmas: we had a bad storm two nights ago that toppled one of our apple trees.’

  ‘Ah no, that’s too bad. It didn’t damage the house?’

  ‘No.’ She’d tell her the story of the shed later. She deposited the case and slammed the boot shut. ‘Let’s go to Lelia’s and have a chat. Once we get back we’ll have no time on our own.’

  ‘How was Christmas?’ Susan enquired as they walked the short distance to the village, and Laura filled her in on the party that had been interrupted by the storm drama, and Gladys’s collapse the following morning, and the unexpected arrival of Larry. She waited until they were sitting in the café with two glasses of Lelia’s hot cinnamon fruit punch in front of them before telling her about Tilly.

  ‘Can you believe it? A sister I never knew about, turning up on the doorstep.’

  ‘A sister,’ Susan said. ‘A full sister.’

  ‘Yes – it seems my mother didn’t know she was expecting before she left Ireland.’

  She’d leave out Tilly’s pregnancy, let her digest this much first.

  Susan took a sip of punch. The café was full of walkers in brightly coloured jackets, none of whom Laura recognised. A group from the mainland over for the day.

  ‘Or maybe she did know,’ Susan said then, so low that Laura hardly heard it above the chatter.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She might have known. Your mother.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  No response.

  ‘Susan, why did you say that? Do you know something – has my father said something?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything about your mother, Laura. All I know is that Luke definitely doesn’t want another child.’

  Her voice calm, the words steady, but her face all of a sudden wretched in its sadness.

  ‘Oh, Susan …’ but of course it came as no surprise to Laura, none at all. He’d never wanted to be a father. He’d all but washed his hands of Laura after her mother left.

  ‘What has he said?’

  Susan rubbed at the creases in her forehead. ‘He wants me to get rid of it.’ The words had a crisp, bitten-off sound to them. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if your mother had known, and told him, and got the same reaction I got.’

&n
bsp; Was it true? Had they known about the pregnancy before Diane went away? Laura raced through the implications, each more depressing than the last.

  It would mean that he was aware he’d fathered another child, whom he presumably had no desire to meet.

  It would mean that he’d issued some kind of an ultimatum to his wife – what? ‘Me or the child’? – that had caused her to leave.

  It would mean that their mother had lied to Tilly when she’d claimed not to know she was pregnant when she was leaving Ireland. It would mean that she’d lied to Tilly when she’d told her that her father wasn’t aware of her existence.

  But hold on – maybe they were mistaken, maybe they were jumping to the wrong conclusion here. Diane might have known she was expecting a child, but maybe she hadn’t told him. Maybe she’d known what he’d say, and had decided to leave rather than hear it.

  But that wasn’t what they needed to talk about now. Laura searched Susan’s face. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Susan shook her head slowly. ‘I have no idea,’ she replied, ‘but I know what I’m not going to do.’

  Forty years old, and pregnant for the first time. How could he? How could he ask her to do that horrible thing, that unspeakable act? It was sickening. The man was a monster.

  They sat while their drinks cooled and the conversations went on around them. At length Susan drained her glass. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’m dying to meet the lads – and very curious to see my new stepdaughter.’

  Laura got to her feet, fishing her purse from her bag. ‘On the house,’ Lelia said, passing them with a loaded tray. ‘A thank-you for the party the other night.’

  The party, which now seemed like it had happened a decade ago. She thanked Lelia and held the door open for Susan to pass through. She linked her arm with her stepmother’s and they walked down the village street in silence together.

  Laura wondered what the next few months would bring, for Susan and all of them. No more dramas would be nice, she thought. No more surprises, at least for a while, would be just lovely.

  Little guessing, as they reached the car and got in, as she stuck her key in the ignition and turned for home, that the next drama was almost upon them.

  Gavin slid the casserole onto the oven shelf and closed the door. ‘Four years ago we both came on holidays to Roone,’ he said. ‘We each rented out Nell’s house in July. I took it for the first two weeks, and Laura and the boys came straight after.’

  ‘But you didn’t meet here.’

  ‘No – I’d gone before they arrived. I left a book behind in the house, and Laura found it.’

  ‘How did she know it was yours?’

  ‘It had a Dublin Zoo bookmark in it – I worked there at the time. She showed it to Nell, and Nell said it had to be mine, so when they got home Laura and the boys paid a visit to the zoo and found me.’

  ‘And you’d both grown up in Dublin.’

  ‘Yeah, about a mile from one another. You should see her family home though – mine would fit into it three times.’

  ‘Does our father still live there?’

  ‘He does.’ A beat passed. ‘I presume Laura’s told you a bit about him.’ A careful tone to the words now, a more cautious expression on his face.

  ‘She told me his name,’ Tilly replied, ‘and that he’s a famous artist.’ Now it was her turn to hesitate. ‘She said … they weren’t close.’ Not sure how much she should repeat, not wanting him to think she was gossiping.

  He didn’t appear bothered. ‘They’re not,’ he said, ‘not close at all. As far as I can gather, they never were. Laura moved out as soon as she could, and they’ve seen very little of one another since then.’

  ‘He doesn’t know about me,’ Tilly said. ‘My mother didn’t tell him.’

  He made no reply – what was there to say? – but his expression was kind.

  ‘What’s he like?’ she asked.

  He lifted his shoulders. ‘To be honest, I hardly know. I haven’t met him often enough, or for long enough. Whenever we’re in Dublin Laura goes to see him, and sometimes she’ll bring the boys, but I rarely go with her. He came to our wedding, which was here on the island, but he left early the next day.’ He shrugged again. ‘I must say he’s always perfectly civil when we meet, but … you sort of get the feeling he’s only putting up with you until you leave.’

  He’s not child-friendly, Laura had said. Or adult-friendly, by the sound of it. Maybe he was different when he was among other artists – maybe he opened up then, maybe he relaxed in the company of people who thought like him, who lived in his world.

  ‘Fwog!’ Evie exclaimed suddenly.

  She and Marian sat across from Tilly and Gavin, poking and pulling at lumps of multi-coloured Plasticine. The table around them was littered with scraps of the stuff; more of it was stuck to the sleeves and fronts of their Christmas dresses, which they’d insisted on changing into for Susan’s arrival. A blue blob had attached itself to one of Evie’s curls. Charlie hovered by their chairs, snapping up any bits that came his way. Tilly wondered if there was anything he didn’t eat.

  Gavin peered closely at Evie’s endeavour. ‘Well, that’s just about the best frog I ever saw. Bet you can’t make a snake.’

  ‘Yeth, I can.’

  ‘Go on so.’

  Tilly looked at Marian, still busily prodding at her Plasticine. ‘What are you making?’

  ‘Fwog.’

  ‘Inherited their grandfather’s artistic ability, obviously,’ Gavin murmured.

  Tilly smiled. ‘And what’s Susan like?’ She was curious to meet her father’s second wife. She wanted to compare her with Diane, see if she could pick out any characteristics in common.

  ‘Susan is delightful,’ Gavin told her. ‘The lads are mad about her – she comes to visit quite often.’

  He was easy to talk to, generous with his information. What else could he tell her? ‘Did you ever meet our mother?’

  ‘No. The last time she was in Ireland, I didn’t know Laura.’

  So Diane hadn’t seen the girls, had never been to Roone.

  Gavin picked a scrap of Plasticine from the table and rolled it between his fingers. ‘Can I ask what you thought, when you met her?’

  Tilly watched Marian’s little fingers as they kneaded and pulled. ‘I had no idea what to expect. I knew nothing about her, apart from the fact that she came from Ireland, and she’d given me up right after I was born.’

  She thought back to the thin, anxious face in the café. ‘When we met, I got the impression she wasn’t happy. Not at ease with herself. And we didn’t really … connect. We didn’t make any arrangement to meet again – she didn’t suggest it.’

  ‘It must have been difficult for you,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yes, it upset me.’

  ‘You’d wonder,’ he said, his eyes on the girls, ‘what would make a mother abandon her children.’

  ‘You would …’

  A short silence fell between them.

  ‘Can you tell me,’ she said then, ‘who the man in the painting is?’ He might be able to clear up the mystery.

  ‘The painting?’

  ‘In the hall. The old man.’

  ‘Oh – that’s Walter. James painted him, Nell’s husband.’

  ‘Walter? Is he a relative?’

  ‘No – he owned this house before us. He was living here while we were renting Nell’s house. We both met him.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘He was a nice old soul,’ Gavin went on. ‘A real gentleman, you know? Terribly polite and old school. I often wonder what he’d think of us living in his house. We’ve tried to preserve the feel of it, but obviously we had to make a lot of changes when we turned it into a B&B.’

  The previous owner didn’t know they lived here? That made no sense to Tilly. ‘Didn’t you buy the house from him?’

  He gave a faint smile. ‘Hardly.’ He lowered his voice, glancing again at the girls, who were paying them no attention. ‘Walt
er died.’

  ‘He died?’ Quietly too, darting a look across the table.

  ‘The night before Laura and the boys were due to leave the island. She didn’t know about it till Nell told her in an email a few days later – poor man wasn’t found till after they left. And I’d probably never have heard if Laura hadn’t tracked me down to give me back the book.’

  The man was dead, so Tilly couldn’t have seen him. A brother then maybe, some other family member. It didn’t matter.

  It had thrown Laura though, when Tilly had claimed to have seen him. It had been disconcerting for her, knowing he was dead. It explained her silence.

  ‘I thought I saw him yesterday. It must have been someone else.’

  ‘Must have. It was actually Andy who found him – have you met Andy?’

  ‘Um, yes.’ Reaching for her own scrap of Plasticine, giving herself a reason to drop her gaze. The sudden mention of his name causing a rearrangement of her entire insides. ‘Where did it happen?’

  ‘Right here in the house, upstairs on the landing. Andy was doing work for him at the time, I think. Clearing out the attic, or something.’

  Four years ago Andy would have been in his mid-teens. Already having endured the loss of his mother, then having the misfortune to stumble on a dead body.

  Just then the front door clicked open. ‘Susan’s here,’ Gavin told the girls – and straight away Evie and Marian abandoned the Plasticine and scrambled down from their chairs, and collided with Laura as she entered the room.

  ‘Steady on, you two,’ she said, but they ignored her – ‘Thuthan! Thuthan!’ – in their haste to reach the woman behind her, who stooped to wrap her arms around both of them.

  ‘My princesses!’ she cried, planting noisy kisses on each cheek in turn before reaching up to pull off her hat. ‘Look at your beautiful dresses! I’ve missed you so much!’ A tumble of richly coloured auburn hair, an attractive huskiness to her voice.

  It was clear the girls adored her. They clung to her as she entered the kitchen – and now here came the boys through the back door, football under Ben’s arm, eager to be around her too. Grinning as she ruffled their hair and exclaimed at how tall they were getting. Backing away as she wondered aloud if they’d like a hug.