Locked Out of Heaven

by Shirley Benton

  “Tell her Holly’s too busy getting ready for her wedding to come to the phone,” Susie roared down the stairs.

  I buried my face in my hands. Sammy was going to have a blue fit. How could I ever face her again?

  Chapter 43

  “Is something up, Holly?” Sammy asked in the course of her now nightly call.

  “Susie is. Although ‘up’ isn’t the most suitable word to use when talking about Susie. She’d drain the life blood out of you.”

  “Another altercation?”

  “Oh no, nothing as pleasant as that. More of an all-out war.”

  “Oh?”

  “She and Willie have been fighting like wild tigers recently. So of course I asked what was wrong – yet again, because I got no answer the first twenty times – and she said it was none of my business but that me being around all the time asking questions was making it worse. You can imagine where things went from there!

  “I got on my high horse and said I was sorry if I was getting under her feet,Vertigou2

  wwww but it wasn’t as if I had anywhere else to go. She said I still had a husband to go back to, if not a house. And the same old argument we’ve had a million times erupted again, but much more viciously this time. And now I have to get through Christmas in her company. It’s not going to end well – I may have mentioned that my birthday earlier this month was a disaster.”

  Susie had insisted that we celebrate with a custom-made sponge cake with buttercream, then had a row with Willie before we got to eat the cake. She promptly threw it across the room at him, leaving the kids bawling over having no cake and me having to go out and buy a much smaller replacement in the local Spar. By the time I got back from the shop, the two younger kids were asleep, Sarah cried because she thought the new cake didn’t look as nice as the custom-made one and Hayley said the crappy store-bought cake wasn’t worth the calories. Apparently, she didn’t know why Susie had dragged her over to the house when she was obviously in a sulk and would ruin my birthday. I ended up eating four slices out of pure misery, diet or no diet.

  “I could handle it except for the fact that the children will end up witnessing the whole sorry mess.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Sammy, we’ve talked about this. Putting your children in the storage area under the stairs and telling them the door to Narnia will appear if they stay in there for long enough really isn’t a good parenting technique.”

  “You and the kids could spend Christmas with me.”

  “Ah, Sammy, I couldn’t. I know you have a big house, but eight kids within one set of walls . . . it’ll be mayhem! Rory wouldn’t have a hair left on his head by St Stephen’s Day from the stress of it all!”

  “No, I don’t mean in my place. I’m going to Mum and Dad’s place in Offaly for Christmas. The kids and Rory are, too. I should add that the word ‘I’ used by a mother generally refers to a collective number of people. You know how it is.”

  “Oh, there’s absolutely no way I could impose on your parents! I haven’t seen them since sometime in the nineties!”

  “Exactly the reason why you need to come down. They were thrilled when I told them we were back in touch. The first thing they said was ‘You’ll have to bring her down to see us.’ And now I am. They even watched Diary of a Boomeranger when I told them you’d be on it, you know. This is brilliant! We’re going to have such an amazing Christmas.”

  “Sammy, you’re forgetting something. I said I wasn’t going down.”

  “You said you couldn’t impose and I told you you wouldn’t be. That’s that cleared up, so. We can all go down on Christmas Eve convoy-style. You don’t need to worry about fuel costs, either. Damien will give you and the kids a lift down—”

  “Since when is Damo in the equation?”

  “Well, we do share the same set of parents. Where else would he be going for Christmas?”

  “No . . . I mean, maybe he won’t want to give us a lift down. It’d be dangerous to have three young kids in his brand-new car . . . imagine if one of them got carsick! He’d have a fit.”

  “He’d have a fit if he heard you were wasting fuel when there’s an empty car going down anyway. You need to catch up with him, anyway. He’s gone very quiet over the last few weeks, don’t you think? I thought he’d be dragging us out running every day. Don’t get me wrong, I’m relieved he’s not, but it’ll be great for us all to have a chance to hang out together again, hopefully with alcohol involved this time and not jogging pants.”

  This was all moving way too fast.

  “Sammy, I need to think about this.”

  “Okay, okay. I won’t force you, but I reckon all you need to think about is what board game you’ll bring down for after dinner. My parents would be delighted to see you. They’ve had empty nest syndrome since 1994 and are only looking for people to cluck over.”

  Sammy was far too kind, but I really couldn’t accept her hospitality. I’d just have to find a way to cope with Susie.

  Oran started crying in the sitting room.

  “I have to go, Sammy.”

  As I hung up, I heard Susie coming downstairs and entering the sitting room.

  “Where were you?” Susie had picked Oran up and was rocking him.

  “On the phone in the kitchen.”

  “Even though your child is crying his head off?”

  “He’s only just started! He was asleep while I was on the phone.”

  “Well, he’s not now. I’m not your full-time babysitter, Holly.”

  “Susie, I didn’t ask you to do anything for him. I hung up as soon as he started to cry.”

  “I still got here before you though, and I was upstairs.”

  “What exactly are you saying?”

  “Just what I said. Maybe you need to be quicker when it comes to tending to your children.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Susie, why are you on my case again? What is it this time? The night of the Meal Massacre you couldn’t do enough for me, but today I’m the worst in the world. I don’t know what’s going on between you and Willie, but please don’t take it out on me.”

  She walked over and placed Oran in my arms.

  “Don’t you speak to me like that! After all I’ve done for you recently . . .”

  I turned my back on Susie and walked out to the kitchen before I said something I’d regret.

  “Hey! Who do you think you are, walking away from me when I’m speaking to you?”

  I turned round slowly.

  “I can’t win with you, can I? I say something and you’re complaining about it. I say nothing and you’re complaining, too. Maybe I’m not the one with the problem.”

  “You are one cheeky article, Holly. You’d better be careful or you’ll find yourself on the side of the road, do you hear me?”

  Sarah and Debbie ran in from the garden, ending the conversation. Sarah picked up my phone with filthy hands.

  “Sarah, leave my phone alone!”

  “Mummy, there’s writing on your phone.”

  I took the phone from Sarah and read the text that had come through while I’d been arguing with Susie:

  I asked the folks about you coming down. They’d love to have you all! Just letting you know.

  Once I’d settled Oran again, I rang Sammy.

  “I’m good for the supply of Operation, Buckaroo and Twister, if the offer is still open . . .”

  Chapter 44

  “Was that the fifth left or the sixth?” I asked.

  “The fifth. Do you not remember from years ago that there’s a signpost for the pub at the sixth one?”

  “Em . . . memorable as that signpost was, that’d be a no.”

  On paper, it was easy to get to Sammy and Damo’s house. You took the exit from the M6 motorway for the town that was closest to where they lived, bypassed the town and then took seven lefts. I remember when Damo had first told me about all the lefts when we’d gone down all those years ago that I’d thought he’d been joking.

/>   “Do you not end up roughly back in the same place after four lefts?”

  He and Sammy had roared their tail ends off at that.

  “Wait until you see our zigzag roads,” Sammy had said.

  At the end of my first journey to their house in Offaly, I’d felt almost seasick. The roads to Sammy and Damo’s parents’ house was the reason why handrails were invented for cars.

  After we took the seventh left and started up a long, steep hill, the house came into view at the top after we took the first bend. It was a haven of light in the pitch-darkness that surrounded the car. There were no houses on either side of the road after the seventh left-hand turn until you came to Damo’s parents’ one, but their house had enough illumination for an entire city centre estate.

  “Mother of God, your parents are going to have some ESB bill this year,” I said as I took in the sight.

  Their roof was half covered with blue flashing lights, the bottom half covered in white flashing lights, which ran along the side of the house that was visible to us, too. The entire front of the house was covered in red flashing lights, which extended to the sides as well.

  “Do you like it?” Damo asked.

  “It’s lovely, but it’d make you think of the flag of France flying at a funny angle, wouldn’t it?”

  “Whatever you do, don’t mention that to Dad – he hates France ever since it took Sammy from him for a few years. They got a good deal on outdoor flashing lights, but they didn’t have just one colour left and they had to take whatever was there. They do it for Sammy’s kids. They’re so happy to have them all down for Christmas that they pull out the stops to make sure they’ll come back again next year.”

  I started to feel very nervous as we drove up the long driveway to the house. What if they really didn’t want us here? It was one thing having one unexpected guest, but four had the potential to break the veneer of the politest person and to test their hospitality. And three of the four were unpredictable and were bound to get overexcited . . . or possibly even all four were in that category if I happened to have a bad day. By the end of this visit, with eight kids, these people would be all out of Christmas cheer. Hayley had decided to spend her Christmas with Terry in the house he was now renting and although I’d miss her, I knew it was her choice and I had to accept it. I thought Susie would put up some resistance at not having the kids around for Christmas, but she seemed delighted to be getting rid of me, if not them.

  When we pulled up, Sammy and the gang were milling around the almost floodlit front of the house. Every bush, tree and ditch was covered in fairy lights. In fact, anything that wasn’t horizontal – i.e. the ground – was cloaked in them: the shed, the tractor, even a wheelbarrow. The kids were running from one side of the yard to the other like headless chickens, crunching through the light dusting of snow that had just fallen.

  Sallyanne waved frantically at me as she approached the car. I opened the car door.

  “Holly! Come out and let me see you!” Sallyanne pushed the door aside and grabbed my hand to pull me out. “My God, it’s been years. We saw you on the telly, of course, but it’s not the same.”

  “Thank you so much for inviting us down. I just hope you won’t be sending us home again before the night is out – we’re a noisy lot.”

  “We love noise around here. Let me help you to get the children inside.”

  Jimmy came over.

  “Holly! Is it yourself?” He shook my hand. “You’re very welcome back to these parts! And who have we got here?” He patted Sarah’s head.

  “Your house kind of looks like the flag of France,” Sarah, ever the eavesdropper, immediately said.

  “Well, aren’t you a clever girl!” Jimmy caught my eye. “We thought that ourselves as soon as the job was done, but I was fecked if I was going to take the whole frigging lot down again after nearly putting my back out up on that fecking roof. Wouldn’t you think they’d sell flashing green, white and orange lights instead in this country?”

  “It’s not St Patrick’s Day, love,” Sallyanne said. “Come on inside everyone before you all catch your deaths.”

  As soon as the kids were inside the door, Debbie and Sarah ran like greyhounds from one room to the other, squealing with happiness at finally being released from car captivity. Sammy’s kids joined them, the oldest one putting her hands on Sarah’s hips and ordering the rest of them to do the same. The train of children ran circles of the hall, kitchen and sitting room area for about ten minutes, getting under everyone’s feet and generally causing mayhem as they bumped into things and brushed off hall decorations. Nobody seemed to mind.

  “It’s been a long time since we had a procession of children running rings around this house, sadly,” Sallyanne said. “Let them have their fun.”

  A fire was crackling in the sitting room – the fireplace thankfully covered with a wall-attached fireguard – and the house smelled of spices and pine. The children finally came to a halt in front of a ceiling-hugging Christmas tree in the corner of the sitting room, where Sallyanne presented them with various toys that had belonged to Sammy and Damo when they were children. Jimmy came into the sitting room with pints of beer and glasses of mulled wine and distributed them to the adults while Sallyanne retired to the kitchen to cook sausages and chips for the children.

  “Still on the health kick?” Rory asked Damo when Damo refused the beer and mulled wine.

  “Trying my best, Rory. Christmas isn’t a great time for it, though.”

  “You’d better believe it,” Sammy said as Jimmy returned with a pyramid of Ferrero Rocher.

  It was ten o’clock before we got our overexcited children to sleep. We brought our carefully concealed Santa presents in from the boot of the cars and arranged them under the Christmas tree before retiring to the kitchen for a Christmas Eve fry-up and more mulled wine.

  “There will be another one in the morning, so leave room,” Sammy hissed.

  I fell into bed at midnight and was woken seven hours later by an ecstatic Sarah.

  “It’s time, Mummy! Get up!”

  Sarah’s voice caused a ripple effect to spread to the rest of the children in the house. They flooded out of the bedroom doors at exactly the same time, thundering down the stairs en masse followed by bleary-eyed parents. A present-opening extravaganza ensued, followed by early morning Mass and the inevitable fry-up when we returned home.

  Christmas dinner was served at two o’clock and went on for hours and hours, punctuated by requests from the children, trips to the toilet with them and instructions on how to play newly acquired games. It was frantic but fun and there was no shortage of volunteers to help keep an eye on the children.

  After dinner, we all sat down to watch a family movie together. Whether we actually watched it or not was debatable – there was a lot of coming and going among the children sitting on the floor and a lot of conversations going on between the adults – but everyone seemed to enjoy the experience anyway. After the children were put to bed, Sallyanne insisted on getting the board games out that I’d brought down and cracking open a brand-new bottle of sherry. When I went to bed that night, I had to conclude it had been the nicest Christmas Day I’d had in years.

  We were all up bright and early on St Stephen’s Day – me because the kids woke early again and the men because they were getting ready to go out hunting the wren, a task that naturally required a huge fry-up before commencement of the activity. When the men left, Sallyanne insisted that the rest of us all went out for a walk in the snow.

  “Let the children have snowball fights and make snowmen before it melts,” she said.

  Sammy rolled her eyes.

  “You mean, you want to make a snowman and use the kids as an excuse to do it,” she said.

  She was feeling under the weather from the sherry and seemed reluctant to move. In the end, the lot of us spent hours playing in the snow and walking for miles and miles. The children’s shoes would be soaked through, but somehow it didn’t
seem to matter. It was just that kind of a day.

  That night after dinner, Sammy came over to where I was sitting on the couch and snapped a copy of the RTÉ Guide magazine out of my hands.

  “Okay, missus, get your glad rags on. Or rather, mine. We’re going out.”

  “Sure we are. There are no play centres open at this hour of the evening, you know!”

  “There are no play centres within a twenty-five mile radius of us either, for the record. But there are a few pubs.”

  “And the kids are coming too, are they?”

  “My aunts are divvying up the eight kids and looking after them. Well, they are as long as you’re comfortable with that. Don’t worry – they’re not the types to tattoo the kids’ foreheads while we’re away or anything. The worst you’re looking at is that they might teach them the Hail Mary off by heart or something. So, are you up for it?”

  “Oh, Sammy, I don’t know . . . It’s not really fair to expect people I’ve just met to mind my kids.”

  “Are you joking? They can’t wait to mind them. None of them wanted my lot but they were fighting over yours! I think it’s because you’re on the telly, you know. They want to be able to tell their friends that they minded the children of the one who’s on Diary of a Boomeranger.

  “You’d better hope the kids behave or they’ll shame you up and down the parish spreading stories on what brats they are. I’m joking by the way, before you use that as a reason to stay at home.”

  “Christ. A night out. I wouldn’t really know what to do with one of those, Sammy.”

  “How about you start with going up to my room and having a gawk at the clothes I brought down? Take whatever grabs you. My aunts will put the kids to bed.”

  “Would you not prefer a night out on your own with Rory?”

  “Rory’s not coming – he says he’s feeling sick, hence the aunts being on duty. Personally, I think he’s making it up just to get a chance to go to bed early for the first time this year.”