A Gift to You
Authors: Patricia Scanlan
Patricia Scanlan was born in Dublin, where she still lives. Her books have sold worldwide and have been translated into many languages. Patricia is the series editor and a
contributing author to the
Open Door
series. She also teaches creative writing to second-level students and is involved in Adult Literacy.
Find out more by visiting Patricia Scanlan on Facebook.
Also by Patricia Scanlan
Apartment 3B
Finishing Touches
Foreign Affairs
Promises, Promises
Mirror Mirror
Francesca’s Party
Two for Joy
Double Wedding
Divided Loyalties
Coming Home
Trilogies
City Girl
City Lives
City Woman
Forgive and Forget
Happy Ever After
Love and Marriage
With All My Love
A Time for Friends
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Patricia Scanlan 2015
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Patricia Scanlan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-47115-072-2
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-47115-073-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-47115-075-3
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To Mammy and The Mothers with great love and gratitude. I can never thank you enough.
To all who gift me with love and kindness. My love for you is boundless, my gratitude immense. You are great Blessings in my life.
CHRISTMAS
A Gift For You
Magdalena Dunne was bursting to go to the loo. Her bladder had developed a mind of its own in the last six weeks. Sneezing and coughing were a nightmare. She was practically
incontinent, she thought glumly as she struggled against the heaving mass of Christmas shoppers on Henry Street and headed for the Ilac shopping centre. She should pitch a tent in the loos in Ilac,
she visited them so often, she reflected, passing through the doors to the crowded concourse as the piped music of
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
assaulted her ears.
Magdalena snorted. Merry Little Christmas indeed! No drink, no ciggies, unremitting heartburn, a leaky bladder, an iffy sciatic nerve and the dread and fear of her first (and her
last
,
she assured herself ) baby’s delivery wasn’t exactly a recipe for The Best Christmas Ever. And she was lonely,
sooo
lonely for her parents and sister, Karolina, far away in
Eastern Europe. Her mother had emailed her some photos of the family’s farmhouse quilted in soft snow, the land a lustrous white tapestry, broken here and there with bare-branched trees
bowing low with their winter dressing.
Back in Poland, her father, Tomasz, would be blessing the fields with holy water and placing crosses made of straw in the four corners before hanging the branch of mistletoe above the front
door, for luck. Her mother, Zuzanna, would be preparing for the Christmas Eve supper. The house would be sparkling, all the windows shining in the winter sun. Zuzanna would have been preparing for
weeks for
Wigilia
, as Christmas Eve was known in her native land. The old belief that if the house was dirty on Christmas Eve it would be dirty all year had been ingrained in her and her
sister and she smiled, remembering the hours of polishing and cleaning they’d had to do in the run up to Christmas.
Magdalena knew her mother might not be too impressed to know that she had not done her own cleaning but had hired mini-maids to come in for a couple of hours and blitz the house. It was a
one-off. Pregnancy and being hectically busy at work had left her weary, and when she had tentatively suggested it to Michael, her husband, he’d agreed immediately.
‘Very good idea!’ he declared enthusiastically, relieved no doubt that he wouldn’t have to hoover.
‘Really? No moans about the cost, no saying we can’t afford it?’ she teased.
‘It’s a gift for you.’ He grinned, enveloping her in a bear hug, and she’d nestled in against him, loving her good-humoured, kind-hearted Irishman.
There was a queue for the loo and she stood, legs crossed, cursing every occupant of the serried row of cubicles. The relief when she finally bolted a door behind her and peed with abandon was
indescribable.
While she retouched her make-up, Magdalena took stock. She still had a few Christmas presents to buy and she also wanted to pop into M&S to buy some of their roast potatoes and pre-prepared
seasonal vegetables to go with the turkey. She knew it was cheating, but she was in no humour to peel potatoes and veg when she got home. Michael, too, was up to his eyes at work and he’d
told her he wasn’t sure when he’d be home. Sometimes she wondered if her husband’s desire to work extra hours was a subconscious excuse to escape from her and her pregnancy.
Magdalena sighed. Their lives were changing irrevocably, that was for sure. Part of her didn’t want the change. They’d been happy doing their own thing with no one to please, only
themselves. The baby was going to make an enormous difference to their lives and their freedom.
Don’t think about it now. Focus on what you have to do,
she instructed herself as she left the relative haven of the crowded toilets and entered the Christmas fray again.
She’d need to get a move on. Her lunchtime was being whittled away and lateness was frowned upon in the busy accounts department where she worked. Magdalena’s line manager, Beady Eyes
Barrett, as her minions referred to her, was a cranky old cow to work for. She didn’t approve of pregnant women getting time off to go for check-ups and the like. If girls wanted to get
pregnant and have babies that was their look-out. It shouldn’t interfere with their work, according to Dolores Barrett. Just because they were pregnant was not an excuse to be treated
differently. Working mothers were the bane of Dolores’s life. Looking for days off because they had to bring children to clinics. Rushing out of work because crèches called to say the
darlings were sick. Teething problems weren’t
her
problems, Beady Eyes was fond of proclaiming.
Magdalena could just see her crabby supervisor mouthing off in the canteen, oblivious that she was causing severe stress to at least half a dozen women under her thumb. Or maybe she wasn’t
so oblivious. Maybe she knew
exactly
what she was doing and enjoyed it.
Magdalena would be joining those beleaguered unfortunates following her maternity and unpaid leave. She tried not to think about
that
scenario. Soon she’d be free of Dolores for
almost the next year. It was a joyful prospect.
She could always leave her job in the big computer software company that she worked for and look for another position elsewhere, but there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t end up with
another Dolores. Besides, the salary was excellent at Johnson & Johnson and the perks were good. Apart from Dolores, Magdalena liked and got on well with her colleagues so why
should
she have to move? She shouldn’t be getting herself tied up in knots; it wasn’t good for the baby, she told herself sternly, zigzagging to avoid a harassed mother with a twin buggy.
She looked at her shopping list again and felt a sudden wave of exhaustion. Just this once, she’d get book tokens and gift vouchers. Impersonal, but utterly practical and time-saving.
She’d buy a book for herself too, a little Christmas treat. Her favourite Irish author, Ciara Geraghty, had a new book out. She would
immerse
herself in it to keep her homesickness
at bay.
The lonesomeness was worse than usual this year, she thought dolefully. Most likely because she was hormonal and apprehensive as the weeks rolled on and the day of her delivery drew closer. Her
mother was coming to stay when the baby was born, in late January, and so there would be no Christmas visit from her parents this year. Last year, she and Michael had gone to Poland and it was the
happiest Christmas she had ever had. Her family loved her Irish husband and they had pulled out all the stops to celebrate a traditional Polish Christmas with their daughter and son-in-law. Tears
blurred Magdalena’s brown eyes. What she wouldn’t give for a hug from her mother and father and hear them call her
kochanieńka
.