Coming Home for Christmas (3 page)

‘Hi, Mam, we’re still here. They were late and we were here three-quarters of an hour beforehand – you know Leo,’ Olivia moaned.

‘Ah, God love you,’ Esther sympathized.

‘And not only that – you know the way he’s deaf and he thinks he’s whispering and the things he’s saying. My nerves are shot wondering what he’s going to come
out with next. He told me this morning I could do with getting my hair cut, I was looking a bit like a scarecrow.’

Esther chuckled. ‘He’s himself. Tact was never his greatest quality. Anyway, I was just ringing to say don’t bother cooking dinner for yourself and the girls, I’ll put
your name in the pot, and why don’t you tell Michael to come straight from work—’

‘He was coming anyway. He wants to lick the wooden spoon when you’re making the puddings. He’s worse than the girls – they’re so excited.’ Olivia grinned.

‘Honest to goodness, Livvy, I’ve never been this late making the puddings, I’m getting old. I’m going to buy them next year.’ Her mother sighed. ‘I forgot to
get eggs. Will you get me a dozen? I want to make a small cake for Leo later in the week while I’m at it. I know he’s partial to Christmas cake.’

‘You’re a big softie, Mam. I’ll see you in a while,’ Olivia said, delighted with her mother’s offer. Not having to cook dinner would be a great help. She needed to
make a start on tidying up the spare room for her younger sister’s arrival. There was a mountain of ironing that needed tending, and she was anxious to get a move on wrapping the Christmas
presents that lay at the end of the bed, and one that needed changing before Alison came home for their mother’s surprise party.

There was so much to do, and she hadn’t even thought of writing a Christmas card. Leo had remarked when she’d collected him this morning that he hadn’t got hers and
Michael’s yet. She’d try to get down to them tonight, she promised herself. The mail sign on her phone was flashing, and she knew her inbox was full. She might as well do a bit of
deleting while she was waiting and put her time to good use.

Her fingers raced over the keys, and when she’d deleted her sent items and half a dozen messages in her inbox, three messages gunned back in rapid succession. One was from her sister.
Olivia opened it, noting that it had been sent the previous day. She really should delete her messages more often, she thought, as she read it.

Olivia frowned. Bully for you! she thought crossly. Nice for Alison to breeze in from New York like the homecoming queen, be made a fuss of at the party she hadn’t had to lift a finger to
organize, and then breeze out because she couldn’t take time off work to spend Christmas with her family. No fear of her being at home to bring their uncle to the chest clinic, or help out
with the cooking and shopping when both their parents had been felled by a particularly nasty flu a couple of weeks ago. Alison was too busy acting like a character out of
Sex and the City
to give a hoot about what was going on in boring old Port Ross.

Olivia scowled as she deleted her sister’s text. Alison had demurred at first about coming home to celebrate her mother’s seventieth. Did she not know how lucky she was to have a
mother as good as Esther? She wouldn’t always be with them; significant birthdays
should
be celebrated, Olivia had pointed out a touch sharply when the discussion had taken place over
the phone earlier in the year. Her younger sister wouldn’t think twice of flying to Hawaii or LA for R&R. She could damn well get her ass in gear and come home for her mother, Olivia had
insisted, annoyed that she’d had to push her sister to come to such an important family event.

‘OK, OK, I was hoping to bring her and Dad over for a few days. They always enjoy their trips to New York,’ Alison had argued, clearly irritated at Olivia doing her bossy older
sister act.

‘That would be fine if it was an ordinary birthday, but seventy is an important birthday, and we need to mark it in a special way with all the family,’ Olivia declared, frustrated
that she had to point out the obvious.

Alison had agreed after that and, being her generous self, offered to pay half the cost. That was one thing Olivia couldn’t fault her sister on: she was generous to a fault with her money,
even if she was less than giving with her time. What a charmed life Alison led, with only herself to worry about. She worked hard, but she played hard too, and her free time was hers to do with
entirely as she wished.

Olivia hadn’t enjoyed free time in years. Three young children, elderly relatives, a busy husband, a household to run and her own job left her constantly chasing her tail. She was lucky to
get a read of
Hello!
in the bath, she thought ruefully, remembering some of the descriptive emails her sister had sent while skiing, or scuba-diving, or meeting wealthy hunks at parties in
the Hamptons.

Olivia had flown out to stay with Alison for long weekends several times over the past few years because Michael, her husband, had insisted she needed a break. The difference in their lifestyles
always fascinated Olivia. There was absolutely no comparison and, if the truth were told, she felt her life was deadly boring in contrast, and she always came home unsettled and dissatisfied,
knowing that she was hurtling towards forty and middle age. It would take her a month or so to get into her routine and settled down and to regain some sort of equilibrium.

Although, in fairness, she reminded herself as she sat impatiently waiting for Leo, when she’d arrived home after the last visit and her three little girls had hurled themselves into her
arms at the airport and Michael had stood, thumbs hooked into his jeans and a big smile on his face, she’d felt an unexpected surge of happiness, which was enhanced even more when her mother
hugged her tightly and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re home, love. I missed you terribly, even though you were only gone for a few days.’ Olivia smiled at the memory. She and
Esther had a very close bond, and it was her dearest wish that her own daughters would have as close a bond with her when they were adults.

‘Well, I’m gaspin’ after that. Bring me home like a good girl and make me a nice cup of tea.’ Uncle Leo limped over to her, red-cheeked, white hair sticking up, wheezing
like a train. ‘Or would you like to get me one of those Snack Box things? I’m hungry too.’ He flopped down wearily on the chair beside her, puffing and panting. ‘They gave
me a right going-over in there. I’m banjaxed. You must be hungry too after all that waiting. I’ll treat you to a chippie, and I want to buy a few sweets for the girls.’

Olivia’s heart sank. Friday was the worst day for the queues in the chipper, and the precious window she’d been carving for herself to get the spare room sorted before the girls got
home from school was rapidly dwindling away.

‘And do you know what I want you to get me? I want you to get me a nice pair of gloves for your mother, and a pair for your da – and would the girls wear gloves? It’s been a
fierce cold winter and I want something useful for them for under the Christmas tree. I could put twenty euros each down a finger for them.’ Leo looked at her enquiringly, his blue eyes,
bright and lively, belying his eighty-two years. Her heart softened. He loved the girls and took a great interest in the tapestry of their lives, and they loved him as much as they loved their
grandparents. Childless, his wife Kitty had died ten years previously.

‘Gloves would be great,’ she said kindly, taking his arm to walk down the corridor.

‘I’d say that lady’s up from the country. See, she has her case with her. Probably an overnight job,’ he commented in a fairly stentorian tone, raising his hat to an
elderly woman sitting on one of the chairs. The woman caught Olivia’s exasperated gaze and smiled back.

‘Come on, Uncle Leo, let’s go get a Snack Box.’ Olivia sighed, remembering she had to stop at the shops and get a dozen eggs for her mother while she was at it. She was going
to have to try and get her uncle’s Christmas shopping done, and she needed to order the flowers and cake for the surprise party. The sooner Alison was home the better: she could sort out the
flowers and decorate the private room Olivia had booked in the Golden Dragon, the popular Chinese restaurant on the Dublin road, a mile or so out of the village.

Esther loved having a meal there, and she and Olivia would try and eat out there every six weeks or so. Her mother wasn’t expecting a birthday bash. As far as she knew, they were having a
meal out in the restaurant with the girls. She had no idea that Alison was coming home.
That
would be the best surprise of all for her, thought Olivia, and her sister didn’t even
appreciate the fact. Sometimes Olivia felt like the prodigal son’s brother, the one who was taken very much for granted and never had a fatted calf cooked in his honour despite all his good
work.

Oh, get over yourself!
She scowled, annoyed at her childishness, then linked her uncle’s arm in hers and was rewarded with an appreciative pat on the hand.

‘You’re a good niece, Olivia, and I’m grateful to you for your kindness. You take after your mother in that regard. I just want you to know that,’ Leo said
appreciatively, leaning on her more than he usually did. The tests had taken it out of him today, she noted as they walked slowly down the steps of the hospital.

‘Thanks, Uncle Leo, you’re welcome. Now let’s get you home and feed you before I collect the girls from school, and you can go and have a good nap for yourself
afterwards,’ she said affectionately.

One thing about her uncle, he appreciated what she and Esther did for him, and that made all the difference. Some of her friends had relatives who were utterly demanding and thoroughly
selfish.

She’d get the spare room sorted one way or another – it wasn’t the Queen coming to stay, it was only her sister; and it was only for one night, because her parents would want
Alison to stay with them for the couple of days she was home. Another thought struck her: Alison would probably expect her to be at the airport. It would be a bit callous to expect her to get a
taxi, she supposed. That was if she
could
get a taxi, she thought grimly. A friend of hers had missed a flight to Spain because the taxi men had gone on strike with little or no warning
– you couldn’t depend on them these days. Besides, it was always nice to be met by family, especially after a transatlantic flight. It would be different if she was jetting over from
London or Europe.

She hadn’t factored that in at all. Damn. She’d think about it later: right now she had to get Leo sorted, do her mother’s shopping and get the girls picked up from school.
There weren’t enough hours in the day, Olivia fretted silently, helping her uncle into the car and mentally ticking one chore off her list for today.

Esther Dunwoody lined a baking tray with greaseproof paper and emptied several packets of sultanas and muscatel raisins on to it. She slid the tray into the oven to heat the
fruit so that it would swell nicely for the pudding mix.

She’d been making or helping to make Christmas puddings for a long time now – nearly
sixty-five
years, she thought with a stomach-lurching shock, remembering back to the
fire-warmed kitchen in her parents’ house. It had a pantry just off it, where her mother stored all her baking ingredients. As a child she’d loved that pantry, loved the smell of her
mother’s homemade brown soda loaves and currant breads. There was either a rich tea brack, apple or rhubarb tart, a jam sponge or a tray of fairy cakes on the cake shelf, and always, her
absolute favourites, scones, that would be served with homemade blackberry jam and, as an extra treat on Sundays, a big dollop of cream. Although she’d been baking for years and got many
compliments, Esther never felt that she had
quite
the light touch her own mother had had.

She could still remember as a five-year-old standing on the little stool beside her mother, sister and brother and cutting cherries in half and tipping a plate full of sultanas and raisins into
the big pot where her mother stirred the mixture. Then the most special moment, when they all queued up to make a wish.

It really was a cycle, she mused as she shook two cartons of red cherries on to a plate and licked the sticky sugar coating off her fingers. She had taken Olivia and Alison to do the Christmas
baking at her mother’s house during the years of their childhood, and her young daughters had loved the excitement of it all. Now Olivia was bringing her three little girls to stand around
the kitchen table to slice and stir and mix and taste and make their wishes, just as she and her siblings had all those years ago. And the same sense of excitement and anticipation would fill the
kitchen as mothers and daughters weighed and poured and sieved and whisked, using the Christmas-pudding recipe that had passed down through several generations of Esther’s family.

Esther wiped her hands and went to the drawer that housed her collection of floral aprons. She picked out four and laid them on the big wooden table behind her. Part of the excitement for her
granddaughters was wearing an apron. It was almost a badge of honour, Esther thought with a smile, looking forward to the afternoon with her precious brood. She loved the anticipation of Christmas.
The happiest time of her life had been when her parents were still alive and she and her husband, Liam, and Olivia and Alison had celebrated the festive season together, cooking and decorating and
Christmas shopping and going to Mass
en famille
on Christmas morning.

And now her daughters were grown women, and Olivia had children of her own, and Alison . . . Alison hadn’t been home for Christmas in three years. Esther felt a stab of sadness. Her
daughter worked hard in New York. She came home for a week every summer, but she couldn’t afford the time off at Christmas, and Esther always felt a terrible ache of loneliness at Mass and at
the dinner table, despite the clamour of the girls with their excited little faces. Liam always knew what she was feeling, and he’d whisper, ‘Maybe next year she’ll make
it.’