The Valentine's Card (31 page)

But then he didn’t know where she’d been.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Da was a vague presence, a benign bundle
of memories, but sometimes Orla remembered him so vividly that she could smell the pipe smoke that always curled about him, and hear his introspective chuckle. She had a sensory flashback now, as she queued in the post office to mail the last wave of presents home.

Da had been a safer port than Ma. Orla’s mother believed that children should speak up in company, pushing Orla forward when fearsome relatives visited. Da would let his smallest girl hide behind his legs, safe from the grown-ups and their non-stop questions about how old she was and what was her favourite subject and wasn’t she the image of her mammy? Da understood. With him, all five Cassidy kids felt like only children; Orla’s shyness had been part-and-parcel of her Orlaness, not something to be corrected.

And as quickly as Da’s essence appeared, it receded, leaving Orla with tears in her eyes: a Daddy’s Girl with no daddy.

Pulling herself together, Orla looked about her. Perhaps Maude’s exposure therapy could start with a trip to the post office. Really just a chaotic corner of a convenience store, it smelled homely, of cooking and people, and was two minutes’ walk from the book shop.

A small parcel fell from her pile and she squatted to pick it up. By its size and weight she judged
it to be the Enid Blyton books for her niece, Niamh. These stragglers probably wouldn’t reach home before Christmas, but Orla couldn’t bear to leave anybody out. Word had got out in Tobercree that Orla wouldn’t be home for Christmas, but her plea of ‘No presents please!’ hadn’t; each morning brought a fresh batch of brown-paper packages that she guessed would reveal themselves on Christmas morning as a slag heap of novelty slippers and talc.

The Cassidys didn’t do minimalism, particularly not at Christmas.

The queue inched forward as the frontrunner turned away from the counter. Slight but erect in a raincoat devoid of the merest insolent crease, George passed her.

Orla put a hand out, and he stopped. He smiled, creasing his faded eyes.

‘Hello there,’ he said.

He smelled of pipe smoke: perhaps he’d prompted Orla’s reverie. ‘Could I have a word, George? I’m Orla, by the way.’

‘I felt you deserved an explanation.’ Orla watched George’s face as he took in her story. He’d suggested the chip shop for a cup of tea as they granted a discount to pensioners. There is an Irish expression,
gregging
, which means a smell or sight bringing on ravenous hunger: it’s fair to say the smell of fish and chips was gregging Orla.

‘It wasn’t the real Maude speaking when she shouted at you.’

‘I was rather surprised.’ George was as restrained as his outfit. ‘I admire the lady greatly.’

‘I’ll let you into a secret. She misses you coming in to see her.’ Good thing Maude couldn’t hear all this, thought Orla, or the old lady would slap her in the face with a battered hake.

‘Does she?’ George pressed his
lips together. ‘This is all a great shame, then, Rola.’

No point in correcting him again. She’d already been Oola and Only. ‘It is. But there’s hope. Have you ever heard of exposure therapy?’

Unsurprisingly, George hadn’t. Orla filled him in, noting the strained look on his face, as if he’d seen something he shouldn’t, a flash of knicker or a bra strap.

‘Is this really any of my business?’

‘Yes,’ said Orla emphatically. ‘Because you can be part of it.’ She ploughed on, dismayed by his look of faint distaste. ‘Once I’ve managed to coax her out on a few short journeys, perhaps you could ask her out to dinner again? Or for a stroll? It could be an incentive.’

‘But what has this to do with me?’ George looked affronted, eking out coins and piling them on the table. ‘I’m sorry for your friend, very sorry, but really, to talk about, well, it’s not proper.’ He stood, belting his coat even tighter. ‘I wish Maude all the best but I have troubles of my own,’ he said. ‘Goodbye to you, Nylon.’

Sim’s journal

27 November 2011

O called. I was in the mood for friskiness but she wanted me to measure my arms. This can mean only one thing – Ma Cassidy is knitting the dreaded Christmas jumper. There is another life out there that I can have by clicking my fingers. A life where the Christmas jumper comes from Christian LaCroix. I just can’t click my fucking fingers. Not yet, anyway.

‘How did this creep up on me? It’s next Tuesday! How am
I going to get through it?’

‘Christmas didn’t creep up on you, Ju. It’s beautifully predictable, the same date every year. Take your head out of your hands, lady. You’re making my computer screen look like Sky News coverage of a Middle East hostage situation. You’ve still got a few days to wriggle out of Christmas Day at Fionnuala’s. Make some excuse.’

‘But it’s the only way I’ll spend Christmas or at least part of it with Rob.’

‘Is that so important?’

‘Yes, actually. I’d like to spend Christmas with the man I love. It’s not such a big ask.’

‘Is Rob looking forward to sitting around a turkey with his ex-wife, his daughter, his lover who’s the ex’s sister, and his lover’s husband and his lover’s son?’

‘Jaysus, my life is a bad soap opera. He’s very cool about it. Rob’s very cool about most things. That’s one of the reasons I love being around him. He soothes me.’

‘Maybe he’s enjoying it.’

‘Nah, no way, that would be
weird
. He’s just very capable, very calm.’

‘Fake a headache on the day. That’s what Deirdre does every time she wants to get out of something. Everybody knows she’s pulling a fast one but nobody dares say so.’

‘But then I’ll miss Rob.’

‘This is circular. We’re back
at the beginning again.’

‘Himself is looking at me sideways. He knows something’s up. He can smell the sexual satisfaction I radiate.’

‘Be careful, Ju. Don’t rush into anything. Think of Jack.’

‘The best thing for Jack is a happy Mammy!’

‘You know what I’d like? A special elixir that locks everybody’s emotions down the instant they fall in love.’

‘I would refuse to take it.’

The room felt quiet after Juno said goodbye, called inevitably away to Jack and an interface between a white sofa and a jammy hand. When Orla had first arrived in the little L-shaped flat she’d been aghast at the non-stop intrusive noise that leaked in through every window. Now her ears automatically blotted out the urban opera: now the flat was too quiet.

Quiet can be a euphemism for lonely: that certainly applied here, with all Orla’s personnel otherwise occupied. Juno was in a whole other country. Maude was dozing upstairs. The twentieth was the day Ma put up the tree and ladled it with far too many decorations. And Marek was working overtime, pitching in with ‘the lads’ to meet a Christmas deadline.

She imagined him in a hard hat, breaking a sweat. She knew he’d be as good at knocking down walls as he was at negotiating deals. Orla’s fingers itched: she’d like to knock down a wall herself. Physical graft might distract her.

Maybe
, she thought
, it’s just Christmas.
The season to be cheerful is equally the season to be lonely, after all. For somebody who generally liked – and, growing up with a mass of siblings, had occasionally
craved
– her own company, Orla was doing her best to avoid herself, picking up and putting down a magazine, pulling together a haphazard sandwich and leaving it uneaten, cleaning a bathroom that was already spotless.

The television was no help. Eight zillion
channels and nothing worth watching. Orla’s iPad, now joined by the laptop, was imprisoned in a distant cupboard out on the landing, her tiny flat’s version of Siberia. Technology couldn’t help.

If only she could fast-forward to Christmas. She would be grounded then, distracted, surrounded by people,
her
people, with much to do. It would be another anniversary ticked off and survived; her first Christmas since Sim had died.

It wasn’t as if their last Christmas together had been joyful. He’d acquiesced to a plan that had dismayed her, but if they’d known it would be his last Christmas, perhaps Sim could have withstood Lucy’s maternal thumbscrews, her
we never see you, darling, can’t we have you to ourselves, just you, at Christmas lunch this once?

Belatedly, a penny dropped.

His protestations against Lucy’s selfishness had been far too baroque all along, and his disappointment at missing lunch with Orla’s family had struck her as false. A year on, the truth rose to the surface, decomposed and rank.

When Sim had come to Orla on Christmas night, an hour later than promised, he was fresh from Anthea.

It shouldn’t sting so much.

But it was Christmas!
Once again, Orla was full to the brim with feelings she couldn’t put anywhere. There was nobody to rant at, nobody to shake and ask,
How could you?

Off to Siberia she went, where it was cold, and the climate suited her better.

*

The Madonna and Child on quality
paper was by far the most tasteful of Orla’s crop. She stood the card from Reece beside Ma’s garish blue-eyed, blond-bearded Christ, along from Juno’s naked Santa, and the handmade pop-up cracker from Niamh. On second thoughts, she moved Reece’s card in front of her brother Hugh’s traditional family photo shoot: the sight of that many braces and glasses and fat knees was un-festive.

‘Happy Christmas from all at Reece Dodds Artists,’ read the printed message. He’d added a personal scribble.
I hope all is well. I’m here if you need me.

Orla took a moment to digest that. In her place, Juno would toss the card away, choosing to read the innocuous words as both manipulative and condescending, but Orla had a more complex reaction to Reece, which was hard to pick apart.

This didn’t translate into wanting to speak to him. For now, she was happy to keep him at arm’s length. She spotted a smaller, more untidy and less legible P.S. in the corner.

I’ve got a present for you. Hope that’s OK. I’ll be away over the festive season (thank goodness) so I’ll be in touch after New Year. X

Orla made a mental note to send him a card in return.

Tinsel dripped drunkenly from the classroom’s centre light. Some of her students had already flown home before this, the last day of term. Orla sympathised when Abena burst into tears because she wouldn’t be tasting the Christmas barbecued goat this year, and invited her to Ladbroke Grove.

‘You are kind, but I am
going to Sanae’s house. I will cry a lot but she says she does not mind.’

Japanese Christmas cake sounded nicer than the dense aromatic leviathan that glowered annually on Ma’s sideboard: according to Sanae it was white sponge mounded with strawberries and cream. When Natalya spoke nostalgically about Poland, Orla visualised the twelve courses she described, the candles in a dark room evoking the star of Bethlehem, emphasising the mystical, symbolic aspect of the meal. A little heavy on the herrings for Orla’s palate: she was relieved that Marek had opted to go British with his menu.

‘I know what Marek buys you for Christmas,’ said Bogna in a sing-song,
wouldn’t you like to know
manner.

‘And I’ll know too when I open it on Christmas Day.’ Orla was not a peeker; she’d never joined Deirdre in the traditional pre-Christmas rummage at the bottom of her parents’ wardrobe. She preferred to wait patiently and relish the anticipation. She also ate her greens first and always said ‘thank you’: if Orla was a friend of hers she’d get on her nerves.

It was the last Saturday before Christmas and the three Maude’s Books musketeers stood around, ready and waiting for the Christmas rush Maude had prophesied.

‘See?’ said the proprietor, proudly, when a man came in and purchased a Peter Rabbit anthology, closely followed by an elderly lady who bought all three of their Barbara Cartlands. ‘Told you so.’

‘Look!’ Bogna pointed into the foggy street. ‘George.’

Hurrying by, George tipped his hat at the brightly lit shop, his gesture landing on no woman in particular.

‘Why does he not
enter any more?’ Bogna scowled at his receding back. ‘Silly old fart.’

‘I scared him off. It’s my fault, not George’s.’ Maude watched him too. ‘Don’t call him a fart, dear.’

‘He
is
fart, though,’ insisted Bogna.

Silently, Orla agreed.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Her tiny flat felt crammed, as if
there were hundreds of people in it, even though there was just the four of them.

With the decadence of pre-revolution Russian aristocracy, they drank champagne at breakfast time. Christmas’s magnifying glass made everything bigger, shinier, sparklier. There was food on every surface, a glass in every hand and the air was charged with bubbling good humour.

Singing along to carols on the radio in his touchingly out of tune baritone, Marek wore a clean white apron over his chocolate cashmere jumper. Even in an apron, Marek looked dashing, as if about to leap on a horse and gallop to a duel. Perhaps it was the hair. Orla was a little over-keen on Marek’s hair, to the point of envy. It flopped just so, whereas hers flopped just wrong.

When he and Orla met each other’s eye, they shared a sense of excitement that wasn’t to do with the packages under the tiny tree.

This day was a step forward. The feeling Orla had in the National Gallery – that she was officially older now, more mature, more
useful
– had lingered. Marek, laughing his deep joyous laugh at one of Maude’s absurd tales, brought out something fresh in her, a depth of character she’d never utilised in a relationship before. They’d gone up a gear.

There was no way to entertain that
happy thought without remembering the one woeful failing that threatened to blot out all her virtues. With Sim,
he’d
been the problem. Orla had been the eye-roller, the tutter, the forgiver as he carried on being profligate, indolent, star struck, vain and, naturally, adorable. Now it was Orla’s turn to be the problem partner and the role chafed.