Читать книгу Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets - Cathy Kelly - Страница 26

Hannah laughed loudest and smiled the most at the Dwyer, Dwyer & James staff Christmas party in McCormack’s. She roared with laughter when the stripping vicar turned up as a surprise for Gillian because it was her birthday the day after Christmas, and when the vicar was down to his boxer shorts and looking for somebody else to kiss, Hannah gave him a cheeky grin and earned herself a big hug. Nobody watching her glowing face lit up with mirth would have imagined that, inside, Hannah felt about as festive as a turkey in a poultry farm.

‘Goodness, what are we doing here?’ gasped Donna at half ten, throwing herself down on the banquette beside Hannah after they’d queued for half an hour to go to the ladies because the pub was jammed with festive drinkers.

‘Yes, we’re mad,’ Hannah agreed, doing her best to make her eyes sparkle happily as she said it. It would be too, too humiliating to admit to Donna that once again Felix had let her down. ‘I’ve still got a load of Christmas shopping to do and I don’t fancy getting up first thing in the morning to brave the city-centre shops. I know I should be home in bed but I feel like having fun.’

‘Buying presents on Christmas Eve is murder,’ agreed Donna, ‘especially with a hangover. I’ve got everything already, thankfully. Believe me, it’s so much harder when you’ve got kids to think about. You daren’t leave buying Santa’s presents until Christmas Eve in case there’s been a run on Barbie’s pony or whatever. Tania would go berserk if Santa didn’t come up trumps.’

Hannah nodded. She’d lied about the Christmas shopping as she’d already bought presents for everyone she needed to buy for. She’d been holding off buying anything for Felix because she wanted to buy him something utterly perfect. Now there was no point going near the shops, but it sounded so sad and single to say so.

‘What are you up to for the day, anyhow?’ asked Donna, pouring tonic into her vodka. ‘I’m so glad I’m staying at home this year. Every Christmas we trek to my mother’s in Letterkenny. This year, I told them all to come to us. The house will be full, mind you, but it’ll be fun. I get nightmares at the thought of cooking for ten!’

Hannah grinned. ‘I can’t see you getting nightmares at anything so simple,’ she joked. Donna was one of the most organized people she knew and probably had the entire dinner pre-cooked and already frozen, waiting to be defrosted half an hour before the meal was due to begin.

‘My kitchen is so small it’s hardly designed for large-scale catering,’ protested Donna. ‘What about you? Staying here with the glorious Felix, or do you go home to the West?’

For a millisecond, Hannah considered her options. She could sit at home, eating a solitary Christmas dinner and pleasing herself about what to watch on the box, fortifying her spirit with plenty of wine. With no Felix to share it all with, she couldn’t face cooking the pheasant she’d bought, and what would be the point of decorating the table with fat beeswax candles, gleaming holly sprigs and intricately tied red and gold ribbons if there was nobody to admire her efforts? Or she could do what had seemed unthinkable before – go home to Connemara with her tail between her legs. Her mother hadn’t given up asking Hannah to come home for Christmas even though she’d been absent for the past two years. Hannah had claimed she was working in the hotel the previous year, the year she’d been Harry-less and embarrassed by the fact. Her family all knew Harry and, even if they weren’t incredibly impressed by him, having him was better than being without him. Everyone she’d grown up with at home was now married with kids, so Christmas was like a parade of accomplishments from the returning thirty-somethings. Outside the church on Christmas Day was reminiscent of a beauty pageant with proud locals showing off their spouses and kids. Hannah had allowed herself to dream of future Christmases when she’d roll up with the famous Felix Andretti and really get people talking. So much for that idea.

In late November, she’d told her mother she had plans for the holidays. Which had been true at the time. She’d planned a gloriously romantic idyll with Felix, a time where they could take long walks in the icy afternoons after spending sensuous mornings in bed giggling over Willie Wonka and watching re-runs of Little House on the Prairie. They wouldn’t see anybody or go to any parties: it would just be the two of them on their own. Sheer bliss. Felix had put the kibosh on this darling plan by saying point-blank that he was going home to his mother in Birmingham. He hadn’t invited Hannah or even appeared to consider that she might be hurt by being left out of his festive arrangements.

‘Family problems,’ he’d said blandly on the phone, as if that absolved him from having to think about anything or anyone else. ‘I’ll call you when I get there.’

But he hadn’t. Left to simmer in her own misery, Hannah decided that she’d just joined the ranks of Felix’s ex-girlfriends, another one to add to the not-so-select band of those who hated him. Three days had elapsed since that final phone call and she’d retreated into herself in depression. She couldn’t bear to think about him, to remember the wonderful times they’d shared. It was so painful, like having a tooth extracted without an anaesthetic. Felix had been the one. She was sure of that. But it now appeared that while he was her one, she wasn’t his.

More numb than she’d been at any time since Harry had left, she existed on automatic pilot and tried to stop herself wondering why she picked men who dumped on her and then dumped her. That was a no-go area, one for another day, another century, perhaps. Hannah didn’t want to look into her subconscious and work out what was wrong with her. She wanted to get incredibly drunk instead, and the office party was providing a pretty good opportunity for this.

She threw her eyes to heaven at Donna’s enquiry about her Christmas plans. Hannah’s current Christmas arrangements were non-existent. Unless…

‘Going home to the West, I’m afraid. Felix is furious with me because he wanted us both to visit his mother, but I promised my mother last year that I’d be there this time…’ Hannah broke off and sighed deeply to give Donna the impression that being a good and dutiful daughter was tough but that Hannah simply had no option. ‘I’ll miss him but I couldn’t let Mum down. My brother, my sister-in-law and their little boy are going to be away for Christmas so my parents will be on their own. Anyway, Felix and I will see each other for New Year,’ she lied. Who knew what Felix was up to for New Year? Probably bungee-jumping from some Australian bridge or something equally wild. Maybe partying with honey-skinned models turned actresses who longed to hang out with real actors. Whatever he was doing, he hadn’t discussed it with Hannah.

‘You deserve a medal!’ exclaimed Donna. ‘If it was me, I think Felix’s charms would win and I’d be telling my poor mother she’d have to live without me for one more year.’ Donna laughed. ‘You’re a hell of a woman, Hannah Campbell. Your word is certainly your bond.’

‘I know, I’m a saint.’ Hannah drained her drink, hating herself for lying to someone as good and kind as Donna. ‘I’m going to brave the bar again. Do you want another?’

‘Go on,’ Donna groaned. ‘Just one more and then make me go home, please!’

‘I promise,’ grinned Hannah.

She felt almost happy, bizarrely enough, now that she’d decided to go home for Christmas. Lolling around in misery since Felix had delivered his bombshell three days previously, Hannah hadn’t been able to manifest any enthusiasm in anything. She’d felt adrift, unmoored. But with the notion of going to her home in Connemara, she felt like a part of something again. She wasn’t a lonely woman destined to a solitary existence of Lean Cuisines, single pots of creamed rice and the television guide. She was Hannah Campbell, a person with roots and a family, even if she didn’t see them a great deal. It was as if a punishing weight had been lifted from her and she bounced up to the bar, insinuating herself into the anxious crowd yelling for drinks before closing time kicked in.

A couple of good-looking guys in rugby shirts smiled at the pretty woman with the glittering eyes and the provocative smile on her face. Hannah had worn a silky pewter-grey blouse to the pub and she’d deliberately unbuttoned it so the top of her black lacy bra was just barely visible. Subtle but sexy as hell. It had made her feel better to dress up.

‘Go ahead, love,’ said one of the rugby blokes, making a space where Hannah could squeeze past him and get nearer to the bar.

‘Thanks,’ she breathed, giving him a blast of unrestrained Hannah. If Felix didn’t want her, there was no reason not to flirt with other men. Her confidence needed a lift, she decided firmly.

‘Maybe I can buy you a drink,’ he said hopefully.

Hannah shot him a wicked glance. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she said.

‘I see you’re enjoying yourself,’ said a dry voice. She looked around to find the big figure of David James looming over her. Still in his suit from the office, he looked out of place among the casually dressed and very merry gang in the pub. His grey eyes were tired and more crinkled up than ever, giving him a rumpled bloodhound look.

‘Where did you spring out of?’ she asked, mildly discomfited to be found flirting with strangers when she was supposed to be deeply in love with Felix.

‘I’ve been working late and dropped in for half an hour,’ he replied, eyes taking in her flushed face, the coral lipstick that was smudged off her full lips and the silky blouse with three buttons open.

‘So, what are you having, love?’ asked Mr Rugby Shirt.

‘Nothing,’ said David coldly. ‘She’s with me.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Mr Rugby Shirt said huffily to Hannah.

Her colour ripened to that of a peony, bright red and embarrassed.

‘I thought perhaps you needed rescuing,’ David said pointedly.

‘No, I didn’t,’ she hissed, wriggling out of the throng for the bar.

He followed her and grabbed her by the shoulder, turning her round to face him.

‘I’m sorry, Hannah,’ he apologized. ‘I saw that guy chatting you up and I thought you wouldn’t like it…’

‘David, I’m sick of people taking it upon themselves to know what I’d like and what I wouldn’t like,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m going home. Have a nice Christmas.’

She turned and left, stopping only to pick up her coat and wave bye at an astonished Donna. As she pushed her way out of the pub, she could feel David’s eyes upon her and knew they were probably hurt by her curt behaviour. But she hadn’t been able to help it. An entire evening pretending to be happy and smiling until her jaw ached had been too much for any woman to bear. She’d apologize to David after Christmas. He’d been so good to her since she’d taken over from Donna that day. He had even said he’d train her in as a junior agent in January, which was an incredible opportunity. Hannah knew she should be delighted at this chance, but she felt depressed and low. Bloody Felix.

Early the next morning, she stopped in Rathmines long enough to buy edible goodies, booze, a few presents from Dunnes and a big bottle of ludicrously expensive perfume for her mother, before taking the road west. At ten on Christmas Eve morning, the roads were still busy but the line of traffic that would soon clog up all the main routes out of the city hadn’t yet materialized.

Fortified with toffees and with the radio blaring carols, Hannah drove west, ignoring the steadily falling rain that made travelling such a pain. She amused herself by listening first to a radio play and then a current-affairs programme where the guests analysed what had been happening politically during the year. Talk radio was better than music, she’d discovered. It was too painful to listen to chart music that she’d heard with Felix. The same thing had happened to her when she’d split up with Harry. A fan of opera, he’d often played his precious Maria Callas records when they’d been making love. Even now, Hannah couldn’t listen to a single bar of an opera on the radio without getting a lump in her throat and having to change the channel immediately. Those tragic throaty sounds were all too tied up with loss and misery in her mind; the loss of Harry, the loss of Felix. Was her life always going to be about losing things?

Four hours later, it was still raining. The scenery had changed utterly. Houses were few and far between on the winding Clifden road once she’d passed the postcard-pretty village of Oughterard with its pastel-coloured houses. Prettiness gave way to the desolate, angry beauty of the inhospitable grey mountains which loomed out of the mist on her right. The rolling foothills were crisscrossed by drystone walls, with small houses dotted here and there in the wilderness, trails of smoke drifting from their chimneys. She could smell the peat in the air, the scent of burning turf that would forever symbolize home to her. Hardy mountain sheep grazed by the road, ignoring the traffic that passed as they chewed grass methodically. To the left, she could see the Atlantic peeping from between the myriad gorse-covered peninsulas. God, it was beautiful, but so remote.

She reached Maam’s Cross and waited to turn right at the crossroads while a very modern tractor progressed steadily past her. The tractor driver waved energetically but Hannah didn’t respond because she didn’t recognize him. She’d moved away twelve years ago: it was hard to recognize people she’d been to school with since they’d all grown up and now looked totally different. She looked totally different, that was for sure.

She’d always worn her long hair tied back when she’d been growing up and her daily uniform had been sloppy cardigans and jeans. Now her hair was shoulder-length and loose, waving gently around her face. She’d abandoned the loose, shapeless clothes she’d habitually worn to hide her curvy figure and now favoured classic, fitted clothes.

Her Felix wardrobe – a selection of party-ish clothes he’d helped her buy – was another matter entirely. She wouldn’t dream of wearing any of them here. Her mother would have a fit, not to mention what everybody else’s reaction would be. Fifteen years ago, anyone stupid enough to wear a mini-skirt near the environs of Macky’s Pub got catcalls, ‘Gerrup ya girl, ya!’ and the odd cry of ‘Shameless hussy’ roared at them. Once done it was never repeated. Hannah doubted if the local young fellas had changed much. Nor the old fellas, for that matter.

After another twenty minutes on minor roads, she reached the familiar gate-posts. There hadn’t been gates there for as long as Hannah could remember: just the big concrete gate-posts with the hinges still attached, blackened with ancient rust. Her father had spent years promising to get gates but, like most of his promises, it had been unfulfilled. Hannah swung down the potholed drive and feared for her suspension.

The Campbell home, like many homes in this most beautiful and remote part of the world, was situated half a mile back from the road. The little Fiesta bounced and jiggled along the drive, past the windbreak of pine trees her grandfather had planted thirty years before, until she turned a bend and could see the house. Imposing, it wasn’t. Originally a one-storey building with two windows on each side of the front door, the house had been extended over the years the Campbells had lived in it. Now the whitewashed façade was lopsided with a bit added on to the right side, a flat-roofed extra room which housed the bathroom and back scullery. A stranger might have wondered how they’d got planning permission for a bathroom leading on to the kitchen, but when Hannah’s grandfather had been building his extension, planning permission hadn’t crossed his mind.

Beyond the house were the outbuildings: a piggery now used as an all-purpose shed and a selection of rickety little buildings where the hens and the geese used to live. Hannah’s mother hadn’t bothered with hens for years. Cleaning them out was such a nightmare and they were always getting killed by the foxes. The hens had been Hannah’s pets when she was a kid; clucking inquisitively and angling their red-feathered heads sideways when she talked back to them, the twenty or so Rhode Island Reds were better companions than the rest of her family.

It was six months since she’d been home but nothing appeared to have changed. The water barrel was still peeling away outside the corner of the house, white paint stripping off it like flakes of scurf. The patch of garden was as barren as ever, but the family’s old Ford wasn’t parked where her father always abandoned it, with a big puddle at the passenger door so anyone getting out that side would be soaked. Good. She didn’t fancy meeting him right now. If the car wasn’t there, he was out on the booze instead of sleeping off the previous day’s excesses.

Hannah could see the kitchen curtains being pulled back as she parked. She hadn’t even opened her car door before her mother was at the porch.

‘This is a surprise,’ Anna Campbell said, a small smile on her worn face. ‘I hope you brought your sleeping bag. Mary and the children are here too.’ Hannah gave her a small peck on the cheek. Mary was Hannah’s cousin and she wondered briefly why Mary had rolled up here for Christmas. Her mother was looking very tired. But then, Anna had been looking tired for years. They looked alike, mother and daughter. Both had the same oval-shaped face, the same toffee-coloured eyes and the same dark hair that curled wildly and refused to be tamed with hairdryer or spray.

But while Hannah’s lush, high-cheekboned face had an inner light and her beautifully plump mouth was often curved up in amusement, her mother’s face was wary and worn. Her bone structure was clearly visible under the thin skin.

Anna Campbell wore no make-up except for a bit of lipstick when she was going out and the brown eyes under strong, never-plucked eyebrows were hard. She was thinner too, from a lifetime of having to work hard to keep her family fed and from the cigarettes she could not do without. That there wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on Anna’s body had nothing to do with any exercise plan Jane Fonda had come up with. Her daily life was a hymn to the dual efforts of hard work and nicotine. Hannah knew that her mother had to walk to McGurk’s supermarket up the valley most of the time because her father had taken the car and ended up sleeping the booze off in the back seat up a boreen somewhere, leaving the family carless and clueless about his whereabouts. But they were used to that. Keeping their elderly house clean, tidy and damp-free was a job for more than one person and the years of doing it on her own had taken their toll.

Today, in old navy cords and a faded blue print blouse under a bottle green hand-knitted cardigan, Anna looked older than her sixty-two years.

‘Give me your things,’ she said now, reaching into the car and effortlessly pulling out Hannah’s suitcase with strong arms. ‘Mary said she needed somewhere she and the kids could come for a couple of nights. She wouldn’t say why, but Jackie lost his job in the factory and I bet he’s taking it out on her, screaming and roaring all the time. She says she had to get away and I didn’t want to interrogate her.’

And she came here? Hannah wanted to ask incredulously. Christmas in a damp old house in the wilds with a drunken eejit was hardly ideal for a woman and two small children, but then again, maybe it was better than spending the holiday with Mary’s husband, Jackie, whom Hannah reckoned was living evidence of the missing link between humans and apes. She knew that Mary Wynne, her mother’s niece who lived in a pretty bungalow outside Galway, had nowhere else to go with her two small kids. Her parents were dead and her brother lived in the UK.

‘How did they get here?’ asked Hannah, scooping up the rest of her belongings from the car.

‘She got a lift. She says she’s going to leave him. About time too. That man can’t hold down a job for more than six months without getting the sack. He’d just been promoted too, but he had to go and screw it up. He’s an amadán,’ she said, using the Gaelic word for fool.

Hannah said nothing. It struck her as surreal sometimes that her mother was the emotional mainstay of her female friends and relatives, advising wisely on matters of bad husbands, when her own spouse was a raging alcoholic who hadn’t earned an honest penny in years. Hannah was relieved that, for all his addiction to booze, Willie Campbell had only ever hit his wife in a once, never-to-be-forgotten incident. Bad poteen, he’d said cravenly in his defence when Anna was in hospital having her arm plastered up. Her mother would have thrown him out instantly if he’d been violent, Hannah knew. It was a pity that he wasn’t aggressive when drunk. At least then she’d have dumped him.

Jackie Wynne certainly wasn’t violent but Hannah found him intensely irritating. As for his devotion to football, it’d drive a sane person mad. If his team lost a match, he was inconsolable. Hannah had long ago decided that, if she’d been married to him, she’d have walked out years before. She couldn’t handle the unreliability.

‘Mary insists she’s going to go back to work as well. I don’t know how she’ll manage with the children.’ Anna sighed. ‘Don’t say anything to her. She gets so embarrassed by Jackie and, well, you know she’s always looked up to you and thought you had your life sorted out, Hannah. She’ll be mortified that you’ll know she had to leave him at Christmas. If you read about something like that in the papers, you wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Of course I won’t say anything,’ Hannah said, silently thinking that if Mary knew precisely how well Hannah had sorted out her life, she wouldn’t feel in the slightest bit embarrassed by her own predicament. They were the same age, although they’d never been close. At least Mary had two kids she adored out of her mess of a marriage. All Hannah had as proof of her thirty-seven years on the planet were a string of failed romances and a rapidly developing sense of cynicism. Oh yes, and a disgruntled boss because she’d been rude to him the night before. Hannah still felt guilty over poor David.

There was one advantage in Mary’s being there: nobody would be that interested in details of Hannah’s abortive Christmas plans when they could be discussing what a bastard Jackie was and what sort of lawyer Mary needed to take him for every penny he didn’t have.

The huge kitchen was the heart of the Campbells’ house. Anna still loved floral prints and the walls and the big armchairs were all covered in a variety of rosy patterns, the walls blue and yellow, the armchairs pink and gold and awash with cushions. A profusion of potted plants stood on all surfaces as proof of Anna’s green fingers.

It was all very pretty for a house that looked so cold and lacking in comfort from the outside. Hannah had long since worked out that her mother needed her flowery nest to help her cope with the rest of her life, which was more than a little bleak.

The house was warm after the icy grip of the Atlantic breeze. Curled up on an armchair beside the big cream stove that heated the entire house, was Mary, pretending to read a magazine. Her mouth wobbled when she saw Hannah, who went over and gave her a hug.

‘Hannah, did your mother tell you?’ said Mary tremulously, big baby-blue eyes filling with tears.

‘A bit,’ lied Hannah, perching on the edge of the chair, pleased to see that misery hadn’t ruined Mary’s looks. She was still very attractive with her short curly dark hair, rosy, freckled cheeks and eyes like saucers fringed with long lashes clogged with mascara.

Two little girls who were the spitting image of their mother erupted into the room from the spare bedroom, dressed in grown-up clothes that trailed clumsily after them. The younger one, who had to be about four, Hannah reckoned, was wearing purple eyeshadow and a splash of bright lipstick all over her rosebud mouth.

‘Look at me, Mummy!’ she squealed happily. ‘I’m going to the dance.’ She twirled and nearly fell over in her trailing outfit.

‘Me too,’ said the older one, whom Hannah remembered was nearly six and who was wearing Anna’s old black weddings-and-funerals hat with the grey feathers curling limply down instead of jauntily up the way they had when it had first been purchased twenty years ago.

‘Courtney and Krystle, don’t you remember your Auntie Hannah?’ Mary said.

Whatever had happened at home didn’t seem to have left any lasting impression on the two children, Hannah decided hours later, when they’d played dressing-up games for hours, followed by half an hour of stories from a big blue book of fairytales. They loved Hannah and fought over who got to sit on her lap in front of the fire as she read to them about Cinderella’s adventures and how she married the prince but got a wonderful job just so she could keep her independence. Hannah was determined that her fairy stories should have a modern, realistic twist.

‘You’re great with children,’ said Mary fondly. She seemed much cheerier after another pot of tea and a slice of Anna’s fruitcake.

Hannah grinned at her. ‘Nobody’s ever said that to me before.’

By seven, the two girls were finally fast asleep in Anna’s bed and Hannah felt worn out. Driving all the way from Dublin and playing with two energetic children had exhausted her. But Mary didn’t appear tired at all. Or even very emotional, for that matter.

‘Will we drive up to the pub for a quick drink?’ she asked Hannah.

‘What about the girls?’ Hannah asked in surprise.

‘I’ll look after them,’ Anna said. ‘I’ve never set foot in that pub all my life and I’m not going to start now. I’ll put the camp-bed up in the spare bedroom for the girls. We can move them from my bed later. I didn’t air the bed in your old room, Hannah, so I’ll do it now. You two go off and enjoy yourselves for an hour.’

Hannah shrugged. It was obvious that Mary wanted to tell her all the grisly details of the break-up with Jackie. But she felt too tired of driving to take the car out and, besides, with the stringent drink-driving laws, she wouldn’t be able to have even one drink if she brought the car.

‘Let’s walk,’ she said. ‘It’s only a mile and it’s stopped raining.’

She pulled on a pair of old flat boots of her mother’s and, with a raincoat on, just in case, they set off up the drive.

‘The pub’ll be crowded, I suppose,’ Mary said, sounding remarkably enthusiastic for someone who was theoretically fleeing from misery. She’d painted on another coat of mascara and her lips gleamed with glossy pink lipstick.

‘Always is on Christmas Eve,’ smiled Hannah. ‘You’d swear nobody was going to get a drink all Christmas the way they go mad for it this night.’

Hannah was welcomed into the pub with delight, which was just as well, because otherwise, they’d never have got a seat in the crowded lounge. They refused all the kind offers of drinks and ordered their own, Mary deciding she needed to visit the loo before their glasses of Guinness had arrived. Hannah rarely drank the black stuff any more, but going home made her long for the bittersweet taste.

‘Won’t be a minute,’ Mary said cheerfully, slipping into the crowd.

A lively session was starting up in the corner beside the fire. Several people pushed an elderly man to the front and roared at him to take down the fiddle from its place on the wall and play.

‘I’ve not a note in my head,’ said the old man sweetly as he took the fiddle and began to expertly play a lively foot-tapping tune. The bar exploded into roars of laughter and a few of the hardier souls started dancing a jig in the centre of the room, amazingly not cannoning into each other although they were very drunk.

Hannah sat back in her seat and tapped her feet to the rhythm, keeping an eye out for Mary. She was surprised to see her cousin emerging not from the loo but from the left-hand side of the bar where the telephone was. Mary had a glow on her rosy face as she wound her way over to Hannah.

‘Why didn’t you use the phone at home?’ Hannah asked, puzzled.

Mary went brick red. ‘I didn’t feel as if I could use Auntie Anna’s phone,’ she said shamefacedly.

‘Why? You’re not going back to Jackie, are you?’

Mary shook her head guiltily. ‘Promise you won’t tell?’ she pleaded.

‘I won’t.’

‘It’s not Jackie that made me leave. I’m in love with someone and Jackie found out.’

‘What?’

‘You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.’

‘I won’t,’ said Hannah. ‘Now tell me.’

She could see her cousin’s eyes shining like candles in a dark night as she recounted the tale of the handsome fitness instructor she’d met one day at a parent-teacher meeting.

‘Jackie always left those meetings to me,’ Mary protested. ‘He never went to one of them. If Krystle had been a boy, he’d have been there, all right, trying to get him into the school soccer scheme before he was seven, but Jackie isn’t interested in girls. Now Louis,’ she breathed his name reverently, ‘is different. His wife is a bit strange. That’s why he was there without her. She works all the hours God gives and he has to look after their little girls while she’s away. The oldest one is in the class ahead of Krystle. It just went on from there.’

‘How long have you been seeing each other?’ asked Hannah.

‘Six months. He’s going to leave her for me, but Jackie found out yesterday and there was war.’

‘I can understand why,’ Hannah said mildly. ‘But why didn’t you tell Mam what had happened? It’s not fair to leave her in the dark like that. Jackie might turn up, you know, screaming blue murder, and Mam will be in a rage when she finds out that you’ve lied to her.’

‘I haven’t lied.’

‘OK,’ Hannah said, ‘lied by omission.’

Mary scowled. ‘I couldn’t tell her because you’re the perfect daughter. She’s always talking about you and how well you’re doing. Now you’ve got some famous boyfriend and I couldn’t very well break it to her that I’ve been carrying on with this man and that my husband had found out, could I?’

‘If she finds out, you’ll wish you had.’ Hannah was amazed. Imagine her mother telling everyone that she was the perfect daughter. Hannah had assumed her mother wasn’t too interested in her life. That’s how things had been when she was growing up. Then, Stuart, Hannah’s older brother was the one Anna had involved herself with. Stuart had only to get reasonable results in an exam for Anna to bake him a special cake in celebration; when he announced he was getting married after his girlfriend, Pam, became pregnant, you’d have thought he’d been awarded the Nobel prize for Biology instead of screwing up on the most basic bit of human biology. Anna had gone crazy trying to buy the perfect wedding outfit and had knitted enough babyclothes for quadruplets. Now here was Mary telling her that Anna spoke about her reverently. It was all too hard to believe.

‘I suppose you’ll advise me to give him up and go back to Jackie like a good little wifey,’ Mary added sharply.

Hannah laughed. ‘Are you mad?’ she demanded. ‘It’s not up to me to advise you, Mary, and I’m not the sort of woman who believes the answer to every question is: a man. You’re a grown-up. Just look after yourself and the girls. Don’t rely on any man too much, that’s all I’ll say.’

‘I thought you were in love,’ her cousin remarked. ‘You’re not sounding like it.’

Taking a sip of Guinness gave Hannah a moment before she had to respond. She didn’t want to discuss her own life, and saying that all men were lying, cheating scum might give Mary some hint that everything in Hannah Campbell’s garden was not rosy. ‘Men are all right,’ she said. ‘I’m very fond of them but I’m not in love right now.’ Her nose would grow longer any minute, like Pinocchio’s. ‘I’ve been seeing somebody, that’s all.’

‘Real love is wonderful,’ Mary said, eyes glowing again. ‘You were in love with that Harry, weren’t you? What went wrong there?’

‘I trusted him,’ Hannah said bluntly. ‘Don’t make that mistake, Mary. For your sake and for the girls’.’

Christmas Day dawned cool but dry with a pale sun casting watery light along the front of the house. There was still no sign of her father. Hannah didn’t ask where he was. She could guess. Sleeping off a gallon of porter in the back of the car, still half out of his skull. By ten thirty, the girls were tiring of their presents from Santa and they all trooped to morning Mass in Hannah’s car. Hannah, who hadn’t been in a church for ages, kept standing up in the wrong places and sitting down when she should have been kneeling, earning herself a reproving stare from six-year-old Krystle.

‘That’s wrong,’ she hissed at Hannah with the piety of a child who was in training for her Holy Communion.

‘Sorry,’ said Hannah meekly, holding on to Courtney’s small hand and trying not to laugh at Krystle’s stern face. Courtney had taken a shine to her auntie and insisted on sitting beside Hannah, holding on to her new crying, nappy-wearing doll with the other chubby little hand. Occasionally, she’d give the doll to Hannah and would sit, thumb in her rosebud mouth, leaning against her new friend, utterly content. It was nice to sit there with Courtney’s little body against hers and look around at all the people, Hannah thought.

She felt vaguely guilty about not having been to Mass for so long. Religion hadn’t seemed important in her life and yet, today, with Anna, Mary and the children beside her and with the hard-working people she’d grown up with united in worshipping God, she felt as if she’d been missing something. She was what Leonie called a submarine Catholic – they only came up when there was trouble. It might be nice to go more often, she decided.

The elderly Ford was parked outside the house when Hannah drove up. He was back.

‘Don’t be giving out to your father, Hannah,’ warned her mother in a low voice so that Mary wouldn’t hear. ‘I don’t want a row. This is Christ’s day, so let’s pretend to be a normal family.’

Once, Hannah would have fought with her mother for even daring to say that to her. He’s as bad as he is because nobody ever says anything to him, she’d have hissed. If he didn’t get away with spending every penny he gets on drink, then we’d all be a lot happier.

That was a different Hannah. This one didn’t want a fight today, she wanted peace and goodwill to all men, and if that meant managing a cold smile for her father, then she’d do it.

The children rushed into the house and stopped in fear at the sight of Willie Campbell slumped in the armchair beside the fire. As fat as his wife was thin, he was an almost comical figure with his threadbare tweed jacket and a shirt that had probably been white when he’d put it on but was now stained with beer. He still had a full head of thick dark hair but it was growing grey now, the same colour as the eyes that roamed over the visitors. Guilt and remorse were written all over his face.

‘Mary,’ he said slurring his words slightly. ‘Welcome. And little Hannah. Have you got a kiss for your old father?’

Hannah looked at the hopeless creature in front of her and wondered why she’d made him into such an ogre in her mind. He wasn’t bad, she realized. Just weak. Weak and a drunk. It wasn’t his fault he’d given her a lifelong distrust of other men. It certainly wasn’t his fault that she was so hopeless with men that she kept picking ones who’d let her down just like he’d done all her life.

‘Hello, Dad,’ she said, making no move to embrace him. ‘Long time no see. Happy Christmas.’

‘Happy Christmas, Uncle Willie,’ said Mary, dragging the two girls over to their uncle. She hugged him but they were not keen to do the same.

‘Come on, girls,’ said Anna firmly, taking them by the hand and leading them away. ‘Let’s go up to your bedroom and take off those coats. Willie,’ she said to her husband, ‘go and have a wash and change your clothes. This is Christmas Day and you could do with a fresh shirt. If you want to have a rest, we’ll wake you for dinner.’

Nothing had changed, Hannah thought. Her mother carried on as usual, giving her father a way out with the usual coded messages, messages telling him he could sleep his hangover off and that he’d be welcome at the table when he was clean and sober. It was her version of see no evil, hear no evil. When she’d been growing up, Hannah had raged against this, what she saw as her mother’s blind acceptance of his alcoholism. Stop making excuses for him. Leave, get out! Or make him leave! she wanted to scream in frustration. But her mother wouldn’t. Her marriage was all she had and she’d been brought up to accept what she’d been given in life.

Perhaps it was having been away from home for so long, or maybe it was because she’d changed too, but Hannah no longer felt the need to fight with either of them.

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea to bring to bed, Dad,’ was all she said now. Her father looked at her gratefully.

‘Thanks, love.’

When he’d shuffled off to the bedroom he shared with her mother, Hannah heaved a silent sigh of relief. She felt as if she’d passed some sort of test. Not his test but one of her own making. Accepting who you were in life meant accepting your parents for what they were. She’d managed it, just about.

They had dinner at five and it was great fun thanks to the presence of the two small girls. Getting Courtney to eat anything green was a trial and Hannah was in charge of that mission.

‘Don’t wan’ it!’ Courtney would say petulantly, throwing her Winnie the Pooh fork across the table with great force when presented with a bit of broccoli.

‘Me neither,’ declared Krystle.

‘I’m surprised at you, girls,’ Willie remarked, ‘not eating your dinner when you know that Santa is watching.’ He’d said very little during the meal, merely mentioning that everything was lovely and eating ravenously.

‘We’ve got our presents already,’ Krystle said smugly.

Willie raised his eyebrows. ‘But he can always take them back, can’t he, Mary?’

The broccoli was consumed with great zeal after that. Nobody was more amazed than Hannah at her father bothering to get involved with the children. He’d never been much good with kids, had he? She tried to remember and somehow a hazy memory came back of when she’d been little and had loved sitting on his knee listening to him tell stories. He’d had a big rust-coloured armchair and she used to curl up in it when he wasn’t there, missing him. She had to pretend to sneeze to conceal the fact that her eyes had brimmed with tears.

‘You’re not getting a cold, are you, Hannah?’ asked her mother.

‘No, Mam, I’m not.’

There was never any alcohol in the house, but her father still seemed to sink into a tipsy haze that evening, although Hannah never saw him with a drink in his hand. He must have some hidden somewhere. The following day, he went off at lunchtime and didn’t come back. The three women had a lovely day, playing with the children, talking, and going for a long walk up the mountain before returning home in the dusk to make steaming hot cups of tea and rest their aching legs in front of the fire.

That night, Hannah woke up at half two to the sound of someone at the front door. She shivered, feeling as if she was a kid again at the sound of her father’s key in the lock. You could never tell what sort of mood he’d be in: happy and giggly, or in one of his dark sombre moods when he blamed everyone but himself for the fact that he had no job and no future.

‘What about us? We’re your future and you’re not looking after us or Mam,’ Hannah always wanted to scream at him. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something.’ She hated the way he’d wasted his life in a haze of alcohol.

Afraid he’d make noise and wake up the kids, she got up silently and went into the kitchen. She found him sitting on the floor, trying to take his shoes and socks off quietly.

‘Hannah,’ he said in a stage whisper, ‘will ya make me a cup of tea? I’m dying for one. It’ll kill the hangover for the morning.’

He looked ridiculous on the floor, and harmless, his big face smiling and his legs splayed out like a child playing with his toys as he struggled to unlace his shoes. He was hardly a role model, she thought wearily, putting a few extra sods of turf on the fire and switching on the electric kettle. But he was her father, not the devil incarnate.

‘Sit on the chair and I’ll do your laces,’ she commanded. ‘And be quiet.’

‘Yes, Hannah,’ he said obediently. ‘You were always like your mother, a great woman to have in charge.’

The following morning, she packed her suitcase into the boot of the Fiesta feeling like a different person from the uptight woman who’d arrived three days previously. Real life courtesy of the West of Ireland always did that to her. It shifted the world on its axis somehow, made problems look differently when the backdrop was different.

Her mother stood beside the car in the misty morning air with her arms full of oddly shaped packages and jars wrapped in newsprint.

‘There’s rhubarb jam – four jars of that – and some free-range eggs from Doyles up the road. I’ve put in a loaf of brown bread and some of yesterday’s bacon because nobody would finish it and it’ll go to waste here. Mary’ll be gone tomorrow.’

‘Where’s she going?’ Hannah asked, stowing the packages carefully in the boot.

‘Off to her fancy man, I’ve no doubt.’

Hannah straightened up in shock. ‘So she told you. I thought you’d be furious with her.’

Her mother shrugged. ‘No point in that. What can’t be cured must be endured. Did you ever hear that one?’

‘You never cease to amaze me, Mam,’ Hannah said finally. ‘Just when I think I know how you’re going to react, you do something else.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like telling Mary that I have my life all sorted out and how proud you are of me…’ Hannah’s voice trailed off. She was sorry she’d started this now. All through the holiday, she’d wanted to ask her mother about what Mary had said and now that she had, she regretted it.

‘Did you not think I’d be proud of you?’ demanded Anna harshly. ‘When you’ve got out of this place and made another life for yourself? Wouldn’t I have loved to do that myself if I could? Of course I’m proud of you, but you could never see it.’

‘You were always so tough on me,’ protested Hannah. ‘Stuart was your golden boy.’

Her mother snorted. ‘Lads will always be golden boys because they have it both ways. They’re men and they get what they want in life. If a woman gets what she wants, she’s seen as some tough old bird who couldn’t get a man. Stuart didn’t need help, you did. I didn’t want you turning out soft. I treated you hard to make you hard, so you wouldn’t go through what I did,’ explained Anna.

‘Oh.’

They stood there for a moment. Anna had never been an affectionate woman; it wasn’t in her nature to grab people just for the hell of it. Today, Hannah decided to ignore that. She put her arms around her mother’s stiff frame and held her tightly. Anna Campbell relaxed and stayed there for at least a minute before pulling away.

‘You better be off, Hannah,’ she said gruffly. ‘The world and his granny will be on the road today heading home, so you should leave now.’

‘I’m going,’ Hannah said with a grin. ‘Phone me, won’t you?’

‘You’re never there!’ her mother said. ‘Always out gallivanting. That’s my girl.’

The journey wasn’t any shorter on the way home, but it flew past. Hannah drove with a song in her heart. The trials and tribulations of the weeks before had vanished and she felt reborn, revitalized. So what if Felix had a commitment problem? It was his problem and not hers. She didn’t need him. She was a strong, intelligent woman who came from a long line of similar women. What did a handsome playboy actor matter to a woman like that? Driven with the desire to forge ahead, she began planning her new life and career.

It was time she put down roots, time she bought her own home. If she hadn’t wasted all that money buying stupid party dresses so she’d look nice for Felix, she’d practically have her deposit money now. Well, it wouldn’t take too long to replace the extra cash. If hard work and long hours were all it took, she could manage that. She’d have a career, her independence and a place of her own. Felix could go hang.