Coming Home for Christmas (4 page)

Would it be different if Alison was married and had children of her own? Esther wondered. Would that strengthen the ties of family, ties that her youngest daughter had always felt so
oppressively binding?

Olivia and Alison were chalk and cheese. Olivia was the typical older daughter, with a sense of filial responsibility which free-spirited Alison had never been encumbered with. Alison had shaken
the dust of Port Ross from her high-heel-shod feet as soon as she could, embracing city life with gusto. She’d worked hard in college and travelled the world before finally settling in New
York, where she’d spent three years studying for a degree at night. New York was the city for her; there was no denying that. The buzz, vibrancy and opportunities to succeed suited her
daughter’s ambitious nature down to the ground.

She and Liam had visited her in New York several times over the past few years and thoroughly enjoyed every second of their trips. Since the girls had grown up and left home, she and her husband
had spent holidays in the Far East and the Gulf, and had the trip of a lifetime to visit her brother in Melbourne. They’d taken weekend breaks in European cities and explored the wide variety
of cultures on offer, but Esther’s favourite city was New York.

She envied Alison the opportunities she had. Modern women had so many options that hadn’t been available to her generation. Esther had had to give up her job once she’d married Liam
and become pregnant. There were no crèches back then. Women were expected to stay at home and mind their children. That had been hard, because Esther had always had a strong streak of
independence, which she’d had to surrender to being a wife and mother. Giving up her own salary had been a sacrifice. Giving up her job as a staff officer in the Civil Service because of the
‘marriage bar’ had been even worse. Women had been treated badly in those unenlightened days, but looking at how stressed Olivia was, trying to juggle career and family, Esther could
see the other side of the coin. Olivia was ‘time poor’, as they described it now. Not for her the luxury of spending a morning playing with her children on the beach and then having a
picnic just because the sun was shining. Not for her the freedom to take a bus into town once the children were safely in school, to shop at leisure or stroll around an art gallery or museum
soaking up the fruits of others’ creativity. Neither had Esther had to worry about the expense of a big mortgage and two cars, as Olivia had to. Sometimes Esther felt her elder daughter would
like to give up her job and be a stay-at-home mother, just to get off the treadmill of her hectic life for a while.

Alison’s life was so different and one that Esther would love to have experienced. How wonderful to have no one but yourself to worry about, how liberating to be able to take off at the
drop of a hat to go skiing in Colorado, or diving in the Caribbean, or windsurfing in Hawaii, as Alison had in the past few years. How delightful to be able to spend an entire Saturday wandering
from exhibition to exhibition in the Met, Esther’s favourite New York haunt.

Alison was privileged indeed, but she worked hard for it. She was at her desk by seven thirty, having first done a workout at the gym. She didn’t seem to miss home at all, and Esther felt
sad sometimes that the daughter who had been so lovingly reared had let go of them all so easily.

Still, she had Olivia and her little girls, she comforted herself as she lined up brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, almond essence, lemons and a bottle of whiskey. Ellie, Kate and Lia
were the joy of her life, and if Alison, by some miracle, were to settle down at home and marry and have children, she would be
perfectly
happy, Esther decided, setting aside her pudding
ingredients and starting to cut steak into cubes and flouring them to braise. She’d add stock and seasoning and diced carrots and turnips to the pot, to simmer slowly on the hob.

It was a freezing-cold day; a chill easterly blew in off the choppy gunmetal sea. Esther could see the whitecaps pounding against the rocks across the field at Smuggler’s Cove. The trees
swayed, their branches long grey skeleton fingers in the wind.

The girls would need something warm and nourishing after their tiring day at school. She could heat the braised steak for Michael, her son-in-law, when he came home from work, and she’d
give him an extra helping of her creamy mustard mash, his favourite. He was exactly like Liam in that regard, a real meat, potato and veg man.

‘Are these enough for you?’ Her husband came through the kitchen door with a big basin of breadcrumbs that he’d grated from half a dozen batch loaves.

‘Perfect.’ She smiled at him. ‘I suppose I should buy the ready-crumbed ones, but I don’t think they’d give the puddings the same substance. Batch bread is the
best, I think.’

‘Well, the girls always thought so. Remember the way they used to pick at the loaves? And Ellie, Lia and Kate were doing exactly the same thing yesterday. It brought me back, looking at
them.’ Liam put the breadcrumbs down and snaffled a cherry.

‘I’m glad we’re passing on the old traditions, and that we haven’t succumbed to modernity,’ Esther remarked. ‘Even if you’re the one who had to grate
them.’

‘It wouldn’t be the same opening a bag of breadcrumbs,’ her husband agreed.

‘Mind, I was tempted to buy them this year, I was even tempted to buy a pudding – that dose of flu knocked the stuffing out of me,’ Esther confessed, as she washed and wiped
her hands and turned to face her beloved.

‘I know, I’m still wheezing,’ Liam said gloomily. ‘We’re getting old, pet, and I don’t like it, not one bit.’

‘Me neither . . . imagine – I’ll be seventy! I just can’t believe it.’ She shook her head, still shocked at the notion.

‘Well, you don’t look it,’ Liam said gallantly.

‘Do I not, even though I stopped dyeing my hair?’ She arched an eyebrow at him.

‘Not at all,’ he said, caressing her silky silver bob. ‘And you certainly don’t act it,’ he added teasingly, blue eyes twinkling as he brushed a streak of flour off
her cheek. ‘And you’ll be the same age as me, and I’m still a young fella at heart.’

‘We did well, didn’t we? We reared the girls the best we could, we have the grandchildren to spoil, we don’t owe a penny to anyone . . . and . . . most importantly . . .’
she slipped her arms around his waist ‘. . . we still love each other, don’t we?’

‘Ummm.’ Liam rested his chin on her head as he drew her close.

‘Is that a yes or a no?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, woman, do we have to get into all that mushy stuff?’ He groaned in exasperation.

‘That mushy stuff is very important, mister.’

‘We’ve been married for forty-five years – isn’t that enough for you?’

‘No, dear, it isn’t. It’s nice to hear the words “I love you” every now and again,’ Esther retorted. Even after all these years, her husband still found it
difficult to express his love in words.

Liam took a deep breath. ‘I love you, Esther, will that do you?’ he said gruffly.

‘There, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?’ She grinned at him, raising her face for a kiss as their arms tightened around each other.

Alison pulled the duvet over her head to try and shut out the sound of the rackety waterpipes gurgling and rattling overhead as the tenant upstairs took a shower. She should
get up and go to the gym, she supposed; her fee was paid up until the end of December. At least it would give her something to do. But it was dark and freezing cold, and she could see a drift of
snow piled up on the windowsill. Blizzards had been forecast for the weekend, and the wind chill was sending icy tentacles into the building. Every time the front door opened as the various
inhabitants left for work, freezing gusts wafted up the stairs to her first-floor landing and wove under her door. Melora should have gone higher up, Alison thought gloomily. There was a
third-floor apartment for rent in the same building, but who would want to lug everything up flights of stairs? 157 Dayton Street did not boast an elevator.

Alison snuggled into the warm hollow in the unfamiliar bed. She had slept badly in her new, strange surroundings, and she couldn’t face getting up to start cold-calling investment firms in
the soul-destroying search for a job. Her eyes drooped. She’d been unable to sleep on the soft mattress. She’d have to buy an orthopaedic one, and to hell with the cost. A good
night’s sleep was imperative if she was to keep sharp and focused and on top of her game. She’d lain in the dark, unwilling to switch on her lamp, not wanting to see the stacks of boxes
that needed unpacking. The two friends who had helped her move were planning to come at the weekend to help her settle in. ‘Settle’ was the appropriate word. How could this nightmare be
happening?

This was the proverbial land of opportunity where hard work was lauded and getting to the top was within everyone’s grasp. Obama had proved that for sure. Jobs had been a dime a dozen when
she’d arrived in America, eight years ago. Now, in the banking and financial sector, there wasn’t one to be had. What the hell was she going to do? She couldn’t stay living in
Manhattan unless she had a salary coming in. She had money tied up in a bond but she was reluctant to cash it in early; because she’d take a hit, it was down 15 per cent. Her shares in the
company were worthless. Shares she’d had in Anglo at home were down the tubes because of the mismanagement of the bank by avaricious bankers, and the AIB and BOI ones she had were on the
floor.

She’d never felt so unnerved before, never felt such knots of anxiety and, even worse, fear, in her stomach. It was demoralizing and unsettling, and for the first time in her life she felt
totally out of control. The professional in her knew it would take time before the US economy began its recovery; the human part hoped against hope that a miracle would happen quickly, especially
now that Obama was in charge and there was talk of ‘green shoots of recovery’ on Wall Street.

A sudden urge to ring her parents almost overwhelmed her. She wanted to hear Esther tell her the news from home and hear her dad’s gravelly voice, strong and reassuring. What a relief it
would be to tell them her sorry saga. But she couldn’t do that, not before her mother’s surprise party. It would ruin it for her, and Alison wouldn’t do that in a million years.
Her heart sank as she remembered that she’d assured Olivia that she’d pay half the cost of the party and half the cost of the bangle she’d bought in Tiffany’s on her credit
card. She’d paid for her flight home months ago, a premium ticket – that hadn’t cost her a thought. She should make the most of it; she wouldn’t be flying premium again for
a long time, the way things were going. It would be back to economy for her.
That
was a painful realization. It made her feel like a failure. She’d worked so hard for her luxuries;
they hadn’t been handed to her on a plate like Jonathan’s had.

He’d phoned her to see how she was getting on. She could hear women laughing in the background. He was at his friend’s house in Malibu, and they were all having brunch. If she
wanted, he could ask his friend, a risk manager in a Californian financial institution, to keep an eye out for an opening for her, he offered magnanimously. If she got a job on the west coast,
she’d only see him when he flew out on business every month or thereabouts. So much for their great romance, she thought in wry amusement. ‘Do that,’ she’d told him.
‘And don’t forget Melora, she’s out in LA too.’ If a job came up out there, she’d think about it if all else failed.

Alison yawned and stretched lethargically. Usually she slept like a log, but last night she’d twisted and turned until desperation had got the better of her. She’d got out of bed and
gone to the little galley kitchen and poured herself a stiff brandy and port, hoping that turning to drink in the middle of a sleepless night wasn’t the first step to alcoholism. She’d
padded back to bed and propped herself up against the Egyptian-cotton-clad pillows she’d brought with her, flicked through the TV channels and spent an hour watching
My Super Sweet Sixteen
Party
, aghast at the obnoxious, spoilt teenagers trying to outdo their friends with lavish parties. Three of them had received cars from their parents – and not just run-of-the-mill cars:
one had got a Merc, another a Range Rover, another a Lexus. Another one had had the designer of the clothes Nicole Kidman wore for
Moulin Rouge
design a replica of a dress for her. And had
got a video message from the actress, as her impressed friends had stood with their mouths open. Alison had sat watching with
her
mouth open. What on earth was she doing watching such
rubbish? This had to be her lowest point ever. It stung to think those kids had cars she couldn’t afford to drive now. She was an unemployed thirty-two-year-old professional who’d
worked her butt off, and sixteen-year-old kids out there were swanning around in Mercs!

It was crazy, irresponsible stuff. What sort of values did those precocious teens have? None. Wealth could be so corrupting, she’d seen that herself. Seen how people had borrowed more and
more to buy stocks and shares from banks which had been eager to lend, ignoring the fact that their clients were gambling on making a profit with loans way beyond their means. The whole pack of
cards had come tumbling down, and while she’d lost out on her job, and her bonuses and shares, at least she still had
some
values, she’d reflected, turning off the TV and
eventually falling into a restless sleep, until the sound of the gurgling waterpipes had woken her up.

I think I’ll just lie here for a little while longer, she thought as she heard the front door close again, and her eyes drooped and she fell fast asleep, the first time ever she’d
had a lie-in on a working day during all her time in New York.

It was after eleven when she woke, bleary-eyed and ravenously hungry. She stared around her, wondering where the hell was she, before the stomach-dropping realization hit. Alison slumped back
against her pillows and gazed around. To her right, a long narrow sash window looked out on to the grey cement wall of the building next door. She hadn’t even bothered to pull down the cream
blind, figuring that no one could see her on the first floor. A cream chest of drawers stood underneath the window. To her left was a bedside locker with a lamp and, at right angles to the locker,
a closet that would have to hold not only her clothes but also her shoes, her collection of designer handbags, accessories and sports gear. An ottoman sat at the end of her bed for her bedlinen,
and to use as extra seating. An archway led into a sitting room which had another, bigger sash window facing her bed; beneath it a small desk with a reading lamp on it. Along the wall stood some
bookshelves. A purple sofa and an armchair faced a plasma TV. A narrow hallway led to the tiny galley kitchen, bathroom and the front door which opened out on to the landing, off which were two
other studios.