Coming Home for Christmas (2 page)

Melora was heading for LA for the rest of the winter, where at least she wouldn’t have to pay heating bills, and the chances of finding a job had to be better than in gloomy, depressed,
recession-battered New York, she reckoned somewhat illogically, the recession being nationwide. But having secured the studio for a six-month let she was reluctant to let it go, and lose her
deposit.

‘Look, unless Jonathan’s going to pay your rent, you won’t be able to manage much longer where you are without making a huge dent in what’s left of your savings. Why
don’t you sublet your apartment and take my little pad until you get sorted?’ Melora offered kindly as they sat sipping cocktails in Chez Toni’s, a club they’d had to queue
forty minutes to gain entrance to. They’d watched glumly from behind the cordon as the Town Cars and sleek limos deposited gorgeous women in barely there designer dresses and skyscraper
heels, and cool Armani- and Gucci-clad guys – the kind Melora was desperate to meet – swanned in to be cocooned in the rarefied, roped-off, security-guarded areas, where they could
drink champagne untroubled by lesser beings who had to queue.

Had Jonathan been with them they wouldn’t have had to do anything so déclassé as queue. He was one of the social elite who had that magical access to clubs and restaurants,
and swanky airport lounges. Jonathan never, ever turned right on an aircraft, and the few times she’d travelled with him, neither had Alison. Now it all seemed like a dream.

‘Or even better, honey,’ her friend interrupted her musings, ‘why don’t you come to LA with me? We could rent a place together and wow the corporate heads with our
mega-impressive CVs, stunning good looks and, like, totally sophisticated NY cool.’ Melora grinned, showing her strong, white teeth. With smooth ebony skin and a long-limbed, curvy body, she
looked ten years younger than her thirty-five years. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t want to leave Jonathan?’ She arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

‘It’s not that, Mel,’ Alison sighed. ‘I can’t see me and Jonathan lasting much longer, to be honest. He doesn’t do “failure”, and once he sees me
in a walk-up studio that my bed wouldn’t even fit in, he’s going to think, “Loser”.’

‘Don’t say that, you’re not a loser. This is unprecedented – it’s a recession. It’s got nothing to do with our lack of skills or job performance,’ Mel
protested indignantly.

‘Well, I ain’t a winner right now.’ Alison grimaced. ‘Heading for mid-thirties, jobless, almost homeless, living on my savings, which are dwindling much faster than
I’d like – after nearly fifteen years of working my ass off, I haven’t got much to show for it. My investments got such a hammering, and my bonuses were in company shares and
they’re down the Swannee just like yours.’

‘You can add “manless” to that list for me,’ Melora remarked gloomily.

‘I’m going to be manless too, soon. You can bet on it.’ Alison shrugged.

‘And it doesn’t even bother you, girl. You and I are so different in that regard. I want the man! I want the kids! I want the home!’ Melora eyed a hot guy who was strolling
past with two splits of champagne.

‘My sister Olivia has all that. I’d go crazy – I’d feel so smothered and claustrophobic. Uuggghh!’ Alison winced at the notion.

‘You just haven’t met the right man yet. I’m telling you, when you meet him you’ll know, and we’ll see how claustrophobic you feel
then
.’

‘Dream on,’ grinned Alison.

‘Girl, we lived a high ol’ life though here in New York City.’ Mel chuckled. ‘And you can’t deny that. Come to LA with me. Let’s give it a whirl?’ she
urged.

‘I don’t know, I don’t like LA. All that body-beautiful stuff, all that lettuce-leaf lifestyle, all that phoney posturing and posing and edginess and the way people are so busy
looking over your shoulder when they’re talking to you . . . scouting . . . No thanks. I’m too old for it – and I hate constant sunshine: it would drive me crazy.’

‘How can you say that, you mad Irishwoman you? That holiday I spent with you in Ireland where it rained non-stop and you said you didn’t mind it. You’re crazy
already
,’ her friend teased, raising her cocktail glass to her.

‘Anyway, talking of home, it’s my mam’s seventieth birthday. I’m going home next week, don’t forget. I think I might even stay an extra ten days for Christmas; it
would make her so happy. She doesn’t even know I’m coming home for her birthday. I can’t believe she’s seventy.’ Alison took a slug of her drink, wishing she could get
hammered, but alcohol was having no effect on her mood tonight.

‘Completely forgot about that. So I guess we won’t be seeing each other for a while,’ Melora said sadly.

‘Don’t say that,’ Alison protested miserably.

‘Have you told them at home about work?’ Melora drained her cocktail.

‘Nope. Although, in fairness, my mam would say something like “Let it go, the Universe will provide, when one door closes another door opens if you let it.” She has a great
outlook on life in that regard. My dad would worry a lot more. But it would still upset them, and I don’t want to ruin the party and Christmas. Have you told yours?’

‘Naw, it would only worry them too. And my dad’s not been well. They don’t need an unemployed daughter to be concerned about. They’ll want me to come home and, honey, I
just couldn’t face a cold Chicago winter living back with my folks – even though I love them,’ she added hastily.

‘I know, it would be like taking a backward step, going back to your childhood almost. I’m not going to say a word. I’ll just let on everything’s fine.’ Alison
frowned as she pronged an olive and chewed it.

‘Things will work out for us both,’ Melora said stoutly.

‘Sure,’ agreed Alison heartily. ‘We’ll be fine. Just fine.’

Three days later, her best friend had jetted off to LA relieved at least that Alison was subletting her studio.

Tears slid down Alison’s cheeks as she remembered their night out and their upbeat talk. Things were far from fine, she reflected, as the hailstones continued their onslaught. Her own
apartment was awaiting a new tenant. She’d pulled in every contact she had, targeted dozens of firms, even cold-called executives to try and sell herself and get a job, but recession was
embedded and firms were being inundated with applications from high performers who’d lost their jobs in the financial and economic meltdown. And so far, five weeks down the line from the day
she’d arrived at her Wall Street office to discover that the owner and CEO of her company had drunk a bottle of whiskey, swallowed a fistful of sleepers and died in the early hours of the
morning – she hadn’t had a whisper of a job.

Daniel J. Hamilton, charismatic CEO and founder of Hamilton & Associates, had taken a hit when Lehman Bros. had collapsed, but he’d restructured the company’s finances, tightened
up their operation and kept going, until the news had filtered along Wall Street that another disaster with highly respected financier Bernie Madoff was on the cards – far more damaging than
the Lehman debacle. Hamilton, over-extended as he was, knew he couldn’t claw his way out of this second catastrophe. He was an honourable man who had always dealt with his clientele with the
height of professional integrity. He could not face telling his many clients, some high profile, his employees, and his family that they had lost fortunes because of the investment advice his firm
had given in good faith, investments he’d believed in and invested in himself, investments he’d urged his employees to put their bonuses in. He’d locked himself in his office with
a bottle of Jack Daniels and the sleeping tablets his doctor had prescribed for him the previous month, written a note to his wife and children and become another victim of unscrupulous,
unprincipled men who thought they were above the law.

Alison and Melora, along with the other dazed employees, had been told by the financial director that their jobs were gone, the business was bankrupt, the receivers were being called in and they
should collect their belongings and go home. Alison had gone from being a highly regarded senior vice-president with a very affluent lifestyle to being jobless and, it seemed, unemployable, in the
blink of an eye. And she wasn’t alone or the worst off by far. She’d seen grown men cry at the thought of having to go home and tell their wives and children they had no job and would
no longer be able to pay their mortgages, college fees and health-care bills. She’d seen the fear in their faces as all their security had been pulled from under them in the space of a
ten-minute speech. People like them – highly educated, highly qualified professionals – didn’t get made redundant. This was America, the land of milk and honey, the land of golden
opportunity. The shock and disbelief were palpable. The TV cameras had filmed them leaving the offices, and they’d been on all the news channels for a day or two and then it had been someone
else’s turn.

Now, here she was standing on the pavement, about to hail a taxi to take her to a cramped little walk-up, most of her possessions in storage, and she felt lonely, scared and oppressed. Strange,
unfamiliar emotions that rattled her confidence and brought her to the edge of panic. What was she going to do if she couldn’t get a job? How long could she last without an income? There were
jobs in Hong Kong, Singapore, and other foreign destinations – she’d scoured the internet looking at the positions on offer – but the idea of uprooting to another country and
starting afresh was unnerving and not one that she relished. She’d done all that when she was younger. Now it didn’t seem as exciting a prospect. Her mother might well say that the
Universe would provide, and it looked as though Alison was going to have to put the theory to the test, even though she didn’t want to. Trusting in providence was not her forte, she thought
wryly. She liked to be in control.

Suddenly, although she’d been dreading the thought of going home to Port Ross, Alison wanted to be there more than anything. Wanted to feel her mother’s warm, loving hug and listen
to her words of wisdom, and inhale the familiar woody scent of her father’s pipe, knowing that there was one place at least that she would be welcomed with open arms. Port Ross, the small
fishing village on the north-east coast of Ireland just thirty miles from Dublin where she’d grown up, seemed far more inviting than the bitterly cold, noisy, grimy, bustling city street she
was standing on.

Her parents lived in a homely dormer bungalow right on top of a cliff at the sea’s edge. The sound of the sea caressing the beach had lullabied her to sleep every night, and the orange
gold of the sunrise painting the sea and sky had woken her each morning, along with the smell of her mother’s homemade brown bread and scones wafting up the stairs.

Her older sister, Olivia, still lived in the village, with her husband and three little girls. They’d be fast asleep now, after a supper of hot chocolate and buttery toast in front of the
fire, a tradition Olivia had carried on from their own childhood. God, she’d love to be sitting in front of a real fire, watching it roaring up the chimney, listening to the crackling song of
the wood as it blazed merrily, sipping creamy hot chocolate and eating toast dripping with melting butter and jam, Alison thought longingly.

Impulsively, she pulled out her cell phone. It was night time at home, but Olivia would get the message in the morning Alison thought, hailing a taxi that had its light on. She gave the midtown
address and settled back against the seat, her fingers flying over the keys.

‘Do you see her now? She can’t walk in those high heels, and that one there, she’s flat-footed.’

Holy Mother!
, Olivia Hammond thought in dismay as she gave her elderly uncle a dig in the ribs. ‘Shush, they’ll hear you,’ she hissed, noting the amused glance of one of
the nurses hurrying past them along the busy hospital corridor where they were sitting.

‘Not a’tall, girl, wasn’t I whisperin’?’ Leo Dunwoody declared indignantly as he sat beside her, his arms folded, taking a great interest in all that was going on
around him.

‘Do you see the one in the pink- and blue-striped top over there? She’d be one of the lower orders; she wouldn’t be a real nurse now,’ Leo observed knowingly. Although he
thought he was whispering, the people on either side of them could hear him.

‘Mr Dunwoody, we’ll take you now.’ A ‘real’ nurse popped her head out of the Breathing Test Room opposite them, and Olivia watched with fond exasperation as the
elderly man stood up and made his way into the room with a cheery wave of his walking stick.

‘Right, lassie, we’d better get on with it, I suppose,’ he boomed as the door closed behind him. Olivia exhaled a long, deep breath and stretched her legs in front of her. The
plastic chairs were uncomfortable, and they’d been there for the past three-quarters of an hour. The appointment was for eleven, but Uncle Leo preferred to be early wherever he was going.
That was all very well, but Olivia was pushed for time. She’d taken flexi-time to bring him to his appointment, time she could ill afford. She job-shared in the administration department of a
busy third-level-education college, and exam time was always hectic.

There was a hot-drinks machine further along the corridor, and she walked to it, rooted in her bag for some loose coins, dropped them into the slot and selected a cappuccino. She’d only
taken a few gulps from her coffee at breakfast time, between trying to get lunch boxes ready and dealing with the trauma of her youngest daughter, Ellie, dropping her baby tooth into the
cat’s food dish and the twins having a row about their Nintendos while she was out the back hanging out the clothes which probably wouldn’t dry anyway in the cold. And it looked like
rain, she thought gloomily. She sipped her cappuccino and tried to suppress a yawn as her phone rang. Her mother’s number flashed up on the screen.

‘Hello, love, how did Leo get on? It was so kind of you to offer to take him.’ Esther Dunwoody’s voice floated down the line.