Coming Home for Christmas (23 page)

Tessa had despised her. Behind the façade of motherly concern, Jeff’s mother had only been nice to her because of Briony, not because she’d cared anything for Valerie. She had
always known that Tessa had felt that she’d trapped Jeff by falling pregnant. Tessa had never felt that Valerie was good enough for her precious son.

It was partly thanks to Tessa that she had had to leave home with her young daughter and make a life for them far away from all that she had grown up with, Valerie thought bitterly. What would
her life have been like if she had been able to stay in her home village with Briony? But Tessa had put paid to that, and when fate had intervened that glorious September day when Jeff had been
taken from her so cruelly, and the future she had planned had been snatched away, all her dreams had been left in tatters.

‘You’re very late,’ Lorcan says crossly, lifting his head from his crossword. ‘Lisa phoned. She’ll be up tomorrow.’

‘The traffic was heavy. The rain . . .’ she sighs, stifling a rush of irritation. She’s seventy-five, for God’s sake, and she has to account for her time like some
schoolgirl!

‘How is Lisa?’ she asks, wishing she could sit in her favourite chair and read the paper, but Lorcan’s tea has to be got before she can relax.

‘She’s fine. She got a Mass said for Jeff. She said she’d ring later.’

‘Did she put flowers on the grave?’ Lisa, their eldest, is a loving, caring daughter who tries hard to support them as best she can, despite having three children in college and
running her own crèche.

‘I’m sure she did.’ Lorcan lowers his glasses. ‘You should have gone down to the grave yourself today. I know it gives you comfort. I just didn’t feel up to
going.’

‘We’ll go together one of these days.’ Tessa pats his hand, and feels a pang of sympathy as she sees how mottled red, stained with liver spots, and knotted, twisted and swollen
they are. Before arthritis distorted them, her husband’s hands were firm, his long fingers capable of surprising tenderness. Those fingers had brought her much pleasure, she remembers, as a
distant memory of joyous, abandoned lovemaking one stolen afternoon suddenly surfaces. Where did that come from? she wonders as she fills the kettle and takes the remains of the Sunday roast beef
from the fridge to cut thin slices for a sandwich for her husband’s tea.

Once, she and Lorcan had lived full, busy lives. They had been young, confident, resilient, and the future held no fears for them. They’d embraced parenthood enthusiastically and enjoyed
their children until fate had taken their youngest son from them. Now there’s always fear lurking, fear that Lorcan will be taken from her, fear that something will happen to her remaining
children and grandchildren. Death has taught her that peace of mind is a myth.

Tessa holds out a cut of beef for Blackie and he scoffs it with relish before easing himself down into his basket beside Lorcan, to rest his head on his paws and observe proceedings.

‘Where did you go?’ Lorcan asks.

‘The usual, the South Wall and the Shelley Banks.’

‘Many there?’

‘A few. I saw a ship arriving. It’s a pity you didn’t come, you would have enjoyed it.’

‘Ah, I wasn’t up to it today.’

They have this conversation every time. She tries not to get irritated with him. She thinks he has given in too easily and made an invalid of himself. There is no equality in their relationship
now that she has become the minder. She cannot help her resentment.

She needs minding, too, she thinks mournfully, imagining how nice it would be to have her meals handed up to her day in, day out. She’s fed up of cooking, after all these years: the
sameness of it, the wondering what to have, the preparing of meat and vegetables, the dishing out and serving up – she could
scream
with the monotony of it. Lorcan won’t even
come out and have lunch at a pub or restaurant any more. It’s all about him, now, Tessa thinks resentfully as she slathers mustard on the beef and lays the buttered slice of bread on top.

‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asks when she calls him to the table.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Is it the day that’s in it?’ He lowers himself onto the chair, grimacing as pain shoots through him.

‘I suppose.’ She pours his tea.

‘It’s hard to believe he’d be in his fifties if he was alive,’ Lorcan reflects, reaching out to squeeze her hand. That small gesture of unexpected tenderness is her
undoing and the tears she has managed to suppress all day overflow. Her husband continues to hold her hand as she weeps. ‘Better out than in, Tess,’ he says gruffly. ‘Sit down
here beside me.’

‘I can’t stop thinking of Briony.’ She hiccups, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands as she sits down at the table. ‘She’s been on my mind all
day.’

‘Mine too,’ Lorcan admits.

‘I hope that Valerie can live with herself,’ Tessa says bitterly. ‘It was the sorry day she set her sights on Jeff. May God forgive her for what she’s done to
us.’

‘She might say differently. She might say may God forgive
us
for what we did to
her
,’ Lorcan says quietly.

‘Lorcan! How can you say that?’ Tessa pulls her hand away. She wants to pummel him.

‘It wasn’t all one-sided, Tessa, you know that; we played our part too.’

‘Don’t say that!’ She jumps up from the table and marches into the hall and climbs the stairs. Lorcan has overstepped the mark this time, she fumes. How
dare
he suggest
they are to blame for being separated from Briony? It is that horrible girl’s fault that their grandchild has grown up not knowing them. Tessa might have told Valerie a few home truths when
Jeff died but that was no reason to take Briony away from them in a fit of spite and malice that had left them doubly devastated after their son’s death. Lorcan had no business to say that to
her, no business at all, Tessa rages as she bangs the door of the bedroom and sits on the bed. It was cruel, mean and unkind after all the goodness and kindness she has shown him over the past few
years.

She opens the top drawer of her bedside locker and takes out an envelope containing an old colour photo curling at the edges. A young man with warm brown eyes and a wide grin is cuddling a
little girl, who is squinting and smiling straight into the camera, pointing a chubby finger. Tessa smiles in spite of herself. She remembers as though it was yesterday that warm sunny Sunday and
the Indian summer they were enjoying.

‘Gramma, Gramma, you didn’t tell us to say “cheese”,’ Briony had chided, and they had all laughed.

It’s the last photo she has of them. A few hours later her son is dead, and less than two months after that, Valerie Harris took Briony up to Dublin to live and she never saw her
grandchild again.

Maybe she
was
a bit harsh when she’d spoken her mind to Valerie the day of Jeff’s death, but she was utterly distraught, and it was Valerie who had started the row, accusing
her of terrible things. Tessa’s lips tighten as she remembers the vicious attack Valerie had launched on her as Jeff lay cold as marble in that hospital room. Some things could never be
forgiven. Never. And Lorcan can say what he likes, it was Valerie who had taken Briony away, and Valerie who had made the decision never to allow them to see her again. And nothing would change
that.

As dusk settles around the room, etching the treetops outside against a gunmetal sky, Tessa holds the photo to her heart and feels the jagged shards of grief that this day always brings.

Lorcan pours himself another cup of tea and stirs in an extra spoonful of sugar. He needs it today. The kitchen has grown dark and only Blackie’s snores break the
silence. Tessa is upstairs, angry and resentful. She will never accept her part in what has happened to their family; she will never accept that what she said to Valerie started the chain of events
that has brought them even more sadness than they should have endured. He has held his tongue all these years because he loves his wife.

But sometimes it’s been hard listening to her rant and rave and today he has finally said what has to be said. Living in denial for so long has warped his wife’s memory of events.
She’d read an article some time back, about the Family Justice Review in the UK, ruling against giving grandparents automatic access to their grandchildren in the event of the parents
separating, and that had set her off again, worse than ever: ‘One million grandchildren in Britain, and how many here, that have little or no access to their grandparents? It shouldn’t
be allowed, Lorcan, something has to be done!’ For weeks she’d nearly driven him mad. He had wanted to say that Briony could have come looking for them once she’d turned eighteen,
but that would have hurt her even more and given her another excuse to go off on a tirade against Valerie for poisoning their granddaughter’s mind against them.

He has tried, down the years, to tell his wife that the bitterness that consumes her helps no one, least of all herself, but she has never wanted to hear it. She has wrapped her grief and anger
around her like a blanket, and found a strange comfort in it, until it now defines her.
Poor Tessa, the woman who has lost her son and her granddaughter. The woman against whom a grave injustice
has been done
.

He decided, after giving it much thought, that he would not visit their son’s grave on this, the anniversary of his passing. He knows from experience that the grave visits are an excuse
for Tessa to stoke up the bitterness again, to immerse herself into that darkness that she will not let go. He said that he wasn’t up to it, but that was an excuse; he would have gone if
things were different. He has lost as much as Tessa has but he has dealt with it.

They are in the departure lounge of their lives now, and she needs to make her peace with the past. It has gone on too long, this war of attrition. It is time to bring it to an end. He is her
husband and he loves her, he always has, although she has doubted that this is true sometimes. Since their son’s death he has been pushed aside from time to time because of her great sadness
and he has had to live with that too. But he can see what she cannot and this is why he has said what he has said.

He has tried to soften the blow by saying ‘what
we
did’ instead of ‘what
you
did’. That would have been far too accusatory. That would have smacked of
laying blame and he wouldn’t do that to her. But Lorcan wonders, as he sips the hot sweet tea and gazes unseeingly out at the dripping damson tree, if his wife will ever forgive him for what
he has just said.