Coming Home for Christmas (22 page)

She was looking forward to sitting out on the patio over a glass of chilled wine, the comforting shushing of the sea as it feathered the beach below them in the background, and studying this
tapestry of her and Valerie’s lives.

She’d not been able to resist bringing one of the old-fashioned albums with her to the park. A photo of her father and mother had caught her eye. Snuggled close together, laughing, her
father squinting into the camera as the sun caught him, looking so handsome and vital next to Valerie, petite and tanned, in a pretty blue sundress and making a face at whoever was taking the
photo. Probably Lizzie, Valerie’s best friend, and Briony’s godmother.

Idly, she finished off her sandwich, took a slug of fresh orange juice and reached into her beach bag to pull out the album with its garish plastic cover of pink daisies and splashes of yellow.
A torn brown A4 envelope fell out from the back flap and a pale blue envelope slid half-way out of it. She was about to put it back when she saw that it was addressed to her:
Miss Briony Harris,
12 Eldertree Road, Dublin 9
.

Eldertree Road, she noted, surprised. That was where Valerie and she had lived all those years ago when they had first moved back to Dublin before her mother had bought her own house. Who would
have been writing to her there, and why had her mother never given her the letter? And why was the address written in a different pen and by a different hand from that of her name? The fine elegant
cursive, written in blue ink, was neat, precise, the letters beautifully formed – script from a bygone era, she thought, studying it intently. No one wrote like that now. Why on earth were
they writing to her, this person with the graceful old-fashioned writing? The address, however, was scripted in a rather untidy, less meticulous style.

She opened the thin envelope and eased out the two pages of closely written script, and for a surreal moment was sure she caught a hint of a long-remembered scent. Gramma Tessa had always worn
perfume, and face cream. Briony could remember playing with the cosmetic jars on her grandmother’s dressing table and Tessa daubing her face with Nivea and spraying her wrists with scent.
Even to this day she could remember cuddling into her grandmother’s shoulder, as Tessa sang ‘
Sugar and Spice and all things nice, that’s what little girls are made
of.
’ That sweet distinctive smell that would forever remind her of a time when life was good and she was safe and happy.

‘
My Darling Briony
,’ she read as Katie hummed happily beside her, completely oblivious to her mother’s mounting shock.

Slowly, shaking her head, Briony read and reread her grandmother’s letter, so engrossed she hardly heard the ‘Yoo-hoo!’ that a slender blond-haired woman was hollering as she
ran up the steps of the park.

Almost in a daze, Briony studied her mother, willowy and tanned, looking ten years younger than her fifty years as she waved at them.

‘Hello, my darlings, are you enjoying your picnic?’ she asked breezily, bending to kiss Katie and tracing a tender finger along her cheek.

‘Valwee,’ squealed Katie, throwing her arms around her.

The rush of bitterness that surged through Briony almost made her gag as she stood up.

‘Having fun?’ Valerie raised laughing eyes to her. The smile faded from her lips when she saw Briony’s expression. ‘What’s wrong? Are you OK?’ She
straightened up and reached a hand out to touch her daughter.

‘How
could
you, Mum?’ Briony’s voice was shaking, as was the hand that held the letter, the letter that revealed that her mother had betrayed her in the most cruelly
grievous way. A letter that revealed a litany of lies, lies and more lies. A letter that showed that Valerie Harris was a heartless, selfish, cruel bitch, who was now standing in front of her
pretending to be concerned.

‘You make me sick,’ Briony hissed, not wishing Katie to know that there was anything amiss.

Aghast at the venom in her daughter’s voice, Valerie glanced at the letter in Briony’s hand. Comprehension dawned. She paled under her tan.

‘I can explain,’ she said urgently, running her fingers through her blond bob. ‘I did it for you, Briony. You must believe me. I can explain.’

She stands on the uneven cobblestones watching the small green and white tug nudge the enormous cargo ship up the wide mouth of the river towards its berth. The steady thrum of
the engines, rhythmic, insistent, blends with the raucous shrieks of the gulls as they circle then swoop and dive into the choppy sea on some tasty titbit. The wind is getting up and she wishes she
had brought her scarf. Behind her, down on the beach, the sand is whipping across the rocks, and shells and small bits of driftwood skitter along the strand, taking on a life of their own. The ship
is looming closer and she turns to observe the action on deck as it passes before her, blocking out the view of the opposite shore.

She likes to come and watch the activity in the port: the toing and froing of ships and liners, the big ferries, regular as clockwork, the arrow-swift little pilot boats that race towards the
open sea, always an indication that a ship is coming. And then, as the new arrival appears on the horizon, the sturdy dependable tugs chugging down the river, preparing to take charge, reassuring,
she imagines, for a weary captain and crew at the end of a voyage.

This is her favourite place now. The place she comes to be peaceful and still. The place that she comes to escape. The wind whips her grey hair around her face and she inhales deeply, enjoying
the salty, bracing air. Great banks of leaden black clouds loom up over the trees and rooftops of Clontarf and Sutton across the bay. Howth is shadowed and grey. It will be raining soon. The ship
ploughs past, churning up the water, almost home. The white caps of the wash slapping hard against the seawall and, as the ship heads up the river, soon to disappear from view, she turns and makes
her way, with some difficulty, down the rocks and sand to the shelter of the beach that faces the Southside.

‘Blackie!’ She calls the black Labrador who has his nose stuck in a cleft trying to get at some buried treasure, a dead crab or fish head or some such. Tessa smiles as he lopes
towards her, tail wagging furiously. ‘Good boy, good boy,’ she says, leaning down to stroke his dear face as he gazes at her with brown-eyed adoration. ‘What would I do without
you?’ she murmurs, grateful beyond measure for his unconditional love, especially today of all days.

Even after all these years the memory of that warm September day is still clear and present whenever she resurrects it. Time has dulled the sharp edges of the pain, but it is always there in the
background. She glances at her watch. It was around this time . . . She gazes unseeingly towards the mountains and Dun Laoghaire, lost to her memories.

The wind’s keening and Blackie’s bark at a plastic bag flying past him brings her back to reality and she pulls her parka around her. ‘Come on, Blackie, come on, boy.’
She hurries across the sand to where she has parked the car. Once she would have been able to run, she thinks ruefully. Her left knee aches and stiffens and she is glad when her dog is plonked on
his rug on the back seat, chewing on a treat before settling for a snooze. He knows the routine; knows that she will pour herself a cup of tea from a flask and take out her pen and pad, and for a
while his beloved mistress will be immersed, her pen flying over white paper, interspersed with mouthfuls of hot sweet tea and gingernut biscuits.

Tessa pours the tea into a plastic cup, looking forward to that first taste of the warming golden liquid. What is it about tea from a flask? she wonders as she screws on the white top and lays
the flask on the passenger seat. She savours that first sip, holding the cup between her hands, the steaming heat a comfort as she stares across the sea to where rain has blotted out Sandymount and
Dun Laoghaire, a sombre impressionist painting that does not have the glorious light of a Manet or Monet.

Tessa sighs and nibbles on her biscuit. She should go home, she has spent longer than normal walking Blackie. Lorcan will be querulous on her return, annoyed with her for being gone so long,
especially today of all days. But she needs this break from him. She is the only one he can take his frustrations out on now. Chronic arthritic pain has turned him into an angry, frustrated old
man. He was so vibrant and vigorous, even into his late sixties, and then came the grinding pain – like ivy strangling a tree, he’d once told her – and the slow, unremitting
descent into decrepitude. Old age was the cruellest stage of all, the real test of ‘for better, for worse’. She still loves her husband, and understands his frustration, but there are
times now when she sometimes doesn’t like him. She has pleaded with him for months to see a shoulder specialist and he has finally let her make an appointment. He could have saved himself a
year of pain, and made her life much easier if he had not been so stubborn. Men can be so
irritating
, she thinks.

She finishes her tea, wipes the crumbs from her lap and hesitates, hand poised over the key in the ignition. The rain has reached her little haven and spitter-spatters blur the windscreen. Tessa
glances at the clock on the dash. She really should be going; she doesn’t want to get stuck in traffic. People out for a Sunday afternoon spin, dog walkers like herself, parents with kids who
still have homework to do, will head for home now that the rain has come. She can see mothers on the beach, urging children to hurry as the rain grows heavier. It is dancing in fury on the roof of
her car, a steady tattoo that increases her sense of being in her own safe little world.

Her notepad is sticking out of her bag; she pulls it out and roots for her pen. She settles herself more comfortably, shifting her weight to ease her knee and flips over the cover to a blank
page.

‘
My Darling Briony
,’ she writes, yielding to her reluctance to go home, oblivious to the rain battering the car.

‘
Today I think of you more than ever
. . .’

‘Briony, there is so much you don’t understand. We’ll sit down and talk about it when we get home. Let’s not upset Katie.’ Valerie Harris laid a
placatory hand on her daughter’s arm, trying not to panic at the realization that one of her greatest fears had come to pass.

Briony shrugged it away. ‘I’m booking a flight home,’ she said coldly, busying herself with packing up the picnic things.

‘Are you cross, Mom?’ Katie paused from feeding her doll and glanced up at them, a little frown furrowing her brow.

‘No, no. How about a last swing before we go back to the villa?’ Briony suggested brightly.

‘Yessssssss! Valwee, will you mind Millie?’ She thrust her doll into her grandmother’s hand. Valerie looked down at her granddaughter and her heart contorted with love and pain
at the sight of the innocent little face raised trustingly, with its cornflower-blue eyes and an adorable smattering of freckles across her nose.

‘Of course I will, darling.’ Valerie stroked Katie’s flushed cheek.

Katie danced gaily over to the swing. ‘Come on, Mom,’ she called over her shoulder.

‘We have to talk, Briony, on our own. At least let me—’

‘Are Gramma and Granddad still alive?’ Briony was stony-faced. Valerie felt she was being punched in the stomach when she saw the contempt in her eyes. ‘
Are they?
’
her daughter persisted.

‘Yes,’ Valerie sighed. ‘As far as I know both of them are still alive, yes.’

‘And Dad, did you lie about
him
, too?’ Briony fixed her with a hard, cold stare.

‘
No!
No, of course
not
, Briony!’ Valerie’s voice shook. She struggled not to cry, appalled that her daughter would think that she would ever lie about Jeff.

‘I will never forgive you for this, Mum,
ever
. And I won’t be coming out here again with Katie. Let’s see how
you
feel, knowing you’ll never see
your
granddaughter again!’ She marched across the grass, bristling, and Valerie watched her go with a sickening lurch to her stomach, and had to sit down on the rug. Her heart had begun to pound
and she felt faint. She adored Katie. Katie had given her more joy than any other relationship in her life had. Even her relationship with Briony could not compete with the absolute, unconditional
love she felt for her only grandchild.

For years she’d worried about this moment of reckoning. There had been a few close shaves, notably when Briony was getting married and had wanted to try to reconnect with Jeff’s
family, but Valerie had managed to put her off, and Briony, caught up in the wedding preparations, had accepted all she’d told her at face value.

Over time Valerie’s anxiety had eased, and she didn’t give the past too much thought. Today, of course, was different, she thought sadly. What an irony that Briony would discover her
grandmother’s letter on this, the anniversary of her father’s death. It was so long ago, she thought distractedly. Twenty-six years today. Briony had been almost four and a half when
her mother’s life had been shattered.

She couldn’t think straight. Valerie’s mouth quivered and she had to stifle the sob that escaped as the memories of that dreadful day came roaring at her like a tsunami, enveloping
her in wave after wave of grief and regret. Just when she’d finally thought life was good, and she could relax, the past had come back to confront her with a crushing intensity. The decisions
she’d made, the lies she’d told, had returned to confront her and this time there was no avoiding them. Briony was so hurt and angry she would never listen to her mother’s side of
the story. And she
had
a side, Valerie thought sorrowfully. Everyone would think she was the worst mother in the world when it all came out, but she had her reasons, no matter what Tessa
would say. And Tessa would have a lot to say, Valerie thought bitterly, remembering Jeff’s mother.