AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I sort of envy you being able to just suit yourself today,’ Liv said a little regretfully.
‘You could do the same. I mean, you hardly ever get home these days and who do you want to meet up with in Flannelly’s anyway? It’s just going to be Eddie’s cronies and, let’s face it, not much ever changes with any of them.’
‘Hmm.’ The problem was, if she left it too late, Eddie would be settled in with his buddies and there’d be no leaving until closing time. At least, if she got down before dinner, she’d be able to talk him into some food and there was a very slim chance she might get him to go for a walk around the village with her too. In her mind’s eye, she imagined him down on bended knee in the village square when all was silent, beneath the huge Christmas tree – by the looks of the sky at the moment, they might even have fresh snowfall.
‘Liv.’ Maya was biting her lower lip in that way she always had when they were younger and she was trying hard to keep a secret from her older sister. And it dawned on Liv that there had been a reason Maya was so adamant on them fitting in this time alone together today. She had something she needed to tell her.
‘What?’ Liv had a feeling that whatever Maya was going to say, she wouldn’t like it. ‘Is it Eddie?’ She could do without Maya trying to prod and poke at the news that he was finally going to propose to her.
‘No.’ Maya looked out towards the sea; it seemed as clean and sparkling today as Liv had ever seen it. ‘It’s Dad.’ She shook her head. ‘Look they don’t want to worry you, but it didn’t seem fair. He wanted you to have a nice Christmas without anything hanging over you, but I know that it makes a difference. I know you’d never forgive me if anything happened…’
‘Oh, God.’ Liv felt her chest constrict. ‘You’re scaring me, Maya; just say it, whatever it is.’
‘You know he’s been on cholesterol and blood pressure tablets?’
‘Yeah, but I thought everything was under control?’
‘We all did, but two weeks ago, he woke with a terrible pain in his chest – of course, being Dad, he didn’t tell anyone. He just drove himself to the doctor and she – you know Lucy Nolan took over at the surgery last year?’ Maya nodded her approval, because old Dr O’Shea would have probably given him a packet of indigestion tablets and sent him on his way. Lucy Nolan was a different breed. They were lucky to have her, even if the likes of Barbara Quirke wanted to dream up things to moan about. If Barbara won the lottery, she would still moan, even if the winning ticket was a gift. ‘Anyway, she packed him off to hospital straight away and they confirmed that he wasn’t having a heart attack, at least, but he’s been booked in for an angiogram as soon as the Christmas break is over.’
‘I can’t believe it. He seems so…’ Liv shook her head. Perhaps if she could be cross with her parents for keeping it from her it might quell the terror she felt at the thought of anything happening to either of them. But it was no good. How could she be cross with them, when all they wanted was to have a happy Christmas with her? After all, she knew, they worried about her as much as they worried about anything. Since Rachel died, they never really stopped worrying about her – it was unnecessary. She had managed to get her life back together again. It wasn’t the same, but she knew she was lucky.
She needed to say something. Maya was waiting for her to say something; anything. ‘Thank you, for telling me. I mean it – you’re right, at least this gives me the chance to choose where I’m going to spend my time this Christmas and it’s definitely not going to be sitting in Flannelly’s pub nursing an orange juice and listening to the same stories I heard last year.’ She put her arm around Maya. It wasn’t fair; her sister had carried this worry about with her for the last two weeks. Liv decided she would share the load, whatever that meant in supporting her family going forward. She was only sorry now that she’d invited the Quirkes to the farmhouse the previous day. What a waste of a perfectly good Christmas Day now that this news reminded her how precious each one was for them as a family.
*
It seemed to Liv that everything about Ballycove was just a little more Christmassy this year. Of course, it was the snow. It was such a treat to have it still on the ground as they walked back through the village on the way home. The square was beautifully decorated, with golden lights hanging on the bare branches of every tree and the huge fir tree at the centre decked out in its seasonal finest. As they walked the narrow country road to the farm, Liv heard the hunt horn being sounded somewhere across the fields, so they fastened the dogs’ leads on their collars; the last thing the local hunt needed was three working sheepdogs joining their beagles.
It was probably her favourite day of the year – St Stephen’s Day, or Boxing Day. It was the one day when, if she wasn’t at work, there was absolutely no pressure. She and Maya normally went for a very long walk and then, when they returned to the farmhouse, it was leftovers from the previous day for dinner, which her dad always said were nicer on the second day and Liv quietly agreed with him. Then, they’d settle down in the sitting room, her dad snoring before the TV, her mother knitting or channel-hopping and Maya and Liv snuggled up with a book each for the night.
She rang Pete as soon as they got back to the farmhouse and he was his usual chipper self.
‘Everything is fine,’ he said breezily. It was typical Pete – he wouldn’t want to make a fuss or have a drama all about him. It occurred to Liv that his personality was the complete opposite of Barbara Quirke’s. As long as she’d known him, he’d never been the one in need of any sort of help or support. He’d given freely over the years, whether it was taking turns with her at Rachel’s bedside or hauling heavy furniture up the three flights of stairs to her flat or picking her up from town because her shopping bags were heavy and it started to rain.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Liv asked, double, triple checking, but then, she realised, perhaps it was different for men; after all, Pete didn’t have a biological clock ticking inside him so loudly he felt as if he was counting down the final minutes to an atomic bomb. For Pete it was just a relationship that didn’t work out; if the shoe was on the other foot, for Liv it would be the end of the world, or at least that’s what she thought it would be, so she cleared the awful idea from her mind quickly.
‘Sure, everything is fine. It had run its course; it was time to move on for both of us, obviously. It’s just a little depressing that Anya would do something like that behind my back, but I think it says more about her and, really, why I was having doubts about her to begin with.’
‘I’m just glad that you’re okay, but if there’s anything I can do, you just need to let me know, okay?’ Liv said, and she knew she had to stop worrying about him.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘We’ll meet up for coffee when you get back?’ he said but she had a feeling that he was only pacifying her; otherwise, he knew only too well.
She put the phone down, thinking she’d far prefer to go for coffee with Pete than have to show up at Flannelly’s pub. She thought about it now and it was bloody miserable. She actually dreaded the journey down, the too-loud music and the smell of all-day drinking, and for what? To make sure that Eddie got home in one piece. She’d much prefer to be at home in her snuggly pyjamas and padding off to bed when it suited her. She was glad that she’d decided against going earlier now.
It was nine-thirty when the call came.
‘Liv, where are you?’ It was Eddie. To be fair, she’d have thought he’d be completely hammered by now, and she didn’t want to be proposed to when he was too drunk to ask properly. It was funny, but hearing about her father had pushed her priorities around. Now being proposed to came a distinct second after spending time with her dad. She’d sent Eddie a couple of texts over the course of the evening to make up for not going to the pub, but he hadn’t replied. It would have been too noisy in the bar to hear the notifications probably.
‘Didn’t you get my messages?’ she asked.
‘But I thought you were going to turn up later?’ He sounded disappointed. Well, she supposed, at least it was nice that he missed her. ‘And it’s nearly closing time now,’ he said.
‘I know. Hang on, I’ll drive down and you can buy me a glass of lemonade before they call time.’ She looked across at her parents, both snoozing contentedly. She shivered at the idea of having to leave the cosy sitting room and head out into the freezing air. God, she’d love to snuggle up here for the night, but this might be the moment – she couldn’t not turn up if Eddie was going to propose to her in the snow, could she? ‘It’ll take me a few minutes.’ It took ten minutes to shrug out of her pyjamas and brush a little blusher on her cheeks and then she was driving her dad’s jeep into the village. The snow really had begun to pack up now. A car would be useless at getting out onto the main road, which had a steep hill; it was sheer enough to send her backwards if the roads were any way icy.
Eddie was waiting at the front door of the pub when she arrived. No lemonade so, it looked as if she’d missed closing time. For a moment, she thought there was something different about him, something unfamiliar, as if she’d missed a step and somehow the universe had let her off on the wrong stop. He dropped the remains of his cigarette to the ground and mashed it into a dirty black mark on the snow.
‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ He gave her that lopsided grin that made her heart flip over with love for him. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked as he hopped into the jeep next to her. ‘It’s bloody freezing. What took you so long?’
‘Nothing, I just got held up.’ There was no point telling Eddie about the angiogram – he’d probably tell her she was worrying over nothing and would have forgotten it by the morning. She drove towards his mother’s house, pulling up at the gate and switching off the engine, presuming he was going to ask her in – had he planned on proposing to her today? She checked the rear-view mirror; maybe he’d ask her now, or in his mother’s house? Did she want to be proposed to in Barbara Quirke’s gingham kitchen or faded, but still strangely overwhelming chintz sitting room surrounded by china figurines?
