Christmas Magic

‘Darling!’ she said, her voice clearly telling him all he needed to know.

‘How many have you had?’ he asked sadly.

‘Three. Honestly. I didn’t want to, I wanted to come home and explain about the bottles. You see, Scarlett at work had a party when Marcus was away, and she needed somewhere to put them because he hates her partying, so we stuck them in my car, and I forgot to get rid—’

‘Stop.’

‘No honestly—’

‘Stop. No excuses, Lori. I get it. Finally.’ He was more forcible this time.

This was no time to make plans or tell her of discussions they needed to have. That would have to wait until tomorrow when she was sober. He had met plenty of alcoholics over the years. He had never thought Lori would fit into that category.

‘Can you get a taxi and come home?’

‘Well,’ she sounded so unsure then, almost childlike now that the anticipated scolding hadn’t materialised. ‘I suppose I could,’ she said.

‘Do it now. If you’ve no money, tell the driver I have and I’ll pay him. I’ll put you to bed and we’ll start again in the morning.’

She began to cry then, noisy sobs. ‘I thought you’d be so angry with me. I don’t mean to. I tell myself I’ll just have one and then –’

‘It’s OK,’ he said softly. ‘Just come home, love. We’ll start again. We’ll get you into rehab, whatever it takes. It’s never too late.’

There was more noise and muffled voices, then a car door slamming.

‘I’m in the taxi,’ Lori said. ‘I’m coming home.’

‘See you in a little while, Lori,’ said Ben.

He hung up and walked upstairs to where he could overlook Genevieve and Dolores’ garden with the little grouping of ancient trees sending spindly, bare branches up into the night sky.

What he and Genevieve had talked about that night was true, he knew. It was never too late.

Dolores didn’t like going away when the daffodils were still out.

‘And what about the slugs?’ she wanted to know. The garden would be ravaged by them.

Genevieve had heard variations on this theme every week since they’d booked the holiday with Sybil to Italy.

‘There’s no right time to go away,’ she told her sister now, looking up from her final checklist regarding passports, photocopies of passports, tickets and money. The taxi was coming in an hour to take them and Sybil to the airport. ‘We have to trust that this is the right time for us, Dolores. It’s going to be marvellous.’

‘What if something goes wrong?’ said Dolores, looking up at her sister with beseeching eyes like the dogs’.

‘Sybil has travelled the world,’ Genevieve said firmly. ‘She’ll know what to do if something goes wrong.’

‘The problem with Sybil is that I think she’d quite like something to go wrong,’ fretted Dolores. ‘She’s far too fond of adventure.’

Genevieve laughed. ‘I’d quite like an adventure myself.’

Seeing the alarm in her sister’s eyes, she immediately pointed out that if anything went wrong, they could phone Ben and he’d sort it out.

‘Yes, Ben’s so good to us,’ Dolores muttered, mantra-like, ‘taking care of the dogs for us. Pixie and Snowy love both Ben and Lori.’

Genevieve knew that Lori found long walks therapeutic since she’d come out of rehab. She and Ben were looking forward to caring for the dogs and taking them for walks, although Genevieve explained that neither dog had ever had an actual long walk in their life.

‘We’ll take care of them,’ Ben had assured her the day before.

There was a light in his eyes these days. It made Genevieve happy just to see it.

When Genevieve and Dolores came back from their travels, he and Lori were going to Kerry for a few days’ holiday.

‘Lori wants to keep it simple,’ he explained to Genevieve. ‘We’ve never been to Kerry, so it’s not tinged by bad memories of the past. It’s hard for her, but she’s being so strong. And I’m happy no matter where we go, as long as she’s OK.’

‘She’ll be fine with you beside her,’ Genevieve said.

‘What about Dolores?’ he asked. ‘Is she still nervous about going away?’

‘Terribly,’ admitted Genevieve. ‘But wait till we get there. She’ll love it, I know she will. We both will.’

Handbag packed, she took one last trip around the house to make sure all the windows were locked before they left. It was odd to be going away for two whole weeks. She’d never been away from Primrose Cottage for that long ever before.

On her bedside table and carefully left under a knitting book, lest Dolores spot it, lay Magic for Beginners, now well thumbed. Genevieve thought she’d finally got to the bottom of the mystery of how it had ended up in her hands. There had been another Malone on the other side of Ardagh, it seemed. A Mrs Malone of West Ardagh. The man in the big post office had eventually uncovered this information, but only after Genevieve explained that it was just a book that had come to her house by mistake. Not a bill or some vital, private document.

‘Only a book,’ said the man, clearly relieved. ‘You see, if this was a private document, then we couldn’t give you out any details.’

‘Of course,’ said Genevieve. ‘No, it was only a book.’

She’d taken the car on one of its rare trips over to West Ardagh to find the mysterious Miss Malone and had come upon another Primrose Cottage, a tiny sliver of a house wedged between two fine new-builds. The old Genevieve might not have had the courage to ring the doorbell so firmly, or even to peer in the windows when nobody answered the door, but the newly courageous Genevieve had no such qualms.

However, the house was clearly empty. It felt empty. There was dust on the windows and dirt on the mat at the door. Whoever had lived here had moved on. But they’d left behind a gloriously beautiful garden, enclosed by rowan, elder and hazel trees. Magical trees.

Genevieve wrote a note on a piece of paper from her handbag and posted it through the letter box.

Thank you for Magic for Beginners. I still have it, if ever you need it. Fondest wishes

Genevieve Malone

Anniversary Waltz

In the tiny staffroom of Deloitte’s Pharmacy, Felicity Barnes put her mobile phone away and returned to her coffee and her chicken wrap thoughtfully.

Lunchtimes at Deloitte’s were fluid things and she might as well eat while she had the chance. It was Monday, the day when doctors’ surgeries were jammed with people who’d held on to their sore throats and aching backs over the weekend and had decided they needed medical attention urgently once Monday morning dawned.

Consequently, pharmacies were like Grand Central Station all day Monday with little chance of a break, and in the two months Felicity had been working in Deloitte’s, she’d learned to take lunch when she got the opportunity.

As she ate, she thought about her daughter’s phone call.

Mel was twenty-two and sometimes Felicity thought she was a very young twenty-two. Casting her mind back, Felicity realised that she’d been married to Leo with a baby on the way at the same age. But then that was years ago, when things had been different. People had grown up quickly then. She and Leo had been living in London in a tiny third-floor flat with no lift and very little money. They’d had no support system when Ryan, now twenty-seven, had cried through the night and an exhausted Felicity had wondered what she was doing wrong. She could recall the relief of hearing another mother say it was ‘… just colic, love. All babies get it. Blooming nightmare, isn’t it?’ The relief at hearing those words and the realisation that Ryan’s terrible crying was normal.