COMING HOME... AN EXTRACT
25 January 2010
A CHRISTMAS TALE
Author Patricia Scanlan introduces her latest book, Coming Home
This time last year, I'd my Christmas presents bought and wrapped, Christmas cards ready to post, and novel, Happy Ever After , ready for publication, knowing that I didn't have to deliver the third part of the trilogy for another 20 months. For the first time in years I felt on top of things. The reason? I'd had surgery that required at least six weeks, if not more, of recuperation. Having given myself a ‘sick cert', I felt no guilt at all as I languished in bed listening to the howling winds, reading other authors' books through a druggy haze and not lifting anything heavier than a “full wine glass”, as per doctors’ instructions. Then my editor rang “to see how I was doing”. I'd taken painkillers and a muscle relaxant and was nicely ‘spaced out'. After a chat she said casually, “How would you feel about writing a Christmas gift book, that would be an antidote to this dreadful recession? It would need to have a feel-good air, a twist in the tale, a moral and a happy ending — and be Christmassy,” she instructed. “That sounds do-able,” I murmured hazily. “Excellent. It will be just the thing, a real stocking filler,” she declared. “Now rest and get your strength back.” I hung up and fell asleep. Later, when I was much less woozy, I thought to myself, ‘Have I just agreed to write a Christmas book? You're crazy! You're on sick leave. Everyone's entitled to their sick leave’. But it was far, far too late. Alison Dunwoody was in my head and she wouldn't leave me alone. I could see her, hear her voice as she told me how, thanks to the unimaginable greed of avaricious, corrupt, amoral bankers who felt they were above the law and that the rules did not apply to them, she had lost her job, life savings and all that she'd worked for. (I felt a certain sympathy; like many, I wished heartily that I'd never heard of Anglo et al.) I could discern the older sister Olivia's resentment, feeling she was the hard done by sibling left looking after family, and trying to plan a surprise party for their mother. I could see their mother, Esther, in a snug, homely kitchen mixing the Christmas puddings with her grandchildren, unaware of her daughter's troubles. And Christmas was approaching. Would Alison be coming home?
COMING HOME... AN EXTRACT
Esther Dunwoody lined a baking tray with greaseproof paper and emptied several packets of sultanas and muscatel raisins on to it. She slid the tray into the oven to heat the fruit so that it would swell nicely for the pudding mix. She'd been making or helping to make Christmas puddings for a long time now — nearly 65 years, she thought with a stomach-lurching shock, remembering back to the fire-warmed kitchen in her parents' house. It had a pantry just off it, where her mother stored all her baking ingredients. As a child she'd loved that pantry, loved the smell of her mother's homemade brown soda loaves and currant breads. There was either a rich tea brack, apple or rhubarb tart, a jam sponge or a tray of fairy cakes on the cake shelf, and always — her absolute favourites — scones, which would be served with homemade blackberry jam and, as an extra treat on Sundays, a big dollop of cream. Although she'd been baking for years and got many compliments, Esther never felt that she had quite the light touch her own mother had. She could still remember as a five-year-old standing on the little stool beside her mother, sister and brother and cutting cherries in half and tipping a plate full of sultanas and raisins into the big pot where her mother stirred the mixture. Then, the most special moment, when they all queued up to make a wish. It really was a cycle, she mused as she shook two cartons of red cherries on to a plate and licked the sticky sugar coating off her fingers. She had taken Olivia and Alison to do the Christmas baking at her mother's house during the years of their childhood, and her young daughters had loved the excitement of it all. Now, Olivia was bringing her three little girls to stand around the kitchen table to slice and stir, mix and taste and make their wishes, just as she and her siblings had all those years ago. And the same sense of excitement and anticipation would fill the kitchen as mothers and daughters weighed and poured, sieved and whisked, using the Christmas pudding recipe that had passed down through several generations of Esther's family. Esther wiped her hands and went to the drawer that housed her collection of floral aprons. She picked out four and laid them on the big wooden table behind her. Part of the excitement for her granddaughters was wearing an apron. It was almost a badge of honour, Esther thought with a smile, looking forward to the afternoon with her precious brood. She loved the anticipation of Christmas. The happiest time of her life had been when her parents were still alive and she and her husband, Liam, and Olivia and Alison had celebrated the festive season together, cooking and decorating and Christmas shopping and going to Mass en famille on Christmas morning. And now her daughters were grown women, and Olivia had children of her own, and Alison... Alison hadn't been home for Christmas in three years. Esther felt a stab of sadness. Her daughter worked hard in New York. She came home for a week every summer but she couldn't afford the time off at Christmas, and Esther always felt a terrible ache of loneliness at Mass and at the dinner table, despite the clamour of the girls with their excited little faces. Liam always knew what she was feeling and he'd whisper, “Maybe next year she'll make it”. Would it be different if Alison was married and had children of her own? Esther wondered. Would that strengthen the ties of family, ties that her youngest daughter had always felt so oppressively binding?
Olivia and Alison were chalk and cheese. Olivia was the typical older daughter, with a sense of filial responsibility which free-spirited Alison had never been encumbered with. Alison had shaken the dust of Port Ross from her high-heel-shod feet as soon as she could, embracing city life with gusto. She'd worked hard in college and travelled the world before finally settling in New York, where she'd spent three years studying for a degree at night. New York was the city for her; there was no denying that. The buzz, vibrancy and opportunities to succeed suited Esther’s daughter's ambitious nature down to the ground.
Esther and Liam had visited her in New York several times over the past few years and thoroughly enjoyed every second of their trips. Since the girls had grown up and left home, she and her husband had spent holidays in the Far East and the Gulf, and had the trip of a lifetime to visit her brother in Melbourne. They'd taken weekend breaks in European cities and explored the wide variety of cultures on offer, but Esther's favourite city was New York. She envied the opportunities Alison had. Modern women had so many options that hadn't been available to her generation. Esther had to give up her job once she'd married Liam and become pregnant. There were no crèches back then. Women were expected to stay at home and mind their children. That had been hard, because Esther had always had a strong streak of independence, which she'd had to surrender to being a wife and mother. Giving up her own salary had been a sacrifice. Giving up her job as a staff officer in the Civil Service because of the ‘marriage bar' had been even worse. Women had been treated badly in those unenlightened days, but looking at how stressed Olivia was, trying to juggle career and family, Esther could see the other side of the coin.
Olivia was ‘time poor', as they described it now. Not for her the luxury of spending a morning playing with her children on the beach then having a picnic, just because the sun was shining. Not for her the freedom to take a bus into town once the children were safely in school, to shop at leisure or stroll around an art gallery or museum soaking up the fruits of others' creativity. Neither had Esther needed to worry about the expense of a big mortgage and two cars, as Olivia had to. Sometimes Esther felt her elder daughter would like to give up her job and be a stay-at-home mother, just to get off the treadmill of her hectic life for a while.
A lison's life was so different and one that Esther would love to have experienced. How wonderful to have no one but yourself to worry about; how liberating to be able to take off at the drop of a hat to go skiing in Colorado, or diving in the Caribbean, or windsurfing in Hawaii, as Alison had in the past few years. How delightful to be able to spend an entire Saturday wandering from exhibition to exhibition in the Met, Esther's favourite New York haunt.
Alison was privileged indeed, but she worked hard for it. She was at her desk by 7.30am, having first done a workout at the gym. She didn't seem to miss home at all, and Esther felt sad sometimes that the daughter who had been so lovingly reared had let go of them all so easily. Still, she had Olivia and her little girls, she comforted herself as she lined up brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, almond essence, lemons and a bottle of whiskey. Ellie, Kate and Lia were the joy of her life, and if Alison, by some miracle, were to settle down at home and marry and have children, she would be perfectly happy, Esther decided, setting aside her pudding ingredients and starting to cut steak into cubes and flouring them to braise. She'd add stock, seasoning, diced carrots and turnips to the pot, to simmer slowly on the hob. It was a freezing-cold day; an easterly chill blew in off the choppy gunmetal sea. Esther could see the whitecaps pounding against the rocks across the field at Smuggler's Cove. The trees swayed, their branches long, grey skeleton fingers in the wind. The girls would need something warm and nourishing after their tiring day at school. She could heat the braised steak for Michael, her son-in-law, when he came home from work, and she'd give him an extra helping of her creamy mustard mash, his favourite. He was exactly like Liam in that regard, a real meat, potato and veg man. “Are these enough for you?” Her husband came through the kitchen door with a big basin of breadcrumbs that he'd grated from half a dozen batch loaves. “Perfect.” She smiled at him. “I suppose I should buy the readycrumbed ones, but I don't think they'd give the puddings the same substance. Batch bread is the best, I think.” “Well, the girls always thought so. Remember the way they used to pick at the loaves? And Ellie, Lia and Kate were doing exactly the same thing yesterday. It brought me back, looking at them.” Liam put the breadcrumbs down and snaffled a cherry. “I'm glad we're passing on the old traditions, and that we haven't succumbed to modernity,” Esther remarked. “Even if you're the one who had to grate them.” “It wouldn't be the same opening a bag of breadcrumbs,” her husband agreed. “Mind, I was tempted to buy them this year. I was even tempted to buy a pudding — that dose of flu knocked the stuffing out of me,” Esther confessed, as she washed and wiped her hands and turned to face her beloved.
“I know, I'm still wheezing,” Liam said gloomily. “We're getting old, pet, and I don't like it, not one bit.”
“Me neither. Imagine — I'll be 70! I just can't believe it.” She shook her head, still shocked at the notion. “Well, you don't look it,” Liam said gallantly. “Do I not, even though I stopped dying my hair?” She arched an eyebrow at him. “Not at all,” he said, caressing her silky silver bob. “And you certainly don't act it,” he added teasingly, blue eyes twinkling as he brushed a streak of flour off her cheek. “And you'll be the same age as me, and I'm still a young fella at heart.”
“We did well, didn't we? We reared the girls the best we could, we have the grand-children to spoil, we don't owe a penny to anyone and, most importantly,” she slipped her arms around his waist, “we still love each other, don't we?”
“Ummm.” Liam rested his chin on her head as he drew her close.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“Oh, for goodness sake, woman, do we have to get into all that
mushy stuff ?” He groaned in exasperation.
“That mushy stuff is very important, mister.”
“We've been married for 45 years — isn't that enough for you?”
“No, dear, it isn't. It's nice to hear the words ‘I love you’ every now and again,” Esther retorted. Even after all these years, her husband still found it difficult to express his love in words. Liam took a deep breath. “I love you, Esther. Will that do you?” he said gruffly. “There, that wasn't so hard, now was it?” She grinned at him, raising her face for a kiss as their arms tightened around each other.
You can see this extract in the Irish Independent in the 'gallery' section.