Christmas Wish (15 page)

The cold light of dawn was being kept at bay by a pair of tan-coloured velvet curtains given to Grandma Brodie by the woman she used to work for in Cork. That had been in the days when she was single and a second parlour maid, a time she consistently reminisced about, repeating herself with the same old tale.

Though years old, the curtains had been given her as a wedding present and still had plenty of wear in them.

It was Venetia who first opened her eyes and once she was awake, the excitement of what the two of them were about to do prevented her from going back to sleep.

‘Anna,’ she whispered, her breath turning to steam on the cold, damp air. ‘Are you awake?’

‘I am now,’ her sister grumbled, turning beneath the pile of grey woollen blankets.

‘Are you ready?’

Anna Marie sighed. ‘Are you sure we should be doing this?’

‘Of course we should. I’ll not stay here a moment longer. Now come on. We’re not children any longer and fit only to be ordered about as though we were.’

Both sisters lay looking at each other, the bedding pulled up to their chins.

‘Right,’ whispered Anna Marie at last.

Even in the morning gloom of a grey Irish dawn, Anna perceived her sister’s wide grin.

‘Right then,’ whispered Venetia like the seasoned conspirator she was. ‘Ready, steady. GO!’

The two sisters threw back the bedclothes in unison and sprang out of bed. Both had gone to bed fully dressed, only their shoes waiting at the side of the bed for their feet to slip into them.

Venetia folded the toe of her stocking, wishing she’d darned the hole the night before.

‘Will you look at that,’ she sighed.

‘No. Not if you want to get going,’ returned her sister. ‘You should have darned it when Granny told you to.’

‘I’ll darn it when I want to darn it,’ she whispered back with an air of defiance.

The fact was they’d lived with their grandparents since they were seven years old and Venetia could never remember a time when she hadn’t resented being ordered around by them. The time before that she remembered as bright and cosy. She refused to listen when Anna Marie suggested their circumstances had been far from cosy.

Venetia had coloured their past with comfort that had never been theirs.

‘Of course we’ll see them again,’ she declared when Anna Marie had spoken of their older sister and their baby brother.

Anna Marie never argued with her twin because Venetia always won. She was stubborn and strong; not that Anna Marie was weak, but what she did have was a dislike of confrontation.

One memory they both shared was the day they went to see the Christmas lights in a place her mother called Oxford Street. They’d taken a bus up west to look at the lights and the bright displays in the shop windows.

They hadn’t bought anything of course because everything was priced far above the few shillings their mother had in her purse. All they could do was to press their noses against the windows and make wishes that would never come true.

Both money and news of their father were in short supply then and it was just about the same now.

‘I don’t think he’ll ever come back,’ said Anna Marie. ‘And we’ll never see Magda and Michael ever again.’

‘Oh yes we will,’ said Venetia. ‘If our father doesn’t come back and get the family together, then we’ll go looking for them. Sooner or later we’re bound to find them.’

‘Gran and Gramps won’t let us.’

‘One day they won’t be able to stop us. Besides, we can sneak away if we’ve a mind to.’

‘We need money to live. Money to help us find our family. It won’t be easy.’

Once they’d left school it was expected that they would work on the farm.

‘Not if I can bloody help it,’ declared Venetia.

It had been Venetia’s idea that they were now old enough to leave this place and seek their fortune in the world, that fortune to be spent on finding Magda and Michael.

‘And New York’s the place you should be,’ Patrick Casey had told her.

Even at fourteen years of age, Venetia was wise to the desire she saw in his eyes, even though he was four years older than her, but then, Venetia considered herself quite a young lady and far more mature than her twin.

It had taken a lot of persuading to get Anna Marie to go along with her plan. Even now she could see her twin shiver as she shoved one arm then the other into her coat. She reckoned that the cold was only part of the reason, but she wouldn’t let her opt out of her plan.

‘Will you stop being such a nervous ninny,’ she hissed, her breath steaming from her mouth in the frosty air.

‘I’m not a ninny. It’s cold outside.’

‘It’s cold in here too. What do you expect? It’s nearly Christmas.’

Anna Marie had always been less rebellious than her sister. She understood her sister’s bitterness about their mother dying and the family being split up, but unlike Venetia she accepted the situation. She even liked the farm – and she loved their grandma. But Venetia was persuasive and determined and Anna Marie just couldn’t find the courage to stand up to her.

Venetia lifted the old iron latch on the bedroom door and eased it open inch by careful inch, all the while holding her breath in case it squeaked.

Anna Marie gasped when it did.

Venetia placed a finger in front of her pouting lips to shush her.

Easing the door open, she cocked her head and listened for any sign that her grandparents had heard.

The sound of snoring came from behind the closed door across the landing. How did her grandmother put up with such
a racket? An echoing snore sounded, steadily joining with the previous snore. Both were at it.

Venetia turned round and whispered to her sister that they would have to go down the stairs on tiptoe.

Anna Marie nodded nervously and licked her dry lips. At the same time, she tightened her hold on the small battered suitcase that banged against her side. The stairs were winding and narrow, a quarter landing halfway down where the cat frequently slept. He was there now, curled up into a ball, his tabby fur heaving in sleep.

He opened one eye as they stepped over him and languidly stretched out one furry paw so that Anna Marie, following behind her sister, nearly stepped on him.

By the time they’d reached the bottom of the stairs he was up and right behind them.

Anna Maria suggested he wanted milk. Venetia told her to ignore the creature and keep her voice down.

‘D’ya want to wake everybody up?’ she hissed.

In response Anna Marie stuffed her fingers into her mouth. She certainly did not want to wake everyone up. The consequences of being found out were too terrible.

In her mind she went over how she’d come to this predicament. Venetia had asked for her help. Headstrong and opinionated, her twin had declared herself to be in love and intending to run away with Patrick Casey.

‘But I couldn’t go on me own and leave you behind,’ she’d said. ‘I’d be worried about you all the time and I’d be homesick – not so much for this place, but sick with worry about you.’

On reflection, Anna Marie could see that her sister had been appealing to her sympathy as well as almost accusing her that her staying behind would blight her happiness.

The two of them had stuck together since their father had
left them here. Where one went – usually Venetia – the other followed. They were inseparable and neither could contemplate life without the other.

When she’d asked whether Patrick was going with them, Venetia announced airily that he didn’t think he was, but she intended working her womanly wiles on him.

‘He’ll come. He won’t be able to resist.’

The downstairs room was cold and grey in the early morning light. Embers glowed from amongst the white ash in the grate; evidence of their grandmother’s insistence on using only coal in her fireplace, never the poor smokiness of freshly dug peat.

‘Peat,’ she’d proclaimed, ‘is for the poor who till the fields. There’s no room for such stuff in town; sure, isn’t the air thick enough with horse droppings and them new-fangled motorcars and suchlike?’

Even if there had been chance to stop and take a bite of breakfast, Venetia knew she couldn’t possibly keep it down – she was that excited. The world and Patrick Casey were waiting for her and Anna Marie was coming too.

The cat’s tail curled around Anna Marie’s leg as it purred for milk.

‘Leave it,’ Venetia hissed at her. ‘We haven’t time to bother with that flea-bitten creature.’

Anna Marie frowned. ‘Mouser isn’t flea bitten.’

‘No,’ said Venetia with a grimace. ‘He’s not much of a mouser either.’

Venetia opened the front door, the resulting draught sending the ashes from the fire floating into the air. The cat slipped out of the door before she could shut him in.

‘Mouser, you contrary creature, you,’ said Venetia in a hushed voice.

The town of Dunavon was not as large as their grandmother made out and all alleys and side streets led onto the high street,
where the shops were situated. Once a week the market, where farmers and others roundabout brought their produce and animals, throbbed with sound and liveliness.

‘He’s not here yet,’ whispered Anna Maria on stepping into the high street. She sounded just about as nervous as she looked.

Venetia oozed confidence. ‘He said wait at the bus stop and get on it. If he can’t make it with the lorry, he’ll meet us in Queenstown itself. At the quay. And he’ll have the tickets all ready for us. And stop whispering. We’re out of the house now.’

‘But someone up above one of these shops might hear us,’ Anna Marie whispered back. ‘And they all know who we are and they’ll tell … they’re bound to.’

Venetia sighed and shook her head. ‘Oh, but you’re such a silly goose at times, that you are. So what if they do. Once we’re in Queenstown, it’ll be too late.’

Anna Marie frowned and pouted. ‘No I’m not a silly goose.’

Venetia was not one to admit it, but she was feeling a bit nervous herself. Out of sight of her twin, she crossed her fingers behind her back. It would be an hour before the bus to Cork pulled in and there were bound to be a few locals getting on who knew them. If luck was with them, Patrick would be along with his father’s lorry.

His uncle had bought the lorry army surplus after the Great War. He was famous all around for the noisy, smoky vehicle, which he’d painted green and hand written his name in gold-coloured lettering along the side: Seamus Casey & Sons Ltd, Haulyer and Transporter – Distanse No Objet.

The fact was that Seamus had only daughters and no sons, but had decided that was how his business was best styled. Neither was he a limited company, though he was of limited education, which accounted for his abysmal spelling.

Not that Venetia cared a jot for any of that. It was Patrick she had an eye for; Patrick who let her clamber up beside him when he was taking peat to Kennedys’ General Store, or dead horses to the place where they were made into glue, or bricks and mortar when his father was carrying out the building side of his business. The truth was that Patrick’s father did any job that needed doing as long as it paid.

‘Phew! That’s a terrible smell,’ Venetia would say to him when it was dead horses he was hauling.

‘Never mind, my darling,’ he would say. ‘When I’m rich I’ll buy you perfume from Paris. How would you like that?’

She’d told him she would like it a lot and had even allowed him to kiss her.

The one big truth that could be said for this part of Ireland was that it was damp. Someone had told her that Ireland was wetter than Wales, but seeing as she’d never been to Wales, she had no opinion to offer. Ireland was damp; of that there was no doubt.

‘My feet are freezin’,’ said Anna Marie, stamping her feet in turn in an effort to keep warm.

‘Ah, stop yer moaning,’ said Venetia. ‘We’ll be warm as toast before long. Patrick’s got a blanket in his lorry. We’ll be snug once we’re under that.’

‘And how would you know it’s so snug?’

‘It’s a blanket. It’s bound to be,’ returned Venetia, purposely turning her head so that her sister could not see her guilty expression. She knew for sure it was warm beneath the blanket – especially when she’d been snuggled up to Patrick.

Anna Marie was doing enough worrying for the two of them.

‘What if he doesn’t come? We’ve barely enough to live on, and if we do end up paying the bus fare …’

‘He’ll come,’ whispered Venetia, mostly to herself. ‘I know he’ll come.’

Sure enough, the smell of unburned fuel from a leaky exhaust, accompanied by the odd backfire, heralded the arrival of Patrick and his father’s ex-army lorry.

‘See? Told you so,’ said Venetia, her smile wide enough to crack her face, her cheeks pink from pleasure not early morning dew.

The brakes squealed as Patrick brought the dark green vehicle to a juddering halt, then swung open the door. His grin was infectious and his eyes were dancing with vitality despite the early hour.

‘Will you hurry up? I haven’t got all day.’

Venetia got in first and barely avoided the smacker of a kiss Patrick was aiming for her lips.

‘Patrick Casey! We’ll be having none of that!’

For some reason she didn’t want her sister to see her doing something so personal. It was a different matter when she and Patrick were alone.

‘Well? Haven’t changed your mind, have you?’

‘How about you? Are you coming with us?’

‘Oh no. Not me,’ he said, shaking his head vehemently. ‘I’ve got a job of work and besides, me father couldn’t carry on without me. He’s getting too old to be running the business on his own.’

Venetia slumped back in the seat wearing a disappointed expression whilst Patrick helped Anna Marie up into the cab.

‘That’s up to you, but I have to say I think you’re making a mistake.’

The cab only had two seats, so the two girls squeezed on one, Patrick needing the other seeing as he was the one driving.

Venetia eyed him sidelong, desperately wanting to lean over and squeeze his thigh, even get him to pull over so they could have a kiss and cuddle, though not with Anna Marie aboard.

Patrick began whistling as they rumbled along the road. He
liked Venetia a lot, kissed her a lot, but that didn’t mean he had to go with her to the ends of the earth. Ireland suited him fine.