Christmas and Other Things I Hate Read online

“Why weren’t you more surprised about Helen and me being together; I thought you were convinced I was still harbouring a deep-seated love for Lucas.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and said: “All I want for my children, both my children, is to be happy. If Helen makes you happy then that’s all that matters.

  “Lucas wouldn’t have made you happy in the long-run, I know that. He and Siobhan are much better suited to each other.”

  “Why can’t we just sit down and have a reasonable conversation like this all the time?” I asked.

  “Because we’re too alike, it’s the same reason me and your grandmother butted heads – that, and because she was a bloody harpy, God, bless her soul.”

  “Mum! Nana was lovely.”

  “She was in her arse! But no matter, I suppose I’d better get the dishes started.”

  “Not a chance, wake up those sleeping beauties in there and send them all in. You’re off-duty.”

  “That’s a much better idea.”

  She picked up her cup of tea and went into the living room to wake the rest of the rabble while I started to pile the dishes at the sink.

  “Mum?” I shouted in.

  “Yes?”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  It was as close as I could get to saying ‘I love you’ and I think she understood because when she shouted it back her voice cracked.

  Siobhan threw a tea-towel at my face and called me a ‘sap’ but I didn’t care; I was happy to be home.

  Chapter 12

  That evening we got out the board games and started to fight.

  I don’t know why we continued with this tradition every single year, because by the end of the night dad would throw a strop, accuse someone of cheating (usually me) and storm out.

  After we made it through two games without issue, we quit while we were ahead and decided to play charades instead.

  I was with Helen and we were excellent. We destroyed the competition and after dad accused us of sending each other ‘secret messages’ to help us win, he was told to go to bed.

  Mum followed him up soon afterwards while Siobhan and Lucas left to go and stay with in his mother’s house.

  Once again, Helen and I were left alone in front of the fire.

  Usually, by now, I would be drunk and talking to Ernie on the sofa but I decided to stick to soft drinks after last night’s performance.

  “What time will your dad get here?” I asked.

  “Before lunch, he’s been texting all day and he seems really excited.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Excited, I guess, it’s all a bit strange. I’ve gotten used to not having him around and I’m wary about letting him back in but I think it’s the right move for me.”

  “Are you going back to Dublin?”

  “Yeah, I’ll have to see if my flat is still standing once the Scottish guys have left and I want to see about going back to school.”

  “Really? What do you want to study?”

  “I was thinking of nursing actually,” she said, “When mum was sick they were the ones who were really there for her and I couldn’t think of a more noble tribute.”

  “Wow,” I replied, “I honestly couldn’t do it. I’m a desk-jockey through and through.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing as admirable as that,” I laughed, “I’ll find another HR job. I was pretty great in my last place and they owe me some epic references.”

  “Closer to home?”

  “Maybe…”

  She let out a mock gasp at my answer but looked impressed.

  “Maybe this was the Christmas miracle. We got it wrong, I wasn’t Geroge Bailey, you were. I’ve come into your life and now you finally appreciate your family. I’m ready for my angel wings now,” she said, directing her voice to the ceiling.

  A tingle rang out and we both looked shocked.

  “Ah damn, it was just my message alert,” she said.

  We continued to talk into the wee hours of the morning, until the fire died. We pulled up the throw from the sofa and kept talking and I shared with her things I’d never told a soul.

  I told her about feeling like the black sheep and no matter how hard my family tried I wouldn’t let them in and how one conversation with my mother, this afternoon, made me feel closer to her than I’d ever done in my adult life.

  In turn, she told me about her mum and how she was her hero. She was a clinical researcher who instilled in her daughter a love of science and an unquenchable curiosity for the world around her. She travelled as much as she could and brought Helen with her because she wanted her to know about the wonderful world we lived in.

  A few times she had to stop and cry but I never interrupted, I waited until she was ready and let her keep talking about this extraordinary woman.

  “When she got sick she kept trying to push herself and act as normally as she could but the chemo was too brutal. I tried to keep her spirits up but one day I knew she’d given up.

  “It was the only fight she ever lost,” she said, “I wish you’d met her but then again, if she didn’t die I wouldn’t have been on that plane and I wouldn’t have met you.”

  “I’m glad that you don’t regret these last few days. They were…something.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed, with a laugh, “I’ll leave my number before I go and when you finally get your act together and join the world of mobiles again you can keep in touch.”

  “Absolutely, of course.”

  She rested her head on my shoulder and I placed my chin as softly as I could on top of it.

  I heard her breathing get deeper and I knew she’d finally fallen asleep.

  I was incredibly uncomfortable but I didn’t dare move an inch. I told myself that if this was the last time we were to be together then I wasn’t going to waste a second of it.

  I don’t remember when I fell asleep but I woke up when I heard the front door bang and the dog bark.

  It was still dark outside but I knew those noises meant that my dad was up to start work.

  I looked down and found that Helen’s head had slid down and she was still fast asleep, with her head in my lap.

  My neck ached from the awkward angle at which I had slept in and I really needed the bathroom.

  I hated to wake her but it had to be done.

  When she opened her eyes and realised where she was lying she bolted up and apologised.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t want to wake you, but nature calls,” I said as I left the room.

  I threw some water on my face to try and wake myself up but I still looked completely wrecked. When I opened the door I was surprised to find Helen stood in front of me.

  “You’ve a very strange habit of waiting outside bathroom doors for me,” I noted.

  “You’re right, that is a bit weird. On the bright side, at least I don’t walk in while you’re using the bathroom so I must have some boundaries.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  She sidestepped past me and locked the door. As I was about to leave I heard her shout from inside the bathroom: “Stop standing out there, it’s a strange habit and I’m a nervous pee-er.”

  I shivered at the feeling of the cold tiles underfoot and went in search of socks so I could make a start on breakfast. Things were getting better between my mum and me but I thought it couldn’t hurt to earn some extra credit by making her breakfast in bed.

  I wasn’t a great cook but I could manage porridge and other basic things, such as toast.

  By the time it was done I’d managed to get half of the porridge stuck to the pot and burned three rounds of bread in the freakishly hot toaster.

  I scraped off as much of the burnt parts from the toast as I could and loaded up a tray with my offerings to take to her in bed.

  I nudged her bedroom door open with my foot and realised she must have still been asleep as the curtains were still drawn.

  This in itself was unusual because mum never slept on aft
er dad got up to do his rounds. I heard a faint buzzing sound coming from underneath the covers and called her name, gently, to see if she was ok.

  As soon as I said the words, the covers of the bed were thrown into disarray and they knocked the tray out of my hands.

  “Jesus Christ, Jane, what the hell are you doing? You don’t just barge into someone’s room without knocking.”

  I knelt down to the floor and tried to scrape up the porridge but it was already seeping into the carpet.

  “I was bringing you breakfast in bed, I thought it would be nice!”

  Mum struggled to get herself untangled from the sheets and as she released herself a long, purple device fell from under the duvet and landed on the tray. It was still buzzing and all I could do was look at it, horrified.

  “Is that a -”

  “It’s a neck massager,” she interrupted, “I got it for this terrible pain I’ve been having in my…my…”

  “Neck?”

  “Yes, neck. Just stop fussing about the carpet and get out of here. I’ll clean this up, just go see to yourself and Helen.”

  She pushed me out of the room and slammed the door behind me. I stood in the hallway trying to figure out if I had just been emotionally scarred for life, or if I should laugh about this for the rest of my days.

  Just as I was about to leave, my mum popped her head out of the door and whispered: “Just don’t mention it to your father.”

  “Your neck massager?”

  “Yes,” she replied, curtly, and slammed the door again.

  I returned to the kitchen to have a proper giggle to myself but I found Helen on the phone and stayed quiet as she gave directions to whoever was on the other end of the line.

  “I guess that’s your dad?” I said.

  “Yeah, he’s already setting off in case he gets lost. He’ll be here in an hour at the rate he’s going.”

  “As soon as that?”

  I tried not to let the disappointment sound in my voice but I couldn’t help it. She picked up a pen from the countertop and a piece of discarded wrapping paper.

  “Here,” she said as she offered it to me, “It’s my number which you will use to text or call me at any time and we will stay friends. Who knows, maybe we’ll both get our shit together and be perfect for each other?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” I replied.

  I gave her a half-hearted smile and put the number in my back pocket.

  “Don’t lose that,” she warned, “I’m not easy to find.”

  “Aren’t you on Facebook?”

  “Well, yes, I am, but I want to seem more unattainable so let’s pretend I’m not.”

  Mum chose that moment to come into the kitchen. She refused to look me in the eye as I asked her questions but she was more than friendly towards Helen.

  After she left to take dad a cup of tea, Helen was quick to ask: “What was all that about?”

  “You noticed too?”

  “What have you done this time?”

  “She very rudely interrupted me whilst I was pleasuring myself,” announced my mum from behind both of us.

  “I’m so sorry, Miriam,” said Helen, “I was just making sure you were ok, I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “It’s quite alright, Helen. Masturbation is a perfectly normal and healthy thing to do.”

  She sounded as if she had practised this speech before she’d come down to the room so I felt obliged to let her continue; when, in fact, all I wanted to do was run screaming from the room at the mere mention of the word masturbation.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Jane, I am not dead yet and I have a sex drive. Sometimes I like to -”

  “I’m begging you to stop talking,” I said with my head in my hands, “Please can we just go back to a stage in our relationship where I don’t know that you masturbate. It was a simpler, happier time.”

  She told me I lived in the Dark Ages and left once more to help my dad outside.

  “Well, that was something I wasn’t quite expecting,” said Helen.

  “No, me neither.”

  We decided to go for a walk across the fields that surrounded the farm and by the time we returned, Helen’s dad was already in the drive.

  He was chatting animatedly to my parents and he smiled when he caught sight of us walking up the drive.

  As soon as he spotted us he took off in a light jog towards where we were.

  He grabbed Helen as soon as she was close enough and pulled her into a huge hug. He began to cry and so did Helen. I decided it was best if I left them and joined my parents, to give them privacy.

  We all busied ourselves in the kitchen as we waited for them both to come inside.

  Cups of tea and coffee were offered but all were declined in favour of starting their journey to his home in Wicklow.

  I let my parents bore Helen’s dad with descriptions of shortcuts that only they knew of, while I tried to muster up the courage to say something important to Helen.

  I knew I had her number and this didn’t have to be a final ‘good-bye’ but I had a feeling if she left without knowing how important she was to me and how much these last few days had changed me then I’d regret it.

  I wanted to tell her all this but instead I was paralysed with visions of how this would all play out if I did. In my mind I predicted that we’d end up sending a few half-hearted text messages at first but it would fizzle out when I found a new job and she got busy with school.

  That’s how all my relationships ended, like a damp squib.

  We hugged each other, but I said nothing as I watched her get in the car and drive away with her dad.

  I continued to watch the car as it drove down the lane and disappeared out of sight. I stared at the empty lane until I finally let myself go inside to join my parents.

  Helen and I were on two different tracks and I had to let her go on her own now.

  These last few days were nothing more than a detour from real life but now it was time to face the fact that Christmas was over and so were we.

  Chapter 13

  Within an hour of Helen leaving, Ernie managed to knock over her tree and destroy it. I thought it was fitting given how I felt on the inside.

  I spent the next two days getting in touch with my bank, phone provider and landlord to try and sort out my life.

  My parents convinced me that Belfast wasn’t where I belonged and Siobhan offered to help me find work in Cork.

  A week after that, we all travelled to Belfast and packed up a van with my belongings and handed back my keys.

  I wasn’t sad about leaving Belfast, it had never felt like a home to me, but I was sad about having to move back in with my parents.

  This wasn’t because they were driving me crazy, they had been nothing but helpful, but I felt like my move there was a step backwards.

  Siobhan helped me update my CV and set up meetings with recruitment agencies. The three I met with were all confident that they could find me a position and, in theory, things were all looking up.

  The only problem was I hadn’t heard from Helen.

  When I finally got my new phone I rushed to put her number in but when I went to get it from my jeans they were nowhere to be found.

  I pulled apart my room and searched for them but it wasn’t until mum came to investigate what the noise was that she informed me she’d put them in the wash, that morning.

  The paper had disintegrated in the water and no amount of searching through Facebook brought me to her profile.

  “She must have it on really private or something,” said Siobhan.

  “She did like to be mysterious,” I replied.

  “Why didn’t you give her your number when she was here?” she asked.

  “I didn’t have a phone and I had no idea if I was going to get my old number back or not.”

  “Well, at least you know she can find you on Facebook, if she wants.”

  The realisation that she could have reached out to me this whole
time, and hadn’t, was a tough one to bear.

  After that, I stopped thinking about her as ‘the one that got away’ and more as ‘the one that ran for the hills’.

  With this shift in perspective on my romantic future, I decided to stop living in a fantasy and settled into life properly in Kilkin.

  I pushed all thoughts of Helen to the back of my mind and accepted a HR job in a large coffee company. Everything had clicked into place and yet I still felt as if I had gone backwards.

  I settled into a routine once more, where I kept myself separate from those I worked with and refused all invitations to socialise. I ate lunch at my desk and barely looked up from my computer the whole time I was there, but this time it was because of Helen.

  I was first in and last to leave in the evening so I didn’t have to walk in and say anything to people who were already there. Within the first week, people stopped trying to talk to me and I told myself it was better that way.

  By the time I got home at night, I was already tired and went to my room straight after dinner. My weekends were quiet as I preferred to walk Ernie by myself or read a book down by the pier in my car.

  This routine carried on this way until one Saturday morning, my mum burst into my bedroom and opened the curtains.

  “Get up,” she announced.

  “Don’t we have a rule about knocking? I vividly remember being told of the importance of that rule.”

  “We’re going to Dublin with Siobhan,” she continued, “There’s a wedding dress she wants to try on and it’s only available in a boutique there. So, get up, you’re driving.”

  “Are you crazy? It’s my day off and that’s three hours away.”

  I pulled the covers over my head and blocked out the imposing sunshine.

  “It’s my wedding dress, you’re my maid-of-honour and you’re coming – with enthusiasm.”

  “You didn’t knock either, go away!”

  My mum pulled the duvet off my face and told me to be ready within the hour.

  “We can get there before lunch and make a day of it.”

  I remained silent for the drive to Dublin and simply listened to mum and Siobhan natter on about all the places they wanted to ‘pop’ into while we were there.