Page 64 of Every Christmas Eve
‘We didn’t do our countdown, Dad,’ whispers Ava. ‘Five, four, three, two, one.’
‘Ta-daaa!’ we both say sheepishly.
I feel my heart beating in my chest as I await Mum’s further reaction. Five, four, three, two, one. I count it down in my head once more.
She visibly takes a deep breath, dabs away her tears and then breaks into a smile I don’t think I’ve seen the like of in many, many years.
‘Do you like him?’ I ask her.
‘We got you a peacock because we know how much you missed Cleopatra, Grandma,’ Ava tells my mother, whose look of disbelief is crowned by tears running down her face.
‘I - I absolutely love it,’ she says. ‘He’s stunning. He’s like a work of art.’
Ava clasps her hands, then gives me a high five. I see Uncle Eric puff out his chest from the corner of my eye.
‘Well now, that’s a gift to remember,’ he says, then coughs into a tissue like he always does when choked by emotion. ‘Good thinking, Ben. Good job, Ava.’
As Alexander walks on to the lawn, his glorious patterns come to life, shifting and glistening in the December sunlight.
‘You’ve got me so much more this Christmas than you’ll ever know, my darlings,’ Mum tells us. ‘I’ve been so incredibly lonely. But you’ve got me a new friend.’
I walk towards my mother and hold her close. Ava joins in too, as does Uncle Eric, and I don’t know whether I want to laugh or cry.
As we huddle on the courtyard in our blissful bubble, the first person I want to tell about all this is Lou.
I would love to share my happiness with her. I want to share every precious moment with her from now on.
I can only hope she feels the same.
‘You’re playing a blinder this Christmas,’ Uncle Eric tells me when we’re touching up the paintwork in the blue ballroom later that day. ‘This house hasn’t witnessed so much joy and, dare I say it, so much noise in far too long.’
‘Ah, come on, Uncle,’ I reply, hoping to get back to our usual banter before we fall into mutual praise. ‘I’ve heard you snoring. I’ve no idea how these walls are still standing after all the rattling they’ve had since you came to live here.’
He chuckles and shakes his head.
‘Stairs creaking and my snoring are a given,’ he tells me. ‘It’s the laughter I’ve missed, Ben. And I never thought I’d see the day when Cordelia’s rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” would be the sound I was waiting for, but now that she’s home, it’s like we’re complete again.’
I steal a glance over to where he stands, a few metres from me. His frail hand is trembling as he lifts the paint pot to pour a little more into his tray, and the look of concentration on his face is more intense than it used to be. I’ve deliberately given him patches to fill in at his own eye level so he doesn’t have to bend or stretch too far.
‘I’m pottering,’ he tells me as he goes at a snail’s pace. ‘Thank you for letting me potter, Ben. I know you’d be much quicker yourself.’
We’ve covered the floor in dust sheets, and the long, tall windows are bare as we wait for the return of the curtains from the cleaner’s, but there’s already a feeling of excitement in the air.
‘Promise I’ll do some of the dirty work tomorrow,’ Cordelia told me in a text message when we’d finished our meal. ‘Having a super catch-up with Lou.’
I think I may have read the last line at least ten times.
‘I would be quicker, yes,’ I reply to my uncle. ‘But then I’d have to find something else for you to do. At least I can supervise you when you’re right under my nose.’
Ava has set us up with some classical music in the background, at Uncle Eric’s request. His taste has changed immensely as the years have rolled by. Once a rocker in his day, with a lifelong passion for loud Led Zeppelin,he prefers now to be able to chat over his music choices, so we’ve settled on the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’sChristmas Classics. It sets the tone of our relaxing task as we drift between conversation and long silences, both deep in thought.
Soon, the inevitable subject of my evening with Lou the night before comes up. I’m not sure I really want to talk about it, so I skirt around it before turning the conversation back to my uncle’s love life – or lack of it, after he came here on a permanent basis following my father’s death ten years ago. I wonder if he will tell me at long last about his one true love.
‘Was she someone you knew when you lived in Wicklow?’ I ask him. ‘Give me the first letter of her name at least. I have a good memory of your farm and some of your friends back then. Was it Gertrude the singer? I have a vague recollection of you dancing with her at a summer barbecue. Was it her?’
He pretends to zip his lips with his fingers, unable to hide the cheeky smile that peeks through.
‘Good guess, but Gertrude was a fleeting fling which suited both of us at the time,’ he tells me. ‘I’d two failed marriages, don’t forget, and no children, so I was very much footloose and fancy-free.’
