Page 20 of Every Christmas Eve
Ava is all ears. I’d forgotten how much bonding we can do when driving somewhere together. At home, we tend to exist alongside each other, with too many distractions on our devices to have a regular, proper conversation.
‘I love hearing your stories about Ballyheaney House,’ she says, and when I glance at her, I see a sense of contentment on her beautiful face that I haven’t seen in ages. ‘Tell me all about when you delivered the baby foal on Christmas Eve, Dad. You’ve never told me before, but I think that will be my favourite story of them all.’
‘Of course I will,’ I say with pride, but my mind goes blank, and I find myself starting and stopping. No matter where I go in my mind, I can’t seem to find the words because the whole event is blurred with memories of Lou.
‘Erm, well … let me see. It was such a busy day,’ I begin at last, knowing I’m on a road to nowhere because no matter how I try to recall the day in question, all I can see is her. The way she wore her dark, wavy hair round her shoulders. Her fingerless gloves. Her pink duffel coat and chunky boots. ‘Cordelia was busy in the kitchen helping the chef to make all sorts of delights for our guests. Gosh, she was only fourteen years old and already she was stunning us all with her cooking skills. I think you take after her in that way, Ava. She was so creative. She still is.’
Ava looks at me, puzzled.
‘And the baby foal?’ she says, waving her hand in a bid for me to get to the point.
‘Oh, yes, well, soon all the guests arrived,’ I mumble, ‘andthings were up and running, so I thought I’d take a break by going for a walk in the gardens, even though it was so cold outside. It was a white Christmas that year, so the snow was thick on the ground.’
‘And the baby foal?’
‘I must have had some sort of instinct that Sally was about to foal,’ I say, ‘even though we’d predicted the birth would be the following week. So anyhow, I knew I would probably be missed back at the house. You’ll see for yourself how much work it takes at these parties. You’ll be given all sorts of jobs from serving drinks, to clearing tables to … erm … and then … well, then …’
Ava reaches across and turns up the volume again.
‘Oh, Dad.’
‘What?’
‘I think I’m going to ask you some other time to tell me about it, because it seems you’ve either lost your memory or else you’ve become really boring and bad at telling stories. Uncle Eric is the best. He remembers everything.’
I couldn’t be more delighted at the ‘get out of jail’ card I’ve just been presented with.
‘I was just warming up and setting the scene, but fair enough,’ I tell my daughter, but she is having none of it. ‘I was giving you a back story. Doesn’t Uncle Eric waffle on more than I do when he tells stories? I hope so.’
‘Your turn for music,’ she tells me, scrolling through her Spotify app again. ‘And please don’t say any of that weird nineties dance music.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my nineties dance music!’
‘There are a few good tunes, but you play them way too often,’ she tells me. ‘Can we have some AC/DC instead?’
‘Oi, what happened to it being my turn?’ I ask her, loving how giggly she is as she scrolls to find a song that we’ll both like. ‘I think we’ll stop soon to stretch our legs and have a warm drink. What do you say?’
We both drum with our hands as the opening sounds of AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ blasts through the car’s sound system, while Roly howls along from the back seat.
‘Yes, and you can use that time to jog your memory about the day you helped birth Little Eve,’ Ava shouts over the music. ‘No setting the scene needed. Just cut to the chase. I want to hear all about it.’
‘Sure,’ I reply, as pictures of Lou’s beautiful face fill my mind once again. They play out in slow motion, in flashbacks of the years that led to the biggest turning point of my life. Christmas Eve after Christmas Eve after Christmas Eve until there were no more.
The signs for my home village at this time of year warm my soul in a way I wasn’t expecting, like a quiet anticipation running through my veins. This hasn’t happened since I was a boy.
Three miles from the Castledawson bypass, then two miles, then one mile, then none.
‘When were we last back here?’ I ask Ava, almost embarrassed to hear the hard truth. ‘Was it October?’
‘Well, I wanted to come here in October for my birthday,’ she reminds me. ‘But you and Matt had to go to thatconference in London, so I had to stay with Vic and the boys. That was so unnecessary.’
I roll my eyes at her indignation. Ava has grown up with Matt and Vic’s family. They’re the closest things to siblings she’ll ever have, yet she pretends the boys annoy her a lot more than they do from what I can see.
‘And I was here in the summer for a weekend with Cordelia while you went to Spain to stay in her apartment for some time out,’ Ava continues. She really does have a much sharper memory than I do. ‘That was so much fun. We went swimming in the lough. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.’
‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear it,’ I say as the village I once called home comes into view. The first thing I notice in the near distance is the lofty spire of St Tida’s Church. ‘But when was I last here? I suppose that’s what I’m trying to figure out. We’ve had Grandma and Uncle Eric down to stay a few times, but when did I last come to Ballyheaney House?’
‘Easter,’ Ava says straight away. ‘Remember, we came here at Easter for Grandma’s birthday, but it turned out to be a disaster because Uncle Eric fell in the courtyard, and you had to take him to hospital. That was so scary.’
