Alberta Clipper (17 page)

More guilt.  She should have brought him out for lunch today.  Was she so wrapped up in her own grief that she didn't consider anyone else's? 

Her father seemed to sense her distress.  “Christine, you had to work today.  I was fine.  And it was good to catch up with Kathleen.  And,” they had gravitated towards the kitchen, where he bustled with the oven and took plates from the cupboard, “it was nice to have a few hours by myself in the afternoon.  I
walked the Great South Wall.”

Christine knew that was where her parents had often gone in their courting days.  The thought of her father walking there alone made her sad. 

He turned to her.  “C'mon now.  Chin up.  I've a lovely goulash ready to go here.  Let's take it inside.  There's a fish programme starting in ten minutes.”

“Yeah?”  She swallowed hard on the lump constricting her throat. 

“I was thinking about taking a fish cookery course next.  It's difficult you know, fish.  There's one starting in October.”

Part of Christine was glad that her father was nattering on like this, trying to make the day as normal as possible.  Hadn't she spent her own day trying to do the very same thing?  But this room was too full of her mother, even now.  She wanted to just sit down at the kitchen table and weep.  Just as she had many times before, when
her
Mum would have sat next to her, stroking her back or her hair, listening to her teenage tales of heartbreak, or exam worries, or whatever particular growing-up pain
was
afflict
ing
her at the time.  She even remembered one evening when her mother had sat between her two sobbing daughters, simultaneously caressing their woes away.  Christine couldn't remember now what had been bothering them both.  But she knew
that
if she sat down to weep now, there would be no one there to lovingly rub her pain away.  She stared at the empty place at which her mother used to sit.

“Chris.”

It seemed so lifeless now.  So quiet.  Devoid even of ghosts.  What once had been a throne, was now just an empty chair.

“Chris?  Please take this and come into the sitting room.”

She looked up at her father who had the countenance of an army sergeant when required, honed by years of teaching teenagers.  He was holding out a tray with a plateful of food and a glass of water on it. 

“Take this,” he said more gently. 

She took the tray with a forced smile, tearing herself away from her memory.  “What time are we supposed to call Aggie?”

Her father looked at his watch.  “Not til after ten.  Or as late as we can leave it.  She said she'd be up early, that she didn't mind.  But we'll leave it as late as we can, yeah?”

“Great.”  She brought her tray into the sitting room, resolving to really listen to Aggie when she called.  She would be very homesick.  She would need her sister.  And Christine would be there for her.

~

The skype call didn't turn out quite as Christine had predicted.  A very red and puffy-eyed Aggie had called them just after ten.  They had chatted for a few minutes as Jamie loitered in the background.  He sat briefly to say his hellos to them both.  His demeanour seemed very serious.  Christine guessed he was mindful of the anniversary of this woman that meant so much to the three of them, but that he himself had only met once or twice.  Matt and himself talked about Matt's proposed trip over, and Jamie promised to look into flights for his father-in-law.  After a few minutes, he made his excuses, and left his wife seated at the computer, squeezing her shoulder as he left. 

“So Chris, I have some news.”  There seemed to be something on Aggie's keyboard that demanded her attention as she spoke.  Chris sensed something was up, and she threw a worried glance at her Dad who was squashed onto a chair alongside her.  His eyes were fixed on the computer screen.  Aggie looked like she was about to cry.  Sure enough, a moment later, the tears started to roll down her cheeks.

“Aggie?  What is it?”  She looked from the screen to her Dad and back again.  “Are you okay?”

“She's fine.”  Matt put a reassuring hand on his daughter's knee. 

“Aggie, what's wrong?”  Panic was rising in her.

Aggie looked up. 
“Chris, I'm pregnant.”

Ten thousand miles apart, two sisters sat looking at each other, the same tears rolling down their cheeks. 
And
a broken-hearted father
sat
watching, clearly wishing with every part of his soul that the love of his life was standing behind him, putting a hand reassuringly on his shoulder.

That year, there seemed to be no autumn season to speak of.  After one of the warmest and driest summers on record, the weather got very cold and windy towards the end of September, and the leaves all seemed to fall earlier than usual.  The news was full of talk of water shortages, and only after it rained almost every day for the entire month of October did the reservoirs around Dublin start to return to normal levels.  By December, more typical Irish weather had returned.  Changeable was the accepted technical term for it.  Predicting the weather for Ireland was no easy task.  It mightn't have seemed so, but Christine knew that her job was a lot more straightforward than that of the meteorologists on the national news.  Many of the geographical areas she was concerned with had established weather patterns.  Weather was far more predictable over land, and while forecasting how it might impact on the global economy was never an exact science, it was certainly somewhat dependable.  Trying to predict what was in store for a little island at the edge of the Atlantic was a lot trickier. 

The first Friday of December was particularly cold and dry, and the pavement sparkled with frost where it had escaped rush-hour footsteps.  Walking to work every day was one of the changes Christine had made since the summer.  Since meeting
Gavan
.  She had taken the decision to make some improvements to her life before she turned thirty.  Some were just small things, walking to work, drinking less coffee, rising earlier so as not to be always rushing at the start of the day.

Other changes went deeper.  Opening up.  Letting in.  Moving on.  She had certainly taken steps in those directions.  Aggie's pregnancy had probably been the catalyst for that.  It had come as a shock to her in some ways, but the inevitability of it had suddenly seemed so obvious.  When the shock had abated, she had been left with the clear realisation that the whole world was turning without her, moving on, as she sat in the middle like a fulcrum, watching it happen, holding on tight to the past, to her grief.  Maybe it had been the news that her sister's world was still rotating, maybe it had been
Gavan
, maybe it had just been time, but she had made the decision to try, to really try and move on with it. 

So she had made changes.  She had
Gavan
stay over more often, and she had even stayed at his place once or twice, although they both preferred the privacy of her apartment to meeting his room-mates in his kitchen in the mornings.  Having him there meant that there was no opportunity to give in to the blackness.  Or at least, it helped.  There had been one or two nights when she had left him sleeping to go and sit on the floor of the bathroom in forced silence with her tears, but only one or two.

Emily had stayed over too, although since she had moved in with Jack at Halloween, that had become a less frequent occurrence.  Even Emily was moving on.

She still visited the grave every weekend, but not always on a Saturday.  This was perhaps her greatest step.  It had only come about when
Gavan
had surprised her by whisking her away one Friday for a romantic weekend in a country hotel.  His excitement had been such, that she had steeled herself,
silently
promising that she would go the second she returned on Sunday
afternoon
.  Which she had.  And the sky hadn't fallen in.  She had even let
Gavan
drive her there, although she had asked him to stay in the car. 

The one thing that she hadn't felt the need to change, was work.  She was almost two years at CarltonWachs now, and she was loving it.  Her role was changing, developing, she had been given more responsibility.  As the business grew, there was talk of even possibly hiring a graduate meteorologist in London who would report into her. 
Even
Mark seemed a lot easier to work for
these days
.  She guessed it was his split from his partner that had caused the change, or maybe it was Petra
making his working life easier.  Whatever the reason,
his once
tenebrous demeanour seemed to be changed
.  He was almost jolly, and it certainly made
life at CarltonWachs a lot more
enjoyable. 

Yes, as she arrived at the bank that December morning, Christine felt, for the first time in a long while, that life was good.

~

Mark was
miserable. 

Bloody Christmas.

He wrestled with a stray garland of tinsel which had fallen from Petra's pin-board as h
e searched
her desk for his
BlackBerry
.  Why did they feel the need to make the office look so tacky for one whole month of the year?  Mark had never particularly liked Christmas.  He had the usual fond memories of it as a child, of electric trains, and sugared jellies in tins, and his father with a paper hat on, drinking his one whiskey of the year.  But as an adult, it was just another occasion.  Like Easter, or Halloween.  Nothing special.  He and Jennifer had gone skiing last year.  To the Caribbean the year before that.  Another repercussion of having no children.  But it meant that Christmas was just another holiday.  A place in the working calendar to take a breath before starting all over again in January.  And he still had all those Christmas lunches and drinks to attend.  Christ.  He was so exhausted.  His reserve of Chris
tmas cheer was depleted, and
the season
hadn’t even really begun yet
.

And he had been trying so hard.  Since September, he had really been making an effort not to obsess about her.  To get on with his life.  To focus on work, and on his other staff.  He had really tried to put all his energy into making CarltonWachs a great place to work.  He had the party of parties p
lanned for later in the month
.  Well, Petra had the party of parties planned for
later in the month
, but under his instruction.  That girl really was something else.  Mark
knew
that if it hadn't been for Petra, there would still be a black cloud sitting over the office.  Instead, there was a Christmas tree on every floor, tins of butter cookies in the coffee room, and a massive party planned for the whole building.  All he had to do was get with the prevailing mood. 

“Petra, where the fuck is my
BlackBerry
?”

Petra appeared in front of him with a disapproving look on her face.  “On your desk, Mark, where I left it when I finished updating it for you.”  She handed him one of the coffees she was holding. 

“Oh, right.  Thanks.”  He took the coffee and tried a half-smile.  “Sorry.”

Petra ignored him and proceeded to fix the errant garland decorating her desk.  “
Shay
is waiting for you in your office.”  She looked up from her pin-board.  He was excused. 

“Right, thanks.  Thanks for the coffee.”

“You're welcome.”

And to think he had entertained the idea that she had fancied him when she had started working here.  He knew better now.  He was fairly sure Petra thought she could run things around here just as well without him.  And he almost didn't doubt it.  He took his coffee into his office where
Shay
was sitting on the couch, flicking through a copy of the Financial Times. 

“Hey
Shay
.”

“Mark.  Alright?” 
Shay
folded the paper and flopped it down onto the low coffee table.

“Ah yeah.  Just gearing myself up for three weeks of lunchtime drinks and five hour dinners.”

“I know.  I've started running.  Last year I put on half a stone before Christmas.  I'm gonna meet it head on this year.  Otherwise
Nina
will kick me out.”

“Hmm.”  Mark stood sifting through papers on his desk with one hand, his coffee in the other. 

“Anyway, I'm to ask you over for New Year's.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.  We're having a dinner party.  Apparently.  God help us.”

Mark thought about it.  He hadn't considered New Year's Eve yet.  Now that he did, he could see the huge potential for starting the year on a very depressing note, alone, at home, with a bottle of whiskey.  Having some definite arrangement for the night would be no bad thing.  “That sounds good.”  Hogmanay.  Wasn't that what they called it in Scotland?

“Really?  You'd be on for it?  Are you sure?”

It's a big deal in Scotland.  Hogmanay.  “Sure, I'm sure.  Not like I have a long list of other places to be.”  Kilts.  And dancing.  And, hogs.