My nerves are jangling when Tony Timoney heaves my suitcase out from the belly of the bus and passes me the handle with a flourish. I’m the last passenger on his final run of the day.
‘Don’t forget to tell your mother I said happy Christmas now, Aisling,’ he roars before the doors hiss shut and he pulls off into the frosty night.
I already have WhatsApp open. ‘Free now for a quick call? X’
John’s response is so fast he must have had the phone in his hand too. ‘Just in Maguire’s with the lads. Should I wait until I’m in private? Hahaha xx’
‘You wish! No, it’s not that. Pop outside, it’ll only take a second x.’
Without warning, his name flashes up on my screen. Shite. I was supposed to be the one ringing him. I panic trying to find a blank background that won’t give away where I am and hit OK. He appears on the screen, making his way through the packed pub. I can see Mags from Zumba with Mags and Tessie Daly at the fire! And Eamon Filan nursing his pint!
‘Well, did Mandy give you a five-minute break?’ John smiles into the camera. Then a look of panic crosses his face. ‘Shit, she can’t hear me, can she?’
I can see the meat slicer and the shelves of tinned beans and the hanging wellies. He’s almost at the front door now.
I hold the phone as close as possible so my face fills the screen entirely, trying my best not to laugh. ‘No, I think you’re safe there.’
The door swings open and suddenly he’s standing on the footpath only feet away from me. Except he’s not looking at me – he’s mooning into his front camera. ‘Go on, what was so important it couldn’t wait till later? Miss me, do ya?’
I stifle a giggle. ‘I do, yeah.’
When he hears my voice in stereo he looks so confused and vulnerable that I want to pick him up and put him in my pocket. My John. My heart.
‘You can’t be here,’ he stammers looking from the phone in his hand back to me and back to the phone again.
‘You’re not the only one who can pull off a surprise, you know.’ I smirk.
He’s in front of me in a split second. He grabs me by the waist, spins me around and walks me backwards until I’m pressed up against Maguire’s pebble-dashed wall. Inside, I can hear the faint strains of someone murdering ‘All I Want for Christmas’. His kiss has an urgency that makes my stomach flip.
‘My Christmas wish came true,’ he croaks when we come up for air.
‘Mine too,’ I whisper.
He grabs the back of my thighs and hoists me up to his waist.
‘Someone is going to catch us,’ I squeal, wrapping my legs around him. I can feel his arousal and it’s making me wish we were alone and not on Main Street, Ballygobbard, lit up by Mikey Maguire’s bockety inflatable Santa.
‘I don’t give a shite. Do you give a shite?’
‘No, I don’t give a shite.’ I laugh and lean in to kiss him again. A kerfuffle at the pub door stops us both dead.
‘AISLING?’
It’s Majella, frozen in shock, one arm in her coat and the other searching for its dangling sleeve.
‘Surprise!’ I roar, releasing the grip my thighs have on John and standing next to him shyly.
‘You absolute bitch,’ she screeches, running over and hugging me tightly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Pablo bawled through Mariah just now because he misses you so much. Well, you and Tenerife.’
Pablo’s emotions run particularly high at Christmas, and especially when there’s drink taken.
‘It was very last-minute. And anyway, you’re shite at keeping a secret. I wanted to get this lad back for landing on my doorstep in New York.’ I nudge John and he beams down at me.
‘Well, don’t you look like the cat that got the cream.’ Majella raises her eyebrows at him.
‘Feeling fairly lucky alright, Maj,’ he says.
Her eyes widen. ‘Does your mam know you’re back?’
‘No, I’m going to head home now.’
‘Jesus, she’s going to lay an egg!’
‘I know. She’ll lay two if she finds out I came here first. I better leg it before I’m seen.’
‘Ah, but Ais, you have to come in for a drink. Everyone’s inside. It’s Christmas Eve in Maguire’s! Liam Kelly is trying to put together a Paw Patrol Lookout Tower behind the pool table.’
‘Is Paul in there?’
She shakes her head. ‘He just had one after mass. Your mam won’t find out.’
I look from her pleading eyes to John’s. He squeezes my hand. ‘Just one? I’ll bring you home after.’
****
There are so many people coming up saying hello and hugging me that I lose both Majella and John in the melee, and it takes me twenty minutes to get from the door to the bar, where Mikey is giving all his regulars their annual Christmas drink.
‘And a West Coast Cooler for yourself, Aisling?’ He slides the bottle over to me with a wink. It’s like I never left.
‘Thanks, Mikey.’
Carol Boland is at my side, filling me in on the record day they had at BallyGoBrunch. She looks exhausted but her eyes are shining. ‘It was only because Skippy Brennan mentioned it on the radio, of course. A lot of people had reservations about sausagemeat stuffing, but the whole parish went crackers for it once he gave it his stamp of approval. Your mother even sent Paul out for some. He said she’s having a crowd tomorrow. And she’ll have one more now with you home, won’t she?’
‘A crowd?’ Since Daddy died we’ve always gone to Auntie Sheila’s. They cook the dinner between them. ‘Did she say who?’ It’s probably Constance Swinford, Mammy’s friend and partner in ShayMar eco farm, who’s also part of the widow gang. She does sound like about fifteen people once she has a few brandies in her.
‘I didn’t have time to ask, pet.’
‘Aisling, Majella said you were working the whole Christmas!’ As the local hairdresser slash beauty salon owner, Sharon is always dressed to the nines, but she’s outglammed herself tonight in a figure-hugging silver sequinned dress and thigh-high suede boots. She pulls me in for a hug and I squeeze her back happily.
‘I managed to get a few days off. You look stunning, Sharon! Oh my God, show me the ring!’ She and Cyclops got engaged shortly after I left. She dutifully proffers her left hand and I ooh and aah over the cut of the diamond and the band. ‘It’s so sparkly!’
‘Fairy liquid, hun. Scrubs up like a dream. So, what are you drinking? West Coast Cooler still, is it? Another one there, please, Mikey, and a vodka and tonic for me and will you drop a pint up to himself?’ She nods across the bar to where her boyfriend – fiancé – Eoin Ó Súilleabháin, aka Cyclops, is with Titch Maguire and Baby Chief Gittons. They’ve gathered a selection of parkas with furry hoods and are arguing over who gets to be Brian when they do East 17’s ‘Stay Another Day’. They’ll have a tough job wrestling the microphone off Pablo, though. He’s on the little makeshift stage in the corner belting out ‘Feliz Navidad’ while Majella shimmies over and back in front of him with a sprig of mistletoe in her teeth.
‘Coming up, Sharon.’
‘Ah, thank you, Sharon, but I can’t. Mammy will kill me!’
‘Stop, now. I have to buy you a drink. How long are you back for, hun? Will I book you in for a blow-dry on Stephenses Day? I’m only opening for friends and regulars, but I’ll squeeze you in.’
Sinéad McGrath appears over her shoulder, followed by Dee Ruane. ‘Jesus Christ, it’s a Christmas miracle!’ Dee pulls me in for a hug, and I’m surprised at how much I missed the whole gang. ‘Mikey, another West Coast Cooler for Ais and a Bulmers Light when you’re ready.’
‘Right you are, Dee.’
‘Dee, I can’t, honestly. I have to go home.’
‘I don’t want to hear it, Ais – I haven’t seen you in months.’ Mikey puts a third bottle on the bar in front of me and Sinéad grabs my arm. ‘Did the girls tell you what happened at mass?’
‘No.’
‘Mad Tom and Rocky were found in the crib.’
‘Who’s Rocky?’ I feel so out of the loop, even though I’ve only been gone four months.
‘His girlfriend,’ Sinéad explains. ‘She’s the reason he switched out the real pig feed for the counterfeit stuff and nearly put the entire village in a mass grave.’
‘Well, it was hardly Rocky’s fault, hun,’ Sharon interjects. She turns to me. ‘He was trying to save money to buy her a new second-hand Subaru. Her hair is in one big dreadlock, Ais, but, you know, she can actually pull it off. I’m trying to get her to put Olaplex in it once a week.’
‘No, I know she’s not to blame or anything,’ Sinéad continues. ‘I’m just trying to fill Ais in. Apparently Billy Foran bet them thirty euro they couldn’t go unnoticed in the crib, even though Father Fenlon dusts it himself every morning. They were in there for days! Nobody copped until Denise Kelly’s little lad climbed the fence at communion time and got the fright of his life.’
Father Fenlon prides himself on the enormous life-sized crib that sits to the left of the altar in BGB’s cavernous church. He used to even rope in some of the local farmers, Daddy included, to loan him livestock for his beloved Christmas Eve mass. It had to be nixed when one of Murt Kelly’s donkeys ate through a cable and caused a blackout.
‘No! Not Father Fenlon’s crib!’ Although I’m delighted to hear Mad Tom has fully recuperated from his porcine flatulence syndrome, I can only imagine the ructions this stunt caused. Poor Father Fenlon really thought moving midnight mass to 8 p.m. would put a stop to the rowdiness. ‘I’d say they made a fine Mary and Joseph, the two of them.’
‘That’s the thing,’ Sinéad says quietly. ‘She was a Wise Man and he was in the manger.’
‘Mad Tom was Baby Jesus?’
Dee cuts her off. ‘Anyway, enough about BGB! Tell us all about New York. Maj said something about a ridey fireman. Jesus, Ais,’ she lowers her voice, ‘you’re living out one of my biggest fantasies here. Have you been down the pole? I’ve been trying to get Titch into a yellow hard hat for years.’
‘Mikey, will you get Aisling a West Coast Cooler there when you’re ready?’ Sinéad interjects with a grimace. ‘Thanks!’
‘No problem, Sinéad.’
‘No, no, honestly, Sinéad, I’ve to go home!’
Over at the little stage, Majella is now pleading with Pablo to pass the microphone to Cyclops, and I remember what she said about them trying for a baby. I can really imagine her as a mammy. As much as she complains about some of the kids she teaches in St Anthony’s in Santry acting the maggot, she has the patience of a saint and can operate on little to no sleep. I’ve seen her in action myself at Electric Picnic. I can hear her now, telling Pab that if he lets Cyclops and the lads have a go she’ll let him open a present when they get home.
‘Well, would you look what the cat dragged in!’ Maeve Hennessey in a new green peacoat and an Orla Kiely bag on her arm snaps me out of it. ‘I was in the chipper when I heard.’ She’s holding a steaming paper bag. The smell of vinegar and curry sauce makes my mouth water. It’s been so long! ‘Welcome home, Ais!’
Christ, if it’s in the chipper already, I don’t have long before the news reaches Mammy.
‘West Coast Cooler is it, Ais? Drink for Aisling there, Mikey.’
‘On the way, Maeve.’ Mikey pops a fourth bottle on the bar.
‘Maeve, I can’t, honestly! I need to get out of here!’
She ignores me. ‘I nearly screamed the house down when I saw you on Stilettos and Skyscrapers the first time. Please tell me Tara’s a bitch in real life because I can’t believe someone can be that perfect.’
‘I’d say she Facetunes herself to bits, does she, Ais?’ Sharon asks hopefully.
I shrug. ‘Unfortunately, she’s dead on. And gorgeous in real life. But I can tell you that her apartment has a cockroach problem. You won’t see that on the blog.’ Maeve looks delighted so I don’t bother mentioning that that applies to half of Manhattan.
She turns to Dee. ‘I told you! We all have our cross to bear.’ Sinéad joins in, something about Colette Green that I don’t catch, and I drift into a daze as the four of them start talking about bloggers and whose tanning mitt is the best and whether it’s all the same white-label stuff coming from China or not. My eyes are wandering around the pub when they fall on John over by the fireplace and my heart jumps. He’s looking back at me with a kind of half-smile on his face, and I return it, wondering how long he’s been watching me chat to the girls. It feels so much like old times, but also so new and exciting. He makes a barely discernible nod towards the door, and as I gently extricate myself from my friends with promises I’ll see them again on Stephenses night, Mikey rings the bell that signals last orders are up. It’s time to go home.