A Gift to You Read online

  Patricia Scanlan was born in Dublin, where she still lives. Her books have sold worldwide and have been translated into many languages. Patricia is the series editor and a contributing author to the Open Door series. She also teaches creative writing to second-level students and is involved in Adult Literacy.

  Find out more by visiting Patricia Scanlan on Facebook.

  Also by Patricia Scanlan

  Apartment 3B

  Finishing Touches

  Foreign Affairs

  Promises, Promises

  Mirror Mirror

  Francesca’s Party

  Two for Joy

  Double Wedding

  Divided Loyalties

  Coming Home

  Trilogies

  City Girl

  City Lives

  City Woman

  Forgive and Forget

  Happy Ever After

  Love and Marriage

  With All My Love

  A Time for Friends

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Patricia Scanlan 2015

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Patricia Scanlan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Hardback ISBN: 978-1-47115-072-2

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-47115-073-9

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-47115-075-3

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset in the UK by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd are committed to sourcing paper that is made from wood grown in sustainable forests and supports the Forest Stewardship Council, the leading international forest certification organisation. Our books displaying the FSC logo are printed on FSC certified paper.

  To Mammy and The Mothers with great love and gratitude. I can never thank you enough.

  Acknowledgement

  To all who gift me with love and kindness. My love for you is boundless, my gratitude immense. You are great Blessings in my life.

  Contents

  CHRISTMAS

  A Gift for You

  Back Where I Belong

  Façades

  The Christmas Tree

  VALENTINE’S DAY

  The Angel of Love

  A Woman in Her Prime

  The Seventh Floor

  MOTHER’S DAY

  One Small Step

  The Unexpected Visit

  DIFFICULT DAYS

  Fairweather Friend

  True Colours

  Ripples

  A Dish Best Served Cold

  The Judge

  BIRTHDAY

  Life Begins at 40!

  The Best Birthday Ever

  A Low Threshold of Pain

  CHRISTMAS

  A Gift For You

  Magdalena Dunne was bursting to go to the loo. Her bladder had developed a mind of its own in the last six weeks. Sneezing and coughing were a nightmare. She was practically incontinent, she thought glumly as she struggled against the heaving mass of Christmas shoppers on Henry Street and headed for the Ilac shopping centre. She should pitch a tent in the loos in Ilac, she visited them so often, she reflected, passing through the doors to the crowded concourse as the piped music of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas assaulted her ears.

  Magdalena snorted. Merry Little Christmas indeed! No drink, no ciggies, unremitting heartburn, a leaky bladder, an iffy sciatic nerve and the dread and fear of her first (and her last, she assured herself ) baby’s delivery wasn’t exactly a recipe for The Best Christmas Ever. And she was lonely, sooo lonely for her parents and sister, Karolina, far away in Eastern Europe. Her mother had emailed her some photos of the family’s farmhouse quilted in soft snow, the land a lustrous white tapestry, broken here and there with bare-branched trees bowing low with their winter dressing.

  Back in Poland, her father, Tomasz, would be blessing the fields with holy water and placing crosses made of straw in the four corners before hanging the branch of mistletoe above the front door, for luck. Her mother, Zuzanna, would be preparing for the Christmas Eve supper. The house would be sparkling, all the windows shining in the winter sun. Zuzanna would have been preparing for weeks for Wigilia, as Christmas Eve was known in her native land. The old belief that if the house was dirty on Christmas Eve it would be dirty all year had been ingrained in her and her sister and she smiled, remembering the hours of polishing and cleaning they’d had to do in the run up to Christmas.

  Magdalena knew her mother might not be too impressed to know that she had not done her own cleaning but had hired mini-maids to come in for a couple of hours and blitz the house. It was a one-off. Pregnancy and being hectically busy at work had left her weary, and when she had tentatively suggested it to Michael, her husband, he’d agreed immediately.

  ‘Very good idea!’ he declared enthusiastically, relieved no doubt that he wouldn’t have to hoover.

  ‘Really? No moans about the cost, no saying we can’t afford it?’ she teased.

  ‘It’s a gift for you.’ He grinned, enveloping her in a bear hug, and she’d nestled in against him, loving her good-humoured, kind-hearted Irishman.

  There was a queue for the loo and she stood, legs crossed, cursing every occupant of the serried row of cubicles. The relief when she finally bolted a door behind her and peed with abandon was indescribable.

  While she retouched her make-up, Magdalena took stock. She still had a few Christmas presents to buy and she also wanted to pop into M&S to buy some of their roast potatoes and pre-prepared seasonal vegetables to go with the turkey. She knew it was cheating, but she was in no humour to peel potatoes and veg when she got home. Michael, too, was up to his eyes at work and he’d told her he wasn’t sure when he’d be home. Sometimes she wondered if her husband’s desire to work extra hours was a subconscious excuse to escape from her and her pregnancy.

  Magdalena sighed. Their lives were changing irrevocably, that was for sure. Part of her didn’t want the change. They’d been happy doing their own thing with no one to please, only themselves. The baby was going to make an enormous difference to their lives and their freedom.

  Don’t think about it now. Focus on what you have to do, she instructed herself as she left the relative haven of the crowded toilets and entered the Christmas fray again. She’d need to get a move on. Her lunchtime was being whittled away and lateness was frowned upon in the busy accounts department where she worked. Magdalena’s line manager, Beady Eyes Barrett, as her minions referred to her, was a cranky old cow to work for. She didn’t approve of pregnant women getting time off to go for check-ups and the like. If girls wanted to get pregnant and have babies that was their look-out. It shouldn’t interfere with their work, according to Dolores Barrett. Just because they were pregnant was not an excuse to be treated differently. Working mothers were the bane of Dolores’s life. Looking for days off because they had to bring
children to clinics. Rushing out of work because crèches called to say the darlings were sick. Teething problems weren’t her problems, Beady Eyes was fond of proclaiming.

  Magdalena could just see her crabby supervisor mouthing off in the canteen, oblivious that she was causing severe stress to at least half a dozen women under her thumb. Or maybe she wasn’t so oblivious. Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing and enjoyed it.

  Magdalena would be joining those beleaguered unfortunates following her maternity and unpaid leave. She tried not to think about that scenario. Soon she’d be free of Dolores for almost the next year. It was a joyful prospect.

  She could always leave her job in the big computer software company that she worked for and look for another position elsewhere, but there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t end up with another Dolores. Besides, the salary was excellent at Johnson & Johnson and the perks were good. Apart from Dolores, Magdalena liked and got on well with her colleagues so why should she have to move? She shouldn’t be getting herself tied up in knots; it wasn’t good for the baby, she told herself sternly, zigzagging to avoid a harassed mother with a twin buggy.

  She looked at her shopping list again and felt a sudden wave of exhaustion. Just this once, she’d get book tokens and gift vouchers. Impersonal, but utterly practical and time-saving. She’d buy a book for herself too, a little Christmas treat. Her favourite Irish author, Ciara Geraghty, had a new book out. She would immerse herself in it to keep her homesickness at bay.

  The lonesomeness was worse than usual this year, she thought dolefully. Most likely because she was hormonal and apprehensive as the weeks rolled on and the day of her delivery drew closer. Her mother was coming to stay when the baby was born, in late January, and so there would be no Christmas visit from her parents this year. Last year, she and Michael had gone to Poland and it was the happiest Christmas she had ever had. Her family loved her Irish husband and they had pulled out all the stops to celebrate a traditional Polish Christmas with their daughter and son-in-law. Tears blurred Magdalena’s brown eyes. What she wouldn’t give for a hug from her mother and father and hear them call her kochanieńka.

  Stop it, you silly girl, she scolded, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands. You’ll see them in January when your own kochanieńka is born.

  Michael Dunne eyed the basket of washing and glanced at his watch. He was under pressure but there was a good breeze blowing and Magdalena had left strict instructions that he was to hang out the clothes before he left for work. The tumble dryer was on the blink and he was supposed to get that sorted too. Life was all hassle these days and Magdalena was as tetchy as be damned. It was probably because she was petrified of giving birth. He wouldn’t fancy it himself, he had to admit. But it was unnerving living with her at the moment. She’d suddenly burst into tears for no reason, weeping that she was homesick for her family and that she was scared of giving birth. He’d try to reassure her and say it was a natural thing for women, wasn’t it? Millions of women gave birth. Why was she panicking?

  But his stout words sounded hollow to his own ears. He would never forget the pre-natal class where they’d shown the video of a birth. It had been pretty gruesome. If he thought that he had to endure that type of pain, he’d possibly faint. He’d fainted once when he’d broken his ankle playing football. One minute he was feeling woozy and in agony and the next enveloped in total blackness. He’d felt a bit of a wussie when he came to.

  Michael had watched the birthing video through half-shut eyes and felt quite queasy. To tell the truth, he didn’t really want to be at the birth. Not that he’d say that to Magdalena. He was afraid he’d pass out or puke and make a show of himself. He didn’t want to see Magdalena groaning in pain for hours on end. He didn’t want to feel helpless and in the way. He didn’t want to see blood and gore. He just wanted everything to be back to normal and to have his confident, sexy, funny, sweet wife back the way she was and not this weepy, unsure, panicky woman who had taken her place.

  It wasn’t a picnic for him either. He had fears and worries too. They’d just a few months ago managed to sell their apartment to buy a neat three-bedroom bungalow near the seafront in Raheny and they now had a pretty hefty mortgage. Gone were the days when they could hop on a Ryanair flight to Lodz to visit Magdalena’s family in Ksawerów.

  Still, they had a house now in a very pretty cul-de-sac, not too far from where his own parents lived. It would be a good place to bring up their child, with the seafront and Bull Island ten minutes from their door. They’d had to cut down on their free-and-easy way of living, for sure, but it would be worth it. They’d had five carefree years together with no one to worry about but themselves. Not many had been as lucky as they were. They had friends who’d bought property at the height of the boom and who were now crucified with massive mortgages. He and Magdalena had escaped that horrendous fate, at least. He grabbed the linen basket piled with clothes and hurried out to the clothesline. He had a hell of a lot to do today, including making preparations for the traditional Polish Christmas Eve meal that he was going to surprise his wife with.

  ‘So! Your last day for months and months and months, you lucky wagon.’ Denise Dawson plonked herself on the banquette beside Magdalena and grinned.

  ‘Brilliant, isn’t it?’ Magdalena grinned back. The office had closed at three and they had all trooped over to the Lord Edward for a drink and nibbles. After which, she was going home to make the stuffing, and the custard for the pudding and that was it. Finito! She had the shop-bought spuds and the veg; Michael could deal with the turkey. Her parents-in-law had flown over to the States to spend Christmas with their daughter in Boston, so she and her husband were on their own and that suited Magdalena fine in her pregnant state.

  She was going to plonk herself on the sofa and watch TV and read and relax until the baby was born. She was totally organized and had her bag packed for the hospital, had the baby’s clothes and bits and pieces all bought. They were buying the cot, the car seat, the sterilizer and baby bath in the January sales. The baby’s room was painted and ready for the precious little person who would soon be coming into their lives. All the hard work that she’d put in had paid off. Magdalena was as prepared as she could be.

  The pub was jammers. Employees from the nearby civic offices were celebrating and the atmosphere of festive holiday high spirits was infectious. Magdalena felt herself relax as she sipped a rare glass of red wine. She’d done very, very well. She’d given up smoking and alcohol once she’d found she was pregnant. She’d drunk loads of water and eaten proper food, with lashings of fruit and vegetables, for the first time in years. She’d felt healthy and energized for most of her pregnancy. Only the last few weeks had been a little difficult and that was to be expected.

  ‘I’d love a glass of red.’ Sally, one of her colleagues sighed, looking enviously at the glass of ruby liquid that Magdalena was raising to her lips.

  ‘Why don’t you have one?’ Magdalena was surprised. Sally enjoyed a drink.

  ‘I’m not as far gone as you are,’ Sally said, winking.

  ‘You’re pregnant?’ Magdalena exclaimed.

  ‘Shush, don’t let Dolores hear, for God’s sake, she gives me a hard enough time as it is. I needed to bring Finn, my little fella, to the doctor last Monday and she wouldn’t give me a couple of hours off even though I told her that I’d work it back. She made me take a half-day, the old weapon. My annual leave is disappearing so fast I’ll have no holidays at all in the summer.’

  ‘Congratulations, Sal! Why wouldn’t hatchet face let you work the time back?’ Denise interjected.

  ‘She said that it would set a precedent and everyone would want to do it.’ Sally speared a garlic mushroom and ate it with relish.

  ‘I suppose she has a point,’ Magdalena sighed. ‘If everyone started asking to pay back time instead of taking leave there’d be chaos.’

  ‘I know that,’ Sally agreed. ‘But if only she wasn’t so inflexible and so unhelpful, she�
��d get much more out of people. My husband’s company is so accommodating, thank God. They have a human resources manager who bends over backwards to help the staff with exactly these types of problems and the productivity there is way over expectations. He was doing a course that he couldn’t miss, otherwise he’d have got time off to bring Finn to the doctor, no problem. But I can’t keep asking him to take time off, either. I have to do my share . . . even if it means taking half-days. I hope that cocktail sausage chokes her,’ she added nastily, glaring in Dolores’s direction. ‘Would you just look at her in her new red cardigan! She’d give Amy Farrah Fowler a run for her money. And she’s flirting with Casanova Prior. I think she’s a bit pissed on one glass of wine.’

  The trio craned their necks towards the next table and giggled at the sight of their supervisor’s two pink cheeks as she took a lady-like sip from her glass and smiled demurely at their seedy sales manager.

  ‘What age is she, allegedly?’ Denise asked tartly.

  Magdalena snorted with laughter. ‘What a bitch you are. “Allegedly.” ’

  ‘Well, you know the way she goes on about being in her mid-forties. She’s mid-fifties if she’s a day,’ Denise scoffed.

  ‘I wonder, has she ever done it?’ Sally eyed her boss disdainfully.

  ‘Sally!’ Denise protested. ‘You’re putting me off my chicken wings! ‘Imagine Dolores with those skinny shanks wrapped around George Prior going, “Ooohh, ooohhh, OOOHH!”’

  They all guffawed, drawing Dolores’s disapproving gaze in their direction. That made them giggle even more.

  Magdalena gave a happy sigh. She’d miss the girls, and the craic, and after-work drinks, but she wouldn’t miss Dolores Barrett one little bit. Knowing that she wouldn’t see her for months on end was nearly the best Christmas present of all.

  Half an hour later, Magdalena got up to go home. Normally, she would be the life and soul of the party and wouldn’t leave so soon but the pressure on her sciatic nerve was painful and her bump felt tight and uncomfortable. Besides, she’d just had the one glass of wine and was perfectly sober, while all around her, with the exception of Sally, of course, everyone was getting tiddly and it was no fun being sober among a crowd of inebriates, she told Denise, laughing when the other girl protested. ‘Ms Dunne, this is so not you. I never thought I’d see the day when you’d leave before Batty Barrett! I never thought I’d see the day when you’d leave before I got piddly-eyed.’