Coming Home for Christmas 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

  Two for Joy

  Double Wedding

  Divided Loyalties

  Trilogies

  City Girl

  City Lives

  City Woman

  Forgive and Forget

  Happy Ever After

  Love and Marriage

  With All My Love

  First published in Great Britain by Transworld Ireland, 2009

  This edition published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2014

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © 2009 by Patricia Scanlan

  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 by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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

  ISBN Paperback 978-1-47114-111-9

  ISBN eBook 978-1-47114-112-6

  Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

  To my sister, Mary, who has been by my side through thick and thin, shared my joy and sadness, minded me, encouraged me and had such fun with me. You are my rock and my best friend and this acknowledgement is long overdue! I hope you enjoy this book as much as you’ve enjoyed the others.

  There’s no future looking back.

  Acknowledgements

  Great tidings of comfort and joy

  For all the comfort and joy I’ve been given in my life I give thanks, and for the gift of this book, as always, I thank Jesus, Our Lady, Mother Meera, St Joseph, St Michael, St Anthony, The Holy Spirit, White Eagle, all my Angels and Saints and Guides, and my Beloved Mother who is now with them.

  When Francesca Liversidge asked for a story that would incorporate the love and warmth of family and friends to give a ‘feelgood’ feeling in these difficult and recessionary times, I didn’t have to go far in my own life for inspiration, as I’m surrounded by so many people who give me love, cherishing and nurturing, and lots of fun to boot!

  To all my Beloveds: family, friends and soulmates. How could I have written a book like this without you? A special thanks to Alil O’Shaughnessy, I owe you a loaf of currant bread! And a lot more besides.

  To Sarah Lutyens who steers me along my career path with great wisdom and understanding, and who is stoic beyond measure when I begin to flap! I really do appreciate all that you, Felicity, Daisy and Jane do for me.

  To Grainne Fox, my agent in the US. Thanks so much for all your energy, hard work and faith.

  To Francesca Liversidge, who commissioned this book and who was such a wonderful editor for sixteen years. You were a staunch ally and a huge support in my writing career, and our friendship will last forever. Fly high and free and have lots and lots of fun with all your many friends here and over there, as only you can do.

  To Linda Evans, who has taken me under her wing and has made a difficult time much less traumatic. Thank you for your kind and patient editing and your generous reassurances. Here’s to new adventures.

  To Jo Williamson, who deals with so many queries with such efficiency and calm assurance. I hope they know what a treasure they have in you. And to Sarah Day, my hard-working copy editor who whips the manuscript into shape. To Kate Tolley, for her good-humoured patience during our ‘proofing’ phone calls, and to my other proofreaders for their diligence. We authors owe you a lot!

  To Nuala O’Neill, Pete Jacobs and Ian Tripp – I am only one of hundreds of authors who owe you a huge debt of gratitude. Thanks for all the work you’ve done on our behalf. I’ll miss you all.

  To Brenda Kimber, who was so kind and accommodating in her editing of Angels of Divine Light, an inspiring new book by my great friend, Aidan Storey. I’m sure we drove you mad but there was never even the slightest hint of irritation. Thanks so much.

  To Eoin and Lauren at Transworld Ireland and to everyone in the various departments at Transworld who have given me and my novels ongoing support.

  To Gill, Simon, Helen, Dec and Fergus of Gill Hess & Co for their Trojan efforts on my behalf. I couldn’t wish for a better team and appreciate so much the amount of work you do for me here in Ireland. There aren’t enough thanks.

  To Billy Martin in Mullingar . . . told you I’d put you in the book! Will let you know how accurate you were, this time next year!

  To Aurora Garcia in Mi Capricho who is always so kind and helpful as is Carlos. Muchos gracias.

  And to all my very loyal readers who have supported me for all my writing career. I’m deeply grateful and appreciate all the lovely letters and compliments you give me. May all good things come into your lives. I hope you enjoy this book.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  With All My Love

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Chapter 1

  A bitingly chill wind blew in off the East River and hailstones sharp as wasp stings peppered Alison Dunwoody’s upraised face as she took one last look at the apartment she’d called home for the past three years. The five windows on the twelfth floor were dark now. Pitch black. No comforting glow of golden lamplight spilling out identifying it as hers, among the myriad lights that glimmered from her building.

  Alison shook her head in disbelief. It wasn’t her building any more. When she’d first come to New York she’d found it so strange to hear people talking about ‘my building’ so proprietorially. As she’d scaled the career ladder, she’d moved buildings several times, her first home being a tiny, dark studio, with cockroaches and rattling waterpipes, in a less than salubrious area off Times Square; and then to a bigger studio in Chelsea before graduating to a one-bedroom apartment in TriBeCa. She’d lived there happily, knowing that she was progressing well in the financial sector. She’d studied and taken courses, the last one a three-year course for a Chartered Wealth Management degree, which she’d found thoroughly absorbing. After that, she’d got a job in the private banking sector, before leaving to join the Wealth Management team of DJ Hamilton & Associates Financial Advisers, a prestigious financial institution on Wall Street.

  Her personal reward to herself, after that leap
up the ladder, was a two-bedroom apartment, uptown between First and FDR, with a dinky balcony and a view of the East River. Nirvana, and an affirmation of all the gruelling hours she’d put in at her job and all her hard work over the years.

  Several of the women in her building were rich men’s mistresses. Two were first wives living in apartments secured in divorce settlements from their ex-husbands. One young, spoilt madam lived there thanks to her wealthy father. Alison was paying her rent herself and that was a source of immense satisfaction. True, the kitchen in her pad was postage-stamp small and the second bedroom doubled as her office, extra closet, and repository for unironed clothes, unread magazines and anything that she needed out of sight before entertaining Jonathan Bailey, her ‘current’ boyfriend.

  Alison chewed the inside of her lip. Jonathan, an advertising executive in his father’s mega-successful TransCon Advertising Agency, was out of town at the moment. He was tying up a deal in LA and had been away for almost a month doing a root-and-branch review of the business on the west coast. Belt-tightening was essential in the current climate, he’d assured her as he spent a small fortune on a new Rolex Oyster.

  When she’d told him she’d been made redundant and would have to give up her Upper East Side apartment, his tanned, handsome face had registered dismay, and she knew it wasn’t because of her housing dilemma, but because he didn’t want to have to offer her a place to stay. Jonathan did not like to have his wings clipped. He didn’t do domesticity or exclusivity, he’d told her during their first encounter, at a cocktail party in the Hamptons at the beginning of the summer. He’d done marriage once and wouldn’t be doing it again in a hurry, he’d informed her crisply.

  ‘A man after my own heart,’ she’d reciprocated airily. ‘I can’t bear to be tied down.’

  ‘How refreshing.’ Jonathan had studied her with renewed interest, and she knew she’d hooked him. With her rich auburn mane of tumbling curls, wide green eyes, and a light tan, she’d been looking particularly well that night, in an elegant, cerise sleeveless dress that showed off her well-toned body to perfection.

  They’d dated casually ever since and, though she liked him, and had a good time with him, she was by no means in love with Jonathan and had no desire to move in with him. This easygoing relationship had suited Alison down to the ground. Exclusivity and domesticity were so not her scene either. Work and career advancement were her consuming passions. They made her buzz, giving her an adrenalin rush no romance had ever matched.

  Alison sighed from the depths of her. She wondered how long her romance with Jonathan would last now that she was jobless and moving to a small studio no bigger than a medium-sized hotel suite. Not too long, she imagined. Part of her attraction for Jonathan was her independence, financial and otherwise. He liked that she often insisted on paying for their romantic dinners. And that she was not high maintenance. His wife was bleeding him dry, he often moaned, even though he had been born to affluence and never stinted on luxury items for himself. He was fun to be with, charming and, equally important to Alison, he knew so many movers and shakers and mixed with the crème de la crème in NY and LA. She’d been on the cusp of bringing several new clients to her firm, having met them socially with Jonathan and impressing them with her knowledge and expertise in the financial sector. It was the grace of God nothing had been firmed up and none of their wealth had been invested in Hamilton’s, she thought with a shudder, remembering how quickly her world had been turned upside down.

  The downturn, which had hit the financial markets with the speed of a tsunami, devastating hundreds of thousands of investors and mucking up her life big-time, was a disaster for her. She certainly wouldn’t be able to pay for dinner à deux in exclusive restaurants any more, or go to Norma’s, the ‘in’ place to have brunch in NY, on Sundays before strolling down to Central Park with the papers. She wouldn’t be flying all over the country to join her boyfriend on luxury breaks in fashionable destinations. She would be counting her pennies in her tiny burrow and doing her utmost to find a new position. Jonathan would be far from impressed with her new lodgings, she thought with a wry smile, knowing what a snob he was about such things. She’d got used to the high life, got used to spending crazy money on life’s little luxuries – designer shoes, bags, accessories. She’d spent $250 on a pair of Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses that time she’d gone to the Hamptons, and several hundred more on designer jeans and strappy sandals. She’d spent a fortune that weekend, including splashing out on several bottles of Krug. It hadn’t cost her a thought. Now she was making a cocktail last an hour on the rare nights she went out with friends, and her fridge no longer boasted splits of champagne. In fact, her new fridge was half the size of the one she’d had in her apartment. ‘Compact’ was the best adjective to describe her new abode, Alison thought ruefully as she shivered in the arctic breeze.

  It was a three-month sublet which she’d been lucky to acquire through her colleague and best friend, Melora, who, like her, had lost her job. Melora Buscemi had had enough of chilly New York and unemployment. She’d had to give up her loft in the Meatpacking District for the small studio off Broadway. Her BMW Cabriolet had been repossessed and her credit card had been declined when she’d used it to pay for a new laptop when her own had crashed, with impeccable timing, the day after she became one of America’s jobless. Had she still been employed, the company would have paid for a top-of-the-range model.

  Melora was heading for LA for the rest of the winter, where at least she wouldn’t have to pay heating bills, and the chances of finding a job had to be better than in gloomy, depressed, recession-battered New York, she reckoned somewhat illogically, the recession being nationwide. But having secured the studio for a six-month let she was reluctant to let it go, and lose her deposit.

  ‘Look, unless Jonathan’s going to pay your rent, you won’t be able to manage much longer where you are without making a huge dent in what’s left of your savings. Why don’t you sublet your apartment and take my little pad until you get sorted?’ Melora offered kindly as they sat sipping cocktails in Chez Toni’s, a club they’d had to queue forty minutes to gain entrance to. They’d watched glumly from behind the cordon as the Town Cars and sleek limos deposited gorgeous women in barely there designer dresses and skyscraper heels, and cool Armani- and Gucci-clad guys – the kind Melora was desperate to meet – swanned in to be cocooned in the rarefied, roped-off, security-guarded areas, where they could drink champagne untroubled by lesser beings who had to queue.

  Had Jonathan been with them they wouldn’t have had to do anything so déclassé as queue. He was one of the social elite who had that magical access to clubs and restaurants, and swanky airport lounges. Jonathan never, ever turned right on an aircraft, and the few times she’d travelled with him, neither had Alison. Now it all seemed like a dream.

  ‘Or even better, honey,’ her friend interrupted her musings, ‘why don’t you come to LA with me? We could rent a place together and wow the corporate heads with our mega-impressive CVs, stunning good looks and, like, totally sophisticated NY cool.’ Melora grinned, showing her strong, white teeth. With smooth ebony skin and a long-limbed, curvy body, she looked ten years younger than her thirty-five years. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t want to leave Jonathan?’ She arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

  ‘It’s not that, Mel,’ Alison sighed. ‘I can’t see me and Jonathan lasting much longer, to be honest. He doesn’t do “failure”, and once he sees me in a walk-up studio that my bed wouldn’t even fit in, he’s going to think, “Loser”.’

  ‘Don’t say that, you’re not a loser. This is unprecedented – it’s a recession. It’s got nothing to do with our lack of skills or job performance,’ Mel protested indignantly.

  ‘Well, I ain’t a winner right now.’ Alison grimaced. ‘Heading for mid-thirties, jobless, almost homeless, living on my savings, which are dwindling much faster than I’d like – after nearly fifteen years of working my ass off, I haven’t got much to show for it. M
y investments got such a hammering, and my bonuses were in company shares and they’re down the Swannee just like yours.’

  ‘You can add “manless” to that list for me,’ Melora remarked gloomily.

  ‘I’m going to be manless too, soon. You can bet on it.’ Alison shrugged.

  ‘And it doesn’t even bother you, girl. You and I are so different in that regard. I want the man! I want the kids! I want the home!’ Melora eyed a hot guy who was strolling past with two splits of champagne.

  ‘My sister Olivia has all that. I’d go crazy – I’d feel so smothered and claustrophobic. Uuggghh!’ Alison winced at the notion.

  ‘You just haven’t met the right man yet. I’m telling you, when you meet him you’ll know, and we’ll see how claustrophobic you feel then.’

  ‘Dream on,’ grinned Alison.

  ‘Girl, we lived a high ol’ life though here in New York City.’ Mel chuckled. ‘And you can’t deny that. Come to LA with me. Let’s give it a whirl?’ she urged.

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t like LA. All that body-beautiful stuff, all that lettuce-leaf lifestyle, all that phoney posturing and posing and edginess and the way people are so busy looking over your shoulder when they’re talking to you . . . scouting . . . No thanks. I’m too old for it – and I hate constant sunshine: it would drive me crazy.’

  ‘How can you say that, you mad Irishwoman you? That holiday I spent with you in Ireland where it rained non-stop and you said you didn’t mind it. You’re crazy already,’ her friend teased, raising her cocktail glass to her.

  ‘Anyway, talking of home, it’s my mam’s seventieth birthday. I’m going home next week, don’t forget. I think I might even stay an extra ten days for Christmas; it would make her so happy. She doesn’t even know I’m coming home for her birthday. I can’t believe she’s seventy.’ Alison took a slug of her drink, wishing she could get hammered, but alcohol was having no effect on her mood tonight.

  ‘Completely forgot about that. So I guess we won’t be seeing each other for a while,’ Melora said sadly.