Every Year: Short Stories

  CECELIA AHERN

  Every Year

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  1 Every Year

  2 Twenty-four Minutes

  3 Next Stop: Table for Two

  4 The Calling

  5 The End

  6 The Production Line

  7 Celebrating Mum

  8 Mallard and May

  9 The Things That I Remember

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1 Every Year

  Every year I watch them. Every year I see the changes, how the days and seasons apart have somehow softened their tongues. Each year the evidence is faint but palpable all the same. If you look closely at the edges, at the curve of the smiles once tight, the relaxed shoulders once hunched and the flow of words once clipped, you can see that their edges have blurred like the early-morning sun’s effect on the annual ice sculpture on the lawn. Look more closely and somewhere in its hard, frosty exterior you can see, can hear, the drip, drip, drip of its hard shell slipping away. A transparent cold drop warmed just enough to allow release; the warmth letting it know it’s not a flaw to thaw. Time has been this family’s sun. Year after year, I have seen the coldness slipping away from them until I see them now, together and cocooned by the warmth of Christmas Day.

  Every year I’m taken from the dark dusty confines of an attic by the same pair of hands, but every year those hands have felt different. Over the years they carried not only me, but the weight of more responsibility. I feel it in his grip now, feel it by the heaviness of his steps down the stairs. I’ve gone from being carelessly mauled and dropped by his once dirty, childish hands to being cradled in the ones I see wrapped around me now. They are those of a man, creator of his own bearers of dirty, careless hands, and now they of theirs. I was given to him by his father, a special July deal in the front window of a rundown hardware store in the 1920s, where the paint blistered and peeled from its exterior until it was pared right down to nothing.

  Like my carrier I am old, and he shares me with his own family now. We are slow going down the stairs this year, his breathing loud and his hands frail. I don’t feel secure in his leather-like skin as in previous years, and I’m fearful of his accidentally releasing me from his clutches as he used to in the giddiness of his childhood. I note the full circle that life has taken for him; he is getting older, yet younger, as though time were moving in two directions. Every year his body declines but his spirit doesn’t. He lives for this time of year, for his family to gather around him, knowing he and his wife are the flame to their moths’ gathering.

  I’m placed on the table before the crackling fire. I see the stockings line the mantelpiece, every year an added sock for a new little one. I see the multicoloured presents piled high under the tree, shimmering paper wrapped in big delightful bows all heckling to be untied and ripped open. He and she had spent all week wrapping these, I know from hearing their muffled voices below my place in the attic, and I know that the month-long lead-up to Christmas has been spent shopping for them together. Careful, thoughtful, shared decisions made while strolling under the decorative lights, bundled up in hats, scarves and gloves as the world raced around them. They took it all in, cheered as the lights were turned on, hoisted awestruck grandchildren onto Santa’s lap and noticed as more trees appeared in windows in the great big build-up to today.

  They are the irreplaceable weeks where everyone feels the hands of time tick by louder as the day approaches, beating faster in the big rush until hearts are left banging in chests in anticipation and expectation. I wait with the old man for the crowd to arrive. I look around the room with him, see the pride in his eyes, sense the excitement rush through his veins of another year, another day all being together. My God, they don’t happen often enough, I know he thinks.

  The doorbell rings and time’s ticking hands are drowned out by the tinkling Christmas tunes; the flames of candles by the window dance excitedly on their wicks as the cars pull up outside; the lights on the tree sparkle and wink at him, encouraging him to make his way to the door. Build-up over, it’s time. His troops begin to arrive. One by one.

  Big hugs for Mum and Dad, woolly jumpers embrace polo-necks to oohs and aahs of delight as the cinnamon, pine, Brussels sprouts and cooking turkey tickle their senses. Children race around in excitement, their little hearts overfilled with the joy of the morning’s magic. They poke at the presents, eye the name tags, stare at the chimney while shaking their heads, wondering and conferring among one other how on earth he did it. And then the annual stories are told: of hearing him on the roof, seeing the reindeers fly off and even meeting the great man himself. Wide eyes and wows for the little ones who have slept through the night, rolled eyes for the elders who hide their smiles while secretly wishing for that feeling within them to return. What a great man, the little ones all agree, while munching on mince pies. What a great man.

  And then the conversation, stilted at first, of those who once shared bedrooms and secrets, once fought over toys and friends and huddled under bed sheets with torches, begins. Here they are on the one day of the year on which the parental flame shines brightly enough to attract them all at once. The room is now a hotpot of past, present and future family. All eyes are on the kids, the ones who bathe in the excitement of the day and who, in turn, reflect the magic back to their parents.

  He announces he’s going to put me on top of the tree and the little ones rush to gather around. The old man takes me into his frail hands. The routine applause sounds the same to them every year, but not to me. Like the ice sculpture, you must pay close attention. The tones have varied as the time has gone by. In the early years it was excitement, the joy of little ones’ first experiences. Then, as the years passed and time floated away as gently and subtly as a feather in the wind, cheers turned to jeers and excitement to boredom as hormones flailed around in changing bodies, kicking and screaming. This year they are adults: mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts who have learned to understand all that was misunderstood in teenage years. They applaud loudly and joyously, with their own excited little ones hopping around by their sides, craning their necks to look at me with great awe.

  My, they’ve grown. I’ve seen their changing faces over the years, how as teens they began to learn to hide their frustrations well, just as the December weather masks the ground outside. The snowflakes drift, altering the landscape and covering the rough and the ugly in a smooth, brilliant white.

  I have sensed already that I won’t be carried to my place next year by the same pair of hands. I sensed it by his shaking and by how his eyes filled up when the others weren’t looking. Instead of going directly towards the tree, he turns and I find I’m being handed to Tom, whose twelve-year-old mouth gapes open as I’m passed from old hands to new. The eldest grandson looks back to his mother and father, who nod encouragingly and smile with pride.

  Tom brings me slowly towards the tree. It looks bigger now than it used to as I lie in the protective hands of a smaller boy. As we get closer, it looms and the tinsel glitters and the branches smell of glorious pine. I see our reflection in a red bauble. I see the excitement and anxiety in Tom’s face as he takes each careful step, not wanting to ruin the moment. With his back turned to the hushed family he takes a step up the ladder. I’m ceremoniously perched in my presiding place.

  They think it’s going to be the same all the time, but I know it’s not. They used to think, in their raging hormonal days, that they would rather be anywhere but here at this dinner table, on this day, but now they know differently. I see them, looking to their parents, as their little ones look to them.

  The same every year they think, but look closely, for it’s n
ot.

  That’s what makes people so sad and so happy at this time. That is the bittersweet magic of Christmas. It’s different and magical and wonderful and every year rich with the air of too much said and too much unsaid. They’ve realized that these are the days when edges are blurred, tongues are burned and softened and eyes are filled with the drip, drip, drip of never wanting to leave, never wanting to say goodbye to these golden moments, longing to bring back the precious days and all the people in them.

  Every day of every year they long for the time when they will feel like this: together, cocooned by the warmth of Christmas Day.

  2 Twenty-four Minutes

  Steven awoke to his alarm ringing at seven a.m. Waking up, the first disappointment of every day, was as usual followed by its faithful friend, dread. The alarm was like a siren, a warning bell: get up or else! Slowly rolling over, he stretched out his arm and punched down on the clock. Although the room was silenced, the ringing continued in his eardrums. What he would give to sleep all day, to close his lids and block out the light! Once again he had spent another night glaring unblinkingly at all-night Teletext and infomercials, sleep, as usual, not coming easy.

  He looked vacantly at the growing crack on his magnolia ceiling and listened as the kids next door fought to use the bathroom. Walls like cardboard separated their two-bedroom-and-a-box-room town houses, stuffed together like shoeboxes in the dusty stockroom of a department-store basement: piled high, packed tight, squeezed in, airtight. Multicoloured toylike houses for first-time buyers, pristine and pastel with pretty thresholds to cross, blinding buyers from the realization they’d just crossed the most expensive toll they were ever likely to pay. Suburban bliss.

  Steven could imagine what all the people looked like from above, lab rats running around the maze of houses, pointlessly, distracted by irrelevant and unnecessary daily routines. Did nobody think, What is the point? Did nobody else feel like suddenly stopping what they were doing, looking up to the GamesMaster in the sky and refusing to continue playing this stupid game?

  He exhaled slowly, counting to three as the screaming next door turned to tears, the knocking on the door turned to kicks and the dog’s barking turned to howls. Kicking the covers off, he wearily pulled his body out of bed and began his morning routine: shower, dress—shirt, suit, tie—coffee, alarm, front door, walk to the train station. The monotony, monotonous. Night out on a Thursday, hangover on a Friday, football on a Sunday. Every week identical.

  One thousand five hundred and twenty-seven steps to the train station and he would arrive at the platform at exactly 07.42, met by the same tired faces, the same bored expressions, the same coats, briefcases, hairstyles and shoes. Everyone was uniformed up and ready for battle. Nobody spoke, nobody smiled, there was just the occasional cough, beep of a mobile phone and the fuzzy sounds of personal stereos as commuters stared blankly and wearily into space, eyes glassy and sleepy, their previous night’s dreams still fresh in their minds, their beds not yet cold.

  The sign over the platform declared a three-minute wait, as it always did when he arrived. The man beside him in the brown suede coat was consistently ahead of him, the woman with the black briefcase, torn at the corner and with a scratch through the middle, always behind him. Everything was done in perfect unison, their life predictable, no matter how much longer they took drinking their coffee in the morning and no matter how many extra minutes were spent closing their eyes under the soothing hot water of the shower, dreaming of somewhere and something else.

  Finally, the familiar sound forced a few heads to turn and a few eyes to blink out of their trance. The wail of the horn, the vibrations on the tracks, the hiss and squeal as the train prepared to stop—everyone moved forward and took their positions. As the train slowed, dull faces on crammed bodies stared outside at them, expressionless. Nobody got off, everybody got on an already crowded train. Steven got on last. He always did.

  He stepped through the door and could move no further. He turned his back on the faces staring at him and held his breath as the door slowly shut. He said goodbye to fresh air and looked out of the small dirty window at people running to the platform, seconds late, panic and frustration scrawled across their faces. How different their days would be now. A second too late and they were out of the rat race. He watched them as the train pulled away; envying them while, inside the train, hot, tired bodies huddled together in the cramped conditions, rocking back and forth with the swaying carriage. Some slept as they stood; music and chat from earphones kept others awake.

  The train slowed and stopped at the next station. Doors opened, no one disembarked, more tried to squeeze in. Steven found himself being forced in further, away from the door. The toilet door opened—a distasteful odour emanating out to an already stuffy atmosphere—and three students disappeared inside for space.

  The doors closed and the train moved on. The atmosphere was tinged with morning breath, coffee and BO. One person fainted, there was a scuffle to move her forward and help her off at the next stop where she was left on the bench, flushed, embarrassed and gasping for air.

  Sardines in a housing estate, sardines in a train. Everywhere he went Steven was squashed, trapped, his mind cluttered with a million messy thoughts packed together so tightly he thought his head would explode. But he was keeping it together, he was waking up each morning and reminding himself to breathe. But not in this stuffy carriage, he would hold his breath here, as he had been doing over the past few years of his life, waiting for things to get better. Battling with his mind to cheer up and see the positive, losing each time and lying down even more battered and bruised.

  But today was different, today he would be victorious. Today he would receive confirmation of his promotion, a promotion that would allow him to leave the stuffy, cluttered and windowless confines of his basement office, piled high with paperwork and metallic filing cabinets, so uninspiring and so small he didn’t even have space to pace. Today he would win the battle and race those steps like Rocky, dancing at the top with his fists in the air.

  But he had to get there first and the train hadn’t moved for fifteen minutes. People were beginning to get agitated, feeling the strain of their personal space being invaded. Steven could move only his head: his arm and briefcase were caught behind him. When he turned his head one way he received a mouthful of frizzy hair; the other way led him to stare directly into the face of a heavy-breathing, overweight and balding man. He chose the hair.

  Without any explanation as to why they hadn’t moved, the train moved on again, jerking and spluttering along the track and trying to pick up pace with its heavy load. The next stop spat out six people and sucked in ten more, and Steven breathed in the last of the fresh air before the door closed, the frizzy hair tickling his nose as he did so. The newcomers explained that the delay was due to a man jumping in front of a train further along the line. Someone tutted in annoyance and checked his watch. =He wouldn’t have felt a thing’ was the last sentence uttered before the seconds of chat ended and they were once again plunged into silence, leaving the woman who had spoken flushed in the face, as if struck by the silliness of her words.

  =How could anyone do that?’ one woman had asked in confusion and horror. Steven understood how, he understood what it was like to want to get out of a situation so much you’d do anything. Standing trapped between strange bodies on the connecting joints of a train every morning, then working in a windowless office cell without any human contact, looking at so many numbers for so many hours that they all began to look the same. Everything felt as if it was moving in on him, his world was getting smaller, it was fading away and was forcing him to live only in his head. A head that was pounding, exhausted, fed up and growing tired of listening to himself. When there was nothing holding you up, nothing to show there was a point to all this, when there was no one capable of putting a smile on your face, he understood how a person could do it. He understood it very well.

  The train eventually stopped at
Tara Street Station and the door opened with a hissing sound, like the loosening of a mineral-bottle lid. It had the same effect as a birdcage being opened; out through the door they all fluttered, tiredly bumping into one other as they walked at different paces downstairs and on into the fresh air. The sun was rising over O’Connell Bridge, the buildings casting shadows on the pavements. Steven walked in and out of the darkness as he moved with the rolling crowd, just one more body, just another meaningless overactive mind churning on a crowded city pavement.

  Two thousand six hundred and four steps to the bank. They all marched on in full uniform to the beat of a drum. Forty-eight steps downstairs to his office, where he took his position in the firing line and awaited the moment Gerard Rush, his boss, would give him the good news.

  Twelve noon sharp, and the door to Steven’s office opened, banging against his desk. Gerard popped his head around the door. His face said it all. His complexion was grey and his expression grim.

  ‘I’m sorry, Steven. They decided to go with Andy in the end. I fought for you, I really did.’ Gerard sat before him, his back almost touching the door of the small office. His voice was sincere, his apology genuine.

  The promotion was the one thing he had had to look forward to, so much so that it had become the solution to every problem. Everything would be all right when he got the job. It was the crutch that had helped him limp along. It wasn’t a lifelong ambition, it wasn’t his aim in life to sit behind padded porridge screens leafing through files, it was just that there was nothing else. There were no other distractions, no other goals or interests. It was all there, every little hope in the world pinned right on the promotion. His last crutch had been taken away and now he was falling.

  The woman’s voice from the train came back to him—He wouldn’t have felt a thing— and suddenly there was clarity. He had found another crutch, albeit a temporary one.