Annie Groves - Home for Christmas

December 1938

Sally couldn’t bear to look as she walked past the cemetery on her way home to Lilac Avenue, increasing her pace and turning her face from the place where her mother was buried. She could still hardly accept that her mother was dead.

It had been such a long hard road from those early days of hope that somehow the doctors were wrong, followed by the disbelief, despair and even anger that someone as special as her mother should be struck down by such a cruel illness, the long-drawn-out days, weeks and then months of her decline and the terrible pain she had suffered with that decline. Then – and Sally could still hardly bear to think about this – those last days when it had seemed impossible that the emaciated tiny human frame – tortured by pain and trying so bravely not to betray the extent of her suffering – lost in the bed that she and Morag kept immaculately hospital pristine and neat, could actually be her mother.

Her mother had tried so bravely not to distress those she loved by revealing how much pain she was in, but of course Sally had known. How could she, as a nurse, not know?

Morag had been so wonderful – the best of good friends, truly an angel – taking over the most intimate nursing of Sally’s mother as though she had been her own when Sally had needed to leave her mother’s bedside to give way to her tears. Sally’s heart lifted now with the knowledge that when she got home, having unexpectedly been told that she could finish her shift several hours early, she would probably find Morag already there.

‘You are so kind,’ Sally had told Morag.

‘It is a privilege to do this for your mother, Sally, after all she has done for me,’ Morag replied.

And Morag hadn’t just helped with the nursing. Whenever she was off duty, and Sally still working, she’d gone round to Lilac Avenue to cook a hot meal for Sally’s father, and take over some of the chores that Sally’s mother could no longer do. Just as though they had indeed been sisters they had worked together to nurse Sally’s mother and give her father what comfort they could. Callum had played his part too, sitting and talking with her father in the evenings.

Sally was past the cemetery now and could allow herself to breath normally again although that felt wrong when her beloved mother was no longer breathing. She and her father would never stop mourning her and missing her, Sally knew.

As she turned into Lilac Avenue through the windows of its houses she could see Christmas trees and Christmas decorations. Christmas was only a matter of days away but Sally couldn’t bear to think about it. She couldn’t imagine ever wanting to celebrate Christmas without her mother.

Rather than use her front door key Sally went round to the kitchen. As she put her hand on the door knob, what she saw through the frosted glass in the top half of the door froze her in shocked disbelief. The image of two people embracing might be fuzzy and distorted by the thick glass, their features obscured, but for Sally there was no mistaking what they were doing and who they were.

Morag and her father were in one another’s arms and Morag was kissing her father – not compassionately as the best friend of his daughter, but intimately on the mouth, in the manner of a lover.

Filled with revulsion, trembling with disbelief, Sally stepped into the kitchen as Morag and her father moved apart.

Sally looked at them both in silence. Morag’s face was white, her dark brown eyes shimmering with tears, her guilt plain for Sally to see. Behind her father’s sadness Sally realised that she could see a glint of another horrifying emotion in his eyes. He was happy. Happy that Morag had kissed him.

‘Sally, please don’t look like that. It isn’t what you—’ Morag was saying, trying to catch hold of her arm, but Sally moved back. She was trembling so much that she had to lean on the wall to support herself.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No don’t touch me . . . don’t come anywhere near me. How could you? How could you do this?’

‘Sally.’ Now it was her father trying to reach for her, his familiar face – the kind loving face she had known all her life – creased in distress. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out about Morag and me like this. We were going to tell you . . .’

Sally felt as though her heart were being wrenched out of her body when her father reached for Morag’s hand and held it tightly, giving her the most tender and protective of looks.

‘I wanted to tell you,’ he continued, ‘but Morag wanted to wait until after Christmas. She thought it would be easier for you then.’

‘Easier for me to be told that my father and my supposed best friend were betraying my mother’s memory in the most grotesque and horrible way?’ Sally demanded on a choking breath of disbelief that was getting close to hysteria. ‘Dad, how can you think that? How can you do this, when Mum . . . She’s not even been dead two months yet. Two months and yet already Morag has somehow managed to worm her way into . . . into the place that should only ever belong to my mother.’

‘Sally, that’s enough!’ The stern note in her father’s voice shocked Sally into fresh despair. ‘I will not have you blaming Morag – for anything.’ The loving look her father gave Morag made Sally feel as though someone were squeezing her heart painfully hard. ‘If you must blame anyone, then blame me. I love Morag and I know that the love I have for her would have had your mother’s blessing.’

‘No!’

The denial was torn from Sally’s throat as she pulled open the back door and ran out of the house, ignoring her father’s plea for her to stop.

It was dark now and Sally didn’t know how long she’d been crouching here beside her mother’s grave, anger and grief spilling from her with the tears she had shed.

In two days it would be Christmas, but there was no place in Sally’s heart now to celebrate that special season.

‘Sally.’

The sound of a much-loved voice saying her name had her crying out in relief. She turned to him as he crouched down next to her, the scarf her mother had knitted for him last Christmas twisting in the ice-cold wind blowing across the bleak graveyard.

‘Oh, Callum . . .’

She was in his arms and he was holding her tight, the warmth of his embrace thawing her emotions, so that fresh tears fell.

‘I suppose you know what’s happened?’ she asked him when the tears had finally stopped and she was drying her face with the handkerchief he had offered her.

‘Yes. I’ve just come from the house.’

‘Callum, how could they betray my mother like that? My father and your sister my best friend – I still can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to see Morag ever again. I don’t want her coming to the house or having anything to do with my father. I blame her more than I do him. I—’

‘Sally, I know you’ve had a shock, and I can understand that right now you feel a certain amount of betrayal, but I promise you that the only reason they didn’t tell you about their feelings for one another was because they didn’t think you were ready. When they discussed it with me—’

Whilst he had been speaking to her Callum had stood up drawing Sally to her feet as he did so, and now he was holding her cold hands in the warmth of his, but for once she was barely aware of his touch.

‘You knew? You knew about this and you didn’t tell me?’ she demanded angrily.

‘They asked me not to, although . . . Sally, we all know how much you loved your mother, and how much her death has upset you, but you are an intelligent girl and, to be honest, I’m surprised that you didn’t see the love growing between them for yourself. I know that your mother did, and that she welcomed it, knowing that two people she loved so much would find happiness together.’