Cecelia Ahern - Short Stories - The Every Year Collection

‘I seem to recall not being alone on that dance floor, thank you very much,’ Greg defended himself. ‘Mum joined me for the moonwalk and we have the video footage to prove it.’

Ah, yes, we did. We’d had fun watching that at Christmas and every single Christmas since. They don’t drop a joke, my boys. Fred looks at me and smiles, remembering it all.

‘Hear what they’re saying about you, Mum?’ my daughter Louise calls out, and there are laughs all around.

I hear you, I hear you, I chuckle. Fred looks at me adoringly. Never stopped loving me for a moment. A second or two maybe, but never more than that.

‘Well you didn’t acquire your dance skills from Mum,’ Brendan shouts. Ah, Brendan. Always defending me. Even when I know I’m wrong.

‘A wonder on the dance floor,’ Fred says softly and takes my hand in his.

Oh, a wonder we were, from the bunny-hop to ballroom, the chicken dance to the cha-cha, the jig to the jive, we did them all. I dragged him to a dance class in the local community school one night forty years ago and since then he’d been dragging me around the dance floor every chance he got.

‘Never did get the handle on the tango,’ Fred says. No, we never did. Though we tried, and that’s what counts. Failed at a few things, me and him, but got through it all together, stronger at the end of it all.

‘They really were Fred and Ginger,’ George adds, and there are murmurs of agreement.

‘Why ginger?’ Sarah, my seven-year-old granddaughter, asks.

I laugh. All I am to her now is her grey-haired granny but to everyone else … I look around for someone else to answer the question for me.

‘Oh, your grandmother had bright-red fire-engine hair.’ Brendan speaks up on my behalf and I’m not surprised it’s him. ‘And when all the others on the dance floor saw her spinning their way they scattered right out of her way.’

Edward makes the sound of an ambulance and we all laugh. And then off they go discussing me again as though I’m not in the room. I’m sure I blush; I always have done. George may have got my red hair but Greg was cursed with my red cheeks. Louise? My only girl. I look to her and find she’s watching me, sadness in her eyes. I see the child in her again.

‘Well the things that stand out in my mind about you, Mum,’ George continues, ‘are your dancing, your graceful waltzes across the floor. You and Dad moving so fast no one could tell whose feet were whose.’

Murmurs of agreement.

‘And all those beautiful dresses you wore, too, and you’re wearing one of my favourites tonight.’

Oh, it’s my favourite, too, and Fred’s. He’s looking me up and down, still approvingly after fifty years. I swallow hard. There is plenty of discussion all around me now about which dress is whose favourite. An entire wardrobe of ball gowns, I made many of them myself but not the one I wear now. It’s gold-sequined and floor-length; worn the first time Fred and I got first place in the dance competition. I wear a pair of shoes to match. I can’t walk in them, not to mention dance in them, but I wear them all the same. I wear a gold slide in my silver hair with an emerald stone. Brings my eyes out, makes them sparkle, people always complimented. It’s not the slide that does it, I’d always say, it’s the man that gave it to me. He liked that.

‘A fondness for blueberry muffins also features strongly when I think of you, Mum,’ Greg carries on.

I laugh, and so does everybody else.

‘It’s not so much the blueberry muffins that stand out in my mind, it’s the twenty minutes spent taking the blueberries out before eating them that’s particularly memorable.’

‘The same with scones,’ Louise pipes up.

‘Is that so? I didn’t know,’ George laughs.

Fred looks at me and laughs. ‘Oh, you and your muffins and scones, love.’

‘What about her ironing Dad’s handkerchiefs?’ Edward calls out, and I have to chuckle again.

‘Every time I walk into that bloody house, she’s ironing Dad’s dirty handkerchiefs. For what? To end up scrunched in a ball in his pockets anyway!’

Fred takes a white crumpled handkerchief out of his pocket and waves it around the room.

‘He surrenders!’ Brendan shouts, and they all laugh again.

‘Her knock-knock jokes!’ Louise shouts out.

‘Awful!’ Edward calls.

‘Oh, they’re not so bad.’ Brendan brings it back down again. Typical Brendan.

‘Your homemade brown bread,’ Louise says softly, and I hear mmmmm’s of delight.

‘Your driving,’ Edward says, and there’s laughter. ‘Every day a new bump or scratch on that car.’

Fred and I laugh, knowing that a good driver I am not.

‘Always blaming somebody else,’ Louise laughs.

The room erupts, and I cringe. A good liar I am not.

Fred finishes his whiskey, Edward tops him with more. Louise eyes Edward angrily. I smile in the quiet that follows. Bubbles of tension simmer, then calm.

‘There is so much for us to celebrate you for, Mum. We each have our individual stories, personal ones that we’ll never forget, but collectively we thank you and celebrate you for the love and care you’ve given us all throughout our lives. During all our ups and downs and in-between moments, your love for us has never wavered, has never lessened. We have always felt you’ve given us your all, dedicated yourself completely and utterly to this family, and we have selfishly but gladly taken it all from you. Thank you.’

There are murmurs and nods of heads in agreement. My eyes fill.

‘We all love you very, very much, Mum.’ George’s voice cracks, and his wife Judith reaches out to hold his hand. He composes himself, my eldest boy who never cried in front of anybody, not even when he fell and hurt himself, wasn’t picked for the football team or fell in and out of love in the past. Only with me he’d shed those tears. He cried with me last week, let all those tears fall down those once-again pudgy cheeks, and I, with older hands, wiped them away for him again.

‘So let us all raise our glasses in a toast. To Mum, we all love you and … we will miss you beyond words.’

‘To Mum,’ voices repeat and eyes moisten.

There is a silence now. A sad one. They will be fine, they will all, always be fine.

I am beside Fred, but he looks before him to where I lie. He squeezes my hand, kisses me gently on the forehead and finally, slowly, lets go.

I drift away but don’t go far. Will never, ever be far.

‘Ah, this is the life, isn’t it, May?’ Mallard sighs with satisfaction as he makes himself comfortable along the lakeshore.

The crystal-blue water shimmers beneath the light of the sunrise, its ripples appearing like goose pimples as morning warmth touches cold. The water moves up and down as though, like Mallard, it takes a giant sigh of relaxation, breathing in and then releasing. The sun slowly rises, by far the largest buoy in the large lake. The more it peeps above the horizon, the further the orange glow seeps from the sun and spills its way, like ink, towards Mallard on the shore. His personal pathway to the sun. He knows things can’t possibly get any better than this. Him and May, back in Ireland at last, after a winter spent at their holiday home in South Africa.

‘It’s lovely, love.’ May fidgets beside him, restless as always as she picks at some bread.

‘You’re not too cold? We could go somewhere else if you’re cold?’

‘No I’m nice and warm, pet.’

‘Are you tired after the flight? You look a bit tired. Maybe we should have gone straight home instead of stopping off here.’

‘I am a bit tired, Mallard. It felt longer than usual. Or maybe I’m just getting old.’