Page 5 of On The First Day Of Christmas

‘You would say that – you never see the bad in anyone.’ Pete laughed kindly. It had long been a running joke between them – Liv expected the best from everyone she met and mostly, she figured that was what she got.

‘No. Seriously, I know she can be a bit overbearing, but really, she hasn’t had an easy life and she might be my mother-in-law one of these days,’ Liv said the words quietly, but she could feel Pete’s eyes glide towards her. Eddie had never made a secret of the fact that he had no intention of getting married; it was one of those things that sat silently between the two friends, making Liv uncomfortable and Pete roll his eyes and silently seethe.He should be thanking his jammy stars; he’s bloody lucky to get you,he’d said more than once. Pete couldn’t care less if he never got married. What bothered him most was that he knew Liv wanted to settle down, have children and maybe, someday, lots of grandchildren too.He’s too flipping busy being a child himself. You spoil him, you really do.

‘She hasn’t exactly made life easy for herself either,’ Pete said under his breath.

‘Anyway, it’s just for a few hours and I’m determined to make it the best Christmas ever,’ Liv said and once again she was glad to be making it home – she had a feeling that it was going to be a holiday to remember. She glanced across at Pete. ‘Sure you’re going to be all right?’

‘I told you, I’m fine about me and Anya. I wouldn’t have ended things if I wasn’t.’

‘I know but…’ Liv knew no good could come of going over the same old ground. Anya had been fooling around behind Pete’s back. It was nothing serious, apparently – well according to Anya – but Pete had ended it on the spot. ‘I just thought, you were both, you know…’

‘Soul mates?’ Pete laughed and shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid not. It’ll be awkward for a while, disentangling everything.’ He had set Anya up in her own business and she was living in his apartment too. It had all moved very quickly between them, but then, Liv always had that niggling feeling that having a rich boyfriend was as important to Anya as actually being in love with Pete. Pity Liv hadn’t said that earlier to Pete, but then, how could she have? She’d been so thrilled to see him finally fall in love with someone. It had seemed no-one could take Rachel’s place before this.

‘As long as it’s just awkward. You’ll call me, if you need… anything?’

‘Of course.’ He glanced across at her now, his smile more of a reassurance than anything he said. Liv was relieved. ‘Now, it’s after one-thirty in the morning. Why don’t you close your eyes for a while and, hopefully, I’ll have us back in Ballycove before you know it.’

*

‘Oh, Pete, I’m so sorry. I can’t leave the hospital. I have to stay with him,’ Liv said because what else could she do? This guy had saved her life. If anything happened to him when she was stuffing herself with turkey and binge-watching Christmas specials, the guilt would surely kill her.

‘There’s nothing to feel sorry for. I get it; it’s typical of you,’ Pete said, ‘last woman standing. You’d never desert your post.’ Of course, it was what they all expected of her and she knew it wasn’t necessarily a good thing for her own happiness. Liv had always been the one to wait up until morning if a sheep had looked like it might be in for a difficult night in labour when she was still at school. And even, on their school trip, she’d been the one to stay behind and sit with the awkward girl who’d broken her leg, just getting into her skis.

‘Oh God, I feel awful now. You stayed on especially to give me a lift home.’

‘Honestly, Liv, it doesn’t matter. I’d prefer to drive on the quieter road anyway.’

‘At midnight on Christmas Eve?!’ She was laughing, in spite of the fact that her breathing was ragged with shock, and she might just as easily cry.

‘Do you want me to come over there? You sound as if… Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Ah come on, Pete, I’m in a hospital. I think someone will notice if I need to get looked at.’ They both laughed at this, but she had a feeling that she hadn’t really assuaged his worry.

‘I don’t mind staying in Dublin with you, if you feel a little… I mean, going home to an empty flat has to be a bit…’ That was typical Pete, only thinking of everyone else.

‘Don’t be daft, you have to go home and have a proper Christmas—’ She stopped, because she was still a little worried about him. It was crap breaking up with your girlfriend just before the holidays. No matter how much he told her not to worry, she couldn’t help it. He’d accused Liv of turning into an old mother hen a week ago, so she was reluctant to even mention Anya now. She promised herself she would send him lots of funny texts and memes over Christmas to keep his mind off things.

She’d have to cancel all the plans she’d so carefully made in the run-up to the Christmas holidays. It was unfortunate that her family would be stuck with Barbara, but the Latimers would muddle through – that was just the way they were. Her family would understand that she couldn’t just walk away when the guy could have a serious spinal or head injury – it so easily could have been her under the wheel of that motorbike. If she hadn’t known what a close shave she’d had at the time, the policeman had been quick to point out how lucky she’d been when he took down her statement. Her family wouldn’t want her to do anything less than what she believed was right.

For a moment, Liv thought about all she’d hoped this holiday would hold for her future, but deep down, she knew she’d made the right choice. The engagement ring would have to wait. God knows, she’d waited long enough to settle down already.

Eddie was the only man she’d really dated. He was her first grown-up relationship. Well, she hadn’t really dated him at all. Sometimes, she thought Rachel had sent Eddie to her so she hadn’t really had a choice. Eddie had just always been there; Eddie, with his slightly too long curly hair that he still tied into a ponytail, which she always thought made him rather arty-looking against his slightly crooked teeth and perfect nose.

If she was honest, she’d hardly noticed him before losing Rahcel and her life had been turned upside down. They’d been at school together and then, one day, walking through the coffee shop in the hospital when she was on a chocolate errand for one of her colleagues, she’d spotted him. He was sitting at a table and he looked as if the world was about to end. For sure, she thought he must be dying, so she went over to him, placed her hand over his and sat down next to him.

It turned out to be nothing more serious than a broken toe and he’d just been thrown out of his flat that afternoon. He hadn’t supplied a reason why, nor indeed had she thought to ask – well it seemed a bit obtuse to go opening a conversation around something so awkward. His impending homelessness was down to some disagreement he’d been vague about at the time, but later, she understood, he’d forgotten to pay the rent for a couple of months. That was just typical Eddie. When it came to mundane things like paying bills, he never got round to it. Liv put it down to his artistic temperament – the left side of his brain had never kicked in as much as the right – or was it the other way round? She was never quite sure. She felt it made them perfect for each other: Liv had an abundance of practical humdrum in her life at that point, and Eddie provided the breath of fresh air that she needed.

The day she met him again, he was more concerned that the broken toe meant the end of his five-a-sides. Later, she realised that his football arrangement had more to do with going to the pub afterwards than it did with any kind of sporting achievement. She offered him the spare room in her little flat to tide him over.

And that was it, really. He brought his stuff over to stay for a week or two and never left. One night, after a long shift, because she was too tired to cook, she picked up a Chinese takeaway for them. Eddie opened a bottle of Bacardi that she’d forgotten was in the cupboard and somehow, they ended up in bed together. Against all the odds, it seemed, here they were six years later – he’d never left. It had become comfortable between them, she supposed. They’d fallen into a routine and along the way, they became Liv and Eddie. They’d become a couple.

Eddie was the one she could rely on to take her to the pub if she was depressed. With his cynical take on everything, he could make her laugh by turning her worries inside out with just one mocking comment. He stopped her thinking about what might have been and that in itself was a tiny miracle. And wasn’t that enough? She loved Eddie. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She wanted to have a family. With him. Didn’t she?

It wasn’t a question. Liv was jolted back to the present and this tiny A&E cubicle. They were lucky – at least so far this evening, A&E was ticking over efficiently and when the curtain was pulled across, it felt as if the frenzy of the world beyond could be at least temporarily held at bay. God, he looked as if he had just closed his eyes to sleep, Liv thought; then, she remembered the gift bag that Finn had been carrying earlier. She’d tucked it into her own bag in the craziness and now she pulled it out. She would leave it here, next to him on the locker.

She held it for a moment, examining it. It wouldn’t do any harm to just look in the bag, would it? Of course not. She reached in and pulled out a small box. It was perfectly wrapped. A ring perhaps? There was no card. This was going to be hand-delivered, but a small ticket had been attached to the side, in the shape of a blue heart. He had written M. Just a simple M and one small kiss. Whoever Finn was going to see earlier must mean a lot to him. Liv turned the box over in her hand. Could it be an engagement ring? Maybe. She dropped it back into the bag again. No point in thinking about that now. Engagement rings needed to be put firmly to the back of her mind for the next few hours and maybe days.

The buzzing of the heart monitor startled her once more from her thoughts. The bag fell from her hands and she flew to Finn O’Connell’s chest, pulling back the covers, checking, though she didn’t need to, that the sticky monitors were in place. ‘He’s going into cardiac arrest. Help, help,’ Liv cried out, hoping that someone would hear in the nearby nurses’ station. And then, she hadn’t time to think, she was taking a deep breath, placing her hands over Finn O’Connell’s mouth and blowing in air for all she was worth. Again. Again. It didn’t take long before she was surrounded by the EMTs who’d brought him in the ambulance and from somewhere far beyond her panic, she heard a kind but sure voice telling her, ‘It’s okay, lassie, we have it from here.’

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