Chapter 26
The following day, the sisters entered the kitchen and found Madeleine hunched over one of Elizabeth’s old recipe books, her reading glasses on.
She was leafing through a well-thumbed copy of a Darina Allen cookery book that Elizabeth had used for some of her Christmas recipes.
Some of the pages were glued together from splashes of caramel; other pages had brown gravy stains.
It was a book they all associated with tantalising aromas and all the happy times they had spent in Elizabeth’s busy kitchen.
‘You look busy, Mum,’ Lucy remarked.
‘Well, I need to get a start on the preparations for Christmas. I’m trying to make a list of what I need to get organised.
I was wondering what you girls would like for dinner this year.
Should I cook the usual turkey and ham, or would you prefer something non-traditional?
We could do beef Wellington or even steak.
Whatever we decide on, we’ll need to get the meat ordered from O’Herlihy’s. ’
Faith blinked. ‘Y-you’re going to cook Christmas dinner?’
‘Of course! Who else will do it?’
‘Well, we hadn’t given it much thought, with everything going on, but I’m sure between the three of us we’ll manage.’
‘Both of you can give me a hand, but I’m enjoying looking through these recipe books. It’s something I’ve never had time to do before.’
‘Well, I’d like to stay traditional,’ Faith said. ‘Turkey, ham, goose-fat roasted potatoes and all the trimmings. What about you, Lucy?’
Lucy nodded. ‘Me too.’ She was almost salivating at the thought.
‘Great, well maybe we can take a trip into the village later and get the meat ordered. That’ll be one thing off our list.’
‘I can do the sides and the potatoes,’ Lucy said.
Faith jumped in. ‘And I’ll do the trifle if I can find Nanna’s recipe.’
‘It wouldn’t be Christmas without Nanna’s sherry trifle,’ Lucy agreed.
‘Great!’ Madeleine said, clapping her hands. ‘I also want to have a look at some table linen and perhaps get some new crockery but I’ll probably need to go to Ballymcconnell for that.’
‘I’m sure we can find Nanna’s tableware in one of the cupboards somewhere,’ Lucy said. Elizabeth had kept a set of good table linen and crockery decorated with a holly pattern especially for Christmas.
‘Well, I have a colour scheme in mind…’ Madeleine admitted. ‘I want everything to be perfect.’
Lucy raised her brow in Faith’s direction. ‘Wow, Mum, you’re really going all out.’ Once again, her mother’s change of character was making her wary.
‘Please don’t go to any trouble; it’s enough just to have the three of us together,’ Faith said.
‘Well, as I always say, if you’re going to do a job, you may as well do it properly.’
They all knew that Madeleine was a perfectionist and whenever she focused on something she gave it one hundred per cent – and it seemed her family was now the sole benefactor of that attention.
‘I haven’t cooked a Christmas dinner in so long, I’m actually looking forward to the challenge.
I’ve been getting so much inspiration online.
Who knew tablescaping was a thing?’ she said giddily.
Faith smiled. ‘It’ll be lovely, Mum. Although we’ll desperately miss Nanna, it will be lovely spending it together with the three of us.’
Lucy’s heart filled with heaviness and she blinked back tears.
‘Are you okay, Lucy?’ Faith asked, full of concern.
She nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m just thinking about Kyle.’
‘Have you heard anything from him?’ Madeleine enquired.
Lucy shook her head. ‘Not since he went back to Dublin.’
‘Why don’t you give him a call?’ Madeleine suggested. ‘He’s probably at home, just as miserable as you are. Tell him how you’re feeling. I’m sure he’s feeling the same way. You’ve both had some space and time to think, and maybe you’ll be able to compromise.’
Lucy shook her head stubbornly. ‘I can’t compromise on something as major as having a baby, and Kyle was pretty adamant that he was finished trying, so I can’t see us ever finding any common ground to sort this out without one of us making some pretty big sacrifices.
’ Emotion overtook her and suddenly she was sobbing.
‘And soon it’ll be Christmas and it just makes everything feel worse… ’
‘Oh, darling.’ Madeleine pulled her in tightly.
‘Christmas can be a tough time if you’re going through anything difficult.
It heightens everything. I remember the first Christmas after your dad died – I just couldn’t see how I was supposed to go on.
The ads on TV and in magazines were full of happy families and it used to make me so angry.
I couldn’t understand how life was still carrying on and how people could actually be celebrating.
Everybody seemed to be full of cheer and looking forward to their lovely family-filled Christmases whereas my family had just been ripped apart.
It made me furious. Every morning when I woke up, I didn’t know how I was going to get through the day.
That’s the honest truth. You were too young to understand what had happened, and all you wanted to talk about was what Santa Claus might bring. ’
‘That must have been so tough, Mum,’ Faith said, full of sympathy.
She put her arm around her mother’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
Their mother had never opened up to them before about the grief she had felt when their father had died.
She tended to put a brave face on things, and they weren’t used to seeing this more vulnerable side of her.
‘It was an awful time. When I look back on it, it’s a blur, but I got through each day and eventually the sadness lifted a little and life didn’t seem so bleak. You girls kept me going. I had to stay strong for you two.’ She smiled lovingly at her daughters.
‘I don’t know if we’ve ever really appreciated how difficult it must have been for you back then – struggling with grief, raising two little girls while keeping a roof over all our heads,’ Lucy said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
‘Well, you do what you have to do, I definitely wasn’t a perfect mother and I made mistakes but when I see how well both of you turned out, I think it all worked out okay in the end, didn’t it?’
They smiled at her. ‘It did, thank you, Mum,’ Faith said.
Madeleine lumbered over and, balancing on her crutches, put an arm around her daughter. ‘No matter what happens, you’ll get through this, love, and Faith and I will help you.’
Faith joined them and the three of them embraced. ‘Us Brennan ladies are strong; I promise that everything is going to be okay.’
Lucy knew that life came with no guarantees, but she was so fragile right now, they were the soothing words that she needed to hear.