Christmas Magic. Cathy Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ up the files on the hard drive, we needn’t keep any paper copies,’ Selena announced.

      ‘I’m going out for some fresh air,’ Carmel said.

      Outside, she looked at the door that led to the upstairs office. Why not? she decided. She had a few minutes to spare.

      She didn’t waste time staring at the crystal ball. She eyeballed Madame Lucia, who gazed back with a quiet intensity. Then, Madame Lucia took Carmel’s hand and gently turned it palm up.

      Her unmanicured hand was cool and firm and Carmel felt some of the tension leave her.

      ‘The ball tells the future, the palm tells the past,’ the fortune teller said.

      Carmel waited, not believing.

      ‘You’re carrying someone else’s pain,’ Madame Lucia said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s not your burden. You have to let it go before you can live your own life.’

      Carmel held her breath. This was unexpected.

      ‘There are two good men in your life. One is far away but he’s never forgotten you. He prays for you.’

      ‘He can’t,’ said Carmel, shocked, but knowing exactly who Madame Lucia was talking about. ‘My father’s gone, he left years ago. He’s never written; he doesn’t care.’

      ‘He does and he has,’ insisted Madame Lucia calmly. ‘The other man cares deeply for you too, but there is this –’ she paused, considering, ‘this guard around your heart that keeps him away. It’s the pain you’re carrying, the other person’s burden. You have to let it go.’

      Carmel was still trying to take in the first bit of information. ‘What do you mean, “he has”?’ she asked slowly.

      ‘He has written to you,’ Madame Lucia replied.

      She squeezed Carmel’s hand, this time in comfort.

      ‘This is good news for you,’ she said. ‘This is a new beginning and you are in charge of it. You, not anybody else – not someone who is angry with the whole world.’

      It was such a good description of her mother that Carmel smiled wryly.

      ‘What should I do?’

      Madame Lucia’s mouth relaxed into a smile. ‘That’s up to you. The future is always up to you.’

      Carmel’s mother was polishing the brass on the door when Carmel walked up the path. Everything in No. 9 The Crescent was polished to within an inch of its life. Phil used to say it was because that waster hadn’t left her much and she had to look after it. Carmel tried to imagine what it must have been like for her mother all those years ago. Alone with a small child and little money. Had that hard shell been her only defence?

      ‘What brings you here?’ demanded Phil, as if Carmel never visited rather than coming home at least twice a week.

      ‘I wanted to talk about my father,’ Carmel said evenly. She never called him Dad. Dad was for a person who had been there.

      ‘What about him?’ Her mother kept grimly polishing.

      ‘About the letters.’

      The old yellow duster stopped moving.

      ‘How did you know?’

      ‘That doesn’t matter. I want to see them.’

      Carmel waited outside until her mother emerged with a large manila folder crammed full of envelopes, some open, most untouched.

      ‘I didn’t want him in our lives any more,’ her mother said in a small voice, handing the folder over.

      Carmel said nothing: she’d become good at that over the years. When Phil raged against Carmel’s father, Carmel had learned to hold her tongue until the anger had burned out.

      ‘Where are you going?’ asked Phil anxiously as Carmel walked down the path, holding her precious cargo of letters.

      ‘Home,’ said Carmel pleasantly. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’ There was no point in recriminations or bitter words. As she knew, that type of thing got you nowhere in life.

      The most recent letter was dated the previous Christmas. Her father wrote every Christmas, despite never having had a reply in thirty-two years of writing. He’d worked it out, though. He knew his wife would never forgive him for walking out.

      I hope that one day she’ll give you these letters so that you’ll know I’ve never forgotten you, he wrote. I would love to see you but you would have to want to see me and you might not, because I left. Your mother was a hard woman to live with but I should not have left you. I was young and stupid, and I regret that every day of my life. She didn’t want my money, didn’t want anything of me.

      He lived in London, a city Carmel had visited many times, never knowing that her father lived just off the Hammersmith flyover and kept a picture of her as a baby in a frame by his bed. When she’d read the last letter, she’d phoned Michael, who’d come over immediately and hugged her tightly as she sobbed for all those lost years. Michael said she should write to her father. But Carmel wanted to visit him. Now, immediately.

      ‘I’d love you to come with me,’ she said hesitantly, not knowing if Michael would want to be involved any further because, after all, she’d pushed him away and they’d split up.

      ‘Why don’t we go tomorrow?’ said Michael, holding her tightly.

      Stanley’s holiday in Florida had been fantastic.

      ‘The holiday of a lifetime,’ he said ruefully, patting his belly and remembering the pancake breakfasts he’d grown to love. ‘Two weeks isn’t enough, though. Two months would be better.’

      He was delighted with the cleaned-up office, and even more delighted with the recovery of the missing two thousand euros.

      ‘Fair play to you, Selena,’ he said. ‘You’ve worked hard on the place and I like the new hard-drive filing system. I suppose you’ll be looking for some of that two grand as a raise?’

      ‘No,’ said Selena quickly.

      He was less pleased to hear that Gwen wanted three months sabbatical to go to America.

      ‘Ah, Gwen, what’ll we do without you?’ he complained. ‘Anyhow, I thought you’d booked the Central Hotel for a big wedding?’

      Gwen grinned. ‘We’ve got it all worked out. Carmel has had five applications from people looking for holiday work now that the college term is over, and she and Selena say they can cope if we take one person on.’

      ‘Where is Carmel?’ Stanley suddenly realised that his office manager was missing.

      ‘She had to go to London with Michael,’ said Gwen. ‘Something came up.’

      ‘I thought she’d split up with Michael?’ Stanley was getting very confused.

      ‘It’s all back on,’ said Selena.

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