Bronagh checked her watch. ‘Nina should be here any minute. I want to do a shop on the way home and if I time it right it shouldn’t be too busy.’
‘Is she going home to Spain for Christmas?’
‘No, I don’t think so. She said something a while back about the airfares being too expensive at this time of year. She’s a lovely girl but she doesn’t give much away.’
‘I’d hate to think of her on her own at Christmas.’ Roisin would ask Aisling if their Spanish night receptionist had been included on the Christmas invitation list and if not, she’d be sure to include her. It would be hard to be away from family at this time of year but airfares home would be at premium so she could understand why she was staying put.
Bronagh nodded her agreement sending the reindeer dancing once more and then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial level. Her tone implied they were all girls together as she asked, ‘Any word from your fella?’
Roisin knew exactly to whom she was referring but she decided to play innocent. ‘What fella, Bronagh? You’ve lost me.’
‘You know,’ her eyes glazed over, ‘the tall, fine looking musician whose grumpy old granddad stayed with us. The one you had,’ she made inverted finger signs, ‘coffee with.’
‘No, sorry, Bronagh, I’m not with you.’
Bronagh pressed her lips together; she didn’t believe a word of it but looking past Roisin she spied Noah turning one of the gold boxes under the tree over in his hands. ‘You’ll not find much in them, young man. Sure, they’re just there to look pretty. A bit like me, really.’ She patted her jet-black shoulder-length hair and as she chortled away, thoroughly pleased with her little joke, Roisin noticed the telltale zebra stripe down her parting was gone. She’d had her hair done in time for Christmas. It made her pat her own, and wonder whether she should try and book in for a bit of a shampoo and blow-dry. She could do with a good cut, too. Her hair and its upkeep had been at the bottom of her list this last while and she knew it could do with some TLC. Mind you, it would be murder trying to get in anywhere this time of year but you never knew, someone might make a last-minute cancellation. She could always ring Jenny, her old pal from her very short-lived hairdressing days—she hadn’t been a natural. Jenny owed her. It was her who’d offloaded Pooh on Mammy. Yes, she decided that’s what she’d do.
Noah put the box down and mooched over toward his mammy with a disappointed expression. What was the point in having a box all done up in bows and ribbons and gold paper with nothing inside it?
‘Ah now, no need for that face. You didn’t think I’d let you come all the way from London without having a little something tucked away for you, now did you?’
The gold box was forgotten as he trotted over to where Bronagh had moved behind her desk. He craned his neck trying to see what it was she was getting out of her drawer. She held whatever it was behind her back. ‘You know your old Aunty Bronagh expects a hug first so I do.’
Offer him a treat, and he was anybody’s, Roisin thought, looking on as Noah wrapped his padded arms around her generous middle.
He let her go and looked up at her eagerly.
‘Have you been a good boy for your mam?’
‘I have.’ Emphatic nodding followed.
‘That’s good to hear. Now then don’t make yourself sick on it or your mammy will have words with me.’
‘Thank you!’ Noah squealed taking the Terry’s Chocolate Orange. His favourite chocolate in the whole world.
‘And remember don’t tap it, whack it,’ Bronagh quoted the old advert and winked over at Roisin. ‘I should tell him not to give you so much as segment of it, keeping secrets from me.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Oh, I’ve been round the block a few times and I know that look you got on your face when I mentioned his name. It’s the same expression you had when you started seeing that fella with the motorbike your parents couldn’t stand and you’d sneak out to meet him. I’ll find out what the story is. I’ve got my sources you know. Your Moira’s very partial to a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, if my memory serves me rightly.’
‘Bribery, Bronagh, that’s terrible so it is!’
‘Needs must,’ she muttered as Noah began to tell her all about Mr Nibbles and his anxiety-driven bowel issues when it came to air travel.
‘Serves you right,’ Roisin whispered, leaving them to it and calling back over her shoulder, ‘Send him up when he’s finished, Bronagh!’ She took the stairs two at a time. It was quiet in the guesthouse at this time of the day with most of the guests still out and about exploring. The landings were deserted, and Ita, the young girl in charge of housekeeping—Idle Ita as Moira called her—would be long gone for the day. This in-between time of day had always been Roisin’s favourite when she was a child, she and her siblings had had the best games of
