A VERY IRISH CHRISTMAS
CLAUDIA CARROLL
AVON
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Claudia Carroll 2017
Claudia Carroll asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © December 2017 ISBN: 9780008276416
Version: 2017-10-17
To Phoebe Morgan and all at Team Avon…with fondest love and deepest thanks, for everything.
Table of Contents
I once saw a quote that read, ‘Santa Claus has the right idea. Once a year is quite enough to visit anyone.’ It’s now the third week in December and I’m somewhat coming around to that viewpoint myself.
A Christmas party, for God’s sake. In a monumental waste of both time and their money, it transpires that my work colleagues have actually decided to organize a staff Christmas party with all the trimmings: ridiculous-looking paper hats, mince pies, the whole works.
‘I know it’s going to be the most pathetic Christmas drinks do in history,’ says Greta, my studio floor manager, laying rubbery-looking mince pies onto a few paper plates, patently unaware that the TV studio microphones are picking up on her inane chatter so I can hear loud and clear from where I’m sitting up in the production booth. ‘But we have to do this for Carole, don’t we? She’s all on her own for Christmas, same as every other year, and it’s the least we can do.’
‘Don’t tell me we all have to hang around for it?’ groans Tom, our lead cameraman.
‘Well what do you think? Course we do.’
‘Do I really have to?’
‘You’ve no choice,’ says Greta, ‘none of us do. Because if the crew don’t turn up for this, then no one else will.’
‘Oh for feck’s sake.’
‘None of us want to be there, Tom,’ Greta insists. ‘But like it or not, Carole is the boss, so we’ve no choice.’
‘And she’s really going to be on her own for the holidays? I think I’d rather be home opening a vein with a bottle of gin to hand than going to this party. It’s only lunchtime. Whoever has a Christmas party at lunchtime? This is Dublin, for God’s sake, the party capital of Europe! Christmas parties here generally start after work and can go on for days at a time. But a Christmas party for one hour in the middle of the day? It’s pitiful, that’s what it is.’
‘I know, but it was the only time I could get Carole to commit to. And even at that, she says we all have to be back at our desks by two p.m. sharp.’
‘Jeez, what is she like? Is the woman even human?’
‘Look, you have to be there and that’s final,’ Greta insists. ‘I even had to raid petty cash and throw in a couple of bottles of Prosecco just to sweeten the deal for everyone. I’d enough trouble trying to get people to chip in a few quid for a Christmas present for her as it is.’
‘Cringe-worthy, that’s what it is,’ sighs Tom. ‘The rest of us all have normal family Christmases planned, like you do. And look at the Rottweiler, would you? Up in the production box snapping at us like she does every other day of the year.’
‘She’ll probably start giving out yards to us for chatting on the studio floor in a minute,’ says Greta, ‘and how it’s against regulation thirty-five, subsection B or some shite like that. Wait till you see.’
You’re absolutely correct there, Greta, I think. I could do exactly that. I could speak to you all on your earpieces at any point so you’d know I can hear you perfectly well. But then, of course, you’d know I’d already heard this much and it would be mortifying.