Christmas Magic. Cathy Kelly

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.

      Well, Stanley didn’t know what to make of it all, but if the women were happy, he supposed he was happy too. He looked at his watch. Half past nine. He had a meeting later with the architect about the office upstairs. It was time to get the Stanley Maguire – The Empire plans back on track. Then, he remembered that kindly woman who’d wanted the office for a couple of weeks.

      ‘Is the nun still upstairs?’

      All the phones went at once.

      ‘She’s not a nun,’ said Gwen, leaping to answer a phone.

      ‘She’s a fortune teller,’ Selena added, before saying, ‘Hello, Maguire’s Travel, how can I help you?’ in her professional voice.

      Stanley went out on to the street, then in at the door of the upstairs office. He marched up the stairs, feeling the weight of those extra pounds. There was nobody there, just a table in the centre of the floor with a chair on either side of it. A small card on the table caught Stanley’s eye and he picked it up.

      On one side was inscribed a child’s prayer to a guardian angel and on the other was a picture of an angel, all flowing robes and wings, hovering on a cloud. Stanley smiled to himself and put the card in his pocket. Fortune teller, indeed. He knew she was a nun. Anyhow, she was gone, God love her, and it was back to work in the real world.

       Off Your Trolley

      Purple was not my colour. Not even a subtle, iris-hued gossamer cardigan that was supposed to drape delicately over the shoulders, revealing elegant collarbones before ending in fragile scallops around a Scarlett O’Hara-sized waist.

      That’s what it would have looked like on Chloë, my older sister: a girlie confection of silk that made the wearer look part water fairy/part supermodel.

      On me, it just looked like something I’d knit myself, without the pattern. The tiny, elbow-length sleeves made my own solid forearms look as if they belonged to a sheet-metal welder, while the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons were stretched in a too-small rictus with the buttonholes as they strained against extra-enormous PMS-variety boobs.

      In the cardigan and a slithery lilac skirt, I resembled nothing so much as a bruise in full colour. A big bruise.

      Not the elegant, lissom girl I wanted to transform myself into before the ten-year school reunion. Which was only six days away!

      ‘Come out of the cubicle, Sarah,’ ordered Chloë. ‘We want to see you.’

      I came out gloomily.

      Chloë and the assistant looked at me for a moment, matching bird-like blonde heads at an angle, mascaraed eyes narrowed as they took in the purple ensemble.

      They looked more like sisters than Chloë and I did: both petite, fine-boned and capable of giving admiring men in passing cars whiplash.

      Being six foot tall with an athletic build, the only way I’d ever give a man whiplash was if I banged into him at full tilt.

      With my height, men just weren’t interested in me. I mean, I was the only female researcher in Reel People TV who’d never been chatted up by the Head of Marketing, although my colleague Lottie reckoned this was because even Slimy Eric didn’t have the nerve to flirt with a woman who could look down on his bald patch. It wasn’t that I secretly longed to feel his sweaty paw on my backside in the secrecy of the executive lift. I just wanted to be one of the girls for a change, instead of Amazon Woman.

      ‘Perhaps the green one?’ suggested the sales assistant.

      Green! If purple made me look like a female boxer after a title match, green was even worse. Green made me look seasick, bilious, like second-stage bruising.

      ‘I mean,’ the assistant continued helpfully, seeing as I wasn’t saying anything to the contrary, ‘with your auburn hair, green would be lovely.’

      ‘Green doesn’t suit her,’ Chloë announced in a bored voice, studying perfect gel nails for flaws.

      Sometimes I hate Chloë.

      ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll have a wander around the shop and see if there’s something else I’d like,’ I lied, obviously convincingly enough, as the assistant drifted off to flog more Tiny Tears-sized clothes.

      ‘I don’t think there’s anything else here that would suit you, and we don’t have much time,’ Chloë said crushingly. ‘I have to be back in the office in half an hour.’

      God forbid that she didn’t get back to PR Solutions in time, I thought crossly, wrenching the curtain across the cubicle.

      I mean, who else would be able to organise all those crucial details for the latest society launch she was involved in – like making sure the Page Three stunna who