Читать книгу: «A Very Irish Christmas: A festive short story to curl up with this Christmas!»

CHAPTER ONE

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. Plus there’s something morbidly entertaining about hearing yourself discussed when you’re not around and the gloves are off.

‘Is the Rottweiler really all on her lonesome for the holidays?’ asks a frankly terrifying make-up artist who looks about twelve, with tattooed-on eyebrows and nose piercings, muscling her way in on the conversation.

‘Same as every other year, yeah,’ says Greta sadly, shaking her head and draping the walls with dismal-looking bits of tinsel. ‘She sometimes talks about a mother and sister, but apart from them, she doesn’t seem to have anyone to spend Christmas with. It’s heartbreaking really. All she has is her career and that’s it.’

‘And cats. I bet she has cats. That one definitely looks like the feline type,’ says Tom.

‘She’s going to be working on Christmas Day and New Year, you know.’

‘Only because she has no one else to spend the holidays with.’

‘Are you all talking about Carole?’ Maura, my PA interrupts, briskly barging onto the studio floor with a fresh running order before the lunchtime broadcast.

‘Well, who do you think?’ says Scary Make-Up Artist. ‘I mean, don’t you think there’s a big bang of tragedy off this? Everyone else is going to a big Christmas piss-up tonight and she’s probably going home to a lonely old house that stinks of cat wee.’

‘Yeah … to make up a spreadsheet of tomorrow’s studio running order,’ says Greta. ‘Then she’ll probably email me at all hours tonight to remind me of some last-minute change to the schedule.’

‘Don’t talk to me – I’m so sick of her and her bloody midnight emails!’ grumbles Tom. ‘Just because the Rottweiler hasn’t got a life doesn’t mean the rest of us haven’t either.’