Saving Christmas in the Little Irish Village (The Little Irish Village #5)

Chapter 24

24

Fed and watered, Hannah was propped up by pillows on her bed with the laptop open. She’d messaged the twins to tell them she’d FaceTime them when Imogen and Shannon showed their faces but they weren’t to worry in the interim. On the screen in front of her was an open Word document, but she’d got no further than heading the letter she planned to write to the Department of Agriculture and typing ‘To whom it may concern’. Aware Christmas was breathing down her neck, she would need to email the letter at the opening of business in the morning. There was more chance of it being opened and read if whoever was in charge was at their desk when it pinged in.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, but she heard footfall racing up the stairs before she could begin her impassioned plea to accompany the petition. She snapped the laptop shut as a breathless Imogen, followed by Shannon, burst into the bedroom.

‘You got my message then?’

‘We were hotfooting it round anyway,’ Imogen informed her, flopping down at the end of the bed and kicking her shoes off so she could pull her legs up to her chin.

Shannon ordered her to squish up, and Hannah listened as she waffled about having been Christmas shopping. ‘We were making up a foursome, and the lads were fed up with the shops, so we headed over to the Galway Market at St Nicholas Church for a wander and a spot of lunch. That’s when the call came through from Mam about Nan’s protest at the abandoned farm.’

For a moment, Hannah was lost as Shannon lamented, ‘It was a terrible waste.’

‘What was?’

‘The paper plates of food we binned in favour of heading back to Emerald Bay. I was enjoying a lovely curry, so I was, but by the time we reached the farm, the show was well over. The lads are in the pub now, getting the low-down on what happened. Nan’s the hero of the hour from what we saw.’ She unwrapped her stripy scarf – which put Hannah in mind of Christmas candy canes – and sighed. ‘I can’t believe we missed it all.’

‘Yeah. Me too,’ Imogen agreed. Her chin was resting on her knees as she added, ‘She’s our very own Gloria Steinem – who’d have thought it?’

‘I don’t know why you’re so surprised. Nan’s always been strong,’ Hannah said.

‘That’s true enough. I suppose now we know where you get it from.’ Imogen grinned.

Hannah was quietly pleased instead of the usual irritation she’d feel when her stubbornness regarding her convictions was mentioned, because to hold firm on what you believed, you had to be stubborn. It was pointing out the obvious.

Picking up her phone, she said, ‘Nan was really something. You’d have been proud of her if you’d seen her in action.’ Then, swiping the screen of her phone, she added, ‘I said I’d FaceTime the twins as soon as you two arrived.’

‘Why is your voice all raspy? You sound like you could be doing a sexy voiceover for a chocolate advert.’ Imogen cocked a brow.

Hannah thought of her chat with Freya and her confiding Oisin had a melting-chocolate bedroom voice and inwardly grimaced. ‘It’s down to the hundred repetitions of Nan’s protest song in the freezing cold.’

Both sisters’ eyebrows shot up this time as Hannah gave them a throaty abbreviated version of ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’. The twins popped onto her phone screen as she finished her verse, and they looked back at her equally incredulous.

‘Are you both good to talk?’ Hannah got in first.

Ava, a pen tucked behind her ear, informed them she was due a break from the copy-editing work that kept her afloat while she wrote her novel in the city that never slept. Grace, however, was curled up under a rug on the canal boat she shared with Chris, who she informed them was at band practice.

‘I was only flicking through a mag, so now,’ she told her sisters, ‘is a great time to talk. So come on, Hannah – what’s with that song and the urgent message?’

If it weren’t for their differing backgrounds – i.e., Ava’s minuscule New York apartment and Grace’s mellow timber-panelled floating home – hairstyles and the tiny birthmark Ava had on her jaw, Hannah wouldn’t be able to tell them apart, and that was after sharing a room with them for most of their lives! She rearranged herself so Shannon and Imogen could see the phone she held in front of her. They waved at the twins.

Ava waved back and then frowned. ‘I’m with Grace. What’s up?’

Hannah thought she detected a slight New York twang in Ava’s voice. ‘Have you two heard about Nan’s protest today?’ she asked them.

Their bug-like eyes told her the news had yet to reach the twins, so she updated them on the day’s events, starting with her petition, Nan’s protest, her tumble and herself and Freya taking over the sit-in outside the cottage.

‘But Nan’s OK?’ Both sisters sought confirmation.

Imogen peered over Hannah’s shoulder. ‘Nan is lording it over the locals in the pub as we speak.’

Grace looked momentarily relieved, but an expression of annoyance swiftly replaced this. ‘I’ll be having words with Mam. It’s a case of out of sight, out of mind. Why didn’t she ring me or Ava and tell us when this was all unfolding?’

‘I think it’s more a case of her getting sidetracked by everything that was going on, and sure, you know yourself, she can never work out the time difference between Ireland and New York. She wouldn’t have wanted to panic Ava if it was the middle of the night or for her to feel left out if she rang you and not her,’ Hannah appeased.

Ava, leaning into the screen, had other things on her mind than why Mam hadn’t been straight on the phone with her. ‘So the protest, with the song and everything, was Nan’s idea?’

‘Yeah. It was, although I don’t know how she came up with it.’

‘There’s Google, Hannah. She could have looked it up, but I don’t understand why Nan feels so strongly about the cottage and the land?’ Grace queried, still looking sulky.

‘Well, listen to this.’ Hannah launched into the story Nan had told her.

All four of her sisters were sniffing when she’d finished relaying it. ‘So now you can understand why the cottage and the land around it is special to her. It’s her and Granddad’s place.’

‘I’d no clue,’ Shannon said, patting her pockets for a packet of tissues.

‘Sign your petition on my behalf,’ Ava instructed.

‘And mine,’ Grace piped up, tears having replaced her earlier churlishness.

Imogen, who’d been on the fence regarding the Greenhouse, blew her nose. ‘Shannon and I saw it on the kitchen table. We already signed. The lads will, too.’

Shannon dipped her head in agreement.

‘Ryan will always find work, and I figured if it meant that much to you and Nan, then I would have to sign it. Who’d have thought the cottage where we all argued about who got to be Sigourney Weaver wanting the Ghostbusters to come and clear it would mean so much to Nan?’

‘From memory, you always got to be Sigourney, or you’d get all mardy and stomp home, threatening to tell Mam where we were after playing. And that cottage’s history goes way back, remember? It might have been the setting for our grandparents falling in love, but there’s been terrible heartbreak there, too. Don’t forget that.’

Hannah softened Shannon’s harsh reminder about those who’d suffered during the Great Hunger by swivelling round so she could squeeze Imogen’s arm. ‘Thanks for signing it, Imo, and you too, Shan.’ She paused. ‘There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. Which is where the urgent part comes into things.’

Her sisters gave her their full attention as she brought up how she’d seen the mystery American woman watching herself and Freya that afternoon.

‘When I called out to her, she couldn’t get in her car and drive away fast enough.’

Ava’s blue eyes rounded. ‘What does she want?’

Hannah suspected her youngest sister’s writer’s imagination was going wild with possibilities. ‘That’s the thing, Ava, we don’t know. And it’s no good guessing. Shannon and Imogen, we need to be vigilant. If we see her about the place, collar her and ask her outright why she’s so interested in our mam and what she’s doing in Emerald Bay.’

‘We’ll be home for Christmas soon, too, don’t forget. We’ll keep an eye out, won’t we, Grace?’

Grace had disappeared from the screen, and when she popped back on, her blue eyes were enormous.

‘Janey Mack! You won’t believe this! My friend Soph just messaged me. She lives on TikTok, and someone using the handle irishisla posted a video of Nan doing her thing today, and it’s only after going viral. It’s trending under the hashtags protest, Christmas hats, nanas, Ireland and – that’s weird– Irish souvenir.’

‘What?’ Disbelief echoed around the bedroom and from over in New York.

‘Check it out for yourselves,’ Grace said before disappearing, presumably to find the video. Ava vanished, too.

‘Irish Isla?’ Hannah questioned while Imogen was searching for the video.

‘“Irish souvenir”? It couldn’t be anyone else, could it?’ Shannon replied.

‘Here we go, and yep, it’s Emerald Bay’s one and only Irish shop owner, Isla Mullins,’ Imogen said.

They peered at the screen to see Isla in selfie mode, making sure there was a clear shot of her sweatshirt, which screamed, ‘I’m not short, I’m leprechaun size.’ A sticker arrow pointed to her top with a text box giving her shop a plug. She was trudging over a field, people milling in the background, talking gravely into the screen about why she was at Emerald Bay’s abandoned farm, heading toward the famine cottage.

Hannah wanted to cheer after hearing her say that Kitty Kelly was taking a stand against commercialism and should be applauded. She instantly forgave Isla for her sweatshirt commercialism, saying softly, ‘I never saw her there; she must have left by the time Freya and I arrived.’

Her sisters were still engrossed with what was on the screen.

‘Look, there’s Dad, what an eejit!’ Imogen pointed out a conspicuous Father Christmas in the background.

Finally, Isla swung the smartphone toward the cottage, and the screen filled with Nan, her reindeer hat slipping down over one eye, singing her heart out in the doorway of the tumbledown cottage. The video finished with Isla asking for a show of support against bulldozing the ruins and building on a historic site.

Hannah gave a low whistle seeing that the TikTokers had come out in droves as Imogen scrolled through the endless likes and comments from around the world, standing by the Irish nan in her adorable Christmas hat. She also suspected Isla would sell out of sweatshirts.

Hannah rolled off the bed and headed out the door, buoyed by this unexpected boost to the cause. In her letter, she’d reference the viral post and the thousands of comments voicing solidarity that the cottage and farm should be left as they were.

‘Where are you going?’ Shannon threw after her.

‘To kiss Isla Mullins!’