“Happy New Year, Lilie” Lilie Morgan lived in a top floor flat near thePepper Canister Church in Mount Street.

She had had the same flat for almost thirty years, and because one had to climb six flights of stairs to get to her place, the rent remained very reasonable. Out of the window of the flat she could see the port of Dublin and the gantries and the ships, and at night when the harbour was lit up she felt she had the most wonderful view in all of Dublin.

Every evening she worked as a cleaner in the office of a University Professor. She thought to herself that he must be the dirtiest and most untidy person she had ever known, but she kept her ideas on the Professor to herself and she carried on evening after evening clearing the floor around his desk, wiping his coffee spills and emptying his numerous overflowing ashtrays.

She didn’t mind, but it slowed her down in relation to the work in the other offices in the same building.

Sometimes when she arrived in the evening the Professor was still in his chair, and she would wait patiently outside his door until he left. He never looked at her and he never spoke to her, she felt that as far as he was concerned she did not exist at all.

His nose was either in his work as an economist, or as she thought to herself, it was stuck up in the air. Not a “good evening” or a “goodbye” ever.

Outside the window of Lilie’s flat was the top of a tree, a holly tree, and it was covered in berries. The other window was the one that looked towards the port.

Now Lilie’s landlord was a man who was away a lot, he travelled in the wool business and he would say to Lilie: “no wonder all the berries are at the top, the bottom branches have been broken and stripped so often for Christmas. Keep an eye on the tree while I’m away”, and so Lilie kept an eye on the tree.

It was cold, the kind of dead cold that comes in late December. The streets were bleak as Lilie got back to her flat on Christmas Eve.

She changed her shoes and put the kettle on, and just as she started to pour a cup of tea for herself, she heard a rustle. She listened, there it was again, quite near and just outside.

Whatever could it be? She was three stories up from the street, and suddenly she felt angry and frightened at the same time.

The holly berries, that was it! Someone was climbing up outside and that could mean only one thing.

She looked around, all she had was her umbrella. It was a big, black, man’s umbrella that she had had for years.

Very gently, and almost noiselessly, she eased up the sash of her window alm. There he was, a man in a corduroy jacket and tweed fisherman’s hat.

Without waiting, she jabbed the man firmly in his left arm. He let go the branch he was holding on to and stayed swingng on another branch with his right arm.

“For God’s sake don’t!” he shouted.

“And why not, pray?” shouted Lilie, “your’e nothing but a common thief, after Mr. Wixted’s Holly! Why don’t you buy it same as anyone else?”

But, at the same time, it began to dawn on her that she knew the man in the tree. Yes, it was, it was the Professor!

“Dr. Mayes,” she said, and with such a voice of disapproval that he nearly fell out of it.
“Yes Lilie,” he said, “it’s me. I forgot to buy any Holly, though my wife asked me several times this week.”

She put down the umbrella.

“So, you know my name after all,” she said, “I’ve a good mind to let you leave the same way you got here.”

“Ah no, please Lilie don’t don’t, I’m sorry. I’ll never do anything like this again.”

“Indeed, you will not,” she said, and she pulled him inside her flat.

It was the New Year before Lilie saw the Professor again.

“Happy New Year,” he said to Lilie as she arrived at his office.

“Did you hear that!” said the other cleaning ladies, “the Professor spoke to Lilie. He must be sick or something”.

“Not at all,” said Lilie, “he’s just getting better, he’s experienced some of the real Christmas spirit.”