Christmas at Frozen Falls

  Christmas at Frozen Falls

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  A Letter From Kiley

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Christmas at Frozen Falls

  Kiley Dunbar

  For Mouse, with big wiggly hugs and love.

  Chapter One

  It’s December the sixteenth and all over the little market town of Castlewych (that’s where I live, in one of the posher bits of Cheshire, where I am incongruously ‘not posh’) all the gift shops and tearooms are packed with Christmas shoppers and the streets are bejewelled with bright twinkling lights of every colour.

  I am definitely the least colourful thing about this scene. I know my face is pale and washed-out without even having to look at my reflection in the shop windows. Even with my getting-revenge-on-my-ex-fiancé bright red dyed hair (which is supposed to be a symbol of how completely fine I am and how well I have already moved on), it’s obvious that I’m fooling precisely no one and I am abso-bloody-lutely knackered and still, frankly, heartbroken. But, it’s the last day of term and I’m off work for three whole weeks and I am ready to tackle Christmas head on.

  Mum and Dad are away, of course. They organised their once in a lifetime New York break to coincide with my honeymoon, never imagining that their little girl would be embracing solitary spinsterhood this holiday, but that’s OK because I’ve got it all planned – and it isn’t at all tragic. No, it isn’t.

  There’s still umpteen bottles of the bubbly that Dad bought in bulk for the wedding that never was, and I’ve mail-ordered one of those woolly blankets shaped like a mermaid’s tail (hey, don’t judge me; the home shopping channels have been an enormous comfort, and I’m now the satisfied owner of an array of vegetable peeling and vacuum storage devices), and then there’s all the end of term seashell truffles and chocolate oranges from the kids and their parents (a really decent haul this year; I can’t help wondering if it’s because they feel sorry for poor jilted Ms. Magnusson). Come Christmas day I’ll be happily ensconced in my flat with the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special on repeat; a drunken, woolly mermaid with record-breaking blood sugar levels. What? I’m not crying, you’re crying.

  In another life – in the parallel universe where Cole didn’t ditch me one week before our gorgeous, romantic summer wedding – my passport reads ‘Mrs Sylvie Magnusson-Jordan’ and we’ve spent the past six months engaging in bouts of blissful newlywed Olympic-gold-medal-winning sex, and now Cole’s got Christmas off work and me and him are busy packing our matching His and Hers suitcases with my tiny thong bikinis, his tighty-whitey speedos, and a mega sized box of condoms, getting ready to fly off on our honeymoon to Mauritius. Round about now I’d be having a spray tan and getting my eyelashes tinted and Cole would be engaging in some serious manscaping on that hairy chest of his.

  Come on, Sylve! Get it together. What did you say at the school carol concert today? The parents loved it… Oh yeah… These are the heady, chilly, joyful days of Advent when the coming holiday is full of possibility and promise, and the old year has stored up its very best and brightest moments for the bleak midwinter as it bids farewell in a fanfare of carols and charity, kindness and kisses, yadda yadda yadda. I must buy some gin on the way home: bubbly won’t be enough to get me through to New Year.

  Right, here we are: the travel agent’s. I push my way inside, making the bell over the door ring, to be met by the sight of a substantial queue and the panicked expression of the frazzled young guy behind the desk. He looks like he’s thinking, ‘Shit, not another customer.’ He shouts to me, ‘Madam, you’ll be number five in the queue,’ and I take a seat beside a giant cardboard Mickey Mouse who’s failing to tempt me to spend my Christmas in The Happiest Place on Earth.

  Hold on! Did that travel agent just call me Madam? For crying out loud, I’m only thirty-four. Do I really look careworn enough to have transitioned from a ‘Miss’ to a ‘Madam’? I’m working hard on ignoring my own answers to this question when I hear a beeping sound coming from somewhere about my person. A text.

  I rummage in my coat pockets trying to retrieve my phone and making crumpled tissues, ponytail bands and Chapsticks tumble onto the floor by my feet. I scrabble to gather them up and tell myself I wasn’t always this shambolic. This is all Cole’s fault.

  You’re NOT really doing it, are you?! WTF happened to the Beyoncé Protocol?

  It’s a message from Nari, my best mate and the co-creator of the, admittedly very drunken, break-up survival strategy we named after Nari’s all-time favourite singer-slash-goddess-slash-inspiration. It had all sounded so positive on that Saturday night back in August – on what should have been my wedding night. It was too late to cancel the classy spa hotel, not without losing all the money so, feeling defiant, me and Nari checked in to the bridal suite and immediately devoured the contents of the minibar.

  ‘Little vodkas! My favourite. And look Sylve, tiny nuts!’ Nari had called out as she ransacked the fun-size snacks. ‘Remind you of anyone?’

  Admittedly, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. We ordered room service and lounged around on the four-poster bed in fluffy robes and those white hotel slippers they let you keep. I held it together and managed not to cry but only because I had wept solidly all week long and was utterly exhausted and ready for some mind-numbing drinking and serious pampering.

  The Beyoncé Protocol had taken shape over the course of that evening, and Nari, being Nari, typed it all out onto her tablet and emailed me a copy in case my memory was hazy the next morning, which it was. This is how it went:

  Cole can eff off. You don’t need a man to be happy. Plus, he was very, very hairy for a thirty-five-year-old (and not in a good way).

  Move out of your mum and dad’s on Monday and come to live at Nari’s ‘House of Win’ for as long as you want. Tell Cole you want your contribution to his mortgage payments back.

  Nari will take you out every Friday night, when she’s in the country, to a place of your choosing – but there must be cocktails and hot waiters.

  First thing tomorrow – hotel salon hair makeover. New Life: New Look.

  DO NOT cancel your December honeymoon. It was your wedding present from your folks, so it’s yours. Go anyway. Take someone amazing like, say, Nari? Get drunk, get a suntan, dance the night away, and live off rum cocktails and coconuts all week long.

  Nari will flog your lovely wedding dress on eBay. You can put the money towards a deposit on a dog friendly place for you and Barney.

  And remember, if Beyoncé has taught us anything – and, of course, she has – it is to remember that you are a QUEEN. Don’t ever forget it.

  And
the plan had worked too. Well, it worked during those first few gut-wrenchingly broken and humiliated weeks when I was still off school for the summer break. The headmistress took pity on me and let me skip the summer planning meetings, so the whole of last August felt like one long holiday – albeit the kind of holiday where you catch your reflection in a mirror, see how sad your eyes look, and start up again with the snotty ugly-crying.

  Nari made sure I was rarely sober and never alone for much of the summer, planning Netflix nights or taking me out to the cinema (sassy chick-flicks), or booking nice restaurants (gourmet cheeseburgers and ice cream sundaes), and then we’d hit the gym, chasing the endorphins. Cardio Bootcamp is much, much harder when you’ve just downed a Jack Daniels and Coke with lunch, but still, we worked out like daemons. The music blaring in my earphones and the adrenalin coursing in my veins obliterated all other thoughts and feelings, anaesthetising everything, if only for half an hour.

  When I was with Nari I didn’t have to face the pity-visits from extended family, and all those lost deposits, and the awkward questions about what I’d like my wedding guests to do with the presents they’d bought from my carefully curated gift registry and never had the chance to give me. I’d had to bite the inside of my cheeks to stop myself yelling into their well-meaning faces, ‘Bloody well give them to me, Auntie Brenda! I really wanted that toastie maker.’ But instead I’d smiled and told everyone to return them for refunds.

  Basically, what I’m saying is that without Nari I’d probably never have dragged myself out of bed again. She orchestrated all of the clichéd break-up survival stuff, including making me dye my mousey, blah-coloured hair this luscious red, which I’m still not one hundred per cent sold on, and it did all help, but after the strange excitement and shock that comes with being unexpectedly single started to wear off, I realised I was simply alone again and had to make the best of it.

  I went back to work at Castlewych Academy in September, back to teaching truculent teenagers about history, and life went on. Only now I have to carry around this dull, empty, aching feeling in my heart where once there was a bridegroom, our lovely home, and a Happy Ever After.

  More people have joined the queue behind me. When did they come in? I must have been miles away. I’m half looking at the winter holiday brochures on the shelves with their snowy alpine scenery, smiling skiers, and cosy gingerbread cabins when my phone buzzes again.

  It’s another text from Nari.

  Ghosting me? I’m on my way.

  Feeling slightly panicked, I power off my phone and slip it into my pocket. She’ll never find me. Will she? I am cancelling this honeymoon and that’s that. Back in the summer and fuelled by Bacardi and Beyoncé, our single girls’ winter ‘honeymoon’ had seemed like a good idea, but as it’s come around I’ve realised, deep down, that a plan B beach holiday with Nari isn’t actually going to feel fun and rebellious; it’s just a bit sad, especially at Christmas.

  Mum and Dad offered to cancel their New York trip and host their traditional Christmas at home, which is so like them, but that made me feel sadder than anything. No, I can do this. I’m a grown-ass thirty-four-year-old woman, and I can’t carry on with the jilted bride routine forever. I’ll beg this poor travel agent for a refund – even if I can only get some of the money back – and I’ll repay my parents, even though they insist they don’t want a penny of it back.

  They think Nari’s right and that we should be treating ourselves to an exotic yuletide adventure. I sometimes think it’s been worse for them than it has for me; they’re so heartsore that the shitbag they’ve called ‘son’ for the last decade could up and leave the way he did.

  I’ll ask Nari if she’ll spend Christmas with me at my new flat. Normally she’d be in some far-flung location for Christmas, or sometimes when it was Mum and Dad’s turn to have me and Cole for Christmas, she’d spend the holiday at my folks’ too. Her mum and grandmother live in South Korea and Nari isn’t flying out to visit them until February, so I know she’ll be up for it, once she’s gotten over the disappointment of missing out on Mauritius – hence this impromptu trip to the travel agents to cancel the whole sorry honeymoon shambles.

  I shove my growing-out fringe off my face (I was never a fringe sort of girl, I should have been firmer with Nari about that) and let out one of my newly perfected Eeyore sighs.

  I can just about make out the Christmas tree in the town square through the steamy glass of the travel agency windows; the condensation is making its lights shine out like stars. Their colourful glow sets me thinking about my bare little flat and all the unpacked boxes and how I haven’t even sorted out a tree yet.

  Oh, come on! What’s the hold up? I usually try to avoid having time alone to think, it isn’t good to dwell on it all.

  ‘Next, please? Madam, it’s your turn,’ the travel agent calls out.

  I’m not moving fast enough for him and he’s not even attempting to hide his annoyance. Deep breath. Here goes.

  ‘Sorry about your wait,’ he says unconvincingly.

  Why do shop assistants always say that? As though they’re commiserating with you over your body mass index.

  I hand over the crumpled booking confirmation. If I say it really fast maybe it’ll hurt less. ‘I know this is late notice, and I’ve read the terms and conditions so I know I’ll get next to nothing, but I need to cancel this,’ I tell him.

  The young man, Nathan his badge says, starts reading it out aloud without a shred of interest.

  ‘Luxury beach hut, seven nights, bridal package with champagne and rose petal welcome…’

  It’s at this point that Nathan pauses momentarily and glances up at me. There’s a curling smile at the side of his mouth that isn’t sympathy; it’s salacious interest and somehow mocking too. I’m trying to assume what I hope looks like an air of quiet dignity. He carries on in a too-loud voice that everyone in the queue behind me can surely hear.

  ‘Full board, spa treatments, scuba diving experience, private boat transfers, leaving on the twenty-second of December? Oh! No way should you cancel this… You and your… um… husband will lose the lot.’

  Am I allowed to thump this supercilious little creep? He’s dressed in a cabin-crew-style blue waistcoat and tie with flying wings on his lapels as though at any moment he’ll have to check the doors for landing and offer around the boiled sweets as opposed to spending his days flogging cheap deals to Benidorm and shuffling his brochures. And he’s still talking.

  ‘Your only option is to transfer onto another holiday if you don’t want this one. You’ll lose your deposit and there’ll be a whopping great admin fee but at least you’d get a holiday of some kind.’ This is said with a note of patronising faux compassion.

  By now my cheeks are burning with the effort of not crying in front of him. Why have I left this so late?

  ‘I hadn’t thought about transferring,’ I say weakly, just as the door behind me flies open and the piercing note from its little brass bell makes me flinch. It’s Nari and she’s out of breath. Dammit, I knew she’d track me down.

  ‘You haven’t done it, have you?’

  I try to explain Nathan’s idea, fleshing it out a bit so she doesn’t kill me with the incredulous, harassed stare she’s directing towards me. ‘I might be able to transfer the holiday… maybe we could go somewhere nice in the summer with the money that’s left. Rome maybe?’

  Nari’s shaking her head and motioning for me to get out of my seat. Nathan’s bloody loving this.

  ‘Right. You need a brew. Come on, let’s go. She won’t be needing your help, thank you very much.’ She turns her death stare on Nathan, making him jump up, panicked.

  As I’m gathering my things, Nathan stuffs brochures and leaflets for last minute Christmas escapes into a carrier bag. He shoves them towards me before Nari marches me outside.

  Nari lectures me all the way to the cafe about how last minute holiday cancellations and transfers are financially crap decisions, and I just nod beca
use she’s right and, frankly, I’m a bit scared of her when she’s got a point to prove. She knows what she’s talking about though; she runs a pretty successful adventure travel blog, boasting over fifty thousand followers on Instagram, and I’ll bet she’s written for more off the beaten track style travel books than any other woman in the industry. So whatever she’s going to say about all this, I’d better just keep schtum and listen to the expert.

  The coffee shop windows are steamed up and streaming. It’s one of the big chains and is cosy despite the corporate uniformity. There’s only two free seats right in the middle of the cafe and there are people surrounding them on all sides. I pick my way around the chair legs and bags of Christmas shopping, only stopping to pat the heads and boop the noses of every dog and pup in the place (one Weimaraner, two pugs and a beagle: pretty good dog-booping haul for today – happily, Castlewych is the kind of posh, doggy-friendly place where even the big chains have jars of dog treats by the tills), and I plonk myself down with a huffing sigh. The last thing I want is an audience of earwiggers overhearing Nari’s words of wisdom; she can be pretty brash.

  Nari waves from the counter by the entrance, mouthing, ‘Want a muffin?’ before dismissively waving a hand as if to say, ‘Of course she does.’

  The baristas are bashing spent coffee grounds into a metal bin and refilling the espresso machines in the blink of an eye. Stream is hissing in great white clouds into the air and countless red cups are being filled with the festive gingerbread lattes that always taste a bit artificial to my (simple) tastes.

  I’ve got time to ponder the contents of the carrier bag in front of me, thinking of the surly travel agent’s advice. I edge one of the leaflets out and gaze down at it.

  Last-Minute Christmas and New Year Deals Flying from Manchester Airport.

  Hmm, do any of the destinations sound appealing? Edinburgh, Stockholm, Dublin, Frankfurt, Tenerife, Solomon Islands… What’s my problem? None of these jump out at me. I shove the leaflet into the bag as Nari appears with a tray.