Christmas at Frozen Falls Read online

  ‘OK, I got a pumpkin spice chai latte with whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkles, or an English breakfast tea with skimmed milk.’

  ‘You know me so well,’ I say, lifting the teapot onto the table.

  ‘And two red velvet muffins. And two mince pies. I have a feeling this is a two cake kind of emergency.’ Nari grins with a softness in her eyes. ‘Do you want to tell me what was going on back there? Can you really not face the holiday of a lifetime with your bestie?’

  ‘Holiday of a lifetime, yes, I do want that, but this one was meant for me and Cole and now it’s here I just can’t face it. I’m so sorry. Let’s go on holiday somewhere else, another time.’

  Nari sips her drink, comically leaving a whipped cream moustache on her top lip just so I’ll smile. ‘For a start, I’m only free this Christmas break; I’ve got quite a few trips pencilled in for next year already, so that might not be an option. Look, there’s more to do on Mauritius besides sex and couples’ massages on the beach, you know? We’ll be able to island hop, visit the national park, and see the waterfalls. The food is amazing. And the cocktails!’

  I’m already halfway through the mince pie so can only shake my head at all this. Nari sees I’m momentarily speechless and takes the opportunity to present her closing arguments.

  ‘It’s only a week. You can pack some beach novels, your iPad, your vibrator, and you’ll have a blast!’

  The two elderly ladies at the table behind Nari (who’ve been listening intently to every word) suddenly splutter and cough over their ginger snaps and rattle their saucers in shock. That’ll teach them.

  Nari sees my dubious expression and gives up. There’s no fight left in her and I watch her kiss goodbye to her dreams of a Mauritian island paradise.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks me. ‘You’ve been much happier since you moved into your new flat last month, you genuinely looked as though you were moving on a bit, but now… you’ve lost your… oomph again. Is it just because it’s Christmas, or is it Cole?’ Her eyes flash and she gasps before saying, ‘Oh my God, there hasn’t been a Christmas miracle and he’s finally had the guts to get in touch?’

  I admit to Nari that I’ve had my head in the sand about the impending festivities, and now, here I am, dreading the days ahead. And no, I haven’t heard from Cole. There hasn’t been a peep from him since that lovely sunny day in August during my final dress fitting when, like a coward, he’d rung my mobile and shattered my world into a thousand tiny pieces – the only contact we’ve had since was letters sent via his solicitor informing me that I would receive precisely nothing from the proceeds of the sale of the house we once shared and that I was to clear my stuff out of his garage ASAP.

  ‘He’ll be at his mother’s for Christmas, no doubt,’ I offer with a grimace.

  Nari reaches for the only silver lining to be had. ‘Well, at least you never have to see Patricia Jordan ever again.’

  They’re welcome to their family Christmas, I think to myself. I always felt horribly out of place at their celebrations. My would-be mother-in-law’s exacting standards were obviously far higher than I could ever have hoped to live up to. Ten years ago, when I was a graduate with a newly acquired teaching degree and freshly in love after four exciting months with Cole and already moving in together, Patricia came to our house-warming party to meet ‘the new girl’. That’s what she called me. To my face. Back then, I had no idea that in real life people actually ran their finger along surfaces disapprovingly looking for traces of dust. But when I met Patricia that day she did exactly that and presented a (only very slightly) dusty Finger of Shame to me with an imperious, smug look I would come to be very familiar with. It had rather taken the shine off our Love Shack house-warming bash.

  The Love Shack: that’s what Cole had named our four-bedroom new build out by Manchester Airport, back when I thought he was so glamorous and exciting and charming, and I’d laughed at all his funny ways; back when I’d imagined us populating the spare bedrooms with adorable little Jordans, and when I’d given a damn about mollifying my near-miss monster-in-law.

  The mince pie’s somehow been demolished and it’s obvious I’m sinking into the break-up abyss again, the place where I spend hours just going over and over it all. Nari’s calling to me from the edge of the void.

  ‘No. No! Don’t drift off. We’ve got work to do here. Focus, Sylvie.’

  She’s tipped the brochures onto the table and is fanning them out in front of me, swirling her hands above them like a demented game show beauty luring me into gambling away the holiday I already have in the bag.

  ‘Pick one, then. If we’re transferring to another trip I’ll contact my guy and get you a full refund. Stephen owes me a favour actually.’

  Nari’s wearing a leery grin so I can only assume she’s talking about that Stephen. The one that owns a few airlines and travel companies, no big deal. He’s a flashy, brash Los Angelino now – only a handful of people know of his lowly birth in Grimsby, long since forgotten now that he’s bestowed with a transatlantic accent, numerous tax haven homes and an English Bentley that never leaves its Saudi garage. He’s Nari’s favourite thing to do on a Singapore stopover. I’ve listened to way too many gratuitously graphic descriptions of his impressive love-making in his even more impressive skyscraper penthouses over the years. I try to block the more lurid details from my mind by setting to work on my red velvet cake and flipping through the brochures.

  ‘Nari, I don’t really fancy spending Christmas in a chilly off-season Mediterranean resort full of pasty ex-pats, do you? And a frosty city break won’t be up to much when all the museums and galleries will be shut for the holidays and everyone’s preparing for New Year street parties and snogging at midnight. And I definitely don’t want another trip to a paradise island populated by shagged-out newlyweds. I’ve already got one of those and the thought of going makes me nauseous. So, what do we do?’

  ‘You missed this one.’ Nari presents me with a very smart, shiny booklet. It says ‘Santa’s Enchanted Lapland’ in glittery red letters and there’s the most Christmassy Father Christmas of all time smiling out of the cover at me through half-moon spectacles perched on rosy cheeks.

  ‘Ha ha, very funny,’ I say, returning it to the bottom of the pile, but Nari’s switched on the death stare again and I wilt a bit under her unrelenting gaze.

  ‘Hold on a sec, Lapland’s supposed to be gorgeous. And I’ve never been that far north in Scandinavia before,’ she protests.

  I flip through the pages again, holding them open to show Nari. There’s nothing but mischievous-looking (read ‘annoying’) costumed elves with pointy ears, or cosy families, all blond hair and blue eyes, toasting marshmallows by snowy wilderness campfires.

  ‘I’m sure it’s adorable if you’re six and seriously into reindeer.’

  Nari’s having none of this. ‘Actually, Lapland is very chic. This stuff is just for the family market, ignore all that. Picture it, Sylvie… You and me sipping Christmas spirits in a fancy igloo ice bar under the aurora borealis. And there’s all the skiing and fondue. Oh, and Jacuzzis and saunas… and hot Nordic men… although you’d already know a little about that, wouldn’t you, Sylve?’ This is said with a wink and a smutty laugh that makes us the centre of coffee shop attention all over again.

  I know perfectly well what she’s referring to and I’m not biting.

  ‘Well… that does sound quite nice,’ I say, looking with fresh eyes at the brochure.

  ‘It’s only a short-haul flight but we’d still be getting away from it all. We’d be miles inside the Arctic Circle.’

  I must admit I take a deep breath at this idea. A bit of peace and total isolation.

  ‘Keep talking. You’re winning me round,’ I say with a smile. ‘Won’t it be a bit chilly though?’

  ‘Freezing! And dark. Totally dark. The sun barely touches the horizon in December.’

  Hmm, I’m not convinced this is a good thing. I don’t like the cold and dark. ‘The t
otal opposite of Mauritius, then? Oh no, Nari! I’ve just realised. What about your Mauritius feature for the website?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Nari mimics soundlessly, holding her hands to her cheeks Home Alone style. ‘I’ll just ring my boss, shall I?’ Facetiously, she mimes dialling a phone. ‘Hi Nari, is it OK if I switch our January feature from “A Girls’ Indian Ocean Getaway” to “Two Go in Search of the Northern Lights”? Uh-huh? Uh-huh?’ She dramatically hangs up on herself and says with a grinning wink, ‘Boss says it’s A-OK,’ before shovelling a huge wodge of cake into her mouth. Christ, she’s annoying. Brilliant and annoying.

  As we pack up to leave (I’ve still got that gin and a Christmas tree to buy on my way home, and Nari’s promised to ring Stephen the Sex God to sort out our travel plans), I pull up my collar and peer out the door into the street. It’s gone five o’clock and the little boutiques all around the town square are staffed by harried workers bracing themselves for another round of late-night opening for the Christmas shoppers. My mum would say it’s too cold for snow, though I’ve never really understood what that means.

  Some of my school kids are milling around by the war memorial waiting to get into the first showing of the Christmas film at Castlewych’s one screen cinema. Some of them spot me as I walk outside and shout, ‘Merry Christmas, Ms. M!’ and I wave back at them.

  As I’m hugging Nari goodbye I notice over her shoulder that two of the sixth-formers have paired off alone under the town’s light display (the council has gone for an odd mix of strings of trumpeting herald angels and dancing Santas this year), and I can tell the teenagers are totally oblivious to everything going on around them.

  They’re leaning their foreheads together and he’s lovingly holding her face with his fingertips. They’re utterly frozen in each other’s gaze, intense and intimate, just the two of them alone together in a crowd of people, holding off, enjoying the moment before their lips will, at last, meet.

  As Nari blows a kiss towards me and walks off across town, I can’t help looking back at the kids, but I lose sight of them in the bustle of Christmas shoppers.

  I plod homeward, dragging the last petrol station forecourt Christmas tree behind me and clinking a carrier bag of discounted booze, and I think about how, a long time ago, a boy kissed me like that. And then a name that I haven’t spoken aloud in years crosses my chilled lips in a cloud of warm vapour.

  ‘Stellan.’

  Chapter Two

  ‘Decorations… decorations… Where the hell are you?’

  I’m attempting to ascend the cardboard box mountain at the foot of my bed. They’ve been piled up like this for three weeks – since the day I moved in – and it’s getting ridiculous now. I ran out of pants back in week two and have been round at Mum and Dad’s using their washer dryer more times than I’m proud of. I know that somewhere at the top of this pile there’s a box full of tinsel, pompom snowmen and silver pinecones.

  ‘Ah-ha!’ I shout in triumph at the exact moment the mountain gives way beneath me and I slide down onto the floor sending the contents of the decorations box flying into the air. A corner of the Michael Bublé CD that Mum gave me years ago hits me on the temple. I’ve been listening to The Smiths a lot since the summer, but I suppose they’re not exactly festive so I shrug off the undignified fall and put the CD into my ancient laptop. Out pours some Canadian Christmas crooning and the scene is set for tree-decorating.

  Since leaving Nari in town, I’ve already downed three glasses of bubbly with my baked beans and oven chips and I’m getting down tipsy single girl style to ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas’ when I spot it: a glittering vintage solitaire diamond on a thin rose-gold band. My engagement ring. It must have been in one of the fallen boxes and it’s just lying there among the scattered silver bells and stars.

  I don’t know why I do it but I slip it onto my finger and hold out my hand, making the stone shimmer. It is still gorgeous. I wore this thing for nearly ten years waiting for Cole to set the date, but there was always something in the way. He needed to get his flying hours up, then he had to commit to the long-haul schedules in order to get promoted, then he moved airlines… Oh, did I mention Cole’s a pilot? I know what you’re thinking. Lucky me, landing a gorgeous, uniformed, suntanned high-flyer, but the truth is we barely saw each other and the Love Shack was a pretty lonely place out there under the twenty-four hour flightpaths.

  I remember the summer day he slipped this ring onto my finger. As a romantic teenager I’d always dreamt that my future fella, whoever he might be, would propose over dinner in a classy restaurant; the kind of place I’d seen on eighties romcoms, with candles and tinkling piano music and white linen tablecloths. I’d imagined many times how my mystery man would secretly drop the ring into my champagne flute and as he made a quiet toast to our future his eyes would linger on my glass and I’d see the ring and weep tears of surprised joy.

  But quiet romance was never Cole’s style. Everything had to be a statement, reflecting him and his overinflated sense of himself – instilled at an early age, I’ve come to learn, by his doting mother.

  At the time, I hadn’t exactly minded the public question popping; at least, I had been taken by surprise, and I had wept, just like in the rehearsed fantasy proposals of my girlhood, and I’d smiled away the qualms rising up with the colour in my cheeks.

  He chose to do it at his sister’s wedding reception. This should have been my first clue.

  His sister, Clementine, is a consultant cardiologist, just like her father was, and the wedding party was basically a gathering of the great and the good of Harley Street. To give Cole his due, I hadn’t suspected a thing all day. All the way through the overly long service in the glittering Mayfair church and the delicious wedding breakfast in the hotel across the street, even during the speeches and elaborate rituals of cake-cutting and bouquet throwing, I hadn’t the foggiest notion he was about to pop the question. Why would I? We’d only been together for four months, and I’d only met his mother for the first time a couple of days before at the Love Shack house-warming bash.

  Poor Clementine clearly had no idea what was about to happen either. Just as the room was bursting into rippling applause and the quartet were readying themselves to strike up a tasteful number for the couple’s first dance, Cole had tapped at his champagne glass so loudly I thought it might shatter. Before I knew what was happening, he was dragging me – yes, me, the girl the bride and groom didn’t know from Eve – into the centre of the room, coming to a stop directly in front of the perplexed happy couple.

  I’ll never forget the look on Clementine’s face as, without any further warning, Cole sank to his knee before the gathered crowd and held the ring up to me. The diamond gleamed in the sudden light from the wedding photographer’s flash.

  That’s when I looked from Cole’s confident grinning face to his sister’s. Clementine’s expression didn’t mirror my own blushing shellshock or my look of creeping embarrassment at Cole’s ill-timed matrimonial fervour. Instead, she was hitching her bottom jaw a little to one side and, after glancing wearily at her new husband, raising her eyes to the vaulted ceilings. I watched her shake her head as if to say, ‘I knew it. They couldn’t let me have one day’.

  The guests had broken out into a polite smattering of sudden applause – Clementine’s set are nothing if not socially astute and smartly responsive. But, as Cole loudly declared his undying love for me and, with a struggle, forced the too-tight ring onto my finger, I glanced around the room to discover what I’d feared all along; that not one of Clementine’s doctor friends was actually smiling, nobody was. Except for Cole’s mother, Patricia Jordan. She was smiling, alright, with a look of defiant pride aimed directly at the shrinking Clementine.

  I should have known then. If the pair of them could cook up a plan to upstage their own nearest and dearest on the best day of her life, they’d be capable of anything. But I’d managed to pack away all those reservations, and I performed a delighte
d ‘yes’, overwhelmed by what I chose to interpret at the time as Cole’s impulsive largesse and his hapless enthusiasm to pile happiness upon familial happiness and bring me into the Jordan family in the biggest, showiest way possible, and as soon as possible.

  I could count on one hand the number of times we met up with Clementine after that day, though I made sure to send gifts to their London home as each of our nephews was born, and I always made sure to remember their birthdays.

  Yeah, I should have known then.

  I realise I’m still spreading my fingers out, making the ring sparkle in the light of the bare, unshaded bulb on my bedroom ceiling. Michael Bublé seems to have shifted his attentions to Frosty the Snowman and either the festive season is finally winning me over or I’m teetering on the edge of the abyss of jilted brides again because I find myself racing to the living room sofa and tearing into a chocolate orange with frightening ferocity. The phone rings in the hallway as I’m six segments in and I let it go to voicemail.

  ‘Hello, Sylvie love. Have you unpacked your stuff yet? Me and Dad are hoping you’ll pop round for dinner tomorrow before we jet off to the Big Apple. I’m experimenting with chilli dogs and fries to help us acclimatise. Lots of love. Oh, and… bring a friend if you like. OK, bye, love.’

  Bring a friend. That’s Mum’s not so subtle way of asking if I’ve managed to get myself a boyfriend for Christmas. Which, of course, I haven’t, because this isn’t a Richard Curtis movie and Castlewych Academy isn’t exactly bursting at the seams with eligible bachelors. I’ve drank enough bubbly to laugh out loud at the thought of Mum’s expression if I turned up tomorrow with old Mr Halcrow (the sweaty mathematician) on my arm.

  It’s getting late and even though I’ve taken a perverse pleasure in parading around with a few grands’ worth of bling on my finger, I know it’s time to take Cole’s ring off. Even after he had it resized for me, it was always just a little too tight and wearing it now is making my skin hurt, not to mention my heart. Just as I resolve to send it back to him in the new year I hear a jumbo jet flying over the flat. I raise my eyes, tracking its passing unseen above me, and I remember I have no idea what his flight patterns are now, or where in the world he might be. I don’t even know where he’s living nowadays. It’s then that I feel the need to go lie down on the bedroom floor in the middle of the spilled debris of our shared life and the remnants of a decade of Christmases where I was Cole’s metaphorical co-pilot and second officer. OK, now I’m crying.