by Rosie Blake
Rosie is an author of comic commercial fiction. She started out writing short stories and features for various publications including: Cosmopolitan, The Sunday People, The Lady, Best and Reveal magazine. Previously she has had three novels published: How to Get a (Love) Life, How to Stuff Up Christmas and How to Find Your (First) Husband.
She worked in television as a presenter on both live and pre-recorded shows and she makes regular vlogs. She lives in Berkshire with her husband Ben, her son Barnaby and a couple of chickens. She is into making soups at the moment because someone gave her a soup recipe book. When she isn’t walking along the river, writing in her shed (an absolute hygge haven) or listening to her son sing the 118th round of ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ she is day-dreaming about the day when Julia Roberts finally rings her and asks her to be her best friend.
COPYRIGHT
Published by Sphere
978-0-7515-6973-5
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Little, Brown Book Group Ltd 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Written by Rosie Blake
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
SPHERE
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DZ
www.littlebrown.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
The Hygge Holiday
Table of Contents
About the Author
COPYRIGHT
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgements
To Barnaby – our gorgeous son
Chapter 1
Clara had only been inside for ten minutes when it happened.
It had all seemed like a perfectly normal Tuesday evening. There had been a few people in the pub: a young couple in the corner, the man trying to get comfortable on a narrow wooden pew, his partner opposite him in a chair, understated and pretty in a black cashmere jumper and jeans, her strawberry-blonde hair tied back in a low ponytail. An older woman with thick eyeliner and dyed auburn hair was propped up on a stool at the bar, making her way through a bottle of red wine. The large barman topping up her glass had a tattoo on his arm of a type of bird that Clara couldn’t quite make out. Another man, around the same age but about half the size, was looking dolefully into his pint in between snatching glances at the woman at the bar and smoothing down stray wisps of hair over his bald spot. A neon slot machine flashed and beeped intermittently in one corner, beside an empty dartboard and opposite the floor lamp next to which Clara was sitting reading her book.
Suddenly a woman appeared in the doorway, hair wet though it wasn’t raining outside, dressed in a turquoise woollen coat and purple wellington boots. Flinging her arms wide, she marched straight into the room. ‘Gin and tonic, Gavin, double, hold back on the tonic,’ she cried, moving towards the bar. ‘I’m done,’ she announced. Every head in the pub, including Clara’s, turned towards her. ‘It’s over, I’m shutting it. I was in the shower and I thought, damn it, I can’t do this any more. I’m off.’
Gavin paused, his hand on the gin bottle, his mouth open.
‘That gin won’t pour itself, Gavin,’ said the woman, whipping off her turquoise coat to reveal hot-pink thermal pyjamas. ‘I’ll take it back with me; my bottle was empty and I’m in desperate need of a stiff drink. You need a stiff drink when you’ve made a difficult decision. I only had Baileys, and that is not a drink that suffices in a moment like that.’
‘But Louisa, wait, talk to us…’ Gavin said, reaching underneath the bar to pull out a tumbler.
The woman with the thick eyeliner muttered, ‘Drama, drama.’
Clara saw Louisa looking sharply up at her.
Gavin shovelled some ice into the glass. ‘Come on, Louisa, love, a problem shared and all that…’
Louisa walked over to the bar. ‘God, you sound like a hideous greetings card, Gavin. Fine,’ she rattled on, throwing her coat over a stool, ‘I’ll stay for one but you won’t change my mind. Oh no, I’ve decided. It’s done. I’m going straight back to book a flight.’
‘A flight?’ Gavin’s hand slipped and he splashed tonic on the bar.
‘A flight. I’m off. Spain. I can’t stay here any more,’ Louisa announced, scooping up the drink and taking a first gulp. She smacked her lips in an exaggerated fashion. ‘Gin. The greatest of all inventions.’
‘But what about the shop?’ Gavin asked, looking at her, hands resting on the bar, fingers like ten splayed sausages.
‘Closing,’ Louisa said after a pause.
‘What do you mean, closing?’
‘Shutting. Finishing. Kaput. The End. It’s over. I’ll close it quietly, no one will notice anyway.’
‘But it’s Christmas soon and —’
‘Woman can’t do anything quietly,’ said the woman at the bar, cutting Gavin off, her thin lips stained red from the wine, her face weathered as if she worked outside.
‘Roz.’ Gavin topped up her drink, giving her a warning look over the bottle.
Louisa spun round to face her, ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’
It seemed the whole pub was holding its breath. The couple at the table nearby were riveted, the man with the bald spot nursing his pint hadn’t even realised it was empty and was openly staring. Even Clara, picturing the small bed below the eaves upstairs, her shoulders aching from carrying her rucksack around all day, couldn’t tear her eyes away.
‘You heard,’ Roz said, chin up, staring Louisa down from her stool.
Louisa stood, slicked wet hair dripping, cheeks reddening. ‘Just because you’re a dried-up prune with no fire in her belly.’
The man with the bald spot called out, a sudden fierceness in his eyes, ‘Hey, she’s not a prune!’ Immediately he clamped a hand over his mouth, as if frightened more words would come tumbling out.
Louisa turned on him. ‘Sticking up for your girlfriend, Clive?’
‘She’s not my…’ His cheeks blazed red almost instantly, head lowered so the whole pub could only see the bald spot.
‘Don’t worry, Clive, she won’t do it,’ Roz said. ‘It will be a passing fancy; she’ll go back, dry her hair and change her mind.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Louisa said, slamming the tumbler d
own on the bar so that one of the barely melted ice cubes popped out and bounced off the surface onto the floor. ‘You think this is just a phase, I suppose, a passion.’
‘One of your many.’ Roz toasted the words, twisting herself back round to face the bar.
‘How untrue,’ Louisa announced. ‘Gavin, more gin,’ she added, still glaring at the woman with the red wine, who was now ticking things off on her fingers, nails painted a deep plum.
‘There was the learning-to-knit course, the time you were gluten-free, Nick and that whole saga…’ She paused to roll her eyes, ‘Reg who replaced Nick, oh, then there was the birdwatching phase, raising funds in here for your proposed trip to Iceland to see puffins that never happened, and Clive gave you five pounds for that one…’
‘Everyone thinks puffins are related to penguins, but they actually belong to two completely different families,’ Clive murmured into his pint.
This wasn’t the evening Clara had envisaged when she’d stumbled across the pub by chance a couple of hours ago. She’d been exhausted, had planned to be in bed by now, but this was better than a TV soap.
‘… the online adult educational course in English literature, the village book club you insisted on starting up – we never even met and I read Mansfield Park for nothing; that Fanny Price must the most boring woman in literature, I genuinely thought I might die before reaching the end of it…’
She’d thought she had left it far too late to find somewhere to stay that night. She’d been distracted by a stunning sunset over the flat fields, the tea in her Thermos flask still warm as she’d gazed out at the sky cut up into ribbons of orange and pink. The windows of the pub had cast bright pools on the ground outside; the silhouettes of people inside could be seen moving from a hundred yards away.
As she’d approached, she’d stared up at the enormous thatched roof, weighing down the whitewashed walls. A small handwritten sign in the window announced ‘Bed and Breakfast’ and she had felt relief wash over her. She’d moved inside, hoicking the rucksack up on her back, desperately hoping there was a room free. She’d pictured steak and kidney pie in front of a roaring fire, washed down with a smooth ale, and then reading her book and bed. Not this.
She’d soon discovered the light had been coming from a bare bulb hanging between heavy wooden beams and showing up every stain on the swirled red carpet. Dried muddied leaves littered the floor, more blowing into the room as she stood in the doorway. Food wasn’t being served. The bed and breakfast consisted of one small attic room, a miniature packet of cereal and a banana left on a tray.
Still, there was no way she had time to look for another place, and the bar had seemed comfortable enough: clusters of red velvet chairs crowded around walnut-brown tables, the bar in the middle of the room, patrons sitting around in a U shape. She’d ordered some salt and vinegar crisps, two Snickers bars and a pint of the local ale. After the second pint she had forgotten her desire for a cooked meal and was happily ensconced in her book, nestled in a patched armchair next to the only radiator and lamp in the place. Then this wet-haired whirlwind of a woman had appeared, and the night had been transformed.
‘… the Pilates classes you never went to, the pottery wheel you bought on Gumtree because you wanted to make your own ramekins…’
Louisa seemed to dim as Roz’s list went on. Placing her hands over both ears, she shook her head, perhaps hoping it might stop.
‘… the time you adopted a baby giraffe in Niger and invited us all to a slideshow of photos from his first year but the projector didn’t work…’
‘No,’ Louisa piped up in a loud voice, ‘no, no, this time I’m going. Spain. I’m closing it; I’m going to book the flights.’
‘You love that shop,’ Gavin said, pushing a second gin and tonic her way.
‘She won’t do it, Gavin, it’s all talk, talk, talk,’ Roz said, getting into her stride.
‘You’re wrong,’ Louisa said, seeming to rally. ‘I’m going to close the shop, no one comes in; they don’t need me any more.’
Clara wondered what it was that there was no demand for; did Louisa run an internet café, a DVD store?
‘Well, off you go then. Book the flight. We’ll miss you,’ Roz said, rolling her eyes.
The blonde with the low ponytail had stood up and moved across to Louisa. ‘Oh, we will miss you. Are you really leaving?’
Roz slammed a hand on the bar, ‘She won’t go, Lauren.’
The blonde spun around. ‘But there’s no need to drive her away.’
Roz’s eyes narrowed.
The blonde woman’s partner had stayed fixed to his pew, looking utterly out of his depth, pushing the glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘Darling, shall we…’ He glanced at the door, clearly wanting to do a runner before it all ended in a fist fight.
The three women at the bar were still glaring at each other.
‘There’ll be nothing left open on the high street,’ Gavin said, his double chin wobbling. Clara found herself wanting to go behind the bar and give him a big hug.
‘I can’t carry around that responsibility on my own, Gavin,’ Louisa said, throwing her arms wide. ‘It’s too much for one small woman.’
Roz spluttered into her red wine at the word ‘small’.
‘Hey,’ the blonde said.
Louisa didn’t appear to have noticed. ‘I just can’t go on hoping it will all change; there’s nothing worse than feeling depressed in a toyshop that should be full of happy children.’ She was becoming tearful, sinking onto a bar stool, her wet curls hanging over her face. Clara was about to stand up and move to comfort her when the blonde did just that, putting an arm around her shoulders and shushing her.
‘Oh, bring on the waterworks,’ Roz sighed.
‘She’s upset,’ the blonde snapped.
Roz shrugged and drained the last of her red wine. ‘Woman’s always causing a scene. Nothing’s changed.’
‘And I suppose you’re going to bring up the fete again now?’ Louisa looked at the other woman, defiance in her eyes. ‘I really didn’t mean to do it.’
‘Likely story,’ Roz scoffed.
‘Roz,’ Clive whispered from his spot nearby.
She turned towards him. ‘Don’t you get involved; I didn’t see you getting involved then.’
‘The fete again?’ Gavin glanced at them both. ‘Shouldn’t you two let bygones be bygones?’
Clara couldn’t help wondering what on earth could have happened at a village fete to cause this tension.
‘Gavin, drop it,’ Louisa said in a low voice, wiping at her face. ‘Just leave me the bottle.’
‘I’m not sure…’
‘Well, if you don’t, I’m off. I’ve got a hundred and one things to do anyway, and a full bottle of Baileys.’
And as quickly as she had arrived, she left, in a whirl of turquoise, the cold air sweeping in as she swung open the door, leaving the whole pub staring after her at the empty doorway.
