Calling Mrs Christmas

by Carole Matthews

  Katy Perry’s ‘California Gurls’ blares out.

  ‘This is my very favourite song in the whole world,’ Eve says. ‘Can we all dance?’

  ‘I’ll dance with you,’ I tell Eve.

  ‘And Daddy too. I’ve never seen Daddy dance.’

  I raise my eyebrows and look over at Carter. ‘Never?’

  ‘It’s something that I try very hard to avoid.’ Three sets of pleading eyes stare at him. ‘Am I really going to have any choice?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ I say.

  ‘Come on, Max,’ Carter says. ‘Let’s you and I take one for the boys.’ So, together, we hit the ice dance floor.

  I can’t say that I’ve ever strutted my stuff in thermal boots and an Arctic suit, but I give it my best shot. The children bounce enthusiastically while I try to rock it out and, although Carter might be dancing rather self-consciously, he’s not a bad mover. We all join hands, forming a circle, and dance around, singing at the top of our voices until we’re all but drowning out Katy Perry.

  We groove it through the next three tunes. I teach the kids how to throw some Saturday Night Fever-style poses, which makes them hysterical with laughter. Then, when Carter and I are out of breath and we’re getting all hot and bothered in our suits, we head back to the booth.

  The children go in front of us and Carter hangs back so I turn to see if he’s OK. He puts a hand on my arm. ‘Thanks for that,’ he says. ‘It’s sad to say but Tamara never would have let herself go like that. Me neither, if I’m honest.’

  I laugh. ‘If you can’t give it large on the dance floor, when can you?’

  ‘It’s a motto that everyone should live by.’ Then he looks reflective. ‘This trip has really opened my eyes. You’re so good with the kids.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Come to think of it, Cassie Christmas,’ he adds, ‘you’re pretty damn good with me too.’

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Jim and the lads stopped off at a kebab van that was always parked by Gadebridge Park. They’d worked so hard that he would have liked to treat them to something more, a decent curry maybe, but time was tight. He had to get them back to the unit by ten o’clock and there was one more stop to be made first.

  He ordered them all doner kebabs with extra chilli sauce and no lettuce for Smudge. The lads, grateful for the hot food, wolfed it down in minutes while sitting in the car. Jim left the heater running as the temperature was dropping. They said on the radio that it might fall to freezing that night. He wondered how Cassie was coping in the cold. If she was at home she’d be hogging the gas fire and going to bed in her socks. God, he missed her.

  They all swigged from cans of cola. Jim needed a cup of tea and perhaps a small whisky as a pick-me-up, feeling as if he’d earned a treat too. But that would have to wait until he’d dropped off the lads and was safely back home.

  ‘Ready, lads?’

  When they’d rolled up their greasy waste papers, Jim took these, along with their empty cans, and jumped out into the cold to toss them into the bin.

  ‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ he said on his return. ‘Before you go back.’

  ‘More presents to wrap?’ Rozzer quipped.

  ‘No,’ Jim said. ‘Something I think that you’ll like even more. Buckle up, lads.’

  They drove across town to the other side of Hemel Hempstead and, a few minutes later, pulled up outside the Halfway House run by Vincent Benlow. Jim turned round in his seat. ‘This is the place I told you about.’

  Rozzer and Smudge exchanged a wary glance. ‘Looks good.’

  ‘Want to take a closer look?’

  Climbing out of the car, they followed Jim down the path and waited, fidgeting anxiously, until Vincent opened the door to them.

  ‘Come on in, my friends,’ he boomed, grinning widely. ‘Good to see you again. You’ve come to check out my place?’

  Both lads nodded sheepishly. Jim clapped Vincent on the back. ‘Thanks again for the call, mate.’

  ‘No worries, man. Cup of tea?’

  ‘No time, Vincent. Got to get the lads back to the unit.’

  ‘Then let’s not hang about.’

  Vincent loped along the corridor with the others falling into step behind him. He poked his head into the communal television room where two pale youths were slumped in armchairs in front of some reality show. ‘All right if I show the lads round, Lenny?’

  One of the youths grunted a yes.

  At the top of a short flight of stairs, Vincent pulled out a large bunch of keys. ‘This is the one,’ he said, as he found the right key, unlocked the door and flung it wide open, then stood aside.

  Smudge and Rozzer edged nervously into the flat, with Jim following. It was sparsely furnished. Two spindly armchairs flanked the gas fire and a worn sofa hugged the wall opposite. That was it for the living room. The walls were magnolia, but looked dirty and in need of repainting. The brown-and-orange-patterned carpet was the sort of thing you’d have seen in a pub in the 1970s.

  A picture window looked out over the garden. The curtains that hung on either side were limp and ragged. Jim peered out, but there was nothing much to see in the dark. At least the lads would have somewhere to sit out in the summer, though.

  ‘There are two bedrooms,’ Vincent said.

  Smudge and Rozzer looked into both of them, small singles identical in size, each containing a narrow bed, a chipboard bedside cupboard and a slim wardrobe. Tired was the best way to describe the decor. Awfully tired. Only one of the beds was made up.

  ‘You’ve got your own bathroom too,’ Vincent said.

  The bath was chipped, the loo cracked and the shower curtain was black with mould around the edges. It wasn’t the most hygienic bathroom Jim had ever seen, but a judicious application of bleach would certainly help to improve it. A new shower curtain wouldn’t hurt either.

  The kitchen was tiny, but big enough to cater for basic needs – with a cooker, a microwave and a small fridge-freezer. It was nice enough. Again, a bloody good clean wouldn’t hurt it. They went back to the living room.

  ‘It’s a couple of weeks before the lads downstairs leave, but you can be in after that.’

  Smudge and Rozzer wheeled around, taken aback.

  ‘This flat is for us?’ Rozzer said.

  ‘It can be,’ Vincent confirmed. ‘If you want it.’

  ‘I thought you couldn’t fit Smudge in?’

  ‘It came up unexpectedly,’ Jim said. ‘I put your names down.’

  ‘Lenny’s going back up north to stay with family and Ty’s got a new job that provides accommodation,’ Vincent explained. ‘If you want to live here, it’s yours.’

  ‘Both of us?’ Smudge reiterated.

  ‘Both of you.’ Jim grinned at them. ‘The only problem is that you’ll be out of Bovingdale before it’s vacant, Rozzer. We’re going to have to find somewhere temporary to put you until then.’

  ‘It needs a lick of paint, a bit of tarting up,’ Vincent said. ‘That’s all. It’s not a bad place.’

  Whichever way you looked at it, the flat was certainly a lot better than where they were currently residing.

  ‘We can do that easy enough,’ Jim said. Their interior design skills had improved no end in the last week. ‘Well, lads, what do you think?’

  Both Rozzer and Smudge looked gobsmacked.

  ‘Is this for real?’ Rozzer asked.

  ‘Sure, man,’ Vincent said. ‘We have a strict no-drugs policy though. Mess up and you’re out. Instantly. No ifs, no buts.’

  ‘We’re both clean,’ Rozzer said. ‘We want to stay like that. Don’t we, Smudge?’

  Smudge nodded, seemingly lost for words. Tears filled his eyes and he ran his hand lovingly over the worn sofa. ‘It’s fantastic,’ he said, choked. ‘Like a palace.’

  It wasn’t quite how Jim would describe it, but if you’d previously been living in a wheelie bin, he could see how you’d think that.

  ‘I guess we’ll take it the
n, Vincent,’ Jim said.

  And, as big and as hard as they might think themselves, Rozzer and Smudge threw their arms around him.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  It’s eight o’clock and we’re just about to order another round of cocktails in the Icebar when the barman holds up his hands and shouts, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the northern lights are here!’

  ‘Let’s get out there quickly,’ Carter says and, forgetting our drinks, we rush to put on our gloves and balaclavas and dash outside.

  Sure enough, he wasn’t lying. The sky above us is filled with the most extraordinary coloured lights. Streaks of pink, yellow and green stream down from the heavens, dancing across the horizon as enthusiastically as we just were to the disco music in the Icebar.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ I gasp. ‘This is divine.’

  ‘Are they angels?’ Eve wants to know.

  ‘They look like them,’ I agree. ‘Take my hand.’

  She puts her hand in mine and we set off, Carter and Max close behind us. Following a throng of people moving away from the glow of the hotel, we head down to the banks of the frozen river Torne where it’s pitch black and we can see even more vividly the intensity of the spectacular display.

  The colours shift across the sky, mesmerising us as they pulse and throb, changing hue constantly. People gasp out loud the way they do at firework displays as the natural phenomenon thrills us all. We’re dazzled and delighted by its beauty. Mesmerised by the miracle of nature we’re witnessing. It’s freezing out here, colder than it’s been up until now, but I hardly notice it. We find our own quiet space and look up, transfixed for so long that our necks start to ache.

  Max lies down on the snow, spread out like a star, and looks upwards. ‘It’s better from down here,’ he says.

  So we join him on the ground, lying side by side. The whole firmament is ablaze with shifting patterns.

  ‘It’s like a spaceship,’ Max says. ‘Do you think so, Daddy?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s incredible, son, isn’t it?’ Carter shakes his head, mesmerised.

  ‘Yes. Can we see this when we go home?’

  ‘No,’ Carter says. ‘Only in this special place.’

  ‘Then can we come to live here? I like the snow everywhere and the pretty colours.’

  Carter turns to me. ‘I never thought that it would be like this. It’s beyond belief.’

  ‘We’re so lucky to see it.’ I know that people come to this part of the world time after time and don’t see anything as stunning as this.

  We lie in the snow, lost in our own world, just gazing up at the magnificent spectacle until our fingers and toes are totally numb and I seriously begin to worry about the children getting frostbite. When the colours start to ebb, I think we should seize this moment to go back inside, otherwise I’d be tempted to stay outside all night. I check my watch and realise that we’ve been out here for hours, that time has flown by, unnoticed, while we did nothing but stare at the heavens. How wonderful!

  ‘Should we get the children to bed?’ I ask Carter in a whisper.

  He notes the lateness of the hour. ‘Yes, good idea.’ Standing, he says, ‘Come on, kids. Let’s go and try out these ice rooms. Brr.’

  He scoops up Max and throws him over his shoulder. I’ve noticed that Carter has become a lot more tactile with the children since we’ve been here, which is nice to see. I take Eve’s hand and we head back to the hotel.

  In the cosy reception, I get us all hot chocolate and we sit in front of the roaring wood burner, warming ourselves through. When we’re all feeling roly-eyed and sleepy, I go to the equipment desk to get our super-insulated sleeping bags for the night and we head off to our cabins to change into our nightwear. We’ve been told that we need to sleep in thermals, socks, gloves and a hat. As part of the trip, I’ve ordered for us all soft Wee Willy Winky hats with pompoms on top and snuggly fleeces to get us from the warm part of the Icehotel into the frozen bit.

  Carter helps Max to change and I take the other cabin with Eve. We wrestle her out of her Arctic overall and then she stands patiently while I dress her in thermals.

  ‘Do you have a little girl?’ she asks as I pull her top over her head.

  ‘Not yet,’ I tell her. ‘But I hope that I will one day.’

  ‘You’re a nice mummy,’ she says, smoothing her hair away from her face. ‘Like my mummy.’

  This is the first time that either of the children has mentioned Tamara and I wonder if they’re missing her. To be honest, they’ve been kept so busy that I thought they wouldn’t be worried about her absence. Perhaps that was naive of me. Of course they miss their mum.

  ‘We go home tomorrow night,’ I remind her. ‘You’ll soon be back at home with Mummy.’

  ‘Daddy’s taking us straight back to school. I don’t think we’ll see her until next week.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘They’re both very busy people,’ she says. It sounds as if she’s been told that once too often.

  ‘I know they are, sweetheart. But they do love you both very much.’

  She smiles shyly at that. I pull her into my arms and hold her tight. Her hair smells of woodsmoke from the fire and her body is tiny against mine. She’s so easy to love – both of them are – and I wish their mother would appreciate a bit more just how lucky she is. If it were me, I’d be at home with them, looking after them, not dumping them off at boarding school and chasing round the world flogging racy knickers. They are children for such a very short time.

  Still, it’s none of my business. I’m here to do a job, nothing more. How Carter and Tamara choose to run their private lives isn’t something I should get involved with. Yet when I look at Eve my heart turns to mush. She’s just so adorable that it’s impossible not to care about her, or Max either.

  There’s a knock on my cabin door. ‘What are you ladies doing in there?’ Carter asks. ‘Are we ready for bed yet?’

  ‘Yes,’ I shout out. Then I pop Eve’s Wee Willy Winky hat on her head and zip her into her fluffy fleece. She looks incredibly sweet. ‘Are you excited?’

  She nods, eyes bright.

  ‘Me too.’

  So we join Carter and Max, who are also sporting their nightcaps and are armed with their sleeping bags.

  I laugh at Carter’s Wee Willy Winky hat. ‘Nice hat.’

  ‘No giggling,’ he says with mock severity. ‘I take no responsibility for my appearance. You bought them.’

  Eve chuckles too. ‘You look funny, Daddy.’

  But the truth of it is that he’s still incredibly handsome even with comedy headgear.

  ‘Right,’ Carter says. ‘If you’ve finished laughing at my hat, let’s head into our ice rooms.’

  My stomach is fluttering nervously as we make our way to our suites. I’m really hoping with all of my heart that this is going to be a unique and special experience. A night that none of us will ever forget.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The Royal Deluxe suite is truly spectacular. Through the arched doorway cut into the ice is a wall beautifully sculpted to look like drifting snow, making the entrance completely private. The ante-room contains two modern armchairs also carved in ice. In front of them is a coffee table in the shape of a snowflake, complete with ice books. Below an ice mantelpiece, flames lick up from an ice fire and next to it are contemporary standard lamps sculpted to look like icicles. We are all agog. Not bad for a room that you can see your breath in.

  ‘Just when you think that things can’t get any better,’ Carter says in reverential tones. ‘This is spectacular.’

  And I’m guessing that Carter is used to hotels on a spectacular scale. I feel a little glow of pride.

  The children try out the armchairs. ‘They’re very cold,’ is Max’s astute verdict as he lowers his bottom gingerly onto the ice.

  We go through to the bedroom, whose walls are inlaid with intricate swirls and curls, to find an enormous bed in the centre, set in a carved block of ice and covered with r
eindeer skins. Its delicate headboard is a veritable snowstorm and the bedside tables are made of ice. Concealed lighting in the walls, in turquoise and the palest of blues, sets off the works of art perfectly. A delicate ice chandelier hangs from the ceiling, sparkling like diamonds. It must have taken hundreds of hours to make it all look so beautiful.

  ‘I thought we’d let the children settle down in the next room,’ Carter says. ‘It’s a bit too early for us to retire yet, don’t you think?’