Christmas on the Island

by Jenny Colgan

  The door of the Seaside Kitchen tinged as loudly as ever as they went inside.

  ‘Guess what?’ said Jan incredibly loudly. ‘I’m going to need extra cake, aren’t I, Charles?’

  Charlie smiled that sweet slow smile of his and nodded his shaggy head. Flora blinked.

  ‘Well, we have . . .’

  She suddenly straightened up. It wasn’t like Jan to be beaming and full of delight to be in the Seaside Kitchen. She normally slagged it off, if anything. What had changed?

  She turned around slowly. And somehow, she just knew even before Jan opened her mouth. Something about the way Charlie was looking at his wife – not with the usual slightly hangdog obedience, but with something closer to awe. No. Please. No. Not now.

  ‘You see,’ Jan went on, ‘we’re having a baby!’

  It was the hardest thing Flora had had to do for a long, long time.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said.

  She swallowed hard and looked at Charlie, who was bright red.

  ‘Well done, Teàrlach,’ she said quietly, and he grinned proudly.

  ‘I told her not to tell anyone,’ he said.

  ‘Well, it’s three months!’ said Jan. ‘Quite safe! I should think so too, I don’t really hold with all this fussing, do you? It’s only a baby! As long as you’re fit and healthy you shouldn’t have any problems!’

  Flora tried to arrange her face into a pleasant smile but inside she was completely churning up. It was such a ‘here’s what you could have won’ moment – if she had stayed with Charlie, if she had accepted his gentle, easy, all-encompassing affection. Rather than fall for someone for whom it was like squeezing blood from a stone. Someone who, ultimately, may not be capable of loving anything at all: not her, not the baby, not himself.

  ‘Oh, Flora, you’re crying,’ said Jan with evident satisfaction. ‘Well, you know, these things happen! We are married, after all!’

  ‘What kind of cake would you like?’ said Flora, rubbing her eyes briskly.

  ‘One of each please!’ Jan smiled complacently. ‘One gets so hungry when one’s pregnant, did you know? It’s all those happy hormones all over the place. Of course I haven’t been sick once. I’m just so lucky!’

  And to be fair, thought Flora, putting cakes into a paper bag, she was.

  ‘Joel is going to be so excited for us!’

  ‘Mm,’ said Flora as deadpan as she could manage.

  ‘Of course he’ll have to step up more to help us with the Outward Adventures . . . although Baby naturally will be coming along too.’

  ‘Is that what you’re calling it?’ said Flora politely.

  ‘I don’t see why Baby can’t get used to the natural world all at once. I’ll bind Baby to me in a natural way,’ said Jan who as usual had a way of saying perfectly nice reasonable things in a bizarrely annoying way, blithely ignoring Flora’s remark. And as usual, she looked enquiringly at Flora when she was presented with the bill.

  ‘Even on such a special day?’ she said.

  Jan, from the richest family in the village, only came in on special days.

  ‘Have you got your discount card?’ said Flora, pretending not to have heard her. Of course she hadn’t, but Flora plugged in the discount anyway, through gritted teeth.

  The old ladies in the café couldn’t hold it in any longer. A baby on the island was a great affair as the world had moved on and the young people had moved away, and the modern age swept through even Mure. A baby – and not just a baby but a baby from two old island families – really was a great event, and the knitters were up, threatening to knit before Flora could even get the (‘Decaff of course! Do I need to tell you that?’) coffees on the table.

  Jan sat complacently, the centre of attention, as if she was the first pregnant woman ever to walk the face of the earth. Which, as far as Mure was concerned, Flora thought ruefully, she really was these days. Lorna would be delighted.

  Lorna. She needed to see Lorna. She glanced at her watch. How could it only be nine o’clock in the morning? How?

  She went through to the back kitchen. It was, in all honesty, as much as she could do not to call Innes and get him and Hamish to go around and beat some sense into Joel, no matter how awful a thought this was.

  It wasn’t just about him. It wasn’t, it wasn’t it wasn’t. She bundled up her hands into fists, even as she could hear Jan shrieking with laughter in the next room, and felt more bitterly jealous and wretched than she could stand.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘Lorna.’

  Lorna sighed. She knew Flora had a lot on her mind, of course she did, and she was sympathetic, truly she was. But she was tired. Christmas was full on. They’d had another nativity rehearsal, and she was beginning to wonder about the wisdom of casting Ib as Joseph. Several of the other boys in the class had made nasty comments about it and she’d had to sit them down and talk about ‘Words Matter’ programmes and so on when frankly she wanted to knock all their heads together.

  If Ib would unbend, just a little, and stop treating the other kids like the enemy, he would find his life so much easier – Ash had been much more open and therefore had settled in really well. But it was easier for him. Not only was he younger, with the easier way of forgetting situations than Ib – and certainly fewer memories of his mother – but also his natural personality was ebullient and affectionate; he was simply easy to get along with.

  She knew that she needed to sit down with Saif and discuss Ib’s difficult behaviour and attitude; maybe even explore taking him out of the play altogether. But that was . . . Well. A delicate problem would be one way of putting it. The fact was, whenever she was in the same room as Saif, she lost the ability to speak. And slightly started to drool. Which was a ridiculous excuse for not doing her job, or indeed never going to the doctor’s again until she died of a completely treatable disease.

  She sighed and sat down at her computer to draft an email.

  Dear Dr Hassan,

  I LOVE YOU

  Nope. She deleted.

  Dear Dr Hassan,

  I wanted to briefly discuss . . . HOW MUCH I

  Lorna sighed. This was ridiculous, and she had an absolutely massive pile of marking to do.

  Dear Dr Hassan,

  I just wondered if you have five minutes to discuss Ibrahim’s progress with me.

  Her mind strayed instantly to what she could wear – that pretty rose-sprigged skirt, maybe, which swirled . . .

  And she was lost in a reverie, and then the phone rang and the moment was lost and the email never sent, and the meeting never had, which could have saved a lot of trouble.

  * * *

  ‘LORNA! Are you finished? Are you finished? I need you!’

  ‘Flora? Calm down!’

  ‘I can’t calm down! I’ve had to be calm all day! And smile at people and laugh and pretend I am fine when I am EVER SO NOT FUCKING FINE.’

  ‘Is the baby okay?’

  Lorna flinched and glanced around in case Mrs Cook was next door and could hear her. She repeated the question, but whispered it this time.

  ‘Oh yes, no, I don’t know. Can you meet me? Like, now?’

  ‘I’ve got to finish up.’

  ‘Soon? Please? I have millionaire shortbread.’

  Lorna blinked.

  ‘Please,’ said Flora.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ said Lorna.

  The Seaside Kitchen was closed up for the night: a warm sweet smell of cake and coffee lingered on the air, the tables were clean with the chairs up on them for mopping the floor in the morning.

  Lorna and Flora sat in the cosy back kitchen by the stove, both hoovering up millionaire shortbread for different reasons. Flora let the tears fall as she told Lorna about her dreadful morning with Joel.

  Lorna blinked.

  ‘And he hasn’t called all day? Hasn’t been back in?’

  Flora shook her head.

  Lorna sighed.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said to Flora. ‘Ar
e you absolutely sure he isn’t just a nobber?’

  ‘That’s what Fintan says,’ sobbed Flora. ‘That’s what everybody says!’

  ‘Do they?’ said Lorna.

  ‘I promise, though, he isn’t. And anyway, it doesn’t even matter if he’s a nobber.’

  ‘If . . . ?’ said Lorna dubiously.

  ‘I’m still carrying his stupid nobber baby.’

  Lorna blinked again. ‘I know this is hard to ask but do you really have to . . . ?’

  Flora shook her head.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say. And, Lorna, I’m thirty-one. I’m ready. It wouldn’t be for everyone. But it is for me. I just didn’t want to do it alone.’

  This brought on another flood of tears. Lorna, like all teachers, never went anywhere without a packet of Kleenex and patiently handed them over one by one.

  Suddenly there was a knock at the door. The girls looked at each other, Flora with hope flaring in her eyes.

  ‘Maybe he’s crawling through the snow begging forgiveness,’ remarked Lorna. ‘On his hands and knees.’

  ‘Don’t joke,’ said Flora, swinging herself down from the stool she was perched on. That wasn’t Joel’s knock, anyway. Was it? Anyone else – literally anyone else – would just have marched straight in. The door wasn’t locked.

  A man was standing on the other side of the glass; Flora registered immediately that it wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t him – she’d known it wasn’t going to be him; there was no point being disappointed now. She stepped forward and turned on the light.

  ‘Delivery,’ said the man in a bored tone of voice as she answered the door. He was holding up the largest bouquet of flowers Flora had ever seen.

  You couldn’t get flower delivery on the island; there just wasn’t the economy for it. To get flowers delivered you had to order them well in advance to get them sent over from the mainland. It cost a fortune; nobody ever bothered. To get them on the same day must have been astronomical. The last time they’d had bouquets had been . . . well, Colton and Fintan’s wedding, she thought sadly. Then, when spring came around, the hills thickened with daffodils, crocuses and bluebells as far as the eye could see and the idea of anyone picking a flower seemed strange and sad. Why would you? Flowers were as much a living part of the glorious world around them as the bees which depended on them in the thick, pinkening field of wind-blown barley. Mure folk tended to view bunches of flowers the way some people see animals in a zoo: out of their natural habitat, their life and freedom taken away.

  Here were hothouse roses in pink and white, great thick stretches of ivy and trailing narcissus. It was a very impressive bouquet.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Flora flatly, signing the chit. The man looked up.

  ‘Any chance of a cup of coffee before I take the ferry back?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘No!’ said Lorna’s voice from the back. ‘She’s tired and had a big day!’

  ‘I don’t mind . . .’ started Flora, but she realised quite quickly that she couldn’t trust her voice. She slumped back down, the huge bunch of flowers overshadowing her completely.

  Lorna and Flora watched the man turn to go. Then Flora gave Lorna a look, and she instantly scooped up the leftover pieces of millionaire shortbread and stuck them in a bag and ran out after the very grateful chap.

  Returning to the Seaside Kitchen, Lorna locked the door behind him then wandered over.

  ‘Well, he’s sorry for something,’ she said brightly.

  ‘Buying flowers is easy,’ said Flora. ‘In fact, if I’d been one of his exes I wouldn’t have had to hold out for flowers. He’d probably have bought me some diamonds or something.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Coming to talk to me. That would be the hard thing to do.’

  And then she picked the entire lot up and went to dump it in the bin. She turned to Lorna.

  ‘Sorry . . . would you like them?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Lorna, with a longing look. She’d never seen such an overwhelming bouquet. ‘They would look lovely in the school . . .’

  ‘Fine.’

  Flora handed them over, didn’t even notice the little card with the message that tumbled out behind the counter and came to rest between the saucers. Lorna picked it up.

  ‘What does the note say?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Flora, lying through her teeth.

  ‘Can I read it?’

  Lorna opened it just as Flora grabbed it from her fingers.

  ‘I’m sure it says, “Let’s have a lovely baby and make a family together”,’ said Lorna encouragingly.

  Joel had agonised for so long about the message on the phone that the girl chewing gum on the other end had nearly given up on him. In the end he’d gone for the simplest, most honest response he felt at that moment. Because he was – if we were being charitable – very, very new to all this, and if we were being not so favourably inclined towards him, we might say just an idiot.

  ‘“I’m sorry”?’

  Flora burst into a fresh barrage of sobs. ‘He’s sorry. For getting me up the duff and ruining my life and leaving me!’

  ‘It doesn’t say he’s leaving you,’ said Lorna pragmatically. ‘He’s probably just sorry for how this afternoon went.’

  Lorna was one hundred per cent correct about this. Flora was having hormone issues.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ said Flora. ‘You were the one calling him a nobber five minutes ago.’

  ‘I know,’ said Lorna slightly regretfully. ‘But nobody’s ever sent me pink roses before.’

  Flora blinked.

  ‘No, me neither,’ she said crossly. ‘I would have thought I would have enjoyed it more.’

  ‘He’s trying,’ said Lorna.

  Flora stroked her stomach thoughtfully.

  ‘Then he should have written, “I’ll try”,’ she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Innes was having a tiring day. Firstly, Eilidh, his ex, had been on the phone. He couldn’t quite figure it out. He knew she’d find it hard having Christmas without Agot – who wouldn’t? But she kept talking on and on about what a great time she was having and how she’d been learning to cook and how she’d started Pilates and lost weight and everyone told her she looked great all the time.

  Innes was completely bamboozled as to why she was telling him all this.

  ‘So I thought I’d just bring Agot over . . . obviously, very late. I wouldn’t like to miss the last ferry! That would be such a disaster,’ she said with a giggle he hadn’t heard for a long time.

  ‘Aye,’ he said cautiously, keeping an ear out for Agot who was supposed to be decorating the Christmas tree. They’d got all the old boxes down from the loft as usual: the same lights their father had bought, with the extra bulbs, in the little flower shapes; bits of old moth-eaten tinsel; Christmas baubles made by generations of not particularly artistically talented MacKenzie children. It would not have occurred to any of them to make the tree fancier than it was: it was the Christmas tree, and that was that.

  He could hear Agot and her little friend Ash repeating something they seemed to find frightfully funny about being IN and IN and IN and IN and he couldn’t figure it out at all, but they were laughing, which would do. Ash thought Agot was the funniest person on earth and she liked him to follow her around as her own semi-permanent audience so they really were the best of friends, with Ash successfully avoiding the frightful feuds Agot occasionally started up with other completely innocent children who had committed the terrible sin of, for example, owning a slightly fluffier pencil case than she did.

  He hung up on Eilidh, still puzzled, and went and had a look at the children just in time to see Agot hang the fourteenth bauble on the same branch of the beleaguered tree, and the whole edifice nearly crash down on top of them. He scooped up both children just in time, reminded Ash it was time to go home, which immediately brought a fervent storm of protest from both of them, and finally calmed matters by rashly
promising Agot chips if she could keep quiet for ten bloody seconds.

  In Agot’s defence, it was about nineteen seconds.

  * * *

  Tripp Rogers was also having a confusing day. This was not a particularly unusual state of affairs for him: both of his ex-wives had confused him utterly, as did people who didn’t like football, beer and the ‘way things were’.

  But this needed a bit of sorting out in his head, and he was sitting in the Harbour’s Rest trying to figure it all out.

  Honestly, he had expected Colton to put up a bit of a fight. Well. He hadn’t expected anything like what he’d gotten, that was the truth of it.

  Tripp sighed, thinking of the time recently he’d caught his mother crying over the old family albums. Or the resentment he’d built up about his faggy brother who had made a fortune and meanly never shared any of it. He’d realised he’d been thinking about Colton, on and off, his entire life; they all had, even his sister.

  And Colton hadn’t been thinking about them at all. He’d just got on and done it.

  So all this time they’d imagined him plotting against them – laughing at them all in his big house, like Scrooge McDuck; deliberately buying companies and travelling just to show those he’d left behind a thing or two. He hadn’t done anything like that at all. He’d simply snipped them out of his life. He’d got married without giving a whit as to whether their parents were there – Janey, on the other hand, had nearly given them all a nervous breakdown with her wedding preparations, both times.

  And now, at the very end of his life, he’d deliberately come here to die among these weird-sounding people who appeared to think were his real family, in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold, and if Tripp hadn’t stopped by, they wouldn’t have known anything about that either.

  It was far, far more hurtful to know that, instead of being hated and resented, they had simply all been forgotten.

  He would have to call Mom. But he couldn’t bear to make this conversation. Inge-Britt brought him over another whisky – he’d asked for Jack Daniel’s and she’d looked at him like he was a maniac and brought him something called Lagavulin. He’d simply have to.