A Winter Flame

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t tell her,’ he said.

  Eve nodded and tried not to look guilty.

  ‘Violet is a very lucky woman, but then Pav is a lucky man. They’re right together.’ His sleeve brushed against her arm as she spoke and it sent tingles through her. She didn’t like it, and she did. It stirred a hunger within her to be touched again.

  ‘They are,’ agreed Jacques. ‘Finding someone to love is the greatest pleasure life has to offer. If they love you in return, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ bristled Eve. ‘There’s no point if it’s one-sided.’

  ‘I hope you find your happiness soon too, Eve. I hope life is kind to you and gives you peace.’

  ‘I am happ . . .’ She turned to make the point, but he had left her side and was heading over to talk to Pav. Why had he said that? It sounded like a goodbye.

  At the end of the party Max offered Susan and Patrick a lift, and as Eve had no desire to rush home, she went back to the Portakabin to check on the post and missed phone messages. She tried not to admit to herself that the buzz of the park was far more attractive than a cold, lonely house full of might-have-beens. Especially today, after such a beautiful demonstration of what love should be: what love should have been like for her.

  She hadn’t noticed it before, but the office looked rather naked after all the showers of confetti and holly, mistletoe, elves and Santas that she had been exposed to that afternoon. It was a plain little oasis in the middle of a snow-filled, mince-pie-flavoured world. She had intended to do some work. What else was there to do on a Saturday afternoon? But instead she picked up her keys and headed out to Morrisons. There was a man there – ‘Robin Pud’ – who sold Christmas trees in the car park.

  Chapter 46

  When Jacques walked into the Portakabin on the Sunday morning he walked straight out again, and checked the door before returning.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘For a minute there I thought I’d arrived at the wrong theme park.’

  ‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,’ said Eve, hooking a bauble onto one of the Christmas tree branches. The tree was only three foot tall – she hadn’t gone mad. She almost suggested to Robin Pud that he change the company name to ‘Robin’ Bastards’. She couldn’t believe the price.

  ‘Nice baubles,’ said Jacques with a grin, and that old twinkle in his eyes that she hadn’t seen for a while. ‘Did you buy that tree?’

  ‘No, I made it out of crêpe paper and sticky-back plastic,’ she replied. ‘Of course I bought it.’

  ‘We’ve got hundreds of Christmas trees in the park, and you went out and bought one?’ he threw his head back and laughed.

  ‘I was doing some market research,’ said Eve. ‘We should sell Christmas trees. They cost a bomb. And I still hate Christmas.’

  Then she stood back to make sure that her red baubles weren’t too close to each other, and Jacques grinned inside and knew that he was about to make the right decision.

  ‘Coffee?’ he offered.

  ‘Please,’ Eve replied.

  Silence reigned as Jacques poured a jug of water into the machine. Eve knew that now was the perfect time to expel the huge elephant in the room. It had been present and growing between them since Jacques had learned she had been snooping in his house. He deserved a very big and belated apology for her behaviour. It was only right and proper that she gave it to him.

  ‘I’m, sorry about the . . . seeing the uniform,’ she coughed. Oh God, that was terrible as apologies go.

  She raised her eyes to him and found him cross-armed and waiting for more.

  ‘What uniform?’ he asked, eyebrows raised. He knew exactly which uniform and wanted to see blood, that was clear. And could she really blame him?

  ‘The lady’s uniform. In your wardrobe.’ She cringed as she was saying it. ‘It was unforgiveable of me to take your keys when you’d left them in trust to me.’

  She dared her eyes upwards and found him still staring at her. His eyes were burning her skin. Eventually, after what felt like hours, he said, ‘I think I understand why you felt you needed to . . .’

  ‘Snoop?’ she supplied.

  ‘Snoop,’ he smiled. ‘You don’t know much about me. I imagine you were curious. You just put two and two together and made ten. Catherine’s parents asked me if I’d like to keep her uniform. It would have been rude of me to refuse their kindness.’

  If Eve thought he was going to use this opportunity to give her more details about his life, she would be sadly mistaken.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘How long ago did . . . she . . . you know,’ Eve picked up a golden bell and polished it on her skirt before adding it to the tree.

  ‘Five years,’ he said.

  Same as me then, thought Eve.

  ‘Were you . . . engaged?’

  ‘No,’ returned Jacques. ‘It was nice, going well. We weren’t together long enough to know if it would be for ever. In the end, it wasn’t.’

  ‘You said it was nine months. That’s a good amount of time together, isn’t it?’ said Eve. She and Jonathan had been with each for that amount of time and had known they were right for each other. Weren’t they?

  ‘Every couple is different though, aren’t they?’ said Jacques, taking the milk out of the mini-fridge. ‘Some know they’re right together from day one, some take longer, some don’t make it.’

  ‘Has there been anyone in your life since?’

  ‘No,’ he said flatly.

  ‘You must miss her,’ said Eve. ‘Soldiers tend to impact rather heavily on the heart.’ She presumed it was the same for men with female soldier girlfriends.

  Jacques put a cup of coffee down on her desk.

  ‘She was a lovely person and our time together was sweet. But she’s gone.’ That sounded rather cold, thought Eve. She didn’t mean to exhale quite so loudly as a comment on his words.

  ‘Life is a precious commodity and for the living, Miss Douglas,’ he went on. ‘It is a privilege not a right, and as such should be treated like a peach – tasted, savoured and drained of its every drop of juice. Not my words, but those of a wonderful lady.’

  ‘Catherine?’

  ‘Your Aunt Evelyn,’ said Jacques, perching on the edge of his desk. Eve noted he hadn’t made himself a drink.

  ‘She never said as much to me,’ sniffed Eve.

  ‘She said them by leaving Winterworld to you.’

  ‘Half of Winterworld,’ said Eve. ‘The other half she left to a stranger who purports to know more about my aunt than I ever did.’ It came out more arrogant than she intended, but before she could retract her words, Jacques amazed her by nodding in agreement. ‘Yes, you’re right, Eve. But not for much longer.’

  What the heck does that mean? Are you just one big lump of cryptic messages and mystery, she wanted to fling at him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I agree with you.’

  He opened his drawer and picked up a file.

  ‘I just came for this. It’s Sunday, Eve. Give yourself a break. Go and read the newspapers and drink coffee. This place is running itself because Evelyn planned it that way, so you don’t need to be tied to that desk, day in, day out, evenings, weekends. You look tired.’

  He had left the Portakabin by the time she had found her voice to answer him.

  She studied herself in the mirror on the wall. She looked exhausted, not just tired. She was unrecognizable from the woman who was laughing in the photos on her office wall at home. But she didn’t go back to Darklands to read papers and relax. Instead she sat in the office, going over paperwork she didn’t need to go over, and when she was sufficiently bored of that, walked over to see Holly. She couldn’t catch the train because it was grounded as the lads worked on making the track more higgledy-piggledy. Everyone was working so long and hard. She’d never seen anyone put as many hours in as Effin – no wonder he was always so bad tempered, she thought. He must have been totally knackered. She waved to Thoma
s.

  ‘Morning, missus,’ he said. ‘Great idea calling it The Nutcracker Express, on account of it being nuts and a cracker of a train.’

  ‘I’m glad you like it, Thomas,’ she returned. It was a very silly Christmassy name for the train but Christmas was the heart and soul of this park, and if that’s what her crazy Christmas-mad Aunt Evelyn wanted as her last wish, who was she to try and stop it?

  Nearby, Effin was talking into his phone and Eve wondered if he had been exchanged for a doppel-ganger.

  ‘Ie cariad, ddoi adre cyn bo hir a wnai pigo’r siopa fyny ar y ffordd. Caru ti,’ he was saying, in the same quiet, affectionate tone of voice that Eve used when talking secretly to Holly.

  ‘Who is he talking to? His bank manager?’ she chuckled.

  ‘Angharad, his wife,’ whispered Thomas. ‘A woman of gigantic proportions and the face of a sea-lion that ran into a wall. But he adores her. He’s just telling her now that he’ll be home very soon and will bring the shopping with him.’ Then he added with a wickedly exaggerated impression, ‘And now he’s saying, “I love you”.’ And he puckered up his lips and made kissy noises. ‘Like a lamb with Angharad, he is. Buys her roses, chocolates and those big padded cards. Like Love Story, they are. He’s never looked at another woman since he met Angharad at Sunday School.’

  That was a shocker. Effin was someone else she’d got wrong it seemed.

  ‘Are you married, Thomas?’ asked Eve.

  ‘It was many moons ago,’ said Thomas. ‘Terrible woman. Then I met my princess Eunice,’ and he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and showed Eve the passport-sized photo of a woman’s smiley face. A very ordinary-looking woman with plump cheeks and brown curly hair, and yet Thomas was sighing at the photo as if he was seeing Penelope Cruz. ‘She showed me what I was missing all those years. Oh yes, life is very sweet with my Eunice.’

  Was the whole flaming world in love? thought Eve as she half stomped through the wood. Everyone except her.

  As Holly ambled over to her, sensing a carrot treat, Eve looked over at the snow pony enclosure. Life was going on without Christopher as if he had never been there. Soon there would be a new Shire Horse joining them: Snowball, a fifteen-year-old mare found in a shocking state in a stable. The old girl was going to have a treat after all she had suffered. Life would begin again for her.

  Eve felt the pain of tears prodding at the back of her eyes. This damned place was changing her and she didn’t want to be changed. She didn’t want to buy Christmas trees and look at Jacques’ suit with dilated pupils. She wanted to stay in her old comfortable world with its familiar memories and old loyalties. A world where Christmas was a means to filling her bank account and reindeer were nothing more than a commodity. A world where she knew where she was and what she had to do. She was scared of acknowledging that Jacques Glace’s merest touch had made her nerve ends sigh. She didn’t want to admit that she was lonely, starved of affection, needed someone to touch her, hold her, love her. But as Holly took the last of the carrot from her hand, and Eve stroked the soft fur of her head, she wondered if it ever would be possible to go back.

  Chapter 47

  Mr Mead opened the email and studied it. He even cleaned his glasses to make sure he was reading it properly.

  ‘Goodness,’ he said, buzzing through for Barbara, who came scuttling through seconds later.

  ‘Will you look at this?’ he said. ‘I always thought that Mr Glace was a mysterious sort of fellow, but this has come rather from left field.’

  Barbara patted her ample bosom. ‘Goodness indeed,’ she echoed. ‘I better ring him, hadn’t I, and make an appointment.’

  ‘I think you better had,’ said Mr Mead, peering at the words again. And he thought at his age that he’d seen everything.

  Chapter 48

  Effin’s men worked through the night to finish the changes to the railway track. It would become even more of a wild ride in the summer when the park was closed down for a couple of months for more building work to take place, but it would be bone-shaking enough for the first few months of opening. Effin was his usual encouraging self, shouting at the men.

  ‘Wnai roi’r sac i bob un ohonoch chi a cyflogi’r ceirw a’r ceffyle – ’newn nhw job can gwaith gwell na chi, y wancyrs twp.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good,’ said Eve to a very tired-looking worker as she passed him on the way to open up the Portakabin.

  ‘Oh, it’s his usual diatribe,’ came the weary answer. ‘He says he’s going to sack us all and employ the reindeer and a horse who will do the job a hundred times better than us stupid wankers. If you’ll excuse my language, missus.’

  Eve smiled. She wasn’t sure she could live without her fix of Effin’s Welsh Tourette’s when the park opened.

  In the cabin there was an envelope underneath the tree, wrapped in Christmas paper. It was the size of a single A4 sheet. There was a Santa-shaped label on it and the writing read:

  To Eve. Not to be opened before December 16th. J.

  December 16th? Twelve days’ time – the grand opening day. She was tempted to take a peek and tried to peel back a corner of the paper just at the moment when Jacques made his appearance.

  ‘No looking,’ he said.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ fibbed Eve. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A gift,’ said Jacques.

  ‘I gathered that.’

  ‘You’ll find out on December sixteenth, won’t you?’

  Only twelve days until the gates opened to the general public and an old lady’s dream was realized. It only seemed like yesterday that she had been sitting in Mr Mead’s office learning that her batty old aunt had left her a theme park – to be shared with the international man of mystery himself. That yesterday had been devoid of reindeer and horses, tiny people, and the man who called himself Santa, who knew that she liked Fuzzy Felts. That yesterday, when held up against this one full of swearing Welshmen and patient Poles, soft furry animals and a team-spirit that could have been sold for a million pounds if someone knew how to bottle it, was a much greyer, colder place.

  ‘It’s looking good, isn’t it?’ said Jacques. ‘I see from the office diary you’ve managed to get the nationals interested.’

  ‘Yes, photoshoots have been arranged for the day after tomorrow,’ said Eve. ‘So if you—’

  ‘I won’t be around,’ said Jacques before she could go on.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You don’t need me,’ said Jacques. ‘You’ve got it all covered.’

  ‘Well, I have, of course,’ agreed Eve, who didn’t doubt her abilities to escort the press around the park, ‘but I thought you’d want to be there too.’

  ‘Nope,’ he replied. ‘I ticked the no publicity box.’ He pulled all the files out of his bottom drawer and plonked them on the table. ‘The permanent log-cabin office will be ready to move into in the next couple of days.’

  ‘It’s ready now,’ Eve cut in. ‘I’d planned to start moving over there today because Effin is itching to move this Portakabin off-site.’

  Jacques nodded. ‘See? You have it all up here, don’t you?’ and he tapped his temple with his finger.

  ‘I like to think so,’ said Eve.

  ‘I might as well pack as much as I can into boxes and get them taken up to the new office then. Once the press see the pictures of Violet’s wedding, I’d be prepared for a flurry of bookings for the chapel if I were you. You may need this.’ He handed over the big black book.

  ‘I thought you were handling the chapel,’ said Eve.

  ‘I’m taking a bit of a break,’ replied Jacques. ‘I know you won’t mind. Ships steer much better with one captain.’

  ‘Well they do but—’

  ‘This is the Santa’s grotto file. The architect has drawn up some tentative plans you’ll need to look at as it features an extension at the side. There are more snow globes arriving before the weekend. Oh, and here is an idea about a ‘snow-globe experience’ in Santapark. It’s a virtual ride. People will t
hink they’re being shaken and turned upside down—’

  ‘Whoa, hang on,’ put in Eve. ‘How long will you be away for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ shrugged Jacques. ‘Maybe I’ll be a sleeping partner.’

  A sleeping partner. Eve’s every wish come true. Herself in sole charge of the running of Winterworld. No Jacques bloody Glace to alter and ‘improve’ her plans. It was just too delicious to think about. No sparring with him, no one to erect unsuitable Santa signs whilst she was fighting off adult versions of childish diseases. On paper that would be bliss. ‘Well, that of course is up to you,’ said Eve.

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Jacques. He looked at the Christmas tree beautifully decorated now with carefully chosen tinsel, and he smiled.

  Oh yes, the office was going to be quiet at last. No one singing Christmas carols all the time, no one booming down the telephone and stomping everywhere with big boots on and taking up half the office with his enormous coats.

  ‘You aren’t going off immediately though, are you?’ asked Eve, watching as he continued to empty the drawers of his desk. ‘You’re not leaving me to oversee the grand opening by myself?’

  ‘You don’t need me for that. You arrange events – you’re the best at it.’

  ‘Well, I know I’m capable but—’

  ‘The new office will be yours and yours alone. I’ll make sure you have everything from me that you need before I go.’

  ‘Oh okay, if that’s the way you want it,’ said Eve, trying to be brave. Trying to remember that this was what she had wanted from the beginning.

  ‘I do.’

  She was finally going to be the ‘Captain’ rather than ‘missus’. No one was going to mistake her for Jacques’ PA or chief tea-maker. She was going to be steering the Winterworld ship completely, utterly and fabulously solo. And yet watching Jacques begin to pack up the office, she couldn’t help thinking that there was something very wrong with this picture.