Holly's Christmas Kiss

by Alison May

Michelle felt herself smiling. That was probably the first bit of normal conversation they’d managed. She swallowed, raised her head and met Sean’s gaze.

  He nodded towards the snowy scene outside the window. ‘My flight was cancelled.’

  ‘Oh no! I’m sorry.’ She put her hand out to touch his arm in sympathy, but pulled it back before her fingers made contact. There was really no need for any more touching. ‘What are you going to do?’

  He shrugged. ‘Stand here. Drink my hot chocolate. Watch the snow. What about you?’

  ‘Well, my flight’s only delayed. I’m still going …’ Her voice trailed off as she saw Sean’s eyebrows flick up.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think anyone’s flying out of here today.’

  ‘It still says delayed.’ She looked forlornly at the departures board and then back out through the window. The snow was still falling, covering the scene outside in an ever-deepening blanket of white.

  He paused as if deciding what to say next. Eventually he smiled softly. ‘All right. I guess we’d better make ourselves comfortable for the wait then.’

  ‘We?’ Michelle could hear the horror in her own voice. Sean, however, seemed to be immune, or, at the very least, choosing to ignore it. He had put his own drink down, taken off his jacket and laid it out across the floor.

  ‘Madam,’ he took Michelle’s drink out of her hand and gestured toward the coat. ‘Hardly the full Walter Raleigh, but the best I can do.’

  He nodded back towards the main departure lounge. ‘There’s not a seat to be had through there.’

  ‘But you don’t have to wait. Your flight’s cancelled. You can go home.’

  ‘And leave you all alone? Never.’

  ‘Why are you still here?’

  ‘There is nowhere I would rather be.’

  Well that made no sense. What was the point in hanging around at an airport after your flight had been cancelled? Michelle opened her mouth to argue, but stopped herself. Bringing her a drink had been kind. She should probably try to be gracious. Very slowly, she lowered herself onto the coat and wriggled to one side, leaving space for Sean to sit beside her.

  He sat himself down and picked up his hot chocolate. He pulled the plastic lid off, and took a generous gulp, allowing the cream to settle on his top lip and the tip of his nose. Turning his face towards Michelle he grinned and raised his eyebrows in challenge.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Why not?’ He looked disappointed, but wiped the cream from his nose and lip with the back of his hand.

  ‘Because you’re a grown-up, not an eight-year-old.’

  ‘No. It’s Christmas. Everyone gets to act like a kid at Christmas.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Why not? Nothing wrong with embracing your inner eight-year-old.’

  Michelle rolled her eyes. ‘Apart from that’s it’s completely unrealistic. I have a grown-up life, a grown-up flat, a grown-up job.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a money adviser.’

  Sean rolled his eyes. ‘Like in a bank?’

  Michelle shook her head vigorously. In her line of work, banks were usually on the opposite side of the argument. ‘I’m a debt adviser. I help people who can’t cope with their debts.’

  Sean laughed. ‘Figures.’

  ‘What?’ There was something about his tone that Michelle didn’t care for.

  ‘Jess said you were always trying to fix things for everyone, you know, make everything better.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Sean shook his head. ‘Seriously, nothing. But wouldn’t it be nice to take a break from being sensible?’

  What a preposterous idea. It was just the sort of thing Michelle fancied her father would think. She closed the door on the thought before it had chance to take hold.

  ‘You can’t take time off from being grown-up.’

  Sean considered her answer in silence. ‘What about running away to the Caribbean for Christmas? That’s taking a break.’

  ‘Not from being responsible.’ Michelle’s voice raised. She twisted uncomfortably to face Sean. ‘This holiday is all about taking responsibility for myself, not needing someone else to look after me.’

  Sean raised his hands in submission. ‘Sorry.’

  They fell into silence. After talking about the importance of being grown-up she realised that refusing to let it go would look childish. Beaten by her own argument. She swallowed the warm creamy chocolate and let out a breath. ‘It’s Ok.’

  They sat for a moment looking out at the white landscape beyond the window.

  ‘Excuse me madam.’ Michelle turned around and saw a young woman in airline uniform approaching them from behind, clutching a clipboard.

  The woman gestured towards the airline insignia on her jacket. ‘Can I ask if you’re booked on a flight with us today?’

  Michelle nodded.

  ‘Can I ask your name?’

  ‘Michelle Jolly.’

  ‘Oh! Very festive.’ The woman smiled the smile of a person who knows that they get to go home at the end of the day. Michelle glowered. ‘And, can I ask which flight you’re booked on?’

  ‘Grand Cayman.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry. That flight has been cancelled today.’ The woman flicked through the pages on her clipboard to avoid eye contact.

  Michelle sighed in disbelief. Obviously she could see the snowbound runway, but she’d been telling herself that somehow her flight would be different.

  Next to her, Sean scrambled to his feet. ‘And is it being rescheduled?’

  The woman glanced back at her clipboard. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Sean Munro.’

  ‘And are you booked on the same flight?’ Her eyes were scanning the clipboard as she spoke.

  Sean shook his head. ‘I’m just a friend.’

  ‘All right,’ she replied, in a tone that implied that friends weren’t really all right, but would be tolerated in these unusual circumstances. ‘The flight will be rescheduled.’

  Michelle’s mood brightened and she dragged herself to her feet. So she could stay in an airport hotel tonight, and fly tomorrow. Yes, her holiday would be a day shorter but it wasn’t the end of the world. The woman was still talking.

  ‘… so you see, with the forecast as it is, and Christmas, and our aircrews are all over the place, that’s really the best we can do.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The twenty-seventh. We should be all back to normal by then.’ The woman smiled brightly but without sincerity. ‘Maybe the twenty-eighth.’

  Michelle was dismayed. The twenty-eighth of December. That would be five days off her holiday, and, even worse, she was stuck in the UK for Christmas.

  ‘But, I’ve booked a hotel and all the money …’

  Her half-formed thought was met with another disengaged smile and a sheet of paper pulled from the woman’s clipboard. ‘For financial compensation, refunds and any other complaints, you’ll need to fill in this form, and return it to the address at the top. Merry Christmas!’

  The woman hurried away, as if too much talk of refunds and complaints might dent her brittle cheerful shell.

  Michelle turned to Sean and for a second her bottom lip trembled, before she snapped her usual brisk exterior back in place. ‘Oh well, no point hanging around here.’

  Sean looked momentarily confused. ‘No. I suppose not. So are you going to head home?’

  Michelle nodded. ‘Not much else to do.’

  She held her hand out in front of her. ‘Thank you for the hot chocolate.’

  He shook her hand uncertainly. ‘No problem. You don’t want to share a cab or anything?’

  ‘No thank you. I’ll be fine from here.’ Because nothing had changed. This Christmas was about independence. Chance meetings and almost-kisses didn’t mean anything. She picked up her rucksack and walked briskly into the crowded departure hall.

  Sean watched her leave, before c
ollecting his own jacket and bag, and tossing the empty hot chocolate cups into the bin. Why had he waited with her anyway? He could have been well on the way to Edinburgh by now. He was behaving like the old Sean. He’d sworn off acting on impulse a long time ago.

  He glanced at his watch. If he managed to find a cab, he probably had enough time to get back into London and catch the sleeper train north, if there was space, and if everyone else who was on his flight hadn’t left with the same idea hours earlier. He rubbed his eyes. At the moment it wasn’t just the best plan; it was the only plan.

  He jogged across the departure hall, jumping and jostling to get past the crowds of people berating the airline staff. He resisted a smile at the sight of the woman who’d spoken to him and Michelle looking significantly less bright and festive. Partway across the room he realised that he had no idea where he was going. The whole layout of the airport was designed to stop people leaving from the departures area. Once you were through security, you were supposed to leave on a plane.

  He stopped and looked around. The bright festive woman was peeling herself away from another group of disgruntled looking passengers.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Yes?’ The smile snapped back onto her face, but it wasn’t quite as glossy as it had been earlier.

  Sean beamed at her. ‘Tough day?’

  She fluttered her eyelids slightly in the full wattage of his smile. ‘Well, you know …’

  ‘Sure. Look …’ he glanced for a name badge but found none. ‘I was wondering if you could help me get out of here?’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ The woman pointed towards an escalator at the far end of the hall. ‘If you go up there and follow the corridor round, they’ve opened up the doors through to Arrivals.’

  Sean grinned again. ‘Thank you. Happy Christmas.’

  ‘Yes.’ The brightness was returning with vigour, and she shouted a festive greeting at Sean’s departing back. ‘Merry Christmas!’

  Sean resumed his half-run, half-leap across the bustling hall and jogged up the escalator two steps at a time. The corridor upstairs was quieter. It didn’t seem like many people had worked out how to get out of the departure lounge yet.

  Sean followed the signs to Arrivals, and came out at a junction with signposts to ‘Baggage Reclaim’ and ‘Buses and Taxis.’ He followed the Baggage Reclaim sign and saw his case circling on the nearest carousel. So that was one benefit of hanging around at the airport for an hour after your flight was cancelled– no wait for your baggage. He grabbed his case and bounded towards the sliding doors to the outside world. The cold outside air hit him in a blast. He pulled his jacket tight around him and fastened the zip, but it wasn’t the cold that made him stop. It was the quiet.

  He’d been visiting London most of his adult life and was a regular through Heathrow. He couldn’t remember seeing the arrivals area so quiet. It made sense. If there were no planes taking off, presumably there weren’t any landing either. And if there were no planes coming in, then Arrivals would be deserted. Hardly any cars coming and going. A few people milling around, waiting for buses. Only two taxis waiting at the rank. And what noise there was, was being deadened by the soft floating fall of the snow. In the middle of an international airport, in one of the busiest cities in the world, he had managed to stumble into a truly silent night.

  Sean smiled. Despite the flight being cancelled, and his day being a huge mess, he could feel the stirrings of Christmas excitement in his gut, exactly the same as when he was a kid seeing the first decorations going up or spying the tins of biscuits and treats stowed away on top of the kitchen cupboard waiting for Christmas to officially begin. He grinned and walked towards the first of the taxis.

  Michelle waited at baggage reclaim. Seriously, how long could it take for one bag to come through? It wasn’t as if they had to unload it from the aeroplane hold. So far as she could work out, the luggage had never got that far, but still she was stuck here waiting for her suitcase to re-emerge from the bowels of the airport. Slowly the baggage hall started to fill up with miserable faces. Parents alternately bickering and placating fractious children. Couples standing in strained, disappointed silence. Airline staff with clipboards looking harassed and tired. People on their phones trying to beg rooms for the night and lifts home from the airport.

  That made Michelle think. At least she knew she had somewhere to stay over Christmas. Of course, Jess would be looking forward to her first Christmas with her shiny new husband, but Michelle was sure she’d be more than welcome once she explained her predicament. She started to brighten. It might even be fun. She could help with the cooking. Having another pair of hands would be useful anyway.

  She walked a few feet away from the crowd and pulled her phone out of her pocket. She hit Jess’s number on her speed-dial. It rang for a few moments before she answered.

  ‘Hiya. Are you there already?’

  Michelle had to think for a moment before she remembered where she was supposed to be.

  ‘Er no. Not exactly. They’ve cancelled my flight. I’m not going after all.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Her voice was full of concern. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Well, I was wondering if I could stay with you, just over Christmas ...’ She stopped, waiting to hear Jess’s assent.

  Her friend paused. It wasn’t a long pause, but it was enough. ‘I’m sure you can. That’ll be fine.’

  Jess drifted into silence. Michelle could hear Patrick talking away from the phone. His voice was light, happy, intimate. Michelle’s image of herself cooking a perfect Christmas dinner fractured in her mind. This was their time to do things like that together. Michelle would be an intruder in their blissful little bubble.

  ‘Actually, I might head back to Leeds.’

  ‘Oh. Are you sure?’ Jess sounded surprised, but not disappointed.

  ‘Yeah. Some people had invited me over on Boxing Day, and Christmas Day on my own might be nice.’

  ‘Oh. Ok.’ She didn’t try to talk her out of it, which only served to confirm that it was the right decision.

  ‘Yeah. Have a good Christmas.’ Michelle fought to keep the crack out of her voice.

  ‘You too.’

  ‘Ok then. Good ...’ Click. Jess hung up.

  Michelle turned back towards the baggage carousel. The carousel at the far end of the hall seemed to be slowly creaking into life. This was fine. She would collect her bag, get a bus or the tube to King’s Cross station and head back to Leeds. Christmas was just one day after all, so spending it on her own would be fine. It was what she’d planned. All her books could still be read. It would be big jumpers and pots of tea, rather than bikinis and cocktails.

  She made her way through the bodies lined up around the baggage carousel. Her suitcase was one of the first to come through, and she hauled it off the belt and started to fight her way back through the throng. Her eyes were stinging slightly, but she refused to allow herself to cry. Michelle Jolly did not cry.

  No flight. No one to spend Christmas with. She looked at her watch. Would it be too late for the train by the time she’d made it to King’s Cross? She added the fact that she had nowhere to stay tonight to her list of things she absolutely wasn’t going to get upset about, and tugged at her bag. Her muscles strained from the exertion after lying on the hard floor.

  She paused before the double doors that led out to the bus stops to put her scarf back on and button her coat. So much for two weeks of guaranteed sunny weather. The cold air stung her cheeks and she could feel the tears starting to well up. They weren’t proper tears, she decided, just her eyes watering from the cold.

  Michelle gave herself a stern talking to in her head. She hadn’t cried when Jess moved out of their shared Leeds flat to come to London, even though Jess had been in a flood. She hadn’t cried when Mum had forbidden her from attending her half-brother’s Christmastime christening service. She hadn’t even cried at her mum’s funeral. She wasn’t going to cry because she was stuck on her own i
n the cold.

  Bundled up in her duffle coat, and with her scarf pulled around her head, Michelle dragged her suitcase towards the bus stops. At the first shelter she stopped and read the sign. Of course, it didn’t help. She didn’t know where she was going, so she had no idea which bus to get. Had she missed the last train? Should she head to the railway station and try to sleep there and catch an early train in the morning, or should she look for a hotel? Would all the airport hotels be full with so many flights cancelled? Should she really be paying out for a night in a hotel, when she was at risk of losing so much money on her holiday already? Maybe she should have stayed put in the departures hall. At least it was warm in there.

  All at once, the decisions overwhelmed her, and she felt the proper tears start to fall. Fat, salty, gulpy tears poured down her face and she cried, for the first time she could remember, in a public place. It was humiliating, and the realisation that it was humiliating, made her cry more. Michelle pulled the end of her scarf over her face, and sobbed into the wool, paying no heed to anything but the sound of her own distress.

  She didn’t notice the car stopping and the door opening right in front of her until, wiping the scarf across her face, she looked up. Sean’s taxi had pulled up in the bus lane directly in front of her, and Sean was already lifting her suitcase into the boot.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Thought you could use a lift.’

  Michelle opened her mouth to tell him she could manage perfectly well on her own, but stopped herself. Given that he’d found her at a bus stop, weeping like a Best Actress winner, he was probably justified in thinking she might need some assistance.

  ‘I don’t know where I’m going.’

  As soon as she spoke the tears started up with renewed gusto.

  ‘Woah!’ She felt Sean’s hand on her arm. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Leeds.’

  ‘Right. Is there anyone you can stay with?’

  Michelle shrugged, and swallowed, struggling to compose herself. ‘I’m going to head home, I think.’

  She saw Sean glance at his watch. ‘Do you know what time your train’s at?’

  Another wave of tears started to well up behind her eyes. Michelle shook her head and took a deep breath. Enough crying already. Of course she didn’t know what time the train was. She hadn’t been planning on going home.