Holly's Christmas Kiss

by Alison May

  Pulling her duffle coat tight around her, Michelle followed Sean out into the city. There was snow on the ground, turning to slush as last-minute shoppers charged through it, rushing to get everything done in time for Christmas.

  Michelle stopped as the cold air hit her. Sean paused alongside her, reached down, and took her gloved hand in his.

  ‘What are you doing?’ She pulled her hand away.

  ‘Come on!’ Sean leant towards her and retook her hand. ‘You’ve got to hold hands on a first date.’

  ‘This is not a—’

  ‘Go along with it.’

  ‘No.’ Michelle stood still in the station entrance. ‘I said I’d go along with Christmas. Holding hands is romantic not Christmassy.’

  Sean sighed and let go of her hand. ‘Ok. Come on then.’

  Michelle was caught off guard as he strode away from the station and made his way over the bridge, away from the bustle of the Princes Street shops. She ran after him. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘This way!’

  She followed him along the road which twisted to climb steeply up the side of a long hill. Partway up, Sean turned and continued to climb up a narrow staircase between the buildings. Eventually they came out at the top of the hill and Sean settled leaning against a railing, looking out across the park and city in front of him.

  ‘What have we come up here for?’ Michelle came to a stop next to Sean, panting for breath after the steep, quick climb.

  ‘Just look.’ Sean placed his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her around to face the view.

  The park below them was full of light and movement. She could make out the gleaming white of a skating rink, and a Ferris wheel towering above the ant-like people on the ground. Next to the wheel there was a maze of tiny market stalls, all framed with sparkling lights. Beyond the market and the fairground, she could see trees across the park lit up with thousands of white lights, and beyond that Princes Street, still bustling in the last few hours of shopping time. It was only four o’clock but darkness had already descended, making the lights below sparkle even more brightly. Michelle gasped.

  ‘You like?’

  ‘It’s very pretty.’ The scene below her was like a piece of moving artwork.

  ‘Excellent. Let’s get down there then!’

  Michelle sighed. ‘It’ll be really busy, and everything’s always very overpriced at these sorts of things.’

  Sean stopped dead in front of her. ‘Forty-eight hours. You promised. Come on.’

  And they were off again, racing back down the hill. Michelle had to skip and jog to keep up with Sean’s irrepressible bounds, and was out of breath all over again by the time they got down into the market. She watched Sean weaving his way between the stalls, bumping into other shoppers, and shouting random apologies and excuse me’s in every direction. Michelle followed more cautiously, squeezing herself between bodies, trying to blend in with the crowd.

  And then she was alone. She looked around, and saw only strangers, unknown bodies jostling her, shopping bags bashing against her legs. She stood on tiptoes and craned her neck to see where he’d gone, but Sean had rushed too far ahead of her and was out of sight. She told herself to breathe. She forced her way through the crowd, and stopped at the end of a row of stalls. Behind her, a group of buskers were singing God Rest You Merry Gentleman but Michelle was deaf to their instructions to ‘Let nothing you dismay.’

  Sean had vanished. She was cold. She’d been shoved and buffeted through the crowd from every direction. She hadn’t had a chance to catch her breath from the run up and back down the hill. She was stuck in an unfamiliar city hundreds of miles away from home, and thousands of miles from the beach she was supposed to be lying on. And everywhere she looked there was bloody Christmas.

  She walked a few metres in each direction, scanning the crowd. No Sean. She was absolutely, resolutely alone. She would have to go back to the station. Her case was there. Her only chance of getting back to Leeds was there. Of course she didn’t have the ticket for the left luggage, and she had no idea whether she was too late to catch a train, but at the moment it was her only option. She stuffed her hands deep into her pockets and started to walk.

  ‘Michelle!’ At first the voice didn’t seep into her brain.

  ‘Michelle!’

  ‘Hey! You in the red hat. Get that woman for me! Her! There! With the ginger hair!’

  A hand touched Michelle’s arm. ‘Er, I think that man wants your attention.’

  She turned to look where the stranger was pointing. Sean. Of course Sean. He appeared to be levitating above the crowd a few feet in front of her. He waved. ‘I thought I’d lost you. Wait there!’

  She watched as he clambered back down into the crowd, seeing that he had actually been standing on a high table in front of one of the glühwein stalls. He climbed down leaning on strangers, who seemed perfectly happy to assist, and lolloped through the throng to her side. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘You were in front.’ Michelle didn’t smile. ‘You went away from me.’

  ‘I thought you were just behind me.’ He beamed as a new thought entered his head. ‘I told you it would be better if we held hands.’

  Seeing that he was not, in any sense, forgiven, Sean changed track. ‘Look. This was supposed to be about going with the flow. Trying to experience the joy of Christmas. You have to trust me.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can trust someone who runs off like a child the moment my back’s turned.’

  ‘I didn’t run off. I went to see what was going on. You don’t dive in.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry to be such a disappointment. If you give me the luggage ticket, I’ll get my things and be on my way home.’

  He could let her go. She’d probably still be able to get a train home. His brain was telling him to let her walk away. That would be safer. There was still a chance he wasn’t in so deep that he couldn’t swim back to shore.

  He ran after her. ‘Wait!’

  He caught up within a few paces, and fell into step beside her. ‘Now of course, you could go back to Leeds. You could. But, I can’t help but wonder if that’s really what you want.’

  She shot him a look that left little doubt.

  ‘Ok, so you do really want to do that, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s truly for the best. You’re pissed off with me. I get that, although to be fair to me, if we’d held hands like I suggested we’d never have got separated.’

  Another look.

  ‘Anyway, you’re here now. We’re almost home, well my home anyway. There’s a warm bed there.’

  A further look.

  ‘More than one warm bed. You’ll be quite safe. Come on. If you go home now, you’ll arrive back too late to go to the shops. You’ll have no food in, and you won’t be able to get anything until Boxing Day. It makes more sense to stay.’

  ‘You think staying with you is sensible?’

  Of course he didn’t. Staying with him was clearly insane. ‘Yeah. Dead sensible.’

  Sean had played more than a few hands of pub poker in his time, but those guys had nothing on Michelle. He had no idea which way she was going to jump.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Really?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Come on then.’ This time he grabbed hold of her hand and she made no attempt to wriggle free. He pulled her through the crowd to the foot of the Ferris wheel and into the queue.

  Michelle pulled a face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve already seen the view for nothing from the top of the hill.’

  ‘Well I’m going on it. You can stay down here if you want.’

  Michelle looked up at the wheel turning slowly above their heads.

  ‘No. I’ll come on. I assume you’re paying.’

  Sean laughed. ‘If it gets you to do something festive I’m more than happy to pay.’

  They moved to the front of the queue and climbed into a gondola, sitting opposite each other, kn
ees touching in the middle of the car.

  Sean’s eyes never moved from Michelle. As the gondola climbed into the sky and paused at the top of the wheel, her whole face changed. The closed, guarded expression gave way to something else. Something joyful. She was smiling as she watched the people on the ground below. Finally, he seemed to have found something she liked.

  The wheel turned them back to the ground and then they started to rise again. Michelle turned to face him.

  ‘You’re enjoying this?’ He couldn’t keep the hint of accusation out of his voice.

  ‘Maybe. I haven’t been on one of these things for years.’

  ‘When was the last time?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Liar.’ The dig was friendly. ‘Look, it’s forty-eight hours and then you never have to see me again. What’s to lose by telling me all your dark secrets?’

  She laughed, quietly, tentatively. ‘I don’t know if I have any dark secrets.’

  His responding laugh was generous and uncontrolled. ‘Shame. Just tell me about the Ferris wheel then.’

  ‘It was with my dad. We used to go to the fair near where we lived on Bonfire Night. We went every year, until they split up.’

  ‘He didn’t take you after that?’

  ‘A couple of times. It wasn’t the same. Mum would ask all these questions when I got home. And he used to bring The Elf with him.’

  ‘The Elf?’

  Michelle shook her head. ‘Too long a story.’

  ‘I wish I could say, “Well it’s a long ride,” but sadly it’s not.’

  They were coming towards the bottom of their third spin and the ride was slowing. Sean stepped off, and turned to help Michelle down, holding out his hand like a footman helping a grand lady from her carriage.

  ‘What now?’ Michelle was still smiling from the Ferris wheel.

  ‘Food?’ Sean suggested. ‘And then I suppose we should probably head for home.’

  ‘Ok. Where can we eat?’

  Sean gestured towards a row of stalls. ‘Hot pork rolls?’

  Michelle nodded.

  ‘And because it is Christmas, and the Ferris wheel was fun, but it’s not technically Christmassy, you have to have glühwein.’

  Michelle didn’t argue, and they ate their rolls, crunching on crackling and giggling as the fat and apple sauce dripped onto their chins. The ride on the Ferris wheel and the comforting salty taste in her mouth were combining into a fun evening.

  ‘Tell me something about you then.’

  ‘Like what?’ Sean glanced at her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She looked down at the floor, hoping he wouldn’t see how awkward talking about herself still made her. ‘I told you about my mum and the Bonfire Night thing. It’s only fair.’

  ‘Ok. What do you want to know?’

  Michelle thought for a moment. ‘Why do you love Christmas so much?’

  She looked at his face while he thought about the question. His expression was almost wistful. ‘It’s because nothing can break Christmas. You can have the worst things happen one year, but then next year it’s Christmas again and it’s still exciting and brilliant. It’s like Christmas is too special for real life to spoil it.’

  ‘That’s easy to say if you’ve never had a really bad Christmas.’

  Sean shook his head. ‘Oh, I’ve had lousy Christmases.’

  ‘What happened?’ Michelle didn’t believe him for a second. If you had a really bad experience, you learnt from it. You learnt not to get your hopes up the next time.

  ‘I once got dumped at Christmas.’

  ‘Really? When?’

  He waved his hand as if to dismiss the memory. ‘A long time ago.’

  Michelle sensed that she’d reached the end of Sean’s willingness to talk. She’d almost drained her glühwein, and opened her mouth to ask if Sean wanted another. She realised Sean wasn’t drinking. ‘You’re not having any.’

  ‘I have to drive.’

  The information didn’t make it through the glühwein fuzz in her brain until they were back at the railway station, collecting their bags. ‘What do you mean drive? You said you lived in Edinburgh.’

  ‘My flat’s in Edinburgh. Christmas is at home.’

  ‘Whose home?’

  ‘Mine. Well technically, it’s mine. Mum and Dad still live there.’

  ‘Who’s going to be there?’

  ‘Just family.’

  A full-on family Christmas? ‘I can’t come to Christmas with your whole family. I don’t know them.’

  ‘You know me.’

  ‘Barely!’

  Sean shrugged. ‘Well you promised you’d do Christmas. Christmas means family I’m afraid.’

  Michelle scowled, but knew that without anywhere else to go, she was well and truly beaten. ‘Where is it then?’

  He paused for a second. ‘Near Edinburgh.’

  He strode across the station to the car hire window and started talking and filling in papers for the assistant. Michelle watched in silence.

  Once he’d collected the keys she followed him to the car park. ‘How near Edinburgh?’

  ‘Not too far.’

  Something about his tone made her suspicious. ‘How far exactly?’

  ‘Couple of hours.’ He looked at the snow starting to fall gently from the sky. ‘Maybe three.’

  He clicked the car key and opened the boot of the hire car. ‘Would have preferred a four wheel drive in this weather to be honest.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’ll be fine.’ He glanced back at the snow. ‘Probably.’

  Without much other option, Michelle climbed into the car. It was clean and fresh, and had the recently valeted new car smell. She leant back into the passenger seat and settled to watch the scenery go by as Sean set off to drive out of the city. The radio was on, and a mix of cheesy Christmas music washed over them both. The snow falling had a hypnotic quality and the combination of the snowy cold outside and warm glühwein inside was cheering. She listened to the music, watched the snow, and resolved to try to follow through on her promise to embrace the Christmas mood. Life seemed to be giving her lemons. She would follow her mum’s example, and do her best to make lemonade.

  Her last conversation with her mother came into her head. ‘Put yourself first, Michelle,’ and then the instruction to use her inheritance for a holiday, a trip of a lifetime all for herself. She’d taken that as her mum’s last lesson in independence, but what if she’d meant something else entirely. Put yourself first. Good advice, if you knew what yourself wanted.

  Sean’s voice interrupted her thoughts, as he swore quietly under his breath. They were well out of the city now, on winding narrow lanes. Sean switched off the engine. Why had they stopped?

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Bit of snow.’ He grinned over at her. ‘Don’t worry. Wait here a minute.’

  He jumped out of the driver’s seat and walked around the car. Straining in her seat, Michelle saw him stop and pull his phone from his pocket. After a minute he stuffed the phone back in his pocket and jogged back to the car. ‘At least you’re awake now.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’

  ‘You were drifting off before we left the station.’

  ‘Oh.’ That explained how quickly they seemed to have got out of the city. ‘What’s the problem?’

  Sean smiled sheepishly. ‘Should have got a four wheel drive.’

  He turned the key in the ignition and flicked the headlights on so she could see the narrow country road ahead more clearly. It was covered in a deepening layer of white.

  ‘I told you snow was a pain. What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’ll be fine. We’re nearly there. I’ve ordered us a taxi.’

  ‘A taxi won’t get through this!’

  He laughed. ‘This one will.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Trust me.’

  A few minutes later, Michelle heard a sound in the lane behind them.
She spun her head. It was a tractor. ‘That’s never going to get past us.’

  Sean had already jumped out of the car and was waving his arms in the middle of the road. He disappeared into the gloom. After a second, Michelle got out of the car to see Sean embracing an old man in a wax jacket that had probably seen its better days sometime before she’d been born. The man, apparently, went with the tractor, and, as soon as he released Sean from the hug, he was lifting bags out of the boot of the hire car and stowing them in the cab.

  ‘Come on then.’ Sean bounded back to her side of the car. ‘Our lift’s here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh. Sorry. Michelle, meet my dad. Dad, this is Michelle.’

  The old man stepped forward. ‘Alun.’

  Alun turned to his son. ‘Another one for dinner tomorrow then?’

  Sean nodded, and Alun returned his gaze to Michelle. ‘The more the merrier.’

  Sean found a perch alongside his dad in the tractor, and leant down to take Michelle’s hand, pulling her into the cramped cab.

  ‘Not much space, I’m afraid.’ He grinned and pulled Michelle onto his lap. ‘Hold on.’

  Michelle balanced herself on Sean’s knee, her torso pressed against his body, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist to keep her in the cab. The journey couldn’t have lasted more than twenty minutes but Michelle felt every second. Sean’s breathing against her neck, his arm around her waist, his fingers inside her duffle coat gripping the fabric of her top to hold her steady on his lap. Heat raced through her body. Was he feeling it too? If he was there was no sign of it. He was chatting to his dad. Something to do with work and a farm she gleaned, but she struggled to concentrate on the conversation. She still didn’t know what Sean did for a living. He seemed to be doing all right, if his willingness to buy first class train tickets for virtual strangers was any guide, but beyond that she had no idea, which made the heat in her body and the lightness in her head even more confusing. Relationships, in Michelle’s world, were based on shared values and common interests, not on physical attraction, fairground rides and glühwein.

  The tractor jolted over a bump, and Sean’s arm braced to keep her secure on his lap. It was a long time since Michelle had spent this long this close to another human being. Her mum had never been one for big displays of affection, and Michelle had thought she was the same.