Love and Lies at the Village Christmas Shop

by Portia MacIntosh

  ‘If you know him, I’d suggest taking up his offer,’ the receptionist suggests. ‘I don’t think you have any other options.’

  I exhale deeply.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ Seb asks.

  I shake my head.

  ‘Have dinner with me and, if you still don’t want my bed, I will swim across the sea with you – OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ I reply, quickly remembering my manners. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Would you like a table now?’ the receptionist asks.

  ‘Yes, please,’ he replies.

  ‘Head straight through, I’ll call them and tell them you’re on your way.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he replies. ‘After you, Ivy.’

  Seb gestures towards the dining room, ushering me with his arm.

  I can’t believe my plan to pay Seb off didn’t work. I can’t believe I’m stuck here with him now. I can’t believe I’ve agreed to have dinner with him, and I really can’t believe I’m going to have to sleep in his room.

  One thing I know for sure is that if he starts getting on my nerves I probably will just wade into the sea and see where I end up. Anywhere has to be better than here.

  Chapter 25

  My life these days is just a series of awkward and disappointing circumstances, with me bouncing from one horrible situation to the next.

  In what is potentially my fourth uncomfortable situation of the day, I’ve decided that the best thing I can do is just go with the flow. If I’m trapped here with Seb, what else can I do? I might as well weather the storm here and have dinner with him.

  That said – and as I’m sure you can imagine – given the fact that Seb is the man who is ruining my life, the conversation is not really up to much.

  Darren is our waiter this evening. He dutifully and gleefully introduced himself before taking our order. But poor Darren fast realised he’d happened upon something awkward. I don’t know if he thinks this is some kind of mismatched blind date, or an awkward Tinder meet-up, but Darren knows something is wrong here. That’s why, when he comes to our table, he does exactly what he needs to do, before scarpering as fast as he can. He’s probably terrified he’s going to get caught in some kind of crossfire.

  Darren brings us the bottle of white wine that Seb ordered and pours us both a glass.

  Having sank a few glasses of Prosecco before I got here – and being quite the lightweight when it comes to drinking – there’s a strong chance the effects of my previous drinks haven’t quite worn off yet. That said, if having a couple more glasses will make this evening go faster, I’m all for it.

  ‘Something you said earlier is really playing on my mind,’ he finally confesses, filling the silence.

  I glance down at my food – salmon in a white wine sauce with asparagus, baby carrots and new potatoes, which smells incredible. I wish I were here under different circumstances so that I could really enjoy it. It’s hard to care about the one thing I said earlier that is playing on Seb’s mind, because ever since he turned up in Marram Bay, he’s said a lot of things that have been playing on my mind near constantly.

  Seb ignores the steak and chips in front of him. The steak that he’s only been given a regular knife for, because I’m pretty sure Darren thinks a steak knife might be a risky thing to leave between us.

  ‘When you offered me that money earlier, you rhetorically asked: “What else do you want, apart from money?”’

  ‘I did,’ I confirm.

  ‘It sounded to me like you thought that money was all I cared about.’

  I gasp theatrically for effect. Seb just ignores my sarcasm and carries on talking.

  ‘I was thinking about it, in the ten minutes while you were contemplating whether to swim home in a freezing rainstorm, or be trapped on an island with me, and something occurred to me… I’ve never actually told you why I want to move here.’

  ‘I assumed it was to flash your money around town and ruin lives,’ I say – or rather, the wine says.

  Seb laughs a little. ‘Can I explain?’ he asks.

  ‘Why not, eh?’ I reply, sipping my drink. ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘I’m not really in touch with my old school friends,’ he starts. ‘I have them added on Facebook though, so I do have an insight into what they’re all doing with their lives, and they’re all following quite similar paths.’

  So far – annoyingly – I can relate to what Seb is saying. Holly still meets up with a couple of the girls we were friends with at school, but only because their kids all go to school together now. I – not a real adult – don’t get invited to the mummy meet-ups, obviously, but it does remind me that everyone is taking that same road. Everyone but me.

  ‘They’ve got husbands, wives, kids. They’re working steady jobs, making enough money to have a nice house – which they relish taking pride in. They spend their free time on family holidays, at kids’ parties, visiting their in-laws…’

  ‘Is everything OK with your food?’ Darren interrupts reluctantly.

  ‘It’s great, cheers, mate,’ Seb replies, but while he sounds convincing, Darren isn’t buying it.

  ‘Neither of you has touched it yet…’

  We both make an effort to tuck into our food, giving a relieved Darren the reassurance he needs so that he can leave us alone again.

  ‘For as long as I can remember, my life has been all about work,’ Seb confesses. ‘I haven’t put down real roots, I haven’t had real relationships – I realised that I have pretty much nothing real to show for my life. Just work. And when I realised that, I also realised how unhappy I was, and that was that, I knew I’d need to make a change.’

  I give Seb a half-smile. I suppose I can relate to that because I’m in a similar situation. For years, my life has been all about the shop. I haven’t had proper, meaningful relationships – with men or friends outside my family – and, while I did have my own little house what feels like a million years ago, I sold it to buy Holly out of the shop, so that I didn’t have to sell it to a stranger after our mum died.

  ‘The truth is, I want to get married. I want to have kids. I want to care way more about my porch extension than anyone should ever really care about a porch extension. I’m not moving to Marram Bay because I thought you seemed like easy pickings for another business venture, I’m moving here because I want to move here. Yes, building holiday homes is a business decision, but I want it to be my last one. It’s a business that I can set up and run myself, here, in one place, where I can become part of the community. I don’t want to move here for work, I want to move here for good. I want my life to start here.’

  With a little less reluctance than before, I relate even more to what Seb is saying. He could be talking about me. I’ve put finding love and starting a family to one side – not even intentionally, it’s just what happens when you give everything you have to something else.

  ‘Do you know what I mean?’ he prompts.

  ‘I do,’ I reply. ‘The only problem is that you can’t just force yourself to fit in here – that’s not how fitting in works. You want to be one of us – try acting like one of us, instead of an out-of-towner who just wants to come in and capitalise on our tourism. But otherwise, I understand. I’ve done exactly the same thing – watch everyone around me settle down and start a family, while all I’ve done is focus on the shop.’

  ‘So we want similar things?’ he replies.

  ‘I suppose we do. The difference is, you’re an eligible bachelor with all the time in the world to get married and have kids. I’m a soon to be unemployed and homeless spinster, with a biological timeline I need to stick to.’

  Seb just smiles.

  ‘In the interest of honesty,’ I start – because what else do I have to lose – ‘I would be upset about anyone buying my mum’s shop and my family home, no matter who they were, or what my circumstances, but I think the reason it’s hitting me so hard is because it’s all I’ve ever worked for. It’s all I’ve got, and that’s probably why I’m so terrifi
ed of losing it. Because then what? Forget about where I’ll live or what I’ll do for money – why will I get up in the morning? What will my purpose in life be? Without the shop, there’s nothing.’

  ‘Ivy…’

  ‘Nah, don’t,’ I say. ‘There’s no point. I get it. You feel bad, I feel bad – everyone feels bad.’

  ‘I’ve bought a lot of buildings and businesses,’ he tells me. ‘I’ve never spent much time with the person I was buying them from so, as far as I know, they’ve never been reluctant to leave.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, I’ve never had any kind of…moral burden before.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about it,’ I insist. ‘You’re buying the place – it’s a done deal.’

  ‘I’m giving a presentation at the town hall tomorrow, for the general public, so they can come along and learn about the plans.’

  ‘And, what, you want me to show up, kick up a fuss, call you a monster, just like old times?’

  Seb gives me an almost sympathetic smile.

  ‘Shall we not talk about it?’ he suggests.

  ‘I think the night will be much more bearable that way,’ I reply.

  An awkward silence falls upon us, just in time for Darren to take our plates. Poor, innocent Darren, caught in the crossfire of a war he has nothing to do with.

  ‘It’s stopped raining,’ Seb muses. Brilliant, we’ve resorted to making small talk about the weather. ‘I’m looking forward to summer. Being able to explore the place. It’s been pretty much nonstop work.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful place, lots to see,’ I tell him. ‘It’s good being so close to the sea, to the beaches. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of walks on the beach – not that I’ve had much time for it recently.’

  ‘I could not tell you the last time I went for a walk on the beach,’ he admits. Then he must notice the look on my face. ‘I’m always working. That’s why I made this change, more time to do the stuff I want to do, less time hunched over my laptop or on the phone.’

  ‘You still seem like a money-talks, always-busy businessman to me,’ I point out. ‘Let me know when the change kicks in.’

  ‘Let’s go for a walk on the beach,’ he suggests.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now,’ he replies. ‘The rain has stopped, the wind has calmed. This place is on the coast – 30 seconds out the door, we can be walking on a beach.’

  ‘OK…’

  I’m a little taken aback by his suggestion but, after we pay the bill, we put on our coats and head outside.

  With the rain halted and the wind calmer, it’s much nicer outside, although still a little chilly. We walk down a small grassy hill until we’re on the beach.

  ‘It’s an amazing view,’ Seb says.

  To the right you can see Marram Bay, looking more attractive than ever with the multi-coloured lights from the Winter Wonderland being reflected on the water. Straight on, you can’t see anything. Just sea until you can’t see sea anymore…nothing but black.

  ‘Look at all that nothingness out there,’ Seb muses, looking out to sea.

  ‘I like that though,’ I tell him. ‘Looking one way to see everything that has felt familiar to me my entire life, and then looking the other and seeing nothing. It doesn’t scare me or depress me; it gives me hope. It’s a blank slate, which makes my imagination go wild with possibilities and hope. Anything could be over there.’

  ‘I think Amsterdam is over there.’ He laughs. ‘But there are lots of possibilities in Amsterdam.’

  Seb gives me that cheeky laugh of his, and that flash of his dimples that I can’t help but adore, and with the moonlight reflecting in his eyes, I keep feeling my anger slipping away. If I could just let go of it…

  ‘Christmas soon,’ he says, changing the subject as we stroll along the sand. ‘You must be buzzing.’

  For the first time in my life, my excitement for Christmas has been quashed, and it breaks my heart a little. I don’t say this out loud though.

  ‘I am. Do you like Christmas?’

  ‘Meh,’ he replies. ‘Never really had anyone to spend it with, not since I was a kid.’

  ‘Not even girlfriends?’

  ‘Never really had a girlfriend long enough to spend Christmas with her,’ he tells me.

  ‘There’s a time period you have to wait before you can ask a person on his own for Christmas dinner?’

  ‘Apparently,’ he says with a chuckle.

  ‘I think my sister was going to ask you to have it with us, the other night,’ I tell him. ‘And she’d only known you a couple of hours.’

  ‘I did build furniture for her,’ he says. ‘Why did she only nearly ask me?’

  ‘That’s Hope Abbey down there, or what’s left of it,’ I tell him, changing the subject. ‘Want to stroll around the ruins? It’s weirdly beautiful. Supposedly it’s haunted.’

  ‘Haunted?’ Seb asks cautiously as we walk towards it.

  ‘Yeah, you’re not scared of ghosts are you?’ I tease.

  ‘No,’ he replies, not entirely convincingly. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Seeing as how you’re not scared, I’ll tell you the story as we walk around it,’ I suggest. ‘Legend has it that a young couple once tied the knot here – as many couples still do. They had a big, beautiful wedding – an absolutely perfect day until the bride realised the groom had vanished. Still not scared?’

  ‘Still not scared,’ he tells me, twirling around to take in his surroundings.

  ‘So, she doesn’t panic, instead she just walks around to see if she can see him – he can’t have gone far.’

  ‘Let me guess, she never saw him again?’

  ‘No, she did,’ I tell him. ‘She found him hidden behind a crumbled abbey wall, kissing her younger sister, telling her how she was the one he really loved.’

  ‘Tale as old as time. Is that what’s supposed to scare me? Infidelity?’

  ‘The bride decided she would teach her no good, cheating groom a lesson. To show him that she was the one who was important to him, and to give him a scare, she climbed into one of the rumoured secret tunnels that run underneath the island.’

  ‘Secret tunnels?’

  ‘Yeah, I think the monks used to use them, to escape the abbey when they needed to. No, you can’t buy them,’ I tease. ‘So she found her way into the tunnels to hide…but she could never find her way back out. None of her family or friends ever found out what happened to her and her husband married her sister in the end. Apparently the bride’s spirit is trapped here, and many people have reported seeing her ghost rise up from the ground, intent on inflicting pain and suffering on any happy couple she sees.’

  Seb doesn’t say anything. His face is straight and his eyes are blank. Suddenly his head snaps up to make eye contact with me, his eyes wide as he screams: ‘Boo!’ at the top of his voice. The loud sound echoes around the remains of the abbey and I jump out of my skin.

  ‘Oh my God, what is wrong with you?’ I ask, my hands clutching my chest.

  ‘You were enjoying trying to scare me, so I thought I’d give you a scare.’ He laughs. ‘And it worked. And, look, no ghost.’

  ‘She only comes out for happy couples, not mortal enemies,’ I correct him.

  ‘Is that what we are?’ he asks, straight-faced.

  I shrug.

  ‘Why did you sister only nearly ask me to have Christmas dinner with you?’ he asks curiously. ‘You never said before.’

  ‘Because I asked her not to,’ I tell him. ‘The whole mortal enemies thing. Maybe it’s a pregnancy symptom, to empathise with people.’

  People who maybe don’t deserve it, but I don’t say that out loud.

  ‘You must be buzzing about that too,’ he says. ‘Being an auntie again.’

  I take a second too long to answer.

  ‘Ivy?’

  ‘I am – of course I am,’ I stress. ‘I just…I don’t know, it made me a little sad. Not for Holly and her family, for me. Holly and I are twins, we had th
e same upbringing, all the same chances in life…and she has an amazing husband and two wonderful kids, with another on the way. She lives in a nice house and she goes for coffee mornings with her mummy friends. And I’m just me, all alone, with nothing to show for my life at all.’

  ‘Single-handedly running a shop is a huge commitment,’ he tells me. ‘Especially one in the middle of nowhere, with zero footfall and minimal traffic. If you’d been in a different place, you’d be in a much better position now, and, no matter what, I guarantee your mum would be so proud of you.’

  At the mention of my mum, I feel my eyes fill with tears.

  ‘Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry,’ Seb insists, grabbing me for a hug, pressing my face into his body with his arms locked tightly around me. ‘You don’t realise how amazing you are, how much you’ve achieved, how much you do for everyone.’

  ‘How come I’m going to end up with nothing?’ I ask in between sobs.

  ‘Sometimes people – through no fault of their own – just end up with nothing left. But the tough ones fight through it, and they build themselves back up. But even so, you don’t have nothing. You have an amazing family who love you so much, and one day you’re going to have kids of your own. Trust me.’

  I glance up at Seb, looking into his eyes, and in them I just see something…something that tells me he means everything he’s saying.

  And just like that, I let go of my anger.

  And then we kiss.

  Chapter 26

  I did wonder, after the few occasions I’ve had a drink recently, why I don’t drink more. It tastes nice, it helps me relax – why haven’t I been doing this more often?

  Spoiler alert: it’s because of the hangovers. I’d forgotten about hangovers – they really are a truly unique and unpleasant nuisance, aren’t they? My head hurts, my eyes hurt – even my teeth hurt.

  I rub my tired eyes as gently as possible, opening them slowly to adjust to the bright morning light in the room.

  ‘Morning,’ Seb says cheerily.