A Mistletoe Miracle

by Emma Jackson

  ‘That’s still not a lot of people to run an entire hotel.’ She had a way of speaking that carried through the room and I realised people were shutting up to listen. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t notice. You must’ve been doing something right.’

  Mrs Henderson stood up and came over too. She was a tall woman who carried off the casual jeans and jumper look like an M&S model.

  ‘It’s true. All my husband and I have been saying this morning, all I’ve heard from most of the other guests in fact, is how wonderful this Christmas had been. How perfect with the snow and with the wonderful atmosphere that the staff here have created. Mince pies and mulled wine and carol singing. That’s been you. By yourself. I can’t speak for everyone else—’ she threw a pointed look at Julius ‘—but you certainly haven’t ruined our Christmas. And we’d be more than happy to wait for Christmas dinner. I can help you cook it if that’s feasible, or we will just make do with what you can manage on your own.’

  ‘You can help me?’ I rubbed my face harder with the napkin, even though it was rough and probably leaving bits of red tissue on my blotchy cheeks.

  ‘Of course. Isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Coming together, helping, sharing.’

  Mrs Featherby stood up too. I half expected her to announce she was Spartacus.

  ‘I make a mean prawn cocktail for a starter.’

  And suddenly the tone of the chatter changed, and guests were coming up to me, not to shout or demand refunds but to divvy up the tasks and ask to be shown into the kitchen to help clean up and cook. I took a big, deep shaky breath and tears filled my eyes again. Tears of relief and gratitude.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It wasn’t easy to clear up the dusty foam from the chemical extinguisher but gradually we were in a position where the kitchen started to produce food. None of it cooked by me. I peeled and chopped and showed people where things were, but all the actual cooking was taken in hand by a team of women who by rights should never have set foot in our kitchen. It was completely against all the health and safety rules, but we were so far off the grid by this point I was just letting myself go with it. I wasn’t even worrying about the Hotel Hopper now. How could I? There was nothing I could do to stop them writing their review however they liked, and the rest of the guests were happy – that was all I cared about.

  When it became clear that I was becoming more of a hindrance than a help, I braved the dining room and enlisted some more extra hands to move the tables yet again so the food that came out could be set up like a buffet. It could have been awkward, what with me turning into a feeble, sniffling wreck in front of these people but I reverted to my standard behaviour in these situations and brazened it out. I may have still been feeling like making an igloo out in the grounds and staying in it until my mum finally came home but to the guests, I was back to being a cheerful, if not particularly efficient, member of staff.

  And as the food started to arrive and I provided drinks and put on the music in the bar, opening up the connecting doors to the dining room so the guests could move freely between them, I began to believe that maybe everything really was going to be okay. At least for today.

  Whether it was because of the bizarre circumstances, or the events I’d put on over the last few days – or perhaps a combination of both – the guests were truly mingling. Laughing and chatting as they ate, and the kids were running around hiding under tables and getting out their toys to play with. I hovered by the bar until it looked like everyone was done eating and then I went to clear up, collecting plates around the room as people started dancing. Matilda and Olive began jiving to ‘Run, Run Rudolf’, hitching their long skirts up and forgetting their usual bickering as they clutched hands and spun around each other. Noelle dragged Julius Mundey out to join in and I almost dropped all the plates I was carrying when he actually gave in and started dancing too.

  I thought of Nick and dancing at the festival and about the prospect of getting to dance with him at Geri and Lisa’s party. I pressed my hand to my stomach as though I might be able to still the armada of butterflies assailing my digestive system.

  They still hadn’t made it downstairs. And I tried not to watch the door for him as I set out board games in the library and put the TV on the channel streaming back-to-back Christmas classics in the lounge. I set out complimentary nibbles and arranged some chairs around a table in the corner of the dining room as an area for the kids to get out some of their craft and activity box sets they’d been given.

  They asked me to join in with them and I got lost making paper dolls. They didn’t follow the instructions at all, just created whatever they wanted – snowmen, penguins, princesses and monsters. When they ran out of figures, I told them that I knew of an angel who needed a makeover and excused myself to run upstairs and get her.

  On my way across the room, Jane hurried up to me and I braced myself for the start of the complaints, but no, she just wanted to take a photo of me. Then she was off again and so was I.

  The place was bustling and genuinely merry. Despite the lingering smell of smoke in the back staircase it was enough to have me smiling. On my way back down with the angel, I slipped through the door onto the second floor, deciding that I could afford to check on the Cartwrights for five minutes. They might need something. Some food or drinks.

  Stephen was coming out of their nan’s room as I approached.

  He stopped and folded his arms over his chest, like a guard. My pace slowed and I came to a halt before I reached the door.

  ‘How’s your nan?’

  ‘Not well enough to help cook dinner.’

  My mouth opened. I guess Nick had mentioned that.

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t coming here to ask that. In fact, the other guests all pitched in and we managed to put on a spread. I thought you all might be hungry.’

  ‘So, you got other people to help?’

  ‘Well, they offered, and everyone needs to eat…’ I trailed off. ‘Have I done something to annoy you? You seem a bit off with me.’

  He frowned and glanced back at the door.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said shortly. ‘Just a bit tense I suppose.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’

  ‘I was coming down to get something to eat and bring some back up for them too. I’ll walk down with you.’

  I hadn’t been intending to walk down without seeing Nick first, but I could take a hint. Stephen didn’t want me to disturb them, so I nodded and led the way downstairs. We walked in silence, which was a first when I was around Stephen, but it was a tough day for him.

  When we got down to the lobby, the noise from music and excited chatter was louder than I remembered. Stephen raised his eyebrows.

  ‘This has turned into quite the party.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, it has.’ I tugged Angelica’s dress a little straighter and allowed myself a moment of pride. It had turned out all right in the end because I’d been brave enough to be honest with them. I had made some mistakes, without a doubt, but I’d also done enough things right that the guests didn’t think I was a complete idiot. I wasn’t a complete idiot. If it had been any time other than Christmas, I doubt it would’ve gone so well, but the festive spirit had encouraged the guests’ forgiving nature and camaraderie and I was very pleased about it. ‘There’ll be a lot to clear up. But it’s worth it, to see everyone having a good time.’

  ‘This will make a good story for Nick.’

  I cocked my head to the side. ‘When you go up and tell him about it?’

  ‘Yes…but I meant for him to write about in his blog.’

  It was like trying to understand someone talking to me in a different language for a moment. I could hear the sounds of the words, but my brain refused, initially, to understand what he was saying.

  ‘I’ll go grab some food then, see you later maybe.’ Stephen disappeared and I hardly noticed.

  When I was ten, I was racing down a steep hill on my bike, pushing myself too fast, trying to keep up with my friend
s, and I hit a pothole. My bike flipped and I went flying. The journey through the air, separate from my bike, seemed to take a long time – the sky above me grey and grim as I waited to connect with the ground, knowing it was going to hurt. That was this moment as I struggled to understand.

  And when it finally sunk in, that the trust I’d placed in Nick was a mistake; that my judgement was all wrong when it came to men – again – it was just like that inevitable impact with the gravel path. Bouncing along, scraping and bruising every conceivable inch of my body, the momentum dragging the collision out, until I finally came to rest in a bush, lungs completely empty of air, stinging and throbbing.

  Nick was the Hotel Hopper.

  All this time, he’d been following me around, finding out all the worst things he possibly could about the hotel, and he was going to write them all down and tell everyone. He’d sneered in that blog post at the mince pies the other night – the pies he’d helped me make. What kind of twisted individual did that? He’d said he would help me, then wrote a derogatory blog as though he didn’t know why the bar wasn’t open. He’d tricked me and lied to me. Was the whole thing revenge to get back at me for lying to him about the angel? I reached out to lean on the table.

  ‘Beth?’ A little girl was calling me. Holly came running out from the library. ‘There you are. Come on. Amelie got some glitter pens in her stocking. Is that the angel?’

  I allowed her to take my hand and lead me into the dining room. I sat with them at the little table and we cleaned and decorated the battered fairy. Her hair ended up a rainbow of colours and she had smears of silver glitter on her cheeks and down her arms. Then they glued sequins to her dress. And all the while I smiled and moved around like normal, while inside my throat ached and my chest was cold and numb, as I refused to think about it.

  We had a small ceremony where I shoved the fairy crookedly next to the star in the lobby. After a round of applause, the kids ran off to watch A Muppet Christmas Carol in the lounge.

  Finally, I’d got the angel on the tree. She’d nearly been flattened by Nick, but I’d saved her, and we’d given her a make-over. I doubted the glue would survive until it was time to pack up the Christmas stuff and she looked completely out of place next to all my mum’s pristine, designer decorations, but she was there, doing her job and making the guests smile. For the time being at least.

  The intensity of the longing I had to see my mum was so strong, tears sprung up to my eyes. Not because I wanted her to see the angel or that the guests were happy. I just missed her. It was Christmas Day and I hadn’t even had a chance to speak to her.

  The thought immediately swung me into thinking about how much worse it must be for Nick and Stephen to be missing their mum today…but I couldn’t think about Nick. I knew he was genuinely hurting; he hadn’t faked that. I couldn’t make myself believe that. But he hadn’t been truthful about who he was either. He should have told me about reviewing the hotel.

  All my emotions were building up for another release. I didn’t feel like I fit inside my skin anymore. I was a violently shaken bottle of lemonade and when the top blew off, I had no idea if I was going to turn into a sobbing wreck or start punching walls.

  I went into the kitchen and started scrubbing everything I could get my hands on. My arms ached, so much so, I was beginning to wonder if I was coming down with the same flu everyone else had caught.

  The door swung open behind me and I heard Nick’s voice, just like I had that morning. ‘Beth, how’s everything going? I’m sorry I’ve not been around. Have you been okay?’

  My heart wasn’t pounding with excitement this time though. It was a sickening throb and I couldn’t even bring myself to turn around and look at him. ‘I wouldn’t tell you, even if I wasn’t.’

  ‘What?’

  I could see his reflection in the darkness of the window by the sink, tall and too familiar, even after just a few days together. I’d been hoping to avoid him. I wasn’t planning on tracking him down on and having it out with him, a strategic retreat had been more desirable, but here we were. Another kitchen, another confrontation with a man where all the ugly truth would come out.

  ‘I think you’ve got quite enough material to use against me, as it is, haven’t you?’ I remarked tightly, plunging the small roasting tin under the suds and holding it down like I was trying to drown it.

  ‘I don’t understand. What d’you mean “material”?’

  ‘There’s no point acting dumb. I know the truth. I know you’re the Hotel Hopper.’

  ‘The who?’

  I shook off my hands and spun around, finally facing him. My anger and the pull of his presence too much for me to resist anymore.

  ‘Just. Stop. Lying to me. I’m so sick of men lying to me and treating me like I’m an idiot.’

  ‘I haven’t lied to you. I’ve never lied to you. And an “idiot” is the last thing I think you are.’ He looked so sincere, and I thought of all the words he’d used to describe me yesterday: ‘fearless’ and ‘beautiful’. He’d seemed sincere when he said those too. It was the worst feeling to think that he hadn’t meant those things. I could feel it like a fissure, opening me up inside where I’d barely healed from Peter.

  ‘I can’t deal with this anymore.’ I grabbed a tea towel and started drying my hands, trying not to show him just how much I was falling apart. ‘I’m too tired. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’d like you to leave please. This is the staff area; guests aren’t supposed to be back here.’

  He looked around the kitchen as though there were some answers hiding in the corners. He really was a very good actor.

  ‘Half the guests in the hotel have been in this kitchen today from what I heard,’ he pointed out slowly.

  ‘Yes, they have. Read between the lines.’ I slapped the tea towel down again and crossed my arms tightly over my chest. ‘And write whatever you want about that in your blog – I can’t stop you.’ I tipped my chin up. ‘Just remember, there are people who rely on this hotel for a living. It might be fun to run someone down, pick on all the faults, but it has consequences beyond a million likes or shares or whatever it is that you’re after.’

  ‘I genuinely do not have a clue what you are talking about.’ He held his hands up and shook his head. ‘It’s like one of us has gone insane and I’m struggling to figure out which one of us it is.’

  That last comment pushed me over the edge.

  ‘Fine,’ I snapped. ‘I’m crazy. We’ll go with that line. If you’re backed into a corner, gaslight the woman, yeah? God, I really thought you were better than that, but you’re just as bad as all the others.’

  ‘What others?’ For the first time, his voice rose. ‘Your ex? Lydia told me how he treated you and I hate that he hurt you that way, but it doesn’t mean that every other man is a liar.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a liar because he was. I think you’re a liar because you’re still lying to me, even though I’ve told you that I know the truth. Get out. Get out now.’

  His blue eyes burned into mine for the space of a heartbeat and then he shook his head again. ‘Okay. I’m going.’ He slammed out of the door to the kitchen and I turned back to the sink so I didn’t have to look at the empty space where he’d been standing.

  I plunged my hands into the hot water once more and carried on scrubbing with a fury, as though I could erase all the anger and creeping humiliation and pain.

  I don’t know how much later it was when I cleaned and dried the last plate. I blinked as if coming out of a trance and went out into the hotel. Everything had quietened down. A lot of the older guests had gone to bed, as had the children, and there were just a few adults finishing off drinks in the bar and watching the TV in the lounge.

  I avoided them and went into the library. The mess from the day was everywhere: sweet wrappers, empty glasses, wrapping paper and napkins. I didn’t think I could bear to do any more. My head was pounding and I’d just about had enough. I’d have to wake up reall
y early and do it. All the guests were probably going to sleep in anyway. Yes, I’d tell myself that.

  I hit the light switch to ease the strain on my tired eyes and the room immediately became more intimate, almost dizzying; soft, shifting colours of the fire burning out and the fairy lights on the Christmas tree. All the mess disappeared from view, which was a bonus too. I made my way over to the nearest armchair carefully, barely able to co-ordinate putting one foot in front of the other at this point without a leg failure or pratfall of epic proportions and sunk into it, vertebrae by vertebrae.

  Just a little rest. Just for a moment. The door creaked open, and I slammed to my feet, ready to give Nick hell if he’d followed me in here.

  But it wasn’t Nick.

  ‘Beth, what are you doing in here in the dark?’

  ‘Mum,’ I croaked, and I reached her in the space of a second. Her arms went around me, her fine hair tickling my nose as she hugged me tight.

  ‘I’m home, darling, I’m home.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Any brave face I’d been putting on promptly disappeared. I was barely coherent, snivelling onto my mum’s shoulder, and trying to apologise for everything. If she hadn’t been worried about what had transpired in her absence, she certainly would be after that. But instead of questioning me, she packed me off to bed like an overtired eight-year-old who’d overdosed on Haribo at a soft-play party, telling me it could all wait until tomorrow.

  My dreams were full of tasks that looped over and over: loading the dishwasher; pouring drinks; making beds; dusting icing sugar. I went up and down and up and down the hotel stairs. It was more exhausting than being awake.

  When I did wake, it was fully daytime and I bolted out of bed, into the living room. Mum was at the small table by our kitchenette, a half-full jug of coffee by her elbow, a laptop in front of her and a blue biro clamped between her teeth.