A Winter Flame (22 page)

His voice, like a sharpened dart, pierced her with its tender truth, and though the middle of her yelped with pain, the outside of her stiffened. ‘Rubbish,’ she sniffed.

‘I think I recognize you,’ said Santa, raising his black-gloved finger at Eve. His beard looked real and soft. The Father Christmas she remembered asked her to tug at his beard to
prove it wasn’t a false one. ‘You used to like me to bring you Fuzzy Felts, didn’t you?’

Eve swallowed. Auntie Susan always had a Fuzzy Felt waiting for her under the Christmas tree at their house.
Oh, don’t be silly, Eve,
came a counter-thought. Santa had obviously
worked out her age and paired it up with a toy of the times. Everyone liked Fuzzy Felts back then. But, for the sake of Phoebe, who was mesmerized, Eve played the game. Even if she wasn’t
quite able to keep all the sarcasm out of her voice.

‘Yes, I did. How clever of you to remember.’

‘I never forget a child, or a toy,’ said Santa, smiling at Phoebe, who looked as if she was in seventh heaven. ‘And you are a book lady, aren’t you?’

Phoebe nodded. She was too excited to speak as Santa leaned over to root around in a huge sack at his side, full of beautifully wrapped presents.

‘You can open this now if you like,’ said Santa. ‘If you promise not to tell anyone.’

‘I won’t,’ gasped Phoebe, ripping off the paper and squealing with delight to discover a
How To Draw Cartoons For Beginners
book with some pencils.

‘He’s good, isn’t he? Go on, admit it,’ said Jacques, leaning over Eve’s shoulder.

‘Yes, he is,’ replied Eve. Jacques had surpassed himself with the grotto and Santa was a true find. Eve shivered. In fact this whole grotto was a bit too good. It was stirring things
up inside her and she didn’t know why. It was evoking memories of being at Auntie Susan’s house and eating Christmas dinner one year. And Uncle Jeff had a silly hat on and mustered
everyone to the table to play Cluedo and Frustration. And Susan had insisted they stay the night so Violet and Eve had fallen asleep together in her big soft bed. Eve had wished that she could live
with them rather than go back to their damp-stinking, poky flat.

Her mobile rang and disturbed her from her mince-pie-scented reverie. It was the printers attempting to butter her up in order to deliver an apology for something they’d done wrong yet
again.

‘I’ll just go outside and take this,’ Eve mouthed at Jacques.

‘I’ll meet you up at the carousel,’ said Jacques. ‘I’m sure Phoebe would like to ride on one of the horses.’

After Phoebe had said a reluctant goodbye to Santa, she trotted at the side of Jacques, passing Eve at the grotto entrance snarling down the mobile.

‘Ooh, that doesn’t sound very friendly, does it?’ Jacques chuckled. He noticed that Phoebe was hanging behind him and he felt her little eyes boring into his back.

‘Everything all right there?’ he asked.

‘Are those men’s jeans?’ Phoebe replied. ‘They’re very nice.’

Jacques creased his eyebrows.

‘Er, yes,’ he replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Where do you buy them from?’

‘A shop in Meadowhall.’

‘Topshop?’

Jacques smiled. ‘No, not Topshop.’

‘My Auntie Eve says that you wear ladies’ clothes.’

Jacques snorted with laughter. ‘Does she now?’

‘She says you have a lady’s uniform hanging up in your wardrobe.’

Jacques’ breath caught in his throat and his laughter dried up instantly. ‘And what else does your Auntie Eve say about me then?’ he asked, trying to sound casual as they
walked on.

‘She says you collect medals and have one that belongs to her. And that you go to the doctors. Are you ill?’

Jacques’ hand rose to rake through his short hair. ‘No, Phoebe,’ he said gently. ‘I’m not ill.’
Not any more.

He didn’t show it as he helped the little girl onto the carousel but he was rocked to the core. The horses whirled around and around in front of him, but he didn’t see them. He was
too busy piecing things together in his head and sinking to a dark place as he replayed Phoebe’s loaded words. Then Eve appeared at his side.

‘Why is this place called Santapark and not Winterpark?’ she said, pointing upwards at the sign. No prizes for guessing whose idea that had been.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Jacques, walking off, his stride firm and quick.

‘What . . . ?’ began Eve, but he was gone. And so, she noticed before he turned away, was the light in his eyes.

‘She’s worn out, bless her,’ said Eve, carrying a solidly asleep Phoebe into Alison’s house and transferring her to Rupert’s waiting arms.

Eve then unlooped Phoebe’s Hello Kitty bag from around her neck and put it on the kitchen table with her book from Santa and the toy wooden carousel which she had helped to glue together
in the elves’ workshop. Those workshops were going to be an enormous hit, she just knew it, and the elf-people were amazing. She hadn’t seen Jacques for the rest of the day though. He
was on her mind much more than she intended him to be. What could have made him storm off like that?

‘How’s it going?’ asked Rupert. ‘Are you nearly ready to open for business?’

‘Amazingly we are,’ said Eve. ‘Our train keeps going berserk and some idiot has called the park Santapark instead of Winterpark so that needs changing, but we are just about
ready. Oh and I apologize. The café isn’t up and running yet so Phoebe just had chips and chicken nuggets for lunch. And some mince-pie ice cream.’

‘Sounds yummy,’ said Rupert. ‘Alison has just made us some salmon, which is why the place stinks of fish. It was vile and I’d kill for chips and chicken
nuggets.’

Alison grimaced as Rupert swept his daughter up the staircase.

‘I was missing some ingredients and improvised,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t good.’

‘Thanks for lending Phoebe to me,’ said Eve. ‘She was as good as gold.’

‘No doubt I’ll hear all about it in the morning. I hope she took plenty of photos.’

‘I’m not sure if she did or not,’ Eve tried to recall. ‘She seemed to be enjoying herself too much to want to stop and capture the moment. She’s been in a workshop
with elves banging hammers and sitting on Santa’s knee and looking at snow globes. Phoebe had liked them so much, Eve now knew exactly what to buy her for Christmas.

‘How did she get on with the reindeer? That’s what she was looking forward to most of all. Did she come up with a name?’

‘Noel,’ smiled Eve. ‘She fed Holly a carrot and got bullied into parting with lots of polos by the snow ponies as well.’

‘Oh it all sounds so lovely,’ sighed Alison. ‘I can’t wait to visit myself. Did she meet the infamous Jacques?’ She mouthed a drink at Eve, but Eve shook her
head.

‘No, I want to get back and look through some accounts. Yes, she met him. He took her to the carousel whilst I was having a ding-dong with the printers. Then he left us.’

Quickly and strangely.
Eve wondered what had happened between leaving the grotto and the Carousel to make his mood change so quickly. It was as if a storm-cloud had settled on him.

Eve recalled the conversation she’d had with Phoebe when the carousel stopped. She had been quite disappointed to get off the ride and find that Jacques had gone.

‘I liked him. He has really nice trousers,’ Phoebe had said.

‘Nice trousers?’ Eve repeated.

‘His jeans,’ said Phoebe, leaning in as if to deliver a secret. ‘He gets them from Meadowhall. But not Topshop.’

‘Oh right,’ Eve had replied. What an odd conversation that had been.

‘You’re doing accounts on a Saturday night?’ asked Alison, nudging her out of her reverie.

‘Well, they need doing and I’ve got nothing else on,’ shrugged Eve, opening her arms to hug her very rounded friend goodnight.

‘Oh Eve,’ said Alison to the door when it closed on her friend. You should be going out with a nice man for dinner on Saturday night or going to bed early with him for a cuddle. She
shook her head and wished her friend something better waiting around the corner than accounts on a Saturday night.

First thing Monday morning Jacques called in at the ice-cream parlour with a special delivery box of menus, which had been on urgent order. He took one look at Violet’s
face and knew she was seconds away from bursting into tears. He also knew that one kind word would tip them over her eyelids, so he chose his next words very carefully.

‘Here you go, Violet. Menus. Let’s just hope they haven’t cocked them up yet again. I think it was the only mistake Evelyn made, picking them to do the job.’ He avoided
eye contact with her as he lifted the box onto the counter. ‘Do you want me to leave these here or put them in the back room for you?’

‘They’re fine there,’ sniffed Violet. ‘Sorry, got a bit of a cold today,’ she smiled sadly as she lied.

‘It’s the weather, it just doesn’t know what to do with itself,’ nodded Jacques. Today was as mild and sunny as a spring day. Yesterday had been full of high winds and
the sun had refused to come out from behind the woollen grey clouds.

‘Pav about?’

‘No, I don’t know where he is. Again.’

Violet’s head tipped forwards and she sobbed twice then waved frantically at her face in a brave attempt to get herself together. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Oh God.’ She
quickly grabbed a serviette and blew her nose.

‘There’s a lot to do, I hope you’re not overworking yourself,’ he said softly, wanting to close his big arms around her. Wanting to
tell her.

‘Sorry, he said he’d be back soon,’ said Violet, trying her best to recover.

‘Well, if you could ask him to call round to the Portakabin and see me, I’d be grateful.’

‘I will.’

Just as Jacques opened the door, Violet’s voice arrested him.

‘Do you know where he is, Jacques? Who he’s with?’

‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t,’ was all he could say. Even though he knew where Pav was and the woman he was with, he couldn’t tell her any of it.

Eve was reading the
Daily Trumpet
, which Jacques brought in with him every morning; the headline didn’t make for light entertainment. It carried the story of a
young female soldier from the area who was going to be buried tomorrow. She came from Ketherwood, a district made up of a rough, sprawling council estate, and joined the army to better her lot, and
for her effort had ended up dead at twenty-one. For once, the piece was written without any typos in it, unless they had totally made a mess of the details – there was no way of knowing if
the soldier’s name really was Private Sharon Wilkinson from Red Grove. Not unless an apology appeared in the paper in a few days to say she was really Major Davina Pikestaff from Pogley Top
and offering apologies to the grieving family. She folded up the newspaper and put it back on Jacques’ desk.

Jacques plodded in with his eyebrows low, giving him the appearance of someone in deep thought, or not in the best mood – or both.

‘Morning,’ said Eve. To her surprise he barely grumbled the word back at her. His movements were very staccato as he threw off another in his big coat collection and grabbed a
coffee. He was wearing Armani jeans, she noticed. Not from Topshop. She wondered why on earth Phoebe had thought he would buy his trousers there.

There was none of his customary whistling this morning as he sat at his desk and glued his eyes to the computer screen. He hadn’t shaved, Eve saw. She noticed that when he was clean-shaven
in the morning, by the end of the day stubble had started to grow. By rough calculations, she reckoned he hadn’t shaved all weekend.

‘Have you seen Effin this morning?’ she asked, as something to say so she could better gauge his mood. This was a very different Jacques from the one she had been accustomed to. She
couldn’t help but be curious as to the change, especially the timing of it, because she suspected it had something to do with Phoebe.

‘No,’ he replied, and quite abruptly too. He picked up the newspaper and read the front page.

‘Sad, isn’t it?’ said Eve. ‘Hardly a life. Who’d be a soldier?’ That’s a real soldier, by the way. Not a pretend one that prances around in a uniform in
front of the mirror, she added to herself.

Jacques screwed the newspaper up and launched it at the bin.

‘She died doing something she loved,’ he said, his mouth a grim line. ‘How many of us can truly say that?’

‘For God’s sake. She was only twenty-one years old.’

Jacques came back at her. ‘She was a soldier. Only a fool would join the armed forces not knowing that dying on the job was a distinct possibility.’

Oh yes, he’d know all about what real soldiers thought. But she bit her lip because Jonathan had said the same thing to her more than once. He said that he hoped that when he left her he
would come back, but he knew there were no guarantees. It took a brave man – or woman – to do a job like that which carried such a risk. And Jonathan Lighthouse was a brave, wonderful
man who was prepared to risk his life for his country’s demands. The army was so much more than a job to him: it was his life – and he had been hers.

Jacques yanked open his filing cabinet and pulled out a large black book. As Eve watched him silently, he opened the book, checked something, then closed it again and replaced it back in the
cabinet, slamming the drawer shut again. The sound it made was still reverberating in the air when Jacques stood up with such energy that his chair went rolling right across the room behind him. He
exited the Portakabin without saying where he was going, and his big presence left a hole in the atmosphere of the room.

Eve hadn’t seen that big black book before and wondered what it was. His secret drawing book of uniform designs? She checked through the window that he really had gone, then she quickly
snatched the drawer open to take a look. It was labelled ‘Wedding Chapel’. On the first page was a note of the only booking and she felt her cheeks warm up with rage so much that she
was sure if she looked in a mirror she would be the colour of Violet Beauregarde. Post-blueberry juice. She didn’t care what mood he was in, he needed to come back to the Portakabin and
explain. The man was impossible.