A Winter Flame (31 page)

Mrs Cerberus’s curtains gave a tiny twitch, but satisfied that Jacques was accompanying the stranger-to-these-parts woman, she returned to her sofa and the TV. Jacques opened the door to a
warm kitchen; a slow-cooker was flavouring the air with the smell of beef stew. Eve’s stomach keened as the scent of it hit her nostrils. It sounded like someone had kicked a wolf at
full-moon.

‘Coffee?’ he asked.

‘Yes please,’ said Eve.

‘Take a seat,’ Jacques invited, gesturing towards the sofa in the lounge. Everything except that sofa and the coffee table was packed up in boxes.

‘You’re going abroad, I hear,’ she said, as he busied himself with getting cups out and boiling the kettle.

‘You’ve done your homework. Yes, I’ve booked a flight.’

‘When?’

‘I fly out in the morning.’

‘Where?’

‘Australia.’

‘Couldn’t you get any further away?’

He smiled. ‘I have friends out there. I’ve never visited them. I thought it was about time I did.’

‘You didn’t even stay here long enough to unpack, and now you’ve packed up again and are leaving.

‘I’ve been used to moving around a lot.’

‘What about Winterworld?’

‘It’s all yours.’

‘Why?’ She gulped down the rise of emotion in her throat.

He walked into the lounge with two cups of coffee and almost filled the doorway.

‘As you said,’ he replied, setting the cups down on the coffee table, ‘I have no right to your family’s fortune. Or this.’ He reached over behind Eve to lift
something off the shelf and gave it to her. Stanley’s medal.

‘My aunt gave it to you,’ said Eve. ‘You’d appreciate it more than I would.’ And she handed it back. ‘I won’t take it. Please.’

His hands stayed down at his side, so she put it on the chair arm. ‘I won’t be leaving with it. And I ripped up your letter of intent.’

‘The legal papers are being prepared anyway,’ said Jacques. ‘It’s yours.’

Eve looked at him, really looked at him, and tried to imagine him in a uniform, leading men. It wasn’t that difficult really. Despite the stupid woolly hats and SpongeBob SquarePants sock,
he was a natural leader of men and that had been clear from the off.

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me believe that you were a . . . a . . .’

‘Gold digger? A cross-dressing gold-digger at that,’ he supplied, and then smiled to himself as he sat down and picked up his mug, drawing warmth from it. ‘Mischief at first, I
think. You were so incredibly snotty. I suppose I had faith in my ability to both win you over and teach you a lesson.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were a soldier?’

‘I’m not a soldier any more, Eve. It had no bearing on things. I’d rather be judged on what people find me to be now than have them pity me because I’m a disabled
ex-soldier.’

‘You weren’t just a soldier though, you were a wonderfully brave one. You lost a leg defending your men. I didn’t have a clue – you don’t even limp.’ She
remembered how he had run through the enchanted forest as sure-footed as a goat.

‘Prosthetics have come on in leaps and bounds in the last few years. We amputees no longer need to resort to a wooden leg and a parrot.’ He smiled at her – his big open
twinkly-eyed smile. ‘It was painful to wear at the beginning until they got the fit right. I’ve thrown a few legs across the room in anger, I can tell you. It takes time to learn to
walk in a different way from how you’ve been accustomed to for the whole of your life.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Eve. ‘I thought you were either deranged or a practised con man who went around taking life savings away from old ladies.’ She put her cup down
because she felt in danger of dropping it. ‘I couldn’t have been more wrong about everything, could I?’

‘And you’ve got so much right too,’ said Jacques. ‘Delivering baby reindeer, rescuing horses, bringing Evelyn’s dream to life. You could run Winterworld
blindfolded.’

‘Why are you really leaving me?’ said Eve, surprising herself even with that question.

Jacques smiled at her. ‘Because you bought a Christmas tree.’

Eve wiped a perfidious tear from her eye before he saw it. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘Christmas is making progress with you. It’s all your Aunt Evelyn wanted, to see you join the real world again. When you bought that
Christmas tree, I knew you’d be fine. You’re starting to need people again, to enjoy them in your life. You’re looking forward more and more instead of backwards. Your heart is
opening up, Eve Douglas, and you’re letting Christmas into it.’

‘I thought it was you who visited Aunt Evelyn in hospital,’ Eve blurted out, the rein on her emotions getting harder to hold. ‘Not the other way around.’

‘I was in a bad state when Evelyn came into my life. I didn’t care about any medal I’d won. I couldn’t see any future – disabled and out of the army, my head was a
mess. Then this funny little old lady dragged me out of my own head kicking and screaming, gabbling on about how much she loved Christmas and asking me to help her design a theme park. I thought
she was barking.’

‘She was,’ laughed Eve.

‘And she told me all about her niece who was as disabled as I was and as trapped inside herself. She wanted to help you much more than she did me, but she knew all the words had been said
to you and none of them had worked.’

Eve’s face fell into her hands and she sobbed. Then she felt warm strong arms close around her and her face being pushed into Jacques’ shoulder, and she smelt his foresty
aftershave.

‘And she did it,’ he continued. ‘She helped me – and you’re nearly there.’

‘Don’t leave, Jacques. It won’t be the same. I was climbing the walls in the new office today after two hours. The new coffee machine is too swanky and perfect and
there’s no noise.’

‘You’ll get used to those little changes,’ said Jacques. He raised her head with his finger and looked into her eyes.

‘The colour of Christmas trees,’ he said. ‘You’re going to be fine.’

She felt his face near hers, she closed her eyes anticipating his lips falling onto hers, but they merely grazed against her cheek.

‘I’ll see you to your car,’ he said, his arms releasing her. ‘I think you’ll sleep well tonight.’

Jacques waited until she had driven out of sight before returning to the cottage. He would miss her so much. He was only happy that he had done his duty by Evelyn and set her
on the road to recovery with their spats and fights and one-upmanship. Jonathan would have been a lucky man had he lived, but he hadn’t. And life was for the living. No one who truly loved
another would want them to waste their precious life grieving. They would want them to live and love for them both.

He closed his eyes and saw the scene of him lying in his hospital bed, bitter and frustrated. He’d rather have died on duty than be a disabled man with no hope left in his life. The bomb
had crippled his head more than his body.

He remembered the first time he heard her voice.

‘Hello, I’m Evelyn Douglas. And you are Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Jacques Glace.’ She had pronounced it ‘Jeen’. ‘Is it all right to call you Jacques? My
sister-in-law is called Jean and I could never stand the sight of her.’

And despite himself he had laughed, and she had sat down on the chair at the side of the bed and talked until he listened.

And weeks later Evelyn Douglas had placed her hand on his and said, ‘You’ll never know how much you’ve changed my life, Jacques. You make me think that anything is possible.
When I first met you, you were such a grump. But you’ve come through so much. You make me feel ashamed that I had all that life and wasted it, when you have fought so hard to keep hold of
yours. But no more. I’m going to try and make up for lost time. I won’t make up for all of it, but I can set some balls rolling downhill.’

‘Good for you, Evelyn,’ he said, thinking she was going to go off and book a cruise.

‘You’re right, Jacques. Life is for the living. I just wish I could make my niece believe that. I wish you’d fall in love with her,’ Evelyn had said with a heavy sigh.
‘Oh, she might play the big career woman, but I know that girl’s heart and it’s lonely and crying for someone to love it. Make her fall in love with you, Jacques.’

‘Life isn’t a romance book, Evelyn,’ Jacques had said kindly. ‘You can’t write your own happy ending. It’s in bigger hands than ours.’

‘You’d be good together,’ Evelyn had nodded, ignoring him. ‘She’s not an easy woman, but she’s worth the effort to get to know. I’m going to sort it
that you spend some time together. I’m going to leave you both half of my Christmas theme park. You’ll have to work together.’

‘Yes, you do that,’ he had chuckled. If only he had known she wasn’t joking.

Then he found himself joint owner of Winterworld.

He had played the game for a while, in accordance with Evelyn’s wishes, because it was clear from the off that if he didn’t, Winterworld would have become a different place to the
one Evelyn wanted. But he had always intended to sign his share back over, just as soon as things were on course. It wouldn’t have been right to accept that sort of inheritance from an old
lady he had known for such a short time.

He didn’t bargain on falling stupidly in love with the stubborn, snotty, über-confident, super-efficient, megalomaniac of a niece of hers though. And he couldn’t be around her
because she needed time, lots of it, to recover. Because she was moving into the here and now, and that meant she would finally start to grieve for Jonathan – and be able to let him go.

Eve tried to sleep but she couldn’t. Her head was a mess, a jumble of old prejudices and new enlightenments. Facts were easier to compartmentalize and deal with than the
feelings bombarding her heart. Because those feelings were wrong, so wrong, disrespectful to Jonathan’s memory, but at the same time they were so strong, so undeniably and magically
strong.

Eve made herself a cup of instant chocolate and carried it into the chilly office where the cheerful candle burned brightly in the window. The sight of it churned her gut and she slumped in the
chair at the desk and let the tears roll down her face.

‘Oh Jonathan,’ she said, her voice choked with emotion. ‘I don’t know what to do. I feel myself changing and I know if I do, that I’ll be moving away from you. And
I can’t do that. Because we made a vow to each other and I know you’re with me and I couldn’t ever hurt you. I couldn’t let you go.’

She pressed at her chest knowing that the big coat-wearing, daft-hat-and-gloves buffoon Jacques Glace had been denied access to the door there, so he had climbed in through the window.

Then a rather extraordinary thing happened. The room suddenly grew warm, as if a giant fire had been turned on behind every wall, floor and ceiling. And through the haze of her tears, Eve saw
the candle flame expand, grow brighter and higher than should have been possible. She wiped her eyes, just in time to see the flame disappear, as if someone had wet their fingers and extinguished
it – just like that. The candle was smoking, the end of the tip a faint orange, which faded before her eyes to black. And the room grew as quickly chilly as it had become hot.

Everyone agreed that Phoebe May Tinker’s childish squeals of delight summed up the noises they all wanted to make: from the elf-people to the caterers, Mr and Mrs Nowak
and the Polish and Welsh workers, now out of their hard hats and work gear and in jeans, holding the hands of their babies who had come to see Santa along with everyone else who was queuing at the
gates – and those queues went a long way back.

It was funny to see Effin out of his fluorescent-yellow jacket. He had a shirt and tie on, and he was linking arms with one of the biggest, ugliest women Eve had ever seen. He was pointing
things out to her and she was nodding and listening to him, and it was more than evident how proud he was of his contribution.

‘Well, I don’t know how you did it, but you did,’ said Violet, coming up behind Eve and putting a hand on her shoulder.

‘
We
did it,’ corrected Eve. ‘It was a joint effort. Everyone had a part to play.’

‘You look lovely,’ said Violet, lifting a shank of her cousin’s loose dark hair before letting it fall. ‘You shouldn’t ever tie it back again. It makes you look
years younger like this.’

But Violet knew it wasn’t just the hair that was doing that. Since the candle had gone out, she had felt Eve move back into the world with them again. She had watched her face soften over
the days, seen a brightness return to her eyes.

‘Is that invitation still on to spend Christmas with you lot?’ asked Eve on a whim.

Violet smiled. ‘Eve, you would make us all very happy if you did. Mum’s freezer is bursting at the seams with food. Patrick has got her the world’s biggest turkey. It’s
like an emu.’ She linked her arm through Eve’s and squeezed her. ‘That’s just the best news I’ve had in ages; Mum is going to be so made up. We’ll buy you a
Fuzzy Felt. You can’t change your mind, you know. You’ve just entered a verbal contract.’

‘Good. Hold me to it,’ said Eve. She didn’t want to be alone this Christmas. She wanted to be with her family, eating around Auntie Susan’s big table, clinking glasses,
laughing at corny Christmas cracker jokes. She wanted to make some fresh memories of lovely Christmases and stamp out all the unpleasant ones of years past. The decision to spend Christmas with her
family might have been a hastily decided one but boy, it felt so right and brought a lovely thrill of anticipation with it. It was as if she had moved into that giant snow globe at last. She was no
longer peering in from the outside. Christmas was all around her and she was part of it – and it was part of her.

And in the first week of the new year, Darklands was going up for sale, she decided. It was too big a house for herself to rattle around in with old, cold memories. The house deserved to be full
of life and light and children – it was the final act of letting go.

‘Have you heard from Jacques?’ Violet asked softly.

‘No,’ said Eve. Violet saw her gulp a ball of emotion down as she said it. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever hear from him again.’