A Winter Flame (6 page)

Ruth, sniffing money in the air, was very keen to make the point that the baby had indeed been named after her – oh happy coincidence, she thought, especially as old Evelyn Douglas was a
childless spinster. In truth, she hadn’t a clue what any of Carl’s relatives were called or how many he had. Her only interest in him had been his ability to get his hands on really
good weed and, when they weren’t too stoned, his incredible appetite for sex. Ruth took her young daughter on the bus to visit her long-lost great-aunt but soon lost interest in the monthly
trips when it was quite obvious Evelyn Douglas had no fortune to leave. But Eve liked the old lady, and so she used to go alone and drink tea out of her fine bone china cups and eat far too many Mr
Kipling cakes. Eve wasn’t allowed pets because Ruth couldn’t be bothered with them, so sitting on Aunt Evelyn’s plump sofa stroking her purring cat, Fancy, was a treat in itself.
Eve didn’t mind that the old lady showed her the same photographs over and over or told the same stories about her brave Stanley; she just loved her, the bungalow, the cakes and the cats.

‘What about a bit of jewellery for her forthcoming cruise holiday?’ asked Violet.

‘Or some polish for her horns?’

Violet chuckled. ‘Do you think Auntie Ruth will come over for it?’

‘Don’t be daft, Violet.’ Eve held her hands out with imaginary weights in them. ‘A meal with her old bat of a mother or remaining in a sunny commune in Spain. Hmm . . .
let me think.’ The hand holding the Spanish sunshine dropped heavily. Duty would never be as weighted as pleasure for Ruth Douglas – including anything to do with her daughter. Ruth
Douglas was a hedonist of the highest order.

‘When did you last hear from your mum?’

‘My birthday last year. Except she rang on the twenty-second of December.’ Once upon a time, Eve had doubted that anyone could forget their only child’s birthday, then she
started watching Jeremy Kyle. She half expected her mother to be on that one day, drifting on stage with a kaftan, being lectured by JK not to smoke as much wacky baccy. That thought was replaced
by one of Susan, who still sent her a home-made birthday cake.

‘I just don’t know how your mum turned out the lovely way she did,’ Eve said, not for the first time. Violet gave her cousin an affectionate nudge. She didn’t know
herself, to be honest. Life hadn’t been easy for her mum, brought up in a loveless household, expected to play a parental role in the raising of her sibling whilst Pat gallivanted off with
her fancy men as a kick-back for Grandad Ferrell running off with a young barmaid. Then, when happiness eventually came to Susan in the form of the lovely Jeff Flockton, he was taken away from her
much too soon with a stroke.

‘How’s your mum doing with Mr Sausage?’

That was their pet name for Patrick, the big, friendly butcher who was courting Susan.

Violet chuckled. ‘She’s very loved up.’

‘Good,’ said Eve.

‘It’s so nice to see you, Eve,’ said Violet, her voice suddenly flooded with affection. ‘You’ve been a stranger for too long. Mum would be delighted if you just
called in. She was only saying the other day how we should force you to come for Sunday lunch.’

‘I know,’ nodded Eve, feeling a stab of shame. After all Auntie Susan had done for her over the years, she shouldn’t have shut her out. She loved her cousin and her aunt.
Spending time with them was a pleasure she had denied herself for too long, and she intended to do something about it.

‘Ladies, is everything all right?’ asked the tall, dark-haired man in an apron appearing at their table.

‘No,’ said Violet. ‘I need to complain to the manager.’

‘I’m so sorry about that. I’d bring her over to hear your complaint, but she’s too busy sitting around and eating,’ he replied. He winked and touched Violet’s
cheek with the back of his finger before going back behind the counter again.

‘You look as if you’re melting more than your ice cream,’ said Eve, looking at the dreamy look on her cousin’s face. ‘How’s Pav doing these days?’

Violet looked across at her handsome partner being charming to a couple of small children who wanted tubs with all the trimmings.

‘He’s good,’ said Violet quietly. ‘His chest still aches when he lifts anything heavy though. He’ll never go back to working on building sites again, but I’m
kind of glad about that, if I’m honest. He loves being in the shop and he’s got loads of painting commissions. He still works too hard, though, and tires himself out. I despair
sometimes. He doesn’t rest as much as he should.’ She sighed and shook her head at him. But there was love and pride in her eyes as she did so.

Pav was Polish and came over to England to work as a builder with his brother. Violet met him when she advertised for an artist to paint fairground horses on the walls of her ice-cream parlour,
Carousel. She had nearly lost him in a fire the previous year but miraculously, he had survived. She loved him so much it hurt sometimes. His merry ways and warmth constantly made her heart sing.
She only wished Eve could find someone who had the same effect on her. She had been in limbo for so long, Violet wondered if she would be permanently trapped in the state. She was too young and
lovely to still be so sad. But Eve was resolutely stuck in the past and would not be budged out of it.

Violet tentatively voiced what was in her mind.

‘You could do with a Pav yourself,’ she said.

Eve smiled. ‘He’s lovely. You’re lucky. But then so is he.’

‘Maybe you’ll end up falling madly in love with your new business partner.’

Eve ha-ed at that. ‘I haven’t met the man yet who could fill Jonathan’s shoes. And if I have, I can guarantee you that it wouldn’t be Jacques Glace and his cheesy line in
banter.’ And his big soggy flying gloves, she added to herself.

‘The newspapers are awash with stories of those who have fallen in love with people they once disliked,’ said Violet, sticking her spoon into her ice cream.

‘Yeah well, I’m okay being single, thank you.’

‘Has no one taken your eye in the past few years, Eve?’ asked Violet, knowing she was straying onto dodgy ground. She and Eve might have been related, but Eve’s broken heart
and subsequent empty love life had always been off-limits.

‘I haven’t even looked. Anyway – to business,’ said Eve, changing the subject quickly. ‘I want you to supply the ice cream for Winterworld. What do you
think?’

Violet’s big violet eyes rounded with delight. ‘You’re joking.’

‘I’m not,’ said Eve, thinking how beautiful her cousin was – more so because she hadn’t a clue how lovely she looked.

‘Jeez, Eve, that’s just fab.’ Then a sensible thought tugged at the sleeve of her elation. ‘Won’t you have to clear it with Mr Glace first?’

‘I suppose,’ replied Eve, with a snarl playing on her lip. ‘But I can’t see there being a problem. No one makes ice cream like you.’ And like he would dare to
override her on this. Or anything else come to that.

‘I’ve got some lovely Christmas flavours,’ said Violet. ‘And they’ve got edible glitter in them as well.’

‘Winter,’ corrected Eve. ‘Try and keep Christmas out of it as much as possible.’

‘Oh Eve, if it’s a winter theme park, people will expect it to be Christmas-heavy.’

‘Well, they’re going to be disappointed then, aren’t they?’ said Eve, licking the last of her ice cream from her spoon. ‘I’ll ring you as soon as I’ve
spoken to him on Monday.’ She imbued the word ‘him’ with all the charm of a disease-ridden clown. ‘You’ll be able to run a second parlour, won’t you?’

‘Yes, yes of course,’ said Eve. ‘Janet wants full-time work rather than part-time so I’ll increase her hours, get her some part-time help and then Pav and I will set up
the new place.’

‘I see it just like this,’ said Eve, looking around her at the beautiful horses painted on the walls. It was ice cream heaven as far as she was concerned.

‘Only with a Christmas theme, I presume,’ Violet put in.

‘Winter,’
amended Eve. ‘Yes, just like this.’

‘Pav would be delighted to paint more horses on walls,’ smiled Violet. ‘He loved doing these. I can safely speak for him on that score.’

‘Good, that’s settled then,’ said Eve. ‘And now I must be off.’

‘So soon?’ said Violet. But she knew she was lucky to see Eve at all these days. She was always working, never stopped. Never gave herself time to relax – or think. Or grieve
properly as she should have done.

Violet hurried across to Pav to tell him the good news about having a new parlour in Eve’s theme park. He was delighted, as she expected, that there would be more horses to paint. White
ones, he envisaged. Like Christmas horses made of snow. And Violet knew they would look wonderful.

It didn’t look as if there would be any more customers that day, so they decided to finish early. Pav turned the sign around on the door to read ‘closed’. Then he crossed over
to Violet, put his big arms around her, pulled her close to his chest and kissed her long and softly. Violet still felt butterflies inside her stomach flutter their wings with delight when his
fingers threaded into her long silver-blonde hair. To think once she had been about to marry a man whose kisses and touch she avoided at all costs and would have committed herself to a sad, dry
life. She sometimes dreamt that she was still in that stifling, choking relationship, and woke up in a cold sweat only to see the sweet form of Pav at her side. She had always thought love like
this happened to other people, not to her.

‘Marry me,’ said Pav. ‘I want you to have the same name as me. I want you to be Mrs Nowak, not Miss Flockton. I’m an old-fashioned boy.’

Boy.
It was the loudest word in the phrase.

Violet laughed and prepared to fob him off as usual. ‘One day. What’s the rush?’

‘Always you say the same thing,’ said Pav, releasing her from his hold and throwing up his arms into the air. For the first time, Violet detected that there was none of his usual
humour in the gesture.

She loved him so much. And of course she wanted to be Mrs Pawel Novak, but she was afraid of her own happiness. He might have looked like a man, but he was so much younger than her – nine
years. She feared that he would wake up one day and realize how young he was, how much living he should do before settling down. She didn’t want to fetter him as her ex-fiancé had
fettered her. She never wanted him to feel trapped and unable to breathe the way she had once felt with her ex.

‘I do love you, Pav,’ she said, feeling suddenly incredibly choked up. ‘It’s not that I don’t.’

‘I know,’ he said, and nodded slowly. ‘But this is the last time I will be rejected, Violet. I won’t ask you again.’

He turned then and smiled at her and kissed her forehead. ‘Come on, let’s go home. It’s my turn to cook.’ He held out his large hand for her to take and though the
gesture was full of love and warmth, she felt suddenly chilled from the inside out.

The first thing Eve did when she got home was fire up her computer to google the name Jacques Glace again. It was a pretty distinctive name – or so she thought, but so
far she hadn’t found any trace of him. Apart from a whole host of restaurants picking up the ‘glace’ word, and a lot of French entries, there was also a huge Canadian company
which took up pages. She widened the net slightly and typed in ‘UK’ with as much success. There was a Jean-Jacques Glace, a decorated war veteran with one leg, and if there was one
thing Eve was definite about it was that Jolly Jacques wasn’t brave military material. Plus he had two legs, which ruled him out. There were lots of references to Glace Bay in Nova Scotia but
nothing about a large oaf with a ‘French bottom half’.

Then she struck gold. Or rather glass.

She tried the alternative spelling ‘Jack Glass’. She found a Jack Glass in Barnsley born in 1826. Then an article archived in the
Weekly Bugle
from eight years ago: