A Winter Flame (28 page)

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I forgot to tell you, Violet. Today we are getting married.’

And even though Violet knew of this in advance, the, ‘Wha-at?’ she gave by way of an answer, was still one of delighted shock.

‘Violet. I will see you in one hour. Then you will be Mrs Nowak,’ he said masterfully, giving her no time for protest as he put the phone down.

‘You better come in then,’ said Violet to the smiling army waiting outside.

The woman now applying make-up to her face had an instantly recognizable voice – high-pitched and squeaky. She didn’t quite have as many pronounced curves as
Marilyn Monroe, but she had the same blonde hair and slightly dizzy way about her.

‘We don’t get many brides who haven’t a clue we’re coming,’ said Serena. ‘Are you excited?’

‘I am,’ trilled Violet, who was getting more giddy by the second.

‘I don’t think everyone would be,’ confided Serena. ‘I must admit, we were all a bit nervous about coming here. Maria, who did your left hand, had visions of you calling
the police on us.’

Violet chuckled. ‘If you’d have asked me a couple of months ago if it was the way I’d visualized getting married, I would have said no, but,’
I thought I’d lost
him –
‘I love him. I don’t think anyone’s ever gone to this sort of trouble for me before.’

She tried not to think about her ex-fiancé, who put her on a pedestal but was driven by the need to control and satisfy his own wants. Dear Pav thought of her first, and what he was doing
was driven by love for her.

‘Time changes all the things you think are set in stone,’ said Serena, working on Violet’s eyes. ‘Look down for me. I used to be bothered about having a big house and a
fancy car, but not any more. They aren’t the important things in life – people are. You’re a lucky lady, pet. He’s a lovely man.’

Serena had told her that her soldier husband had been killed in action in Iraq. He never did get to see his twin girls, born a month after their father’s funeral.

Violet knew then, knew without a doubt in her heart, how much Pav must love her, adore her, want to be with her. Serena was right – she was a lucky lady. A lady who wasn’t going to
resist throwing herself into married life with Pav any more. What on earth was she thinking of saying ‘there’s no rush’ in the first place? The way she felt now, she wanted to
take that aisle in one running jump.

‘When you find someone like you obviously have, you cling on for as long as you can, and you enjoy every minute,’ said Serena. ‘Keep both eyes closed now. You’re going to
have a great day. Pav made sure that he didn’t leave any stone unturned.’

‘I wonder if he remembered a dre—’

‘Now open your eyes.’

Violet opened her eyes to see left-hand Maria standing by the door and draped over her arm was the most beautiful pale-cream gown and a fur-trimmed cape and hood. And the woman who did her right
hand was holding up a pair of short cream boots.

‘Like I say,’ said Serena. ‘He didn’t leave a stone unturned.’

In the chapel, Santa was checking his watch. ‘Fashionably late,’ he said with a grin, peering at Eve over his gold half-moon spectacles. Eve dropped her eyes shyly.
That Santa could see into her soul, she was sure. He was every tick on a Santa checklist – hair, build, beard, clothes, rosy cheeks complete with tiny thread veins, laugh straight out of a
boom box. Children were going to love him. Their Winterworld Santa was the best there could be.

‘Wonder how Violet is,’ Jacques said.

‘No one has dared to ring her,’ replied Eve, trying not to think how dashing he looked in that suit. How big and handsome and confident.

‘You look very beautiful in that dress, Eve.’

Eve gulped. She must have heard him wrong. He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes were forward.

‘What did you say?

‘You heard.’

He still didn’t turn to her. So she had heard him right.

‘I’m not, never have been, nor ever will be, beautiful,’ snorted Eve.

‘Many as your abilities are, I don’t think you have quite managed to see yourself through the eyes of others yet, unless I’m very much mistaken.’ Then his head swivelled
around to her. ‘Your eyes are the same colour as your outfit. Green as Christmas trees. However much you might hate that comparison.’

Eve opened her mouth to speak and then found no words followed. She didn’t like the alien effect they had on her, making her slightly light-headed and her brain full of fizz. She was
grateful that Max shouted, ‘She’s here.’ And the organist began to play the first bars of ‘The Wedding March’ which slid seamlessly into ‘All I Want for
Christmas is You’.

Pav stood and turned to see his beaming bride in the perfectly fitted dress. He had borrowed her favourite dress and taken it to Serena, whose colleague took the measurements from it. He had
designed the dress himself though. He knew she wouldn’t want it to look anything like the last dress she bought for the wedding that never was. All his nerves disappeared when he saw her
lovely smile. She was here, she looked happy. He knew he had taken a big gamble. Her ex-fiancé was a total control freak and this could so easily have been seen as similar behaviour:
choosing her shoes, her dress, searching through her things in order to pack a case for her.

Violet walked down the very short aisle holding a bouquet of white roses and mistletoe, which one of Serena’s girls had made for her. The fur of her hood was softly framing her pretty pale
face. She looked stunning, shining from the inside out.

‘Dearly beloved,’ began Santa in a smiling boom of a voice, as he opened the ceremony to wed Violet and Pav.

Violet signed the register under her new name ‘Violet Nowak’. It made her feel all warm and tingly inside.

‘Smile,’ ordered Max, raising her camera. ‘Look at your new husband.’

Violet turned her face to Pav’s. He was looking down at her with such love and happiness, she wanted to cry.

‘I thought you weren’t going to ask me again to get married,’ she said.

‘I didn’t,’ said Pav. ‘I just went ahead and booked it.’

‘I’m so glad you did,’ said Violet.

‘So am I, my love,’ and Pav leaned down and kissed her on the lips, and there was a rumble of cheers from the small congregation.

‘Boys and girls, I do believe there are some refreshments waiting for you,’ said that too-real Santa whom Eve found difficult to get eye contact with. So it was to her horror that
she felt his arm fall around her shoulder as the party was filtering out of the tiny wedding log cabin.

‘Young lady, can I have a word?’ he said.

‘Y-yes,’ stammered Eve, hoping it was a quick one. He made her feel very childlike again.

‘I just wanted to say what a wonderful lady your Aunt Evelyn was,’ he said.

‘Oh, thank you.’ Santa made her feel speechless as well as everything else.

‘It was a terrible shame she discovered her niche in life so very late. If only she had years ago, when she was young and beautiful.’

Beautiful? Was Aunt Evelyn beautiful as a young woman? The few photographs Eve had of her aunt didn’t show her to be what she would call classically beautiful. Evelyn had a long, thin face
as a young woman and clouds of sadness in her eyes. Eve was suddenly intrigued.

‘Did you know her when she was younger, S . . . Nicholas?’ Christ, she nearly called him Santa then.

‘Our paths first crossed many years ago,’ he said. He had nice, white, small square teeth, Eve noticed. Santa teeth. She half expected him to say that her aunt had come to see him in
his grotto when she was a nipper and asked for a whip and top. ‘I hadn’t seen her for over thirty years when she got back in touch in March to ask if I’d be interested in taking
up the position here. She said she’d never forgotten me.’ A sad wistful note accompanied his words.

Eve was about to ask what he did in his previous life but amazingly she stopped herself – because she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to hear that he had been an
accountant or a vicar or swept roads for the council. It suddenly didn’t matter. She wanted to believe that he always had been what he was now. She didn’t want to hear that he
hadn’t been the magical Santa who had restored her faith in the library of Higher Hoppleton Hall.

She took a huge gulp of cold air when she left the cabin and walked out into air filled with fat snow-flakes from the switched-on machines. ‘What the frig is going on with you, Eve
Douglas?’ she gave herself a stiff word. But it was hard not to be mixed up, standing in a crowd of small people dressed in elf costumes, throwing confetti in the shape of green holly leaves
and little red berries at a happy couple getting married in a snow-filled, bauble-decorated bubble. A few of the builders had downed tools as well to see the newlyweds and give them the thumbs up.
Effin Williams was amongst them, a big sloppy smile on his round-as-the-moon face. Luckily he didn’t scream that the newlyweds were useless tossers incapable of putting a plug in a socket, as
he had done at the electricians yesterday.

Pav led the way to the cabin behind the grotto, which had been built as staff quarters. The guests followed, arm in arm with their partners, all except for Eve and Jacques. She was annoyed with
herself for feeling disgruntled that he didn’t offer her his arm but chose to walk at the side of Susan and chat to her instead.

The buffet that awaited them was a feast to behold. The caterers had excelled themselves with tiny two-bite sandwiches: turkey and stuffing, pork and apple, Wensleydale and red onion chutney,
prawn and curried mayonnaise. There were the diddiest little mince pies with a brandy butter swirl, caramel apple crumbles with custard, mini tubs of Christmas pudding ice cream. Latticed pies,
pastries, miniature chocolate rum roulades . . . and long-stemmed glasses of steaming mulled wine to wash it all down with.

Violet was grinning like a loon and fanning her face trying not to cry.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she kept saying over and over again. ‘I’m so happy. I never thought I’d be this happy, ever.’

Pav leaned over and kissed the top of her white-blonde hair.

‘I am going to make you this happy every day of your life,’ he said. ‘Starting with tonight. Then we are going to fly to Lapland for three days. It’s going to be cold.
You need to keep very close to me to stay warm.’

Violet’s mouth was wide with delight. ‘I have always wanted to go there.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I only wish we could stay longer, but the park will be opening soon.’

‘It’s enough,’ said Violet. ‘It’s more than enough.’

‘I have packed your case for you,’ said Pav.

‘Is there anything you haven’t thought of?’ grinned Violet.

‘No,’ said Pav. ‘Nothing. Oh yes.’ He grinned too. ‘I don’t think I have remembered your nightdress.’

‘So you see, men
can
organize things just as well as women,’ said Jacques’ voice in Eve’s ear. She caught the scent of his breath as he bent – spicy and
sweet with mulled wine.

‘It appears so,’ said Eve, trying to herd her thoughts back into order. The sight of Jacques in that suit was distracting her from her mission to keep him at arm’s length until
she had exhausted the trail on Major Jack Glasshoughton.

‘I’m glad you didn’t tell her,’ he said.

Eve nodded and tried not to look guilty.

‘Violet is a very lucky woman, but then Pav is a lucky man. They’re right together.’ His sleeve brushed against her arm as she spoke and it sent tingles through her. She
didn’t like it, and she did. It stirred a hunger within her to be touched again.

‘They are,’ agreed Jacques. ‘Finding someone to love is the greatest pleasure life has to offer. If they love you in return, of course.’

‘Of course,’ bristled Eve. ‘There’s no point if it’s one-sided.’

‘I hope you find your happiness soon too, Eve. I hope life is kind to you and gives you peace.’

‘I am happ . . .’ She turned to make the point, but he had left her side and was heading over to talk to Pav. Why had he said that? It sounded like a goodbye.

At the end of the party Max offered Susan and Patrick a lift, and as Eve had no desire to rush home, she went back to the Portakabin to check on the post and missed phone
messages. She tried not to admit to herself that the buzz of the park was far more attractive than a cold, lonely house full of might-have-beens. Especially today, after such a beautiful
demonstration of what love should be: what love should have been like for her.

She hadn’t noticed it before, but the office looked rather naked after all the showers of confetti and holly, mistletoe, elves and Santas that she had been exposed to that afternoon. It
was a plain little oasis in the middle of a snow-filled, mince-pie-flavoured world. She had intended to do some work. What else was there to do on a Saturday afternoon? But instead she picked up
her keys and headed out to Morrisons. There was a man there – ‘Robin Pud’ – who sold Christmas trees in the car park.

When Jacques walked into the Portakabin on the Sunday morning he walked straight out again, and checked the door before returning.

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘For a minute there I thought I’d arrived at the wrong theme park.’

‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,’ said Eve, hooking a bauble onto one of the Christmas tree branches. The tree was only three foot tall – she hadn’t gone mad. She
almost suggested to Robin Pud that he change the company name to ‘Robin’ Bastards’. She couldn’t believe the price.

‘Nice baubles,’ said Jacques with a grin, and that old twinkle in his eyes that she hadn’t seen for a while. ‘Did you buy that tree?’

‘No, I made it out of crêpe paper and sticky-back plastic,’ she replied. ‘Of course I bought it.’

‘We’ve got hundreds of Christmas trees in the park, and you went out and bought one?’ he threw his head back and laughed.

‘I was doing some market research,’ said Eve. ‘We should sell Christmas trees. They cost a bomb. And I still hate Christmas.’

Then she stood back to make sure that her red baubles weren’t too close to each other, and Jacques grinned inside and knew that he was about to make the right decision.