Читать книгу A Perfect Cornish Christmas - Phillipa Ashley, Phillipa Ashley - Страница 6

Brushing sleet from her eyes, Scarlett Latham hesitated over the sign on the door of the Smuggler’s Tavern.

Feeling lonely and lost? On your own on Christmas Day?

Join us for a free festive dinner.

No need to book! Just walk in!

Everyone welcome.

Scarlett wrapped her arms around her body, trying to hug some life into her frozen limbs, but her thin party dress offered no protection from the biting wind.

The streets of Porthmellow were deserted as all the normal people of the Cornish harbour town prepared to enjoy Christmas lunch with their friends and families. In contrast, the windowpanes of the pub glowed with warmth and the sound of laughter and music drifted out onto the quayside. Scarlett looked at the sign again, teetering on the brink: step into the light, or stay out here in the sleet? The board’s words were becoming fuzzy as her tears mingled with the wet snow, but she could still make them out.

Feeling lonely and lost?

A sob caught in her throat. She hadn’t felt lonely or lost until two hours before. Now she’d never felt more alone in her life … She caught sight of her reflection in the dark glass of the outer door. It was even worse than she had thought: she was soaked to the skin in her Christmas Day finest, her mascara running down her face in rivers. Did she dare cross the threshold? What would people think?

She read the last line again.

Everyone welcome.

Some instinct deep inside propelled her through the tavern’s entrance. It seemed bizarre to join someone else’s Christmas festivities when her own had gone so spectacularly wrong. Maybe she wanted to prove that Christmas could and should be a happy time when people set aside their differences and enjoyed each other’s company for a few hours. Or maybe she was simply afraid she’d otherwise freeze to death and be found huddled against a pile of lobster pots, covered in snowflakes, like the Little Match Girl.

The oak door creaked open onto a scene of warmth and light that was a world away from the frozen gloom of the deserted harbour. People in paper hats were letting off party poppers and blowing tooters in each other’s faces. Crimson and green cloths covered the tables, which were laid for a Christmas feast, while tinsel shimmered in the glow from the fire. The smooth voice of Michael Bublé was crooning from the speakers, ‘Tis the season to be jolly …’

A gust of wind snatched the door from her hand and banged it shut behind her. In an instant, the cold was cut out and a dozen faces turned in her direction.

It was too late to turn back now, she’d stepped over the threshold. They’d be bound to ask questions, seeing how distressed she was, but was she ready to answer them?

An elderly man in a fisherman’s cap decorated with tinsel hurried over to her. He was vaguely familiar … though her numb brain couldn’t put a name to the weather-beaten features.

‘Hello, my maid. Welcome to the Smuggler’s Tavern. Have you come for the Lunch for the Lonely? You’re very welcome, even if you’ve a strange choice of shoes for the weather.’

With a cackle of laughter, he pointed to her feet. Scarlett looked down too. Her new rabbit slippers, a gift from her sister, Ellie, were now a sodden mush of grey fluff, as if the unfortunate bunnies had met a sad end on a snowy road. Her Christmas tights had a spud-sized hole at the knee and the hem on her sequinned skirt was drooping.

‘You must be freezing.’ The old man’s tone softened. ‘Here, have my cardi.’

‘I’m …’ Scarlett was going to refuse, but realised that her teeth were chattering. ‘It l-looks new … Don’t you n-need it?’

Already taking it off, he pulled a face. ‘No. Can’t stand the bleddy thing. Unwanted present from my cousin. Does it every year. Same cardi, same colour, always the wrong size.’

He draped the cardigan, a sludge-coloured cable-knit with leather buttons, around Scarlett’s shoulders. The warmth was instant and for a second, she felt comforted. Then she realised that the tooters had stopped tooting and she’d replaced Michael Bublé as the festive entertainment.

A man about her own age approached, a wary expression on his face. He was very tall, very blond and wearing a green sparkly jumper and an elf hat with pointy ears. He reminded Scarlett of the Big Friendly Giant. He was joined by a young woman wearing a Santa apron and an elderly lady in a glittery top and reindeer ears, holding a walking stick bedecked with tinsel. They were all smiling at Scarlett, with looks of pity on their faces.

The older man tucked the cardi tight around Scarlett’s shoulders and pulled back a chair from one of the tables that was laid for Christmas dinner.

‘Have a seat, love,’ he said. ‘I’m Troy, by the way.’

‘Yes, and have some hot punch,’ the younger woman added. Scarlett noticed that her apron had ‘Sam’ printed on it. ‘It’s non-alcoholic,’ she told her gently.

That was it. Sam must think she was pissed.

‘I – I h-have only had a couple of glasses of f-fizz,’ Scarlett said. ‘And some eggnog, but it tasted like sick so I chucked it in the c-camellias.’

Sam smiled indulgently. ‘Would you like us to find you some dry shoes?’ she asked.

The elf man produced a fleece and draped it over her knees as if she were in a nursing home. ‘Another unwanted present,’ he said, flashing her an apologetic smile. He held out his hand. ‘I’m Jude.’

‘I’m …’ Scarlett’s lips were numb. She tried to lift her hand, but couldn’t.

Jude subsided like a sunken cake. ‘Possibly bad timing. Maybe we can properly introduce ourselves when you’ve warmed up a bit?’

Scarlett nodded. Despite Troy’s cardigan, she was still shivering and finding it hard to understand what people were saying to her. Her brain felt like the slush clinging to her slippers. She opened her mouth but it wouldn’t connect to her thoughts.

‘I’m Sam,’ the kind-eyed, younger woman said, then pointed to her apron and rolled her eyes. ‘But you must have guessed that.’ She crouched down in front of Scarlett. ‘You’re wet through … What’s happened to you?’

‘I – I c-can’t really s-say right now,’ Scarlett stuttered, at a loss how to explain the havoc that had been unleashed on her family that Christmas morning.

‘OK … Maybe you’ll feel better when you’ve had something to eat,’ Jude said gently. He pulled off his elf hat, as if out of respect, and revealed blond hair tied in a ponytail.

‘Yes, why don’t you stay for a hot meal, my love?’ The elderly woman smiled at Scarlett. ‘I’m Evie. You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to, my dear, but it would help us if you could let us know who you are?’

‘Who I am …’ A series of images flashed into Scarlett’s hazy brain.

Her mum running into the scullery and refusing to come out. Her father standing outside the door, demanding to know what it all meant. Her brother, Marcus, shouting at Scarlett and her sister, Ellie, for ruining Christmas Day and Ellie, normally so calm, screaming back that it wasn’t their fault. The house ringing with accusations, shouts, tears and denials … and Marcus’s two boys in the middle of it all, pale-faced and terrified.

Heidi, Scarlett’s sister-in-law, had threatened to take them out of ‘this toxic situation’ before screeching, ‘And I would do if I hadn’t had so much eggnog.’

Scarlett had rounded on her saying: ‘It’s bloody horrible, anyway.’

Then, to cap it all, the smoke alarm had gone off.

‘Jesus Christ, the oven’s on fire!’ Marcus had bellowed. ‘Get the boys out!’

He’d opened the oven door and clouds of smoke had billowed out from the cremated roast potatoes and pigs-in-blankets.

Ellie, of course, had then tried to calm everyone down and their mum had let out a wail from behind the door.

And Scarlett hadn’t cared. She’d wanted her mother to suffer. How could she have done this to the family? To her father? To her?

She’d had to get away, knocking back a full glass of fizz as she went. What a mess, what a horrible mess. She had only just begun to get over her split from her boyfriend, Rafa, and she’d thought she could at least rely on her family for some solace and fun. More importantly, she’d wanted so much to make them happy, to give them something that showed how much she cared for them and appreciated the bond they shared.

Now it had all been blown to smithereens and some of the people she’d thought she knew and loved were strangers to her. Worse, some of them seemed to blame her for what had happened, as if she was the one who’d lied and cheated and lobbed a bomb into the family.

While the smoke alarm shrieked and her siblings argued in the kitchen, she’d slipped through the French windows into the grounds of Seaholly Manor. The cold had snatched her breath away and the sleet had felt like needles on her face, but she hadn’t cared.

She’d fled up the lane, her party dress soaked within minutes, praying no one came after her. Her lungs were bursting by the time she reached the main road. A pick-up truck had passed her, slowing briefly before speeding up again when the driver saw a wet madwoman in a party dress and bunny slippers rushing down the hill into Porthmellow.

She’d been shivering uncontrollably by the time she reached the harbour, its Christmas lights twinkling through the grey haze of a winter noon. That’s when she truly clocked that she might be in danger of hypothermia and that bunny slippers, a party dress and a stomach full of twiglets and Prosecco might not be the best protection against the worst the Atlantic could throw at her.

Reluctantly, she’d realised that the only thing to do was get to a pub or restaurant and call Ellie and ask her to walk down with some dry clothes and meet her … she hadn’t taken her bag or her phone, so she’d have to beg someone to let her use their landline. She wouldn’t call her mother; she couldn’t bear to speak to her – and as for her father, how could she ever face him again?

‘How’s your knee, my maid?’ Evie’s voice reached her. It was gentle and soft, the voice of a mother to her daughter, and triggered a fresh wave of despair at what she’d lost.

Her gaze fell upon the red and bleeding skin beneath the hole in her tights.

Oh yes, she’d stumbled on the cobbles by the Fisherman’s Institute. Just like when she was little and had tumbled, it hadn’t truly hurt until someone had tried to comfort her. Now, it throbbed like mad. Everything had begun to hurt as the numbness thawed, her senses came back to life and the awful realisation of what had happened back at the manor hit her.

The gift – from Scarlett and her older sister, Ellie – was supposed to be the perfect present to her family. It was meant to fill their faces with delight and joy, not pain and anger.

She stared back at Troy, Sam, Evie and Jude, and the blur of faces behind them.

Evie patted her hand. ‘Do you even know who you are, my maid?’

‘I thought I did,’ said Scarlett. ‘But I don’t any more.’