Читать книгу No One Cancels Christmas - Zara Stoneley - Страница 10

Dear Sarah,

Thank you for your recent correspondence. How nice to hear from you again! (I suspect this is sarcasm.) Unfortunately, in this part of the world there is no sand to bury one’s head in, therefore one has to use snow, which rather freezes the brain and leaves one temporarily incapacitated and thus incapable of carrying out simple tasks such as responding to phone calls.

I am currently reviewing our ‘flaming halls’ and other client requirements, though as far as I am aware ‘growing a pair’ has never featured on any feedback form.

Many thanks for your interest in our resort, and we look forward to welcoming you here in the future.

Regards. Will Armstrong (The Anti-Christmas).

Shooting Star Mountain Resort

‘Well at least he’s got a sense of humour.’

‘Hilarious.’ Dry I think they call it. I’m busy typing as I speak. What a cheek! Welcoming, huh, he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

Dear Mr Armstrong,

Many thanks for your prompt response. If you are not currently suffering from brain freeze it would be very helpful if you could spare the time to pick up the phone so we can discuss our requirements.

Our clients have reported a far-from-warm welcome – in fact, it has been coined ‘frosty’ in one instance – and there has been little in the way of flaming recently, in fireplaces or halls. The only feature in your brochure that you seem to provide, is snow. Maybe a new, more specific, feedback form would be in order?

‘You can’t send that!’ Sam is back peering over my shoulder, dropping crumbs down my cleavage.

‘You said that before.’ I drum my fingers on the desk, well away from the danger zone of the mouse, and wriggle the crumbs out of my bra. ‘You know what I’m seriously tempted to do, though?’

Sam raises on eyebrow, and surreptitiously nudges the mouse out of my reach. ‘I don’t like the sound it, whatever it is.’

‘Go.’

‘What do you mean, go?’

‘Go there. To the resort. He said he’d look forward to welcoming me in the future, so maybe that’s the answer. I mean, he can’t ignore me if I’m standing in front of him, can he?’ I minimise the email screen and log on to the booking system. ‘I could see for myself just how welcoming Mr Brain-freeze is and whether there’s any hope of salvaging some magic. And if there’s not, I’ll cancel all the bookings our clients have made and move them.’

‘No! You can’t just go, we’re busy, you’re busy!’ Sam is staring at me. ‘Anyhow, all the good resorts are booked up now, so you can’t move people if it really is that crap. It’s too late.’

‘Well, I’ll think of something.’

‘You have got to be kidding!’ Sam frowns, then bites the side of her thumb. ‘Have you totally lost your marbles this time?’

She might have a point. But not one I intend to concede to. ‘I could be the undercover hotel inspector, poking about in his dark corners and uncovering the truth. I’ve always fancied myself as a bit of a sleuth.’

‘You said you wanted to stand in front of him, so he can’t ignore you.’

The girl has a point. ‘Stop being picky. Anyway, that’s after I’ve poked about and written a witty and scathing piece about the state of his ski-lifts and skirting boards.’

‘Skirting boards?’

‘That’s where the dust gathers, apparently.’ Not that I’d know; I’m not a big-on-dusting kind of girl.

‘Do log cabins have skirting boards?’

‘Sam!’

‘Sorry, just trying to help.’

‘Anyway, I’d get a staff discount.’ Always look on the bright side, as my Aunt Lynn likes to say, and the one very bright side to working in her travel agency is that I get to travel on the cheap.

‘They should be paying you to go there.’ Sam taps a few buttons on her computer, then draws a deep breath. ‘Listen.’ I don’t really need to listen, I know the crap reviews off by heart, but she’s going to read them out to me anyway. ‘The worst Christmas we have ever had. The only good bit was the hot chocolate—’

‘– until they ran out of marshmallows.’ I finish the review for her. ‘But I could always take some with me.’

She ignores me. ‘I mean, who runs out of marshmallows? It’s like . . . like . . .’

‘Running out of wine?’

‘Like a margarita without the salt round the rim.’

‘Serious stuff, then.’

‘Well, you’d feel cheated, wouldn’t you? And how about this one? Cosy this place is not – unless you’re related to a polar bear, it was warmer out than in.’ Sam glances up to check I’m still listening. ‘The website promises husky-drawn sleds, and the nearest we got was being allowed to take the dog a walk. Aw, I quite like the idea of that. Jake’s thinking about teaching Harry to pull a sled, but there’s never any snow here, is there?’ I refrain from commenting. Cute as her boyfriend’s dog Harry is, I’m pretty sure sled dogs are usually twice his size. ‘And this one’s from last Christmas, Guide refused to take us ski-ing because it was snowing! Cheese fondue was ace, let down by untidy dining room and rude waitress. Amazing place, just a shame the new owners have let standards slip. A magical Christmas this was not.’

‘So, I should go, shouldn’t I? Look, that place used to be the best on our books; it was magical, fabulous, festive – you know, all those F words.’ I’ve run out, but she knows what I mean.

‘And now it’s a flop, Sarah, but it’s not our job to put places right, is it? We just recommend somewhere else. You don’t have to actually go there.’

‘Aunt Lynn used to.’ I think I might be sounding a bit sulky.

‘To check places out, see if they were holidays she wanted to sell. Not put them right. Oh Sarah, why not just drop it, find somewhere better?’

‘Because . . .’ Well, partly because I’m stubborn and don’t like to admit defeat. ‘It’s not just Auntie Lynn that loved it.’ I take a deep breath as the prickly heat of tears in my eyes takes me completely by surprise. I mess around with the paperclips on my desk so that I don’t have to look at her. ‘It was where she and I spent our first Christmas together.’ There’s a lump in my throat that shouldn’t be there, and I’m blinking faster than the lights on a faulty pelican crossing. I swallow, hard. ‘I want to thump Will Armstrong.’

‘Oh hell. Why didn’t you say? Not the thump bit, the Christmas bit, I mean.’ Sam squeezes my hand and I pull away slightly, because sympathy always does me in. I don’t want to end up in tears, not here, not at work. Well, not anywhere, really. Crying is something I learned not to do a long time ago. It’s pointless.

Our first Christmas at the Shooting Star resort had been magical. Which I suppose is what Auntie Lynn intended.

She’d never been that close to her sister, my mum, they’d been too different. Camembert and brie, as Lynn liked to say, and the subtle differences had run deep. Mum had married young, had me, taken me off on magical mystery tours in a camper van. Lynn was single, resolutely childless and loved to spend time in unexplored corners of the world. They both had wanderlust, but their lust and their wandering had taken them in very different directions.

Up until then, I’d hardly known Aunt Lynn; our paths had never really crossed until that Christmas.

The Christmas when she’d been there to try and save my little family, and instead had been left with me when my parents had left. Without me. For a ‘spot of adult time’ as Mum had laughingly put it, and I’d never seen them again. That jokey comment and her tinkling laugh are the last I remember of her.

She didn’t wear perfume, so there was no lingering smell of lavender or Chanel N°5 to give me a part of her back. She didn’t even leave a discarded jumper, or treasured trinket. Life isn’t always like they tell it in the movies. There was nothing; no part of her for me to hold on to, except for the sound of her laughter and a hazy memory of her big, green eyes.

It had been my last Christmas with Mum and Dad, my first with Auntie Lynn.

We’d spent another week there. Just the two of us. I’d been bewildered, feeling lost, waiting for my parents to appear at the door and for everything to go back to normal. They didn’t.

Mum would never be able to go back anywhere now, she was sleeping with the stars. And Dad? Well, as far as I was concerned, my dad no longer existed.

That Christmas we’d spent our days building snowmen, walking in the snow, patting the huskies and feeding the reindeer. And in the evenings we’d curl up together in the log cabin, staring into the flames and making wishes. The same wishes I’d carried on making for years afterwards. Until I realised wishes never come true anyway.

I blink away the past and ignore the one tiny tear that manages to squeeze its way past my defences.

‘It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point, is it?’

Sam is frowning at me and doesn’t look convinced, so I ignore her and tap away on my keyboard, which means I can brush away the dampness on my cheek without her noticing.

‘But what about Lynn? You always spend Christmas together.’

Sam is right again. Ever since that one in the Shooting Star Mountain Resort, Aunt Lynn and I have spent every Christmas together. She’s my family, my whole family, the only one I’ve got, and she’s amazing.

I love Auntie Lynn. Totally. If it hadn’t been for her my life would have worked out totally differently. I would be an insecure, unloved mess and I would also be totally boring and bored. Auntie Lynn has brought me up with cuddles and creativity, and she has taught me that being the only guardian at parents’ evening with striped hair and questions about what I thought rather than what the teacher thought is something to be celebrated, not be ashamed of.

‘But I’m not going for actual Christmas.’ No way do I want to spend Christmas there ever again. Even if the place had still been perfect (which it certainly isn’t), I don’t think I could face that. ‘I’ll go just before, or after. Actually, now might be a good time.’ No time like the present. ‘I could try and get some of it sorted before he has chance to ruin Christmas for another load of people. One more bad Christmas could finish the place off for good. I am not going to let him screw up like this: no one cancels Christmas!’

‘But you can’t just up and leave me!’

‘I’m not leaving you on your own. I’ll have to clear it with Aunt Lynn, but she did say a while ago that she thought maybe we should start to visit places again. She’s thinking of taking a temp on to cover here, so that we can get out more. You’d get to go to places too.’ I give her a sideways glance. ‘She knows you want to travel.’

Sam goes bright red. She thinks she’s hidden the way she feels, but she is one of those people who just can’t hide their feelings – they’re written all over her face. She’s changed in a good way, lately, especially after she got over her tosspot two-timing ex, and met her dishy boyfriend Jake. It’s been obvious that she’s come out stronger. She’s still the funny girl I love, but she’s now much more determined to live the life she wants. And she wants more than just sitting in a goldfish bowl in the high street.

‘Lynn doesn’t want to lose you, Sam. I don’t either.’ I can’t imagine life without Sam. We’re totally different, but we just get on. She’s giving me a look, like she might hug me, and I can’t cope with hugs right now. ‘Hang on, this will timeout if I don’t complete the booking.’

‘Leave it.’ She tugs at my chair again so that I can’t reach the keyboard. ‘Come on, they aren’t exactly going to get booked up if you leave it a few minutes, are they? And don’t you need to check dates first?’

‘I can provisionally book.’ Not that there is much need – there is availability on every date I look at. ‘Then I can call Aunt Lynn.’ Sam doesn’t like the impulsive side of my character, it makes her uncomfortable. She likes to know where she stands, whereas I – with my wobbly past – tend to view each day as a new challenge. And right now, locking horns with Mr Armstrong in the Canadian Rockies sounds like a good diversion.

‘Why don’t you call her now?’

‘Okay, okay, I’ll talk to her first if it makes you happy.’ Sam does have a point, but it’s a quiet time and I’m sure my aunt will be more than happy to cover for me for a few days; she likes to ‘keep her finger on the pulse’, as she puts it.

‘It does make me happy.’

So I dial out on the office phone and put it on speakerphone so that Sam will be in no doubt at all to Lynn’s response – even though I know she will like this idea. She says travel broadens the mind and shrinks the butt. She will definitely like this idea.

‘Aunt Lynn?’

‘Oh, I’m glad you rang, dear.’ She says this as though we never talk, whereas we talk at least once a day. ‘I wanted a little chat.’

Sam raises an eyebrow, and I half wish I hadn’t put Lynn on speakerphone.

‘I’m a bit tied up at the moment,’ she does sound distracted, ‘but come for a spot of coffee and cake.’ I stare at the phone, then glance at Sam, who is doing an ‘I haven’t a clue’ gesture.

‘Er, fine. It’s just I wanted to—’

‘Will it keep until Wednesday, dear?’

She sounds as if she’s not really listening anyway, so I nod, even though she can’t see me. ‘Sure.’ What difference will a couple of days make? ‘Or tomorrow?’

‘Oh no dear, I’ve got Hedgehog Rescue tomorrow, had you forgotten?’

There’s the tiniest note of reproach in her voice. How could I forget Hedgehog Rescue? Not to mention Purrfect Cat Rescue, Sanitary Towels for the Homeless, and Baby in a Box. That last one did worry me a bit, until I researched and found out it was a care pack for newborns. The image in my head hasn’t changed, though: the perfect next day delivery service for the childless.

Aunt Lynn believes in paying it forward, and because she is so nice people shower her with little acts of kindness. There is, therefore, a lot of paying forward to be done.

‘It’s the big weigh in, followed by a hog roast.’

‘That sounds vaguely inappropriate.’

She laughs, a hearty belly laugh. ‘Oh, get you! We can have a good catch up, and I’ll tell you all about my plans.’

‘Plans?’ That sounds ominous.

‘Shall we say three o’clock, then?’

She is obviously not going to enlighten me. Although with Aunt Lynn there is never a need to rush, and she is the least inquisitive person I know. If somebody says they’ve got something to tell me, I will mull it over, dissect the tone of their voice, list all the possible reasons, worry. Lynn will forget about it. ‘Sure, if you can’t—’

‘Rushed off my feet, darling! Oh dear, oh dear, I really have to go.’

‘Shall I bring cake?’

‘No, no.’

‘It’s no bother, I can grab some from the café across the road?’

‘Just bring yourself, dear. Take the afternoon off, I’m sure Sammy can cope. Now, I really am going to have to rush, Lionel is dangling from the chandelier, he’s so adventurous!’

Sam splutters biscuit crumbs in all directions, and I shout ‘bye’ and slam a finger hard on the end call button, as though it will disconnect it quicker.

‘Clean that dirty mind of yours.’ I stare at Sam disapprovingly. ‘Lionel is her neighbour’s cat.’

‘Ah.’ She’s grinning, and I can’t help it, I have to grin back. We know we’re both thinking the same thing (as she does know my Aunt Lynn quite well), and Lionel could quite easily have been a man she’d picked up. Qualifying for a bus pass hasn’t slowed her down at all.

We sit in silence for a moment, savouring the image that has sprung into our minds. It’s Sam who shakes the thought out of her head first. ‘Do you think it’s okay? The cat?’

‘Oh yeah, he’s done it before. He waits until she’s halfway up the stepladder then lets go and stalks off.’

‘Oh. That’s good.’ The look of relief turns to a little frown. ‘That was a bit weird, the cake and coffee thing. She never asks you round for cake and coffee.’

It is weird (even weirder than the Lionel thing) and worrying on many counts.

‘I know.’ Lynn doesn’t really do ‘coffee’, I might pop in for a chat, or she sometimes calls by my place and stops for a drink, or even a meal. But we don’t invite each other round for coffee. And definitely not for cake and coffee. The whole conversation is out of character. Something is off kilter. This feels like bad news and has made me feel all uneasy and icky inside.

What does she need to talk about that means I won’t be up to work afterwards? Is she selling up? Is she ill? My God, is she getting married?

I feel more than uneasy now. I feel sick.

I take a deep breath. It can’t be that urgent if it can wait until Wednesday and be lower priority than Hedgehog Rescue. Surely?

But even though Wednesdays are quiet, she knows that leaving Sam running the place single-handedly could be an issue.

Sam is ace at selling holidays to people who aren’t sure they want them, but she tends to get distracted. And press the wrong buttons on the computer (unlike me of course, ha ha). So why would Lynn suggest I take time off, unless she has something major to tell me, something that can’t be discussed on the phone?

And secondly, Auntie Lynn definitely doesn’t bake cakes. Her occasional spontaneous baking sessions in the past have resulted in deconstructed scones and melt-in-the-middle Madeira cake. Yes, she knows there is no such thing, but that is what usually happens. And you know those recipes that are impossible to mess up? Well, I’ve got news for you, Mr Super-chef.

When I was little I thought they were the most amazing creations ever – nobody else had smashed banana and crisp sandwiches with a side of pancake pieces in their lunch box. I was special.

The fact that we are meeting at her home and not in a café, where cake is provided and guaranteed to pass health and safety requirements, is even more worrying.

‘You don’t think it upset her, talking about booking to go to that place?’

I shake my head. ‘I didn’t even get that far, did I? It wasn’t my plans she was interested in, it was hers. She said she’d tell me all about her plans.’ This is the third, and most unsettling part of it all. What plans? Lynn doesn’t plan things, she does things. And she doesn’t save things up to tell me about later, we fill each other in as we go along.

Sam and I both frown together. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. She just wants a chat with you, that’s all.’ Sam doesn’t sound convinced, and nor am I.

What hasn’t Lynn been telling me?