Both his hands slide up my jaw and cup my face and he lowers his lips to mine. It’s just a peck seeing as we’re not alone, but it still makes my knees decidedly jelly-like.
‘I didn’t know you felt like that, Sash.’ Dad waggles a finger between me and Tav. ‘Or like that. What Santa’s elves get up to behind his back, eh?’ He does a “ho ho ho”, perfectly timed for once. ‘I’ll see what I can do about the offer. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.’
I grin at Tav and I can literally see his shoulders rise as the weight lifts from them.
This is the answer to a question I never could have imagined asking just a few short weeks ago, but now seems like the most important thing in the world.
They were both right – there’s something special about this place.
Chapter 17
Dear Santa,
Can I have a doll that will eat, drink, walk, do my homework, and clean my room?
From,
Ruby
It’s December 24th, a couple of days later, and we’re in the middle of a busy morning. We’re closing in an hour’s time seeing as Norway’s main festive celebration is on Christmas Eve, and the last thing I expect is Tav to call with a reindeer problem.
‘Careful, I don’t want to frighten her,’ he says when he hears me approaching.
I squeeze through the trees behind the post office until I find Tav’s footprints and follow the trail to the fence that divides our land from the overgrown back area of the outdoor pursuits company, the one he mentioned ages ago.
Tav’s on his knees in the snow, trying to calm down a female reindeer with both her antlers caught in the broken wire fencing, wrapped around and trapping her in place. When she sees me coming, she backs up and starts bucking and twisting, only serving to tighten the wire trapping her.
Tav murmurs to her soothingly. He’s got one arm through the fence, the wire digging into his forearm as he tries to reassure her. ‘She’s terrified and if she pulls much more she’s going to rip the antlers out or cause herself some other serious injury.’
‘What do we do?’
‘There’s no way of untangling this. I need to cut her loose wire by wire.’ He uses his free hand to dig in his pockets for a set of keys and chucks them to me blindly, and I pick them up from where they land in the snow. ‘There’s a toolbox under the desk in my cabin. Can you go and get it? I can’t risk leaving her, especially with so many people around, and judging by the size of her stomach, I think she’s pregnant. So at least we know what Rudolph Number Three has been up to on his jaunts around the forest and why he’s so keen to get out all the time.’
The one-antlered male reindeer is standing nearby, looking worried. ‘Aww, Clive, you’ve got yourself a girlfriend. You’re going to be a daddy.’ I still have lichen in my pocket and hand him a clump, but he drops it without interest, too concerned over the new female reindeer’s welfare.
I recognise her as the one I saw him with ages ago, and the one who comes by the kitchen window to critique my cooking skills.
‘It’s a big metal box with a handle. There are reindeer ropes nearby. Can you grab a couple of them too? I can’t let her go after this, I need to check her over and find out if she’s got an owner. If not, she can stay with us.’
It feels good to be doing something useful, and especially good that Tav has actually asked for my help. I dart around tourists as I run up the main road of the North Pole Forest to the tiny path towards the reindeer sanctuary, weaving through trees and jumping over snowdrifts like it’s an Olympic event and it still feels like it takes me hours to reach Tav’s cabin.
The desk is piled high, and I skid over to it so fast that I ram into it with my thigh and send a stack of papers flying, fluttering down around me like a papery snowstorm as I sink to my knees and stick my head underneath. I pull out the huge metal box tucked into one corner, grab two ropes that are hung on the wall above, and run back out the door. It’s only when I go to close it that I realise the mess I’ve left of papers all over the floor. I drop the things and dash back, gathering them up at super speed and shoving them onto the desk. Tav will understand them not being in order.
And then I catch sight of my name.
I pull the sheet out of the haphazard pile and scan over it. It’s a bullet point to-do list, signed by my dad at the bottom, and the date at the top is the day I arrived.
The first point is *Pick Sasha up from airport and in brackets underneath is – Something exciting that she won’t be able to back out of. No reindeer. Too dull.
I immediately think of the huskies. That was planned? That was set up as something I wouldn’t be able to back out of? What?
*Sasha is your number-one priority. She takes precedence over all other jobs.
I’m a job? I blink at the paper. Half of me doesn’t understand what I’m reading and half of me already knows.
*Get her anything she wants.
*Make her feel important. I’ve never made her feel important in my life and I want her to feel that here.
*Christmas magic. I’ve failed epically at making Christmases magical for her. Let’s make a real effort with Christmas magic.
*Get her involved. I don’t think she makes many connections in her life – make her feel a part of something.
*Outdoorsy stuff. I don’t think she likes the outdoors much and she needs to get more fresh air.
Am I ten? I feel like a child sitting there while my dad scolds me for having too much screen time. Why has Tav got a printed-out sheet with all this stuff on it? Why is my dad sharing this with Tav?
The memory of Tav saying he gets jobsheets from my father every week flickers across my mind. That’s what this is.
These are his instructions. For dealing with me.
I scrabble out another page, dated the following week this time.
*Remind her of childhood Christmases. She used to love Christmas but she doesn’t anymore. I think that’s because of me. My dad’s added a hand-drawn crying Santa face underneath the printed sentence.
*Give her a wishing jar. She would’ve loved that as a little girl.
*The post office was a brilliant idea. Nothing can invoke the spirit of Christmas more than a few Santa letters. Make sure Sash carries on reading them.
Tears splashing onto the paper is the first thing to tip me off that I’m crying.
None of this has been real. My entire stay here has been carefully orchestrated by my dad.
And implemented by Tav.
I don’t need to read the rest of the commands on the second page to know what each one will say. Every single thing we’ve done together hasn’t been spontaneous and fun – it’s been part of his to-do list. Every aspect planned to precision. As instructed by his boss. The heading on the paper may as well read “Operation make Sasha into the daughter I wish she was’. Why else would my dad be writing these? Some underhanded way of making me more like him? I’ve never been the daughter he wanted and he’s finally seen a way to manipulate me into changing?
I feel like I’ve been hit by a submarine. I thought Tav was honest to a fault, but nothing that’s happened between us has been genuine. He’s been following instructions.
I feel like I’m part of one of those magician’s tricks where they’re poking swords into a box but something’s gone wrong and every bullet point on that list is a further stab.
He was told to do everything he’s done.
Shaking my head to clear it reminds me of the reindeer and I scramble to my feet and grab the toolbox and ropes and shove the two pages into my pocket. I’ve already wasted too much time, but I’m sure she’ll understand. She’s a woman. She’s probably been lied to by bulls too.
‘I knew this fence was going to be a problem,’ Tav says when he hears me approaching. ‘If the outdoor pursuits place won’t replace it, I’m going to have to do it myself.’
The reindeer is calmer now and I creep forwards and set the box down within Tav’s reach, and he digs around blind
ly until he finds a pair of small clippers.
‘Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘Oh, I think you do,’ I mutter.
He gives me a questioning glance over his shoulder but doesn’t have time to concentrate on me at the moment, and that’s fine, because I don’t know how to process this information yet.
It changes everything.
I thought he liked me. I thought we had a genuine connection. But everything he’s done is part of his job. Every little thing was on a list. From the very first moment I met him, he was following instructions. Everything was a set-up. Everything was manipulated.
‘What can I do to help?’ I ask because the reindeer bucks and starts pulling again at the sound of the snip as he cuts through the first wire.
‘Nothing for now. It’s a one-person job.’
I sit down next to Rudolph-slash-Clive and pick up the lichen he dropped earlier. This time he takes it out of my hand and chews it, like he knows Tav’s got the situation under control and is feeling a bit better about it. All I can think of is the folded pages shoved in my pocket.
Tav cuts the wires entangling the reindeer’s antlers piece by piece, painstakingly slow and calm. Every movement is precise and calculated, being careful not to stress her out more than she is already. He murmurs to her the whole time, stopping to stroke her side when she gets impatient. An expert at keeping people calm in unusual situations.
When most of the wire is cut and bent away, Tav manages to get his arm through the fence and sling a rope around the reindeer’s neck, and he beckons me over to hold it while he cuts the last tangles of wire and frees her. I expect her to run away, but she stands quietly, patiently waiting while Tav cuts away enough of the fencing to make a big enough gap for her to get through, offers her lichen from his pocket, and then tugs the rope gently, encouraging her to cross to our side.
And she does. She trusts him now. She knows he’s trying to help, but I keep hold of the rope while he quickly examines her. ‘Definitely pregnant. Given the number of times we’ve seen her around, and the fact she has no notches on her ears to show she belongs to a herder, I’m guessing she’s wild, maybe orphaned or abandoned by her own herd. She can stay here. It might keep Rudolph-slash-Clive in a bit too, seeing as it seems he’s only been sneaking out to meet up with his girlfriend. Do you want to name her?’
‘How about you tell me the truth?’
He looks at me with a raised eyebrow. ‘Quite an odd name for a reindeer. I was thinking more along the lines of Blitzen Number Five or something a bit more traditional.’
‘I didn’t mean the reindeer. I meant you, Tav.’
‘The truth about what?’
‘Your job, for a start.’
‘What?’ He looks confused. ‘Sash, you’re not making any sense.’
I sigh and pull the folded pages from my pocket and open them out. ‘I found your jobsheets, Tav. So has everything between us been part of your assignment or just ninety-nine-point-nine-nine per cent of all things?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He wraps the reindeer’s rope around his wrist and holds out his hand and I pass them over.
He’s pale anyway but I can see the colour drain from his cheeks and he shakes his head as his eyes scan over the pages. ‘Okay, I know what this looks like, but you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. You can’t honestly believe—’
‘Believe? It’s right here, printed off in black and white. It’s probably on a spreadsheet somewhere! I’ve just read everything we’ve done together in bullet point list form, planned to precision before we actually did it.’
‘Sash, I haven’t read these! I glanced at the first one solely to get your flight time to meet you at the airport—’
‘In a pre-decided husky dog sled!’ I shout, upsetting both reindeer.
‘Well, yeah, because your dad said you liked dogs so I thought it would be a nice touch, not because I read this!’
‘What the hell are these doing in your cabin then? Filed neatly with all the other to-do lists he sends you every week. Clean Santa’s windows, shovel the pathways, change the lightbulb in Mistletoe Cabin, fix the toilet flush in igloo #12, oh, and don’t forget to make Sasha fall in love with you!’
‘You’re in lo—’ He stops himself when he realises that now is not the time to comment on that ill-timed remark that I didn’t intend to say aloud. Instead he shoves a hand through his hair. ‘They weren’t filed neatly, they were face down on my desk with all the others I ignore every week. God, Sash, I don’t read these things. I told you I’ve been fighting against your dad all year – struggling with him taking over and no longer being my own boss. Yes, he puts one of these through my door every Monday morning, more often if the mood catches him, and I never read them because I hate being told what to do. I’ve worked here for fifteen years. I built the place. I have a very good idea of what needs doing without his input. I know he’s trying to help, but I hate the implication that I’m not on top of things.’ His hand swings down, like the pages are too heavy to hold up. ‘Didn’t you notice the two piles? One face down for things I’m ignoring, one face up for things that need dealing with.’
I hesitate. ‘Well, admittedly I didn’t see which way they were facing … I knocked into your desk and sent them flying …’
I meet his eyes, and I want to believe him, but I shake myself. ‘It doesn’t make any difference which way they were facing. You’re trying to distract me with minutiae. Facts are facts, Tav.’
‘I know how bad this looks, but it isn’t how it looks. I don’t like your dad’s approach. I don’t need to be micro-managed. I glanced at the first one and knew straight away that it wasn’t something I was going to have any part in. You can’t manipulate people into having a good time. I didn’t want anything to do with this. I didn’t want anything to do with you. I had enough to do without being lumbered as caretaker of some condescending tourist who didn’t want to break a perfectly manicured nail.’
‘Wow. Nothing like a bit of honesty.’
‘I don’t mean now, Sash.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘That’s what I thought you’d be like, and that changed the moment you ordered me into the house on the first night. I’m trying to explain that when I got those sheets, I was angry. I ripped them from the letterbox and slapped them face down on the pile of things to ignore because I was annoyed at your father for adding to my workload with frivolous tasks that were never part of my job description. I didn’t want to do a crash course in adult-babysitting. I wanted to get on with the endless list of jobs I already had for myself. I didn’t need his patronising work notes telling me what needs to be done.’
‘You’ve already said you looked at it.’
‘Yes, I saw the priority bit, but his priorities and mine are different, and quite frankly, I didn’t give a toss what his were. Mine are the reindeer and fixing everything that needs fixing around here in some sort of logical order. I didn’t want to look after you as well. I didn’t expect to get on with you. And that wishing jar thing … I don’t even know why he put that on there because I put one of those in every gift basket, without fail. One for each person in each cabin.’
I glare at him. ‘Now you’re trying to make me feel special by making me feel non-special?’
‘You’re the most special person I’ve ever met. You’ve turned my world upside down. How can you not know that? Every rule I’ve lived my life by went out the window when you ordered me into the house. That one simple gesture punched a hole straight through my walls. It was the first time anyone’s ever not accepted “I’m fine” as my brush-off answer.’ He takes a step towards me with one hand held out, and I take a step backwards.
‘You’ve been making me feel special – exactly as it’s written here.’
‘I haven’t been making you feel special. You are special.’
I hate him for always knowing exactly what to say to make me melt, but it’s not that simple this time.
‘You are special and I don’t think you have enough people in your life who tell you that,’ he continues. ‘Until the other day, I was working on the assumption you were leaving, and I wanted you to go back with a bit more self-worth than you came with.’
I’m crying again because I want it to be true so badly, but no one can argue with cold, hard, printed in Times New Roman facts. ‘Everything I thought was so special about you was pre-planned, Tav. The coincidences. The stuff we have in common. The songs you sing that remind me of my mum – did he tell you what her favourite songs were? Even Shakin’ flipping Stevens. That was her favourite Christmas song and I thought it was a sign from the universe that you started singing it, but was it because he told you?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’ He looks at the paper and then slaps it with the backs of his fingers, his voice sounding panicky. ‘It doesn’t say anything about songs on here. He never mentioned anything about that at all. This doesn’t change anything, Sash. It’s just words on a piece of paper that I promise you I didn’t even read.’
It makes the tears fall harder. ‘It changes everything. Everything that’s been so perfect since I got here, everything that’s felt like it’s meant to be has been because it was designed that way. Everything I liked about you. Your childlike joy, your belief in nisse, the matter-of-fact way you speak about flying reindeer. I thought you were an adorable big kid, but all your joy was faked to give me some weird nostalgic childhood Christmas experience. You’re a grown man. You don’t believe in elves. No one does. And I wish more people did, and I thought you were that person.’
‘That’s not true.’
I shake my head. I can’t believe him. There are too many coincidences between this list and how the past few weeks have gone. ‘Why is my dad doing this? I know I’ve never been the daughter he wanted, but what did he think he was going to get from this? That it would somehow turn me into being outdoorsy and adventurous?’
The Post Box at the North Pole: The perfect cosy and uplifting Christmas romance to curl up with in 2021! Page 28