Christmas at the Marshmallow Cafe (Delightful Christmas Book 4)

by CP Ward

  Bonnie smiled. ‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘Jason took us on a sleigh ride in the morning through the nature reserve. And I just got back from a walk up to the lake. I’m starving though. Lunch was a glass of sherry.’

  Brendon smiled. ‘It’s easy to forget time here, isn’t it? When the place begins to enchant you, you get drawn in. I can see from your eyes that you’re on the way there. Are you still planning to leave?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I have to say, the idea is … tempting.’

  Brendon smiled. ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘The problem is, I have a lot to lose. I can’t just drop everything and move up here when it looks like the place is going to fall apart. I need some … guarantees.’

  Even as she spoke she felt awkward, as though she were lost in a world where she didn’t belong.

  ‘There are no guarantees, I’m afraid,’ Brendon said. ‘However, it might be worth talking to someone who knew your uncle. I think you might then understand a little about what Christmas Land meant to him.’

  Bonnie nodded. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Who did you have in mind?’

  ‘Well, the man’s a bit of a legend, in the same way your uncle was.’ Brendon grimaced. ‘He can come across a little … sharp. However, when you get to know him, you’ll realise he’s a big teddy bear.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘His name’s Gene Wilkins. He lives right on the edge of the park. If you can wait until the end of my shift, I’ll take you over to visit him. Just … don’t be scared, okay?’

  16

  Gene

  After the two guests, an elderly male couple called John and Tim had arrived—collected from Ings Forest station by Jason and the sleigh—and settled into their chalet, Brendon led Bonnie across the park.

  Past an area of pretty Christmas sculptures Brendon insisted looked best in the spring when they were adorned with flowers, he took them through a gate with a CLOSED sign hanging overhead, covering over the sign beneath.

  Down a cobble path into a quiet glade, they approached a quaint log cabin. Eaves dappled with moss overhung a porch with a rocking chair outside. To the left of the cabin was another log building, with a tall, pointed roof and double doors that could open wide. A sign over the top read, FATHER CHRISTMAS’S COTTAGE.

  ‘Gene is our resident big man during the main season,’ Brendon explained. ‘However, he’s getting a little long in the tooth, so from this winter season his son, Ben, is set to take over. Gene’s none too pleased, though. He wants to sit alongside and be known as “Grandfather Christmas” instead.’

  ‘He sounds like a character.’

  ‘Just you wait.’

  Brendon, still dressed in costume, climbed up the step and knocked on the door. ‘Um, Gene? Are you in there?’

  Nothing happened. After a few seconds, Brendon lifted his hand to knock again, just as a side window swung open and a huge, grizzled, bearded face appeared.

  ‘Get off my land!’ the man bellowed.

  Bonnie took a step back. On the step above, Brendon looked pained.

  ‘Don’t you know what season it is?’ the man roared, shaking the window, and as if the shake was being passed along from one part of the house to the next, the entire porch began to tremble. Small trapdoors just big enough to put one’s arm inside sprung upwards, and tendrils of smoke rose out. Then, to Bonnie’s horror, green-clad arms appeared, hands reaching forward, claws glistening.

  ‘I will not be disturbed until Christmas!’ bellowed the man, and this time puffs of smoke came from overhead. More trapdoors opened in the underside of the eaves, this time plastic vines dropping down, dancing about like dangling snakes. Bonnie gasped with excitement, as Brendon gave her a pained look and then lifted his hands.

  ‘Father, it is I, Mr. Glockenspiel, whom has awakened thee from your slumber. Please grant me an exception this time, and show yourself to your guests.’

  With another growl that sounded pre-recorded, the face pulled back inside and the window slammed shut. An orchestrated reverberation shook the entire front of the house, making Bonnie jump. Then, with another puff of smoke, the front door swung open, revealing a towering, bearded man wearing only grey underwear and thick, knitted bed socks interwoven with reindeer and snowflake designs.

  ‘Who has awoken me on this cool November day?’ bellowed the man. ‘Can’t you wait until Christmas? Have you no patience? Will a present send you on your way?’

  Brendon glanced back at Bonnie. ‘Just say yes,’ he hissed.

  ‘Yes,’ Bonnie said.

  ‘Yes, what, child?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  The towering figure relaxed. ‘Then come into my house and choose.’

  He stepped back. The smoke cleared, allowing Bonnie to see inside. The house was a treasure trove of children’s toys, all lined up on shelves that reached to the ceiling. Dolls and soft toys filled one area, trucks and cars and toy soldiers for boys another.

  ‘Do you have anything for adults?’ Bonnie ventured.

  The figure bowed, and lifted a hand to indicate a shelf laden with packaged cookies and fudge. Bonnie picked up a packet of toffees and smiled.

  ‘Thank you very much, Father Christmas. It was lovely to meet you.’

  ‘And you too, young lady.’ He made another extravagant bow. Enjoy your visit to Christmas Land.’

  A hand waved them towards the door. Brendon, however, stood his ground, lifting a hand.

  ‘Um, Gene? That was magnificent as always. This is, um, Bonnie. Mervin’s niece.’

  Gene, still holding his position, looked up. ‘Bonnie? Well, I never.’

  ‘Thank you for your present,’ she said, holding up the toffees. ‘That was the first time I’ve ever met Father Christmas out of season, and it was, um, an experience.’

  ‘The kids love it,’ Brendon said. ‘The park needed some way to incorporate a Father Christmas visit for the eleven months of the year when he’s not in full Christmas mode. We sometimes have him out sweeping the paths, or pruning the bushes, always ready for a photograph, but a visit to his actual house is the most popular attraction. Everyone under sixteen gets a coupon for a prize, but they have to brave Father Christmas’s grumpy porch first.’

  Gene shrugged and gave an ambiguous grunt. Now that Bonnie got a good look at him, she could tell the beard was real, and the man hidden inside it was in his seventies at least, possibly older. He had a weariness to him which actually gave the character more life than she could have imagined. She wondered what he looked like in full Christmas regalia.

  ‘Bonnie,’ Gene said again. ‘I can see Mervin in you. Come into my living room and share a cup of tea. Mr. Glockenspiel? Can you spare a moment too? It’s been a while since I’ve had you over.’

  Brendon winced at the use of his stage name and shook his head. ‘I have to go and shut the main gates,’ he said.

  ‘Very well. I will entertain this young lady.’

  As Brendon left, Gene led Bonnie through a door into a cozy, log cabin living room. To her surprise, a TV stood in one corner, but otherwise it was as rustic as a mountain lodge with an open fireplace, shelves of hardback books, a mantelpiece sparsely decorated with objects Gene had probably found in the forest. He waved Bonnie to an armchair, then disappeared through another door. She was still admiring the decoration when he reappeared a couple of minutes later and set a tray of tea and biscuits down on a coffee table. Then, with an enormous sigh, he slumped down into another armchair.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘I’m so pleased to see you. Any relative of Mervin’s is a friend of mine.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As she poured milk from a pretty floral jug into her tea, she told him about the lawyer’s letter, and how she had come with her friend to take a look at what Mervin had left her. Gene nodded along, muttering under his breath, his eyes closed as though he had drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  ‘And Mr. Glock
enspiel—or whatever his name is—brought you to me in order to convince you to stay?’ he said when she was finished, his eyes still closed.

  Bonnie nodded. ‘Something like that. You see, I can really feel the pull of this place, but I won’t just drop everything and move up here. It’s too much. I’m not rich, or full of energy anymore. I don’t know how to run a café, and I can’t cook—’

  Gene lifted a hand. ‘There are a lot of don’ts, can’ts, aren’ts and won’ts in what you say,’ he said, his eyes still closed. ‘How about you rephrase a few things?’

  ‘Like, how?’

  ‘Cooking can be learned. Running a café can be learned. Age is a state of mind. Your uncle, he loved this place. His café remained a centerpiece of Christmas Land until his death. Everyone who came here went away with a little touch of magic in their hearts. Even when the numbers fell, when the park began to fall into disrepair, he never gave up. I talked to him the day before he died, and he assured me that he had everything in hand, that this year’s Christmas would be the greatest of them all, and Christmas Land would rise once again.’

  ‘And the next day he was dead?’

  ‘Of a heart attack. He was an old man.’

  ‘I thought you said age was a state of mind?’

  Gene’s huge beard shifted, and Bonnie sensed a smile hidden beneath. ‘It is until it catches up with you. Believe me, until the day he died, Mervin felt as young as the day he arrived. We had a good life here, me and him, and the others.’

  The lively, jubilant character Bonnie had first encountered was gone. Gene seemed to shrink in the chair, a shadow of the man he had been.

  ‘What’s going to happen to the park if it continues to decline?’

  Gene sighed. ‘I received a letter last spring,’ he said. ‘Mervin received the same letter. It was sent to all senior members of the park. It talked about the end, about how the park was no longer sustainable, how it would need to be closed if we couldn’t do something about it. This is a wonderland, for sure, but it’s also a business. And a business that has no customers ceases to operate.’

  ‘That makes sense, I suppose.’

  ‘Mervin had a plan,’ he said. ‘The park would recover, become popular again, rise from the ashes. People had stopped believing, he told me. Modern life with all its ease and its negativity had flushed out the last of the magic. Everything had become political, everything had become offensive. We had to go back to basics, he told me, but we also had to embrace the future. You see, while I’m merely an actor, Mervin was a businessman. Then he died, taking his plans with him, and leaving us to face the inevitable end.’

  Bonnie sighed. ‘It doesn’t sound like there’s much hope.’

  ‘Oh, there’s plenty of that. But sometimes, whether we like it or not, hope isn’t all that’s necessary. We need knowledge.’

  17

  Love Rites

  Bonnie was lost in thought as she headed back to the café. Starving, she had polished off most of the toffees by the time she got there. She went upstairs, made herself a sandwich, and then went back down, turned on the café lights and sat at a table by the window, looking out at the plaza’s glittery splendour. It seemed so sad that such a place would have to close, particularly when it clearly meant so much for so many people. There was no denying the passage of time, though, and no matter what Uncle Mervin had planned, it might not have been enough.

  Now that she was back, though, she wondered just what his plan had been. Perhaps there was some clue in his secret room upstairs.

  Debbie was still out, so Bonnie went up through the hidden door to Mervin’s grotto. She stared at his cluttered desk, feeling uncomfortable about going through his personal papers so soon, so instead turned to his bookshelves, trying to get an understanding of the man her uncle had once been.

  His love for Christmas was immediately apparent. His collection of books on the subject bordered on scholarly, but Bonnie found everything from crinkly histories of Medieval traditions to books on Christmas decoration paper crafts, speculative symbolism theory to colourfully decorated children’s poems. While some books were almost new, others were so old they were possibly of great value. Bonnie had a flick through the pages of some, but found the language tough to understand.

  Then there were wider-branching books on religious symbolism and festivals around the world, suggesting that Mervin had been something of an authority on the way people liked to enjoy themselves. Bonnie took out a large picture book on world festivals and spent a few minutes flicking through colourful pictures of celebrations such as South Korea’s Boryeong Mud Festival to La Tomatina in Spain.

  On one corner shelf she found a couple of dozen cooking books, mostly based on drinks and snacks. One was entitled 101 Ways to Enjoy Hot Chocolate, while another was Snacks and Cakes from the Ancient World. Bonnie took both down, using the indexes to find the relevant sections on marshmallows. It was true, then, that original marshmallows had been made using the mallow plant, althea officianalis, which had grown in marshes in ancient Egypt. She was surprised to find that there were several hundred other recipes, none of which included the gelatin she had always assumed was necessary. She shook her head as she turned the pages and looked at the glossy pictures of marshmallows in all shapes, colours, and sizes.

  It was making her feel hungry. Her coffee cup was empty too, so she carried the two books downstairs and set about rooting through the cupboards to see if Mervin had left any ingredients behind. She was just brewing up another pot of coffee when she heard someone stumping up the stairs.

  Debbie slouched into the room and dropped down on the sofa. ‘Battered,’ she said, glancing up at Bonnie. ‘This place rocks.’

  ‘Good night?’

  Debbie shook her head and let out a long sigh. ‘We’re in the pub when the door opens and Father Christmas walks in. Oh, man. It was epic. He was in full Victorian gear, all green woodsman set up. Massive beard. Just huge. Has a Christmas tree over his shoulder, just like in the pictures on them old Christmas cards. And he buys us all a pint. Just … incredible.’

  Debbie was clearly drunk. Bonnie handed her a coffee just as Debbie started to cry. Bonnie lifted an eyebrow, unsure what to say.

  ‘And then he whips out this pack of cards and starts pulling off all these card tricks. Like, proper badass stuff. Couldn’t pick any of it. Me and the lads, we’re just like … mind blown.’

  ‘You got drunk with Father Christmas?’

  ‘Only like one pint. He said he had to get back to work and headed out. Yeah, I know it was a dude in a suit, whatever. But he looked so real.’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  Debbie started crying again. ‘This is the best holiday ever,’ she said. ‘I don’t want it to end.’

  ‘Well, we can probably hang on a couple more days before the Old Ragtag sees through my lie and either fires me or hunts me down.’

  ‘I want to stay forever.’

  ‘Really? Perhaps you can manage the café.’

  Debbie looked up, eyes going wide. Her black eyeliner had run, giving her huge panda eyes. She looked like an extra from a zombie movie. Bonnie couldn’t help but laugh.

  ‘Are you serious?’ Debbie said. ‘I could totally do it. I mean, we’d have to paint the windows black and get some posters up, but it could totally be done.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ Bonnie said. She held up the two books she had brought down from the grotto upstairs. ‘I was doing some background reading, I guess you’d call it. I’ve never been much of a cook, and Phil used to run me down about it all the time, so after he left, I got lazy. Pasta was about my limit. It can’t be that hard to make something simple, though, can it? I mean, the instructions are all here.’

  ‘Ancient recipes?’ Debbie said. ‘Awesome.’

  ‘You reckon you can get out of bed tomorrow morning to help me?’

  ‘Hell yeah. I’m meeting Mitchell and the lads for lunch, but before that—’

  Debbie suddenly
broke down in another flood of tears. Bonnie couldn’t remember her crying so much since they had forced themselves to sit through the heartbreaking end of Hachi. Neither had cried over Richard Gere’s death, but the old dog limping to the train station … they’d had to pause it while they commandeered a toilet roll from the bathroom.

  ‘What is it?’ Bonnie asked.

  ‘It’s Mitchell,’ Debbie said. ‘They’re going home tomorrow. I might never see them again.’

  ‘Did something happen between you?’

  Debbie flapped her hands. ‘Sort of, yeah. He held my hand and said he liked my sense of fashion. Did you know he used to drum in a metal band?’

  ‘I’m more surprised that it appears he can speak.’

  Debbie shook her head. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘He’s deaf.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He said he had an accident when he was eighteen. Lost his hearing. Had to give up the band, although he said he still drums sometimes. Likes to feel the beat in his hands.’

  Bonnie felt insensitive about asking, but she really wanted to know and knew Debbie would tell her while she was drunk. ‘But if he’s deaf, surely he can still speak?’

  ‘He said it’s been a while, and he’s kind of forgotten. He was always pretty quiet, he said, but since losing his hearing he’s lost much of the will to speak. Personally, I think he just likes to appear mysterious.’

  ‘For a self-professed quiet guy, he seems to have a lot to say. Did he tell you all this?’

  Debbie shook her head. ‘He wrote it on his phone. Says he’s going to teach me to sign, too. He’s still learning.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bonnie smiled. ‘But that’s good, isn’t it? If he’s talking about you in a future sense it means he wants to see you after you leave here. Didn’t you say they were from Bristol? That’s only a fifteen minute train ride.’

  ‘It won’t be the same!’ Debbie wailed. ‘The magic is here. You can’t top a Christmas romance. You can’t just go back to real life. It’s not the same.’