Christmas at the Marshmallow Cafe (Delightful Christmas Book 4)

by CP Ward

  She still had a little time left to kill, and thought about walking along the river, but when she came out of the shop it had begun to rain. On the stroke of six o’clock, most shops were closing, and even though the town looked delightful with Christmas lights strung across the streets, the only shelter on offer besides the cold train station waiting room were the expensive local restaurants or a pub.

  She headed for The King’s Thistle. Len gave her a wide smile, but looked disappointed that she hadn’t brought him any fresh marshmallows. He held up an empty hot chocolate bag and asked if he could order more.

  ‘I had one lady drink four on the trot,’ he said. ‘I was going to limit her at five to save some for other customers, but she had to run to catch a train. Told me she’d be back around Christmas with her Women’s Institute group, so I need a couple more bags as soon as you can manage it.’

  ‘I’m glad it’s popular,’ Bonnie said, trying to sound modest, but secretly beaming inside. She had tweaked the recipe a dozen times, but still wasn’t confident. Debbie, of course, told her everything was lush, but Debbie was far too easily pleased. ‘We’re not yet open up in Christmas Land, so I don’t know how it’ll go down.’

  ‘Extremely well, I imagine,’ Len said. ‘That stuff is like gold dust. I don’t know how you managed it.’

  ‘A lot of messing around,’ Bonnie said.

  She ordered a drink and took up a stool at the bar.

  ‘I’m sorry not to have booked anything with that ticket you kindly gave me,’ Len said, as he set her drink down. ‘I did mention it to my son, and he sounded keen, but I’m not sure I can take the time off with the Christmas rush. Quim gets a lot of business through December.’

  ‘Maybe save it until the spring,’ Bonnie said.

  ‘Won’t that be a bit strange, celebrating Christmas in the spring?’

  ‘We’re working on that,’ Bonnie said. ‘We’re trying to change the image of Christmas Land into something more along the lines of an ecological park with a Christmas theme.’

  ‘Sounds … odd.’

  ‘It’ll work if we get it right,’ she said, thinking about the many meetings she had sat through where they discussed the various classes and tours they could provide, focusing on the environment as well as promoting Scandinavian culture as a backdrop to the modern Christmas fairytale. ‘I’ve never been involved in anything like this before, and it’s so exciting.’

  ‘It sounds it. What brought you down to Quim, anyway? A bit of Christmas shopping?’

  Bonnie had almost forgotten the book. She pulled her copy out of her bag and passed it over to Len.

  ‘I found this in the library at Christmas Land,’ she said. ‘Unfortunately there’s a page missing. I came down to Quim to see if they have another copy in the library here.’

  Len flicked through a few pages. ‘I’m sure they will have,’ he said. ‘This missing page is important, is it?’

  ‘It might be,’ Bonnie said. ‘I’m trying to find out who owns the park, and if possible contact them. It seems to be a big secret. The missing page probably identified the person, and someone ripped it out to keep their identity secret.’

  ‘Why would they do something like that?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  They made small talk for a while. Bonnie shared her progress up at the park, while Len talked enthusiastically about his son, Thomas, who was in the fourth year of a dentistry degree, and would be coming home for the Christmas holidays in a week. In return, Bonnie found herself talking about Steve and Claire. She tried to remain positive, but eventually Len noticed the change in tone.

  ‘Something happened with them, didn’t it?’

  Bonnie sighed. ‘They took my ex-husband’s side during the divorce. I never wanted to talk ill of him in front of them, but he was such a manipulator, and would say all kinds of things about me. He could put on any kind of face, and when it all went down he painted himself as the hardworking husband with the inattentive wife, and they swallowed everything. Didn’t matter that I was working all hours at Morrico because he was spending our savings on his flings, or that he eventually ran off with someone else. They just took his side. They were both off at university by then so there was no wrangling over custody or child support. It was a simple matter of opinion, and they sided with him. Steve was so angry with me, we didn’t speak for a year. Even now I’m lucky to get a phone call every six months. Claire is a bit different. She’s got her father in her; his sense of adventure. Whereas his was finding his way into as many bedrooms as possible, hers is wandering across the world. I get the odd postcard, but that’s about it.’

  Len sighed. ‘You never know how they’re going to turn out,’ he said. ‘You do your best, and they reject you. I’ll never know how lucky I got with Thomas. I did my best, but living in a pub, I was always working evenings. I always took weekends off for my boy, but I was certain he’d end up rejecting me or blaming me for something. In the end, though, he turned out as fine as I could have hoped.’ He shrugged. ‘Pot luck, I suppose. Another drink?’

  Bonnie realised she had finished the sherry. She glanced at her watch. ‘I have to run,’ she said. ‘We’re only a few days away from the grand re-opening. I have reindeer signs to paint and weeds to pull up.’

  ‘Good luck. Stop by anytime, and let me know when you can get me another hot chocolate supply. I’ll make it worth your while.’

  ‘Thanks!’

  Bonnie headed out into the dark. Quim was all lit up by now, and she hummed quietly to herself as she walked up the road to the train station. The last train of the day was waiting at the platform, so she hurried to get on, noticing as she did that a light in the CHRISTMAS LAND PARKING sign needed to be replaced, and making a mental note to tell Brendon, who had been voted the head of general maintenance.

  The train rolled out of the station. By the time it stopped at Ings Forest, the light rain had turned to snow which was settling on the ground. A couple of inches threatened to soak Bonnie’s shoes as she climbed off, although someone had been out to clear the road leading to Christmas Land.

  As the train pulled away behind her, she followed the path through the forest, now brightly illuminated with fairy lights and Christmas displays. She smiled as a reindeer made from a frame of lights nodded its head, and a fairy-lit Father Christmas rose in and out of a chimney.

  The park was visible through the trees long before she reached it, lights powered with batteries charged by solar panels in the chalet roofs creating a glittering display which would enchant any guest before they’d even stepped through the gates. She walked across freshly laid cobbles even as snowflakes landed and settled around her, past the waving Mr. Glockenspiel and three dancing elves.

  Before heading back to the café, she ducked into the staff centre. Every business or member of staff had a postbox. Inside her own she flicked with amusement through a handful of circulars for Debbie, and a hard packet which was probably a delivered CD. She stuffed them into her bag to pass on, almost missing a letter at the bottom with a postmark from Swindon.

  She froze. Fingers that had felt so sure of themselves now shook as she lifted it up. She didn’t need to turn it over to check the return address, because she knew Steve’s handwriting by heart. The scruffy, bunched nature of the letters, the way he had filled in some of the gaps like he had a bad case of OCD.

  The temptation to open it immediately nearly overwhelmed her, but she stuffed it into her bag with the rest.

  She would need to be sitting down when she opened it, she felt sure.

  28

  Family Blues

  Barry’s wedding was only part of a grand reopening fair over the first weekend of December. Aware that first impressions made the biggest impact, and that the park’s second coming coincided with the internet revolution, they all knew that bad online reviews could be irreparably damaging. Therefore, over the last few days, everything was checked and double-checked, then checked all over again.

  Bon
nie stood in front of the café, holding up her phone. The wind rustled in the trees around her, showering her with clumps of recently accumulated snow. With a click she took a picture, then immediately began to scrutinize using the zoom. An ornament in the window looked a little out of place. She had forgotten to pull up a clump of weeds near the door. One of the sign’s light bulbs was dimmer than the rest. She made a mental note of each issue then went to find Debbie.

  They took a plate of marshmallows to a corner table. By the look of Debbie’s fingers and the guilty grin on her face, she’d already tested the newest batch.

  ‘I think we need to start up some kind of exercise regime,’ Bonnie said. ‘At this rate neither of us will be able to fit through the door by springtime.’

  ‘I’d offer to climb the tree next time but I reckon I’d break it,’ Debbie said. ‘How about we go on a hike up to that lake later?’

  Bonnie leaned forward. ‘Did you just suggest going on a hike?’

  Debbie scowled. ‘Look, it’s not just you who’s gone all new age and new personality and all that since we showed up. Look at me. I’m wearing red socks.’ Debbie stuck out a leg and jerked up her black jeans. ‘I mean, that’s just crazy.’

  ‘They’re very dark red,’ Bonnie said, laughing. ‘You could claim they were vampire red.’

  ‘Cool. I need some way of explaining away this reindeer jumper too.’ She leaned back and pulled open her coat to reveal a knitted reindeer with a flashing red nose.

  ‘Ooh.’ Bonnie grinned. ‘How would you call it? Brutal.’

  ‘You’ve got that right. I was hanging out down that bad taste shop yesterday, and Ben was in there. I kind of had to buy something to keep the conversation going.’

  ‘Ben? Gene’s grandson?’

  ‘Yeah. He was in there, buying boots for his Father Christmas getup.’

  ‘Are you sweet on him?’

  Debbie laughed. ‘”Sweet on him”? Do you know what decade it is? I think we need to switch out the CD for some slightly less Christmas classics.’

  ‘Don’t avoid the question.’

  Debbie scowled. ‘It poses an interesting dilemma, that’s for sure. I never expected to be in demand at a Christmas theme park.’

  ‘In demand?’

  ‘Shaun, he’s like all “why don’t we go to Download Festival together”?, and I’m like, bro, we’ve only just met.’ Debbie sighed. ‘And then there’s Mitchell … I mean, what am I supposed to do? I sometimes wish it was you with the boyfriend issues so I could take a back seat.’

  Bonnie laughed. ‘I think I’m past all that.’

  ‘Come on, Bon. You’re only fifty-two. I mean, it seems like you’re ancient to me, but to someone like Gene you’d be like Rapunzel or something.’

  ‘My hair barely touches my shoulders.’

  ‘I mean like, a princess. All independent young woman and all that.’

  ‘I’m independent because I was forced to be, and I’d definitely swap out “young” for “getting older”.’

  ‘Ah, you’re just modest. You’re pretty. No one ever told you that?’

  Bonnie frowned. The conversation was going into territory she didn’t think she wanted to enter. Life with Phil hadn’t always been bad. In the first few years she’d felt hopelessly in love, and thought that he felt the same. He had always complimented her, taken her out to dinner, bought her flowers … she couldn’t clearly put her finger on when the shift had happened. It had been a gradual thing.

  ‘I think we’d better get back to work,’ she said. ‘I need to do some weeding out the front, and I want you to cast your expert eye over the ornaments in the window. We have three days before the re-opening.’

  Debbie rolled her eyes. ‘Look at you, changing the subject. Well, according to Brendon, we’re nearly fully booked this weekend, and there’ll be a bunch more day visitors. Make sure you brush your hair, or wear some cute bonnet or something. Christmas romance and all that.’

  ‘They’ll all be kids or old men,’ Bonnie said.

  ‘Nothing wrong with a rich old man,’ Debbie said. ‘Didn’t they used to call them patrons?’

  ‘In the Middle Ages. I’m happy just concentrating on my job for now,’ Bonnie said. ‘And talking of which … let’s get back to work.’

  She left Debbie in charge of reordering the café’s kitchen cupboards and headed outside. In a shed around the back she had found a couple of old gas heaters and a stack of outdoor chairs. One by one, she took them out, wiped them down, and carried them around the front. There were a few metal tables and some heavy-duty parasols hidden in the dark recesses at the back of the shed. The tables just needed a wipe down, but the parasols were covered in mould. Carrying them around the front, Bonnie fetched a bucket of soapy warm water and proceeded to scrub them down, one my one. Even wearing rubber gloves, her hands began to feel chapped, and the chilly wind was a constant companion, bringing the occasional flurry of snow blown from the trees to patter around her.

  ‘Bonnie!’

  The cry was faint, but one she recognised. She stood up, looking for Brendon’s voice as the shout came again. Movement caught her eye and she turned around.

  Through the trees, something moved. A blinking light rose through the screen of trees, rising into the air. At first she wasn’t sure what it was, then she recognised the observation tower’s lift, slowing rising through the central metal frame towards the open deck at the top.

  The lift hadn’t worked for twenty years, Brendon had said. While the tower remained open, it was a hard slog of several hundred metal steps up to the top. Now though, the whole thing pulsed with lights like a giant candy cane sticking up out of the forest. Brendon stood on the platform at the top, with Niall beside him. Together they both waved again as the lift came to a stop and a couple more people got out.

  Bonnie waved back, a smile on her face. June, helping old Belinda out of the lift, came to stand beside Brendon, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. They looked so happy together, as a family. She held her smile for a few seconds longer, just in case they could see it over the distance, then went back to her cleaning, her head down, not wanting anyone to see her tears.

  Steve’s letter had been damning.

  Mother,

  Thanks I suppose for the ticket thing. I did take the time to look the place up on the internet, but it said it’s abandoned? Have you gone and joined some cult or something? I have no idea what’s going through your mind these days. I thought you were happy enough up in Weston but I guess idle minds and all that. I know I should have visited to keep an eye on you, but I’m busy with work and the family. Please don’t do anything stupid. Did you really quit your job? Just don’t come begging when you run out of money. You were doing all right before. There was no reason to take some drastic action. It’ll be your own fault if you end up penniless.

  I’m not sure if we’ll be able to come or not. We’re due to visit France with Dad and Cynthia in February half term so we’ll play it by ear. We’re not all made of money but thanks anyway for thinking of us.

  I’ll call you as soon as I have a chance.

  Steve

  Bonnie had read it twice and stuffed it into a drawer in Mervin’s desk, the words already seared into her heart. I have no idea what’s going through your mind. It’ll be your own fault if you end up penniless. Don’t come begging when you run out of money.

  She had bathed that little boy, held his hand to walk him to school, rolled around on the living room carpet and make aeroplane noises as he giggled and laughed. She had cooked every meal with love, taken him to endless parks, cheered him on at school football matches and taken him to every practice when he had joined a local team during his teenage years, a time when his father had been absent most of the time. Steve’s memory of it was that his mother had been an embarrassment when all the other kids’ dads were there, and that she should have got a better job so his dad could have worked less. Even as an adult, he was blind to everything that had happened, and
perhaps the hardest line to read was that his family was visiting France with her ex-husband and that woman.

  Thinking about the letter had sucked all the enthusiasm out of her. She emptied out her bucket and went to find Debbie.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I need a break.’

  ‘Sounds good. Where?’

  ‘The pub.’

  Debbie’s grin told Bonnie all she needed to know. ‘Say no more,’ Debbie said.

  A couple of hours later, Bonnie was leaning over her third or fourth glass of sherry, lamenting everything that was wrong about the world. Debbie, seemingly with the drinking capacity of a rugby prop forward, nodded sagely as Bonnie rambled, occasionally interjecting with words of encouragement.

  ‘Like, if you son does show up, I’ll wrap him up with Christmas lights, plug him into the wall and then hang him up by the balls from the ceiling. Not that I’m violent or anything, but he needs to learn respect. You’re a wonderful person, Bon. Just because your son is too spoiled to see it, doesn’t mean it’s not true.’

  ‘Claire never calls me either. I must have been such a terrible mother!’

  ‘Rubbish. She never calls you because they probably don’t have wifi on the moon. Give it another ten years and I’m pretty sure the Russians will have something going on.’

  ‘I can’t wait that long!’

  ‘Bon, Bon, relax. Once they see how successful the café’s going to be, they’ll come around.’

  ‘What’s the use of anything if the park’s going to close in January?’

  ‘You really think that’s going to happen? It just got a complete makeover. No one in their right mind would close it now.’