Christmas at Lilac Cottage: (#1 White Cliff Bay)

by Martin, Holly

  ‘Hey, what’s with all these tears?’ Penny said, stroking the back of her head.

  ‘I’m so sorry. All of this is my fault. I should never have hid it from Dad and I should never have asked you to cover for me…’

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

  ‘But now my dad hates you.’

  It was like a punch to the gut all over again. Henry did hate her, she had seen it in his eyes. That was the worst part of it, seeing that look in his eyes had confirmed that he had never felt for her what she felt for him. Penny hadn’t manipulated Daisy into thinking that she liked her or used Daisy to get to her dad or even told Daisy a nasty pack of lies like Henry’s previous girlfriend had. Although Henry had every right to be angry at her, she didn’t deserve that kind of anger. She had done the best thing she could for Daisy, but Henry was treating her like she was the lowest form of scum.

  She swallowed down the pain as she prepared to lie to Daisy. ‘He doesn’t hate me. He was angry and he had every right to be.’

  ‘I thought you two would get together and I’ve ruined that now.’

  ‘You’ve not ruined anything.’

  ‘I’m not talking to him if that helps,’ Daisy said.

  Penny somehow found the energy to smile slightly at that. ‘Honey, I don’t want you hating your dad over this. This is between me and him and I never want to be the person that comes between you two.’

  Daisy held her tighter as she cried. ‘Will you forgive him? When he apologises, which he will because I’ll make him. You will forgive him, won’t you?’

  Penny pulled back slightly and kissed Daisy’s forehead. ‘Whatever happens between me and Henry, me and you will still be friends, you don’t ever need to worry about that.’

  Daisy stared at her for a moment before fresh tears filled her eyes. ‘You won’t forgive him, will you?’

  Penny decided for once she was going to be honest with her and she shook her head. ‘I don’t think I can.’

  ‘Why?’ Daisy cried.

  Anger suddenly replaced all the pain she was feeling. ‘Because my last boyfriend treated me so badly and I’m not going to put up with it again. Your dad always told me I deserved better and I do. No one gets to treat me like a piece of shit and then come crawling back and apologise for it later. If you care for someone, you’d never treat them like that in the first place.’

  A noise at the connecting door made them both look up. Henry was standing there but, silhouetted in the darkness, Penny had no idea what expression was on his face.

  ‘You better go,’ Penny said to Daisy. ‘But remember what I said, it’s not going to change things between us.’

  Daisy sniffed and nodded and then she walked towards the door.

  Penny didn’t wait to see if Henry would say anything to her once Daisy had gone upstairs. She turned away and went to bed.

  * * *

  Penny woke to movement in her kitchen the next morning and wondering if it might be Henry – maybe even half hoping – she pulled on her robe and walked downstairs. She was only slightly disappointed to see Jill banging around and making breakfast.

  Jill smiled hugely when she saw her and gave her a big hug. She pulled back slightly and her face fell.

  ‘You’ve been crying, what’s happened?’

  Penny shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It obviously does.’

  There was a noise from upstairs in the annexe as clearly someone got out of bed and suddenly Penny didn’t want to be there. Either Henry was going to come downstairs and shout at her some more, apologise profusely or ignore her completely and she didn’t want to be there for any of that.

  She still had that proposal carving she needed to do, but that could wait until later.

  ‘What did you have planned for today?’

  Jill picked up on her urgency straight away. ‘I… was going to take you out for the day.’

  Penny smiled with love for her. ‘I’d really like that.’

  ‘Well, go and get dressed then, while I put these breakfast things away.’

  Penny nodded with gratitude and ran upstairs.

  * * *

  The amazing scents of the Christmas market in the next town of Apple Hill could be smelt from the very back of the car park and it was all the more magical with the snow that was falling quite heavily around them, settling on the car roofs and in the grass.

  They walked through the marquee entrance and were met with a wall of warmth and the rich smells of sweet honey, spiced wines, fruits, chocolates, fudge, breads and so many other things that Penny couldn’t discern them.

  The place was packed, Christmas Eve was tomorrow and everyone was running around trying to take care of last-minute shopping and preparations.

  Over a breakfast of bacon sandwiches made with a special whisky bread, which tasted amazing, Penny told Jill what had happened the day before.

  Jill finished off the remains of her sandwich and licked her fingers. ‘My lovely Penny, although that was a massive overreaction from him, being a parent does funny things to you. I guarantee you that he is regretting what happened yesterday afternoon right now and working out a way to apologise to you.’

  ‘He can stick his apology up his arse, I’m not interested.’

  Jill shook her head. ‘I don’t know a single parent who has never overreacted when it came to the safety and protection of their children. The first child is the worst – by the time you’ve had two or three you become much more mellow. But Henry never had that, he only ever had one and she is his entire world, you can see that. I never had children but I love you and your brother as if you were my own and I would quite simply die for you if it meant you were happy, healthy and safe. One day you might have children of your own and you shouldn’t judge a parent until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, until you’ve felt that unwavering, all-consuming love for a child that makes you act rashly and insensitively at times. It was a shock for him to find his daughter like that and it must have hurt him that you didn’t tell him.’ Jill raised her hand to stop Penny interrupting. ‘Though I understand why you did it. Any relationship has arguments and rows, but you forgive each other and you move on, you don’t throw away the man you love at the first hurdle. When he apologises, tell him he is an ass, tell him how much he hurt you, but then forgive him and never look back.’

  Penny shook her head. She couldn’t forgive Henry, not yet anyway. She was still too angry for that.

  Jill patted her on the hand and stood up. ‘Come on, I want to see the delights this market has to offer.’

  There was no more mention of it after that; Jill knew when to sow the seed of what Penny should do and when to leave her alone to think about it. Instead they moved from stall to stall admiring the wonderfully scented candles, tasting all the fudge, chocolate, honeycomb, sweets, breads, sweetened nuts, jams and cheeses. Penny drank lots of hot spiced apple cider and mulled wine, enough to make her feel warm and contented. There were several stalls selling mince pies, all of them with different flavours and spices and unique ingredients and Penny bought and ate several tiny chocolate mince pies. They admired the tree decorations made from glass, wood and even the tacky plastic ones, and they all reminded Penny of the wonderful tree sitting in her lounge. There was even a stall that sold gingerbread house kits and some beautiful ready-made ones. It was almost as if Jill had deliberately brought her here to remind her of all the wonderful memories she had shared with Henry in the last week.

  By the time they left, Penny had eaten her weight in free samples, had gone back for several more glasses of the delicious spiced hot apple cider and was weighed down with bags of purchases she had no recollection of buying.

  By the time Jill dropped her off at home, she was feeling a little bit drunk and certainly not in any mood to face Henry in whatever mood he was in so she dumped her bags in the lounge and went off to bed for an afternoon nap.

  She woke later and it was already dark outside, the snow
still falling heavily outside the window.

  Her head was still feeling a bit fuzzy and she quite fancied staying in bed until Christmas was over. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, the night of the ball. She could easily stay in bed for two more days. No one would care anyway.

  Suddenly she remembered the proposal carving that she needed to do before tomorrow night. As she had agreed to help Maggie with a lot of the setting up for the ball the next day, she couldn’t lie in bed feeling sorry for herself any longer.

  She got changed into slightly warmer clothes and went down to the freezer.

  She opened the freezer door, the bloody thing sticking again, and looked inside. Once the proposal carving had been delivered she would have to defrost the whole freezer and clean the door and the floor before she put any more carvings in there. The pool of frozen water in the freezer was dangerous.

  She looked at the three blocks of ice she had clamped together the night before and sighed. In her haste to rectify the situation, and with her mind still on Henry and Daisy, she hadn’t put the block on top of her trolley. As it was too heavy to lift on her own and there was no way she was asking Henry to help her move it, she resigned herself to carving it in the freezer. The diamond ring carving at least would be fairly easy and quick to carve so she wouldn’t be in there too long and once the ice had been carved away so it was hollow in the middle, she was confident she would be able to move it on her own the next day.

  She grabbed the tools from the cool room and shut herself in, not totally confident that the three blocks of ice, forged into one piece, would hold together once she started working on it. At least in the cold of the freezer they would be less likely to break.

  She scrolled through the tunes on her iPhone until she found something that was not remotely Christmassy and then started to carve. She marked out the basic ring shape and then used the chainsaw to chop off the bits that she wouldn’t need, including the middle. She made the ring a lot thicker than she had originally intended because she needed the strength of a thick ring. She spent a while getting the ring part as flawless and smooth as she could but it really was cold in here and her fingers were becoming numb, even through the gloves.

  She pushed on, knowing she needed to finish it tonight and at least whilst she was in here, focussing on the design and the carving, she wouldn’t have to go out there and think about Henry and how this might actually turn out to be the worst Christmas ever. She was undoubtedly going to spend it alone and, although in previous years, when she had been alone, that had been fine, being in love with a man who hated her and being dumped by him just a few days before the big day made things infinitely worse.

  She was feeling sleepy now, the alcohol no doubt still leaving its mark. She rarely ever drank so when she did she always felt hungover a few hours later rather than the next day. She would finish here and go back to bed.

  She ignored the cold that was settling into her body and took her time with the detail of the claw that would hold the giant diamond, making sure the facets of the diamond were smooth and polished.

  Finally she stepped back to admire the finished piece.

  It really was cold in here and maybe it was the time she had spent in there but it felt a lot colder than it should. Her arms and legs were almost painfully cold, her fingers were practically numb, her eyes felt heavy. She had never had such an adverse reaction to working inside the freezer before.

  She checked the temperature gauge by the door and swore. After the power cut on Saturday the freezer had reset itself at its coldest temperature, which was about twenty degrees colder than it should be. No wonder she was in so much pain. It also explained why she felt so tired; it wasn’t the alcohol, her body was shutting down.

  She needed a nice warm bath – she knew that going from extreme cold to extreme heat would not be good for the body so she’d have to warm herself up gently.

  She picked up all her tools and pushed the door, but it didn’t budge. Confused, she tried the door again and it still didn’t move. She put the tools down and tried again. It didn’t shift an inch. Shit. She threw her weight against the door in a panic, it still didn’t move. The handle wasn’t turning properly from the inside, partly frozen from the intense cold and her hands were too numb to apply any real pressure to it.

  Leaning onto one of the shelves, she tried to kick the door handle with her feet, but that didn’t work either.

  She banged on the door and shouted as loud as she could, but there was no noise from the room outside and no one came to rescue her.

  She banged again, shouting, yelling, throwing her weight against it time and time again but she was trapped.

  She quickly dug her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her contacts. Who could she call? Henry or Daisy were the obvious choices; if they were next door they could come and let her out but Henry wasn’t speaking to her and she didn’t have Daisy’s number.

  Maggie was twenty minutes away, Jill would be about half hour and her brother was a good fifty minutes from her house.

  The phone beeped feebly to say she was running out of battery. Shit, could anything else go wrong?

  She quickly dialled Henry’s number. He would be angry but he wouldn’t leave her in here to freeze to death.

  It rang a few times and to her surprise he answered straight away.

  ‘Hello?’

  She tried to judge his tone – was he still angry, upset, regretful? Now was not the time to get into any of that.

  ‘Henry, are you in your house? I need your help.’

  ‘No.’

  One-word answers weren’t good, he clearly hadn’t forgiven her yet. She was so mad at him, she didn’t even want to speak to him right now. And if he was out then he couldn’t even help her.

  The phone beeped, indicating that it was about to die any second.

  ‘How far away are you?’

  His voice softened slightly with concern as he sensed the panic.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Is Daisy at home?’

  ‘No she’s at Anna’s, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m trapped in the freezer.’

  ‘How are you trapped?’

  ‘The door is stuck. After the power cut the freezer reset itself and it’s colder in here than it should be. I had to carve in here and I’ve been in here for nearly two hours and now I can’t get out.’

  Henry was silent for a moment and then the phone rang off.

  She stared at the phone in horror. Was he coming, was he not coming?

  She tried to phone him again but before the phone even rang her phone died.

  Crap.

  She had to get out of here. She threw herself at the door a few more times but it just didn’t move at all.

  OK, so she had to remember how to survive extreme temperatures. She had looked into it once when she had been trying to find out how long it was safe for her to work in the freezer. She didn’t think moving around was a good idea because that kept blood pumping around the extremities but away from the vital organs, so she just had to stay still. She sat down in the corner of the room and curled herself up into a tight ball, knees up to her chest, her arms wrapped round them.

  Henry had to be coming. No matter how angry he was, he wouldn’t leave her to freeze to death. He would come and save her. It just depended on whether he could get to her in time.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Henry skidded to a halt outside the house. It had taken him nearly half an hour to get home. He should have called the fire brigade or the police or someone, anyone would have got there quicker than he could have done, but he knew the satnav didn’t actually take anyone directly to the house and, remembering what a pain in the arse it had been for him to find the place on his first day, he didn’t want to waste time explaining where the property was. He had phoned Daisy to get her to cycle home, but neither she nor Anna had answered the phone and Anna didn’t have a car as Steve had taken theirs to come and meet him.

  He
raced around the back of the house and barged through the back door and into the cool room. He yanked at the freezer door. It was stuck but he pulled at it hard and it eventually opened. Penny was sitting in the corner of the room, huddled up into a ball. She wasn’t moving. The bottom dropped out of his world.

  He ran to her side and shook her but there was no response. He quickly scooped her up and carried her out as she flopped uselessly against his arms. Should he call an ambulance? Should he just drive her to a hospital himself? It was over a forty-five-minute drive from here to the nearest hospital, probably closer to an hour. He knew phone reception was sporadic and he didn’t want to leave her while he ran down to the shed to make the call.

  The most important thing was to get her warm. He laid her in front of the fireplace and quickly built a fire in the grate. As it flickered and roared into life he covered her with a blanket and ran upstairs and grabbed the thick duvet off her bed.

  Her clothes were icy cold and he knew he had to get her out of them if she was going to warm up. She was so still and it scared the crap out of him to see her like a frozen Sleeping Beauty. He yanked the zip down on her jacket and dragged it off her body. The long-sleeved t-shirt she was wearing underneath was also cold so that came off too. He yanked her boots off and pulled her waterproof trousers and her leggings off so she was just left in her underwear. Ripping his shirt off, he lay on top of her, covering them both with the duvet.

  ‘Penny, can you hear me?’

  She didn’t move; he wasn’t even sure if she was breathing. He put his face next to hers and could feel tiny shallow breaths on his cheek. He rubbed her arms, desperately, she was so cold and she didn’t seem to be getting any warmer.

  ‘Penny come on, open your eyes and look at me,’ he begged.

  The fire was roaring hugely now and he could feel the heat through the duvet and on his face. She had to feel it too.

  ‘Penny, if you don’t open your eyes now, I’ll never speak to you again. Do you hear me. Open your fucking eyes.’