Christmas at Frozen Falls

by Kiley Dunbar

  I know I should have put up a fight, and I suppose I could have called the police and reported her for dognapping or something – although it’s not technically theft if it’s your son’s dog and he’s left him in your care, is it? And there was part of me that knew she was right. I was in a terrible state, and I couldn’t exactly care for Barney, I had nowhere to take him. Some of the other teachers at school, the ones I count as friends, would have taken him, I realise now, but at the time I couldn’t bring myself to impose on their precious school holidays with their own families and pets. So I’d swallowed down the bitterness and my longing to scratch his big fuzzy noggin, and I waited, thinking Cole would have to come back and face the music sometime soon.

  There was some small comfort in Patricia looking after him though. Like so many impossible old battleaxes, Patricia loves dogs better than any other creatures on earth – well, apart from Cole, her golden boy, of course. Everybody knew that Barney would be well cared for, spoiled rotten even, and it was only supposed to be a short-term arrangement. That very day I started looking for a rental property with a landlord who’d let me keep a pet – harder than you’d think on my wages.

  Anyway, I still had what was supposed to be my wedding day to get through, and me and Nari had decided to spend that weekend in the hotel where the reception was supposed to be, so I couldn’t really get much done in those first few heartbroken days. I simply resigned myself to the fact that Barney was Patricia’s houseguest for a while and I’d just have to pine for him until Cole got home and I could confront the bastard. But eight days later, and still with no sign of Cole, Barney got ill.

  It must have been a broken heart that did it, that, and all the sudden changes in his routine, and him not understanding how much I wanted him… Oh, here come the tears again! I can’t think about it without sobbing. Every single time it floors me like a kick in the stomach.

  It was a seizure, apparently, while he was out for his walk with Patricia. It was very sudden and very severe.

  I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Patricia didn’t call for two days and by then his body had been taken away by the vet, and it was all just too late.

  I’ll never forgive Cole, or his mother, but mostly I can’t forgive myself for just surrendering like that, for giving Barney up, but I really did think he’d be coming back to live with me once I’d sorted out the mess Cole had left us in.

  ‘You couldn’t have known that was going to happen. You are not to blame.’

  Stellan’s voice reaches me through the grief just as I feel him shifting onto the bale beside me and wrapping me in his arms.

  By now I’m a snotty, red-eyed mess and I can’t stop the tears.

  ‘I’m sorry, Stellan,’ I say with an unattractive snort that has him reaching into his pocket for a pack of tissues. ‘I’ve barely spoken about Barney since he died. Something about being here with all these huskies just…’

  ‘You never get over losing your best friend,’ Stellan says.

  His voice is low and close to my ear and I feel overwhelmed by tiredness at its lullaby cadence. I could sleep here in his arms with the sounds of the dogs snuffling and playing all around us, but I check myself. Haven’t I only just resolved to hold back, to play it cool until Boxing Day when I fly home? I don’t need any more complicated feelings to contend with.

  ‘Stellan,’ I say, extricating myself from his arms. ‘I should be getting back now.’

  ‘Not until your tears are dry,’ he says, leaning into the enclosure and reaching for one of Kanerva’s sleeping pups. ‘Here, a hug from little Toivo will help.’ He smiles as he gently places the fluffy, warm bundle on my lap.

  And he’s right, it does help. I spend a long time just stroking Toivo’s lovely fur and whispering to him as he snores contentedly while Stellan sees to the dogs’ next feed and starts locking up the shed and turning off some lights.

  When he’s ready to leave he comes over and sits by my side again, close enough so that the thick layers of our snowsuits over our thighs almost touch, and he hands me a key.

  ‘Here, this is for you. You’re right, I will have a lot of work to do over Christmas, so I won’t always be around, but listen, there’s usually someone here at the sheds, often it’s me, but just in case, this key means you can visit the pups for a hug any time you need one, OK?’

  ‘That’s so nice of you, thank you.’ I’m grinning into his face now and feeling all kinds of warm fuzzies in my heart that I haven’t felt for years.

  I see him pull his body a little further away from me as he surveys my face, and I have no idea what he’s thinking.

  ‘Will you let me take you out on the resort again tomorrow? Just us?’ he says, suddenly.

  I fluster a little over my reply, but I hope it comes out sounding unfazed and casual.

  ‘Don’t let Toivo hear you talking like that,’ I say, covering the puppy’s ears. ‘He’ll feel left out.’

  Stellan looks down at the sleeping pup on my lap and smiles.

  ‘But I thought you had a lot of work to do on the resort?’ I add, immediately rewarding myself with an imaginary kick for being such a self-sabotaging spoilsport.

  He nods, and seems lost in thought for a moment. ‘No. The staff could probably run this place like clockwork, if I ever gave them the chance. They should manage without me for a while. I do have a special job for Christmas Day that I can’t get out of though.’ He lifts Toivo from my lap and returns him to Kanerva, all the while smiling secretively.

  I raise an eyebrow, but I don’t pursue it. He’s letting me know we’ve only got tomorrow together and that’s it, so I’m going to say ‘yes’ and make the most of his precious free time before my holiday ends.

  ‘All right then,’ I say, trying not to betray the little buzz of happiness that I feel at the thought of Christmas Eve with Stellan, which is contending with my annoyance at myself for capitulating so easily on my resolve to steer clear of him. ‘I’ll spend the morning with you, on one condition,’ I say, and I hope it comes across as nicely standoffish.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asks.

  ‘That you drop your defences a little?’ I watch as he frowns at this, and I press on. ‘We used to know each other pretty well, and I feel like we’ve gone back to the beginning again.’

  ‘Is that so bad? Getting to know each other again?’

  I absorb the intense earnestness of his expression and think that, of course, he’s right. It’s been so long since we knew each other, and we’ve both changed. Me more than him, probably, if looks are anything to go by. His shoulders are broader maybe, and it’s hard to tell with these snowsuits, but he seems more muscled and substantial somehow, and even though he’s got his beanie rammed down over his hair once again, I noticed earlier that he was blonder. But he’s still the same serious, calm, steady Stellan, with the same brief sparks of warmth and humour that I loved about him.

  ‘Of course, that’s no bad thing,’ I say. ‘I’d love to get to know more about you and your life now. And of course things have changed, but… please don’t put up a wall. Let me in a bit. We’re not kids any more.’

  Stellan nods slowly, his smile laced with self-recrimination. I’m guessing he’s heard this from other people too.

  ‘There’s an old joke about Finns, you know. It goes… you can be sure you’re talking with a Finnish introvert if he looks at his shoes when he speaks, and you’ll know you’ve met a Finnish extrovert because he’s looking at your shoes when he speaks.’ Despite his insistence about his introverted nature, he laughs and looks straight into my eyes. ‘But you’re right, I’m thirty-six now, I’ve changed a lot, even if I’m reserved at first.’

  ‘Reserved? You were positively grumpy yesterday, not to mention during lunch today.’

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry. I won’t hold back any more.’

  ‘Good, OK,’ I say with a decisive nod.

  ‘Allow me to walk you back to your cabin. Nari will be waiting. And I’ll come find you tomor
row morning at eleven?’

  ‘What are we going to be doing?’

  ‘Just wear your snow gear, I’ll think of something special.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘So, are you going to tell me how things went with Niilo this morning on the husky run, now we’re out of earshot of the resort staff?’ I ask, as Nari clambers onto the toboggan at the top of the floodlit slope. She’d been reluctant to spill the beans over our early dinner at the hotel restaurant with the serving staff, Niilo’s friends and colleagues, flitting to and fro.

  ‘See you at the bottom!’ she yells with a grin before shuffling herself to the edge of the slope and disappearing into the darkness with a delighted scream.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ It was hard enough work dragging this plastic death wish device from the bottom of the slope all the way up here, now I’ve got to dodge the pre-schoolers on even smaller – and more lethal, in my opinion – versions of my toboggan, merrily launching themselves head-first downhill without a care for the other people criss-crossing the run below.

  ‘Here goes nothing,’ I say as I sit down, hearing the flimsy plastic creak beneath me. I’d cross myself, but I’m not sure I’d be doing it right, and honestly, does Jesus even do holy protection for otherwise sensible adults willingly flinging themselves down a slippery slope on something only marginally better engineered than a canteen tea tray?

  Just as I’m bum shuffling my way to the edge, two teenagers bustle past me, throw down their toboggans and recklessly hurl their bodies upon them as they’re already in motion. I’ll just have to wait until they’ve cleared my landing zone; the last thing I want is to have a crash, but instead of stopping, I find the momentum of the toboggan on the hard ice is carrying me over the precipice and suddenly I’m hurtling downhill after them.

  It’s at this point Nari streaks past me again, screaming ‘Yee-haw!’ She’s red-cheeked and howling with laughter and holding the toboggan ropes in one hand while lasso-spinning her scarf above her head with the other, like an après ski cowgirl.

  I sensibly lean back, keeping my boots on the ice as I slide, trying to slow myself down, and I watch as a toddler stuffed rigidly into a padded snowsuit overtakes me at speed, giggling wildly.

  I see Nari down at the bottom, lit by floodlights, crashing her toboggan into the great fluffy snowdrift intended to help lunatics make emergency stops. She immediately gets to her feet, dusts the snow from her knees, and turns to look back up the slope towards me. She’s smirking and jabbing a mittened index finger at an invisible watch on her wrist. She can mock all she wants, I think, as I sail downhill at my own stately pace.

  ‘Do we even have insurance for this sort of thing?’ I ask as I come to a leisurely halt and Nari helps to haul me up.

  ‘Of course, all taken care of,’ she grins.

  ‘Stephen again?’

  ‘Yep. See you in a sec.’

  ‘Woah, woah, where are you racing off to?’ I say, catching Nari’s arm.

  ‘Back to the top.’

  ‘What? You said we ought to try tobogganing. I’ve tried it, now let’s find a bar while the going’s good and we’ve got all our limbs intact.’

  ‘One more go. Come on. You might even want to put your feet inside the toboggan this time.’

  Nari’s hard to say no to, so I relent, and we make our way up the treacherously frozen steps which, to my mind, are as lethal as the slope itself. Kids jostle and weave past us on their way up, laughing and screaming with delight. I don’t know where they get their energy from. My thigh muscles are burning with the exertion, made even worse by the weight of the snowsuit and boots.

  ‘So, tell me then,’ I puff. ‘What did Niilo talk about all day? I could hear you two chattering all the way along the trail.’ We’re at the top again, and my lungs are close to bursting.

  ‘Oh, all sorts. He’s really interesting, you know.’ She lays her toboggan down near the edge, and I do the same. ‘He’s full of facts about Finland, and he’s polite and he’s attractive…’ We sit side by side and face the slope. ‘And, do you know, I discovered he’s got an absolutely enormous…’

  The rest of her sentence is lost in the rushing air as she zooms off down the hill without any warning, and I’m surprised to find I’m hurrying to catch her, pushing myself over the edge.

  ‘What?’ I shout towards her back which is rapidly disappearing ahead of me. I follow behind, only this time around I’m going much, much faster. ‘An absolutely enormous what?’

  It’s at this point that I hit the first of the moguls: great mounds of hard snow peppering this, far steeper, side of the run; the kind of thing you see skiers negotiating on the winter Olympics. Except I’m not a rugged Olympian on the telly; I’m a history teacher on a tray, and I’m terrified. My screams fill the air and my eyeballs are popping so far out of my head they’re close to freezing.

  I hit the bottom of the run in seconds, having been bumped and jolted and almost thrown clean off this hideous contraption. Nari’s standing over me as I come to an inelegant stop and struggle to straighten my bobble hat and catch my breath.

  “Enormous what?’ I gasp.

  ‘Herd of reindeer.’

  I watch her walking away, her laughter clouding the air.

  * * *

  Nari buys me a cup of tea at the booth by the exit from the slopes, by way of an apology, and we make our way back towards Saariselkä town centre, a good ten minutes’ walk away. The early evening is completely dark apart from the streetlights and the alluring glow of store windows and restaurant signs in the distance. Occasionally, a car crawls past on the icy road. Nari and I cling together so we don’t slip on the shining ice coating the well-trodden pavements.

  ‘I don’t know, we just talked. It was nice. And surprisingly easy,’ Nari is saying. ‘Niilo told me all about his life before he moved to the resort. He said he was a verrde, I think that’s what he called it, a kind of helper on reindeer migrations. He told me he used to travel with his family’s own herds when he was tiny. They let herder families have special holidays from school to travel with their animals to the calving and pasture areas. But when he left school he became a helper with other people’s herds. That’s how he made his living for years, he said. He’s crossed Finnish Lapland many times on foot and skidoo. Imagine that! But then he came back here, where his family once lived, and he got work with Stellan and settled down. He said Stellan helped him out at a time when he really didn’t know what to do with his life, and he had no reindeer herd of his own. It was quite sweet really, the way he spoke about him. Maybe I’ve got your grumpy Finn all wrong? What do you reckon?’

  I shrug off this diversion. ‘We’re talking about you, Nari. What else did Niilo tell you?’

  ‘He told me some stuff about Sámi culture and said I could use some of it in the blog if I wanted, so that was nice. And he asked me lots of questions.’

  ‘About the blog?’

  ‘No, not really, about my life. He wanted to know about my travel books, so I told him where he could find them online, and he seemed fascinated by all the places I’ve been. I told him about the baby turtles hatching on the beaches at Isla Los Brasiles, and that Machu Picchu eco-tourism holiday I did – remember the one with the litter picking along the trails? And when I told him about the hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings he looked amazed, as though I was describing a trip to Mars! He wasn’t like other blokes though, always wondering aloud why I want to travel alone, asking me if it isn’t too risky. He just seemed to understand.’

  ‘But you’re going to see him again this trip, aren’t you?’ I can’t help delving, I need to know.

  ‘I said I’d have to talk with you first, see if you didn’t mind. He asked me to meet him tomorrow after his reindeer safari trips for the tourists, three o’clock, he said. But I wouldn’t dream of leaving you alone if you don’t have plans.’

  I think about my arrangement with Stellan and wince. I hadn’t even considered what it
might mean to Nari to spend the day alone, I’d just agreed to go. I’m a terrible friend.

  ‘It’s OK, I do have plans, and even if I didn’t, I’d want you to go and see Niilo. How often do you actually like a guy?’

  ‘I didn’t say I like him, like him,’ she protests. ‘He’s just good company, that’s all. And it’s a work thing, really. There’s a few things I want to check out for the blog, and maybe we can have some fun along the way. I want to sample all the Lappish alcohol and get to grips with the nightlife, if there is any. Anyway, what plans have you made?’

  ‘Umm,’ I murmur, unsure how to describe it. We’ve come to a stop at the very edge of the busy strip of hotels and restaurants at the town centre. We need to think about catching our bus back to the resort at some point. It’s getting late, almost eight o’clock, and most places seem to be closing up for the evening.

  ‘Is it a date?’ Nari says, nudging me, almost making me spill the last of the tea from my paper cup.

  ‘No. Not a date. Just old friends. I think he feels awkward about me being here and feels obliged to show me his resort. He’s picking me up in the morning. I imagine I’ll be back by the time you set off with Niilo.’

  ‘O-kay,’ Nari says, with long drawn out vowels that tell me she thinks this is bull.

  ‘What? You saw how he was today, all rude and belligerent. Hardly the behaviour of someone who fancies me, is it? We’re friends, if that.’

  I stop Nari’s eyebrow raising in its tracks by throwing a question back at her.

  ‘So, are you going to write about your date with Niilo on your blog?’

  ‘I hadn’t really considered that. I’m saying, no. That would be totally off-brand these days. It’s been years since I combined my dating stories with my travel blogging.’

  I think about the comments I often see popping up on Nari’s blog posts. I’ve got my notifications set to alert me to any new posts and followers’ comments appearing on her elegant website. Her old posts are all on there, dating back years. Some of Nari’s followers from those days still remember Nari’s hilarious dating antics that first drew them to her site, they often say how they would love to see a return to the old dating blog, or a combination of the two (romance and travel) again.