Christmas at Frozen Falls

by Kiley Dunbar

  ‘I believe!’ I cry.

  ‘What?’ Stellan’s eyes crinkle and he laughs a deep, delighted laugh.

  ‘Uh, nothing.’

  I clamber into the sleigh, which is a far bigger, more enclosed affair than the dog sled of yesterday and Stellan sits me down on the seat. Plonking himself beside me, he pulls a blanket over our legs.

  ‘You ready?’ he asks, still grinning, and I nod because I can’t seem to get any words out right this second.

  He calls out to the reindeer and jolts the reins, and we start to move off, and for a millisecond, I let myself be taken by the fancy that the reindeer’s hooves are silently treading air and the sleigh is lifting off the ground. Why not, I ask you? This is a place where the sky turns to green and gold rippling liquid fluorescence at night, and where the sun doesn’t rise for days in the depths of December, so why can’t other unbelievable, beautiful, thrilling things happen here? Why the hell not a reindeer-led sleigh dashing across an indigo sky?

  As we fly, Stellan reaches an arm around my shoulder, stopping just before his hand makes contact with my arm to ask, ‘Is this all right?’ When I tell him it is, he pulls me close and I lean into him, letting Christmas Eve and the warmth of this man so close to me, work their magic.

  * * *

  ‘Wow!’ A big puff of white breathy steam escapes my gaping mouth as I enter the igloo and stand staring in wonder. ‘This is incredible.’

  Stellan hangs back a few feet behind me as I take it all in: gleaming ice sculptures of bears, wolves, arctic hares and grouse; great slabs of ice formed into tables and chairs, somehow illuminated from within by blue and green lights; and in the centre of the white, glistening room, a bar, all made from ice and stocked with colourful bottles of spirits. If anything, it’s colder in here than it was outside and I daren’t take off my hat or gloves.

  When I look back at Stellan, he’s watching me and grinning.

  ‘You like it?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s amazing. Is it part of the resort?’

  The reindeer ride lasted only a few minutes so we’re not that far away, but this huge ice building in the forest clearing feels impossibly remote. And we’re the only ones here.

  ‘Uh-huh. It’s one of my additions to my parents’ business. I have it rebuilt every November and it operates until March. The visitors enjoy it.’ Stellan pulls off his gloves and makes towards the bar. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘It’s not even lunch time.’

  ‘What time is it in England?

  ‘About nine-thirty. Nice try.’ I see him reveal a bottle of champagne from somewhere behind the bar and I relent. ‘Well, it is Christmas Eve.’

  Stellan smiles and reaches down behind the bar again, this time bringing up a tray of glass tea light holders. I watch as he takes a match to each of the little candles and dots them around the bar, and I join in, helping him place one on every table. Their flickering light makes the snowy walls and white curved ceiling high above our heads glisten as though it were studded with tiny diamonds.

  I hear the champagne cork popping as I sit on the tall barstool – yet another lump of ice strewn over with blankets. Happily, I feel nothing of the icy block through my snowsuit.

  ‘Your parents must be really proud of you,’ I say.

  ‘I hope so. They were glad to retire and leave the resort in my care.’ Stellan’s carefully pouring out the bubbly into tall glasses. I can smell its festive crispness from over here, the air is so clean and scentless.

  ‘You said they were in Helsinki. How often do you see them?’

  ‘I visit for a week in the summer, but there’s a lot of maintenance and planning to do here off season, and we’re always busy with walking parties once the snow clears, so my parents fly out to visit me here too.’

  ‘To keep an eye on their empire?’ I wink, as Stellan comes round the bar and joins me and we touch our glasses together. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Kippis.’ He looks me dead in the eye as he sips his drink, but he doesn’t sit down.

  The bubbly hits my bloodstream and instantly makes my limbs tingle and fizz. It tastes delicious and expensive. Stellan smiles as he watches me. He always did love seeing me enjoying something, especially food and drink.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asks, giving me the curious notion that he can read my thoughts.

  He’s on the move again and is back a moment later with a dish of chocolate truffles and pink cubes dusted with icing sugar. This time, he takes the seat next to mine.

  ‘Is that Turkish Delight? Very Narnia, Stellan.’

  He cocks his head, missing the reference, and watches as I lift a squishy square to my lips. I’ve never been a fan of Turkish Delight, it somehow puts me in mind of the inside of a granny’s handbag, but this stuff is nothing but melt-in-the-mouth delicate rose deliciousness.

  ‘I felt bad about the salmiakki, so I got you these to tell you I’m sorry. I said I’d make it up to you.’ He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he too takes a bite and nods approvingly. For a moment we just enjoy the sweetness.

  ‘So you’re a teacher, just like you always wanted to be,’ he says eventually, and it’s more a statement of fact than a question.

  ‘Yep, history teacher. And the moral there is, be careful what you wish for.’ I swipe away my laugh, and tell him that, seriously, it’s a great job, most of the time, and I love it. He listens carefully as I tell him about the kids and the school, but I struggle to keep my thread because he’s leaning an elbow on the bar and directing his full attention at me, and I notice there’s icing sugar on his bottom lip and it’s just so darn distracting. I try to ask a sensible question.

  ‘So what are your plans for this place, then? Will you stay at the resort forever?’

  Stellan takes his time answering. ‘I always planned to get it into shape, so then I’d be more free to come and go, see the world a little, but that hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been working here ever since…’

  His voice trails off and I bite my lip to stop myself blurting out, ‘Since you ran off and left me in Manchester?’

  ‘My dad had a stroke a few months after I returned from England. I was just finishing my degree and I ended up far more involved in the business than I’d ever been. A year later I was signing papers, taking over the resort, and my parents were relocating to the south. It was very hurried, looking back.’

  ‘And you’ve run the place alone ever since?’

  ‘Yeah, with Niilo’s help for the last few years. But now that the new chalets are finally built and we have plenty of visitors all year round, I’ve been thinking I could take some time for myself. Do you ever feel like that? As though you’re finally free of the weight of parental expectation you’ve been carrying?’

  I don’t want to tell him that Mum and Dad never really put any pressure on me, they just let me find my own way in life; that would feel like rubbing it in. It occurs to me that Stellan’s path was already laid out for him as a kid, before he had any choice in the matter. He had to stay at his parents’ resort. It was expected of him.

  ‘I guess I’ve got to a stage in my career where I can worry less about the future,’ I say. ‘I can’t see myself leaving teaching anytime soon, and I’m glad all that studying is over and I don’t have to go on placements at random schools or scrabble for classroom experience any more. I can just build on the knowledge I have now and enjoy my work.’

  Stellan nods and takes a long drink. I can see we’ve had very different experiences of finding our place in the world. I feel a guilty twinge. Perhaps I was wrong to be so uncharitable about the long silence between us. He’s had a hard time of it too.

  As I sip my champagne I find my mind flitting to Clementine, Cole’s sister, always desperate to please a mother who was, in fact, impossible to please. No matter how much Clementine strived to be the best she could be, Patricia always moved the goalposts just out of reach again, and all to protect Cole from feeling his sister’s success, and by extension, his own less
er achievements.

  And, yes, Cole was a pilot, a brilliant achievement in anyone’s book, and this would be exceptional in most families, but Clementine just had to spoil things by rising to become the crème de la crème of the medical world, like her late father had been, so Patricia, consciously or not, was compelled to bring her daughter down a peg or two at every opportunity available to her. Meanwhile, pampered, over-confident Cole, perhaps unknowingly, was an accomplice to his mother’s unkindest impulses, gaining in maternal adoration what Clementine lost by steady degrees of humiliation and criticism over the years. It was likely that Clementine would never understand that she would never have their approval because they were jealous of her success, plain and simple. Acknowledging that would be akin to them acknowledging Cole’s failure to become the medical man his father, who Cole had barely known at the time of his early death, had intended his little boy to be.

  I feel as though I’ve made a breakthrough here. A blinding flash of clarity has illuminated the sad facts I’d only partly perceived before. Family animosity was the reason for Cole’s sudden proposal at his own sister’s wedding. Proposals are supposed to be inspired by love, not prompted by filial acrimony. I sigh and take another drink. How come I needed to travel a thousand miles to see the Jordan family for what they were, and what a lucky escape I had getting dumped by them?

  I’m suddenly aware of Stellan still looking at me. He’s turning the stem of his glass between his fingertips distractedly. It occurs to me that if Stellan’s family relations were even a tenth as complicated and conflicted as poor Clementine’s then he’s had a devilishly hard time of it over the years – even though he’s been striving to make a success of the business, his father’s pride and joy, and maybe also his greatest burden.

  The pressure Stellan was under all those years ago when we first met must have been intense, and yet I had absolutely no idea. No wonder he was so serious, so mature. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Meanwhile I was just a kid with an adoring family dreaming my way through uni.

  I find myself pulling my mittens off and reaching my hand over the bar to find his. I watch as he responds to my touch and his fingers curl around my own in a warm clasp, the tips coming to rest against my palm. I find my breathing becoming hard to control, so to conceal it I ask another question.

  ‘Would you ever sell the resort?’

  ‘Never. Even though it’s mine now, it’s not really mine to sell. But I’d never expect a kid of mine to stay here and run the place. That’s my dream; to leave this place so established and well run my kids can do what they want with their lives.’

  I’m pretty sure my eyes pop out on stalks at this. I style it out. ‘You’ve got kids?’

  ‘No, but I’d like to, one day. Do you want to have children?’

  The strangest sensation hits me and I feel as though I’m about to cry and I can’t explain it. Why has my chest gone all tight? I take a gulp of air and my feelings seem to do the talking for me. He squeezes my hand and I find I’m speaking through the emotions that are crowding out my inhibitions.

  ‘I suppose I do want a baby.’ Oh no! Why are you saying this out loud? ‘A family was all part of the plan with Cole, somewhere along the line. Sometimes I hear this little voice in my head saying I want a baby.’ How come I’m still blurting all this out? ‘It’s like my ovaries are ganging up on me against my will, because you know, I never really, really wanted kids, but… things seem to have changed. Cole’s about to become a father, and I’m just… not jealous exactly, just… sad about it.’

  ‘You miss him?’ Stellan’s expression is inscrutable again. If he didn’t think I was crazy before, he does now. He definitely thinks I’m here to get some revenge sex and a Scandi baby.

  ‘Miss Cole? God, no.’ Again with the blinding flashes of sudden realisation. I don’t miss him at all. ‘That relationship is stone D.E.A.D.’ I spell out the word, breaking into a smile. ‘It’s got a police incident tent around it. But I do miss having my future mapped out. There was something reassuring about knowing what was coming next. Or, thinking I knew.’

  ‘So that makes two of us then?’

  ‘Two of us?’

  ‘Neither of us know what our futures hold. We both have fresh starts ahead of us. I can let go of the reins at the resort a little more, and you have a world of possibilities at your feet.’

  My mind’s processing his words and drawing all kinds of wildly tenuous conclusions and, accompanied by the movements of his fingertips against the soft underside of my curled hand and his thumb now running slowly over my knuckles, I’m surprised by the flutter of hopefulness in my stomach. And I’m not going to tell you what the little voice I’m hearing is saying right now, but it’s screaming and whooping and I’m pretty sure my ovaries are attempting a conga. Shut up and behave, I tell them. This is exactly why Stellan ran off in the first place; I scared him by hoping for too much.

  As I’m telling myself off, Stellan lets go of my hand and refills our glasses. He doesn’t reach for me again so I hastily pull my gloves back on. And yet, I think, he doesn’t exactly look scared, and he’s clearly keeping yesterday’s promise to open up.

  ‘Anyway,’ I say, trying to recover some dignity. ‘I’m not desperate to make babies. Cole’s news just brought it home to me that I’m back at the start again, miles from marriage and kids and a family home. I don’t even have a dog any more. Starting again from scratch is tougher than you think. But I’m fine. I’m only thirty-four and I just want to enjoy my life, wherever it takes me.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ says Stellan, as we touch our glasses again, but as he raises his glass to his lips, we hear the ringtone coming from his snowsuit pocket.

  ‘Excuse me, just one second,’ he says, before taking the phone outside.

  I look around at the glimmering ice bar and smile to myself. There’s no place I’d rather be on Christmas Eve than here. I can hear Stellan’s voice outside, and something else, a snowmobile pulling up.

  When Stellan returns, one of the resort staff in a Frozen Falls snowsuit comes in lugging a box of tinkling glassware. It must be time for the bar to open.

  ‘Sorry about that, problem with the reception staff rotas. It’s sorted now, and I’ve asked them to spread the word not to disturb us today.’

  I find I’m feeling inwardly rewarded that Stellan clearly thinks today isn’t over and he wants to enjoy it unimpeded by work.

  ‘Thanks for showing me around your resort. It’s beautiful,’ I say.

  ‘I’m glad you’re happy,’ he beams back. ‘The bar’s about to get really busy. Are you ready to move on? I have to check on the dogs, but then we can get some lunch?’

  ‘OK. Hey, I have a fridge full of food back at my cabin, thanks to Nari’s…’ I stop myself, just in time, before I mention Stephen.

  Stellan seemed so wary of Nari’s interest in Niilo yesterday, I don’t want him thinking there’s some other guy on the scene, especially some flashy millionaire. But I suppose she does seem to like Stephen too, and they are going to spend New Year together in London. I resolve to butt right out of Nari and Niilo’s date today. I just hope they have fun. Stellan doesn’t need to know anything else that might encourage him to worry about his friend.

  ‘So, um… do you want to come back to my cabin and I’ll make something for you?’

  ‘You’re going to cook?’ Stellan’s already laughing, which is a bit rich considering he hasn’t seen me cook anything in fifteen years. How does he know I haven’t moved on from my Pot Noodle and eggy bread days? I could be a Michelin-starred chef by now. Obviously I’m not, though I have added Spanish omelette and spag bol to my repertoire. Again, all things Stellan doesn’t need to know.

  ‘There’s cheese and some bread and salad stuff. Pretty sure I spotted a jar of olives too. I can hardly poison you with that, can I?’

  Stellan laughs as he finds a silver bottle stopper behind the bar and seals the neck of the still half full champagn
e, before reaching behind the bar and producing another unopened bottle. ‘And we have champagne and candy. Sounds perfect to me. Let’s go.’

  Before we climb into the sleigh we stop to pet the reindeer who have been waiting patiently and chomping the handfuls of lichen that Stellan had scattered by their feet earlier.

  ‘Approach them real slowly,’ Stellan says in a low voice.

  Their antlers are huge, like I’ve only seen in kids’ Christmas films, and they move their heads with such swift jerks I don’t really fancy getting too close to them. But, with Stellan guiding me and making murmuring sounds to them under his breath, we ease closer and reach out to pat their broad haunches. They’re nervous and skittish so we only touch them briefly. One of them turns its mournful eyes towards me and I step back to avoid the lethal-looking blade that’s protruding straight out from the centre of its head like a unicorn horn.

  Stellan smiles. ‘You’re right to stay back. Reindeer can be unpredictable and can give you a nasty scratch.’

  ‘Now you tell me.’ But I don’t feel unsafe, not with Stellan beside me.

  ‘Her eyes are a beautiful colour,’ I say.

  ‘Do you know they change colour? From this bluey-black in the middle of winter to a kind of golden-green in summer, very much like the colour of your eyes.’

  ‘Did you just compare me to a reindeer?’ I say, and we both crumple into laughter, helped along by the buzz of the champagne and sweets.

  I always thought my irises were a sort of sludgy colour, but golden-green sounds nice to me. ‘Whatever. I’m taking it as a compliment,’ I say.