A Winter Flame

by Milly Johnson

  Footsteps thundering up the stairs disturbed her reverie and ruled out the possibility that Mr Glace was a light French fop. He sounded more like a carthorse with Dutch clogs on.

  Whatever she expected Jacques Glace to be like it wasn’t the man who blustered into Mr Mead’s office with a knitted hat on, complete with ear flaps and woven woollen plaits. He had an Arctic explorer coat on, the collar pulled up to his nose, and the biggest padded gloves that Eve had ever seen. The weather, however bad it was, didn’t warrant that amount of anorak. This was Barnsley town centre, not Antarctica.

  ‘Ah, Mr Glace,’ said Mr Mead, standing and holding out his hand. ‘Isn’t it a cold one today?’

  ‘Oui,’ said Mr Glace. So he was French then. How the hell did Aunt Evelyn end up leaving half a theme park to a French man with hypothermia?

  Eve took him in from top to bottom, and then back up again, where she found his eyes waiting for her. And very blue they were too. That was a bit embarrassing, she thought, him watching her watching him.

  ‘Mr Glace, this is Miss Douglas.’

  ‘Bonjour,’ he said, holding his huge gloved hand out. Eve held hers out and his mitten totally engulfed it. And it was puddle-dropped-in soggy. His handshake was energetic to say the least – she was surprised her arm was still in its socket by the time he had released her. Eve pulled her hand back and tried to dry it surreptitiously on her trousers but she wasn’t subtle enough and she heard a muffle of three syllables which could have been ‘so sorry’.

  ‘Do take a seat,’ said Mr Mead, indicating the chair next to Eve.

  ‘Muffle muffle,’ Mr Glace replied, but no one could understand what he said. Eve felt herself sighing impatiently as Mr Glace wrestled with the zip on his coat, then decided that he might need to take his gloves off first, but seemed to be having some difficulty doing that. Eve wouldn’t have been surprised to find that his gloves were threaded on a string through his sleeves. Mr Mead and Eve waited until the ridiculous Mr Glace tried to gain some purchase on one glove with the other. He tugged hard to no avail, then harder, with the result that the glove flew off and hit Eve square in the face.

  ‘Mom mom mom mom,’ was the sound that came out of the big coat.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Eve, in a voice that intimated it was anything but fine. She lifted the glove with one finger and handed it back to Mr Glace as if she had just picked up a dead rat. Then she dabbed at her face to dry it whilst Mr Glace took off his other glove and unzipped his tent of a coat.

  Eve’s brain had not been in appraising mood for a long time. If it were, she might have found her pupils dilating at the face of the newly uncovered Jacques Glace, because he was a handsome man. His eyes were indeed very blue and there was a mischievous light dancing in them. His mouth was generous and rested in an upward curve as if he had laughed so much it had become its normal set. There was just the right amount of deliberate stubble on his strong jaw to say ‘very well groomed’ and it was greying, like his cropped short hair, and both suited him well. Oh yes, he had ‘charmer’ written all over him. She had yet to find out if he had charmed or conned her great aunt – or both. As he pulled off his coat to reveal a pair of big shoulders, a waft of aftershave passed over Eve. Something foresty and – yeurch – reminiscent of Christmas.

  Jacques sat down on the chair and rubbed some life into his hands. They were the size of shovels, Eve noticed. He wore a ring on the third finger of his right hand. She wondered if that was a wedding ring and maybe the French wore them on that finger?

  Mr Mead pressed the button on an intercom on his desk.

  ‘Barbara, would you bring the coffee through now. Mr Glace has arrived.’

  ‘Ooh, lovely,’ said Jacques Glace, in a voice as French as a Yorkshire pudding. ‘I’m parched.’

  It made Eve’s head jerk towards him. ‘You’re not French?’ she asked.

  ‘Half,’ he said with a sparkle in his eye. ‘The bottom half.’

  Eve felt her top lip twitch into a sneer. One of those men who thought he was really funny and God’s gift to women. Well, he wasn’t. She wondered if his real name was Jack Glass after all and he was just being a pretentious prat with the spelling.

  Mr Mead’s secretary pushed open the door holding a tray of three tall china mugs of coffee with impossibly tiny handles. Eve foresaw a disaster and tried to move her chair ever so slightly further away from the half-Frenchman before he ended up spilling his drink all over her skirt.

  He didn’t even attempt the handle though, she noticed. His hand circled the top of the cup and he lifted it to his lips. She was most surprised that he didn’t slurp, or pour the coffee into the saucer and drink it that way.

  ‘Sorry if I’ve held you up by not being able to meet earlier in the week,’ said Jacques both to Mr Mead and Eve. ‘I’ve been away.’

  Eve wondered if he’d been at a slapstick convention.

  ‘So, how do you know my aunt so well that she left you in joint possession of a one-hundred-and-fifty-acre plot of land?’ asked Eve, trying – but failing – not to sound cross about that.

  Jacques Glace had the audacity to ever so slowly raise his finger to his nose and then tap it twice. How dare he, thought Eve. It wasn’t exactly an unreasonable question in the circumstances.

  ‘Mr Glace, you’ve looked in more detail at the plans for Winterworld, I presume?’ said Mr Mead.

  ‘Oui,’ said Jacques. ‘And I’ve got some great ideas to contribute. I can’t wait to start working on it with you, Miss Douglas,’ he added, turning towards Eve and giving her a wide smile which showed off nice, even white teeth. The smile of a charming crocodile, thought Eve to herself. Well, any attempt to seduce her with soft words would fall on deaf ears. She knew his type. She came across them in her job often: men who thought a big smile would get them a massive discount. The only thing they actually did get was a ‘dream on, buster’ smile in return.

  ‘Do you have any experience of theme parks, Mr Glace?’ Eve wondered what line of business he was in. She couldn’t imagine he was running ICI.

  ‘Only going to them,’ came the reply. She wasn’t surprised. She could imagine Jacques Glass sitting on a roller coaster like a big kid, with his giant hands raised above his head, shouting ‘wheee’.

  ‘So you’re not a builder then?’ Eve tried to pry subtly.

  ‘Non.’

  ‘Or an engineer.’

  ‘Non.’

  He was being deliberately obstructive. Enjoying it too, judging from the twinkle in his eye as he delivered his monosyllabic answers.

  Eve went for the direct question.

  ‘So what exactly is your line of work, Mr Glace?’

  Jacques Glace swivelled in his seat. ‘I haven’t worked in ages,’ he said, clearly delighting in the look on her face.

  Eve was shocked: her aunt had left half an unfinished theme park to a jobless joker. She wondered if this might contravene the ‘being of sound mind’ part of writing a will.

  Mr Mead pushed two sheets of paper across the table. ‘These require your signatures to officially allow you to be in charge of Winterworld Ltd,’ he explained. ‘All funds will then be available, although as I said, you do need both parties’ approval as well as my own on items of major spending.’

  Good, thought Eve. Jacques Glace didn’t look trustworthy with money. She had visions of him running amok with a chequebook and spending it all on sweets.

  Jacques politely indicated that Eve should sign first.

  ‘Your aunt ran Winterworld from the Portakabin on site until the staff quarters were completed,’ said Mr Mead, taking the signed papers and sealing them in a brown envelope. ‘The grounds are patrolled by Pitbull Securities. They’ve been expertly secured.’

  ‘Yes, they would be,’ said Eve, half in the open, half to herself. Pitbull Securities had been in the game a long time. Keith Pitt the younger was an ex-boxer and local hard man whom anyone would be an idiot to cross. Keith Pitt the elder used to have a scrapyard in the sev
enties, patrolled by a lion that he’d bought from a circus because he was sick of stuff getting nicked and his Alsatians couldn’t keep up. He’d got the idea from someone who kept a bear in his yard, but he couldn’t find one of those. No wonder some people thought Barnsley was a bit rough. Her Uncle Jeff once told her that the lion kept getting out and was often to be found leisurely walking down Burton Street. Keith Pitt used to freeze sheeps’ heads for the lion to nibble on in the summer like big ice-pops, and it would play football with a box around the yard. On occasion it even went in the car with him, hanging over the back seat watching the scenery pass by. ‘Leo’ made the Barnsley Chronicle on quite a few occasions over the years. Funnily enough, no one ever robbed the Pitt scrapyards again.

  Eve shook her head at the thought of her aunt having an office, which was even more insane than the idea of guard-lions. The vision of Evelyn going into work with a briefcase was totally unbelievable. She laughed aloud, not meaning to.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she excused herself. ‘I still can’t take it all in.’

  ‘I understand,’ nodded Mr Mead. ‘It must have been quite a shock.’

  ‘I mean, Aunt Evelyn doing all this. It’s unthinkable really.’

  ‘I can imagine it quite well,’ interrupted Jacques. ‘She was a sprightly old bird. Sharp as a razor with an incredible head for business. If only she had known she had that potential earlier in her life. She could have been President of the USA.’

  Eve gave a half-gasp, half-dry chuckle, and felt a spiral of fury course through her. How dare he intimate he knew Aunt Evelyn better than her own flesh and blood did? The cheek of the man. She sat on her anger and tried to talk sweetly.

  ‘And from where did you gain your insight of my aunt?’ she asked with a deadly smile.

  ‘From many, many hours of conversation,’ was all Jacques Glace gave away. He spoke teasingly slowly as if delighting in keeping Eve in the dark.

  Mr Mead handed over two identical sets of keys.

  ‘These are for the Portakabin,’ he said. ‘And the front gate. I don’t know what the others are for I’m afraid, nor can I tell you how far she was in the project; but as I understand it, her files were expertly kept and, knowing Miss Douglas, all should be very straightforward.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Eve. In the files she had so far studied, everything was documented down to when the snow machines were arriving, the staff she had set on via an agency, how much they were to be paid, even where she had bought the reindeer from, although Eve had every intention of getting a refund on the animal.

  ‘So, we need to go into the office and pick up where she left off,’ Jacques stated. ‘I suggest we synchronize our watches and meet at nine a.m. on Monday morning.’ He turned to Eve for affirmation.

  ‘Yes, I was going to say the same,’ said Eve. ‘I’ll be there at eight a.m.’

  ‘Oh, make it nine,’ Jacques responded with a flap of his hand. ‘Don’t want to kill ourselves, do we? And it will be Monday morning. Yuk.’

  Eve doubted that Jacques Glace would be in danger of killing himself with work.

  They exited Mr Mead’s office together, both holding their set of keys.

  ‘Where are you parked?’ asked Jacques.

  Eve pointed to the left. Thank goodness he was parked to the right, so she wouldn’t have to endure walking beside him.

  ‘I’m looking forward to working with you, Eve,’ Jacques sparkled.

  ‘I’m looking forward to picking up the project,’ said Eve, unable to make it plainer that working with him was not something she was relishing.

  He let loose a low peal of laughter then pulled in a lungful of cold air and noisily let it go. ‘Ah, it’s going to be fun one day,’ he said. ‘Full of sparks and fire.’

  ‘What is?’ said Eve.

  ‘Being married to you, because nothing surer, it will happen. Please remember that,’ he said. ‘See you on Monday, Miss Douglas.’ And off he went, leaving a stunned Eve in his wake.

  Chapter 7

  Eve went straight from the solicitor to her cousin’s ice-cream parlour for a coffee and a rant. And an ice cream. At least she could draw some comfort from a caramel apple-pie sundae. Violet really did make the most gorgeous ice cream.

  ‘Crikey, it must be “national visit Violet day”,’ she laughed with delight. ‘I’ve only just waved Bel and Max off.’

  ‘Are they both okay?’ asked Eve. She didn’t know Bel and Max very well, but what she knew of them she liked enormously. They’d been very kind to Violet when she’d needed good friends.

  ‘Same as always,’ Violet grinned. ‘Max is planning her wedding and well . . .’ She shook her head. ‘If it doesn’t end up in the Guinness Book of Records for being the flashest event in history, I’ll eat my hat and yours. She’s supposed to be on a diet, as she’s trying on dresses later, but she’s just wolfed down four scoops of my summer pudding and clotted cream. And Bel wasn’t far behind her with three scoops of chocolate velvet.’

  ‘Ooh, they both sound nice,’ said Eve. She wondered if Violet had ever considered making a winter pudding ice cream.

  ‘Sit down and I’ll fetch us some ice cream.’

  Eve didn’t wait to be asked twice.

  ‘You know, I think I’m still gobsmacked about the theme park,’ said Violet, after bringing over a small scoop of ice cream for herself and a sundae for Eve. Violet’s was lavender flavoured. It was a delicate shade of mauve with scented sugar crystals sprinkled on top. She nodded with approval at her experiment. It had turned out better than expected, as Violet Flockton’s ice-cream trials usually did. ‘When you told me what Evelyn had left you, I did wonder if you’d been licking LSD tabs.’

  Eve nodded. ‘I can understand that. I don’t know what Aunt Evelyn was playing at. She can’t have been of sound mind for ages. People with sound minds do not build theme parks in Barnsley and then leave half of them to idiot idle strangers. She should have been locked up for her own safety.’

  ‘You sounded like Granny Ferrell then,’ laughed Violet.

  ‘Don’t.’ Eve formed her fingers into a cross and held it up against the thought of their joint maternal grandmother – Pat Ferrell. Violet’s paternal nan used to say that if they shaved Pat’s hair off, they’d discover a trio of sixes.

  ‘Any idea what you’re buying her for her birthday?’ said Violet. ‘It gets harder every year to find something she likes.’

  ‘Blimey, Violet, it’s not her birthday until next month.’

  ‘I know, I know. I don’t really know why I stress about it so much – whatever we get for her she hates.’

  ‘Cheer me up talking about her, why don’t you?’ said Eve. If anyone could make her mother look like an angel by comparison, it was Granny Ferrell. Violet had been lucky to have the experience of a lovely granny in her Nan Flockton – her father’s mother. Eve, alas, never knew her real father. She doubted even her mother, Ruth, knew him that well. Carl Douglas married her in a fug of cannabis smoke when she was six months pregnant and left her a week before she gave birth, never to return. As the baby was born on 24 December, Ruth called her Eve, a decision which was to come in quite useful later. Because when Eve was eight years old, Susan received a surprise letter from a lady calling herself Evelyn Douglas, who had been trying to trace Ruth without success. She was the aunt of Carl Douglas and, though no longer in touch with her wayward nephew or his parents, had only recently learned from a branch of the family that a Douglas baby had been born who was named after her, and she desperately wanted to get in touch.

  Ruth, sniffing money in the air, was very keen to make the point that the baby had indeed been named after her – oh happy coincidence, she thought, especially as old Evelyn Douglas was a childless spinster. In truth, she hadn’t a clue what any of Carl’s relatives were called or how many he had. Her only interest in him had been his ability to get his hands on really good weed and, when they weren’t too stoned, his incredible appetite for sex. Ruth took her young daugh
ter on the bus to visit her long-lost great-aunt but soon lost interest in the monthly trips when it was quite obvious Evelyn Douglas had no fortune to leave. But Eve liked the old lady, and so she used to go alone and drink tea out of her fine bone china cups and eat far too many Mr Kipling cakes. Eve wasn’t allowed pets because Ruth couldn’t be bothered with them, so sitting on Aunt Evelyn’s plump sofa stroking her purring cat, Fancy, was a treat in itself. Eve didn’t mind that the old lady showed her the same photographs over and over or told the same stories about her brave Stanley; she just loved her, the bungalow, the cakes and the cats.

  ‘What about a bit of jewellery for her forthcoming cruise holiday?’ asked Violet.

  ‘Or some polish for her horns?’

  Violet chuckled. ‘Do you think Auntie Ruth will come over for it?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Violet.’ Eve held her hands out with imaginary weights in them. ‘A meal with her old bat of a mother or remaining in a sunny commune in Spain. Hmm . . . let me think.’ The hand holding the Spanish sunshine dropped heavily. Duty would never be as weighted as pleasure for Ruth Douglas – including anything to do with her daughter. Ruth Douglas was a hedonist of the highest order.