Christmas at Snowflake Lodge

by CP Ward

  ‘Do they have ski lodges in Scotland? I didn’t realise they had that much snow.’

  ‘Obviously his postcard didn’t contain much detail, but it seems they must do. Especially if they’re in a position to hire a professional comedian, even if he is ninety-two.’

  ‘Well, good luck to him.’

  Dad sighed, and Jessica knew his own punchline was coming. ‘Look. You know your mother and me have that cruise booked in the Fjords through December. We really don’t have time to go rushing off to Scotland to bring Grandpa to justice. However, I was wondering….’

  Jessica tapped the phone receiver. ‘Come on, Dad, I’ve only got one more quid. I can’t go and charge my phone because Doreen’s mates are round and one of them might steal it. Let’s hear it. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I was wondering if you could go up there and, well, just check on him? You don’t have to force him to turn himself in, but just make sure he’s all right. He is ninety-two, after all, and he is my father. You’d do it for me, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Bring you to justice if you knocked off Mum?’ Jessica smirked. ‘Of course I would.’

  ‘Do you think you could go, then?’

  ‘Dad, I have to work … I need to find somewhere else to live—’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Doreen’s kind of outstayed her welcome.’

  ‘Doreen? That lovely girl you’ve got staying with you?’

  Jessica rolled her eyes. Doreen had done a number on her parents on the only time they’d met. Dad now wouldn’t hear a bad word about her.

  ‘I’m afraid we have a couple of … personality clashes,’ Jessica said. ‘And she really likes the flat, so it looks like I’ll have to find somewhere else. I was kind of counting on the Christmas rush to fund it.’

  Dad was silent for a few seconds, and Jessica sensed a guilt trip coming. Of course, they wouldn’t change their plans, but she was expected to change hers.

  ‘He’s ninety-two,’ Dad said quietly. ‘He could be dead by this time next year, or at best, behind bars. I had a, um, lifetime of him, but you … well, you did miss out a bit when you were young.’

  ‘He was doing a residency in Vegas. I could hardly expect him to show up on my birthdays with a Barbie and a card.’

  ‘No, of course not. So now’s your chance to get a bit of quality time with him.’

  Jessica sighed. Dad wasn’t about to relent. Even if she missed the Christmas rush, it might be nice just to escape Doreen for a while. Plus, if this ski lodge had given Grandpa a job, it might give her one, too. Especially if the coming winter was as bad as the weather forecasts were predicting.

  ‘Okay, tell me the name of the place and I’ll look it up online. No promises, though.’

  ‘Sure. Hang on a minute.’

  Jessica heard the rustle of papers as her dad searched for Grandpa’s postcard.

  ‘Ah, here it is. Are you ready? Do you have a pen?’

  ‘I have a brain that’s still young.’

  ‘No need to be sarcastic. Right, I’ve got the name now. Oh, isn’t it quaint.’ Dad gave a little chuckle, and Jessica was tempted to just hang up and walk away.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Snowflake Lodge.’

  3

  Second Thoughts

  ‘You’ve got some Shake n’ Vac under the sink, haven’t you? Mick dropped a can of Guinness on the carpet.’

  Jessica gave a resigned sigh. ‘And you didn’t notice until it had soaked right through?’

  Doreen rolled her eyes. ‘We were celebrating a goal. What is this? Prison?’

  For one of us, at least, Jessica didn’t say. While planting a right hook on Doreen’s jutting chin might have made her feel better, she settled for a far more passive, ‘But it’s a cream carpet. If I wanted to sell, I’d have to replace it now.’

  Doreen’s eyes hardened again. ‘So now you’re going to sell, is it? You’re going to make me homeless?’ She shook her head. ‘Talk about driving the knife in. Do you know what I’ve been through?’

  Jessica winced, fearful that Doreen would start to tell her. In truth, a couple of not-particularly-dramatic breakups was about as hardcore as Doreen’s life had gotten.

  ‘I’m not going to sell. I was speaking hypothetically.’

  Doreen’s face relaxed. ‘Don’t worry, it’s only a little stain. And if it doesn’t come out, they’ve got some nice little foot rug things in LIDL. Didn’t you notice them last night?’

  ‘I was too busy in the booze aisle.’

  ‘I’ve been worried about your drinking issues for a while. Seriously.’

  Jessica grimaced. ‘Thanks for your concern. Look, I’ll sort it out tonight. I have to go to work.’

  ‘Now? But it’s only lunchtime. Don’t you usually work nights? I wanted to ask you about my radiator. It’s been making a funny noise.’

  ‘It’s fine. It’s just kind of waking up because it hasn’t been used since last winter. It’s not a problem.’

  ‘I hope not. You charge me enough rent as it is without leaving me without decent heating. There’s nothing to me. I’d be dead by Christmas. Oh, by the way, Mick left you this.’

  She stuffed a piece of paper into Jessica’s hand. Jessica unfolded it and squinted at the squiggles written diagonally across a piece of her own notepaper.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s his number. I told him you’d been single for ages and since you were coming up for thirty you might be up for a sympathy shag.’

  Jessica was too stunned to speak. She gave a dumb nod, then folded the paper and stuffed it into her pocket.

  ‘He’s alright, Mick, once you’ve had a few,’ Doreen said. ‘I mean, objectively speaking. I wouldn’t know. Once he hits that five-pint mark he starts to get a bit rowdy, but maybe that’s your thing.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jessica said, voice hollow, wishing the Guinness had done enough damage to make the floor open up and swallow her. ‘I have to go.’

  Doreen was still talking, her words systematically eradicating Jessica’s confidence, sense of self-worth, and faith in humanity, one abrasive swipe at a time. Jessica, letting her vision glaze over, turned to the door, grabbed her bag on autopilot, and made her escape.

  ‘You won’t forget to check the radiator, will you, Lemons?’ was the last thing she heard as the door slammed behind her. Then she was running, running down the stairs and out on to the street.

  She took a deep breath of chilly November air. Things couldn’t possibly get worse. Her Grandpa was on the run from the police, and her lodger was slowly evicting her. Only if—

  A car came roaring past, swerving too close to the curb. From somewhere behind it came the sound of a police siren, then the car was gone, but not before hitting a muck-filed pothole turned into gunk by last night’s rain. Jessica stared in horror at the brown stain on her dress. At least she had her work clothes with her … her work clothes that were hanging up to dry on her balcony.

  Life couldn’t possibly … better hold that thought.

  Kirsten was waiting outside the Coco Lounge, her bag held protectively across her chest, a worried look on her face as her eyes darted around, perhaps expecting someone to jump out and scream ‘Boo!’ at any given moment. Jessica gave her a reassuring wave as she came around the corner, then waved Kirsten back as her government trainee started forward to meet her in the middle of the street.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Lemond,’ Kirsten said, making Jessica inwardly groan.

  ‘Hi, Kirsten. You could have gone in and got a table, you know.’

  Kirsten looked distraught. ‘I’m sorry, I thought, just, well, you might have wanted to go somewhere else, or perhaps—’

  ‘No, no, I asked to meet you here because we always meet here on a Wednesday.’

  ‘I do apologise—’

  ‘It’s okay. Come on, let’s get inside before we freeze to death.’

  ‘Do you think I’m appropriately dressed for today’s lesson?’ Kirsten asked
, tugging at the jacket she wore, the jacket that she had worn every single time Jessica had seen her since she had agreed to a government subsidized program to take on a trainee.

  ‘I think you’ll do just fine. It’s only theory again today, I’m afraid.’

  They went inside. During the day, the Coco Lounge was a shadow of its thumping evening self. Much preferable in many ways, its quaint Mexican-styled décor could be seen without a throng of drinking people in the way, and the tables were clean and neatly arranged. They took the same table they always did, in the window with a view of the high street outside.

  Jessica ordered a latte as she always did, while Kirsten pored over the menu like she always did, before going for an iced lemon tea, as she always did. Then, as she always did, she offered to pay, and Jessica had to remind her—as she always did—that she claimed it on government program expenses, and that Kirsten was welcome to order something more expensive, or even a chocolate brownie, if she wanted, which she never did.

  Sometimes, having a trainee was almost as exhausting as living with Doreen.

  ‘Today we’ll be going over the various ways to unblock an old toilet system built before the nineteen-thirties,’ Jessica said, leaning forward. Kirsten, whom Jessica was certain was more deserving of a vocation in the library or perhaps underground filing system world, peered over the top of her glasses at the file in Jessica’s hands. The secrets of the world it was not, but Kirsten looked as though an Egyptian tomb was about to be opened for the first time.

  ‘When you work unusual hours like we do, you get a lot of calls from museums and other historical public buildings who don’t want to disrupt the flow of customers. While there are all sorts of government regulations regarding plumbing, many of these places have cut corners or simply not bothered to upgrade their systems. And when a blockage happens … chaos reigns. And that’s where we come in.’

  ‘Right.’ Kirsten was nodding her head as though listening to a Bond villain explain a master plan. Jessica wondered just how much of her grandfather’s genes she’d taken on when she found herself playing up to Kirsten’s adulation a little.

  ‘This,’ she said, pulling something out of her bag and holding it up, ‘is a u-bend.’

  She waited for Kirsten to say, ‘The Holy Grail,’ but unfortunately her plumbing fantasy wasn’t translating. As a waiter brought their drinks and gave Jessica a funny look, Kirsten just nodded again, and said, ‘I see.’

  Not for the first time—more like the hundredth—Jessica was tempted to ask whether Kirsten really wanted to be a plumber. In truth, she had herself fallen into the profession, and her particular take on it, more or less by chance, while sitting in a café browsing through a local college pamphlet one day, while at the adjacent table a pair of well-to-do old ladies were complaining that they could never find someone to come out when their busy schedules required it.

  ‘Just out of interest,’ she found herself saying as she sipped the froth off the top of her latte, ‘when was it you realised that you wanted a career in the water pipe maintenance field?’

  For the first time Kirsten’s face lit up beyond pure concentration. ‘When I read your article in Tradesman,’ she said. ‘And the pictures of you … you looked so … cool.’

  Jessica suppressed a grimace. The photography team had done a number on her, performing a glamorous shoot which had little connection to the nuts and bolts of the article. Doreen had laughed about it for days, but one of the reasons Jessica had taken on a trainee was because she had begun receiving dozens of daily calls from older single men with piping issues. After one frightful occasion when she had turned up to find her client still in a dressing gown, she had decided she needed some cavalry. Kirsten, with her bookish look and seeming obliviousness to even the most blatant innuendo, had been a perfect solution.

  ‘I have a few questions,’ Kirsten said.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Firstly, would it be a good idea to go for my NVQ in plastering now, or do you think it’s better to hire outside help when renovation work is required in order to build up a network of contacts while also helping the wider tradesman community?’

  With Kirsten having read the lengthy handwritten question off a sheet of paper without any kind of tonal stress, Jessica was left momentarily speechless.

  ‘Um, well, I think you should do what you think is best,’ she said at last.

  ‘Right.’ Kirsten scribbled down a note. ‘And another question: do you think that in situations of dry wall degradation—’

  Jessica held up a hand. ‘Let’s get going,’ she said, downing the rest of her latte, pausing briefly to make sure she didn’t choke, and then quickly standing up. ‘We should get to our first appointment.’

  ‘Can I continue to ask questions in the van?’

  ‘Sure,’ Jessica said, hoping the traffic wouldn’t hold them up too long.

  Their afternoon appointment finished just before three. They had another booking at eight p.m. at an old house on the outskirts of the city which was being used as a TV drama location. Apparently, a crew party had gotten a bit rowdy and someone had flushed a handful of historic coins down the toilet. Stuck somewhere in the ancient pipe, the producers were keen to get it fixed before the house owners or the rest of the cast found out. With a few hours to kill, however, Jessica couldn’t face going home, so instead she dropped Kirsten off outside the Waterstones bookshop in the town centre and then headed over to her parents’ place in Clifton.

  She found her mother packing a suitcase in the front room.

  ‘Dear, do you think the green fake fur or the red fake fur?’

  Jessica shrugged. ‘How cold are the fjords likely to be in December? Perhaps you should take both.’

  Emilia patted her on the arm. ‘What a grand idea. Of course. I’ll have to pay for extra baggage, but it’s more about the convenience than the cost, isn’t it?’

  Jessica couldn’t help but smile. ‘Perhaps you should hire a little Christmas elf to help you carry it?’

  ‘Do you think I could order one online?’ Emilia said, without either batting an eyelid or looking up. ‘I imagine they’ll be busy around this time of year.’

  Jessica gave a little sigh and shrugged. ‘Oh, I’m sure you could.’

  ‘Your father’s in the garden,’ Emilia said, the hint so lacking subtlety that had it come with a glowing neon sign it couldn’t have been more obvious. ‘He’s worried about his seed beds in the frost. Why don’t you go and reassure him? I’ll just finish up here, then we’ll have afternoon tea.’

  ‘Sure, sounds nice.’

  Jessica looked around as she headed out of the living room and down the hall to the wide kitchen. Three floors of Bristol’s most elegant Edwardian architecture, high ceilings and airy, well-lit rooms, all renovated and modernised in exactly the way her parents had wanted. And every single corner of it paid for by Grandpa’s fortune.

  Dad was where Mum had said, down by the back of their long, leafy garden, standing by a freshly dug flowerbed that had probably been turned over by Reg, the gardener, rather than Dad, who preferred to inspect rather than get his hands dirty. To Jessica’s surprise, he was wearing a pair of gardening gloves, standing with his hands on his hips, an empty wheelbarrow beside him.

  ‘Hi, Dad, what are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, hello, love. Great to see you. I was just wondering whether to cover this over with a sheet to keep the leaves off, or just leave it.’

  Jessica just shrugged. ‘A big decision, I’m sure.’

  ‘Well, once we’re on that ship there will be a lot of distractions. I’ve told Reg to just do as he sees fit, but I like to be around just in case.’

  ‘Sure, Dad.’

  Benjamin looked up. ‘Have you thought any more about what I asked you?’

  ‘You mean, rushing off to Scotland to bring my fugitive grandfather to justice?’

  ‘I got another postcard the other day,’ Benjamin said. ‘Apparently he’s got a new girlfriend. Some
floozy he met on Tinder. Do you think he’ll marry her? That could really screw the inheritance. It was a lucky escape with Mavis, don’t you know.’

  Jessica grimaced. ‘You know, not everything in life is about Grandpa’s money—’

  ‘It’s your inheritance too.’

  Before Jessica could construct a reply that would both appease her father while emphasising that she had no intention of spending her life living off her grandfather’s fortune in the same way her parents did, Emilia appeared on the back porch with a tray of tea and biscuits.

  ‘Oh, Benjamin! Jessica! I’ve finished packing … I think. How about a little celebration?’

  ‘Oh, delightful,’ Benjamin said. ‘Did you go with the yellow jacket in the end?’

  Emilia’s face darkened. ‘The yellow? You think I should go with the yellow?’

  ‘I was just thinking about the matinees, dear,’ Benjamin said. ‘It would so fit with the décor we saw in those photographs.’

  Emilia almost dropped the tray. ‘I’d better go and check,’ she said, rushing back into the house.

  Benjamin pulled off his gloves. ‘Okay, tea time. I’m famished. I wonder what Dillingtons has delivered this time? They do the best afternoon tea deliveries. You really should think about a subscription.’

  Jessica could only imagine what Doreen would think of her parents’ subscription to an afternoon tea delivery service. She’d probably ask for a reduction on the rent.

  ‘Actually, Dad, I’d better be off,’ Jessica said. ‘I just stopped by to see how you were getting on. I have a job this evening.’

  Benjamin gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘Jess … you know you don’t have to work, don’t you? And such a dirty profession. If you really insist on having a job, couldn’t you be a secretary or something?’

  Jessica needed to leave before she screamed loud enough to have the neighbours calling the police. She eased away from Dad and started up the path.

  ‘If I don’t see you before, have a good cruise,’ she said.