The Christmas Wish List

by Heidi Swain

  *

  It was almost dark when Beamish arrived late that afternoon, but even before he’d stepped into the light in the cottage, I could see he was looking a bit rough around the edges again.

  ‘My goodness,’ he laughed, looking around him. ‘You two have been busy, haven’t you?’

  ‘Dolly wanted the decs up,’ I told him, ‘so that’s what she’s got.’

  ‘With bells on,’ he laughed again, his gaze taking it all in. ‘It looks fantastic.’

  Just a few days ago I would have most likely disputed that description but since Dolly had plunged me into a vat of festive feeling, I felt rather more inclined to agree. I couldn’t help thinking that my seasonal spirit was finally beginning to wake up and there was nothing offensive about the abundance of sparkling tinsel and gaudily coloured garlands at all.

  ‘Thank you,’ I smiled, appreciatively accepting his praise before taking a closer look at his face, ‘but never mind our decorations.’ I frowned. ‘What’s happened to you? It must have been a brutal game, either that or you just aren’t very good at keeping out of the way.’

  ‘Bit of both actually,’ he admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking rather sheepish. ‘I couldn’t seem to stay focused for some reason.’

  ‘Even though you had a pack of guys the size of rhinos charging towards you?’

  ‘Even then.’

  He locked his eyes on mine and I had to look away.

  ‘That’s not like you,’ said Dolly who had been upstairs when he first arrived. ‘What’s got you in such a tizzy that you can’t concentrate on your game?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged, shifting his gaze from me to her. ‘Does it matter?’

  His cheeks, I noticed, when I looked back, had turned an interesting shade of red.

  ‘If you’re Coach Hudson,’ Dolly pointed out, ‘then yes, I would imagine it matters a great deal.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Beamish, now rubbing the back of his neck, ‘yeah, he did say it mattered to him actually.’

  ‘I’ll bet he did,’ Dolly tutted, ‘and I daresay he said a whole lot more besides. Are those actual stitches this time?’

  Thankfully, Beamish didn’t go into detail about either his coach’s choice of words or what the medics had used to put him back together, but instead set about confirming that he could still take to the ice before demolishing the pie Dolly had saved for him. I guessed the air had been a bit blue after the whistle had called full time.

  ‘Right,’ he said, when he’d finally worked his way down to crumbs, ‘let’s get going. I was lucky to get these tickets at the last minute and if we don’t get a wriggle on, we won’t make it.’

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ I smiled, pulling my woolly hat over my ears.

  Dolly swatted me with her scarf.

  ‘I’m looking forward to this,’ she reminded me, ‘and as Beamish just said, he was lucky to get the tickets.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, following her outside, ‘I’m only joking.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Beamish unhelpfully added with a smirk.

  *

  As Beamish and I watched Dolly take to the rink it was immediately obvious why she had been so keen to literally get her skates on and not miss a single second of her allotted time on the ice.

  ‘Did you know?’ Beamish asked, agog.

  ‘Not a clue,’ I answered, open mouthed.

  By the time she had finished her first circuit, Dolly was up to speed and attracting a fair few admiring glances. Elegant and graceful she cut a path through the wobbly-legged and I banished all prior concerns that she might fall and break a hip. I was now far more worried about my own bones than hers.

  ‘Come on,’ said Beamish, reaching for my hand and pulling me to my feet in one swift movement, ‘we can’t put it off for ever.’

  His fingers touching mine set off the same tingle as the first time we had held hands and under any other circumstances I would have let go of him straightaway, but I was so scared of falling that I kept a tight grip, trying not to admit to myself how much safer I felt with his large hand clasping my smaller one.

  We made it on to the ice and, when he eventually prised me away, I clung to the side, too unsteady to worry about how much of an idiot I looked. I braved a quick glance around and found I wasn’t the only one hugging the barrier.

  ‘Here you are at last,’ said Dolly, coming to a steady and controlled stop next to me.

  ‘You’re a dark horse, aren’t you?’ I said.

  ‘You’re amazing, Dolly,’ Beamish added, tentatively testing out his balancing skills and grinning when he didn’t end up on his backside.

  Dolly gave a little curtsy.

  ‘My father taught me.’ She told us. ‘He was a champion skater. He used to compete when the Fens froze over.’

  ‘I didn’t even know that was a thing,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, turning to glide away again. ‘It was a regular thing once. That was when we had proper winter weather, mind you.’

  ‘Well I never,’ said Beamish, still wearing his grin, ‘lives and learns.’

  ‘It must be in her genes,’ I said, looking enviously after her, ‘whereas I seem to have a fear of losing my fingers instilled in mine. I think I’ll just stay here and watch.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ said Beamish, as he tried to release my fingers from the side, ‘come on. We’ll go together. I’ll look after you and your lovely digits.’

  I screwed my courage to the sticking place and let him, well, pull me around the rink, would probably be the best description of how we moved. Dolly whizzed by at least twice for our every one circuit, but I hardly registered her, because I was too busy focusing on my feet and, when I was on my bottom, everyone else’s blades.

  ‘Try and relax a bit,’ Beamish advised, as he moved behind me and placed his hands lightly on my waist so he could push me along.

  Oh yeah, that was going to help. The feel of his hands, even though cushioned by the layers of clothes, and his breath on the back of my neck, set my knees trembling again as the real reason for not telling Jonathan about my new friend became more obvious with every passing second.

  ‘Better?’ Beamish asked, his voice was deep and so close to my ear it made me shiver, but not with the cold.

  ‘Yes.’ I squeaked. ‘Great.’

  The set up didn’t work particularly well because I was as rigid as an ironing board. With Beamish’s hands on me, there was just no bend in me at all. He changed position again.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, shaking my head.

  ‘You’re doing really well,’ he said kindly as he unravelled his scarf.

  I really wasn’t but he was too much of a gentleman to say otherwise.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘try hanging on to the end of this.’

  ‘But then I won’t have hold of you,’ I swallowed.

  I didn’t much like the idea of relinquishing my safety blanket.

  ‘Trust me,’ he smiled, his uninjured eye imploring me to believe in him.

  So, I did.

  And we had almost made it around, a little faster now, with him towing me along before I fell in a heap for the final time and a buzzer announced that our time was up.

  ‘Did you enjoy that?’ I asked Dolly once we had returned our skates and had a warming mug of marshmallow-topped hot chocolate and a ringside seat.

  It was a silly question. Her glowing cheeks and bright eyes were testament to the wonderful time she’d had. By contrast I was as white as a sheet and having a job to stop my legs from shaking. It hadn’t been that long since I’d stretched my muscles, surely?

  ‘I felt about fifteen again,’ she breathed. ‘I felt just how I used to when I was a girl.’

  ‘You were amazing,’ said Beamish. ‘So elegant, Dolly. You cut quite a figure out there.’

  Dolly nodded and wiped away a tear which Beamish and I pretended we hadn’t seen.

  ‘That’s one wish from the list well and truly fulfilled,
’ I told him with a gentle nudge. ‘Thank you, Beamish.’

  ‘You’re very welcome, Hattie,’ he said, nudging me right back.

  Chapter 11

  It felt good to wake up in Wynbridge without that heavy weight on my chest, but the morning after our skating session it was more than obvious that the pain had simply transferred further down my body. My legs felt as though they had been struck by the Harry Potter Leg Locker curse and for a while, I didn’t think I would ever be able to move them again.

  I shuffled, rather than walked, to the bathroom, all the while wishing Dolly had added something slightly less physically demanding to our Christmas Wish List. But that said, at least focusing on the physical pain was distracting me from the mental turmoil which was beginning to build. So much for my relaxing holiday, I hadn’t felt this stirred up in a very long time.

  ‘You’re up at last,’ Dolly called up the stairs when she heard me whimpering. ‘Come and see what I’ve found.’

  Listening to her pottering about and humming along to Festive FM, or whatever channel she’d tuned the radio to, it was obvious that she wasn’t suffering anything like I was. I wondered if Beamish was feeling the strain this morning. Probably not. His strapping thighs were used to a regular workout on the rugby pitch.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Dolly frowned as I inched my way stiffly and straight-legged down the stairs. ‘You look a little flushed.’

  ‘No, I’m not all right,’ I told her.

  ‘I hope you aren’t coming down with a cold. Your cheeks are quite pink.’

  ‘Never mind my cheeks,’ I grimaced, knowing the flush was more the result of my thoughts of Beamish’s thighs than any bug I might have picked up, ‘I’m more concerned about my legs.’

  ‘Why?’ she frowned, scrutinising my pins, ‘what’s wrong with them? They look all right to me.’

  I gingerly lowered myself into a chair and let out a sigh.

  ‘They’re stuck rigid,’ I told her, ‘I really don’t think ice skating agrees with me.’

  Dolly chuckled and poured me a cup of tea.

  ‘Perhaps if you’d relaxed into a bit more,’ she advised. ‘Had you not been so tense you and Beamish would have been whizzing around in no time.’

  I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse. Feeling his hands on my waist was the real reason I hadn’t been able to loosen up.

  ‘You two look good together,’ Dolly continued, making my face burn even brighter. ‘You’re well matched.’

  ‘Only because we’re practically the same height,’ I told her.

  Jonathan and I were the same height too, but Dolly had never said we looked good together, but I knew that we did. The photographs taken at his work’s summer ball earlier in the year were proof enough of that. Jonathan’s physique was made for fine tailoring and his thighs, although not as wide as Beamish’s, were every bit as impressive. I needed to remember that, amongst other things.

  I was spending far too much time with the Good Samaritan of Wynbridge, and what with it almost being Christmas and everything, his kind deeds were turning my head. I had to nip this silly crush, if that’s what it was, in the bud. I was in love with Jonathan, practically his wife, and all set to move to the other side of the world with him in almost no time at all. I hoped he would call again soon so I could tell him properly how much I had loved the photos of the apartment.

  ‘Anyway,’ I continued, quickly bursting the Beamish filled bubble with a Jonathan shaped pin, ‘did you tick skating off the list?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dolly, with a sigh, ‘although personally I wouldn’t have minded another few laps around the rink.’

  ‘Well there’s still time,’ I told her. ‘I think it’s going to be set up into the new year. Perhaps we can arrange for you to go back again.’

  She didn’t answer and when I looked up from stirring my tea, her face was wearing the strangest expression. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but it scared me a bit.

  ‘Couldn’t you, Dolly?’ I prompted when she didn’t comment. ‘You could go back again?’

  ‘Hattie,’ she said, her voice catching, ‘there’s something . . .’

  Her words trailed off but she still looked a little odd. I hoped having me here wasn’t proving too much for her. Having watched her glide over the ice and running rings around the children at school, it was all too easy to forget how old she was. She was such a generous hostess. She’d barely let me lift a finger since I’d arrived.

  ‘What is it?’

  Her eyes darted to the front window and I heard the gate creak open.

  ‘Oh, now here’s Rose,’ she said, sounding completely normal, ‘and I haven’t got all the albums out yet. Can you give me a hand, Hattie, please? Assuming of course you can bend that far.’

  After I had let Rose in and taken her coat, scarf, and gloves all thoughts of what it was that Dolly might have been going to say were forgotten.

  ‘I can’t help thinking it looks like snow,’ Rose said glumly.

  ‘I thought you’d be all for a bit of the white stuff,’ I told her. ‘What with you and the rest of Wynbridge being so mad keen on Christmas. I bet the Connellys at Wynthorpe Hall will be thrilled with a white Winter Wonderland.’

  ‘Angus has got a snow machine for the grotto should the weather not come up trumps,’ Dolly laughed.

  That didn’t surprise me. I hadn’t met him yet but I couldn’t imagine that a little thing like Mother Nature would get in the way of him creating the right ambience for his visitors.

  ‘And I am all for the white stuff,’ Rose told me. ‘I’d just rather it arrived after we’ve broken up for the school holidays. The last thing we need is that bloody boiler putting its parts on and us having to close. It’s the play on Wednesday.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Dolly stoically, ‘Beamish will keep it going.’

  Good old Beamish.

  ‘What was it you wanted me to get for you, Dolly?’ I hastily asked, keen to pull her thoughts away from our local hero again. ‘Did you say albums?’

  It was a job to kneel, but I managed it. In Dolly’s large sideboard there were collections of photograph albums dating back decades.

  ‘This is my father,’ Dolly said proudly, once she pored through them looking for what it was Rose had come to borrow. ‘This was the first year he was crowned champion.’

  The photograph she was holding up showed the Fenland landscape gripped in what looked like Arctic conditions. Even though it was in black and white and a little blurry you could tell from her father’s pinched features just how bitingly cold it was.

  ‘This was the real weather you were referring to at the ice rink last night, I take it, Dolly?’

  I was surprised she hadn’t shown me the photographs before.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We had snow every year then and the deepest wind-driven drifts and the River Wyn was always frozen solid.’

  ‘These are perfect,’ said Rose, picking out some other images of children building snowmen and old cars being pulled out of ditches. ‘They’re the perfect snapshot of the time. Can I take these and copy them?’

  ‘Of course,’ nodded Dolly. ‘I’m delighted you’ve found a use for them.’

  ‘What are you using them for?’ I asked Rose as I picked out one of Dolly looking adoringly up at her father as he held up his trophy, her cheeks rosy from the Wynbridge wind.

  ‘They’re going to be writing prompts for the year three class,’ Rose explained. ‘Mr Matthews is keen for the children to feel a connection to the Fens and its unusual landscape. We’re going to use these to show how different the winter was when Dolly was their age and encourage them to come up with a piece of writing or a poem which captures the Wynbridge winter as it once was.’

  ‘That’s a big ask, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ she smiled. ‘There are some extremely creative young minds in that class and you’re going to talk to them, Dolly, aren’t you? Just to help them a
long a bit.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dolly. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘I think it sounds like a wonderful idea,’ I added.

  ‘It’s going to be something they can dip in and out of for the next couple of weeks,’ said Rose. ‘The last few days are always disrupted with play rehearsals and concert practice and with their minds on their Christmas stockings instead of their lessons it’s far easier all round to just go with the flow.’

  ‘And talking of Christmas stockings,’ said Dolly as she went to check the oven. ‘Have you finished your shopping, Rose?’

  ‘Almost,’ she answered, as Dolly opened the door and the air was filled with the most delicious smell. ‘I’ve just a few bits and pieces left to get. What are you cooking, Dolly? It smells divine.’

  ‘A nice piece of brisket,’ she said, ‘it’s been in since first thing.’

  ‘Are you doing Yorkshire puddings to go with it?’ Rose drawled.

  ‘Of course. You can’t have beef without puddings, can you?’

  ‘And proper gravy.’

  Dolly nodded.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m torturing myself,’ Rose tutted. ‘I better go.’

  ‘Everything sorted with your sister?’ Dolly asked as we gathered the pile of photographs back together.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Rose smiled. ‘It was just a silly misunderstanding. I’m so relieved she and mum are talking again. I was dreading Christmas with the family torn in two. If there are arguments and differences to be settled, then now’s the time to do it. Nothing should come in the way of being with family at Christmas, don’t you agree?’

  ‘I do,’ said Dolly firmly. ‘I certainly do.’

  *

  After Dolly’s delicious Sunday dinner, I insisted that she let me deal with the dishes so that she could sit and write her Christmas cards.

  ‘It will do my legs good if I stand up for a bit,’ I told her. ‘They’re still as stiff as anything.’