Christmas at the Beach Cafe (7 page)

He said nothing for a moment and I wondered if I’d gone too far. ‘I kind of . . . exaggerated the Melissa thing,’ he mumbled.

‘So you’re not going to spend Christmas with her?’

‘No,’ he said.

Well, thank goodness for that. I congratulated myself silently for not having blurted the lie out to Ed at the time.

‘I swear I didn’t wreck your laptop on purpose. Honestly,’ he said eventually.

‘I know,’ I said, rather grudgingly. ‘That was just me boiling over because I’d had enough.’

We both started walking back towards the café. It glowed in the darkness, a beacon of light and warmth.

‘Look, I’ll shoot off tomorrow,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’ve outstayed my welcome here, I know that.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘If that’s what you want to do.’ I hesitated. ‘What
will
you do?’

‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘Go to Mum and Dad’s for a bit, I guess. Look for a job.’

There was a new vulnerability in his voice and all of a sudden I felt sorry for him. ‘Listen, don’t worry about the whole I’m-not-as-good-as-Ed thing,’ I said in a rush.
‘You’re different, that’s all. Just like I’m different from my sisters. And I did the same as you, too: drifting here and there, not really settling down, right until this
summer when I inherited the café. It was only then that I realized this is the right place for me, the right life. I bet there’s something out there that’s perfect for you, too.
You just have to keep looking.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I will.’ We’d reached the steps up to the café and he paused. I could see his face now, lit by the outside lamps on the decking, but his
expression was wary. ‘Evie – are we cool? Can we . . . start again?’

‘Of course we can,’ I said, feeling my heart lift. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Let’s see if that bourguignon is ready.’

The next morning, a strange, unusually bright light was leaking through the curtains and as I pulled them back I saw that a thick blanket of glistening snow lay across the
beach, covering the dunes. ‘It’s snowing!’ I cried excitedly. ‘Ed, wake up!’

Just like in my dream, fresh snow was tumbling down from the leaden sky, turning everything to white. The beach looked unnaturally dazzling and even the sea seemed chastened, down at low tide.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ I breathed, unable to stop gazing at the hypnotic, swirling flakes. Then I remembered that Jake and Amber had both said they’d be heading home today.
Ahh.

‘Oh Lord,’ Amber groaned, as we ate breakfast. ‘It doesn’t show much sign of stopping any time soon, does it? I wonder what the trains are like. I hope they’re
still running.’ She grabbed her phone. ‘Let’s see what my travel app has to say.’

As soon as she turned it on, her phone began beeping with texts, then ringing, and she glared at it, jabbing a button to block the call.

‘God, he’s persistent, isn’t he, old David?’ I said. ‘You have to hand it to him. Here, let’s look on mine instead.’

I didn’t have my mobile turned on all that often in Cornwall – reception was a bit hit and miss, depending on the weather, and our router sometimes dipped in and out, making the
Wi-Fi unpredictable. Today when I switched it on though, I was able to get online straightaway and even heard the pinging noise of a few texts arriving too . . . followed by several more texts.
Then yet more.

‘Blimey, what’s all this about?’ I wondered, going to my messages. My eyes widened as I saw how many people had sent them: Mum, Louise, Ruth, Isabelle, Betty . . . BETTY?

I opened the latter in surprise.
Is that you half-naked in the
Daily Star
??
I read and nearly choked on my porridge. ‘What is she on about?’ I said.
‘Half-naked in the
Daily Star
? I think she’s been at the cooking sherry again.’

‘Oh no,’ Amber said. She was reading some of her texts. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘What?’

‘My bloody agent let slip to some bastard celeb journalist that I’d come down here, and now . . .’ She passed me her phone. ‘Well, basically, you
are
half-naked
in the
Daily Star
.’

‘
What?
’ I squawked, then my eyes almost dropped out of my head as I saw the headline on her browser.

‘AMBER’S LESBIAN LOVE TRIANGLE,’ I read in disbelief. ‘No way,’ I said, clapping my hand to my mouth. No wonder I had so many texts. Because there on screen was a
colour photograph of me posing in my apron and lippy while Amber laughingly adjusted my reindeer antlers. You could actually see my bare bum. My bare bum was on page 7 of the
Daily Star
! I
burst into shocked laughter. ‘They think we’re having an affair!’

‘Who’s having an affair?’ Ed said, walking into the kitchen at that moment.

By now I was verging on hysteria. It was the funniest, most bizarre thing I’d ever seen. ‘Me and Amber,’ I spluttered, showing him the picture. ‘We’re in the
Star
. Two sides of a lesbian love triangle. Did I not mention that?’

‘What . . . ? When was this taken? What were you doing?’ He stared at me, completely discombobulated.

I couldn’t actually speak for laughing any more. Amber, too, had tears rolling down her face. ‘This is brilliant,’ she gurgled. ‘Hilarious!’

‘“Sexy Amber Fox seems to be recovering from her recent split with David Maguire just fine,”’ I read aloud in a breathy voice. ‘“Hidden away down in Cornwall,
we snapped her taking saucy photos of her mystery dark-haired lover” – oh my God. Unbelievable.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ Ed said, bewildered, looking from me to Amber and back again.

I couldn’t explain any of it without giving away his Christmas surprise so I was forced to give him another mysterious smile and tap my nose. ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill
you,’ I said, then turned back to Amber as something struck me. ‘God, that photographer’s a sneaky git. He must have been weaselling around the whole village trying to track you
down.’

‘And then must have snuck round here yesterday and been peeping through the window,’ Amber said, stopping laughing abruptly. ‘What a tosser. Sorry, Evie.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry you’re having to put up with this kind of shit when you just wanted to be left in peace.’

‘What’s all the noise about?’ Jake asked, coming in just then.

Ed pulled a
women!
face at him. ‘Honestly, mate? I haven’t got the faintest.’

Surprise surprise, the trains were all up the spout with the heavy snowfall and, from the horror stories on the local radio station, the roads weren’t much better. For
the time being, it seemed our guests were going to be staying a little while longer. Still, now that Jake and I had had our chat and called a temporary truce, this wasn’t the terrible news it
might have been twenty-four hours ago, I consoled myself.

There was nothing for it but to join the rest of the village and have an almighty snowball fight on the beach. All the kids were out there in big coats, hats and scarves, screaming with delight
as they hurled snowballs at their parents and each other, and I spotted lots of people I knew – Jamie, Martha, Seb, Carl, Saffron, Lindsey and her kids . . . It felt like the most excellent
party.

At the far end of the beach, a huge snowman was being patted into shape, while a couple of enterprising dads built snow barricades for the snowball hurlers to duck behind when necessary. There
were even a few people sledging down the steepest sand dune, shrieking in excitement. The whoops and screams rang out into the cold snowy sky, the soft thuds of snowballs meeting their targets a
constant soundtrack.

The other constant soundtrack was nosey people asking, ‘Was that really you in the
Daily Star
today?’ ‘Someone told me you were in the
Star
.’ ‘Was
that you in the
Daily Star
?’

‘It’s a long story,’ I replied each time, my smile becoming slightly more frozen with every enquiry. How many people in Carrawen actually read the bloody
Daily Star
,
anyway? It felt like the whole village had seen the photos.

To my relief though, everyone was sympathetic to Amber’s plight (‘I could tell that David Maguire was a bastard,’ Mags said to her, eyes glinting. ‘Knew it as soon as I
saw his hair’) and laughed it off with us. All the same, I was sorely regretting my glamour shoot. Never again, I vowed, however much Amber tried to tell me it would be a good idea.

A little while later, a sudden hush fell across the beach. I was chasing Ed when I noticed the strange change in atmosphere. Lots of people had stopped snowballing and were pointing and staring
at an unfamiliar man in completely inappropriate shoes, who was slithering down the beach path towards us. An unfamiliar man, moreover, who appeared to be carrying a camera bag. Aha. Rumbled.

‘I bet that’s him, the photographer,’ I said to Amber, nudging her. ‘Look!’

‘Must be,’ said Ed. ‘I’ve never seen him round here before.’

Amber’s lip curled. ‘Come back for more, has he?’ she said. ‘What a creep.’

Jake glanced at her, then at me. Then, without saying a word, he rolled a massive snowball and lobbed it in a high arc. We all watched as it landed right at the feet of the stranger with a
splat.

‘Shot!’ a couple of people called out approvingly. There was even a ripple of applause.

The photographer had been concentrating on his slow, unsteady route down to the beach but looked up in surprise at the unexpected missile. His face blanched the colour of the snow as he realized
that almost everyone was staring accusingly at him across the beach. Then the spell broke and it was as if we’d all received a silent cue, ordering us to roll a snowball and chuck it at him
immediately.

‘Get out of it!’ screeched Lindsey, catching him right on the shoulder with a well-aimed throw. ‘And you’re not welcome in my pub again, neither.’

‘Go on, scram!’ bawled Betty, whopping him on the chest with another huge snowball. ‘We don’t want you causing trouble for our village. Hop it!’

Within seconds, it was open season on the poor sod. It felt as if everyone was pelting him with an absolute barrage of snowballs and insults that carried brilliantly through the cold, crisp
air.

‘Tabloid scum!’

‘Get back to the gutter where you belong!’

‘Leave our girls alone!’

Splat! Splat! Splat!

Knowing he was beaten, the photographer turned and ran, slithering back up the path precariously in his shiny shoes without a backward glance. I actually felt quite sorry for him, especially
when he slipped and fell into a snowdrift and everyone jeered and hooted with laughter.

I turned and looked at Amber, whose eyes were bright. There was more colour in her cheeks than I’d seen in days. ‘Now that’s what I call a masterclass in dealing with the
paparazzi,’ she said. ‘Brilliant!’

‘And did you hear that “Leave our girls alone”?’ I asked, slipping my arm through hers. ‘I love that. Totally warmed the cockles of my heart.’

Lindsey marched over in her leopardskin wellies and hugged me, then Amber. ‘If he comes back round here, we’ll see him off,’ she assured us. ‘And any others that chance
their luck in Carrawen, too. Nasty little shitbags, the lot of them.’

‘Thank you,’Amber said. ‘Very much.’ She grinned. ‘Well, I know where to send the next bloke who annoys me, that’s for sure.’

‘Amen to that,’ I agreed.

Later on, when we were snowballed out, with virtually no feeling left in our extremities, Ed, Amber, Jake and I tramped back inside the café and turned the heating up to
its maximum. We peeled off our wet clothes and draped them over all the radiators in the flat, then Ed got to work whizzing up some spicy vegetable soup for lunch, while I made everyone huge mugs
of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and grated chocolate on top.

After lunch, I was at the sink, washing the soup pan, when I saw through the window that a silver Golf was crawling down the snow-covered road from the village towards the café. Paranoid
that it was going to be another reporter, I wiped the steam from the window so as to get a better look . . . just as the car lost control and made an inelegant skid all the way into the
café’s back yard. The Golf missed my Panda by inches, but crunched straight into the small wall of the brick enclosure that housed the bins, making sizable crumples in the bonnet.

‘Oh shit,’ I said. ‘Someone’s just crashed into – ’

Then I stopped, recognizing the car. And stared, recognizing the people in the front seats. ‘No way,’ I murmured. ‘I’m losing the plot now.’

‘What’s up? What was that bang?’ Amber asked, coming to see. Then she gasped. ‘Is that your
parents
?’

‘Looks like it,’ I said, still staring. What were
they
doing here?

‘I didn’t know they were coming to stay,’ Amber said, puzzled.

‘Neither did I,’ I replied. ‘God knows what they’re up to. I only spoke to my mum last night and she didn’t say anything about coming down. Why on earth would they
drive through snow blizzards from Oxford just days before Christmas, unless . . . ?’ Oh no. Now I was panicking. ‘Unless something terrible has happened,’ I said, with a gulp.

I shoved on my wellies again – ugh, they were still wet and cold at the bottom – and pulled on my coat, dimly remembering all those texts that had come through on my phone earlier:
Mum, Louise, Ruth. I’d been in such a rush to get out in the snow that I had forgotten to even look at them. Maybe the texts weren’t all bare-bum-related scoldings, as I’d
assumed.

I dashed out the back door and slithered down the steps into the yard, desperate to find out what was going on.

‘Hi!’ I cried anxiously. My dad was already out of the car, inspecting the newly corrugated appearance of his bonnet, while my mum was opening the passenger door, a squirming Monty
in her arms. ‘Is everything okay? I wasn’t expecting to see you.’

My mum beamed and waved. ‘Surprise!’ she called gaily.

Well, I was surprised all right. ‘Are you – what – I don’t understand,’ I confessed.

My dad gave me a hug. ‘Hello, love,’ he said. ‘Will you look at that. We got all the way here, no problem – last ten yards, crash. Bloody typical, that is. Never mind,
though. We’re here now.’