Christmas Finds Honeycombe Bay
Chapter One
If the next tune was another sodding Christmas song, Eloise Garrett was going to grab the nearest pair of scissors and sever the damn radio’s electric cable.
As far as she could tell, there wouldn’t be any downside: She’d have instant silence and an instant perm, which would save her from having to listen to the hairdresser’s constant chatter about blimmin’ Christmas plans while she was having her hair done.
Everyone else’s plans, that is, not her own, because Eloise didn’t have any. Not this year.
When Eloise wasn’t working, she usually hung out with her friend Hannah over the Christmas period.
As two singletons, they celebrated (although for Eloise “celebrated” would be better described as “tolerated”) Christmas together, but this year Hannah was otherwise engaged.
Not literally, because Lee hadn’t proposed, but Hannah was in love, and although Eloise had been invited to join her and her partner for the festive season, she wasn’t keen on being a third wheel.
Anyway, as a newly loved-up couple, they needed their privacy.
“What about you, Mrs. Pendleton?” Becky, the owner of Becky’s Barnet, asked the woman in the seat on Eloise’s right. “Will you be going to your daughter’s for Christmas?”
Mrs. Pendleton, her head covered in silver foil like some kind of alien experiment, beamed widely, as yet more foil in the form of garish retro Christmas decorations à la 1970 dangled from the ceiling above.
Reaching for the complimentary mince pie in front of her, she said, “I wasn’t going to, but she needs me even more now she’s expecting again.
That husband of hers is useless. Doesn’t have a clue.
Last year, he offered to wash up after lunch but made such a poor job of it, I had to do it all over again.
You should have seen the state of the roasting pan!
” She shook her head, the foil glinting in the fluorescent overhead lights, and tutted to show her displeasure as she bit into the pastry.
However, the happy gleam in her eye and the satisfaction in her voice told a different story.
Mrs. Pendleton was thrilled her washing-up services had been needed.
“They should get a dishwasher,” Becky said, “then you wouldn’t have to do it.”
A flare of panic lit up the other woman’s face, and she almost spat out her mouthful of mince pie as she spluttered, “Oh, I don’t mind helping. After all, it is Christmas.”
“And don’t we know it,” Eloise grumbled, as a singer on the radio warbled about rocking around the Christmas tree and everybody being jolly. She gritted her teeth and shoved her hands underneath her trouser-clad thighs to keep them away from the scissors.
“It’s all about the grandkids, isn’t it?” Mrs. Pendleton carried on. “Bless ’em, they get so excited.”
Eloise was well aware of that. Next door had three children under ten, and last year they’d got their parents out of bed at four o’clock on Christmas morning.
She knew this because the shrieks of excitement through the adjoining wall had woken her up.
And don’t get her started on the party her neighbours on the other side had thrown in the evening.
They must have had a whole football stadium of relatives, who’d kept up the racket until well after midnight.
Eloise had been exhausted, and she was dreading it happening again this year.
All she wanted was a bit of peace and quiet. Was that too much to ask?
“Right, Miss Garrett,” Becky said. “Let’s get you shampooed.” She led her to a basin, where a college student took over.
Leaning back, with a towel draped over her chest, and her neck at an awkward and decidedly uncomfortable angle, Eloise closed her eyes, wishing she didn’t have to look at the gaudy plastic gold star tacked to the ceiling, which was directly in her line of sight.
It was either that or look up the junior’s pert little upturned nose.
“Got anything nice planned for Christmas?” the youngster asked, wetting Eloise’s hair with warm water. “Any parties?”
“No.” She’d never been one for Christmas parties, although she used to quite enjoy the annual bash at the grand hotel that Steerhope Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
used to put on. And so she should, since she was the one who organised it.
Mr. Steerhope used to leave that kind of thing to her.
As his PA, she was used to him leaving a lot of everything to her, and she’d been more than happy he did. She’d loved her job…
“Bought all your presents?” the girl persisted.
Eloise made a face. She hadn’t bought a single gift yet, although she intended to buy Hannah and her new man something nice, and get the postman a tin of the shortbread biscuits he liked.
She also had a couple of former colleagues with whom she exchanged the obligatory boxes of chocolates or bottles of wine, but apart from that, she had no one to buy presents for.
A pang struck her in the chest, and she hastily suppressed it. There wasn’t any point in feeling sorry for herself, or in regrets. It wouldn’t do anyone any good, least of all her.
The girl chirped away, chattering about how much she was looking forward to Christmas, while Eloise valiantly attempted to ignore both her and Michael Bublé.
Yes, Michael, she grumbled silently, it’s been looking a lot like Christmas since the end of October.
No sooner were the fake cobwebs and plastic pumpkins taken down than people were putting up enough fairy lights to land a small plane and jabbing Santa Stop Here signs in their front gardens.
Finally, thankfully, Eloise’s hair was washed and towel-dried, and she was returned to Becky’s workstation, where Becky singsonged brightly, “What are we having done today?”
Eloise really disliked being called “we.” It wasn’t as though Becky would be having her hair styled the same way, was it?
Although maybe Becky should consider toning it down a bit.
The hairdresser’s long locks were coloured bright red and swept into a messy updo, topped off by a sparkly headband with flashing Christmas trees bobbing around on wire springs.
“I was thinking of having stripes shaved into one side of my hair, and the other side dyed green. No, not green—purple,” Eloise told her, deadpan.
Becky froze, her fingers buried in Eloise’s short, platinum hair, and stared at her in the mirror. Then she relaxed and let out a giggle. “Oh, Miss Garrett, you are a one. Same as usual, is it?”
“Actually, no, I don’t want the same as usual.” Her usual was a three-monthly perm to give her fine hair some much-needed body, interspersed with a trim at the six-week mark to stop it becoming too flyaway and to keep its shape.
Another pause, as Becky’s eyes widened. “You’re not serious about the stripes, are you? What would you do with the other side? And purple can be a bit harsh. How about a nice shade of pale lavender? That will work well with your skin tone.”
Lavender? Good grief! That shrieked of old lady. “No, I’m not serious,” Eloise told her. But she did want something different. She just wasn’t sure what.
“Age shouldn’t be a barrier,” a young woman on Eloise’s left said. “If you want to have stripes put in or shave one side, go for it. If you can’t have the hairstyle you want or wear the clothes you want at your age, I mean, what’s the point? I’m gonna wear what the hell I like.”
The woman was around twenty-five, and despite the temperature outside being barely above freezing, she sported bare legs, ankle boots, a short knitted skirt, and what amounted to little more than a bra covering her top half.
Eloise surmised that with a nose piercing, an eyebrow piercing, and a rather fetching tattoo just below her collarbone, she already wore what the hell she liked.
“At my age?” Eloise echoed stonily, raising an eyebrow. Both, actually, because she’d never mastered the art of raising just the one.
“Yeah, you know, old, like.”
Eloise was flabbergasted. Sixty wasn’t old. Though try telling that to the umpteen companies she’d sent job applications to over the past three months. Most hadn’t responded, and the ones that had had sent a “thanks, but no, thanks” reply which she strongly believed was due to her age.
“So, if you don’t want a perm,” Becky huffed impatiently, “what do you want?”
“I want to forget about Christmas,” Eloise replied without thinking, as Mariah Carey announced that all she wanted for Christmas was you.
“Don’t you like Christmas?”
“Not particularly.” She’d never been keen, finding the hype and unrealistic expectations too much; but she’d grown to tolerate it, and for the most part she’d been able to ignore it, especially since Steerhope Ltd.
had always conducted a stocktake in early January which she’d been heavily involved in, and the preparation and planning had been extensive.
But this year everything was different, and without work to occupy her, Christmas seemed to have taken a front seat.
She had liked it once upon a time though, many years ago, but then her mum died and—
“Ooh, I love Christmas!” Mrs. Pendleton cried, breaking into Eloise’s thoughts before her memories could take hold. “The decorations, the buildup, the excitement…It’s so festive.”
That was the problem: It was too festive.
It would be easier to bear if those festivities were confined to a week, or even two; maybe the whole of December at a push.
But that wasn’t enough, was it? By the time Christmas actually arrived, people were heartily sick of it.
And by “people,” Eloise was referring to herself.
From the second she’d left Steerhope in September, Christmas had been unavoidable and growing in momentum.
But surely she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t keen on it?
There must be others like her, who thought it was just a gargantuan waste of money, perpetuated and encouraged by retailers who simply wanted to make a big, fat profit.
As far as she was concerned, Christmas was overpriced, overhyped, and overrated.
“If you don’t like Christmas, you could always go away somewhere nice,” the girl on her left suggested.
“It mightn’t be as Christmassy in places like…
I dunno…Bali or Dubai. And even if there were decorations and the like, you wouldn’t notice them on the beach.
Imagine sipping cocktails on a sun lounger on Christmas Day! ”
Eloise imagined—and quite liked the idea. Unfortunately, going somewhere hot and sunny to escape Christmas involved getting on a plane, and she was terrified of flying, so that was out of the question.
“How about a cruise?” Becky asked. “You could visit a different country every day, have dinner at the captain’s table, and I’ve heard that the evening entertainment is out of this world. Like floating cities, those cruise ships are,” she enthused, warming to her theme.
Mrs. Pendleton chipped in, “My neighbour went on a cruise at Christmas. Very festive, she said it was. They made a real effort, what with the turkey and tinsel, and so on.”
Eloise had never been on a cruise, but she didn’t fancy that, either, not if it involved forced Christmas cheer, and certainly not on her own.
Anyway, she didn’t care for boats. Bobbing about on the ocean had never appealed.
The nearest she got to the sea was sitting on Bournemouth’s promenade with a tray of chips in one hand, an ice cream in the other, and a floppy hat on her head in case the great British sun decided to break with tradition and come out from behind the clouds.
Becky was tugging and pulling at her hair, clearly wishing Eloise would make up her mind what she wanted to have done.
“Do the usual,” she sighed, unable to think of any other style.
As she sat there, the tang of perming lotion making her nose sting and her eyes water, her thoughts returned to the girl’s suggestion that she should get away for Christmas. But with sunny climes out of the question, where could she go?
The seaside, maybe? She imagined there wouldn’t be many places less festive than an off-season British seaside resort, especially if it was a small one, like…
Her eyes lit up.
Honeycombe Bay!
Small, quiet, and picturesque, the village had been perfect for a get-away-from-it-all summer holiday.
She remembered the horseshoe-shaped cove with its crescent of wide golden sand flanked by rock pools, the brightly coloured beach huts, and the tiny harbour with the bobbing boats, protected from the open sea by a sturdy wall.
A white lighthouse stood sentry on a headland honeycombed with caves (hence the name), which was accessed by a bracing walk across the cliffs.
Beyond it lay sand dunes covered in scrubby grass, and out to sea, reachable only by boat except when there was an extremely low tide, was the little island of Otter’s Rock.
Eloise had loved the village’s narrow cobbled streets, the little terraced cottages and quirky shops, and the laid-back, genteel air of a bygone era.
No fairground rides and no penny arcades.
Just a wide promenade, a little bandstand, a pavilion, and a couple of shops selling tea towels with pictures of bees printed on them.
She’d spent a week there once, a few years ago, and had thought how restful it was. It should be even more restful now without the summer tourists. In fact, it would be almost dead.
Perfect! She’d take some novels, her book of crossword puzzles, and her Wellington boots, and while other people were fending off carollers or trying to find something on the TV that didn’t involve a chubby man dressed in a red suit, she would be tucked away in a quiet nook with a cup of tea, her book, and a view of the sea.
Not a Christmas tree in sight. And rather than battling the crowds just to buy a loaf of bread and a packet of digestives, she would be enjoying a bracing walk along the seafront instead.
All she hoped was she’d find a nice little bed-and-breakfast that hadn’t closed its doors for the winter.
She’d start by giving the place where she’d stayed the last time a call.
Feeling more buoyant than she’d done since the first of the annual perfume adverts had blared out of her TV, Eloise happily refused the mince pie she was offered while her perm cooked, but accepted the cup of tea with alacrity. All this thinking had made her thirsty.
Glancing in the mirror, she was surprised to see a smile playing about her mouth.
And for the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful she might be able to escape the madness that Christmas had become.