Chapter 25
Florrie waited on the Mill House drive, stamping her feet against the cold.
The Gifford sisters, being the last to leave the repair shop, had helped bundle her into her jacket and boots and bobble hat.
They’d even managed to get some mittens over her cast and splint so her fingertips didn’t freeze off.
She was ready for her friendly evening out with Hamish.
A chance to say goodbye to Cairn Dhu. An hour, tops, ought to do it, just long enough to see the lights and to take her mind off some new messages from her dad asking why she hadn’t submitted her final report to the sports and tourism contracts guy, Mr Banks, at the Regional Authority yet.
He’d given her the go-ahead, provided she didn’t reinstate the parts he’d deleted about Hamish’s future.
According to Maxim, their client was getting ‘antsy.’
But the truth was, his cutting of those passages had irked her. It exposed some of the things about his way of working that didn’t sit well with her. People mattered. Feelings mattered.
She’d have to look again at her report before she decided what to do.
She hadn’t booked her flight yet either.
Those were both jobs for the morning, she told herself.
Her dad and the Regional Authority would just have to be patient.
Hopefully by morning she’d have seen some new kind of sign telling her what to do, and with any luck, this time it would have nothing to do with broken bones or shattered glass.
She heard the music before she spotted the dancing lights approaching via the gap in the wall that enclosed the McIntyres’ property. Then the shrill peep of a horn came to her on the icy breeze. Was it Father Christmas approaching on his sleigh?
Through the gap rolled what looked like a golf cart, bedecked with fairy lights, and…
no, it wasn’t a flying sleigh, but, according to the ‘Cairn Dhu Dairy’ sign on the side, it was a milk float, and it was currently turning in a wide circle in the repair shed’s gravel drive, its electric engine purring and with Elton John blaring through a crackly speaker bidding her to step into Christmas.
She almost didn’t recognise him out of his doorman tux, but driving the milk van was Big Kenneth, resplendent in full Santa suit.
‘In you get,’ he told her. ‘I’m taking you to Hamish.’
Since there didn’t seem to be any harm in riding in a vehicle that was restricted to twenty miles per hour (again according to a sign on the side), she clambered into the open cab draped all over with tinsel and let herself be carried off in the direction of town.
‘I didn’t know Hamish had a chauffeur,’ she joked.
‘Anything that man asks,’ Kenneth said with the air of a man driving a long limousine and not a forty-eight-volt milk float.
They swept slowly past families walking in the same direction towards the high street, all wrapped in their winter woollens and wet weather gear.
Highlanders were a tough breed, Florrie reckoned, given how sprightly everyone seemed, even in this biting cold.
Even the babies in slings and hiking carriers, squinting against the sleety wind, were gummily smiling.
The police had kept one side of the main road open with gaps in their cordon for crossing to the other side safely, and Florrie made her stately progress past all the shops and businesses, their shutters up and lights on to show off their window decorations.
The charity shop and ‘Kilt It’ formalwear shop had their doors open, as did the Post Office slash convenience store, and here and there were vendors in the street selling hotdogs and toffee apples and spiced cider.
There was a giant inflatable snow globe with a white flurry blowing around inside and parents paying a fiver a go for their kids to play in the flakes.
The milk float’s music (now a rendition of Brenda Lee’s ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’) was drowned out by the music coming over the PA, traditional Christmas carols, as well as the Ho-Ho-Ho of a rival Santa in his grotto (on the portico steps of the town’s bank) where he rang his bell and an elf marshalled families into a queue to meet him.
Kenneth raised a hand to wave at every second person they passed and they’d tip their hat or say, ‘A’right, big man,’ which she guessed had to be a friendly way of addressing people round here.
The lights festooning the high street in great parallel chains and the painted figures fastened high on the lampposts were still unlit, but from the buzz on the street and the milling of the crowd down by the library where it was all going to take place, Florrie knew the big moment was imminent.
She was astonished at the number of people she recognised after her short stay in the town.
She’d even spotted Anthony, the kid from the reception desk at the Cairn Dhu Hotel, queuing up outside the chip shop for their switch-on deep-fried haggis supper special.
She smiled to think of how much had happened to her since she was turned away from that check-in desk, most of it chaotic, some of it – her body recalled Hamish’s kiss with a shiver – utterly exquisite.
‘You ever been to Blackpool?’ Kenneth asked, as he left the main road and turned the vehicle around in the car park behind the library.
She’d never even heard of Blackpool.
‘The Golden Mile? It’s where Cairn Dhu got its lights from. They call it the Las Vegas of the North? Seriously? You’ve never heard of it?’
Florrie shook her head again. ‘Nope.’
‘Well, Cairn Dhu is the Las Vegas of the North of the North. You’re in for a treat tonight.’
‘Got it!’ she said, hoping she appeared impressed. She’d been to Las Vegas years ago with her dad and not once had Cairn Dhu brought back memories of the place, but Kenneth seemed pleased with his observation and at least he’d stopped glowering at her like she was his beloved boss’s sworn enemy.
‘Here he is,’ Kenneth said, pulling up at the bus stop where a sign boasted ‘Festive Float Rides, ￡5 charity donation’.
Florrie was just wondering how she’d extract her pound coins from her wallet with these mittens on when they pulled to a stop and Hamish stepped forward at the head of the queue to pass Kenneth a bank note.
‘Hi,’ he said with a smile. ‘Bet you didn’t think you’d get to ride in Kenneth’s milk float while you were here, eh?’
Having thanked her driver, she stepped onto the pavement, smiling back just as brightly. ‘Another Cairn Dhu attraction ticked off my list.’
Hamish wouldn’t hear of her paying him back in coins, instead leading her to where the mulled cider stall spiced the air with boozy fumes. ‘Do you want a drink?’ he said.
‘I dunno, I’m still taking my pain meds.’
‘Just the apple juice version then.’ He bought two steamy mugs from the woman at the stall and quickly realised he’d have to hold them both when Florrie presented him with her mittened hands.
‘The Gifford sisters did it.’
‘That’s adorable,’ he blurted, fondness in his eyes. He immediately checked himself. ‘Sorry, obviously not adorable, at all…’ and he let the words turn into a cough. ‘Very practical.’
He dropped a straw into her cup and let her have a sip which turned into a long appreciative drink.
‘Tastes like Christmas,’ she told him as the drink warmed her from the inside.
‘Did you eat yet?’
‘Nope.’
‘Shall we see what kind of mess we can get into with a currywurst hotdog?’
She agreed that sounded an excellent idea and they merged with the throng.
He bought them the foot-long hotdog to share and they stood in the lights from the charity shop window while they ate it, both of them ending up with cheeks smeared with spicy ketchup and fried onions.
It was deliciously greasy and surprisingly hot.
He did his best to wipe her mouth with the paper napkin, and she watched him suck his fingertips one at a time before binning the paper tray.
‘How long until the lights come on?’ she asked as they turned to browse at the shop window.
‘’Bout five minutes?’
‘Shall we go into the thrift store?’ she asked, and he joked with her not to call it that inside.
Florrie never really got the chance to rummage in shops like this and her cortisol spiked a little now as she scanned the shelves of mismatched glasses and small second-hand homewares.
‘In the market for bric-a-brac, are we?’ Hamish said, holding close to his face a particularly gruesome baby doll in a lacy bonnet.
She covered a laugh by rolling the word on her tongue. ‘We don’t have bric-a-brac where I’m from.’
‘But you love a wee knickknack?’ This time he was modelling a kid’s tartan shoulder bag with a very tatty Scottie dog plush peeping out of the opening. ‘In the market for some accessories?’
She managed to lift the bag from his shoulder and hung it back on the rack.
‘If you must know, I put my name down for the Secret Santa at the repair shop Christmas party.’ She moved down the shelves of books and CDs and he followed.
‘But you won’t be here. Will you? For their party? Roz said it was on Wednesday the ninth.’ She could tell he was fighting to wash the hope from his voice.
‘No, but I can leave a thrifted gift under the tree, as a thank you.’
‘Right.’
Reflected in the mirror, around which a jumble of jewellery hung, she caught sight of him scrunching his eyes and baring his teeth, just for a moment, as though inwardly berating himself for getting his hopes up that she’d be sticking around.
‘This sort of thing might be nice, if, say, I was picked as Roz’s Secret Santa, somehow,’ she said, nudging a long strand of multi-coloured glass beads on a coppery chain.
‘She’d definitely like those. They’ve got that earth mother vibe.’
‘Hey! I love Roz.’
‘It wasn’t a criticism,’ he said with a fresh smile, lifting the beaded strands free. ‘Ttshhh!’ He inhaled through gritted teeth.
‘What is it?’
‘Too rich for my blood.’ He showed her the paper price tag.
‘Fifty pence? I’ll take it. What else do they have?’