Chapter 29 #2
‘Don’t think like that,’ Senga stopped her.
‘I said it’s fine,’ Rhona snapped. ‘Let’s leave this particular memory in the past.’
‘Ah.’ McIntyre and Cary were suddenly looking between each other and then at Rhona. ‘Maybe now’s not a good time to give you your Secret Santa present, then?’ McIntyre said.
‘You might as well bring it out,’ Roz told her husband, and slowly, unsure, McIntyre went to the spot at the back of the shed where he and Cary had spent most of the night lost in sawing and sanding, planing and painting.
Everyone knew what was coming. Even Rhona could put two and two together and come up with a beautifully restored toboggan.
She winced at the sight of the great big gift-wrapped shape, however, when it was placed at her feet.
She had found the thing, stolen it, hidden it again, and then lost it.
She knew very well what it looked like, and that it could do her no harm, and yet, as she carefully removed the sticky tape and the wrappings gaped open to reveal the gleaming red woodwork, fresh ropes and runners, all reinforced and ready to race, she couldn’t help the tears welling or the twinge at her heart.
‘It looks exactly like it did the very first day I saw it, the only day I ever saw it… until I found it again on Sunday, that is.’ She leaned forward in her chair and ran her hands over its smooth, wide contours, thinking of the hands that first crafted it.
‘It is a beautiful thing,’ she said, and then she surprised everyone by lowering herself onto the spot behind the reins. ‘Well, what do you all think?’
Everyone was so relieved to see Rhona smiling through her tears that they broke into applause, and then laughter as Senga joined her sister, perching precariously on the back, and they had their photo taken sipping their champagne in their party hats as though the whole evening hadn’t just about crashed off course.
‘Thank you,’ Rhona, still seated with her sister on the toboggan, said to the repairers, ‘and you too, Senga. I know your heart’s always in the right place.’
Senga held her glass around Rhona’s side so they could clink them together, and since it felt very much like the right moment for it, Roz announced it must be time to give out the other Secret Santa gifts.
Hamish watched as the presents were passed around and (biodegradable) sticky tape was carefully unpeeled and ribbons and wrappings saved and folded for another use, because at the repair shop no perfectly good paper and bows were ever used only once.
He’d wanted to speak with Florrie all night, tried to invent excuses to get out of the corners the volunteers kept dragging him into for conversations.
He’d watched her doing a twirl in her dress for the McIntyres while having it explained to her that in Scotland ‘doing a twirl’ so that older generations could say appreciative things about your new party outfit was as much a part of Christmas as kilted sausages and roasties were, and he’d smiled when he heard her asking what kilted sausages might be, but still he hadn’t been able to get away from the chatter about the ski centre and everyone’s uncles’ and mothers’ associations with the place.
There were so many old stories and second-hand memories, too many to absorb.
Frankly, tonight, none of it seemed to matter very much, not when Florrie was sipping champagne and sitting, utterly unaware of his eyes upon her beneath that enormous ball of wild mistletoe suspended from the rafters.
He hadn’t known until now that his heart was capable of hammering a whole military tattoo in his chest, but he was discovering so many new things about himself these days, so why not this too?
He’d grinned as Roz was presented with her thrifted gift basket and immediately guessed who her Secret Santa was, probably because Florrie’s cheeks had burned bright red and betrayed her.
He’d watched Roz hugging her the same way she’d hug her own daughter and wondered if Florrie could even guess how much she’d been wanted and welcomed here this winter.
She had been cherished, and not for anything she could bring or give to the town, but simply because she’d arrived in need of cherishing.
The presents kept passing between hands, until it was McIntyre’s turn to open something. Everyone else seemed already to know what it was going to be before he turned the slate plaque and held it to his chest to receive the party’s cheers and the camera flashes.
‘Presented to Charlie McIntyre of Cairn Dhu Repair Shop and Café to mark the occasion of 10,000 repairs completed.’ He’d barely read the words aloud before he’d stifled a big sob and Roz had kissed the sandy hair at his temple, telling him, ‘You did that, and we’re so proud of you.’
A few people produced hankies at this point and dabbed at their eyes, and McIntyre recovered himself enough to stand amongst his circle of friends in the little world he’d made from scratch.
‘Friends,’ he began, and this got a few whoops and hand claps. ‘How quickly the repair numbers rack up. Ten thousand, Sachin? Is that really right?’
Sachin held up his carefully kept repair ledger. ‘Every job logged by yours truly,’ he told him with watery eyes.