and music drifted out onto the quayside. Scarlett looked at the sign again, teetering on the brink: step into the light, or stay out here in the sleet? The board’s words were becoming fuzzy as her tears mingled with the wet snow, but she could still make them out.
Feeling lonely and lost?
A sob caught in her throat. She hadn’t felt lonely or lost until two hours before. Now she’d never felt more alone in her life … She caught sight of her reflection in the dark glass of the outer door. It was even worse than she had thought: she was soaked to the skin in her Christmas Day finest, her mascara running down her face in rivers. Did she dare cross the threshold? What would people think?
She read the last line again.
Everyone welcome.
Some instinct deep inside propelled her through the tavern’s entrance. It seemed bizarre to join someone else’s Christmas festivities when her own had gone so spectacularly wrong. Maybe she wanted to prove that Christmas could and should be a happy time when people set aside their differences and enjoyed each other’s company for a few hours. Or maybe she was simply afraid she’d otherwise freeze to death and be found huddled against a pile of lobster pots, covered in snowflakes, like the Little Match Girl.
The oak door creaked open onto a scene of warmth and light that was a world away from the frozen gloom of the deserted harbour. People in paper hats were letting off party poppers and blowing tooters in each other’s faces. Crimson and green cloths covered the tables, which were laid for a Christmas feast, while tinsel shimmered in the glow from the fire. The smooth voice of Michael Bublé was crooning from the speakers, ‘Tis the season to be jolly …’
A gust of wind snatched the door from her hand and banged it shut behind her. In an instant, the cold was cut out and a dozen faces turned in her direction.
It was too late to turn back now, she’d stepped over the threshold. They’d be bound to ask questions, seeing how distressed she was, but was she ready to answer them?
An elderly man in a fisherman’s cap decorated with tinsel hurried over to her. He was vaguely familiar … though her numb brain couldn’t put a name to the weather-beaten features.
‘Hello, my maid. Welcome to the Smuggler’s Tavern. Have you come for the Lunch for the Lonely? You’re very welcome, even if you’ve a strange choice of shoes for the weather.’
With a cackle of laughter, he pointed to her feet. Scarlett looked down too. Her new rabbit slippers, a gift from her sister, Ellie, were now a sodden mush of grey fluff, as if the unfortunate bunnies had met a sad end on a snowy road. Her Christmas tights had a spud-sized hole at the knee and the hem on her sequinned skirt was drooping.
‘You must be freezing.’ The old man’s tone softened. ‘Here, have my cardi.’
‘I’m …’ Scarlett was going to refuse, but realised that her teeth were chattering. ‘It l-looks new … Don’t you n-need it?’
Already taking it off, he pulled a face. ‘No. Can’t stand the bleddy thing. Unwanted present from my cousin. Does it every year. Same cardi, same colour, always the wrong size.’
He draped the cardigan, a sludge-coloured cable-knit with leather buttons, around Scarlett’s shoulders. The warmth was instant and for a second, she felt comforted. Then she realised that the tooters had stopped tooting and she’d replaced Michael Bublé as the festive entertainment.
A man about her own age approached, a wary expression on his face. He was very tall, very blond and wearing a green sparkly jumper and an elf hat with pointy ears. He reminded Scarlett of the Big Friendly Giant. He was joined by a young woman wearing a Santa apron and an elderly lady in a glittery top and reindeer ears, holding a walking stick bedecked with tinsel. They were all smiling at Scarlett, with looks of pity on their faces.
The older man tucked the cardi tight around Scarlett’s shoulders and pulled back a chair from one of the tables that was laid for Christmas dinner.
‘Have a seat, love,’ he said. ‘I’m Troy, by the way.’
‘Yes, and have some hot punch,’ the younger woman added. Scarlett noticed that her apron had ‘Sam’ printed on it. ‘It’s non-alcoholic,’ she told her gently.
That was it. Sam must think she was pissed.
‘I – I h-have only had a couple of glasses of f-fizz,’ Scarlett said. ‘And some eggnog, but it tasted like sick so I chucked it in the c-camellias.’
Sam smiled indulgently. ‘Would you like us to find you some dry shoes?’ she asked.
The elf man produced a fleece and draped it over her knees as if she were in a nursing home. ‘Another unwanted present,’ he said, flashing her an apologetic smile. He held out his hand. ‘I’m Jude.’
‘I’m …’ Scarlett’s lips were numb. She tried to lift her hand, but couldn’t.
Jude subsided like a sunken cake. ‘Possibly bad timing. Maybe we can properly introduce ourselves when you’ve warmed up a bit?’
Scarlett nodded. Despite Troy’s cardigan, she was still shivering and finding it hard to understand what people were saying to her. Her brain felt like the slush clinging to her slippers. She opened her mouth but it wouldn’t connect to her thoughts.
‘I’m Sam,’ the kind-eyed, younger woman said, then pointed to her apron and rolled her eyes. ‘But you must have guessed that.’ She crouched down in front of Scarlett. ‘You’re wet through … What’s happened to you?’
‘I – I c-can’t really s-say right now,’ Scarlett stuttered, at a loss how to explain the havoc that had been unleashed on her family that Christmas morning.
‘OK … Maybe you’ll feel better when you’ve had something to eat,’ Jude said gently. He pulled off his elf hat, as if out of respect, and revealed blond hair tied in a ponytail.
‘Yes, why don’t you stay for a hot meal, my love?’ The elderly woman smiled at Scarlett. ‘I’m Evie. You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to, my dear, but it would help us if you could let us know who you are?’
‘Who I am …’ A series of images flashed into Scarlett’s hazy brain.
Her mum running into the scullery and refusing to come out. Her father standing outside the door, demanding to know what it all meant. Her brother, Marcus, shouting at Scarlett and her sister, Ellie, for ruining Christmas Day and Ellie, normally so calm, screaming back that it wasn’t their fault. The house ringing with accusations, shouts, tears and denials … and Marcus’s two boys in the middle of it all, pale-faced and terrified.
Heidi, Scarlett’s sister-in-law, had threatened to take them out of ‘this toxic situation’ before screeching, ‘And I would do if I hadn’t had so much eggnog.’
Scarlett had rounded on her saying: ‘It’s bloody horrible, anyway.’
Then, to cap it all, the smoke alarm had gone off.
‘Jesus Christ, the oven’s on fire!’ Marcus had bellowed. ‘Get the boys out!’
He’d opened the oven door and clouds of smoke had billowed out from the cremated
