a foot from my ear, as we suddenly veer away to the right. But the side winds off the bay are so vicious, I can barely catch what he’s saying. ‘It’s a long way round, but easier for Nuttie and we get to see the lights.’
‘Great.’ I shrink further inside my coat, take in the dark grey swell, and a high tide pounding against the sea wall, sending foam splashing over the railings. When I look up at the unlit light strings thrashing horizontally, the flying sand stings my eyes. At this rate, by the time we reach the shop I’m going to look like a witch who’s been on a broomstick ride in a hailstorm. I’m so busy trying to untangle my hair, I only look up to notice the huge rogue wave arching through the air across the road at the last moment. As we speed towards it I’m howling. ‘Watch out ahead, Santa!’
‘Whoa, Nuttie!’
Even a guy with Santa’s powers can’t easily stop a cart pulled by a ton of pony doing a twenty mile an hour extended trot. As the arc of water showers downwards, we clatter to a halt yards too late. The breaking wave smacks us full in our faces, then sluices down over our shoulders and legs.
‘Holy mackerel! The hazards of sleigh riding!’ Santa’s letting out a choking squawk as he collects the reins again. ‘We’re lucky Nuttie didn’t bolt there.’
‘Jeez, bolting would be nothing.’ The elf is gazing down in horror at his soaking green knees. ‘My panty hose have gone entirely transparent. How about you, Holly?’
I’m scraping the icy drips out of my eyes, muttering as I squeeze streams of water out of my jacket. ‘I couldn’t be wetter if I’d been dipped in the ocean.’ If this is payback for lying to Santa, it’s come raining down on me scarily fast.
As the elf turns to Santa he’s close to pleading. ‘Let’s call in the Surf Shack to dry off?’
Now he’s talking. You have to admire an elf who knows his local cafés. So long as you don’t mind walls made out of random planks, it’s the best one on the beach. I’m already warming up, mentally shovelling a ton of marshmallows into the top of my bucket-sized award-winning hot chocolate. But we’ve both overlooked the fact that Santa’s on a mission.
‘This isn’t a jolly.’ Santa’s scolding is scornful and incensed. ‘We’re here to make deliveries. We need to get Holly to her wedding shop.’ There’s a jolt, and we’re off again, this time even faster.
I spend approximately two minutes consoling myself for not getting the chance to visit the ladies’ room so I could work on not looking so much like I’d crawled out of a shipwreck. Then the cliff side gives way to buildings again. As we whizz up the hill past significant and familiar landmarks, I’m getting involuntary flurries of excitement in my chest. Jaggers Bar, the Yellow Daisy Café, Hot Jack’s, and Iron Maiden’s Cleaners pass so fast they’re a blur. We’re yards away from Brides by the Sea, accelerating wildly as we make a turn into the mews, but by the time we get there, a four by four is already in the space we’re heading for.
‘Donna and Blitzen! What the hell happened to priority for the elderly? Can’t he see the beard?’ Santa’s cursing bounces off shop windows shining warm light into the grim afternoon.
The whole point about Santa driving the carriage like a loon is that it only works when other road users give way. If you meet an ‘eff-off’ driver head on in these narrow streets, you’re likely to end up in big trouble. Even dealing with any driver who doesn’t jump on the brakes a hundred yards away, you might end up with the carriage and the car wedged between the buildings. Which is exactly how we are now. Don’t ask me whose fault it is, because even though it happened right under my nose, I really can’t tell.
Enough to say, the vehicle we’re jammed up against is plastered from one oversized bumper to the other in an expensive paint job. I can see some local artist has had a great time painting beer bottles bobbing on exceptionally realistic air-brushed breakers. And the signage on the door is conveniently at knee level. Huntley and Handsome’s Roaring Waves Brewery – St Aidan in a Bottle. That pretty much says it all. Aren’t the current rash of microbreweries all run by overgrown boys with too much disposable income, staving off their midlife crises? I shiver as the car window slides down, and realise mournfully that we could be stuck here for ages arguing when I’m freezing my butt off.
But as I stare past the elf to the car driver, heat sears through me. It’s the kind of hot flash under the collar I haven’t felt since I used to blush on the school bus every morning as a teenager. My face bursting into flames at the slightest provocation was why sixth-form bad boy, Rory Sanderson, singled thirteen-year-old me out for my own personal conversation as he made his way down the gangway to his seat at the back. Every single morning. By the time he left for uni, one tweak of his eyebrow from a hundred yards was enough to turn me scarlet. I just wasn’t prepared to meet him today. Especially with me jammed between Santa and an elf, doing an impression of the old woman who crawled out of the sea.
I shudder inwardly as I stare into the car. The rock-star long hair might have been trimmed back, but the broad grin I’m staring straight into is unmistakable. And it hasn’t lost an ounce of the kind of insanely inflated self-belief that I suspect came from having his own personal tractor from the age of ten. There are crinkles around the kind of come-to-bed eyes that were only one of the reasons for his legendary status. Rumour had it he also burned down the school music room due to a fault on his guitar amp. What’s more, he was the only pupil with the cheek to call Mrs Wilson, the deputy head, ‘darling’, and the charm to live to brag about it. Although thinking back, I reckon it was him driving a car off an actual cliff top that fast forwarded him to the top of every mother’s banned boyfriend list.
‘Holly-berry-red-cheeks? What the hell are you doing here, dripping all over Santa’s sleigh? Did you take up swimming? I thought you always hated water?’
If it’s divine payback for me lying earlier that’s hurled him into my path here, let’s be clear. I’d rather have a hundred rogue waves crashing down on my head than come face to face with the awful Mr Sanderson again. Since I last heard of him light years ago, storming the world of corporate law in Bristol, I’ve stupidly let him drop off my ‘worry about and avoid at all costs’ radar. And this is him all over. Straight in there, claiming to remember a person’s intimate details. Familiar as if I only saw him yesterday.
For a second I’m wishing he’d caught me at some do I’d made a big effort for. That I’d had a shit-hot professional blow dry, got my long lasting lippy on, squeezed into some killer dress I probably don’t even own. At least then I’d be coming from a position of strength. The thing is, right now my hair is in rats’ tails, I have half the beach in my fake fur, but I’m so bright red from the wind and the cold, no blush on earth is going to make it any worse. That particular scenario might never happen ever again. This is my one chance to lay the ghosts and wipe the floor with him. It’s one of those iconic now-or-never moments. I shove my hands deep into my pockets, drag my coat closer around me and launch.
‘Actually, you know what I hate more than water?’ I’ve barely been here half an hour and I’m already talking in questions. ‘It is Rory, isn’t it?’
‘It was last time I looked.’ He taps his fingers on the steering wheel and nods. ‘And? I’m all ears here. And I’m sure Santa and his elf can’t wait to hear either.’
That back chat is only what I know to expect. If there’s a confused frown overlaying that laid- back smile of his, it’s probably because I’m coming on so kick-ass here. Believe me, I’m actually shocking myself too. You wouldn’t believe how liberating it is, when for one time only you don’t have to worry about blushing.
‘Well
