Stellan nods, and I wonder if he looks a little wounded.
‘I mean, obviously, it was nice spending time with you,’ I say quickly. ‘It was good to catch up after all these years, wasn’t it, with an old friend?’
The moment of silence that follows is so excruciating I almost ask for another of those disgustingsalmiakkisweets just to break the tension. I feel a bit churlish and rude now I’ve said all that out loud. I take a drink of chocolate and think about saying something about how I’ll get out of his hair now, leave him to finish his work, when finally Stellan speaks.
‘Whyareyou here, Sylvie?’ He meets my disconcerted eyes for a second then looks down again.
‘Well, I’m on holiday, aren’t I?’
‘Alone?’
‘I’m not alone, I’m with Nari.’
‘I meant, with no family, or…’
‘Oh! Right. No, I don’t have anyone like that. No partner or… anything.’
Now he’s looking right at me. If I don’t ask now, I never will. Here goes nothing. ‘And what about you? Does your… partner live here too? On the resort, I mean?’
He shrugs his broad shoulders slowly. ‘No partner. Just me. It’s kind of hard to meet someone out here – someone who’s sticking around after the end of the season, that is.’
‘Right,’ I nod. Thank God my cheeks are blotchy red from the cold because I’m pretty sure I can feel the heat rising up my neck and spreading across my face, which is ridiculous, and I tell myself off.
‘I, um…’ Stellan shifts uncomfortably on the bale. ‘I heard you were getting married. I assumed you were… still married?’
‘How would you know I was getting married?’He’s Googled me!The sheepish grin on his face tells me I’m right. We both laugh at our ridiculous awkwardness.
‘I looked you up online, years ago,’ he says quietly, his head down, still smiling.
This is crazy, I think. ‘Look, Stellan, I was dumped, OK? Just before the wedding and after a decade long engagement, as it happens. So, there. No husband. Just me and Nari getting away from the humiliation of a singleton’s Christmas in England. Now you know. But don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t. Not any more, I don’t.’
As I’m saying this I realise this is the first time this has occurred to me. I’ve thrown myself a six month long pity party and revelled in the misery, and here I am at minus twenty degrees, miles inside the Arctic Circle, surrounded by gorgeous mutts, feeling… all right actually, and genuinely, definitely not sorry for myself!Hah!
‘Asshole,’ says Stellan.
‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘He’s an asshole.’
‘Cole? Certifiably, yes.’
‘What happened?’
I gulp. I remember Stellan being straightforward. He doesn’t dress up his questions, and likes to get to the point, butwow, it’s disarming when you’re used to English prevarication.
Sod it, I may as well tell him the whole story. In my new frame of mind it might do me good to say it aloud, once and for all, to someone I barely know any more, and who I’ll never see again after this afternoon.
I prepare myself by taking a long drink from my steaming mug, thinking what a shame it is that we’re unlikely to meet again, and how I know we haven’t exactly hit it off, but it would be nice to keep in touch, when Stellan interrupts my thoughts.
‘You don’t have to tell me if it hurts too much.’
‘I’ll tell you. It’s not Cole leaving that hurts, not any more. It’s what happened afterwards. I don’t think I’ll ever recover.’
‘Jesus!All right, I’m listening.’
It started the day Cole disappeared. I was in the most beautiful wedding shop you’ve ever seen, in Chester. I was standing in front of the mirror in my dress, all seed pearls and satin, and the seamstress was crouching at my feet, cutting the hem freehand – and me and Mum and Nari were just watching her shears working, amazed at how chilled she seemed despite having only one chance to cut it correctly, and I was trying so hard to stand still, when my mobile rang. Nari answered then passed it to me.
It was Cole. He was at the airport. He’d changed his mind. The wedding was off.
