‘So you’re a teacher, just like you always wanted to be,’ he says eventually, and it’s more a statement of fact than a question.
‘Yep, history teacher. And the moral there is, be careful what you wish for.’ I swipe away my laugh, and tell him that, seriously, it’s a great job, most of the time, and I love it. He listens carefully as I tell him about the kids and the school, but I struggle to keep my thread because he’s leaning an elbow on the bar and directing his full attention at me, and I notice there’s icing sugar on his bottom lip and it’s just so darn distracting. I try to ask a sensible question.
‘So what are your plans for this place, then? Will you stay at the resort forever?’
Stellan takes his time answering. ‘I always planned to get it into shape, so then I’d be more free to come and go, see the world a little, but that hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been working here ever since…’
His voice trails off and I bite my lip to stop myself blurting out, ‘Since you ran off and left me in Manchester?’
‘My dad had a stroke a few months after I returned from England. I was just finishing my degree and I ended up far more involved in the business than I’d ever been. A year later I was signing papers, taking over the resort, and my parents were relocating to the south. It was very hurried, looking back.’
‘And you’ve run the place alone ever since?’
‘Yeah, with Niilo’s help for the last few years. But now that the new chalets are finally built and we have plenty of visitors all year round, I’ve been thinking I could take some time for myself. Do you ever feel like that? As though you’re finally free of the weight of parental expectation you’ve been carrying?’
I don’t want to tell him that Mum and Dad never really put any pressure on me, they just let me find my own way in life; that would feel like rubbing it in. It occurs to me that Stellan’s path was already laid out for him as a kid, before he had any choice in the matter. He had to stay at his parents’ resort. It was expected of him.
‘I guess I’ve got to a stage in my career where I can worry less about the future,’ I say. ‘I can’t see myself leaving teaching anytime soon, and I’m glad all that studying is over and I don’t have to go on placements at random schools or scrabble for classroom experience any more. I can just build on the knowledge I have now and enjoy my work.’
Stellan nods and takes a long drink. I can see we’ve had very different experiences of finding our place in the world. I feel a guilty twinge. Perhaps I was wrong to be so uncharitable about the long silence between us. He’s had a hard time of it too.
As I sip my champagne I find my mind flitting to Clementine, Cole’s sister, always desperate to please a mother who was, in fact, impossible to please. No matter how much Clementine strived to be the best she could be, Patricia always moved the goalposts just out of reach again, and all to protect Cole from feeling his sister’s success, and by extension, his own lesser achievements.
And, yes, Cole was a pilot, a brilliant achievement in anyone’s book, and this would be exceptional in most families, but Clementine just had to spoil things by rising to become thecrème de la crèmeof the medical world, like her late father had been, so Patricia, consciously or not, was compelled to bring her daughter down a peg or two at every opportunity available to her. Meanwhile, pampered, over-confident Cole, perhaps unknowingly, was an accomplice to his mother’s unkindest impulses, gaining in maternal adoration what Clementine lost by steady degrees of humiliation and criticism over the years. It was likely that Clementine would never understand that she would never have their approval because they were jealous of her success, plain and simple. Acknowledging that would be akin to them acknowledging Cole’s failure to become the medical man his father, who Cole had barely known at the time of his early death, had intended his little boy to be.
I feel as though I’ve made a breakthrough here. A blinding flash of clarity has illuminated the sad facts I’d only partly perceived before. Family animosity was the reason for Cole’s sudden proposal at his own sister’s wedding. Proposals are supposed to be inspired by love, not prompted by filial acrimony. I sigh and take another drink. How come I needed to travel a thousand miles to see the Jordan family for what they were, and what a lucky escape I had getting dumped by them?
I’m suddenly aware of Stellan still looking at me. He’s turning the stem of his glass between his fingertips distractedly. It occurs to me that if Stellan’s family relations were even a tenth as complicated and conflicted as poor Clementine’s then he’s had a devilishly hard time of it over the years – even though he’s been striving to make a success of the business, his father’s pride and joy, and maybe also his greatest burden.
The pressure Stellan was under all those years ago when we first met must have been intense, and yet I had absolutely no idea. No wonder he was so serious, so mature. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Meanwhile I was just a kid with an adoring family dreaming my way through uni.
I find myself pulling my mittens off and reaching my hand over the bar to find his. I watch as he responds to my touch and his fingers curl around my own in a warm clasp, the tips coming to rest against my palm. I find my breathing becoming hard to control, so to conceal it I ask another question.
‘Would you ever sell the resort?’
‘Never. Even though it’s mine now, it’s not really mine to sell. But I’d never expect a kid of mine to stay here and run the place. That’s my dream; to leave this place so established and well run my kids can do what they want with their lives.’
I’m pretty sure my eyes pop out on stalks at this. I style it out. ‘You’ve got kids?’
‘No, but I’d like to, one day. Do you want to have children?’
The strangest sensation hits me and I feel as though I’m about to cry and I can’t explain it. Why has my chest gone all tight? I take a gulp of air and my feelings seem to do the talking for me. He squeezes my hand and I find I’m speaking through the emotions that are crowding out my inhibitions.
‘I suppose I do want a baby.’ Oh no! Why are you saying this out loud? ‘A family was all part of the plan with Cole, somewhere along the line. Sometimes I hear this little voice in my head sayingI want a baby.’ How come I’m still blurting all this out? ‘It’s like my ovaries are ganging up on me against my will, because you know, I never really,reallywanted kids, but… things seem to have changed. Cole’s about to become a father, and I’m just… not jealous exactly, just… sad about it.’
‘You miss him?’ Stellan’s expression is inscrutable again. If he didn’t think I was crazy before, he does now. He definitely thinks I’m here to get some revenge sex and a Scandi baby.
‘Miss Cole? God, no.’ Again with the blinding flashes of sudden realisation. I don’t miss himat all. ‘That relationship is stone D.E.A.D.’ I spell out the word, breaking into a smile. ‘It’s got a police incident tent around it. But I do miss having my future mapped out. There was something reassuring about knowing what was coming next. Or, thinking I knew.’
‘So that makes two of us then?’
‘Two of us?’
‘Neither of us know what our futures hold. We both have fresh starts ahead of us. I can let go of the reins at the resort a little more, and you have a world of possibilities at your feet.’
My mind’s processing his words and drawing all kinds of wildly tenuous conclusions and, accompanied by the movements of his fingertips against the soft underside of my curled hand and his thumb now running slowly over my knuckles, I’m surprised by the flutter of hopefulness in my stomach. And I’m not going to tell you what the little voice I’m hearing is saying right now, but it’s screaming and whooping and I’m pretty sure my ovaries are attempting a conga.Shut up and behave, I tell them. This is exactly why Stellan ran off in the first place; I scared him by hoping for too much.
As I’m telling myself off, Stellan lets go of my hand and refills our glasses. He doesn’t reach for me again so I hastily pull my gloves back on. And yet, I think, he doesn’t exactlylookscared, and he’s clearly keeping yesterday’s promise to open up.
