‘I still don’t understand,’ Ed said, bewildered, looking from me to Amber and back again.
I couldn’t explain any of it without giving away his Christmas surprise so I was forced to give him another mysterious smile and tap my nose. ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill you,’ I said, then turned back to Amber as something struck me. ‘God, that photographer’s a sneaky git. He must have been weaselling around the whole village trying to track you down.’
‘And then must have snuck round here yesterday and been peeping through the window,’ Amber said, stopping laughing abruptly. ‘What a tosser. Sorry, Evie.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry you’re having to put up with this kind of shit when you just wanted to be left in peace.’
‘What’s all the noise about?’ Jake asked, coming in just then.
Ed pulled a women! face at him. ‘Honestly, mate? I haven’t got the faintest.’
Surprise surprise, the trains were all up the spout with the heavy snowfall and, from the horror stories on the local radio station, the roads weren’t much better. For the time being, it seemed our guests were going to be staying a little while longer. Still, now that Jake and I had had our chat and called a temporary truce, this wasn’t the terrible news it might have been twenty-four hours ago, I consoled myself.
There was nothing for it but to join the rest of the village and have an almighty snowball fight on the beach. All the kids were out there in big coats, hats and scarves, screaming with delight as they hurled snowballs at their parents and each other, and I spotted lots of people I knew – Jamie, Martha, Seb, Carl, Saffron, Lindsey and her kids . . . It felt like the most excellent party.
At the far end of the beach, a huge snowman was being patted into shape, while a couple of enterprising dads built snow barricades for the snowball hurlers to duck behind when necessary. There were even a few people sledging down the steepest sand dune, shrieking in excitement. The whoops and screams rang out into the cold snowy sky, the soft thuds of snowballs meeting their targets a constant soundtrack.
The other constant soundtrack was nosey people asking, ‘Was that really you in the Daily Star today?’ ‘Someone told me you were in the Star.’ ‘Was that you in the Daily Star?’
‘It’s a long story,’ I replied each time, my smile becoming slightly more frozen with every enquiry. How many people in Carrawen actually read the bloody Daily Star, anyway? It felt like the whole village had seen the photos.
To my relief though, everyone was sympathetic to Amber’s plight (‘I could tell that David Maguire was a bastard,’ Mags said to her, eyes glinting. ‘Knew it as soon as I saw his hair’) and laughed it off with us. All the same, I was sorely regretting my glamour shoot. Never again, I vowed, however much Amber tried to tell me it would be a good idea.
A little while later, a sudden hush fell across the beach. I was chasing Ed when I noticed the strange change in atmosphere. Lots of people had stopped snowballing and were pointing and staring at an unfamiliar man in completely inappropriate shoes, who was slithering down the beach path towards us. An unfamiliar man, moreover, who appeared to be carrying a camera bag. Aha. Rumbled.
‘I bet that’s him, the photographer,’ I said to Amber, nudging her. ‘Look!’
‘Must be,’ said Ed. ‘I’ve never seen him round here before.’
Amber’s lip curled. ‘Come back for more, has he?’ she said. ‘What a creep.’
Jake glanced at her, then at me. Then, without saying a word, he rolled a massive snowball and lobbed it in a high arc. We all watched as it landed right at the feet of the stranger with a splat.
‘Shot!’ a couple of people called out approvingly. There was even a ripple of applause.
The photographer had been concentrating on his slow, unsteady route down to the beach but looked up in surprise at the unexpected missile. His face blanched the colour of the snow as he realized that almost everyone was staring accusingly at him across the beach. Then the spell broke and it was as if we’d all received a silent cue, ordering us to roll a snowball and chuck it at him immediately.
‘Get out of it!’ screeched Lindsey, catching him right on the shoulder with a well-aimed throw. ‘And you’re not welcome in my pub again, neither.’
‘Go on, scram!’ bawled Betty, whopping him on the chest with another huge snowball. ‘We don’t want you causing trouble for our village. Hop it!’
Within seconds, it was open season on the poor sod. It felt as if everyone was pelting him with an absolute barrage of snowballs and insults that carried brilliantly through the cold, crisp air.