Christmas at the Island Hotel - Jenny Colgan Page 0,29

coming from far away. He was sure, suddenly, that he was, once again, in trouble for something—knocking off the bursar’s hat or spilling champagne down the exiled princess of Romania again. When he opened his eyes, though, instead he saw a group of people smiling at him. He blinked.

“What do you think of the cheese?”

“I haven’t had any cheese.”

“Your plate is empty.”

Everyone looked at Bjårk, who was licking the inside of his mouth reflectively.

“He likes it,” said Konstantin, blinking.

Gaspard’s face was grave. “You know,” he said, “of course, the only cheese I would really wish to sell is French.”

“We do know,” said Flora brightly. “But you’re not going to!”

“But if I have to—if I absolutely have to serve something else . . .”

“Which you do.”

“Then this is . . . pas mal.”

And Flora beamed at Fintan.

Chapter 22

The snow had swept away by the time Pam’s grand charity dinner came round in early December. Joel was back home, having mentioned the new hotel to everyone of course. Flora wasn’t crazy about this: Would there be lots of his gorgeous, skinny blond exes showing up? Joel was not remotely worried about this; instead he was pondering on what to do about these Christmas lights. He had contacted a few firms in London, all of whom had given him the traditional London shrug-off, laughing at him, saying, “You wot, mate?” and suggesting that only an absolute idiot wouldn’t have started planning this eleven months ago. Whatever Flora thought, Joel didn’t actually miss London in the slightest.

He looked good in his suit. Flora was having trouble zipping up her old black velvet dress, which was extremely annoying. Unbelievably annoying, in fact. Pam kept wanging on about how she’d accidentally lost all her baby weight so quickly after Christabel, it was amazing, really—baby weight was a myth held on to by lazy people. This was obviously nonsense, but still, thought Flora, knowing she had a healthy and beautiful baby wasn’t really helping with the fact that she also had a horrible and unrelenting zip.

“Let me breathe in really hard and you zip it,” she said to Joel, who made a face.

“Just wear something else,” he said, kissing her shoulder. “You’ll feel bad all night if you’re uncomfortable.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

“No! You look amazing!”

“Well, if I’m not fat, I’ll still fit in this dress,” said Flora crossly, sucking herself in as Joel tried not to catch her with the zip by mistake.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s go. If Gaspard can pull this out of the bag again and Iona gets enough photos for Instagram, I think this might be a bit of a success.”

She desperately hoped so. Fintan had done basically nothing, and she didn’t really have the marketing skills to open a hotel. If they had some lovely pictures, they could get some brochures done and hopefully all would go well for the launch.

But this was Fintan’s problem, obviously. She should, Joel kept pointing out, just relax and enjoy it.

It seemed like the entire island was there, mostly because it was. Pam and Charlie were from two very old Mure families, and there were few people who weren’t connected with them somehow. And everyone supported their work; they brought impoverished young people from built-up cities on the mainland to Mure, taught them how to camp and look after themselves, gave them outward bound experiences, but more than that: fresh air, self-reliance, and a break from whatever might be going on at home. They were, undeniably, a force for good. Most of the money to fund this came from the lawyers and office johnnies they charged vast amounts to sit in a freezing tent and eat beans and tell each other it was a bonding experience (it was: they all tended to bond very tightly indeed as to how much they hated Charlie and Pam for putting them through such a miserable experience).

The building looked ravishing as usual, and Flora had booked the lovestruck ferryman Bertie Cooper, who had never gotten over his teenage crush on Flora, even though she now had an actual baby of her own. He was an optimistic sort.

“Quite the night,” he observed, rowing her and Joel round in choppy waters. Joel was looking at the island behind him, frowning. “Wouldn’t want anyone to accidentally tip over the edge, leaving baby without a daddy,” said Bertie quietly.

“Well, no,” said Flora, puzzled, then went over to Joel.

“What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking,” said Joel, who had barely celebrated Christmas as a child and