her.
‘I feel like one.’ The coat that fitted a man of six foot two was no fit for a five-foot, eight-and-a-half-stone woman.
Luke opened the door, waved her forward.
‘Look, Mr Tumnus is over there,’ he yelled and pointed into the distance. Bridge’s head whirled round, then she realised what he was talking about.
‘Knob,’ she declared him.
‘Isn’t this beautiful? It really is like Narnia,’ said Luke, turning a full circle to view the surroundings from all sides. ‘And how cosy does the inn look through the window?’ It did too; a friendly orange glow shone gently out, as if there was a sun trapped within the walls.
‘Which carol are we going to sing?’ asked Bridge, dragging his attention back to the job in hand. It was freezing and she wanted to be inside again as soon as humanly possible.
‘ “Jingle bells”. It’s my lucky song,’ said Luke, while fiddling behind his back. ‘Look, secret weapon.’ He’d taken the bell that sat on the bar, which a landlord might use to announce last orders. ‘We’ll wow them with the sound effects.’ He gave it a little shake to demonstrate.
‘It doesn’t exactly jingle, more of a dong,’ said Bridge, eyebrows crunched together in exasperation.
‘Who doesn’t love a dong?’ said Luke and then hooted and Bridge found her automatic disapproval of him melting into a chuckle. This is what we were like, always laughing, joking, larking around. She’d forgotten. He’d been an irresponsible Great Dane pup and she’d loved him for it. Once upon a time.
‘Okay, ready?’ said Luke, ringing the bell, which sounded as if he was a teacher announcing to pupils it was the end of playtime. He counted down on his other hand.
‘Three, two, one. Dashing through the snow…’
He really did have a terrible voice, thought Bridge. He couldn’t hold a tune with a pitchfork. He attempted a harmony in the chorus, at least that’s what she thought he was doing. And then a yodel. Who yodelled while they were singing ‘Jingle Bells’? She steadfastly kept to the melody and tried to increase the volume to drown out his efforts, then was belted by the realisation that she was actually taking this competition seriously. She’d got too used to winning, beating down other competitors, even here and now in trying to avoid making the after-dinner coffees. She throttled back, let his bizarre a cappella attempt shine.
Luke ended the song with a mad flurry of dong-jingles.
‘We’ve so lost,’ said Bridge with a laughing sigh.
‘Wrong. That was amazing. It was highly original and if I’d had the sense to record it, I would be sending it to Simon Cowell as soon as I got a signal. Now let’s go inside and receive our bouquets.’
They opened the door to a scene of hilarity equalled only by marshmallow-poo-gate.
Charlie and Robin were cackling like lunatics, Mary was clapping merrily and Jack was sitting mouth agape.
‘What. The. Bloody. Hell. Was. That?’ he asked.
‘See?’ said Bridge, throwing a hand up at Luke before answering Jack. ‘He insisted on too many factors.’
‘Look, the melody – i.e. you – was strong and when the basics are rock solid, you can experiment around them,’ explained Luke, as if that was his business template as well as his carol-competition-winning strategy.
‘Bravo,’ said Charlie, clapping loudly. ‘You’re in my top two so far.’
‘I preferred the first couple,’ said Jack.
‘Us now,’ said Robin, turning to Luke and enquiring, ‘How cold is it out there?’
‘If you’re asking that in order to pull a favour so we don’t have to go outside then don’t bother, because out we are going,’ Charlie admonished him sternly.
‘Absolutely, you have to go outside,’ said Jack. ‘This is serious stuff. No concessions.’
Charlie smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Jack,’ he said.
‘Come on then, Captain,’ said Robin. ‘Let’s show ’em how it’s done properly.’
‘Ooh, my wellingtons are lovely and warm,’ Charlie said then, putting them on straight after Bridge had taken them off.
Robin opened the door, Charlie followed him outside and they stood in wonder for a few moments, looking around them. The snow was just starting again, falling like feathers on them. Robin turned a slow full circle, smiling blissfully, arms extended, hands open, catching the flakes and the image struck Charlie as familiar, and at the same time not at all – like déjà vu in reverse.
‘It’s beautiful, like fairyland,’ gasped Robin.
‘Isn’t it magnificent,’ said Charlie. ‘Look at all that snow. If I’d been a few years younger, I would have just bounced in it.’ A memory from his childhood rolled into his mind