Maddy’s Christmas Wedding (Little Duck Pond Cafe #37)

CHAPTER TWELVE

A toddler was wailing somewhere on the plane.

‘Refreshments, Madam?’

I turned from my chat with Jaz and Katja, who were in the seats on my right, and smiled up at the air steward. ‘Ooh, yes, please.’

We ordered and pulled down our little trays, and the air steward placed a little napkin on each. ‘Your wine?’

‘Thank you.’ I smiled at her, distracted by the child’s whining. The toddler was clearly exhausted, although to my expert ear, it sounded a bit fake and attention-grabbing now. That poor mum or dad! My heart went out to them – genuinely – as I settled back, wriggled my shoulders with pleasure and took a sip of my drink.

It was lukewarm but who cared?

I was on my holidays!

The air steward had moved on to Maddy and Laurel, in the seats directly in front of us, and I heard Maddy order a vodka and lemonade for herself and an orange juice for Laurel. They’d both been quiet since we’d boarded the plane, noses in their books, and I’d been quite surprised at Maddy. It was her hen do, after all. I’d imagined her being the life and soul of the party on board – maybe a little too much? But perhaps she was tired. We’d been on the go quite a while already. It seemed a long time since 7am when I’d hugged the twins and kissed Rob in the airport car park, said goodbye and walked over the road, trailing my suitcase to the departures entrance.

We’d taken off soon after nine, landing in Amsterdam just over an hour later, and after a frantic race through the airport searching for the Helsinki departure gate (we had limited time to catch this onward flight to Finland), we’d made it with little time to spare. No wonder Maddy was reading instead of chatting. I smiled to myself. Not that fatigue had stopped Jaz, Katja and me chatting away non-stop since we took off.

I could feel the excitement rising. Once we touched down in Helsinki, we’d be on another much shorter plane ride, destined for the village of Rovaniemi, where – according to all the photos I’d seen online – a veritable monster-truck-load of sparkle, twinkling lights and glorious Christmas festivities awaited us.

Other tired children had joined in the wails and cries now. There were naturally lots of youngsters on this flight, which was heading straight for the Arctic Circle and – drum roll – Santa Claus! But the journey was making them weary. No doubt the poor parents would be endeavouring to reassure them that we were very nearly there. (Not that I was feeling in any way smug, sitting here all relaxed and chatting to my friends – recalling what it was like to be young, free and single – and sipping from my plastic glass of warm wine!)

At the sound of a baby’s blood-curdling screech, Maddy turned, peered through the seats at us and growled, ‘What absolute nutter would think it was a good idea to bring a baby to see Santa!’

We all chuckled. She had a point.

‘The baby might live in Helsinki,’ I pointed out. ‘Maybe the family’s been to Amsterdam on holiday.’

‘Well, that’s even worse,’ she muttered crossly. ‘Bearing in mind what goes on in “coffee shops”

over there. Hardly kiddies’ territory.’

I frowned. ‘What’s wrong with coffee shops?’

Maddy gave me a funny look. ‘Nothing. I mean, there’s nothing “wrong”

with coffee shops in Amsterdam. In fact, it’s high time I went over there with Jack and sampled some of that . . . ambience . . . for myself.’

Jaz and Katja laughed and I heard Laurel chuckle in the seat in front of me.

‘Ambience? What do you mean?’ I was genuinely puzzled. Then it clicked. ‘Ohhhh.’

Honestly, I was so bloomin’ na?ve at times. But Rob said that was one of the things he loved about me, so I wasn’t too worried.

‘The kid in front of me keeps asking her dad if we’re nearly there yet,’ whispered Maddy. ‘And I feel exactly the same. This flight has been unbearable.’

I smiled at her. Not even a grumpy Maddy was going to disrupt my aura of glorious calm.

‘Just think, Maddy,’ said Katja, leaning forward. ‘One day, you’ll be on a flight to Lapland with three kids of your own, if Jack has anything to do with it.’

Jaz chuckled. ‘Yes. So you’d better make the most of the relative peace while you can.’

I was expecting Maddy to hurl some banter back at us. But instead, she turned around and flumped back in her seat with such disgruntled emphasis, my wine glass skidded across my tray. Rescuing it, I exchanged a worried glance with Jaz and Katja.

What on earth was up with the bride-to-be?

*****

‘Ooh, look, Christmas trees. And they even have a sauna!’ Jaz pointed excitedly in the direction of the very cute ‘Christmas Cabin’ in Helsinki Airport, selling what looked like handcrafted gifts and cards. ‘I wish we had more time to explore. I’d be in there like a shot.’

I chuckled. ‘I thought it was me who was obsessed with the romance and excitement of Christmas, but you’re definitely worse, Jaz.’

‘I guess it’s since I had Emma. Christmas gets a bit boring for a while but then a little human erupts into your life, who gets excited about absolutely everything – even a worm on the grass – and it sort of rubs off on you.’ She grinned. ‘I see Christmas through Emma’s eyes now. It’s almost like you get another shot at experiencing all the dizzy festive thrills of your childhood.’

‘I know what you mean. I’m having such fun shopping for toys for the twins this year. Rob keeps telling me we’ve got quite enough gifts for them already, but I can’t seem to help it. It’ll be worth living on baked beans in January just to see the sheer joy on their faces when they open their presents on Christmas Day.’

‘Wow, come over here,’ called Katja, who’d gone over to one of the huge airport windows that looked out over the runways and the planes taxi-ing in and out. ‘I’ve never seen so much of the white stuff in one place, except in a photograph.’

We all gathered together, gazing at the snow that was swirling around in the gathering darkness, adding to the white blanket already covering everything in sight.

‘Where’s Maddy gone?’ Katja glanced around, and I did the same.

I frowned. ‘Isn’t that her, talking to someone at that customer services desk?’

‘No, she said she was checking out the Ladies,’ said Jaz, pointing at a sign. ‘She’s meeting us in the café.’

Puzzled, I glanced back at the desk but there was no sign of Maddy and I decided I must have imagined it was her. We had over an hour to wait for our flight to Rovaniemi, so the plan was to grab a seat and a coffee while we waited to be called.

Hungry, as we’d had only nuts and a drink on the flight, we treated ourselves to some piparkakut. The traditional Finnish gingerbread cookies were filled with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg – delicious and very moreish.

We managed to save a few for Maddy, although she still hadn’t arrived by the time we realised we needed to get moving if we didn’t want to risk missing our flight.

‘What should we do? I can’t get a signal to contact her,’ said Jaz worriedly.

Katja frowned. ‘Maybe she’ll meet us at the gate? She’s probably there already.’

‘I’m sure she said she’d meet us here. But yes, I guess she may well have made her own way there.’

‘Call off the dogs!’ called Laurel. ‘Here she is.’

Sure enough, Maddy was hurrying towards us. She arrived out of breath. ‘I need to dash to the loo first. Will you wait for me?’

‘Of course. But I thought you’d already been?’ said Jaz, looking puzzled.

‘No. Back in a minute.’ And she hurried away again.

In the end we made the flight with half an hour to spare. People were already boarding by the time we got to the gate.

And then we buckled up and were off on the short flight to Rovaniemi, the home of Santa Claus . . .