One Winter at the French Chalet

Chapter 1

1

LONDON, UK

‘Put your guess in here!’

Orla Bradbee flinched in her office chair as the A4 piece of paper was whisked in front of her and slammed down on her desk.

‘Alan!’ she exclaimed, cupping her mug of hot chocolate in fear that his frenetic energy was going to upend it all over the Christmas cards she shouldn’t be writing on company time.

‘Be quick!’ Alan ordered, looking over his shoulder. ‘Because Sharon is chasing me, desperate to guess ten, but she has insider knowledge so I don’t think I can let her compete.’

Orla had no idea what was going on. She looked at the sheet of paper. ‘What is this?’

‘Oh, Orla, I knew you had your head stuck in work this week! You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘For working too hard?’ she clarified.

‘It’s nearly the end of December,’ Alan said, as if this explained everything. ‘Anyway, it’s the long-awaited sweepstake. How many Cadbury’s Heroes can Sonil fit into his mouth in one go!’

Orla shook her head. What was it with Alan and his need to make a challenge out of every event on the calendar? Last month, allegedly for Movember, he’d made everyone grow cress heads with moustache cut-outs and there’d been a prize for the thickest one. After a particularly intense meeting she’d been starving and had ripped the cress from hers and eaten it. She picked up the pen. ‘Sonil doesn’t celebrate Christmas.’

‘That’s the beauty of it, though,’ Alan continued. ‘Cadbury’s Heroes aren’t just for Christmas, and it makes it an inclusive event for him, doesn’t it?’

There was so much wrong about that sentence, but Orla didn’t have any energy to unpick it. She had already promised that after work tonight she would take her sixteen-year-old sister, Erin, for some extortionately priced coffee at the place their mother said ‘exploited the youth of today’ and ‘did nothing but encourage rich rivalry’.

She wrote a number down on the paper and passed it back to Alan.

‘Fifteen!’ Alan exclaimed in horror. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to guess something else? I don’t think you’re considering the length of those miniature Twirls.’

‘Well,’ Orla began, eyes already back on her computer screen. ‘If you really want me to make my guess based on the science of it, I’d have to ask whether the sweet selection was random or pre-determined. And who is making that choice because then they have to be completely neutral in the contest and it absolutely cannot be Sonil.’

In the reflection of her computer screen, she could see that Alan had not thought about any of these things and, now someone had pointed them out, the likelihood was he was imminently going to go home with a migraine to rethink the whole thing. She was about to luxuriate in a few seconds of joyful abandonment as Alan backed away, when her mobile erupted. It was Erin. What could her sister want now when they were going to be meeting in less than an hour? She picked up.

‘Hello.’

‘Bruh, do you think blonde highlights would suit me?’

‘Sorry, what did you call me? This is your sister, not Central Cee.’

‘Answer me, ’cos hair appointments in December are like table reservations at Club Class.’

Club Class was the latest night spot everyone wanted to be seen at. Their mother called it ‘tits and ass’ and Erin was banned from going there or anything like there since her not-known-about tattoo was exposed on the club’s social media and their dad’s old building crew had made him aware. And there was also the fact she was only sixteen and shouldn’t have ever been going there in the first place.

‘Erin, we’re seeing each other in approximately fifty-six minutes, can’t we talk about it then?’

‘Yes or no?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I didn’t give you that as an option. Yes, or no?’

‘Aren’t highlights expensive?’

‘Boring and still not a yes or a no. Quick!’

Now Orla felt like she was in the middle of a countdown on a gameshow with the top cash prize about to slip through her fingers.

‘What happens if you don’t like it?’ Orla answered. ‘You know your hair as it is, right? You know it and you’re comfortable with it and it looks nice. I’m not saying a change wouldn’t look nice too, but if it’s a lot of money and?—’

She was cut off by the dial tone that said this conversation was over. Erin had hung up. Rude, yes, but not unusual. Orla returned her mobile to her desk and then jumped in her seat. Standing right behind her was Frances, her boss. Erin knew from the look on her face that Frances had heard enough of the conversation to know it wasn’t work-related.

‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’ Frances asked, that look of superiority on her face Orla had rarely seen her without since the day she’d joined the magazine.

‘No,’ Orla said quickly. ‘A cold caller. Very cold actually. Very demanding of my attention. Had to cut them off.’

‘And give them hair advice,’ Frances said. ‘That was way too kind.’

Orla just smiled and hoped Frances would move on. Her boss had a piece of paper in her hand.

‘And talking of kindness…’ Frances continued.

Oh no. This meant this was a donation to charity moment and Orla had zero paper in that respect until she visited a cash point.

‘You’re going to France. Tomorrow. Think of it as a pre-Christmas treat.’

‘What?’ Orla said, not really computing any of the sentence she’d just heard.

‘Could be the biggest scoop of the year that GMB would probably want live in between a shouty politician and the latest comedian doing something ridiculous for a good cause. Equally, it could also be nothing, but it’s intrigued Roger enough to sign off on the flight, and your time so…’

Orla was still none the wiser. ‘Did you say tomorrow? Where in France? For how long? I mean, I haven’t actually finished the article on the Greek otters yet.’ Her interest was piqued at the words ‘biggest scoop of the year’ though.

‘OK, Orla, perhaps I haven’t been clear.’ Frances leaned in close, a little too close perhaps. ‘You are on a flight in the morning. The woman was very insistent – over the last three or four weeks actually, insistent that she wanted you to do the interview, quoted from your article about ice fishing. But then, this morning, she dropped the real clincher. There’s a pregnant reindeer, due to give birth at any minute. So, I want the interview with the mute guy, I want photos and video of that four-legged furry and I want it done and dusted and on the website for Christmas Eve with the hope the baby drops out in alignment with the nativity story. We need the traffic. We need the subscriptions. And I need to end this year on a high!’

Had she said ‘cute guy’ or ‘mute guy’? This wasn’t sounding very Pulitzer prize now. It was actually more in line with someone a lot less senior at the magazine, surely!

‘You want me to stay until a reindeer gives birth,’ Orla said. ‘And it’s imminent, but it might not be until Christmas Eve? But, that means I won’t get back for Christmas Day and I have plans for Christmas Day.’

‘Oh, I know,’ Frances came back. ‘Those same plans you have every year. Well, apart from, let me see, was it 2019 you had that ridiculous turkey en croute and lunch was served two hours later than Bradbee tradition? Turkey emoji, laughing with tears emoji, wind emoji – not sure what that one means without a sprout emoji, if that’s even a thing.’

Orla couldn’t stop her mouth from falling open. She knew Frances came into any battle forewarned and forearmed, but she’d stalked her Christmas Facebook posts to see she got up to nothing but the same thing every year?!

‘I… don’t know what to say,’ Orla said. Perhaps she could suggest giving the job to someone else?

‘Good,’ Frances said. ‘I’ve emailed you the details – the subject heading is “don’t fuck this up”.’ She waved the piece of paper in her hand. ‘And now to this.’

She planted the A4 sheet on Orla’s desk and grabbed a pen from the pot. Was this going to be more details that weren’t in the ‘don’t fuck this up’ email? Perhaps background info on the pregnant reindeer or the alleged cute guy or, better still, something that warranted the magazine sending one of its most senior reporters to France so close to Christmas?

‘It’s a sweepstake,’ Frances informed her. ‘How many Cadbury’s Heroes will Sonil fit into his mouth before he chokes and needs medical attention?’

Orla looked at the form. Rita had guessed twenty-five. Samuel had said thirty. ‘But this is?—’

‘Just a little riskier than Alan’s fun, right? And Sonil does deserve a bonus this year, if you know what I mean.’

Orla didn’t know whether to feel appalled, marvel at the ingenuity, or worry for Sonil on every count. But, apparently, what she should be thinking about was packing a cabin case for another country…

She picked up the pen. ‘How much have you bribed him with?’

‘Hush, Orla, that’s a scandalous suggestion.’

‘Well, I’ll need a ball-park figure if you really want me to pay for a guess and fly to France in the morning.’

Frances’s expression said she was mentally assessing the question and wondering if there really was a chance that Orla wasn’t going to head to the airport tout de suite .

‘I might have offered him 20 per cent more than Alan’s bonus. And reassured him I have the ambulance service on standby. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘Fine,’ Orla said, writing her guess in the column next to her name. ‘But if this email doesn’t give me all the details I need for the trip, I will be using WhatsApp and I will be expecting your prompt reply.’

‘WhatsApp away,’ Frances said. ‘I’ll reply. But after my brother has opened whatever flavour Baileys is en vogue this year I can’t guarantee the quality of the copy.’

Orla nodded, knowing that, sadly, it was about as good as she was going to get.