Chapter 10
10
‘Please, take another cookie before I put them on the stall!’
They were inside a grocery shop that seemed to double as a café at one end. Everything in here was made from wood, from the beamed ceiling, the shelves stocking household essentials and gift items – small pots of honey, soaps, deer milk – and the café tables and chairs. It was quintessentially Alpine.
‘Can I have another two?’
‘One, Erin,’ Orla said as her sister reached out to the stack of beautiful and frankly delicious-smelling biscuits Delphine was holding on a wooden tray. They had found Delphine, no thanks to Jacques’s vague finger-pointing, and Orla had quickly introduced them. The woman was in her late sixties, petite, short dark hair highlighted with just a little grey and big glasses on her face that kept slipping down her nose. She was also a bustler. She didn’t seem to be able to keep still, energy flowing from her. It wasn’t a bad thing, but it was a little frenetic given they’d just arrived.
‘But I’m hungry!’ Erin complained, a little colour back in her cheeks now.
And she had thrown up the Starbucks…
‘I know,’ Orla answered. ‘But I thought we’d have a nice meal at one of the restaurants.’
‘Oh!’ Delphine exclaimed, glasses slipping down her nose on cue. ‘There are only two restaurants in Saint-Chambéry and they are both closed tonight. Because of the fête.’
Of course they were. Orla forced a smile and imagined Frances around her indoor firepit sipping a Baileys and scrolling through TikTok…
Erin took two cookies and shoved one into her mouth in one go. ‘These are so banging.’
‘Could you help?’ Delphine asked Orla. ‘Bring some of the boxes out?’
‘I’ll take one,’ Erin said, shoving in the second cookie and putting her hands around a box.
Orla frowned. That coffee her sister had had seemed to have not only restored her warmth of temperature but also of temperament. Perhaps she needed to have one…
‘Could you open the door?’ Delphine asked. ‘I can only get through it with this tray if I turn to the side.’
‘I’ll get it,’ Erin said, forging ahead with the box and bumping her back against the wood and glass frontage to open it. As her sister disappeared outside, Orla sensed Delphine holding back.
‘I do not wish to appear rude,’ Delphine began. ‘But we were only expecting there to be one of you.’
‘I know,’ Orla said quickly. ‘I apologise for that. I don’t usually travel on work assignments with my sister, but there was a last-minute… family emergency and, well, this assignment itself was somewhat of a last-minute thing too so…’ She left the sentence open ended as she picked up a box as well.
‘So…’ Delphine said, as if she wanted Orla to add more.
‘Oh, well, I just meant that, you know, usually I have time to plan trips away for a bit longer than twenty-four hours and?—’
‘I have been in contact with your magazine for almost six weeks now,’ Delphine interrupted. ‘It was very difficult to get anyone to reply to me at all.’
‘Oh, well, I apologise for that too but, well, I am here now and I can’t wait to meet the reindeer.’
‘And Wolf,’ Delphine stated.
‘A wolf? Gosh, I was only joking with my sister about wolves. Are there really wolves here?’
‘Wolf is a person. I told the woman at your magazine all about him.’ Delphine tutted and shook her head, her initial very friendly exterior melting somewhat.
‘Ah, yes, the man who doesn’t speak.’ She offered a smile. ‘I’ve not done an interview like that before but obviously I will give it a go and?—’
‘Good,’ Delphine interrupted, the friendly smile back. ‘So tonight you will both stay here. Tomorrow, I will take you to see Wolf. Allez .’
‘Sorry, what?’ Orla asked as Delphine barrelled out of the door at a hard right angle.
‘Please, I am behind schedule and people are cold and hungry.’
Those were the last words Orla was obviously going to get for now as the woman whisked out into the night.
‘This place is wild!’ Erin announced, waving a hand in the air as they gathered around the bonfire now the fête was officially open.
It had turned out that as well as being the owner of the only bar in Saint-Chambéry, Gerard was the mayor of the village and until he had been rescued from the car and given cognac, the fête could not begin until he cut the bronze ribbon. But then accordion music and guitars had filled the night, fireworks had gone off and the hubbub of chat and laughter had enveloped the village that looked like it was made of gingerbread. Despite the unorthodox beginning of their being here, the place was all kinds of winter magical and could have been photographed for centre space on a Christmas card. The fire was the focal point tonight, but south of that was a snow-speckled, cobblestone square with a fountain they had been told had been spurting mountain water up until this icy spell that apparently was going to last for a few more days at least. There were benches and fir trees decorated with strings of lights and a large wheelbarrow that seemed to be a particular focus for people to stop and pay homage. Orla had made a mental note to ask their host about that. There was also a beautiful small church made out of wood with a star glowing from the top of its steeple. She tuned back into her sister who seemed to be bopping to the Christmas accordion like she was front row at a Stormzy gig… It wasn’t what she had expected, as Erin liked to moan about everything that wasn’t absolutely perfectly curated to her.
She was on her third coffee though. And who knew what this French coffee was like. Erin was used to the kind with more cream than caffeine. Maybe Orla needed to watch her sister’s intake, suggest water.
‘I took some photos,’ Erin informed her. ‘Of the man with the funny hat playing the weird small piano that sucks in and out. And the Christmas tree. And the man on stilts. And the sausage stand.’
Orla was still making her way through her hot dog. It was one of those long, thick, bratwurst-style sausages that was seasoned with garlic and herbs, topped with caramelised onion and served in a proper crusty baguette. Right now she frankly had never tasted something so good.
‘I would send them to Burim,’ Erin carried on. ‘But I have no signal. Like there’s no Wi-Fi and there’s no 4G. And if I don’t check in with him soon he will call the emergency services.’
‘I’m sure there will be Wi-Fi at Delphine’s place. We’ll just need the password.’
‘Well, I might need to go and do that now,’ Erin said, checking her phone screen. ‘Because I can’t leave it more than six hours.’
‘What?’
‘Which bit of “Burim will call the emergency services” didn’t you get? I wasn’t playing. He called an ambulance once when I went to Club Class and didn’t message him. He said whatever guy I was talking to would need it when he found out who he was. Aww! Look! There’s Father Christmas.’
As Erin went to take photos of someone in a red suit on skis, Orla swallowed a mouthful of sausage and tried desperately to digest that and the conversation. So, Burim sounded quite the controller. Their mum was right to worry. And Orla was going to make sure she found out much more about him over the coming days. She was well aware of men and what they said online being very different to what they were actually thinking and doing in person. She was an intelligent person, but even she thought that someone who messaged you with every tiny update of their day for weeks was someone making an effort to grow a situationship into something much more. How was a sixteen-year-old meant to navigate that when a twenty-six-year-old was struggling…?
‘Ah, you have tried one of Pierre’s sausages.’
It was Delphine, looking a little calmer, a steaming cup of something in her hands.
‘They are very good,’ Orla replied, gesturing with what was left of her baguette.
‘I know,’ Delphine answered. ‘I taught him how to make them. The first year he tried to, they tasted like… well, I cannot tell you what they tasted like. Dégueulasse . Disgusting.’
The description wasn’t making these last bites taste the best. She looked around for a bin.
‘So, you have a big family?’ Delphine asked, sipping from her drink.
‘Sorry?’
‘You said you have a family emergency. I wonder how many people in the family.’
‘Oh, well, it’s my mum and dad really.’
‘They are getting a divorce?’ Delphine asked.
‘No… nothing like that.’
‘You do not believe in divorce?’
‘I… don’t have an opinion one way or the other and?—’
‘Because you have never been married?’
‘Well, no but?—’
‘So, you have been married?’
This was a bit much. It felt like Delphine was giving her an inquisition or behaving like the reporter in this situation. It was an odd line of questioning too and Orla knew better than to give up personal details to someone who hadn’t yet shown them more than cookies…
‘Are you married?’ Orla asked the woman, turning the tables.
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Only to my supermarket now,’ Delphine answered.
‘I am only married to my job too,’ Orla said.
‘Oh,’ Delphine said, disappointment evident in her tone. ‘You do not want a family of your own.’
Delphine had said the sentence like it was a fact rather than a question. It was as if Orla not being married yet had made her into a spinster for life who would only be looking after knitting needles and cats. She wanted her career to shine and any partner to complement that, working towards their own individual goals as well as joint ones. The truth was she didn’t know if she wanted children. And, as she was having a hard enough time trying to find a man who hung around long enough to ask if he was a pizza or a burger guy let alone anything deep, who knew whether children were ever going to be in the picture? And she wasn’t about to divulge any of this to someone she had just met. She needed a distraction.
‘What’s the wheelbarrow about?’ Orla asked, indicating the garden equipment in the square.
‘A what?’
‘A wheelbarrow. The wooden carrying thing with wheels everyone is looking at and touching.’
‘Ah! That is a brouette . Here in Saint-Chambéry it is like an icon. In days long ago, our ancestors built the village by hand, using only wooden brouettes to move tools and stones and wood. We honour this at Christmas time, at a festival in the summer and we look to the brouette whenever we need guidance. The oldest surviving brouette is now in the church. It does not deal so well with the weather.’
Orla’s story radar was clicking like a Geiger counter had encountered toxic substances. This was more like it. A community with slightly off-the-wall traditions, paying homage to something you’d buy in B&Q. Perhaps she could make something substantial out of this after all.
Delphine took a gulp from the cup in her hands and sighed, satisfied. ‘Ah, the vin chaud is very good this year.’
‘It’s wine?’ Orla asked. ‘I thought you were drinking coffee.’
‘It is a little more than wine here in Saint-Chambéry,’ Delphine informed her. ‘We like to add a lot of crème de cassis . It is the blackcurrant and the alcohol and the spices that really make you feel warm again.’
Orla felt a creeping feeling envelop her shoulders now as she focussed on the little brown paper cup in Delphine’s hands. The woman wasn’t the only person she had assumed was drinking coffee… And then her eyes found Erin, leaning against a snowboard that was upright in the snow, a manic grin on her face. She didn’t wait to make her excuses to their host.