Chapter 28
28
They had got in Jacques’s truck and he had driven away from the village in the opposite direction to his home, a route Orla hadn’t travelled before. Not that the scenery was immediately any different to the area around Saint-Chambéry but, as the minutes ticked by, there were slight changes. It was like they were leaving the harsh ruggedness of the mountainous backdrop and making way for subtler terrain – flatter ground, trees that didn’t look like they reached up to the clouds, a hint of a valley to come. Yet it was still such a winter wonderland, no hint of greenery on the ground, just more ice and snow, as beautiful as it was slightly hostile.
Within fifteen minutes Jacques was pulling off the road and coming to a stop next to a wide-open space, like a forest clearing. There was literally nothing around and, as she reached to undo her seat belt, Orla wondered what exactly she was going to be taking photos of.
‘We are here!’ Jacques announced as though he had brought her to the greatest show on earth. He had spread has arms wide, as much as the confines of his cab would allow and it only highlighted how little there was.
‘Is it an event?’ Orla asked. ‘Is a marching band going to appear every hour on the hour?’
‘That would impress you?’ he asked, opening the door of the truck.
‘It depends on the horn section.’
Why had she said that? Immediately her cheeks flooded with colour as she rooted around in her brain for something else to say to fill the quiet.
‘Make sure your coat is fastened,’ Jacques said, jumping down. ‘It is usually five degrees cooler here than near Saint-Chambéry.’
‘What? You’ve brought me somewhere colder?’
He slammed the door shut and Orla was left tugging at the zip of her coat and making sure the overlapping poppers were also done up before she got out.
Her feet touched down onto snow that was hard, a layer of crunchiness rather than soft and powdery. She had been to many snowy landscapes but the terrain around this French mountain village seemed to have a whole micro-climate all of its own.
Jacques was getting equipment out of the back of his truck. Was that a spear? A memory washed over her the second he pulled a long metal device that looked like a giant screw from under the tarpaulin. Then he began pacing, deliberately, like he was counting, spear in one hand, screw implement in the other. She rushed to catch up.
‘Ice fishing,’ she said, finally reaching him.
‘Gerard and I take it in turns to set traps,’ he answered.
‘You’re counting to find them?’
‘Yes… forty-eight, forty-nine…’
‘What kind of fish do you get here?’ she continued.
‘Fifty, fifty-one… all kinds.’
‘Yes, but what kinds?’
‘Orla,’ Jacques said, stopping. ‘I will answer your questions, but if you keep talking to me when I am trying to count, I will not be able to find the traps.’
‘Sorry.’
She walked bedside him, silently, wondering just how far away these traps were and how different the paces of Gerard and longer-limbed Jacques had to be and, if that was the case, did they have a different method of counting?
‘OK,’ Jacques said. ‘We are here.’ He stuck the spear into the snow. ‘Now we drill.’
‘I know how it works,’ Orla told him. ‘And I also know it’s hard to work that drill.’
‘It is all about the technique.’
‘It’s a two-person job.’
He laughed. ‘You cannot work this thing with two people.’
‘I didn’t mean at the same time,’ Orla replied. ‘I meant, when one person gets tired the other person can have a turn.’
‘I will not get tired,’ he answered.
‘O-K,’ she said. ‘We will see.’
‘Trust me,’ Jacques said. ‘I have done this more times than you have.’
‘OK,’ Orla said. ‘Then I will just stand and watch.’
‘No,’ Jacques said. ‘You will take photographs when we see what we have caught.’
It took a while for Jacques to make any real headway with the turning device. It was like watching someone really have to go to town in a bid to open a giant bottle of wine, or corkscrewing like he was boring for oil. She had taken photos, although unfortunately, due to the layers and thick coat he was wearing, she could only imagine the work his muscles were having to do rather than seeing them in the flesh, but she had imagined…
‘Orla, come here. I am through the ice and now we will find the rope and pull it up and see what we have caught.’ His enthusiasm was evident in his tone and she stepped up to the hole and looked down into it. It currently looked like a wishy-washy Slush Puppie, a grey-blue mash.
He had thick gloves on now and he plunged his hands into the ice. Orla waited, camera phone poised in hope. As the seconds ticked by, she worried for her phone’s battery.
‘There is something,’ Jacques declared. ‘But I think it is stuck.’
‘How annoying,’ Orla replied. ‘Looks like you and Gerard will have to rely on Delphine’s store for tonight’s food.’
‘No,’ Jacques said, on his belly now, one hand still down the hole. ‘This is where you can help. Take hold of the spear.’
With a euphemism ringing around in her head, she grabbed the wood with a metal spike, pulling it out of the snow.
‘Do I need to jab the fish?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You just need to make the hole bigger with it. If the fish we have caught is too big it will not come out of the hole I have made.’
‘OK so I need to jab at that instead?’
‘Not at the hole, just around it, very carefully.’
With Jacques’s warning about ‘carefully’ weighing on her mind, she began to probe the ice, silently wondering if she was going to permeate the whole layer underneath them and lead to a full-on icequake.
‘It is OK,’ Jacques said. ‘Do not worry about the ice.’
‘I’m British, Jacques. We are brought up with tales of ice breaking the second you set a toe on it and about swans attacking and breaking arms.’
‘You have swans that live on the ice?’
‘No,’ she replied with a laugh. ‘Just over-anxious parents worried about everything.’ She poked at the ice a little harder. ‘Like this?’
‘Yes, that is good. A bit more. OK, let me try and move the rope.’ He stretched down into the water again and put more of an effort into it. ‘OK, it is coming, one more press with the spear to make this open up.’
Orla swallowed as her mind went other places again. Concentrate . ‘I hope this is going to be worth it.’
‘I think it will be worth it. Trust me.’
She pressed at the ice which was getting easier to manipulate and Jacques got up on his knees, dragging at the string.
‘OK, here it comes,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, and I think it is big.’
Now she was getting excited. She put the spear down and got her phone to take pictures.
‘Orla! Be ready!’ Jacques said, still pulling.
‘I’m ready!’ If slightly distracted at the sheer admirable physicality of this man-mountain, heaving a weight from the icy depths. If it wasn’t so cold she would be close to boiling point.
‘It’s coming!’ he yelled.
Concentrate, Orla. ‘Oh my God, what is it?’
With one last tug, Jacques fell back onto the snow and landing on top of him was a slithering, thick, brown fish.
‘Argh!’ Orla exclaimed, caught between photo-taking, videoing, being jealous of the fish lying across his abs, or doing something to help. ‘What should I do?’
‘Take photos! I told you that!’ Jacques said, laughing as he put two hands around the fish and tried to hold it still.
Orla did as he said, capturing video and pictures of the writhing fish and Jacques trying to steady it and do something with the line it was attached to. How could someone look so sexy wrestling with an aquatic animal?
‘What type is it? It looks like a giant pike,’ Orla said.
‘It is! I have never seen one this large before!’
‘Careful!’ she exclaimed. ‘It looks like it might be able to eat you!’
‘Help me now, Orla! I cannot get to my feet holding it.’
She stopped her camera work and headed forward to assist him. It almost looked like something prehistoric. ‘What do you want me to do? Which bit do I hold? Of the fish?’ She felt her cheeks pink.
‘Just grab him around the middle for a second and I will try to get up.’
‘Ugh,’ Orla said, putting her hands on the fish. It jerked wildly and she had to grab on tighter for fear it was going to escape and somehow manage to get itself back down the hole. ‘Ow! Quick! I can’t hold it!’
Jacques got to his feet and took over. ‘OK, grab the spear.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I am going to put it out of its misery quickly.’
She didn’t need to ask any more questions about that. She reached toward the spear.
‘OK,’ Jacques said. ‘You hold the fish but… look the other way.’
‘Jacques, I’m a reporter,’ she said, meeting his eyes. ‘There isn’t a lot I haven’t seen on my travels, believe me.’
He matched her gaze. ‘You haven’t seen me kill something before.’
She swallowed as the atmosphere heightened ten-fold. She turned her head almost subconsciously, fingers holding the fish as firmly as she could. She held her breath as she felt the thud of the spear make contact and then it was over. She still had her eyes closed when she felt the fish leave her hands.
‘It is done,’ Jacques said. And then, in more upbeat tones, ‘Gerard is not going to believe it.’
She opened her eyes. ‘It looks like it could feed a family of ten.’
‘We should cook it. At the village. Let everyone see.’
Let everyone see . This was new from the man who seemed to want to hide himself away in his digitally controlled smart home…
‘I can imagine Delphine now,’ Orla said. ‘Setting up a spit by the fountain, opposite that wheelbarrow.’
‘Whoa, let us not go too close to the brouette . The ancestors of Saint-Chambéry will not like it.’
‘But it is not the original one,’ Orla reminded him.
‘You think the one in the square has not been blessed by the priest? That there is not a big ceremony whenever a new one has to be put there?’
‘I need to hear more about this. With foxes and fish and wheelbarrows I might be able to get away with there being no pregnant reindeer.’
Jacques smiled. ‘Good.’ He gestured to the fish. ‘And I know this ice fishing is not the same as Oymyakon, but it was a good catch.’
Now the breath caught in Orla’s throat at the mention of Oymyakon but she managed to smile and nod.
‘Shall we take it back to the truck?’ Jacques asked.
She nodded again. ‘Yes.’
And as he went about collecting the equipment together, Orla was left wondering how he knew she had been to the coldest inhabited village on earth.