Chapter 30
30
‘Burim says he’s caught a fish bigger than that before,’ Erin said, nudging Orla as they gathered around a communal trestle table filled with an assortment of different accompaniments to the fish barbecue. There were baguettes, cheeses, Delphine’s cookies, pots of vegetables in sauces, creamy potatoes and salads. Everyone had rustled up something to share with the village in literally no time at all.
‘Of course there are bigger fish in the world,’ Orla replied. ‘But I don’t think you’d get bigger in ice fishing.’
‘Well, Burim says he caught one under the ice in Kosovo.’
Did they even have ice in Kosovo? Why was she even questioning it? Was Burim Kosovan?
‘Erin, do you think perhaps Burim might be… I don’t know… stretching the truth a little sometimes?’
‘You mean lying to me?’
‘Well, I don’t think I actually said it quite like that but?—’
‘Why would he lie about a fish?’ Erin asked, spooning vegetables onto a paper plate. ‘I mean, what would be the point?’
‘I don’t know. I guess to make himself sound more important? Bigger?’
‘You saw the photo of him in his grey sweatpants. Could he get bigger?’
‘OK, OK, that’s too much.’
‘I think that’s what I might be saying when we meet.’
‘Erin!’
‘What? We are going to meet, you know. We’ve been planning it for ages now.’
‘Erin.’
‘What?’
‘I just…’
‘What?’
‘It’s a lot isn’t it?’
‘Are we still talking about his sweatpants pic?’
‘No!’ She sighed. ‘But, you know, a guy from another country.’ She still didn’t know what country. ‘One of you travelling to a place you haven’t been to before.’
‘He wants to come to England but he needs to get a visa and it’s really hard. I think it’s prejudice actually.’
‘Where is he from, Erin? Because you’ve done quite a lot of telling me where he isn’t from, but you haven’t said where he is from.’
‘Because you’ll judge,’ Erin said. ‘Burim says everyone judges him based on his nationality.’
‘Narrow-minded people might,’ Orla stated. ‘But I’m not narrow-minded, am I?’
Erin shook her head. ‘You haven’t given him a chance yet.’
‘How am I supposed to do that when I can’t meet him because he lives somewhere the UK officials need to vet people from.’
‘See!’ Erin exclaimed. ‘Judgement!’ She put down her plate of food and stomped off towards Gerard’s bar.
‘Erin! Wait!’
She sighed. What was it with their family? They wanted this persona of being this happy nucleus to the outside world but, in reality, nobody spoke to one another and, if they did, it was miscommunication and half-truths.
‘Is everything OK?’
It was Jacques beside her now, the guy who was being hailed as some kind of superhero for bringing the fish back to Saint-Chambéry like the village was in a dire famine situation. The rest of the non-fish spread would definitely suggest a shortage of food could never happen here.
‘Yes, good. Erin just being a teenager and me being an inadequate older sibling who knows nothing about anything. Her thoughts not mine.’
‘Is that all?’ Jacques answered with a small smile.
‘Yes,’ Orla answered. ‘That is all. I mean it’s completely nothing when you put it into context and align it next to the commissioning of a statue of you next to the wheelbarrow to commemorate the day you brought a rare and gigantic fish back to the village.’
‘No one has mentioned a statue yet,’ Jacques told her.
‘“Yet” being the operative word.’
He smiled. ‘Do you think it should be bronze or something else?’
‘Not pure gold?’
‘We are a very humble village,’ Jacques reminded her.
‘I can see that from this banquet fit for fish-catching royalty.’
‘What can I say? We are a humble village that likes to share good fortune.’
Community. Old-fashioned values. She saw it so much in the tiny places she visited all around the world. How the UK once was but seemed to be drifting further and further away from.
‘You are thinking,’ Jacques stated.
‘Oh, well, yes, you know, a journalist’s brain never really goes to sleep. If it did then I might miss out on a scoop.’
‘Here,’ Jacques said, a spoon dolloping something that looked like black shiny paste on the side of Orla’s plate.
‘What’s that?’
‘A scoop,’ he answered. ‘Of Madame Voisin’s famous sloe and blackberry jam.’
‘O-K. It looks very dark.’
‘Doesn’t every scoop have to have an undercurrent of mystery?’ he asked with a raise of his eyebrows.
‘These days I prefer mine with fewer surprises and a whole lot more planning.’
‘Ah, but then we would not have gone ice fishing and we would not be having this beautiful night with the village.’
She looked at him, remembering the first time she had set eyes on him. There was something different about his features now. He was still incredibly good-looking, still had that sharp jaw covered in a smattering of short beard, but there was somehow softness there now, warmth in the depths of his eyes…
‘Now you are thinking and staring,’ he said.
‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise I was doing that. The staring I mean.’ She stuck her finger in the mound of jam and inspected the consistency like she was a food aficionado. Desperate to distract him from the fact she had been staring, she put her finger in her mouth. And sharp sourness took over everything.
‘Oh my God!’ Orla exclaimed, her mouth hanging open, her finger now also feeling like someone had set light to it.
Jacques began to laugh. ‘Are you crazy?! Why would you eat it like that?’
‘This… isn’t… just… blackberry and sloe… this is… chilli and… it’s burning!’
Her cheeks were getting hot now and she put her tongue out into the freezing air in the hope of some relief.
‘I was going to tell you to only have the smallest of bits. You are insane. Here.’
He was holding out a glass of something creamy looking.
‘What’s that?’ Orla asked, tongue still not very much involved in helping with speech.
‘It’s a honey and milk mead. Gerard’s speciality.’
‘No!’ Orla said, tongue lolling. ‘No one’s… speciality!’
‘Orla, come on. I know how hot that is. Drink the milk and honey.’ He offered the glass with a bit more insistence.
She shook her head. She’d dealt with this before. She’d taken part in a chilli-eating contest in Mexico for the sake of her writing craft and she’d survived, only needing a short course of antibiotics afterwards.
‘Orla…’
‘If you… offer me anything else to put… into my mouth… I will scream!’
Now she didn’t know whether her face was on fire because of the ingredients of the jam or because she’d somehow made another lewd suggestion without realising. At this moment she didn’t care; she just needed to channel zen-like energy and keep calm.
‘Madame Voisin grows her own chilli peppers,’ Jacques said, nodding.
‘That’s… nice.’
‘No one really knows what category they are.’
‘You… don’t say.’
‘The story goes that she grew them from one her grandfather brought back from Africa in the seventies.’
Orla shook her head as the heat continued. She looked around for anything to ease the burning except the drink Jacques was now holding like it was a beloved pet, fingers smoothing over the outside of the glass. Her eyes met the ground. The snow?
‘Gerard had to be hospitalised for a week when she put too much in a sandwich.’
‘OK! Enough! Give me the drink!’
He didn’t need to pass the glass. She grabbed it. And drank and drank until it was all gone. Better . Everything inside her mouth still throbbed but there was relief.
‘I am sorry,’ Jacques said. ‘I should not have put so much on your plate.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Orla answered, finally able to form a whole sentence all at once. ‘And it’s no big deal.’
‘You are taking this very well.’
‘Not my first chilli rodeo,’ she answered with a nod.
And now was the perfect time, while his well-controlled guard seemed to be down, for her to ask about how he knew she had visited the coldest spot in the world.
‘So, before, when we were fishing, you said that?—’
‘Orla! Jacques! Come quickly!’
It was Delphine shouting from across the square, arms fanning out like the feathers of an excited peacock.
‘There is either a fire, or she has something to show off,’ Jacques told Orla. ‘It is the same expression.’
‘Well,’ Orla said. ‘No one else is moving with any form of fear so?—’
‘It is the reindeer!’ Delphine shouted again. ‘It is here!’