Chapter 51
51
‘I don’t like it. She’s too quiet now. She wasn’t quiet before.’
‘Tommy, relax. She is fine. She is taking her time. And we need to keep our distance.’
‘We should push her stomach? Make the baby come?’
Burim’s comment earned him some surprised looks from Jacques and Tommy, and then Orla’s focus went back to stroking her sister’s hair as they sat on camping stools next to a fire that Jacques had made more rapidly than Ray Mears on a mission. They were hopefully far enough away that the reindeer didn’t feel uncomfortable but close enough should she require assistance.
Orla couldn’t be happier that Erin was OK but she was still going through everything that might have happened. And, apart from talking about the reindeer, before letting Jacques take the lead, Erin had said very little. It was Burim she had run to when they’d arrived and the hug between them that had looked like it was going to last for all eternity had brought a tear to Orla’s eye. The couple’s first IRL meeting and it was on a mountainside in front of a reindeer in labour. Perhaps it wasn’t the most romantic scenario one could envisage but it was certainly unique.
‘I know you’re mad at me,’ Erin said, breaking the silence between them.
‘I’m not mad,’ Orla replied.
‘Orla, you’re my sister. I know all your feelings. I sense them before you do half the time.’
‘I just… why didn’t you tell me you had plans to meet with Burim?’
‘Do you like him?’ Erin asked, suddenly animated and turning to face Orla. ‘I know he can be a little bit weird but… I like that.’
‘I don’t know him yet,’ Orla answered diplomatically. ‘And, I asked you why you didn’t tell me you had plans to meet him.’
‘Why d’you think I didn’t tell you? Because you would have told me I was crazy, locked me in that secret room in the barn and taken away my phone.’
‘No,’ Orla said straight off. ‘That’s what Mum would have done. I might have not reacted so severely.’
‘You know you would have. I know you would have. I couldn’t take that chance. Burim can’t come to the UK, I was in France, it made perfect sense. We’ve been talking for months and we had a chance to actually touch each other and look into each other’s eyes.’
Orla looked to Jacques then. He was the first person in so long that she had made an in-person connection with. She had touched him, looked into his eyes…
‘And do some of the things we’ve talked about together.’
‘What?’ Orla said, breaking out of her reverie.
‘Not that. Not quite yet. Maybe.’ Erin sighed. ‘But, I told him about here. Saint-Chambéry and all the weird shit that goes down. Throwing beanbags and putting Christmas presents in a wheelbarrow. Jacques’s cinema room and Delphine’s hot milkshakes.’ She paused. ‘Delphine is going to be OK, right? Because I know she’s annoying and opinionated but when I’m not here I need to imagine her here and obviously when we come back to visit she needs to be here and?—’
‘When we come back to visit?’ Orla said.
‘Yeah? What’s weird about that? I mean, I know we need to go back to the UK and Mum and Dad are in the middle of some relationship mid-life crisis shit, but of course we’re going to come back. There’s you and Jacques for a start. Unless you’ve invited him to England. And Tommy comes to visit here and although he’s really annoying most of the time, he’s also quite cool. And you heard me say “hot milkshakes”. Burim’s going to love those.’
Orla didn’t know what to say at all. Revisiting Saint-Chambéry had never been on her agenda. Up until recently she hadn’t known the village existed. She had been to many places in the world but she’d never gone back. Suddenly that hit her full force. Was it like everything else in her life? She dipped in and out, taking what she needed at the time, but disregarding the bigger picture? Was that also what her sister thought she did? Was that what she did?
The reindeer made a noise and Erin jumped from the stool, rushing towards Burim who put a protective arm around her shoulders. Orla got up too, moving towards the scene.
‘The baby comes now?’ Burim asked. ‘This is so cool, Erin.’
‘I told you it was cool here,’ she answered, hugging him close.
‘It’s not cool,’ Tommy interjected. ‘It’s freezing!’ He blew out a breath. ‘But what is cool is the fact that now you two are actually together we don’t have to listen to Erin’s phone making noise all the time.’
‘Why don’t you three go back to the house?’ Jacques suggested. ‘Take Gerard’s truck back to the village and pick up mine. Make some food.’
‘But what if something happens and you need the truck?’ Tommy asked him.
‘I will call you. Come on, Tommy, Erin and her friend have been outside for hours. Make a fire at the house, make some food. I will let you know what’s going on,’ Jacques reassured.
‘Who is your friend?’ Burim asked, looking confused.
‘He means you,’ Erin said, laughing.
‘But I am your boyfriend, no?’
Erin gasped, putting her hands to her mouth. ‘Did you just ask me to be your girlfriend?’
‘We marry one day,’ Burim said. ‘I think you know this.’
Erin squealed and wrapped her arms around him again.
‘Oh, wow,’ Tommy said. ‘Can’t wait to get back to the house and be a third wheel.’
‘Chaperone, please, Tommy,’ Orla said seriously.
It was so much quieter once Tommy, Erin and Burim had left. Only the crackling of the fire and the occasional sound from the reindeer broke the night air. She had taken photos for the magazine but somehow, despite this being her ultimate mission, her reason for being here, it felt altogether intrusive.
‘I cannot believe this,’ Jacques said, sitting on the stool next to her.
‘I know,’ Orla said. ‘Burim coming here all the way from Albania.’
‘Oh… I was talking about the reindeer but?—’
Orla smiled. ‘I know you were. Tonight has been… a lot.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed.
‘Is everyone OK?’ Orla asked. ‘Everyone who came to help look for Erin. I feel bad that they did that and she was absolutely fine.’
‘You prefer that she was not fine?’ he asked, his eyebrow raising slightly.
‘No, of course not, I just… don’t like to put anyone to any trouble.’
‘Orla,’ Jacques said, his angular jaw lit up by the glow of the fire. ‘The thing you have to understand most about Saint-Chambéry is that nothing is too much trouble for people that care.’ He elongated his legs and stretched his arms above his head. ‘I find this hard when I arrived here. Look at my house. I built it with the intention of no one coming near, let alone inside. But, even here, on the very edge of a community, they get you.’
She laughed. ‘You made that sound like you’ve been captured.’
‘Well,’ he said, turning to look at her again. ‘Maybe I have.’
Both his expression and his words had her stomach churning.
‘But there is a difference this time,’ he continued. ‘In the beginning I was determined not to be captured, by anything, by anyone. Now I feel that the choice I made then was the choice of a different person, a person that was so broken he thought he could never start to repair.’
‘And now?’ Orla asked softly.
‘And now I see myself worrying hard about Delphine, wanting Tommy in my life more, wondering if the time has come to speak to my mother and try to understand my father… to open myself up to a writer from Travel in Mind magazine.’
‘Oh, really,’ Orla said, her cheeks hot not from the fire.
‘Orla, I do not know the rules here. I do not know if I am built for any kind of relationship, but I know that if you left here and I did not say this then I would regret it forever.’
Her heart was burning but no words were coming.
‘I want to know you, Orla. I want to know everything about you. All the tiny pieces that make you who you are. Even the ones you maybe have not recognised are there yet.’
‘Jacques—’
‘No, let me finish.’ He sat forward on his seat and took hold of her hands. ‘I do not recognise many of my pieces, Orla. You know about that more than anyone else. But the change now is… I do not want to be scared of them any longer. I want to know them. Even the difficult, misshapen ones that have no business being in my jigsaw at all.’ He took another breath. ‘And, even if I am calling this wrong, even if you do not see a way forward for us together, you have helped me get to a place where I can see a future where I am not afraid to be the only identity I want.’ He took a breath. ‘Jacques Barbier.’
She squeezed his hands in hers. She knew how much that meant for him to say and how deep-rooted those feelings were.
‘Jacques Barbier is a beautiful person,’ she told him. ‘Inside and out. His look is wolf meets bear with a touch of YSL eau de parfum billboard man. But inside he’s fire and caramel… rock and bubbles… hot coffee and iced champagne. His heart is surrounded by Kevlar but behind that wall is a divine purity found so very rarely.’
‘I do not know this person,’ he replied.
‘You are this person,’ Orla said. ‘And that was part of the next page I was going to send my boss for the article for the magazine.’
‘What?’ he exclaimed.
‘I know you’re not mute and I know that was my initial remit. The mute man and the pregnant reindeer. But when I didn’t have a pregnant reindeer I had a choice. I could lie. Or I could write a very different article. One about you and everything you’ve been through. Tell your story to the world. OK, it’s not the Christmassy uplifting vibe Frances was looking for but I think it’s better than that.’
He shook his head. ‘Orla.’
‘No, listen, I’m not saying it right. It’s not really about any article, OK? It’s about me feeling the way I feel about you and writing it down. That’s what I do when I care. I write. And I’ve written five thousand words about you already. To be honest with you it could be a whole magazine on its own, or even a book and it’s really great writing, some of my best work but… if the only person who ever reads it is you then that’s more than OK with me.’ She slipped off the stool, onto the snow and knelt in front of him. ‘You were right about me. Everything you said. And I know my jigsaw needs fixing too so, maybe, we can work on it one corner at a time.’ She squeezed his hands. ‘I want to know all your pieces, Jacques Barbier. And I want to help you put them back together again.’
She looked into his eyes, hoping that her bravery in this moment was going to pay off. And when he kissed her, his mouth warm and wet, his tongue so wonderfully smooth, any doubts she had evaporated into the mountain night.