Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
A NEW YEAR
It’s not until Wendy gets up again just after ten that she remembers it’s New Year’s Eve. As every morning since she stopped drinking eighty-two hours ago (she’s still counting them), the first thing she does is scan her body.
She has woken up feeling tired and depressed.
Is the cause this newly surfaced memory, the New Year’s Eve effect, or giving up alcohol?
It’s probably a unique combination of all three, she concludes.
After all, New Year’s Eve alone, sober, with all of that to ponder…
Well. That’s quite clearly going to be hell.
She gets up; she stokes the fire. She makes coffee and cradles the warm cup between her hands. It’s cold outside this morning – the thermometer says six degrees. But the sky is entirely free of clouds, so it will at least be sunny. She should probably try to take a little pleasure from that.
She feeds Mittens and manages to stroke him a couple of times before he decides that’s quite enough of that and wanders off into the bushes.
She wonders where he sleeps. She wonders if feeding him is even a good idea, because, after all, what will happen when she leaves?
She imagines him peering through the window at the empty cabin and feeling desolate, cold and hungry once she’s gone.
Maybe befriending him is an act of cruelty.
She slouches around until mid-morning, reading the news on her phone (miserable but at least distracting) and checking Facebook and Instagram, too, which (as they largely feature people’s preparations for New Year’s Eve) are depressing in their own way.
It’s gone eleven by the time she manages to drag herself out the door. She walks to the car park at the base of the hiking trail, lost in thought. She doesn’t want to be here, today. She doesn’t want to be here at all.
Is she at least fitter than when she arrived? she wonders as she begins the climb. Yes. So at least there’s that.
But even fitness will fade when she gets home – once she closes the brackets of this trip. And then will anything remain at all?
Just as she’s nearing the radar she hears a noise behind her and turns to see a man and dog catching up fast. He’s no spring chicken, but by God, he’s fit – he’s almost running.
Wendy ups her pace, determined not to be shown up by being overtaken, and as he gets closer behind her she can hear him urging his dog on. ‘Come on, Fifi,’ he keeps saying. ‘You can do it.’
Wendy takes her usual panoramic shot and then turns to face the man, now crouched down, rewarding his dog. ‘There you go,’ he says. ‘Good girl!’
‘I’m assuming your dog is English,’ she says, offering the man a smile.
‘Ha!’ he says. ‘Yes. I’m actually Scottish, but Fifi’s most definitely English.’
‘My daughter’s name is Fifi,’ Wendy tells him. ‘Well, Fiona really, but we call her Fifi. She’d be mortified.’
The man smiles warmly. ‘My wife called her Fifi,’ he says. ‘She’s French. So it’s just fille-fille, if that makes any sense. She looked very girly when we got her. She had these long lashes as a puppy, didn’t you, Fifi?’
‘She still has a very pretty face,’ Wendy says, nodding at the dog and then turning to look back out at the view. An orange paraglider is swooping gracefully in the distance.
‘We love this walk, don’t we?’ the man says, petting his dog.
‘Me too,’ Wendy tells him. ‘I try to do it every day.’
‘Ah, a local, then?’ the man says.
‘Not really. More a long-term tourist. I’m staying here for six months. Well, if I stay until the end. I may go home a bit early.’
‘Homesick?’ the man asks. ‘Or obligations?’
‘A bit of both, really,’ Wendy says.
‘And where is home?’
‘England,’ Wendy says. ‘Maidstone. Kent.’
‘Ah, well, make the most of this,’ the man says, gesturing at the view. ‘Because you’ll miss it once you’re gone.’
‘Yes,’ Wendy says. ‘Yes, I will.’
And with that, the man stands, says, ‘Come on, Fifi! Upward and onwards!’ And with a wave and a ‘You have a good day,’ the man and his dog head off, continuing up the ridge.
Wendy sighs and sits down on a boulder. She stares out at the view. Yes, it’s true, she will miss this. Perhaps she should stay longer after all.
She takes a deep breath of the cool mountain air and starts her way back down. She’s feeling a bit better – that smog of depression is lifting.
Is it the exercise, she wonders, or the mountain air? Or is it the fact that she has been forced to think about how she’ll miss all this beauty once she’s home?
But no, it’s that brief connection with another human being, she decides.
Those few pleasant words exchanged with a stranger have somehow lifted her spirits.
She thinks about those rats in their cages and thinks that the research is probably right – social connection probably is the answer after all.
On the way back she walks as far as the bakery to find it as busy as she has ever seen it. The queue of people picking up cakes for their New Year celebrations spills right out into the sunshine.
When eventually she gets inside, she fills her basket with food – cheese, a jar of posh pickles and a fancy pasta sauce containing artichokes and truffles. If she’s going to spend New Year’s Eve alone for the first time in her life, she can at least try to make it special.
At the counter she adds fresh bread, a raspberry charlotte for dessert, and two croissants for the morning.
‘Nothing to drink?’ the woman asks as she nears the end of Wendy’s basket.
‘No,’ Wendy says. ‘New Year’s resolution.’
‘Ah, ca, c’est pour demain,’ the woman says – that’s for tomorrow. ‘Vous êtes seule ce soir ?’ she asks, then in English, ‘Tonight, you are alone?’
‘Yes,’ Wendy says, feeling irritated at the intrusive nature of the question.
‘We ’ave this,’ the woman says, ‘if you want.’ She’s pointing to a half bottle of Champagne on the counter. ‘It’s only thirteen euro.’
Wendy looks at the bottle. She imagines it chilled, imagines the pop of the cork at midnight and thinks how much less miserable the moment would be if she let herself cave in. ‘Yes, OK,’ she says, then, ‘No. Sorry. No. Really, no.’
‘You’re sure?’ the woman asks, her hand floating near the bottle. ‘New Year is only one time.’
‘Oh, go on, then,’ Wendy says. ‘Just the one.’
It’ll be fine, she tells herself as she walks home. It’s the only alcohol in the cabin.
She can start the New Year with a bang and then get serious about her New Year’s resolution. She’ll save it until midnight, and it won’t even be enough to get her drunk.
Back home, she makes a sandwich for her late lunch and, doing her best to ignore the Champagne, calling to her from the fridge, she feeds Mittens half a tin of cat food.
By way of thanks he sits beside her licking his paws while she eats her sandwich in the sunshine.
‘If you come and keep me company at midnight, I’ll give you some more,’ she tells him, but though he does look up when she speaks, she’s not convinced that he has understood the invitation.
Perhaps she should lure him indoors and keep him hostage until midnight?
Her phone starts pinging mid-afternoon with concerned messages from all and sundry. Fiona, Harry, Todd, Jill and even Sue text to ask if she’s OK, or more pointedly, if she’s going to be OK. Though well-intentioned, these end up leaving her even more anxious than before.
She copies and pastes the same reply to everyone. Yes, I’m fine. I’m having a nice night in with cake and Netflix. Both Harry and Jill reply that they’ll phone her at midnight.
Manon texts her, too, inviting her to spend the evening with them.
But though the invitation is generous the sad truth is that she can’t imagine a worse way to spend New Year’s Eve than trying to make conversation in French with someone she doesn’t know.
Especially sober. She really would rather spend it alone.
It’s a quarter to twelve – which is to say, a quarter to twelve French time – and she’s alternating between watching the news on her laptop and staring at the beads of dew forming on her chilled mini bottle of Champagne.
She’s been thinking about the bottle all day and Christ knows how she has resisted opening it until now.
But should she open it at midnight in France or at midnight back home so she has a glass in her hand when Harry calls?
She probably should have bought two half bottles, she thinks, so that she could open one for each.
She also shouldn’t have bought any at all.
She glances at the screen, now showing for the hundredth time the ‘best of’ firework displays from around the world. She should have bought ten bottles and started with Australia this morning, she thinks.
She focuses on the Champagne bottle again and her brain manages to superimpose the horror reel of her mother’s death all over again.
Now that she has dug these images from the depths they are going round and round in a loop, like some tragic event on a rolling news channel.
She winces in pain at the visual and blinks it into oblivion. She waits for it to start over.
This is a terrible idea, she thinks, as the on-screen UK countdown falls to 01h.14m.59s. I’m not strong enough for this at all!
You’ll get through it, she forces herself to think instead. You’ll be fine. She finds herself unconvinced.
Christ, there’s so much going on in her head this evening, so many voices battling for dominance. Perhaps she’s lapsing into clinical schizophrenia. Wouldn’t that be a great way to start the year?
There’s a tap-tap-tap on the window which is so unexpected she wonders if it is even real. But Manon’s familiar face peeping in would seem to confirm that it is.
‘Manon?’ she says, once she has unlocked and opened the front door.