Chapter 8
8
Five weeks to Christmas
Monday morning, and I’m up early. It’s dark and snowing outside. There are just five weeks to go until 23 December when the course ends. Just five weeks. I feel a little leap of Christmas cheer like I did when I worked on the shop floor and Christmas was about to get going. I go to the fridge to grab the makings of my lunch, only to find that the chicken I’d put aside for it is all but gone, just a few shreds left on the empty plate in the fridge. I pull it out and stare at it. ‘What happened to the chicken?’
‘It was gorgeous! I’m lucky to be with such a fabulous cook!’ he says, kissing my cheek. He’s freshly shaven and ready for a day at the office. Then he notices my crestfallen face. ‘Oh, sorry. I was hungry after you’d gone to bed last night. Were you saving it for something?’
Irritation rises inside me and, like a river tipping over into a waterfall, it surfaces. ‘You could have asked,’ I say quietly.
‘Well, it didn’t have a label on it!’ he quips, helping himself to orange juice from the fridge.
‘Well, we’re living together,’ I say patiently, ‘and we made an agreement to talk, to communicate more, remember?’
‘Jeez! It’s just chicken! I’ll buy more!’ He puts the juice carton on the work surface with the glass and leaves them there. My fingers itch to put them away, but I won’t. I’m hoping he will.
I grab my rucksack, pull on my hat and gloves and try to banish my annoyance. ‘I don’t have time to get any more before lunch today,’ I explain, realizing he doesn’t understand what it’s like to be outside the city.
‘Sorry,’ he says, walking over to me barefoot, eating muesli. He’s left the milk on the side too.
He leans in and pulls a sad face to make me smile.
‘I’ll grab something from the bakery on my way out,’ I say. ‘And I’m planning a special dinner tonight. Don’t forget. It’s our going-into-our-third-week anniversary.’
‘No longer a holiday.’ He grins. ‘I won’t forget!’
My day in the classroom doesn’t go well. It’s figurines and moulds again today. Many of my figurines have cracked and are broken until I’m left with what looks like a chocolate scrap heap – Jacques’s description, not mine. Maybe I’m not going to get the hang of this, after all , I think, as I travel back to the apartment on the train, looking out over the darkening evening as snow falls, settling on the treetops, the chalet roofs, and way up high on the mountains. This is my second favourite part of the day. The first is my journey into the school.
I stop at a small shop on my way to the apartment and buy wine, with the ingredients for tonight’s dinner, tartiflette . Thinly sliced potatoes, smoky bacon pieces, caramelized onions and nutty, creamy Reblochon cheese, it’s a dish I read about on the internet. ‘A Swiss staple,’ it said. And I want us to embrace all things Swiss.
I pour a glass of the wine I’ve bought. I turn on the lamps and instruct Alexa to play some light jazz. I pull back the net curtain and look down on the light snowy road below. I get that excited feeling again, looking out on the snow and the festively lit street. I feel like a child, watching the lights coming on in people’s homes as Christmas draws nearer, wondering what life is like in a family that goes to town with decorations and turkey instead of a selection box and the Argos catalogue. I’d circle the toys I wanted, and cook a fry-up for Mum when she surfaced with promises to buy me something in the sales. She did buy me stuff in the sales. Usually uniform for school, a cut-price ham joint and crackers.
We had our Christmas dinner in the first week of January, when she’d invite her friends and they’d pool money to buy drinks. She’d rewrap any gifts she didn’t want from her new boyfriends and give them to me. I had a lot of talc and bath bombs. One year it was a packet of thongs. I was only twelve! She wasn’t mean, just not really interested in having a child. I wanted to spend Christmas in a house where you knew what to expect. Stockings at the end of the bed. Presents under the tree. A turkey roasting and a Christmas special on the telly. I wanted reliability more than presents from the Argos catalogue, although the Mr Frosty slushy-maker was always something I dreamed of. I wanted warmth and happiness in a safe and stable home.
I look out on the street at the windows decorated behind the falling snow. Now I’m here I’ve decided to create that world for myself, not wait for it to come to me. This is what life is about! It’s why I came here. I take a picture of the street outside and send it to Raquel and Marianne with a description of the creamy, cheesy potatoes I’m cooking: soft on the underside, golden on top with salty hits of smoky bacon. I’ll serve the tartiflette with a bowl of salad, dressed in olive oil and white wine vinegar, and a baguette to mop up the juices. When Daniel gets in, it’ll be ready and waiting on the table, next to the candle I’ve lit there.
By eight o’clock I’m on my second glass of wine and the tartiflette is ready to be served.
By nine o’clock it’s cold on the side and I’m working my way through the pile of truffles I’ve made, washed down by another glass of wine.
At ten o’clock my phone rings, waking me – I was asleep on the sofa.
‘Hello?’ I can hear Daniel’s voice. What if he’s had an accident? My heart is thundering, like a racehorse’s hoofs on a frozen track. ‘Hello? Daniel? Is everything okay?’
I can hear him, but he doesn’t seem to be speaking to me.
‘Daniel, where are you? Are you okay?’
I can hear voices, and I’m trying to make them out, wondering if he’s in hospital and if so where it is and how I get there.
Then I hear laughter. A woman’s and others.
Sounds like a cheery hospital , I think.
And then I freeze. It’s not a hospital. It’s a bar … I can hear music playing, the chink of glasses and chatter.
‘So, you married?’
‘Me, nah! Not the marrying type.’
‘Single?’
‘Well, I’m sort of with someone but, y’know, it’s very casual. My employers were keen to take on someone a bit older, someone settled to lead the team. They wanted me to be a bit of a figurehead to some of the younger financiers. So, we’re doing team-building weekends … inviting wives and girlfriends. It’s good for the brand.’
‘The brand?’
‘The Daniel Davidson brand.’ I hear his laugh, the sexy laugh. I’d thought I was the only one who heard it. But it seems there’s a lot I don’t know about Daniel Davidson.
He sniffs.
I don’t wait to hear any more. I switch off the phone and look around the modern, empty apartment that I so desperately wanted to make home, for me and him. The safe, stable home. But I didn’t know him at all. What was I thinking? The music is still playing from earlier.
‘Alexa, be quiet!’ I snap, and she is. ‘Sorry,’ I say, not meaning to be rude.
I walk into the bedroom, pull out my suitcase from the big mirror-fronted wardrobe and begin to pack.
‘Leaving us, Mademoiselle Clara?’ says Davide, clearly on a late shift.
‘I am, Davide. But thank you for everything. For asking how my day was, every day, even when it was pretty bad. It helped.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that you’re leaving. Good luck, wherever you go next.’ He smiles kindly.
‘Actually, I have no idea. Do you know a cheap hotel for the night?’
‘Leave it with me,’ he says, and makes a call.
That night, as I lie on top of the covers in the clean but plain hotel room, staring at the ceiling, I feel like that child again, not knowing what tomorrow will hold and wishing I did. And I’m anxious. Anxious not knowing what tomorrow will bring.
I know one thing for sure: Daniel’s not The One. This was a mistake. Everyone said I was mad to do it. I barely know him. I needed a change, and Daniel’s offer was very tempting. But I shouldn’t have come. I should have painted the living room, or even looked for a new job back home. It was madness to imagine it could ever work.