Chapter 22
22
‘It’s you who should be thanking us!’ I hear Michel say. They had taken their conversation down the wooden steps from the balcony into the dark at the bottom.
There’s a kerfuffle.
‘Bloody interfering bastards! The lot of you!’
I can hear a tussle. ‘What’s going on?’ I call.
Michel comes back up the steps, his hair ruffled, clearly having had a scrap with Sébastien. Fleur is behind him.
‘It’s Sébastien! He’s drunk and he’s going to the bridge!’
‘The bridge ?’ I say.
Fleur nods. ‘I’m worried. He’s very drunk. He might do something stupid.’
‘We have to go after him!’ Frédéric says, waving his tongs.
As one, we hurry down the steps.
Gabriel is driving Madame Pichon home and I watch the car’s taillights, wondering again if that’s where he’ll spend the night. I tell myself it’s none of my business.
The five of us hurry up the main road towards the bridge. Beneath it the water is bubbling and cascading over the rocks. It could be a real death trap , I think, seeing Sébastien on the bridge. If he fell in, I don’t know which would get him first: the cold or the rocks. I’m very frightened. We stop, not wanting to startle him.
‘I’ll go,’ I say to the others. ‘You stay here.’
‘Are you sure? I don’t think you’re his favourite person right now,’ says Fleur.
‘No.’ I take a deep breath and pull my cardigan around me, shivering, but this is my fault. ‘It was my idea to rebuild the sculpture.’
I take another deep breath and walk towards the bridge. If he hears me, he pretends not to. He’s swigging from a beer bottle he’s pulled from his jacket pocket.
I venture up to the bridge wall and then, with a deep breath, I sit on it and swing my legs over. I try not to look down at the dark, dangerous water below and focus on the sound of the waterfall overhead. This is a long way from a broken Mr Tickle mug at Duncan and Daughters. I’m not sure I’ve ever come so close to rapids before. Frankly, I’m terrified.
We sit in silence. I’m stock still: if I move or speak, I may fall in. Or Sébastien will or both of us. Then finally I say, through chattering teeth, ‘Look, about the chocolate sculpture—’
He cuts me off before I can apologize and tell him I was just trying to do the best, for all of us.
‘Chocolate! It’s all I ever hear about! I can’t stand chocolate!’ he shouts, to the dark sky above the rushing water.
‘What?’ I’m puzzled.
‘You heard me. I hate chocolate!’
My eyebrows shoot up. I wasn’t expecting that. ‘How can you hate chocolate? You’re a chocolate-maker from a chocolate-making family!’
He sighs, swigging from his bottle, then hands it to me. I take a swig and pass it back.
‘What I wouldn’t give for some salt and vinegar crisps right now. I hate my life.’
I take a deep breath. ‘So, let me get this right. You don’t like chocolate?’ I say. If he’s serious about hating his life, we’re sitting in a very dangerous position.
‘Can’t stand it. Grown up with it all my life. My friends thought it must be amazing to be surrounded by chocolate. Parties were to die for, according to them. And, of course, to mix with such chocolate royalty.’
‘And you’ve never told your parents?’
He passes me the bottle again and I take another swig.
‘Are you kidding me? It would be like—’
‘I get it. But you were telling me I didn’t fit in!’
‘Sorry. It’s a defence mechanism. Idiotic, I know. Keeps people at bay. But the reality is that I’m the one who doesn’t fit in. Not here, not at home, with my friends. Can’t stand it!’
‘But the sculpture was brilliant.’
‘Been taught from a young age. Like tennis players or golfers.’ He lets out a long sigh. ‘I thought if I said it was you, you’d take the blame. I wouldn’t be able to take part in the exhibition so I’d get out of it scot-free! No sculpture, I couldn’t be considered for the residency. If I win it, my father and grandfather will expect me to take on the business in new flavours and designs, bring in the young customers, then take over as head of the company in a couple of years. They think I’ll bring it into the twenty-first century from its old-fashioned, rather staid branding. Classy, elegant, but getting left behind.’
It’s slowly starting to make sense. ‘And you don’t want that?’
‘God, no!’
‘So what do you want to do?’ This is so much like the discussions I used to have back in HR with unhappy workers, yet so far away from them, sitting on a bridge, in the freezing cold, sharing a bottle of beer. But the principles are the same.
‘Anything other than chocolate.’ He sighs.
He turns to me suddenly, swaying in the process. I reach out with both hands and steady him, my heart racing.
‘Actually, not anything.’ I can see he’s trying to focus.
‘Just sit still and don’t move,’ I say, as he clings to my arm.
‘It’s all about cheese for me. I love cheese. But my family would have a fit if they thought I’d choose cheese over chocolate.’
‘But surely they’d just be happy that you’re happy. You’ve found something you love. It’s taken me years to find out who I am. I’m nearly twice your age and still not quite there.’
‘What I dream of is a little shop, where people come for a taste of the mountains, the cheese and the wine made here. Cheese boards and chilled rosés from the slopes. Where all the right people gather for aperitifs.’
‘That sounds lovely – I’d come!’
‘And your drinks would be on the house. To say I’m sorry.’ He drops his head and sniffs.
‘Look, don’t be sorry, just work out a better way to do this. You’re not a bad person, Sébastien.’
‘Aren’t I? Look at how I treated you! And got the others to join in.’
I pat his arm. ‘We all make mistakes, judging on first impressions,’ I say.
My phone rings in my pocket. I pull it out. ‘Shit! I forgot about Daniel!’
He’s calling me, clearly wondering where I’ve got to.
‘Is he your boyfriend?’
‘Well, not if I don’t get back to him and try to explain why I just ran out on him.’
‘Sorry,’ he says again.
‘Come on, if we’re all done here, we should go. You first. Swing your legs round to the road,’ I say. And he does.
‘Okay, now you,’ he says, standing and holding out a hand.
‘I can’t … I can’t move!’ I’m frozen with fear.
‘You can, Clara. You can do bloody anything,’ he says. ‘Even rebuild sculptures!’ We laugh. ‘Come on, don’t look down. Just turn to me.’
I start to move, not looking down.
He puts out his hand to pull me up and I let him. Then he sways and a foot slips. I’m almost toppling backwards but he catches me with his other arm and straightens us. We look into each other’s eyes, realizing what might have happened. There’s a collective intake of breath from the others. Sébastien and I take a moment to cling to each other, two misfits trying to find our way in the world. When we’re sure we’re safe, we let go, and I call back to the others, ‘We’re fine!’ They rush forward in relief.
‘Really,’ he says, as we scoop him up, linking arms to stop him swaying and falling into the river, and he puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘You’re a great chocolatier. Don’t let idiots like me try to tell you otherwise. That sculpture was great.’
‘Well, it wasn’t just me. It was Fleur, Michel and Patrice as well.’
He laughs as we set off along the road. ‘So Belgians really can be as good as the Swiss at chocolate-making.’
‘Some might say better!’ Michel adds, and we wander back to the chalet, like Dorothy and her companions on the Yellow Brick Road.
‘I’ve got some mini pretzels if you like those, Sébastien?’ says Frédéric.
‘Thanks, Frédéric, I’d love some!’
‘Maybe you should think about doing a chocolate cheese, with chilli,’ says Michel, walking beside him.
‘Perhaps you could do a different cheese pairing for each of your twelve days of chocolate. Cranberries, for example, with a Camembert encased in dark chocolate,’ says Fleur.
‘And that’s why you guys are a far more inventive chocolate-makers than I am.’ Sébastien pats Michel on the back as we make for the chalet, where I have to explain to Daniel why I had to leave just now, and promise that our next date will be very different indeed.