Chapter 33
33
‘I got four!’ shouts Fleur.
Well, this certainly isn’t the Christmas I was expecting!
‘Frédéric wins! The five Lindors in your mouth at one time champion!’
Frédéric beams from the other side of the dining-table, with sheets over it from my bedroom as I’m not staying there.
Waking up in the little chalet apartment with Gabriel making hot chocolate, strong and sweet, was a gift all in itself. We stood and watched the town glisten with its fresh layer of snow, the decorations sparkling and families greeting each other on their way to visit friends, carrying gifts.
We’ve all decided to stay on in the student chalet for Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve shopping on the high street, as a group, shoulder to shoulder, stopping to buy everything we needed for our Christmas Day meal and gifts for each other, a secret Santa: we each pulled from a hat a name to buy for.
I’ve found for Sébastien a beautiful set of cheese knives, with wooden handles. Michel has Fleur and took me to one side to show me a beautiful necklace with a pine tree charm that has a tiny diamond star at the top.
‘She’ll love it, Michel.’
‘I hope so.’ He smiled. ‘I hope she’ll wear it and think of me. And maybe I’ll give her a signed photograph of me, so she will be reminded.’
‘Not the signed photograph, Michel,’ I told him gently but firmly. ‘She’s more than a fan, isn’t she?’
I see him blush.
‘She is … I hope.’
Frédéric and Patrice bought matching hats for each other. They seem to have morphed into one person, copying each other’s expressions and finishing each other’s sentences.
All the time Gabriel was with me, smiling and occasionally dropping a kiss on my nose or forehead, our fingers entwined, not feeling the cold. And I felt warm, like melting chocolate, like home.
With our bags and parcels, we headed back to the chalet, past the band playing jazzy Christmas carols. Gabriel dropped a banknote into their open guitar case and we all wished them ‘ Bonne No?l ’.
Back at the chalet, we went into overdrive, adding to the greenery we’d put up for Frédéric’s birthday. We made chocolate decorations too, stars, Christmas trees, fruits, and added tiny bottles of spirits, with a shot in each one. Sébastien and Michel have made an amazing angel, too heavy to sit on the pine branches, so it’s on the kitchen counter. There is chocolate everywhere, and cheese. We’re having fondue for Christmas dinner. Sébastien is making it. He insisted.
And now the chalet is decorated, we leave it to head to the terrace bar for Christmas Eve drinks there. It’s snowing and we’re outside, with jugs of beer and a band playing tunes to appeal to everyone. Lorelei joins us, with Béatrice and Ralph. And one of my favourite memories of the night will be watching Lorelei and Gabriel, laughing together, hugging and even dancing, just like father and daughter should.
Last night, when Lorelei, Béatrice and Ralph returned to the farm for the night, Gabriel and I went back to the apartment where we slowly slid into bed together, as if we were saving the best chocolate until last and savouring it.
‘Leave room for the fondue!’ says Sébastien, bossily, as we clear away the Lindor wrappers.
We’re all there, Lorelei, Béatrice and Ralph, Fleur and Michel, who seem to be getting closer. Patrice and Frédéric are wearing their matching hats. Lorelei and Alain are helping Sébastien in the kitchen.
Michael Bublé is playing, the fire is lit, and Gabriel and I are on the balcony when my phone rings. I pull it out and answer.
‘Happy Christmas!’ says Raquel.
‘Happy Christmas!’ I call, as I see her face on the screen.
‘We thought you’d be back here with us – we even laid you a place for lunch,’ she says.
‘No, I’m still here,’ I beam, ‘and here to stay.’ Gabriel, who is leaning on the balcony, turns to smile at me and my insides melt all over again. ‘I’ve got a new job. Project manager at a chocolate hotel and workshop.’
‘That sounds amazing!’ Raquel exclaims. ‘Sounds like it could be a good place for a wedding.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Our venue’s closed.’
‘We can do a wedding,’ I tell her.
‘Small and intimate,’ Raquel says.
‘Absolutely, in a gorgeous Swiss mountain chalet. When?’
‘How about the spring?’
‘Perfect,’ I say.
‘The fields will be green and all the flowers out,’ says Gabriel.
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘but you may need to add an extra place for a special guest.’
‘Who?’ I say. Snowflakes tickle my cheeks as Gabriel picks up the bottle nestled in the snow and tops up my champagne glass. I say glass, it’s a tooth-mug from the bathroom because we ran out of proper glasses.
Slowly Raquel turns her phone. She’s not at home in her French grey living room. She’s somewhere that looks a lot like … a hospital. And there, lying in bed, holding a small baby to her chest, is Marianne and beside her a beaming new dad.
‘ Whahhhhhhha! ’ That’s all I can say. Then, ‘The baby!’
Marianne is choked up.
‘Decided to arrive early,’ says Raquel.
The others, who are inside, hear me shout and stick their heads out of the balcony window.
My eyes fill with happy tears.
‘A girl,’ Marianne manages to say.
‘I’m so pleased for you both!’
‘Certainly a Christmas present I wasn’t expecting. Emergency Caesarean first thing this morning.’
I hear the pop of a cork and Raquel is handing round glasses of fizz to everyone on the ward, including the nurses and other new mums.
‘What are you going to call her?’
‘Hope,’ she says, ‘because that’s what we all want for the new year.’
‘To Hope and happiness,’ I say.
‘To Hope and happiness,’ the gang behind me on the balcony echo.
I blow kisses at my dear friends.
‘And a wedding to look forward to in the spring,’ I say, as we wave goodbye.
As we hang up, Gabriel leans in, kisses me and says, ‘Working already!’
‘I’d hardly call it work,’ I say. ‘More … a passion.’ I kiss him back slowly like I want it never to end.
‘ à table! ’ Sébastien calls, and we turn to see him and Lorelei putting fondue pots at both ends. We step into the warm living room, the flames licking up the glass of the wood-burning stove, the lights on the pine branches twinkling warm white. The candles are lit on the table, with more greenery running down the middle that Fleur organized, with Alain’s help. The chocolate angel is a fantastic centrepiece.
There are wooden boards of soft, folding air-dried beef, bowls of buttered potatoes, glistening gherkins and pickled onions, like shimmering silver baubles. There are cherry tomatoes roasted on the vine and baskets of freshly baked bread. Yes, here the baker even works on Christmas morning. Gabriel and I picked up the baguettes as we walked to the chalet this morning, with bottles of champagne and wine, my arm linked through his. And there are bowls of melting, garlicky, wine-infused fondue. And in another fondue pot I can see bubbling golden oil.
‘So, with this one, you take a piece of steak, put it on the end of your fondue fork and place it in the oil. Cook it for as long as you want, to your taste,’ says Sébastien, demonstrating, like a cabin-crew member showing us the emergency exits. He’s holding up his fondue fork with a piece of beautifully marbled steak attached to it.
‘I’ve chosen this white wine to go with the cheese fondue,’ he tells us, opening the bottle in his hand and passing it down the table, then another. ‘There’s a spicy red to drink with the steak. I recommend the cheese fondue first, followed by steak, but, hey, do what works for you.’
We help each other, pouring wine into glasses and, in some cases, mugs. It’s Sébastien who speaks first. ‘Happy Christmas, to the best friends I could ever have met. Here’s to the Chocolate Hotel,’ he raises his glass, ‘and to all the other new beginnings that start from here! à votre santé! ’
‘ à votre santé! ’ we chorus, and sip our wine. Gabriel and I toast each other, then turn to Sébastien. I cannot wait for him to find the perfect location to set up his cheese and wine shop. Good luck to Fleur, who will soon start her residency at the chocolate school and bring the flavours of her family home, where the cacao tree is grown, to the chocolate world. Michel, of course, is going to start work with Sébastien’s family chocolate company and a new TikTok channel. Patrice and Frédéric are now firm friends, already talking about setting up a hot-chocolate stall together. Béatrice and Ralph have the farm’s future secured and Lorelei will spend more time here with her father, helping him in the workshop.
We pick up our forks and begin to swirl the bread in the molten cheese, releasing its nutty, garlicky fragrance.
‘And you, Alain, what does the new year hold for you?’
He shrugs. ‘I’ll still be at the chocolate school, I expect, welcoming the new students.’ There’s a hint of sadness in his words, as if life has moved on for everyone except him. He’s still stuck as neither a student nor a tutor.
‘Alain, I’ll need a chocolatier at my new workshop,’ says Gabriel, and I feel a rush of cheer as he speaks. ‘Someone who will talk to visitors about chocolate-making, explain the process and make chocolate themselves.’
Alain looks at him. ‘Not a kitchen assistant?’
‘No, Alain, a chocolatier in their own right, who can pass on their knowledge to visitors. I’d like that someone to be you.’
His eyes fill with tears, as do mine. ‘I’d like that, very much,’ he says, and raises his yellow mug to Gabriel. They chink.
‘It’s a wonderful idea,’ I say, my voice cracking with happiness.
‘Now, you all know the rule,’ says Sébastien. ‘If you drop your bread in the fondue you have to do a forfeit!’
We cheer as Michel drops his and stands valiantly to take his punishment.
‘What’s it to be? A song, a shot or the washing-up after lunch?’ and we all cheer.
‘I have one last gift,’ says Gabriel. We’ve finished the amazing chocolate mousse Frédéric and Patrice made, stacked the washing up for Michel and Fleur, who also dropped her bread and has to help him. Frédéric had to sing, and we discovered he has an extraordinarily good voice. Patrice filled all our glasses with wine. I recited the French alphabet backwards, to much hilarity and many mistakes, and Lorelei gargled Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’. ‘For you,’ says Gabriel. He stands up, goes to his bag and returns to the table with a beautifully decorated box, which he puts down in front of me.
‘But you already gave me the bracelet,’ I say, touching it on my wrist. It has a little graduation charm of a mortar board and certificate. I gave him salt and pepper pots, with sel and poivre written on them, so he doesn’t put salt in his hot chocolate again. I also gave him a beautiful crystal wine glass that he’s using to enjoy his wine now that he can taste it again.
‘It’s just something I’ve been working on,’ he says. ‘Open the box.’
I lift the lid on beautiful chocolate bars.
‘What is it?’ I smile up at him.
‘A new range, called Clara. A chocolate bar “with hidden layers yet to be discovered”.’ He’s quoted my chocolate description back at me. ‘My all-time favourite!’ he says. ‘I cannot wait for our new life to begin.’
‘Me neither,’ I say.
And finally, smiling so much it hurts, I feel as if I’m in a house full of happiness and hope, where others look in, smile and wish they were there too.