Chapter 9
Why did it have to be that guy? The one who’d seen her at her lowest yesterday, drenched and snarling like a wolverine, and why did he have to be so dignified in the face of her bad behaviour?
And of course he’d recognised her immediately.
How many other mad women are roaming the Highlands screaming at strangers.
How could she convince him she was any serious kind of businesswoman now? Not that she was; she was only acting, but it was imperative he didn’t figure that out. She’d have to double down, ensure he felt the weight of the Norheim family name behind her.
‘Do you have a stock room?’ she asked as coolly as she could, as she eyed the packed shelves of the ski hire and ticket office.
‘What you see is what we have.’
‘You don’t sell ski wear?’
‘Not much call for it, most folks bring their own or they hire what they need.’ He was flipping on lights and wiping away invisible dust from the toes of red ski boots that looked like they’d been here a long time.
‘Does that computer work?’ she asked, thinking it looked as old as the hills that lined the valley.
‘Of course.’ He’d drawn his neck in, offended.
‘I’ll add it to the list of assets.’
She’d have to try another tactic. Offending him wasn’t what she was going for. Intimidating him? No, that wasn’t the plan either, though she’d witnessed her dad overwhelming competitors to get what he wanted.
‘So, you’re, eh, a skier?’ Hamish was saying. ‘Your jacket’s a good brand that. Expensive. Where did you learn?’
He was fidgeting in a nervy way that only unsettled her further. She should have rehearsed her badass persona in the mirror a little more. And what was with all his questions? Was he trying to suss her out?
‘I’ve skied since I was a kid,’ she said, tapping the walls like she was some kind of building surveyor and knew what she was doing.
‘Me too, me too,’ he said hurriedly. ‘You’re probably used to the upmarket resorts.’ He had a hand clasped to the back of his neck now and a pained look in his eyes like he’d sprained himself with the effort of making small talk.
She gave him a thin smile in response. She knew the upmarket resorts all right, but not in the way he’d think.
She knew the best places to shop for affordable groceries, the places where her resort friends worked and where she could hang out on her rare days off so that her host family never saw her drinking bombardinos, her favourite slope-side cocktail.
She knew all the gossip about who’d slept with who and who had a crush.
She knew how to score free lift passes and pedicures at the spas, she knew all the au pairs’ kids and when someone was running late for school pick-up and needed a helping hand.
She knew who owed her a favour and who she was in debt to.
It was all part of the seasonal workers’ economy of sharing and helping one another out.
‘Whereabouts are you from?’ he asked.
She heard her dad’s voice reminding her, No friendships, no niceties, no promises.
‘What’s in that lockup I saw outside?’ If she could just stick to the task at hand and avoid chit-chat she could get through this undetected. ‘Any business assets in there? Skidoos? Snowmobiles?’
‘Eh…?’
Hamish didn’t seem to understand her. She’d sure struggled with the local dialect ever since the passport control guy at the aerodrome had said, ‘Howyadein?’ from behind his plexiglass screen and then laughed when she’d taken a punt and responded with, ‘Aspen, Colorado?’
‘Unlock the garage please,’ she said in a slow voice as clear as a bell.
She prided herself on the way she’d smoothed off her accent’s American edges – that had been rough like the Rockies where it came from – and she’d lifted her deep Norwegian register out of the fjords and upwards into soft Anglicised music, achieving what she felt was a neutral register.
No, this guy couldn’t fault her Transatlantic cadences; they said this bitch means business.
Or so she told herself as Hamish turned a rusty key in a rusty padlock and brought up the metal door on the lockup situated down on the lowest part of the ski centre complex near the roadside.
‘Oh!’ She couldn’t help saying upon looking inside. ‘It’s all just…’
‘A big pile of manky junk?’ Hamish helped her out.
He reached a hand into the floor-to-ceiling tangle of cracked and greying wooden garden furniture, broken parasols, moth-eaten rolled rugs, knotted bundles of faded bunting and St Andrews cross flags, all jammed in. ‘This wis all Mr Farquhar’s stuff.’
She waited for him to explain.
‘The old manager? Ran the place since it first opened, turned the bar-restaurant into a nightclub in the mid-nineties. Then I took over his role about nine years ago.’
‘All of this will have to be cleared out in case there’s anything of value belonging to the business.’
He was giving her a look like she was surely dreaming.
‘You’ll be the first to know if I find a stash of gold.’
He pulled down the door, clearly ashamed of the hidden mess as though it were a fitting metaphor for the entire business.
‘And this is the Ptarmigan nightclub…’
He’d announced it like it was going to be breathtaking, but when the fire doors opened and she stepped into the room, her eyes didn’t land on anything too special.
‘I mean, clubs always appear a wee bit sad in the daylight, but come night-time, this place is bouncin’. You should come back on Friday at nine. See how this place contributes to the night-time economy.’
She took in the long bar, which was supposed to resemble blocks of clear blue ice but was giving tacky plastic in the morning light from the big windows.
Above it hung a sign that read ‘Naughty List? Or Nice? 5 shots ￡5’ and there were drawings in chalk-pen of shot glasses clinking together, a red one with a smiley Santa face and a grinchy green one with devil horns and a wink.
‘From what I’ve seen of Cairn Dhu so far, my guess is this place is the night-time economy.’
He smiled down at the floor and rocked on his feet. ‘All the more reason to keep us open then, eh?’
His words rattled her more than she’d have liked to admit. Was he hoping to appeal to her through passive-aggressive remarks designed to make her pity him? There was no room for pity when talking profits.
‘That seems really cheap,’ she said, pointing at the naughty and nice shots sign. No wonder this place was on the verge of bankruptcy. You couldn’t buy even a draft beer for five pounds in the mountain resort towns she knew.
‘Ach, it’s only inexpensive stuff from the cash-and-carry.
You’d be surprised at the profit margins.
Anyway, it’s something I’m trialling. You can even have them as a shotski!
’ He lifted the bar hatch and took out the gaudily painted ski with a row of five shot glasses mounted along it. ‘Ever seen one of these before?’
Seen them? She’d thrown back a few in her time.
‘Can I mix you anything?’ he said with a sly smile.
‘It’s nine in the morning.’
‘It was just a wee joke.’
On the bar before him was a thick ledger.
‘Are those the bar’s accounts?’ she asked.
With a nod of surrender, he let her gather them into her arms. She’d seen all she needed to see in here.
‘So… there’s an apartment included in the complex?’
‘You mean my home?’ A little flex of irritation moved his jaw. ‘Right you are,’ he said on a heavy sigh. ‘Come on up.’
She followed him up a set of clanking metal stairs and waited for a long while as he searched a bunch of keys, clearly stalling.
‘Look, it’s nothing special, OK?’ he said. ‘But it’s mine.’ He hadn’t turned to face her as he spoke, so he didn’t see her wince at the bleakness in his voice.
She had assumed she couldn’t feel any more like an intruder in town than she had yesterday, until now.
‘I’m sure you’re staying some place really special,’ he added.
She didn’t want to tell him she’d slept up in the air last night in the rafters of a big echoey shed.
If it helped oil the wheels, she’d gladly let him believe she’d taken some luxury Airbnb somewhere with a mountain viewing platform and a hot tub.
That’s who the locals must be led to think she was.
It was that or risk them uncovering that she was a clueless newbie and a fraud.
She’d already slipped up this morning, letting Rhona, the woman at the repair shop café, know why she was here.
Why had she blabbed about the audit? Maybe because she’d surprised her in her jammies and face mask, meaning there was no such thing as dignity or poise, so she may as well have confessed why she’s here?
That woman, who’d reminded her so much of her omma (another reason she’d opened up?), had taken pity on her, picking up on all her anxiety and awkwardness.
Well, no one else was getting a glimpse of them from now on.
Hamish stepped inside the flat first, immediately taking off his boots. ‘Leave yours on. I’m the one that’s been in the mud.’
Ignoring him, she pulled off her boots, dropping three inches and feeling self-conscious in her white socks. Still, her mother had raised her right and she wasn’t entering anyone’s home in outside shoes in the middle of winter.
‘Here we go,’ Hamish said flatly, walking all the way inside in thick boot socks.
She hadn’t been back to all that many guys’ resort rental properties but she’d seen enough to know what to expect: clusters of cables and consoles all over the floor, takeout boxes in the fridge and never any milk, bikes blocking the hallway, sweaty sports kit and laundry stuffed in hampers, and the inevitable rumpled bed.
This place, however, was bright and clean, the air fresh.
There were plants at every window and books neat on the shelves, a record player and stacks of vinyl along one wall.
A Christmas tree, artificial, but still nicely decorated in silver and white, sparkled from the corner of a little lounge area with folded red and green plaid blankets and matching cushions.
In the far corner, behind a bookshelf screen, she made out green and white striped bedlinen so neat you’d think Architectural Digest were coming to shoot a house tour any second.
‘You live here with… someone?’ She could have sworn this place was supposed to be single occupancy, it said so in her paperwork from the Regional Authority.
‘Nope, just me,’ he said quickly. ‘Always has been.’ He hung his coat on a rack by the door.
He’d made it like this himself? She stepped further inside.
From up here there was an unimpeded view of the top of the dry slope where the same solo boarder she’d seen on arrival was cutting sharp turns, making the most of the short run downhill.
The mountaintop was capped with white and some type of large raptor circled its summit.
If she’d been in Aspen she’d have guessed a Golden Eagle, but what species bred in the highlands of Scotland?
She’d no idea. There was so much about this country she didn’t have a clue about.
‘Mount Cairn Dhu,’ he said, coming to look out too, and his eyes shone like he was seeing the vista for the first time.
She noticed the top of his blue shirt collar peeping over a cosy-looking sweater in darkest navy wool with natural undyed flecks.
He suited it. The colour emphasised the deep blue of his irises and the blue black sheen of his hair.
At close quarters like this, he, like his home, smelled clean with laundry detergent.
She stepped further away, pretending to flip through her notes, not sure why she felt quite so rattled. She tried to imagine her brothers acting like this, all awkward and jumpy. That would never happen.
‘Is this the amount you pay the Regional Authority to lodge here?’ She showed him the figure she’d taken down in her notebook back in Aspen when her father was briefing her on what questions to ask.
Hamish cast a glance over the number and nodded. ‘It’s been the same ever since I took over. Fixed rate. I’ve been lucky.’
‘No kidding!’ She’d seen the prices a one-bed apartment in the centre of town could command as she’d passed the rental agent’s window this morning. Five times as much as this guy’s rent.
His face fell at her words. ‘It’s subsidised, sure, but the Regional Authority have had their money’s worth out of me in return.
Twelve years of hard graft. Not to mention I’ve provided them with an on-site security presence these last nine years, twenty-four seven.
Think of how much a nightwatchman would have cost.’
She hadn’t meant to suggest he was taking advantage of his position, enjoying the high life at local government expense. ‘That’s not what I…’ she began, but he cut her off.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to get antsy.’ He seemed frustrated with himself, not her.
‘Listen, do you fancy a cup of tea or…?’ He gestured to the little galley kitchen.
It wasn’t modern by any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, something about it put her in mind of her mother’s old cosy, wood-panelled kitchen in the Fl?m valley.
The surfaces were spotlessly clean and there was a drinks station with canisters of tea and coffee beans, good Swiss hot chocolate and wrapped candy canes, mini marshmallows in a jar, and syrups of all kinds.
A classic Italian moka pot on the stove gave off a freshly ground coffee bean aroma.
If she’d been able to simply be herself, instead of playing a hardass Norheim, she’d have told him how sweet this little glimpse into his life here was.
She’d tell him this place was really nice.
She’d ask him if he liked Christmas, because she loved Christmas.
Or at least she loved the idea of it; the memory of it.
‘No, thank you,’ she said, even though Rhona’s coffee was long gone and she really, really wanted another one. ‘I should get to work on these.’ She squeezed the bundles of ledgers in her arms. ‘Can I work here?’
‘Make yourself at home,’ he told her, showing her a spot on what looked like a very comfy sofa, freshly plumped.
‘Here’s fine.’ She settled onto a barstool at the kitchen counter warmed by the light of a small lamp.
‘Suit yourself. I’ve got to go and man the hire shop.’
He laced his boots again while sitting on the low bench by the door and was gone before she’d finished spreading out the papers, pretending it wasn’t horribly awkward to be in his lovely warm apartment while he had to sit in that cold dingy shop on the ground floor.
She took another glance around, noting the crossed skis fixed to the wall above the mantel and the unwashed cereal bowl and spoon he must have left in the sink, and, not without some anxiety that was telling her she simply wasn’t up to this job, she tried to focus on making sense of the reams of figures before her.