Chapter 27
It wasn’t until she turned onto the riverside path that led to the repair shop that she realised she’d joined a steady stream of people all going the same direction, many of them with parcels and packages in hand.
The Mill House’s waterwheel had coloured Christmas light bulbs wrapped through its spokes and there was Christmas music playing into the snowy yard where people queued to get inside. Every available parking space was taken up by cars and bikes.
Florrie made her way apologetically to the front of the line. ‘Sorry, I live here, excuse me,’ she told them, as she made her way inside.
The noise hit her as she stepped into the pink neon glow from the ‘open’ sign on the wall above Sachin’s repair triage desk where the man himself was taking down details from a number of people all presenting him with old red toboggans for repair, all in bad shape.
The floor was wet with melting snow from everyone’s boots.
‘How do?’ Sachin called out to her with a cheery wave.
‘What’s going on?’ she shouted back, but he didn’t hear.
She made her way slowly past the milling groups of people clustered around each repair station.
It dawned on her this had to be McIntyre’s Merry Fixmas event she’d heard Roz mention, except all the items being pulled from bags and boxes and presented to the experts for fixing seemed to centre around a similar theme.
‘This is the branded ski suit the chairlift operators wore,’ one woman was proudly telling Roz at her sewing station. ‘My auntie worked there for years. But it’s all worn at the cuffs, see? And there’s the badge, all embroidered. See? Cairn Dhu Ski Centre.’
Roz examined the lurid pink and purple padded suit with interest, not noticing Florrie at all as she moved deeper into the shed.
‘This was the altimeter and barometer station that was once up at the plateau over the dry ski slope. You see it has the time there in Cairn Dhu and in Stavanger, Norway, and Nunivak Island, Alaska? We’re all on the same latitude, you see?
Ma faither kept it in his loft for years,’ a man was telling Dr Bonnet, the horologist, who was gripping the wooden box of weather instruments and clock dials like a child opening a much-wanted train set on Christmas morning.
‘It is very badly broken,’ Dr Bonnet told the man, utterly thrilled with the prospect of nursing the old weather station back to health. ‘This must be fifty years old at least.’
Florrie couldn’t get anywhere near McIntyre and Cary Anderson, the carpenter’s, workbenches, which they had pushed together, both topped with planks clamped in vices.
There were tools piled up and great curls of sawdust where they seemed to be performing surgery on the same old toboggan Rhona had fainted over the day before.
Murray McIntyre was assisting their work, passing them their tools on demand like a nurse scrubbed in for the operation.
Ally McIntyre, at her table, had an altogether different job, collecting in photographs and other items of ski centre history and collating the names and addresses of the people dropping them off into a spreadsheet.
Florrie peered over the people’s backs as Ally speed-typed, telling one family, ‘I’m logging those as items number fifty-five and six. The numbers are in pencil on the backs, see? Keep this ticket so you can reclaim your pictures when the exhibition closes at Christmas.’
‘This way for donating picture frames, please,’ a voice called from behind Florrie in the depths of the shed, drawing her attention to where the huge window was running with condensation.
The young guy, Willie, who she’d seen helping Roz in the sewing corner before now, was sitting on the floor surrounded by picture frames of all sizes.
He was cleaning them off with a cloth and mounting clippings and photos for display, and he was way too busy beckoning people towards him with their contributions to notice Florrie.
Behind their counter, Senga and Rhona were working at full capacity. All the café tables were occupied and the sofas filled. A good smell of boozy iced Christmas cake and marzipan wafted from their corner.
‘No time for toasties, today!’ Senga shouted over the rabble.
Rhona ferried trays of hot drinks from the counter into the seating area, where everyone was talking animatedly about their memories, and the grumpy mountain ranger Finlay, along with Ally’s police officer boyfriend, Jamie, were trying to get around everyone in turn with mini mics and ring lights so they could record their stories of ski slope reminiscences on their phones.
When Rhona made her way back to the drinks station, pink cheeked and puffing from her exertions, Florrie caught her. ‘What’s all this?’
‘When one of Cairn Dhu’s own asks for help, we help,’ Rhona said matter-of-factly. ‘Cup of tea?’
Florrie already knew that much, but this was something else. ‘No thanks, I’m fine.’ She couldn’t help looking out over the bustling shed in wonder. ‘But… all these people! Does Hamish know you’re doing all this?’
‘He will, come half five.’
‘Why, what happens at half five?’
‘We move out, take the exhibition to him,’ she said, handing Florrie a slice of Christmas cake on a plate. ‘Eat this, you’re looking pale.’
Florrie tried to balance the plate on top of her bandaged fist as Rhona hurried away. ‘Keep the cuppas coming, Senga!’
‘Right you are, sister,’ replied the eldest Gifford woman, very much in her element and seemingly on a better footing with Rhona who’d seemed so hurt by her actions yesterday.
Florrie noticed the café radio was blaring out the music station Rhona loved and both sisters were singing along to snatches of Nat King Cole. ‘Merry Christmas to you,’ trilled the sisters as they worked in perfect harmony.
An explosion of sound came from the doorway and almost everyone in the shed lifted their heads to see a gaggle of small children in wellies and raincoats spilling inside, all shouting and laughing and shaking snow from their bobble hats.
‘Ah! The bairns are here to paint the banner,’ Roz called out, leaving her sewing station to welcome them inside.
‘Who are they?’ Florrie asked, sidling up to Rhona behind the counter and, feeling her hunger spiking, taking a big bite of rich, crumbly fruit cake, sweet marzipan and crisp royal icing.
‘That’s Primary One. They’re here to paint the exhibition banner. There’s their teacher, and that wee boy hugging Roz is Jolyon. Roz is his one-to-one classroom assistant. They’re going to repurpose an old banner, painting over the top of it, to hang outside the ski centre.’
An elderly man (a volunteer Florrie didn’t recognise but who Rhona said was called Clyde Forte) was retreating into a corner where the kids were gathering.
He was fiddling with the TV buttons, having hooked up an old VCR, because someone, Rhona informed her, had brought in grainy camcorder footage of the old chair lift running and people zooming down the slope on toboggans.
‘So the exhibition’s got a bit of everything.
Old film, photos, objects, newly recorded memories.
Not bad, eh? Oh, Senga, can you put some hot chocolate on for the bairns,’ Rhona called behind her.
‘Right you are!’ Senga replied, her face in the fridge.
‘Isn’t this a lot of work for a temporary exhibition?’ Florrie said, watching as the children threw off their coats to reveal they were already wearing tiny aprons. ‘The ski centre will be closed by Christmas Day and the exhibition will need to be dismantled again. That’s less than three weeks.’
The school teacher and Roz were giving out instructions as the children excitedly lined up around a big sail banner which looked like it currently bore the words ‘Beltane Sausage Sizzle and Bonfire Celebration’.
Rhona turned to her. ‘Nae such thing as temporary with memories like ours. And even temporary visitors can’t seem to get away,’ she added, peering meaningfully at her young friend.
‘What? You mean me? Oh, no, I’m literally waiting for my dad’s PA to text me my flights for today.’
‘Hah! Flights, you say?’ Senga butted in from over her sister’s shoulder as she squeezed past with more plates of cake. ‘Nae planes are leaving from the aerodrome today. You’d need to go from one of the big cities.’
Florrie hadn’t heard back from Empressa, not even a text notification. Was she finding it hard to get her onto a plane?
‘OK, I’ll get a taxi or a train, or a bus? Anything.’
‘You’ll be lucky,’ Senga said, hurrying away.
Florrie looked to Rhona for answers.
‘It’s true. There’s another mighty snow dump forecast. They just announced it on the radio. The snow gates will be shutting on the high roads. There’ll be naebody going in or out of the valley soon.’
Florrie ran through her options, thinking of how all the resorts she’d ever worked in kept running even in below freezing temperatures and while buried under five-month-long snowy seasons.
Couldn’t she get a helicopter? A private charter?
Snow shoes! ‘The place can’t just shut down?
How do people usually manage round here when it snows? ’
Rhona looked at her, plumping her bottom lip. ‘We just…’ she shrugged, ‘all get together and stay put.’
The Florrie of a week ago would have had a lot to say about how silly and inconvenient that was. Now she just accepted it. Of course that’s how things work round here. Why not?
Florrie glanced around the repair shop, full of life and noise like a North Pole toy factory.
Another person burst in through the doors at that moment, stamping snow from their boots and dragging another beaten-up old toboggan in the same familiar design as the others.
‘Is this where we’re dropping auf our auld sledges? ’ they shouted into the rising clamour.
‘Now,’ said Rhona, close to Florrie’s ear. ‘Do you reckon you’re up to gripping a paint brush?’ and with a smirk, she bumped Florrie’s hip with her own, sending her in the direction of the kids’ corner.