Chapter Four
Emme eked out every step towards the doors, nervous about the upcoming introduction.
Further down the platform she saw a woman reprimanding her children for something.
Or was it her husband she was telling off as he approached the group and crouched down to greet his children? Either way, she looked pissed off.
Oh dear, Emme thought, recognising the man Cat had pointed out on the train from the Zoom call.
And as she looked at the woman properly, she recognised her auburn hair and alabaster skin, that had shone so perfectly under the ring light of their video call.
She was Alexia Harrington, Emme’s new boss.
Oh dear, Emme thought again, as the woman noticed her approaching.
Her tense face morphed into a forced showbiz smile with prim red lips.
She had the look of a faded Hollywood star, her Rita Hayworth waves pinned perfectly off her face; telltale creases where her Botox stopped at her nose.
She looked like she was going to either burst into tears or burst into song.
‘Emmeline!’ She outstretched her arms awkwardly. ‘Welcome to Kristalldorf! How was your journey?’
The two little redheaded children stood either side of their mother, expectant to meet the woman who had the nerve to be replacing their adored Jenny.
‘Mrs Harrington, Alexia, lovely to meet you,’ Emme said as she went to shake her hand. Alexia was so fragrant-looking, Emme wondered if she should curtsey, but she took the outstretched gloved hands and let Alexia squeeze hers.
‘Lexy, please. Did you meet Bill on the train?’ She nodded towards her husband.
‘Bill,’ he said, outstretching his gloved leather hand.
They both shook their heads and Emme smiled affably.
‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.
‘This is Harry, and this is Bella. Our munchkins. Darlings, give Emmeline a big Kristalldorf welcome.’
Lexy pushed her children with a palm on each back as they shuffled nervously forward and Emme got down to her haunches.
‘It’s so wonderful to meet you two in real life,’ she said, looking each of them in the eye. ‘Aren’t you both gorgeous?’
Despite her childcare qualification, and that brief stint in the States, Emme hadn’t had much experience in the past ten years, apart from her five-year-old nephew and niece, Zack and Zara, who she loved enormously.
But what she lacked in experience she tried to make up for in planning.
In the Zoom call earlier in the week Emme had gleaned all manner of clues about the children.
Bella had a Paddington 2 film poster on her bedroom wall when Lexy gave a brief video tour.
So now she opened her bag and pulled out two cuddly bears.
‘These are for you,’ she said. ‘I got them from actual Paddington station.’
Bella gasped as she took hers, clutched it and beamed. Harry looked a little disappointed.
‘What do you say to Emmeline, Harry? Bella?’
Lexy waited for her children to say something charming and grateful, but it was taking longer than any of the adults found comfortable.
‘You can call me Emme actually, no one calls me Emmeline,’ she whispered mischievously to them, pretending to let them in on her secret.
‘Thank you,’ Bella mumbled shyly.
‘Paddington’s lame,’ Harry said, so quietly, it appeared no one else seemed to notice, but Emme did a double-take.
‘That’s quite some suitcase!’ Bill Harrington said, deftly changing the subject. Perhaps he had heard too.
‘Grab a yumbo out the front and go ahead,’ instructed Lexy.
Bill nodded.
‘I’ll follow on foot with Emmeline – Emme – and the kids.’
‘Ooh, what’s a yumbo?’ Emme asked, perhaps overplaying her excitement.
‘Oh, they’re little electric cars that zip around town. Kristalldorf is carless, don’t you know?’
‘It keeps the air clean,’ Harry said, flatly.
Bill looked like he had quite fancied the walk after sitting on two trains for hours from Zurich to Bloch, and then to Kristalldorf. But he clearly knew better than to argue with his wife right now.
‘Can we get the yumbo with Papa?’ Bella asked her mother, through lispy lips.
‘No,’ her mother said firmly. And that was the end of that.
The first fulsome snowflakes of winter were falling on the town, now shrouded by an inky navy sky.
‘Perfect timing!’ Lexy Harrington said, as if she had just pulled a giant lever and switched them on herself.
As Lexy, Emme and the kids walked from the train station, Kristalldorf unveiled itself like a hidden gem.
The glow from the street lamps gave the town a timeless warmth as the peaks at the head of the valley turned from white to silver in the moonlight.
The most iconic of them all – the Silberschnee – was obscured by cloud as Lexy, Harry and Bella led the way past wooden-fronted shops selling expensive watches, skiwear, tourist trinkets and chocolate.
Most of them were closing, although the restaurants that peppered the centre of town were open, with staff setting tables and furnishing chairs with sheepskin blankets.
In the distance, a centuries-old church chimed 6pm.
Tucked behind the shopping street was a warren of wooden huts and chalets, their sloping roofs bearing the weight of the first rising snow.
Window boxes were tightly packed with geraniums, gamely fighting the chill to reveal their distorted colours to the twilight.
Nestled between these were antique wooden storage barns, that looked as if sheep might be asleep inside as they had for centuries.
Emme wondered how these structures endured, neighbouring such smart glass-and-wood shops and boutique hotels.
Past the church, they crossed one of several footbridges that linked the two sides of the town over the wide and flowing river, its roar drowning out Lexy’s wittering.
Emme could almost smell how pristine the water was, as she tucked her hands in her pockets.
Passers-by heading towards the centre all nodded and smiled at Lexy and the children in their featherdown coats, snow boots and bobble hats.
Emme felt woefully underdressed and cold in her decade-old hiking boots and the ski jacket she had borrowed from Lucille.
She already knew it wouldn’t cut the mustard.
Emme had winced at the fluoro orange and turquoise monstrosity and wondered how her sister had ever worn such a thing. Now she felt self-conscious walking alongside the very polished Lexy, bucking the local trend for featherdown in a Victoriana wool coat.
As they walked, Lexy pointed out the children’s favourite bakery, the closed ski train station that took villagers to the slopes in three minutes, the riverbank path to the school and the direction of the town’s best pizza restaurant.
‘Obviously Kristalldorf looks much more spectacular in the daylight …’ she said, almost defensively.
‘I think it looks beautiful now,’ Emme replied, trying to soothe Lexy’s nerves, as well as her own.
The wealth in Kristalldorf was immense but understated.
And it was quiet, save for the odd electric bike whizzing past, or the sounds of a distant après-ski bar, where a chorus of ‘Take on Me’ was muffled by all the wood and the weather in between.
Cowbells rang on the hills behind the buildings, which were hardly high-rise.
Nestled between a pretty chalet and a small wood-fronted hotel was a set of wide but winding steps, where Emme could already see Bill up ahead at the top, the yumbo having dropped him at the base of the steps, her enormous case over his shoulders like he were participating in a survival challenge on a game show.
A strategically placed light at the top of the steps illuminated him, as if he had won first place, and the children raced each other to see who would take silver and get to their father first.
‘Careful!’ Lexy called after them.
Emme breathed heavily. The thin Alpine air teamed with the ferociousness at which these steps were coming at her caused her to pant slightly.
‘Quite the thigh workout living here,’ Lexy said, glancing back at Emme, who was embarrassed by her lack of fitness. ‘You’ll have glutes of steel by Christmas,’ she said.
Emme could almost hear the woman clench her pert buttocks as she kept an eye on her footing in the dark, while Harry and Bella chatted to their dad.
‘I got the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Daddy!’ Bella declared.
‘That’s wonderful, darling …’
‘I scored two hoops – that’s like goals – in basketball today.’
‘Well done, buster.’
Emme reached the top step out of breath and took off her coat.
‘Won’t miss you in the dark!’ Bill quipped, flatly, as he leaned on the handle of Emme’s suitcase, a bead of sweat glistening on his jaw in the light of the building. Their building by all accounts. It had Chalet Stern hand-painted on the side in an elegant script.
‘Gosh, thank you, sorry my case is so heavy …’
Bill leaned casually and waved, as if to say don’t worry.
‘You can carry it down when you leave!’ Lexy said with a laugh.
Bill looked at his wife pointedly and the laughter stopped.
Emme smiled a little awkwardly.
Lexy tapped some digits into a keypad next to the door before a heavy-sounding lock was released and the front door pushed open with ease.
‘I’ll give you all the codes you’ll need,’ she assured Emme.
‘We share this door with three other families, although two of them are away at the moment, and Mr and Mrs Muller keep themselves to themselves.’
They walked into the building entrance, which had stone heated floors and smelled of clean laundry. A tumble drier whirred in a low hum off an adjoining room.
Bill rolled Emme’s case to the elevator and fluffed Harry’s hair in the reflection of the lift’s shiny doors.
‘What’s this then?’ he said playfully, ruffling up his son’s fringe. Harry batted him away affectionately.
‘We’ll all fit …’ Lexy assured Emme, jabbing a button by the doors, which opened straight away. ‘Top floor,’ she said, trying to conceal her pride.
Of course.