Chapter 13 #2
Manon is wearing what looks like a boy’s suit, with a crinkled white linen shirt and a loosely knotted tie. Behind her is an extraordinarily pretty girl in jeans, silver trainers and a (somehow incongruous up on this mountain) sparkly top.
‘We decide to come to you,’ Manon says, brandishing a full-sized bottle of fizz. ‘It’s OK?’
‘Oh, yes, that’s lovely,’ Wendy says, her voice wobbling a little with emotion. ‘Come in!’ She hadn’t wanted this at all but now they’re here she can’t think of anything she wants more.
‘This is Celine,’ Manon says, dragging her girlfriend into the cabin. ‘And this is Wendy.’
‘Hello,’ Celine says, then in surprisingly formal fashion, ‘I am very pleased to meet you.’
‘Thank you!’ Wendy says, laughing. ‘Come in, come in! Please, sit down!’
‘Is nearly time,’ Manon says, checking her phone, then, ‘Sorry, it is nearly time.’ To her girlfriend she adds, ‘Wendy is very hard teacher.’
‘Oh, yes, I’m well hard,’ Wendy says, and she can tell from their blank expressions that her joke has gone over their heads.
‘We bring Champomy,’ Manon says, handing the bottle to Wendy. ‘It is apple. So no alcohol. It’s good, yes?’
Wendy glances guiltily back at the coffee table where her half bottle of Champagne is waiting, prompting Manon to follow her line of sight.
‘Oh,’ Manon says, frowning slightly. ‘You are drinking tonight? I think you said…’
‘I just…’ Wendy says, pulling a face. ‘What can I say? You’ve saved me from myself.’
‘Est-ce que…’ Celine starts, but Manon raises one finger like a stop sign. ‘Un moment,’ she says. ‘If you want to drink, Wendy, it’s OK. I just—’
‘No,’ Wendy says. ‘No, this is perfect. Because I don’t. Really. I don’t.’
‘Est-ce que j’ouvre le gateau ?’ Celine asks, once Manon’s finger has been lowered.
‘Ah, yes,’ Manon says, lifting a box from the carrier bag her girlfriend is holding and handing it to Wendy. ‘We bring cake.’
‘I hope you like,’ Celine says. ‘We don’t know, so…’
Wendy takes the box and places it on the kitchen counter so she can cut the sellotape and peer inside.
‘It is nice here,’ Celine comments.
‘Thanks, yes,’ Wendy replies distractedly, then, ‘Oh, croquembouche! I love that.’
‘Croque-en-bouche?’ Manon repeats, sounding surprised, now moving to stand beside her and peer in. ‘You call this croque-en-bouche?’
Wendy nods. ‘Um, yes. Something like that. But surely that’s French, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ Manon says, laughing. ‘But they call it like this in your country?’
‘Yes, we call it by the French name. Is that funny? Or did I pronounce it—’
‘It is French,’ Manon confirms. ‘Croque-en-bouche is French for, um, “bite in the mouth”. But we do not call it this, so yes, this is funny for me. We call this une pièce montée.’
‘Une pièce montée,’ Wendy repeats. ‘I’m not sure what that means.’
Manon shrugs. ‘It means, er, like a construction.’ She turns to Celine and adds, ‘Les Anglais appellent ca croque-en-bouche ! T’imagines ?’
‘I heard this before, I think,’ Celine says. ‘In France, too. But now it is late.’
‘Ooh, ooh!’ Manon says, checking her phone. ‘Wendy, you must be quick. We have one minute fifty seconds. One minute forty-nine. Forty-eigh… seven, six…’
‘Gosh, OK,’ Wendy says. ‘Um… Glasses!’
‘Yes, Wendy,’ Manon says. ‘Glasses, quick! Go!’
By twelve thirty the girls have already left, but their brief presence has transformed Wendy’s New Year’s Eve from something so terrifying she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to get through it to a beautiful memory she doubts she will ever forget.
What a wonderful, generous girl she is, Wendy thinks. I am so lucky to have met her.
She sips her fizzy apple juice and tries to remember the brand her mother used to give them as children. Appletise, that was the one. They’d felt so grown up sipping it and eating Wotsits.
She thinks of midnight and how the girls had counted down in French – thinks how sweet they had been – sweet and somehow a bit… what’s the word? Unpretentious? Childlike? Na?ve? Unembarrassed, certainly.
Fiona and Todd would pull faces about having to count down. They would both consider it the height of uncool. Well, unless they were drunk, that is. Perhaps that’s why the English have to drink so much: to escape the clutches of being cool.
She pops the final half a croquembouche into her mouth. My God, fresh choux pastry tastes amazing, doesn’t it? Her mother had been a dab hand at profiteroles, and they’d tasted exactly like this. Maybe she should learn to make them herself when she gets home.
Home!
Just after midnight, Celine had initiated a round robin of who wanted what in the new year.
Manon had said the only thing she wanted was for her brother to stay ‘clean’, while Celine hoped to pass her driving test. As for Wendy, she’d surprised herself by saying she wanted to go home.
‘You mean now?’ Manon had asked. ‘You wish to go home early?’
‘Yes, I think I do,’ Wendy had told her, considering it as she spoke. ‘I think I need to go home and sort my life out.’
‘But this is why you come here,’ Manon had pointed out. ‘To think. To sort your life?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly why I came here,’ Wendy had agreed. ‘But… I don’t know… I kind of feel like I have. Or I’ve started to, anyway. I feel like I’ve sorted my head out, a bit, at least. And the next step involves everyone else, really.’
‘Your husband?’
‘My husband, my kids… my brother, my sister-in-law. I think I need to go home and fix it all.’ As she spoke, an internal monologue had started trying to trip her up, saying, You’ll go home and everything will be exactly the same as before, and what will you do then?
Manon had raised her glass then and said, ‘I think you can do this. I think you are a strong woman now.’ And by Christ, Wendy had loved her for that!
She drags her gaze from the flickering fire to check the screen on her muted laptop. The UK countdown has now reached eleven minutes to midnight. Harry will be calling soon.
She goes to the fridge for her Champagne, but even as she crosses the room she’s realising that she can’t remember having moved it from the coffee table. One of the girls must have done it.
She opens the fridge door but the bottle isn’t there.
She scans the room. There’s no sign of it.
Her phone, on the coffee table, lights up with a message, so she returns to check if it’s from Harry. Instead there’s a message from Manon.
I take your Champagne. Do not look for it. You will not find. Bonne année my friend. P.S. Celine really like you. :-)
‘Cheeky!’ Wendy mutters, but then realising that this was not an act of theft but support, she shakes her head and tries to laugh instead. But genuine laughter is hard to come by. She has been looking forward to that Champagne all day. She’s salivating just thinking about it.
At five minutes to midnight – UK time – her phone rings with a call from Jill, which she ignores letting it go to voicemail. And then at exactly midnight, as the Sky News fireworks burst into the night sky, it rings again with a call from Harry.
Harry: Sorry, I bloody missed it. I called five minutes ago, and it was busy. And then by the time I’d made a cuppa, midnight had come and gone.
Wendy: Hey, it’s fine! It’s not even a minute past.
H: So who were you on the phone to?
W: Just Jill. I didn’t even take the call. I probably have a very drunken voicemail.
H: Because?
W: Well, she’ll be drunk, won’t she?
H: No, I meant, why didn’t you take it?
W: Oh, because I was waiting for you.
H: Eek. Good job I remembered, then.
W: Yes, it really is!
H: I just got in, actually.
W: In? From where?
H: … had to take Fifi to a party at that Paradise place. She was raging because we were late.
W: Fiona? In a nightclub?
H: I know. But her mate Cindy got free tickets or something, so… Are you worried about her drinking? She says they ask for ID at the bar. Though I’m sure they can get around that. I always did.
W: To be honest, I’m relieved to learn my daughter has a social life.
H: Yeah, me, too, actually. She has a tendency to play safe, doesn’t she?
W: She does.
H: Which is all very reassuring and everything…
W: But not only reassuring.
H: Quite. So how was midnight in froggy-land?
W: Oh, I’m right in the middle of nowhere, here.
H: So…?
W: So it was very much like being in the middle of nowhere. But a friend called in with cake, which was nice.
H: That is nice. Your post lady friend?
W: Good guess. With her girlfriend and a bottle of Appletise.
H: God, Appletise. Does that still exist?
W: Apparently it does in France, though it’s called Chappony or something.
H: Well, I’m glad you had company, Wens. I worry about you, out there on your own.
W: And you? Do you have company?
H: I do as it happens. You.
W: Cute.
H: We try.
W: Haz, this is all very nice and everything. But I need to… Look, do you think I can maybe come home early?
H: …
W: Don’t sound too keen.
H: No, it’s not… I just thought we’d keep it light and fluffy tonight, for New Year’s Eve.
W: Oh, we can, if you want. Though it’s hard not to take that as a ‘no’.
H: Even though it isn’t. It really isn’t. It’s just, well, that’s quite a big discussion, isn’t it?
W: Is it?
H: Well, yeah. I mean, er… Are you sure you want to come back early? Are you sure it’s a good idea? Don’t you feel you might regret cutting things short later on? And, you know, home to where? And to do what? Which seems like a lot to be talking about at four minutes past midnight.
W: OK, fair enough. I get your point. Even if the answers are quite simple.
H: You think?
W: Yes. I mean: yes, I’m sure. And no I won’t regret it. And home to our house, to patch things up with you and the kids and Neil and Sue.
H: Gosh. OK.
W: Don’t sound so surprised, Haz. It’s hardly the plan from outer space.
H: No… But it sounds… I don’t know…
W: It sounds what?
H: Like you’ve had some kind of epiphany? Have you had an epiphany?
W: Maybe a mini one. A sort of half-a-piphany, if that’s possible.
H: If you’ve had a half-a-piphany then I suppose it must be.
W: Look, I think – sorry you’re right, this isn’t light and fluffy at all, is it?
H: It’s fine, Wens. Go on.
W: Well, you were right. About Mum. When she died, that was it, wasn’t it? That’s when I veered off the rails. You know it’s all come back to me now. How Mum actually died, I mean. It was quite traumatic.
H: I bet.
W: Bloody traumatic, actually. Horrific.
H: Yep, I can totally believe that, Wendy. Even if you never did say a word.
W: You know, I couldn’t?
H: You couldn’t?
W: No. I couldn’t even remember it myself. I think I scrubbed it because it was so awful. To sort of… survive. So that I could carry on functioning. Otherwise I would have imploded or something.
H: That makes sense, I guess. You had so much to organise.
W: Yes, I’ll tell you about it at some point. I want to. And I need to tell Neil about it, too. He doesn’t even know about when she died so he can’t really know why I’m angry, can he? It’s unfair of me to expect him to. I can see that now.
H: I think that might be a bit of a fiery conversation. Do you mind if I opt out?
W: Yes, I’m sure. And yes. It’ll just be Neil and me for that one. And I’m not going to rush into it, either. I might see someone first to talk it all through.
H: You mean, like a professional?
W: Yes. I should have done that ages ago. Maybe we should see someone, too.
H: I think you’re right. Maybe we should.
W: Anyway, there you go. That’s where I’m at.
H: And it all sounds shockingly reasonable.
W: Good.
H: And the… um… drinking? How are you feeling about that, dare I ask?
W: Well, for the time being, I’ve stopped.
H: You’ve stopped?
W: Yeah. I haven’t had a drink for ninety-um… three hours.
H: Ninety-three hours? That’s precise. And do you think you might want to see someone about that, too?
W: About the drinking? Oh, I don’t think so. I think I’ve got it sorted.
H: …
W: Why, do you think I need to see someone?
H: Maybe. Probably. Yeah.
W: OK, well… Like I said, Haz, I’ve stopped. And if that gets hard, or, you know, impossible, then I promise I’ll see someone about that, too. But I honestly think I’m through the worst of it now.
H: Great. Well, I’m, um… reassured, I suppose is the word.
W: Good. I’m glad.
H: So… D’you mean… erm, you haven’t had a drink tonight? Not even on New Year’s Eve?
W: I’ve had two glasses of Appletise.
H: Wow. Call me impressed.
W: OK, Impressed. But seriously, Harry, what do you think – about me coming home early, I mean?
H: Can we talk about it some more tomorrow?
W: Yes. Sure. Of course.
H: And don’t take that as a ‘no’. I know what you’re like and I’m really not saying ‘no’. As if I have the power to say ‘no’ anyway… Because as an adult, with free will and whatever, you’re obviously free to do whatever you want.
W: Obviously.
H: But I just want us both to sleep on it. And talk it all through properly tomorrow.
W: Sure. That’s fine.
H: I was going to suggest I come out and visit you for half term if you must know. I quite fancied seeing your place before you leave, but—
W: Ooh, I quite like that idea. I’ve been feeling a bit sad about the fact you might never see the place. That it would always be sort of the one adventure we didn’t share. So, yes, let’s do it.
H: You’re sure?
W: Yes. Definitely. When is half term, anyway?
H: Mid-February. The twelfth or so.
W: That could work. Maybe I’ll stay on till then.
H: We can discuss that tomorrow too.
W: Yes. In 2024.
H: It already is 2024. How crazy is that? The years do fly by, don’t they?
W: They do. You know, I do love you, Harry. I don’t say it enough, but I do.
H: Cool. Because I love you, too.
W: Goodnight.
H: Goodnight.
W: You have to hang up now.
H: Or you do.
W: D’you remember when we used to do that for hours?
H: I do. You were a student nurse sleeping on a gurney.
W: When I was a student, still, that’s right. That was a long time ago.
H: Decades.
W: Goodnight, Haz.
H: Night night.