Claudia laughed. ‘Frank has the most detailed business plan known to man. I think he bored the poor bank manager into submission. We needed to take out a loan to buy the house here, and next month we’ll put ours on the market in Geneva. I can’t wait.’
Despite that pernicious nudge of envy, Mina could have talked to them all night. Their excitement was infectious – but Amelie had other ideas. A dinner bell was rung at six-thirty by one of the pretty young waitresses and Amelie began directing people to the table. While she didn’t lay down exactly where everyone should sit, she did steer people with decided intent. Definitely a sheepdog in another life, thought Mina, watching as she steered Kristian to sit with an older man and his daughter while Luke was teamed up with Claudia and Frank, and she found herself sitting next to Bernhardt.
‘Impressive, isn’t she?’ he said in a dry voice.
‘Yes,’ said Mina with a laugh. ‘She has an iron first in a velvet glove. It’s fascinating to watch her in action.’
‘We all do what we’re told when Amelie’s in charge. She’s like a bossy head teacher with a class of unruly students, and we all love it.’
‘So you’ve been here before then? Everyone seems to have been here before.’
Bernhardt nodded. ‘It’s becoming quite exclusive. I believe the chalet is fully booked this weekend.’
‘I heard,’ said Mina wryly, thinking of her luxurious bedroom.
‘So what is it that you do for a living?’
In response to his very formal question which probably sounded more clipped due to his Swiss-German accent, she replied with her official job title.
‘I’m a senior food technologist for the packaged division of a company.’ It sounded scientific and dull when she said the words out loud. ‘I develop new recipes for packaged meals and new formulations for food products.’ Put like that, her job didn’t sound very exciting at all.
‘For Nestlé? You live in Vevey?’
‘No, I’m here on holiday. I work in England.’ She realised that Luke hadn’t been kidding when he said that twenty per cent of the population were foreigners.
‘I love London. I’ve been there many times, on business. Perhaps next time I come over I could take you out for dinner.’
Mina raised an eyebrow. ‘That was smooth and quick.’
‘Don’t ask, don’t get. And if you notice, there aren’t many gorgeous single women here.’
With that sentence she realised that he was hedging his bets, staking an early claim because she was the only available woman. It amused rather than offended her.
‘That would be lovely except I live in Manchester and it’s about two hundred miles from London. It sounds as if you may have been there more times than I have.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I made that assumption. Here in Switzerland we are much more federalist and we have the most direct democracy in the world. We don’t even have one main language.’
‘You don’t? I thought it was German.’
‘Shh,’ he teased, putting his finger to his lips. ‘And it’s Swiss-German, if you please, and even then the cantons have their own local dialects. We have four official languages. French, Swiss-German, Italian and Romansh, but we’re all very multi-lingual. And we have five official names for the country, Suisse, Schweiz, Svizzera, Svizra, and Helvetica, which comes from the Latin name Confoederatio Helvetica, which is where the CH you see on the car registration plates comes from.’
‘Ah, I did wonder.’
‘You’ll see it shortened to Helvetia on stamps and coins.’
‘And how do you know what language to speak?’ It all sounded very confusing to Mina.
‘Most of the country speaks Swiss-German, in the north, east, and central parts of the country. French is spoken in the western cantons, Geneva, Neuchatel, Vaud, and Jura. While Italian is spoken around the Italian border, in the canton of Ticino and Romansh—’
‘I’ve never even heard of it before.’
‘Not that many people speak it. Around 37,000 in the south-east in the canton of Graubünden. It dates back to Roman times. People who speak it are very proud of their language and the fact that it has survived so long.’
‘And how many cantons are there?’
‘I’m starting to feel like a tour guide.’
‘Sorry, but it’s interesting. It’s so different.’
