‘In a minute.’ She waved an abstracted hand, utterly absorbed in thought. She prowled around the room.
‘Look: stairs.’ There was a small wooden staircase leading up to a trapdoor in the roof. ‘This must lead up into the kitchen somewhere. Hmm.’ She could hardly quell her rising excitement. There was space for a tasting room, an area for tables and chairs. She walked over to shuttered windows and peered through the gaps.
‘Wow.’ For a second she fiddled with the catches, opened the window, and pushed open the shutters to reveal the full extent of the view of the snow-clad village, the layers of snow like puff pastry on the nearby roofs, and the towering mountains opposite. Leaving the shutters open, she closed the window and turned around. The light flooding in brightened the room, and as she surveyed the floor space, synapses suddenly started firing in her brain. Everything fell into place. She whirled and clapped her hands. ‘It’s perfect. I can’t believe it.’ Suddenly she had all the answers and knew exactly what she wanted to do. She’d stay in Switzerland, work for Johannes, set up his retail outlet, and serve snacks and cakes here.
‘Perfect for what?’
Luke’s forehead wrinkled for a second but he followed her excited gaze.
‘For my chocolate shop,’ she replied. ‘And a café serving cake and coffee, and perhaps lunch.’ She spun around, fizzing with enthusiasm, and pointed to the front of the building. ‘Look, you could have the tables here, looking out at that fabulous view. There might be even be room for a little terrace in the summer.’ With another turn, she pointed to the back of the room. ‘There’s access to the kitchen upstairs, but you could put a small kitchen area in over there. It would be perfect. And we’re right in the middle of all the trails. There’s nowhere for lunch locally. This would be a perfect halfway point and stopping-off place for a lot of the trails.’ The more she thought about it, the more perfect it was. ‘Amelie says people often want lunch but she can’t cater for them because she doesn’t have time. Johannes needs a bigger space to sell and sample chocolate. I could make a big thing of it being locally made and sell it to the tourists. There’d be room for a tasting area.’ Her brain raced with ideas, she could picture it so clearly.
Luke stood and watched, his lopsided smile turning into a laugh.
‘What?’
‘You. Your enthusiasm. You’ve lit up inside.’
‘But can’t you see it?’ Mina waved an expansive hand, her breath coming out in tiny white puffs. ‘Wooden tables, little tub chairs. Cakes on pretty china cake stands. A shiny espresso machine. A wood-burning stove in the winter, the doors open in the summer.’ She paused and did a quick twirl throwing her arms out. ‘I’d source old-fashioned china tea cups and plates, or rather, get Hannah to send mine over.’ She’d amassed quite a collection and often lent them out to friends for vintage events. ‘And it’s ripe for some bunting.’
Everything crystallised in her head, like a flower opening up to the sun. She’d crossed that damn bridge, and had reached happy island. ‘I want to open a little café here. I want to make cakes. Develop chocolate recipes. I want to experiment. Create new cakes. I want to live in Switzerland.’ She paused, the next sentence too impulsive even for her – as she realised she wanted to be with him – and instead she said, ‘I’d call it serendipity.’
Luke raised an eyebrow, and if she hadn’t known him so well or be so attuned to him, in the way that she had since the very first day they’d met, she would have missed that tiny, imperceptible stiffening.
Ignoring the tiny dart of disappointment that slipped straight and sure into her heart, she launched into logic. ‘It makes perfect sense. I could make the cakes for Amelie, which would lighten her load. That would save her loads of time in the mornings. I could provide lunches which would also save her work and I could help her in the chalet, so that she could have more time off. And it would cut down on the amount of shopping she had to do, because she wouldn’t need so much. I could pay her rent and she could use that to pay for more help as well.’
‘You’ve got it all worked out.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘In all of five minutes.’
‘Someone once said to me, “sometimes you just know”.’ Luke walked over to the window and studied the view, shoving his hands in his pockets. Mina felt a flicker of foreboding. Something wasn’t right. What had changed? The hunch of his shoulders made him appear distant and isolated, as if he were shutting the world out. Normally he welcomed the world in. It was one of things she’d noticed straight away about him. One of the things she’d liked most about him. That open, prepared-to-be-friends-with-everyone readiness. Mina often thought there were two types of people in the world, those that thought everyone was a potential foe, and those that believed everyone was a potential friend.
‘What about Amelie?’ he asked quietly. ‘She might not like you making these unilateral decisions on her behalf. Just because she’s ill doesn’t mean she’ll be happy withyoudeciding what’s best for her and her business.’ She flinched at the soft insistence in his voice. ‘People have a tendency to do that.’ His head shot up and gave her a sad smile. ‘They like to assume that they know better than you. That they know what you can and can’t cope with, without even doing you the courtesy of asking.’
‘Was that what people did to you?’ She swallowed.
‘Yes. Cancelled my university place, although in hindsight I would have been too ill to go. Moved house because it was closer to the hospital. Things were just done. No one ever thought to ask me what I thought. I know they were trying to do the right thing, and that makes it harder because then you look like an ungrateful, whinging, adolescent, hormonal sod.’
Mina winced. She had made assumptions about Amelie, although it wasn’t because she thought she knew best. What she’d been trying to do was put forward a logical argument for her sudden impulsive idea. One that, now she’d come up with it, she desperately wanted to make happen. Maybe she should have slowed down and not let her enthusiasm and imagination get the better of her.
‘You’re right,’ she acquiesced quietly, a little bit ashamed of herself. He was right in one way; she was still too impulsive. She hadn’t thought before she spoke, just run her mouth off letting her enthusiasm race away with her like bolting horses. ‘But if I can’t do it here, then… then I’ll find somewhere else. Johannes already said that he’d employ me. Well,’ she qualified, ‘we were going to talk about it.’
‘Sorry, I was being a bit harsh.’ He moved across the room and took her in his arms and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I love that you have this positive, can-do attitude. It is a great idea. You’ve described it perfectly. I can imagine sitting here with one of those glass mugs of hot chocolate piled with whipped cream and marshmallows and a big slab of chocolate cake. I’m just a bit off-balance today. Ignore me. Something has come up.’
‘I’m not sure I could ever ignore you,’ said Mina, reaching up and kissing him on the mouth. ‘But I think, now that I’ve calmed down a bit, Amelie might already have plans for this place. Someone’s made a start on insulating it.’
Luke’s phone chose to beep at that moment and he pulled it out of his pocket wrinkling his nose. ‘Sorry, I need to return this call. I also need to make arrangements to get the Suitcase Train shipped. I’ll probably have to take it into Brig tomorrow. Do you mind if I leave you to it?’
‘No, problem. I’ll see you later.’
She closed the shutter and listened to his receding steps. Now that she knew about his illness, a lot of comments over the last two weeks made sense. His positive, live-life-to-the-full attitude. She guessed if you’d had your life severely curtailed for a couple of years, you would want to make the most of every moment and every opportunity. It’s certainly what she would have done. Yesterday’s hospital visit must have triggered unpleasant memories. No wonder he was a bit sensitive – and if she was honest, she had been totallyinsensitive about poor Amelie. For all she knew, her godmother might want to sell up and take life more easily.
But despite her resolution that she wouldn’t let herself get carried away before she’d spoken to Amelie, she couldn’t help thinking that this was the answer to everything she’d been looking for. She knew exactly what she wanted to do.
At three o’clock she stood beside Johannes while he rang the hospital again.
Halfway through the conversation with the nurse, he suddenly brightened. ‘We can speak to her. They’ve done the procedure and she’s sitting up in bed.’
Suddenly he was shy and he handed the phone to Mina, his face turning pink.
‘Amelie?’
