‘Hello.’
‘I know where Erin is,’ Jacques said simply.
‘Oh my God! Thank God! Is she OK? Where is she?’
‘She called Tommy. I have her location. I’m in a truck coming back to get you.’
He hadn’t said she was OK.Whyhadn’t he said she was OK? Now her heart was thumping harder than ever.
‘Jacques, is she OK? Please tell me.’
‘She is OK, Orla. I promise. Tommy is heading there now. Now, save your battery on your phone.’
‘Why do I need to do that?’ she asked, confused. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
She heard his intake of breath and so many scenarios began fluttering into her mind. She was going to have to call the emergency services. She was going to have to call her travelinsurance company for an evac back to the UK. She was going to have to call her parents.
‘Orla,’ Jacques said. ‘Erin’s found a pregnant reindeer. It’s about to give birth.’
51
‘I don’t like it. She’s too quiet now. She wasn’t quiet before.’
‘Tommy, relax. She is fine. She is taking her time. And we need to keep our distance.’
‘We should push her stomach? Make the baby come?’
Burim’s comment earned him some surprised looks from Jacques and Tommy, and then Orla’s focus went back to stroking her sister’s hair as they sat on camping stools next to a fire that Jacques had made more rapidly than Ray Mears on a mission. They were hopefully far enough away that the reindeer didn’t feel uncomfortable but close enough should she require assistance.
Orla couldn’t be happier that Erin was OK but she was still going through everything that might have happened. And, apart from talking about the reindeer, before letting Jacques take the lead, Erin had said very little. It was Burim she had run to when they’d arrived and the hug between them that had looked like it was going to last for all eternity had brought a tear to Orla’s eye. The couple’s first IRL meeting and it was on a mountainside in front of a reindeer in labour. Perhaps it wasn’t the mostromantic scenario one could envisage but it was certainly unique.
‘I know you’re mad at me,’ Erin said, breaking the silence between them.
‘I’m not mad,’ Orla replied.
‘Orla, you’re my sister. I know all your feelings. I sense them before you do half the time.’
‘I just… why didn’t you tell me you had plans to meet with Burim?’
‘Do you like him?’ Erin asked, suddenly animated and turning to face Orla. ‘I know he can be a little bit weird but… I like that.’
‘I don’t know him yet,’ Orla answered diplomatically. ‘And, I asked you why you didn’t tell me you had plans to meet him.’
‘Why d’you think I didn’t tell you? Because you would have told me I was crazy, locked me in that secret room in the barn and taken away my phone.’
‘No,’ Orla said straight off. ‘That’s what Mum would have done. I might have not reacted so severely.’
‘You know you would have.Iknow you would have. I couldn’t take that chance. Burim can’t come to the UK, I was in France, it made perfect sense. We’ve been talking for months and we had a chance to actuallytoucheach other and look into each other’s eyes.’
Orla looked to Jacques then. He was the first person in so long that she had made an in-person connection with. She had touched him, looked into his eyes…
‘And do some of the things we’ve talked about together.’
‘What?’ Orla said, breaking out of her reverie.
‘Not that. Not quite yet. Maybe.’ Erin sighed. ‘But, I told him about here. Saint-Chambéry and all the weird shit that goes down. Throwing beanbags and putting Christmas presents in a wheelbarrow. Jacques’s cinema room and Delphine’s hotmilkshakes.’ She paused. ‘Delphine is going to be OK, right? Because I know she’s annoying and opinionated but when I’m not here I need to imagine her here and obviously when we come back to visit she needs to be here and?—’
‘When we come back to visit?’ Orla said.
