‘Oh, well, it’s my mum and dad really.’
‘They are getting a divorce?’ Delphine asked.
‘No… nothing like that.’
‘You do not believe in divorce?’
‘I… don’t have an opinion one way or the other and?—’
‘Because you have never been married?’
‘Well, no but?—’
‘So, youhavebeen married?’
This was a bit much. It felt like Delphine was giving her an inquisition or behaving like the reporter in this situation. It was an odd line of questioning too and Orla knew better than to give up personal details to someone who hadn’t yet shown them more than cookies…
‘Areyoumarried?’ Orla asked the woman, turning the tables.
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Only to my supermarket now,’ Delphine answered.
‘I am only married to my job too,’ Orla said.
‘Oh,’ Delphine said, disappointment evident in her tone. ‘You do not want a family of your own.’
Delphine had said the sentence like it was a fact rather than a question. It was as if Orla not being married yet had made her into a spinster for life who would only be looking after knittingneedles and cats. She wanted her career to shine and any partner to complement that, working towards their own individual goals as well as joint ones. The truth was she didn’t know if she wanted children. And, as she was having a hard enough time trying to find a man who hung around long enough to ask if he was a pizza or a burger guy let alone anything deep, who knew whether children were ever going to be in the picture? And she wasn’t about to divulge any of this to someone she had just met. She needed a distraction.
‘What’s the wheelbarrow about?’ Orla asked, indicating the garden equipment in the square.
‘A what?’
‘A wheelbarrow. The wooden carrying thing with wheels everyone is looking at and touching.’
‘Ah! That is abrouette. Here in Saint-Chambéry it is like an icon. In days long ago, our ancestors built the village by hand, using only woodenbrouettesto move tools and stones and wood. We honour this at Christmas time, at a festival in the summer and we look to thebrouettewhenever we need guidance. The oldest survivingbrouetteis now in the church. It does not deal so well with the weather.’
Orla’s story radar was clicking like a Geiger counter had encountered toxic substances. This was more like it. A community with slightly off-the-wall traditions, paying homage to something you’d buy in B&Q. Perhaps she could make something substantial out of this after all.
Delphine took a gulp from the cup in her hands and sighed, satisfied. ‘Ah, thevin chaudis very good this year.’
‘It’s wine?’ Orla asked. ‘I thought you were drinking coffee.’
‘It is a little more than wine here in Saint-Chambéry,’ Delphine informed her. ‘We like to add a lot ofcrème de cassis. It is the blackcurrant and the alcohol and the spices that really make you feel warm again.’
Orla felt a creeping feeling envelop her shoulders now as she focussed on the little brown paper cup in Delphine’s hands. The woman wasn’t the only person she had assumed was drinking coffee… And then her eyes found Erin, leaning against a snowboard that was upright in the snow, a manic grin on her face. She didn’t wait to make her excuses to their host.
11
It was official. This morning Orla felt like Heidi. It might have been the French mountains she was looking out at from the window of the room above Delphine’s café-shop, but this setting was definitely giving all the Swiss vibes from the white-topped peaks to the chalet-style buildings all around. It would have been peace and serenity in this loft-style room, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she had got little sleep. It had taken actual coffee to bring Erin down from the high of at least three cups of mulled wine and then it had taken what had seemed like hours to connect to Wi-Fi. And there had been fifty-five notifications on Erin’s phone. Thirty-two of them from Burim, which her sister had been highly delighted with, proudly claiming he was ‘so down bad’. Thirty-two sounded excessive to Orla, but she did remember the high excitement and that fizzing sensation in her stomach when a new notification arrived from Henry. He had sent photos from the bookshop where he worked – the cloth-bound classics she liked – his beautiful hands around Lewis Carroll’s finest. It had been different to the other connections. They had more in common – or so she’d thought…
Her phone made a noise. An iMessage rather than something from Insta and she picked it up from the windowsill, looking at the screen.Mum. Usually her mum’s name on the screen of her phone would make her feel warm, comforted, a little nostalgic even. But as circumstances were, currently all she felt now was concern. And, as she had managed to get a message through last night that she and Erin were here in France and safe – excluding any mention of car crashes, the freezing climate and Erin getting pissed – who knew what this was going to be? There was only one way to find out. She pressed on the message and read.
Dad sold your grandma’s eternity ring. I have no words. That’s a lie. I do have words. Right now I don’t know whether I want to help him or let him drink himself into the ground. What time is it in France? Have you eaten frogs legs yet? Don’t let Erin sleep without her retainer in. Don’t worry about me.
The ‘don’t worry about me’ was something her mum always used in texts as a joke, but today the humour wasn’t hitting. Orlawasworried. About her mumandher dad. She hovered her thumb over the keyboard, wondering whether to reply or make a call.
