‘Oh my God!’ Orla exclaimed, her mouth hanging open, her finger now also feeling like someone had set light to it.
Jacques began to laugh. ‘Are you crazy?! Why would you eat it like that?’
‘This… isn’t… just… blackberry and sloe… this is… chilli and… it’s burning!’
Her cheeks were getting hot now and she put her tongue out into the freezing air in the hope of some relief.
‘I was going to tell you to only have the smallest of bits. You are insane. Here.’
He was holding out a glass of something creamy looking.
‘What’s that?’ Orla asked, tongue still not very much involved in helping with speech.
‘It’s a honey and milk mead. Gerard’s speciality.’
‘No!’ Orla said, tongue lolling. ‘No one’s… speciality!’
‘Orla, come on. I know how hot that is. Drink the milk and honey.’ He offered the glass with a bit more insistence.
She shook her head. She’d dealt with this before. She’d taken part in a chilli-eating contest in Mexico for the sake of her writing craft and she’d survived, only needing a short course of antibiotics afterwards.
‘Orla…’
‘If you… offer me anything else to put… into my mouth… I will scream!’
Now she didn’t know whether her face was on fire because of the ingredients of the jam or because she’d somehow made another lewd suggestion without realising. At this moment she didn’t care; she just needed to channel zen-like energy and keep calm.
‘Madame Voisin grows her own chilli peppers,’ Jacques said, nodding.
‘That’s… nice.’
‘No one really knows what category they are.’
‘You… don’t say.’
‘The story goes that she grew them from one her grandfather brought back from Africa in the seventies.’
Orla shook her head as the heat continued. She looked around for anything to ease the burningexceptthe drink Jacques was now holding like it was a beloved pet, fingers smoothing over the outside of the glass. Her eyes met the ground. The snow?
‘Gerard had to be hospitalised for a week when she put too much in a sandwich.’
‘OK! Enough! Give me the drink!’
He didn’t need to pass the glass. She grabbed it. And drank and drank until it was all gone.Better. Everything inside her mouth still throbbed but there was relief.
‘I am sorry,’ Jacques said. ‘I should not have put so much on your plate.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Orla answered, finally able to form a whole sentence all at once. ‘And it’s no big deal.’
‘You are taking this very well.’
‘Not my first chilli rodeo,’ she answered with a nod.
And now was the perfect time, while his well-controlled guard seemed to be down, for her to ask about how he knew she had visited the coldest spot in the world.
‘So, before, when we were fishing, you said that?—’
‘Orla! Jacques! Come quickly!’
