Delphine gasped. ‘You have?’
‘Yes. And… I have no idea where to take her. Grenoble seems cliché. But Grenoble is the only place with life around here and more choice of places to eat and I do not know the best places to eat or even what food she likes and?—’
‘Jacques,’ Delphine said, smiling. ‘Listen to yourself.’
‘I would rather not listen to myself.’
‘You are excited about this. You are not thinking straight.’
‘Because I don’t do this!’ he reminded her, throwing up his hands and knocking tinsel into a pendulum swing.
‘Ah, that is wrong,’ Delphine interrupted. ‘You have done this but all the times you have done this it is because I forced you to.’
‘And might I remind you that you brought Orla here.’
‘Maybe,’ she answered. ‘But you are the one who has asked her on a date.’
He nodded, internally regrouping.
‘So, you need to not think about Grenoble,’ Delphine told him. ‘You need to think about further and wider. Use your experience. Or, perhaps, use Orla’s.’
He caught her wincing and he reached out, putting a hand on her arm. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes,’ she insisted. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Because I can do this on my own if you need to…’
‘Lie down?’ Delphine asked him. ‘I will have a long time to lie down when they bury me in the cemetery.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Jacques begged. ‘In fact, if I am going to do something for you, then I would like you to do something for me.’
‘No,’ Delphine said firmly.
‘Delphine…’
‘Ugh. What is it?’
‘If I am to think about things and re-evaluate then, I want you to do the same.’
‘That is unfair, Jacques.’
‘How so?’
She shook her head, that valiant determination always appearing at the forefront of everything she undertook. ‘Because it is different.’
Jacques put a hand on her shoulder then. ‘You do not have to do this on your own, Delphine. Isn’t that what you strive to make sure Saint-Chambéry is all about? Helping one another? Giving a place to those in need? Supporting those who suffer?’
He watched her wrinkle up her nose in disapproval. ‘Do not use me against me.’
He shrugged. ‘What choice do you give me?’
He could see she was thinking about his words, now trailing a skein of red and white ribbon through her fingers. All he needed was a bit of hope, the vaguest chance that he could get through to her, let him help her like she had helped him.
‘I will think,’ she said, finally. ‘That is all.’
A warm feeling spread through him. It was something he didn’t have before he’d walked in here. He wanted to hug her. And that kind of physical affection didn’t come easy for him. He made the tiniest movement.
‘Do not hug me!’ Delphine exclaimed, her voice breaking a little. ‘We have much to do here with these decorations!’
