Will stopped suddenly and turned. ‘You’ll be having thewhat?’ he snapped. ‘Celeste! You told me there was “no meat at the retreat”?’
‘There isn’t!’ Celeste replied wide-eyed. ‘It’s one of their slogans.’
‘Is it?’ I said, equally surprised.
‘What have you heard?’ Will whispered, clearly desperate. ‘How do I get it?’
‘I don’t know! Sorry, I assumed…’
‘It’s her first day, remember,’ Ethel said with a chuckle as the restaurant came into view. It was a huge, wooden building, festooned with dotty bunting and fairy lights.
Tore stood in the doorway and welcomed us in one by one. He nodded, then I nodded, although I was slightly freaked out by his overenthusiastic smile. Weird. The dining area looked set for Valentine’s Day, with candlelit tables for two dotted between the fir trees, each one made from a different type of rustic wood and decorated with jars of dahlias. The air felt fresh and green, yet cosy at the same time. It reminded me of Dad’s old greenhouse, a labyrinth of leaves decorated with shiny, red tomatoes. He’d slice them up and sprinkle them with salt, and we’d eat them with crusty bread and butter.
A hush descended as I followed Ethel up to the buffet. ‘Am I missing something?’ I whispered.
She put her finger to her lips and pointed to a handwritten sign next to the cauliflower rice.
Please observe silence during lunchtime.
I looked around and realised everyone had gone quiet. Only the clinkety-clank of cutlery and the shuffling of chairs could be heard. It was stifling. It took me back to a failed twenty-four-hour sponsored silence in high school, which I’d accidentally cocked up by answering my phone. My brain wanted to run outside and shout into the sky, but my stomach was gurgling away and talking a lot of sense, so I decided to zip my mouth and grab a quick bite.
I moved along the line like the Little Mermaid, using my body to communicate. Big, excited eyes at the man spooningout jacket potatoes, and after several encouraging nods from my side, he eventually gave me a second. I wrinkled my nose at the aubergine lady and smiled at the bean chilli girl, then took a seat at an empty table and looked around. Would it be frowned upon to get my phone out? Nobody else had, so probably. Although I couldn’t do much on it without any Wi-Fi. Flick through photos and reread old messages. What was the point of that? I’d just have to sit and eat quietly, with nothing to distract me. Like a sociopath. I smiled at Celeste and rolled my eyes – likewhat the helll, gurlll?– but she stared straight through me, then turned away.
Ethel was far too busy with her broccoli to notice me trying to make eye contact, so I gave up and ate my food instead. Celeste was right – no meat at the retreat – and my potato was devoid of dairy. I’d have liked it slathered in butter and cheese, but my churning mime hadn’t resonated with the chefs. Instead, they’d given me an onion stuffed with jackfruit, and a pepper sauce. I was determined to hate it, but it was annoyingly delicious. Meaty, even. Maybe I was hallucinating because I was so hungry. Or maybe they knew what they were doing in that kitchen. The sound of my own chewing rang through my ears, and I felt overly conscious as I swallowed each mouthful. As if everyone could hear the gulps. Scoffing sushi in the work loos had become my norm, and being so far down the other side of the spectrum felt very weird. I’d never had so much time and space to consider my food.
Once we’d all finished our beetroot brownies, Tore wandered through the restaurant like an exam invigilator, silently putting a note on each table as some soft piano music started to play. We were being gently woken from our tranquillity, and it was a relief to have something to focus on again.
We hope you enjoyed your lunch, proudly vegan and cooked from organic ingredients grown in Firefly Forest. This afternoon we meet at the sauna pods at 4p.m. Please wrap up warm and bring swimwear and towels.
Tore, Henrik and Jonas
Yes. Time for some luxury. A sauna would warm me up, if nothing else. I trudged back to my cabin through the snowstorm, knowing it would be almost as cold inside as it was outside. I’d have to get the feeling back in my fingers before I could attempt another fire. I braced myself, but I was hit by a delicious heat as soon as I opened the door. Bizarrely, the fire was still going strong. But it was more than that – the cabin felt homely and welcoming, and I was warm enough to take off my coat and bobble hat. In fact, I was suddenly desperate to get them off. The wood burner was roaring wildly, like a mini bonfire in the middle of the room, and there was a note under a stone on the hearth:
Sara,
Apologies – there was a problem with the heater in your cabin, which is why it was so cold.
I’ve fixed it and built another fire, so it should be plenty hot from now.
Henrik:)
Amazing. I had not been looking forward to shivering in my PJs and burying myself in blankets. The hot air thawed out my bones, starting with my toes and working its way up. I was a real-life Ready Brek kid glowing warm from the inside out.
I had a few hours to kill before my sauna session, so I made one of Henrik’s delicious coffees and hunkered down in bedwith my Kindle. I was exhausted from all the laughing and crying and eating. Reading was my only entertainment option, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d picked up a book for pleasure. My life was spent scanning bricks of paperwork for case-winning nuggets and staying hypervigilant in case there were inconsistencies or mistakes. Reading for fun just didn’t happen anymore. I’d been a voracious reader as a child, reading with a torch under the covers after lights out. The morning was always too far away to find out what happened next. And I’d taken that level of compulsion into my work. Ihad to knowwhat the story was and how we were going to win as quickly as possible.
There was always a way to win; it was just a case of working out how.
