The chalet seemed small. It was built against a hill, with long eaves that sloped back into the snow. I got out of the taxi and walked up the drive. It was neither day nor evening. A dense mist hid my surroundings and muffled all but the crunch of my own footsteps.
I put my finger on the little orange light next to the front door. Bells tolled and there was a pattering of feet. Laurent opened the door and grinned at the sight of me. I bent to kiss him. He kissed me once. When I offered the other cheek he screwed up the smile on his face.
– Buuurrk!
He then skidded off through the foyer in his fur slippers, announcing my arrival at the usual Durebex volume.
I put my bag down in the entrance and took off my coat. Four heavy oval frames hung in a row above the coat rack. Four birds in dreary watercolour peered out at me. A familiar shriek pierced the gloom.
– Shona? Monte, Shona!
I followed the voice of Madame Durebex through the foyer. It was immense. A criss-cross of dark tiles showed between the rugs. The wooden panelling bristled with deer antlers and candelabra. There was a couch of maroon velvet beneath a large rectangular mirror. Opposite the couch, a wooden staircase curved in front of a stained-glass window, two storeys high. I walked up it to the kitchen.
Mme Durebex was cooking pork chops. Monsieur Durebex was pacing about, muttering under his breath. Laurent tugged at my clothes, begging me to go and play with him. When Mme Durebex offered me a pork chop, I told her I didn’t eat red meat.
– Like me! she exclaimed, and took a step forward as though to embrace me.
I stepped back automatically. We looked at one another in surprise.
Mme Durebex was the first French vegetarian I’d met. I wasn’t surprised she wanted to bond with me: people who didn’t eat meat were such a rare species here. It was her vegetarianism that surprised me; it put a kink in that French perfection. I felt like less of a freak. She seemed like more of one.
– It’s Victor who persuaded me to stop eating meat, said Mme Durebex, serving a pork chop to her husband and son. She added ruefully, And do you know I’ve put on at least five kilos since I stopped eating it?
– It’s him that did that. M. Durebex pointed to Laurent.
The family ignored this remark as they would something they took for granted to be true.
– But you’re still thin, I said to Mme Durebex.
– Oh, no she’s not, M. Durebex grumbled into his dinner.
– He’s right, you know. Mme Durebex smiled at me. After all these months in Laurent’s bedroom, it was unnerving to suddenly find myself a participant in the Durebex’ family dinner. A released prisoner, I didn’t know how to behave. It was one thing to have established a working rapport with the mother, to have established something with the son that had become more like playing. But now I was with the whole family, everything felt different, for the head of the family was the father and it was the father that made me most anxious.
I had never seen M. Durebex this close. His glasses were so thick the eyes behind them were dark blurs. Hunched over his plate, he spoke loudly and erratically, oblivious to any other conversation. I was nervous. I paid attention. He was difficult to understand. He had a Savoie accent, unfamiliar to me, and the skiing accident that had impaired his vision and hearing had also damaged his speech.
– Why isn’t Nadenne here, Mireille? Hein? Where did you say you were from? What’s her name again, la jeune fille, Mireille? Quoi? I went to Sydney once. Never again. My hotel room looked out onto a brick wall.
– That’s unusual for Syd—
– C’était affreux! Mireille, get me another plate! After the meal, I cleaned up with Mme Durebex.
The kitchen was equipped like a hotel’s. The cupboards around the double sink were filled with every appliance imaginable. There were thick white plates of all sizes stacked under the sideboard and there was a separate drawer for each piece of cutlery: a drawer of forks, a drawer of soup spoons, one of cutting knives, and so on.
Mme Durebex wrapped the cheeses then put them into the fridge. She closed the door and stood there lost in thought, then she took the cheeses back out. She put them on the platter then covered them with a cloth. She looked at the platter, finger to the corner of her mouth, then she put the entire platter back into the fridge. So many decisions made her flustered. She turned to me.
– Now Shona, Laurent can play tonight, but tomorrow you work. I want you to work for two hours every afternoon. Entendu?