Meet Me at Fir Tree Lodge

by Rachel Dove

  ‘Can I ask,’ Mr Scruffy began in a broad accent. It was gruff, deep and Northern, she noticed now. A thick accent from back home. She could barely make it out at first. Her Yorkshire radar was a little rusty, given the setting she lived in and the multicultural clientèle she crossed paths with daily. ‘What did you just make?’

  ‘Croissants, with my own twist.’ He looked at her, an eyebrow raised in question, and she gave him a knowing look. ‘You’ll see, if you’re still here when they get out of the oven.’

  He drained his coffee cup, putting it back onto its saucer and pushing it towards her.

  ‘Well, better have a refill then.’

  Rebecca, you great, big-mouthed tit. He won’t leave now! Never mention baked goods to a man if you want him to leave. Rule 101 of baking. Although, with Robbie, she wouldn’t have been able to coax him in the first place. Her ex-boyfriend wasn’t a carb-lover. Cake was an alien foodstuff to him. If she’d offered to whip him up a Victoria sponge when they were together, he’d have laughed in her face and skied for two hours to work off even the thought of the calories. She laughed to herself, before she remembered that she wasn’t that person back then. She wouldn’t have been baking. She’d have been on the snow with him, giving him a run for his money. If Robbie saw her now, he’d probably be relieved he got out when he did. She pulled the hem of her top down, suddenly aware that she was flashing her muffin top to the room. Robbie would have laughed at that too.

  She filled the man’s cup up from the coffee pot, trying to turn her brain back onto autopilot. She had all the feelings today for some reason. About her mother, about the competitions she was avoiding yet again. About Robbie, the man she once knew so well, and now didn’t understand one iota. Things changed, she knew that only too well. She didn’t even trust her own body anymore. Mr Scruffy started tapping away on his tablet screen again, in between taking deep, appreciative sips of his coffee. The man was making love to the cup! It was like watching an alien meet the world. He just looked so … she came back to the word lost again. He looked out of place there, driven. Definitely not a holidaymaker.. It had made her think, and she didn’t do that anymore. She lived day to day, and that was just bloody fine. She topped his coffee up again.

  The man thanked her, taking the cup between his hands and holding it to his mouth a moment. His glasses steamed up again, and he didn’t even seem to notice. He was too busy enjoying his drink like a man who had never seen a coffee bean before. God help whoever had to accommodate him. It wasn’t her problem though. She had the next batch to get on with and people to serve. Same as every day.

  ‘So, you live here year-round?’ She could feel his green eyes on her, and suddenly she found herself wishing she was more like her old self. Just for a second, she wanted to be more. She hadn’t felt like that for a long while, and it was very unsettling. I’ve been out of the race for a long time, but now, I regret that I don’t have anything to say to this man. Which is fine, because soon he’ll be gone. He’ll be gone and I’ll be back in my little flour-coated bubble. The old me would have chatted away, no paranoia about who he was. Who I was. I miss just feeling normal.

  ‘Yep,’ was all she said in the end. He nodded at her, but didn’t look away.

  ‘So, the café isn’t open year-round, right? What do you do then?’

  She answered him without looking, keeping her focus on her work. If she bored him quick, he would leave quick. Worst-case scenario, she could throw a bun at him. Shut him up.

  ‘I read, hang out, there’s plenty of work in town, so I tend to do that. Bit of cleaning, baking gigs. I don’t need much. Hans needs a sitter here, so the rent’s pretty cheap.’

  Or free, truth be told. Rebecca did pay him something each month, when he let her, but it was a token rent really. She paid her own utility and phone bills, and bought her own food, so he wasn’t fussed. She found out a while ago that she didn’t need a lot. Sometimes she looked through old bank statements to laugh at herself, and how the old Rebecca used to live. It seemed like she’d had it all at the time. How odd it is that things change so much.

  The man’s nodding at me as though he’s really listening to what I’m saying. Weirdo. It’s my turn.

  ‘So,’ she said as cheerfully as she could, getting on with the baking, ‘what brings you here?’

  I’m a supreme master at changing the subject. Especially when someone is asking about my life. I don’t tend to talk about that.

  He opened his mouth to speak, to finally, hopefully tell her what he was doing there, and more importantly, when he was leaving. Rebecca held her breath as he started to speak, but the door was suddenly flung open, a blast of cold air billowing through the café from the force.

  ‘Good morning Alpine adventurers!’ Hans strode in, bellowing, his beard full of ice, encased in his usual Day-Glo warm weather gear. He kicked the door shut behind him, his arms full with a huge cardboard box. He came over to the counter, nodding and saying hello to customers as he went. Leaning forward to look at Rebecca’s handiwork, he took a deep sniff.

  ‘Nice,’ he said jovially, his iced eyebrow raised in her direction. ‘Croissant Death Day rolls around once more.’

  ‘Yep,’ she agreed, trying not to grin at him. This was what she’d been waiting for. After all, what made a girl feel better more than taking the mick out of her friends? ‘I just wanted to mark the day, you know, so you wouldn’t forget.’

  ‘I’ll never forget what day it is.’ He nodded to the calendar, his face grave. ‘The follicles on my forearms still scream when you get near.’ Rebecca chuckled, making Hans cover his arms in reflex.

  ‘I know, I know. Your arm hair’s safe. Newbie error. The treats will be worth the trauma.’

  He came around the side of the counter and dropped the box at her feet, and then his gaze slid to the man in the corner. He banged his hand on the counter hard, making a couple of the customers jump.

  ‘Luke! Luke! My friend! You came! I can’t believe it!’ Rebecca was looking at the door, at the diners, wondering who Luke was and why Hans was so excited. He was a bounding puppy on his lowest days, so this was extra-excitable behaviour.

  ‘Can you believe this, Becca? Luke!’ Hans tapped her on the arm excitedly, before striding back over to the man he called Luke. The very man Rebecca herself had been obsessing over all morning. He grabbed him in a big hug, lifting him clean off his feet. Luke was quite a tall lad, but Hans was a huge, craggy rock face of a man. The first time Rebecca had met him, she’d half expected a Sherpa to be herding goats across his back.

  ‘Hans, dude, have you been eating ski lifts or something? Jesus, you’re bigger than the mountains!’ Luke, aka Mr Scruffy, was perched in his arms like a giddy puppy, his gangly legs dangling down. Hans just clung on for dear life, laughing his head off. It was like watching a bear hugging a salmon. A rather gleeful salmon, that seemed happy to be caught. And, in the right light, Luke did have a rather Clark-Kent-cum-Superman thing going on about him. She’d been too irritated by him to notice earlier, but now Hans was in effect crushing the life out of him, she could admit to herself that he was a tiny bit cute. In certain lights. Maybe. And now I’m fantasising about sexy fish wearing glasses. I need help. I bet David Attenborough doesn’t have these problems.

  ‘So,’ Hans says, releasing him just enough to enable him to draw breath, ‘what are you doing here? I never thought you’d …’ He made a plane movement with his hand, complete with whooshing sound. ‘I mean, I’m just so—’

  ‘I’m here to do this, let’s just leave it at that.’ Luke rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand, and Rebecca realised, he was uncomfortable with the question. ‘Work’s been a bit mental, I guess …’ Hans clocked the messy workspace, and raised a brow in surprise. Rebecca glared at the mess at Luke, but he was too busy avoiding Hans’s eye. She knew shifty when she saw it.

  ‘But anyway, I made it! Are we …’ He paused and shot a quick look at Rebecca, then back up to Hans. ‘… all set?�
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  He said it jovially, but there was something in his voice. Rebecca noticed the way he and Hans nodded at each other. I’m intrigued, but realistically, it can’t be good, and I want nothing to do with drama. I have had enough of that to last a lifetime. Baking the next batch of croissants was something she could do. She could make coffee, serve customers, clean tables. There was routine in that, a regularity to the mundane that she needed to keep herself steady. Present, and not on that mountain top, about to shove off the snow and screw up the life she knew and dearly loved. At the time, anyway. She’d had her eyes opened on some things with the rose tint of time. Robbie, for example. That was another disaster she’d skied right into.

  She folded the next set of croissants, laying them out on trays so that she could pop them in the oven. The two men kept chatting quietly together all the while, and Rebecca found herself relaxing once more into her work. But she didn’t miss Hans shooting her looks from time to time, which was odd. Even for him. Probably checking the fire extinguisher was still on the wall, ready to go. The poor man had PTSD from their ‘Hans School of Baking’ time. It wasn’t every man who could take a broken, slightly bitter, ex-professional skier and turn her into not only a decent waitress, but a bloody good baker to boot. Hans had done a good job, Holly too. They’d held her together till she could stand on her own feet once more. One of them had even sacrificed a forearm to the cause, and a fair bit of man pride.

  The men still had their heads together when her chicken timer clucked loudly. Another gem from her mother under the guise of career development, but at least this one had a good use. The biographies of influential female athletes she sometimes posted were still firmly in the bottom drawer. Taking the special batch of croissants out of the oven, Rebecca beamed as she looked at her work. She might have zero interest in … well, anything, but these moments, seeing what she had made, they helped her drag herself out of her frosty pit every morning.

  ‘Are these what all the fuss is about? They smell lovely, but what is that flavour?’ Luke was suddenly there in front of her, bent double, looking enraptured by the tray of golden loveliness.

  ‘It’s my own creation actually, I like to try new combinations.’ Shut up, mouth. She pursed her lips together tight.

  Hans was standing behind him, huge hands on his hips, an odd look on his face. A look Rebecca knew well.

  ‘Well, they smell lush.’ Luke looked up at her, well, into her breasts. It had been a while since a bloke had done that. Even if it was just an eyeline faux pas on his part. I wish I had worn my better bra. I bobbed my comfortable one on this morning. Lets the ladies do their thang. It had to be a man who invented the underwired bra, I tell you. Those babies take out washers and dryers with a single errant wire, so why the hell do we shove our breasts into them, scaffolded and bound like captives? No thanks. I’ll let my puppies fly free, ta. Still, given the way that Luke was looking at her relaxed little uniboob, maybe Victoria’s Secret had a point.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, folding her arms over her chest, removing his viewpoint. He looked up at her, and she could see he was blushing. Which made her blush, and when recognition hit that he had been caught out, his face exploded into a tomato-like hue. It was endearing in a way. She found that she didn’t mind him looking. The feminist in her shuddered, but allowed it.

  ‘So Luke,’ Hans boomed from behind, making them both jump. ‘I have somewhere you can stay, for a few days at least. I’d put you up myself, but things are hectic at mine.’ Hans is the least hectic person I know. What’s going on?

  ‘That’s okay, I wouldn’t want to impose.’ Luke waved him off, looking ever more awkward by the minute. ‘Nonsense!’ Hans stepped forward, slapping him on the back hard. Luke took a stumbling step forward and coughed a little. ‘You can’t impose on us, right Becks?’

  Shit. I think I know what’s coming. Nah … he wouldn’t do that. I know he won’t. Surely he won’t …

  ‘Miss Atkins here would be honoured to put you up, wouldn’t you, Becks?’

  ‘Er …’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Brilliant!’

  Luke and Rebecca both spoke in unison, but Hans was by far the biggest, loudest windbag. Damn him.

  ‘It’s settled then! The lodge has a guest room, it’s pretty big, there’s a desk there, Wi-Fi is a bit patchy sometimes, but it works. Rebecca will be glad of the company, I’m sure!’

  He looked at her cheerily, and she made an ‘I’ll murder you in your sleep’ face at him, complete with throat-cutting action. His grin only got wider, and she even spied a little Swedish twinkle in his eye. What an utter berk. I wish I’d burned his other arm bald too now.

  ‘I don’t think Luke here wants to stay with a stranger, Hans! You have room at yours, surely? It’s just the two of you in that big place.’ She threw her arms behind her head wildly, gesturing to the upstairs. ‘Better than this pokey little hole, I’m sure!’

  At that very moment, the thin clouds in the sky parted, and the sun shone bright through the windows, making the whole place look like a holiday postcard. Hans’s face was pinched, and he was straining with the effort of not laughing at her. She could see it. She wanted to headbutt him, to Morse code her distress to him with the anxious tapping of her feet on the solid wood floor.

  A-b-o-r-t.

  N-o w-a-y-H-a-n-s.

  Hans looked her in the eye and his face spread into a slow, smug smile.

  ‘It’s settled then! He’ll stay here.’ Hans spoke as though Luke wasn’t standing at the side of him, looking back at his case as if he were wishing it was big enough to sleep in, and he could avoid the game of pass the stranger. ‘I tried to get him a room, I looked as soon as Luke said he might visit. It’s all booked up.’

  ‘Right,’ Rebecca muttered. She knew he was telling the truth, but it didn’t make him less of a git to speak it. She waited till Luke wasn’t looking and made an angry face at her boss and one-time good pal. ‘Err …’ Luke was pulling a face himself, but looking at Rebecca expectantly. ‘It would only be for a few nights, just till I find somewhere …’

  He trailed off, and they all knew that it was highly unlikely. Hotels and B&Bs around here all had waiting lists, and cancellations not snapped up in seconds were few and far between.

  ‘It’s fine,’ some cheery woman said. Rebecca looked behind her, but saw nothing but the wall of the kitchen area. Great, it was me. Stupid, helpful, cheerful me.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Luke checked, and she found herself feeling a little bit sorry for him. He did look a little pathetic, a tad waif and stray.

  ‘Of course!’ Hans cut in, throwing his arms wide theatrically. ‘Not a problem, my friend.’

  Rebecca looked at Hans in a last-ditch attempt to get out from under this mess, hoping she could project her inner feelings from her eyeballs to his brain. He ignored her at first, standing there like a waxwork. She tried to grab his attention, to glare into him the fact that she didn’t want some old friend of his shacking up under her roof. She had things to do, real, serious things. She was halfway through her Midsomer Murders boxset for a start, and she wasn’t stopping that for anyone. She didn’t want Luke there, in her life. She just wanted to bake and forget, and be left the ruddy hell alone. She hadn’t shared a space with a member of the opposite sex since Robbie. She didn’t count Hans. He was Holly’s, and they didn’t see each other that way. Never had. They had bonded over the sport, and then over their love for the resort. Baking had been an unexpected bonus for both of them. She was still staring at him, Luke busying himself with tidying some of his papers now.

  ‘So we’re doing this?’ she asked, trying not to plead. ‘Like, really doing this?’

  Hans flashed his gaze her way then, and she knew she’d lost. He had the same look in his eye many times, and it only ever ended one way. His. Eugh, chirpy people are so relentless. I’m pretty sure he knows just how much I will hate this, but his shit-eating grin just tells me that I lost. Rats. Luke was back now, look
ing like the Danny DeVito of the Twins duo at the side of Hans.

  ‘And you’re sure it’s okay with you, Rebecca? I feel awful just turning up and messing your day up.’

  ‘I’m sure, Luke. I would be happy to put you up.’ Put up with you, more like. ‘Would you like a croissant?’ Ignoring her shaking hand, she picked up her tongs, knuckles white on the handles, and placed one onto a plate. Hans stepped forward too, but she passed the plate to Luke and started tonging the others into the display cabinet swiftly, ready to sell.

  ‘Sorry Hans, but you’re allergic to these.’ She gave him her very best, friendliest smile. The one she reserved for the worst of the customers, those who ground her gears to the max. The one that looked like it said, ‘I understand, I am here to serve you,’ but really meant ‘Leave now, and I’ll let you live.’

  Hans looked confused as he pushed his huge hand through his hair, sticking his thick hat back on his stupid broad head.

  ‘I don’t have any allerg—’

  Rebecca closed the back of the glass cabinet and looked straight at him. He shuddered, and Rebecca’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Yes Hans, I’m afraid, if you eat one of these, it will definitely kill you.’

  Have that, boss. You fill my spare room, I don’t feed your belly.

  Chapter 2

  Okay, so the day didn’t really get any better from there. In fact, Rebecca was half expecting Arnold Schwarzenegger to come running in, talking about the end of the world. Either that, or she was going to have to kill Hans and bury him in the ice. The competitions were thick on the social calendar, and the season was just getting going, ramping up more and more each day. The big one was a full two months away, but the buzz was starting already, and they would soon be descending in droves to take part in the competitions that ran here. This year though, it was going to be different. The organisers, Ski Scene Scream, had really topped themselves, bagging a huge sponsor, Bowness Whisky, who were launching their signature line of new drinks, headed by the mint-flavoured gin they were launching as part of the event. It was a pretty impressive label, and the company had lots of clout. It was going to be big, and to mark the event, they were launching a new competition: the Ultimate Alpine Ski Challenge, sponsored by Alpine Gins. She’d read up on them obviously, studied the companies and their competition rules and regulations, if only to know what sort of people were going to be rocking up to her mountain café. She wasn’t the most social person these days, and she had the added pressure of having people to avoid. Plus, now a random Yorkshire man in her spare room.