WINTER WONDERLAND

by Belinda Jones

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I spin around. ‘D-did you see-’

  ‘Oui, oui,’ Annique confirms their existence. ‘That was L’homme Loup.’

  ‘Lom Loop?’ I frown.

  She spells out the French words for Wolfman for me. Then, while Gilles gives one of the snowmobilers a guided tour of his camera functions, Annique tells me that people say that the reason he wins the Carnival’s dog-sledding race every year is that his team are interbred with wolves. ‘Either way, he is very sympa with the canine. They run faster for him, it seems.’

  ‘I’d love to get a picture of him. For the website.’

  ‘Yes, but this is not possible now. He only runs the first morning of dog-sledding here at the Carnival. Now he goes home.’

  ‘Does he have a dog-sledding business?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Well, could we book a ride there?’

  ‘That is over on the Île d’Orléans, but we can go five minutes up the hill and do pictures with the team here.’

  She motions for me to follow her.

  So that’s that? We just move on as if nothing has happened? I take it neither Gilles or Annique has a mortal fear of being buried alive.

  I follow them in silence, repeatedly looking around for signs of the Wolfman. If I was atop the Hilton I’m sure I could track his progress, but here I’m at a loss.

  ‘Here we are.’ Annique steps aside so I can survey the dog-sledding attraction.

  ‘Oh.’ I look on in dismay. Nothing against mutts, I’ve had them my whole life, but these scrappy, skinny dogs with their mottled brown and cream coats simply cannot compare with the stark monochromatic beauty of the huskies. The track itself is a wonky oval, advertised as a ten-minute ride, but I clock it at under a minute and a half. You’re on, you’re off and they’re loading the next.

  This is not what I want my first dog-sledding experience to be.

  ‘I think we should wait and go to a real-deal establishment,’ I say. ‘Somewhere in a more natural setting.’

  It just doesn’t seem so authentic when there’s a 1970s tower block with a revolving restaurant on the horizon.

  ‘We can arrange that,’ Annique obliges me. ‘But I don’t think Jacques will agree… ’

  ‘Jacques?’

  ‘The Wolfman,’ she replies. ‘Jacques Dufour.’

  I’m strangely thrilled to know his real name. It feels like another step closer to finding him again.

  ‘I don’t think he courts publicity,’ Annique continues.

  ‘Is he … shy?’ I ask.

  ‘Private. And this year he has withdrawn.’

  ‘From the world?’ I ask, picturing him living in a remote, snow-crusted cave with his dogs.

  ‘From the race.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just heard yesterday. I was surprised to see him here at all.’

  ‘Okay, so maybe that won’t work,’ I faux-concede, ‘but I don’t think I’m ready to take the ride right now, I’m still rather shaken up from the fall, you do understand?’

  ‘Of course.’ Annique consults her To-Do list. ‘I suppose the luge is out of the question?’

  ‘As in barrelling down an ice tunnel on a plastic tray for a ride so bone-rattling your teeth get rearranged along the way?’

  ‘Okay, no luge,’ she confirms. ‘No toboggan, no ski joring.’

  I’m about to ask what ski joring is when she says these three magic words: ‘Cabane à Sucre?’

  ‘If that translates as sugar shack, I’m in.’

  Again I wish Laurie was here. She’s always looking for new ways to sate her sweet tooth. Danielle and I have put on a stone since we started working in an office with an official Teatime. But I have to say, it’s such a nice tradition and great stress-reliever. I always used to burrow through the working day, barely coming up for air, but Laurie insists we take that break together – sort of the working girls’ equivalent of a family sharing their evening meal. Without the pressure to ‘finish your greens’. Unless she’s brought along something with pistachio frosting.

  Danielle’s actually more of a Mr Kipling Country Slice girl, and I love anything splurging fresh cream, but Laurie has us both drooling like dogs the first morning she’s back from a trip to New York bearing cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. She actually has to bind the cardboard box in Sellotape so she doesn’t get tempted to claw it open on the flight, and there’s always a mad hacking and slashing with the office scissors to get to them. I smile. She’s probably just tidying away today’s crumbs now – I take out my phone and tap a sneaky response to her most recent ‘How’s it going?’ text.

  ‘Gilles is old news.’ I am deliberately blasé in my report. ‘Now I’m onto Jacques!’

  ‘Jacques and Gilles – you’re kidding?’ She taps straight back.

  I laugh out loud – I hadn’t thought of that. Especially appropriate since I just went up a hill then came tumbling down.

  ‘He has the eyes of a husky dog,’ I tell her.

  ‘How does the husky feel about that?’ she teases.

  I’m eager to chat more to her but Annique is ready to introduce me to the wonderful world of maple taffy.

  ‘Lose a filling for me!’ Laurie signs off.

  The process begins with me paying three dollars to a lady in a little wooden cabin and in return she hands me a wooden ice-lolly stick. That’s it. A bare stick.

  ‘I feel like I’m missing something … ’

  Annique tinkles a laugh.

  ‘Seriously, what happens now?’

  ‘Now you make your own,’ she says, pointing to a table of fresh snow where a man with a big ladle is running a thick line of liquid maple syrup …

  I still can’t predict the next step.

  ‘Attach the syrup to your stick,’ Annique instructs me. ‘Now roll.’

  ‘Roll?’

  ‘Twist it around.’

  I do so, if rather ineptly.

  ‘You can tap it in the snow to set it.’

  This could easily be a ‘hilarious’ challenge on a daytime talk show, designed to humiliate the presenter.

  ‘Ooooh!’ The taste surprises me as I convey the misshapen blob to my mouth. Like golden syrup with an icy frosting. In fact the ice sprinklings taste wonderfully refreshing. I dip it back in for an extra layer.

  Meanwhile Gilles is trying to position me so that the shack is behind me for the picture.

  I can’t quite bring myself to look his way as I attempt to control the droopings of the still-molten treat with my tongue – the last thing I want is for him to think I’m trying to be provocative or enticing. I try instead to hold the taffy pop out to the camera but he insists I lick it. Oh jeez. Now I’ve gone and dropped a great sticky globule on my coat.

  ‘Nooo!’ As I go to grab it away I only serve to contaminate my gloves and spread it further across my chest. ‘Darnit!’

  Annique tries to wipe the mess with a tissue, which in turn adds a layer of feathery white tufts.

  ‘This does not look good,’ Gilles frowns into his camera.

  ‘You want to run back to the hotel and change?’ Annique offers.

  ‘Actually,’ I say twisting at an imaginary shoulder injury, ‘maybe I should soak in the tub for a while, write up some notes … ’

  I see Annique cast a furtive glance at Gilles – no doubt imagining what they could do with the bonus time.

  ‘I mean, I have all week to take in the Carnival attractions … ’

  ‘But we still meet this evening, yes?’ she enquires.

  ‘Dinner with the snow sculptor?’ I say as I hand Gilles the sticky end of the lollipop. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  I go directly back to the hotel, put my gunky items in for cleaning, change into dry socks and tidy my snow-spattered face. I daren’t sit down and risk losing momentum so I quickly grab my alternate coat (black Puffa), add a teal woollen scarf and matching mittens and head directly to speak with the concierge.

&
nbsp; ‘Oui madame?’

  I place both hands on his desk to show I mean business, although the mittens do somewhat undermine my authority.

  ‘There is a dog-sledding company in the Île d’Orléans. It is run by Jacques Dufour aka L’homme Loup.’ My eyebrow cocks of its own accord.

  ‘Oui.’

  Oh my god, he knows it.

  ‘Do you happen to know how to get there?’ I hope my voice didn’t just go up too high.

  A brief tap of computer keys and he’s handing me a printout of a map.

  The directions couldn’t be any more French – Boulevard René Lévesque to Avenue Honoré Mercier, then take the ramp to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré …

  I continue reading as I step into the revolving door, only to find Gilles in the opposing compartment.

  Oh no, oh no!

  I push forward and try to make a bid for the taxi, but he’s too quick, scooting out of a side door and cutting in front of me. ‘Krista wait! I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Not now, Gilles. I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ he protests. ‘I thought you came back to rest?’

  ‘Change of plan,’ I say as I dodge past him and into the back of the cab.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he says, holding back the door.

  I give a casual shrug as I yank the door closed. ‘I need to see a man about a dog… ’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Is this a rebound reaction to Gilles? Am I trying to attach myself to someone else so I don’t feel quite so humiliated by our situation? Why else would I feel so compelled to find this stranger? Maybe it’s not him at all. Maybe I just want to be around those beautiful dogs. I mean, wouldn’t they look wonderful in a picture?

  ‘So why aren’t you waiting to go with the photographer?’ My devil’s advocate enquires.

  ‘Because I need to ask permission first and I think the most effective way to convince him that we are legitimate is in person.’

  ‘And that’s all there is to it?’

  Well, I suppose it doesn’t hurt that he’s the complete opposite to the ultra-groomed Gilles – The Wolfman wouldn’t even know the term ‘manscaping’. Sometimes I think that it’s all very well being aware of trends and zeitgeists, but there’s something even more appealing about a man who is oblivious to it all …

  I sigh. There is of course a simpler theory: there are just some people in life that we are drawn to. The initial meeting may be fleeting, but it’s enough to make you want to follow that feeling and see where it leads.

  It was interesting with Andrew because we were literally ‘attached’ from the first moment we met. The dance floor was so crowded that you couldn’t let the jostling faze you, it was just a question of seething with the masses. But then Andrew’s watch snagged in my mesh top and we tried to disengage but there really wasn’t the room so we ended up going the other way and he pulled me into him and we were sweatily bonded until the lights came up. It seemed like fate had tied a ribbon around us. Finally a man who stuck around! Prior to him I would excitedly tell the girls at work, ‘I’ve met someone!’ and by the next week it would turn into another non-starter. So I stopped telling them after a while, not wanting to be the girl who cried wolf. Though of course today I might get to do that for real!

  I can’t quite believe I’m doing this. Maybe part of it is simply that I can! I certainly haven’t been in a position to pursue an attraction in a long time.

  ‘Not since last night,’ Laurie points out when I call her from the taxi.

  ‘That was different,’ I protest. ‘Gilles just landed in my lap!’

  ‘Whereas this guy is mysteriously out of reach?’

  I huff down the phone.

  Best I don’t tell her about the distant sadness in Jacques’ eyes or she will accuse me of being on one of my salvation missions. Which I’m not. I don’t think. He just intrigues me, that’s all …

  ‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do when you get there?’

  ‘Not really,’ I confess.

  ‘Excellent, that’s what I like to hear.’

  ‘Oh don’t!’

  ‘No, seriously. Your itineraries don’t leave a lot of room for going rogue. This is good. Experimental.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Anyway … ’ Laurie excuses herself from the conversation, reminding me that she has her cousin’s birthday party to go to and is staying over in Sutton. ‘Update me first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Will do.’

  I look out of the window. Since calling Laurie, the taxi has transitioned from city streets to the freeway and now we’re on a bridge rearing up and over the Saint Lawrence River, getting a bird’s-eye view of the snow-drifted waters below. It’s such an unusual sight – Sahara-style sand dunes seemingly made of whipped marshmallows – it makes me feel as though I am witness to an entirely new and fantastical landscape.

  ‘Île D’Orléans!’ the driver gruffs as we connect to the island.

  We pass one lovely wooden home after the next, each set deep in thick Christmas cake icing. The leafless trees might look bleak and bare in another setting, but here they resemble the feathery accent twigs a florist might use in a bouquet.

  I lean my head on the window glass. Everything seems so pristine in the crisp sunshine, definitely less city slush, more untrodden ground here – pretty much ruining any chance of me passing off this visit with a casual, ‘I was just in the neighbourhood!’

  But I can’t turn back now, I’m too mesmerised …

  It’s then the driver pulls over to have a word with a fellow cabbie and I see a family loading into their car with another one of those Jelly Baby children. There’s a lot of tottering around trying to capture said Jelly Baby and when the mum does finally scoop her up, it’s all kisses and giggles and I feel like I’m going to be sick.

  I want that so much and I’m never going to have that. Why-why-why? Why so many of my friends not me? I close my eyes, trying to compose myself, trying to push away these thoughts that plague me. Why couldn’t I have a baby? If I had been able to, then Andrew wouldn’t have left me. I’m still a little in shock that he did that. Though I could sense the change in the way he looked at me almost straightaway – as though I no longer had that mystical other dimension to me. I was not physically capable of bringing a new being into the world. What you see is what you get. End of the line. And it’s not enough. Not for him. And not for me.

  The driver says something to me in French. It probably isn’t, ‘Don’t think like that, you have so much to offer!’ but I pretend it is.

  He continues for less than a mile and then slows, turns the car around, inhales as if to muster his nerve, revs the engine and roars up a snowy slope.

  ‘Oh my!’ This is quite an incline, I think, as we claw our way up the unpaved track: it could certainly double as a ski slope on the way down.

  ‘You have very good tyres!’ I comment.

  ‘I am a very good driver,’ he corrects me.

  ‘Yes you are.’

  And I appreciate the extra adrenalin boost.

  For a while I can’t see anything but snow, but then we mount the brow of the hill and I spy a barn, a couple of boxy buildings and one idyllic stone farmhouse, which we stop beside.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I ask, pointing to a sign bearing the word ‘ACCUEIL’.

  ‘Welcome. Or Reception,’ he shrugs. ‘It’s where you need to go.’

  His radio crackles with a message.

  ‘You want to stay here?’ he asks.

  ‘Um … ’

  Is it wise to be stranding myself in this way? I look around for further signs of life and see a man in bright blue doing a backflip out of the top floor of the barn.

  My jaw drops. ‘Did you see that?’ I lurch to the window.

  ‘Did I see … ?’

  ‘A man just … ’ I stop. I must surely be seeing things. The barn has to be twenty feet high. Perhaps it was a bird or a piece of rubbish caught on the wind –
some kind of peripheral vision illusion.

  ‘Madame?’

  ‘Oui?’

  ‘Tu reste ici?’

  It’s then I catch a glimpse of Jacques leading a group down a pathway and my heart-leap dares me to say, ‘Yes, yes, it’s fine. Merci!’

  I hurriedly pay the fare and then inch over to the dark red front door of the farmhouse. Before I lift the latch, I hesitate, unsure of quite what I might be walking into.

  Then again, what’s the alternative? Standing here until I become a porch-side ice sculpture? In I go!

  I step down into a large room lined with cold-weather gear, all clompy boots and bulky jackets, and a vast flagstone hearth housing the kind of fire that makes your face glow yellow and your cheeks flush if you so much as look at it.

  ‘Bonjour! Comment est-ce que je peux vous aider?’

  I look to my left and see a petite girl with a headful of springy curls, partially restrained by a fleece beanie, sitting at a large old wooden desk.

  ‘Er, English?’ I prompt.

  ‘You are here for the three p.m. ride?’

  ‘Possibly … ’ I hedge my bets.

  She looks confused. ‘You have a reservation?’

  ‘I don’t. Actually, I was hoping to speak with Jacques … ’

  ‘He is about to leave with the group.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You can join?’

  ‘You mean go dog-sledding?’

  She looks ever more puzzled. ‘That is what we do here.’

  ‘Like now?’

  She nods. ‘It is fifty dollars for an hour.’

  I picture myself swathed in cashmere blankets as Jacques stands behind me, swooshing us through the sparkling snow and into the sunset.

  ‘I’ll do it!’ I say, scrabbling for my purse.

  ‘Sebastien! Tu es libre?’ She addresses the lean young man who has just skulked in. He is wearing kingfisher blue, just like my phantom back-flipper.

  He concedes a grunt, letting me know that I have just stolen his break.

  ‘He will take you.’

  I hope she means up to meet Jacques. As lovely as I’m sure the Wolfman’s rear view is, I don’t particularly want to be staring at it for the next hour, unable to interact.