The Little Swiss Ski Chalet

‘Fun, yes.’ Simon finally looked at her before saying coldly, ‘But not for keeps.’

‘What?’ Her heart pinched in sudden pain. Not for keeps.

‘You can’t base a marriage, or even a serious relationship, on fun.’ He peered at her like a headmaster delivering a lecture, which he then proceeded to do.

Now, even with the cold wind biting at her face, Mina paused for a moment, the words from Saturday night still ringing with hurtful shrillness in her ears:

‘You can’t spend your life being spontaneous and going off on adventures all the time. Marriage is about being grown-up, settling down, knowing you’re on an even keel. With you it’s like being on a constant rollercoaster, or in a plane and I’m never sure when you’re going to throw me out of the door. You’re too crazy, too mile-a minute, too wanting the next thing all the time. I never know where I am, and I don’t want to live like that. It’s probably from your genes, and I’m not sure I want those in my children.’

‘Genes?’ she spat.

‘Your real mum and dad. It sounds as if they were always chasing adventure. It sounds as if they were reckless and irresponsible. They didn’t take the important things in life seriously. That’s not what I want in my life.’

Her eyes almost popped out of her head with sheer rage at him bringing up her long dead parents and it robbed her of the ability to say anything. Simon was oblivious and on he ploughed, ‘It’s a shame you don’t take after your adopted parents, Miriam and Derek. I can’t believe that Miriam was your mother’s sister, she’s so normal.’

Mina had never, ever been as close to strangling anyone as she was at that moment. Her fingers actually cramped into claws, ready to do the deed. Luckily Simon stepped out of range with one more parting salvo.

‘We’ve had fun, but… you can’t have fun all the time. At some point you need to focus on what’s important. And I can’t see you ever doing that. You’re like a butterfly, constantly flitting about, looking for the next great thing. It’s too exhausting being with you.’

With that parting shot, he’d walked out of the flat, leaving her with the debris of the dinner party, which she attacked with furious energy, imaging hitting him over the head with the frying pan as she scrubbed at it. She refused to cry, although she might have suffered a slight leakage at points as she wiped down the surfaces. At last when the kitchen and dining table were almost clean and tidy, she picked up the pan of chocolate sauce and sat down, cross-legged, in the middle of the kitchen floor with it between her knees. Dipping a finger into the chocolate, she carefully licked it clean and closed her eyes. Life might be crap, but there was always chocolate. In the world of food, as far as she was concerned, it had serious super powers. She took another mouthful. Sod Simon, he didn’t deserve her.

Of course, after the event, when the chocolate had soothed her and she’d eaten the lot, she could think of a dozen witty brilliant comebacks. Chief among them: what had changed? At the time Mina had felt as if she’d been punched. The words had spun around and around her head for the remainder of the weekend like a manic merry-go-round. He hadn’t even said he was sorry once. The way he’d talked, it was as if she’d deserved his cheating on her. Talking of whom, the big, fat coward (of course, she wasn’t fat at all; if anything she was thin, with perfect double Ds and one of those 1950s waists, but she was very cowardly) Belinda, had slipped out with all the other guests and hadn’t so much as texted an apology or an explanation during the rest of the weekend.

Hannah had talked Mina out of marching round to Belinda’s parents’ house to challenge her, quite rightly pointing out that Mina would probably slap her. The last thing she needed was an assault charge on top of looking a complete and utter dick in front of her friends. Although George and G were about to be wiped from that list, because one of them had shared the video of Simon with the piñata and the disastrous proposal on Facebook. Even if, apparently, it had been inadvertent because one of them had forgotten to change their privacy settings.

As she left the communal front garden, a man stopped her. ‘Excuse me, are you Mina Campbell?’

‘Yes?’ she answered, with a question in her voice.

‘I wonder if you would mind answering a few questions.’

‘Sure.’ Funny time for market research, she decided – but as a lot of her work was directed by such research, she always felt she ought to stop and do her bit.

‘How did you feel when your boyfriend turned you down?’

‘What?’ Her head snapped up.

‘You are the girl whose proposal went wrong? The piñata girl.’

She stepped away from him as he gave her an encouraging smile.

‘Who are you? How do you know about that?’

‘Jamie Jenkins, I work for the Mirror. It’s all over Facebook. This is your chance to put your side of the story out there.’

‘I don’t want my story out there, full stop.’

‘Bit late for that, love. The genie’s out of the bottle. Come on, give us a couple of quotes. How did you feel when he turned you down? How long have you been together? Are you still together?’

‘No, we are not,’ she spat before she could stop herself. ‘And I wasn’t being presumptuous or precipitous, we’ve been talking marriage for months. Turns out, he has a new lady friend he forgot to mention… or that she was my best friend. Note the past tense. Was.’ Even as she was talking she knew she should stop, but it all came spilling out, the indignation of the weekend, the feeling of injustice. Yes, she was impulsive and jumped in feet-first, but this time she really had done her due diligence. She could give a date and a time to the exact conversation they’d had about St Mary’s church, tell anyone where she was when Simon had talked about having children one day. What she hadn’t factored in was that Simon had started an affair, and his feet had cooled to arctic blocks since then.

Suddenly she noticed the photographer with the long black lens taking photos from the other side of the street and realised she’d told the reporter far too much.

‘That’s all off the record,’ she said, now feeling shaky and barely able to remember what had just spewed out.

‘You sound pretty pissed off with him,’ said the reporter who, as she looked more closely, reminded her of a weasel, with his sharp-eyed intensity and long neck. ‘What did you say to him? I’d have kneed him in the balls. What was your reaction?’

‘No comment,’ she said, although she wished she had kneed Simon in the balls. ‘Look, I don’t want this in the paper. It was all a mistake. There is no story. You’re not taking photos, are you?’

He shrugged with nonchalant indifference, deliberately not looking towards the photographer.

No! Mina realised he had a tiny voice recorder in his left hand. She tried to snatch at it but he moved it out of reach very smartly, as if it wasn’t the first time someone had tried to do just that.

Realising that the photographer was now taking an interest, she stopped and glared at the reporter. ‘Leave me alone.’

Fuming, Mina hitched her bag over her shoulder, side-stepped around the reporter, and darted across the road to her car. The photographer, mistaking her action, took a few more pictures and then, thinking she was coming after him, took off, running down the street in shoes designed with considerably more athleticism in mind than her black boots. Although it had crossed her mind to confront him, she headed for her little navy Beetle, sending a vindictive glare towards the reporter now hovering between two parked cars. He took one look at her face, waved, and speed-walked away.

She got into her car and bashed her head against the steering wheel. ‘Bloody, bloody, bloody, effing hell.’ Bad enough that everyone at work would know; now it seemed the whole nation was about to be treated to the story of Mina, the dumb blonde, getting it very wrong with her man. It didn’t take a genius to come up with the headlines.

‘Who’s the donkey now?’

‘Hit me with your proposal stick.’

With a sigh she started up the engine. Time to face the music at work.

‘I think you need to warn Miriam and Derek,’ said Hanna three hours later, when Mina phoned her during her lunch hour.

‘Warn them about what?’ That Simon – who they thought was the bee’s knees, on account that he’d always brought them a bottle of the same wine on every single occasion he came to the house for Sunday lunch – was actually a two-timing bastard who had been shagging her former best friend for the last four weeks, one of which coincided with Sunday lunch and the provision of aforementioned, Casillero del Diablo, red wine.

‘Warn them that one of their adopted daughters might be appearing in a national newspaper. They’re going to be horrified.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

‘I meant they’ll be horrified if you don’t tell them first. Look, why don’t we both go round together tonight after work. I can give you moral support.’

‘Thanks, Han. I think you might need to provide medical support. There could be heart attacks all round when they find out that Simon is not the golden boy they thought he was. I reckon Aunty M might have been knitting bootees on the quiet.’

Hannah was locking her car across the street when Mina pulled into a handy parking space after a very difficult day at work. Switching off the engine, she watched her sister approach in the wing mirror as she slumped wearily in her seat. What a day. Bloody bastard Simon had told his side of the story very convincingly to just about everyone before Mina even walked through the front door. He’d managed to make her look extremely manipulative by intimating that her proposal had been a misguided attempt to force his hand in front of everyone.

With a sigh, she grabbed her handbag and hauled herself out of the car.

Hannah wrinkled her face as she studied Mina. ‘Oh dear. Rotten day.’

‘The worst. Simon got in first and made out I got my just desserts.’

‘Ouch, I’m sorry. I did consult a friend who works for a law firm that deals with the media to try and find out if you could get an injunction or anything. Sorry, the cost would be prohibitive and the grounds – to protect against damage to reputation – are based on very stringent principles, which she didn’t think applied in this instance.’

Mina threw her arms around her sister. ‘Han, I love you, and that you even tried for me. You’re the best.’

‘Not really, I stopped you going round and slapping Belinda. In hindsight, she deserves it.’

‘You stopped me getting an assault charge, as you pointed out at the time, and just imagine what the news reporter would have made of that if I’d been arrested.’

‘It’s so unfair, Mina.’

‘Don’t worry… I’ll get my own back. Just give me time to think of something.’

Hannah grinned. ‘That’s my girl. What are you thinking?’

‘He’s very worried about his receding hairline.’

‘And?’

‘Hair removal cream in his shampoo?’

‘What if he gets it in his eyes or something? It’s pretty strong stuff. You could get sued.’

Mina screwed up her nose. That was the sort of thing Hannah would worry about.

‘OK, maybe I’ll just fill it with lots of dead flies or something horrible.’

‘Where will you get—’

Mina nudged her sister. ‘Shut up. I’ll think of something while I’ve still got the keys to his flat. I’m not speaking to him at work and I’m going to completely ignore him.’ There was a leave-in hair mask he was rather partial to. Perhaps she could add to it – a leave-in hair dye. Blue, she’d heard, was very difficult to remove. The more she thought about it, the perkier her steps towards her adopted parents’ drive became.

‘Oh my God!’ Hannah stopped dead, putting a hand out to stop Mina.

‘Oh my God,’ repeated Mina, as they both stared at the For Sale sign outside their parents’ house.

‘They’re moving?’ Hannah shook her head. ‘Do you think they’re having a mid-life crisis or something?’

‘It must be a mistake,’ said Mina. ‘They’ll never move. They’ve never even talked about it before.’

Their adopted parents were the most change-averse people in the entire universe. Derek had worked in the same office for the last forty-five years and every single person that worked with him there adored him. Miriam had worked part-time for the newsagent on the other side of town since she was sixteen, even though it was two bus rides away, which Mina had never understood. Actually there was quite a lot about their adopted parents that neither girl understood, such as their complete disinterest in food, their preference for annual holidays in Eastbourne, dedication to routine: laundry on Monday and Wednesday, the food shop on Thursday, fish and chips every Friday (there’d been mild alarm when Our Plaice had been bought out and became Oh My Cod), and a trip to the park every Saturday morning.

At the same time there was also an awful lot to love. Miriam and Derek were the kindest, gentlest, and most generous people, even if they couldn’t make a decision to save their lives. When Hannah and Mina’s real parents drove off a cliff in Serbia, when they were two and three respectively, it never occurred to Miriam and Derek not to adopt their two orphaned nieces. Miriam had been ten years older than her sister, Georgie, and they were the original chalk and cheese – although from what Miriam said, it seemed that the more adventurous Georgie had been led astray by her daredevil husband, Stuart, from the minute she met him. Before having children they’d climbed the Eiger, white-water rafted on the Zambesi, bungy-jumped in Queenstown, and trekked in the Kalahari. Post-children, they’d restricted their activities to weekends in Europe, rally driving in Serbia, hanggliding in Bavaria, and mountain biking in the Pyrenees – and the childless Miriam and Derek had only been too happy to babysit.

She and Hannah stood on the threshold of the gravelled drive and looked up at the three-storey house, which she had to admit did need a little TLC these days. When had the paint on the window frames on the top floor started to crack and peel? And there were an awful lot of weeds establishing themselves in places they had no business to be.

‘It’s probably worth a fortune,’ said Hannah. Over the years the street had become gentrified.

‘I guess, but I never thought they’d move, and why haven’t they mentioned it?’

They sat around the faded, pale-blue Formica kitchen table, which was so old that it would probably sell well on Etsy as a retro item. The kitchen cabinets with their cream doors and plastic wood surrounds were circa 1970 and the oldest that Mina had ever seen. A museum might be prepared to take them as they were immaculate.

‘It’s a lovely surprise to see you both,’ said Miriam, her hands fluttering around the Hornsea pottery mug of builder’s tea. ‘I haven’t got anything in for supper though. We were going to have a couple of chicken fillets and chips. There might be a couple of Rich Tea biscuits somewhere.’

And that, thought Mina, said it all. Biscuits should be irresistible, and you should know exactly how many you had left because they’re so delicious you’ve been rationing yourself, and there should always be something in the cupboard you could throw together.

‘Don’t worry, Aunty M,’ said Hannah, kicking Mina under the table before she could say anything.

Not being able to feed someone was complete anathema to her.

‘It’s quite useful you popping round though,’ said Derek with a distinctly uncomfortable wriggle. He’d been fidgeting in his seat since they’d sat down.

‘Well, there’s a reason,’ said Mina, diving straight in, wanting to get it over with. ‘Simon and I have finished. I just wanted you to know before you read about in a national newspaper.’

‘Oh no, darling. That’s such a shame. He’s such a nice boy. Isn’t there anything you can do to patch things up? Are you sure it’s over, you’re not just overreacting?’ Mina shot a look over the table at her sister. Why did everyone automatically assume it had to be something to do with her?

‘He has been seeing Belinda behind my back,’ she said, proud of her restraint. The sentence deserved at least two expletives.

‘But why would he do that?’ Miriam looked genuinely perplexed.

‘Because he’s a two-timing, cheating bastard.’ Mina’s saccharine smile didn’t placate her mother.

‘Well, that’s a terrible shame.’ Her aunt’s fluttery hands plucked at the pattern on the mug in front of her.

Mina eyed them. Neither of them had picked up on the ‘national newspaper’ words.

‘Actually, we have something quite important to tell you,’ said Derek, as he and Miriam exchanged another one of those worried, panicky looks.

Mina stiffened. Was one of them ill? She looked with alarm at both their faces. She couldn’t bear it if anything happened to either of them. Her parents were a distant memory, but Miriam and Derek were the constants in her life, unstinting in their love and support. They were her real parents now.

‘We’ve decided to downsize. I’m going to take voluntary redundancy and we’re going to move to a bungalow.’

‘Wow, that’s a lot of change in one go for you two,’ said Mina, relief coursing through her as she ignored the warning glare Hannah sent her.

‘It’s time. This house is too big for us… always was, really, and we can’t keep up with the maintenance.’

‘And the redundancy package is very good, and I was due to retire next year anyway. With that and the pension, we can buy a nice little place.’

‘But if you sell this house, you’ll have loads of money.’ Houses on this street, this size, in this area, must have been worth well over a million pounds – one-point-two or one-point-three at least.

Miriam and Derek exchanged another one of those diffident, uncertain glances, and neither of them spoke for longer than what was an acceptably pregnant pause.

For at least a full minute the four of them looked at each other as the clock on the wall with its loud tick counted down the seconds like a timer on a bomb.

‘Oh no, you haven’t been scammed by one of those equity companies, have you?’ Hannah straightened, her hands clasped with sudden worry.

‘No, no,’ said Derek. ‘It’s not that.’

It went quiet again and Mina wanted to shake one of them to break free the vital piece of information that they didn’t seem to be able to volunteer. Hannah gave her another warning kick under the table. Seriously, why did people always assume she was the loose cannon about to say the wrong thing?

‘Anyone want another cup of tea?’ Miriam reached for the tea pot, pulling off the dark brown knitted tea cosy. She was the only person Mina knew who actually used a tea cosy.

‘Yes,’ said Derek with over-enthusiastic eagerness.

Mina moved her legs out of range, ignoring Hannah’s narrowed eyes.

‘So what’s the problem?’

Derek sighed. Miriam sighed.

‘The thing is…’ Derek tapped his finger on the table. ‘The thing is… The house. It’s not ours.’

‘Oh.’ Mina frowned in confusion. ‘Have you been renting it all this time?’

‘But if it’s not yours,’ said Hannah, ‘How can you sell it?’

Miriam gave a nervous laugh. ‘Well, we sort of, you know, kind of…’

‘We forgot,’ prompted Derek.

‘How can you forget that you don’t own a house?’ asked Hanna, glancing over at Mina.

‘Well, we just got so used to being here.’

‘So the owner is selling the house and you’ve got to leave.’ Mina sat up. ‘I’m sure there are laws to protect you. Aren’t you sitting tenants? They can’t just throw you out. Hannah can sort it all out for you. We won’t let them do that.’

Miriam laughed and patted her hand. ‘That’s not it at all.’

‘Who does own the house, then?’ asked Hannah.

‘Well, you do.’ Miriam smiled as if it were totally obvious.

Mina clicked her key fob and saw the flash of her hazard lights. ‘I can’t believe those two.’

Hannah laughed. ‘How do you forget you don’t own a house?’

‘I suppose they’ve been there for so long they hadn’t thought about it. It must have been a legal nightmare when our real parents died. You’d have thought with their proclivity for adventure they might have thought about having a proper will.’

Miriam had explained that when Georgie and Stuart were killed, everything had been a terrible mess and it had been easier to move into the girls’ family home, which Stuart had inherited from his own parents, rather than unsettling them further by moving them into a rented terraced house on the other side of town. Hence Miriam’s lengthy journey to her job. Derek and Miriam had moved in and started life as a family there, and until they’d decided to downsize, had never even thought about ownership.

‘How do you feel about them insisting the proceeds of the sale come to us?’ asked Hannah.

‘Uncomfortable. It’s totally wrong. They’ve paid for the upkeep of the house all these years. I think they should get enough from the sale to buy whatever they want. That only seems fair to me. There’ll still be plenty left over.’

‘Me too, but they’re adamant it’s our inheritance.’

‘Blimey, the house is valued at one-point-three million. Even if they spent half on a new house, we’d still have plenty. I would far rather they bought another house and kept their savings, especially if Uncle D is going to retire. They could buy a lovely bungalow with that money.’

Hannah didn’t respond. Instead her face was scrunched up in thought. They walked a few more paces in silence until she suddenly swung around to face Mina.

‘If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?’

‘What, with the money, you mean?’

‘Yes. If you could give up work and go and do something completely different.’

‘I don’t know. Why, what would you do? I thought you loved your job.’

‘I do love my job, but… even you would say it’s a bit dull. I want something more. I’d really like to go somewhere to learn to cook properly.’

‘I just chuck it all in together and hope for the best.’ Mina shrugged.

‘That’s not true. You’re an instinctive cook. You experiment, and you have a real flair – whereas I’m always worried I’m going to get it wrong. I wish I’d done food tech, like you did, for A level.’

‘I don’t think that would have helped you get a law degree. And I do get it wrong sometimes. Beetroot meringue? Remember?’

‘It tasted OK,’ said Hannah with a sudden laugh as they both remembered the soggy purple mess. ‘But I wouldn’t have had a clue where to start to even try something like that. I want to learn to cook properly. Everything from bread-making to pastry, patisserie to butchery… there’s an amazing place in Ireland where you can go for twelve weeks.’

‘Wow, sounds like you’ve been doing some serious thinking.’ Mina was impressed. She rarely thought that logically about the future – she jumped from one adventure to the next – and just for a very brief moment she wondered what she would do if she left her job.

‘Yes. It’s always been a bit of a dream, the course is hideously expensive but,’ Hannah’s eyes gleamed with sudden excitement, ‘with this money, I really could go.’

‘Then this is the perfect windfall,’ said Mina, giving her sister a hug, ignoring the prick of envy over her sister having such a clear vision of what she wanted to do. It always seemed to Mina that Hannah had life sussed, while she’d been the one who still wasn’t sure she’d found what she really wanted. Suddenly her life seemed a little hollow, and the future a little empty. With an unhappy sinking feeling, she realised that she needed to sort herself out. A week ago she’d been bouncing along quite happily and now everything seemed to have stalled, and upon reflection, that was nothing to do with Simon dumping her. What did her future hold, and what did she really want from it? With an unpleasant start, she realised she had no idea, and for the first time in her life she felt a little lost.