The Bone Clocks

The others clink their glasses while I hide one of my gloves behind a pot-plant. “Maybe she just doesn’t think you’re as witty as you think you are,” I tell Chetwynd-Pitt. “How does your Alien Urine taste?”

He sips the pale green gloop. “Exactly like its name.”

THE TOURIST SHOPS in Sainte-Agnиs’s town square—ski gear, art galleries, jewelers, chocolatiers—are still open at eleven, the giant Christmas tree’s still bright, and a cr к pier, dressed as a gorilla, is doing a brisk trade. Despite the bag of coke Chetwynd-Pitt just scored off Gьnter, we decide to put off Club Walpurgis until tomorrow night. It’s beginning to snow. “Damn,” I say, turning back. “I left a glove at Le Croc. You guys get Quinn home, I’ll catch you up …”

I hurry back down the alley and get to the bar as a large party of He-Norses and She-Norses leaves. Le Croc has a round window; through it I can see the skinny barmaid preparing a jug of Sangria without being seen. She’s very watchable, like the motionless bass player in a hyperactive rock band. She combines a fuck-you punkishness with a precision about even her smallest actions. Her will would be absolutely unswayable, I sense. As Gьnter takes the jug away into Le Croc’s interior she turns to look at me so I enter the smoky clamor and make my way between clusters of drinkers to the bar. After she’s wiped the frothy head off a glass of beer with the flat of a knife and handed it to a customer, I’m there with my forgotten glove gambit. “Dйsolй de vous embкter, mais j’йtais installй lа-haut”—I point to the Eagle’s Nest, but she doesn’t yet give away whether or not she remembers me—“il y a dix minutes et j’ai oubliй mon gant. Est-ce que vous l’auriez trouvй?”

Cool as Ivan Lendl slotting in a lob above an irate hobbit, she reaches down and produces it. “Bizarre, cette manie que les gens comme vous ont d’oublier leurs gants dans les bars.”

Fine, so she’s seen through me. “C’est surtout ce gant; зa lui arrive souvent.” I hold up my glove like a naughty puppet and ask it scoldingly, “Qu’est-ce qu’on dit а la dame?” Her stare kills my joke. “En tout cas, merci. Je m’appelle Hugo. Hugo Lamb. Et si pour vous, зa fait”—shit, what’s “posh” in French?—“chic, eh bien le type qui ne prend que des cocktails s’appelle Rufus Chetwynd-Pitt. Je ne plaisante pas.” Nope, not a flicker. Gьnter reappears with a tray of empty glasses. “Why do you speak French with Holly, Hugo?”

I look puzzled. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“He seemed keen to practice his French,” says the girl, in London English. “And the customer isalways right, Gьnter.”

“Hey, Gьnter!” An Australian calls over from the bar football. “This bastard machine’s playing funny buggers! I fed it my francs but it’s not giving me the goods.” Gьnter heads over, Holly loads up the dishwasher, and I work out what’s happened. When she returned my ski on the black run earlier, she used French, but she said nothing when my accent gave me away because if you’re female and working in a ski resort you must get hit on five times a day, and speaking French with Anglophones strengthens the force field. “I just wanted to say thanks for returning my ski earlier.”

“You already did.” Working-class background; unintimidated by rich kids; very good French.

“This is true, but I’d be dying of hypothermia in a lonely Swiss forest if you hadn’t rescued me. Could I buy you dinner?”

“I’m working in a bar while tourists are eating their dinner.”

“Then could I buy you breakfast?”

“By the time you’re having breakfast, I’ll have been mucking out this place for two hours, with two more hours to go.” Holly slams shut the glass-washer. “Then Igo skiing. Every minute spoken for. Sorry.”

Patience is the hunter’s ally. “Understood. Anyway, I wouldn’t want your boyfriend to misinterpret my motives.”

She pretends to fiddle with something under the counter. “Won’t your friends be waiting for you?”

Odds of four to one there’s no boyfriend. “I’ll be in town for ten days or so. See you around. Good night, Holly.”

“G’night,” and piss off, add her spooky blue eyes.

December 30