At this point, some waiter sidles up. At least, I think he’s a waiter. I noticed him hanging around since about ten minutes ago but didn’t pay him a whole lot of attention. He appears to be about nineteen years old at most, kind of spotty in the face, and is wearing a white shirt with a red bow tie and a black waistcoat which is clearly about ten sizes two big for his skinny frame. He looks a bit like somebody vacuumed out his internal organs with an attachment stuffed up his bum and then left the skin hanging off the bones because it was a bit too manky. For what it’s worth, I once actually had a boyfriend with a similar frame. Trust me, it’s not what you’d call high romance when you get literally boned through nothing more than taking the guy’s arm.

​

His name badge indicates that he’s called Jöchi. Not all that common, even in this part of the world. He’s looked fairly miserable and in need of some motivation up to now, whether through careful personnel management techniques or a good kick up his arse. That said, he suddenly starts beaming as he approaches our table.

 

“Grüzi wohl! Wie könnte ich Ihnen helfen, mein schönstiges Fräulein?” he opens.

 

Something isn’t right here. He just offered a greeting and asked how he could help but he used a singular and he’s looking straight at me, almost as if Alice and Harris didn’t exist. He also addressed me as a most beautiful, young woman. I’d like to consider this flattery but it’s coming from someone who could probably be my son, at least if I’d had a teenage pregnancy. He’s also being way too friendly when you consider his surly attitude until now and the fact that he poured the coffee for the lady at the next table into her cereal bowl because he was so busy looking in this direction. Not that my anatomy is notably on display but I’m starting to get a good idea of what was distracting him so much.

 

This we could do without.

 

The best way to ditch a chancer in Switzerland is often to speak a language which they don’t understand and then pretend it’s the only one you know. German works very well in Geneva, for example, French in Zürich. Fribourg and Bern are trickier since they’re in the middle. The former is more Francophone, the latter Germanophone but they’re only about twenty minutes to half an hour apart by train so it’s a tough call. What you never, ever do is use English. Everyone knows that, including the ones who can’t even speak French or German.

 

In this case, German clearly isn’t an option. Jöchi has to be a Swiss German name. Nobody else would go around with a name like that unless they were the offspring of a chronically drunk bisonfarming mother in the butt end of Mongolia and born with blood already seventy per cent proof. English no way, as noted a moment ago. French? Could well work but this is the hospitality sector and not a million miles from Cantons which operate almost exclusively in said language.

 

I go for the option which usually works well in the United States, at least in films with a lot of WASPs and a random Mexican. I’m not fluent in Spanish but it’ll probably confuse Jöchi enough that he’ll leave us in peace. Go for the classic line, girl.

 

“Que? No entiendo.”

​

I just said that I don’t understand. Perhaps not the greatest impersonation of a Mexican accent but it seems to have done the trick as Jöchi hesitates before heading off.

 

Or maybe not.

 

“Oh, Signorita! Sie eres aus Espanien, ja?”

 

What the hell?

 

“Sie eres sehr bonitisima!”

 

I’m very beautiful, am I? Is he trying to be funny here? He’s somehow combining Spanish and German then massacring both of them in this dire pot-pourri of the world’s worst chat-up lines from Buenos Aires to Berlin. Or is he actually serious?

 

“Muchas gracias,” I reply as fluently as I can. Perhaps if I can remember enough of my basic Spanish to speak reasonably fluently, he’ll give up trying to understand and piss off. It’s not as though I can’t get away with a grammatical error or two. Herr Professor Cervantes here is hardly going to notice.

 

“Quiero un café normal con leche, por favor, y muy temprano.” I want a coffee with milk and make it quick. Nothing fancy but spat out fast enough to confuse him, I hope.

 

Apparently not.

 

“Ach, meine liebste, dich quiero tambien!” he announces.

 

It seems he loves me too. Bloody Spaniards. “Quiero”, I’ve just remembered, can mean, “I want”. It can also mean, “I desire”, as in, “I love.” Honestly. I just want a coffee, not a shag.

 

Alice, meanwhile, is enjoying this immensely. Little git. Still, I don’t suppose she gets much entertainment like this at home. Nor do I usually, mind you.

 

“Look, Mr Beadlesby,” she nudges Harris, “Auntie Jess is so nice. She’s helping us to get up a glacier. And now she’s helping this guy to get it up too!”

 

Ha bloody ha. At least Harris only looks slightly uncomfortable and doesn’t try to add to Alice’s back catalogue of crap, Alpine double entendres and cougar jokes.

 

Jöchi must be pretty thick as well as horny. How else has he failed to recognize that this woman, who apparently can only speak Spanish, is being talked at by the girl across the table from her in English? Or maybe he can’t understand a posh Somerset accent. He continues undeterred in any case.

 

“Sie eres verheiratata?” he asks.

 

I think he may be asking if I’m married but it’s quite hard to tell.

 

“Que? No entiendo,” I repeat. It’s pretty much true.

 

“Ich meine, podemos lieben?” he enquires.

 

He’s asking if we could be in love? Dude, I would seriously advise you never try to score with anyone called Maria-Elena or Alarcos on Tinder. They’ll probably think you mistook it for an Alcoholics Anonymous app.

 

I fix him with as intimidating a stare as I can and snap, “Un café con leche, por favor. Ahora!”

 

Somehow this demand for a milky coffee right now gets him to push off. I breathe a sigh of relief but when I look up, I see Alice rolling around with unbridled delight at what just happened to me.

 

“You go, Auntie Jess! You nearly scored! And you didn’t even have to speak German!”

 

“I’m glad someone enjoyed it,” I respond darkly. “I was hoping the Spanish would get rid of him, but I must have been out of luck on that one.”

 

“What was he actually speaking anyway?” asks Harris, looking no more than curious at this display of attempted seduction. I wish my life was as easy as his. He’s only lost a clarinet worth a quarter of a million quid.

 

“It was a crude mixture of German and piss-poor Spanish,” I explain.

 

“Oh?” he asks. “You mean like what they call Spanglish when tourists try to mix Spanish and English?”

 

“I suppose so,” I begin but am cut off as Alice suddenly hoots with laughter.

 

“He was trying to chat you up in Sperman, Auntie Jess! That’s great!”

 

Oh for frig’s sake. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a breakfast in a Swiss hotel less than I am this one.

 

“Let’s just call it Germanish, shall we?”

 

“No, Auntie. I think Sperman is much better,” she intones smugly. “Anyhow, maybe you’ve finally found your true love. You should be grateful. You like the Alps after all. He could be your soulmate up in a remote chalet, surrounded by mountain beauty and harvesting the goodness of the cycle of life as you reap the seed of your pastoral life together.”

 

This is not normal Alice-speak. There’s also a sneaky look in her eye.

 

“You see,” she continues, “when you’ve got your cow-farming family on the go, you can squeeze out the milky goodness for the young while he goes up the mountainside with his stick in his hand to ensure that everything’s properly fertilized!”

 

I raise my eyebrows. This may be hysterical humour in a posh secondary school but for those of us who’ve sat through more than one “Carry On” film, it’s all been done before.

 

She then gives me a rather disapproving look.

 

“You’re being quite mean you know, Auntie Jess,” she chides. “He seems a nice boy and he’s not that bad-looking either.”

 

“Are you joking? Even if I were into teenagers and I’m not – I stress not – this one has all the sex appeal of a runover hamburger which was originally roadkill before somebody got it into a burger bun.”

 

“Oh, come on,” she chides before grinning evilly. “He’s actually quite good-looking. I’m sure all those pimples will have cleared up by the time he’s twenty!”

 

I am really being put off my jam baguette here, even if it’s an apricot jam one, which is usually my favourite. I turn to Harris to change the topic of conversation but before I can say anything, a cup of milky coffee is plonked down in front of me.

 

“Grüzi, Signorita! Das es el besto Kaffee was es gibt’s!”

 

He seems to think this cup of what looks like pigeon vom is the world’s best coffee. Mind you, he also thinks he has some sort of incredible sex appeal so I suppose his brain must be a little divorced from reality at the best of times.

 

“Ah, Signorita. Ist der denn Ihr mannrido?” He’s indicating Harris and is, I think, asking if he’s my husband. I know you could do worse than Harris, Colin being a prime example, but being married to him is not a very attractive proposition either. Besides, since he probably doesn’t speak a word of Spanish, it’s not going to be an easy act with which to convince anyone, even someone as dumb as Jöchi.

 

“Mi marido?” I enquire, correcting his crappy grasp of vocabulary in both languages. “Ah no, es mi hermano.”

 

I’ve just told Jöchi that Harris is my brother although that leaves him blank for a moment. Chances are that Jöchi doesn’t know what the word means. However, I did say no so that’s good enough for him.

 

“Ach so!” he picks up, “Sie brauchen el amor!”

 

According to him, and it’s not a question, I need some love. I only told him that Harris was my brother, not my husband. I never said that I didn’t have a husband. So that’s a bit of a logical stretch but then again, logic doesn’t seem to be Jöchi’s forte. No more than good looks or seductive chat-up lines.

 

“Hmmmm,” he mumbles, running his eyes up and down me.

 

It’s about the first thing he’s said which makes sense, but I’m not impressed. He’s blatantly checking me out! Is the little bastard even using his notepad to take coffee orders or just to write down my critical dimensions? I’m on the verge of flinging a teapot in the direction of his groin when he looks up with a very weird expression on his face.

 

“Signorita,” he starts again. “Ich liebe tu. Sie eres muy muy bonita und schön.”

 

You’ve probably got the idea up to this point, but he continues.

 

“Tengo un Zimmer oben wo wir rumpito pumpito machen können!”

 

He’s just told me that he has a room upstairs where we can make rumpito pumpito. You can translate that one for yourself. It’s too much for Alice though, who simply can’t hold back her hysterics and explodes in laughter, neatly spraying Jöchi, me and most of the people at the next table in a shower of half-eaten ham and cheese croissant.

 

I’m a shade less inclined to find this quite so funny. By this stage, I’m sorely tempted to switch to fluent German and tell Jöchi to go screw himself because there’s zero chance that I’m going to. However, thinking clearly instead of losing my temper at the first post, at least most of the time, is something I consider to be one of my positive qualities. There may not be that many of them but those which do exist are often quite useful.

 

“Hey, Jöchi,” I start, trying to fix him suddenly with my most seductive look. I doubt it’s anything you’re going to see in an Yves Saint Laurent ad any time soon or even a Tinder profile. In fact, you’ll be lucky if something like it makes it onto an ad for a genital herpes cream but it’s good enough for Jöchi.

 

“Tu eres guapo,” I tell him. He’s handsome. I don’t know if he understood that, but I continue by raising my eyebrows upwards as if in the direction of the room he just mentioned.

 

“Vamos en zehn minutos, ja?” I ask. Let’s go in ten minutes. If he were brighter, he might have noticed that I used the German “zehn” for ten, not the Spanish “diez” but I want to make sure of the envelope I have and I figure there’s little chance of this spare-time nuclear physicist working it out too quickly.

 

Clearly translating numbers is not his main concern. You can actually see the hard-on growing in his trousers. It’s as horrifying as the scene in “Jaws” where the shark’s fin closes in on the victim and the huge, hungry fish emerges slowly but surely and steadily. I pray that Jöchi has his fly done up or I’m going to get an eyeful in more than one sense. I’d rather be facing the shark, thank you.

 

I’m spared that torture at least. A look of incredulity on Jöchi’s face is quickly replaced by a huge grin. He turns to the people at the next table, still busily picking the remains of Alice’s croissant out of their hair and now asking if they can expect any coffee before the next ice age. Jöchi informs them in a very vulgar turn of German phrase that this is unlikely for at least half an hour since he has an extremely important client to take care of. He then winks at me, strokes his crotch – I think I’m genuinely cursed – and strides off up the stairs at the back of the restaurant.

 

Alice is still rolling around in fits of laughter while Harris just sits there looking bemused. It’s all right for some perhaps, but not much longer.

 

I spring up, look at my watch and down the milky coffee in one gulp.

 

“Right, you two!” I order sternly in my most authoritarian tone. “We have ten minutes to check out! Forget your food and get upstairs. Throw everything of yours into your bag and get out of the front door. It’s a pre-paid arrangement so we just need to leave the keys on the desk.”

​

They look up at me in surprise.

 

“What the hell are you waiting for? You’ve got nine and a half minutes left! Get straight up to your rooms, get packed and get the hell out! Move!”

 

Maybe if professional linguistics hadn’t worked, I could have made it in the army.