by Paige Toon
‘On the balcony, looking up at the mountains. They’re only a few hundred metres away, across a valley dotted with chalets and a hell of a lot of pine trees. It’s getting dark now, but you can see the top of the Aiguille du Midi from here.’
‘What’s that?’ Eliza asks.
‘The mountain Phoebe worked on during her gap year,’ I reply.
‘Oh,’ she says, leaving a long pause before adding sadly: ‘I wish I’d spoken to her more that year. I hardly know anything about what she got up to.’
‘Neither did I,’ I’m quick to correct her. ‘I learnt almost everything I know from pilfering her diary. I was having too much fun at university to think twice about you two.’ I say this teasingly, but the comment has a lot of truth to it. I also avoided Phoebe after my mortifying faux pas with Angus. Yes, shame on me.
‘What have you done since you got there?’ she asks, so I fill her in, steering clear of my freak-out yesterday.
‘When are you seeing Remy?’ she eventually asks.
‘He’s back from his climbing trip tomorrow. I’ll give him a call in a couple of days if he hasn’t got in contact by then.’
I imagine he’s less enthusiastic to meet me than I am to meet him.
To my surprise, Remy lives only a five-minute walk from where I’m staying. He’s invited me to his place for a coffee and I’m nervous as I follow his directions through the streets of Argentière two days after my conversation with Eliza. His apartment is located within a five-storey traditional chalet, not dissimilar to mine, and when he answers the intercom, it’s in English.
‘Hello?’
He’s expecting me.
‘Hi, Remy, it’s Rose,’ I confirm, my stomach a tangle of anxiety.
‘I’m on the second floor.’ This time I hear his French accent clearly.
‘Okay, thanks,’ I reply as the door buzzes open.
The air inside the chalet is cool, and the sound of my booted footsteps reverberates around the walls and stone floor as I make my way up the stairs. Nearing the top of the second flight, I hear a door click open, and by the time I reach the top, Remy is standing on the landing.
He has short, dark-brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes are startlingly blue and they widen as I smile at him. A moment later, the blood drains from his face.
‘Hello,’ I say, feeling a pang of sympathy as the triplet effect takes hold.
He starts and comes to his senses, stepping back from the door and holding it open.
‘Come in, come in,’ he says.
He’s wearing dark blue jeans and a yellow T-shirt and his face, legs and forearms are tanned and lean. The edgy feeling in my stomach intensifies as I walk into his apartment.
‘Can I get you a coffee or something cold to drink?’ he asks. He sounds uneasy, so it’s not just me.
‘I’d love a coffee,’ I reply.
‘Take a seat,’ he says, heading off into the kitchen.
His apartment is even closer to the mountains than mine is, with the same sliding doors opening up onto a large balcony. I sink onto the pale-blue sofa, the cushions having given up the ghost some time ago. The coffee table is wooden and solid and the rug under my feet is bordering on threadbare. The walls are painted ochre and there’s graphic art hanging on them.
‘I like your apartment,’ I say when Remy returns with our drinks.
‘The furniture belonged to my grandmother,’ he tells me with a smile, handing me a mug and sitting in a faded brown leather armchair. He crosses one leg over the other, resting his ankle on the opposite knee. It’s a relaxed gesture, but I’m pretty sure he’s anything but.
‘Thank you for agreeing to meet me.’ I decide to get straight to the point.
‘It’s okay,’ he says, placing his chin on his upended palm. His eyes keep darting away from me, like it hurts to look at me for too long, but they keep finding their way back to my face. A morbid fascination.
I didn’t hesitate to get in contact with Remy because I already felt like I knew him, but now I don’t know what to say.
‘Sorry,’ I blurt. ‘I know this is weird. It’s weird for me, too. I’ve read so much about you that I feel like we’re already friends, but this is harder than I thought it would be.’
‘Phoebe told you about me?’ He looks confused. He probably thinks he misunderstood me.
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘Not really. When she came back from France ten years ago, she went straight to university. I read about you in her journal.’
He looks taken aback. ‘I remember her writing in that.’ He swallows. ‘What did she say?’
‘She wrote about everything you did together. Well, not everything.’ I blush. ‘But she wrote about how you met, your first date, visiting the grotto, the trails you hiked and the mountains you climbed.’
He looks shaken, but I continue.
‘I’m trying to understand. What happened on the day she died? What happened on the night before? I know that you met her in a bar in Chamonix, but had you pre-arranged it? Did you know she was going to be there?’
‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘I was stunned to see her.’
‘She claimed that she wasn’t very surprised to see you.’
‘She wasn’t,’ he acknowledges, leaning forward in his seat. He rests his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together.
‘She said it felt like fate,’ I add.
He stares ahead in a daze. ‘It did.’
‘You know she was getting married, right?’ I didn’t mean that to sound as sharp as it came out.
‘Of course. She told me,’ he frowns. ‘I wasn’t trying to win her back. I was just pleased to be able to catch up with her. We hadn’t seen each other in years, but I’d thought about her often and I was glad to see her again. She seemed happy.’
‘She was,’ I say in a tiny voice.
He looks pained and a second later his blue eyes fill with tears.
I press on, but more gently. ‘She asked to go climbing with you, right?’
He nods, his eyes spilling over. He brushes his tears away, but his bottom lip is trembling and I have an urge to go over and hug him.
‘I should have said no.’ He looks down at his hands for a long moment before lifting his eyes to meet mine again. ‘I didn’t know she hadn’t climbed in years. Why did she stop? She used to love it so much.’
To my alarm, I realise that he actually expects me to answer this question.
‘Er, I don’t know.’ I think for a moment. ‘Angus didn’t climb,’ I tell him, feeling like I’m betraying Gus by admitting it.
He nods thoughtfully, but the gesture transforms into a headshake.
‘What?’ I prompt.
He looks full of despair. ‘We used to work so well as a team, but that morning we lost a lot of time. She was holding the group up. There were three other experienced climbers, but she didn’t have the speed or the ability to keep up with them, although she was trying. She was embarrassed, but she didn’t want to give up.’ He shakes his head again, fighting back tears. ‘I didn’t even think to ask if she was fit enough because I just assumed that she would be.’
‘Could her death have been avoided?’ I feel shell-shocked. ‘Was it her fault?’
‘No, Rose, it was my fault!’ He raises his voice, anguished. ‘She shouldn’t have been up there in the first place! I’m a mountain guide. I should know who’s fit to climb and who’s not. That’s my job!’
This time I do get up and go over to him because I can’t bear to sit there watching him suffer alone. I kneel at his feet and put my arms around his neck, and a moment later he breaks down, his arms encircling my back. We hold each other as we sob – two strangers who are unfamiliar, yet so familiar to each other in the most unusual of ways. I look like his lost love, I feel like his lost love, and it’s like I know him intimately, because I’ve been inside my sister’s head reading about him.
‘I should have said no to her,’ he cries, his voice stifled by my shoulder.<
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I tighten my grip on him. ‘No one ever said no to Phoebe.’
For some reason, my comment seems to calm us both down, and only a minute or so passes before we gather ourselves together. Remy excuses himself to go and get a box of tissues, and when he returns, we both blow our noses loudly and smile at each other shyly as I return to my spot on the sofa.
But the worst is not yet over.
‘How did she die? I want to know everything,’ I remind him with quiet but strong determination. If ever there were a time when my curiosity could burn me, this would be it, but there’s no suppressing that part of my personality now.
‘We were caught in an avalanche,’ he says.
I already know this, but I want to understand what it was like and I say as much. ‘Please tell me everything you can remember. Every detail.’
He swallows and stares ahead in a daze. ‘It was like being hit with wet cement. Heavy. And we could hear it coming. It sounded like snakes hissing.’
My eyes widen. ‘So she knew she was going to die?’
He shakes his head, glancing at me. ‘Yes, she was frightened. The look in her eyes haunts me at night. But Phoebe was such a positive person, such a fighter. She hadn’t changed that much. I don’t believe she thought she would die. Your father taught her avalanche survival techniques – I remember her repeating his advice on one of our climbs years ago, things like try to swim through the snow and keep an air gap in front of your mouth...’
He’s more animated now, like his mind is on what he knows and what he’s comfortable with, rather than our difficult subject. I bring him back to the hellish reality of it soon enough.
‘I keep having nightmares about her being stuck under the freezing snow, trying to get out,’ I say, as a new stream of tears begins to cascade down my cheeks.
He shakes his head. ‘It wasn’t like that, at least, not for Phoebe. For Phoebe it was quick. It was instant.’
This time it’s he who gets up and comes over to me. He sits beside me and closes his warm hands around mine, turning me to face him.
‘She was killed by a large block of ice, Rose.’ He swallows. ‘I saw it happen.’
‘Oh God.’
He increases the pressure on my hands. ‘It was quick. I promise you, she didn’t suffer.’
‘But she was scared?’ I ask.
‘Momentarily, yes. But icefall struck us before the snow. The size of the block that hit her... She could never have survived it. We were roped together and both of us were torn clean off the mountain. We cartwheeled down with the snow. I’d sent the rest of our group on ahead, so they saw what happened and contacted mountain rescue. I was wearing an avalanche transceiver and we weren’t buried very deep so they managed to locate us relatively quickly and dig us out. If they hadn’t, I would have died, too.’
‘But you say Phoebe never stood a chance?’ I ask in a choked voice.
‘No. She was still tethered to me, and I knew with the utmost certainty that she was already gone.’
I gulp back a sob and a moment later we both break down.
I was too anxious to eat lunch today, so when Remy asks if I’d like to go out for a bite to eat with him, I agree. We walk down the hill to Argentière’s small town centre and into a bar.
‘What can I get you?’ Remy asks me.
‘A white wine, please.’
‘Go grab us a table. I’ll bring the drinks over. Here, take a menu, too.’
After we’ve placed our food order, we settle in for a chat, and I feel more relaxed now that we’ve got the hard stuff out of the way. Remy asks where I’ve been since leaving the UK so I fill him in about Paris and I’m aware of him searching my face, studying every tiny detail as he tries to make sense of the fact that I look exactly like the girl he used to love.
‘It’s uncanny, isn’t it?’ I say softly. ‘If Eliza were here, you’d be even more freaked out.’
He jolts, startled. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. Yes, it is strange, and that top you’re wearing... Is it...?’
‘Hers,’ I confirm. It’s this damn grey hoodie again.
‘I thought it looked familiar. I think she was wearing it the night I saw her again. The night before...’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say with concern. All of Phoebe’s possessions from her hen trip were returned to Angus – this top included. ‘I didn’t even think twice when I put it on this morning. Do you want me to take it off?’
He waves me away. ‘No, it’s fine. Really, it’s fine,’ he tries to reassure me. ‘So how do you like Chamonix?’
‘It’s not quite how I expected,’ I reply a little downheartedly.
He looks intrigued, and slightly perturbed, perhaps because I’ve been talking quite enthusiastically up until now. ‘In what way?’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I’m quick to acknowledge. ‘I mean, it’s absolutely stunning. But I sort of expected to come here and walk in Phoebe’s shoes. I thought it would make me feel closer to her, but so far she’s seemed all the more alien to me. She and I are so different. Practically the only thing we have in common is how we look.’
He reaches across the table and presses my hand. ‘I’m sorry. I hate to think of you having a bad experience here. How much longer are you planning on staying?’
‘Another week or so.’
‘I have a few days off. Perhaps I could show you around a bit? Show you the Chamonix I know?’
‘I’m not going rock climbing,’ I state firmly, just to make it perfectly clear.
He shakes his head and looks away from me, very serious all of a sudden. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No, there’s no chance of that.’
The next morning, Remy is in a brighter mood when he turns up outside my chalet in a silver-grey Nissan X-Trail. There are two mountain bikes perched on the roof racks.
‘What are they for?’ I ask him warily.
‘Can you ride a bike?’ he asks in return, a twinkle in his bluer than blue eyes.
‘Yes,’ I reply hesitantly.
‘Then hop in,’ he says with a grin.
‘I haven’t ridden in a long time,’ I warn as he pulls out of the car park.
‘It’s not something you forget,’ he teases. ‘And I promise you it’s not a difficult ride.’
We’re going to Le Tour, which Remy tells me is a ski area in the winter and a great place for hikes in the summer. It’s only around a five-minute drive to the upper end of the valley. When we arrive, Remy unloads the bikes from the roof, while I fumble around with the helmet he’s brought for me.
‘Here, let me help you,’ he says, coming over to adjust the chinstrap. I’m struggling.
‘How is Amelie, by the way?’ I find myself asking.
He looks at me with surprise.
‘Sorry, I feel like I know her, too,’ I explain. ‘She visited you and Phoebe a few times during that summer.’
I also know from Phoebe’s most recent diary that she lost touch with Cécile. She wrote that Cécile had moved to Germany, but she would have attempted to catch up with her if she’d still been here.
Remy smiles and nods. ‘Yes, she did. She’s very well, thank you for asking. She got married last year, but no babies yet. Here you go,’ he says, wheeling one of the bikes towards me. ‘Climb on and I’ll just check the seat doesn’t need adjusting.’
I do as he says.
‘Perfect,’ he comments. ‘Feel okay?’
‘Yes.’ I nod.
‘I’ll lead, but tell me if I’m going too fast or too slow,’ he says.
The latter is unlikely.
We bike up the mountain on a not too difficult trail and then stop off for lunch. There’s no snow at this time of year, but the view from the café is stunning – we can see down the entire Chamonix valley with the Mont Blanc range in the distance.
The trip is so much fun, thrilling and a little scary at times, but mostly exhilarating.
‘Thank you so much,’ I say to Remy on the car journey home. ‘I really enjoyed that.�
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My cheeks are rosy red from the cool mountain air and my hair has come loose with the wind and the motion of bouncing over the rocky ground. I feel happy.
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He returns my smile. ‘What now? Have you dinner plans?’
‘No, but you don’t have to—’
‘I want to,’ he cuts me off. ‘There’s a restaurant in Chamonix that I think you’d like.’
‘You do actually look a little different to each other,’ Remy says from across the table.
‘Oh?’ I say, pleasantly surprised that he thinks so.
‘I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’m sure I could tell you apart.’ He sits forward in his seat. ‘What do you do, Rose?’
‘I’m not really sure, to be honest,’ I reply with a smile.
He raises an inquisitive eyebrow so I tell him about how I quit nursing, and how I’ve rediscovered my passion for gardening.
‘What about you?’ I ask warmly. ‘Do you like your job?’
His smile falters and he looks down at the table. ‘I did and, yes, I still do. It took me a while to go back to work after the accident.’
‘Were you hurt?’ I ask gently. I don’t want to lose it here, and neither does he, I’m sure, so we won’t stay with this subject for long.
‘I fractured my ribs, but it was mainly only surface cuts and bruises. I was very lucky.’ His eyes are shining as he glances up at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers.
‘Stop,’ I say quickly, touching my hand to his. ‘If you hadn’t sent the rest of your group on ahead, it sounds like you all could have...’
He swallows and I take a deep breath and try to compose myself.
‘I didn’t mean to bring it up again, but I’m glad you’re still working as a guide. Phoebe was happy to hear that you were doing a job that you loved, even though I think she was a little envious.’
‘Oh, it also has its drawbacks,’ he tells me wryly. ‘The worst thing is turning people back when the conditions aren’t right or you don’t think they’re ready for it. Getting so close to the summit of Mont Blanc and then telling clients who’ve paid a lot of money that it’s not going to happen... I deal with some very disillusioned people.’
