by Isla Gordon
‘How come?’
‘Turns out this puppy gets car sick.’
‘Oh, poor little Bear! So how far away are you?’
‘That’s why I’m calling. I don’t think I’ll be at yours until maybe late afternoon. What time are you leaving?’
Vanessa paused, making calculations in her head. ‘Really the latest I can be leaving is late afternoon. Five, maybe six at the very very latest. After I’ve been on the train down the mountain, it will take me two hours and a bit to get to Zurich and I really can’t get there too late – I have to be up to welcome arriving guests at seven in the morning tomorrow.’
‘No, I completely understand, I don’t want to hold you up, and I definitely want to get there before dark. What time is sunset in Switzerland at the moment?’
‘Six-thirty, more or less.’
A thread of anxiety gnawed at Alice. ‘How would you feel about leaving me your keys somewhere? I know that’s a lot to ask, but . . . ’
‘I don’t mind doing that, but I was hoping to give you an enormous hug and meet your Bear, and show you around my home.’
‘I know, I hope I can make it in time.’
‘Okay, look,’ said Vanessa decisively, ‘get back in the car and get going, and call me again later to let me know how you’re getting on. Maybe give me a phone call when you make it through the border. If you make it over the border.’ Vanessa’s laugh tinkled down the phone, a sound that brought memories of eating strange South American snacks in thirty different hotel rooms with her and Jill, gossiping about the other people on the tour, howling with laughter at the characters they were sprinkling their lives with.
The memory was holding on to Alice, and she let it, even after she’d hung up, and even as she was back curling around these French roads. It soothed her.
But even so, when she finally rounded the corner on a road curtained by pine trees, to see the modest cream buildings of the French/Swiss border control, she was relieved.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and by the time she’d passed through the customs checks it was half past.
Alice pulled over again and ripped open a packet of cookies, taking the last drink from her flask of coffee that she’d refilled before leaving the chateau. She chomped down on a cookie and faced facts. She wasn’t going to catch Vanessa before she left. She was also possibly not going to make it to Mürren before dark. She took her phone out.
‘Hi, Vanessa, I’m in Switzerland!’
‘Ahhh, welcome home,’ Vanessa cried, which lightened Alice’s heart. Home. She looked around for a moment.
‘I don’t think you should wait for me to arrive,’ she admitted.
‘Yeah, I think you’re right,’ Vanessa agreed. ‘I’m so sorry I won’t be here when you get to my house – our house – but I’m going to make it all cosy for you and leave you many instructions.’
‘Thank you. I mean, it might be really smooth-sailing from here, maybe I might just catch you?’
‘Smooth sailing? You are getting a boat somewhere?’
‘No, sorry, it’s a phrase. I mean the weather is better than it was, and if the roads stay clear . . . ’
‘Yeah, but you remember what I told you about Mürren being car-free, right?’ Vanessa cautioned.
Alice hesitated. She remembered something about that. ‘Yes . . . ’ she ventured.
‘You forgot, huh?’ There was that carefree laugh again. ‘I bet you packed all of your kitchen sink, yes?’
‘Maybe.’ Alice glanced in through the rear windscreen at the boot full of clobber. Then she glanced at her dog, who took up nearly as much room. ‘Just remind me of the details of where I should park?’
‘Okay, you pay attention, all right? Don’t get distracted like that time in Brazil when you were so in love with that boy with the long sleeves you nearly joined the wrong tour.’
Alice laughed, the sound surprising her. ‘He did have lovely sleeves, and lovely fingers.’
‘Focus, woman. So drive your car to Lauterbrunnen, park up, and then go to the station. It’s really clearly signposted and so simple to use. You need to take a cableway to Grütschalp and then change to this cute little electric train. Then my chalet is steps away from the train station in Mürren. Simple!’
Alice gulped. ‘Two separate journeys?’ With a dog, with all her stuff, to a place she didn’t know, in the dark. Maybe she should just find another dog-friendly hotel for the night.
‘Yes. And this is important. There are two ways to get up to Mürren, but you have to park at Lauterbrunnen, because that way the station is so so close to the house. If you park at Stechelberg and take up that cableway you will have a ten, maybe a fifteen minute walk with all of your things when you arrive. That station is the other side of Mürren. Okay?’
‘Lauterbrunnen. Not . . . Stet – Stetchenblog.’
‘Stechelberg.’ Vanessa paused. ‘You can handle it. But if you’re worried, just take from your car the things you really need for the night and go back and get the rest in the morning. And my house has plenty of food and drink and warm sweaters you can borrow, so don’t worry about weighing yourself down with any of that.’
I can handle it. She had to bloomin’ well handle it. She’d made this choice and she really didn’t want Bear to have to face another long day of driving tomorrow. She would get there tonight, or at least get as close as she damned well could.
‘Seriously,’ Vanessa said. ‘I know you have been through tougher things than this. I know it.’ She let her words sink in. ‘Now get back in the car, and get over here. I have a bottle of brandy waiting to warm you up from the inside.’
‘Thanks, Vanessa.’
‘Don’t mention it. Just drive. And we will catch up properly in a couple of weeks when I’m back for the weekend, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Alice hung up and Bear pulled her towards the open door of a small general store beside the road. Bear was so nosy – he always wanted to investigate any open door – but this time it wasn’t such a bad idea.
Stopping at the entrance, Alice attempted to tie up Bear to a bicycle rack outside, but he tried to scramble into her lap and pulled until he rasped when she moved away from him. ‘I know, you don’t know where we are, but I’ll be two minutes.’
Bear continued to whine, until the shopkeeper, an elderly woman with a severe face, barked, ‘Eh!’
Alice looked up at the woman, who gestured towards Bear, and then gestured into the shop. Alice didn’t know what she meant, and after a little more gesturing the woman said, ‘In! In!’
‘In here? Dog in shop?’ Alice asked, clumsily.
She untied Bear, keeping her eye on the shopkeeper in case this was so not what she’d meant, but the minute Bear’s big feet were sliding through the door her face went from fierce to full of joy. Her cheeks pinked and she held her arms wide and Bear swung into her, twirling in circles and licking her face.
The woman babbled at him in affectionate Swiss French while Alice collected an armful of water, snacks and other provisions in case they got stuck anywhere between now and Mürren, and kept an eye on her Bear. It was like he was right at home.
‘Beautiful Bernie,’ the shopkeeper enthused as she rung up Alice’s items. ‘Beautiful, beautiful.’ She then watched, waving, as the two of them returned to the car.
But Bear wasn’t ready to leave his new friend. Or at least, he wasn’t ready to have to get back in the car again.
‘Come on, up you get,’ Alice coaxed him. ‘Up. Come on. Up. Up. Bear, up.’ She stood holding the car door open and gesturing inside but to no avail. Tapping the seat and throwing in treats didn’t help either. Bear stayed stock-still, staring at her.
She scooped her arms around his waist and tried to lift him, letting out a guttural moan. ‘Jesus Christ, you’re a heavy thing now.’ She managed to raise his front paws up to the seat but he dabbed at her cheeks with his nose, sniffing and snuffling and blocking her vision. The moment she let go, he put his paws back down.
‘Come on, just a couple more hours, then we’ll be there. I know it’s boring and uncomfortable – it is for me too.’ She rolled her shoulders. ‘Do you feel sick again?’
They stared at each other for a moment until Bear whined and tried to back away from the vehicle.
‘Oh Bear, please, please get in the car. I’m sorry.’
Alice was so focused on trying to nudge her increasingly anxious dog back into the car that she didn’t even notice the old woman from the shop appear until she’d flung open the opposite door and stuck her round face through.
‘BOO-BOO-BOO-BOO!’ She made delighted, chirping sounds towards Bear until he turned and peered into the car, stepping forward for a better look. On seeing the shopkeeper he took a flying leap straight into the back seat, tail wagging, and nestling his face against hers again.
Alice rolled her eyes. Honestly, one minute he can’t bear to leave her side, the next minute he’s having a holiday romance with a stranger.
She closed the door on her side, placed her shopping in the passenger footwell and returned to the driver’s seat, thanking the lady.
The shopkeeper gestured for Alice to open the back window, and once Alice had leant over and clipped Bear in, she did so. The two had a final snog through the open window, and Alice hit the road again with a grateful wave.
She closed the window and looked at Bear in the rear-view mirror. ‘Sorry to pull you away from your new girlfriend.’
He sighed and lay down on the back seat in a huff.
‘Half an hour in Switzerland and you’re already doing some kissing. I think you’re going to be okay here.’
They wove through the roads of Switzerland, skirting the edges of the city of Bern, and on towards the mountains. The sun sank lower, making the clouds before it turn from white to steel blue. The air grew colder, and Alice had a decision to make. Stop now and find a hotel that would accept her and her dog, or face the night sky and the mountain roads for the final thirty kilometres.
I know you’ve been through tougher things than this. Vanessa’s words rang in her ears. It was true. And although she’d driven home from the dog school lessons in the dark over the past couple of months, there was far less light pollution in the Swiss Alps than there was in London. It was time to learn to face the dark again.
It was far beyond dusk now, the roads, landscape and sky all paling into shades of indigo. The mountain passes were hard to see and the roads twisty. Flakes of snow kissed the windscreen, seeming to head straight for her, sending her windscreen wipers into overdrive.
‘Shit,’ Alice whispered, the anxious feeling gnawing against her stomach. ‘It’s okay, Bear, nearly there.’ She stretched an arm back between the seats and ruffled her fingers through his soft fur, her stress levels immediately reducing a little. He responded by giving her hand a lick. He was okay. He was doing better than her.
Why oh why hadn’t she planned this out better? She should have left England a day earlier. She should have made two overnight stops after all so she was driving up the mountain pass during bright morning light. Granted, she hadn’t known she’d hit the delays but still, she felt stupid for putting herself and Bear in this situation.
There is no ‘situation’ yet, she reminded herself, trying to pull herself back from thinking the worst-case scenario. Soon they’d reach Lauterbrunnen, the village at the foot of the mountain where they had to leave the car and board a cable car with their belongings to travel the last stretch to Mürren. Really soon, according to the satnav.
‘We’re just fifteen minutes away,’ she said into the car. ‘Fifteen minutes, please wait for us, cable car. Please don’t do your last run until we get there.’
She leant forward in the seat. It was okay. If the cable car was gone, they could stay the night somewhere in Lauterbrunnen, it wouldn’t be a problem. But the dark felt heavy and unfamiliar, when she’d been making an effort only to exist in the light for the past few months.
She sucked in the air as the road took another barely visible left, and slowed down further, the destination drifting that much further from her grasp.
Chapter 19
‘I might give you some of Vanessa’s brandy too, if we ever get there,’ Alice murmured to the dog as she crawled the car forward. She followed the tail lights of a car up ahead, and in the darkness could see the shape of mountains looming above her.
It took everything she had not to think about the concert crush. Which meant the thoughts and memories were there, clamouring and clawing to get in and distract her from the road. She focused on Bear’s consistent panting, calm and comfortable.
Eventually a street lamp appeared, and then another, and another, and when a large sign appeared pointing towards a multi-storey car park, with a picture of a cable car with ‘Mürren’ written beside it, she exhaled with relief. The road widened and sloped-roofed buildings lit from within popped up on either side, a large canvas of happy skiers strung high over the road.
Alice indicated left towards the car park, saying, ‘I think we’re here, Bear!’ We made it!
In the back seat he sat up and yawned, shaking out his ears.
But there was a man beside the entrance to the car park who seemed to be turning people away. Alice opened her car window, a blast of freezing air entering their warm pod, and asked, ‘Excuse me, we’re looking for parking to go up to Mürren?’
The man, wrapped up in thick clothing, the tip of his nose bright pink, replied, ‘For Mürren, keep going to Stechelberg and get the cableway up the mountain.’
‘Keep going? We can’t park and go up from here?’ No, no, no, this wasn’t the plan. They were here.
‘No because the car park is full. There is a renovations taking place so it is only half of the size right now. Stechelberg is six kilometres that way.’
‘But Stetchenblog—’
‘Stechelberg,’ he corrected.
‘It’s the wrong . . . ’ She faltered. He couldn’t do anything about that, and a couple of cars were now indicating to try and come in after her. So Alice nodded a thanks to the man and reversed, making her way back to the main road. She drove in silence, watching the comforting lights of Lauterbrunnen recede and the darkness welcome her back.
Six kilometres may seem to stretch long like elastic after nightfall, but in reality the lights had started to appear again after ten minutes. Dotted beside the road, one after another, were simple, illuminated Christmas shapes taking her into Stechelberg. A bell, then a tree, then a star, and before she knew it the road took her off to an open-air car park with a large building – the cable car station – at the end.
Alice pulled into an empty space between two other cars, very very carefully as the car park wasn’t gritted and she was driving over an inch or two of snow now. And she switched the engine off.
‘Now we’ve made it, Bear,’ she said, and both the dog and the car heaved a sigh of relief.
Alice rolled her stiff shoulders as her stomach growled. It felt so good to know she wouldn’t be needing to climb back into this cramped vehicle for some time, and the few other people pottering about the car park reassured her that the cableway was still running.
She opened the door and whoosh, the cold air hit her. Wow, the wind chill in the mountains was real. She grabbed for her coat and for Bear’s lead, and he was about to hop out of the car when he came to a standstill, peering over the edge of the car onto the ground below.
Alice blew upwards, trying to warm the tip of her nose. ‘Come on, what’s wrong?’
He stared down and she adjusted to try and make more room for him to get out. As her boot slipped just a little on the ice, she realised what he was staring at. ‘Bear! Your first experience of snow! Look.’ She scooped a handful into her glove and held it to his face. He pressed his nose into it and left it there a while. ‘Do you like the cold? There’ll be plenty more of this over the next few months. Are you going to have a go at walking on it?’
She gave his lead a small,
very gentle tug, and Bear stepped down, lifting his paws high as if it could be three feet deep. He toddled forwards, dragging his nose into the snow as he walked, weaving this way and that, listening to the sound it made under his paws. He tried leaping in the air and watched it powder-poof around him, and he tried licking it off the back of the car while he waited for Alice to gather their belongings and take them to the cableway station.
Alice worked fast, her fingers freezing, and pulled out his bed, her handbag, one of her suitcases, the bag with his food and toys and a food bag. She surveyed the pile of belongings. Because of Bear, she would only have one hand at her disposal, and this was way too much to haul up a mountain.
‘What do we not need tonight?’ she asked him.
Bear stuck his head in the bag of his stuff. He was telling her that if nothing else, this bag was essential.
‘Maybe we don’t need your bed,’ she mused. ‘You slept all over the place in our old house, so I’m sure you can do without it for one night. Don’t look at me like that – it’s huge. If I take your bed I can’t carry your food and toys as well.’
He snorted through his nose and rested his chin on the lip of the boot, resigned.
She put the bed back in the car, for now.
‘I guess I don’t need everything in this suitcase.’ Alice opened up the case on the car park ground, revealing her carefully packed winter clothing and toiletries. Jesus, it was cold. No time for keeping things neat. She pulled out a handful of clothing and underwear and threw it back in the boot, making a gap big enough to stuff her handbag into.
‘Okay, that’s two-in-one. We’ll leave my food bag, since Vanessa said we could eat her stuff. Don’t judge me, Bear, you eat my food all the time, and we’ll replace anything we use up. As for your bag . . . ’ She pulled out seven bright dog toys in various textures, sizes and colours. ‘Pick just two favourites for tonight.’
Bear snuffled along the line of toys, settling on a balled-up rope that had seen better days, and a lump of hard wood that he liked to chew on. Alice returned them to his bag, which was now closable, and balanced it on top of her suitcase, the bag handles strung over the suitcase’s own extended top handle.
