by Isla Gordon
‘Oh no, Alice, I’m so sorry, I absolutely did not mean to embarrass you.’
‘You didn’t, it’s fine,’ she said to him, and smiled at Lola. ‘It’s really fine.’
Lola closed her eyes and went back to lying on her back, and they were all silent for a couple of minutes. Then Lola asked, ‘How’d you get the scar, though?’ She peeped one eye over at Alice.
‘Lo, oh my God,’ said Noah.
‘It’s okay,’ Alice answered. ‘Well . . . ’
She took a breath, and took a moment. She sunk herself down so the water covered all but the top of her head, from her nose up, and looked at her surroundings. She looked at the warm mist circling the surface of the pool. She looked at the snow, marked with footprints, surrounding the pools. She looked to the distance, at the Bernese Alps that were bigger than any of this. She was ready. Alice lifted her chin out of the water.
‘Did any of you see on the news the crush at the outdoor concert in London back in August?’ The words sounded too blunt and factual, like she was reading from a news bulletin. But if she scratched beyond the surface, to the layers of memories that protected the feeling of hot skin on skin, the terrifying sounds, the disaster movie images and tinny taste, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to tell her story out loud. Not yet. ‘Well, I was there.’
‘You were there, at the concert?’ Noah whistled. ‘I bet that was really scary.’
‘I’ve had better weekends.’ Alice smiled.
‘Did you see much of what happened?’ asked Lola. Alice knew from experience this meant, ‘did you see anyone die?’ and she didn’t blame her, it was natural to want to hear firsthand experiences.
‘Sort of. It all happened really quickly so I only remember . . . certain elements. But I was near the front so I was very nearly sucked into it all. And . . . ’ She gestured to her leg. ‘This happened because I fell against one of the broken railings.’
They floated in silence for a few moments, while everybody weighed up what they should or shouldn’t ask. Alice waited, methodically moving her hands in sweeping circles beneath the surface of the water. She was okay now. Talking about it was okay. She was a million miles away.
Marco moved a little closer, rippling her circles with his torso. He raised his hand from the water and brushed his sandy hair, darkened by the wetness, from his forehead, causing it to spike up in the cold air. He looked straight at Alice, eyes soft and caring, like he really wanted her to answer his question honestly. ‘Were you all right?’
The question was loaded and could have a million paths that led to it. And so her honest answer was, ‘No.’
‘Are you all right?’
She hesitated, and moved her eyes from the soft furrows of his water-dropleted brow down so they locked with his, fusing this connection with this near-stranger. ‘No.’
Lola’s arms descended on her, pulling her into an Amazonian embrace, wet flesh knocking together and icy hair against her cheek. It was oddly comforting. ‘I am so sorry that happened to you. What a dickhead life can be sometimes.’
‘That’s very true,’ Alice replied. ‘Thanks.’
Lola kissed her quickly on the hair, at the side of her head, an action they both found a little odd, but it seemed appropriate at the time, and she floated a short distance away, knowing not to push the subject any more, for now.
Marco’s fingers found hers under the water and he held them, only briefly, but in a way that made her feel less alone. And then he too gave her space.
Alice lay back and breathed in, slowly, filling her lungs with mountain air, and allowed her arms to drift sideways and her legs to rise to the surface. Her eyes were closed but she knew her scar would be visible, wet and glinting against the sunshine, and she thought of Marco’s face when he’d seen it. Big, curious eyes, an openness to wanting to know more, no judgements, no shock or disgust. She smiled because he reminded her of when Bear came to the door of the bathroom and stared up at her in the shower. Bear never cared what she looked like, he just liked how she looked and wanted to know more about her.
She focused on the feeling of the warm, velvet water on the length of her scar, unhidden and unashamed, and let it have a little of the self-care that maybe it deserved.
Chapter 25
On Saturday morning, Alice was awake and curled in her nook hours before the sun rose. She’d had a bad night, her demons finding her all the way up here in the mountains of Switzerland, scratching away at her protective surface. By four a.m. Alice couldn’t lie down any more, feeling like the weight of her memories was crushing her, so she’d got up and wrapped herself in her blanket, under an amber pool of fairy lights, keeping watch out of her window for any trespassers.
By six a.m. Alice sighed in frustration with herself, shifting her weight, and Bear blinked up at her before going back to sleep.
Vanessa was arriving today. She would get to Mürren mid-morning and be gone by the same time on Sunday; it was a whistle-stop tour back to her home.
Vanessa was going to want to talk about Jill.
Alice didn’t want to talk about Jill. She hadn’t told her new neighbours about Jill yet, more than a passing mention – they didn’t know about her being at the incident as well. She hadn’t hung out with Vanessa before without Jill around. And why the hell did Jill have to be the web that held everything together?
She was spiralling again, the worry and the imagined conversations of the past and future twisting and poking at her brain.
Also, also, today was the ‘big day’ that everybody kept talking about, the day Mürren was going to be overtaken by happy, noisy holidaymakers. Though the night was still very present, yellow lights were starting to be switched on down at the Hotel Eiger and the Alpin Palace opposite it. The low moon was showing off the streaks of snow on the mountains. Occasional sounds of boots crunching through unbroken snow were lifting towards her nook.
Stop. Alice instructed her mind to stop wallowing, and stepped down from the window seat. She walked down the stairs, keeping her footsteps as quiet as possible as if that would preserve her peace and quiet for just a little longer, but then Bear thundered past her to be first to the bottom. He stopped in his tracks and waited for her, not knowing where they were going.
‘I’m going to make a cup of tea,’ she told him. ‘You want a cup of tea?’
Alice busied herself for the next couple of hours with tidying up the house (though it was fairly tidy anyway) and doing a few chores. She was still lost in herself though when she walked Bear through the deep snow at the back of the village, where it was always shaded by the chalets and mountains so the sun never reached it. Even this weekend it was quiet.
She looked up and saw Marco behind his house, stabbing a long metal stick into the deep snowdrift that had piled up. She watched him for a moment, and then made a decision.
‘Marco?’ she called.
He saw her, waved and propped the stick against his chalet. ‘Hello, good morning, neighbours!’
‘Hey, so, Vanessa’s coming home today, as you know.’ Alice was speaking fast, wringing her hands together like her body was trying to tie knots around her to save her from speaking out loud.
‘Oh yeah, cool.’
‘Yeah. But listen, can I tell you something?’
‘Of course.’ Marco pulled off his gloves and wiped the trickle of sweat off his forehead, ready to give Alice his full attention.
‘I just wanted to tell you, tell someone. I wanted to say something about Vanessa and me and my friend Jill. It’s just that Vanessa might mention what happened and I didn’t want it to be awkward if we were all hanging out together.’
‘I am intrigued.’ Marco smiled.
‘Ugh, I’m not making a lot of sense. I’ve only known you guys for like, a week, so you probably don’t even care, but you know the other day at the spa when I told you about how I got the scar on my leg?’
He nodded and edged closer to her, as if wanting to put a hand on her shoulder but stoppi
ng because he didn’t know if it was appropriate. ‘Yes.’
‘And you asked if I was all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, the reason I said no is because . . . is because . . . ’ This was so hard to say aloud. This was why she didn’t want to see a counsellor, or go to therapy, or sit in a support group sharing stories of death and shared misery. ‘Because I lost my best friend that night. Jill. Jill died.’
Marco dropped any respectful distance and pulled her into a hug, hidden behind the chalet, in the snow up to their knees, and for the first time since tossing and turning her way through the night she felt a frisson of relief.
‘Sorry, I just thought Vanessa would probably bring her up and I’m probably over-thinking things,’ she said into his jacket.
‘Don’t apologise. This is really shit for you.’
‘Well, yeah. It’s been a tough few months.’
‘I bet. And I know raising a big Bernese Bear isn’t easy, on top of that.’
‘Bear was actually Jill’s dog originally, I adopted him after she . . . you know.’
‘You saved him.’
‘Well, I couldn’t save her.’
Marco hesitated, seeming to weigh up whether to say his next thought out loud. ‘You know, in my job I am always trying to save lives. And I can’t always do it. It can be a pretty heavy weight on you and make you very sad when that happens. But sometimes the person, or the situation, or the conditions, or the accident mean that it’s out of your control. You just have to know you did everything possible and be peaceful with that.’
‘How do you ever know if you did everything possible?’
‘I don’t know. You just have to trust yourself. Be kind to yourself.’
Alice looked up at him. He got it. She felt a sparkle connect between them and she didn’t know if he felt it too, or if it was her body desperate to hang on to the closeness of another person, but she felt it as clear as the cold mountain air, as big as the blue sky above and the peak of the Eiger, but as delicate as the snowflakes that hugged their calves.
She moved in for another hug, uninvited but needed, and they were silent for a moment, while she tried to organise her chaotic thoughts.
From her position scrunched against his chest, she looked at the stick he’d been using, now seeing it was an extendable aluminium rod with bright flashes of colour at various intervals, and a measurement running up the length of it. ‘What’s that?’
Marco turned his head to see what she was looking at. ‘That’s my penis ruler.’
Alice felt a big bubble of laughter break through her, bringing her back to reality, and a real warm fondness flooded her veins for this man.
‘Just kidding,’ he grinned, sheepishly. ‘It’s an avalanche probe. Look.’ Marco removed his arms from around Alice and stepped through the snow to retrieve the probe, then showed her how it collapsed and extended. ‘This spiky end goes in the snow, and you measure how deep it is really quickly, if you’re in a rescue situation. It’s part of an avalanche kit I left here last year, and I was just testing out all the bits of equipment to make sure nothing was broken or rusted.’
‘Wow. Should I have an avalanche kit?’
‘You said you’ve never been skiing or snowboarding before, right?’
Alice shook her head.
‘You probably don’t need one, at least not at the moment. It’s definitely essential if you’re going off-piste, but maybe learn on-piste first.’
‘Okay.’ She hadn’t really made any plans to try skiing or snowboarding, which seemed silly now that she thought about spending six months in a ski resort. Maybe she’d look into that.
‘Vanessa probably has some of the kit in her chalet, actually, maybe ask her this weekend. Just in case you go snowshoeing in the backcountry or something.’
‘That is actually something I’d like to do!’ Yes, plodding around a vast, empty, flat vista strapped to a pair of tennis rackets was up her street, and she was quite serious about that. Bear could come along to that. Although she’d probably steer clear of anywhere avalanchey. ‘Do you do a lot of off-piste skiing?’
Now the conversation had lightened, the two of them, plus Bear, whose fur was becoming crystallised with chunks of wet snow, ambled back around the side of the chalet, chatting.
‘You mean outside the job? I do some,’ said Marco. ‘But with Air-Glaciers it’s often a requirement, because many of the rescues involve the chopter dropping you somewhere on the mountain away from the normal runs. They have all the equipment if we get a call-out, but I like to keep my own set nearby in case of an emergency.’
‘So you’ve saved people who’ve been caught in avalanches?’
‘That, and other situations. All sorts of things can happen up a mountain when you mix snow, ice, freezing temperatures, confident holidaymakers and a little too much après-ski mulled wine.’
She mulled that over. ‘I think I’d like to hear more about it sometime.’
‘Are you interested in joining the team?’ he smiled.
‘Not quite, just interested in general.’ But there was something comforting to her, at this stage in her life, about listening to stories of people being saved.
Marco was about to answer when the two of them heard a loud squeal.
Chapter 26
‘ALICE!’
Alice looked up to see Vanessa coming up the slope, looking exactly the same as she had all those years ago. Not exactly the same – her hair was darker, her cheekbones more pronounced and her skin sun-blushed and peppered with freckles. She’d grown sleeker and more put-together, but her warm, megawatt smile shone through.
Vanessa’s hair was pulled back and she wore leather snow boots, thick leggings and a bright white snow jacket. With the mountain vista behind her and the backpack on her back, she could have been a picture postcard from their past, and that was . . . brilliant. Vanessa hurried forward, skilfully skipping over the snow like a pro.
She threw her arms around Alice, causing Bear to shuffle excitedly around them both, tangling them in his lead, his tail going wild. ‘Alice, I missed you. Welcome to Switzerland!’
‘I missed you too,’ Alice said into the fur of her jacket, holding tight, not wanting to let go of this connection to her and Jill’s backstory. ‘Welcome home, to you!’
‘You look exactly the same.’ Vanessa pulled back and admired Alice’s face. ‘No wait, not quite – you don’t wear the red lipstick any more?’
‘Good memory!’
‘You always had that lipstick on, even when we were very drunk I could pick you out of a crowd because of that shade,’ she laughed.
Alice smiled. ‘I haven’t worn it for a while.’
Vanessa let it drop and turned to Marco, who was waiting patiently to embrace his old friend. ‘Marc, so happy you are back, you’ve been making Alice feel welcome, right?’
‘I hope so,’ he replied, stealing a look at Alice. ‘How is the new job?’
‘Oh, it’s wonderful, but I will be the size of a chalet by Christmas. Wow, all this cheese!’
They laughed, and Alice appreciated again what a kind touch it was that Swiss people spoke to each other in English in front of her.
‘And this must be the famous Bear, come home to the hills of Switzerland?’ Vanessa crouched down and made Bear’s day by covering him in kisses until he wrapped himself in circles and leaned against her, pushing her into the snow.
Once Alice had managed to extract Bear, and Vanessa, they bid goodbye to Marco and went towards their own chalet. Alice looked over her shoulder and caught his eye as he did the same, in the doorway of his place. She mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ and he smiled.
Inside, Vanessa went straight for the kettle, dumping her things on the floor. After she’d filled it and flicked it, she came back over to Alice and took her hands. ‘How are you?’
‘Better for being here,’ Alice answered honestly. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Vanessa, for being so kind and letting me stay. Ple
ase say the minute you want your house back to yourself?’
‘Hush, I am so pleased you are here,’ said Vanessa. ‘But I am so sorry you’re going through this, and I’m so sorry for the loss of Jill.’
Her directness was refreshing, and somehow it opened the door for Alice to talk with the same blunt openness. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I miss her a lot.’
Vanessa poured them both a coffee without asking, handing one to Alice, and leading them to the sofa where she propped her feet under her and slung her arms back on the cushion, right at home.
Alice watched her. It felt so odd having Vanessa here in the chalet, moving around with the ease and knowledge that Alice was still getting used to. She wondered if she’d ever feel that at home in a house that would never be hers.
‘How’s your leg?’ Vanessa asked.
‘Pretty much fine now,’ Alice answered, sipping on the sweet black coffee which wasn’t how she’d usually take it, but she drank it with gratitude. ‘I have a lovely long scar forming that I’ll show you at some point, and it can ache a bit with too much physical exercise, so I haven’t really done a lot apart from dog walking for the last few months, but it’s really nothing. Really, nothing.’
‘Have you been suffering since it happened?’
‘Suffering?’
‘Emotionally,’ Vanessa clarified. ‘The whole thing must have been terrifying, and losing a close friend on top of that. You’ve had therapy, yes?’
‘No, I don’t think I’m bad enough to see a therapist. I didn’t actually see or remember much, it all happened so quickly and I was pretty disorientated. I have these little flashbacks but it’s all just final moments, just really seeing Jill for the last time.’
‘You have flashbacks of the crush you were caught up in, but you don’t think that’s bad enough to warrant visiting a therapist? Alice, I went to see a therapist because I was going through a . . . what’s the word in English when you’re told you can’t come to work any more?’
