A Season in the Snow

by Isla Gordon

  She shook her head. ‘It’s okay. It’s gone now, and it’s okay.’

  At that moment, the bells in both of Mürren’s churches began tinkling happily. The balcony door opened and Marco stepped out, his face happy, with Bear budging his way past him, smiling up at Alice. The sight of them was just the tonic she needed.

  ‘This is the ringing out of the old year,’ he explained, peering into the darkness. ‘This is how we say goodbye to everything that happened over the past twelve months.’ He then looked over and spotted Alice’s pink eyes under the lamplight. ‘Should we come back?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Alice, beckoning them all out. ‘It’s nearly midnight, come on out.’

  He stepped over and without a care for the raised eyebrows or unsubtle nudges, put an arm around Alice and pulled her close. She returned the hug, holding him around the waist and looking out at the mountains, enjoying his warmth. Moments later, her shins were nudged with the heavy lump of Bear sitting and leaning against her.

  ‘Here it comes,’ said David, and sure enough the church bells went silent for a moment, until just one started chiming the countdown to the new year.

  ‘Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . ’

  Warrior women, that’s what Lola had called the three of them. As they all counted down, Alice stood a little taller and met the eyes of her sisters.

  ‘Seven . . . six . . . five . . . ’

  She put more power behind her voice with every number.

  ‘Four . . . three . . . two . . . ’

  Brave . . . Strong . . . Happy . . .

  ‘Happy New Year!’ they cried in unison, and Alice was brave. She reached up and took Marco’s cheeks between her gloves and pulled him into her. They kissed, and it was full of life, just like she needed.

  His hands touched her hips, pulling her a little closer, and she felt his mouth curve into a smile against hers. They broke apart only a moment later, but a dizzy pleasure remained, unmasked, on her whole body, and before they moved away to wish a happy new year to the others, Marco caught her eye and beamed, stroking a hand over her hair, his fingers causing tingles down her neck.

  Someone grabbed her arm. It was Lola, pulling Alice into an embrace. ‘Happy New Year, future sister-in-law!’ she shrieked.

  ‘Look over there,’ said Noah in a loud whisper. He pointed to David and Vanessa, kissing in the corner. ‘I think we’ve lost them to the night.’

  Alice grinned, and as the church bells regained their happy chorus, and the merry bunch took each other’s hands, she was ready to be lost to the night.

  Chapter 38

  ‘Good morning,’ Alice rasped with the croaky voice that comes from singing too loudly and hydrating too little. She turned and handed a coffee to the sleepy head who had just walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Guete Morge,’ replied Vanessa, taking a seat at the table, and holding the coffee cup as if it was keeping her upright.

  ‘Happy New Year!’

  ‘Indeed. Where is your man?’

  ‘At home,’ Alice answered. ‘There’s only one man allowed to sleep in my bed, whether I like it or not, eh, mister?’ she said to Bear, and his tail wagged in agreement. ‘Where’s yours?’

  Vanessa collapsed onto her hands and chuckled. ‘Ohh, I am a wicked witch when I have champagne in me. Alice, where were you to keep me sensible?’

  ‘I could never keep you sensible. Don’t you remember the night of a thousand caipirinhas?’

  ‘“Just two drinks then home to bed”,’ Vanessa quoted.

  ‘“We have an early bus in the morning.” Did we even go to bed in the end?’

  ‘No, we went straight from dancing on the tables to the hotel lobby at six a.m. It was Jill’s fault, I think.’ Vanessa winked.

  ‘Yep, all Jill’s fault.’

  Vanessa slurped her coffee. ‘I did tell him, though, I said I don’t know what I want yet, so we could only kiss if he understood that. I said, I don’t want to lead you on.’

  ‘What did David say?’

  ‘Mmm, something about, how about we get a kiss in before you decide you might not want me. I shouldn’t have let it happen, but the stars and the drink, and the blahblahblah.’

  ‘It was New Year, don’t beat yourself up. I’m sure he’ll understand if you don’t want to take things any further.’

  Vanessa leant across the table and whispered, ‘He is upstairs, though.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘I’m kidding, relax. What are you doing today?’

  ‘Walking the grizzly bear, then going back to sleep. You?’

  ‘I should talk to David. He heads home for a week today. You want to do something with me later?’

  ‘I want to do nothing with you later.’ Alice yawned.

  ‘Let’s lie under blankets and watch bad movies all day.’

  ‘Now that’s a good start to the year.’

  When Alice and Bear returned from their walk, Vanessa was already lying on the sofa under two faux-fur blankets. Bear bounded straight over and rested his chin on her, his nose centimetres from her face, sniffing.

  Vanessa reached a hand out and stroked his head. ‘I just talked to David,’ she said.

  ‘What happened?’ Alice pulled off her gloves, scarf, coat, salopettes, boots and down to her soft PJs that she was still wearing underneath, and joined Vanessa on the other side of the sofa.

  ‘I said I was sorry for letting it happen, it wasn’t an intention to lead him on, I just got caught in the moment. He said he was sorry if I’d felt in any way pressured. I said no I wasn’t, and actually I quite liked it, but our lives are quite far from each other. He said I was right. I said, fight for me, man. Then we kissed some more. Then I realised I still had some alcohol in me, so I said goodbye, let’s talk when you get home, and I came back here and threw up.’

  ‘You threw up? Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah it was from all the champagne, not from him.’

  ‘Shall I light the fire?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’ Vanessa grinned and pulled the covers up to her chin.

  Alice pottered about, placing logs into the burner along with a little kindling, and when it was going she went into the kitchen and made two coffees – black and sweet like Vanessa liked – and grabbed a big bag of crisps left over from last night, then cosied back down on the sofa.

  They lay in comfortable silence, watching the fire, the soft crackling filling any need for chitchat.

  ‘So when are you next seeing Marco?’ Vanessa asked through a mouthful of crisps, after a while.

  ‘I’m not sure. I remember him saying he has a pretty busy week this week because he swapped some shifts around when his parents visited. But hopefully we’ll get to hang out a little.’

  ‘How do you feel about last night?’

  Alice thought about it. ‘Alive . . . if that’s the right word. Like, I’m just so ready to live again, and I’m not saying I’m there yet, and certainly not that kissing Marco has fixed me in any way, but I’m beginning to see how I want my future to be again, and I don’t want to waste time or play games. If I like someone, I want to spend time with them. Stepping into a new year helped, somehow.’

  ‘In other words . . . ’

  ‘In other words I’m going to go for it.’

  ‘Yaaaay!’ Vanessa said and lifted her coffee cup in a ‘cheers’ motion. ‘Now, how do you fancy watching the cheesiest movies we can find on Netflix?’

  ‘Yes please, the more fondue-like the better.’

  Alice and her friend settled in for the long haul, enjoying the simple pleasure of escaping.

  Marco called around late that afternoon, and Alice hauled herself off the sofa and rolled her shoulders. They were on their third romcom and Vanessa had fallen asleep twice.

  ‘Hello, you two,’ he greeted her and Bear. ‘Hello Vanessa,’ he called as she got up and pottered upstairs for a bath.

  ‘Hey you,’ Alice answered.

  ‘So about last night . . . ’
Marco looked at her a little shyly, a little happily.

  ‘About last night . . . ’

  ‘I had a really nice time.’

  In answer, Alice ran her hands around his waist and tilted her chin up to kiss him. It was warm, like everything else about his heart, soul and body. Even before the incident, Alice’s comfort zone had been small. Now it was expanding, and he, Bear and the others were firmly on the inside. She was at peace.

  ‘How was your day?’ she asked, leaning against him lazily.

  ‘It was intense. We took the chopter right up the other side of the Mönch to rescue this guy who’d fallen fifteen metres into a crevasse.’

  ‘Fifteen metres? How does that happen?’

  ‘The problem is if there’s wind that blows the powder or the conditions are bad you can just not see them until you’re whoosh . . . in them.’

  ‘Was he okay?’

  ‘Nothing more than a dislocated shoulder. And a little cold. Crazy.’

  Alice exhaled. ‘Yeah, my day was super active as well.’ she gestured to the sofa.

  ‘This is really late notice, but what are you and Bear doing tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why?’

  Marco looked excited. ‘One of the other paramedics wants to swap shifts, so I unexpectedly have the whole day free. I know the rest of the week is going to be mad so I thought we could go and do something fun.’

  ‘I’d like that a lot!’ Alice said. Vanessa was heading off at the crack of dawn, and deciding how she was going to put her life back together could wait another day. ‘Did you have something in mind, or are we brainstorming?’

  ‘Is there anything touristy you’d like me to take you to do?’

  Alice thought for a moment before an obvious thought struck her in the head. ‘Ooh, have you been up to Piz Gloria, at the top of the Schilthorn?’

  ‘Sure, many of the ski runs go from there or from Birg, the cable car stop between Mürren and the Schilthorn. You know what I’ve never done, though? All of the James Bond things.’

  Alice was ecstatic. ‘So you’ve never done the James Bond brunch?’

  Marco laughed. ‘Nope.’

  She changed tack. ‘Do you want to watch a movie this evening?’ As if she hadn’t watched enough today.

  ‘Okay . . . ’

  ‘Have you ever seen On Her Majesty’s Secret Service?’

  Marco had seen that particular Bond before (she was pretty sure it was the most frowned-upon thing to admit you hadn’t done if you were a Mürren resident) but that was lucky, because he was fast asleep a third of the way in. He was shattered, and she couldn’t blame him. But while he napped on her sofa in front of the wood burner, Bear stretched out beside him, and Alice sat on the floor resting against Marco’s legs, she was enthralled. This was the Best Film she had Ever Seen. It had glorious 1960s fembots with big hair and winged eyeliner, cutting one-liners and extravagant, death-defying chase scenes. And it was set right here! There was the Mürren ski lift! There was the top of the mountain ranges she now knew so well! She couldn’t wait to get up to Piz Gloria in the morning and see it in all its 007 glory.

  After a particularly dramatic scene where a scantily clad Bond girl was being brainwashed about her chicken allergy in her sleep (seriously), Alice turned her head and grinned at her two snoozing boys through a mouthful of popcorn.

  Jill would have loved this movie just as much as she did. I think she would have liked you, too, Alice thought, peeping at Marco’s peaceful, handsome face.

  Chapter 39

  On the morning of the second of January, a well-rested Marco and an overexcited Alice were waiting for the next cable car to take them up to Blofeld’s lair itself at Piz Gloria. Waiting with them, stuffed between the barriers that angled people into the carriage, was a crowd of people in full ski regalia, of all colours, the fabric rustling against itself with every movement. Heads were covered with helmets with chunky goggles atop, the glass marbled with brightly tinted polarised lenses. Skis and boards and poles rested upright in arms and boots clonk-clonked while people shifted their weight, dripping snowy clumps onto the wet floor.

  Alice was still feeling the intoxication of New Year’s hope running through her blood and she looked up at Marco from where she was squeezed in next to him. ‘So you come up here and ski down, like these people?’

  ‘Sometimes. Most people get off at Birg, the stop in between us and Bond World, but you can ski from both.’

  ‘Could I ski from both?’

  He smiled, as if struggling for words that didn’t sound condescending. ‘Well, perhaps one day. It is black runs from the Schilthorn, but from Birg you could do blue and red runs and keep coming back on the cable cars.’

  ‘Okay. Maybe one day. I’m still definitely a blue run woman at the moment.’

  ‘You have three weeks to get really good and then you could enter the Inferno.’

  She frowned at him. ‘The what?’

  Marco pointed to a TV monitor near the queue which showed a promotional video for what looked like a huge ski race inspired by the devil.

  ‘That’s happening here?’ Alice asked.

  ‘In the last week of January. The Inferno. Every year, it’s the biggest event in Mürren. Thousands of people come to ski in the race or watch and it’s really fast and really dangerous!’

  Alice hesitated. ‘Thousands of people, all here at the same time?’

  ‘Yes, it’s crazy, but very fun. You’ll start to see over the next two weeks they will start to put wooden devil masks beside pathways to show the route, and all the shops and hotels decorate their windows with devils and fire.’

  ‘Have you ever done it?’

  ‘Once.’ Marco laughed. ‘I crashed and had to drop out about halfway down.’

  ‘Were you okay?’

  ‘Yes, but everyone is going so fast so if one person wipes out it’s like dominoes. My brother has entered a few times. He’s pretty good.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll enter this year,’ Alice joked, but her attention kept pulling back to the TV monitor showing the huge crowd of people. She shook the thought from her head. Totally different place, totally different crowd. Don’t think about it right now.

  ‘I wonder if Bear’s asleep on my bed right now,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘I took him for a big walk first thing this morning to tire him out. I hope he doesn’t mind me being gone for the whole morning.’

  ‘He’ll be fine, and I bet he is loving having the chalet to himself. Oh, here comes the cable car.’

  They shuffled in, and Alice squeezed her way next to the window on one side. The cable car swept out of the station and into the sunshine, which beamed warm rays into the Perspex box they were crammed into. It glided up, up, up, almost stroking the face of the mountain, whose pine trees poked upwards to meet the sun, and whose snow was glistening and untouched other than by the neat lines of hoof prints left by mountain goats.

  Whoosh! Far below them a lone skier appeared, carving elegant trails through the untouched snow, a flash of electric blue ski suit against the pure white. ‘They’ve come from Birg, practising their off piste,’ Marco explained.

  At Birg, the majority of the winter sporters departed. Just a few remained, along with those without equipment who were looking for some secret service fun. Alice snuck a look at the faces of two women around her age chatting in Italian, their skis battered and loved, their lift passes dangling, crumpled, from plastic wallets on their jacket sleeves, and their cheeks freckled and suntanned. Alice’s own face had picked up a hint of colour in the winter sun since she’d started ‘hitting the slopes’ in December. She loved each new freckle, and each hint of a goggle line that appeared, as if they were little medals.

  On the cable car went, up to kiss the glorious blue sky above, leaving the lower peaks behind it. At Piz Gloria they were nearly three thousand metres above sea level and the panorama of the Swiss skyline that it presented was . . .

  Well. When Alice stepped out of t
he cable car and exited the station onto the viewing deck, she didn’t have any words. The mountain tops stretched before her, behind her, all around her, and she was on top of the world. There was the Eiger, the Jungfrau and the Mönch, and what felt like a hundred other craggy points decorated in blankets of white and flecks of grey stone.

  ‘What do you think?’ Marco asked, putting an arm around her to keep her warm.

  ‘It’s very big,’ Alice replied, not doing it justice. ‘Puts life into perspective up here.’

  He was quiet, and she realised she kind of wanted to cry, but something about Mother Earth was telling her to be brave, and be present. Also, it was extremely cold up here and there was a good chance that if she cried the tears would freeze on her cheeks.

  Alice took a big inhalation of the fresh mountain air and took Marco’s hand, and they spent the next twenty minutes strolling along the viewing deck, taking photos with some strategically placed Bond cut-outs, and making each other laugh with their 007 poses.

  She was just wondering if her eyelashes were frosting over when her stomach gave a deep growl. ‘Shall we go inside and have our brunch?’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Marco, whose brows definitely had a frozen look about them.

  ‘I’m just going to nip to the loo,’ Alice said when they entered the Piz Gloria building that housed the restaurant and the Bond World exhibit. She was wondering if a Swiss German man had any idea what ‘nip to the loo’ meant when she realised to her delight that the door to the toilets said ‘Bond girls’. It got better. Inside, the cubicle doors were decorated with Bond silhouettes at various stages of him being shot at. And then the most amazing thing happened when she sat down to pee.

  The cubicle went dark and above her head the ceiling panel turned into a multicoloured light show. Then the voice from the movie – the brainwashing voice from the movie – boomed out to tell her that her chicken allergy was cured! It was the most surreal experience, and Alice could not stop giggling on her toilet seat. Then just to fully send her over the edge, when she pressed the flush the sound effect of a dramatic shoot out blasted out of the speakers.