Chapter Eight
Wouldn’t it be ironic if today was the day my parents lost their other child, thought Lucy as the piste bus tracked along the edge of a precipitous drop into the valley below. Awful for them, but at least they’d be able to do all their grieving on one day.
She’d thought that taking the window seat would be a generous gesture towards Nate, who looked entirely unsure about the whole business the minute he saw Ulrich and climbed aboard his rickety tank/bus hybrid, particularly as the blue skies and sunshine were quickly disappearing behind the heavy cloud cover that was moving in on a brisk wind.
But within minutes of setting off, Lucy was vowing never to be the Good Person again – Ulrich drove like he’d previously only ever driven a bumper car at the fairground, with a complete disregard for skiers, pedestrians, trees and the possibility of plunging into the snowy abyss.
Hanging off the edge of the mountain seemed to be the norm, as was turning corners on the banked-up edge of the piste so the bus listed sideways like it was on a rollercoaster.
As Ulrich responded to the rapidly diminishing visibility by putting on a pair of Top Gun aviator shades and lighting a cigarette with no hands on the wheel, Lucy started thinking about who might read the eulogy at her funeral.
Jonno, ideally, but her mum would almost certainly pull rank and use it as an opportunity to talk about Leo instead.
Would Anthony and Marco sit together? How would they even know she was dead?
Maybe such a dramatic mountain crash ending would make the local news, so they’d find out that way.
Meanwhile, Nate kept his eyes closed throughout, sitting bolt upright with his hands gripping the seat in front, a visible sheen of sweat on his forehead.
Eventually all the windows steamed up with the warmth of their combined bodies, obscuring the view and making the whole experience marginally less petrifying.
She took deep, slow breaths, rubbed her sweaty palms on her non-absorbent coat, and prayed for it all to be over.
By the time they pulled up outside the bar fifteen minutes later, Lucy was actively trying to stop herself being sick and Nate was now wide-eyed, pale and clammy.
It was also snowing heavily, but not in a delightful, winter-wonderland way where you stick your tongue out to catch snowflakes and shoot cute videos.
At this altitude it was sideways shards of ice in a biting wind, leaving no time to fully appreciate the stone building and wooden terrace nestled in the trees at the side of the piste.
The sign over the door said Die Guntherhütte, but Lucy wasn’t hanging about to admire it.
‘You can breathe now,’ said Lucy, as they bustled through the jumble of skis and poles on the racks outside into the steamy warmth of the bar and started to shed layers of clothing.
‘That was horrible,’ said Nate, his voice hollow with fear. ‘We’re not leaving for a long time, right?’
‘No,’ said Lucy with a smile. ‘I thought we could have some lunch, stay here for the afternoon, and get pissed enough that the trip back down won’t seem so bad.’
‘I am totally on board with this idea,’ said Nate, his mouth twitching into a feeble smile.
The bar was already busy with an early lunchtime crowd eating pizzas and drinking tall glasses of beer, but the other passengers from the bus grabbed the last tables, leaving only the high stools at the bar.
They bagged two, and Lucy left Nate in charge of swooping on the next available table whilst she went to the bathroom.
The combined jiggling of the piggyback and the bus ride had left her bladder ready to burst, and it was hard not to let out an audible sigh of relief when she finally sat down on the loo.
Even the freezing cold seat couldn’t spoil her moment of bliss, although her reflection in the mirror afterwards came close.
She looked, by any standards, like she’d just rolled out of bed, which was fine earlier when she was out for a walk, but now she wished she’d made more effort.
‘What do you drink?’ asked Nate when she returned to the bar stools.
‘Right now I’d drink lighter fluid, just to forget,’ said Lucy, holding out her hands to see if the colour had returned to her knuckles. ‘But white wine is fine.’
Nate flagged down the man behind the bar, who came over with two lunch menus. ‘You came on the bus?’ he asked, and Lucy realised this was probably the eponymous Gunther, brother of psychotic Ulrich and potential future millionaire once he’d done a deal with Kristoff for this bar.
‘How can you tell?’ asked Nate.
‘It is the only way to get here if you are not on skis,’ said Gunther. ‘Which you are not dressed for. And also you look like you have both visited the gates of hell.’ He finished on a booming, manic laugh, and Lucy wondered if the whole family was, in fact, insane.
‘Two glasses of white wine,’ said Nate, giving Gunther a deadpan stare. ‘Large ones.’
‘No problem,’ said Gunther, leaving the menus and grabbing two wine glasses from the rack above his head.
Lucy looked around the cosy bar, not much bigger than the average semi-detached house, clad in yellow pine with red curtains over the tiny windows.
It was blissfully warm, with a huge wood-burning stove in one corner, draped in steaming hats and gloves.
Packed out, you could maybe squeeze fifty people in here, and the atmosphere would be intimate and fun.
She could totally see Kristoff buying it, filling it with mood lighting, stuffed animal heads and designer vodkas, and turning it into an exclusive Alpine hotspot for the rich and beautiful.
‘Here,’ said Nate, handing Lucy a huge glass of wine.
She smiled her thank you and took a gulp, watching the sideways snow through the window for a moment and wondering if there was any chance the sun would come back out later so they could sit on the terrace.
At the moment that looked unlikely, but maybe steamy warmth and good wine was better.
A red-headed woman in her thirties sat at the end of the bar, giving directions to an older man setting up a keyboard on a stand in the opposite corner to the fire.
He propped a guitar against the wall and unpacked a microphone.
The sticker on the keyboard read Night Fever.
‘This is a cool place,’ said Nate, holding up his glass. ‘Salut.’
‘I’m sorry about the nightmare journey,’ said Lucy, clinking his glass. It felt unfair to remind him, but they had to talk about something. The idea of sitting here in awkward silence for the next couple of hours felt far worse, and Lucy could already feel the regret kicking in.
‘It’s fine.’ Nate shrugged. ‘We’re here now. Do you think we’ll actually have to do any work tomorrow?’
‘Hmm,’ said Lucy, taking another slug of wine, glad of a new subject. ‘Depends on how pissed Kristoff gets later.’
‘When are the rest of them coming?’ asked Nate.
Lucy felt a wave of annoyance as she realised that Nate had probably only come up here in the hope of seeing Sasha, and for him this lunch was just about killing time before the others arrived.
But if that was the case, why agree to come so early?
It was barely twelve, the others might not arrive for hours.
And last night he’d left the bar early, presumably to avoid seeing Sasha.
Maybe he was already planning their getaway for alone time back at the hotel, leaving everyone else safely up the mountain.
‘No idea,’ she muttered grumpily, spotting a group at a booth in the far corner standing up to put on their coats.
‘Quick, grab that.’ Nate jumped off his stool like it had just caught fire, and positioned himself next to the table before the couple waiting by the door had even noticed the ripple of movement.
They glared malevolently as Lucy and Nate exchanged pleasantries with the outgoing group and slid into the empty booth, then plodded over in their ski boots to take the now-vacant stools at the bar.
‘Nice work,’ said Lucy, piling up the dirty plates and beer glasses so the waitress could clear them. ‘This is a great table.’
‘We could ask those people to join us,’ said Nate, cowering under the ongoing stares from the bar that Lucy was ignoring. ‘There’s room for all of us.’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Lucy, trying not to take offence at his apparent unwillingness to be alone with her, and considering for the first time that her aversion to Nate Lambert might be entirely mutual.
The idea made her uncomfortable, not to mention mortified that it hadn’t previously occurred to her.
Was she really that arrogant, to assume that she was instantly, delightfully likeable?
It wasn’t like she had a huge crowd of friends hanging off her every word.
She spread her arms along the top of the curved bench, feeling suddenly cold, and grateful for the heat pumping out of the vents under the windows.
‘Look, another table is leaving. It’s fine. ’
Nate anxiously watched the new table dance as Lucy picked up the menu. The food options were carb and grease heavy, which suited her just fine. Whatever she ate and drank this afternoon would be burned off through terror-fuelled bus adrenaline later.
‘I wonder if they’re having fun skiing,’ said Nate, looking worriedly out of the window at the driving snow. ‘The weather looks awful, I hope they’re OK.’
‘They’ll be in another bar, I expect,’ said Lucy. ‘The Titan guys won’t take stupid risks; Kristoff is worth too much money, and Jonno’s wife would kill him. He’s got two kids.’
‘I bet Kristoff is a good skier,’ said Nate.
‘Jonno is too,’ said Lucy. ‘I’m not sure about Sasha.’ She looked up at Nate to see if there was any reaction, but he didn’t blink. Presumably their relationship had been going on for a while, so he’d had plenty of practice at playing dumb.