Chapter Nine
‘A decider?’ said Nate hours later, when they were three games all.
Nate had a quick mind and was a good strategist, so they’d been closely matched.
There’d been a break for pizza and another bottle of wine had been drunk in the process, which had definitely impacted their ability to spot opportunities for using up their tiles.
But it had meant they hadn’t had to make difficult conversation and, all things considered, it had been a good afternoon.
Most importantly, Lucy felt like her brother would have approved of her choices on Leo Memorial Day.
Better than eating grey beef and watery gravy in a bleak pub in Croydon, anyway.
Lucy’s phone vibrated on the table, and she fumbled as she tried to pick it up. She was, by any standards, really quite drunk.
‘It’s Jonno,’ she said. ‘I’ll find out where they all are.
’ She stood up and tottered unsteadily towards the toilets, answering the phone on her way.
‘Hey,’ she said, ‘hang on a second.’ For the first time she noticed that the bar was nearly empty – the only people left were two men who’d been sat in front of them on the death bus, along with Gunther, Chantal the waitress, an older woman who’d just emerged from the kitchen, who Lucy assumed was Gunther’s wife, and the couple who’d been setting up Night Fever’s instruments earlier.
There’d been no music yet, but right now there was hardly anyone to play for.
‘Hey,’ said Lucy, closing the toilet door behind her and locking it. ‘I’m back. Where are you?’
‘We’re at the hotel,’ said Jonno. ‘The others are back from the spa and we’ve just wiped out an entire chocolate cake. Where are you?’
‘I’m in a mountain bar with Nate, the one Kristoff was talking about last night. The bus up here made me shit my pants. Why aren’t you here?’
‘They closed all the pistes an hour ago. It’s a total whiteout, didn’t you notice? You should head back.’
‘Shit, OK,’ said Lucy. ‘We’ll get the next bus.’ The idea of getting in Ulrich’s puke-wagon in this weather filled her with terror, but it wasn’t like they had other options.
‘How are you and French Exit getting on?’ asked Jonno, and Lucy could hear the amusement in his voice. ‘Are you having a steamy Alpine romance?’
‘No,’ said Lucy, clamping the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she unbuttoned her jeans and sat down. The seat was still freezing cold, and her thighs instantly came out in goosebumps.
‘Not even a snowy blowy?’
‘You’re such a poet,’ laughed Lucy. ‘And people wonder why I’m the copywriter.’ She rattled a length of toilet paper off the roll and held the phone with one hand as she twisted round to wipe.
‘Wait, are you having a piss?’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘Don’t pretend you’ve never called me whilst holding your dick.’
‘No, but that was very different,’ laughed Jonno. ‘I thought we’d promised never to mention it.’
‘We’ll be back down in a bit,’ said Lucy with a grin. ‘Save me some cake.’ She ended the call and pulled up her jeans, then washed her hands and hurried back to the bar. Nate was turning all the Rummikub tiles face down, ready for another game.
‘Jonno just told me that all the pistes are closed,’ she said, not sure if this was normal for a ski resort in January.
‘Really?’ said Nate, looking alarmed. ‘Since when?’
‘An hour ago, due to bad weather, apparently. They’re all back at the hotel. We should probably head back.’ She walked over to the bar, where Gunther was loading glasses into the dishwasher. ‘We’ve just heard that all the pistes are closed.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Visibility is poor, it’s not safe for skiing.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us? We need to get the bus back.’
‘It’s fine,’ he shrugged. ‘You looked like you were having a nice time, so there was no rush. The kitchen staff have all gone already, and Ulrich will be here in half an hour to take the rest of you back to the village.’ He nodded towards the corner where the band had set up earlier.
‘There’s no point in these guys being here if we have no customers this evening. ’
Lucy glanced over and saw the man packing away his keyboard while the woman collapsed the microphone stand.
Neither seemed particularly fussed about the dramatic weather outside or the prospect of Ulrich’s death bus, so maybe this kind of thing was normal after all.
Lucy’s only experience of snow was in the UK, where three inches brought the entire country to a standstill.
She looked at the fuzz of flakes on the window, and was suddenly reminded of a day when she and Leon were eight or nine, when school had been closed and their dad had unearthed an old wooden sledge from the garage.
He’d dusted off the cobwebs and polished up the rails, then loaded the whole family into the car and carefully driven half an hour to Colley Hill near Reigate, on the basis that if you were going to go sledging, you should pick the best possible spot.
All the other kids were using cheap plastic sledges or makeshift tea trays and bin bags, but Lucy and Leo had a proper sledge that could seat both of them at once and rocketed down the hill in a perfect trajectory.
After hours of breathless, adrenaline-fuelled fun, their mum had pulled homemade flapjacks and a flask of hot chocolate out of her bag, and they’d passed the cup between them in the steamy warmth of the car.
Lucy couldn’t remember a more perfect adventure – it was a story that was often told on this day, and for a tiny, fleeting moment she wished she was with her mum and dad.
‘So will you and Chantal stay here?’ she asked, snapping herself back into the room.
‘Of course,’ said Gunther with a beaming smile. ‘And my wife, Monica.’ He gestured to the older woman who Lucy had seen coming out of the kitchen earlier. ‘We are a family, and this is where we live. This kind of thing happens all the time.’
Lucy nodded, feeling vaguely reassured, and sat back down with Nate, who was now packing the game away into the box. ‘You OK?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ said Nate, although he looked a bit clammy, the sheen on his forehead she’d noticed on the bus having reappeared. ‘Not really looking forward to the trip back down, if I’m honest.’
‘Me neither,’ said Lucy, wondering how she’d ever imagined that a carb-heavy lunch and a bottle of wine would help. Now she just felt drunk, nervous AND sick, which didn’t feel like an ideal combination for an out-of-control tank heading downhill in a snowstorm.
There was a sudden boom that rose up through the floor into the back of Lucy’s teeth, followed by a resounding crack like a thunderclap that made her jump out of her skin.
It morphed into a deep, slow rumble that shook the building from its very foundations.
Lucy and Nate both froze and stared wide-eyed at each other, clutching the shaking table in fear and confusion.
It continued for a few seconds, then stopped.
‘What the fuck was that?’ gasped Nate, swaying sideways like he might faint.
‘Avalanche,’ said Gunther, as six pairs of eyes all fixed on him, Monica and Chantal. ‘A big one.’
‘Seriously?’ Nate pressed his hands to his cheeks, his eyes wide with fear. ‘What should we do? Do we need to leave?’
‘Please, it’s OK,’ said Gunther, holding up his hands. ‘We are safe here; there is nothing above us but sky. There is no danger.’
‘Do you think anyone could still be out there?’ asked one of the men from the bus. He spoke English, but his accent was German, or maybe Dutch. He peered out of the window, now an iron-grey wall as the light faded into the late afternoon.
‘No,’ said Monica calmly. ‘They closed all the pistes over an hour ago, so everyone will be safely back in the village by now.’
‘Apart from us,’ said Nate, looking pale and haunted.
‘There are other huts on the mountain, people who live up here through the winter,’ said Monica, her voice soothing and relaxed. ‘Avalanches are not unusual in January. We plan for these things. Please don’t worry.’
‘So what happens now?’ asked Lucy, sick with worry. Her stomach was sloshing with wine and pizza, and she could already feel a queasy hangover setting in. The prospect of being featured in a Channel 5 disaster-documentary about dramatic mountain rescues definitely wasn’t helping.
Gunther smiled and rubbed his straggly beard. ‘We wait to hear from the mountain safety people. They know we are here and will call us.’ He picked up his phone from the bar and waved it. ‘Look, we still have Wi-Fi. It’s fine.’
Lucy instinctively picked up her phone to check – she was still connected to the bar Wi-Fi. ‘Will Ulrich definitely be able to take us back down, do you think?’ she asked. Much as she’d had an unexpectedly nice afternoon, she’d feel a lot less exposed once she was back down in the village.
‘There will be no buses until they have said it is safe,’ said Monica, picking up her phone. ‘Ulrich is down in the village, I can see his location on here. He will wait to hear from the safety people, then let us know.’
‘Have another drink,’ said Gunther, holding out his arms like they were all congregants at his church of wine and pizza. ‘Relax, enjoy the adventure, make some new friends. We will let you know when we have news.’
Lucy slumped back into her seat, her heart rate slowly returning to normal and the tension easing from her body.
This whole situation felt so surreal, and she had no idea what to do.
She looked at Nate, who was staring at his hands, his eyes wide and his lips silently moving.
She watched him carefully for a minute, realising that in this moment he reminded her of her brother.
The same folding inwards of his body, and the twitching, restless hands.
It also explained the strange mood swings out of nowhere, like he didn’t trust the world to keep him safe.
‘Shit, I’ve just realised,’ she said softly. ‘You have an anxiety disorder.’