Chapter Sixteen
‘We have a very important job to do today,’ said Gunther, standing in the middle of the room as everyone picked at the breakfast bits on the table.
Monica had knocked together a Swiss smorgasbord of bread, cheese, cold meat and various jams, and once everyone had wished Lucy happy birthday again, they’d piled in like it was their last meal on earth.
By ten, Lucy was three coffees in and melting under Chantal’s laser glares.
Even with a couple of windows cracked to let some fresh air in, the bar smelled of last night’s party and nine unwashed bodies, and the walls were closing in.
‘Have you fixed the generator?’ asked Alex, his phone glued to his hand as usual. Lucy’s mouth twitched in Nate’s direction, both of them recognising the social media equivalent of a crack addict who needed his next fix.
‘No,’ said Gunther. ‘I have tried, but I think it needs a new part.’ He gave Monica a shamefaced look, and got a steely glare in return. Lucy could only imagine the months of conversations about a replacement part for the generator that Gunther had ignored.
‘Why don’t you have solar panels?’ asked Lucy, gesturing at the blue skies outside the window. ‘You wouldn’t get much power in January, but it would be enough to charge some phones and power your Wi-Fi.’
‘This is also on my list,’ said Gunther awkwardly, Monica’s eyes now resembling tiny slits. Chantal rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee, having clearly been a spectator to this parental beef for some time.
‘Anyway, today we are going to dig a path,’ continued Gunther, pointing at the front door.
‘From the entrance door to the piste. So if the rescue vehicle comes today, they will be able to reach us. The space between the piste and the door is too narrow for a snowplough, so we need to do this by hand.’
Everyone nodded, clearly keen to get active and expedite their rescue as quickly as possible.
‘Are they coming today?’ asked Alex, who evidently kept a full make-up bag in his backpack because he looked immaculate, whilst everyone else looked like they’d slept in a bus shelter. ‘Have you heard anything?’
‘There is no way for anyone to contact us,’ shrugged Gunther, avoiding Monica’s gaze. ‘But the weather is clear, so there will be a team looking at the avalanche risk and deciding if it is safe to clear the path. So maybe they will be here this afternoon. If not, they will try again tomorrow.’
Alex paled, clearly appalled at the prospect of another night on this mountain without social media validation.
‘If we clear some space now,’ added Monica, ‘there will be some time when the sun is above us and we can be outside. Maybe we can light the outdoor pizza oven.’ She smiled as everyone in the room visibly perked up at the prospect of sunshine and pizza.
‘Count me in,’ said Lucy, desperate to get outside in the fresh air after a whole twenty-four hours indoors.
‘It is your birthday,’ Gunther protested. ‘You do not have to work.’
‘I definitely want to,’ said Lucy firmly, as Nate looked away and covered his mouth to hide his smile. ‘Really, I’d like to join in.’
‘Then we will work hard, and work together.’ Gunther clapped his hands like he was convincing his troops to fight for their country. ‘We will each dig for a few minutes, then swap with the next person. It is hard work, so this is the best way.’
‘I will not be digging,’ said Monica. ‘I will keep you supplied with drinks and snacks and encouragement.’
‘Maybe you could dig and I could film?’ asked Alex hopefully. ‘I feel like it’s very important to capture all of this for when they make a dramatic movie of our adventure. And also in case there is ever a time I need to make a claim on my travel insurance for post-traumatic stress counselling.’
‘You can give me your phone,’ said Monica firmly. ‘I know how to make a video.’
Alex handed it over, looking mutinous. ‘Use the pre-set filters,’ he said grumpily. ‘And make sure you get plenty of shots of me working hard.’
The group started to move around, draining coffee cups and stretching, anxious to get going with their task for the morning.
Gunther pulled on waterproofs and gathered them all around the doorway so he could demonstrate the correct digging technique, the blast of icy air and the blinding wall of snow taking Lucy’s breath away.
Monica bustled around, finding ski trousers and jackets for those not appropriately dressed.
‘I’ll go first,’ said Nate, after Gunther had shown them how to dig a V-shaped path with a secure bank of snow on each side.
Lucy pulled a pair of waterproof trousers over her jeans and watched Nate from inside the door, not entirely unaroused by the sight of him digging furiously, his hair flopping over his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Chantal, leaning on the other side of the doorframe in a full ski suit and snow boots that made her look more mountain-Heidi-wholesome than ever. ‘What I said last night was bad. I was drunk, but it wasn’t cool.’
‘No,’ said Lucy. ‘It wasn’t. But forget it, it doesn’t matter.’
‘He is a very good singer,’ said Chantal, hungrily watching Nate dig. ‘Did you know?’
‘No.’ Lucy’s tone was curt. ‘As I said yesterday, we don’t know each other very well.’
‘Does he definitely have a girlfriend?’
Lucy thought about her answer – technically she didn’t know what the arrangement was with Sasha because Nate hadn’t talked about it, but that aside, she suspected that Nate would appreciate being taken out of the game at this point.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve never met her, but I know there is somebody.’
‘Right, fine,’ said Chantal sulkily.
Lucy glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, deciding to be magnanimous. ‘I guess you don’t get much chance to meet cute guys up here.’
‘No,’ said Chantal, folding her arms. ‘Papa and Mutti want to retire soon, and the only way I’m going to take over this place is if I have someone here with me. I don’t want to do it on my own.’ She looked like she might cry, and Lucy actually felt a little sorry for her.
‘I’m not sure Nate is the one, in that case,’ said Lucy kindly.
‘He’s a very talented account manager, but I’m not sure he’s cut out for mountain hospitality.
’ Maybe one day Chantal will meet Kristoff, she thought.
He’ll buy this place, they’ll fall in love, and she’ll get her handsome millionaire prince.
‘It would just be nice to be noticed,’ muttered Chantal, her lip wobbling. ‘Everybody notices women like you. You have two boyfriends. I can’t even find one.’
‘They’re not my boyfriends,’ said Lucy. ‘Neither is a proper relationship. I’m no more loved up than you are. It’s just sex.’
‘That would be OK too,’ said Chantal. Lucy caught her eye, and they both started to laugh.
Maybe she wasn’t such a devious cow, just a bit lonely.
Although perhaps to Chantal, Lucy’s life seemed a bit lonely too.
The thought made her squirm a little – how had things become so .
. . emotionless? And when had she consciously made that choice?
Woomph. The snowball appeared from nowhere, hitting Lucy on the side of her face. She gasped, spitting snow out of her mouth as she turned to see where it had come from. Even through one eye, she could see Nate grinning at the other end of the freshly dug path.
‘Right,’ said Lucy, brushing her eye with a gloved hand and heading for the nearest snowbank, ‘now you’ve done it.’
‘We must keep digging,’ said Gunther, looking mildly panicked that anarchy was about to be unleashed.
‘In a minute,’ said Lucy, throwing a snowball at Nate. It thumped into his shoulder, then another came back and hit her arm as she twisted away. She threw two in quick succession, one of which he dodged, but the other hit him on the side of his head and exploded into his hair. Bullseye.
‘OK, OK,’ laughed Nate, gasping for breath and approaching Lucy with his palms held up. ‘I totally deserved that.’
‘Yes, you did,’ said Lucy, reaching over to brush a lump of snow from his shoulder.
For a second he held her gaze and she forgot to breathe, noticing the snow caked into his long eyelashes.
In that moment all she wanted to do was gently kiss away every flake, with nobody around to steal the moment from them.
‘It’s your turn, Lucy,’ said Gunther, clearing his throat and breaking the spell. ‘Five minutes of digging, and then it is time for Alex.’
‘I’m totally not down with this idea,’ muttered Alex, appearing in the doorway.
‘Sunshine and pizza,’ said Nate, passing Lucy the shovel, his cheeks bright pink from the cold. ‘Think of all that incredible content.’
‘I guess,’ said Alex, perking up a little. ‘Shame I have to do hard labour first.’
Lucy rolled her eyes and walked to the end of the few metres of path that Gunther and Nate had already dug, her heart still pounding in her chest from the snowball fight.
The first few shovelfuls of powdery snow were easy, but it got harder and more packed the further down she dug.
Within a few minutes she was panting hard and sweating inside Monica’s ski gear, but determined not to give up before Gunther called time.
The sun was already sparkling on the snow just a few metres away, and the prospect of an Aperol Spritz in a deckchair was enough incentive to spur her on.
When Gunther finally told her to stop, Lucy had added another couple of metres to the path that was slowly forming, and her shoulders and arms were now throbbing.
Lucy handed the shovel to a mutinous Alex and listened to Gunther briefing the other five about how they could start to dig wider now, with two people at a time to create a big space where they could be outside.
He produced another shovel, but Lucy’s work was done for the time being.
She headed back into the steamy warmth of the bar, where Nate was throwing more logs into the wood burner.