Page 37 of A Season in the Snow
Chapter 18
The following morning the weather had turned, and a low, damp fog hung over the north-east of France. Alice wanted to get going early, so she gave Bear just a tiny amount of breakfast.
He glowered at her.
‘Well, I’m sorry, mister, but after yesterday’s performance I’m not risking you in my car on a full stomach. For both our sakes. I’ll top you up when we stop for loo breaks.’
They saidau revoirto the chateau and joined the motorway again that would take them down through France and into Switzerland. It was slow-going, the visibility causing everyone, not least Alice, to crawl along. That, combined with the extra hours of driving she’d have to be putting in today, caused Alice to keep one eye on the road, and one on the clock.
Thankfully, Bear seemed to be getting on much better today, stomach-wise, and seemed almost in a huff when Alice pulled over on the outskirts of a small village to give him a water break.
‘We don’t have long, okay? Out you get,’ she encouraged him, and he sighed and eventually jumped from the car and sniffed at the small bowl of water she’d put out.
It was now midday, although the sky was the same thick, ash-grey it had been all morning, with not a trace of sunshine breaking through the clouds. They were still crawling through rural France, and it would be at least a couple of hours if not more by the time they hit the Swiss border.
Alice called Vanessa.
Vanessa answered on the first ring. ‘Hi Alice, how is your journey?’
‘Slow and foggy,’ answered Alice, while Bear raised his nose to the damp sky.
‘Foggy? It’s very beautiful here on our mountain today – how far away are you?’
‘We’re still in France because we didn’t get as far as I would have liked yesterday.’
‘How come?’
‘Turns out this puppy gets car sick.’
‘Oh, poor little Bear! So how far away are you?’
‘That’s why I’m calling. I don’t think I’ll be at yours until maybe late afternoon. What time are you leaving?’
Vanessa paused, making calculations in her head. ‘Really the latest I can be leaving is late afternoon. Five,maybesix at the very very latest. After I’ve been on the train down the mountain, it will take me two hours and a bit to get to Zurich and I really can’t get there too late – I have to be up to welcome arriving guests at seven in the morning tomorrow.’
‘No, I completely understand, I don’t want to hold you up, and I definitely want to get there before dark. What time is sunset in Switzerland at the moment?’
‘Six-thirty, more or less.’
A thread of anxiety gnawed at Alice. ‘How would you feel about leaving me your keys somewhere? I know that’s a lot to ask, but . . . ’
‘I don’t mind doing that, but I was hoping to give you an enormous hug and meet your Bear, and show you around my home.’
‘I know, I hope I can make it in time.’
‘Okay, look,’ said Vanessa decisively, ‘get back in the car and get going, and call me again later to let me know how you’re getting on. Maybe give me a phone call when you make it through the border.Ifyou make it over the border.’ Vanessa’s laugh tinkled down the phone, a sound that brought memories of eating strange South American snacks in thirty different hotel rooms with her and Jill, gossiping about the other people on the tour, howling with laughter at the characters they were sprinkling their lives with.
The memory was holding on to Alice, and she let it, even after she’d hung up, and even as she was back curling around these French roads. It soothed her.
But even so, when she finally rounded the corner on a road curtained by pine trees, to see the modest cream buildings of the French/Swiss border control, she was relieved.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and by the time she’d passed through the customs checks it was half past.
Alice pulled over again and ripped open a packet of cookies, taking the last drink from her flask of coffee that she’d refilled before leaving the chateau. She chomped down on a cookie and faced facts. She wasn’t going to catch Vanessa before she left. She was also possibly not going to make it to Mürren before dark. She took her phone out.
‘Hi, Vanessa, I’m in Switzerland!’
‘Ahhh, welcome home,’ Vanessa cried, which lightened Alice’s heart.Home. She looked around for a moment.
