Page 43 of A Season in the Snow
Chapter 21
Alice woke early the next morning, the first day of November, with the air in the guest bedroom biting. Her thin PJs, used to only having to withstand the warm flat nestled between floors and walls of other flats, were not proving their worth. It was only when she sat and pulled at the thick, furry blanket at the end of the bed that she realised it wasn’t that early after all – it was nearly eight.
Alice wrapped herself in the blanket. Did she even wake up in the night? She couldn’t have slept right through . . . could she? It had been months since she’d been able to do that. It must have been the quiet up here in the mountains.
Across the room, on cue, Bear let out his low, moo-like groan and stretched and opened his eyes to peep at her. Seeing her sitting up he got to his feet and did an impressive downward dog followed by a loud shake that ran from his flappy ears through to the tip of his plume of a tail.
‘Good morning,’ Alice said to him. ‘I didn’t even hear you thumping about in the night – did you sleep all the way through as well?’
Her bladder twanged to tell her that yes, she did sleep all the way through, and please could she get up now, thank you.
Bear followed her to the en suite bathroom and watched her wee. She yawned as she did her business. ‘We’re going to go for a big walk in a minute, mister. You must be desperate for a run-around. We’ll just have some breakfast first and take a look at how to warm the house up a little.’
When she was done, she dragged two jumpers from her suitcase and, shivering, headed down the stairs, Bear thumping down in front of her. At the bottom, she stopped in her tracks.
‘Bloody hell!’
Light. Natural light filled her space in a way it hadn’t in months. The vista she faced, framed in all its glory by the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, was magnificent. The pale dawn sky basked proudly behind the jagged mountain range that rose on the other side of the valley, the white peaks of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau painted golden on the very tips from the rising sun. Sleeping before her and back along the length of the village that sat halfway up the mountain was a sweep of chocolate-box chalets, their sloped roofs each under a duvet of snow. Pine trees popped up from the ground in all directions, like Christmas trees on holiday.
Despite the temperature, Alice opened the side door and stepped out on to a wide balcony. Bear followed, and leant against her left leg, keeping her scar warm. She’d been hiding in a box, cramped and too small, and darkened by the little windows and narrow London street with its engulfing buildings. And now it was as if the box had been torn open and she had all the light and space she didn’t know she needed.
Alice could see for miles. She could breathe deep lungfuls of cold air, and she wanted to. The sky seemed huge, the snowy pathways seemed endless. Bear could run anywhere. She could run anywhere.
She ran her fingers through Bear’s fur, a million miles away from home, and one step closer to feeling normal again.
‘Change of plans. Shall we go for a walk first?’ Alice suggested, a few minutes later. Bear jumped to attention, his tail wagging, and he beamed up at her. ‘Don’t look at me like that, I know it’s usually you telling me it’s time to go. But I quite fancy exploring, and I’ve also got a craving for something warm and sweet for brekkie, if we can find a bakery.’
She clung on tight as another optical fibre inside her lit up, similar to the one that had sparked her into coming on this trip in the first place. The ones that were pulsing messages to her tochoose happy. It was such a small change, the want for something tasty for breakfast, rather than just ‘whatever there was’.
They padded back inside and up the stairs, Bear pushing to walk in front of her and stopping every few steps to check he was going the right way. In the bedroom, Alice emptied the contents of her suitcase out onto the floor (she could put it away later, she had all the time in the world!) and Bear leapt on a pair of ski socks to skitter about with while she got dressed. She pulled on thick tights, a cosy knitted jumper dress with a thermal vest underneath, some ski socks – not the ones currently getting slobbered over – and her new Roxy snow boots and snow jacket. She even gave her scar a caring little touch with her finger before it disappeared into her tights. It was part of her, after all.
‘Come on then, sock thief,’ she said to Bear, and descended the stairs like a Michelin man. Alice found her hat and gloves on the table, loaded up with dog treats, poop bags, Swiss francs and good spirits, and popped Bear’s collar and lead on him.
The moment she opened the front door a crack, Bear’s nose was through it, shoving his way into the shallow snowdrift that had settled in front of Vanessa’s home overnight. He sunk his snout into the powdery cold, picking his paws one at a time through the flakes. It crunched underfoot as Alice navigated spinning on the spot, performing a Tonya Harding-impressive triple axel as she held Bear’s lead, locked the door and pulled out her phone to snap a photo or five.
The sun was fully up over the mountains now, making the snow glitter and the sky a bright glacial blue. Clean, cool air kissed the tip of her nose as she made her way carefully down the hill. She’d never seen so much snow. It seemed even bigger, even thicker and even whiter than she’d appreciated last night, with huge piles of it forming walls around the pathways, and weighing down the branches of the trees.
The chalets they passed revealed their pretty details in the morning light – exteriors made of chocolate- or amber-coloured wood, window shutters painted in greens and reds, balconies with delicate carvings and long, sturdy icicles that draped themselves from corners or dangled from awnings.
Some properties had lazy smoke circling out through chimneys, and soft lighting behind curtains, suggesting she and her puppy weren’t the only souls in the village after all. The quiet hotels and closed restaurants had well-maintained foot walks leading to the front doors, with densely packed snow on their paths; they looked close to opening for the season.
Bear was bouncing and sniffing and pronking next to her, taking bites out of the snowdrifts and holding his tongue under dripping icicles, so Alice tentatively let him off the lead. He scampered in zigzags in front of her, never straying far, but desperate to smell and taste everything in this new place.
‘Don’t run off, okay? I’m trusting you to stay nearby. And don’t run into anyone’s house. And don’t eat yellow snow.’
They walked on, retracing her steps from last night, only this time she became aware of all these details she hadn’t noticed about the village – a big ice rink to her right, a cute café to her left, a funicular railway, the tracks posture-perfect up against the mountain. Chairlifts and cables stood still and quiet, enjoying their rest before the tourists arrived.
‘Oh look, Bear!’ As they rounded the corner, Alice spotted the open doors and bright lights of a Coop supermarket beckoning.
This time, Bear was happy to be tied outside, so long as he could sit right in the doorway of the store facing outwards, sniffing the air, toes wiggling in the snow and beaming up at the sunshine and blue sky.
Full, narrow aisles with overflowing baskets of produce and racks of unfamiliar food tempted Alice with every step. She followed the sweet smell of baked goods until she found what she was looking for and stocked up on mini loaves and sugary pastries. She then backtracked and loaded her basket with fruits and vegetables, finally found the milk and then stood staring at the entire wall of sausages and cold meat, wondering where the bacon was.
‘Bacon . . . bacon . . . bacon . . . ’ Alice mumbled, searching past packets of cured hams and ginormous bratwurst. She picked up a small packet of pancetta and was about to put that in her basket when a woman in ski boots, with a pink nose and ski poles under her arm, tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Bacon?’ she asked with a grin and an accent.
‘Yes,’ replied Alice, unsure what the question was that was being asked.
