Page 63 of A Season in the Snow
‘Us lonely hearts have to stay and work,’ said Marco.
‘We are the unloved ones,’ David agreed, and Marco laughed.
‘You can’t pop home for Christmas at all?’ Alice asked. ‘But you’re so close.’
David shrugged. ‘Actually, I have the week after New Year’s off so I’m going home then.’
‘It’s okay, I take the Christmas shifts every other year, and I don’t mind,’ said Marco. ‘My mountain rescue crew, they are like family as well. We go through so much together and spend so much time together. And Noah and Lola are bringing my parents back with them after Christmas to stay here for a few days, so that will be really cool. My mum is cool, you will really like her I think, Alice.’ Marco beamed with pride.
‘She will really like you,’ murmured Noah, and Lola gave him a subtle nudge that Alice noticed.
‘Are you going to be around, Alice?’ she asked her.
‘No, I think I’m heading home for a few days. I’ll have been away for nearly two months by then, so I’ll be missing my mum and dad. They’re pretty cool, too.’ Not seeing her folks for a couple of months wasn’t that unusual for Alice, but she’d grown more reliant on them, more keen to make the most of them, during this year, and she spoke to them on the phone several times a week. Still though, England remained a black cloud for her, and she liked hiding in the protective casing of her Swiss snow globe.
‘Will you take Bear with you?’ Lola asked.
‘I assume so. I guess I’d better factor in a couple of extra days of driving time – it’s too long to make him sit in the car all the way from here to the UK in one day.’
‘I will look after him,’ said Marco. ‘Leave him here with me.’
Alice turned to face him. ‘I can’t do that, you’ll be working.’
‘Yeah, but between me and David we can sort shifts so we’re never leaving him alone for more than a couple of hours at a time. We are very powerful and important here.’ He puffed his chest up, making her laugh. ‘David, you would be okay with this, right? You are no Scrooge?’
‘You offer me the chance to spend Christmas with someone else instead of just you and your ugly Christmas jumper? Yes please. Very yes please.’
‘No, no, I can’t ask you to look after him for several days. I just can’t.’ Alice looked at Bear, splatted out on the decking, his nose between the banisters to get maximum cold air. He made her smile all the time – maybe the question wasn’t could she leave him with them, maybe it was could sheleave him.
‘Okay, maybe think about it for a bit, but we would love to have him, he is family now. And then you can fly and it means you will be back quicker.’ Under the blanket, secret from the gaze of the other three, Marco leaned into Alice a little closer.
She smiled. She would think about it. ‘So just how ugly is this Christmas sweater?’
Noah, David and Lola groaned in unison. ‘It’s so ugly,’ David laughed. ‘But he loves it and it comes out every Christmas.’
‘My mum made it for me when I was a teenager. I told you she was cool. It’s woollen and way too baggy, I don’t know, she must have used eighty balls of wool. And it has a reindeer on the front.’
‘Only it doesn’t look anything like a reindeer,’ Noah interrupted. ‘It looks like a cat with big whiskers and pointy ears, but also with these thin branches for antlers, and a red pom pom nose.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ confirmed Marco. ‘Lola, you have a mission this Christmas to find Noah’s jumper. It will be somewhere in that house.’
‘No, no, I burnt it many years ago,’ said Noah.
‘He wouldn’t have done that, it is there. Check the floorboards.’
Lola chuckled. ‘Will do.’
Marco settled back against the bench, a happy smile on his face, and observed the now inky sky. ‘I am so happy I can nearly wear my Christmas sweater.’
The temperature had dropped further and there was a definite frost in the air, like the menthol from a strong mouthwash. But no snow drifted down, and Alice had a thought. ‘I think it’s a really clear night, shall I flick off the lights so we can see the stars?’
That was met with a unanimous chorus of yeses, and the group rose sleepily from their seats, keeping themselves wrapped in their blankets, and moved to the edge of the balcony while Alice leant inside the door and switched off the lights from inside the chalet, plus the balcony lamp. Warm gold was replaced with instant blackness, but a second later their eyes adjusted to the panoramic dome of silver star glitter above them. Alice had never seen a sky so clear. The Milky Way was visible, Orion’s Belt, the Dippers. Well, probably lots of other constellations but that was the extent of the ones she knew.
God, it was big out there. Bigger than her and her problems, bigger than the concert, bigger than divided opinions and shifting blames. The depth of the universe made her feel incredibly small, but not insignificant. Life was always forming histories and she was part of that. Alice still wanted to make her mark, something deep inside her wanted to remind her of that.
I was here, Jill. Alice was present and living.I am here.
