Page 17 of Snowed In with You

‘Lucy.’ She put her sunglasses back on, hating herself for wishing she’d bothered with a bit of make-up.

‘I’m Leo,’ he said, holding open the door to what looked like a very cosy and welcoming cafe. ‘Come in.’

Lucy’s blood ran cold and a wave of guilt and pain washed over her. ‘No . . . I won’t, thank you,’ she stuttered. ‘I have to . . . I need to be . . .’ She turned and hurried away as best she could on the slippery road, ignoring the man’s calls of ‘Hey! What did I say?’ echoing behind her. She kept moving through a breathless blur of tears until the road met a small patch of pristine snow. She could hear a river running nearby, but couldn’t see it beyond the dazzling blanket of white. Someone had cleared a narrow path to a wooden bench against a low wall, so she followed it and sat down, wishing she’d grabbed a coffee somewhere along the way.

You would have liked it here, Leo, thought Lucy, huddled into her coat and looking up at the awe-inspiring view of the Matterhorn. She’d briefly worked on a Toblerone pitch a few years back, and it felt strange to be looking at the real-life image from the packaging. The sun was now bathing the village in late-morning warmth, but she could see heavy clouds starting to roll over the tops of the mountains.

If I believed in heaven, I’d feel closer to my brother right now. But Lucy didn’t believe, and if there WAS a heaven there was a decent chance that Leo wouldn’t meet the entry criteria. He’d been a problematic teenager, self-managing his mental health issues with various substances over the years, which earned him some druggie friends that Lucy hadn’t approved of. They’d been inseparable as children, but steadily grew apart as they got older – Lucy had stayed on at school for A levels, but Leo had gone to the local tech college to study graphic design, then moved to Bristol for a job. They texted a lot, and it seemed like maybe he’d got his life back on track with a really good career and no drugs. Until the day she’d been pulled out of a nineteeth-century poetry lecture at Liverpool University to learn that her brother had taken his own life. A fall, they’d called it, but nobody fell from Clifton Suspension Bridge in January. To this day she associated Elizabeth Barrett Browning with the most profound, bone-aching feeling of grief. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Of course Lucy blamed herself, for not being there for him when Leo had needed her. They were twins, and protecting Leo had always felt like part of the job. She’d spent hours and hours re-reading their text exchanges from the weeks before, trying to spot signs she’d missed, but there was nothing. She was angry with him for ages, for not trusting her and hiding his feelings, something he’d never done when they were children. It took months of therapy to break down her absolute conviction that she could have saved him. Her parents had been through a whole other world of pain, of course, but they were a generation who didn’t like to talk about things, particularly to strangers.

The sound of laughter brought her back to reality and she twisted round to glare at a group of skiers walking along the road behind her, trudging in heavy boots and helmets, skis over their shoulders. Skiing looked sexy, but also a lot of hard work, and she wasn’t sure she could be bothered with all that equipment. Across to the left, at the bottom of the piste, a vehicle pulled to a stop. It looked like a minibus, but with tank tracks instead of wheels – this must be the piste bus that Kristoff had mentioned last night. The driver climbed out, then slid back a side door for three passengers. He nodded to them all as they disembarked, then lit a cigarette, his first exhalation creating a huge cloud in the cold, still air.

What would Leo do, right now? thought Lucy. Today, I need to be more Leo. She stood up decisively and tottered across the road, almost tanking it on a patch of black ice, until the man noticed her and watched her approach with amused interest.

‘Are you the bus that goes up to the mountain bar?’ she asked, hoping he spoke English, then remembered she was in Switzerland and everyone spoke English.

The man nodded. ‘Half past eleven,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘I go in ten minutes.’

‘Is it a decent place for lunch?’

The man nodded. ‘Of course. I am Ulrich, my brother Gunther owns it. There will be live music later, lots of dancing.’

‘Right,’ said Lucy. ‘And if I can’t ski, how do I get back?’

‘Is no problem,’ shrugged Ulrich. ‘Six euros to go up, ten euros if you also want to come back. Cash only. Last bus back is ten o’clock. After that you will probably have to sleep with Gunther.’ He grinned, like this was a joke. Or maybe it wasn’t.

‘Hmm,’ said Lucy, nodding thoughtfully. ‘Look, I need to go back to the hotel first, grab some cash. Can you wait for me?’

Ulrich shrugged. ‘You have ten minutes, then I have to go. But I will be here again in an hour.’

‘Don’t leave. I’ll be back,’ said Lucy, hurrying across the road. In her haste she’d forgotten about the patch of black ice and skated across it, her legs veering off in different directions and prompting a comedy whirling of limbs and squealing until she regained her balance.

‘You need ice grips,’ shouted Ulrich. Lucy muttered a torrent of swear words under her breath and made her way tentatively back to the hotel. She ran up to her room and grabbed twenty euros, then hurtled back downstairs to find Nate waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, taking in her pink cheeks and mad hair. She quickly pulled the bobble hat back on and took some calming breaths.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, wondering how she could get past him without sounding rude, then wondering why she cared when rudeness didn’t seem to bother Nate one bit.

‘I was thinking of finding somewhere for lunch later,’ he said. ‘Do you want to come with me?’

‘Oh,’ said Lucy, wishing he would stop blindsiding her like this. Either be a decent human being, or be consistently shitty – at least she’d know where she stood. ‘I was actually just about to go up the mountain,’ she said, patting her pockets to make sure she had everything. A phone, some euros, her Metro bank card and a Charlotte Tilbury lip balm. That would have to do.

‘What’s up the mountain?’ asked Nate.

‘A bar that Kristoff told me about,’ said Lucy. ‘There’s a piste bus.’

Nate was silent, and the unasked question loomed between them. Lucy sighed inwardly and forced a smile. ‘Would you like to come?’

Nate looked up at her from under those ridiculous eyelashes, and forcing herself into Sasha’s Louboutins for a moment, Lucy could definitely see the appeal. If you could get past the rudeness, there was a quiet intensity to him. A certain charisma, like he’d perfected the art of separating himself from all the noise. Lucy had thought she’d have lunch alone, but actually maybe some company would be nice, even though Nate wasn’t exactly her first choice. It was possible to spend too much time with your own thoughts, especially today.

‘A bus?’ he asked, looking unsure.

Lucy nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s perfectly safe.’ She wasn’t entirely sure of that, but they needed to get moving. ‘I’ve just been talking to Ulrich the driver and it leaves in –’ she checked her watch, ‘– four minutes.’

Nate pressed his lips together and briefly closed his eyes, like he was trying to make some kind of life-changing decision. ‘OK,’ he said decisively, standing up and dropping his book onto the table. ‘I’ll grab my coat and boots.’

‘Do you have ice grips?’ said Lucy. ‘It’s like Bambi on ice out there.’