Page 21 of Snowed In with You

‘No,’ said Lucy, clamping the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she unbuttoned her jeans and sat down. The seat was still freezing cold, and her thighs instantly came out in goosebumps.

‘Not even a snowy blowy?’

‘You’re such a poet,’ laughed Lucy. ‘And people wonder why I’m the copywriter.’ She rattled a length of toilet paper off the roll and held the phone with one hand as she twisted round to wipe.

‘Wait, are you having a piss?’

‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘Don’t pretend you’ve never called me whilst holding your dick.’

‘No, but that was very different,’ laughed Jonno. ‘I thought we’d promised never to mention it.’

‘We’ll be back down in a bit,’ said Lucy with a grin. ‘Save me some cake.’ She ended the call and pulled up her jeans, then washed her hands and hurried back to the bar. Nate was turning all the Rummikub tiles face down, ready for another game.

‘Jonno just told me that all the pistes are closed,’ she said, not sure if this was normal for a ski resort in January.

‘Really?’ said Nate, looking alarmed. ‘Since when?’

‘An hour ago, due to bad weather, apparently. They’re all back at the hotel. We should probably head back.’ She walked over to the bar, where Gunther was loading glasses into the dishwasher. ‘We’ve just heard that all the pistes are closed.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Visibility is poor, it’s not safe for skiing.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us? We need to get the bus back.’

‘It’s fine,’ he shrugged. ‘You looked like you were having a nice time, so there was no rush. The kitchen staff have all gone already, and Ulrich will be here in half an hour to take the rest of you back to the village.’ He nodded towards the corner where the band had set up earlier. ‘There’s no point in these guys being here if we have no customers this evening.’

Lucy glanced over and saw the man packing away his keyboard while the woman collapsed the microphone stand. Neither seemed particularly fussed about the dramatic weather outside or the prospect of Ulrich’s death bus, so maybe this kind of thing was normal after all. Lucy’s only experience of snow was in the UK, where three inches brought the entire country to a standstill.

She looked at the fuzz of flakes on the window, and was suddenly reminded of a day when she and Leon were eight or nine, when school had been closed and their dad had unearthed an old wooden sledge from the garage. He’d dusted off the cobwebs and polished up the rails, then loaded the whole family into the car and carefully driven half an hour to Colley Hill near Reigate, on the basis that if you were going to go sledging, you should pick the best possible spot.

All the other kids were using cheap plastic sledges or makeshift tea trays and bin bags, but Lucy and Leo had a proper sledge that could seat both of them at once and rocketed down the hill in a perfect trajectory. After hours of breathless, adrenaline-fuelled fun, their mum had pulled homemade flapjacks and a flask of hot chocolate out of her bag, and they’d passed the cup between them in the steamy warmth of the car. Lucy couldn’t remember a more perfect adventure – it was a story that was often told on this day, and for a tiny, fleeting moment she wished she was with her mum and dad.

‘So will you and Chantal stay here?’ she asked, snapping herself back into the room.

‘Of course,’ said Gunther with a beaming smile. ‘And my wife, Monica.’ He gestured to the older woman who Lucy had seen coming out of the kitchen earlier. ‘We are a family, and this is where we live. This kind of thing happens all the time.’

Lucy nodded, feeling vaguely reassured, and sat back down with Nate, who was now packing the game away into the box. ‘You OK?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Nate, although he looked a bit clammy, the sheen on his forehead she’d noticed on the bus having reappeared. ‘Not really looking forward to the trip back down, if I’m honest.’

‘Me neither,’ said Lucy, wondering how she’d ever imagined that a carb-heavy lunch and a bottle of wine would help. Now she just felt drunk, nervous AND sick, which didn’t feel like an ideal combination for an out-of-control tank heading downhill in a snowstorm.

There was a sudden boom that rose up through the floor into the back of Lucy’s teeth, followed by a resounding crack like a thunderclap that made her jump out of her skin. It morphed into a deep, slow rumble that shook the building from its very foundations. Lucy and Nate both froze and stared wide-eyed at each other, clutching the shaking table in fear and confusion. It continued for a few seconds, then stopped.

‘What the fuck was that?’ gasped Nate, swaying sideways like he might faint.

‘Avalanche,’ said Gunther, as six pairs of eyes all fixed on him, Monica and Chantal. ‘A big one.’

‘Seriously?’ Nate pressed his hands to his cheeks, his eyes wide with fear. ‘What should we do? Do we need to leave?’

‘Please, it’s OK,’ said Gunther, holding up his hands. ‘We are safe here; there is nothing above us but sky. There is no danger.’

‘Do you think anyone could still be out there?’ asked one of the men from the bus. He spoke English, but his accent was German, or maybe Dutch. He peered out of the window, now an iron-grey wall as the light faded into the late afternoon.

‘No,’ said Monica calmly. ‘They closed all the pistes over an hour ago, so everyone will be safely back in the village by now.’

‘Apart from us,’ said Nate, looking pale and haunted.

‘There are other huts on the mountain, people who live up here through the winter,’ said Monica, her voice soothing and relaxed. ‘Avalanches are not unusual in January. We plan for these things. Please don’t worry.’