Page 27 of Snowed In with You

‘Yeah, all right, bugger off,’ said Jonno. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

Lucy ended the call and took a deep breath, looking around at the eight other people in the room. Gunther, Monica and Chantal were all deep in conversation behind the bar, no doubt playing Tetris with floor space and spare pillows. The two band members were whispering quietly in their corner, and everyone else was on their phone, presumably sending messages like these might be their final words to their loved ones. The weather outside suggested that was infinitely possible, so Lucy scrolled to her parents’ home number. Might as well get this over with.

‘Lucy, darling,’ said her mother’s voice after a few rings. ‘We wondered if you’d call today. I know you said you were going away, but I told your father you wouldn’t forget.’

‘Hi, Mum. I just wanted to—’

‘We thought of you earlier, when we were with Leo.’ Shirley and Richard Glover weren’t religious people, but any conversation about Leo brought out a kind of breathless piety, like they were whispering in church.

‘Have you spent time with him today?’ continued Shirley. She meant spiritually, of course – Leo’s ashes were scattered amongst some rosebushes in Croydon cemetery. Lucy had sat on the memorial bench nearby on many occasions, but she’d never felt as close to Leo there as she did in Bristol. She’d moved to the city five months after he died, as soon as she’d finished her uni finals. Even after all these years the city felt like it was full of him; the pubs he’d loved, the hills he’d climbed, the places he’d hung out. For Lucy, Bristol preserved some of Leo’s spirit – creative, uncompromising, a little unpredictable and occasionally hectic. A city that was sometimes charming, but still had sharp edges, just like her brother.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Lucy. ‘I’m actually calling because I’m stuck in Switzerland, Mum. I’m in a bar in the mountains above Zermatt, and there’s been an avalanche.’ She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, knowing that unless she was gasping her final breaths right now, any Lucy news would be taken as an unwelcome intrusion into a day that was all about Leo. But her phone was running out of battery, so there was no time for platitudes.

‘You’re in a bar?’ said her mother, with the same aghast tone she might use for ‘You’ve run away to join the circus?’ Lucy shook her head, kicking herself for not seeing that one coming. She loved her parents, obviously, but they’d never made any real effort to hide that Leo had been their favourite child. He was her father’s clever, creative son, and her mother’s emotionally fragile, precious boy. His death had immortalised him as forever twenty-one – a little troubled and lost, but with so much potential – whereas the subsequent eleven years had rubbed away any residual shine from Lucy. Single, childless, living far from home, a job that they didn’t understand and didn’t score them any points with the neighbours. And most damning of all, the audacity to still be walking and breathing despite Leo being gone.

‘I came here for lunch with a work colleague, but that’s not the point. There’s been an avalanche.’

‘Goodness,’ said her mother, clearly still snippy about the bar thing. ‘Is anyone hurt? You sound fine.’

‘I AM fine. Everyone’s safe. But we’re stuck up a mountain, at least until tomorrow, and my phone is running out of battery. I didn’t want you to see it on the news and be worried.’

‘We don’t watch the news,’ said her mother. ‘You can’t trust the mainstream media. We stopped watching after those awful stories about your father’s work.’ Richard Glover worked as a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company who had been involved in some questionable opiate-pushing scandal in the US. Richard led a team developing drugs to treat various forms of depression and anxiety, a decade’s work driven by the tragic and untimely death of his son. So he’d never come close to the scandal, but Lucy’s mother had taken it personally anyway.

‘Jesus,’ muttered Lucy, feeling suddenly exhausted. ‘Fine, Facebook then. I just wanted to let you know I was safe.’

‘You should have been here,’ said her mother, the emphasis clearly on the final word. ‘With your father and me.’

‘I’ll come and see you when I get back, Mum. I promise. I need to go, battery’s—’ She ended the call, relieved that it was done and she’d only been made to feel mildly like shit. One of the reasons she’d never felt in any hurry to have children was because it would inevitably mean spending more time with her parents, although that definitely wasn’t the only reason. As it was, she saw them three or four times a year at most, and only ever if she made the trip to their mock-Tudor detached house in Purley, south of Croydon. They refused to come to Bristol, which considering the suspension bridge loomed large over the city, was probably fair enough.

How have I ended up here? thought Lucy, deciding that, all things considered, and even in the midst of an avalanche, it was still better than the alternative.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Lucy checked her battery again, which was now down to twenty per cent. She looked over at the two Dutchmen – Alexander had stood up, so she walked over. ‘You guys OK?’ she asked.

‘I’m going to do a video for TikTok,’ said Alexander. ‘I have over a million followers.’

‘Really?’ asked Lucy, glancing at Willem for clarification. He rolled his eyes and nodded.

‘They will be worried,’ said Alex. ‘But also it’s fabulous content. Are you happy to be in it?’

Lucy shrugged, not really sure but also not wanting to be pegged as the uptight British woman. She fished out her lip balm and applied it liberally, conscious that she looked a bit of a mess and quite a lot drunk, but maybe that would help with adding some real-life authenticity. She’d experienced an avalanche, not a hot stone massage and a glycolic facial.

Will Nate want to be part of this? she thought, looking up at him. He was still on the phone, pacing in circles and raking his hand through his hair. Who is he? she wondered again, trying to reconcile the moody, closed-down Nate she’d known before this trip with the confident, sexy version who she’d seen emerging from Sasha’s room in the early hours. And now she’d peeled back another layer to find a third Nate – a man with an anxiety disorder that clearly consumed him when things felt out of his control. Like Leo, he was complex and unfathomable, and Lucy found herself both wary of that connection and eager to find out more.

‘Hey guys, I’m in Zermatt in Switzerland for the weekend,’ announced Alex, snapping Lucy back into the bar. Willem was holding a phone up so Alex could smile into the camera, and Lucy marvelled that he hadn’t stuffed a ring light and tripod in his rucksack.

‘So,’ continued Alex breathlessly. ‘I came up to this bar on the mountain for lunch, but just before we were about to leave we had two avalanches, and now there are nine of us stuck here in a mountain bar for the night.’ He paused and widened his eyes for drama, and Lucy wondered how many thousands of followers were already hanging off his every word. Everyone in the bar had stopped talking to watch, including Nate, who had finished his call and sidled back to the table to sit next to her.

‘It’s called the Guntherhütte,’ continued Alex, pronouncing it far better than Lucy could have. His English was also immaculate, but with a slight American twang that suggested he’d watched a lot of US TV. Willem walked around Alex in a slow, steady circle so anyone watching could get a three-sixty view of the bar and the awkwardly waving guests, then stopped so Alex could continue narrating. ‘It’s a really cool place. But anyway, I’m just checking in to say that we’re all safe, and hopefully we’ll be heading back down to Zermatt tomorrow. There’s a HUGE storm outside, but since, incredibly, there is still Wi-Fi in this bar, I thought I’d introduce you to my fellow mountain refugees.’

Alex took the phone and turned it to face Willem, who was clearly used to being both a cameraman and an extra in one of Alex’s videos. ‘So, first up in the Guntherhütte, lots of you already know him – it’s Willem.’

‘Hello,’ said Willem, waving at the camera. ‘I also come from Amsterdam, and I’m WillemMulder84 on TikTok and Instagram.’ He spelled out his name, clearly not wanting to miss the opportunity to milk this ludicrous situation for followers. ‘I just want to tell my family and friends that we are very safe here right now, and as far as we know nobody was hurt in the avalanche. So there is no need to worry – we have beer and food and good company, and hopefully we’ll be home tomorrow!’

Alex gave him a thumbs up and handed back the phone, taking the opportunity to reset his stance with a tilt of the chin and a pout that accentuated his cheekbones. ‘I can see from the comments just now that some of you are new here,’ he said, which made Lucy wonder how quickly the news of Alex’s avalanche drama was spreading. ‘You can find me on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, so don’t forget to follow me. I’m BaronAlexJansen across all social media channels.’ Lucy rolled her eyes at Nate, whose mouth twitched into the tiniest of smiles. She noted the ‘Baron’ in Alex’s handle, wondering if that meant he was genuine Dutch aristocracy, or if this was one of those titles you could buy online for a couple of hundred euros. Regardless, he was undeniably good at this.

‘Tell us what the avalanche was like,’ said Willem.