Page 28 of Snowed In with You

‘Oh wow, it was scary,’ said Alex. ‘We were literally, like—’ He stopped suddenly as the keyboard guy from the band appeared from nowhere and thrust his beaming face in front of the camera, dragging the singer along behind him.

‘I’m Felix,’ he said, earning an outraged glare from Alex. ‘This is Andrea, and together we are Night Fever. We keep the wonderful sound of the Bee Gees alive.’ Willem raised his eyebrows in question at Andrea, as if to say Do you actually want to be part of this? and got a tiny headshake in return.

‘Are you on TikTok?’ asked Willem, keeping his focus on Felix rather than Alex’s sulky face.

‘We’re on Facebook and YouTube,’ said Felix. ‘Just search Night Fever Bee Gees Tribute Switzerland. We are from Zurich, and we—’

‘We will definitely do that,’ interrupted Alex, who was clearly getting cold out of the spotlight. ‘Now let’s meet our hosts,’ he continued, heading over to the bar and wafting his hands at Gunther to indicate that he should get involved.

‘Hello, I am Gunther,’ he sang, waving at the camera with a beaming smile. ‘I own the beautiful Guntherhütte here in Zermatt, and we will be making sure everyone is safe and looked after tonight. There is a lot of snow and it’s pretty wild out there, but we are all fine. Tonight we will sing and dance and party!’

He picked up an empty beer glass and mimed drinking from it just as Monica elbowed her way in front of him. Lucy tried not to laugh, not sure if it was because she wanted to be on camera, or was keen to shut Gunther up before he made an idiot of himself. ‘Hello, I am Monica, I am Gunther’s wife and also run the Guntherhütte. This is my daughter Chantal, who is twenty-six and does not have a boyfriend.’

Chantal stared wide-eyed at her mother, looking mortified, then smiled as Willem turned the camera in her direction. ‘Hi,’ she said with a feeble wave. ‘How many followers do you have, Willem?’

‘About five thousand,’ laughed Willem. ‘But Alex has over a million.’ He turned the camera back to Alex, who was smiling modestly, as if Willem shouldn’t have mentioned it.

‘And finally, our new friends . . . what were your names again?’ said Alex, walking over to Lucy and Nate’s table.

‘I’m Lucy, and this is Nate,’ said Lucy with an awkward, two-handed wave. ‘We’re work colleagues from Bristol.’

‘Sure you are,’ smirked Alex, prompting a blush from Nate. ‘Are you on TikTok or Instagram, Lucy?’

‘No,’ said Lucy, feeling undeniably lame. ‘But Nate is.’

Alex turned the camera to Nate, who raked through his hair with one hand and held up the other. ‘Hi,’ he said, his voice sounding weak and husky. Lucy couldn’t help thinking that even with dark circles under his eyes and a slightly dishevelled air, he probably looked great on camera. ‘I’m not on TikTok, but I’m NateLambert89 on Instagram.’

‘And how’s your day been so far?’ asked Alex, a definite air of flirtatiousness in his voice. Clearly he’d noticed how great Nate looked on camera too.

‘Um, bit weird,’ laughed Nate. ‘I only came up here for pizza and wine.’

‘And now you’re spending the night on a Swiss mountain,’ laughed Alex. ‘You OK with that?’

‘Ha,’ said Nate, looking a little flustered. ‘I’m not sure. We haven’t worked out the sleeping arrangements yet.’ He smiled shyly, and Lucy wondered how Sasha would feel if she somehow saw this video. Somebody would tag a LUNA person in it eventually, or more likely Jonno would be searching for anything tagged #ZermattAvalanche right now. Conversations about sleeping arrangements were unlikely to go down well.

‘And how are you feeling right now?’ It was a big question, for Nate in particular, and Lucy prepared herself to rescue him if things started to spiral.

‘I’m OK,’ said Nate, his brow furrowed thoughtfully. ‘The avalanches were pretty scary, obviously. But we’ve been well looked after, and nobody is hurt, so I’m trying to pretend this is all a big adventure. And I couldn’t ask for better company.’ He gestured vaguely with his hand at the rest of the group, but his eyes were fixed firmly on Lucy. The dark intensity of his gaze made her shiver, and for a moment it felt like they were the only people in this bar. He means me, she thought, which made her feel both breathless and confused at the same time. The shifting sands between her and Nate were all mixed up in wine and Sasha and Leo and this insane situation. She’d attempt to unravel it later, no doubt whilst getting zero sleep on the floor of this bar.

Willem held the camera on Nate for a second, until Alex cleared his throat and it deftly swung back for him to wrap up. ‘So that’s the situation in the Guntherhütte,’ he announced. ‘I’ll shoot some more video later, so keep checking back. We’re all fine here, and hopefully we’ll be safely back down the mountain tomorrow. Thanks for watching!’ Willem ended the video as Alex struck a final, preening pose in the spotlight of a Guntherhütte ceiling lamp. It had a brown floral shade with a lacy edge and gave Alex’s face a sickly glow, but apparently it would do.

‘Some things we need to organise,’ said Monica, clapping her hands like a teacher trying to get a class to quieten down. She was in her late fifties, with a short, cropped haircut that looked usefully low maintenance for a woman who probably didn’t get to the salon much. She reminded Lucy a little of her own mother; the same all-seeing, all-knowing look, like she had eyes in the back of her head. And a similar lean physique too, bordering on too thin; for Shirley that was the result of decades of nervous energy and an unwillingness to sit down in case stillness let the darkness in.

The group gathered around in a loose semicircle – Alex and Willem perching on one of the pine tables, Alex’s phone primed for content opportunities, and Felix and Andrea from the band on stools over by the bar. Gunther was next to Monica, his arms folded, and Lucy and Nate stayed in the booth where they’d been sitting all afternoon, followed swiftly by Chantal. Lucy nervously wondered if Sasha had seen Alex’s TikTok yet, and if she was already planning Lucy’s slow and painful death.

‘Gunther and I have talked about sleeping plans for tonight,’ said Monica. ‘Andrea and Felix, you are OK to share Chantal’s room? It has a double bed, and she can sleep on the sofa in our room.’

‘Yes,’ said Andrea, looking relieved. ‘We are married,’ she clarified for the rest of the group, like there might be some puritans in the building. Since Felix was at least twenty years Andrea’s senior, and at least six inches shorter with four strands of hair and a straggly beard, Lucy had to assume that he was either a) very rich, or b) hung like a chandelier. Her thoughts briefly drifted to Anthony’s message, and she wondered if she should use any of her precious remaining battery to reassure him and Marco that she was OK. What was the protocol there? In the year and a half she’d known both of them, situations of mild peril had never been explored.

‘You two? You are a couple?’ said Gunther loudly, interrupting Lucy’s disconnected train of thought. It occurred to her that she was currently a bit hot and sweaty, which she could attribute to getting lunchtime pissed. Probably not ideal for sitting this close to Nate, but hopefully she’d be able to have a shower at some point before she started to smell like Swiss cheese.

‘No,’ said Nate quickly, and Lucy was gratified to see that, up close, he didn’t look entirely sober either. ‘We work together, but we’re definitely not a couple.’ You can calm down, thought Lucy, mildly offended by how fervently he was making this point. Your secret girlfriend isn’t about to storm the Guntherhütte.

‘But you are OK to share a room, yes? We have a storage room in the attic that we can put airbeds in. It is nice and warm.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Lucy, conscious that Sasha’s level of understanding of their situation might be tested if they were sharing a bedroom. ‘We hardly know each other.’ After everything that had happened today – the bus ride, the conversation about Leo and Nate’s anxiety, the avalanche – that didn’t feel strictly true any more. But if Nate had remembered he had a hostile girlfriend and was trying to create some space between them, Lucy wasn’t going to let anyone think she cared.

‘Ah,’ said Gunther. ‘Well, this is maybe a problem.’