Page 33 of Snowed In with You

‘I’ve got about twenty per cent,’ said Nate, the blue glow of his phone screen lighting up his face. ‘I’ll turn it off for now.’

‘Mine is fully charged,’ said Alex breezily. ‘And I have a power pack. So I’ll keep mine on in case we need to take a video or something.’ Lucy shook her head and smiled in the darkness, marvelling that Alex’s priority phone use in an emergency was shooting videos, rather than lighting the way or calling mountain rescue. If they had to leave this hut and trek to safety, she wasn’t sure this random bunch of people was the support crew she’d pick, but at least the footage of their final hours would be social media gold.

‘You OK?’ she asked Nate, reaching over to touch his arm.

‘Yeah,’ he whispered, putting his hand over hers and squeezing it for the briefest second. It felt like a strange moment of togetherness in the darkness, like they were anchoring each other in the storm. Lucy had spent so much of this afternoon trying to keep Nate calm, she hadn’t really thought about how comforting it would be to take reassurance and strength from someone else.

They all waited quietly until Gunther and Monica returned with various battery lanterns, torches and candles in jam jars, carefully placing them along the bar and on each of the tables. The return of light made the room feel less spooky and forbidding, and Lucy breathed a little easier. She huddled into the corner of the booth with her arms wrapped around her knees, wondering what they would do now.

‘We still have bottled gas,’ said Monica reassuringly. ‘So there is hot water. Maybe some of us can shower tonight, and the rest of us tomorrow morning.’

‘I don’t have any clean clothes,’ said Lucy feebly. In the scheme of things it probably didn’t matter, but being in such close proximity to so many strangers, it suddenly felt very important that she didn’t smell bad.

‘I will lend you some pyjamas,’ said Monica, giving her a warm smile. ‘And if you like, I will show you where you can hand wash your clothes and hang them in front of the fire to dry while you are sleeping.’

Lucy felt tears brimming – a combination of tiredness, stress, booze and Monica being more motherly and kind than her own mother had been in years. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That would be lovely.’

‘Have some more food,’ said Chantal, pushing a plate of cold meat in Nate’s direction. ‘The fridge won’t work now, so we need to eat everything.’ Despite his brush-off earlier, Lucy could still see her surreptitiously checking him out from under her eyelashes as he took the plate and thanked her.

‘Top up everyone’s wine, please,’ said Gunther, thrusting a couple of bottles at Chantal. She grudgingly heaved herself out of the booth and started to circulate.

‘What did you call a meal like this, when you were a kid?’ asked Lucy, keen to keep Nate talking. Aside from it stopping her falling prey to negative thoughts, it was an excuse to look at him.

Nate looked over at the table of plates, his expression thoughtful. ‘A carpet picnic,’ he said with a smile. ‘Apart from when we were with family in France. Then it was a selection of hors d’oeuvres.’

‘Ooh, that’s fancy,’ laughed Lucy. ‘In my house it was just picky bits.’

‘I was always confused by the word buffet,’ mused Nate. ‘In English it describes the food, in French it’s the piece of furniture you put the food on.’

‘We have a rich history of bastardising other languages,’ said Lucy. ‘I did a linguistics module as part of my degree, I could bore you to death.’

‘I doubt that,’ said Nate, putting his empty plate on the table. ‘Maybe we should sort out our beds, so we don’t have to do that later.’ He gave Lucy a searching look, and she wondered if he could tell she was feeling a bit wobbly about losing power and their connection to the outside world, or if he just wanted to be alone with her. Or maybe she was overthinking it, and he was just being practical.

‘We will play some music soon,’ announced Felix, taking a huge bite out of a sausage. ‘I have no keyboard without the power, but Andrea has her guitar. Maybe “How Deep is Your Love”.’

‘Beds are a great idea,’ said Lucy quickly, keen to avoid what was inevitably going to be an eternal, sausage-fuelled Bee Gees medley. She and Nate left their food for later, then took a head torch and followed Monica through a door marked Private behind the bar, which led to a separate part of the building that was clearly Gunther and Monica’s home. What little Lucy could see in the gloom was uncluttered and cosy, with a homely smell of woodsmoke and pine. Monica pulled a pump and a bag containing two inflatable beds from a frighteningly well-organised cupboard under the stairs, and handed them to Nate.

‘I will find you some sheets and blankets upstairs,’ she said. ‘And some towels. And maybe I also have a spare toothbrush.’ Lucy wondered if she and Nate would be expected to share it, which somehow felt worse than having to share a bedroom, but decided to say nothing. Maybe it would be OK, as long as she got to use it first.

‘Do you want me to do the other one?’ asked Lucy, having done very little other than watch Nate pump up a bed in a room that was part attic, part storeroom. One half of the windowless space was taken up with stacked deckchairs and cardboard boxes marked Sommer, whilst the other half was a bare wooden floor with a steeply pitched roof and a stone chimney breast that funnelled all the heat from the wood burner below.

‘No, I can manage,’ said Nate breathlessly, switching the pump to his other foot. They were more robust than a camping mat or a pool inflatable, but very definitely not something you would reasonably describe as a bed. Lucy fully expected to be lying on the floor by morning, and there was no possible way to arrange the two beds within the remaining space without them being dangerously close together.

‘OK, what should I do instead?’ asked Lucy. ‘I feel useless just standing here.’

‘Ask me a question,’ said Nate. ‘And then I get to ask one in return.’

Lucy was immediately suspicious, wondering if this was a trap. ‘Why?’

‘Because we’re about to sleep together for the first time,’ said Nate. ‘We should probably get to know each other first.’

‘You’re very funny,’ said Lucy, pulling a face. ‘Fine. Are you in a relationship?’ She hadn’t intended for the question to sound so challenging, and now she was worried that Nate was about to offload about Sasha. It was bad enough that she knew, without him knowing that she knew. Or even worse, inviting her into his circle of trust and telling her all the sordid details.

Nate hesitated, then carried on pumping. ‘There’s somebody I like, but it’s a little complicated.’

Lucy had a thousand follow-ups, but decided not to dig herself in any deeper. ‘OK, fair enough. What’s your question?’

‘Are you in a relationship?’