Let It Snow

by Sue Moorcroft

  ‘Oh, great,’ groaned Lily, mortification sweeping over her. ‘We would be looking in here when he came by.’

  It was the first time she’d heard Carola laugh for more than a week. She linked with Lily’s good arm. ‘How’s it going between you and him?’

  ‘Well …’ Lily began. Then, not seeing any reason to dissemble, said, ‘We’re planning a temporary thing until he leaves Middledip.’

  Carola’s smile faded. ‘It would be convenient if we could decide in advance that feelings are going to be temporary. In my experience, your feelings are in charge of you, not the other way around.’

  ‘Sage words.’ Lily knew she ought to listen to them … but butterflies were having a rave in her stomach whenever she thought about having a temporary thing with Isaac. It was even outweighing her nerves at the prospect of meeting Garrick for the first time.

  Carola led the way to the coffee shop to try a Swiss pastry with coffee while they watched traffic stream beneath them along a road cutting between snowy hills. Isaac joined them. Although he grinned, he didn’t mention the sex shop.

  Next Neil and Franciszka turned up, having tired of the snowball fight. ‘Those kids, they will be turned to ice,’ Franciszka observed in her swirling Polish accent, blowing across the surface of her cup of hot mocha chocolate.

  Sure enough, five shivering teens soon arrived, still laughing but wringing pink, pinched hands. They too warmed up with mocha chocolate but there were a few raised eyebrows at a price tag of nearly six Swiss francs.

  Isaac shrugged. ‘It’s always been expensive here. Ideally, you need a Swiss salary to go with the Swiss cost of living. Or live in France, Germany or Italy and work in Switzerland.’ He began to talk enthusiastically about his plans to change careers and his hopes that it would involve travel.

  Lily reminded her butterflies that Isaac had plans but, watching him chat and laugh with the others, hair gleaming, eyes smiling, the butterflies didn’t seem inclined to listen.

  Chapter Fourteen

  They drove towards black-and-white peaks that wore clouds around their heads like scarves. Steep fields and tall pines interspersed modern buildings and traditional Swiss chalets. Lily lost count of the tunnels they whizzed through but for the last fifteen minutes their route had taken them east of a lake called Ägerisee, climbing steadily up, up and up, through a village called Alosen, the snow cleared tidily to the sides of the roads.

  Then, finally, they passed a sign saying Schützenberg and Emily shouted, ‘We’re here!’ They all craned to drink in the rows of houses perched as if on ledges and shuttered and painted gasthauses, one flying the Swiss flag. Shops clustered together near a church with such a tall, pointed spire that the snow had failed to cling except in a band around the base like an Elizabethan ruff. Cheery Christmas trees or star-shaped lights decorated balconies. Snow lay on every roof like cotton wool and, for some reason, a big orange model of a cow stood on a porch wearing a string of Christmas lights. Its enormous eyes made it look shocked to see the minibus emerging through the snowflakes.

  ‘Max says his house in Terrassenweg is quite high up,’ Lily breathed as Isaac changed down the gears when the sat nav pointed them firmly uphill. She could hardly sit still for excitement.

  Isaac grinned. ‘Thank goodness for snow tyres.’

  Evidently they’d been through the middle of town and were now heading into a residential district where drives were flanked by heaps of snow and children were slithering home from school in snowboots, wearing colourful reflective yokes over their coats. Even children who looked to be as young as eight walked without adult supervision.

  ‘Switzerland seems a well-behaved place, doesn’t it?’ observed Carola.

  Finally, Isaac made a right and the sat nav lady pronounced, ‘You have reached your destination.’ They drew up outside a tall grey building wearing a pretty white hat, fairy lights frothing along its balconies. Isaac turned and gave Lily an expectant look.

  ‘Oh, yes, I have to ring Max,’ she said, waking up from gazing at what seemed to her a magical snow scene outside.

  But she never made the phone call because suddenly three figures wrapped up in ski jackets and boots were hurrying down the driveway towards them. ‘Tubb!’ Carola cried, fumbling with the door handle. ‘Janice!’

  Lily felt an enormous smile stretch across her face, jolted by an unexpectedly deep pleasure at seeing these familiar faces in unfamiliar surroundings. ‘And Max too.’ Janice’s son, Max, had left the village before Lily ever moved there but he was a regular at The Three Fishes when he and the family came home for holidays.

  Then doors were opening all over the minibus. People leapt out, gasping at the temperature that had plummeted in the over five hundred metres altitude they’d gained since leaving Würenlos. Hoods went up and coats were hastily zipped.

  Isaac put his hand on Lily’s knee. ‘OK?’

  She nodded, aware that he alone knew her dual purpose in being here and suddenly finding it hard to speak.

  His hand tightened. ‘Just enjoy yourself. You’ll make the right choices when the time comes. Exciting, eh?’ Then they clambered out to meet the others, Isaac crunching around to the rear of the bus to liberate Doggo, who proved just as delighted to have this cold white stuff to snuffle in as he had been an hour ago.

  Lily greeted Tubb, who wore a navy woollen hat pulled down low on his ears. ‘Hey! How are you feeling?’

  He grinned, cheeks red in the cold. ‘I’m fine.’

  Janice gave Lily a big hug. ‘He’s “fine” as long as he gets lots of rest. Otherwise he’s fatigued. Don’t believe his macho-pride talk.’

  Tubb made to put his hand over Janice’s mouth. ‘Don’t take any notice of the bossy-barmaid talk.’

  Janice pretended to punch him, making Lily laugh at their happy horsing around, delighted to see her brother looking so much fitter. He’d definitely lost weight but the doctors had exhorted him to improve his eating habits and he’d clearly been exercising restraint when it came to Swiss cheese and chocolate.

  With a grin over Lily’s shoulder, Tubb extended his hand. ‘Isaac. Very good of you to leap into the breach and save this expedition.’

  ‘Not kidding!’ agreed Max, seizing Isaac’s hand after Tubb and pumping it energetically. He pretended to wipe sweat from his brow. ‘You’ve saved my British bacon with Los the Boss by getting the Middletones out here.’ He gave Lily a hug. ‘We’re eating at Los’s house tonight, by the way. He and his lovely wife Tanja are putting on a buffet of traditional Swiss foods for us. Let’s go indoors for drinks and cake, then we can get everybody sorted out with their accommodation.’

  ‘Cake? Awesome!’ said Warwick and Alfie simultaneously, making everyone laugh.

  Inside Max’s home, which was the first two floors plus the garden of what looked like a massive house but was actually a small set of apartments, they found Max’s sons, Dugal and Keir, five and three, almost bouncing from the walls in excitement at having so many people to chatter to and Max’s wife, Ona, looking incredibly pregnant, smiling from the sofa. They’d all been warned that she was on restricted physical activity owing to problems with her placenta.

  ‘Welcome, welcome!’ she cried in her soft Edinburgh accent. ‘Come away in. Dugal, Keir, let them get through the door.’

  ‘Can we have cake now?’ demanded Dugal, bouncing on his tiptoes and eyes and mouth wide with excitement.

  ‘Cake!’ shouted Keir.

  The clamour in the room was amazing as everyone exchanged news at the tops of their voices or gazed out of the window at the sloping back garden filled with snow and small-boy-sized boot prints. The decor was contemporary, white and black but hung liberally with Christmas decorations of every colour and edged with children’s toys. Everyone had met through living in Middledip at one time or another, though Neil, Warwick, Eddie and Alfie didn’t know Tubb, Janice and family very well. Cake proved a perfect ice-breaker and soon they were chatting as if they’d been close friends for
years.

  When they’d filled their stomachs, the visitors piled back into the minibus and Isaac followed Max in his blue Audi across town to the Little Apartments, a modern building of studio apartments. The luggage belonging to Neil, Eddie, Alfie, Warwick, Carola, Emily and Charlotte was unloaded and then Lily, Isaac and Franciszka were left in sole possession of the minibus, gazing out at snow-covered chalets rising up the hillsides like rows of cuckoo clocks. Mountain peaks towered in the distance, turning to gold where sunbeams slanted through the clouds.

  Franciszka gazed through the minibus windows at the mountain village. ‘It’s good to see the snow. It reminds me of Poland.’

  ‘Are you far from home from here?’ Lily screwed up her eyes, trying to envisage the map of Europe.

  ‘I come from east of Warsaw. It would take another two days in the bus.’ Franciszka laughed. ‘I left when I was a young woman and I’m in my late forties now. I have aunts and cousins in Poland still but England is home.’

  Max reappeared, calling, ‘I’ll take you to where you’re staying now,’ as he stamped snow from his boots and jumped back into his car. They set off again back to Max’s side of town to reach a Christmas-light-bedecked white house in a road called Toblerstrasse. ‘This is where Los and Tanja live.’ Max gazed up at the traditional chalet with a roof of many shapes and pitches. ‘It’s a family house but it has an annexe. There’s a no pets rule at the Little Apartments so we thought that if you ladies wouldn’t mind sharing a bedroom then Isaac could have the other.’ From this vantage point they could see most of Schützenberg laid out below them like a model Alpine village, roads zigzagging between roofs and gardens, a stream tumbling through banks of snow, bigger buildings with yards, car parks or pitches – it was hard to tell in the snow. Lights sparkled from balconies and the sound of children laughing and shouting drifted on the breeze along with the peaceful chime of a church bell. The mountain air tasted pure and delicious.

  When Max pointed across to the opposite slope to a contemporary building that looked like an enormous sugar cube saying, ‘There are the Little Apartments, look,’ Lily found herself glad to be staying in a proper Swiss chalet.

  They unloaded their cases and Doggo greeted the snow once again with a happy woof. Max carried Lily’s luggage because of her hand, leading them around the side of the house and down several steps to a single-storey building that was stuck on the side of the main one. Its door had its own canopy porch edged with white fairy lights. ‘Los has given me the key because he and Tanja are both at work.’ He turned the handle and they all stepped into a hall with white walls and caramel-coloured floor tiles.

  Max showed them two bedrooms, one with twin beds and the other with a double, a bathroom between the two rooms and a compact living area with sofas, a table and a kitchen corner. Doggo snuffled around excitedly, though Isaac was careful not to let him investigate the twin room, which would belong to Lily and Franciszka.

  ‘Wow.’ Lily gazed around the elegant little apartment decorated in blues and yellows. For an instant she let herself think about how it would have been to share it with Isaac alone, the squashy blue sofas and the big double bed, then she gave Max a big smile. ‘It’s fabulous.’

  Max said he’d see them later and departed.

  Before they went to their rooms to unpack Isaac asked, ‘Do either of you mind if Doggo’s bed goes in the lounge? I don’t want him to start thinking he’s got the entrée to my bedroom all the time. It was unavoidable in the hotel but it’s an inconvenient habit to foster.’

  Lily avoided his gaze. ‘Fine with me.’ Doggo sharing Isaac’s hotel room had definitely been inconvenient. Entering the room she was to share with Franciszka she was acutely aware of Isaac so close, picturing him hanging up his clothes, maybe flopping down to try the bed for size. Maybe thinking of her …

  Then she heard him call, ‘Taking Doggo out for a run!’ and the sound of the door closing behind him so she decided to lie on her bed for a few minutes so she could take her arm out of its sling.

  ‘Lily! Lily!’

  ‘Wha’?’ Lily awoke to find a grinning Franciszka shaking her gently.

  ‘It is past seven o’clock and we are invited to the meal at seven thirty.’ Franciszka was already dressed in a green sweater shift dress that skimmed her slightly apple-shaped figure.

  It took Lily several moments to focus on the clock. ‘Urgh, I’ve been asleep for over two hours,’ she groaned, rolling onto her side and staggering to her feet. She forced herself awake to grab her robe and sponge bag and make for the bathroom which, luckily, was empty. A quick, refreshing shower and she wriggled – careful of her hand – into a black, grey and red jersey dress that swirled around her as she walked. Back in their room, Franciszka kindly put up her hair for her, then did her mascara as Lily discovered it to be impossible with the ‘wrong’ hand. They finished just as they heard the sound of a knock at the door and Max’s voice greeting Isaac.

  ‘We’re ready!’ Lily said breathlessly, grabbing her coat and bag. She’d decided to leave off her sling. The hand wasn’t quite so swollen and it was nice to have her arm in a more natural position.

  Max smiled a smile made more boyish by his freckles, his sandy hair smartly cut and combed. ‘You two ladies look lovely. The others are already in the house. I walked them up here to save Isaac clearing the minibus and fetching them.’

  ‘Clearing the minibus?’ Lily queried. Then Max opened the door and she saw fresh snow shifting and swirling thickly in the wind, its chill reaching in to her through the open door. Only Max’s footprints were now visible and the rest of the garden was carpeted in unbroken white, a drift forming against a garden table like a whorl of ice cream. ‘Ohhhh! That’s beautiful.’ Lily breathed the sharp tang deep into her lungs.

  Max led them around to the front door. As soon as they were indoors a man and woman in their fifties bore down on them. The woman had stylishly short brown hair, the man a grey moustache and glasses. ‘Welcome,’ boomed the man. ‘I am Los, and this is my wife Tanja.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for sponsoring the Middletones’ visit to Switzerland,’ said Lily formally. She hadn’t communicated directly with Los as all her dealings with British Country Foods had been via Max, Garrick and Kirstin.

  Los beamed. ‘Please come into our home and join your friends and some of our colleagues from British Country Foods.’

  Lily felt a frisson of nerves she hadn’t had time to think about in the rush of getting ready as Los ushered them down three steps into a large elegant lounge filled with people, laughing, chattering, sipping glasses of wine or soft drinks. She could feel her mouth stretched in a big smile as the words colleagues from British Country Foods reverberated around her head and took her breath. And then—

  ‘Hey, Lily, this is my brother, Garrick,’ said Tubb.

  He was there.

  A large, cushiony man, greeting her with a similar smile to his brother’s, though, in his early fifties, younger, and with a little more hair. She met his eyes and felt overwhelmed by the same astonishment she’d experienced the first time she’d met Tubb. She and this man shared a father. They were blood. Yet he didn’t know.

  She had to clear her throat before she could speak and even then her voice squeaked. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you at long last.’

  Garrick’s eyes twinkled. ‘Great to meet you other than via email, Lily! I know you’ve been working for my brother for a while but because we moved from the States to Switzerland in the spring we didn’t make it to the UK this summer.’ He turned and held out an arm to a woman with coifed silver hair. ‘This is my wife, Eleanor. And our kids Myla and Xander are over there somewhere.’ He waved a hand in the direction of a corner full of teenagers.

  Amongst those she already knew Lily picked out a tall lad who’d probably be pleased when his skin improved and a girl whose hair was shaved at one side. Lily stared, trying to drink them in. Family. You’re my family.

  The
n she realised Isaac was pressing a glass of juice into her hand and chatting easily to Garrick and Eleanor, asking how they liked living in continental Europe compared to the States. Lily half-listened to Eleanor replying, ‘We loved the standard of living in Connecticut but the canton of Zug is well-off too. Corporate head offices are attracted by low taxes.’

  ‘We’re definitely attracted by the idea of earning a lot and spending a lot,’ Garrick put in.

  Lily managed to unfreeze and join in the laughter. Garrick was friendly! Not just business-friendly as you might be with anyone working on the same project, someone you’d been copied into emails with, but warm and twinkly, as if he already considered her a friend. She’d experienced the same instant ease when she’d first gone to Middledip and met Tubb but hadn’t dared hope it might happen again. She listened raptly as Garrick talked about the family travels and how they were looking forward to snowshoeing and skiing now the snow was coming down.

  He smiled at Lily. ‘Let me introduce you to Kirstin, Stephen and Felix. You’ve been working with Kirstin on the project and Stephen and Felix will be with her on the stand at the Food, Lifestyle & Health show.’ Garrick, as a key account manager, worked more on the meetings that would take place at the show than the mechanics of organising the stand.

  Lily nodded and smiled, steadying herself with a good slug of wine while Garrick ushered her through the groups of people, his hand on her elbow. A lump rose to her throat. Her brother had just touched her. She gathered herself sufficiently to smile and chat with Kirstin, who was thin, dark and intense. Her Asian grandparents had been the first of her family to come to Switzerland and she spoke Bengali as well as Swiss-Deutsche, English and French. Stephen and Felix could have been brothers with fair skin and mousy hair. All of them seemed excited and even slightly overawed to be invited to the home of the big boss.

  ‘We’re all excited by your project,’ Kirstin murmured to Lily, eyes dancing. ‘Despite being Swiss, British Country Foods is getting more British by the day. Everyone has been talking about “the British visit”.’