by Isla Gordon
‘No, and we can’t fly the helicopters too close to the mountains and the cables in the dark, it’s too dangerous,’ Marco continued. ‘But one guy yesterday was stuck on one of the faces after he got lost hiking, and then the cloud came in so we had no visibility. It was just about dusk before we finally airlifted him out, and then we took him to base to treat him before delivering him to hospital. It was a late night because of the paperwork and cleaning up the equipment. Anyway, I am “blah blah blah”.’ He motioned talking too much with his hands. ‘How is your morning?’
‘I like to hear about it, it’s interesting,’ said Alice. ‘And my morning is . . . well, I’ve been making some decisions. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Oh that’s cool,’ he said with interest, and touched the small of her back to indicate she could take a seat at the bar. He poured her a cup of tea and pushed a box of gingerbread cookies towards her. Her Swiss friends loved assuming their British visitor always wanted a warm drink. It was a sweet gesture.
Ask for what you want, she thought, watching his tall form moving around the kitchen, strong arms, soft face, sleep-tousled hair, slim waist. She would like him to hold her again, but that wasn’t what she was here for today.
‘Marco, can I take you up on the offer of looking after Bear over Christmas?’
He turned, a big smile on his face. ‘Of course! David and I would be honoured.’
‘You’ll take care of him, though, right? I haven’t left him with anyone since I took him in. He’s . . . everything to me now.’
‘I will take so much care of him, you can trust me.’
She thought they could. He was kind – they all were – and Bear was so comfortable with him. ‘I don’t want to put him through the long car journey again, but I think I have to go home. If I fly I can go on Christmas Eve and be back on Boxing Day.’
‘Take as long as you want. I’ll be here, with him. And David.’
‘Where is David? I should check it’s okay with him too.’
‘He’s still on the slopes. It’s just me here at the moment.’
‘Oh.’ Oh. The silence probably only lasted a moment but thanks to the snow against the window, the wood of the cabin, the warm air in the kitchen, she could have been in the opening shot of a Christmas number one music video.
Marco broke the spell by noticing the time. ‘Oh shit, I have to make my way down the mountain to work soon. What are you doing for the rest of the day?’
Alice stood, thanked him again, and used it as an excuse to give him a quick hug around the waist before leaving. ‘Today I am finding ways to get my life back.’
Chapter 30
Back in her chalet, Alice sat on the floor with Bear, who looked up from where he was lying and gave her one of his paws.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Now listen. I love your company so much. But I think we both need to learn how to be on our own a little bit more.’
He peered at her.
‘I don’t mean for long. I’m not going to leave you for long, but I think it’ll do us both good if we get used to spending a bit of time just in our own company.’ Alice didn’t really want this – she would spend all her time with Bear if she could, he was her comfort blanket. But she didn’t want him to grow up with separation anxiety, scared of being left alone in the house and wondering if his family was ever coming home. And she’d committed to being apart from him for a period in just over three weeks. This was for his own good.
There was a café that she passed whenever she walked through Mürren that kept catching her eye – Café LIV, which sat snuggled in the bottom corner of a chocolate-brown chalet, under green and white awning. Outside sat a couple of wrought-iron chairs, with faux-fur rugs draped over them and snow piling on their arms. When Alice looked through the window the inside always seemed warm and inviting, like looking into the house of a happy family at Christmas time.
Today Alice would go in.
She bid goodbye to Bear, who already had two feet on the bottom stair waiting for her to leave so he could go upstairs and sleep on her bed and, dressed in her warmest clothing and her big woollen hat, she stepped out once again into the falling snow.
Over the familiar white pathways through Mürren she trudged, head down and blinking eyelashes against the big, blobby flakes that dampened patches of her hair that poked out from under her hat and hood. The clouds hung low, but there was still a freshness in the air that moistened her skin and seeped into her lungs as she breathed. Stomp, stomp, stomp up the slope past the Alpine Sports Centre and the ice rink, which was empty of holidaymakers today. Stomp, slide, stomp through the shortcut between two chalets, the snow piling against their sides.
And there was the café, looking more inviting than ever in this weather.
Alice opened the door and stepped into the warmth. Small pine tables dotted the floor and a long bench covered in grey and sage green cushions lined the two windowed walls. The counter brimmed with homemade cakes and tray bakes, with a sprinkle of fairy lights hanging from the ceiling above. Chalk boards advertising daily specials and shelves loaded with baskets displaying local crafts for sale decorated the internal walls.
The soft, bluesy voice of Sarah Vaughan played in the background. The foreground was a gentle buzz of chatter rising from the tables, the cash register chinging and the noise of steam puffing from the coffee machine behind the counter.
Alice hung her wet ski jacket on a peg by the door and picked her way to an empty table in the corner by the window to put down her gloves and hat. The sweet smell of cakes led her back to the counter where a smiling gentleman asked her in English what he could get her.
‘Um . . . ’ she glanced back around the café, a sanctuary from the snow but with a wonderful view, and felt instantly at ease. She’d like to stay a while. ‘Please may I start with your nachos special? Then one of these.’ Alice pointed at a flat-topped cupcake with a pool of baby-pink icing sinking into the bun.
‘Nachos and a vanilla plumcake, of course. Would you like a beer with that? It’s just an extra two francs with the nachos.’
‘Sure,’ Alice replied. She had nowhere to be this afternoon.
The man waved away her credit card. ‘You can pay at the end. I’ll bring your beer over to you shortly.’
Alice took her seat and gazed out of the window, where a snowcat was edging back and forth, its big rubber tracks creating a pathway between mounds of snow, and her mind wandered.
Alice needed something to do. She’d been thinking it for a week or so but the thought had crystallised in her mind this morning. She needed to feel normal again, to do something that meant she was pushing forward. Specifically there was a longing in her for passing, fleeting interactions with the outside world that could help rebuild her, brick by brick, while she practised being alive even though Jill was not.
Her beer arrived, cold and bitter, the perfect accompaniment to the sweetcorn and tomato salsa topping on her nachos, which came shortly after. She ate slowly, allowing her surroundings to seep into her, and outside the window the sun broke through a crack in the clouds. It danced on the snowflakes, which had relaxed into gentle silver glitter falling from the sky.
With the same hesitant, careful slow motion as the snow outside, Alice reached into her cross-body bag and pulled out the thin, six-by-four sketchbook and pencil that she carried everywhere but hadn’t taken out in months. In her eyeline, leaning her head back against a window, sat a customer with a coffee in her hand and her eyes closed in bliss. She had ski goggles pushed onto her forehead and hair that stuck out in carefree tendrils around them. She looked as contented as a cat, and Alice created a postcard-sized sketch of her using a few simple lines.
It felt good to flex her drawing fingers again. Pulling out the page and leaving it to one side, she next doodled the window and the scene outside. And then the counter covered in cakes. And then the snowcat, only she made the driver a cat, and smiled.
The man from behind the counter appeared
and reached for her nachos bowl. ‘All done? Do you want a coffee to go with your cake?’
‘Oh yes please, a coffee with cream, please,’ Alice replied.
He tilted his head and looked at her drawings. ‘These are nice – you just did these?’
‘I did. They’re very rough, though. I’m an artist back home but it’s . . . been a while.’
Off he went to make her coffee, and the woman from her sketch stood up and rolled her shoulders, ready to head back out into the cold.
‘Excuse me,’ Alice said, catching her attention.
The woman turned and pointed at herself with a questioning look.
‘I drew a picture of you,’ said Alice. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’ She held out the sketch, giving it to the woman.
The woman took it and looked surprised, then pleased. ‘I have no money for this,’ she said in a strong accent, sounding apologetic.
‘No, no, you can keep it, if you want it.’
The woman looked confused so Alice tried to clarify across the language barrier. ‘You looked happy. For you.’
‘I take?’
‘Yes.’
The woman wrapped the drawing carefully in a napkin and tucked it inside her ski jacket. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’
Alice smiled and the music inside Café LIV changed to Nina Simone singing ‘Here Comes the Sun’. The piano tinkles accented the tinkle of teaspoons against coffee cups and Nina’s sweet voice twirled like spinning sugar above their heads. Alice let in a little more of the sun. Today she’d made someone happy.
‘Excuse me,’ she asked the waiter when he returned with her coffee. ‘The crafts you sell here in the café – can anyone sign up somewhere to sell their goods?’
‘Are you thinking of selling your drawings?’
‘Maybe not these, they’re so rough. But I could bring in some others to show you?’
‘Sure, bring them by sometime. If they fit with our vibe we can certainly make some room on the shelf for you. In my experience, tourists prefer to buy things that they can either use, like those woollen headbands, or something small and inexpensive they can take home that will remind them of their trip, like our Café LIV mugs.’
‘Small and local, got it. I have some ideas in mind.’
‘You’re the lady with the Berner, aren’t you?’
‘Yes!’ Alice beamed with pride at the mention of her famous Bear.
‘There’s a good subject, right there.’
He left her alone, and she tucked into her plumcake. The cake was sweet and tangy, with a delicate sugary crust and the silkiest cream cheese frosting that dribbled down over the sponge when she stuck her fork in.
Making plans, being out on her own, enjoying the big outdoors again. She was a big step forward from the person she’d been back in London, and she was proud of herself. Alice was climbing her mountains.
Chapter 31
Alice pulled her art supplies down off the shelf, where they’d sat, untouched, since she’d arrived in Mürren. Now, the day after she’d had her ‘me-time’ in the café, she spread her belongings on the table, unsure where to begin, until Bear appeared out of the corner of her eye. Looking over, he was stood facing her, tail up in its big, fluffy question mark, and bright, happy eyes. In his mouth was one of her snow boots.
Look what somebody left for me! he seemed to be saying.
Alice chuckled – her bad, she forgot to put them out of the way.
After extracting the boot and stowing it back where it was supposed to be, by the door, but this time a little more hidden behind the coats, she returned to her sketch pad. And three minutes later, there he was again.
She looked up. He had the boot back in his mouth.
He looked so funny, this tufty great puppy, bigger than most full-grown dogs, holding a whopping great boot that nearly touched the floor.
‘You just have to be the centre of attention,’ she said, grabbing her pad and a pen from the pile.
She spent a couple of minutes drawing a quick cartoon of Bear and her boot. She added a line of snow on the ground and some fat snowflakes, and scrawled ‘Kisses from Switzerland’ in the top corner. She always included a little cartoon of some kind with her Christmas cards to her parents, and they’d like this one.
Stepping away from the table she went to Bear, ready to take the boot off him, but this time he wasn’t going to give up his gift so easily. He growled and swung his tail and boinged on the spot, waving the boot from her grasp. She laughed, despite herself. ‘Bear, drop it, that’s my boot, I don’t have warm furry feet like you so I need that back.’
He pushed his front low to ground with his bottom in the air, growled again and sprung up, the boot swinging back and donking him on the head. It didn’t stop him for a second, though.
‘You never take yourself too seriously, do you?’ Alice said to him. ‘I think you’re going to be just the subject I need.’
Alice remembered a TED Talk she’d listened to once where someone had said that actually you can trick your brain by faking it until you believe it. Alice had lost her friend, but had also completely lost herself along the way, and it was just possible that she was beginning to find herself again.
The peace that came with starting with a blank page and sweeping shapes and colours, careful lines and just the right level of detail, was something that had always soothed her soul. It helped her make sense of the world.
By lunchtime, she’d created several rough sketches and had a list that trailed two pages of A4 of possible cartoon ideas – funny positions Bear lay in, amusing situations he’d got himself into since she’d had him, his first experiences in the snow, his life in the mountains. She could almost visualise the story of his life coming together through the eyes of her pen. Additionally she’d listed some of her favourite views, venues and experiences since coming to Mürren. She planned to take a mixed portfolio of ten finished drawings to the café within the next couple of days to see what they thought.
‘Look, Bear,’ she said, and he looked up. ‘These are of you. These will keep us busy until I go back to England, won’t they?’
She was walking in the air, Aled Jones style. ‘December is going well so far, Bear,’ she said, and her energy clearly transferred to him because he leapt up and put his giant paws on her shoulders so she could hug him. ‘When did you get so huge? Are we growing together now?’
‘I need some lunch,’ she said aloud. ‘And I fancy something thick and warm and hearty, and I don’t think we should stay in here all afternoon, because we have to keep on growing. You want to come with me to the Eiger Guesthouse?’
Back out she went into the snow, this time with her walking furry blanket in tow, and they set off (carefully) down the slope into the village. It was heaving, the visibility being not great on the slopes, and everybody had given up skiing in favour of the sweet aromas of fondue emanating from restaurant doorways.
Alice and Bear made it to the Guesthouse and before Bear had even stuck his nose in the open doorway to sniff the air, the super-friendly manager Ema came rushing over to embrace him and shower him with dog treats, welcoming them both. She bustled Alice to a great table by the window in the corner, with space for Bear to settle down, should he ever decide to do so. At that moment he was far more interested in craning towards the other tables laden with delicious food.
‘Cardinal Blonde?’ Ema asked, already walking away to fetch a menu for her.
‘Urm, sure!’ replied Alice. Why not?
A waiter returned with her drink and she asked him, ‘What would you recommend?’
‘For you, or for my new favourite dog?’ he replied. ‘I love these dogs. I’m from Germany and we don’t have as many of these as here in the Bernese Oberland, obviously. Now I see them loads and I love love love them.’ To Bear he added, ‘You can help yourself to every person’s plate in this restaurant, yes you can, yes you can.’
A few people on nearby tables smiled politely but shifted their plate
s away.
‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘Recommendations. Hmm. You look like you want to warm up. How about this?’
He pointed to a sausage dish similar to the one she’d had last time. ‘Actually, I might go for a pizza,’ she replied, looking at the array of delicious toppings. ‘The Pizza 007 sounds good. What’s the link with James Bond and Mürren? I feel like I see a lot of Bond stuff around.’
‘You don’t know?’ Ema cried, stopping en route past, a hot fondue in her hand. ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was filmed at the top of the Schilthorn mountain just behind us. At Piz Gloria. It is a claim to fame, even though it was fifty years ago.’
‘Ohhhh,’ Alice replied. ‘I haven’t seen that one.’
‘Watch it as soon as you can,’ instructed Ema, and carried on with her fondue.
The waiter took Alice’s menu. ‘A Pizza 007 for you.’ Then he leaned in and whispered, ‘And can he eat sausages?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered back.
‘Okay, I bring him one.’ He tapped his nose like they were the secret agents, and scurried off to the kitchen.
Her pizza arrived, with a small, fat sausage on the side as promised for Bear, and Alice tucked in, savouring the garlicky, bacony flavours. She looked out of the window as she munched away, Bear doing the same, contentedly watching the world go by. Occasional thoughts would drift in, questioning how the world carried on after atrocities like the one she had witnessed, and yet it did. But she wanted to be glad of the fact, not to resent it.
She picked up her glass of beer that she’d agreed to on impulse, because what better way to start the Christmas season on such a snowy day, and cheersed the faint reflection of herself in the glass, whispering, ‘To the world.’
*
It hadn’t all been light since coming to Switzerland, and it certainly wasn’t for Alice over the next two weeks. She kept hold of her hope tightly, but there were days, and nights, that felt more like thick mud than powder-light snow.
Going back to England played on her mind and her emotions, looming in the ever-decreasing distance. Come back, it would say to her. Come back, close the curtains, lie down and don’t get up.