A Season in the Snow

by Isla Gordon

  ‘Oh, I am!’ Alice said. ‘I’m very good at lighting fires now.’

  Christmas Eve after dark was a magical time, hope and anticipation radiating through the illuminated trees in windows, and on the faces of those you passed as you rushed home to wait for the last sleep before the big day.

  Inside the Bright household, Liz and Ed had made the family home as warm as a hug and full of familiar traditions. The tree was decorated with a lifetime of collected ornaments – the miniature Empire State Building Alice had brought her parents back from a trip to New York, the faded gold and red bauble Ed and Liz had bought on their honeymoon in Norway, the strange clay snowman Alice had made in primary school which would have been better suited as a Halloween ornament, to be quite honest.

  As Alice touched the various items from her history she thought, I made it. She was home for Christmas, and she was happy to be here, and that’s all she could have asked for.

  Liz appeared at her side with a glass of Baileys for her. ‘It’s good to see you smiling again.’

  Alice took the Baileys. ‘One of my new friends, Lola, told me a while ago to have gratitude for life. We were at the top of the mountain at the time – well, the top of the baby slope – so I think she was partially trying to pep talk me into zooming downhill on a snowboard. Anyway, it was good advice and I’m trying hard to follow it.’

  Ed appeared with a plate full of piping-hot cocktail sausages in a sweet sticky glaze. ‘I know it’s an odd pre-dinner appetiser, but I couldn’t help myself.’ He grinned. ‘Lovely fire you’ve lit there, Alice, how’d you learn to do that?’

  ‘It all started with an axe . . . ’

  In bed that night, Alice turned off the light. Her mum had put a mini Christmas tree on her bedroom windowsill with some tiny fairy lights laced around it, and it reminded her of her nook glowing away in Switzerland. It gave her the confidence to embrace the still comfort that came with darkness (just not pitch-black darkness).

  She watched the numbers on her projector clock tick closer to midnight on the ceiling.

  ‘’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,’ she whispered. ‘Three . . . two . . . one.’

  It was Christmas Day. Alice pulled from under her pillow a photo that she’d dug out earlier that evening. It was of her and Jill, dressed in matching Mrs Claus outfits, from way back when they’d got Christmas jobs behind the bar at the local pub and had felt the place needed some Christmas spirit. In the photo, Jill was posing like she was in a festive-themed pinup calendar, while Alice, with her signature red lipstick, was laughing with her face pushed back creating a hundred double chins. It was an awful photo of her but she’d always loved it – Jill being carefree and effortlessly spur-of-the-moment, Alice finding the funny in everything. Even before she was drawing her tongue-in-cheek cartoons and having them published as far as New York City, she’d always had that element to her personality. She hoped she could get it back one day. It was part of the reason Jill had loved her, so she used to say.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Jilly,’ Alice said to the photo, illuminated only by the tiny glow from her Christmas tree, and gave it a kiss. She tucked her best friend back underneath her pillow, keeping her safe.

  She reached for her phone.

  Schöni Fäschttäg! she wrote in a text and hit send.

  Marco replied almost immediately. Merry Christmas to you!

  Merry Christmas to Bear also – is everything going okay?

  He’s lying on my bed, snoring and kicking me in the face. So yes, all is calm, all is bright, we are having a lovely time. It’s just gone midnight with you, right?

  Alice looked at the clock and thought for a moment. Argh, it’s one a.m. in Switzerland, isn’t it? I forgot! Did I wake you?

  No. David wanted to watch the Die Hard movies this evening – those are his favourite Christmas movies. We only went to bed recently. How is home?

  Good. Relaxing, surprisingly. Thank you for the music you sent me – it really helped.

  Anytime.

  I’ll let you get some sleep, she wrote. Night night, both of you.

  Marco took a few minutes to reply. She kept seeing the three dots of somebody composing a message appear and disappear. Finally it came through. Miss you.

  He followed it quickly with a gif of a Bernese puppy bouncing in the snow wearing a Santa hat, and a kiss.

  A kiss. Was this just a bit of fun? Was a bit of fun what she desperately, down in her core, needed? Maybe it could be so much more.

  Alice snuggled down under her covers and thought about all the things she was grateful for, until the fairy lights on her miniature tree began to swim in front of her eyes, and they eventually closed.

  Christmas Day was as it should be; a day of harmony and of family, and for her parents’ sake Alice tucked thoughts of Jill away into her memory box just for today.

  Her parents gifted her with thoughtful items she could take back to Switzerland with her – thick, cosy socks, a new set of drawing pencils, a sweet necklace with a silver snowflake and some of her mum’s home-baked biscuits. In return she gave them wooden handicrafts and candles she’d bought at the Christmas market in Zurich, a bottle of the yummiest Glühwein which she’d managed to pick up in Geneva airport at the duty free, and a framed photo of her and Bear on their balcony in Mürren.

  After feasting on the biggest turkey probably ever bought for three people, even more pigs in blankets and a fat bowlful of Christmas pudding, the family retired to the sofas to rub their tummies and watch the Queen’s Speech.

  Alice reached down to rest a hand on Bear’s body only to remember with a start that he wasn’t there. How nice it would be to have his heavy lean against her body right now. She was surprised how much she missed him. She’d been with him daily for four months so she probably needed a break, but she felt the loss more than she expected. Maybe because of the other losses she’d suffered this year, it felt more heightened.

  ‘You all right, love?’ Ed asked, looking over and stifling a burp.

  ‘Just missing Bear,’ she replied. And Marco, she thought, surprising herself, not intending to have even been thinking of him. ‘It’s very silly.’

  ‘No it’s not, he’s your companion,’ said Liz. ‘And you miss him just like we miss you.’

  ‘Mmm . . . ’ Alice closed her eyes, just for a moment, the warmth of the fire, the heaviness of her food and the midday glasses of port and wine settling inside her head.

  A few minutes later, Liz and Ed exchanged a glance and whispered, ‘Merry Christmas’ to each other. Ed turned the TV off, Liz crept over and draped a blanket on her daughter and they both reached for their books. But neither read the words in front of them. Instead their eyes kept trailing back to Alice’s face, peaceful sleep behind her eyes, her skin looking brighter, her breathing more controlled. They knew she was trying to put on a front of getting better for them, but in this moment they could see she really was.

  Before you could say ‘January sales’ it was Boxing Day and Alice was back at Heathrow Airport. Ed and Liz had filled her bag with homemade treats to keep her going and the kind presents they’d given her. They promised that they would visit soon and reminded her that she could come home any time, even if just for a couple of days.

  Alice felt bad leaving them, and she’d truly enjoyed herself far more than she thought she would. But the thought of wrapping herself around her big soft Bear again was almost pulling her to the plane like a magnet.

  Up on the departures board her gate was announced, and although there was no rush to board (the gate wouldn’t actually open for another half hour) she took the opportunity to say her goodbyes.

  ‘I’d better make tracks, security can sometimes take yonks,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, honey, well – thank you again for coming.’ Liz gave her yet another hug, but that was fine with Alice.

  ‘Thank you for a perfect Christmas,’ Alice replied. ‘See you soon, o
kay?’

  ‘Text us when you get back to Vanessa’s and send us a picture of Bear,’ said her dad. ‘Let me know if he likes his toy from Hamleys.’

  ‘I will,’ Alice promised. ‘Love you both a lot. Bye bye.’ She waved and walked through security, turning back to wave once again before she had to go out of sight. How lucky she was to have them.

  After passing through security she stopped at one of the departure terminal bars for one last drink of Baileys. She drank, and people-watched, and it dawned on her as she looked around at the people dragging their ski equipment, the WHSmith with piles of cosy hardbacks on tables by the door, the duty-free sales assistants with their tinsel-garnished uniforms, that she was looking at everything through different eyes than when she had arrived two sleeps ago. Then it had felt cramped and busy and too hectic in comparison to peaceful Mürren. Now she didn’t feel that, and she wondered if it had all been in her head before, that she hadn’t been allowing herself to see the happiness because she was so convinced it would be the opposite.

  Alice checked the time on her phone, picked up her bag and knocked back the remaining slug of Baileys, crunching on an ice cube just like Bear would have done.

  Chapter 36

  If running on snow didn’t make Alice want to pass out from the effort, she would have run all the way up the slope from the train station to her chalet. Her face was stretched into a smile just thinking about seeing Bear again – it felt nice to enjoy missing someone.

  She went straight to Marco’s door without even stopping by Vanessa’s first to drop her things off, and through the frosted glass panel she saw a white nose appear, peering up at her.

  ‘Hi, Bear!’ she cried, as she knocked on the door, and she saw the white tip of his tail begin to wag furiously. Then the unmistakable tall form of Marco appeared, and he pulled the door open as wide as he could with Bear trying to stuff his snout through to get to her.

  The second Marco had wrested the door wide enough, Bear burst through and plummeted into Alice, spinning in circles, licking her face and bashing her in the eye with his plume of a tail. She fell back into the snow, giggling. ‘Hello, you! Hello! Happy Christmas!’

  ‘He’s going to eat you for his Christmas lunch!’ Marco exclaimed, and reached a strong hand down to help her up.

  ‘Hello to you too,’ she said, finally detangled, and gave him a hug which Bear joined in with, eliminating the possibility of a welcome-home kiss, for now.

  ‘Welcome back. Come in and have a coffee.’ He led them all inside, Bear weaving in and out and through Alice’s legs, unable to take his sparkling eyes off her. ‘He’s so pleased to see you!’

  ‘I’m pleased to see him, too. I missed him a lot.’

  ‘How was your journey?’

  ‘It was good, easy, much easier than a fifteen-hour drive with a dog in the back. I have you to thank for that, and David.’

  ‘I’ll pass that on – David’s on the slopes at the moment. He was supposed to teach a group of friends a Christmas Day lesson yesterday but they cancelled because they got too drunk at the Christmas Eve après-ski party in the village, so he’s taking them today instead.’

  Alice took a seat at their kitchen counter while Marco made some big mugs of coffee. ‘So how did everything go?’ she asked. ‘Did you two, you three, manage to have a happy Christmas?’

  ‘Oh we had a great time. We watched a lot of movies, which Bear liked because he could sleep by our feet. We ate a lot, which Bear liked, because of food. We played in the snow. Look.’ Marco pointed out of the window to where two snowmen and a snowdog had been constructed.

  ‘That’s Bear’s spare collar!’ she laughed. ‘And that’s your Christmas jumper!’

  Marco pointed them out one by one. ‘That one is “Christmas Day-vid”, wearing David’s spare goggles, that’s “Happy Christ-Marc” in my jumper, and the dog is “Santa Paws”. Everybody helped, although Bear peed against Santa Paws version one, so we had to build an extra layer of snow-fur around him.’

  ‘It looks like you had a lot of fun.’

  ‘We did. One lady went past on her skis and said what a lovely modern family we made.’

  Alice laughed. ‘And when do your actual family arrive?’ She sipped her coffee – it was perfect.

  ‘Tomorrow. You’ll come over and meet them, yes?’

  ‘If you want me to?’ Of course Alice wanted to, but this felt a little like a meet-the-parents situation.

  ‘Absolutely. Sorry, though, if they give more attention to Bear than you. They will love you, but they will love your dog.’

  ‘I’m used to that by now. Oh!’ She pulled out her phone. ‘I promised I’d text my folks when I got back. Excuse me a mo.’ She sent a quick message, and then went to her bag and pulled out the Bernese soft toy, holding it out to Bear whose eyes widened. He put his mouth around it very delicately, raised his tail high in the air and went skipping around the kitchen, pleased as punch with his new pal. ‘My dad bought that for him,’ she explained.

  Alice tried to take a photo of Bear with the toy but he was too busy leaping about. In the end she had to enlist the help of Marco.

  ‘Bear, come here, come here,’ he called, and Bear wandered over to Marco and sat on his feet, the teddy in his mouth, and Alice snapped a picture while Marco was grinning down at him. She sent that to her mum. One happy Bear, she wrote. And one Marco.

  Her mum replied, Very nice! which Alice found enigmatic. And then another message followed, saying Glad you’re back safely. Bear looks well and Dad is pleased he likes the toy. Your friend Marco is pleasing on the eye, isn’t he?

  Alice hid the screen of her phone in case Marco had spotted that. How embarrassing.

  ‘Okay, I’d better take this one home. Thank you for the coffee, but more importantly, thank you for looking after him. I really appreciate it. Going home felt easier knowing he was safely back here with you.’

  ‘Any time.’ Marco smiled.

  ‘You’re . . . ’ She stopped herself, not really knowing what she wanted to say out loud. ‘You’re a very nice man.’ Well, that sounded awkward. Nice one, Alice.

  ‘Thank you. You are a nice woman. And you are a nice dog.’

  ‘Good. Well, now that’s established, see you in a bit. And thank you again.’ She made her way to the door, picking up her things.

  ‘Do you want a hand with your stuff?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. Although maybe you could carry Bear’s things over for me?’

  ‘It’s going to feel quiet at our house without him snuffling around,’ Marco remarked as they walked together over the snow, which felt thicker and more powdery than it had when she’d left.

  ‘Feel free to come and drink some of my coffee if you need a bit of noise again,’ Alice replied.

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ He put the things down just inside the door and the two of them met eyes for a moment, dopey smiles on their faces. He reached over and squeezed her mittened hand, and then turned and walked back to his house.

  Alice closed her door and exhaled. She faced Bear. ‘So?’ she asked. ‘You were my market researcher. Is the mountain air just making me dizzy or are you as smitten as I am?’

  The following morning, Alice was in flow, sketching cartoons of Bear building snow dogs, when cheery noises arose from next door. She peeped out of the window to see Noah and Lola returned, along with two older people that must have been Noah and Marco’s parents. Cases and coats and gifts were being passed through the front door, with cries in both Swiss-German and English of ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Happy New Year’, nobody quite sure which should be said in the interim period between the two dates.

  Bear stood by the front door, waiting to be let out to meet these potential new best friends.

  ‘Let’s give them a little time to settle in and spend some time with their son before you go barging in and steal everyone’s thunder,’ Alice said to him.

  He looked at her, huffed, and sat down, but still faced the door.

&
nbsp; She loved that view of him – his big, rectangle of a back, neck as wide as shoulders, head as thick as neck, with his ears squared forwards, listening, his Swiss kiss a handsome detail. She picked up a new sheet of paper and sketched this view of him too.

  It felt good to draw again. There were some subjects that didn’t translate well in cartoon form – either it wasn’t appropriate or their naturally animated selves couldn’t translate on the page. But Bear’s quirks, his tufts of fur, his expressions and his silliness worked well.

  Bear came back towards the table and flumped down, lying on her feet, covering both with a heavy warmth. ‘Remember when you used to be so small that you’d only be able to lie on one of my feet?’ she asked him. Not that he had ever been what a normal dog owner would call ‘small’.

  She reached for her phone and scrolled back through countless photos from the past four months, stopping occasionally at particularly amusing ones in order to transfer them into cartoon form. It was only when her tummy let out such a growl that Bear jumped up that she realised how long she’d sat there, and how many little cartoons she’d drawn.

  Alice went to the kitchen and picked up the Tupperware box of homemade mince pies her mum had packed her off with, all decorated with pastry stars and edible gold glitter spray. She had an idea.

  ‘Fancy stretching your legs a bit, Mr Bear?’ she asked, pulling on her snow boots and a big scarf. She tucked the tub under her arm and took Bear next door.

  Lola answered the knock, throwing the door wide open and her arms around Alice. ‘Merry Christmas!’ she cried. Bear charged in without waiting for an invitation, leaving snowy, wet paw prints across their wooden floors. Not that any of them minded – indoor snow was par for the course for ski instructors.

  ‘Come in. Noah’s folks are here, you gotta meet them. Oh, your dog already has.’

  In the living room, Bear was already desperately stretching his neck forwards trying to lick at Noah and Marco’s mum’s chin, while their dad was picking up scattered pieces of a Cluedo board from the floor, Bear’s tail sweeping it for any remains.