Christmas in the Snow

by Karen Swan

  ‘He means “staff”,’ Allegra shouted, taking another sip. God, but she had a sudden thirst on. Pierre wasn’t coming, the Yongs weren’t here, and she was left with an abundance of adrenalin that had nowhere to go. ‘Fairytale of New York’ was pumping through the speakers, Kirsty MacColl’s voice clear and defiant, throwing verbal punches at her lover even as she came in for the kiss.

  ‘But you were so sexy in the dress.’ He had begun to whine. ‘I wanted you to stand out of the cloud. I wanted every man’s eyes on you.’

  ‘Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want every man’s eyes on me?’ she asked, placing a hand on his arm. ‘Besides, I think there are more than enough women here vying for that honour.’ As if to prove her point, a rail-thin white-blonde with a tight bun and infeasible cleavage sashayed past. Frank’s eyes followed again.

  ‘But you are lost here,’ Massi scolded.

  ‘Lost is what I want,’ she replied truthfully. She had wanted to hide in this crowd tonight, be visible to the only two men who mattered in her life right now. But neither of them had showed and she was left here like a lone shadow in the lights.

  ‘Hey! Allegra?’

  Another voice cut into their conversation. She turned as if in slow motion.

  Max smiled back at her, a beer in one hand, his eyes on her alone as he leaned in and kissed her on the corner of her mouth, just like last time – deliberately ambiguous, much like their relationship, which had been kindled but not consummated.

  He stood apart from the crowd for the same reasons as her – woefully underdressed – but he was still better-looking than was polite in a red and navy check shirt and jeans. She half wondered where he’d got the beer from – as far as she was aware, vintage champagne and vodka were tonight’s tipples, in keeping with the party (and indeed chalet’s) all-white Christmas theme.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped in surprise, her eyes searching the crowd for the others.

  ‘Jacques is hanging with a girl who was invited. She said it was cool to come.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought you left Zermatt. You said you were only staying a few days.’

  It was hard to find her voice. ‘Our plans changed.’

  ‘Because . . . ?’

  She had no intention of getting into the details of her grandmother’s memorial service. ‘We’re finishing up some family business.’

  ‘Unfinished business, huh?’ he smiled, his eyes soft upon her, and she knew he was alluding to them. ‘Well, I am pleased. Where are you staying? Same place?’

  ‘Uh, no . . . Here, actually.’

  ‘Here?’ He looked younger suddenly, as he took in the lavish scale of the chalet. It belonged to a world that he would probably never see beyond this point. Nor would much care to.

  She nodded, remembering suddenly Frank and Massi standing beside them, watching everything. ‘God, I’m sorry – I’m being so rude. Frank, Massi, this is Max.’

  The men nodded sternly – both suspicious of the beautiful man-child in their midst who was seemingly unaware of the glances he attracted from women and appeared to have eyes only for Allegra.

  Massi took a half-step into the space. ‘We have met before,’ he said in a low growl.

  ‘Yeah?’ Max replied with a quizzical grin. Everything about him – his longer hair, baby beard, baggy clothes, ready smile and languid pose – marked him out as a different animal to the buttoned-up international playboys here tonight. ‘So, did you ski today?’ Max asked, opening up the conversation to the rest of the group, but his eyes permanently coming back to Allegra, like the swing of a compass to magnetic north.

  Frank excused himself on the pretext of getting a fresh drink, most likely making a beeline for any woman who was surrounded by less men.

  ‘Well, do you want to say, or shall I?’ Massi asked her, but he had lost the happy-go-lucky smile she had already come to know and quite love.

  She gave an exaggerated groan, eager to keep the tone light. She didn’t quite understand Massi’s undoubted aversion to Max. ‘We went heli-skiing and I lost a ski at the top.’

  Max immediately pulled a face that suggested he understood exactly the potential gravity of that scenario. ‘But how? You are so good.’

  ‘Just caught an edge,’ she sighed, trying not to remember her hurt at Bob’s phone call to Sam.

  ‘So how did you get down?’ He looked across at Massi. ‘You stayed with her, yes?’

  The point was subtle, but there. They were squaring up.

  ‘I was already ahead,’ Massi said, pushing out his chest. ‘I knew nothing about it till the phone call from Sam. He was with her.’

  Allegra’s eyes snapped across to Massi. Had he deliberately put the stress on that word, or was it just his terrible English?

  Max seemed to pick up the unusual syntax too. ‘Who’s Sam?’

  ‘Sam, you remember. He is over there,’ Massi said, stepping closer to Max and wrapping an arm over the younger man’s shoulder, pointing out Sam across the room. ‘Can you see him?’

  It was easy to spot him – he was already staring over at them all.

  Allegra felt her stomach twist as Massi waved, a generous friendly gesture to come over. Max’s gaze strayed questioningly to Allegra and she felt her stomach lurch.

  ‘Hey. What’s up?’

  Sam was standing beside them with a drink in his hand and that familiar dark look that was like a firewall – keeping everything outside out, keeping everything inside in. He didn’t look at her at all and she felt the last of the afternoon’s truce crumble like a stale cake. His earlier warmth on the snow had gone completely and they were back to their usual checkmate.

  ‘Sam, I want you to meet Allegra’s friend Max,’ Massi said with an unnaturally light tone.

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember. We met the other night,’ Max said first, tipping his beer bottle in easy greeting, but the tension in their little group had tightened into a hard knot. Everyone felt it.

  ‘I remember too.’

  ‘You see, Sam remembers too,’ Massi said, looking back down at Max, his usually laughing eyes wide and stony cold. ‘He remembers everything that happened at the Broken Bar, don’t you, Sam?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Max looked between the two older men, seemingly not intimidated by them, seemingly not as baffled by their aggression as Allegra.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ she asked.

  ‘Hey, man, it was all legal, just a bit of fun,’ Max shrugged.

  ‘Yeah. There’s just the small issue of consent,’ Sam snarled.

  ‘Did she look to you like she wasn’t having a good t—’

  He didn’t get to finish the sentence. In the next moment, Sam had rushed at him, slamming him against the wall.

  ‘Oh my God! Massi, do something!’ she cried, seeing Sam’s hand drawn back in a fist, ready to fly. The people immediately around them parted, looking on curiously as Max was held up by his shirt collar, his feet on tiptoes on the ground, but there was too much noise and movement for the ruckus to be noticed by the rest of the crowd.

  Massi waded in. ‘Hey, hey! Leave him to me, my friend. I can throw this boy further in the snow. Leave him.’

  Massi lowered Sam’s arm, patting him on the shoulder as Sam dropped Max from the hold.

  ‘Hey, what’s your problem, man?’ Max coughed, his eyes catching everyone’s stares.

  ‘You know exactly what my problem is,’ Sam snarled, his jaw clenching again.

  ‘You’re just jealous I got there before y—’

  Sam flew again, but this time Massi stopped him, blocking his path and hauling Max off his feet and through the crowd like a naughty little boy.

  Allegra looked after them both in open-mouthed horror.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ she demanded, turning to Sam. ‘Who do you think you are to treat him like that? What’s he done to you to deserve being humiliated like that?’

  ‘It’s what he’s done to you that’s the problem.�
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  Allegra cocked an eyebrow. ‘That’s what this is about? You’re behaving like some jealous little schoolboy because he kissed me? Jesus Christ, just grow up, why don’t you!’

  ‘Allegra—’

  ‘No! Fuck you!’ she said angrily, turning away from him and darting into the crowd, past Zhou and Jae Won – still deep in conversation – past the Russian escorts showing what they had on the dance floor, past the waiters scurrying to and from the kitchen with sterling-silver trays pressed flat on their upturned palms. She ran into the lift, the doors closing as she heard her name called.

  Her heart accelerated as the lift moved down and she willed it to go faster, but half a flight on pulleys took longer than on foot. Oh God, why hadn’t she taken the stairs?

  The doors opened again on the lower level just seconds later and she darted out, but it was too late: Sam was already at the bottom steps, his jacket flying behind him as he rushed at her.

  ‘Wait!’ he demanded, standing in her way.

  ‘No!’ she shouted, pushing against him to get past.

  His hands closed on her elbows and held her in place. ‘You don’t know what’s going on!’

  ‘I know enough,’ she snapped, trying to wrest her arms free, but he held her fast. ‘Let me past!’ she shouted. She was almost shaking with rage. She couldn’t stand it with him any more. None of it. Just his presence in the same room made her lungs compress, her head spin, her palms sweat. He made the world tip off its axis so that nothing made sense: kindness felt like a trick, intimacy a cruel joke. Aggression and hostility were the only behaviours she understood in him, for they were clear to read and easy to understand, the inevitable consequences of chemistry turning toxic.

  ‘He drugged you, Allegra.’

  Her body slackened in his grip and he let her go, taking a step back.

  ‘What?’ she whispered, her eyes never leaving him, searching his face for clues.

  ‘It’s called sparkle, one of these so-called legal highs. It dissolves in your drink, makes you . . . happy, free . . .’

  She watched his lips moving, but her mind was elsewhere, remembering the killing hangover the next day . . . the persistent blank about the night before.

  ‘His friend put it in your drink in the bar. Massi saw them and alerted the managers, then told us. Apparently those guys have already been banned at half the clubs in town.’

  She tensed suddenly, panic infusing her face. ‘Did I . . . ? How did I get home? What did I . . . ?’

  ‘We took you back ourselves.’

  ‘You did?’ She stared at him, completely unable to conjure a single memory of him or Massi or Zhou walking her and Iz back to the apartment. Oh God! She covered her face with her hands. She had thought it had been bad enough that Zhou had seen her drunk! But drugged too?

  ‘Hey.’ She felt his hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s OK. Nothing happened. They didn’t touch you.’

  She looked up at him, shaking her head from side to side. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘I know . . . And I wasn’t sure whether or not to tell you. I thought you might think I was . . . interfering or trying to scare you.’ He shrugged. ‘So I decided not to. I told myself the chances were you wouldn’t see him again anyway, but then the next morning, before the race—’

  She looked up at him.

  ‘When he came over and kissed you, I . . .’ He looked down. ‘I thought he was going to try again. I chased after him all the way down that freaking mountain. Nearly took you out too, I realized, when you then started chasing me!’ He shrugged.

  She blinked. He hadn’t done it on purpose?

  ‘By the time I caught up with him at the bottom, Massi was already on their case, roughing them up a bit. He told them to get the hell out of town. So when they turned up tonight . . .’

  She didn’t know what to say. How could she have got this all so wrong? ‘Can’t the police do anything?’

  ‘Technically no. They know about them and have alerted the bars and clubs owners, but the drugs are legal to buy, and there haven’t been any allegations made against these guys. Not yet anyway.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she murmured, looking away, before looking up at him, before looking away again.

  ‘None of it’s your fault. You were just trying to blow off some steam . . . No one could blame you for that.’ He shifted position, looking awkward, and she knew they’d moved onto new ground. Them.

  ‘I should go,’ she said in a quiet voice, turning to move past him.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, taking a half-step towards her. ‘Please. Can we just . . . talk for a bit?’

  ‘There’s nothing to say, Sam.’

  ‘There’s everything to say.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Is talking going to change what you did? Is it going to change what you said that night to Pierre? What you made him say to me?’

  Sam looked taken aback. ‘Allegra, I—’

  She stared at him, waiting for a justification she knew he couldn’t give, even while his eyes were telling her a different story.

  ‘I had to do it.’

  ‘You had to?’ She almost laughed. Whatever had flickered between them for one night in Zurich hadn’t been able to survive the ambition he had bared in London. ‘The deal comes first, right?’

  He stared at her, conflicting emotions running across his face so that she couldn’t tell what he was going to say next. ‘I know you understand it. We’re the same, Allegra.’

  ‘No, we’re not. I never would have hung someone out to dry the way you did with me.’

  ‘No? Then tell me this – would you have hated me if I hadn’t turned up in London afterwards? Would there have been something between us if I’d stayed in Zurich or gone back to New York – off your patch and out of your deal?’

  She looked away, refusing to go down that path. What did he expect her to say when he’d just admitted he’d deliberately thrown her under the train to save himself?

  ‘Answer me.’ He took another step towards her.

  ‘Of course not. That was the point! There was nothing between us except a few hours to kill. It was easy because it meant nothing.’

  ‘Nothing? You want us to keep pretending there’s nothing there?’

  ‘Who’s pretending?’

  He raked back his hair, keeping his hand there, an almost pitying look on his face. ‘Allegra, you never stop pretending. You pretend that you’re not lonely, that you feel nothing but contempt for me. But I know it’s a lie. Every memory from Zurich tells me it’s a lie.’ His voice had changed and she felt her pulse begin to quicken, her body getting ready for flight. ‘Why are we doing this to each other? I thought you were the smartest, sexiest, most intoxicating woman I’d ever met.’

  ‘I’m not interested in what you think.’ She took a step back, but he simply followed and she swallowed hard, hating the way his movements directed hers. She tried standing her ground, but she couldn’t tolerate him standing that close and it was all she could do not to raise her arms like a barrier.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Fine. Be delusional.’

  She twisted away, walking round him, but he simply hooked his arm around her waist and gathered her into him, kissing her with a passion that stripped her of every conscious thought and left nothing but instinct, an instinct that impelled her to kiss him back.

  He pulled away, breathless, his eyes intense and heavy upon hers as her heart beat so loudly she could feel it like a bass beat. ‘I’m the deluded one? Really?’

  She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, but she did neither, his eyes had her in a lock that made it impossible to move. She had run out of fight and excuses. And as his mouth lowered to hers again, slowly this time, she wrapped her arms around his neck and did something she’d never done in her adult life. She gave in.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Day Eighteen: Miniature Cowbell

  She lay in his arms, listening to his heartbeat. She knew its rhy
thm now; she could play it on a drum as it thumped gently beneath her cheek like the kick of an unborn baby. She thought she could lie here forever, his arm heavy and bent around her, his skin warm and tanned beneath her.

  But that was a fantasy. It was already almost over. The Yongs would be arriving soon and these were their dying moments. Her eyes were still, upon the brooding hulk of the Matterhorn, which watched over them in silent constancy, the pre-dawn sky like a bruise behind it. She only had as much time as the night’s span, and the sun was beginning to leach a lambent glow that even the mountains could only hide for so long. When the first shadow hit the north face, she would rise. There would be no point in lamenting it. Tears were a waste of energy, the past a dead thing. And soon this would be past like everything else.

  A twist of hair fell over her face and she pushed it back, holding her arm up in the air as she noticed the ring still on her finger. She’d forgotten about it last night, her token effort at display. Was it made from tin? It really was as modest and humble as a drawing pin.

  She twisted it slightly, thinking how different it was to the flashy engagement ring that had bright yellow gold and not one, not two but three diamonds, and as she did so, her eyes widened in surprise at what she saw. For there, on her skin where the ring had been, was a tiny but perfect indent of a heart.

  Allegra slipped off the ring and saw, under the widest part – where one ordinarily might expect a seal or crest – a shallow heart-shaped rim. Hidden, like a secret.

  Sam stirred slightly, bending his leg so that hers – slung across him – slipped into the warm space, rolling her deeper into him. Sliding the ring back on, she dropped her arm down and closed her eyes, inhaling his scent. He groaned softly in his sleep, the sound a low growl against her ear. She smiled. And her eyes stayed closed.

  ‘Good morning.’

  Her eyes flew open. Sam was sitting with wet hair on the edge of the bed, wearing just a towel and holding a mug.

  ‘I guessed tea. Was I right?’

  She nodded wordlessly, her gaze stuck on him in bafflement. What had happened? Why was he here? Why was she still here?