Christmas in the Snow (25 page)

She recovered, just, but anger quickly replaced adrenalin as she scanned the skiers ahead, trying to determine which one it had been. It was almost impossible to tell. Everyone was hunched down
in a racing position, helmets and goggles on, plumes of powder dusting the air and reducing visibility.

But she had a clue. One of them was in red and black kit, and she’d seen it when it still had the price tags attached.

Tucking herself down, her eyes trained on his back like a sniper’s gun, she stretched out her turns, flattening her line as near to a vertical drop as she dared. Gaining quickly as he
almost punched the ground with his poles, she sped past him again with a defiant ‘Ha!’, leaving him behind her.

Allegra didn’t dare to look back. She’d never been frightened of speed, but she’d never gone this fast before either and she felt like a cello string turned to breaking point
– too much one way and she’d snap, too little and she’d fall slack. She was already over halfway down the run, a route she didn’t know and had never skied before, and though
her eyes were sharp on the snow ahead, she couldn’t get her mind off the skier behind. The sun was behind her and his shadow criss-crossed hers constantly, like they were duelling, everyone
else forgotten.

They moved into the trees, the light changing and the wind dropping. Everything became more lucid there and that was when she heard it again – the sudden slicing sound, just feet away, it
seemed, too close. She couldn’t help herself – she had to look to see exactly what the margin was between them and she glanced up on the next turn, the fibres in her muscles flinching
at the sight of the silent skier just metres behind, his eyes tracked not on the snow but on her.

The indulgence cost her. The momentary glance was all it took to take a bit of pace off her speed and in the next instant he was past her, his triumphant smile just a blur as his greater weight
gave him the momentum to ease past.

She made her turns tighter and shorter still, as brief as she dared without finishing the rest of this run on a straight downward trajectory, but it was no good. Ability, ambition and
determination couldn’t help her here. Plain and simple physics were going to be the deciding factor in this. The gap between them was growing and he began to pull away, even though she
matched his tracks. Life felt like it was on fast forward and zoom all at once as she tried to close the gap, her thighs burning, her breath coming faster than it did during her boxing classes.

They turned off the end of the piste and onto a road that led back into town, the final stretch. Its gradient was fairly shallow, but it was narrow and icy, and the speed at which they were both
travelling meant they flew along like it was a luge, both of them tucked tight as they tried to minimize their wind resistance on the straight home run. She could gain on him here . . .

They were just about at the roof level of the chalets now, and she tucked herself smaller still. She could do this; she could still take him. She knew she could. If she could just—

They ran out of slope. This mountain wasn’t big enough for the two of them. The road had levelled off and she almost collided with him as she slid to an abrupt stop, the parking equivalent
of a handbrake turn. Showering him with snow was scant consolation, though, and he had the nerve to be standing with his goggles pushed up and clicking off his skis, as though he’d been
standing there for hours.

He stared down at her with cold contempt and she blinked back at him, her breath coming hard, tears pricking her eyes behind her goggles, which she would not – under any circumstance now
– take off.

‘Hey, Legs!’ Isobel shouted, waving her pole to catch her attention. ‘Over here!’

Allegra glanced across, but it was all it took to break the spell. When she looked back, Sam had turned and was already walking off.

‘I miss my baby,’ Isobel said in a quiet moan, watching as a toddler was pulled through the snow on a sledge by his father. They were walking back through the town,
skis stowed in lockers, and Isobel was keen to top up her Christmas shopping. The Infinity race had been high-octane fun, but once the excitement and adrenalin had ebbed, they had been left even
more exhausted than before and had only managed a few snoozy blues before calling it quits for the day.

‘Of course you do,’ Allegra said, looping her arm through her sister’s and squeezing it. ‘It’s only natural. But he’s with his grandparents, remember, and
Lloyd’s around in the evenings. I bet he’s being spoilt rotten. It’s probably ice cream and chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.’

‘Oh God, don’t say that. He’s a nightmare at letting me clean his teeth. I’m sure he’ll have fillings before he’s two.’

Allegra chuckled. How could this neurosis come from the same woman who’d just – according to her ski app – clocked a top speed of 103 kilometres an hour on the downhill?
‘Iz, he’ll be fine.’

A carriage slid past, the horses’ hooves picking high out of the snow, the driver’s face almost obscured by the thick grey collar of his coat, the tinkle of jingling bells like a
soundtrack to Christmas.

The town was busy again. The weather had closed in on the upper slopes throughout the course of the afternoon, forcing some of the lifts to stop, and all but the most hardened skiers had come
back down.

‘Come on, let’s get a hot chocolate. Your nose has gone all red from the cold.’

‘It has not!’ Isobel gasped, immediately covering it with her other gloved hand.

Allegra laughed. Her sister was so vain. ‘Besides, there’s something I want to tell you,’ she said, steering them towards a cafe on the opposite corner.

She waited for the inevitable pestering as Isobel’s curiosity was piqued, needing to know
now
. She had never been one for delayed gratification.

But there was nothing.

Turning, she saw Isobel wasn’t behind her but peering in the window of the gift shop next door, hands round her face as she tried to get a better view of something inside.

‘What are you looking at?’ she called from the cafe door.

‘There’s an amazing nativity set here, Legs. Come and see.’

‘I don’t want to come and see. I want to thaw out.’

‘But I really want to get one for Ferds.’

‘
Why?
’

‘What do you mean, why? It’s the Christmas Story.’

‘Right. Because that was always forefront in your mind when you woke me at dawn every Christmas Day for fifteen years.’

Isobel stuck out her tongue. ‘You might hate Christmas, but we need a nativity set now we’ve got a child. Not having a nativity set is like not having a Christmas tree or not having
turkey or—’

Allegra sighed. Her sister didn’t have a religious bone in her body and yet she wanted to recreate a biblical scene in her sitting room? ‘Fine! You get that. I’ll order the
drinks and meet you in here.’

Isobel squealed with excitement and darted inside, as though Allegra was her mother and had given her permission to buy sweets at the corner shop.

Allegra ordered two foamy hot chocolates and a strudel for them to share, and found a table for them by the steamed-up windows. It was busy in there, clearly a sort of happy hour for the coffee
shops as tired skiers and shoppers alike converged for a well-earned rest.

Absently, she wiped the window with her hand, looking out onto the street like she was peering through a gap in the clouds. Her silent combat with Kemp earlier had left her shaken. She still
couldn’t recall anything of last night after she’d clocked him behind Zhou, but she remembered his hostility – then and today – at finding her here in Zermatt and it rattled
her. What did
he
have to be so angry about? She was the one who’d lost the war!

Isobel joined her minutes later, an enormous cardboard box in her arms.

‘Oh my good God!’ Allegra burst out laughing. ‘Is that it? It’s almost to scale, surely.’

‘It’s uh-mazing!’ Isobel beamed, sitting down opposite, her eyes shining. ‘You should see the stuff they’ve got in there. All hand-made wooden toys and decorations.
The girl told me her dad and grandfather still make it all themselves.’

‘Yeah, right. They say that to justify putting the prices up another thirty per cent. I bet you find a “Made in China” label underneath.’

‘You are
so
cynical. Honestly, I pity you. Pity you,’ she echoed with a superior smile.

‘And obviously you’ve factored in the cost of getting that back on the plane. You may as well buy another seat for what they’re going to charge you.’

Isobel’s smile disappeared, panic moulding her mouth into a small ‘o’. ‘Lloyd’ll kill me.’

‘Oh, it’s fine. I was only teasing!’ Allegra smiled, rolling her eyes and patting her sister on the hand. ‘I’ll cover it.’

‘No, but—’

‘No, no buts. Just forget about it. You’d better let me see it, though. I assume it comes with a free donkey?’

Isobel grinned, putting the box on the floor and pulling in her chair. ‘I’ll show you back at the apartment. They wrapped all the pieces individually and it’s a bit crowded in
here. Besides, I want to hear what your news is,’ she said, taking such a big slurp of her drink that she ended up with a chocolatey moustache.

‘Oh, so you
did
hear me . . . Right . . . Good.’

‘Sounds ominous,’ Isobel said with a frown.

‘Uh, no. No, not ominous . . .’ Allegra cleared her throat. ‘Actually, it’s sort of good news.’

Isobel frowned harder. ‘Now I’m really worried. Spit it out.’

Allegra took a deep breath. ‘I found out this morning that . . . Valentina’s husband, and therefore our, uh . . . grandfather . . . He’s alive.’ She cleared her throat
again.

‘Say what?’ Isobel murmured after an age.

‘He’s not dead. Never has been.’

Isobel blinked. ‘And how exactly did you find out that?’

‘I ended up – slightly accidentally, actually – in the local church this morning. Turned out the priest knew quite a lot about her. It’s been in the local papers
apparently. People have been going in and lighting candles for her. He even checked the parish records for me and showed me their marriage entry. And Mum’s birth.’ She had denied it for
as long as she could but their mother’s birth record, right here in Zermatt, had been the final proof that Annen had the right family, anchoring once and for all the fact that Valentina was
their grandmother, and Anya had lied.

Isobel’s eyes widened. ‘Mum was born here?’

‘Mm-hmm. And our family – the Engelbergs – had one of the largest goat farms in the valley.’

‘Oh jeez, I don’t believe it. Peasant stock after all. Lloyd will never let me live this down.’ She dropped her head in her hands dramatically.

Allegra squeezed her hand. ‘That’s not the main point I’m trying to make, Iz. Contrary to what Granny told us, Mum’s dad never died when Mum was little. He’s still
alive and living here.’

‘Here?
Here
?’ Isobel spluttered.

Allegra nodded, pulling out the piece of paper the priest had written on for her. ‘That’s his address. He’s about six minutes away.’

Isobel withdrew, sitting back in the chair, shaking her head slightly from side to side, every bit as stubborn as her sister. ‘How can you know what he’s saying is true? He’s a
stranger. How can he know more about our own family than we do?’

‘Because he’s a priest, Iz. And because I saw the entries with my own eyes.’ She reached her hands out towards her sister’s, over the table. ‘Hey, we’ve got a
grandfather. This is a good thing.’ She smiled more strongly, hoping she was doing a passable job of looking happy about it. ‘Hell, it’s a great thing! Poor Ferds is the first boy
born into the family in five generations. Frankly, he could do with a bit of male company!’

Isobel had to crack a small smile at that, and her posture loosened a little. ‘I guess,’ she said quietly. But Allegra knew she was thinking about their granny, wondering about the
lies she had told and why. What could have happened that she had written him out, erased him altogether from their family history? It felt almost as though him being dead wasn’t enough.
‘So what now?’

‘I think we should go and see him. It’s crazy not to, when we’re already here and, well . . . he’s Mum’s father! We have a responsibility to at least talk to him
and let him know that he’s got a family.’

‘But I don’t understand how he can’t know already.’ Isobel frowned. ‘I mean, if Mum’s his daughter, what did he think had happened to her? Do you think Granny
told him
Mum
was dead? It doesn’t make sense. Why would he have lost his daughter and not known what had happened to her? What was Granny bloody well
doing
?’

Allegra sighed wearily. She had just as many questions jumping around in her own head. ‘I’ve got no idea. I guess we’ll only find out by asking him.’

‘What, now?’

‘No, not now. I think we both need a bit of time to just . . . absorb the news. And anyway, we should go to the police station first. We need to collect Valentina’s personal effects,
and we also need to sign off on transfer of her remains.’ She pulled a nervous expression. ‘Oh, and that’s the other thing that happened this morning.’

‘What? What other thing? Jeez, I thought you just went out to get milk!’

‘Yes, well . . .’ Allegra took another deep breath. She’d been wise not to do this in the throes of their hangovers. ‘I think we should organize a cremation and memorial
service for Valentina here.’

Isobel stared at her for a moment. ‘But what about Mum? The whole point of coming out here was to bring Valentina back with us and have more time to decide what to do about telling
Mum.’

Allegra shook her head. ‘I know, but . . . the more I think about it, the more it seems wrong to take her away from the only place she ever knew. There are people here who still remember
her. The priest said people have been coming in and—’

‘Lighting candles for her. Yes, yes, you said,’ Isobel said distractedly, staring at her nails.

‘He also gave me the details of a highly regarded crematorium and said he’d be able to conduct a service for her on Thursday, before we go back. It’ll be tight but it was the
best he could do.’