Highland Fling (38 page)

Conversation soon became impossible, even if Jenny could have thought of anything to say that was not in some way contentious. She didn’t mean to do it, but whenever she spoke, she became sharp, bitter almost.

He stopped again, and whenever he turned round, she tried not to pant. She didn’t want him to know how unfit she was.

She had a feeling he wasn’t remotely fooled when he said, ‘So what jollifications has this excursion made you miss?’

‘Nothing much.’ She took her water bottle out of her pocket and found it had cracked and was empty. Without saying anything, he retrieved another one. Not only had he had the forethought to take off his pack before he went rolling down the mountain, but his water was in an aluminium bottle. She took a few sips. ‘I can’t remember. Oh yes, drinks with the Malcolms.’ A vision of him whirling Fiona Malcolm off her feet flashed into her mind. So determined not to feel jealous, or worse, sound it, she gabbled on. ‘Dalmain House don’t do the fun things about Christmas, like Christmas trees and fairy lights, only the hard-work things, like meals. They don’t even give each other stockings.’

‘Do you and Henry? Did you and Henry?’

‘I always did him one, but he didn’t do one for me. It’s harder for him to go shopping, and I like doing them. I always do one for my mother, and, of course, she gives me one.’ Oh God! What am I talking about? He can’t be remotely interested.

With the light behind him, she couldn’t read his expression as he looked down at her. Suddenly she felt frightened and foolish and wished herself a million miles away. Or in Surrey. Even without her mother, or Henry, at least she wouldn’t feel frightened, in physical danger.

‘Don’t worry,’ Ross said quietly. ‘I won’t let any harm come to you. You’ll come out of this completely safe.’

‘Will I?’ Suddenly she felt safe no longer just meant
alive, free from frostbite, not suffering from hypothermia. Safe meant not spending the rest of her life mourning her lost love, a love so hopelessly misdirected it would never find its way home. Which was worse, she pondered, being God knew where, up a mountain, in the snow, or falling for a man she couldn’t exchange half a dozen civil words with, and who probably thought she was the silliest woman alive?

‘You have my promise.’

Tears pricked her eyes, but as they were already watering from the cold and wind, he wouldn’t notice. But she felt so vulnerable, entirely dependent on a man who cared no more for her than he would have done for any sheep on its back, or party of people who needed digging out of a car.

They stopped often. Each time he made her drink water, or eat a sweet, of take a few bites of a cereal bar. Jenny stopped trying to make polite conversation beyond, ‘Thank you’ and ‘Here you are.’ She was aching everywhere it was possible to ache. Her heart was definitely the worst; that wouldn’t get better no matter how much sleep she had, how many hot baths.

‘Here we are,’ he said eventually.

Jenny looked. Above them, the mountain loomed blackly, too steep and windswept for the snow to cling. Beneath, was a gently curved hillock. ‘Where?’

He indicated a small hillock, then heaved his rucksack off his back and opened it. From it he produced a folding aluminium spade. He made a few tentative prods and then started scraping away at the side of the hillock.

‘You don’t expect me to sleep here?’ demanded Jenny.

‘That's up to you, but this is where we’re going to spend the night. Sleeping is optional.’

‘But there’s nothing here! We’re on top of a mountain, with no shelter, and you talk about spending the night!’

‘You’d be in worse trouble if I said we had to go for another hour. You’re done for, I’m bloody tired, and this is where we can spend the night in some degree of comfort. Now shut up!’

Jenny bit her lip to stop herself going on at him. No woman likes to whine, and Jenny was aware that, however justified her anxieties, any further mention of them would be perceived as whining. Anxiously she watched as Ross scraped away at the soft snow. A shape emerged. It looked to Jenny like an igloo, but she wasn’t going to say that and be mocked. Presently he straightened up.

‘There. Wait here.’ He wriggled into the snowy mass and, a few moments later, wriggled back out again. ‘More of a palace, than a snow hole,’ he said, panting slightly. ‘Come in.’

Tentatively she dropped to her knees and crawled in through the narrow gap. It felt horribly as if she were surrendering to the snow she’d been fighting all day. But once inside the snow hole, she knew what he meant.

It was like a cave, only the roof had been smoothed over. Two platforms, like beds were raised either side of the entrance tunnel. Another, wider ledge, extended right to the back wall.

‘Shove up,’ said Ross, and shuffled in after her,
dragging his rucksack behind him. He sat on one of the platforms and opened it, pulling things out, hunting for others. ‘Here,’ he said at last. ‘Take these. There’s probably somewhere to put them already.’

She took the three candles and stuck them into the niches she spotted round the walls. ‘Matches?’

He handed her a box. Lit, the candles turned the cave into a fairy grotto. Jenny was entranced by the beauty of it and looked around, amazed and delighted. ‘It is awfully
Dr Zhivago,’
she said, demoting it several degrees. ‘But what’s to stop us freezing to death?’

‘Sleeping bags.’ He pulled out a folded bundle, then another.

‘You knew we’d have to be out all night, then?’

‘It’s always a good idea to take precautions, but I did have a good idea that we would, yes.’ He sighed, reading her mind. ‘I know you don’t believe we couldn’t have got home from where I met you, but you have to take it on trust.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s not all bad. I brought food, as well. And whisky.’

‘But I thought alcohol brought on hypothermia. They always say that. All those huge dogs, little barrels of death round their necks.’

Ross laughed. ‘It would do if we didn’t have enough food or bedding. As it is, we’ll be fine. It is Christmas, after all. Here, spread these out.’

Two plastic foam sleeping mats sprang into life the moment Jenny undid their ties. She laid the sleeping bags on top of them, one each side of the entrance tunnel.

Ross had produced a camping stove and set it up, ready to light. ‘I’m going to get some snow, so we can have water. You make yourself comfortable.’

Jenny arranged herself on top of one of the sleeping bags. It would have been warmer to get in it, but that would have meant taking her boots off, and she knew that when Ross came back she’d have to go out herself. The snow hole might well have been a palace, and an awful lot better than spending the night on the side of a mountain, but it wasn’t en suite.

The stove was alight and Ross was boiling snow when she came back. ‘Why don’t you get into bed and keep warm?’ he suggested. ‘You don’t want to lose all that body heat you’ve spent all day building up.’

‘OK. I must say, I would really hate to die of cold now. It would be such a pathetic end, it being Christmas Day and all.’

He laughed again as if her little witticisms were actually funny. ‘They say It’s very pleasant, but how they know, they don’t say. Not that you’re going to die of cold.’ His look in the flickering, eerie light of the candles was very intense. ‘I’m going to do everything in my power to prevent it.’

His reassurance made her more anxious. ‘But It’s not at all likely, is it? I was just being flippant.’

‘Not with me here, no. Now, get your boots off and snuggle down.’

She fiddled fruitlessly with her laces for a while. ‘I can’t,’ she said eventually. ‘My fingers won’t work.’

‘Here, let me.’ His strong fingers released her ankles from the grip of the boots, and as he eased each one off her foot, she felt blissful relief. Her foot lay in his hands. ‘That feel better?’

‘Mm.’ It was wonderful to be free of the boot, but her foot, small and slightly damp in its scarlet sock, felt very sensitive to his touch. His thumb brushed her
instep, so briefly she didn’t know if it was deliberate. Then he started on the other boot.

When both feet were free, he said, ‘Don’t let them get cold. I’m going to make stew. Here,’ he passed her his rucksack. ‘Find the whisky.’

Jenny began to feel a sort of wary contentment. She knew it was temporary, but for the moment she and Ross weren’t fighting, the rehydrated stew had a flavour all its own, but it was filling and warming. Ross had brought two huge wholemeal rolls to go with it, and the whisky took away any lingering anxiety. Just enjoy this moment, Jenny thought. It might be the happiest of your life.

Ross, tucked into his sleeping bag across from her, made her feel very safe. He was so near. She could reach out an arm and almost touch him. She sighed. He was still too far away. She closed her eyes and imagined not hating him, imagined him nearer, much nearer, without several kilos of down and nylon between them. It was a blissful fantasy. Even if he didn’t think she was the most irritating woman in the universe, there was probably some ethical objection to making love to someone you’ve rescued, even if you wanted to. And he probably didn’t much want to. He had kissed her a couple of times, but both times it had been to keep her quiet. And it had worked, damn it! Bloody men, bloody, bloody men. She sighed deeply, and without realising quite how it was happening, she fell asleep.

She awoke later. The candles had gone out, but the snow hole was full of strange, white light. She was very cold and very wide awake. She couldn’t read her watch, but she sensed that it was still the middle of the
night. She had gone to sleep very early. She had probably had her full quota of sleep and yet it was still dark, and still nighttime.

There was no sound from Ross. He slept very silently. In fact, if she hadn’t seen his shape, dark and solid, she might have worried that he’d abandoned her. She wouldn’t have entirely blamed him. She had been extremely difficult. He hadn’t been perfect, of course, but she had acted completely out of character. She’d been petulant, difficult, downright rude. But then, he brought out the worst in her. Well, not any more. From now on she would be the Jenny Porter she knew and loved, who was polite, obeyed conventions and played by the rules. She turned onto her back, wondering how she was to pass the long, cold hours ahead.

‘Are you cold?’ he asked.

‘A bit. Did I wake you?’

‘Not really. I heard you stirring, but I wouldn’t have done if I’d really been asleep.’

‘What time is it?’

She heard him withdrawing his arm from his sleeping bag. ‘About two.’

‘We’ve got all the night ahead of us.’

‘You sound as if that was a bad thing.’

‘Well, isn’t it?’

‘Not when there’s such a fabulous moon.’

‘You can’t see the moon.’

‘I can see its light, and so can you. Come on. Let’s go for a walk.’

‘In the middle of the night?’

‘It was you who were complaining about having all the night ahead of us! Now let’s go out and play in the snow.’

‘I never thought I’d hear a rough, tough, mountain rescue man use a word like “play” in connection with snow,’ her good resolutions about being polite forgotten.

‘It’s not all grim reality, you know. We have fun as well.’

Extracting herself from her sleeping bag, finding her boots and putting them on, all seemed to take time, but at last she was ready.

‘You go on out,’ Ross said. ‘I’ve got a couple of things to do.’

She scrambled out into the snow and as she stood upright, she saw the snow-hole glow. Ross had lit a candle.

The storm had been over long enough for the fresh snow to firm up a little. Although it was deep, it was satisfying to walk through. She felt stiff but as she loosened up, she began to feel light-hearted, a little childlike.

‘I love the creaking and squeaking you get with each tread,’ she said, almost skipping.

‘Mm. I love snow altogether.’ He took her hand, and suddenly, conversation no longer seemed either necessary, or particularly desirable.

The moon cast long, mauve shadows on the snow. The mountain above them no longer seemed lowering, but watchful, benign. They walked across the way, where the snow was thinner, crisper, and what before had seemed hard, difficult work, now seemed easy.

When they’d been out for about half an hour, Ross stopped. ‘Look.’

Jenny turned, and seeing where he was pointing, saw their snow hole, glowing in the moonlight, like
something the fairies had built. ‘It looks like it landed from outer space,’ she said, keeping her fairy analogy to herself.

‘I think it looks magical,’ he said. ‘Come on. We’d better go back, we don’t want to give it time to get cold, and you’ll probably be able to go back to sleep, now.’

They went back in silence. Jenny wished the walk could last for ever. She felt fit and fleet as if she could go on for miles and not feel tired. They reached the snow hole too soon.

‘You go in first,’ he said. ‘I want to make sure the entrance doesn’t get too blocked up by snow.’

‘But it’s not going to snow again now! It’s a brilliantly clear night.’

‘Didn’t you feel that little flurry of wind? Could mean more snow before morning.’

Once inside, she noticed that Ross had moved the sleeping bags. They were now rolled up in a bundle on the ledge at the back of the cave.

As he crawled in he explained. ‘I wanted to keep them together so they didn’t lose their warmth. They should be warm to get back into. Here, let me help you with your boots.’

‘It’s all right. I can manage.’ She suddenly didn’t want him touching her feet, not if he wasn’t going to touch the rest of her too.

She took her time over getting them off, embarrassed by her churlishness, not wanting to go back to the loneliness of her single sleeping bag. She heard Ross rustling, zipping noises behind her, and, slightly irritated, wondered what he was doing. When at last she turned round, she saw that he was lying on the ledge at the back.

‘I’ve zipped the two bags together. It’s much more efficient heat-wise, if we sleep in the same one. I hope you don’t mind.’

Part of Jenny laughed. The irony of it! The object of all her dreams and fantasies asking her if she minded sharing a double sleeping bag! If she hadn’t behaved like a spoilt brat on a picnic, this could have been an invitation to heaven. Apart from the fact that between them they were both wearing more clothes than the entire Hawkshead catalogue.