Page 112 of A Season in the Snow

Chapter 50

Heathrow Airport. There was something about this place. It was busy and hectic and brimming with hope. As Alice chowed down on a chunk of Toblerone inside the arrivals hall on the warm June day, the man she was waiting for rounded the corner, as handsome as ever.

Although Alice had gone home just with Bear, Marco and she were spending the summer together in Wales, moving into a rented cottage in the countryside, a family of three, where Marco had been awarded a place with a mountain rescue team in the Brecon Beacons. And here he was.

He didn’t spot her at first, and paused outside the customs gate to put his passport into his rucksack. She watched him scan the crowd and waited for his eyes to meet hers, giving herself plenty of time to reacquaint herself with his sandy hair, sun-kissed skin, his strong arms as bare in the summer as he left them in winter.

He was here for her. She was here for him. When Marco’s gaze found Alice’s, and he smiled, it was clear they were both exactly where they belonged. She stretched her arms wide, and ran towards her future.

It was early in August and the hot weather, even here in Wales, was keeping Bear inside in the cool, which suited Alice, who had been using the day to quietly remember the best friend she’d lost a year ago. She had spread her art materials over the kitchen table of the rented cottage she shared with Marco and was putting some finishing touches to the page proofs of her dog cartoon book that was due to be published in time for Christmas.

Marco walked through their door, carrying fish and chips, their new Thursday night tradition, and Alice rose, contentedly, stretching out her back, kissing him, and following him out to their garden where they sat at their patio table and unwrapped their dinner. Bear kept very close, his nose sniff-sniff-sniffing the air.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Alice said, her legs stretched across Marco’s. ‘I’ve always been more of a summer girl than a winter girl, but there’s something about Switzerland . . . I didn’t know before that wintertime could be so bright and open and . . . warm.’

‘Mürren suited you a lot,’ Marco agreed, munching on half a chip and feeding the other half to Bear, who loved him more than anything else in the whole world right now.

‘I think it did. I felt like I got back to me there, but also transformed into someone who doesn’t want to hang around and wait for things to happen or ideas to slowly come to life any more.’

A smile was forming on Marco’s mouth, just slightly, in the very corners, like he could guess what was coming but didn’t want to assume.

‘So I think,’ Alice continued, ‘that maybe the mountains are calling, and we should answer, as they say. How would you feel about you and me renting a chalet there over this winter?’

It was a ‘yes’ before it was even a question. She’d known how happy this would make Marco, and there was nothing she loved more than his happy, beaming face. Well, maybe there was one face she loved the same amount, for the same reason.

Last summer, Alice had felt airless, lost in the woods. But in time, with her dog at her side and with a little help, she’d found her way up to the top of the mountain. And while she’d always be a little changed, the version of herself she’d found could see life stretched out before her.

Alice could breathe again.