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 willloveyour 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, sayingGlad 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.
