The taxi took about an hour to get us here through terrifyingly snowy, slippery roads and I was gripping the seat with my fingernails the entire time. Our cabby was, actually, amazing. Nobody would go out in conditions like this at home. I can’t imagine a Cheshire Uber driver even venturing down Castlewych High Street in a snowstorm, let alone setting off on a cross-country trek in a blizzard that’s entirely obscured not only the road markings but all sign of the road itself. I still don’t know how he did it without us ending up in a ditch. It had felt as though we were climbing up to the top of the world, which I suppose, we were, and all the time my neck was getting shorter and stiffer as my shoulders lifted in tense knots.
But here I am in a silent, cosy haven. The bed, covered in a pristine cable-knit throw and plump white quilts, looks unbelievably tempting.
‘Dive in!’ I yell to Nari, who’s standing at the door behind me wrestling a cork from a bottle of red wine.
Soon we’re snuggled up, bare foot, in my enormous bed, sipping the really yummy wine and scoffing iced ginger biscuits in the shape of tiny stars and looking out of the wide pane before us at the grey afternoon. Big fluffy flakes are beginning to fall and I’m trying to resist the urge to sleep that’s stealing over me.
‘Won’t people be able to see in?’ I worry.
‘What people? There are only eight cabins out here and their occupants will be doing exactly what we’re doing, gazing out at the world.’
‘I know but didn’t your mother ever read you fairy tales about dark Scandinavian forests and the granny-eating wolves and axe-wielding woodsmen who live in them? Anybody could pop up at that window.’
‘What? And get an eyeful of us in fleecy pyjamas and facemasks? God forbid!’ Nari laughs and rolls her eyes, and we both settle into silence for a while.
I’ve never heard quietness like this before. No traffic, no planes overhead, not a bird singing. Nothing.
‘This is the closest to heaven I’ve even been,’ I tell Nari. ‘Pass us another biccie.’
‘Will you be OK?’ she asks as she hands me the bag, unable to take her eyes off the view of the dense snow-covered forest just beyond the glass.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sleeping here on your own.’
This is when I remember that the cabin is all mine. Nari scored us two of these beauties and hers is next door. ‘I think I’ll manage,’ I say, stretching out my achy muscles against the soft mattress. ‘What did you do to Stephen to wangle this?’
Nari simply smiles and sets to work untying the strings on a complimentary bag of marshmallows.
‘You must really like each other… freebies like this, meeting up at New Year?’
She shrugs and pops a marshmallow in her mouth. I wait expectantly as she chews.
‘He’s a lot of fun. We enjoy each other’s company. Neither of us asks for too much. It suits me.’
‘And you don’t mind that?’ I say. Not that I’m being judgy, it’s just that I’ve long had a sneaking suspicion that Nari, in spite of her Samantha Jones bravado, would secretly quite like a more permanent set-up with someone a little more available. ‘You really are happy drifting in and out of each other’s lives? A quickie in Singapore here, a dirty weekend in Chelsea there?’
‘Sounds pretty good to me.’ Nari holds her glass up to mine with a wink. ‘Cheers, Sylve. Here’s to our Northern adventure.’
We clink glasses and I know she’s already forgotten about Stephen, for now.
Nari’s eyes look heavy, we’re both stifling yawns and it’s not even dinner time. I watch her close her eyes and smile to herself with her trademark inner calm and poise. Not many people have seen Nari crack or caught a glimpse of the vulnerability she keeps well hidden. Trying to get her to open up about Stephen is nearly impossible now, but there was a time, years ago, when I could hardly stop her talking about him. She was smitten, though she wouldn’t admit it now.
I remember the shock of her turning up at the Love Shack and seeing her in tears for the first (and only) time as she told me the story of how she came to discover Stephen was very much keeping things strictly fun and informal.
They’d been at a party in London all evening, a travel industry thing with lots of work talk and exchanging of business cards. As it was coming to an end, a group of Stephen’s friends had suggested they go on to a club where they had a VIP lounge waiting for them. One of the men had casually remarked, ‘Does your girlfriend want to come?’ As quick as a flash, Stephen had smiled politely and replied, ‘Nari’s not my girlfriend.’
At the time Nari had smiled too, as she let it sink in that what she had hoped was a growing connection between them was in fact exactly what they had promised each other from the beginning: a zero strings, maximum fun hook-up if ever they happened to be in the same time zone. In fact, the whole thing had been her idea, as she wasn’t interested in a long-distance relationship, or so she’d thought.
She was always on the move and she was still, at that point, writing her popular dating blog – the one she’d set up as a new graduate from uni trying to break into writing – and had yet to find her feet in the travel industry. For years she’d tried every dating service available and written her tongue-in-cheek dating diary with exaggeratedly comic examples of her own dating disasters, persevering only in the half-hope of meeting any real potential boyfriend who might signal an end to her increasingly lucrative single-girl blogger persona.
But, three months after meeting Stephen in a designer clothes store in the Gangnam district, she’d stopped blogging about her dating escapades and fully devoted herself to cultivating her travel blog.
She never told Stephen she’d started to have feelings for him, so, according to Nari, it was easier to stifle her affections, until there was nothing left. And she often tells me she’s glad to be part of their informal, glamorous, jet-setting arrangement.
Of course, she’d left that industry bash without joining Stephen and his VIP friends at the club – Nari’s nothing if not dignified under pressure – and she hadn’t called him, waiting for the inevitable message after an interval of a month or two letting her know there was a jet at her disposal ready to whisk her off to meet him in Malibu or Miami, or wherever she wanted to go.
And so now I only hear about the fun they have on the few occasions each year when they meet up, and I have to admit that Stephen genuinely does sound charming, considerate and romantic – sweetly shy even, which rather goes against my image of billionaire travel execs, but there you go, people are surprising, aren’t they?
