Chapter 1
6 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS
Clara shoved her glass onto the bar, frowning at the tinsel taped to the edge of the wooden panels. Were there two strings, or just one? Too drunk to make the distinction, she pulled at it to check, the strands of frayed plastic folding in on themselves under her touch. She must have pulled too hard because the pieces of tape gave way, the tinsel slumping towards the floor. Clara let go, allowing the string– it was only one– to complete its journey, watching as it became part of the detritus being trodden underfoot.
Not for the first time, she wondered if this trip had been a good idea. Whether, in fact, she was even remotely ready for this. The bar was buzzing with adrenalin-fuelled noise, the excitement fizzing out of everyone in this packed space was palpable. Christmas week in a ski resort deep in the Alps should be a dream come true.
But Christmas week, with everything that it embodied?
Not that the alternative to being here was a realistic option either. Home alone for the first Christmas in … Well, in a long time. That prospect had been even worse. Which was why she had agreed to this trip in the first place.
Although, now she was here, she didn’t so much remember the conversation with Tania being about agreeing to a nostalgic girly ski trip. It had focused more on Tania giving her the dates and Clara not having any reason to refuse. After all, there was nothing to keep her at home for Christmas. Nothing to keep her anywhere much. And her lack of a refusal had snowballed, with Tania sorting all the details, staying over the night before the flight and helping her to pack, making sure she had her passport, checking them in online to save time. Meeting up with Rose, and Rose’s friend Madeleine at the airport. The flight out. The transfer. All of it so familiar to her, even though it had been years since their last trip. All of it happening in a bit of a blur, and now she was here. In the Alps. With her two best friends and a skinful of booze to try to dull the ache.
Downing the remnants of whatever had been in her glass, she turned to the bartender. ‘Un autre, s’il vous plaît,’ she said, her French GCSE finding its relevance.
‘What are you drinking?’ he said, his French accent thick enough to spread on toast.
She frowned. Whatwasshe drinking? The last mouthful had barely been consumed and it wasn’t even a ghost of a memory. Did it even matter what she drank? So long as it was something alcoholic, the rest of it was pure semantics. Attempting to answer his question, she lifted the glass to her nose and sniffed. The heavy sweet lilt of Coke clung to the walls of the glass. ‘Rum and Coke?’ It escaped her lips as more of a question than a statement.
He nodded and turned for a fresh glass.
Perhaps, with enough alcohol, she could completely forget Christmas. Forget everything except the here and now.
‘Make it a double,’ she said.
Standing at the other end of the bar with Madeleine, Rose watched Clara order yet another drink, then checked her watch. Already way past midnight. Surely it was time to head back to Snow Pine Lodge?
She craned her neck to see past a group of young guys; dressed in salopettes and ski boots and wobbling into one another, they were clearly well into a very liquid après-ski and were still having fun. Behind them she caught sight of Tania. A glance was enough to suggest to Rose that her oldest friend wasn’t finished with Le Bar yet. With a Kir Royale in one hand, mobile in the other, Tania posed for another selfie. This time with the old-fashioned wooden skis and leather boots fixed against the stuccoed wall as her background. It should have been annoying, but Rose had known Tania forever and, somehow, when Tania posed her skinny white frame again and again, searching for the perfect piece of proof that she was somebody worth looking at, all Rose felt was sympathy.
Not that Tania wanted sympathy. Quite the opposite. If Rose had told her oldest friend how uncomfortable her endless posing made her feel, Tania would have been shocked. At best. Insulted, probably. At worst? Devastated.
After all, what could be more usual than posting photos of what you were doing on social media? Everybody did it.
But perhaps it was Rose who had it all wrong. Maybe it was naive to want to be judged on what kind of a person you were, rather than how you looked.
‘Would it sound whiny if I said I’m knackered?’ Beside her, Madeleine slid her empty glass onto the bar. ‘It’s just that I think I’ve tipped over from being a party popper, and am now sliding dangerously close to becoming a party pooper. Amazing the difference that part of a letter can make.’
‘Part of a letter?’ Rose took a moment to catch up with what Madeleine had said, then grinned. ‘Oh, yes. I see. Very clever. I’m pretty much done, too, to be honest.’
Madeleine smiled, but the tiredness behind her expression was clear to see as she pointed to seating at the edge of the bar. ‘I could always go and crash on one of those benches, I’m more than happy to be carried to the bus when you’ve all finished in here. But I am quite heavy. Just thought it only fair to warn you.’
Rose huffed a laugh. Madeleine’s buoyant sense of humour and openness were some of the qualities Rose most liked about her, and part of the reason she’d had no qualms inviting her along on this trip, even though Madeleine had never even met Tania or Clara before. Rose had had no doubt they’d all get along, just so long as Madeleine remembered what they’d agreed before they got on the plane. Remembered not to be too open. ‘No way am I going to carry you,’ she said. ‘We’ll go. I’ll just let the others know.’
Tania chose that moment to head back to them, wrapping an arm around Rose’s shoulder. ‘Smile,’ she said.
Automatically, Rose tipped her chin and grinned for Tania’s iPhone, holding still as the flash momentarily blinded her. ‘Have you seen the time?’
‘No. Why?’
‘We’re going to head back to the lodge.’ Rose was looking forward to the cold wait at the ‘gratuit’ bus stop, to watching her own expelled breath crystallising like a cloud of minuscule ice-flies circling in the resort’s winter-season lights and the stars above. The ten-minute wheel-spinning drive back up the mountain along the slick tarmac was as integral a part of Près du Ciel as the snow itself. The road carved between the ever-expanding piles of bulldozed snow. She was looking forward to sharing it all with Madeleine for the first time.
‘Oh, God. Really?’ Tania draped a crestfallen expression over her features. It was an expression Rose had seen a thousand times, when her friend knew the evening was almost over, but wasn’t quite ready to relinquish her hold on it. Tania had always known how to party. Hardly surprising, with an A-list actor for a father and a half-brother recognised the world over as he melted millions of hearts from the covers of fashion magazines. Tania hadn’t really been given a choice in the high-octane pace she was expected to live her life, with the media hot in pursuit and desperate for any little titbit they could find on her.
‘Yes. Really.’
‘Blame me, if you like,’ Madeleine said. ‘It’s been a long day. And I want to enjoy tomorrow.’
‘Well, I might stay a little longer,’ Tania said, a touch of irritation in her voice. Or was that Rose’s imagination?
