‘Are yousureyou’re fit to go on?’
She nodded, flashing the torchlight in his face, and catching the flicker of concern crossing it. ‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ she said.
‘I’m just not sure I can carry both of you,’ he said as they crossed the stream and headed on towards the cattle sheds.
Desperate as she was to look everywhere, Tania realised it wasn’t only Clara who was running out of time. The pain in her knee and hip, although intense, wasn’t the problem, nor were the fires raging in the nerve endings of her wet fingers. The lack of feeling in her feet was a problem, though. As the cattle sheds at the edge of the piste loomed into view, Tania considered that Gull might have been right, that perhaps she should have headed back to the lodge instead of pushing on.
She continued to wriggle her toes. There was a sensation of movement, a shadow of it, which she hoped was a good thing. Once Gull had said the word ‘frostbite’, she couldn’t fully get it out of her head. Online videos of amputees talking about ‘ghost pain’ in limbs they no longer had scrolled through her head like a rolling news banner. Plus, they’d been out for getting on for an hour and hadn’t even found a sign that Clara had travelled in the same direction.
The determination to keep on looking remained uppermost, though. Tania headed past the sloping roof against which Gull had pressed her to kiss her only a little over twenty-four hours previously. She navigated the drifts of snow against the side of the building, sliding her way to the fronts of the buildings, to the heavy wooden doors, protected from the worst of the weather by their orientation towards the trees.
‘Clara?’ she shouted. ‘Are you here?’
Even though they were relatively sheltered, snow was still banked up against the doors. She tried to peer through a crack in the shuttered window, holding the torch below her chin to get a little light into the space. Gull passed her, heading for the second shed, the second set of heavy doors.
‘Tania, over here.’
There was no mistaking the urgency in his voice. She moved in his direction and immediately saw why. The snow in front of this set of doors was much shallower than everywhere else. She twitched the torchlight around the entrance area and saw a wedge of snow to one side of the door. Glancing at Gull, she wondered if he’d seen it, but he was ahead of her, already feeling along the edge of the doors, trying to find the catch.
‘I need some light,’ he said.
She pointed the torch at the door for him and yelled Clara’s name, telling Gull to hurry, then stood glued to the spot as he yanked the door open far enough for them to get inside.
‘Is she in there?’ she said, unable to bring herself to look. ‘I can’t …’
Gull gently took the torch from her and stepped inside.
Chapter 39
Tania didn’t realise lips could actually turn blue. She’d always thought it was one of those sayings, exaggerating for effect. But Clara’s lips were blue, her skin translucent. She was slumped against the corner of the shed, on a pile of old hessian sacks, to all intents and purposes lifeless.
Gull pressed shaky fingers against Clara’s wrist, dipped his head and tried again, this time pressing against the side of her neck. He shook his head, unzipping her jacket far enough to shove a hand inside, resting it over her heart in search of its beat.
‘Christ Almighty, I can’t tell. I think there’s a pulse, but my fingers are so cold. I can’t really feel anything.’ He shot a wild look at her. ‘Call the others, tell them we’ve found her. Get the medics to go straight to the lodge. I’ll carry her there.’
‘OK.’ Tania felt helpless. She watched Gull lift Clara, as if she were a feather, folding her carefully into his arms. Her own fingers flapped uselessly against the screen of her mobile, eventually managing to find and dial Lysander’s phone.
She stumbled her way after Gull, watching her every step, trying not to notice the way Clara’s head bumped lifelessly against Gull’s shoulder. She wanted to reach for him every time she saw him stagger and regain his balance and carry on, all the while moving as quickly as he could, retracing the steps they made on the outward journey. The snow had stopped falling, and although the wind was still strong, the moon had finally put in an appearance alongside the stars, layering an eerie silver hue onto everything.
Tania could have cried when they got close enough to see the lodge’s lights. She did cry when she saw Lysander and Tom, waiting with the lodge door wide open. Tom took Clara, lifting her straight up the stairs. Gull followed, giving Tom whatever details he could.
Lysander knelt in front of Tania and pulled at the frozen laces of her snow boots. He yanked until they came free and then levered her feet out.
‘Fuck’s sake, Tania, your feet are like ice blocks. You’re all wet. What the hell happened?’
It was the first time in years he’d called her Tania through choice.
‘I fell into the mountain stream, Sander. If Gull hadn’t been there …’
It was as if he hadn’t heard her, instead he took her in a bear-like hug. ‘I need you, Tania. That’s why I’m here, why I came back. I need you to help me– I can’t do it alone. You’ve always been the strong one, and I’ve been such a shit to you. But I love you. Will you help me?’ She started to shiver, her teeth chattering again as her brother held her tighter still and she edged her arms around him until she was hugging him back.
‘Where is she?’ Rose barrelled up the stairs and burst into Clara’s room, Madeleine close behind her.
‘How is she?’ Madeleine said.
Clara looked deathly pale. They’d put her into her bed, with the covers tucked tightly around her shoulders. She still had her ski jacket on, Rose could see its collar zip sticking into her neck, and someone had pulled a fleece-lined bobble hat onto her head.
She reached to straighten the collar. Clara must be alive, the logical side of her brain told her that much, but she looked so still. She didn’t look as if she were even breathing.
