Graham Joyce: The Silent Land

Zoe took her lavender wool hat and put it on again. ‘Okay. I’ll come with you.’

‘No. You’re exhausted. And it will be quicker for me on skis.’

‘I want to come.’

‘Zoe, I don’t mind telling you, you look terrible. Your eyes are red bloodshot, too. I didn’t want to upset you. Maybe it was the pressure of the snow. But you look shaky. I’ll just satisfy myself that there’s no one lying on the track. If he’s underneath the snow, there’s nothing I can do anyway. Okay?’

Zoe blinked. They knew each other well enough. They both had a strong sense of the right thing to do, and she knew Jake would go ahead and do it.

Jake kept a small screwdriver in his bumbag for adjusting the bindings on their skis and he was already employing it to adapt the found skis to fit his boots.

Jake hit some switches until the machinery started up again and the steel wheel overhead began rotating. Zoe went outside to where the T-bars were stacked up on the drag loop and tugged one of the poles around, waiting for him to shuffle into place. She handed him the T-bar and he took it without a word. Suddenly she didn’t want him to leave her. She watched as the lonely drag pulled him up the slope and out of sight. It was still snowing. She went back inside the cabin.

The cabin was warm but she was shaking. She tried to close her eyes but when she did so violent images of the immediate impact of the avalanche came at her like hissing snakes. She felt her stomach squeeze.

Very soon she wished she hadn’t allowed Jake to go out. It occurred to her that there could easily be a fresh avalanche. She got up and looked out through the dirty window of the cabin. Then she sat down again.

Jake was gone a long time. She felt hot. She pressed her hand to her brow, wondering if she had a fever. A sob broke out of her, completely unexpected. She got up and went to the window again, but all she could see was the vast whiteness of the mountain and the snow-bearing trees. She strained her ears to listen. There was nothing. The world out there was silent. The cabin felt tiny and vulnerable.

She’d almost fallen into a doze when a grey shape loomed outside the window. It was Jake, stepping out of his bindings. He came into the warmth of the cabin stamping his boots and shaking his head.

‘Nothing at all?’

‘I had a good check round at every pylon. If there is someone there, he’s deep under the snow.’

‘That’s a creepy thought.’ Zoe started crying.

Jake put his arm around her and kissed her. ‘Hush up,’ he said. ‘Hush. You don’t know there’s anyone there! It was just an outside chance.’

‘I know. Let me cry. I’m crying for us. It could have been us. It’s the relief.’ She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her gauntlet.

‘Listen,’ Jake said, after a few moments just holding her, ‘I’ve had one of my great ideas. We can get down on the skis. There is a way.’

‘On one set of skis?’

‘You stand on the back of the skis and hold me around the waist. We make really slow traverses across the slope. We might fall over a few times but it’s better than trying to walk through the snow. Honestly, it comes up to your balls in places.’

That’s what they did. It was slow skiing, but it wasn’t too difficult and it got them down. The entire slope, all the way, was empty of people and it was clear that the mountain authorities had evacuated and closed the slopes because of further avalanche risk.

They could see their hotel directly ahead of them. Even though it was only a little past midday, all the lights were on. It looked cosy, and inviting, and safe.

‘I’m going to have a hot bath,’ said Zoe.

‘Yeah, you stink.’

‘Thanks. And a sauna, cos I’m chilled to the bone. But you’re not getting in with me.’

‘And a glass of wine. Red.’

‘And a steak. Rare.’

‘Oozing with blood. And with mustard.’

‘And ice cream.’

‘What, on the steak?’

‘And we’re going to drink the bar dry.’

‘Come on. Let me take these skis off. We can walk from here.’

The Hotel Varka nestled at the foot of the mountain, some distance from the centre of the village of Saint-Bernard-en-Haut but close to the nursery slopes. It boasted ‘doorstep’ skiing, which was true if shuffling along the flat valley floor for a couple of hundred metres can be considered skiing. The hotel offered four-star service, two bars (one with piano), a restaurant, a spa with sauna, ski shuttle and Wi-Fi Internet. It was more expensive than the Bennetts could normally afford, but this was a special holiday. They hadn’t been skiing for a few years—and it was on the ski slopes at Chamonix that they’d originally met and fallen in love—so they’d rewarded themselves with this upgraded vacation.

With no respect for the notion of special holidays, the avalanche with its ferocious white teeth had snapped at their heels on only their second day.

The reception of the hotel was entered through electronically operated glass doors that hummed at their approach and opened with painful slowness. The lobby itself was dominated by a giant and perhaps overstated Christmas tree. It was beautifully illuminated by delicate blue lights, twinkling amid the branches like hovering sprites. Zoe and Jake made straight for the reception desk, wanting to let someone know about their ordeal, but for the moment the desk was deserted. They turned instead to the lift and rode it up the third floor, where they had their room.

Zoe immediately ran a hot bath and while it was filling she stripped off her ski gear. Jake collapsed on the bed, his arms flung back. Zoe kneeled beside him in her thermal underwear.

‘You okay?’

‘I am, actually,’ he said. ‘I feel okay.’

‘We’ll have to get some eye-drops. You look like a bloody zombie. We should get you checked out.’

‘I don’t need checking out. You’re blood-shot and you’re the one who got buried. You need checking out to make sure you’re not whatsit. Traumatised.’

‘What are they going to do? Give me counselling? Hold my hand? I’m fine, I don’t need checking out. Some snow fell on me and I crawled out. End of story. What about you?’

‘I feel fine. The only thing different is I feel ridiculously horny. Feel this.’

‘Get off. Let me have my bath first.’

‘Do you think it’s like when people feel horny at funerals? Do you think it’s the swish of the scythe? Makes you want to rut? Come here, ma biche .’

‘Get off me, I’m chilled to the bone, Jake. You must be, too. Let me get in the bath first.’

Jake snatched up the phone. ‘I’m going to tell some fucker what happened.’

‘What do you think they’re going to do? Don’t you dare get a doctor for me! Come on, get in the bath with me. I don’t want no doctor shining lights in my eyes. Come on. Afterwards you can do what you want to me.’

So Jake stripped off his ski gear and squeezed into the hot bath along with Zoe, groaning and sighing. They sat face to face in the steam, hugging each other’s knees, letting the heat penetrate and dissolve the chill in their bones.

They sat in silence. With his head resting on Zoe’s knee, Jake seemed to drift off to sleep. At last the water started to cool around them so she shifted him, got out of the bath and wrapped a towel around her. Thinking that maybe she really should at least report their escape to someone, Zoe called reception. The phone rang and rang, but no one picked up. She dried herself and pulled some clothes on, left Jake to soak and went back down in the lift.

The reception was still deserted. There was an old-fashioned bell on the desk, the kind you had to slap with the palm of your hand, but on this occasion it summoned no one. She leaned over the desk and peered into the office behind the reception, and though all was in order, no one was there. She felt slightly queasy.