Snow Days With You, page 28
‘The one from the military ceremony,’ Luna remembered. ‘“The only thing we are certain not to succeed at is the thing we don’t attempt,”’ she translated carefully. ‘You talked too much and I missed the second half! Maybe I would have got the message in time and not sent Yannick out into the mountains thinking I don’t love him enough!’
‘Enough? For what?’
Luna didn’t hesitate over her answer. ‘To wave him off every time he goes on a mission. And to be there when he comes back.’
Silvia squeezed her hand briefly. ‘I suppose it can be that simple.’
‘Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?’ Luna asked urgently in the first quiet moment after she walked into in the operations room at Cordial. As soon as she and Silvia had arrived at the quaint old building, it had been clear that something was wrong. There were people everywhere: rescuers, support staff, volunteers from the civilian groups. She’d picked up a hint from Yannick’s tone in his message and from Silvia’s warning that this wasn’t quite a usual mission.
‘No, no, everything’s fine,’ the officer sitting at the radio assured her with a quick smile. She caught sight of Emilien in the corridor and pulled him aside.
‘They’re all right,’ Emilien confirmed. ‘The weather isn’t playing along, but we’re used to that. They haven’t reached the victims yet.’
‘Cordial, we have a visual on the victims,’ she heard crackling over the radio, and her heart leaped. ‘West face of Maudit. We’re making our way there, but it’s tough. A lot of wind.’
‘Bien reçu, Yanni.’ The radio operator spoke into the radio as two others hastily added a pin to a map and compared the topographical representation with a live graphic of wind and storm conditions on the computer.
Silvia left to reopen the shop but Luna was so distracted she barely reacted to her friend’s kiss on the cheek. She felt Emilien’s hand on her shoulder and realised he’d fetched her a chair. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be back soon. A little bit of wind never hurt anyone,’ he said with a wink that didn’t reassure Luna in the least.
The radio traffic went back and forth, time passing in slow-motion, as Yannick described the situation in detail. She gathered the outlook for one of the victims, who was only barely conscious, was grim. An agonising ten minutes passed while Yannick conferred with a doctor on the ground and they administered medicine, as well as oxygen.
The team leader, Philippe was also on the radio from the DZ, piping up with suggestions. Luna peered up at the sky that seemed to darken even in that moment.
‘Hélico is grounded,’ Philippe confirmed. ‘Descend to Cosmiques and we’ll try to get a doctor up to you from the cable car, if you think he can make it.’
Yannick made a grunt of effort over the radio and said in English, ‘Hey, mate. Chris. You think you can make Cosmiques? I help you.’
A shiver went through Luna as she heard his wonderful, ungrammatical sentences in English with the ‘h’ left off.
‘Cordial,’ he continued quietly, ‘I don’t think he’ll make it. He needs to descend more than he needs a doctor. We’ll have a better chance of getting him down to Grands Mulets and it’s another 500 metres lower.’
‘Yanni, is that wise?’ Philippe asked from the DZ. Luna listened in alarm as they weighed options and the weak voice of the victim insisting he would try could be heard in the background. She realised he must be suffering from acute altitude sickness and felt faintly sick herself.
After a few more minutes of deliberation, Yannick’s caravan prepared to set off again, with both mountaineers, for the quicker, more dangerous descent.
The afternoon wore on, but Luna was glued to her chair, jumping when the radio crackled to life with Yannick’s regular updates. She didn’t know how he could find his way in the thick cloud that had descended further into the valley now. The threat of a storm lingered.
A timer on the wall ticked over to five hours and the conversation from the support staff analysing the weather turned grim, with words like ‘windchill factor’ and ‘hypothermia’ bandied about more frequently. Guy strode into a room asking for an update, sparking a tight smile for Luna in greeting.
‘Yanni,’ he barked into the radio after the support staff had updated him. ‘Keep the radio on now.’
‘Pigé, patron,’ he said, confirming he’d understood.
Luna wasn’t sure if it was better that she could hear everything, now radio contact was being maintained. Every heavy breath was audible, every time someone swiped a hand over their face it made a screech. Emilien poked his head back into the room, coming to stand by Luna.
‘Putain!’ sounded suddenly at one point in a strained mutter. ‘He’s heavy.’
Matthieu offered to take a turn with the sick man and Yannick agreed to hand him over in ten minutes.
‘I didn’t know Yannick swore,’ Luna whispered to Emilien.
‘Everyone swears at 4,000 metres, prof,’ Emilien replied with a smile. ‘Even Yanni.’
The calm in the room started to feel artificial as the light dimmed outside with the imminent sunset. The sound of the wind, picked up by the helmet microphones, became more violent. Yannick’s updates became clipped but more frequent, remarking on seracs or rocky outcroppings that made Luna wonder how many times he’d completed this trek.
If she’d been exposed to all this on day one, she might have run in the opposite direction, but she was in too deep now, and she would have to find her own way through her feelings for a man who led rope caravans and hauled sick men through windstorms at 4,000 metres of altitude.
With a flurry of radio conversations, Luna understood that Chris’s condition had deteriorated to the point that he’d fainted and was barely able to move. Yannick and Matthieu were supporting him with ropes and their bodies and a pair of guides who were staying at the refuge were heading out to meet them in support.
There was a worrying growl of, ‘Where’s the fucking track?’ from Yannick, followed by loud scuffles and beeping from what she assumed was the GPS. Luna held her breath, refusing to imagine them wandering around aimlessly as the light faded.
‘You getting lost up there?’ the radio operator asked with artificial brightness.
‘No, no. Found it. Visibility is shit. On the final ascent, unless we find those crevasses Jean-Marc mentioned last week. Please tell me we’ve got twenty minutes of weather.’
‘Uh, take the short cut!’ called out the gendarme in the corner with his eyes glued to the weather projections.
Yannick groaned over the radio and Luna peered out the window in alarm, jumping when a lightning flash illuminated the steeple of the church by the Maison de la Montagne and the forested hill behind. A few raindrops splattered on the windows. It was worryingly dark outside and Luna was shocked to discover it was nearly seven o’clock.
How long had they been up there now? The timer showed over seven hours. She could only hope they were as impervious to the perils of altitude and the cold as everyone seemed to think they were. She hadn’t even thought about how they would get down if the helicopter remained grounded.
Her endurance would be put to the test already and it seemed she would have to wait to wrap her arms around him and tell him she’d been wrong to leave. She glanced at Guy and then at the twin bedroom with ugly checked duvets she glimpsed through a connecting door. That was where she would be sleeping tonight.
Just let them try to kick her out.
39
‘We have visual contact on the refuge – finally. It’s only twenty fucking metres away,’ Yannick said between panting breaths. His powerful headlamp created a strange, luminous halo in the dense fog ahead, but he could make out the outline of the Refuge des Grands Mulets, perched on a protruding rock amidst the icefields. His hand ached from the grip he had on the victim’s jacket. ‘Chris is still with us – just,’ he added, patting the man on the back, where he swayed on his feet.
‘Okay, you can stop chatting now, and get inside,’ Guy’s voice came over the radio.
Yannick and Marina worked together to haul the barely conscious victim up the short, final climb to the door of the refuge and they spilled inside on a gust of snowflakes and piercing wind. The refuge hadn’t officially opened for the season, but the guardian was already there preparing and another team had climbed up to meet them. They’d already melted water, prepared blankets and the emergency hyperbaric chamber for Chris. Even though the winter annex wasn’t heated, simply coming in from the wind was a shock of relief that made him realise how much his skin stung, after giving Chris his mask about two hours ago.
‘That was the slowest descent in history,’ Marina mumbled, untying Pavel, the other stranded skier, from the ropes. Their colleagues took charge of Chris, helping him into the inflated canvas tube where they could pump oxygen and add air pressure to relieve his altitude sickness enough to get him through the night.
Food, water and minor first aid took up the next hour, the wind whistling fiercely outside and blowing snow against the window panes. Feeling gradually returned to Yannick’s skin at the same rate as the adrenaline retreated and his first thought was a flash of memory: Luna’s hands on his cheeks.
I like your face… I love you.
His breath escaped in a rush as he paced slowly back and forth, keeping his blood flowing to help warm his body. He’d been an idiot to not recognise what they’d meant to each other, even with no expectation of a future.
Stuffing his hand in his pocket, he clutched her glove. It was a heady feeling, imagining coming back down to her after a difficult mission, but what if he didn’t come back, like Julien? What if she didn’t come back?
She’d admitted she’d imagined kissing him and he’d responded that it was an honour to spend time with her. Quel imbécile! Why couldn’t he have told her that he yearned and wanted things whenever she was close? With a gulp, he realised why he hadn’t said any of that. It sounded horrible. He didn’t know how to express these things – he barely knew how to feel them.
It was all too late anyway. She’d be in Troyes by now, arriving at her new home tomorrow, to buy her cottage and never think about snow boots and goggles and ice axes – or avalanches, rockfalls and rescues – ever again.
Patrice clapped him on the shoulder and passed him a cup of hot, sweet tea. ‘It’s a devil of a storm out there. Glad I was behind you. I bet they’ll even get some snow in the valley tonight.’
Yannick’s only reply was an inarticulate grunt. It was better than saying what he was thinking: Luna wasn’t in the damn valley anyway.
‘Spring skiers will be out tomorrow. More work,’ Patrice continued, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them. Yannick tried to say something about crevasses or cornices – or anything – but he drew a blank.
‘She left today, didn’t she?’ Patrice said, his tone changing. ‘You going to be okay?’
No, he wasn’t – not until he’d spoken to her. Frowning, Yannick reached into his coat for his phone and switched it on. It took a while to find the weak signal at the refuge, but, when it did… nothing. He had no messages. His voice message was marked as opened, but there was no reply.
‘Ah, Yanni?’ he heard suddenly over the radio. There was a hesitant tone in Guy’s voice. Was there bad news on the weather?
‘I’m here, patron,’ he answered, glad of the distraction.
‘Très bien. I just needed confirmation that you’re okay.’
‘The other team just got Chris out of the chamber and he’s eating – a bit more aware. He’ll survive the night. The other victim, Pavel, is a bit shocked, early hypothermia, but no signs of frostbite.’
‘Well done. That’s good. I’m getting regular updates on the victims, I was just checking in with you.’
His brow knit. ‘Me?’
Guy chuckled. ‘Yes, team two’s lucky mascot has been pulling her hair out all afternoon and I’m trying to convince her to go home.’
Yannick stilled, wavering on his feet as though he’d been hit with an updraft on a rockface. The thrill that shivered through his body was difficult to bear. He’d never wanted to be down in the valley more, but it was also enough knowing she was there.
‘She’s… refusing to leave?’ he clarified hesitantly. The annex had gone quiet and he noticed Patrice, Matthieu and Marina all watching him.
‘Eyeing up the beds at Cordial, yes. Do you want to say something?’
‘Oui! Non, en fait. Hmm—’ His throat closed. ‘Luna?’ he began, trying to forget the presence of his entire team either in the room up here or down there with the commandant. He loved the shape of her name on his lips, the connection with the moon. ‘Don’t go – anywhere,’ he said in English. ‘I’m coming down – for you.’
Guy chuckled over the radio. His colleagues stifled grins and amused looks and Yannick stared at the ceiling as his cheeks heated.
‘Is that a promise or a threat?’ Guy asked. ‘But you were supposed to tell her to go home! I’ll have to charge her half-board and endure her complaints about the quality of the coffee.’
‘I’m not going to tell her to go home!’
‘Home to Silvia’s, you idiot! Or maybe to your house. Either way, I think it’s a lost cause. She’s grown roots in the chair at Cordial. Hmm? You want to tell him something? She heard you swearing for the first time, Yanni. Now she knows you’re not perfect.’
He snorted. Luna was well aware that he wasn’t perfect, and that’s what made it so unbelievable that she was there, listening to him curse the weather and breathe too loudly.
Her voice came over the radio, a little distant, as though she wasn’t close enough to the microphone. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be here.’
‘Luna?’ he began again. If there was one thing he should have learned years ago, it was that sometimes life didn’t wait for you to say what you needed to say. The words bubbled out of him: ‘Je t’aime très fort.’ I love you so much.
Laughing cheers and applause rang out both in the annex and over the radio, giving her no chance to respond – not that he needed a response. He felt better just for saying it.
Finally, the din quietened enough for him to hear her take a deep breath and say, ‘You know I love you too. But get down safe and let me hear you say it in person.’
‘Oui, madame,’ he said and stood automatically to attention, a smile breaking out on his face.
‘Boss, if he keeps smiling like an imbecile, he’s going to hurt himself,’ Patrice said into his radio, giving him a shove. ‘It was fucking cold out there and he’s got windburn.’
‘All right, someone wrap him in a blanket and make sure he doesn’t get hypothermia. Silvia would never forgive me. Check in every three hours unless something changes and we’ll see if we can get that hélico off the ground tomorrow. Cordial terminé, les gars.’
Silence fell in the annex as the transmission ended and Yannick felt every eye on him – even Pavel and Chris were watching.
‘What?’ Yannick asked the team, his lips still twitching with a smile trying to escape.
‘That was… touching,’ Marina said with a snort.
‘I expect an invitation to the wedding,’ Matthieu said earnestly and then burst out laughing. ‘Your face, Yanni!’
‘All right, all right,’ he said, holding up his hands to quiet them. ‘But you heard her. I’m feeling pretty damn good right now.’
Luna forced herself awake during the night every time the team up at the refuge checked in, but there was nothing to report and she went groggily back to sleep. Silvia woke her early the next morning with coffee and a plate of pastries, reminding her of Guy’s joke about half-board the evening before – which brought back with a flush of emotion the memory of Yannick telling her he loved her.
The moment had felt surreal – the crackly, disembodied voice, filled with more emotion than she’d ever hoped to hear, especially when he was still on duty.
She just needed him to come down again, and everything would fall into place.
A fresh coating of snow covered Chamonix when she peered out the window. It was a strange place, a frontier town at the edge of the great glacial wilderness, unconquerable by the insignificant hands and feet of humans. It was a place that forced you to look up – a perspective Luna would never lose, no matter what happened in the future.
The spire of the little church was also dusted with snow, the trees on the hills powdered white one last time before the onset of spring. Over the rooftops, she saw the ski lift heading up to La Flégère and thought of the urn in the bottom of her suitcase. A fresh sense of peace settled over her when she considered the prospect of her mother’s ashes staying here with her. Not in the urn, but scattered here in Cham, the place where June had fallen in love, staying with Luna as she started living her own life now.
Her phone rang and she grimaced when she realised it was Lydia. In the tumult of the day before, she’d forgotten to message her cousin again.
‘What time do you get in this afternoon? Are the roads okay?’
‘Er, Lyd?’ she began hesitantly. ‘I’m not coming.’
‘Whaaat?’
‘You know me,’ Luna said, not quite stifling her laugh. ‘I’m staying here. I’m sorry about the job. I should have decided earlier, but… I’ve decided now.’
‘What happened? You were about to set off yesterday!’
‘Oh, the usual. I fell in love. He told me he loves me too, although he was at altitude at the time and was in danger of hypothermia, but… I’m staying, anyway.’
In the silence, she imagined her cousin gaping as she tried to find words. ‘But your mum! Your parents! After everything that happened…’
Lyd didn’t even know the worst of it. ‘After learning about everything they lost, I realised I don’t want to lose the person I love, even if it’s difficult.’
‘It doesn’t have to be difficult!’
Luna sighed, glancing out the window to see a sudden patch of blue between the clouds, and a hint of a jagged peak that disappeared again in an instant. ‘Some of the best things in life are difficult, Lyd – including love. I’ll come and visit soon – I promise.’
