Christmas in the Snow (29 page)

‘Yeah, but Dad’s hardly a giant.’

‘Five eleven is tall enough,’ Allegra argued, slightly reluctantly as she realized it meant she was on ‘his side’ for once.

Isobel shrugged. ‘It could’ve skipped a generation, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘Well, we can always ask.’ Allegra’s eyes flitted meaningfully up to Isobel’s. ‘When do you think we should introduce ourselves to . . . you know, her
husband?’

‘Do we have to?’ Isobel sat back in her seat, arms folded across her chest. ‘I mean, haven’t we heard enough? What are we going to find out next? That Mum had seven
brothers and sisters and they all died in the plague or were attacked by the goats? I mean, isn’t it enough to know that Granny had a sister and we’re going to bury her here in her own
town?’ Her hands fanned out beseechingly.

Allegra reached her hand forward and grasped Isobel’s fingertips. ‘You know it’s not – not when it means Granny’s sister was actually Mum’s mum. And not now
we know Mum’s dad is still alive. We have to know what happened – for Mum’s sake.’

Isobel dropped her head. ‘Ugh, God, I know. I just . . .’

‘I know. But the sooner we get this done, the better. The truth is never as bad as the scenarios running through your head.’

Isobel scraped back her chair. ‘That’s because you lack imagination, Legs. Trust me, what’s going on up here right now?’ She knocked her temple with her knuckles.
‘It’s like Halloween in lederhosen.’

‘Really?’ Allegra chuckled, rising too and leaving a tip on the table. ‘That’s one powerful image you’ve just conjured.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Isobel grinned, swinging her arm out, ready for Allegra to loop hers through. ‘Why be calm when melodramatics will do?’

It felt odd walking to the home of a grandfather who’d been dead their whole lives, and they both fell into a nervous quiet as they rounded the street the priest’s
note told them he lived on.

Questions, too many, were running through Allegra’s head. How should she tell him who they were? He was an elderly man – would he cope with the shock of being suddenly presented with
the daughters of the child he’d lost over sixty years ago? And how much should they tell him about her mother? Would it distress him unduly to let him know the extent of her decline?

Their feet took them soundlessly past the historic, blackened, elevated stadels that had been so bewildering to them only a few hours ago, but they had experienced for themselves now their
one-room, windowless humility, their rustic simplicity that had weathered the very worst of the Alpine elements and still endured. These huts were basic, yes, but they had an integrity and
substance to them that had to be respected. This was simply how life had been in an isolated farming community sixty years ago and before. She would make no such faux-pas about the huts with her
grandfather as she had with Connor. This was the life her grandparents had known and into which her mother had been born, and it was as much a part of her heritage as the Edwardian semi they had
grown up in, in Sheen.

She knew what to expect: Connor’s base had been an insight into just how compact and confined their grandfather’s home would be – she remembered the lanterns hanging from hooks
(no electricity), the black kettle on the stove (no central heating), the hay-barn ladder to the upper level and a bed that must surely – given the dimensions of the roof – be just a
mattress on the floor (no en suite) . . .

They had arrived. ‘Chalet Gundersbach’ was carved into a plaque on a high wooden gate – a smart wooden gate – that even they couldn’t see over.

‘Oh,’ Allegra said in surprise, staring at the intercom system like she had never seen one before.

Isobel pressed the button. It was a long time before anyone answered.

‘
Ja?
’ It was a woman’s voice, fairly young-sounding.

‘H-hello?’

There was a pause. ‘Yes?’

‘We’ve come to see Lars Fischer.’

‘Do you have an appointment?’

Isobel whipped round to look at Allegra, her nose wrinkled. An
appointment
? ‘Sorry, no.’

‘Then he is busy. Goodb—’

‘Wait! . . . Uh . . .’ Isobel cleared her throat. ‘It’s important. It’s about Valentina.’

There was another long pause, so long Allegra began to wonder if the woman had gone away.

‘Hello?’ Isobel repeated.

A sudden click released the latch on the gate and it eased open fractionally. Allegra stepped through, expecting to find a small garden. She had noticed some of the larger properties had them,
but this wasn’t a garden; it was a path – an extremely long one with split logs painstakingly arranged against the walls on the left, metre-high glass lanterns spaced every five metres,
filled with church candles, on the right.

‘What the . . . ?’ Isobel spluttered. ‘It’s like a bloody Anouska Hempel hotel.’

They walked briskly, their frowns growing as they took in the espaliered fruit trees – bare for now – and Isobel crouched down at one of the lanterns, pointing out a silver hallmark
with wide eyes. The path was on an incline, and as it turned sharply left, they came face to face with another door, which was on the latch.

It led into a lift.

‘This is bloody weird,’ Isobel muttered, pressing the ‘up’ button.

The woman had sounded very officious, Allegra realized. ‘It must be a care home.’

‘Yeah? Well, then, can I come and live here too, please?’

Allegra smiled, but she was as flummoxed as Isobel. Exactly how big did their farm have to be for a goat farmer to afford this?

‘Oh! What do you think we should call him?’ Isobel asked suddenly, just as the lift arrived at the floor and the door opened. A woman in her fifties with short blonde hair and tight
jeans was waiting for them, no smile.

‘What did you say your name was?’ she asked.

Allegra straightened up to her full, imposing height – at least five inches taller than the woman. Her mother had instilled in her a deep dislike for bad manners. ‘We didn’t.
It’s Allegra and Isobel.’

Her eyes moved between the two sisters, but her voice was less strident, her eyes seeming to catch repeatedly on Allegra. ‘Allegra and Isobel . . . ?’

The woman wanted a surname, but to say it would be to tell the story before they were even in the same room as their grandfather. ‘Does it matter?’ she asked. ‘If you could
just tell him it’s about—’

‘Valentina.’

The man’s voice wasn’t strong, not any more. It tremored at the edges like a frayed hem, but the sound still resonated with a bass timbre that Allegra instinctively understood had
once filled rooms, silenced enemies, won women. The white-haired, moustached man in the wheelchair was weak now in body, but not in spirit, and as he stared at her across the lobby, she knew this
was no care home. This man had power and wealth – the Rolex Daytona and handmade shoes told her that.

‘I would have recognized you anywhere,’ he said, his eyes surveying her like she was a painting – or a ghost. ‘You are just like her. Your hair, your height . . . her
nose too. Hands—’ He stopped, as though out of breath.

The blonde walked over to him. A private nurse, then? ‘Lars?’

But he flicked the joystick on the left arm of the wheelchair and revolved away from her. ‘Bettina, bring us drinks in the lounge,’ he said curtly. ‘Young ladies, follow
me.’

Allegra and Isobel glanced across at the nurse, who had straightened up as though he had slapped her. Striding past them both without making eye contact, she muttered: ‘You can hang your
jackets on the pegs by the door.’

‘Well, she’s a peach,’ Isobel said under her breath, doing as she had been told, her eyes casing the large square hall. It was a melange of blond pines, older in style than the
contemporary vogue for woven green oaks, but still deluxe with antique rugs scattered over the floors and some antique wooden skis and snow shoes fixed to the walls. A console table, opposite to
where they were standing, was the only furniture in the space, with two gold, red and white Japanese lamps at either end and some framed black-and-white photographs on the surface. But it was the
woman in an oil portrait hanging above that caught her eye – and Allegra’s too.

‘Holy crap!’ she whispered under her breath, her head turning quickly between the woman in the painting and her sister: fearless blue eyes that looked haughtily, almost defiantly, at
the artist, long black hair that fell past her shoulders, pinned with pink and red flowers like a corona, berry-stained lips that seemed on the cusp of parting as though about to laugh, smirk,
scold . . . ‘That is creepy! If it wasn’t for the eyes, she could be you. In fancy dress, I mean.’

Allegra shot her an unamused look. She was too shocked by the resemblance herself to be able to laugh yet. She was too shocked by all of this. This chalet, the first sight of their grandfather .
. . the first image of Valentina . . . But she had to agree – were it not for their eyes, she and Valentina would have made a matching pair.

‘Come on,’ she said with another nervous glance at the painting, following after where Lars had passed through a large arched door into a lavish room with panelled walls and an
imposing fireplace. Deep red and green velvet sofas with bullion fringe were plumped high with tapestried scatter cushions, and a cuckoo clock ticked quietly on one wall. Lars was lowering himself
into a fireside club chair, holding on to the arms for support.

Both women hesitated behind the sofa, not sure whether to offer to help, seemingly paralysed by indecision and nerves.

‘You are my granddaughters,’ he said with a puff of effort, looking down as he placed a carved walking cane, which he had used to get from the wheelchair to the club chair, against
the side table next to him.

‘Yes.’

He looked up at them both expectantly, seeming surprised to see them still halfway back across the room. ‘Come, come,’ he motioned. ‘I am as deaf as a table and so blind I can
hardly see my own feet.’

Allegra cracked a tiny smile, grateful for his humour, though she knew he was just joking. There was nothing wrong with his eyesight, as he had proved in the hall. Hers, though . . . It was only
now they were close that she was able to take in the finer details herself. The shock and distance in the hall had been too great to absorb the minutiae, but now she saw the swelling in his hands
and guessed at arthritis; she saw the broken veins on his cheeks, which were full coloured, and guessed at a love of fine wines; she saw the beak-like angle of his nose, which wasn’t hers or
Isobel’s or their mother’s – from his side of the family, then. She looked for herself in him, but it was hard to tell in such intense circumstances. Maybe his hair, before it had
turned white?

They walked forwards, taking small steps and both feeling like nervous children, as they settled themselves on the sofa to his left, facing the fire.

His eyes never left them. ‘What are your names?’

‘I am Allegra,’ Allegra said. ‘And this is Isobel.’

‘You are the elder.’ His eyes were on her and she nodded.

‘Yes. I’m thirty-one, and Isobel’s twenty-nine, nearly thirty.’

‘You are the protector, the strong one.’

Allegra glanced at Isobel. ‘N-no. I wouldn’t say that. Iz is incredibly strong and determined. Most of the time she ends up looking after me as well as her son.’

Lars looked at Isobel, his hands so clawed from the swelling they seemed to grip the armrests. ‘You have a family of your own?’

She nodded. ‘One boy. His name’s Ferdy. He’ll be one in February.’

Lars’s mouth opened, but no sound came, his blue eyes watery and red-rimmed, still staring at the two of them too intently.

Isobel smiled awkwardly under the scrutiny, crossing and recrossing her legs, and Allegra knew her sister was biting down the impulse to get up and run out of here.

Lars, appearing to sense her discomfort, looked away and blinked for a long moment. ‘I am sorry if I am staring at you both. It is a shock to me, you understand.’

‘Of course.’

The blonde woman came in, silent as the snow, with a tray of coffee and biscuits, and they all fell quiet as she set it down on the table between them. They watched as she took her time pouring
the coffee into the cups, putting one on the table beside Lars before offering Allegra hers while still holding the handle herself. Allegra shot her a mutinous look as the too-hot cup singed her
fingertips before she could turn it round.

The blonde woman began poking the fire, throwing on another log, and Allegra wondered what to say next. Lars seemed defiantly silent in the nurse’s company.

Isobel filled the silence for her. ‘You speak very good English.’ A note of suspicion tinged the words.

A half-smile played on his lips. ‘In this town? It is necessary now. We are international.’

‘You have a beautiful home,’ Allegra said, before Isobel could say more.

‘Thank you. I built it myself, 1954. Everyone thinks I am too old, of course, to stay here, but this is my home and I will draw my last breath within its walls.’ He stared fiercely
at the blonde woman – as though she were one of the ‘everyone’ – as she set down the poker on the hearth and exited the room again as silently as she had entered.

‘Well, they can hardly blame you for feeling that,’ Allegra murmured. ‘I think I would feel the same. Wouldn’t you, Iz?’

Isobel gave a polite shrug. The memory of their mother bitterly resisting being moved out of their family home – her tears and desperate pleas – was still far too fresh in both their
minds.

‘You love your home too,’ he said to Allegra, his eyes on her again.

Allegra nodded, to be polite, but she wasn’t sure where home was – certainly not the flat in Poplar, which was still little more than student digs, certainly not the house in
Islington, which was a financial investment and nothing more, and certainly not the orange-doored flat that protected her mother. Isobel’s maybe – when Lloyd was at work or out with the
boys and it was just her and Iz and Ferds?

He cocked his head to the side slightly, regarding her with an inscrutable expression, and she wondered whether it was her he saw or Valentina. ‘Tell me about your mother.’