Christmas Under the Stars Read online

  Her eyes lingered on the rosy roof, Mitch’s grand romantic gesture now ghoulish and grotesque and pitiful. Who had done this? Which friend or favour had Mitch called in to do this for them? No one in Banff, that much was certain; everyone there knew what had happened. So then a specialist in Calgary, perhaps? How long had it taken to put up? How many people?

  And how had he afforded it? All these questions ran through her head and she didn’t have a single answer for reply and never would. Because he was dead. He was dead. He was dead.

  She scrabbled to her knees and ran through the deep snow to the porch, grabbing at the garlands and pulling them away from the frame in a frenzy, clumps of leaves coming off in her hands. She screamed, furious, as the twine – finely knotted – held the greenery close, striating her palms with livid red marks as she pulled and tore and yanked it away, dead flowers littering the garden.

  When the walls were bare, she ran to the shed and entered the padlock code, returning a moment later with the ladder and placing it against the side of the hut. A minute after that and she was standing on the roof, kicking the flowers off, tripping several times on the lengths of wire that held them in place. Petals scattered everywhere, the roses’ heavy heads bursting under the swipe of her boots as she stomped and kicked and tore and screamed. And when the last rose finally fell, bloodless and dry onto the ground below, when wire sprang from the roof like an old man’s stray hairs and she saw the pale ashes of a big, beautiful love scattered in the snow, she fell to her knees, exhausted and panting.

  But still she didn’t cry.

  The cabin warmed quickly, the fire in the stove radiating a dry heat that pushed out the incipient damp that came from almost a month, unattended, in the snow. She unpacked the sled quickly – light was already failing – and restocked the larder shelves, refusing to notice how empty they’d been and the squabbles it had caused, refusing to remember that last desperate meal she’d cobbled together and which Mitch hadn’t even seen as he buckled up and entered his last hours.

  She threw together a basic soup – leeks, white beans, chicken stock and a dash of chilli oil – and ran a bath, ruffling Badger’s head as she passed. He was sitting in his usual spot, on the rug before the fire, but he wouldn’t rest, his eyes following her as she moved around the small area, his head lifting whenever she moved out of sight into the bedroom or bathroom.

  She turned off the taps, the cabin filling with the competing aromas of soup and jasmine, stalling as she passed the phone. She stared at it, feeling a rush of hatred and knowing exactly what would happen now.

  She lifted the receiver and – as expected – the dialling tone beeped in her ear.

  She replaced it with a crash, marching towards the bathroom with a fury she couldn’t quash, plunging herself into a bathful of water that was too hot. Of course she’d known the line was back up. Nearly four weeks had passed since the storm. The snowpack was steadily beginning to thaw as spring approached on hesitant tiptoes. There hadn’t been a storm since, an area of high pressure settling over the national park, and Meg found it an insult, the clear skies mocking her, the wide panoramic view she had once loved now a jeer, reminding her in all its expanse of that one fateful night when the sky had fallen down and the walls of the world caved in.

  She lay in the bath until the water was chilled, the soup forgotten, the fire almost out. Badger had settled himself outside the bathroom door, his occasional snuffles reminding her he was there, the odd whine a gentle reminder that he needed his dinner too.

  The phone rang but she let it ring out, the noise abrupt and startling in the pervasive silence. But when it rang again, immediately afterwards, Meg knew she had to answer it. Barbara and Lucy would be dragging her back to the bungalow if she didn’t show them she was OK to be alone up here.

  ‘Hi.’ She watched the water dripping heavily on the floorboards by her feet, her oversized sage-green towel wrapped twice around her. ‘I’m OK. I was in the bath.’

  ‘Oh, thank God for that,’ Lucy said with evident relief. ‘I thought I was going to have to come out and haul you back here.’ Lucy’s voice became muffled, as though she’d put a hand over the phone: ‘. . . in the bath.’

  There was a pause as Meg waited for her to return.

  ‘So, how is it up there?’ Lucy asked.

  Meg closed her eyes again as the memory of the cabin bedecked in dead flowers flashed in her mind. ‘Fine, once I got the fire going.’

  ‘Have you got enough logs for the week?’

  ‘Yes, Mitch—’ She stopped herself.

  Lucy understood. ‘Tuck can come up and chop some more for you at the weekend if you want.’

  ‘That’s not necessary.’

  ‘But he’d like to.’

  Meg rolled her lips together, knowing he wouldn’t like anything of the sort; he’d be hungover to hell and besides, neither of them wanted to be alone with the other, the silent, unspoken accusation hanging like a chandelier between them.

  ‘Have you told him yet?’ she asked instead, holding the towel closer to her as a sliver of wind breached a gap in the timbers, rippling goose pimples over her skin. Before she had left, she had made Lucy promise she would tell Tuck tonight and Lucy had agreed – she was cooking him a special meal and had asked him to get home without stopping for beers with the boys first.

  ‘Just about to. He’s having a shower.’

  Well, at least he was there. Lucy sounded so nervous, Meg half felt she should wish her luck. ‘He’ll be thrilled. You guys being a proper family is . . . it’s the kind of good news he needs right now.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Meg heard a clatter in the background. ‘Everything OK?’

  Lucy must have turned away momentarily because her voice sounded distant for a moment. ‘Yes, he just knocked something over, is all. Clumsy as, is Tuck.’

  Drunk, more likely. ‘Well, good luck. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. You’ve been working yourself up over nothing about it.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ But her voice sounded pale and thin. In the background, Meg could make out the timbre of Tuck’s voice.

  ‘You should go.’

  ‘OK,’ Lucy agreed. ‘But you remember what we agreed?’

  ‘Yep. I’ll call you if things get bad.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how late. Even if you just want to cry. Or to breathe down the phone.’

  ‘Like some dirty old pervert?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Lucy half scolded with a laugh.

  ‘Yeah, I do . . . See you tomorrow, Luce.’

  She hung up, feeling the silence rush around her like water again. She poked at the smouldering ashes and threw on a couple of logs, took the soup off the heat and went to get dressed.

  As if it were that easy.

  As if stepping back into the ruins of her life was as simple as keeping house – practising routine chores with a studied blankness, pretending she was just a normal person doing mundane things. Stocking shelves, setting a fire, running a bath, making a meal . . . But in the bedroom, which she had avoided going into thus far, she was hit with the full devastating force of her loss. His eternal death was nowhere more apparent than in the private space where they had loved as well as lived – his clothes, his scent making his presence as tangible in there as if he’d been lying in the bed, Badger on his feet.

  His pyjamas were still folded – after a fashion – on the pillow beside hers, his favourite checked shirt in a heap in the corner of the room, ready for washing; balls of odd socks sticking out of shoes or from under the bed, the book he’d been reading still open and face down on the bedside table.

  He might walk through that door at any moment.

  He never would.

  Meg turned abruptly and slammed the door shut behind her, her hand still on the handle lest it didn’t catch and swung open again, letting the past trickle out. She stood motionless for a few moments, catching her breath, letting her heart settle – if it ever would – befo
re digging a pair of grubby sweat pants and a hoody from the laundry basket in the bathroom.

  She walked back into the kitchen and busied herself with preparing Badger’s dinner. She would sleep in the spare room tonight.

  Lucy dropped the hall phone onto the cradle, holding her breath as she watched Tuck walk naked back from the bathroom to the bedroom, towelling his hair and leaving splodgy wet footprints on the carpet behind him. His body was oddly marked with ski-bum tan lines at his wrist and neck, his face wind-burned, his lips chapped, his blond hair bleached even by the winter sun. He was still the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

  He didn’t seem to notice her standing there, one hand clasped protectively over her belly, and she heard him hiccup, then belch, from the bedroom as he clattered open wardrobe doors, looking for clean clothes.

  She was standing in the kitchen, doing the dishes, when he walked in a few minutes later. He sauntered over to the fridge and got himself a beer, popping off the cap and ducking a quick look under the blinds across the courtyard to see whether her mother was sitting by the window in her apartment in the hotel, watching them. He was neurotic to the point of paranoia about it, even though Lucy had reassured him a thousand times that her mother was simply watching TV, that she had no interest in watching the drudge of their domestic life from across the courtyard, but he remained convinced his mother-in-law was spying on them, adamant they had to move.

  But to what? That was what Lucy wanted to know. Every cent he made went back into the business (or Bill’s bar). At least here they didn’t have to pay rent and it was central.

  He took a swig of the beer (not his first of the evening, she was sure) and she felt his stare on her, sensed his resentment at having been called in early, the marital leash shortened for once.

  ‘So, what’s this thing you wanted to talk to me about?’ His voice was surly.

  Lucy bit her lip, feeling her nerves spike, as she slowly turned to face him. Would the words come?

  He watched her, his cheeks flushed dark pink from the drink and she saw it again, that look that lurked in the furthest depths of his too-blue eyes now, whenever he looked at her.

  She looked back at him, willing him to guess, understand, rejoice . . .

  He straightened, mistaking her hesitation. ‘Is it what we talked ’bout before? Have you reconsidered?’

  Reconsidered? Lucy felt her stomach tighten and curl, repelled by the thought. The things he’d said that time – what, six weeks ago now? Yes, it had been a bad patch, even before everything with Mitch, but he’d been drunk; he hadn’t meant the things he’d said. She knew he hadn’t. She knew him better than he knew himself, that was the problem. ‘Wha—? No!’ she cried. ‘How could . . . how could you think—?’

  His face fell, desolation in his eyes again. ‘Lucy, please. You know this isn’t—’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  The words hit their mark. Tuck slumped as surely as if he’d been shot, the colour draining from his face, the beer bottle clattering loudly against the worktop as his arm dropped. ‘What?’

  The word was a whisper, as thin and friable as a winter’s leaf.

  ‘We’re having a baby.’ She tried to follow the words with a smile, to lead the way, to show him this was a happy thing, a good thing. But almost immediately, she felt the tears fill her eyes, her mouth twist into a grotesque rictus as the smile faltered and failed at the sight of his shock. His breathing was shallow, his face settling into that mask of despair he seemed to wear at all times now.

  ‘Say something, please,’ she whispered.

  Tuck blinked and it was another minute before he could raise his gaze, as though it was something too heavy to be lifted, but she still felt that so-familiar jolt she always got when he looked straight at her.

  ‘Fuck.’

  The red eye stared back at her, unblinking in the dark. It didn’t flicker, flash, pulse, beat. No light radiated from it. She couldn’t see the monitors or the banks of buttons on the rigs, innocuous machines which, at one touch, turned the light green and the planet was shrunken and digitalized and brought into this little room like a cake on a tray. One wrist flick of the dial and she could speak to people in faraway lands the way Mitch had – all those far-flung friends he used to chat to. Were they wondering where he was? Did they assume he was busy at work or away on holiday? Perhaps he’d told them he was getting married and they thought he was on honeymoon?

  The thought made her snap her face away to the opposite wall, a reflexive move that made Badger groan. She felt hot suddenly, the blankets too much, and she threw them to the ground with an irritable sweep of her arm. She lay there, staring into a darkness so complete she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her. Someone – anyone – could have been waving a couple of centimetres from her nose and she wouldn’t have known it. She was up here alone. She was totally alone—

  What was that noise?

  With a sudden rush, she sat bolt upright and turned on the bedside lamp, light showering the room like a spray of gold ink; Badger lifted his droopy lids to stare at her from bloodshot eyes before closing them again. Her heart was pounding but she knew she was over-reacting. It was probably just a racoon scratching for scraps, or that cougar Mitch had spotted climbing the escarpment a few weeks ago. She just wasn’t used to being on her own up here, that was all. Her mind was playing tricks on her.

  Meg stared around the room, taking in the unfamiliar-looking objects and furniture arrangement and wondering when exactly she had become a stranger in her own home. It was only nine years ago that Mitch had inherited the plot – and dream – from his grandfather and they had excitedly set to building the cabin. The idea had been to turn it into a holiday rental, utilizing its unique off-the-track location to appeal to experienced bikers and hikers, skiers and boarders who wanted a base from which to explore the back country. As Mitch had spent a whole spring and summer clearing trees, digging trenches and transporting timbers, she – and Lucy – had torn around town, bargain-hunting for bedcovers and lamps, curtains and rugs, always setting the fire each night and putting out jugs of fresh mountain flowers each breakfast. Mitch had laughed at her but he’d fallen for the dream as much as she had; they’d made themselves a home.

  But time had passed – as it invariably must – and the new had become familiar and the familiar mundane, so that sitting here now, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually looked at her own home. If she’d covered her eyes, there and then, would she have remembered that the picture on the wall was an Ansel Adams print of Drawbridge Peak or that the bed frame was brass?

  Throwing back the covers, she walked over to the window and stared out. Stars prickled the sky but cast no light down here. She sat at the desk and stared at the one red eye.

  This was a mistake. She shouldn’t have come back. It was too soon.

  She should call Lucy. She’d promised she would if she needed to talk . . .

  It turned green, they all did, her fingers pressing each in turn, her eyes watching as the LCD displays came up and the dials swung into life. Static crackled and she picked up the mic, her thumb on the button.

  ‘Hello? Is anybody there?’ she asked quietly, before remembering: ‘Over?’

  White noise hissed and buzzed like angry insects.

  ‘Hello? Can anyone hear me?’

  Some voices came through, close enough for her to detect a Midwest accent, something Spanish . . .

  ‘Hi! Hello?’

  They crackled out of hearing again, out of range, the connection disintegrating. Perhaps she needed to change the frequency? She went to turn the knob left when a man seemingly stepped into the room – European, his English tinged with an accent she couldn’t place, his voice calm, clear. In an instant, Badger was by her side, his head positioned under her hand, ears lifted quizzically at the disembodied sound.

  ‘This is November Alpha One Sierra Sierra, calling Victor X-ray Four Delta Delta Echo, do you copy, over?’

&nbs
p; Blood rushing through her head, her heart pounding, Meg stared at the digital display. 145.800 MhZ FM. The dial was still where she had left it that night. The exact point where her hope had died had its own reference number, like a map coordinate. X marks the spot.

  ‘November Alpha One Sierra Sierra, calling Victor X-ray Four Delta Delta Echo, do you copy, over?’

  Meg’s eyes went to the sticker on the side of the monitor but she already knew the call sign. She would never forget it. The horror of that night was tattooed in her bones, every last detail, and now the sound of his voice was bringing it all back – that lone voice from the dark, the one lifeline they’d had.

  She looked away and out of the window, up at the stars that did nothing but look pretty, the same stars that were nowhere to be seen during the storm when she’d had one wish that she desperately needed to come true.

  ‘This is Commander Solberg of NA1SS, calling Meg Saunders. Do you copy, over?’

  One star looked brighter than the rest. It was flashing, moving. Was it a plane? . . . Was it . . . was it him?

  Her thumb pressed the button. ‘I hear you.’

  She watched the light flash in the sky, so far away. There was no way she could be talking to someone there – right?

  ‘Copy that. It’s good to get hold of you. I’ve been trying to re-establish contact for weeks, over.’

  ‘I’ve been away.’ Meg closed her eyes, her head in one hand as the memories continued to clamour like pawing children over an exhausted mother.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Copy that. I’ve just been concerned since our initial contact. I wanted to check you were OK, over.’

  Meg inhaled slowly, pushing down the emotion that was billowing inside her, wanting to be let out, needing to be released. ‘I’m fine . . . Over.’

  Another pause. She watched the light blink in the sky.

  ‘And your fiancé, Miss Saunders? Did they manage to send help in time, over?’

  ‘No. He didn’t make it. He died. He’s dead.’ The words shot out into the atmosphere like flares and she didn’t need to close out with protocol this time; there wasn’t anything that came after those words. She waited for whatever the technology was that allowed them to chat like this, to beam his sympathy back down to Earth.