it, without another word.
Jake was trying to calculate if he might be able to reverse the police car back onto the road. The front passenger wheel was blocked, sure enough, but the vehicle was pointing downwards and looked ready to slip sideways. The prospect of climbing into the car, starting the engine and trying to back out was terrifying.
He watched Zoe go round to the driver’s side. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Maybe it will.’
‘Don’t even think about it.’
They walked back to the village discussing alternatives. They could try to find another vehicle. It was entirely possible that there might be more keys hanging around in one of the many stores that remained unlocked. Or they could simply walk out and follow the road across the mountain.
There were cars parked near their hotel. They checked them all out. They were all locked. They knew their chances of finding an unlocked car with its keys dangling in the ignition were pretty slim, but not impossible.
Yet within just twenty minutes they found a car with its keys winking in the ignition. Jake swung into the driver’s seat and turned the key, but the battery was completely flat. They tried bump-starting the car on a short hill, but nothing happened. They abandoned the car at the bottom of the rise and resumed their search.
Jake let out a cry when he stumbled upon a parking lot with eighteen identical black snowmobiles. ‘Here’s our ride out!’ he shouted. ‘Take your pick, they all look the same.’
But his enthusiasm was premature. All eighteen snowmobiles were linked by a thick chain and a massive padlock. They could find neither keys for the snowmobiles nor the key for the padlock. The search briefly turned to thoughts of a bolt-cropper, but this idea was abandoned when they realised that even if they did find a bolt-cropper they still had no ignition keys.
After three hours they were ready to admit defeat, at least for the day.
‘What will we do?’ Zoe asked.
‘Do? We’ll go back to our room in the hotel for another night. Drink some more of their fuckin’ fabulous tasteless wine. Then we’ll get up bright and early and we’ll hike out of here once and for all by following the road.’
They linked arms, and in a kind of neurasthenic trance they trudged back to the hotel.
They used the sauna to get warm again, and then swam in the spa pool. The water made a hollow lapping noise in the absence of any other guests; the changing rooms echoed oddly; the padding of their feet on the tiles was a lonely sound.
Afterwards they spent an hour using the hotel’s computers to get online. The computers failed to connect. While Zoe persisted in her efforts, Jake went through the entire series of phone numbers all over again. One by one the lines rang and rang and no one answered. No one answered anywhere.
‘It’s the local exchange. The fault has to lie with the local exchange,’ Jake said. ‘It must be out of commission otherwise somebody would pick up.’
They were no more successful with their mobile phones.
Jake found the toque Zoe had thrown on the floor and cooked again that night. He defrosted chicken and discovered spices to rustle up a sweet-and-sour stir-fry. He found a CD player and cranked the volume up high, banging pots and pans and cracking the imaginary heads of poor little kitchen boys to get his spirits up. There was a CD of classical operatic stuff sitting in the machine, offering a soaring mezzo-soprano diva vocalising beautiful words he couldn’t understand. He turned up the burners on the cooker and flamed oil in a skillet as if it was all theatre.
The stainless-steel kitchen work surface still offered the lean cuts of meat and chopped vegetables laid out from yesterday. Everything looked and smelled as fresh as if it had just been prepared moments earlier, but he left it lying there and cleaned himself another work surface across the kitchen.
Zoe sat at the table in the restaurant; the table was laid, with crisp linen and silver cutlery all in place. Her hands were folded under her chin. She’d found a bottle of champagne.
‘Don’t ask the price. We’ll hide the empty bottle. No one will ever know.’
With the operatic vocals soaring above their candle-lit table and the darkness thickening outside, they ate their second meal in the deserted restaurant. The music had a phantom beauty, swooping between the empty rows of tables. Without a word Zoe got up and changed it, pointedly, for some upbeat Pixies tunes.
‘Why has no one come for us?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
The champagne went to Zoe’s head. They guzzled it, and Zoe fetched a second bottle.
‘Enjoy this,’ she said, pouring freely, ‘because the cost of those two bottles amounts to roughly the same as the cost of this holiday.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘I’m not. They’re on what’s called the “reserve list”.’
‘What’s a “reserve list”?’
‘Well, there’s the wine list and then there’s the reserve list. It’s for special occasions. If you can’t find anything expensive enough on the wine list you ask for the reserve list. It’s for special people with a discerning palate and a big fat arse.’
‘You do realise we’re going to get landed for this?’
‘No we’re not. We’ll deny everything. And I’ll tell you something else. For these two nights I’ve felt like you and I were the last two people on earth. I have you totally to myself, with not even a waitress to distract you. And some perverse part of me has really enjoyed it. Tomorrow it’s going to be over and there will be things I’ll wish I’d said to you when I had you to myself.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like how long ago was the avalanche?’
‘Uh? Only yesterday morning. Incredibly.’
‘Exactly. Only yesterday morning. And it feels like an incredibly long time ago.’
‘You’re right. It does.’
‘A long time ago since we almost lost each other. We almost died, Jake. And every second since then seems to have expanded, and it’s because there’s just you…’ She held her glass up, a little unsteadily, to clink it with his. ‘And me.’ She looked around the empty restaurant. ‘Everyone else sucks our time from us. I could almost stay here a few more days, just out of bloody-mindedness.’
‘Do you think we’re on a reserve list?’
‘What?’
‘God’s reserve list. Nature’s reserve list. Like everyone else is on the ordinary menu and we’ve been kept back here cos we’re on the reserve list.’
‘That’s a weird idea.’
He half-smiled at her. ‘All the other people will be back soon.’
‘I know. And we’ll leave first thing in the morning. Come on, let’s go to bed.’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘Bring the rest of that bottle since it cost so bloody much.’
She was indeed drunk. When the elevator doors opened she pushed him inside and lunged at him. With the lift doors closing she leapt on him and bit his lip, fumbling with his belt and hoiking down his trousers. Falling to her knees she fellated him. His elbow hit the lift buttons and the doors opened.
Jake froze. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘my wife will be finished in a moment.’
Zoe stopped and looked up as if she half-expected to see a shocked guest in the lobby. She took a swig of bubbling champagne from the bottle, swallowed, and put his dick back in her mouth.
The elevator bell chimed and the doors closed again.
‘Wake up.’
Zoe groaned. Her head felt like someone had split it with an ice-axe. Jake was dressed, standing over her, holding a mug of gently steaming coffee under her nose. ‘What time is it?’
‘Time to go.’
‘Really?’
