her feelings started to change. The thing was, she wanted Jake’s feelings to change along with hers, to mesh, to cog; and she suspected that was going to be unlikely. They had discussed it once or twice, and the question had evaporated. There wasn’t a no. But there wasn’t a yes in the air, either.
They had watched with rotating envy, suspicion and horror as friends of theirs became parents. They had seen lives changed, both for better and for worse. In some cases the advent of parenthood had been a thrilling and giddy elevation of life into the upper air; in others it had been a chaotic nosedive into disaster and divorce. For some, becoming a mother or a father channelled a blissed-out source of energy and joy; others were exhausted drones, depressed and zoned out by the experience. There seemed to be no rules for how the thing played itself out in people’s lives.
But when she had fallen pregnant just before their skiing holiday, Zoe knew she wanted it. She was just not the sort of woman to drag a man kicking and screaming into fatherhood. Her plan had been to await the magical moment, perhaps at the top of a mountain or during a walk through the perfect snow of early evening, and with dusk settling to sound him out; and if the auguries were positive, she would reveal her sensational news.
But then the avalanche.
And now, although every sinew and nerve inside her resisted the premise, she was dead.
Pregnant and dead.
The new question of course concerned the nature of her pregnancy. Was it the kind of pregnancy that gestated and changed with the passing of the sun across the sky; or one that remained in a state of stasis, a frozen embryo suspended inside her, like the candle flame that never progressed down the wax? If it were the former would she tell Jake? And would she if it were the latter? Perhaps if they were trapped here for eternity, she would be eternally pregnant, without ever arriving at full term.
She heard the outer door open and close as Jake came back into the room. She hoiked up her trousers, flushed the toilet and carefully hid the tester stick at the bottom of the bathroom bin. When she emerged Jake was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, looking at her strangely.
‘When did you last have a dump?’
‘What?’
‘When? Because I didn’t have a dump since the avalanche until just now. And the urge only came on me when you mentioned being hungry. I thought about that and felt hungry. That made me remember that I hadn’t had a dump. And remembering not having a dump before made me suddenly have to go for a dump.’
‘Jake, do you think we’re trapped here? Or have we been released here?’
‘You think about it hard enough and you’ll want a dump too.’
‘Can you shut up about dumping?’
‘Just sayin’, okay?’
‘It’s an important question—if we’re trapped, or if we’ve been freed to be here. It will change the way we are when we’re here, won’t it?’
‘We’re at cross-purposes, aren’t we? Talking on different levels.’
‘You could say that.’
‘Dumping is a very important question.’
‘Hell! I suppose I haven’t since the avalanche. It’s probably the trauma. You know? A reaction. Now I’ve started thinking about, I have to go.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ he said.
She turned and went back into the bathroom, shutting the door on him.
‘It’s always good,’ Jake shouted through the closed door, ‘to take a happy dump.’
‘Shut up!’
Jake moved away from the door. ‘Always good to take a happy dump,’ he said quietly.
In the night she was awoken by a bright white disc hovering in the air close to her face. A voice clearly whispered her name:
‘Zoe! Zoe! Approach the light! Come into the light.’
Zoe sat up in bed, squinting between her splayed fingers at the source of the light. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘Even as a dead person you can be such an arsehole.’
Jake switched off the lamp he was holding a few centimetres away from Zoe’s face and put it back on the bedside table. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I keep thinking about our situation.’
A crack of light leaked through the curtains. Zoe got up and drew back the curtains and the room was washed by thrilling moonlight. Outside it reflected brilliantly on the snow. It was enough to see by. ‘Pour us both a cognac. Let’s talk.’
Jake splashed the amber liquid into a pair of tumblers, handing one of them to Zoe. He took a drink and sniffed.
‘I want to ask you something,’ she said. ‘It was something I asked you yesterday, but I want you to think hard about it before answering.’
‘Fire away.’ He took another sip. ‘You know what? This cognac doesn’t taste of cognac.’
‘I asked you if you thought we’re trapped here, or if we’ve been freed here.’
‘Depends which way you choose to see it.’
‘Exactly. There isn’t a right answer, is there? It depends on how we choose to see it. If we choose to see it as if we’re trapped here, then our situation is tragic. If we choose to see that we’ve been liberated here, then it’s the opposite.’
‘Comic?’
‘Comic isn’t the opposite of tragic.’
‘No.’
‘I mean to say, if we choose to see it the right way, we could have the most magical time here. You and me. Together and alone. We have warmth, shelter, food, the best wine, skiing on wonderful slopes together. It’s paradise: if we choose to accept it. If we choose to call it that.’
‘I guess.’
‘You guess?’
‘Well, yes. You could be right.’
She heard the shadow on his words. ‘But. There’s a but, isn’t there? There’s always a but.’
‘No, you’re right. We can be free, together, staying here, playing in the snow like children, with all our needs taken care of.’
‘But. Tell me your but.’
‘Okay. It’s like this. Even though there is no decay here, even though meat stays fresh and candles don’t burn down, there is still another level in which time is passing. The sun goes down and comes up. We sleep, we pee, we dump. There is energy, keeping the lights on, driving the chairlifts. And energy burning is an event. And the event must pass.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’
‘Been thinking about it. In all our folklore about death, someone comes to collect us. You know, Uncle Derek in a surgical gown telling you to go into the light. The Devil shovelling you into his furnace. Charon to row you across the River Styx. I can’t help feeling someone or something… is coming.’
‘Coming?’
‘Yes… coming. To collect us.’
Zoe shivered. ‘I wish you hadn’t said that.’
He went over to the window and looked out across the lustrous moonlit snow. ‘Me too. I also wish I hadn’t said it. But . . . that’s my but about all this. I feel it. I feel something coming.’
‘You don’t believe in any of that! Charon, the Devil, Uncle Derek! Maybe this is an atheist’s afterlife. You’re an atheist to the bone, like I am.’
‘I am. And I’m not backing away from that. I just feel that someone or something is making its way here.’ He drained his glass. ‘What does this cognac taste like to you?’
They went out to ski. Zoe said that she’d come to this place to ski and that she wanted to ski, so out they went. She asked if they might try the same route by which they’d tried to leave the village after the avalanche. Jake
