The First Mistake(31)

A heavy breath crept down the line. ‘We were supposed to be meeting two hours ago,’ said Leo quietly.

‘Have you called anyone?’ I asked. ‘Have you checked his room, the hotel, the restaurant?’ I’d tried so desperately to keep my voice steady. ‘Is there a gym or a sauna he might be in?’

‘He hasn’t checked his skis back in,’ Leo had said, and my whole world had begun to close in around me.

‘Well, you need to find him,’ I said, a slight hysterical lilt to my voice. ‘Leo, you have to find him.’

‘We’ve been everywhere we can think of,’ he’d said. ‘We’ll give it another hour and then we’ll report him missing.’

‘No, you can’t wait another hour,’ I wailed. ‘Anything could happen in that time. He might be lying somewhere, unable to get up. He could have fallen down a crevasse and if it snows . . . Leo, another hour could be the difference between life and death.’

‘I’ll talk to reception now,’ he’d said sombrely. ‘But if he calls you in the meantime, tell him to stop pissing about.’

If Tom is trying to scare them, I’d thought, I’ll kill him myself.

I had sat by my phone, willing it to ring, for the next hour. Watching every sweep of the ticking second hand as it rotated through the minutes on the clock above the fireplace. ‘Come on, Tom,’ I said out loud. ‘Where are you?’

When Jules’s number flashed up on the screen, I could only imagine it being bad news. She would have been delegated by the boys, in an attempt to break it to me gently.

‘What’s going on, Jules?’ I’d said, barely able to breathe.

There was an excruciating silence at the end of the line. ‘Jules?’ I shouted.

‘Still nothing,’ she’d said gently. ‘The rescue team have been called in and they’re trying to ascertain where Tom was last seen and his likely route. Leo will call as soon as he hears anything more. Do you want me to come over?’

I’d wanted to say ‘yes’ but felt that doing so would elevate what might still be a stupid prank into a full-on crisis. It was as if acknowledging the severity of Tom’s situation would somehow make it worse.

‘No, I’m fine,’ I’d said. ‘I’m sure we’ll all be laughing about it by the morning.’

I couldn’t even begin to think about going to bed, but sleep must have found me for a few snatched minutes as when I woke up there had been a text from Tom, simply saying, Send help.

‘He’s texted me, Leo,’ I screamed down the phone moments later. ‘He needs help.’

‘I know,’ he’d said. ‘I got one too, but the weather’s closed in on us. It’s too dangerous to go up the mountain in the dark.’

‘Please do something,’ I’d cried. ‘What about the rescue team? Are they there?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Everybody is doing everything they can.’

‘Well it’s not enough!’ I’d raged. ‘He’s called for help. Send a helicopter, we’ve got to get to him.’

‘We don’t know when he actually sent the text,’ he said. ‘There’s barely any signal up here, so between his phone and my phone, there could be a considerable time lapse.’

‘I don’t care,’ I’d cried, hugging my knees to my chest. ‘Just find him before it’s too late. Please.’

The days that followed had been a blur of visitors and flowers. The long-stemmed white lilies that I’d once loved became a beacon of lost hope. Their sweet aroma now the pungent odour of gut-wrenching grief and loneliness. People came to the door with sorrow and lasagne – I didn’t hear anything other than, ‘Just pop it in the oven at 180.’

Every ring of the phone had the potential to bring the best or the worst news. Every knock at the door could have been Tom or the Grim Reaper, personally confirming his death. It was numbing and excruciating all at once.

I couldn’t sleep for fear that I’d miss him when he called and spent night after night staring at the phone, willing it to ring. Even when all hope was lost; when there wasn’t a chance he’d be found alive, I initially refused to hold a memorial for him. How can you commemorate someone’s life, if you can’t be sure that they’re dead? But it seemed that people needed an outlet, some form of closure so they could accept he wasn’t coming back.

The church was ablaze with colour, with me refusing entry to anyone who wore black. It was to be a celebration of his life, not confirmation of his death. Yet whilst my soul still prayed that he’d walk through the door, my lucid self felt I’d let him down by accepting his fate.

Over the weeks that followed, Sophia became a limpet on my already depleted resources. ‘Why isn’t Daddy coming back?’ ‘Where is he now?’ ‘If he isn’t dead, why isn’t he here?’ ‘When will I see him again?’

Every other minute was spent answering her questions as best I could. The minutes in between were spent holding her close to me, the pair of us too frightened to let the other go in case they never came back.

A guttural sob takes me by surprise and my memories throw me back out with a jolt. I can’t stop crying as I read the only message on Tom’s Facebook noticeboard.