Snowfall Read online

  ‘Yes, this was Matt’s,’ I agreed.

  ‘Did someone send it to you after his death?’ asked Stephen. ‘Not that it’s any concern of mine, of course, but –’

  I shrugged. ‘No. As a matter of fact, he gave it to me a few weeks before he came out for the last time.’

  Stephen’s thick fair eyebrows began to knot above his nose. He looked perplexed and uncomfortable, but he persisted: ‘Climbers are very superstitious, you know. Look, I always carry this pebble when I’m climbing – it’s one I picked up at the top of the first pitch I ever climbed, when I was sixteen, and I’ve carried it with me when I’m in the mountains ever since. If I lost it, I wouldn’t climb. And it was the same with Matt and that disc – it was his talisman.’

  I felt uneasy, as though he were suggesting that Matt’s death was partly my responsibility. ‘Surely you’re not saying that he fell simply because he wasn’t wearing this disc? I’m sorry, but I can’t swallow that. I don’t believe in superstitions.’

  Stephen shook his head. He pushed his red-gold hair off his forehead with a gesture of embarrassment, but his look remained stubborn. ‘I don’t mean that at all. I mean that because Matt was superstitious, he wouldn’t have gone on a climb without his disc. And since he wasn’t wearing it, that means that he couldn’t have been on a climb when he was killed.’

  Chapter Three

  I half smiled at Stephen Marsh, feeling pity for him. He was pleasant, friendly and kind; but the fact was that he obviously knew nothing at all about love.

  ‘I wasn’t just Matt’s casual girl-friend, you know,’ I said gently. Not that our relationship was any of Stephen’s business, but I saw no reason to hide the truth from someone of my own generation. ‘We lived together when he was in England. We belonged to each other, and so everything we had was interchangeable. Giving his talisman to me wasn’t giving it away – he would know that I was wearing it, and that would be the equivalent of wearing it himself.’

  Stephen shook his head again. He had a very firm chin, and it jutted with obstinacy. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I don’t agree.’

  His attitude annoyed me. ‘It doesn’t matter whether you agree or not,’ I retorted. ‘You may have done a few climbs with Matt, but surely you’ll allow that I knew him rather better than you did?’

  ‘Not in his rôle as a climber.’

  ‘He didn’t give me the pendant in his rôle as a climber! Good heavens, have you no idea at all what it means to be in love?’

  ‘Possibly not. I’ve always drawn the line at asking any of my girl-friends to live with me.’

  It had taken only a few seconds for what had been a sympathetic conversation to flare into a quarrel. I glared at him, too furious to trust myself to speak, and saw that his ears had reddened with embarrassment.

  He got to his feet. ‘I apologize for that,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It was ill-mannered and inconsiderate of me. I think perhaps I’d better go.’

  ‘I think perhaps you had,’ I agreed, trying to keep my voice cold although I knew that my cheeks were red and my hands were trembling. I turned away from him abruptly – and then remembered my situation, and my loneliness. To have found someone to talk to at all, let alone someone who had known Matt even a little, was a wonderful bonus. I’d be a fool to waive it.

  ‘Stephen –’ I said.

  We made a pact, over a fresh cup of coffee, that if he would stop apologizing, I would forget what he had said. And then he told me about the climbs he had made with Matt, and about one particular occasion when a foothold had crumbled away, high up on the north face of the Nockspitze; Stephen had plunged, but Matt had taken the strain on the rope and had saved him. Listening, I was warmed by pride, as well as by love remembered.

  There was one question I particularly wanted to ask. ‘Did Matt by any chance –’ I began diffidently.

  Stephen understood. He gave me a clear, honest look. ‘No. Matt mentioned that he had a girl-friend in London, but he didn’t talk about you or even say your name. And that meant that you were important to him. A man who talks freely to other men about his girl-friend doesn’t really love her.’

  It was a comforting thought. ‘I really am glad to have met you,’ I said impulsively. ‘I wanted so much to know some of Matt’s friends. I thought perhaps I might be able to talk about him to the Hammerl family, but it could be a bit difficult with Toni. I don’t want to give him the idea that I’m in need of company.’

  Stephen laughed. ‘From what I’ve heard of Toni Hammerl, he doesn’t need anyone to give him any ideas! Well, would it help if I mention to the Hammerls that you’re a friend of Matt? That should make it clear enough to Toni that you’re not without an escort – though of course you’ll have to add conviction by letting me show you round while you’re here.’

  ‘I’d appreciate that – the telling and the showing. If you’re sure you can spare the time from your Alpine flora, that is?’

  He grinned. ‘Flora can wait – I’ve given her some of the best years of my life, and it’s time she took second place.’

  He arranged to meet me at the hotel the following morning to show me the village, and then to take me up the ski lift so that I could see Innsbruck in panorama. Later in the week, he would show me the city itself. It was while he was enthusing about living in Innsbruck that I noticed a man standing in the doorway of the Gäststube, looking hard in our direction.

  I jogged Stephen’s arm. ‘Someone who knows you, I think?’

  He turned to glance at the man, then shrugged. ‘Oh, that’s Dr Becker – another Englishman at the university. Jon Becker – very pernickety about having Jon spelled without an “h”. He’s a senior lecturer in European history. When we meet we discuss football and the weather, in true British fashion; and he once went so far as to offer to pass me his air-mail copies of The Times.’

  For the first time for months, I felt inclined to giggle. The man in the doorway was not – like all the other men in the room apart from the locals – wearing a casual sweater, but a suit of grey Austrian loden cloth and a collar and tie. He looked aloof, and every bit as formal as Stephen made him sound.

  ‘I can think of no greater gesture of friendship,’ I said with mock solemnity, ‘than for one expatriate Englishman to offer another his Times.’

  ‘And I appreciated it – the paper has a very good sports section.’ Stephen glanced again at his colleague, then looked at me with an amused lift of one eyebrow. ‘But he’s not staring at me. You’re the one he seems to think he knows.’

  I looked again across the room. I’d certainly never heard of Jon Becker, and I was sure that I’d never seen the man before. I guessed that he was in his mid-thirties – younger, now I came to think of it, than Matt had looked. He had a very straight back, kempt dark hair, and a face that would have been handsome if it were not that the expression of his eyes was hidden by heavy lids, and that his mouth was set in a hard line.

  And he was staring at me intently; had been, for several minutes. When he realized that I had seen him, he turned away abruptly and spoke to Frau Hammerl, who was ferrying brimming mugs of beer to the local drinkers.

  ‘I don’t know him,’ I said, ‘and I’m certain he doesn’t know me.’

  ‘Well he needn’t come over here expecting me to introduce him,’ said Stephen firmly. Then he gave me a speculative look: ‘A lot of the girls at the university think he’s attractive, though he hardly acknowledges their existence. Do you find him attractive? Objectively, I mean.’

  I had no difficulty in being objective. I was still Matt’s, in heart and mind. What little interest I had in other men was entirely free from personal feeling.

  I considered Stephen’s colleague. Frau Hammerl had put down her beer mugs and was talking to him with what looked like respectful awe; understandably, since his bearing was that of a man who was accustomed to an attentive audience. There was something about the straightness of his back, the way he held his head high and looked at her down the le
ngth of his nose, that gave him an unpleasantly supercilious air. I felt a sudden urge to deflate his ego, on behalf of Frau Hammerl in particular and women in general – though from a safe distance.

  ‘Considerably less attractive than he imagines himself to be,’ I answered Stephen briskly. He guffawed. It was clear that he had no respect at all for his compatriot. Heads – including Becker’s – turned towards us. Embarrassed, I shushed Stephen and changed the subject; when I looked again, covertly, for the man we had been discussing, he had gone.

  But now another man, this time a giant wearing a patriarchal brown beard, appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Oh, there’s young Christoph,’ said Stephen indulgently. ‘One of my students,’ he added. ‘I earn my keep as an assistant lecturer, when I’m not chasing Flora or writing up my notes or ski-ing. He kindly gave me a lift today, so if he’s ready I’ll have to go. But I’ll look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Oh, and I’ll mention to the Hammerls on my way out that you’re a friend of Matt – I’m sure they’ll be glad to know.’

  After Stephen and his hairy student had gone, I decided that I would have an early night. I glanced across at the Sloans’ table. Rosemary had already left, and Phil sat alone fingering his moustache. I thought he looked nervous.

  I found myself hoping that this would not be their first night together. To make love for the first time at the end of a long, tiring journey, after all the emotional and physical strain of preparation for the new home and the wedding ceremony, seems to me to be an invitation to disappointment. Poor Rosemary, especially with her streaming cold; poor Phil.

  But was it sympathy I really felt, or envy? Envy, not only of the Sloans’ happiness, but of the fact that they were prepared to commit themselves to each other in marriage, while I had been afraid. In choosing to live with Matt, unmarried, I had thought myself brave and liberated. But perhaps I had been the one who was immature and unsure of myself: taking the easy way, snatching at love, confusing it with desire, and all the while balking at the really difficult and mature thing: the lifelong commitment, the demands of family life.

  And yet … and yet, in the circumstances, I was glad that I had been able to make Matt happy. Goodness knows, his life had been short enough.

  Though not, I remembered, as I fingered his disc, quite as short as he had led me to believe.

  Silly to let it bother me, but it did. I had given myself to Matt so unreservedly that it had never occurred to me that he was holding out in any way. The knowledge of his deception was too trivial to hurt me, but it niggled like a tooth with a loosened filling.

  And then there was this business about the disc I was touching, his climber’s talisman. I’d promised Stephen Marsh that I would forget what he had said, but I couldn’t dismiss it completely from my mind. Stephen had been so sure that Matt wouldn’t climb without his disc that I would have believed him, if I hadn’t heard the news from one of Matt’s own colleagues. Matt had been killed climbing the Nockspitze, the mountain just behind Kirchwald; the news had been sent from the Vienna office to the London office, and had been brought to me by an exceedingly kind and sympathetic man who had done all he could to soften what he had to tell me. There was absolutely no reason for me to doubt that what he had said was true.

  But what disturbed me more than Stephen’s assertion was the thought that perhaps, even though he had given me his disc out of love, Matt might have been subconsciously worried by the fact that he was climbing for the first time without it. Perhaps that had caused his concentration to lapse; perhaps that accounted for his fall.

  If only there were some way of knowing exactly what had happened on that last climb. Worrying it over in my mind, I decided that now I was here in Kirchwald I would try to find someone who had been with Matt, and who could tell me more than his London colleague had known.

  I had begun to put on my woollen jacket for the walk back to the annexe when I saw Stephen’s lecturer acquaintance again. This time he wasn’t standing and staring, but making his way across the room towards me.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said. His voice was firm and clipped, his deep-set eyes an unusual, penetrating light green; his smile was no more than a brief, polite lifting of the corners of his long mouth. ‘I was going to ask Stephen Marsh to introduce us, but I went out to the reception desk and by the time I came back he’d gone. Marsh and I both lecture at Innsbruck university. My name’s Jon Becker, and I believe you’re Kate Paterson.’

  It was my turn to stare. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I asked Frau Hammerl.’

  At close quarters, I could see why his girl students thought him attractive; but good features are no compensation for bad manners. He stood looking down his nose at me in much the same way as he had looked at Frau Hammerl, but I had no intention of emulating her awed respect. I opened my mouth, intending to say merely ‘How do you do’ and then make my excuses and go. Unfortunately I made the mistake of pausing long enough to add a large measure of ice to my tone before I spoke, and he got in first.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit at your table?’ he said, and did. ‘I believe you’re staying here until next Saturday.’

  ‘Frau Hammerl again?’

  He reproved my irritation. ‘She was merely trying to help you. She thought that a young lady on her own might be glad of a fellow-countryman’s company.’

  It was an impersonal statement, made without any pretence of warmth or gallantry. His green eyes assessed me with a coolness that was oddly at variance with the interest he seemed to be professing. I felt that I was being held at arm’s length. Possibly it was a technique he had adopted in self-defence against the girls who found him attractive, but I was nettled that he should choose to employ it against me.

  ‘As you saw,’ I said frostily, ‘I’m not on my own. Stephen Marsh is a friend of – of a friend of mine. He’s coming tomorrow to take me up the ski lift, and later he’ll show me round Innsbruck.’

  Jon Becker shook his head decisively. ‘Oh no. Marsh may know more about this village than I do, but not about Innsbruck. My father was Austrian by birth, and I had relatives living in Innsbruck until quite recently. I know the city like a native. ‘He took out a pocket diary and flipped through the pages. ‘Let me see – Marsh will be with you tomorrow, so let’s say the day after. Right, I’ll call for you here at ten on Monday morning, and we’ll spend the day in Innsbruck.’

  ‘We’ll do nothing of the sort!’ I protested vigorously. Matt had had a forceful personality, but he had allied it with charm and warmth; I found Dr Becker’s remote imperiousness particularly unattractive. His students were welcome to him. ‘As I told you, Stephen is going to show me the city. Besides, you’ll be working.’

  He shrugged. ‘What’s the use of seniority, if you can’t cancel an odd lecture or two? I’ll be here on Monday morning.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ I said; sharply, because that seemed to be the only way to get through to him. ‘Thank you, but I intend to do all my sightseeing with Stephen.’

  Jon Becker frowned, as though he were unused to having his plans disarranged. He drummed his fingers on the table for a few minutes while he gave me a long, thoughtful look. I returned his stare defiantly.

  And then he relaxed. His frown lifted, the hard set of his mouth softened, and for a second I thought that I could see another, much more vulnerable personality behind the deep-set penetrating eyes. ‘As you like, of course,’ he said, with polite indifference. His mouth resumed its humourless line. He put away his diary and took a card from his wallet.

  ‘This is actually my late uncle’s trade card – he sold optical instruments, and we’re living in his old apartment over the shop in the Maria-Theresien-Strasse, right in the centre of Innsbruck. If you need any advice while you’re here, or if you think I can help in any way, either telephone or come to this address.’

  It seemed an extraordinary thing for a resident of Innsbruck to say to a complete stranger, a girl visiting Austria on an eight-
day package tour. What help did he imagine I might need? What advice did he think I would come asking for? And what ever made him believe that, if I were to meet any problems, he would be the person I would turn to?

  If he was thinking in terms of offering me a discount on his late uncle’s optical instruments, he was wasting his time completely.

  But I thanked him and took the card. I was brought up to be polite. What I meant to do, of course, was to tear it up as soon as he had gone; so it was disconcerting to find him watching me as closely as a mind-reader. I shrugged and smiled, a little embarrassed, and let him see me tuck the card securely in my purse.

  Immediately, he began to talk. I had intended to get up and go, but there was no gap in his monologue which would allow me to do so without being deliberately rude. And so I heard how his father, a young widower with three small children, had fled from Austria in the nineteen-thirties, as a political refugee, and had met and married a Scots girl. She, Jon Becker’s mother, was widowed now but alive and well and living in Edinburgh. He himself had been at Edinburgh university, first as a student and then as a lecturer; he was now in the second and final year as a lecturer in Innsbruck. In the summer he intended to return to Scotland to take up an appointment at St Andrews, where he hoped to improve his golf handicap and write a book on European trading routes in the Middle Ages.

  He talked well, even with animation, but I found it difficult to take an interest. And that was partly my own fault, because I declined to communicate. I was aware that Jon Becker was working hard to make agreeable conversation, and it would have been perfectly easy for me to interrupt with more than one contribution: my father was a Scot and had done his veterinary training at Edinburgh; my family lived within reach of the city; I had been an enthusiastic junior golfer, though I hadn’t touched a club since I’d lived in London.