‘Thank you. You are a nice woman. And you are a nice dog.’
‘Good. Well, now that’s established, see you in a bit. And thank you again.’ She made her way to the door, picking up her things.
‘Do you want a hand with your stuff?’
‘No, it’s fine. Although maybe you could carry Bear’s things over for me?’
‘It’s going to feel quiet at our house without him snuffling around,’ Marco remarked as they walked together over the snow, which felt thicker and more powdery than it had when she’d left.
‘Feel free to come and drink some of my coffee if you need a bit of noise again,’ Alice replied.
‘Okay, thanks.’ He put the things down just inside the door and the two of them met eyes for a moment, dopey smiles on their faces. He reached over and squeezed her mittened hand, and then turned and walked back to his house.
Alice closed her door and exhaled. She faced Bear. ‘So?’ she asked. ‘You were my market researcher. Is the mountain air just making me dizzy or are you as smitten as I am?’
The following morning, Alice was in flow, sketching cartoons of Bear building snow dogs, when cheery noises arose from next door. She peeped out of the window to see Noah and Lola returned, along with two older people that must have been Noah and Marco’s parents. Cases and coats and gifts were being passed through the front door, with cries in both Swiss-German and English of ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Happy New Year’, nobody quite sure which should be said in the interim period between the two dates.
Bear stood by the front door, waiting to be let out to meet these potential new best friends.
‘Let’s give them a little time to settle in and spend some time with their son before you go barging in and steal everyone’s thunder,’ Alice said to him.
He looked at her, huffed, and sat down, but still faced the door.
She loved that view of him – his big, rectangle of a back, neck as wide as shoulders, head as thick as neck, with his ears squared forwards, listening, his Swiss kiss a handsome detail. She picked up a new sheet of paper and sketched this view of him too.
It felt good to draw again. There were some subjects that didn’t translate well in cartoon form – either it wasn’t appropriate or their naturally animated selves couldn’t translate on the page. But Bear’s quirks, his tufts of fur, his expressions and his silliness worked well.
Bear came back towards the table and flumped down, lying on her feet, covering both with a heavy warmth. ‘Remember when you used to be so small that you’d only be able to lie on one of my feet?’ she asked him. Not that he had ever been what a normal dog owner would call ‘small’.
She reached for her phone and scrolled back through countless photos from the past four months, stopping occasionally at particularly amusing ones in order to transfer them into cartoon form. It was only when her tummy let out such a growl that Bear jumped up that she realised how long she’d sat there, and how many little cartoons she’d drawn.
Alice went to the kitchen and picked up the Tupperware box of homemade mince pies her mum had packed her off with, all decorated with pastry stars and edible gold glitter spray. She had an idea.
‘Fancy stretching your legs a bit, Mr Bear?’ she asked, pulling on her snow boots and a big scarf. She tucked the tub under her arm and took Bear next door.
Lola answered the knock, throwing the door wide open and her arms around Alice. ‘Merry Christmas!’ she cried. Bear charged in without waiting for an invitation, leaving snowy, wet paw prints across their wooden floors. Not that any of them minded – indoor snow was par for the course for ski instructors.
‘Come in. Noah’s folks are here, you gotta meet them. Oh, your dog already has.’
In the living room, Bear was already desperately stretching his neck forwards trying to lick at Noah and Marco’s mum’s chin, while their dad was picking up scattered pieces of a Cluedo board from the floor, Bear’s tail sweeping it for any remains.
‘Did Bear do that?’ Alice cried, mortified. ‘Bear, down, come here. I’m so sorry.’
Marco’s dad looked up, the same happy smile as his son. ‘Hallo! Don’t apologise, I was not playing well, this is the perfect result.’
Marco’s mum wrenched herself away and stood up, crossing to Alice. ‘So this tornado is Bear, and you must be Alice? We are hearing a lot about you this year.’
‘Hi,’ Alice replied, a little shyly. ‘Sorry about the game. And the licking.’
‘Not at all, he is so like our old dogs. Oh, Patrick, let’s get more dogs, yes?’
‘Sure!’ said Marco’s dad.
‘Such wonderful dogs. Don’t they make lovely companions?’ his mum continued. ‘When he was growing up, Marco was often pretending he was one of our Bernese dogs. For maybe six months he would describe himself as the brother of Hund-Hund, our first Bernese, and he is walking around on all four feet and begging for treats.’
‘Mum!’ Marco exclaimed, coming in from the kitchen. ‘I was only, maybe, five,’ he explained to a snickering Alice and Lola. ‘And it was your fault – you kept telling me I had exactly the same personality as the dog. I got confused.’
‘Hundis dog, right?’ asked Lola. ‘So your first dog was called Dog-Dog?’
