Ours is the Winter by Laurie Ellingham

Author:Laurie Ellingham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Erica

The fishing camp looked like a smaller version of Huskyleir with a group of four log cabins set in a staggered row. Huge drifts of thick snow buried entire sides of the huts. With the slanting cabin roofs also covered in thick white snow, the fishing camp had been impossible to see until Lee had drawn them to a stop alongside it.

The snow covering the doorways was powdery on top but frozen as solid as bricks underneath. It had taken forty-five minutes of hard digging with miniature fold-out shovels to clear out the ice and forge a path to the doorway and the cabin inside.

When Erica had first stepped into one of the cabins and glanced at the three sets of bunk beds, a small stove, and a set of tables and chairs she’d had the unsettled feeling of abandonment and trespassing, like she was Goldilocks in the storybook she read to Isla. Snowdrifts buried the windows too, blocking much of the fading daylight and casting the small cabin in a spectral glow, which only added to Erica’s feeling of isolation.

But then Valek and Lee had cleared the snow from the windows and all eleven of them had piled into the largest of the cabins to eat together. There was no running water, no steaming hot bath to plunge her aching limbs into. It was little more than a shell, but one that protected them from the harshest of the wind and the cold, and one that she could stand up in, rather than crawl.

The heat from their bodies and the stove flame cooking their food made it the warmest Erica had felt all day. The cabin no longer felt abandoned but full of life and noise, which in that moment was the sound of ten people singing.

‘Happy birthday to you,’ the group chorused a second behind Greg’s operatic bellows. ‘Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear E-ri-ca, happy birthday to you.’

Erica smiled despite the red spots burning her cheeks. ‘Thank you.’ She glanced at the faces. Tired eyes, raw windburnt cheeks, hair sticking out at every angle imaginable, the matching goggle indents, and bulky outer layers of clothes that none of them had plucked up the courage to remove, which rustled at the smallest of movements. She smiled to herself as the desire to throw back her head and laugh took hold of her body.

‘So, Erica, is this always what you had in mind for your fortieth birthday celebrations?’ Frankie asked.

‘You mean crammed inside a hut in the middle of the Arctic with a group of – no offence – unwashed scruffy travellers?’

Frankie laughed. ‘Yes.’

‘I guess not.’ Erica grinned. ‘If you’d have asked me ten years ago what I’d be doing for my fortieth, I’d have said sipping cocktails on a white sandy beach in the Maldives. Or gambling my life savings in Las Vegas. But actually, this is kind of perfect.’ Erica’s eyes found Molly’s and they shared a smile.

It had been hard for Erica to talk about Billy – the good times and the bad.

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