Cover

Midnight
in the
Snow

KAREN SWAN

Dedication page

For Caroline Hogg

Who is far more brilliant than she knows

Prologue

Clover Phillips Tell me what it was like.

Cory Allbright (Pause) It was like . . . being inside a washing machine. You’re getting thrown about. You don’t know which way is up and which is down. The pressure is immense. The wave slams you down and crushes you. Then it sucks you back up again . . . When the wave is on you, everything’s dark. It’s like the sky is falling.

C. P. How long were you under for?

C. A. From the first one? Two minutes twenty, forty.

C. P. That’s a long time to hold your breath.

C. A. We train for it. But it’s different when the wave’s got you and you’re being tossed like a rag doll. You’re getting grilled. You’re not in control of what your body’s doing. All the forces are coming from outside your body.

C. P. Were you able to orientate yourself?

C. A. Not at first. When the wave’s on you, it’s like an avalanche – weight, pressure, noise. You have to let it extinguish itself before you can even try to get out, you’ve gotta wait for the trough before the next wave. I had been upside down but I got myself right and when I could see the brightness of the sky, I knew I could kick up. But before I could surface, it got dark again. I felt the water sucking back.

C. P. How far were you from the surface?

C. A. A metre?

C. P. And the second set came?

C. A. (Nods)

C. P. What could you see?

C. A. . . . I saw hell. I saw my life being taken from me . . . I could see the wave coming down, it was like watching a building fall on me . . . There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t get out of the way. I knew I didn’t have the breath to stay down for a double.

C. P. What’s the last thing you remember?

C. A. Spreading darkness, and then pressure. The wave crashed down on me and threw me onto the seabed. I was knocked out. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital bed, a day later, with a broken arm and a TBI.

C. P. By TBI, you mean traumatic brain injury?

C. A. (Nods)

C. P. But that isn’t the only lasting damage, is it? According to your doctors, you were under the water for four minutes twelve seconds before you were rescued. You suffered hypoxic brain injury as well and as a result of inhaling sea water, you have acute respiratory distress syndrome.

C. A. . . . Yeah.

C. P. What has the impact been on your family?

C. A. (Hides face in his hands) They’ve got it worse than me. I can’t provide for them no more. My wife’s working two jobs, on top of looking after me. My boys don’t know what’s happened to their dad cos they’re too young to understand. They can’t see my injuries so they don’t know why I can’t get on the boards or why I won’t go throw a ball with them.

C. P. So you lost more than just a world title that day.

C. A. I lost the only titles that matter. Father. Husband. I wish I could just . . . go back to that day and do it all different.

C. P. But what could you do differently?

C. A. (Silence)

C. P. . . . Cory?

Chapter One

One year later
London, April

‘And the winner is . . .’

The lights pooled on the stage, spotlighting the flawless form of the beautiful young actress in the gold lamé dress.

‘Clover Phillips, with Pipe Dreams!’

The room erupted into jubilant applause and Clover felt Liam’s grip tighten around her hand, a rough cheek pressed against her own. ‘You did it.’

‘We did it,’ she said generously. Her idea, her graft, her years of research and filming, interviewing, editing, pitching . . . but his money. And money was king in every industry.

The spotlight had found her already, its beams sinking into the thick plush of her emerald velvet tuxedo as hands of the people sitting all around her reached out for a touch, a stroke, a squeeze as she passed by, as if to absorb some of her newly endowed glory.

She walked up the steps and towards the podium, where the distinctive gold mask was being held towards her. It felt surprisingly heavy as ownership was conferred on her, the actress greeting Clover with a delicate air kiss and enveloping her in a subtle scent of rose otto and neroli.

She looked out into the auditorium, recognizable faces from a world that wasn’t hers, smiling back at her like old friends, telling her this award – like all the others – was a key that let her into the club; all those famous people knew her name, admired her work. She was twenty-seven years old and, on the inside, one of them.

She allowed a small smile to grow upon her lips, revelling in the moment of glory as still the clapping continued. She was growing accustomed to making these speeches now. ‘Thank you,’ she nodded. ‘Thank you.’

She pressed a hand above her heart as a token of gratitude, waiting for the noise to die down. In the corner of her eye, beside the cameras, she could see a set of numbers spooling down, reminding her she had precisely eighty-four seconds left before the host – a comedian with a cruel wit she would rather not engage – came back on stage to drive the show towards its punctual ending in time for the ten o’clock news.

Eighty-two . . .

‘Ladies and gentlemen, the distinguished judges of the BAFTA committee,’ she began, debating whether to reach for the speech notes in her jacket pocket. ‘On behalf of all the team at Honest Box Films, thank you for this great honour. Thank you for seeing, hearing and recognizing the power of Cory Allbright’s story. Thank you for giving it a reach that would not otherwise be possible without your endorsement – for that is, after all, our ultimate aim: to take the message of hope and second chances to the darkest corners, where the light is most needed.

‘When I first approached Cory and his family about the idea of doing a documentary, none of us could have envisaged the reception this film has received all over the world. The past few months have been a whirlwind and I know Cory wishes he could have been here tonight to thank you himself.’

She looked out across the sea of faces. ‘But sadly it’s just not possible, as we all know. Cory Allbright has always been the people’s champion, the underdog who fought every disadvantage, kicked down every obstacle thrown his way to scale the heights of the Pro Surf World Tour. For years, he was the nearly man, the runner-up, world number two; so when, finally, he stood on the very brink of having it all, the world was cheering him on. We wanted him to win it. He deserved it; he’d earned it. It was his time to shine.’ Clover’s smile faltered. ‘One single moment; that was what it came down to. One split-second choice, not even his own, and everything changed.’ She felt the familiar lump gather in her throat as she looked out and saw the sad furrowed brows among the audience. ‘Not just the sponsorships and the competition money vital for supporting his young family, but his health, his strength, his ability to live a life free of pain.’ Clover was quiet for a moment, letting her words settle.

‘I wish I could say I was in the business of happy endings. I wish I could tell you talent or passion or dogged determination will always overcome adversity; but if that was the case, it would be Cory standing here talking to you. Instead I can offer only this.’ Her eyes scanned the room, noticing the numbers still ticking down: thirty-three, thirty-two . . .

‘An ending doesn’t have to be happy for a new beginning to spring up; it will follow anyway, just as surely as the sun chasing the moon. There is always hope. And we must set our gaze ever upwards, ever onwards. We keep fighting for the next chance. Cory is still fighting, even though his life as he knew it ended that day on Supertubos Beach in Peniche, Portugal, October 2017. And he has shown through his fight, his strength and courage that while champions may shine in the light, it is heroes that light up the dark.’ She held up the glistening trophy. ‘So thank you, BAFTA, for giving us another torch along the path.’

The applause had erupted again, even before she’d finished speaking; several people were on their feet. Then some more. And more.

Four – three – two . . . The spooling numbers stopped at zero but the clapping didn’t as she looked out in wonder at the sight before her. Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Gillian Anderson, George Clooney, all nodding their heads and holding out their claps towards her in a show of unity. Of course, she knew it wasn’t her they were applauding, but Cory. This was their show of support, they were standing beside him. She hoped he was watching.

Clover raised the trophy with triumphant victory as she made for the side of the stage, where a backstage manager in a headset was waiting to usher her off and prepare to shoo the next presenter on. Only as she was squeezing past him did she notice it was Daniel Craig.

‘Congratulations, Ms Phillips,’ he murmured in that familiar voice. Her mouth parted in surprise that Daniel Craig knew her name but in the next instant, he was announced on stage and had stepped out into the lights. The show must go on, from her moment of glory to the next one.

She was led away from the wings and people began shaking her hand and patting her shoulder again, offering congratulations in low voices. She looked down at the trophy in her arms as she walked through the backstage area towards the exit that would allow her re-entry to the auditorium.

The door was opened and a wave of sound rushed over them. For a moment she stood in the doorway, staring out again at the honed and chiselled profiles of the seated audience. It felt strangely dreamlike.

‘Mick will direct you back to your seat,’ the backstage manager said, handing her over into someone else’s care.

‘Follow me please, Ms Phillips,’ Mick said, striding quickly up and along the rows. The film excerpts for the nominees in the next category were playing out on the massive stage screens, providing cover as she slid back into her seat at the end of the aisle. Her victory lap had taken all of three minutes.

Liam winked at her. ‘I just got a congratulatory text from Steve McQueen,’ he whispered as she settled herself. ‘And Lewis Hamilton’s agent. He’s suggesting lunch next week.’

Clover arched an eyebrow, knowing exactly what he was implying: Hamilton could be the subject of their next film. The viral reach of her fresh-out-of-film-school debut – a documentary on the life and tragic death of fashion stylist Isabella Blow – had been followed up with critical acclaim for her gritty and often harrowing account of three Grenfell survivors as they navigated homelessness and trauma following the fire. She was acquiring a reputation for empathy and warmth, and an instinct for championing the underdog.

‘Come on. Diversity in F1, a knighthood . . .’ Liam whispered. ‘You know it’s got legs.’

‘That’s what you said about Angelina Jolie,’ she whispered back. Ms Jolie’s team had made preliminary contact after their Golden Globes win.

‘Well, she’s definitely got legs,’ he grinned.

She looked at him sidelong. A former banker who preferred the excitement and cachet of film finance to investing in big tech stocks, his head was turned by the glamorous world in which he now found himself. He loved staying at the grandest hotels, drinking cocktails in the bars, flirting with actresses at parties and lounging on yachts in Cannes. She couldn’t deny the thrill of sharing space with these starry people either, but unlike him, though she might now move among them, she wasn’t one of them – and never could be. By the very definition of her job she had to be an outsider, a mere face at the window peering in. She had to ask the difficult questions that peeled back the artifice, film shots that captured the truth of a situation.

‘Listen, James Bond knows my name. I can afford to take my time a bit,’ she said as the film clips ended. The audience began clapping again, Daniel Craig tearing open the envelope like it was a lace negligee.

‘Yeah, but just don’t take too long, that’s all I’m saying,’ he murmured. ‘We can’t wait another three years before we release another title. The momentum’s with us, and you know what I always say: consolidate—’

‘Or capitulate. I know,’ she sighed. Hardly a day went by when he didn’t say it.

‘We’ve got to keep swimming with the current. You never know when the tide will turn . . .’ He took a deep inhale, as if smelling one of his favourite Montecristo cigars. ‘Which is why I want the next title to debut at Cannes.’

‘Next year?’ she almost yelped. Several heads turned in their direction.

‘Of course,’ he smiled, his bemused tone suggesting he wasn’t so unreasonable as to expect it for this year, three months from now. But even next year was tight . . . It spoke to his naivety about this industry, that he thought it was perfectly reasonable to get their next project fully researched, filmed and edited in eleven months. Pipe Dreams had taken two and a half years of solid planning and work.

Her long blonde hair fell forward like a gold satin sheet as she tipped her head towards him. The winner was announced, and everyone began clapping again. So much clapping at these events. ‘Liam, that’s just not realistic.’

‘It’s gonna have to be,’ he shrugged, clapping along, his eyes on the next winner as she walked up to the stage. ‘The other investors want a green light on this. There’s a time for cooling your heels – and this isn’t it.’

‘But—’

He turned to her with a sharklike smile. ‘I know you can do it, Clover. Just don’t over-think it. Go with your gut. You’ll get the right story in time.’

The car pulled away from the kerb, the paparazzi flashlights blinding even through the tinted windows. Luckily, they weren’t trained on her but on the beautiful actress in the gold dress, who was now leaving with Timothée Chalamet.

Clover let her head tip back on the headrest and closed her eyes. She felt drained. An after-party spent schmoozing with the stars, while great for her profile – consolidate! – had left her exhausted. Liam had ‘gone on’ with some producers from Helen Mirren’s table, trying to get her to string along too, but she wanted her bed and nothing but her bed. They had been on this awards circuit for months now and when they weren’t dressing up and clapping by night, they were meeting with distributors by day. Thanks to their efforts – and their first really big win at the Golden Globes – they had sold to over thirty-five territories already, and there were precious few corners of the world still unaware of the Cory Allbright story.

Cory . . . She still hadn’t had a chance to call him and share the good news.

What time was it? She calculated quickly. One thirty in the morning here meant . . . five thirty in the afternoon there. She found his number and pressed dial. She rolled her head to the side and, with her phone to her ear, stared out the window. They were coming down Queen’s Gate, the museums and embassies dramatically spotlit, a couple late-night exercising their dog before bed.

‘Hey!’ Even in that one word, rush and busyness were conveyed.

‘Mia? It’s Clo.’

‘Clo!’ Mia’s voice tilted up with excitement and Clover could practically hear her feet come to a stop. No doubt she had a laundry basket on her hip or was whisking a perinaise sauce, little Brady careening off the walls and wanting to be out on the waves with his brothers. ‘How was it?’

‘Well, we did it again. Another piece of hardware that says the world frickin’ loves your husband!’

‘. . . Aaah.’ The sound was like an exhale. ‘He’ll be so stoked.’

Clover frowned. She had spent too much time with this family not to know immediately when something was up. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Oh, yeah. Yeah.’

But Clover wasn’t fooled by her friend’s attempts at upbeat. ‘Is it a bad day?’

There was a hesitation. ‘Well, yeah . . . a bit, I guess.’

‘Is he up?’

Another hesitation. ‘No.’

‘Yesterday?’

‘. . . No.’

‘Shit,’ Clover whispered, feeling the shine come off her night. She looked down at the trophy in her lap – at the laughter and tears on one face, this very situation captured in bronze. She had been celebrating her triumph all night, while Cory and his family continued to live another day with the fallout of his accident. Clover knew she was the only person outside their family who really understood what post-concussion syndrome actually meant; she was the only person who had seen Mia sobbing on the sand, bewailing the fact that the man she had married was gone and she was living with someone fundamentally altered, forever broken. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Hey, you know the drill.’ Mia’s voice was flat, matter-of-fact. ‘We roll with the punches.’

‘Is it his lungs?’ But it could be anything – the headaches, the double vision, the mood swings, panic attacks, anxiety, deep depression.

There was another pause – a longer one this time – and when Mia’s voice came back on the line, it was thick with checked emotion. ‘. . . He’s just under one of his black clouds. It’ll pass. We just have to sit it out. He’ll be up again tomorrow, I bet.’

Not necessarily, Clover knew. She had spent two weeks sitting in a dark room with Cory, listening to his angry silence, his frustrated screams, his moans of pain. Much of that time she had been frightened by his unpredictability, Mia beseeching her to come out – that it was bad enough enduring it on the other side of the wall where the sun still fell in through the shutters – but only by sitting in it with him had Clover been able to earn his trust, pull down his walls and get him to talk. By the time they had both stumbled from that back room, she had lost four pounds and it had taken a day for her eyes to tolerate the daylight again. For Clover, such an episode had been a one-off, but for Cory, these depressions rolled in as regularly as storm clouds. He couldn’t function through them, certainly couldn’t work.

‘Mia, is there anything I can do? . . . Are you okay for money?’ It was a blunt question, but their family had become almost her own. For nine months she had lived with them, dined with them, cried with them. She knew the raw reality of their situation.

She heard Mia swallow hard. ‘I think it’s time. We’re going to have to sell the house.’

Clover squeezed her eyes shut. The house was a ramshackle wooden bungalow with peeling aqua paint and yellow shutters. It needed a small fortune spent on it, after years of putting off repairs: it leaked every time it rained and in big storms it very often felt like it might blow over. It had an open-plan kitchen and living area, three bedrooms – the boys all shared – and a wraparound deck. But it wasn’t the house a buyer would be buying; nor was it the house that made it their home; it was the plot that was so special – small but perfectly formed at the very head of Half Moon Bay, on a rocky promontory overlooking a small cove. Mavericks, the famous big surf beach, was right around the corner and Cory always said it had one of the best views in California. The entire family spent their lives either in the ocean or sitting looking at it. They could judge the offshore wind directions and swell conditions long before they set foot on the sand. A house was just a house, but if they sold up, they’d never be able to afford a location like this again. The only private property on Pillar Point, with a military reservation otherwise dominating the headland, Cory had bought the tumbledown cottage and plot from a man who’d negotiated the sale of a few acres from the army when the site had sat unused after the Second World War. Even before he and Mia were married, he and his surf buddies used to hang out there, people sleeping on sofas, on the floor, all with sandy feet, ready to race down to the surf again at sun-up.

‘There’s been a developer sniffing around ever since the accident. First time he came over, Cory threatened to knock his teeth out if he ever stepped foot on the property again . . . He gave me his card anyway . . . and I kept it.’ Shame cut through Mia’s words, as though she was confessing to an infidelity.

Clover didn’t blame her, but she knew what toll this would take on Cory. It would be the cruellest blow. After everything he had lost following the accident, it had been the only thing left, to still be able to sit on his porch and watch the ocean. They saw dolphins and humpback whales as regularly as Clover saw cockapoos in Battersea Park. What would become of him, staring out into a concrete yard? ‘But I thought some work offers had come in?’ she said quietly.

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