ICEHOTEL Read Online Free PDF Page B

we were on the road, he explained he’d be posting daily
notices in the hotel Excelsior’s foyer, even on those days we’d be sleeping in
the Icehotel. Preliminaries over, he described the excursions. But at that
point, I only half-listened, I’d read the brochure several times.
    The road to the Icehotel wound through the suburbs of Kiruna.
I glimpsed a steepled church, colourful buildings with vertiginously sloping
roofs, and a park where children shrieked in the snow. The houses yielded to
dense forests of conifers, broken by snow-covered tundra and frozen lakes. In
the far distance, the mountains thrust their peaks to the sky, the white crowns
bright in the sunlight.
    Harry’s colour had returned and he was chatting happily to
Liz. Leo was sitting with the red-haired porcelain doll, mounting a charm
offensive. The Bibbys were at the front. The heat in the coach seemed
insufficient for Marcellus, who kept his thick parka tightly buttoned. His
hair, released from its ponytail, hung untidily over his shoulders. He’d
clamped his mobile to his head and was talking into it, rarely pausing to listen.
Wilson was dozing, the snake eyes starting to close, his head lolling forward
and jerking him awake. I smiled to myself. The early start – and the whisky – had finally caught up with him.
    Leo’s voice cut into my thoughts. He was standing at the front
of the bus. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll soon be arriving at the Excelsior.
We’re going to be joined by the final member of our Edinburgh party, who’s
making his own way there. His name is’ – he peered at the sheet – ‘Mike Molloy.
I’ve got one more item of housekeeping, which is to read out your room numbers.
They’ll be posted on the notice board in the foyer. Remember that your room
number is the same in both the Excelsior and the Icehotel.’
    The coach juddered to a halt. I followed the others out,
bracing myself for the sudden stab of cold. The snow was soft and clean after a
recent fall and I sank up to my knees in the drift. I floundered helplessly, my
breath forming warm clouds in front of my face.
    The Excelsior stood at the top of a short incline, its red
plaster façade and criss-cross of wooden beams reminiscent of the buildings in
Kiruna. A thick mantle of snow clung onto the steep roof in a victory of
friction over gravity. Without warning, a huge clump fell to the ground with a
soft whooshing sound, sending up a shower of snow. On the wide slope, conifers
had been planted at regular intervals. They stood to attention like a parade of
alpine soldiers, the arms of their dark branches bent to snapping point under
the weight of snow.
    We’d arrived early; the path was still being cleared, and
the workmen were throwing us anxious glances.
    But we’d lost interest in the Excelsior. Flanking the path,
forming a welcoming party, was a group of life-sized ice statues.
    They were circus characters. The largest, and most striking,
was the clown. Tufts of ice hair, glinting in the sunshine, had escaped from
beneath the rim of the bowler hat, which he wore back off the forehead. His
face had been roughened to simulate a clown’s paint, the markings adding the
finishing touches to the coarse clown’s lips and Charlie Cairoli nose. Ice
tears trickled down his cheeks, his wistful gaze imploring you to ignore the
clown’s trappings – frilly shirt, baggy pantaloons, and oversized shoes – and
see the man beneath. A small drum hung from his neck. He stood, shoulders back,
arms raised high, drumsticks poised and ready to strike.
    A ballerina stood opposite, gazing dreamily at the clown.
Her hair was swept up into a chignon and held in place with a single ice
flower, a garland of the same flowers curving across the bodice of her
impossibly-frilled tutu. She stood en pointe , arms above her head,
fingers touching lightly. Her head was tilted to the side, a seductive smile on
her lips as she watched the clown begin his drum-roll. Beside her, a juggler
was