I came across the frozen loch by accident on Christmas Eve, lost after driving back from six months of filming on the Orkney Islands. I’d hired a car after jumping off the ferry at freezing Scrabster, right on the northern tip of Scotland. The rest of the crew were flying back to London but I decided to go on a road trip, staying at different hotels along the way. It would be easy, my producer Julia had told me as she’d handed over a battered map.
‘Easy,’ I hissed to myself now as I reversed out of another dead-end turning. ‘Yeah, right.’
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise really, considering that time Julia had got a whole crew lost while filming a documentary on emperor penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula. And now I was as lost as they had been, except I was alone, driving aimlessly down a dirt track in the middle of the Highlands, cursing Julia as I did so.
Then I caught sight of a glimmer of a loch on the icy horizon, fringed by frosty pine trees and a hump of a mountain beyond. I slowed the car down, gazing out at it. There was a lodge overlooking the lake with golden lights twinkling from its windows. I looked at the map that was angrily balled up on the passenger chair. Maybe Julia had been right – this was where the hotel was meant to be? I turned into a slip road leading to the lake, and followed it for five minutes. As I drew closer, I cursed. A gate stretched across the narrow road, a sign reading Private Property hanging from it.
‘Not a hotel then,’ I said with a sigh. I stopped the car anyway, getting out to stretch my legs and figure out my options. I could sleep in the car, God knows I’d done that a few times, but it was too bloody cold. Instead, I could drive all night, like I had been doing for the past hour. At least the engine would be on to keep me warm – not that said engine was that reliable, the number of turns it took to get it started each time.
Truth was that breaking down in that snow-sodden country, no matter how beautiful it was, wasn’t too appealing.
As I thought that, something caught my eye: a fluff of white soaring across the grey skies over the lake, its soft white wings almost blending into the sheet of wintry clouds above.
A ptarmigan!
I quickly pulled on my cream hat and wool-lined gloves before going to the boot to grab my camera. Hitching it onto my shoulder, I ran towards the lake before it was too late and that beautiful bird was gone from sight. The sun was starting to set now, meaning soon red and pink hues might start to seep through the gaps in the cloud, reflecting on the loch’s surface.
Perfect for filming.
Excitement made my heartbeat accelerate. I hitched a leg over the gate, being careful not to drop my heavy camera as I lifted my other leg over. It was a good ten-minute walk to reach the loch so I zipped up my white puffer coat – ideal for blending into the snow-clad landscape, just like the bird I was chasing – and headed down the road, searching the skies for more ptarmigans, the first one I saw long gone now.
Damn it.
I knew there would be more though. They rarely came down from the mountainsides so it must have been particularly cold for them to seek a semblance of warmth in the forest edges. I’d never seen one up close, but had long been fascinated by how their plume adapted to snowy environments in winter by turning completely white.
I reached the loch, placed my camera on the hard, icy ground, put my hands on my hips and surveyed the scene before me. It was silent and still, apart from the mist coming from my mouth and the sound of my breathing. Just as I’d predicted, the sky started turning pink, stunning against the stark white mountains and snow-fringed trees of the forest ahead. The house that stood on the edge of the loch was the only thing that wasn’t white here with its rich wooden walls and the Christmas lights twinkling from its vast windows.
The thought of Christmas gave me a brief pinch of sadness. It was just another day for me now, no different from other days. While the rest of the crew I’d been stationed with were desperate to get filming wrapped up so they could return to their families, I would have been happy for filming to continue. That time of year meant nothing to me now.
I picked up the camera and approached the gate blocking the way to the loch. The ‘Keep Out’ sign creaked in a swift, bitter wind. How would the lodge’s occupants feel about me trespassing on their land on Christmas Eve? I was usually able to talk my way out of situations … or into them. But this might be a step too far.
As I thought of that, I caught a glimpse of white against white again.
Another ptarmigan! Or maybe the same one, teasing me.
I quickly lifted my camera onto my shoulder, filming the bird as it flew over the loch. It hovered for a moment, seeming to look over at me, and my heart swelled. I still had to pinch myself every day to make sure I really was doing the job I’d dreamt of doing since I was a teenager. The dream had started when I’d had to leave home at fourteen and work at the hotel my aunt ran in London. There were so many horrible things about that time: how desperately I missed my parents, our only contact in the form of stilted weekly letters. My aunt had worked me so hard, pleased to have an extra pair of hands at no extra cost. ‘You need to earn your accommodation and food, Gwyneth,’ she’d say. ‘You’re lucky I took you on after what you did.’ Not to mention the way some of the male guests would pat my bottom or make lewd comments. The one bright light was the fact the hotel was close to the British Film Institute’s headquarters so it was often frequented by documentary-makers who would stay during events. I’d escape the sadness of my life by listening in to their conversations as I served them tea over breakfast, or beer and wine late into the night. Civil rights marches in Memphis or starving children in Nigeria. There would always be a harrowing story to listen to. But it was the stories from the wildlife documentary-makers that fascinated me the most. I’d always loved watching the BBC’s Survival documentaries as a kid, awestruck by the stampedes of the great African elephants and soaring flights of proud birds of prey. And I had been in the company of the very people who filmed shots like that! It thrilled me.
And now I was feeling that same thrill as I watched this rarely sighted bird, the colour of snow, swooping down beneath a pale pink sky before landing on the iced-over loch. I smiled as I imagined what my mentor Reg Carlisle, the famous wildlife documentary-maker, would say.
‘Keep quiet. Keep steady,’ he’d whisper. Then a wink. ‘Nice spot, Gwyneth.’
I felt the leather notepad in my pocket that he’d given me as a gift just before he died then I took a step forward, then another before I reached the loch, where I carefully tested the ice beneath my snow boots. It was set, surely strong enough to sustain my weight. I was tall but thin, weighing less than usual after all those months of living on boil-in-the-bag camp food.
I took a deep breath and stepped onto the loch.
The bird froze, peering up at me, and I froze with it, pleased the camera was rolling.
Then the sound of cracking ice pierced the air. The bird flung up into the sky and I cursed myself. I went to step back but there was another crack. I watched in horror as a line zigzagged away from my feet.
I leant down and slid my camera across the ice towards the loch’s banks, watching in relief as it glided to safety. But when I went to follow it, I suddenly plunged down, neck-deep in icy water.
I tried to grasp at the ice but it broke under my fingertips. The sub-zero temperature gripped me, making me begin to tremble uncontrollably.
This quick? Surely not?
I twisted around, paddling my legs and heaving myself onto a thicker ledge of ice, but I just slid back down, fully submerging this time, gasping for breath and the pain of the cold when I reemerged.
You’ve really done it this time, Gwyneth.
I looked towards the lodge. ‘Help!’ I called out through freezing lips. ‘Help!’ I said again, screaming this time.
As I said that, a piece of detached ice nearby floated towards me and smashed into