Will doesn’t say a word as we collect our skis and boots from the dingy underground room which has a concrete floor with broken rubber matting and reeks of smelly feet. Ski boots must be the most uncomfortable things in the world and it takes ages to get them on. Will is ready much faster than me and sits on the wooden bench staring straight ahead as I continue to wrestle my feet into my boots.
‘You OK?’ I ask as I finally manage to jam my heel down into the boot and start trying to work out what to do with the various buckles and straps. ‘You’re very quiet.’
He turns to look at me and smiles. ‘Yeah. Sorry. My brother just winds me up sometimes.’
I puff out my cheeks. ‘He seems OK to me – quite funny in his way. I wouldn’t really know not having any siblings,’ I add, not wanting Will to think I am taking Adam’s side, ‘but everyone seems to get wound up by their brothers and sisters.’
Will shrugs. ‘I guess. He always has to have the last word on everything. Just loves to put me down. Always has done, probably always will do. And …’
He tails off.
‘What?’ I prompt.
‘I resent him putting me down in front of you. There’s no need for him to do that.’
He looks away from me and bends down, pretending to fiddle with a buckle on his boot. I can see he’s gone red.
I touch his knee. ‘You don’t need to worry about that. I promise I won’t take any notice of anything he says about you.’ I give his knee a pat. ‘Now let’s get outside so I can make a fool of myself on these slopes.’
I’m already exhausted and have dropped my skis several times by the time we arrive at the base of a small fenced-off area of slope. We’ve walked no more than a hundred metres but I am boiling hot and can feel sweat pooling under my armpits and trickling down my skin under my many layers. I knew I’d put too many clothes on.
‘Right. Here we are. The magic carpet,’ Will says, indicating a conveyor belt running a short distance up the hill. It doesn’t look very magic or anything like a carpet. Tiny kids wrapped up like Michelin men are getting on, followed by the occasional man in red. I guess they are the instructors.
‘What’s magic about it?’ I ask, and then force a smile to try to cover my grumpiness. ‘Everyone else getting on it seems to be under five – are you sure I won’t break it? Am I allowed to use it?’
He smiles. ‘Yes, it’s fine. I wanted you to get your ski legs on this before I inflict a drag on you.’
I feel a stab of panic. That sounds scary. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a type of lift, but don’t worry – you’ll soon get the hang of it. Let’s take it one thing at a time, eh?’ He cocks his head towards the very unmagic-looking conveyor belt. ‘Shall we?’
Will shows me how to get on to the magic carpet. He goes first and actually, it’s surprisingly easy. It’s like being on a travellator at an airport, as far as I remember from the very few times I’ve been to an airport, only on a slight incline. I panic as I near the top because I don’t know how to get off, but my skis pop off the end and I keep them straight, as Will told me to, he holds my hand to help me shuffle out of the way.
After that, things get more difficult. Will explains that what I need to do is go down the hill with my skis in a position called a snowplough ‘Look! Keep the tips pointing together and the other ends outwards. Like a snowplough, see?’ he says as if I was about six years old. He’s saying something about transferring my weight from one side to the other to turn, and trying not to stick my bum out, but I’m not really listening. I’ve already decided that skiing isn’t for me. It’s a posh person’s sport. You have to have learned when you are tiny, like the little kids around me on this slope, otherwise it’s too late. What was I even thinking, coming on this holiday?
But I’ve come all this way and Will has paid for me to be here, so I can’t say that. I force a smile, put my ski tips together and slide down the hill as Will skis backwards in front of me. There is a lot of stopping and two falls, but Will is there with an eager grin and his hand held out each time to help me up. It isn’t as bad as I expected it to be.
‘Yay!’ he cries, applauding and jumping about as we finally make it to the bottom of the tiny slope, to the obvious bemusement of a nearby group of toddlers who are somehow on skis even though they have probably barely learned to walk. By now Will has taken off his skis and is walking alongside me because I am so slow and have fallen so many times. ‘You were amazing!’ he lies, admittedly enthusiastically. ‘Shall we have another go, and then we’ll move on to a green?’
A green what? I wonder. Are we playing golf later? But I don’t ask. ‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘Let’s do it again. And then we can move on. To a green.’
It turns out a ‘green’ is a green piste. It’s the easiest type of proper slope, but still way bigger than the nursery slope, which was apparently what I was on earlier.
And magic carpets are only for total beginners, no doubt to lull you into a false sense of security.
Initially I am relieved to find out that we are going up the mountain in something called a bubble because that sounds quite fun, but it turns out to be nothing like a bubble at all. It’s actually a cable car which, alarmingly, doesn’t stop for you to get in like any normal kind of lift. No, instead you have to shuffle along in these impossible-to-walk-in ski boots, carrying your cumbersome skis and poles – ideally without letting them hit someone in the face – then you have to spot a gap while everyone else is doing the same thing, so you end up in the bubble rather than standing on the platform, waiting to get on.
After about three bubbles go past without us, even though we’re at the front, I finally manage to hurl myself forward, or rather lurch in as Will shoves me. I fall over as soon as I’m inside, my skis clattering to the floor (why do they have to make so much noise every time?). Will hauls me up while a couple of teenage boys pick up my skis and hand them to me with a brief ‘Tenez, Madame’ and disparaging looks.
As the lift rises up, I stare gloomily out of the window at the beautiful landscape and clear blue sky. This is not going how I hoped it would. I knew we’d be skiing, obviously, but I guess I was imagining getting up late, perhaps some sex, a massive breakfast served by fit French waiters in tuxedos, a couple of runs in the sunshine, which I would somehow be able to accomplish effortlessly, some steak and red wine for lunch, followed by a session of sledging or a sexy snowball fight like in the films, then back for a hot tub and more sex on a bed covered in furs before a dinner of oysters and champagne served by a beautiful Russian woman. Clearly I have watched too many Bond films.
The cable car lurches and adrenaline surges through me as for a second I’m sure the whole thing is about to drop off the wire and crash to the ground. But no, it’s just that we’ve arrived at the top and it’s time to get off. I stumble off using my poles for balance – by now Will has realized that it’s easier all round if he carries my skis, thankfully. I follow him out of the lift station and squint in the bright light.
It’s nothing like the nursery slope up here. People are whizzing past at incredible speeds. Where are they all coming from? Will can’t expect me to ski here, surely? I’ll get run over.