‘You all right with this?’ he asks. ‘If you’re not sure, we can get the bubble down. It’s just over there. I don’t mind, honestly. Whatever you want today.’
Tears spring to my eyes. He is so sweet. If he finds out what happened, he might never forgive me. Or he might never forgive his brother. Or either of us. Or he might think I’m making it up. I can’t risk telling him.
He can’t see my tears, but they’re making my goggles steam up. ‘No, I can do it,’ I reply. ‘I just need to clear my goggles.’
We make it down the slope and I do OK. In fact I do well enough that we go up again and this time try a blue slope, which is apparently slightly harder. There are a few falls, but no tears and no tantrums. Will is sweet, attentive, and patient. I guess he feels bad for not making it back for lunch yesterday. But he can’t feel anywhere near as bad as I feel. The more I think about it, the more I think I’m at least partly to blame for what happened with Adam. I shouldn’t have had all that wine. I shouldn’t have let him order expensive drinks and then pick up the bill. I shouldn’t have let him into my room while I was only wearing a towel. I should have fought harder when he pinned me down, shouted, screamed, kicked. I did none of that.
By lunchtime, I am freezing cold and exhausted. We have a much simpler lunch than I ate with Adam; croque monsieur and chips with one beer each. That’s the kind of lunch I should have had yesterday, I realize now. Not the epicurean and sensual feast with wine and liqueurs I opted for. I am such a fool.
‘So, what about this afternoon?’ Will asks. ‘Do you want to go back up? You did amazingly this morning.’
I look out the window. The snow is sheeting down. Part of me thinks I should go, but a larger part is so exhausted there’s no way I can face it.
‘Would you mind terribly if I didn’t? I’m really tired and a bit cold. But I don’t mind at all if you want to go out. I don’t want to spoil your fun.’
Will reaches across the table and takes my hand. ‘You could never spoil my fun. Tell you what, I’m pretty cold too. Let’s go back and have a sauna. I don’t think you had one yesterday in the end? Then we could …’
He raises an eyebrow and I force a smile. That’s the last thing I want to do, but I’ll worry about that when it comes to it.
He makes the universal writing in the air sign for ‘Can we pay the bill please?’ and we both start to gather up our things. Normally I’d be excited about an afternoon with Will on my own with nothing planned, but right now I feel nothing but dread. I don’t want him to touch me. I don’t want anyone to touch me.
There’s a sudden blast of cold air as the door flies open and Adam stamps in, the cold emanating off him as he plonks himself down next to me. I feel myself shrink away from him. He’s not particularly big or even that tall, but somehow his presence seems to take up a lot of space at the table.
‘Bastardos!’ he booms, waving towards the waiter who slouches over so Adam can order a beer. He hasn’t brought our bill. Adam turns back to me and Will. ‘Did you have a good morning out there?’
‘Yep,’ Will says. ‘Louisa’s been showing me what she can do. She’s really come on.’
Adam looks me up and down and claps me on the shoulder. I try and fail not to flinch. ‘Good girl!’ he cries. ‘I knew you could do it.’
‘Where’s Nell?’ Will asks.
‘Gone back to the chalet. Doesn’t like this weather, apparently. But I thought I might find you in here and I wondered if you fancied doing something special this afternoon, Will? Maybe get a guide and do something off-piste?’
There is a brief pause. ‘Oh I don’t think so, sorry,’ Will says, loyally. ‘Louisa and I were going to go back and have a sauna.’ He sounds like he means it but, much as I love him, I know what the sauna will be leading to in Will’s mind and it’s absolutely the last thing I feel like doing at the moment.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I counter. ‘We’re only here for a few more days and we can have a sauna any time. You go out with Adam. I’m exhausted – I’ll probably just have a nap back at the chalet. I’ll be quite happy on my own, honestly.’
Will frowns. ‘Hmmm. But I’ve already abandoned you too much on this trip and I wouldn’t want you to think that I—’
‘You heard the lady!’ Adam interrupts. ‘It’s FINE. Now get your arse in gear and we’ll go and see if we can get a guide. There’s a place opposite – I think it’s called Skitastic. We’ll see if they’ve got anyone available.’
Will looks at me helplessly.
I smile and nod. This gives me an excuse not to have sex and it will keep Adam out of my way too – all I feel is a wave of relief. ‘It’s fine, honestly. Go. I want you to.’
He kisses me on the cheek and gets up from the table. ‘You’re the best girlfriend ever. I’ll see you later.’
28
December 1998, La Madière, France
Will
Unsurprisingly, given that the weather this afternoon means almost no one wants to ski, Skitastic has a guide available. The weather has worsened, and even though most people like us who are only out in the snow for a precious week will ski in just about anything, there are limits. Even so, I’m really pleased to be out on the mountain. I meant it when I said I’d go back with Louisa at lunchtime; I wanted to be with her and I still felt bad that I’d left her to her own devices so much this week. But she genuinely seemed to mean it when she said I should go out skiing. It’s pretty exhausting, being out on the slopes in this weather, especially if you’re a beginner, so it’s not surprising she wants to get a few zeds. I’ll make it up to her later.
Our guide, Cameron, is English and he’s not in the usual ski instructor model – no effusing over working in the ‘best office in the world’, no taking us to the top of a lift just to point out Mont Blanc (not that we could see it in today’s conditions, even if it was right next door), no banging on about the importance of taking time to enjoy the mountains and that it doesn’t matter what standard you are or if you don’t want to do certain slopes or your parallel turns aren’t perfect as long as you’re having fun.
No, instead there’s some brief form-filling, a curt chat about our levels (‘We’ve been skiing since we were kids and can ski just about anything,’ Adam says, the latter half of which is a bit of an exaggeration) and a short conversation about what we want from today (again Adam speaks for us both: ‘Something a bit extreme.’) I don’t disagree. I’ve spent so much of this week on easy slopes with Louisa, I’m up for something challenging now.
On the way up, Adam jabbers away but Cameron barely responds to any of the usual ski chit-chat – questions about how long he’s been here, comments about the weather, etc. In fact, he’s abrupt almost to the point of rudeness. But I guess you probably get sick of having the same conversations every day with total strangers who you’re unlikely ever to see again. Or maybe he simply doesn’t want to be out in this horrible weather.
‘Right,’ Cameron says, once we’re off the top lift. ‘We’re going to head down off the back here. Couloir Noir.’