“You mean, you cheated?”
“I mean, I looked it up so we don’t get lost on a mountain.” He raised that eyebrow at me.
“Good point,” I conceded.
I’d dressed for hiking as best I could from the clothes I’d packed. I was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and my sneakers. I wore my messenger bag across my body, in it a bottle of water, a cardigan in case it got chilly, and my usual bag stuff—minus my Kindle, as I didn’t think there would be many opportunities to stop and read.
On the trail, heading in both directions, were some seriously kitted-out hikers—proper hiking boots, walking poles, which looked a lot like ski poles, Camelbacks, windbreakers and hiking trousers made from that expensive quick-dry fabric. In comparison, Jean-Luc and I looked like we were heading out for a picnic, not hiking down a mountain. I hoped we weren’t going to hit any rough terrain.
I needn’t have worried, because the Swiss do many things well and, as I soon discovered, hiking trails are one of them. The path was firmly packed and clearly marked. There were no tripping hazards and a gentle slope took us all the way down the mountain. Not long into the walk, I realised that it was everyone else, in their hundreds of pounds’ worth of gear, who was overdressed.
Jean-Luc was kind enough to let me set the pace. His legs were much longer than mine, and I really didn’t want to have to half-jog down the mountain just to keep up with him. Still, it was a good opportunity to work off some of the gelato, pizza, bread, and cheese which made up ninety per cent of what I was eating, so it was a brisk pace.
We were in the midst of a conversation about our respective jobs, when Jean-Luc asked, “So, do you think you will ever go back to Australia?”
“You mean to live?”
“Oui.”
“Oh. I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
“I wondered if you could still teach there.”
“I suppose. I mean, my qualifications are from there, but I’d have to register with the state education board and get certified. I could, but I’m not sure why you asked.”
“I think about it sometimes, going back to Australia.”
“Oh, you do?”
“Yes. I mean, I had a home there—only for a year, but still … I think it would be interesting to live there again. Practise my English.”
“Your English is great.”
“It is rusty.”
“Hardly.”
Wait, is he thinking about us going back to Australia together?
That was the thing about hiking and breathing boundless gulps of fresh mountain air—great for thinking, which was either terrific or troubling. For me, at that moment, thinking too much was probably inadvisable. Because of the great gaping rabbit hole on the edge of which I was balancing precariously.
“Have you thought of living anywhere else in the world?” I asked, steering the conversation away from Australia.
“I have thought about going back to Central America.”
“Wait, you’ve been there, or you’ve lived there?”
“We lived there—a short while, only six months.”
“And ‘we’ is …?”
“Vanessa and me.”
“Oh.”
“She was doing research there. She is an anthropologist.” Of course she is. Beautiful and brilliant. An image of the stunning Vanessa—the one from his Facebook friends—imposed itself on my mind. She dressed like Lara Croft and made incredible discoveries in the jungles of Peru. Peru was in Central America, right?
Well, since he brought her up …
“And you said you’re still friends?”
“Yes.” No further explanation or additional information. Men were so obtuse sometimes. Didn’t he know I was fishing?
“So, what does that mean? Do you see each other often?”
Not content to balance on the edge of the rabbit hole, I was now pirouetting around it—wearing rollerblades. Conversationally speaking, it was perilous ground, but I couldn’t help myself.
His reply seemed to take forever and I imagined that the writer Jean-Luc was forming a faultless response. “Not so much. Perhaps two or three times a year.” Well, that was nothing—amiable, but not excessive. I could live with that.
But why would I need to live with any arrangement at all? He was my current lover and an old friend whom I hoped to stay in touch with. I had no proprietorship. Was I just testing my own waters? If Jean-Luc and I did become romantically involved, would I be all right with him seeing his ex-wife a few times a year? I supposed I’d have to be.
It was moot anyway, as I didn’t want a relationship.
We came to a part of the trail which gave us a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree panorama of the valley below, including the town of Lauterbrunnen—or at least, what I presumed was Lauterbrunnen. I hardly wanted to break out Google Maps and spoil the adventure. We stopped for a water break and I took a few photos. Avoiding a digital map was one thing, but I wanted photos of that vista!
“Well, this is not terrible,” I said after I’d taken a series of shots my phone would stitch together into a panorama.
He smiled. “No, it is not terrible.”
“Can we take a selfie?” I asked, suddenly shy.
“Of course.”
“Here, you have longer arms.” I handed him my phone. He came and stood behind me, one arm around my waist as we looked up into the phone’s camera. He took the photo. “Oh, and one without sunglasses.” I didn’t know if we’d see each other again after Switzerland, and I wanted proper proof of how gorgeous he was, especially those green eyes. I lifted my sunglasses onto my head and he palmed his.
“Ready?”
“Yep.” We both grinned at the camera. That’s going to be a great shot.
Before he let me go, he pulled me close to him and nuzzled my neck. “You will send those to me, yes?”
“Absolutely.” I turned around inside the frame of his arms and put mine around his neck. “Kiss me.”
He did. I liked it—a lot.
A couple in their fifties were approaching us on the trail on their way up the mountain. I was self-conscious about snogging in front of strangers and pulled away from Jean-Luc. He handed me my phone and I sent him the selfies. As he responded to the ping of his phone, I turned back to the view and realised what it reminded me of. “I feel like Julie Andrews up here.”
“Like …?” He cocked his head a little.
“You know, from The Sound of Music.”
“Ahh, yes, but that was in Austria.”
“Yes, but it still reminds me of the opening scene.” I threw my arms out wide and started singing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music … ahhhh-ahhh-ahh-ahhhhhh,” to the valley below.
Kissing in front of strangers, not so much. Singing? Why not?
He laughed. “You actually have a good voice.”
He was being nice. My voice is all right—mediocre at best. Instead of replying, I started walking and kept singing. “With songs they have sung for a thousand yeeeeeaaaaarrrs.” The last note was quite a high one and I almost hit it.
“So, you know all the words?”
To show that, yes, I did know all the words, I kept singing. He shook his head, smiling, and I knew there were eye crinkles behind those sunglasses. I sang the entire song at full voice, nodding to the few people we passed, who seemed rather amused, perhaps even entertained. When I got to, “And I’ll sing once moooooorrre,” I stopped still and directed the last line of the song back out over the valley.