‘We won’t be, I promise,’ Tania said.
‘I think we should do the chair,’ Clara said. ‘I love the slopes over on that side.’
‘OK, Becoin it is. Last one to the chairlift is buying thevin chaudat lunchtime,’ Tania said, pushing off with her poles.
Clara grinned as she tucked her body in and allowed gravity to take effect, listening to Rose squealing as she too pushed off and hustled to overtake Tania. As the massive spiral wire pulled the chairlift up the mountain, Clara allowed herself to take in the view, admiring the sheer expanse of cloudless blue sky. She craned her neck to look back at Près du Ciel centre as it shrunk into miniature with their increasing height and distance, then watched the puffs of snow kicked up by the skiers each time they turned across the slope far below. It was good to sit quietly and take it all in.
She’d never managed to persuade Mike to take a ski holiday. He had been more of a camping and hiking kind of guy. And Clara had discovered she was happy to become a camping and hiking kind of girl if it meant she got to spend uninterrupted time with him. She didn’t even mind when he revealed he was a closet fisherman, because while he was focused on his bait and his line and the run of the water at his favourite spot beside a local river, she got to relax on a picnic rug beside him, sketchbook in hand, with a backdrop of the sound of the water and birdsong as she doodled. Plus, in return for aiding and abetting his leisure pursuits, he didn’t question her girly trips with Tania to get her winter fix of snow, and she’d loved him even more for that.
She hadn’t been to Près du Ciel for over three years, she realised. When Poppy came along all that kind of stuff went out of the window and life took her on a different road. In time she’d planned to bring Poppy, though. When her baby girl got big enough to cope with learning to ski, Clara had intended to persuade Mike to put his reservations aside and take the trip as a family. Her husband and her daughter could learn to ski at the same time, she’d thought. All sorts of amusing images had floated through her mind, including one of Poppy calling Mike a ‘Silly Billy’ whenever he fell over, just as he had done to her when she was learning to walk.
It would have been perfect. It should have been perfect. Except it wasn’t, and it never would be, now. Because they were gone. It was all gone.
And it was all her fault.
By the time they disembarked at the top of the lift, Clara couldn’t see where she was going. The tears she had been supressing for longer than she could remember refused to stop flowing and her goggles had clouded up.
‘Hang on a minute,’ she said, her voice strangled with the effort of sounding normal. ‘My goggles are fogged up.’
Rose rounded her on one side and Tania appeared on the other. Pulling the goggles from her helmet, she sniffed as she dried them.
‘Are you OK?’ Rose said.
‘Yes. ’Course I am.’ She nodded and attempted a smile. Then she shook her head, unable to suppress another wave of tears. Her face creased up as the force of her sense of loss took control of her. Again. Like some sort of infection, resistant to every kind of medication, ebbing and flowing, but inexorably gaining a firmer hold on its victim, eating her up until she feared eventually there was going to be nothing left.
Tania slid closer, dug her poles into the snow and wrapped her arms around her with a forcefulness Clara hadn’t felt since the funeral. Rose did the same and they stood there, at the top of the Becoin run, for what felt like an eternity.
Eventually, Rose pulled back and stared out across the view. Clara heard Tania let out a sigh and she, too, slid back a few inches.
Nobody moved, no one spoke. With her friends flanking her like sentinels, they looked out over one of the most exhilarating views on Earth while Clara did her best to push away enough of the blackness to see it.
An hour or so later, Tania slid to a stop outside the Cocoon. Clara had already dumped her skis and was heading up the slope towards Madeleine. Rose came to a stop beside her.
‘I don’t think I’ve seen Clara cry before. About Mike and Poppy, I mean,’ Rose said.
‘I’ve seen her in denial. Pretending she’s all right. Or blind drunk– I’ve seen that a lot. But you’re right,’ Tania said, ‘I haven’t seen her cry either. Not even at the funeral.’
‘Do you think it’s a good sign?’
Tania puffed out her cheeks. ‘I don’t know. I hope so.’
‘Yeah. Me too.’ Rose stood her skis together and sunk them into a pile of snow, then headed up the slope after Clara.
Tania scanned the Cocoon as she followed Rose, then checked her watch. One o’clock. Exactly the time she didn’t want to be here, in case hot tub guy, the man she’d come to think of as Mr Explicit, should appear and get the wrong idea. It was hard to see inside, and difficult to identify the people wearing helmets or with woollen hats pulled down over ears to keep heads warm, but she couldn’t see anyone who resembled Mr Explicit. Perhaps he’d changed his plans and decided to stop somewhere else for something to eat. Relaxing a little, she took a seat at the table with the others.
‘Shall I get us some drinks?’ Madeleine said.
‘That would be lovely,’ Tania said.
‘No, hang on a minute,’ Rose said. ‘You said last one to the Becoin chairlift was buying the drinks.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘And I think you’ll find that was you.’
‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten that.’ Unusually, she’d caught an edge on the very last descent to the chairlift and almost ended up on the ground, allowing the other two to leave her in their wake. It seemed like a long time ago. ‘Well, if you’re determined to hold me to it, I suppose I can go.’
‘Oh, we’ll hold you to it,’ Clara said. ‘That’s not a problem.’
With everyone’s drink order memorised, she went inside, unzipping her jacket as the warmth hit her from the roaring log burner on one side of the restaurant. The drinks queue was minimal, the server efficient and so she was heading back outside with a tray in next to no time. She threaded her way back across the decking, then lodged the tray on one end of the table.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Black Americano for Clara …Vin chaudfor Rose …’ She glanced across at the group taking command of a nearby table. Mostly men, a couple of women in the mix. Unclasping helmets and peeling off gloves. ‘Oh, shit …’
