‘I cannae leave the slope lights on all night,’ he huffed. ‘I always turn them off as I’m leaving, which is now.’
‘We wouldn’t expect you to. Can we just get into the grounds?’ Euan tried not to sound too pleading.
Kenneth cast a glance over his shoulder at the ski slope complex. He’d only this minute locked up the Ptarmigan nightclub above the ski centre at the foot of the slope and was getting ready to head to the dairy (still in his tuxedo) to start preparing for the morning milk rounds. He must be the only dairyman in the world who delivered his pints in his doorman’s black tie, white collar and double-breasted jacket, but the folks of Cairn Dhu had accepted this as the norm years ago.
The bouncer looked at Peaches, standing a little way off.
‘She’s that Apple lassie, isn’t she?’
‘Peaches,’ Euan corrected.
He pressed on like she wasn’t in fact standing just a few yards away looking up at the moon. ‘Aye, the one that broke the boss’s heart. Years ago it was. Hamish still talks about it now, when he’s had a few whiskies.’
This was news to Euan.
‘Everything all right?’ Peaches asked, wandering over. ‘I can just go home. Call it a night.’
Euan’s calm almost capsized over into desperation.
‘No, don’t do that. I’m sure Kenneth doesn’t mind letting us in.’
‘Carenza’s your ma, isn’t she?’ Kenneth cut in, though he already knew the answer. Something sympathetic came over him. Maybe he knew about Ms McDowell’s fiery side too? ‘Look,’ he said with a grudging sigh. ‘If you promise not to go posting selfies or doing any other nonsense that might upset Hamish’ – he said his boss’s name very pointedly, though Peaches didn’t react to it – ‘I’ll leave nowwithoutchecking round the side in the ski lift gardens to see if the wee gate’s locked.’
There followed some complicated handshakes and fist bumps that Euan didn’t follow at all, and Kenneth went on his way.
As soon as he was out of sight, Euan crooked an elbow for Peaches. ‘This way, then?’
He walked her through the little gate into what was, in the summer months, the ski slope’s garden with its shuttered outdoor concession where they’d sell slushies and ice creams.
‘I haven’t been here in years,’ said Peaches, a little more meaningfully than Euan could ignore.
‘Since you dated the guy that runs this place? Hamish?’
If her steps faltered a little, she quickly regulated them. ‘That’s the one. He worked here even then. We were only together for six months, or something like that; we never really had the chance to get serious.’
‘Ah, got it.’ The way Big Kenneth had been carrying on you’d think she’d jilted him at the altar.
‘He was happy working here,’ she pointed to the building behind. ‘Never went to uni. Mum didn’t like that. So, she made me break it off with him.’ There was real sadness in her voice, and something embarrassed too.
‘That was not cool of your mum,’ Euan said. ‘Not at all.’
Peaches clearly didn’t want to go on about it. ‘Did you ski here when you were little?’ she asked.
‘Never skied in my life. Never wanted to. But when I’d visit Granny and Grandad in the summer, we’d all come here for a Cornetto, and we’d watch the tourists hopping on and off the lifts. Some of them would miss about ten chairs, they were that afraid of jumping on. That thing went at quite a lick!’
‘Hmm, it hasn’t worked in years, has it?’ she said.
‘Donkey’s years,’ he confirmed. ‘Here we go.’ Euan had walked them a little way up round the back of the ski centre building with the Ptarmigan nightclub all in darkness above them. It was a steep, grassy clamber, but now they’d landed on top of the little hill there was a clear view of the ski slope above them.
The Cairn Dhu resort was nothing much to write home about, not compared to the bigger slopes near Aviemore or out at Glenshee, but it served as a dry slope for tobogganing and donutting in summer, and it could be busy with snowboarding in the winter months when it snowed. It was less popular these days, now that the lift was broken and visitors had to drag themselves up the hill. The slope and the huge stanchions and bullwheel that held aloft the frozen-in-time chairs were illuminated all the way to the top with two high chains of white lightbulbs and a particularly glary floodlight facing the slope.
Euan was smiling at her in their glow now. He’d let go of her arm to show her up into the seat of the stationary two-seater chair that was dangling over the boarding area, just a patch of concrete and the same bristly stuff the dry slope was made from.
Peaches climbed up into the seat, Euan steadying it for her, before getting in beside her. She was smiling and looking up at the slope.
‘Is this still safe to sit in?’ she said.
‘Sure it is. Visitors take selfies in it all the time.’ He’d been about to draw his phone out, but thought again.
