by Fiona Gibson
Max eyed the jacket and waterproof trousers that lay on the bed. They were yellow. He couldn’t understand why he’d picked such a color when he’d collected his kit from the ski shop yesterday. The others had rushed him, that had been the problem; slow-coach Max, the only one who didn’t possess his own gear. He’d gawped at rows of padded clothing and snatched the brightest and ugliest.
Sighing, he pulled on his clothes. Jasper’s voice bounded through the thin walls of their top-floor apartment. Only a week, Max reminded himself, then everything will be normal again.
“So, Maxy,” Jasper boomed over breakfast in the pine-paneled kitchen. “I assume you’ll be spending the first couple of days on the nursery slopes?”
Jasper and Hettie were tucking into great hunks of cheese, fruit and saucisson, which they’d had the forethought to pick up as soon as they’d arrived at Chamonix. Jasper had a thick neck, thick arms; thick everything, Max suspected. A silver wedding band pinched his thick, hairy finger.
“I, um—” Max floundered.
“Don’t be silly,” Veronica cut in. “Max paid for a lift pass like the rest of us. He might as well make use of it. You’ll be okay on the green runs, won’t you, darling? I’ll be with you. We’ll take it slowly. You don’t want to be stuck on the boring nursery slopes with a load of screaming children.”
Max bit into a slice of Emmenthal. Green runs, red runs, what was the difference? He wondered if Jasper was intending to call him Maxy for the entire holiday.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he insisted.
“Haven’t you booked lessons?” Hettie asked. She had a little snub nose and subtly highlighted hair that crinkled around her face. She was around Veronica’s age—thirty-five-ish—but looked younger. Must be having all that staff, Max decided; a life unencumbered by stress. During the entire flight he’d had to listen to Jasper prattling away to some poor stranger beside him: about “our” cleaner, “our” gardener, even “our” cobbler, which made Max think of a tiny person, an elf dressed in rags, stitching pieces of leather in the night. “Our” imbecile cleaner, Max learned, had shrunk Jasper’s Thomas Pink lambswool sweater in the washing machine. The arsehole had docked the poor girl’s wages. When Jasper hadn’t been boasting about their people, he’d spouted mysterious skiing terms: “moguls,” “free-riding,” “carving a turn.” He might as well have been speaking another language.
“You know what lessons are like,” Veronica declared, plucking a slice of kiwi from an artful arrangement in the centre of the table. “It’s days before you’re properly skiing. I’ll teach Max the basics. If he gets tired we can always pop off for a hot chocolate and a little relax.”
They were talking about Max as if he were four years old—or, worse, not present at all. As if wishing to highlight his insignificance, Hettie, Jasper and Veronica pushed back their chairs and started piling on hats and jackets.
Veronica opened the door and stepped outside. Biting air gusted into the kitchen, hitting Max’s face. “Let’s get going,” Jasper said, virtually filling the doorway as he strode through it.
“Can I just finish breakfast?” Max protested.
Jasper pulled out mirrored wraparound shades from a pocket and popped them on. “Seems a pity to waste good skiing time.”
Max popped a dog-end of saucisson into his mouth. “Okay, Jaspy,” he said.
Max hadn’t realized he was scared of heights. Subconsciously, he must have spent his entire life avoiding being high, at least from a geographical point of view. Veronica leaned toward him and kissed his cheek, causing the chairlift to wobble uneasily. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Max nodded, focusing on the ragged tops of the mountains. He was troubled by the fact that he couldn’t stop or climb off the lift. Max preferred modes of transport that he could control. You knew where you were with bikes. They didn’t swing thirty feet off the ground or judder to a halt for no apparent reason. He felt ridiculously ungainly in ski boots and rented banana-colored clothing. His skis—Max glanced down briefly at their jaunty lime zigzag design—were alien structures that seemed to function perfectly well for other people but, he was certain, took a good decade or two to master.
As they neared the top of the lift, Max realized with alarm that it wouldn’t come to a polite stop, allowing skiers to clamber off in their own time, but would keep on going, requiring one to lurch off from a significant height on to compacted snow.
Max lurched. “You did it!” Veronica enthused. “See, Max, you’re a natural.”
“Thanks,” he said, shuffling uneasily toward her.
“I knew you’d get into it, babes. Just try to relax, keep your knees bent and the fronts of your skis together, like this.” She wedged them into a snowplow position.
Max tramped behind her to the start of the run. His legs were aching and he hadn’t even done any skiing yet. “How many times have you been skiing?” he asked.
“Maybe sixteen, seventeen times. I’ve lost count.”
“Won’t you get bored hanging around with me?”
She pulled down her shades into position. “Max, honey, I don’t think I’ll ever get bored hanging around with you. Look, I know it seems daunting. Years ago, when I was about fourteen and having lessons, my instructor said something I’ve never forgotten. It’s like falling in love, he told me. You have to let yourself go, take a risk in the hope that something amazing will come from it.” She squeezed his gloved hand. “Think you can do that?”
Max looked at her. He wanted to see her eyes, but all that looked back at him was his own anxious reflection. “I’ll try,” he murmured.
“Remember, just let yourself go.” With that, Veronica swiveled her skis to point down the slope, gave a dramatic push with her poles and was gone.
Max looked down. This was only a green run—the easiest kind. Jasper and Hettie would be tearing down sheer rockfaces by now. A kid of around four years old whipped past him. Hettie had been right; he should have booked lessons, not expected to grasp the basics from Veronica. What had he been thinking? His heart rattled in his chest. Although the air was bitingly cold, his body felt clammy beneath its layers of padding.
Max was standing side-on to the slope. He had an awful suspicion that, as soon as he started to swivel around and point his skis downward, he’d zoom off with no way of braking. How did skiers stop? Veronica had missed out that vital nugget of info. Yet he’d have to get down somehow. He glanced anxiously at the chairlift in the distance. People were sitting in pairs on the swinging seats, chatting happily; one guy was even smoking a cigarette. No one used the lift to come down. The only way down was to ski.
“Need some help?” A tall, slender woman in a red one-piece had come to halt beside him.
“I think I’ll be okay,” Max said, in a voice that he hoped conveyed cast-iron confidence.
The woman smiled encouragingly. She was wearing oval-shaped goggles and a streak of white sunblock on her nose. Some kind of polka-dotted tubular thing—could this be a buff?—was bunched around her neck. “Max, it’s me,” the woman said, laughing.
“Oh, Hettie—I didn’t realize.”
“Can you get down, do you think? You look a bit…unsure.”
He cleared his throat. Tiny, multicolored specs were milling about at the bottom. One of those specs was Veronica. Like falling in love, she’d said, as if that was ever simple. By now, she’d have reached the conclusion that Max was a complete incompetent. “I’m just taking my time,” he muttered.
“If you’re sure—”
He nodded. Just go away, he thought. While he appreciated Hattie’s concern, he wished she’d bloody zoom off and leave him to deal with this situation in his own time. She grinned at him. “You set off,” he answered. “I don’t want to waste your skiing time.”
“Oh, you’re not. Jasper’s found the gang he meets up with every year. They’re all going off piste. I’m happy to mess around on the green runs for the rest of the morning. I’ll keep you company if you
like.”
If he weren’t trapped on a mountain, Max might have been able to enjoy Hettie’s presence. “I don’t want to be rude,” he said, “but I’d rather ski down on my own. I feel a bit self-conscious.”
Hettie smiled kindly. “Okay, Max, if you’re sure.”
With a nod, he shuffled around to face down the slope. “Remember to—” Hettie called out.
“Bend my knees, yes.” Max gripped his poles, digging their points into the snow for some feeling of stability. He felt Hettie’s eyes on him. He was vaguely aware of shouts and cheers and faraway chatter; people having a fun winter holiday. To calm his racing mind, he tried to conjure up pleasing images of what might follow his first day on the slopes: hot chocolate, warm bath, Veronica massaging his sore feet and legs and other sensitive areas.
Then he couldn’t think, because he was careering downward with parallel skis, and an awful feeling that they shouldn’t be parallel—that he was doing it all wrong—though there was nothing he could do about that now. He was gathering speed, utterly out of control on some terrible fairground ride where you’d scream for the man to stop the machinery and let you off, but he’d be too busy smoking and reading the paper. He thought he heard someone yell, “Max!” then was aware only of colors: flashes of green and searing blue, a dash of orange—that was his beanie hat flying off, Veronica had bought it at Geneva airport, what would she—
All he could see now was white: not powdery white or the white tops of mountains but the hard, sharp thwack of a snow-covered rock—
Then everything went black.
29
“Think I’ll join your drama thingie when we get back,” Zoë declared as they strode through sodden grass toward the bay.
Hannah’s breath caught in her throat. Mondays were the only time she saw Ollie—not that things would stay that way when they got home. She intended to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that she wouldn’t be going back to his flat after workshop unless he saw her at other times too. Unless they started going out, like a normal girlfriend and boyfriend. “There’s a waiting list,” she fibbed. “I’ll put your name down if you like.”
“Come on,” Zoë scoffed. “Surely they can fit me in. Maybe that’s what I’ll be—an actress. What d’you think?”
“I thought you wanted to be a model.” An unsettling image of Zoë and Ollie sizing each other up flashed into Hannah’s mind. She felt quite nauseous.
“Oh, I don’t know. Anyway, where are we going? It’s bloody freezing out here.”
“I thought we’d go down to the bay,” Hannah said.
“What’s there?”
“What d’you mean, what’s there? It’s a beach. There’ll be sea, sand, a few rocks. I thought we might see some seals.”
Zoë frowned. “Can’t we get a bus to the village?”
The thought of Zoë shoplifting on the island filled Hannah with dread. She wanted to be outside with billowing clouds all around her. Since coming here, her breathing had felt free, virtually normal. “I haven’t seen any buses from here,” Hannah said, “and it’s too far to walk.”
“Would your mum drive us?”
“She’s busy in the studio.”
“Can’t we call a taxi?”
“No, Zoë, I just want to—”
“Han!” The scream flew out as Zoë toppled sideways. One of her feet had plunged into mud. Hannah froze, her head flooding with a terrible image of Zoë being sucked under and trying to pull her out and—
“Don’t just stand there!” Zoë screamed. Hannah ran toward her and grasped both hands, pulling hard until the foot plopped free. The girls stared down at it. It was bare and slathered with mud, after all Zoë’s efforts with the toe separators and Dior Rouge Noir polish. Zoë gawped at it as if waiting for it to miraculously self-cleanse. “My shoe,” she whispered.
They stared at the dip in the ground that Zoë had slipped into. An invisible hole, with sinking mud underneath. No shoe was visible. In the distance a black-faced sheep gazed at them dolefully. “I think you’ve lost it,” Hannah murmured. “Good job you brought plenty of other pairs.”
“No, Han, I’ve got to get it.” Zoë rubbed her hands over her face.
Hannah sighed. “We could go back to the house, see if we can find a stick or a shovel and try and dig it out….”
“Okay,” Zoë whispered. “Maybe someone’ll help us.”
Hannah touched her arm. “It’s only a shoe….”
“It’s not mine, Han. It’s Mum’s. I took them without asking.”
“She won’t mind, will she?” She must have at least thirty-seven other pairs, Hannah thought.
“Of course she’ll—” Zoë choked on a sob.
“God, Zoë, don’t cry….”
Tears were sliding down her cheeks now. Her nose was running and her face had gone blotchy and pink.
Hannah put her arms around her. “What is it?” she asked softly.
“They’re Mum’s favorites. They’re really old so I can’t buy another pair, I bet they don’t make them like that any—”
“Hey,” Hannah said, “I didn’t think your mum wore old things.”
Zoë pushed back her hair distractedly. “They’re not ordinary old. Those shoes—they’re the ones she wore when she married my dad.”
“Oh, Zoë.” Hannah stared at the ground. Some friend I am, she thought, lying about a waiting list at theater workshop. Zoë might have everything, and act like she knew it all, but underneath she was just an ordinary girl who was scared of her mum. “Let’s go back to the house,” she said gently.
“Okay.” Zoë wiped her nose on the back of her hand.
Lifting a finger to her face, Hannah brushed the tears away.
30
Jane washed her hands at the Belfast sink in the studio. It was late afternoon; everyone else had wandered off to Hope House or driven into the village. The workbench was strewn with drawings and pieces of glass. After Conor had left, Archie had descended into semislumber, signaling the end of the working day. Jane wondered why Conor had dashed off at 3:00 p.m. The island didn’t strike her as a dashing kind of place.
The darkening sky hung heavily over the bay. Through the window Jane could see a glimmer of light from Conor’s house. He’d been friendly enough so far, but then he’d been friendly with everyone. Any questions of a technical nature—like how Archie managed to keep lightness to his work when he’d fused so many tiny pieces together—had been answered by Conor. Archie appeared to want as little contact with his students as possible. “Waste of time and money,” Dorina had muttered to Jane earlier. “Pay your fee and what do you get? A drunk idiot in the corner.”
“It’s only our first day. Let’s give him a chance,” Jane had replied, glancing at the sleeping Archie. A scrap of bread roll had embedded itself in his wiry beard.
No wonder he needed Conor, Jane reflected, switching off the studio lights and stepping outside. She suspected that the promised one-to-one tuition with Archie would be unforthcoming. She should feel disappointed—even angry—yet had enjoyed the day and lost herself in her work.
She strolled across the lumpen ground toward Hope House, hoping to find the girls. Zoë had been right; they hadn’t been any trouble so far. In fact, apart from the communal lunch, when everyone crammed around a long table in dining room, Jane had hardly seen them. Hannah, she’d noticed, looked healthier already and her eyebrows had almost resumed their natural shape. Zoë had acquired a flat expression of resignation, but at least she’d stopped prattling on about her iPod.
Mrs. McFarlane looked up from the desk as Jane strode into the foyer. “I’m not sure if it’ll come out the carpet,” she announced.
“What?” Jane asked.
A pair of glasses hung on a cord around her neck. Her gaze was firmly fixed upon a dark smudge on the faded blue carpet. “The mud,” she said. “I’ve let it dry but it still won’t brush up.”
Jane glanced at the offending mark. “It doesn’t look too bad,
” she said.
“In a terrible state, your daughter was, the blonde one with her bare foot and—”
“What happened?” Jane asked, too startled to correct her wrong-daughter mistake.
“Fell into the mud out the front—don’t they realize there’s a path they should stick to? Blonde one lost a shoe, asked me if I’d go help her dig it out….” Mrs. McFarlane emited a withering laugh. “Kept on about Emma Hope, whoever that is. We don’t have an Emma Hope staying here.”
“Where are they now?” Jane asked anxiously.
Mrs. McFarlane shrugged. “Try their room. I’ll have another go at this mud.”
Jane stepped into the girls’ room. It wasn’t locked; no one seemed to bother with keys at Hope House.
Zoë’s clothes were spewed all over her bed. Her hair irons had been left on, and were blazing hot. Jane unplugged them, winding their flex around the handle. She spotted some drawings on the dressing table. They were charcoal sketches of the Hope House. Some were verging on abstract: great swirls of cloud, and the ragged outline of the Fang, the island’s highest mountain. So this was how Hannah had been filling her time. Jane couldn’t remember the last time she’d drawn. Leafing through them felt like prying, but she couldn’t stop herself.
Jane left their bedroom and toured the various stale-smelling communal rooms of Hope House. As she passed through the foyer, both Mrs. McFarlane and the muddy patch had gone. Jane suspected that she’d left it there just to show her—to make a point.
Heading outside, she cut across the field toward a crumbling barn. “I want you to pick up the stone,” a man was enthusing inside, “and feel its texture, make friends with it.” Jane peered in. The barn was lit with oil laps nestling in indentations in the stone walls, each producing a weak glow. There were five or six people: all men apart from Nancy, who, like the others, was perched on a bale of straw. She was craning forward, as if drinking in the man’s every word. He was probably sixty-something, but had the lanky frame of a teenage boy. A gray ponytail fell like a wolf’s tail down his back. “Can I help you?” he asked, squinting at Jane.
