“How many?”
“A dozen or so.”
“And there’s something else I must ask you. Have you—have you got a suit?”
He looked as though he thought she had gone mad. But, “Yes,” he said. “It was my father’s. I wear it to funerals.”
“Perfect,” said Abigail. “And now don’t talk for at least ten minutes because I’ve got an awful lot to tell you.”
* * *
Mrs. Brewer hoped that Miss Haliday was giving Tammy Hoadey his notice. She had seen him coming up the lane on his bicycle, cool as a cucumber, without so much as a word of warning or explanation. Cheeky devil, she had thought, turning up out of the blue just as though he had never been away.
Now at the sink, filling the kettle for her morning cup of tea, she watched them at it: Miss Haliday talking nineteen to the dozen (and that wasn’t her usual way) and Tammy just standing there like an idiot. She’s giving him a piece of her mind at last, Mrs. Brewer told herself with satisfaction. It’s what he’s been needing, all these months. A piece of her mind.
But she was wrong. For when Miss Haliday stopped talking, nothing happened at all. She and Tammy just stood, quite still, staring at each other. And then Tammy Hoadey let his spade fall to the ground, tossed his pipe into the air, flung wide his arms and wrapped Miss Haliday in a bearlike embrace. And Miss Haliday, far from resisting such impudent goings-on, put her arms around his neck and hugged Tammy, right there in front of Mrs. Brewer’s eyes, and took her feet off the ground, and was swung into the air, careless and graceless as some flighty teen-age girl.
Well, whatever next? Mrs. Brewer asked herself as the stream of water filled the kettle and overflowed, unheeded, into the sink. Whatever next?
A GIRL I USED TO KNOW
The cable-car, at ten o’clock in the morning, was as crammed with humanity as a London bus at rush-hour. Grinding, swaying slightly, it mounted, with hideous steadiness, up into the clear, blindingly bright air, high over the snowfields and scattered chalets of the valley. Behind them, the village sank away—houses, shops, hotels clustered around the main street. Far below lay great tracts of glittering snow, blue-shadowed beneath random stands of fir. Ahead and above it climbed—it gave Jeannie vertigo just to think about it—towards the distant peak piercing the dark-blue sky like a needle of ice …
The peak. The Kreisler. Just below it stood the sturdy wooden buildings of the upper cable station, the complex of the restaurant. The face of this edifice was one enormous window, flashing signals of reflected sunshine, and overhead fluttered the flags of many nations. Both the cable-car station and the restaurant had seemed, from the village, as distant as the moon, but now, with every moment, they drew closer.
Jeannie swallowed. Her mouth felt dry, her stomach tight with apprehension. Pressed into a corner of the cable-car, she turned her head to look for Alistair, but he and Anne and Colin had become separated from her in the rush to get on board, and he was away over on the other side. Easy to spot, because he was so tall, his profile blunt and handsome. She willed him to turn and catch her eye, to give her a smile of reassurance, but all his concentration was for the mountain, for the morning’s run down the Kreisler and back into the village.
Last night, as the four of them had sat in the bar of the hotel, she had said, “I won’t come.” There was dancing going on and a jolly band in lederhosen.
“But of course you must. That was the whole point of your coming on holiday, so that we could all ski together. It’s no fun if you spend the whole time rabbiting around on the nursery slopes.”
“I’m not good enough.”
“It’s not difficult. Just long. We’ll take it at your speed.”
That was even worse. “I’ll hold you back.”
“Don’t be so self-abasing.”
“I don’t want to come.”
“You’re not frightened, are you?”
She was, but she said, “Not really. Just frightened of spoiling it for you.”
“You won’t spoil it.” He sounded marvellously certain of this, just as he was marvellously certain of himself. He seemed not to know the meaning of physical fear, and so was unable to recognize it in another person.
“But…”
“Don’t argue any more. Don’t talk about it. Come and dance.”
* * *
Now, crammed into a corner of the cable-car, she decided that he had forgotten her existence. She sighed, and turned back to the window to view the void, the impossible, dizzying height. Far, far below, the skiers were already moving down the pistes, tiny antlike creatures drawing trails in the virgin snow, flying down the slopes back to the village. It looked so easy. That was the horrible thing, it looked so easy. But for Jeannie it was almost impossibly difficult. Bend the knees, the instructor had told her. Weight on the outside leg.
Weight on the outside leg. I mustn’t forget. Weight on the outside leg. I can do it. I have to do it. Relax. Bend the knees. Weight on the outside leg.
They had arrived. One moment swinging in the clear air and the brilliant sunshine, the next clanking into the shadowed gloom of the cable-car terminal. They stopped with a jerk. The doors opened, everybody flooded out. Up here it was degrees colder. Icicles festooned the exit door, and there was the crunch of frozen snow underfoot. Jeannie was the last to emerge, and by the time she did this, the first ones out were already away, down the mountain, anxious not to waste a moment of the morning, reluctant to spend even five minutes in the warmth of the restaurant, with a mug of hot chocolate or a steaming glass of glühwein.
“Come on, Jeannie.”
Alistair and Colin and Anne already had their skis on, their goggles pulled down over their eyes, the three of them itching to be off. Her feet felt like lead in the heavy boots, slipping and stumbling across the snow. The cold stung her cheeks, filled her lungs with painfully icy air.
“Here, come on, I’ll help you.”
Somehow, she reached Alistair’s side, dropped her skis. He stooped to help her, snapping on the bindings. Lumbered with the weight of the skis she felt even more incapable, helpless.
“All right?”
She could not even speak. Colin and Anne, taking her silence for assent, smiled cheerfully, gave her a wave with their ski poles, and were gone. A smooth push sent them over the brow of the slope, and they disappeared, with a hiss of snow, into the glittering infinity of space that lay beyond.
“Just follow me,” Alistair told her. “It’ll be fine.” And then he, too, was gone.
Just follow me. It was Alistair, and she would have followed him anywhere, but this was an impossibility. Impossible to do anything but simply stand there, quaking. In her wildest imaginings she had never thought up such horror as this. Shivering with cold and fright, there was a moment when she wondered if she was actually going to be sick. But the moment passed, and she was still standing there, and in place of panic came, slowly, a calm resolution.
She was not going to ski down the Kreisler. She was going to take off her skis and go into the restaurant and sit down and get warm and have a hot drink. Then, like any old lady, she would clamber into the cable-car and go back that way, on her own, to the village. Alistair would be furious, but she was beyond caring. The others would think nothing of her, but that had ceased to matter. She was hopeless. A funk. She couldn’t ski and never would. At the first possible opportunity, she would get herself to Zurich, get herself on a plane, and go home.
Having faced up to this, everything suddenly became quite easy. She took off her skis and carried them back to the restaurant and stuck them in the snow, along with the ski poles. She went up the wooden steps and through the heavy glass doors. Here was warmth, the smell of pine and wood-smoke and cigars and coffee. She bought herself a cup of coffee and took it to an empty table and sat down. The coffee steamed, fragrant and comforting. She pulled off her woollen hat and shook out her hair and felt as though she were taking off some hideous disguise and was herself again. Putting her hands
around the blissful warmth of the coffee mug, she decided that she would concentrate on this moment of total relief and not think one moment ahead. Most specially, she would not think about Alistair. She would not think about losing him …
“Is anybody joining you?”
The question came out of nowhere. Startled, Jeannie looked up, saw the man standing across the table from her, and realized, after a second’s blankness, that he was talking to her.
“No. Nobody.”
“Then would you mind if I did?”
She was astonished, but endeavored to hide her astonishment. “No … of course not…” There was no question of being chatted up, because he was a quite elderly man, obviously British, and perfectly presentable. Which made his unexpected appearance all the more surprising.
He too had a cup of coffee in his hand. He set it down on the table and pulled out a chair and settled himself. She saw his very blue eyes, his thinning grey hair. He wore a navy-blue anorak with a scarlet sweater beneath it. His skin was very brown, netted with wrinkles, and he had the weather-beaten appearance of a man who has spent most of his life in the open air.
He said, “It’s a beautiful morning.”
“Yes.”
“There was a fall of snow at two o’clock in the morning. Quite a heavy one. Did you know that?”
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t know.”
He watched her, his bright eyes unblinking. He said, “I’ve been sitting by the table in the window. I saw what happened.”
Jeannie’s heart sank. “I … I don’t understand.” But of course, she understood only too well.
“Your friends went off without you.” He made it sound like an accusation, and Jeannie instantly sprang to their defence.
“They didn’t mean to. They thought I was going to follow.”
“Why didn’t you?”
A number of likely fibs sprang to mind. I like to ski alone. I wanted a cup of coffee. I’m waiting till they come up again on the cable-car, and then we’ll all go down together in time for lunch.
But those blue eyes were not to be lied to. She said, “I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of heights. Of skiing. Of making a fool of myself. Of spoiling their fun for them.”
“Haven’t you skied before?”
“Not before this holiday. We’ve been here for a week and I’ve spent all that time on the nursery slopes with an instructor, trying to get the hang of it.”
“And have you?”
“Sort of. But I think I’m uncoordinated or something. Or else just plain chicken. I mean, I can get down the slopes and turn corners and stop, and things like that, but I’m never sure when I’m not going to fall flat on my back, and then I get nervous and I tense up, and then of course I usually do fall. It’s a vicious circle. And I’m frightened of heights as well. Even coming up on the cable-car I found terrifying.”
He did not comment on this. “Your friends, I take it, are all fairly expert?”
“Yes, they’ve been skiing together for a long time. Alistair used to come out here with his parents when he was a little boy. He loves the village, and he knows all the runs like the back of his hand.”
“Is Alistair your friend?”
She felt embarrassed. “Yes.”
“Is he the reason you came in the first place?”
“Yes.” He smiled. Suddenly, it was easy to talk, as it is easy to confide in a stranger met by chance in a train, knowing that you will never see that particular stranger again. “It’s funny, we have everything in common, and we get on so well, and we laugh at the same things … but now there’s this. I always knew that if I really wanted to be with him, and part of his life, I’d have to ski, because it’s the one thing he really loves to do. And I’ve always been apprehensive about it, because, like I said, I’m the most uncoordinated person in the world. I used to go to dancing classes when I was a little girl, and I could never even tell my left foot from my right. But I thought perhaps skiing would be different, and that it would be something I’d be able to do. So when Alistair suggested we all come out together, I jumped at the chance to prove that I could. And I thought it would be fun … like the advertisements for winter holidays. You know, jolly fun in the snow, and the whole business not much more demanding than a game of tennis. I never imagined being put on a mountain the height of this one, and being expected to actually ski down it.”
“Does Alistair know how you feel about all this?”
“It’s hard to make him understand. And I don’t want him to think that I’m not enjoying myself.”
“But you’re not.”
“No. I’m hating it. Even the evenings and the fun we have then are spoiled, because all the time I’m thinking about what I’ve got to make myself do the next day.”
“When you’ve finished that cup of coffee, how are you going to get back to the village?”
“I thought on the cable-car.”
“I see.” He considered this, and then said, “Let’s both have another cup of coffee and talk things over.”
Jeannie couldn’t think what there could possibly be to talk over, but the idea of another cup of coffee was a good one, and so she said, “All right.”
He took their cups and went to the bar, and came back with them, steaming and refilled. As he sat again, he said, “You know, you remind me, quite extraordinarily, of a girl I used to know. She looked rather like you, and she talked with your voice. And she was just as frightened as you were.”
“What happened to her?” Stirring her coffee, Jeannie tried to turn the whole thing into a joke. “Did she go down in the cable-car, and then fly home in disgrace? Because I think that’s what’s going to happen to me.”
“No, she didn’t do that. She found someone who understood and was prepared to give her a little help and encouragement.”
“I need more than that. I need a miracle.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself.”
“I’m a coward.”
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of. It isn’t brave to do something that you’re not afraid of. But it’s very brave to face up to something which frightens you paralytic.”
As he was saying this, the door of the restaurant opened and a man appeared, looked about him, and then came across the room towards them. Reaching their table, he stopped, respectfully removing his woollen hat.
“Herr Commander Manleigh.”
“Hans! What can I do for you?”
The man spoke in German, and Jeannie’s companion replied in the same language. They talked for a moment, and then the problem, whatever it was, was apparently solved. The man bowed to Jeannie, made his farewells, and took himself off.
“What was all that about?” she asked.
“That’s Hans from the cable-car. Your young man telephoned up from the village to find out what had happened to you. He thought you might have had a fall. Hans came to find you, he recognized you from your friend’s description.”
“What did you say?”
“I said to tell him not to worry. We’ll be down in our own time.”
“We?”
“You and I. But not in the cable-car. We’re doing the Kreisler run together.”
“I can’t.”
He did not contradict her. Instead, after a thoughtful pause, he asked, “Are you in love with this young man?”
She had never actually considered this before. Not seriously. But all at once, faced with the question, she knew the truth. “Yes,” she told him.
“Do you want to lose him?”
“No.”
“Then come with me. Now. Right away. Before either of us has time to change our minds.”
* * *
Outside again, it was still just as cold, but the sun was climbing into the sky, and the icicles that festooned the balcony of the restaurant and the doorways of the cable house were already beginning to thaw and drip. Jeannie pulled on her hat and her gloves, retrieved her skis, fastened the
bindings, took a ski pole in either hand. Her new friend was ready before her, and waiting, and together they moved across the beaten, rutted snow to the verge of the slope where the piste, like a silver ribbon, wound away down the snow-fields before them. The village, reduced by distance to toy size, lay deep in the valley, and beyond again, the further mountains, ranges of them, shone and glittered like glass.
She said, for the first time, “It’s so beautiful.”
“Enjoy the beauty. That is one of the joys of skiing. Having time to stop and stare. And this is a magical day. Now. Are you ready to go?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Then shall we make a start?”
“Before we do, can I ask you one thing?”
“What’s that?”
“The girl you told me about. The one who was as scared as I am. What happened to her?”
He smiled. “I married her,” he said, and then he was gone, gently, smoothly, down the slope, traversing a ridge, turning, sailing away in the other direction.
Jeannie took a deep breath, set her teeth, pushed with her ski poles and followed him.
* * *
At first, she was as stiff and awkward as she had ever been, but every moment that passed increased her confidence. Three turns and she hadn’t fallen. Her blood quickened, her body warmed, she could actually feel her muscles relax. There was sunshine on her face and the cool rush of clean air, sparkling, crisp as chilled wine. There was the sweet hiss of her own skis in the snow, the gathering sense of speed, the rasp of steel edges on ice as she manoeuvred a tricky corner.
He was never far ahead. Every so often, he would stop to wait for her and let her get her breath. Sometimes the way ahead needed a little explanation. “It’s a narrow track through the woods,” he would say. “Let your skis run in the tracks that other skiers have made, and then you’ll be quite safe.” Or, “The piste circles the edge of the mountain here, but it’s not as dangerous as it looks.”
He made her feel that nothing could be too difficult or frightening if he was there, leading the way. As they sank down into the valley, the terrain altered. There were bridges to be crossed, and open farm gateways through which they hurtled.
Flowers in the Rain & Other Stories Page 15
