Snow Blind

by Richard Blanchard

  Bepe haunts me; he never sensed danger, naively following his nose across the road. An electric shock pulses through me; the power of “what if ” makes me squirm in my seat. I would never have recovered from today; never again would I have been at ease. I would have failed in abject manner to discharge my basic duty as a parent. These thoughts make me nauseous; I feel a need to see him to prove to myself he is still alive, but won’t see him for five days now. I see a vision of a pregnant church altar awaiting a wedding day couple, but it fades quickly.

  My world is in motion, bringing promise of pleasure and pain. Something’s coming, something good, is it my fate?

  The man in the centre seat next to me stands up and nudges my legs to allow his exit. I tut privately and judge him to have the bladder control of an incontinent ninety-five year old. I stay seated and twist my legs into the aisle.

  I smell her perfumed presence before I see her.

  “Let me in then,” Juliet nudges my knee, toppling my iPhone towards the floor. It dangles painfully from one ear.

  “That’s awfully kind of you to move,” I hear her now and realise that this is her new seat arrangement.

  “I had an aisle seat way up at the front so I thought I would let that guy have it. I have never enjoyed flying as you know.” I could tell she was making this up.

  “That’s great.” I am happy to give up my flight of solitude.

  Max is with Steve a few seats up on the left. Having returned Rubber Juliet to them I see her under-inflated head peeking from above their seats to boyish giggles.

  The pilot announces a ten-minute delay to access our runway slot. “While we wait I would just like to congratulate a Stag and Hen that are travelling with us today. Danny and Karen are both getting married next weekend, but not to each other!”

  I cringe again in the spotlight. “Danny is in 32C…” A toothy stewardess with a black bun approaches and pushes my reading light on and off. “Karen is in…” He tails off confused by her absence from the flight manifest.

  “Like fuck she is,” one of the brooding hens shouts towards the flight deck. The brooding Hens are all together on the right side of the plane. The announcement must be more of Robert’s work. He is out of sight knowing precisely its effect on both parties.

  “Anyway 32C is Danny’s bra size,” guffaws Steve from up ahead. I have never greeted an in-flight security briefing before; I use the distraction to sneak out of the knickers.

  At six minutes past three we are pinned to our seat backs and shoot up the runway: our journey commences, there is no way out. Flight anxiety causes Juliet’s left hand to press firmly on my right; I sense the familiar delicacy of each finger. She closes her eyes in prayer for the minutes that the plane climbs steeply. I freeze, not wanting to break this personal space. Does her hand hold anything other than friendship now?

  “I hope they just leave you alone now.” Juliet has emerged from her take-off trance. “I thought they were going to make you simulate sex with Juliet for a minute.” I blush and offer a confused grin until I realise she is talking about her rubber namesake. The prospect alarmingly attracts me; my balls stir a little.

  “How is the advertising business?” I realise I have been mute since she sat down.

  “So so, but I think it will get better soon. It’s funny; we are working on an airline account at the moment. It’s ByeFly, the budget airline. It’s not quite like flying with this BA lot though. Remember when we went to Madeira? They are really tough as a client. Max says they may review the account.” I am gushing. Madeira is an elephant I have let loose on the plane and it is sat on my lap.

  “Why didn’t you return my calls all those years ago?”

  “I can’t remember now.” I remember exactly. I got a ripping feeling in my stomach at the thought of her. I was sure she had dumped me to go back with her ex-boyfriend so I just backed off. This precipitated a descent into hell for me. There was nothing I could do to bring us back.

  “We never resolved anything; you know, made our peace.” I had resolved never to speak to her again in the bitterly cold days of early 1992. She handled it so well, putting the prospect of us finishing to me like I had won the pools. We were sat in a semi circular seat by the window of the Hand and Flower pub in Hammersmith, where we had got off the bus after an unsatisfactory trip to Habitat. I originally took her rejection of my suggestion to buy a double futon as evidence of her dislike for anything Oriental. I soon realised it was more fundamental than that. Maybe I accepted her rationale too quickly to save her embarrassment; it wasn’t me, it was what she needed. I was speechless, nervously scraping green foil from the top of a bottle of Pils lager. The communally split bag of dry roast peanuts sat accumulating smoke from a Dutch couple that were sharing our booth. Their happiness mocked us. Those feelings were so tangible; I struggle to understand where something so solid could have gone. Does it get lost with time or just put on ice for the day that you can ridiculously re-declare your undying love on a plane? I dare not look at her.

  “You seem distant. Not letting these guys get you down are you?”

  “No, I am just dealing with a lot babe.” The babe is too informal.

  The clatter of unclasped metal locks and the hot smell of the first opened meal trolley wafts down the cabin, prompting me to take my leave to go to the toilet at the front of the plane. I shudder at the prospect of more resolution but have decided I must make some. I rise slowly to avoid hurt and turn round to locate my stags; Robert is the only one I can’t see but I should keep him in full view from now on.

  “Hi mate.” I find Johnny sat opposite the toilet door. He greets me with an over full smile to distance himself from the hard time I am being given by the others.

  “Listen mate, I have decided to do something important for Bepe. I want to make a playlist, a Top 10, Top 20 sort of thing.” We share a religious fervour for our music, but with such diverse tastes have always found this sort of thing alarmingly difficult.

  “Sounds awesome mate, but too hard surely.” Normally I would agree with him but decide after my day so far I can handle a more selective challenge.

  “No, I know, Dan’s Magnificent Seven. That’s it, I am going to scroll through the tracks on my iPhone and do it this weekend.” This is important to me now.

  I shuffle into the toilet where I don’t breathe nor touch the surfaces. My urine is sucked and freeze-dried out into the airspace. I slowly return to Juliet resolved to move on.

  “Those hens are hammered.” Juliet informs me when I slump back to my seat.

  “It’s their only reason for being here now.”

  “Did Sophia have a hen party?”

  “Sort of, she went out with her mum, sister and cousins to the Lowry hotel in Manchester. Just a night out really.”

  “Are you excited by next Saturday now?” She seems to have a checklist to get through.

  “Yes, sure babe.”

  “How did you propose to her?”

  “Oh it was a private thing between us.” Not so private if you include her dad. He had asked when the next Saturday night was free at his golf club, where he thought I could marry his daughter at long last. He said I should wake up to my responsibility now that we had a son and it would make a man of me. I smiled at him and Sophia and the deal was done without a single word passing my lips. I have only told Johnny that. I unpeel the cellophane off my rubber looking meal. A shaft of bright warmth pierces the window on my left, illuminating strands of dust which dance and lay germs into my food chain.

  “I thought you were going to propose to me at one point. Remember that weekend we went to Kew gardens.”

  “No I don’t think so.” I was desperate to tell her I loved her at that point, but clammed up with fear. The prospect of our future relationship together seemed too important to risk for a bungled expression of devotion.

  “What’s your boy up to now?” I shift us onward.

  “He’s just finishing sixth form. Bepe is so lovely don’t you t
hink?”

  “We had a thing with him at the airport.” I feel as if I have no answers to anything she says. My marbled chocolate cake turns to a warm mush as I push my spoon into it.

  “I know Sophia told me, god forbid, god forbid…” She tails off. It’s the first time she has shown any emotion.

  “He just ran out of the airport babe.”

  “He’s a gift you have to protect at all cost.” She can’t help herself barking at me a little.

  “Was Ethan’s dad around when he was young?”

  “No. I brought him up on my own. I had nothing to do with his dad back then. My mum helped as much as she could.”

  “Was it Tristan’s baby?”

  “Tristan, why him?” Incredulity forms an L shape frown in between her eyes. She wraps her black hair once more around her left hand and jumps from her seat a little.

  “I thought you left me for him.”

  “Why ever did you think that? You thought I ran back to him?” She looked horrified; trying to imagine the twisted truth I had held all these years.

  “Do I know him from college?”

  “No. You just don’t know him.” She never partnered anyone easily, so a one-night stand would not sit easily with her.

  “You didn’t have to leave college because of me though.” As well as being wracked with pain I added a large helping of guilt for seemingly driving her out of college.

  “It was for the best. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was too confined…” She has no reservation in re-endorsing her self-release despite the implications for me.

  Our trays are despatched from whence they came. I stretch a little and push my plastic shelf onto the seat in front.

  “Ethan is my boy and my best friend.”

  “Bepe was wild with mischief when we came out this morning. But at the end he really didn’t want me to go.” I say with some unexpected pride.

  “He just wants his dad.” Something I have failed at mentally and physically so far.

  “I know but there is something in him I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t try to unravel it. You have done your shift. You have probably had poo on your hands at 3.30 in the morning like the rest of us, so he just senses you now.” Sophia breast-fed him, which left me comfortable but excluded back in bed. In truth, most of the time he has passed me by. He is shunted from greedy grandparents to a noisy nursery, from a teatime DVD on to a book on his mum’s knee at bedtime. Where have I been?

  “He just needs to know who you are.” There’s the rub. I can start to connect with him through music though. It was my first love, even before you Juliet, could I make it his?

  “Yeah, I have been thinking about that too.” Since you just mentioned it! “I am compiling a playlist for him to start his musical education, the seven tracks that have meant the most to me in my life.” I am thinking about this really well on the spot.

  “Sounds like an idea. Think about music that he can listen to though, not the usual obscure post-punk acid-house jazz-funk fusion.” Juliet has always strained to deliver deadpan humour, as it is so unnatural to her; she forces her mouth to curl downward to hide her smile.

  “Listen, I wanted to say that I am really sorry for what happened to us. There is…”

  “There is no need to apologise babe. You were probably right. Listen, I am just going to work on this playlist if you don’t mind.” I can’t stand the prospect of raking over her reasons. Juliet reluctantly picks up the in-flight magazine and seems to read intently about paper re-cycling in Norway.

  With my headphones re-inserted tenderly, I consider what to call the new playlist and label it “Dan’s Magnificent Seven” for now. I scroll down the alphabetically listed tracks. I touch A, the “Affectionate Punch” by the Associates appears first. Doing tracks alphabetically somehow seems fairer than choosing favoured albums and picking the best track. The letter A produces my first choice.

  Number 1. “Another Star” by Stevie Wonder.

  How apt is this, given the re-appearance of my ex-partner. Released in 1976 on Motown records, the cracking Latin drumbeat precedes an angelic voice that brings the band into heavenly action. Stevie screams his pain that he is blinded by love for another but they cannot see love for him; irony abounds. There is nothing worse than losing a love that remains in you. Having crashed bloodied and bruised at the bottom of a crater somewhere; you can get back onto your feet but each attempt to climb out results in you slipping back into the hole. I remember using this song when Juliet had left, caterwauling its lyrics whilst I had my headphones on. Its amazing how being jilted creates an appeal for so many songs previously discounted. I was convinced I loved her; she didn’t love me, the end. However that’s the point, when it is someone else’s choice there is no choice. It is an end without one. I thought Juliet loved someone else, but she now says she didn’t. I convinced myself it was hopeless. Maybe I am growing; I can acknowledge the size of the loss now. I lost that girl but I eventually found a son.

  The dark-haired stewardess Robert was chatting up hovers over me. Having failed to retail to the rest of the plane she presents me with a bottle of Moet et Chandon. I think of Freddie Mercury on his piano singing “Killer Queen” as I wave it away.

  She taps me on the knee. “It’s from Robert. There is a note.” She beams back at me, glancing over her shoulder to indicate the direction from whence it came. Juliet and I are as one again. We look with suspicion at the bottle.

  The note reads, “Enjoy the bubbly. Why not join the mile high club with Juliet. I just qualified for life membership with this stewardess. Robert”.

  “He insists you open it.” She now has a glass in hand.

  I don’t know precisely when I remembered. Was it when I felt the shock of ice-cold bubbles in my groin? Was it Juliet’s yelp? It was probably when the cork rebounded from the plastic light fitting into my right eye. I must remember from now on, do not trust Robert. My ears pop with a little relief though, nature’s way of signalling our rapid descent.

  CHAPTER 8

  Dan 18:55

  The back door of the mini-van slams brutally, confirming the enclosure of all our baggage. The “Mountain drop-offs” driver scrutinises a scruffily folded piece of A4 paper that confirms our impending transfer to Chamonix.

  “What the hell did you bring a guitar for?” Max understandably assumes my guitar case isn’t the replacement suitcase it actually is. An overhead roar and an unnatural metallic whiff in the air confirm the arrival of another planeload of ski junkies.

  “No room in here Staggie!” Robert slams the sliding door shut, leaving the driver’s front bench seat as my only place of transportation. A gust of cold air questions the wisdom of me wearing my trusty purple velvet jacket in a ski resort.

  “Hi, I’m Dan. When will we get to Chamonix?” I try to start up a travelling companionship.

  “Maybe eight, when it’s really dark.” The initial warmth of an Australasian accent reveals the clipped endings of a New Zealander by the end of his short sentence.

  “We can get dinner at eightish, boys!” I shout towards the back to encourage my stags.

  “That’s great Dan,” Juliet responds.

  “Dickheads! A bar at eight, shagging by nine,” replies Robert.

  “What a crew. These guys will be sloshed on the piste tomorrow,” I say chummily. The driver stares hard at the dashboard, he holds no truck with their intentions, as he chugs the cold engine to a start. Has he seen too much disrespect of the mountains to find them humorous?

  “That’s their funeral,” he almost spits his disapproval.

  GET NATURAL, the swish Swiss tourist board strap line beams from an illuminated billboard as we exit the car park. Our first mile is in heavy traffic, giving us the dubious opportunity to view the brutal architecture that shot up worldwide in the 60s and 70s.

  Shunned by the disapproving driver and physically excluded from my stag group for an hour, I have the chance to fulfil my promi
se to my family. I wince at remembering the developing eye wound I suffered at the hands of the insistent Bepe. I am scrolling furiously through the alphabet but nothing is up to scratch. Through to the letter E and still no second track, on to letter G and nothing stands the test of time. I am getting concerned about the whole process and the inability of songwriters to produce decent songs starting with the first half of the alphabet when at last another great track appears.

  Number 2. “Human” by The Human League

  Released in 1986 on Virgin Records I think, great track in a bad year. My fellow Sheffielder Phil Oakey drones his excuses that being flesh and blood excuses his bad behaviour. The Human League had betrayed their avant-garde roots to become mainstream pop idols about six years previously. It felt a very serious and personal betrayal at the time, but I now realise they were just finding a new way. I hated the fact I actually loved this as I had resisted their pop onslaught for so long. I remember this track especially as I was still feeling a void from Juliet’s disappearance. I suspected she had been “Human” with someone else, but she says not. I lost all trace of her when I moved to Manchester to find work. It was an unsettling time, one I wanted to move past. I regret not being able to enjoy the sheer unpredictability of where my life was going. Today’s near accident dialled up a similar feeling of raw exposure to life’s fate.

  Looking back into the mini-van, Juliet catches my eye as she chats with Johnny. I feel a mini victory in starting to deliver and smile confidently back at her. If you didn’t leave me for Tristan then who was it? Did you just leave me?

  The journey speeds up and Switzerland starts to deliver on some of its tourist promise. The inviting lights of still villages climb up the hills, highlighting their little lives. Soaring pine forests seem to hold them in place. I just make out a man walking stiffly into a clutch of houses. I create a life for him: seventy-seven-year-old Jean-Baptiste Clermont, a lonely lately reformed opportunist kiddie-fiddler, the internal pain of his perversion hampers every step.

  I was just warming to Switzerland when we say goodbye at the French border. My brother Chris looks nervously for his passport. Robert sneers at him and makes his Dan-has-the-cocaine joke again, but with no external audience its potency for embarrassment falls flat. However, it adds to the derision I feel from my driving companion.