Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Strangers, Bad Girls Good Women, A Woman of Our Times, All My Sins Remembered
Taffeta dress and all.
‘Why don’t you give them a chance? Watch them. You might even learn something.’
‘I might,’ she conceded, doubting whether it was anything she would want to know. Then she thought of Felix. They had been gentle with each other since the night of the funeral. Jessie’s death and their failure in bed had drawn them close. Felix had made her critical of her own clothes, taught her the difference between good food and bad food, made her aware of the existence of style. Felix was always telling her to use her eyes and ears. Perhaps Josh was right. Perhaps the Belindas could teach her something, even if it was only never to wear tight pants over thirty-eight-inch hips. And some breathless upper-class argot. Might come in useful some day, Julia thought philosophically.
They reached the ski-hire shop and Julia submitted herself to having boots strapped to her feet and poles thrust into her hands.
After that, everything was awful.
Josh came to the beginners’ slope but Julia soon begged him to go away and leave her to her humiliation. He went, bestowing her on the Swiss ski-school instructor and a gaggle of tiny Dutch and German children. For the first time in her adult life Julia discovered that her rangy height was a disadvantage. She had further to fall than the little children, and every puff of wind seemed enough to blow her over. She fell so often that it began to seem simpler just to lie in the snow, only Heini the instructor came and hauled her to her feet again.
Snow filled her mouth and ears and slid down her neck. Her hands froze to her poles and her legs ached so that she could hardly lift her skis. She wobbled and slithered and Heini yelled, ‘Bend your knees!’ and the children sliced cheekily past her.
At the end of the afternoon, when the snow had turned blue in the fading light, half a dozen skiers appeared at the top of the slope. They swooped down together, their immaculate pure christies carving a sinuous line down to the village. They were whooping and calling to each other, and Julia recognised Belinda and her friends. They were as graceful as swans on their skis. She ducked her head and shrank behind Heini and the children, impressed in spite of herself.
Julia didn’t see anything of Josh while there was enough light to ski by. She knew that he went across to Mürren and climbed the Schilthorn to ski the Inferno route, but when she asked him about it he shook his head and didn’t answer.
In the evenings they went out together, but never alone. They ate in candlelit restaurants and drank glühwein in tiny, cosy bars crowded round tables with the other skiers. As well as Joy and her girls and the other DHO regulars there were Inferno competitors who eyed Josh surreptitiously and tried to make him talk about his practice. Amongst them were the members of the military teams competing for the Montgomery Cup. Sophia and her friends found the British and American soldiers particularly fascinating, although Julia was secretly gratified to notice that they looked at her far oftener than they did at the other girls in their reindeer-patterned jumpers.
Josh saw it too. He winked and squeezed her hand.
The only other skier who Julia liked was a sandy-haired tough-looking Scot called Alex. She mentioned him to Sophia as they scrambled home through the silent, biting dark before Frau Uberl’s midnight curfew.
‘Oh no, not him. You can’t,’ Sophia shrieked. ‘He’s utterly non-sku. He wears his socks outside his ski-pants.’
Julia smiled in the blue dark. Felix would like that.
By Sunday morning, the day of the race, Julia was so stiff and bruised that she could hardly walk. She lowered herself out of bed and groaned on all fours on the shiny floorboards.
Belinda was infuriatingly doing kneebends by the window. She came round the end of Julia’s bed and peered down at her. Then she held out her hand. Julia glared at it, but she needed help. She took the hand and Belinda pulled her upright.
‘Ouch. Oh, God. I can’t walk. I’m crippled.’
Belinda giggled. ‘It’ll get better after today. Promise. You’ll start to loosen up. You know, I saw you with Heini yesterday.’ ‘How embarrassing.’
‘Not a bit. You’re doing really well. Isn’t she, Felicity?’
‘Brilliantly.’
To her surprise, Julia felt herself turning crimson with pleasure. Their praise was unexpected and welcome, but it was also a gesture of friendship. She had turned into enough of a skier for a truce to be called.
She smiled at them. ‘Thanks.’
‘Are you going to watch the race?’ Belinda asked.
‘I don’t know where to go,’ Julia admitted. Josh had told her airily to go with the girls. She did know how desperately she wanted to see him compete.
‘Come with us. We’re going up the Alibubble.’
‘I will, then. Thanks again.’
Josh had set out while it was still dark.
He reached the top of the Allmendhubel funicular at eight thirty, and with his skis over his shoulder he started to climb. He set himself a careful, steady pace. There were almost four hours of climbing ahead of him. The race would begin at midday, and the thirty-two competitors would be started at thirty-second intervals. Josh knew from experience that it required perfect timing not to arrive hurried and winded, and not to have to wait for too long on the summit of the freezing mountain.
He frowned at the snow as he climbed steadily beside the downhill route. It had been unseasonably warm and wet at the beginning of February, but fresh heavy snow had fallen on the slippery base in the last week. He prodded his long pole into the glistening powder as he tramped upwards. When he glanced towards the heights above he could pick out the figures of other competitors, black and grey specks against the snow.
Julia and the others clambered out of the funicular just before midday. A handful of spectators was already clustered in the lee of the station hut, cheerfully passing flasks amongst them. Belinda produced the provisions Frau Uberl had sent and they gulped thankfully at hot chocolate laced with plum brandy.
Sophia looked at her watch. ‘Exactly twelve.’
Josh was number fifteen. In seven minutes, he would be on his way down. Julia felt her heart knocking painfully in her chest.
Josh was waiting in a silent line of skiers. He knew most of them, although they were barely recognisable beneath their caps and yellow-lensed goggles. No one spoke. The Swiss official at the head of the line raised his arm and then dropped it. The first competitor plunged away. Josh heard the thrilling swish of skis through the powder, but he didn’t look. He was breathing slowly and evenly. His fingers flexed in the loops of his poles. He was following the course in his head, every twist and dive of the endless, treacherous fourteen kilometres.
Swish. Swish. Starter after starter.
Josh moved forward in the line. Swish. Two people ahead of him. He eased his goggles over his eyes. In a little more than thirty minutes, with luck, he would be at Lauterbrunnen, nearly three thousand feet below.
Next but one. The Scot, Alex Mackintosh, was just ahead at number fourteen. The raised arm fell again and Josh was at the head of the line. He had taught himself never to feel nerves, Fear was one thing, it was a safeguard, but nerves were simply destructive. The seconds ticked off. In the last two or three, as he crouched ready for the arm signal, he wondered where Julia would be watching.
Swish.
Josh didn’t hear the rasp of his own skis. He was off, traversing the opening slope that was as steep as a roof. Down, and down, with the powder spurting up behind him. So fast that it was gone while the starter’s arm still flickered in his head. At the bottom, a sweeping left turn and into the Engetal, the Happy Valley. Ahead lay a great schuss, a huge S-shaped sweep that dropped more than a thousand feet.
Josh was travelling like a bullet. The speed pinned the flesh of his face to the bones, carving a white smile beneath the blank goggles. But behind the yellow shields his eyes