Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Strangers, Bad Girls Good Women, A Woman of Our Times, All My Sins Remembered
another, eyebrows raised.
Sophia murmured, ‘Something has happened.’
Looking up, Julia suddenly saw that the mountains were hostile. Josh was somewhere up in that high, white space. She was afraid, and she shivered. Without taking her eyes off the route Belinda put her arm around her. Gratefully, Julia huddled closer. The four girls drew together, waiting.
Then Felicity shouted, ‘Look!’
At last, a black speck appeared on the lip of a col high above them. The skier seemed to hang there motionless for a second, and then he came twisting down the huge slope.
No one spoke. ‘Is it him?’ Julia almost screamed.
Sophia shook her head. ‘Josh doesn’t ski like that.’
Another skier appeared over the col, and then another. The leader came closer, and Julia heard that he was shouting something at them. They crowded forward and she saw his mouth open, a black shape under his blank goggles.
‘Av—a—lanche!’
He was French and the syllables of the word sounded too soft for the images that exploded with it. He lifted his pole and waved it backwards at the white walls. And then he hurtled past them, on and down towards Winteregg below.
Julia did scream now. ‘What does he mean? Where is the avalanche?’
The other skiers passed, unrecognisable, but not Josh. Sophia’s ruddy face had turned grey-white. Julia understood that avalanche was something terrible. She shrank back against the wooden wall of the funicular station, feeling the splintery planks give a little at her back. They waited, still in silence, their faces all turned upwards.
And then, again, Felicity shouted, ‘Look!’
Julia knew at once that this one was Josh. He came, seemingly, straight as an arrow down the dizzying slope. Crouching low over his skis he didn’t swoop, bird-like, as the others had done, Josh had power, not grace. A wordless cry burst out of the girls and before the echo of it had gone Josh was whirling down to them. Julia glimpsed the red silk scarf wound round his neck, the white flash of his smile, and his pole lifted in a brief salute. An instant later he was past and they swung round to watch him carving a straight path down the fall of the slope.
Julia realised that they were all cheering and whooping. The icy air tore at her throat and there were tears of relief and excitement pouring down her face. She clasped Belinda in a bear-hug and they capered in a circle, laughing and gasping.
‘He’s not there yet,’ Felicity warned.
‘But skiing like that,’ Belinda answered, ‘he’ll not only get there, he’ll bloody well win.’
Down again, after the Allmendhubel. Josh had glimpsed Julia at the funicular station, but the thought of her had vanished from his head just as quickly. He was tiring rapidly and he was skiing through open country, over and down treacherous humps, and every atom of concentration and muscle power was needed to find the right route, the fast route. But he had come this far, and determination was like a tight wire inside him.
At Winteregg, he came to the railway line. A bigger knot of spectators waited beside a little tea hut and as he reached them a storm of questions in three languages broke around him. ‘Happy Valley,’ he panted. ‘Alex Mackintosh was hurt, but they’ve got him away now.’
Someone tried to pat him on the back but he ducked away and pushed on again. Beyond Winteregg was a kilometre and a half of flat country. His body felt like lead, but he clenched his teeth and poled on. He thought of Alex Mackintosh’s faint encouraging smile.
And then, at Grütsch station, the route dived downwards again. Josh took one gasping breath and pointed his skis down the slope. Beneath him, beyond the dense fir forests, was Lauterbrunnen.
Down.
The pain had spread to his chest now, and there was burning from his armpits to the top of his thigh. But still, there was the kiss of fresh powder under his skis too, and the clearings between the black trees opening like soft, white mouths.
If he was going to make time, he must do it now. Josh flexed his knees, lower, crouched into an egg-shape. The trees and the snow and the clearings flickered by, but suddenly they were no threat. Miraculously, forgetting everything that had happened, he was part of them. He was inviolable, spawned by the snow itself. The wind of his speed sliced into his cheeks. Josh could hear his own breath rasping in his chest. He was skiing faster and better than he had ever done in his life, and he was drunk on it. In that moment he was all-powerful.
The arches of the funicular loomed and flashed overhead. Still down, crossing and recrossing under the pylons. Then he was out of the trees and open grazing fields lay below him. Swooping across them, the seconds began to beat in his head. How long? How much further? He caught the warm, lowland smell of animal dung. He saw Lauterbrunnen, a frozen sea of snowy roofs. There was the station to one side, and a little road leading to it. The finishing line. Josh’s poles bit into the snow and he flung himself forward for the last time. He knew that he was exhausted now.
A dark knot of people spread across the snowy track ahead of him. He heard them cheering and half turned his head to look for the reason. As he swished over the finishing line he understood that they were cheering for him. The Swiss timekeeper clicked his stopwatch and Josh collapsed against a wooden fence. It sagged beneath his weight but it held him. It was just as well, because Josh couldn’t stand up.
The prize-giving for the 1956 Inferno was held at the Palace Hotel, Mürren. The room was packed with competitors, finishers and non-finishers, organisers and supporters. When Julia saw Josh she felt almost shy of him. She couldn’t manage to struggle across the room to him before silence was called for the results.
Twelve skiers had finished the course.
Julia clenched her fists, struggling to hear. She couldn’t understand any German, and barely a word of the rapid French. There was a lot of cheering and laughing. The Swiss race chairman peered at a sheet of paper. As he read out a name and a number there was a burst of clapping. The winner was the Frenchman, Gacon.
Beside Julia Sophia whistled. ‘Twenty-seven minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Bloody fast. But then he was through before the avalanche.’
Everyone knew about the avalanche. On their way up, the girls had heard that someone had stopped to dig someone else out.
Amidst calls for silence, the second and third placings were read out. Neither of them was Josh. Julia stared with dull disappointment at the back of the head in front of her. She had been sure that Josh would win, whatever Belinda and the others said. She didn’t see Tuffy Brockway stand up, but as soon as he started speaking her skin prickled.
‘In announcing the fourth, and incidentally the highest amateur, placing we have a special commendation to make. This competitor was caught by the avalanche in Happy Valley. Nevertheless he freed himself and went to the rescue of Alex Mackintosh. Alex is now in the hospital in Berne. He has a broken leg, some concussion, other uncomfortable but fortunately minor damages. His fellow-competitor reached him very quickly, and there is no doubt that he was instrumental in saving his life.’
Julia’s heart began to thump in her chest. ‘Once he was assured that Mr Mackintosh was safe, he continued the race. And finished the course in the remarkable time, once credited with the minutes he had lost in helping another man, of thirty-one minutes and seventeen seconds. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to applaud the courage and spirit of Mr Joshua Flood.’
Sophia and Belinda and Felicity cheered wildly with everyone else. Julia sat silent, stock-still, hardly able to see for pride.
Josh was presented with a commemorative Inferno medal. Tuffy Brockway pinned it to his dark-blue jumper for him. In the hubbub afterwards, it was Josh who elbowed his way through the crowd to Julia. Belinda clung to his arm and Sophia and Felicity kissed a cheek each. Julia just looked up at him.
‘Well done,’ she said quietly.
Josh held out his hand and she stood