all members of your party read this section of the instructions and follow them to the letter.’ I hadn’t the heart; it could wait till the morning, not least because there was a block of ice in each of the loos. I let the girls sleep.
The time was about half past six.
It was two hours later, half past eight. ‘Hey man, let’s kick butt.’ Chip was up brewing coffee. Keen, enthusiastic, American, and only twenty-three, he wanted to go skiing. Immediately. ‘Up yours.’ Some British irony was not entirely lost on him.
It was another two hours later. Half past ten.
‘Hey man, let’s kick butt.’ Chip had been out, collected wood, built a fire, and, as an incentive to get everyone up, was brewing some more coffee. He had discovered the local shop and bought a baguette and croissants. Keen, enthusiastic, American, only twenty-three, he wanted to go skiing. Immediately. I would have just said ‘Go skiing then’, but the resort was five kilometres away, and he would need a car.
Niall emerged, as did I. The girls remained in bed.
An hour later, half past eleven. Chip was beginning to foam quietly at the mouth. Keen, enthusiastic, American, etc. I didn’t really see this as my problem, because he was my wife’s guest, but nevertheless hinted to her that she ought to get up. She and the two sisters dragged themselves out of their warm pits. Before they were fully awake I thought it safe to inform them about the block of ice in each loo, and also issued a military briefing thereon.
Section C, Annex A. Lavatories.
1 Please ensure that all members of your party read this section of the instructions and obey them to the letter.
2 If a lavatory bowl fails to drain, the septic tank is: either a. frozen solid or b. temporarily blocked.
3 If (a), there is nothing you can do except consider the alternatives laid out in paragraph (7) below.
4 If (b), take action as given in paragraph (5) below.
5 The tank is designed to cope indefinitely with the output of four people. For limited periods (two weeks) it will cope with larger parties (10) provided that the following points are rigidly observed: a. Use a minimum amount of paper. Single thickness not double. Use only proper lavatory paper, i.e. not newspaper or kitchen paper. b. Under no circumstances should it be used for disposal of any kind of rubbish whatsoever. Not even paper handkerchiefs. Not items of personal hygiene. Nothing. GET lT?
6 Provided any blockage has been reported to the head of the household immediately, and you have not got a blockage on top of a blockage, you should be able to free it by using copious amounts of cold water and a plunger. In a ‘bad case’ try several times. On no account flush during this procedure if you are keen to avoid an environmental disaster.
7 If this fails, you are left with the following choices: a. Use the emergency Racasan bucket. b. The river. c. Hang on until the bottom of the téléphérique. d. Go home.
8 See also Annex A to Section A.
Annex A to Section A. The Downstairs Bathroom.
1 This bathroom is below septic tank level and so has an electric pump and shredder to raise solids to the right level at the appropriate consistency.
2 The shredder will cope with all normal lavatory solids but not with plastic or rubber. You must tell your guests about this and be utterly explicit. Experience indicates that euphemisms pass over most people’s heads. The shredder is a very expensive piece of equipment. (That’s enough plumbing – Ed.)
Having drawn this euphemistically to the attention of the party we were about ready to go skiing, except for a need to equip Verona and Sienna. I took them to Monsieur Noz, where I explained that they were debutantes. Noz was deeply suspicious of the new fad of shorter skis. Small details like the fact that they are easier to turn are nothing against la stabilité. Verona and Sienna were issued with monsters.
Beginners at skiing are not merely beginners at skiing; they have to learn how to walk with ski boots on, how to carry planks and sticks at the same time, and tricks like remembering that they stick out at the back when you put them on your shoulder, so that if you rotate through 180 degrees the bit sticking out invariably decapitates a passing Frenchman. This is how they met Pascal, a local ski instructor, with roguish Alain Prost good looks and short stature, who volunteered, having looked them up and down, to teach them.
The other thing about beginners is that they take ages putting themselves together, adjusting boot clips or bindings. To kill time, Chip had bought lip salve, mirror sun glasses, a new pair of gloves, and a coloured scarf to tie round his knee. He had also had the bottoms of his skis hot waxed and the edges sharpened, and having ascertained the correct local frequency for his avalanche bleeper was saying things like ‘Let’s kick butt’, with the time lag between each utterance diminishing, like the minor shocks before a major earthquake.
It being well past one o’clock by now, Rika suggested that it was time for lunch. A nice restaurant with a sixty-seven franc menu including half bottle of wine beckoned. I was in a dilemma because I had signed a charter to do whatever my wife wanted, but on the other hand her friend, if he didn’t get skiing soon, would start having some kind of a seizure. Although I was now thirty-one, I still remember the frustrations of being twenty-three. I ordered us up the mountain.
On the first day of a skiing holiday a series of ‘species recognition’ dances takes place, which are much worse than the strains one’s unfit body is subjected to. The women had already eyed each other’s anoraks and admired various features in the way only women can do when they have a point to make. ‘C & A are making some lovely things these days,’ said Rika. Pretty hard-hitting stuff, showing a sophisticated grasp, for a foreigner, of how the British middle-classes don’t want to be suspected of overdressing. Verona’s riposte of ‘Gorgeous design, lovely feel, but you must have had to take out a mortgage on it,’ was water off a duck’s back. It is a peculiar British virtue to be seen not to be trying. Large sums of money spent on clothes were not something my wife had difficulty coming to terms with. That was left to me and my bank manager, a sympathetic fellow who recognised that my earnings made me capable of supporting quite a lot of debt.
We men eyed each other’s skis. No contest there. Niall’s were two metres fifteen centimetres long, he had bought them from a member of the British ski team who had had some spare from his sponsor. Chip’s were not especially long, but they were made of Kevlar by the box torsion zeta method, and matched the scarf round his knee. He pressed the bottoms lovingly to his cheek as we went up the cable car. Mine were a good second-hand pair bought off some flash bastard who wanted to graduate onto this year’s colours.
Chip flew neatly down the mountain with a cry of ‘Hey man, let’s kick butt’. An alarmingly good skier, Niall eschewed style; he could afford to because he had the longest and therefore most manly pair of skis, too massive for threading through the bumps, he bounced over them touching only where gravity dictated. He had the assurance of someone who didn’t need to show off. As for myself, kind people call it ‘spectacular’ – legs and arms everywhere. I don’t see how you can be six foot four, possess size thirteen feet, and be tidy. Purists have trouble coming to terms with this style, but it works.
It is extremely galling to report, however, that Chip was better than me. Rika viewed the battle from the side of the piste having taken the blue run down, satisfied that her protégé was humiliating her husband.
We only managed a couple of hours before it was time to go in.
Verona and Sienna were looking flushed with success. Pascal had told them that they had natural talent, apparently referring to their skiing.
Back at the Cowshed, things were not quite what they might have been. Water cascaded down the stairs and through the floors. Carpets, upholstered furniture, bags of sugar, lentils, all saturated, rivers of Weetabix on the floor along with soggy baguettes floating like escaped turds at the Thames Barrier.
I discovered that I had overlooked Annex P (3) of the Cowshed operating instructions and failed to close down system draining tap G. Also, a block of ice