A couple of hours later the four of us sit down for dinner. I avoid Adam’s eye, but the way he is acting this evening, it’s as if nothing has happened at all. He pours wine for us all, Nell and me first before himself and Will, as usual. The perfect gent. He winds Will up about breaking his ski, gently teases me about having a crush on my ski instructor, things like that. As if it’s an ordinary dinner on an ordinary night on an ordinary ski holiday, where nothing unusual happened and no one has been raped.
And I was raped. Wasn’t I? Or maybe nothing did happen. I mean, obviously we had sex, but … maybe it was like he said? Maybe he didn’t force me?
Did I want it? Did I at least make him think I want it?
Is that even the same thing?
I realize in an instant that I definitely can’t tell Will. He would never believe me. Right now, I’m not even sure what I believe.
‘Didn’t we, Louisa?’ Adam is asking as I tune back into the conversation. ‘We had a great lunch at La Taverne? Shame that Will missed it by being such a knob and breaking his ski and Nell by being too slow to keep up with me.’
Nell sniffs. ‘I was NOT too slow to keep up with you. I simply wanted to stay on that side of the valley instead of coming back over here – there’s more sun there in the afternoon and I like the pistes better on that side.’
I look at Adam, but only for a second because it hurts too much. I can see he’s mocking me. Or at least that’s how it feels. Does he think we’re sharing a secret about what went on between us while Will was out? Or is he simply looking at me with no hidden meaning? I feel like I don’t know anything any more.
‘Yes. It was a nice lunch. Thank you,’ I say mechanically. I only then remember that he settled the bill – it must have been expensive with that posh wine and all those drinks. Was that it? Did he think I owed him? That I wouldn’t have accepted all those drinks if I hadn’t wanted him?
If we’d have split the bill, would that have avoided all this? Would that have sent the correct message – I am your brother’s girlfriend. You and I are just having lunch together. We owe each other nothing.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
‘So what did you do with the rest of the afternoon?’ Nell asks, spearing a piece of dry chicken.
‘We spent most of it in the restaurant,’ Adam continues, ‘Louisa telling me her life story, and then we came back here. I had a sauna – I thought Louisa was going to join me, but I guess she changed her mind. This chicken is horrible, isn’t it?’ he adds, lifting his fork and squinting at a piece of meat.
How can he be so nonchalant?
‘I had a shower,’ I say, my voice shaking a little, looking up at Adam but he is still concentrating on his chicken, trying to pull it apart with his knife and fork. I’m trying to inject meaning into my voice – Do you not realize that I had a shower because of what you did to me? – but he seems entirely oblivious. Is he? Or is he just a convincing actor?
He shoves the chicken in his mouth and chews exaggeratedly, pulling a face. ‘Ugh,’ he says after he finally swallows his mouthful, ‘I think maybe we should go out for dinner tomorrow, the food here is hideous. Anyway, about tomorrow. Who’s skiing with who? Or with whom? Can never get that right.’
‘Well, I’m going to ski with Louisa,’ Will says, ‘as I didn’t get to today.’ He turns to face me. ‘Assuming you want to ski tomorrow, that is? Show me what you can do? I’m sorry about today. I was so looking forward to skiing with you, but sorting out my broken ski ate up the entire afternoon.’
Right now I can’t imagine wanting to do anything except curl up in bed and pull the covers over my head, but I can’t do that without telling Will why, or perhaps him offering to stay in bed with me, which I simply can’t face. More than anything, I don’t want to risk being left alone with Adam again. Right now, all I want is to not be me.
Adam pulls a face. ‘Think the weather’s meant to be pretty rank tomorrow. Sure you want to ski, Louisa?’
Not really, I think, but as I open my mouth to speak, Will says: ‘We’ll take a view tomorrow. How about we all do our own thing in the morning, meet up at lunchtime and see what everyone wants to do from there?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Adam says. ‘I’m going to be starving by then – this dinner is almost inedible.’
After forcing down some dessert, I say that I’m tired and would like to go to bed.
Will says he will come with me and I feel a stab of alarm – I want some time on my own. But I guess he thinks all my cries of ‘No, no, you stay’ are insincere and he follows me up the stairs to our room.
I lie down on the bed and he lies down next to me, putting his head on my chest and his arm across my waist.
I concentrate on not flinching. I don’t want to be touched. But I can’t tell him why. I’ve realized that.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asks, without moving. ‘You seem very quiet this evening.’ He pauses. ‘You don’t have to ski tomorrow morning if you don’t want to.’ He lifts his head and looks up at me. ‘Is that what it is? Or are you annoyed that I didn’t make it back for lunch? It wasn’t my fault, honestly. I really wanted to ski with you this afternoon.’
I force a smile. ‘No. Don’t be silly. It’s nothing you’ve done. I’m tired, that’s all. But of course we can ski tomorrow. I want to show you how much I’ve come on.’
He kisses the end of my nose and lays his head back down on my chest.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ I say, before I’ve properly thought through what I’m going to say.
He moves his hand down to my leg and starts to stroke my inner thigh. Normally it would make me want him but right now it makes me feel attacked. I fidget away, pretending that I am adjusting my jeans, as if have an itch or something.
‘Ask me anything, my darling,’ Will replies.
‘Why does Adam put you down all the time?’
He lifts his head to look at me, frowning. ‘That’s an odd question. Why do you ask?’
‘Dunno. I guess, not having any brothers or sisters – or any family, apart from Mum, sometimes I find it difficult to understand these relationships.’
He shifts slightly so that he is lying on his stomach and can look at me more easily. ‘I don’t know either really. He’s always been that way. Obviously, he’s older so he’s always had the upper hand in some ways, at least when we were kids. I’d never say this to him – and Mum would never admit it in a million years – but I’ve always been her favourite. I was ill as a child and I think that made her uber-protective of me. I think it’s made him jealous.’
‘You were ill?’
‘Yeah. In and out of hospital for a couple of years – no big deal, got over it, hale and hearty now.’
‘I bet it was a big deal at the time.’
‘Probably, I don’t remember much about it. But I think it’s why I’m Mum’s favourite, which has its advantages as I’ve always been able to get away with just about anything at home, so not all bad.’
I smile and touch his face. ‘How could you not be anyone’s favourite?’
He smiles back. ‘That’s sweet.’ There’s a pause and Will looks thoughtful. ‘It’s an interesting question though. Thing is, I can see Adam’s an arse in many ways, and he spends almost the whole time when we’re together trying to wind me up, but he’s also my brother, whether I like it or not. Always has been, always will be. There’s a bond there. It’s maybe difficult to understand if you don’t have a sibling. Even when I hate him, which quite often I do, I know that … well, deep down, I don’t hate him really.’
Tears well in my eyes. Will would never believe me. I can’t tell him what happened. What Adam did.
A tear falls and Will wipes it away. ‘Aww. You’re so sweet. Look at me, making you tear up.’ He leans in and kisses me. I fight down the rising panic and, after a couple of seconds, manage to relax into it. Nothing has changed between us, after all. I won’t let it. I’m not going to let Adam ruin everything.
He pulls back suddenly. ‘You smell different,’ he says.
The panic returns. ‘What?’ I stutter. ‘No, I don’t, it must be …’
‘You used my soap!’ he yelps. ‘That’s what it is! You smell like me. It’s weird.’
‘Is that OK? You weren’t here. It reminded me of you.’
He kisses me again. ‘Of course.’ There’s a pause. ‘I love you, Louisa.’
I kiss him back. ‘I love you too.’
Adam was right about the weather. When I look out of the window in the morning I can’t see a thing – the hotel is totally shrouded in fog.
‘Arses,’ Will says as he pulls back the bedroom curtain. ‘I guess you don’t want to go out in this?’
He looks down at me, still in bed, and gets back in, moving close to me and pulling me towards him. ‘I’ve got a better idea …’
I feel a lurch of panic. I managed to put him off last night by saying I was tired and had a headache. I can’t put him off forever, but right now I can’t face the thought of anything like that.
I kiss him chastely on the lips before leaping out of bed practically shouting: ‘No, I really do want to ski! I did so well yesterday and I want to show you.’ Right now, even skiing in terrible weather is a more appealing option than having sex. I wonder if I will always feel like this. It’s somehow difficult to imagine I won’t. Has Adam ruined that for me too?
Will laughs. ‘Wow, you certainly are full of surprises.’ He throws back the covers, stands up, and stretches. ‘Let’s do this then.’
I start to regret my decision as soon as we step out of the chalet. You can barely see more than two metres. It’s starting to snow and the wind is picking up too.
‘Any luck and we’ll be above the weather by the top,’ Will says cheerily as we pull the barrier down onto our knees on the chairlift. I smile weakly.
He’s wrong, of course. It is the same at the top, only windier. But that’s OK, I tell myself. I’m going to be fine. I know how to ski now. I can do this.
‘You all right with this?’ he asks. ‘If you’re not sure, we can get the bubble down. It’s just over there. I don’t mind, honestly. Whatever you want today.’
Tears spring to my eyes. He is so sweet. If he finds out what happened, he might never forgive me. Or he might never forgive his brother. Or either of us. Or he might think I’m making it up. I can’t risk telling him.
He can’t see my tears, but they’re making my goggles steam up. ‘No, I can do it,’ I reply. ‘I just need to clear my goggles.’
We make it down the slope and I do OK. In fact I do well enough that we go up again and this time try a blue slope, which is apparently slightly harder. There are a few falls, but no tears and no tantrums. Will is sweet, attentive, and patient. I guess he feels bad for not making it back for lunch yesterday. But he can’t feel anywhere near as bad as I feel. The more I think about it, the more I think I’m at least partly to blame for what happened with Adam. I shouldn’t have had all that wine. I shouldn’t have let him order expensive drinks and then pick up the bill. I shouldn’t have let him into my room while I was only wearing a towel. I should have fought harder when he pinned me down, shouted, screamed, kicked. I did none of that.
By lunchtime, I am freezing cold and exhausted. We have a much simpler lunch than I ate with Adam; croque monsieur and chips with one beer each. That’s the kind of lunch I should have had yesterday, I realize now. Not the epicurean and sensual feast with wine and liqueurs I opted for. I am such a fool.
‘So, what about this afternoon?’ Will asks. ‘Do you want to go back up? You did amazingly this morning.’
I look out the window. The snow is sheeting down. Part of me thinks I should go, but a larger part is so exhausted there’s no way I can face it.
‘Would you mind terribly if I didn’t? I’m really tired and a bit cold. But I don’t mind at all if you want to go out. I don’t want to spoil your fun.’
Will reaches across the table and takes my hand. ‘You could never spoil my fun. Tell you what, I’m pretty cold too. Let’s go back and have a sauna. I don’t think you had one yesterday in the end? Then we could …’
He raises an eyebrow and I force a smile. That’s the last thing I want to do, but I’ll worry about that when it comes to it.
He makes the universal writing in the air sign for ‘Can we pay the bill please?’ and we both start to gather up our things. Normally I’d be excited about an afternoon with Will on my own with nothing planned, but right now I feel nothing but dread. I don’t want him to touch me. I don’t want anyone to touch me.
There’s a sudden blast of cold air as the door flies open and Adam stamps in, the cold emanating off him as he plonks himself down next to me. I feel myself shrink away from him. He’s not particularly big or even that tall, but somehow his presence seems to take up a lot of space at the table.
‘Bastardos!’ he booms, waving towards the waiter who slouches over so Adam can order a beer. He hasn’t brought our bill. Adam turns back to me and Will. ‘Did you have a good morning out there?’
‘Yep,’ Will says. ‘Louisa’s been showing me what she can do. She’s really come on.’
Adam looks me up and down and claps me on the shoulder. I try and fail not to flinch. ‘Good girl!’ he cries. ‘I knew you could do it.’
‘Where’s Nell?’ Will asks.
‘Gone back to the chalet. Doesn’t like this weather, apparently. But I thought I might find you in here and I wondered if you fancied doing something special this afternoon, Will? Maybe get a guide and do something off-piste?’
There is a brief pause. ‘Oh I don’t think so, sorry,’ Will says, loyally. ‘Louisa and I were going to go back and have a sauna.’ He sounds like he means it but, much as I love him, I know what the sauna will be leading to in Will’s mind and it’s absolutely the last thing I feel like doing at the moment.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I counter. ‘We’re only here for a few more days and we can have a sauna any time. You go out with Adam. I’m exhausted – I’ll probably just have a nap back at the chalet. I’ll be quite happy on my own, honestly.’
Will frowns. ‘Hmmm. But I’ve already abandoned you too much on this trip and I wouldn’t want you to think that I—’
‘You heard the lady!’ Adam interrupts. ‘It’s FINE. Now get your arse in gear and we’ll go and see if we can get a guide. There’s a place opposite – I think it’s called Skitastic. We’ll see if they’ve got anyone available.’
Will looks at me helplessly.
I smile and nod. This gives me an excuse not to have sex and it will keep Adam out of my way too – all I feel is a wave of relief. ‘It’s fine, honestly. Go. I want you to.’
He kisses me on the cheek and gets up from the table. ‘You’re the best girlfriend ever. I’ll see you later.’
28
December 1998, La Madière, France
Will
Unsurprisingly, given that the weather this afternoon means almost no one wants to ski, Skitastic has a guide available. The weather has worsened, and even though most people like us who are only out in the snow for a precious week will ski in just about anything, there are limits. Even so, I’m really pleased to be out on the mountain. I meant it when I said I’d go back with Louisa at lunchtime; I wanted to be with her and I still felt bad that I’d left her to her own devices so much this week. But she genuinely seemed to mean it when she said I should go out skiing. It’s pretty exhausting, being out on the slopes in this weather, especially if you’re a beginner, so it’s not surprising she wants to get a few zeds. I’ll make it up to her later.
Our guide, Cameron, is English and he’s not in the usual ski instructor model – no effusing over working in the ‘best office in the world’, no taking us to the top of a lift just to point out Mont Blanc (not that we could see it in today’s conditions, even if it was right next door), no banging on about the importance of taking time to enjoy the mountains and that it doesn’t matter what stan
dard you are or if you don’t want to do certain slopes or your parallel turns aren’t perfect as long as you’re having fun.
No, instead there’s some brief form-filling, a curt chat about our levels (‘We’ve been skiing since we were kids and can ski just about anything,’ Adam says, the latter half of which is a bit of an exaggeration) and a short conversation about what we want from today (again Adam speaks for us both: ‘Something a bit extreme.’) I don’t disagree. I’ve spent so much of this week on easy slopes with Louisa, I’m up for something challenging now.
On the way up, Adam jabbers away but Cameron barely responds to any of the usual ski chit-chat – questions about how long he’s been here, comments about the weather, etc. In fact, he’s abrupt almost to the point of rudeness. But I guess you probably get sick of having the same conversations every day with total strangers who you’re unlikely ever to see again. Or maybe he simply doesn’t want to be out in this horrible weather.
‘Right,’ Cameron says, once we’re off the top lift. ‘We’re going to head down off the back here. Couloir Noir.’
By now the wind is blowing so hard it’s a struggle to hear. My goggles have steamed up, so I can’t see – and we haven’t even started yet. I take them off, wipe them and put them back, but if anything it makes them worse.
‘The terrain isn’t too difficult but in these conditions it’s important to take it slowly. I’ll lead – to start with, at least. Try to stay close behind me. There’s no rush; obviously I will go at your pace,’ Cameron says.
‘We’re not a couple of old ladies!’ Adam booms. ‘We can keep up. Don’t worry about that.’
He nods. ‘Fine. Shall we go then?’
We set off. Cameron leads, too slowly, while another guide in the same jacket who has joined us hangs back behind. Adam quickly overtakes so that he is in front of us all. I am happier taking it at a leisurely pace – the snow is deeper than I’m used to and the visibility is almost nil. A couple of minutes later, the second guide whizzes by me, and half a minute later I find Adam and Cameron waiting on a bend.
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