Five Ladies Go Skiing

by Karen Aldous

  ‘Oh, sweetie. Clearly, I think that. Temptation must be in all of us, but …’ Angie shook her head frowning. ‘But Mike …? Tough call. Really tough call.’

  Ginny gave a sigh and again gazed at me. I tightened my lips agonising over what action to take. I tried to appear genuinely sympathetic, which of course I was.

  ‘Sweetie, I would forget all about it,’ I heard Lou say. ‘Why make life stressful for yourself? Think logically. You have no evidence. You can’t confront him so there is nothing you can do about it. You’ll end up tying yourself in knots or making yourself ill when it’s likely he was hallucinating. It’s even possible you misheard him.’

  ‘Good point, I agree,’ Angie said. ‘And she’s right. You’ve no reason to be suspicious so what’s the point in torturing yourself? You have to move on.’

  ‘That’s just it. I’ll never know, will I?’

  ‘Well, unless the floozy knocks on your door and admits it to your face, no,’ Lou chirped. I sensed she was trying to defuse Ginny’s anguish but the image of my sister at Ginny’s door made my heart jolt, so I was sure that Ginny didn’t need any visual encouragement. Subsequently, however, the girls guffawed, and a light relief washed over me. Maybe I was doing the right thing.

  ‘Darling, if it was me, I’d rather not know,’ Cathy said matter-of-factly. ‘I certainly wouldn’t let it eat away at me. Anthony could have committed the same offence. I wouldn’t know. My dear girl, you could have another forty years’ innings. Let it go, you might as well enjoy life rather than continue it tormented. And if you had told us this a year ago, just think how much you would have moved on.’

  Angie stretched out. ‘Exactly, petal, you could have been dating again by now.’

  ‘Well, it’s not too late,’ Lou chuckled, ‘Neil is single, and he certainly has the hots for you. And if I’m not mistaken you’re quite taken with him too.’

  Ginny pulled a face. ‘Oh lovely, you don’t think I’m ever going to trust another man now, do you?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Just have some bloody fun. You had a good marriage. Kept to your vows, ’til death do you part and all that,’ Lou jibed, squeezing her hand and sitting back. ‘Go get him. You’re on holiday. You’re not marrying him.’

  ‘Yes …’ I clapped watching Lou suddenly freeze. Her mouth gaped and at once her body bolted and twisted in its entirety like a spooked horse. Her back was to me.

  I jumped up as fast as I could in my boots and with wobbly legs and squeezed in front of her trying to crouch. Amusement switched to bemusement in an instant. I’d no idea how she moved so fast.

  ‘Lou, what’s wrong?’ I asked, panic rising in me.

  ‘Nothing. I … I oh hell!’

  ‘What, what is it?’ Angie was now hanging over her.

  Ginny and Cathy leant across the table. ‘Lulu. What’s wrong?’ Ginny gasped.

  Lou craned her neck, looking conspicuously behind her. ‘I’m OK, honestly. I thought I was going to be sick. But I’m OK. I’m fine.’

  I’ve witnessed some strange behaviour when patients are nauseous, but this was pretty extreme. ‘Are you sure that’s all it is?’

  Lou nodded. ‘Yes, I’m sure. Really. I think I’ll go back,’ she said with her focus on the entrance. ‘Now. Excuse me?’ she said barging past me. ‘I’ll wait at the lift.’ She rose to her feet, snatched her helmet and gloves from the decking and tore off. Without thinking, I grabbed mine too and funnelled behind her, catching her arm.

  Angie trod back out of our way and scooped back her cuff to look at her watch. ‘It’s time we got back anyway. It’s three-forty-five. They close the lift at four.’ She shrugged. ‘Let’s go.’

  I checked my watch, too. ‘Crikey, over two and a half hours we were there’. With our sun-roasted faces, we staggered back to the lift and all the way down in the lift repeatedly asked Lou if she was all right.

  ‘Stop fussing,’ was her constant response. ‘I’m fine.’ Then she lightened a little. ‘If anything, it’s my thighs and calves have the screaming abdabs.’

  Now we were all on the same page. Our excessive consumption of Champagne and red wine may have affected our stiff, grumbling joints but we conveniently blamed the effort and assiduousness we’d put in during our morning’s ski. One thing we all agreed on was that we were not going back on the slopes. Mike’s memorial had certainly been memorable for probably all the wrong reasons, but we were dog-tired, and possibly in need of coffee and sleep, so we headed back to the chalet.

  I suspect, like the other Flowers, that although my head was spinning and pounding, it was in a good place. As challenging as it was, I congratulated myself for not telling Ginny. I was so tempted. I had been thinking of little else all throughout lunch, even when the joking and laughter got raucous, I’d asked myself, should I? Should I just pull her to the side and tell her?

  Then the emotions sank low. The timing wasn’t right, not on Memorial Day. And, more to the point, in my heart I couldn’t break her just to ease my conscience. Ginny was relaxed and in the best of spirits. Just like her old self. In fact, I would go as far as saying she was nearing closure. Which was good. It was exactly what she needed, and I could have ruined a momentous step. As for Lou, I didn’t know what that was all about. That reaction, however, was not one of someone feeling sick.

  Cathy

  I watched Lou pounce into the corner. I had no idea what was wrong with her. It wasn’t like her to be sick or sulky, even with excessive drink. In fact, if it was Ginny, I could understand. Ginny handled today with such dignity, particularly as she had such reservations about Mike. I believed Mike was delirious. He would never have wandered or strayed. Ginny was his life.

  For Lou, maybe it was the alcohol. I knew her well. We grew up in the same cul-de-sac, went to school together, went to Brownies, ballet and dancing together. I admit, I avoided sport when she and Ginny played after school, but we have spent so much time together, even our own children are close. Unlike me who has always been rather thin and have permanent colds, Lou was very robust. She had a strong constitution, was rarely unwell, but I wondered if she was struggling with the altitude. We did come higher up today. I’d heard that perfectly healthy people can get sick in the mountains. Even get terrible toothaches. She said she was fine, but knowing Lou, she would put on a brave face. She hated any of us seeing her weak.

  ‘Lou, my darling, have you been feeling like this just today?’ I asked her as we climbed out of the swinging car. ‘It could be the altitude.’

  ‘I never thought of that, sweet pea. It could be. It’s probably the highest I’ve ever been. Oh, I did go to the mountains in Andorra once when I was working in Spain, but I wasn’t queasy.’

  Hearing this, our geography guru Ginny stepped beside us. ‘The mountains here are higher. Maybe it’s a cocktail of A&E.’

  Lou glanced at Ginny and then at me, confused. ‘What, Accident and Emergency?’

  Ginny laughed. ‘No. Altitude, Alcohol and emotions!’

  Looking even more confused, Lou shrugged and humoured our friend with a roar. ‘That definitely sounds like a Spanish cocktail I had. I think you might have a had a glass too much of it too.’ She rolled her eyes at Ginny. ‘How would I manage without you girlies?’

  I remembered Lou running off to Spain. She finished her degree at Sussex and got a job trading for the same stockbrokers in London with her then boyfriend Jimmy. She was even engaged to him, but two months later, Lou called it off. She decided to take her parents’ advice and remain single for a few years, date other men and see the world before she settled down. She listened when her mother laid her feelings bare. She claimed that her own generation didn’t have the same opportunities as ours, so instead of tying herself down so young, she thought Lou should travel, build a career. There would, her mother told her, be plenty of time for marriage and babies.

  Lou reasoned it was sound advice, despite giving up her first love. She respected her parents, unlike me. I used to think mine were such
a pair of misguided buffoons and I couldn’t wait to escape the iron bars they dug around me, metaphorically speaking of course. No, Lou embraced their wisdom, despite breaking both her and Jimmy’s hearts. She was on the next coach to Barcelona and with her knowledge of Spanish, soon found a job with a Spanish property developer selling apartments and villas along the then unspoiled coast. She was considered the best salesgirl.

  Her father, being the first customer, was a wealthy London jeweller who bought the first three grand mansions in Sitges, south-west of Barcelona, followed by an off-plan apartment block. He made a killing years later in the Nineties, selling out, and invested in the regeneration of the Barcelona slums – yes, more funds to invest, which I believe went south to building ex-pat housing developments around the Calpe, Javea and Murcia areas.

  Moving on, a year into her life in paradise, Lou heard Jimmy was engaged to someone else. Unable to believe he could move on so fast, she blamed her parents for destroying her only chance of happiness and lost interest in her job. Only when her father bribed her to help run his jewellery business in London, along with a pied-à-terre in Chelsea, did she return. And to my knowledge, she never heard from Jimmy again.

  In fact, it was only a few months later, soon after she settled into her new flat, and the first night I ever took Anthony to a village pub, the Camfield Arms, to meet the girls, that Lou met Terry, her husband. We were all so relieved. As well as being a looker and a property developer, Terry was good for her. Truly grounded, he lured her back to the village and helped bring back her mojo. The flat rented out, she left her father’s company in London, building on Terry’s business, enjoying marriage and children, and naturally she has the most stunning house in Camfield Bottom.

  She would never admit she was lonely in Chelsea, but it was evident that after moving away, she had gained so much in confidence, and with it the determination to break the spell her parents had on her. She refused to let them influence her decisions again. The tragedy is that her parents were killed in Spain, driving out to their villa about twenty-five years ago. They were younger than we are now. And a chapter Lou has closed.

  Trundling off the lift station steps, we collected our skis and headed down further steps to the road.

  ‘Hopefully you’ll feel better now you’re down, darling,’ I told Lou, suddenly hearing the shrill of my phone.

  ‘And get some water into you,’ our health guru Angie added, having to raise her voice over the ringing of my phone.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ Lou asked whilst I could see Ginny surveying my jacket trying to work out where the noise was coming from.

  With our arms full of skis and poles, I said, ‘Darlings, it’s probably just Anthony. I’ll call him when we get back. We’re not far from the chalet now. He’ll probably want to know how our lunch went.’

  ‘Tell him hi from me,’ Ginny said. ‘It’s gone so quickly today but thank you for sharing Mike’s memorial lunch with me. I’ve actually enjoyed it.’

  ‘You’re welcome, angel,’ I said realising we would never have got to do all this if it wasn’t for Mike’s death. There it was. Such pleasure had come from a tragedy. Was I being insensitive? ‘Darling, am I wrong to also want to thank Mike? Our ski trip was only prompted by his misfortune.’

  Ginny stepped onto the sun-melted path and dug in a pole. ‘No. You’re absolutely right, Cathy. We should. Thanks, Mike. You’ve opened our minds as to what’s possible, turning a negative to a positive.’ Then she swung her head round. ‘I wonder what you’ll do when I go?’

  ‘Good Lord.’ I smirked, almost tripping behind her. Ginny might eat for England, but she is extremely healthy. ‘You will be the last of us to go. You may have to gather a few more friends, darling girl. I tell you what, when I go, you can all swim the channel.’ I chuckled to myself. ‘Actually, I might suggest Anthony start training for it now.’

  Lou was close behind me and I heard her snigger. ‘Do you think he’s getting a bit porky?’

  How could I explain this? It was like my thoughts were seeping from my seams. ‘Hmm, yes, he could be fitter, don’t you think?’

  ‘Terry could too,’ Lou mumbled in agreement. ‘I think he spends far more of his time in the golf club than with a golf club.’

  It was my turn to smirk, revealing a little more. ‘Ha! They are such a cliché aren’t they, our men. Why didn’t I get a husband who does something amazing with his life? Like Bill Gates? What a way to retire, eh? Travel the world spending all your surplus billions on helping others.’

  Ginny stopped in front of me and turned. ‘Cathy, my Flower. What’s to stop you from doing something amazing? Skiing at sixty is amazing. It doesn’t have to be Anthony. When you’ve written your bestsellers and have all those film companies falling at your feet paying you millions, you could do the same.’

  ‘Oh, I’m really not that deluded.’ I sniggered. ‘I doubt my version of Eat Pray Love is going to spin the world on its axis. It hasn’t even reached an agent or publisher yet, let alone been accepted,’ I told her, knowing that it probably never would if Anthony kept on interrupting me. ‘I think the difference is that the author of said work had actually gone off and lived her epic journey. Mine is all total fiction. My character was still at Shirley Valentine’s kitchen table talking to the walls and contemplating striding along the busy Thames Embankment naked. Would she ever do it? No! Did she know what she wanted? No! Sixty-year-old Ursula, my main character, suffers inertia and has more chance of falling pregnant than baring her all along the South Bank. Even her dog switches off to her voice.’

  The girls laughed.

  ‘You never know,’ Ginny said. ‘Sounds like an interesting character to me.’

  We reached the chalet and clambered in, my phone bellowing again. Angie, having placed her skis swiftly into the rack, pulled my phone from my pocket.

  ‘Here, sunshine. Your Billy Gates calls.’

  I grabbed it but deliberately hit the wrong button. ‘Oops.’ I needed a moment. A few minutes to steel myself and drum up the energy. It was ironic that this man who came into my life forty-odd years ago with so much confidence and energy had turned so needy and vulnerable. Kicking off my boots I ran up the stairs to my room and poked his name on the screen. Billy Gates, aka Anthony Golding was going to get a very large slice of my mind.

  Chapter 12

  Ginny

  Tired and worse for wear from all that wine, I dumped my skis, jacket and boots as quickly as I could and headed to my bedroom to run a bath. Angie was close behind me eagerly kicking off her socks then unfastening the top of her ski pants.

  ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she said. ‘I’m absolutely stuffed after eating all that rösti. Lovely though it was. I can be such a gannet at times.’

  I peeled off my socks and sat down on my bed. ‘Nothing to do with the booze then?’

  Angie turned sideways to the mirror rubbing her stomach as she stared at it. Her eyes then rose to inspect her skin, and she pinched her cheeks. ‘No. Good Lord, look, that’s all on my face.’

  ‘You’re glowing and beautiful,’ I told her. And it was true. Angie had the most youthful skin out of all of us – not a wrinkle or a blemish in sight – and her mixed European and Afro-Caribbean heritage added a natural bronze to her complexion, which I rather envied. An effortless, gorgeous year-round tan – who wouldn’t love that? ‘I on the other hand could advertise Tizer!’ I added seeing my reflection glowing in the mirror across the room.

  Angie laughed. ‘You do look a bit sunburned.’

  ‘Sundried you mean. Like a shrivelled tomato,’ I whined.

  ‘I don’t suppose anyone thought to bring after-sun?’

  ‘I doubt it. But, hey ho! Nothing wrong with a bit of winter sun. I’ve got moisturiser. And, it was such a glorious afternoon. Some lovely memories. And, such a weight lifted from my shoulders. Telling you all my suspicions about Mike was something I should have done earlier. Much earlier. I was so humiliated and hurt – wonder
ing who and why all the time. You Flowers attacked it from a different angle, which made me look at it from a different perspective too.’ I got up from the bed and opened my wardrobe door, detaching my dressing gown from its hanger. ‘There is little I can do, so I might as well forget it and get on with living.’

  ‘Absolutely!’ Angie whipped off her top layers one by one and put on her dressing gown. ‘That’s great to hear. So, you think it’s all been worthwhile?’

  ‘One hundred per cent.’

  ‘And you’re enjoying the skiing too?’

  ‘So far, yes. The whole experience is amazing.’

  Angie rushed across the room as I tied my dressing gown belt and threw her arms around me. She almost crushed me with those solid arm muscles. ‘I’m so thrilled. I really am,’ she said, finally allowing me to breathe. ‘I was so worried you wouldn’t like it – we all were. We have all been worried about you. All that grief. I mean, the last few years have been the pits for you and now we know why you haven’t been able to come out of your cocoon.’

  ‘Whoa, I didn’t realise. I’m fine, honest. But, Ang, do you really think I should ignore it? Could you? Be honest.’

  Angie cupped my face. ‘I wouldn’t give it the time of day. It was probably delirium, as Kim says. Put your mind and energy to better use, and as Lou said, have some fun. Go on some dates. Just think of all those adventures you can have. You’re still young and beautiful. Keep your fitness up, your diet.’ She let go of my face and winked before grabbing a towel and heading for her shower. ‘And it’ll be easy-peasy if you come and work with me.’ I grabbed my phone as she left.

  * * *

  After speaking to both Ross and Rachel, my day felt complete. They were both thrilled to hear their father’s memorial was celebrated with a lunch and even more thrilled that I’d declared it pivotal for a fresh start, so despite only having a glass of water to hand, we toasted both.

  Bathing in bubbles a little later, whilst Angie got dressed, I thought of what was possible. Angie made the future sound exciting. The possibility of working in the health and fitness environment could certainly be an incentive for me to stay fit. And I could explore options that I could try; activities or adventures I could organise to do alone, rather than relying on my friends, much as I loved them. Covered in bubbles I looked for my towel. I stepped out and crossed the warm granite floor to the upright steel radiator on which I’d left it. I quickly wrapped it around me, the warmth soothing my skin. I towelled off and slipped on my dressing gown, then opened the door.