The Perfect Present

by Karen Swan

  Three. She thought of Jack.

  Two. She thought of Fee.

  One. She thought of . . .

  Nothing at all. For she was airborne, her body tucked and tight, as she felt the wind above, below and all around her. It was so cold she could almost feel the friction of the minute crystals in the air as she sliced through them, and then she was down and off, travelling at thirty, forty miles an hour within seconds, the pristine snow immaculate beneath her skis.

  Rob held his poles up in jubilation as he saw her weaving down towards him, her ski tracks and his the only signs of life on this cold, hard mountain. He whooped at her and she screamed back with delight. She let instinct take over – her body knew this made sense. Her body knew what her mind did not: that there’s a tangential difference between existing and living – and this was living.

  She followed him easily, letting him lead, feeling no compunction to catch up or overtake as she had with Alex. Today she wanted to enjoy the ride. She laughed as they zipped down wide motorways, disappearing into the shadows thrown down by the rocky walls, slicing cleanly through the blue light of icy cols before emerging into the wide, sun-drenched vista of a glacier.

  They jumped three times – becoming almost blasé about the military procedure – before Rob showed some mercy and stopped for breakfast. Laura slowed down her approach behind him, buying herself a little more time for the tears to drop from her lashes and sink into the cushioning of her goggles. After years of silence, her soul was singing again and its sweetness was almost more than she could bear. She felt closer here – to herself, to them.

  ‘Nice place to stop for breakfast, don’t you think?’ Rob asked with deadly understatement, his eyes lingering on her a moment when he saw the wet tracks on her pink cheeks as she removed her goggles.

  ‘It’ll do,’ she quipped, looking back up at their tracks, overlapping, intertwined, mirrored.

  He chuckled as he took off his backpack. ‘You’ve got the cheese. Stinking Bishop.’

  ‘Eww! And there I was thinking you’d put a pair of your socks in here to force me down this mountain quicker,’ she joked, swinging the bag over to him.

  They settled on a small exposed slab of rock, sitting side by side and smearing the incredibly Stinking Bishop on their baguettes as they watched a snowboarder far, far below on the south face of the Grand Combin opposite.

  Rob poured them each a hot chocolate from a thermos made by Porsche. ‘So, glad you came?’

  Laura nodded. ‘I can’t believe how beautiful it is up here.’

  ‘Feels like sitting on top of the world, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Mmm . . .’ she agreed, lacing her fingers around the enamel cup and letting the steam warm her cheeks. ‘Oh look! A balloon!’

  Rob followed her pointed finger to see a red hot-air balloon drifting towards them from Evolène.

  ‘I’ve never been in one. I bet Cat would love it. I ought to book a trip for next time we’re out.’ He looked over at her. ‘Have you ever ridden in one?’

  Laura nodded. ‘Once.’

  ‘Was it good?’

  She nodded again. ‘Terrific.’

  ‘Where did you do it?’ he asked, intrigued.

  ‘Tanzania. An air safari. It was amazing – we saw a lion kill right beneath us,’ she murmured, smiling wistfully as she watched the balloon drift higher above the crags and over towards France.

  ‘What?’ she asked after a minute or so when she realized that his eyes were still trained on her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m just trying to work you out.’

  ‘I’m not a sudoku.’

  ‘I tend to think I’m a pretty good judge of character, but you’re not at all who I thought you were.’

  ‘Huh,’ she breathed, content not to pursue the line of conversation.

  But Rob was persistent. ‘When we first met, you were really uptight and defensive and . . . kind of sad.’

  ‘Gee, thanks. As I recall, you weren’t exactly showing your best side either.’

  ‘I meant sad as in unhappy, but you’re different out here. You’re funnier, friendlier, prettier . . .’ His eyes slid over her hair.

  ‘The altitude’s getting to you,’ she muttered.

  ‘No,’ he grinned. ‘I’m perfectly sane. You’re being defensive, and you’re only being defensive because you know I’m right. You were desperate last night that no one should know how accomplished you really are. I was watching you. I thought you were going to bolt for your room again. I don’t get why you’d want to keep something like that a secret.’

  Laura hiked up her eyebrows. ‘You’ve got to get over the skiing thing. It was just an invitation to try out.’

  But he shook his head, making her groan. Why couldn’t he just give it up?

  ‘I ask whether you can ski and, eventually, no thanks to you, discover you were one of the top young skiers in the country. I ask whether you’ve been in a hot-air balloon and learn that yes, an air safari over Africa, Rob, thanks for asking . . . Are there any other epic life experiences you want to share? Do you go potholing in Staffa? Do you go deep-sea diving and wrestle great whites?’

  ‘Not quite,’ she snorted.

  ‘Not quite?’

  She looked at him sideways. ‘I am a qualified diver.’

  Rob rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t believe this. I was joking.’

  ‘It wasn’t anywhere near as exotic as you’re making it out to be.’

  ‘Tell me the gritty truth, then,’ he said, turning himself slightly on the rock so that he was facing her.

  Laura sighed. ‘I volunteered on a marine conservation project in the South Pacific. Twenty weeks on an island called Gau during my gap year. We had to explore the mangrove forests and inter-tidal areas, as well as do visual censuses of the reefs, assessing algal and coral cover.’

  He stared at her, fascinated and baffled all at once. ‘Christ, scratch the surface with you . . . Why are you so determined to hide yourself?’

  ‘Hide myself?’ she scoffed. ‘I am out here this weekend to work, not to pursue my own personal happiness agenda. My life is just the way I want it. You’re not the only one living the dream, you know.’

  ‘You think I’m living the dream?’

  ‘Hello? Deluxe chalet, helicopter on standby, the most beautiful woman in England as your wife . . . Do I need to go on?’

  Rob stared at her. ‘Nobody’s life is perfect.’

  ‘You have to admit yours is pretty damn close.’

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘It’s all just stuff. It doesn’t mean anything.’ He looked out over the valley, his eyes on a distant helicopter that was ferrying another set of privileged skiers to the mountain’s VIP area. ‘Money’s great not because of what it allows you to buy, but because of what it allows you to do. Stuff like this. It’s not about being flash in a chopper. It’s about having breakfast on the glacier,’ he shrugged. ‘What can beat that?’

  ‘I hear you,’ she sighed, watching the snow being blown off the eastern escarpment like icing sugar.

  ‘And anyway, there’s plenty money can’t buy you.’

  ‘Love?’ she asked ironically, prompting him to reach down and throw a well-aimed snowball at her shoulder.

  She shrieked, trying – and failing – to get out of the way and falling off the slab they’d made their seat.

  ‘I was going to say time, you cheeky mare,’ he remarked, watching her sit up, giggling, in the snow in front of him.

  ‘Oh, so Orlando’s got company in his midlife crisis, then, has he?’ She blew a lock of hair out of her face and looked back at him, relieved the focus was off her at last. ‘You’re not even forty yet, are you?’

  ‘Thirty-six. And not getting any younger.’

  ‘Well, I think everyone would probably agree that you’ve proved yourself,’ she said, wrinkling her nose unsympathetically, angling her face up to the sun.

  He watched her basking and shook his head. ‘You’re missing the
point. I’m the youngest of five,’ he murmured.

  Laura opened her eyes. ‘Five?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Don’t tell me. The youngest of five brothers. That’s why you’re so alpha.’

  ‘Four sisters.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s why you’re so in touch with your feminine side.’ Her highly sceptical tone prompted another snowball, which hit her on the other shoulder. ‘Hey! What am I? Target practice?’

  ‘Yes, if you’re going to carry on with the sarcasm. Something of a speciality for you, I notice.’

  Laura let the observation pass and sat forward, resting her chin in her hands, her elbows on her knees. ‘Four sisters, huh? I bet you’ve seen it all.’

  ‘More than any man should ever have to see,’ he agreed, a smile on his lips. ‘It was great, actually. Never a dull moment – or a quiet one!’ He looked over to the crenellated horizon. ‘I always assumed that I’d have a big family too. I thought it would have happened by now.’

  Laura fell silent, all teasing gone as she remembered the baby names book she’d seen on his bedside table yesterday morning.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it will. You’re both young and healthy,’ she faltered. It was an assumption based on Darwinian theory – the human race didn’t get any fitter than the Blakes.

  He shrugged. ‘Cat isn’t as bought into it as I am. She didn’t have a particularly happy childhood so she’s not in the same rush to do it all herself . . . But she’s getting there.’

  Laura nodded. It was no wonder he hadn’t wanted to have this conversation surrounded by other commuters in the café. At least three and a half thousand metres up this mountain splendid isolation was their only witness.

  ‘How about you?’ he asked, looking across at her.

  ‘You know I don’t have children. I told you when we first met.’

  ‘I mean, what about your family? Growing up?’

  Laura swallowed. ‘It’s just me.’ She saw the pity clamour in his expression. ‘What? Don’t look at me like that. I don’t need your sympathy. I’ve got a great boyfriend, a dog I love, a best friend . . .’

  Rob pulled a face. ‘Shouldn’t that have been the other way round?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shouldn’t it be that the dog’s great and you love your boyfriend?’

  ‘That’s what I meant.’

  ‘It’s not what you said.’

  Laura stared at him. ‘An error, then.’

  ‘Or a Freudian slip. Maybe you’re not really living the dream after all, Laura Cunningham.’

  He didn’t stand a chance. Within a fraction of a second, the snowball she lobbed hit Rob square in the face, and she fell back in the snow, laughing with her hands across her stomach, her eyes closed in the sun. The valley was still in shadow and she’d only been awake a few hours, but this was fast shaping up to be one of the best days of her life.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kitty and Orlando were sledging in the garden when they returned later that morning. Miles of swirling, parallel tracks, punctuated by heavy splodges where they had fallen off, marked the once-pristine snow, and the two of them were weak with laughter and over-oxygenation from the immaculate air.

  Rob and Laura stopped on their way from the car – skis over their shoulders – to shake their heads and chuckle as they watched the two of them hurtling down the garden, shrieking like toddlers on roller skates.

  ‘Having fun?’ Rob called out as they trudged back up to the top of the lawn, nattering away to each other, sledges bumping behind them.

  They looked up the drive. ‘You’re back!’ Kitty beamed. ‘Have fun?’

  ‘We scarred those slopes!’ Rob quipped, prompting Laura to groan.

  ‘I officially object to you talking like a dude,’ she riposted as Orlando and Kitty arrived, panting, in front of them. ‘And, Orlando, you are mine! Sam’s not here to save you now. You can’t get away from me this time.’

  ‘I would never try to,’ Orlando flirted, winking a dreamily long-lashed eye.

  ‘My room? Half an hour?’

  ‘Aaaahhh, my favourite words,’ he joked, placing one hand across his heart. Then he pulled a sad face. ‘But I must have a massage. I cannot have all this lactic acid staying in my muscles.’

  ‘All this what?’

  Orlando’s eyes widened as an idea came to him. ‘Let us have massages together. We can talk on our tummies!’

  ‘O . . . kay,’ Laura said slowly. ‘So long as the towels stay on.’

  ‘Baby! We shall be Adam and Eve before the apple. Innocence and beauty and joy.’

  ‘Towels on, Orlando,’ Laura said firmly, following him into the chalet.

  Orlando turned and squeezed her hard around the shoulders so that her feet almost left the ground. ‘You English roses!’ he cried. ‘Such puritans! What you need is a little Latin passion in your life.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m perfectly happy with my life.’

  ‘Hmm, she said the same thing to me too,’ she heard Rob say with devilment in Orlando’s ear as he passed through the porch. ‘But I’m not buying it either.’

  Twenty minutes later, they were as naked as babies and Laura had never felt safer with her clothes off. Gemma and Sasha had moved the two tables into one room and were synchronizing their movements, poor Sasha having to work double-time to cover Orlando’s considerable muscle-mass.

  ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,’ Orlando mumbled. ‘Is making me sleepy.’

  ‘Wake up, Orlando!’ Laura barked at him. ‘I’ve waited all weekend for this.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he moaned, forcing open his eyes and staring at her with hugely dilated pupils.

  ‘You promised you would think of hateful things that would make me like Cat. And also some more stories.’

  ‘You like her anyway. She won you over without my treachery. But I do have a story for you.’ He grinned lazily. ‘You will love it.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ she said, flattening her hands together under her cheek.

  ‘We had gone to Milan together for a few days.’

  ‘To see Alex?’

  Orlando shook his head. ‘No, no. We were in the design stage of the Cube and Cat wanted to go to this trade show. She had read about the coloured glass and someone was exhibiting there . . . You’ve seen it yourself.’

  Laura blinked yes.

  ‘Anyway, I had heard about a club, very famous for its beautiful dancers. Some friends had been, and . . . I mean, I was excited about the glass, of course, ’ he added guiltily.

  ‘Did you go to the club?’

  His eyes twinkled. ‘I just assumed Cat would go to bed early when I told her.’

  ‘Assumed?’

  ‘She insisted on going with me.’ He nodded sombrely.

  ‘What’s wrong with that? Women go to gay clubs all the time.’

  ‘Not this one, they don’t. Strictly no women, not even the lesbians.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Do you know what she said?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘She told me to man her up.’

  There was a brief pause.

  ‘You mean . . . ?’

  Orlando nodded. ‘Well, you don’t argue with Cat, especially when she has that look in her eye, so we strapped her chest with some bandages and bought her a suit.’

  Laura gasped. ‘But what about her hair? Her face? There’s no way she’d get away with it. How could she possibly be mistaken for a man?’

  ‘Her hair was shorter back then, so we slicked it back. And she is good with make-up, so she did . . . you know, something on her brows to make them heavy.’ He shrugged.

  ‘You’re not going to tell me she actually got away with it?’

  ‘She did!’

  ‘But she can’t have looked like a man!’

  ‘No. You’re right, she didn’t. She didn’t look like a man, no. But she was the most perfect, beguiling, effete boy. They went wild for her, I tell you. No one could take their eye
s off her. And we danced, danced all night.’ He lowered his chin, looking up at her conspiratorially. ‘I think maybe, at the end, some people knew. She took off her jacket, and her arms and shoulders – you know, they are women’s, so slight. You cannot fake that. But no one cared by then.’

  ‘What did Rob say?’

  ‘I don’t think she told him. It was our secret,’ he whispered.

  ‘Cat Blake dressed as a man in a gay club in Milan,’ Laura murmured. ‘Well, that certainly wasn’t what I was expecting.’

  Orlando’s eyes gleamed. ‘She is wild. Do not underestimate her. There is so much more to Cat Blake than most people know.’ He winked.

  Laura thought for a moment as Gemma worked on a knot by her left shoulder blade. ‘It’s funny you mention this wild side to Cat. Sam talked about it too, whereas Kitty and Rob seem to hold a more romantic view of her. She seems almost to be a woman of two halves.’

  ‘We all have our dark sides, our secrets.’ He looked at her intently. ‘You too.’

  Laura kept quiet. It was the light side she didn’t have.

  ‘It is strange this job of yours, no? You are more like an undercover reporter than a jeweller.’

  Laura felt hurt. ‘I’m not interested in digging up dirt, Orlando, and I’m not making a judgement on anything people are telling me. Cat’s life is what it is. Pretty damn amazing from where I’m lying, admittedly, but it’s not like I think she’s perfect either. Who is? And Rob feels the same. He loves Cat in her entirety: the good, the bad, the not-remotely-ugly.’

  Orlando grinned.

  ‘He doesn’t need you to be kind or protective about his wife and he doesn’t need her to be perfect.’ She continued, ‘All he wants is for this necklace to be honest and reflect her life. Nothing more, nothing less.’

  Orlando stared at her for a long moment, one eye closed as he lay his head on its side.

  ‘How did you start doing this, Laura? No one else makes jewellery like this. I have a friend – very beautiful, very rich. She wears a diamond cross because she thinks it is pretty, but she’s Jewish. Half the women in my club are cheating on their husbands, but they all still wear their wedding rings. Whereas you are making jewellery that really means something to the person wearing it.’