by Denton Welch
After my brother’s curt nod to him on our first evening at the hotel, we had hardly exchanged any remarks. We sometimes passed on the way to the basement to get our skis in the morning, and often we found ourselves sitting near one another on the glassed-in terrace; but some Oxford snobbery I knew nothing of, or some more profound reason, always made my brother throw off waves of hostility. Archer never showed any signs of wishing to approach. He was content to look at me sometimes with a mild inoffensive curiosity, but he seemed to ignore my brother completely. This pleased me more than I would have admitted at that time. I was so used to being passed over myself by all my brother’s friends that it was pleasant when someone who knew him seemed to take a sort of interest, however slight and amused, in me.
My brother was often away from the hotel for days and nights together, going for expeditions with guides and other friends. He would never take me because he said I was too young and had not enough stamina. He said that I would fall down a crevasse or get my nose frostbitten, or hang up the party by lagging behind.
In consequence I was often alone at the hotel; but I did not mind this; I enjoyed it. I was slightly afraid of my brother and found life very much easier and less exacting when he was not there. I think other people in the hotel thought that I looked lonely. Strangers would often come up and talk to me and smile, and once a nice absurd Belgian woman, dressed from head to foot in a babyish suit of fluffy orange knitted wool, held out a bright five-franc piece to me and told me to go and buy chocolate caramels with it. I think she must have taken me for a much younger child.
On one of these afternoons when I had come in from the Nursery Slopes and was sitting alone over my tea on the sun-terrace, I noticed that Archer was sitting in the corner huddled over a book, munching greedily and absent-mindedly.
I too was reading a book, while I ate delicious rum-babas and little tarts filled with worm-castles of chestnut purée topped with caps of whipped cream. I have called the meal tea, but what I was drinking was not tea but chocolate. When I poured out, I held the pot high in the air, so that my cup, when filled, should be covered in a rich froth of bubbles.
The book I was reading was Tolstoy’s Resurrection. Although I did not quite understand some parts of it, it gave me intense pleasure to read it while I ate the rich cakes and drank the frothy chocolate. I thought it a noble and terrible story, but I was worried and mystified by the words ‘illegitimate child’ which had occurred several times lately. What sort of child could this be? Clearly a child that brought trouble and difficulty. Could it have some terrible disease, or was it a special sort of imbecile? I looked up from my book, still wondering about this phrase ‘illegitimate child’, and saw that Archer had turned in his creaking wicker chair and was gazing blankly in my direction. The orchestra was playing ‘The Birth of the Blues’ in a rather remarkable Swiss arrangement, and it was clear that Archer had been distracted from his book by the music, only to be lulled into a daydream, as he gazed into space.
Suddenly his eyes lost their blank look and focused on my face. ‘Your brother off up to the Jungfrau Joch again, or somewhere?’ he called out.
I nodded my head, saying nothing, becoming slightly confused.
Archer grinned. He seemed to find me amusing.
‘What are you reading?’ he asked.
‘This,’ I said, taking my book over to him. I did not want to call out either the word ‘Resurrection’ or ‘Tolstoy’. But Archer did not make fun of me for reading a ‘classic’, as most of my brother’s friends would have done. He only said, ‘I should think it’s rather good. Mine’s frightful; it’s called The Story of My Life, by Queen Marie of Roumania.’ He held the book up and I saw an extraordinary photograph of a lady who looked like a snake-charmer in full regalia. The head-dress seemed to be made of white satin, embroidered with beads, stretched over cardboard. There were tassels and trailing things hanging down everywhere.
I laughed at the amusing picture and Archer went on, ‘I always read books like this when I can get them. Last week I had Lady Oxford’s autobiography, and before that I found a perfectly wonderful book called Flaming Sex. It was by a French woman who married an English knight and then went back to France to shoot a French doctor. She didn’t kill him, of course, but she was sent to prison, where she had a very interesting time with the nuns who looked after her in the hospital. I also lately found an old book by a Crown Princess of Saxony who ended up picnicking on a haystack with a simple Italian gentleman in a straw-hat. I love these “real life” stories, don’t you?’
I again nodded my head, not altogether daring to venture on a spoken answer. I wondered whether to go back to my own table or whether to pluck up courage and ask Archer what an ‘illegitimate child’ was, He solved the problem by saying ‘Sit down’ rather abruptly.
I subsided next to him with ‘Tolstoy’ on my knee. I waited for a moment and then plunged.
‘What exactly does “illegitimate child” mean?’ I asked rather breathlessly.
‘Outside the law—when two people have a child although they’re not married.’
‘Oh.’ I went bright pink. I thought Archer must be wrong. I still believed that it was quite impossible to have a child unless one was married. The very fact of being married produced the child. I had a vague idea that some particularly reckless people attempted, without being married, to have children in places called ‘nightclubs’, but they were always unsuccessful, and this made them drink, and plunge into the most hectic gaiety.
I did not tell Archer that I thought he had made a mistake, for I did not want to hurt his feelings. I went on sitting at his table and, although he turned his eyes back to his book and went on reading, I knew that he was friendly.
After some time he looked up again and said, ‘Would you like to come out with me tomorrow? We could take our lunch, go up the mountain and then ski down in the afternoon.’
I was delighted at the suggestion, but also a little alarmed at my own shortcomings. I thought it my duty to explain that I was not a very good skier, only a moderate one, and that I could only do stem turns. I hated the thought of being a drag on Archer.
‘I expect you’re much better than I am. I’m always falling down or crashing into something,’ he answered.
It was all arranged. We were to meet early, soon after six, as Archer wanted to go to the highest station on the mountain railway and then climb on skis to a nearby peak which had a small rest-house of logs.
I went to bed very excited, thankful that my brother was away on a long expedition. I lay under my enormous featherbed eiderdown, felt the freezing mountain air on my face, and saw the stars sparkling through the open window.
I got up very early in the morning and put on my most sober ski socks and woollen shirt, for I felt that Archer disliked any suspicion of bright colours or dressing-up. I made my appearance as workmanlike as possible, and then went down to breakfast.
I ate several crackly rolls, which I spread thickly with dewy slivers of butter and gobbets of rich black cherry jam; then I drank my last cup of coffee and went to wax my skis. As I passed through the hall I picked up my picnic lunch in its neat grease-proof paper packet.
The nails in my boots slid and then caught on the snow, trodden hard down to the basement door. I found my skis in their rack, took them down and then heated the iron and the wax. I loved spreading the hot black wax smoothly on the white wood. Soon they were both done beautifully.
I will go like a bird, I thought.
I looked up and saw Archer standing in the doorway.
‘I hope you haven’t put too much on, else you’ll be sitting on your arse all day,’ he said gaily.
How fresh and pink he looked! I was excited.
He started to wax his own skis. When they were finished, we went outside and strapped them on. Archer carried a rucksack and he told me to put my lunch and my spare sweater into it.
We started off down the gentle slopes to the station. The sun was shining prickingly.
The lovely snow had rainbow colours in it. I was so happy I swung my sticks with their steel points and basket ends. I even tried to show off, and jumped a little terrace which I knew well. Nevertheless it nearly brought me down. I just regained my balance in time. I would have hated at that moment to have fallen down in front of Archer.
When we got to the station we found a compartment to ourselves. It was still early. Gently we were pulled up the mountain, past the water station stop and the other three halts.
We got out at the very top where the railway ended. A huge unused snow-plough stood by the side of the track, with its vicious shark’s nose pointed at me. We ran to the van to get out our skis. Archer found mine as well as his own and slung both pairs across his shoulders. He looked like a very tough Jesus carrying two crosses, I thought.
We stood by the old snow-plough and clipped on our skis; then we began to climb laboriously up the ridge to the wooden rest-house. We hardly talked at all, for we needed all our breath, and also I was still shy of Archer. Sometimes he helped me, telling me where to place my skis, and, if I slipped backwards, hauling on the rope which he had half playfully tied round my waist.
In spite of growing tired, I enjoyed the grim plodding. It gave me a sense of work and purpose. When Archer looked round to smile at me, his pink face was slippery with sweat. His white shirt above the small rucksack was plastered to his shoulder-blades. On my own face I could feel the drops of sweat just being held back by my eyebrows. I would wipe my hand across my upper-lip and break all the tiny beads that had formed there.
Every now and then Archer would stop. We would put our skis sideways on the track and rest, leaning forward on our sticks. The sun struck down on our necks with a steady seeping heat and the light striking up from the snow was as bright as the fiery dazzle of a mirror. From the ridge we could see down into two valleys; and standing all round us were the other peaks, black rock and white snow, tangling and mixing until the mountains looked like vast teeth which had begun to decay.
I was so tired when we reached the long gentle incline to the rest-house that I was afraid of falling down. The rope was still round my waist, and so the slightest lagging would have been perceptible to Archer. I think he must have slackened his pace for my benefit, for I somehow managed to reach the iron seats in front of the hut. I sank down, still with my skis on. I half shut my eyes. From walking so long with my feet turned out, my ankles felt almost broken.
The next thing I knew was that Archer had disappeared into the rest-house. He came out carrying a steaming cup.
‘You must drink this,’ he said, holding out black coffee, which I hated. He unwrapped four lumps of sugar and dropped them in the cup.
‘I don’t like it black,’ I said.
‘Never mind,’ he answered sharply, ‘drink it.’
Rather surprised, I began to drink the syrupy coffee. ‘The sugar and the strong coffee will be good for you,’ said Archer. He went back into the rest-house and brought out a glass of what looked like hot water with a piece of lemon floating in it. The mountain of sugar at the bottom was melting into thin Arabian Nights wreaths and spirals, smoke-rings of syrup.
‘What else has it got in it?’ I asked, with an attempt at worldliness.
‘Rum!’ said Archer.
We sat there on the terrace and unwrapped our picnic lunches. We both had two rolls, one with tongue in it, and one with ham, a hard-boiled egg, sweet biscuits, and a bar of delicious bitter chocolate; tangerine oranges were our dessert.
We began to take huge bites out of our rolls. We could not talk for some time. The food brought out a thousand times more clearly the beauty of the mountain peaks and sun. My tiredness made me thrillingly conscious of delight and satisfaction. I wanted to sit there with Archer for a long time.
At the end of the meal Archer gave me a piece of his own bar of chocolate, and then began to skin pigs of tangerine very skilfully and hand them to me on his outstretched palm, as one offers a lump of sugar to a horse. I thought for one moment of bending down my head and licking the pigs up in imitation of a horse; then I saw how mad it would look.
We threw the brilliant tangerine peel into the snow, which immediately seemed to dim and darken its colour.
Archer felt in his hip-pocket and brought out black, cheap Swiss cigarettes, wrapped in leaf. They were out of a slot machine. He put one between my lips and lighted it. I felt extremely conscious of the thing jutting out from my lips. I wondered if I would betray my ignorance by not breathing the smoke in and out correctly. I turned my head a little away from Archer and experimented. It seemed easy if one did not breathe too deeply. It was wonderful to be really smoking with Archer. He treated me just like a man.
‘Come on, let’s get cracking,’ he said, ‘or, if anything happens, we’ll be out all night.’
I scrambled to my feet at once and snapped the clips of the skis round my boot heels. Archer was in high spirits from the rum. He ran on his skis along the flat ridge in front of the rest-house and then fell down.
‘Serves me right,’ he said. He shook the snow off and we started properly. In five minutes we had swooped down the ridge we had climbed so painfully all morning. The snow was perfect; new and dry with no crust. We followed a new way which Archer had discovered. The ground was uneven with dips and curves. Often we were out of sight of each other. When we came to the icy path through a wood, my courage failed me.
‘Stem like hell and don’t get out of control,’ Archer yelled back at me. I pointed my skis together, praying that they would not cross. I leant on my sticks, digging their metal points into the compressed snow. Twice I fell, though not badly.
‘Well done, well done!’ shouted Archer, as I shot past him and out of the wood into a thick snowdrift. He hauled me out of the snow and stood me on my feet, beating me all over to get off the snow, then we began the descent of a field called the ‘Bumps’. Little hillocks, if manœuvred successfully, gave one that thrilling sinking and rising feeling experienced on a scenic railway at a fun fair.
Archer went before me, dipping and rising, shouting and yelling in his exuberance. I followed more sedately. We both fell several times, but in that not unpleasant, bouncing way which brings you to your feet again almost at once.
Archer was roaring now and trying to yodel in an absurd, rich contralto.
I had never enjoyed myself quite so much before. I thought him the most wonderful companion, not a bit intimidating, in spite of being rather a hero.
When at last we swooped down to the village street, it was nearly evening. Early orange lights were shining in the shop windows. We planked our skis down on the hard, iced road, trying not to slip.
I looked in at the pâtisserie, confiserie window, where all the electric bulbs had fluffy pink shades like powder-puffs. Archer saw my look.
‘Let’s go in,’ he said. He ordered me hot chocolate with whipped cream, and croissant rolls. Afterwards we both went up to the little counter and chose cakes. I had one shaped like a little log. It was made of soft chocolate, and had green moss trimmings made in pistachio nut. When Archer went to pay the bill he bought me some chocolate caramels, in a little bird’s-eye maple box, and a bar labelled ‘Chocolat Polychrome’. Each finger was a different-coloured cream: mauve, pink, green, yellow, orange, brown, white, even blue.
We went out into the village street and began to climb up the path to the hotel. About half-way up Archer stopped outside a little wooden chalet and said, ‘This is where I hang out.’
‘But you’re staying at the hotel,’ I said incredulously.
‘Oh yes, I have all my meals there, but I sleep here. It’s a sort of little annexe when there aren’t any rooms left in the hotel. It’s only got two rooms; I’ve paid just a bit more and got it all to myself. Someone comes every morning and makes the bed and stokes the boiler and the stove. Come in and see it.’
I followed Archer up the outside wooden staircase and stood with him on the little landing outside the two rooms. The place s
eemed wonderfully warm and dry. The walls were unpainted wood; there were double windows. There was a gentle creaking in all the joints of the wood when one moved. Archer pushed open one of the doors and ushered me in. I saw in one corner a huge white porcelain stove, the sort I had only before seen in pictures. Some of Archer’s skiing gloves and socks were drying round it on a ledge. Against another wall were two beds, like wooden troughs built into the wall. The balloon-like quilts bulged up above the wood.
‘I hardly use the other room,’ said Archer. ‘I just throw my muck into it and leave my trunks there.’ He opened the connecting door and I saw a smaller room with dirty clothes strewn on the floor; white shirts, hard evening collars, some very short pants, and many pairs of thick grey socks. The room smelt mildly of Archer’s old sweat. I didn’t mind at all.
Archer shut the door and said, ‘I’m going to run the bath.’
‘Have you a bathroom too—all your own?’ I exclaimed enviously. ‘Every time anyone has a bath at the hotel, he has to pay two francs fifty to the fräulein before she unlocks the door. I’ve only had two proper baths since I’ve been here. I don’t think it matters though. It seems almost impossible to get really dirty in Switzerland, and you can always wash all over in your bedroom basin.’
‘Why don’t you have a bath here after me? The water’s lovely and hot, although there’s not much of it. If you went back first and got your evening clothes, you could change straight into them.’
I looked at Archer a little uncertainly. I longed to soak in hot water after my wonderful but gruelling day.