by Roz Marshall
He achieved his goal. She laughed. "What're you like?"
They walked on a few steps in companionable silence. Then Debbie turned to him mischievously. "What were you today, then?"
He stopped and put his skis down, striking the pose. "Tightrope walker." He wobbled convincingly, lost his balance and teetered on one foot. "At Blackpool Tower."
They both laughed, and Debbie shook her head at his audacity. "You should be an actor, not a ski instructor!"
He grinned. "I'll make that tomorrow's summer job." He held out an imaginary skull. "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well.'' He shouldered his skis again and raised an eyebrow at her. "Actually, that's a common misquote, the real speech is much longer."
Debbie was rather surprised that he would know something like that.
"But it's too cold for Shakespeare," he continued, "let's get back."
He shouldered his skis again, and they continued walking, leaning into the wind.
A particularly strong gust hit them and reminded Debbie, "Did you hear, by the way?"
"Yeah, I know," he gave her a James Bond look. "I've been voted 'Most Eligible Ski Instructor in Scotland'."
She couldn't help but chuckle. "No, silly, it's serious. One of the lifties told me that an instructor's gone missing."
That pulled him up short. "Is it one of us?"
"He didn't know."
"Or didn't say." He started walking again. "I'll bet it's Spock. That guy lives on another planet. It’s gotta be him."
-::-
Fiona panted, her breathing shallow and fast as she blinked rapidly, trying to clear her mind and get her focus back. She wasn’t going to be much help to Johnny if she let herself dissolve into a puddle of angst and agitation.
The cornice had broken away from under her shoulder, revealing the edge of the cliff and nearly plummeting her over the edge. But somehow she'd held on and managed to claw herself back into a safe position. She closed her eyes and made a determined effort to slow her breathing and her heart rate. Don’t lose it, not now, not now he’s so close.
She crept forward, even more carefully this time, until she could peer over the edge. As she craned forwards, she spotted Johnny, stuck on a ledge down below.
She let out a huge sigh, “Oh!” and some of her tension dissipated. Thank goodness he’s okay!
But as she eyed the distance to the lost child, her breathing quickened again, her thoughts whirling and dancing like the snowflakes spiralling around her.
With an effort of will, she dragged her mind back from visions of falling. Concentrate! She gritted her teeth, and tried to fix her attention on finding some way to help him — preferably some way that didn’t involve her getting any closer to the edge.
-::-
In the ski school hut, Jude was changing bookings on the computer as Mike updated the whiteboard, ticking returned instructors off a list.
Sandy, Ben, Marty and Spock steamed quietly in the corner as they removed damp uniforms and too-tight ski boots.
The door crashed open in a gust of wind and Callum and Debbie were blown over the threshold.
Callum was barely recognisable as he started peeling off the hat, goggles and scarf that covered every exposed piece of skin. He looked over to the benches, and spotted the disrobing earlier arrivals. He turned to Debbie, "It wasn't Spock, then." A bit louder, he asked the group, "Did you hear the news from Ski Patrol?"
Jude looked up at the interruption, and Mike turned round, "Yeah, they're closing the hill. D'you get your classes down okay?"
Debbie nodded. Callum continued his story.
"Aye, but no, I mean, did you no hear that one of the instructors is missing?"
"Oh no!" Jude looked shocked, "Is it one of ours?"
"I dunno, sorry."
Mike turned back to the board and checked his list. "Fiona's the only one not back yet."
As he turned back to the group, he caught Jude's expression, and quickly pulled his jacket off a coat hook. "I'd better go see if I can help."
"Thanks, Mike." Jude looked relieved. "Be careful out there."
Mike's arm stopped half-way down his jacket sleeve, taken aback by her use of that expression. Then with an imperceptible shake of his head, he finished putting on his jacket and went outside.
-::-
Johnny looked up to see Fiona dangling the scarf over the edge.
"Can you reach it?"
He stood on tiptoe and stretched. "It's too short, Miss, sorry."
"Are you sure you can't catch it?"
He made one more grab for the scarf and nearly overbalanced, brushing some snow off the cliff face with his arm as he recovered.
"Careful!" Fiona warned him.
"I'm okay." The fallen snow let him see the cliff face better. "There's a couple of hand holds here. Maybe I could climb up." He strained up again, but couldn't reach. "I'm sorry, Miss, I'm not tall enough." He stamped his feet. "And I'm getting really cold."
That made her mind up. She had to try.
She scrunched up her eyes and took a big breath as she steeled herself. Taking one final look to measure the task before her, and trying not to think about what she was about to do, she shimmied round, positioning herself so her legs started to angle over the edge.
As she was about to commit to going over, she stopped and closed her eyes. "Please, let this work..."
Her right leg started to inch over the edge, hanging into nothingness.
A bit further.
Then, with a soft crump that belied the seriousness of what was happening, the snow gave way beneath her, and she disappeared over the edge with a cry of alarm.
DAVIE, MR PATON and the rest of the class emerged through the blizzard to find Mike coming across the car park towards them, still pulling on his hat and gloves.
As Mike approached, Davie left the group with a wave and headed over to the Ski Patrol office.
Mike conferred with Mr Paton and they led the children towards the bus.
-::-
Fiona sat awkwardly in a heap of snow on the ledge, breathing heavily and rubbing her elbow. Johnny shook some loose snow off himself, and crawled over to her.
"Miss?" He looked concerned. "Fiona, are you okay?"
"Yes. I think so." She closed her eyes. "Just a bit woozy. I'll be alright in a minute." She took a couple of deep breaths until her head cleared a little.
Recovered slightly, she carefully — ever so carefully — manoeuvred herself onto her knees and back towards the cliff face, away from the edge. She felt a little safer there.
She noticed Johnny give a small shiver. His clothes weren't made for this weather, and were getting damp. His teeth started to chatter.
She realised she was still clutching the red scarf, so she motioned him over, wrapped it round his neck and tucked the ends into his collar. Putting an arm round him, she cuddled him to her, not sure which of them it brought the most comfort. It was probably a total contravention of child protection regulations, but in a situation like this, she reckoned all the rules went out the window. Or perhaps over the cliff. She smiled briefly, surprised but pleased that she could find something to laugh about, even in this dangerous position.
As she held him, she reassessed the situation. Snowstorm all around, cliffs below, unreachable cornice above. It wasn't good, and she almost lost it for a minute.
Taking a couple of steadying breaths, she swallowed hard and made a determined effort to stop her hands from shaking. After a couple more breaths, she felt calmer. Looking around her, she reached a decision. "Johnny, can you stay right back, for now? I'm going to check how solid this ledge is."
"Yes, Miss."
This time, she sat with her bottom near the back of the ledge and used her ski boots to kick at the snow near the edge and check there was solid rock underneath, cautiously at first, then a little harder.
When she was satisfied that it was safe, she scrambled carefully to her feet.
Johnny watched all this with interest. "It'
s a shame we couldn't just phone for a helicopter to come and get us, like James Bond or something."
Idiot! She allowed herself a hint of optimism as she dug her mobile phone out and examined the screen.
No signal.
She waved it around in the air, then checked again.
Still no signal. Why had she allowed herself to hope?
Hunkering down and hugging Johnny again, she buried her face in his hair, fighting off tears.
-::-
Entering the Ski Patrol office, Davie found Geoff directing operations as he and the other three ski patrollers stuffed rescue equipment into rucksacks.
"I'm really sorry, mate, I tried to stop her, but she wasn't having none of it, she insisted on going up on the tow. You know what women are like?"
Geoff looked up from strapping his rucksack closed, aghast as he realised the implication of what Davie was saying. "It's Fiona? Fiona's the one that's gone after the boy?"
"Yeah. Didn't you know?" Davie clamped a hand to his mouth. "You didn't know! I'm sorry, mate, I thought I'd said. Sorry. Sorry."
"No, all we made out from your message was that an instructor had gone after a missing boy." Geoff shook his head. "Why would she do that?" He swung the rucksack over his shoulder, then seemed to answer his own question. "She's not been right, ever since..." he tailed off.
Davie pulled his mouth into a line. "Sorry."
Pulling on his gloves, Geoff turned to the other patrollers. "C'mon boys, no time to lose!"
The four of them strode out the door, leaving Davie alone in the suddenly silent room.
-::-
Fiona and Johnny sat side by side at the back of the ledge, knees hunched up against the cold.
Fiona had withdrawn into herself, playing absent-mindedly with the Velcro of her jacket cuffs.
Johnny was playing with the tassels at the end of his red scarf, swinging them from side to side like a spider casting a web. He looked round at Fiona.
"Miss, we can't give up. We have to keep trying. Like Robert the Bruce."
She stopped fiddling.
"How did you get here, anyway? What happened? We didn’t see you leave the group."
"I needed the loo, so I went to go quickly behind a rock, before you went down the run. But when I tried to go back to the group, I fell through the snow and ended up down here. I was getting really frightened on my own."
He looked worried. "I don't know what happened to my skis. They must've got lost when I fell. Will I get into trouble, Miss?"
She looked up at the top, saw no sign of skis, then back at Johnny with a lopsided smile. "I think that's the least of our worries."
"Are we stuck, Miss?"
Fiona was out of ideas; she didn't know what to say, and just looked at him.
"Miss, we'll make it eventually, we have to, even if we have to wait till the storm passes. We can't give up. Robert the Bruce didn't give up, and he went on to lead the Scottish army." He looked down. "If I was a bit bigger and stronger, I'd lift you up so you could escape and get help. I'm sorry I'm not strong, I'm not very good at P.E."
This boy was an unwitting genius. Why didn’t I think of that?
Fiona scrambled upright, pulling Johnny up beside her. Stretching up, she measured the distance between the ledge they stood on and the cliff edge above. Maybe they could make it.
"Johnny, d'you think if I lifted you up onto my shoulders, you could climb over the edge? Are you brave enough?"
He looked up at the edge, then into her eyes. He was too young not to trust. He nodded.
Children were just the best. She smiled, despite their situation. "Right, let’s give it a try!"
She knelt down, and helped Johnny to clamber onto her back.
-::-
Geoff and the other three ski patrollers were casting around at the top of the Ceann Mòr run, struggling to see through their goggles in almost zero-visibility and trying to work out where Fiona and her pupil could have gone.
They dragged a sledge behind them, using long poles to test what was underneath the snow as they walked, hoping against hope their poles would carry on sliding through the layer of soft snow, and wouldn’t hit the more unyielding form of a buried body. They wanted to find Fiona and the boy alive, somehow, somewhere.
The minutes dragged interminably for Geoff, and the cold hand of panic squeezed more and more tightly around his heart. Suddenly his pole hit on something hard, just under the surface. He squatted down, breath coming in ragged gasps as he unearthed a pair of skis, half-buried in the snow. Hastily, he brushed accumulated snow off the tips.
‘FIONA’ was written in thick marker pen across the top of each turquoise ski.
Standing up, he shouted to the others, cupping his hands round his mouth to be heard above the wind.
"Okay, here’s her skis, so she can't be far away. Let's fan out from here, see if we find footprints or anything." Then, to himself, he added, "Though we'll be lucky in this..."
The others nodded their agreement and got on with the painstaking search.
-::-
An exultant Johnny scrambled over the edge. As he dragged himself to safety, he kicked some more loose snow.
The snow dumped down on Fiona, causing her to splutter, and knocking some of the snow off the cliff face just above her ledge. It exposed a potential foothold.
She looked up at the edge, where Johnny peeked over, unmindful of the danger. "See! I told you we'd make it if we didn't give up!" he said.
Then he seemed to realise the distance that still lay between them. "How are you going to get up, Miss?" He paused, "Do you want me to go and get help?"
"No! It's not safe in this weather." She eyed the distance from the foothold to the top. "Anyway, I think I might be able to climb up — there's a step here. Can you keep back from the edge?"
She motioned him to move back as she explored the foothold with her fingers. Would she trust her slippery plastic boots to grip the rock face? The ledge seemed quite deep, so it might work. But she felt weak, a knot forming in her stomach at the thought of the drop below her.
Focus! she told herself, then breathed out and tried to clear her mind of negative thoughts. She had to stay strong. Remember Robert the Bruce.
Searching around at the full extent of her reach, she found a handhold with her right hand, put her left boot onto the small ledge, and took a deep, steadying breath in preparation. She swung herself up, but as she did so, she felt her energy disappearing, and the sensation of falling overtook her as her vision shrank and the world went black.
THE SKI SCHOOL door swung open in a flurry of snow, and Jude looked up hopefully. But it was Mike, not Fiona. "Is there any news?"
Mike took off his hat and goggles and shook the loose snow from his head and shoulders. "Haven't heard anything about Fiona, sorry — but Ski Patrol are on the case."
Jude hadn't realised she was holding her breath until it escaped in a worried sigh.
"But that's all the kids safely on the school bus — apart from the one that's missing, that is." Mike continued.
Jude's eyes widened and she put her hand to her mouth. "The school bus! Oh, no, how could I have forgotten! I'd forget my own head if it wasn't..." She stopped herself, and looked pleadingly at Mike. "Mike, you couldn't do me a huge favour, could you?"
He came over to the desk. "Yeah, sure, what can I do you for?"
"I should have collected Lucy from school, after drama practice," she looked at her watch, "five minutes ago. But I can't bear to leave here just now, not with what's happening to Fiona. Could you possibly take my car and go down and get her for me?"
-::-
Johnny’s eyes saucered as Fiona collapsed backwards onto the ledge, and he felt like spiders were running crazy spirals around his tummy. "Miss?" he shouted.
There was no response.
As time ticked by and she remained still he felt the spiders growing into huge tarantulas, trying to swarm up his throat and take his words away. His voice cra
cked as shouted, louder this time, "Fiona!"
There was still no answer. She'd been so brave, trying to help him, and now she was stuck down there and he didn't know what to do. Tears started rolling down his cheeks and he tucked his chin into his chest, trying to stop the tarantulas taking his voice away. He gulped them down, and shouted, "Help!" But his voice wobbled and was barely louder than a whisper, so he took a deep breath and tried again.
-::-
If only she'd asked him something else. Anything else.
"I... I can't." Mike shook his head, upset that he wasn't able to help her. "I'm sorry, Jude, I just..."
Jude interrupted him, "The car's insured, it's alright."
He looked across at her. "It's not that." He couldn't bring himself to tell her the full story. "I don't drive. Sorry."
Jude deflated. "Oh. I never thought of that."
She bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling, obviously trying to think of a solution. "I'm sorry," he said again. Without thinking, he put out a hand to touch her shoulder, then caught himself, and dropped it. Fortunately, she hadn't noticed.
Clicking her fingers, she roused into action, picking up the phone. "I'll get Sandy to collect her. He won't mind."
Mike moved away to take off his jacket, glad that she couldn't see his face.
-::-
Geoff and Ski Patrol hunted fruitlessly through the blizzard at the top of Ceann Mòr run. The driving snow hit them like a physical assault and blurred the distinction between ground and sky, making it almost impossible to see tracks or make out the shape of a lost skier. They had to keep almost within touching distance to avoid losing each other; progress was frustratingly slow.
Geoff paused, tilting his head and closing his eyes to help him focus; he thought he heard something, the faintest sound carried on the wind. Was that a voice, shouting, ’Help!’? Urgently, he motioned the others to stop.
The noise came again. Not recognisably a voice, but a different pitch to the interminable basso profondo of the storm. Could it be them?
With renewed energy, he pointed the direction and they rushed off.