The Motherhood Walk of Fame

by Shari Low

  Two hundred shouts of ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ later (four from the kids in the back of the car, the rest from me), we finally reached ski utopia. ‘Awesome,’ gasped Mac in the back.

  Great. A week in LA and already he had the vernacular of an OC extra.

  But he did have a point–it was a magnificent sight. Huge expanses of perfect powdered snow, dozens of hi-tech ski lifts, and lots of rosy-cheeked people wandering around with skis thrown effortlessly across their shoulders. The reality of what I’d let myself in for immediately set in. It was an intimidating prospect for someone whose only experience of being on the piste was an adolescent school trip to Aviemore where I pleaded frostbite so that I could stay on the bus all day snogging my boyfriend. I believe he was called Mark Barwick. No idea where he is now.

  I had a momentary pang of guilt–here we were blazing a trail to a new adventure and he was at home slogging his guts out at work.

  Okay, guilt pang over. I did say it was only a short one. I dialled his mobile number, gave the phone to Mac and let him bring his dad up-to-date with the new developments. I’m not sure he understood quite why we were taking an alligator to a ski resort.

  The manager was waiting for us when we checked into a hotel called The Village and he greeted Sam like a long-lost friend before informing him that his usual suite was ready. It was an impressive gesture of customer service that I was sure would be adopted by the staff at the Glasgow Travel Inn next time I went there.

  I wondered if I would ever get used to the fact that the entire movie-going world fawned over Sam like he really had saved the planet from destruction by a deadly meteorite before going on to invent a nuclear heating system that prevented the coming of the second Ice Age. That’s when he wasn’t reforming the national justice system and getting the knickers off Nicole Kidman.

  Taking all this into account, it was highly un-cool that I gasped out loud when we entered our room. Or should I say rooms. It was the most amazing suite–pardon me, condominium–I’d ever seen. There was a fabulous oak open-plan kitchen, a dining area that could seat the twelve supermodel apostles and a lounge area with a huge roaring fire–all decorated in rustic tones and luxurious fabrics. There were three bedrooms, two on one side of the lounge (one with twin beds, one with a double bed, both with en suites) and a huge master suite with a super-kingsize bed, dressing area and bathroom on the other side of the lounge.

  ‘You take the master suite and I’ll bunk in with the boys,’ I offered, very conscious that this must be costing him an absolute fortune, and even if I emptied my overdraft I’d still struggle to pay for one night here.

  ‘Don’t be daft, you and the boys take the master–the bed’s bigger. I’ll sleep in the room at the end with the double bed.’

  Why did it make me feel slightly better that he wasn’t going to be sleeping directly on the other side of the wall?

  Quick change and then we set off to explore the town. The boys were in their element–snowballs, snowmen, and little sleighs that were really cute until you tried to pull them with seven stone of little boys sitting on top.

  We stopped for dinner in Lakanuki, a gorgeous, wintery, cosy–er, Hawaiian themed–restaurant. Hawaii. In the snow. Who said Americans had no sense of irony?

  The boys crashed out within ten minutes of getting back to the condo. I was on page eight of their favourite book, called I Don’t Want to Grow Up (don’t listen to my husband–it’s not my autobiography) when I realised they’d both slipped into slumbers. I kissed their noses and pulled the covers over them. Benny automatically turned on his side and threw an arm over Mac, cuddling in close to him. A huge wave of love and gratitude engulfed me. How had I got this lucky?

  I wandered back through into the lounge and saw that Sam had poured me a glass of wine. From the noise coming from the bathroom, I guessed he was in the shower. I lifted the wine and noticed a door off the corner of the living room and immediately realised what that meant–toxins. Fab! I grappled in my handbag for my ciggies. Since smoking was punishable by death in most areas of LA, I was still on the same pack that I’d opened the day we’d arrived. My lungs were probably in shock.

  I opened the door to the balcony and took a huge gasp of breath. The temperature had fallen to about minus ten degrees, there were little crystal droplets in the air, the sky was awash with stars and in front of me was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen in my life. The Village Square was littered with young trees, each one about ten feet tall, and all of them were lit with hundreds of tiny white twinkling lights. It was breathtaking. If Santa were real, this would be his garden.

  It must have been the wine, the altitude or possibly the beginnings of PMT, but suddenly I was aware that tears were tripping down my cheeks. I’d never forget this moment. Never. It was the kind of perfection that didn’t happen often in a lifetime. Damn Mark. I wanted him here with me. I wanted him to see this, to have this slotted into our scrapbook of memories that we’d trot out in between bingo and basket-weaving in the nursing home. Damn him for not having the balls to take a chance on this. Damn him for not loving me enough to do this for me.

  ‘Hey…you okay there?’ came a soft, gentle voice.

  Damn him for his complete lack of jealousy. Damn him for subjecting me to a weekend in five-star luxury in the most beautiful place on earth with my second favourite man on the planet.

  ‘Mmmm,’ I replied. ‘It’s just so…beautiful.’

  ‘So are you.’

  Oh, damn, damn, fucking damn.

  He was just being friendly. He was just being Sam. He was just breathing on the back of my neck.

  He stood behind me and put his arms around me; slightly unfortunate for his cashmere robe that he didn’t notice I had a cigarette in one hand. It was only a small hole. I crossed my fingers that the robe wasn’t super-flammable, in which case he might spontaneously combust and several major movie studios would have lawyers with my name at the top of their hit list.

  His arms still wrapped around me, he kissed the top of my head. I said nothing, but held my breath, acutely aware that I had just inhaled a cloud of Silk Cut and exhalation would create a whole ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ effect and ruin the moment.

  Wait a minute, what moment?

  He was just being friendly. Very, very friendly. About as friendly as you could get without the exchange of body fluids.

  And, in that moment, every single pore of my body wanted to be very, very friendly right back. And I was prepared to negotiate on the body fluids thing.

  There was a long silence. Actually, inside my head there was a raging barney going on as my conscience and my libido kicked the crap out of each other, but on the outside all was calm.

  ‘I’m off to bed, hon, early start tomorrow,’ he said softly, then unravelled his arms and went back inside. In the red corner, my conscience now had its hands on hips and a smug expression, while in the blue corner my libido was hyperventilating into a paper bag.

  For a moment, I thought…well, it doesn’t really matter what I thought. The reality was that Sam really was just being friendly after all.

  The next morning, I woke to find myself alone in the bed. I had a moment of panic, before I heard copious giggling in the lounge. I wandered through to see Sam and the boys looking like prototypes of Snowboarding Action Man.

  ‘The hotel sent up the ski-suits I ordered–what do you think?’ Sam gestured to Mac and Benny who immediately adopted ski-like poses and beaming grins.

  ‘I think my plans for a day of eating chocolates and drinking wine in a picturesque ski lodge just bit the dust.’

  How true. After a quick call to my lawyer to make sure my will was up-to-date, they forced me into my ski suit and before I knew it I was defying death on a gondola, headed to a height that shouldn’t be attempted without the aid of a Cessna and a parachute. Sam had already booked the boys into junior ski school, so we took them there and waited until they got settled with their instructor: a springy, competent-looking you
ng woman called Heidi.

  When they went a whole ten minutes without even looking to see if we were still there, we about-turned and made for the slopes.

  ‘Er, Sam, can you actually ski?’

  ‘Yeah, I had to learn for Ice Patrol,’ he answered, quoting his 100-million-dollar-grossing action flick from the year before.

  ‘But I thought you were in a lab developing an electric sub-structure for the planet throughout that whole movie.’

  ‘Carly, where was the lab?’

  Aah, I remembered now. Halfway up a bloody great mountain in the Alps. The closing scene had been a recreation of the famous James Bond ski scene but with Sam blasting all the baddies off the mountain with a Scud missile before making a spectacular three-hundred-yard jump and landing next to Renée Zellweger’s Aston Martin. Bet Renée Zellweger never looked like a Teletubby in a sleeping bag, I pondered, as I waddled to the perilous terrain of the beginners’ slopes.

  Sam spent the first hour teaching me the basics. Skis on. Skis off. Crouch down. Stand up. Posture. Loose knees. Don’t lean back. Snowplough. Snowplough. SNOWPLOUGH!!!! Crash. Cue three-course meal of snow and sincere apologies to injured passers-by.

  But then something up there with curing leprosy and walking on water happened–I somehow managed to stay upright for a whole five minutes. It was all the incentive I needed. Soon my mammoth buttocks were whizzing down that mountain, striking the fear of God into anyone in my path. There were a few more apologies to hapless bystanders who inadvertently acted as my ‘stop barrier’ at the bottom, but two small incidents of minor concussion aside, the whole experience was exhilarating.

  Another few glides down the mountain and I was convinced I could ski like a pro–although I have a sneaking suspicion that they don’t close their eyes, launch themselves forward and then pray like their life depends on it while screaming ‘shit, shit, shit’ until coming to a crashing halt at the bottom.

  As I lumbered over to collect Mac and Benny at the end of the day, there was a definite spring in my ski–yes, Big Mama Cooper was obviously a natural-born athlete. I might have had more falls than Niagara, but I’d made it through the whole day without a single visit to the nearest casualty department. I couldn’t wait to pass on my newfound expertise to my offspring. Ah, they were going to be so grateful that their mother could guide them through the complexities of winter sports.

  ‘Mum, look what I can do!’ cried Mac the minute he spotted me. I donned my best indulgent expression, prepared to act delighted that he’d learned how to stand up on his skis.

  He shot away from the top of the kids’ slope, slalomed around three poles, did a jump and then executed a perfect stop at the bottom.

  ‘Me too, Mummy, me too,’ screeched Benny, who then proceeded to follow his brother down the hill without falling once. Fab. One day in ski school and they were the Swiss Alpine Synchronised Ski Team.

  Suddenly my achievements didn’t look quite so impressive. Perhaps in future I should just skip the skiing and book a long weekend in the Hub Cap Capital of the World.

  Sam and I gave them a rousing ovation, copious hugs and then we all headed back to the hotel.

  An hour later, I felt like I’d been wrestling with Archie the alligator. Every muscle in my body appeared to have been designed for someone at least six inches shorter than me and I was seizing up. I couldn’t put my foot down flat because my Achilles heel was threatening to snap. I couldn’t sit down for fear of my thighs breaking in two. And don’t even get me started on my mammoths, which had clearly been put through the shrink cycle in a tumble-drier. I was in agony. Even a long soak in the Jacuzzi didn’t return me to the less-than-two-high-strength-paracetamol side of sheer agony.

  Luckily the boys were as exhausted as me, and after a few slices of called-in pizza we left Sam watching a sporty thingy and went off to bed.

  I sent a quick text to Kate: ‘Went skiing today–it was fantastic!’

  A reply came straight back. ‘Get off the drugs.’

  I suddenly realised that I hadn’t told her we were coming to Mammoth.

  What a day. Carly Cooper, unapologetic sun-lounger potato and all-round holiday beached whale had learned to ski. Bite my sore buttocks, Snow Suit Action Barbie.

  I fell asleep, aching, exhausted but strangely proud.

  Unfortunately, next morning I woke up rigid. Completely rigid.

  ‘Sam,’ I called calmly, determined not to make a drama out of a definite crisis. He padded in with Mac and Benny in tow. ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but I think I’m paralysed.’

  He laughed. If he’s ever up for a part in ER, remind me to address his bedside manner.

  ‘Carly, how long is it since you did any form of exercise?’ he asked in a decidedly mocking tone.

  ‘Do you want it in years or decades?’ I replied with a groan.

  ‘You’re not paralysed, you’re unfit.’

  Well, no shit, Sherlock. Smug pals could be so irritating. However, even more upsetting was a smug pal who–deep breath, deep breath, I was having palpitations now–was only wearing jeans and had nothing on his perfectly sculpted torso. And he hadn’t shaved yet, so his face was all gorgeously crinkly. Oh, the things I could do if I wasn’t a married woman. Or paralysed from the neck down.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if this was yet another stroke of divine intervention from Mary, the Blessed Virgin. Although what she was doing in a ski resort with only those flowing robes between her and certain hypothermia, I’ll never know.

  Sam recruited the boys as his assistants and between the three of them they managed to haul me to an upright position.

  ‘Send me back to the aeroplane graveyard and let me die in peace curled up to a Virgin Atlantic 747,’ I begged, to much hilarity from the testosterone posse. Benny and Mac were collapsed in heaps of giggles now. That was it–no pocket money until their voices broke.

  ‘Carly, there’s only one thing that’ll sort you out.’

  ‘A general anaesthetic?’

  He shook his head. ‘Worse than that, I’m afraid. I’ve seen this condition here before and the cure is painful, traumatic and decidedly risky.’

  ‘Sam, don’t say I’m going back up that bloody mountain.’

  ‘Okay, I won’t say it. But if you could just get your kit together as quickly as possible because me and the boys are missing valuable snow time here and we’re keen to get back up there,’ he said with a chuckle.

  The audacity! To presume that he could tell me what my children wanted. Those boys spent nine months in my womb and I knew them inside out. I knew their feelings, their wants and their desires. And their soft spots when it came to blatant blackmail.

  ‘Guys, how about we spend the day on the sofas today and we’ll watch Scooby-Doo all day?’ I said in a tantalising tone. Take that, Sam Morton! Watch and weep.

  The boys grinned.

  That’s it, boys, you know you want to.

  Then they looked at each other.

  Come on, boys, snuggle in beside me.

  Then they looked back at me.

  You don’t have to thank me now. I’m your mother, I’m supposed to be this great.

  And, in perfect synchronicity, said, ‘Naaaaah! Skiing, skiing, skiing.’

  Crap, they were chanting. Heidi wasn’t a ski instructor, she was the black witch responsible for recruitment to a sinister cult that demanded twelve hours per day of snow worship.

  I knew when I was outvoted. After some gentle rotations, stretching and manipulations, I vaguely regained the power of my legs and managed to break into a stagger. With help from the children of darkness, I climbed back into my suit and off we went again. I was sore, I was weak and my children had been possessed by a paranormal force. Mark didn’t know what he was missing.

  ‘You know what you need, don’t you?’ Sam asked me the following lunchtime. Yep, I was on my third day up that mountain. I still ached from head to toe. My skin was a subtle shade of beetroot except for two white circles aroun
d my eyes where my goggles sat. When I took my hat off my hair looked like straw hanging out of a skip. I had bruising in places that required three mirrors set at conflicting angles to see. And I know I’m supposed to say, ‘Oh, but it was all so worth it because the exhilaration of roaring down that mountain had taken me to a higher spiritual plane and made me want to have a lesbian love-in with Mother Nature.’ But the truth was that, much as I was beginning to accept that skiing could be a fun way to spend the day (as opposed to, say, working down a mine or being involved in a hostage situation), I had come to the conclusion that I’d far rather spend my day lying in a prone position with a piña colada. Oh, hark. Less than a fortnight ago I was living a life of perpetual drudgery and now I was getting picky about what kind of rich and famous pastime I’d rather partake in.

  I realised that Sam was still waiting for an answer.

  ‘Oh, sorry–I thought that was a hypothetical question. Erm, what do I need…?’

  ‘A pamper,’ he said with a grin.

  You should never argue with a man who’s holding a gun, a knife, or vouchers for spa treatments.

  We checked on the boys, who were happy tucking into lunch with all their new pals at the ski school, then headed back down to the main lodge. Half an hour later I was naked, except for a towel covering my privates, and being gently massaged with oils and lotions.

  ‘Better?’ Sam murmured.

  ‘Mmmmm,’ I murmured.

  Did I forget to mention that a naked Sam was lying next to me? Thankfully, three feet of space, two towels and two six-foot Swedish male masseurs were between us. The receptionist had obviously assumed we were partners and booked us into a double treatment room. Not that it mattered, I supposed. Sam had seen me naked hundreds of times. Although granted that was before I’d married someone else and expelled small children from my birthing canal. And while we were definitely in the scud, we couldn’t actually see any of our dangling bits or areas with small curly hairs due to strategically placed textiles.