And maybe that was a sign. Maybe that boded well for the weeks ahead.
Lying on the top bunk, staring at the ceiling. I imagined bringing Madison up here. I imagined taking her skiing, introducing her to Robbie, showing off the mountain and the lodge.
Maybe she’d stay in the room with me and maybe …
I rolled over, smiling.
Maybe.
4
Skiing was something I preferred to do alone, like going to the movies. I’d never understood why people wanted company for something that involved basically no talking. The only time it was worthwhile having someone to chat to was on the chairlift, and even then I liked just watching the scenery.
On clear days like this the mountain was spectacular. The runs further up away from the village looked onto the distant hills and mountains beyond, to fields and lakes often obscured by a slight blanket of mist that made them seem mysterious and otherworldly. Seen from up here the lower runs wound their way through trees beneath long lifts tracing across the mountain like string pulled between toothpicks. I took a moment to lean on my poles and take it all in. Up on the slopes I didn’t feel like loser Nelson. I felt like I was somewhere magical, somewhere separate from the rest of the world. Somewhere where all the crap of the life I really lived didn’t matter.
My first and favourite destination on the mountain, every time, was the Summit Run. The highest run on the mountain, it was steep and wide, which meant you could either take your time doing massive turns or just race to the bottom and privately pretend you were someone in Star Wars riding a speeder. I definitely didn’t play the theme song in my head as I went. No way.
The other great thing about the Summit Run was that from top to bottom it was pretty short, which meant the lift rides went fast. Other runs could strand you in the cold for what felt like hours as the lift crept through storms like an unconcerned snail. The Summit was the perfect run to do a lot of times in a lot of different ways and not lose a whole morning in the process.
The lift line at the bottom of the run was busy, but pretty quickly I was on the swaying chair, this time with three others. By the looks of it they were all about my age, all guys, all dressed in the kind of brand-name ski gear people from the city thought was good, and all snowboarders.
‘Did you see me do that sick jump?’
I glanced over, for a moment thinking the question was directed at me. It wasn’t. I returned my attention to the slopes. Anything a snowboarder had to say was probably best ignored.
‘You want something, mate?’
It was the same voice. I looked back. ‘Sorry?’
‘Sorry,’ he sneered. What I could see of his face beneath his goggles was mean. ‘You looked like you wanted to say something.’
‘Didn’t,’ I said.
The guy next to me nudged my skis hard with his board. ‘Gonna try a real sport some time, mate?’
I shrugged. ‘Gonna ski right off this lift and not spend five minutes looking like an idiot while I strap myself back in.’
‘Think you’re tough, do you?’ the furthest guy from me said.
I shrugged and looked away.
‘Wimp,’ muttered the guy who’d first spoken.
Within seconds we’d reached the top. The boarder closest to me tried to shove me over as I skied off, which got him a round of yelling from the lift attendant.
I swung around to the top of the run, got ready to push off, then stopped and glanced over at the three boarders. Sure enough, they were all hunched over redoing the bindings that held their boots to their boards. After a few seconds, all jostling each other, they jerked their way across from the lift. None of them looked too comfortable on the snow.
I watched as, all wobbling slightly, they went down the slope.
Pushing my poles into the snow, I skied after them.
Look, skiing can be dangerous, and it’s downright stupid to try and show off while doing it; or, even worse, get in the way of someone else. Lucky, then, that I wasn’t much more than downright stupid.
The boarder who’d been sitting furthest from me on the lift was now trailing behind his friends. I skied down alongside him, then, giving myself just enough distance to make sure I didn’t end up in a super-awkward human tangle, pulled a sharp parallel turn and cut directly in front of him.
I heard a yell and a thud as he tried to stop and succeeded by falling over.
Grinning, I pointed the tips of my skis directly downhill and tucked my poles under my arms, crouching as I felt the wind pick up around me.
The guy who’d first started talking on the lift raced towards me. I took quick note of where his board was in relation to my skis – but he was already less than a metre away so screw it. I shot past, so close his arm hit mine, so close that an inexperienced snowboarder would freak out and lose his balance. So close that he did exactly that.
The last guy was almost at the bottom and had stopped to see where his mates were. What he saw instead was a skier hurtling towards him, only to pull up sharply and send a spray of fresh morning snow cascading over him. He shrieked and fell as it went down his jacket and coated his goggles.
Before he’d even had time to clear his vision I was gone, angling my way towards a different lift a bit further past the summit, a lift that would take me to the top of another run.
One I’d be taking with a big, satisfied grin.
Not having been skiing for almost a year had made me forget just how good it can make you feel. By the time I kicked off my skis halfway down the main slope across from the Gallagher, with snow in my hair from a couple of decent stacks and a slight goggle tan, I had almost forgotten about Madison.
That was until I walked through the front doors of the lodge to see Mum, looking tired but immaculately made-up, leaning against the front desk talking to the man working there. In her hand was a blue envelope.
I barely heard what she was saying as she turned to me. I was staring at the letter. Maybe it wasn’t mine. Maybe it was something else.
‘Good timing, Nelson,’ Mum said. ‘I just got here. Someone dropped this off for you last night.’
She held out the envelope and my heart stopped. Slowly, I took it from her.
‘We were about to have lunch,’ she said. ‘Did you want to join us? Also, remember we’re eating over at Pension Schulz tonight so …’
I mumbled something about skiing and not being hungry, then turned and walked right back outside. The wind picked up as I looked at my name in neat handwriting.
It had to be from Madison.
Inside this envelope was the answer.
I stuffed it into my pocket, grabbed my skis and hurried back to the slope.
5
I’d been waiting for Madison’s letter for what felt like a lifetime. I’d been so desperate to find out her answer. And now that I had it, I couldn’t bring myself to open it.
Several times that afternoon I skied over to the side of the slope and took out the envelope. I turned it over in my hands, pulled off my gloves, took a deep breath and tried to make myself open it. But every time my hands froze and I couldn’t do it, so I just put it back in my pocket and kept skiing.
In science class a few months back we’d learned about Schrödinger’s Cat. I didn’t remember the specifics, but the idea was basically that if you put a cat in a box with some poison, and leave it there, for that time the cat is both alive and dead, as you can’t know either way until you look inside the box. I’d thought it was rubbish – the cat would sure as hell know if it was alive or dead – but now it felt relevant.
Until I opened the letter, the maybe was still alive. For now I could still hope that she’d say yes, that everything would change. The moment I read her words, no matter what the outcome was, everything would be different. Either my life would become amazing, or that little flame of hope I’d kept alive for ages now would be snuffed out.
I wanted to call Pat. But what was I actually going to say? Hey, I got the letter but I’m too
scared to open it. Talking this through with anyone was just procrastinating. Talking this through with myself was procrastinating. Because in the end, Schrödinger’s Cat was still a stupid idea. Not knowing something didn’t mean that something didn’t exist.
In the late afternoon, I returned my skis to the drying room in the Gallagher, had a shower and got changed. Then, when the sky above the village was splashed with orange that lit up the few lazy clouds, I walked down the now empty slope, past the still lifts and into the village square.
There was a large stone fire pit in the centre of the square and, as it was the start of the season, tonight it was burning. A few people milled around, taking photos or heading to one of the now open restaurants or bars.
I took a seat on a bench near the fire, glanced up at the sunset sky, then opened the letter in my hands.
Dear Nelson,
Thank you for your message. It was very flattering and the first time anybody has expressed a romantic interest in me. Unfortunately I am focused on my studies right now. My parents also think, and I agree, that I am too young to be in any kind of relationship. I suspect if you consider this, you might realise the same.
I think you are a nice person and I would like to be friends.
Yours cordially,
Madison
I read the letter three more times before folding it up and putting it back into the envelope. Sunset was over and the orange sky had darkened into velvet.
I stood and turned towards the fire. I held the letter above it for a moment, then sat back down, feeling the warmth on my back as I looked up at the night sky.
My first thought: why couldn’t she have put that in an email?
My second thought: who the hell said ‘cordially’ or ‘expressed a romantic interest’ past 1847?
My third thought was how strange it was that reading a letter could make you feel like someone had ripped open your chest and punched your heart.
I didn’t want to cry. I just felt tired. Like all those days of anxiety and secret hope had burned me out. And for what?
I wasn’t angry at Madison. If anything I was angry at myself. Because, really, how could I ever have thought that a girl like her would be interested in me?
I wandered back to the Gallagher in a daze, folding and unfolding the letter as I went. Part of me was hoping there was something I’d missed, but the rest of me didn’t want to relive the letter. Each re-read was a horrible, jolting reminder, and by the time I walked through the front doors of the lodge I was ready to just crawl under the bedcovers and never wake up.
Before I’d even got into my room, Mum had grabbed me by the arm. ‘Nelson, what did I tell you earlier about dinner? We’re running late.’
For a moment I was at a loss, then I remembered and everything got one step worse.
‘Mum, I really don’t want to —’
‘This is our last chance to catch up with everyone before the restaurant opens,’ she said, cutting me off.
I half considered running, but Dad was behind us, leaving me trapped.
‘Who’s everyone?’ I asked.
‘We told you this,’ Dad said, as we went through the front doors, back out into the cold. ‘Wolfgang, Joan, Ernie and Helen.’
That sounded like the last group of people I wanted to be around at that moment.
‘Do I have to?’ I asked.
Mum and Dad didn’t bother to reply, and so I just trailed after them, across the now empty slope to the hulking shape of Pension Schulz on the other side.
Mount Doon, being a ski resort, had a strong Austrian influence and nowhere was that more evident than the Pension. The building was as famous as anything in the Australian ski scene got: a huge lodge decked out with traditional European wood carvings and stained-glass windows. A third of the building was home to Wolfgang Schulz and his family.
The dark, sprawling labyrinth of rooms, bars, restaurants and more over four storeys had always intimidated me a bit. It was hard not to feel small as we walked into the wood-panelled, heavily decorated interior. And the feeling only worsened as we arrived in the bustling restaurant to be greeted by the broad, balding, bulging shape of Wolfgang Schulz himself.
‘Nicholas!’ he boomed upon seeing my dad. ‘Wie gehts? And the beautiful Susan, and young master Nelson as well!’
A round of crushing handshakes and Austrian greetings later, we were directed to the biggest corner table, right by the windows that looked out over the slope. Wolfgang’s wife, Joan, was already waiting there, and next came a lot of cheek kissing and, in my case, being told what a handsome young man I was becoming. The letter in my pocket felt especially heavy at that.
We were quickly joined by Ernie and Helen, two more old friends of my parents, and I took the chance to sink into a chair and bury myself in the menu as they all discussed the running of lodges and the snow forecasts and other things that had never seemed so unimportant.
‘Nelson? What do you want for dinner?’ Mum asked.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Rubbish,’ Dad said.
‘Growing boy like you needs a big feed.’ Wolfgang patted his stomach with an exaggerated wink.
I chose something at random and pushed the menu away. The quicker this was done the quicker they could all go back to ignoring my existence.
‘How is school, Nelson?’ Helen asked, observing me over her glasses with a serene smile. ‘How are all your friends? What was that boy’s name – Jesse?’
I hadn’t spoken to Jesse since primary school.
‘His friend Pat moved away recently,’ Mum said.
‘He’s been in a bit of a sulk ever since,’ Dad said.
I looked down at the table. I wanted the food to hurry up and arrive.
‘Well, I’m sure you have plenty of other friends,’ Ernie said, as if friends were like marbles or something else easily replaceable.
Someone said something about staff costs and the conversation went off in a direction I didn’t have to follow. I glanced down at my pocket. Madison’s words were practically seared into my memory: I think you are a nice person and I would like to be friends. I knew it was just a stupid cop-out. She hadn’t shown any interest in being friends before, so she must really think I was an idiot if she expected me to buy that.
I considered marching up to her at school on Monday and saying, ‘Yes, Madison, I would like to be friends. Let’s hang out.’ Just to see the look on her face. But of course that would mean talking to her, and there was no way I was going to do that for at least the next hundred years.
‘Your dad tells me you like movies,’ Wolfgang said, as the arrival of the food forced me to look up.
‘I do, yeah.’
‘But you don’t do any sport?’
‘I ski.’
‘That’s three months of the year,’ Wolfgang said. ‘What about the rest of the time? You need to stay fit, otherwise how will you keep the girls keen?’
I was tempted to ask Wolfgang if that was how he’d maintained his figure.
‘I think he’s a bit young for all that, Wolfgang,’ Helen said.
‘Nonsense,’ Wolfgang boomed. ‘You got a girl, Nelson?’
I shook my head, eyes on my food.
‘Two?’ Wolfgang asked.
I dug into what looked like a kind of schnitzel and hoped nobody noticed how white my knuckles were around the cutlery.
‘You’re terrible, Wolfie,’ Joan said. ‘Don’t listen to him, Nelson. There’ll be —’
Plenty of time for all that later, I mouthed along with her.
‘You want to start early or else all the good ones will be gone,’ Wolfgang said.
‘We were much older than Nelson when we got together,’ Joan reminded him.
‘My point exactly,’ Wolfgang replied, earning him a whack from Joan, a gasp from Helen and stifled laughter from my parents.
I tried to keep my attention on my food.
Wolfgang leaned forward. ‘Girls like confidence, Nelson. They
like you to make the first move.’
‘I asked a girl out last week,’ I said.
That shut them up. I looked up to see a semicircle of faces staring at me.
‘You didn’t tell us that,’ Mum said.
‘Should I have? Anyway, it doesn’t matter.’ I went back to my food. ‘She said no.’
Nobody spoke for a few seconds.
‘Young love, eh?’ Ernie chuckled. ‘I remember my first girlfriend —’
‘When you were forty?’ Wolfgang asked.
‘Fifteen, actually,’ Ernie replied. ‘Anyway, let me tell you, she was something. She had this —’
‘Thank you for dinner,’ I said, standing up. ‘I’m going back to the lodge.’
And I walked out before anyone could stop me.
Even the nicest days up here turned cold the second night fell. In the darkness, flashing plough machines worked at combing over the snow, making it look as pristine as if nobody had ever set foot on it.
I started to walk back up towards the Gallagher. As I did, I turned the words of Madison’s letter over again in my head. Expressed a romantic interest. Focused on my studies. Why was it so formal? If anything, that just made it worse: she couldn’t even talk to me like a human being.
I stopped, pulled the letter from my pocket and looked down at it. I could just make out the words in the lights of the surrounding lodges. I frowned as I read them again. Who thought this sounded normal?
And the reference to her parents; what did they have to do with anything? If she had spoken to them about it, surely that meant she had at least considered what I’d asked?
Maybe I was being crazy. But no crazier than Madison if she thought this was the best way to write a rejection message. And I was pretty sure Madison was a long way from crazy.
I found Robbie in the Governor’s Lounge, sitting on one of the large leather couches near the fireplace with a book.
She looked up with a smile. ‘Hey Nelson, haven’t seen you at all today.’
‘No, I was out,’ I said. ‘But …’ I handed her the letter.
The True Colour of a Little White Lie Page 3