by Rosie Thomas
She went back to Felix’s room and she was smiling properly now. He smiled back at her and lifted the covers. She lay down beside him and he fitted himself neatly against the curve of her back. It was comforting to have him there. She felt that she had reached the end of a complicated journey.
‘Thank you,’ Felix said, with his mouth against her ear. And then, ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ Julia answered.
They fell asleep together, the first and last time.
Nine
There was the cottage, in the angle of the wood. Julia stood with the frosty grass crackling under her feet and looked at the lights in the windows. It had taken her almost a month to decide to come. In the end she had left the square on impulse, caught a train to the country station, and walked from there along the icy lanes. It was almost dark, and she had fixed all her attention on finding the way. Only when she saw the lights did she wonder what she would have done if there had been no one there.
She wrapped her coat tighter around her and ran the last few yards. She knocked so hard on the door that her knuckles stung.
Josh opened it. Yellow light spilled out from behind him and lit up her face.
‘I’m here,’ she said unnecessarily. ‘Can I come in?’
Josh laughed, and his breath sent up a smoky plume between them.
‘Julia, Julia. Yes, you’d better come in.’
Across the room behind him Julia saw two pairs of skis propped against the wall, ski poles and heavy laced boots, a scatter of other equipment she didn’t recognise. Josh was busy. Now that she was here, she was suddenly furiously angry.
‘Why haven’t you been to see me? Do you think I don’t matter? That you can appear and disappear, just as you like?’ The words hurt her throat as they came out.
He stared at her then. Julia’s eyes glittered and her cheeks were reddened by the cold.
Slowly, he said, ‘No, I don’t think you don’t matter.’
Julia stared at the long, sharp blades of the skis and her taut shoulders suddenly dropped. In a different voice she said, ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have come here. Girls don’t do things like that, do they? But I wanted to see you so much, and I didn’t think you’d ever come, so what else could I do? I know you think I’m too young. I came to tell you I’m not. I’m old enough to know my own mind.’
Her face was turned away from him, her eyes still fixed on his skis. Gently, Josh held out his hand. She ignored it, and he fitted his fingers around her wrist. ‘I think you do know your own mind,’ he whispered. ‘The question is, whether I know mine.’
She turned to look at him then. They watched each other, wary.
Josh was thinking that ten minutes ago, with his Long Lanyard ski bindings and his new Subito boots, everything had been simple. It wasn’t simple now, and it would grow steadily more complicated. All the risks that he had sensed and shied away from in Julia Smith were intensified now, and Josh was elated to realise that he didn’t care. He looked at Julia’s rosy cheeks and burning eyes. It was right that she was here. Better than right, much, much better. It was perfect.
‘You know I love you,’ Julia said.
Josh took her other hand. ‘I think I must love you too. Just a bit. A little, tiny bit.’
She jerked her chin up. ‘That’s enough. To begin with, of course.’
He pulled her closer and kissed her. She smelt of cold air, clean and delicious. He wanted to go on smelling and tasting her, but Julia drew away from him.
‘Are you going away?’ She pointed at the ski gear and an open canvas grip on the floor.
He nodded. ‘Into the Inferno.’
Julia rounded on him. ‘Don’t talk in riddles. I was plain and honest with you, wasn’t I?’
Josh laughed, still holding her hands in his. Julia was completely and beguilingly unlike any of the other women he knew. He admired her sharpness. He really did love her, he thought. Perhaps even more than a little bit.
‘It wasn’t a riddle. The Inferno is a ski race. In Mürren, Switzerland. Next Sunday.’
Switzerland. Saw-toothed mountains against the blue sky, and Josh. Julia remembered the square, and her fear of the silence that would choke it as soon as Felix left. And her typewriter, crouching under its black hood, waiting to recapture her on Monday morning.
She didn’t hesitate any longer. ‘Take me with you,’ she begged him.
With anyone else, Josh would have snorted with laughter. No one took any diversions to the Inferno, he would have said. But simple responses like that had slipped out of his reach now. He sighed.
‘Yes, you can come with me,’ Josh said. ‘We leave on Wednesday morning.’
He saw the delight and disbelief leap together in her face, and he thought how lovely she was. It would be his pleasure to show her the mountains.
‘I’ll be ready,’ she promised him.
‘What about your work?’
‘There are thousands of jobs,’ Julia answered. ‘But only one chance to do this.’
At last, she thought. She was in motion too. You have to make a life for yourself.
‘I haven’t got very much money,’ she said awkwardly. Just a bit, that I’ve saved. How much will I need?’
‘Oh Jesus, I’m not a millionaire,’ Josh groaned, ‘but I guess you can come along at my expense.’
She smiled at him, a brilliant smile. ‘Thank you.’
They went to the timbered pub for a celebratory drink, and afterwards Julia insisted on being driven to the station in the black MG. Josh protested, but she was adamant that she wouldn’t stay. Julia was intrigued to discover that suddenly she wielded power too.
‘Wednesday morning,’ she beamed at him, and reluctantly he let her go.
On Thursday morning they were in Switzerland.
At the little station at Lauterbrunnen Julia gazed upwards. The peaks of the Bernese Oberland reared massively into the sky. In the course of the long train journey the world had lost its familiar shades of earth and mud and winter grass and had turned monochrome. Everything here was spidery black, or grey, or glittering white, and the air tasted thin and sharp.
She waited quietly, breathing it in.
Josh was across the platform beside the mountain train. He was tenderly stowing his ski bag into a little open wagon already bristling with skis. If he could have slept with them beside him in the couchette berth last night, Julia thought with amusement, he would gladly have done so. Since yesterday morning she had discovered that she was as bad a traveller as Josh was a good one. As the boat train rumbled across the river from Victoria Station and into the shadow of Battersea Power Station Julia had delightedly told Josh, ‘This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.’
He had grinned back and drawled, ‘Wait till you see the Inferno.’
But in the long progress over the Channel and across France impatience had replaced the first exhilaration. She paced up and down the corridor, anxious for the new experience to begin now, at once, while Josh dozed in his corner seat. She stared at him, baffled. The train slowed and stopped in the middle of a wide, empty field. Josh opened one eye to look at her. ‘Relax,’ he murmured.
But Julia lay awake for most of the night in her couchette berth, listening to Josh and the other passengers breathing through the unhypnotic rattle of the wheels. And now they were almost there.
Josh turned and hoisted the rest of their bags into the train. ‘Let’s go,’ he called to her.
They climbed in and skiers in knitted caps and nylon anoraks crowded in after them. The train jerked forward, nosing the ski wagon ahead of it. It reared upwards, climbing at a sharp angle.
Julia leaned forward, pressing her face against the window. Black-limbed trees poked up out of folds and curls of snow along the track. The trees slid past and fell away behind them. Julia watched mesmerised, only half hearing the babble of French and German around her. The train climbed on, higher and higher.
As it shuddered to a halt a
t the upper station the sun came out. Black and white changed instantly to blue and silver. Julia looked up, through air that seemed to glitter with crystalline specks, and saw the Eiger pointing over her. She stumbled down the steps of the train into the snow.
‘Wengen,’ Josh announced unnecessarily.
Julia looked at the little wooden houses, each with its three-cornered hat of snow. It was like a toy village handed to a child. She thought she had never seen anywhere so pretty, or so unreal. It was enchanting to have arrived here, of all places, with Josh.
Julia’s everlasting memory of her first days in Wengen was of being wrong, conclusively wrong in the big things and on, down to the smallest detail. Her appearance was wrong, her voice and her manners were wrong, her clothes and her opinions and her inability to ski were laughable, but most unforgivable of all was the fact that she was with Joshua Flood.
Frau Uberl was a square, motherly Swiss widow who ran her chalet as an informal guesthouse for English girls race-training with the British-run Downhill Only Club. Frau Uberl and a flinty Scots matron inappropriately named Joy chaperoned the girls between them. On that first morning Frau Uberl showed Julia to her bed in a wooden-floored four-bedded room under the sloping eaves. The window looked over its balcony to the Eiger. Julia wanted to rush across and fling it open to gulp in the air and the view, but her room-mates were eyeing her suspiciously. They had names like Belinda and Sophia, and they wore thick patterned jumpers that clung to their bosoms, and tight Helanca ski-pants. Julia noticed that they all had enormous bottoms and she told herself in an effort at superiority that she wouldn’t wear pants like that if she was half their size.
Belinda perched on the end of Julia’s bed to watch her unpack. Out came the silk blouses and tweed jackets from Brick Lane, home-made evening dresses and Jessie’s scarlet kimono, her adored jet jewellery. Julia picked up the long earrings and fixed them in her ears, tossing her head to make them swing.
There was nudging and muffled giggling behind her back. If only Mattie was here, she thought grimly.
She turned round sharply and caught them at it. The youngest pinched her nose to stop the laughter exploding.
‘I don’t ski, you know,’ Julia said loftily, to forestall them. ‘I’ve only come out here to see Josh win the Inferno.’
That silenced them for a moment, but Sophia announced, ‘He won’t win, of course. He’s only an amateur, even though he’s pretty good. Really good, actually, for an American. He might scrape in tenth or twelfth, if he skis brilliantly. What was his place last year, Bel? Twentieth?’
Julia shrugged, and went back to unpacking. She knew they wouldn’t be able to resist asking, and sure enough Belinda was the one who came out with it. ‘How long have you known Josh?’ ‘Oh, months now. Let’s see. He took me flying for the first time in the autumn … yes, it’s ages. It’s getting quite serious, I’m afraid.’ She laughed apologetically. They stared at her enviously.
‘How funny that you don’t ski,’ Sophia murmured. ‘When it’s so important to him.’
‘Is it?’ Julia shook out the last blouse and hung it up in the communal wardrobe. It was full of large, sensible tweed skirts and three almost identical taffeta dance dresses. ‘Do you all ski?’ It was as if she had asked, Do you all breathe?
‘You don’t need taffeta dresses to ski in.’
‘Oh no. Those are for the Swann Ball. Everyone goes.’
Julia didn’t enquire any further.
Julia went slowly downstairs to the kitchen, where she found Frau Uberl. The Swiss woman beamed at her, and Julia, with relief, recognised foreign impartiality to class and probably ski-competence as well.
‘You will be wanting something to eat, no?’
‘Yes please.’
The plate that was put in front of her was piled up with meatballs and sauce and potatoes smothered in cheese. Julia stared at it in amazement. ‘Frau Uberl? Thank you, but I can’t possibly eat all this.’
‘Ach, you will. You are as thin as a pin. You will need it if you ski this afternoon.’
I doubt it, Julia thought, but she struggled with it as best she could. The Frau clucked over her left-overs, but then Josh arrived to rescue her.
He was wearing navy ski pants and a light blue padded jacket with a knitted collar and cuffs. He had laced ski-boots and a navy knitted cap with a tiny US flag stitched to it. He held his skis over his shoulder with one arm curled lightly round them, and he looked absurdly handsome. Julia followed him down the path.
‘Let’s go and rent you some skis.’ He looked her up and down. She had changed into the nearest approximation of ski-wear that her wardrobe would yield, and Josh nodded briskly. ‘That’ll do for the nursery slopes. Are you going to ski in those earrings?’ ‘Bloody nursery slopes,’ Julia snarled under her breath. ‘Yes, I’m going to ski in these earrings. I’m probably going to die in them as well.’
Josh grinned. ‘You won’t die. You’ll enjoy it.’
He set off with Julia panting along beside him. She felt possessive and greedy and afraid and inadequate all together, and it was galling that she could hardly even keep pace with him through the slippery snow.
‘Josh! Why have I got to stay with these girls? I can’t bear them. I want to be with you.’
He looked faintly surprised. ‘I told you why. It’s important to appear to behave, at least. Look, when I first came out here I thought the English and their little clubs were so goddam snooty that I skied alone for a month. But once you get to know them, they’re okay. Obey their rules, that’s all, and they’ll be your friends.’
As if to prove his point they came down to the railway track where another fussy little train was waiting to climb on upwards. People leaned out of its windows and shouted, ‘Coo-eee! Josh, we heard you’d arrived. We’re going up to Black Rock, are you coming?’
He waved back, grinning. ‘No, I’m going to the nursery slopes.’
‘Ha ha ha. What’s the secret? Hiding yourself until Sunday?’
‘Wait and see.’
Julia plodded on, thoroughly disheartened. ‘I’m cramping your style,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’
He put his free arm round her shoulders. Julia managed to stop herself burying her head against his anorak. ‘I’m glad you’re here. We’ll have a good time, you’ll see. Sophia Bliss and the others are nice girls. Just not very much like you.’
‘Not much,’ Julia agreed, thinking Swann Ball indeed. Taffeta dress and all.
‘Why don’t you give them a chance? Watch them. You might even learn something.’
‘I might,’ she conceded, doubting whether it was anything she would want to know. Then she thought of Felix. They had been gentle with each other since the night of the funeral. Jessie’s death and their failure in bed had drawn them close. Felix had made her critical of her own clothes, taught her the difference between good food and bad food, made her aware of the existence of style. Felix was always telling her to use her eyes and ears. Perhaps Josh was right. Perhaps the Belindas could teach her something, even if it was only never to wear tight pants over thirty-eight-inch hips. And some breathless upper-class argot. Might come in useful some day, Julia thought philosophically.
They reached the ski-hire shop and Julia submitted herself to having boots strapped to her feet and poles thrust into her hands.
After that, everything was awful.
Josh came to the beginners’ slope but Julia soon begged him to go away and leave her to her humiliation. He went, bestowing her on the Swiss ski-school instructor and a gaggle of tiny Dutch and German children. For the first time in her adult life Julia discovered that her rangy height was a disadvantage. She had further to fall than the little children, and every puff of wind seemed enough to blow her over. She fell so often that it began to seem simpler just to lie in the snow, only Heini the instructor came and hauled her to her feet again.
Snow filled her mouth and ears and slid down her neck. Her hands froze to her poles and h
er legs ached so that she could hardly lift her skis. She wobbled and slithered and Heini yelled, ‘Bend your knees!’ and the children sliced cheekily past her.
At the end of the afternoon, when the snow had turned blue in the fading light, half a dozen skiers appeared at the top of the slope. They swooped down together, their immaculate pure christies carving a sinuous line down to the village. They were whooping and calling to each other, and Julia recognised Belinda and her friends. They were as graceful as swans on their skis. She ducked her head and shrank behind Heini and the children, impressed in spite of herself.
Julia didn’t see anything of Josh while there was enough light to ski by. She knew that he went across to Mürren and climbed the Schilthorn to ski the Inferno route, but when she asked him about it he shook his head and didn’t answer.
In the evenings they went out together, but never alone. They ate in candlelit restaurants and drank glühwein in tiny, cosy bars crowded round tables with the other skiers. As well as Joy and her girls and the other DHO regulars there were Inferno competitors who eyed Josh surreptitiously and tried to make him talk about his practice. Amongst them were the members of the military teams competing for the Montgomery Cup. Sophia and her friends found the British and American soldiers particularly fascinating, although Julia was secretly gratified to notice that they looked at her far oftener than they did at the other girls in their reindeer-patterned jumpers.
Josh saw it too. He winked and squeezed her hand.
The only other skier who Julia liked was a sandy-haired tough-looking Scot called Alex. She mentioned him to Sophia as they scrambled home through the silent, biting dark before Frau Uberl’s midnight curfew.
‘Oh no, not him. You can’t,’ Sophia shrieked. ‘He’s utterly non-sku. He wears his socks outside his ski-pants.’