Someone puts a mask over my nose and mouth, and the noise stops. That’s when I realise the screams had been coming from me.
‘I learned later that another car had come down the empty road about five minutes after the accident – a husband and a wife,’ I tell Issy. The wife was a doctor, and she and her husband had got me out of the smoking car because they were worried the truck’s engine was about to catch on fire. The doctor had done all the right things – things that Brad and Connor, who’d been in shock, sitting on the side of the road, wouldn’t have known how to do – until the ambulance arrived twenty minutes later.
‘I don’t remember anything after lying on the road,’ I tell Isolde. ‘Just waking up later in the hospital and realising my right leg was gone.’
The surgeons did everything they could to save my leg. But it had been crushed so badly in the impact of the crash, that the only option had been to amputate it fifteen centimetres below the knee.
‘And then I just . . . went numb after that,’ I say.
I close my eyes for a second to will some of the memories away. I can feel Issy gripping onto my hand so hard it hurts, but at the same time it doesn’t because my body can feel that she’s not shying away from the pain under my surface.
‘I felt numb for a long time,’ I say to Is, opening my eyes to look at her. ‘And little by little, that’s started lifting. I feel more me than I did this time last year, and that’s what I want to focus on. That, and enjoying stuff – like getting back on the mountain. Being with you.’ I pull her over so she’s on my chest, looking down at me.
There’s a pause before we kiss.
‘Tay.’ Her hands are on either side of my face. I can feel her fingers trembling slightly against my cheeks, the fallout from what we’ve just talked about, the way it’s made her feel.
Tay.
It’s just my name, but I can see three other words, there in her eyes.
I say them back to her in my kiss.
Isolde
Sunday 16 June
There’s no good way to say goodbye.
‘Make sure you book those tickets to come back for the October long weekend,’ Maia says to Mum as we wait at Boarding Gate 3 for our flight home to Australia.
October. I should be happy we’re coming back to Queenstown so soon, but three and a half months feels like a lifetime right now.
‘I’ll visit before that,’ Taylor says as we stand by the window, watching the bags being loaded into the hull of the plane outside. ‘Once you’ve kicked arse at your audition, name the weekend. I have some money saved from working at the shop this last year. I can afford the tickets.’
I nod. All I want to say is, I wish you could fly back with us now, but that’s stupid.
‘Last boarding call for Air New Zealand flight A320, Queenstown to Sydney,’ the steward announces over the microphone.
‘We know how to do this,’ Tay whispers in my ear as we hug.
I know he means being apart and he’s right. There’s the phone and Skype and IM, just like always. But it’s not like having him next to me. Not like the closeness we’ve had these last eleven days, and especially the last three – since the moment he kissed me.
We’re kissing again now, the same type as our first, where you don’t want to stop. I know his parents and mine are probably watching, but Taylor and I had already blown our there’s nothing going on act last night, what with cuddling together on his trampoline.
I pull away from Taylor. We walk back over to our parents, and I hug Tobi and Maia goodbye. I know my face is red from embarrassment.
‘You can come back anytime, sweetie,’ Maia says, squeezing me. ‘Even if your mum’s busy with work, we’re happy to have you.’
I can’t look back at Taylor as Mum, Dad and I head out the gate to the tarmac.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday 16 June, 4:10pm
Subject: You
You’ve been gone an hour. It’s clichéd as heck to say this, but:
I miss you like crazy already.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday 16 June, 8:10pm
Subject: RE: You
I don’t care about clichés. I miss you like crazy too, Tay.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday 19 June, 7:45pm
Subject: How are things at home?
Your mum and dad.
If you feel like talking about it?
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday 20 June, 9:10pm
Subject: RE: How are things at home?
They’re not talking much beyond the everyday, essential communication like:
Patrick, can you take the rubbish out? and Thanks for dinner, Louise.
I don’t know what to hope for, really.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday 21 June, 8:55am
Subject: RE: How are things at home?
All I want to do is jump on a plane and come give you a hug, Is. I know we talked the other night on the phone about me visiting in August, but say the word and I’ll book a ticket in a split second, okay?
Have you thought any more about the audition?
Sorry, I don’t want to pressure you. I just think you’re amazing and you should go for it.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday 22 June, 7:10pm
Subject: I’m going to do the audition next Saturday
I want to do it. Not because I’m trying to win a place at the National Ballet School. But because it’s something I’ve worked towards. Auditioning was my goal for the year, and I want to see that out.
Have you been back up the mountain? :)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday 23 June, 6:43pm
Subject: I just got back actually :)
Finn and I went – Cardrona had fifteen centimetres overnight. I got blindsided by another clump of falling snow on the Captain’s chairlift – only this time I wasn’t on the verge of kissing someone when it happened ;)
Finn isn’t cute when he blushes, unlike you :)
P.S. I’m sending you ten bear hugs re the audition. Totally obvs: but I’m so proud of you.
Isolde
Saturday 29 June
I didn’t tell Taylor this, but part of the reason I decided to go ahead with the audition today was the comfort of sticking to a routine.
I never realised until the last month how our whole life – Mum’s, Dad’s, mine – is built around it. Mum’s whiteboard to-do list, the weekly Sunday roast, the Tuesday-night Skype with Vi and Jack, the times we sit down for breakfast, or make popcorn for the Friday-night Netflix movie – they’re the clocks we set our family life to.
Everything in my world – on a surface level – has always been steady. And then it wasn’t.
We’re not having breakfast together any more.
Last Monday, the pharma company Dad interviewed with a few weeks back called and told him he had the job. He started two days later, commuting to an office in the city, and his coffee cup and breakfast bowl are in the dishwasher an hour before Mum puts hers and my mugs under the spout of the coffee machine.
Mum still makes dinner for us all, but we don’t eat at the table like a family. We eat in front of the TV now, maybe because it fills the silence.
Last Friday night, when we’d normally be watching a movie, I stood outside Mum’s office door and listened to her crying softly on the other side.
I feel like everything that was solid is folding in on me. The steps are the only thing left. First position. Second. Third, fourth and fifth. The barre work I’ve done every sing
le day for over ten years – it’s a constant I can grab on to. Being out in my studio means I can escape being in the house and feeling like I’m going to go crazy staring at my bedroom walls, wondering what’s going to happen with Mum and Dad. Working on my attitude devant, telling myself shoulders down, ribs closed, calves engaged, I have something to focus on. When I’m mid-jeté, flying from one side of the floor to the other, my heart is pounding from effort and exercise, instead of feeling like it’s breaking.
The only thing Mum, Dad and I have done together since coming home from Queenstown is drive to my audition this morning.
‘You’re going to be brilliant, Issy-kins,’ Dad says outside the entrance to the studio where the Sydney-based auditions are being held. ‘You have this. Don’t let your mind tell you otherwise.’
‘I’m so proud of you, honey,’ Mum says, squeezing both my hands in hers.
Overwhelmed with emotion, I nod at them, and then push open the door to a room they’re not allowed to enter.
It’s crazy that you can spend a whole year – ten whole years really – preparing for something that goes by in 120 minutes. For an audition where it becomes all about the fundamentals.
They’re looking for potential, Ms Morris had told us more times than I could count.
Every dancer has a number pinned to their chest. I’m twenty-three. Last year, I was number nine, and I remember the paper rising and falling on my chest, even though I tried my hardest to stay calm.
You’re not trying to get a place, I think now. Just do your best. That’s what this is about.
The class starts, and like I have done out in my studio the last two weeks, I let the fear of what might be give way to steps. Just steps. The ones I know, that my body doesn’t have to think twice about.
We do some flexibility and rotation work. And then we sit on the floor, legs straight, feet turned out. We move on to holding an arabesque. Holding it for what feels like forever, while the examiners walk the room, checking each one. Then there are some exercises at the barre without shoes on, so they can study our feet. I know they’re assessing our height, backs and overall proportions at the same time. We finish with some pointe work, and then jumps. Last year, I’d stumbled on two of them.
This year I don’t. My mind is quiet and my body takes over.
And then the audition is over, just like that. I head out the door. Mum and Dad are waiting on the footpath, outside the audition building. I can see the anxiousness in their body language as I walk over to them.
Dad’s holding roses, the same pointe-shoe-pink bouquet he always presents me with after every performance, ever since my debut as the mouse at the beginning of The Nutcracker at age five.
That’s remained the same.
I don’t want to cry, but I can’t hold it back.
Dad’s arms go around me, and then Mum’s follow. The three of us hug on the footpath as streams of ballerinas pass by.
‘I did my best,’ I say, wiping my eyes as I finally pull away from the hug.
I’ve never felt like my best was enough. Maybe that’s who I am by nature, or it’s typical of a ballerina – because perfect is a goalpost that keeps moving, the better you become. But my best today was holding that arabesque, knowing my leg was above ninety degrees, my foot winged, my back engaged and my eyes up. It was landing those jumps. Standing tall at the barre, following the teacher’s instructions like I would have at any class. Not letting the pressure get to me.
I did the audition the way I wanted to. The way I’d visualised over and over each night in bed, ever since the audition last year.
That’s all I wanted today to be.
JULY
Taylor
Monday 1 July
I’m heading around the bend, past the Whitestar Express Quad, when I see him. He’s standing at the top of the Gravity Cross course, tightening his bindings. Unlike my prosthesis, which is ‘realistic’ under my snowboard pants, his is completely different. It’s black and white, no cosmetic cover, and it has a suspension system like nothing I’ve ever seen. From where it starts – his lower thigh – I can tell that he’s an AK – an above-knee amp – not a BK, like me.
I carve over to the left-hand side of Whitestar and come to a stop. I feel guilty staring because I know what it’s like to be on the other side of that, but I can’t help it. He sets off down the trail, absolutely flying over the jumps and rollers, and is out of sight in less than ten seconds.
Far out he’s fast.
I haven’t been on the Gravity Cross course this winter. I was never that into racing back when I trained here – Big Air and Slopestyle were my jam, so they were the disciplines I focused on. But the last few times I’ve been up the mountain, I’ve felt a high each time I finished a trail faster than the run before.
Maybe I’ll give the Gravity Cross course a whirl next week.
Isolde
Thursday 11 July
Mum and Dad are still sleeping in the same room.
That’s the only thing that’s keeping me from losing hope altogether.
Taylor
Monday 15 July
This afternoon, at the bottom of my sixth run down the Gravity Cross course, I spot Joe, my old coach. He spots me too and waves me over. He’s standing with another coach, one I haven’t met before, and the boarder with the rad prosthesis – the one I’ve seen a bunch of times now over the last fortnight. As I walk up to the three of them, I can see his leg is even cooler up close.
‘You got some nice speed on those last three runs,’ Joe says before I can say hello.
‘You saw those?’ I pull my helmet off my head so I can hear him better.
‘I’ve seen you up here quite a bit the last few weeks. It’s hard to miss that crime-scene jacket, mate.’
I laugh. Joe had always ribbed me about my ski jacket, the white one that looks like someone’s flicked splatters of red paint all over it.
‘Taylor was my Big Air star a few years back,’ Joe says to the other coach. ‘Mad stunts. Fifteen and took out a bronze in the Audi Quattro final.’
‘Hellemann, right?’ the other coach says, shaking my hand. ‘I remember seeing you at the X-Games – the young Kiwi doing big things.’
‘He placed sixth in the Big Air there,’ Joe says, referring to the final. ‘Not flippin’ bad against the likes of Max Parrot and Mark McMorris, hey? Taylor, this is Dave Tobin. He coaches Liam here.’
‘Liam Lawson.’ Liam shakes my hand. ‘You getting in some low-key prep for the Audi games this year?’
Liam is a Kiwi too. He’s older, probably in his early twenties.
‘Nah, man, just having fun.’ I shrug.
‘Joe was telling us there’s some buzz that you’re back on the mountain,’ Dave says. From the tone of his voice and the way he’s looking at me, I can tell Joe’s told Dave and Liam about the accident and my leg.
‘It’s cool to be back,’ I say, looking at the park, where everyone’s throwing down in the late-afternoon sun.
‘Taylor,’ Joe says. ‘You want to have a coffee with us?’
Dave, Joe, Liam and I wind up sitting in the coffee shop across from the base lift. Dave tells me he and Liam used to train at Ruapehu on the North Island, which is why I hadn’t seen Liam around back when I was working here with Joe.
‘Since Liam placed seventh in Slalom at PyeongChang, we’ve started training NZ winters here at Cardrona, and then north hemisphere winters in Calgary, BC.’
PyeongChang. Dave’s talking about the Paralympics. I hadn’t watched them, or the Winter Olympics last year, because I’d been too depressed back then. Like any athlete, the Olympics had been a goal of mine once.
Liam catches me trying to low-key check out his leg.
‘Sorry, man, didn’t mean to stare,’ I say, embarrassed.
‘It’s pretty cool, hey?’ Liam says, unfazed. ‘I’ve had some guys tell me there’s more suspension in this thing than their cars.’
We both laugh.
‘You AK?’ he asks.
‘BK,’ I reply.
‘The knee’s a Moto Knee. Designed by Mike Schultz.’ Liam’s looking at me like he’s expecting I’ll know the name.
I’m obviously blank-faced, and it dawns on him that I have no clue who he’s talking about.
‘He used to compete in Snowmobile racing at the X-Games,’ Liam explains. ‘Then he had an accident and lost his leg – AK like me. He wanted to create a prosthesis with resistance and mobility for action sports. You know – air-shocks and such. Wait till you see how the ankle moves,’ Liam says. ‘There’s up to thirty degrees of dorsiflexion.’
‘For real?’
The last few weeks, I’d been slowly adjusting to boarding being different – working out ways to get the best out of my new leg – but I missed my old ankle sometimes. The way all the muscles had helped to control and direct my board.
‘Here, let me show you. There’s a shock absorber in here,’ Liam taps on the foot, ‘that controls toe pressure and ankle resistance. There are four different configurations for the ankle too, so you can fiddle around with it depending on what you’re after. The range of motion is awesome.’
‘It’s also durable, thankfully,’ Dave jokes. ‘Liam’s put it through its paces.’
‘Just showing the non-Paras what’s what.’ Liam shrugs, laughing. ‘None of them can smash their foot on a kicker and not feel a thing. That makes me Ironman, right?’
I start laughing as well.
‘Ask your prosthetist about it,’ Liam says.
‘I will,’ I say, smiling at Liam. ‘I’m keen to progress, that’s for sure.’
I can feel Dave and Joe looking at me.
‘Taylor,’ Joe says. ‘Do you think you might be interested in competing?’
For a few seconds, I stare at them, unsure if they’re kidding. Then they both start talking to me about opportunities with Paralympics NZ. About the local ParaFed organisation and its connection with the Adaptive Snow Sports program here at Cardrona. Joe mentions a High-performance Athlete Development Pathway.
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