Weak at the Knees, page 10
I give the schedule one last look-over.
“By the way, what’s ‘other’? You’ve forgotten to fill in the key?”
She slants the screen back in her direction and raises her eyebrows with a cheeky grin.
“While we’re on the subject, you have got to go check out next door.”
“Why?”
“I met my chef for the first time while you were out and he is gorgeous. Think Javier Bardem!”
“I can’t just waltz in,” I protest.
“Yes you can. He said he was keen to meet the other half of SFS.”
“Alright then,” I surrender. “I’ll see if they’ve got a printer there too.”
I head for the door. “By the way, what’s his name?”
“Pierre.”
*****
The worker’s entrance is open. I enter, noting upside-down chairs resting on tables so dusty they don’t look like they’ve been touched since the end of the last season. A radio is blaring out some tacky French pop. I follow the direction of the music and spy the back of a man sporting a tall, floppy white paper hat. As I creep closer I can hear him humming along to the music. He’s chopping onions.
“Pierre?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Pierre?” I call louder. He jumps, and turns around with tears in his eyes.
“Sad song?”
“Non. Les oignons.”
I introduce myself and admire his Latino looks. He is a doppelganger for Javier Bardem, Gina’s spot-on. We exchange pleasantries and he apologises for not having much time because he’s got ten industrial-sized shepherd’s pies to freeze before he picks his daughter up from crèche and so far he hasn’t even finished chopping one onion. I’m in the middle of saying goodbye and scouting for any evidence that there might be a printer here, when I notice a solitary cookbook on his shelf. I place a hand on the book’s spine.
“May I?” I ask.
“Oui, bien sûr,” he replies, his concentration never veering from his knife and the onion which he’s attacking so violently I’m worried for his fingertips.
I lift the book down. It’s a compact hard-back called Sauces for Seduction and it’s in English. When I ask where he got it from he tells me it was a gift from one of last years’ school groups. He tells me I can keep it, because he doesn’t understand a word of it anyway. I accept the present, and make a swift exit.
*****
“So?” demands Gina, when I’m back. “What do you think?”
“Gorgeous, but he’s too short. You’re head and shoulders taller than him.”
“That’s not true. He’s exactly my height. Besides, I prefer a man who’s on my eye-level. It means I avoid neck-crick.
“Yes, well don’t go getting excited. He told me he’s got a kid and now I remember, the chef in my hotel told me all about Pierre, only I didn’t realise it was your Pierre at the time. He’s apparently got a reputation for being a terrible cook and the only reason he keeps his job is because he’s married to his boss’s daughter. So I’d steer well clear if I were you.”
Gina dismisses this advice, more interested in the contents of my right hand.
“What’s that?”
I pass her Sauces for Seduction.
“It was a present for Pierre from one of last years’ groups and now it’s a present for us.”
“Ooh,” says Gina, flicking through the pages, “do you think that means we’ve made an impression?”
It was only she who wanted to make and impression, and thankfully, she’s too busy sniffing out recipes to see me raise a quizzical eyebrow.
*****
Stop; pant; splutter; pitter-patter heart, blow nose. I’m walking up a beginner’s nursery slope and finding it such a challenge that I can’t begin to imagine how Hilary could have ever conquered Everest. No doubt he would never have attempted it wearing my Skechers flatforms.
“Ça va?” asks Michel.
I nod, indicating that I’m fine to carry on. I’m starting to think that someone, somewhere, is pulling my puppet strings, part of a grand plan to make me a fit woman against my will. And that someone has to be Amber, getting her own back at me being such an unwilling tennis partner for all those years.
It’s past 8pm, but I was up at the crack of dawn this morning to go to the airport and pick up my first group. Our nearest airport is bizarrely Turin, in Italy, not France, and it was the first time I’d crossed the border. As soon as the season’s properly underway, I’m looking forward to skiing into Italy from our resort. It’s a fabulously surreal notion that you can be living somewhere that feels so French and then ski a kilometre or so into a completely different country, with a different language, culture and cuisine. Gina’s as excited as I am about skiing into the neighbouring resort of Claviere to have a bowl of Italian pasta for lunch, finished off with an authentic cappuccino.
Everything so far has gone according to plan, and indeed according to Gina’s schedule, which I finally managed to get printed up for us at my hotel and is now pinned to the cork board on our lounge wall. I’ve checked my first group into the Club de Vacances and have had them all fitted up with skis, boots, and ski passes. I even managed to convince them to eat their dinner. This was the hardest task of all. They’d been eyeing up their stew suspiciously because there were legs on the bone which looked so small they were convinced it had to be either rabbit or frogs. I reassured them that it was definitely chicken to the point that not only did they all wipe their plates clean, but half of them even had seconds. It wasn’t till much later that I found out from the chef that it had indeed been bunny.
Anyway, as if the day hasn’t been eventful or long enough, Gina and I are now on our way to the shindig with Michel and Alexandre, the pisteurs. When they’d told us it was in a mountain restaurant, we hadn’t realised that they meant it was in the mountain restaurant half-way up the ski slopes, and we would have to climb a thousand meters on foot to get there because the gondola closes at 4.30pm.
“I thought it was bad enough,” I puff to Michel as my boots crunch the crusty snow underfoot, “that I have to walk up to the Club de Vacances three times a day, and now this?”
“It’s good for you,” smiles Michel, placing a hand on my back to help propel me forward. “And look at the sky. Look how beautiful it is. You wouldn’t have been able to see this if you hadn’t walked.”
I stop and glance up. Away from the ambient light in the resort, we’re shrouded in inky darkness, lit only by the moon. Hundreds of stars are sparkling bright white on a black canvass. I spot the Milky Way and the line of three twinkles that make up Orion’s Belt. I am so overawed that I vow to stop moaning about anything here ever again. The cold, the effort, the thigh burn are all worth it just to have witnessed this celestial magic. Gina and Alexandre have overtaken us. I call up to her to make her look at the stars too. From a distance I watch her tilt back her head and slowly turn three hundred and sixty degrees.
As Michel and I lapse into conversation the steps become more mechanical and I forget that I’m even climbing. He tells me that his ex-fiancée Jane was one of the SFS reps here a couple of years ago. She broke off their engagement back in June, getting cold feet about living in a tiny mountain village for the rest of her life. Even though he’d said he would live anywhere just to be with her, she didn’t believe he would be happy anywhere but here. Bereft and broken-hearted, Michel had decided to go travelling, leaving France for the first time in his life, which was what tonight was about. After a fondue Michel plans to show a film of his trip to Tibet and Nepal, which was a big deal because many of his friends have never left the mountains, let alone the country.
“And you, do you have a special someone?” he asks.
Hugo’s my ex and Rod is my last, but he doesn’t exactly count as a boyfriend. He certainly isn’t acting like one either. He’s not so much as bothered calling or even texting me since he left. So I’m not sure how to answer.
“There’s sort of someone, but nothing major.”
It’s the most honest response I can give.
*****
Michel and I are the last to arrive at this cosy rustic restaurant. There’s a raging log fire next to the bar on the right and a giant horseshoe shaped table covered in red and white checked cloths is set for a fondue to the left. A bevy of people wearing different uniforms is scattered throughout the room. I spot one red ski instructor jacket with Ecole de Ski Français written on the back.
“Danni,” says Michel, indicating that I should follow him. “I’d like you to meet someone.”
He makes a beeline for the person in the ski instructor uniform.
“Salut frère,” Michel greets the man, embracing him in a half-hug.
“Salut frère,” the person replies. I hear, but all I can see is his back.
“Danni, meet my brother Olivier. Olivier this is my friend Danni.”
As Olivier turns to face me I find myself swimming, for the second time, in two of the deepest, clearest, aquamarine blue pools. His look pierces right through me. My cheeks flush hot. This is the one, the very same man that I bumped into, quite literally, that first day I went skiing with Rod.
“Enchanté,” says Olivier, eyes twinkling.
For some reason I don’t bother telling Michel that his brother and I have already made our acquaintances. Instead I busy myself with a spot of mental acrobatics, gradually putting two and two together.
“So, if you’re Michel’s brother,” I say to Olivier, “then that makes you Olivier du Pape, like Châteauneuf-du-Pape only not because you’re really Papillons not Papes.”
He cocks his head, mouth slightly upturned, but it’s his eyes that are really doing the smiling. “Ten out of ten for family history,” he praises. He speaks softly, in this deep, bewitchingly assured voice.
Then I had crashed into the Olivier. The same man Lorraine had mentioned. The most desired man in Montgenèvre. The most happily married man in Montgenèvre.
Michel interrupts my reverie.
“Danni, what would you like to drink?”
Chapter Fourteen
Just over a week later, at 7.55am, I’m entering the Club de Vacances, simultaneously panting and blowing my nose, when my mobile vibrates in my pocket. I fish it out – it’s ‘caller unknown’. My usual policy is not to answer if I don’t know who it is, but for some reason I click on the green button.
“Allo, oui?” I say.
Silence.
“Allo, oui?” I repeat, my heavy breathing slowly becoming less laboured.
“Is that Denny?”
My heart, already beating way faster than normal thanks to the 537-step climb it’s just been subjected to, starts thumping even more wildly and erratically. It took the best part of three weeks, but Rod has finally got around to calling. I’m piqued that it’s taken him this long, but determine to not let it show. Instead I’m all sunshine and, I hope, cool.
“It is me,” I laugh. “How are you doing?”
“I’m good. And you?”
“I’m great, really great, and how about you?
I know I’m repeating myself, but struggle to think of anything else to say. And then, after an awkward silence, I add: “why are you calling so early?”
“It’s eight o’clock. That’s hardly early. Besides, I wanted to be sure to catch you. So tell me, have you got good snow?”
He’s given me body-trembling cunnilingus, and now all he’s interested in is white stuff?
“Yes, perfect. It’s been dumping it down overnight and wall to wall sunshine most days, except for today. Right now it’s chucking it down. And you?”
“No, we’re a bit short here in Austria, I think France has fared better. But apparently we’re going to get some soon. So, have you met some nice people out there, are you having a good time?”
Our conversation feels uncomfortably strained and empty.
“Yes, everyone here is really lovely. Gina is great, we’re a good team.”
Another awkward silence crackles across the phone line.
“And you?” I try to keep the chat from drying up completely. “Is it as good there second year running?”
“Yeah, lots of the same faces.”
I remember him mentioning this German girl he was seeing last year. I try to keep my tone ambivalent.
“Is Nina there again?”
Pause.
“Yes, she’s here.”
I don’t know why I asked that question, because suddenly I’m aware that I don’t really care. Yes, I’m annoyed it took him this long to call, but now that he has, I’m beginning to acknowledge he was always more Amber’s type than mine. Maybe that’s why I went for him. Not that I’m regretting it. It’s just I don’t predict a future life down under for us.
“Hey Denny, I found you a watch like mine. It was the last one in the shop.”
That cheers me up.
“Oh, that’s brilliant. Thank you so much.”
“Yeah, well I’ll get it to you at the end of the season.”
I’m anxious about time ticking away. I’ve got lots to do and I can see one of my group’s teachers waiting to speak to me.
“I’m sorry Rod, I’ve got to go. I’m late now meeting my kids for breakfast. I’ll call you soon.”
We say goodbye and I hang up with a strange mixture of feeling happy that he called, but disappointed by the conversation. And I’m overwhelmed by a surprisingly mature (for me) thought. Maybe Rod was just a necessary part of moving on, of living life a little and letting my hair down. I’m sorry Amber. I know you liked him, but I think it’s going nowhere.
*****
I’m not in the greatest of moods when I get back to the flat, clutching two pains aux raisins in a little paper bag. Gina’s at the kitchen table. “Perfect timing,” she grins in high spirits. “I’ve just made the coffee.” She plunges the cafetière, then looks at me, conspiratorially, like she’s desperate to get something off her chest.
“Come on. Out with it,” I say. “You’re obviously dying to tell me something.”
She asks me to promise not to tell anyone what she’s about to tell me and I do. She lowers her voice, even though there’s nobody here but the two of us. “Pierre just kissed me.”
Pierre - her handsome Latino, very short (in my opinion) and very married chef. I don’t trust myself to speak and I can tell that she’s got more that she wants to impart.
“Well, we were in the lift together going down to the basement to get some more jam for the breakfast when he suddenly grabbed me and kissed me.”
I snap and break into condescending, sarcastic, singsong speak.
“The jam, that’s a wee bit corny, isn’t it? He had to lure you into the lift with him under the pretext of getting some jam before he had the balls to make his move?”
Gina stares at me, in silent disbelief at my tone. I glare back.
“Well,” I carry on. “And I suppose we kissed him back did we?”
“So what if I did? I find him incredibly attractive.”
I start raising my voice.
“He’s bloody married, Gina. He’s got a wife and baby daughter. Does that mean nothing to you?”
Gina overtakes me on the decibel front.
“It’s his look-out, not mine. Why should I worry about his problem?”
I let rip, speaking in a red-faced, red-hot scarlet fever shrill.
“You should worry because it’s your problem too. Firstly, what does that make him if he can even do that to his wife and secondly think, bloody think about what you’re doing. It’s destructive to his family. If he doesn’t know better then you should.”
Gina matches my hysteria.
“How dare you be so bloody judgmental Danni? This has got nothing to do with you. I wish I’d never mentioned it. I only told you because I thought we were friends.”
“Well, you’re not much of a friend if that’s the sort of thing you do.”
We stand, glaring at each other, two wild cats about to pounce. I decide there’s only one thing for it, to divert my avalanche before I chuck a ski boot at her head. I control myself, speaking quietly, calmly and with an almost imperceptible trace of venom.
“I’ve lost my appetite. Can I borrow your car if I’m back by twelve?”
She grabs her keys off the table, spins them over-arm at the front door. They hit their target, crashing like a discordant glockenspiel before settling still on the carpet. I stoop down to pick them up on my way out and slam the door behind me.
