Weak at the Knees, page 9
“You’ll be alright Denny. You’re going to have a wonderful season, I promise you. This resort’s special.”
“I know,” I tell his solid pectorals, “but it would be even nicer if you were staying with me.”
I dare not get too soppy because Rod’s clearly not the slushy, sentimental type. He’s tough, straightforward and so matter of fact that I absolutely mustn’t cry. The opposite of how I’m feeling. I give him one last squeeze and as I pull away I see Olivier, the guy I bumped into quite literally at the beginning of the week. He’s walking past on the other side of the road. Although he doesn’t acknowledge it, I know he’s seen me. Rod gives me one last kiss goodbye, promises to call and opens the driver’s door.
“Ooh,” I say, as he’s lowering himself into his seat, “one more thing!”
He stands up again and peers at me from the other side of the car. I smile flirtatiously.
“I don’t suppose you could get me a watch like yours?” I ask coyly.
“I’ll do my best,” he smiles back, “but they’re a bit of a collector’s item.”
He winks conspiratorially, finally gets in and drives off. I wave as the car whirs into the distance, spitting exhaust fumes behind it. I wave until it’s out of sight.
*****
Gina finds me frozen to the spot, staring blankly. She places a comforting arm around my shoulder.
“You okay?” she asks.
I force my lips into an upward curl and take a deep breath.
“I’ll be fine.”
I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince, her or me.
“I’m glad you said that, because I’ve got a plan, and it’s non-negotiable.”
I fear the worst, because there’s only one plan in my head and Gina doesn’t look like sleep is what she’s got in mind.
“I’ve decided,” she continues, “that we’re not going to sit around moping all day. Let’s go find our flat, dump down our gear and then go up.”
I’m confused.
“Up where?”
“Up there, silly.”
She points to the mountains and I groan.
“Please, no, anything but that. I’m freezing and exhausted.”
“Non-negotiable,” she reminds me, sounding more and more like Amber. “And besides, I think it will do you the world of good. Stop you from wallowing. Life moves on.”
And now she sounds like Hugo. I make a face.
“Come on,” she insists, trying to drag me indoors. “Think about it. The sooner we go skiing, the sooner we get back and the sooner you get to sleep.”
That’s just about enough of an incentive for me to follow Gina inside and load up our belongings.
*****
I should have either listened to Rod when he told me to travel light, or been more cunning in roping him to help move our bags before he left. We couldn’t do it in one go. It’s taken three round-trips and despite the freeze I can feel the layers underneath my jacket are now damp from perspiration.
Montgenèvre is a picturesque sleepy town with a cluster of traditional chalets, a pretty old church and several more modern buildings which sprawl up a hillside shaped like a bowl, with some challenging staircases connecting lower tiers to upper levels. Despite being only two miles from the Italian border, its feel is typically French. Our one-bedroom studio sits above a row of shops. A small supermarket and boulangerie are conveniently located below, whilst the piano bar is a few doors down. The wafting smell of baking as we pass the boulangerie is too good to resist.
“It’s going to be lethal having this place so close by,” I say, looking up to our apartment block. “If we leave our windows open this aroma’s going to reach us in bed, just like in the Bisto ad.”
“You’re not wrong,” Gina agrees.
I buy us a couple of bouncy pains aux raisins from the outdoor kiosk, gooey custard oozing from the sultana-filled middles. I clasp the paper bag in my teeth, pick up my giant suitcase with two hands, sighing, groaning and waddling lopsidedly the entire climb back to our flat. It’s not a bad living space, although the colour scheme is calamitous. It’s like a bunch of primary school kids have been let loose with tubs of paint and told to play at being interior designers. It’s two-tone. The walls are a bright cornflake orange up to an imaginary picture rail height – everything above is bleached white. A corner of the open-plan lounge boasts a matching orange fitted kitchen, which leads onto a large balcony which has a plastic table set with four chairs. It offers the sort of view people dream about. Today’s panorama is dramatic. The mountain bases are visible, as are their jagged peaks, but their midriff is wearing a thin sheet of cloud like a skirt. Collectively they resemble a group of fat pencils which have punctured a hole in a piece of white paper and then got stuck.
We walk through all the rooms, like prospective house-buyers searching for defects, when I realise, apart from being bathless (we sadly only have a shower) we have another much more serious problem. There’s only one actual bedroom, although the lounge has a sofa bed. Gina reads my mind.
“I’ll take the sofa bed,” she offers magnanimously. “I’m really not that fussed.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “I don’t mind swapping halfway if you’d prefer.”
“What, halfway through the night?” jokes Gina, knowing full well that I meant halfway through the season. “It’s nice of you to offer, but I can sleep pretty much anywhere, anytime, so it’s really not an issue.”
“Okay. Just let me know if you change your mind. And in return,” I say, heading towards the kitchen, “how about I make us a nice cup of coffee?”
“Deal!”
We shake on it. Then I find the kettle and fill it.
*****
We’re sitting at the wooden kitchen table, enjoying our pains aux raisins and steaming bowls of extra strength black filter coffee, when it suddenly comes to me.
“Taylor Swift,” I squeal. “That’s who you remind me of. Only you’re prettier.”
Gina could seriously be Taylor’s twin sister with matching pins-to-die-for and now that I’ve got it I can’t believe it took me so long to work it out. How funny, I’m living with my heartthrob Harry Styles’ ex.
“You’re not the first person to tell me that. Although nobody’s told me that I’m prettier. That part I think you’re making up.”
“Can you sing?”
“No.”
“Can you dance?”
“My dancing’s worse than my singing!”
Oh well, at least she’s got the legs. I am seriously envious of them. If mine were even a tenth as svelte I’d be happy. Gina, however, appears ignorant of her major asset. She pulls one of her bags towards her, unzips it and digs out a pair of ski trousers. As I watch her unloading piles of clothes from her bags and tossing them onto the sofa, I realise that even though I don’t know her that well, I already really like her. She’s a year older than I am, her background’s pretty similar and she’s equally disillusioned with London. She’s friendly, straightforward and uncomplicated. Something about her makes me feel safe. She’s not Amber, but I think Amber would like her. She catches me staring.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” I cock my head, “I was just thinking how lucky I am to be working with you and living with you.”
“Ditto,” she says. “But if you think buttering me up will let you off the hook, you’re mistaken. We’re still going skiing.”
“But I’m so sore,” I groan.
“I’m sure you are, but I think we both know that’s got nothing to do with skiing!”
She’s referring to my shenanigans with Rod which everyone now knows about. She’s not going to talk to me about him and I can tell she’s not going to encourage me to do so either. I’m sure that she, like Rod, believes I should now throw myself into the season, without looking backwards, and a part of me knows that she’s right. She hints that we should get a move on by throwing a glove in my direction. Very begrudgingly I get up.
*****
“It’s bloody freezing,” I mumble through gritted teeth. The season hasn’t officially started, so the lifts aren’t open full-time yet. Up until a week before Christmas they’re open weekends only, although SFS managed to convince them to operate a little more than usual just so that we could train. Just my luck that today is Saturday. I slot my skis into the hold on the outside of our gondola, step awkwardly into it as it continues to move and land my bottom heavily on the bench next to Gina’s. I’d like to shout about my discomfort, only I can’t. My mouth is so numb from cold that my lips can’t move. I slam the window shut, desperate to seal out the cold, take my hands out my gloves and blow onto my fingers to warm them. By the time we’ve reached the top station, 2,700 meters high, I’m unaware I even still have fingers or toes. The thermometer reads minus twenty-five, but it feels more like minus fifty with the wind-chill factor. I’m not amused and resolve from this point onwards to be a fair-weather skier, only going up the mountain when there’s good snow and good sun. We take a couple of ginger steps beyond the shelter of the cable car building. A force gale wind almost pushes me off balance, whipping icy snow particles onto my face, sticking to my cheeks like permafrost. It’s harsh and bleak. I’m tired and cold. I’m about to give up and head straight back down on the gondola despite Gina’s protestations, when a guy in his late twenties, wearing a green and blue uniform, creeps up behind me.
“Salut SFS. Salut English girls. You are much prettier than the girls last year.”
He must have recognised our jackets. He introduces himself as Michel, establishes that I’m too miserable to ski and informs us that the lifts are about to close until the wind subsides. He offers us temporary warmth, shelter and hot chocolate with cognac. We clank after him to a postage-stamp size room within the gondola station which somehow squeezes in a raging log fire, a double ring stove, two banquettes covered with woolly rugs and a punky beach blond bloke called Alexandre. We all exchange double French air kisses and Michel gets straight to work, stretching for a carton of milk from the outside window ledge and pouring its contents into a pan.
We’ve only been here a week, but I have already sensed a different code of living here in the mountains. They’re a fiercely close-knit community, with their own unique ways. People come, people go, but ultimately they only look after their own. The women eye us with suspicion. They chat to us, smile at us and joke with us, but you can tell they’ll never get too close. Their men, on the other hand, welcome us warmly. With this instant, honest show of hospitality, Michel and Alexandre are letting us into their tight circle.
It turns out they’re ‘pisteurs’, part of the resort’s mountain rescue team. The hero stretcher-bearers who ski injured punters down the mountain. Michel’s got an open, friendly face. His hair’s sandy brown, his complexion is rugged and weathered. He’s endearingly shy. As he hands me a steaming mug full of hot chocolate dashed with a generous measure of Courvoisier, I notice his jacket has the name Michel du Pape embroidered on it.
“Any relation to Châteauneuf-du-Pape?” I ask. I remember it as one of Hugo’s favourite red wines. He tells me there’s no connection whatsoever, his original family name was Papillon, but his great, great grandfather had religious pretensions and changed it to Pape which means ‘Pope’. Then his walkie-talkie starts crackling some undecipherable French instruction. The two men are instantly up on their feet, gathering ropes and beepers, telling us there’s an emergency and that we can stay there until the lifts open again. They’re halfway out the door when he adds that he’s putting on a big dinner bash on Saturday night in a mountain restaurant and we’re invited.
Gina answers that we’d love to come, thank you very much and Michel replies that he’ll pick us up at 8.30pm. It’s not until they’ve gone that I remind her that Saturday is the first day of our season so we might be busy, and if we’re not busy then more than likely we’ll be too knackered. I blow on my drink to cool it, take a sip and feel the brandy warm my insides. Gina casts me an admonishing look and tells me I’d better learn to let my hair down, that the season is short, the mountain shindig sounds like fun and it was a privilege to have been asked. She asks if I know what Carpe Diem means. I tell her I don’t – although I know that I should because it’s Latin for something and Hugo must have used it on me. She tells me it means ‘Seize the Day’ and that I should start living by it. I take another sip, finally accepting that Gina was right and that at long last (and Hugo would be shocked by my about-turn) Latin was good for something.
Chapter Thirteen
It’s the third time I’ve climbed to my hotel today to check everything’s in place for my first group’s arrival tomorrow. The hotel’s name, Club de Vacances, is emblazoned in neon blue squiggles down one side of the building, a concrete, no-frills high-rise. It’s quite possibly the ugliest building in the resort, but despite its lack of rustic-chic allure, I love my hotel and am sure my school children will love it too. I’m also sure they will hate what I hate about it. Not the fact that it’s got a great view, but the fact that it’s at the highest point in the whole resort, perched atop a hill of its own, with at least five hundred and thirty seven of those awful steel steps (I’m still counting them) to tread to get there. At least every ten stairs or so, I have to stop, to recover my breath and to force myself to keep going. I’m blaming it on the altitude, but the truth is that I’m just not fit enough. Amber was right. I’ve never done enough exercise and now it shows.
Gina, on the other hand, needs to be as athletic as a snail on Mogadon to make it to her place, because our flat is literally in her apart-hotel complex. The workers’ entrance to her restaurant is right next door to us. And I’m sure she’s fitter than I am, with such wondrous legs how could she not be? Where is the justice of her easy life compared to mine? I’m going to have to do this climb six days a week as of the day after tomorrow, at 7.45am when I go to meet my group for breakfast, and then for lunch and then dinner and possibly even some in-between times. Amber must be having a good old giggle from on high.
*****
“I’m pleased you’re back,” says Gina, when I finally return, slightly wheezing and blowing my nose. “I got bored without you and decided to be constructive.”
She’s sitting at the kitchen table, with her laptop open.
“I’ve worked out our daily schedule. If we stick to this,” she scrolls down the page so I can see, “we’ll be laughing. I reckon organisation’s the key to having loads of spare time.”
I sit down and take a closer look.
SAMPLE GINA/DANNI DAY
Key: Danni = D
Gina = G
* =
0730: D wake-up
0755: G wake-up……NB 25 minute extra lie in ha ha!
0800: Breakfast with group (D&G don’t eat)
0900: Ski School 2.5 hours (D & G check all kids go up the mountain unless they’ve a bloody good excuse e.g. broken leg/arm/collar bone)
0915 - 0930: D & G WORKING BREAKFAST Breakfast and paperwork in flat (D & G take turns buying brekkie from the boulangerie)
0930 – 1145: D & G free time HURRAH! (skiing/sleeping/*other?!
1200: Group lunch in hotel (D & G might not eat)
1345: Kids back in Ski School 2.5 hours
1400 – 1845 D & G free time again HURRAH! (lunch up mountain/skiing/sleeping/*other?!)
1900: Group dinner in hotel (D & G definitely eat – no cooking allowed in flat unless v special circumstances)
2000 – 2100: Four nights a week only – options with group/make lots of money!
(Broom Ball/Ice-skating/ten-pin bowling/crepe or fondue evening)
2100: D & G FREE
(NB: should one of our kids have a major accident this schedule no longer applies)
For the umpteenth time I realise how lucky I am to be here. What would I be doing back in London right now? No doubt I might have eventually found myself some dull, dead-end job. Half my peers are working round the clock, in the City, lawyers, bankers, and it seems the more hours they work, the less they get paid. Many of them are too busy to wonder whether they’re actually happy or not. The other half is at best doing jobs they’re ambivalent about, and at worse still unemployed. I only know two people who actually enjoy their work. One’s Hugo, the other’s a college friend who’s a model. M&S recently signed her to be their bra pin-up.
“So?” asks Gina. “What do you think?”
“I think if we actually stick to this, this could feel like one big holiday.”
“I need to find somewhere to print this up,” she says
“Good idea.”
