Bad Girls Good Women (31 page)

It seemed to take hours.

With each step Josh was trying to work out where in the hideously changed landscape he had last seen Mackintosh.

At last the skis were within his grasp. He wrenched them out of the snow and jammed his boots into the bindings. The way ahead looked almost impassable but he pushed forward, staring into the hollows for any sign of the other skier.

He fell and fell again as he plunged down the slope, and then as he scrambled up again he saw the aluminium basket of a Tonkin pole identical to his own sticking up out of the tumbled mass. Josh hurled himself down next to it, kicking off his skis. He scrabbled at the snow, cursing his hands that seemed so ineffectual against the avalanche debris. He began to gasp with the effort as he worked and sweat ran down behind his goggles, almost blinding him. He glanced up once in desperation and saw black figures bouncing and sprawling over the snow. Help was on the way from the control point at the Mürren hut. He bent down again, working faster, and the ice tore through his knitted gloves.

Then, suddenly, his hand broke through into space. His bare, frozen fingers felt the smooth canvas of a ski-jacket. Josh hauled at the snow, dragging it in chunks away from the man’s body. He was shouting, without knowing what he said, ‘It’s all right. You’re clear. You’re okay.’

And then, like’ a miracle, the body was moving too. It shuddered convulsively and one shoulder appeared. Mackintosh was lying curled on his side, his arms raised in front of his face to make an air pocket, and his Tonkin pole thrust vertically over him.

Josh stuck his hands under the man’s armpits and hauled at him. The Scotsman’s head broke out of the snow and ice as the first of the rescuers reached them. His face was grey and ridges of snow and ice clung to his hair and eyebrows. His blue lips hung open, and he was breathing.

‘He’s alive,’ Josh yelled. His shout rolled over their heads, echoing briefly and then swallowed up by the heights. The rescuers flung themselves forward. There were shovels and ropes now, in place of Josh’s hands. He stood back, shivering a little, looking at Mackintosh’s face.

One of the Swiss officials was shouting something at Josh. He waved, and pointed on down the slope. Josh gaped at him, understanding at last that the man was telling him to go on. He had forgotten all about the Inferno. He shook his head impatiently. Mackintosh was all but free now. They were reaching gently, to lift him on to a canvas stretcher. Somehow, on their backs or on a sledge, they would carry him up to the hut. They had done it often enough before.

‘He is
gut
,’ one of the officials said. Josh lifted his head then. Racing away, out of his control, his imagination swept to the route down, beyond the avalanche. Mackintosh’s face had been hidden by the backs of the rescuers, but as they moved him Josh saw it again. His eyes were open, incongruously as blue as the sky. He was looking at Josh, and his lips moved.

Go on
.

‘
Ja, ja.
’ They were shouting and pointing again. They were telling Josh that he was to climb back up and walk along the flat to the control point, in order to restart his race from there.

Suddenly, Josh was moving. He snatched up his poles and hoisted his skis over his shoulder. He glanced at Mackintosh for the last time, and saw the flicker of a painful smile.

‘I’ll have to finish for us both, Alex,’ he shouted. ‘You do the same for me some other time.’

He was already on his way when one of the rescuers grabbed his arm. He was holding out his own gloves. Josh tore off his ruined pair and waved the good ones in a salute. Then he was off, up over the debris, his legs pumping like pistons.

At the control hut a DHO regular, Tuffy Brockway, had materialised. He clapped Josh on the back and Josh staggered.

‘They’ll credit you with the time you’ve lost,’ Tuffy roared. ‘It’s happened before. Esme Mackinnon stopped down at Grütsch to let a funeral go by. Took off his cap and stood to attention, of course. They gave him the time back.’

Josh barely heard him. He leaned on his poles for a second, gulping air and trying to steady his shaking legs. He looked down and was amazed to see other skiers skirting the worst of the avalanche. They were sliding and falling, but the race was still in progress.

A stopwatch clicked decisively beside him. Josh’s grip tightened on his poles and he flashed away. Ahead lay a steep drop, a rise up to Castle ridge, and then the hideous Inferno slope itself. Josh tried to shut off the pain that wrenched at his side, the memory of the thundering snow and Mackintosh’s deathly grey face. Alex was alive, and he wanted to stay alive himself. That was all there was room to know now. He was skiing again. A second later there was nothing in Josh’s mind but the way down, unfurling like a treacherous ribbon ahead of him.

At the Allmendhubel, Sophia looked at her wristwatch again. She was frowning. ‘He should have come through by now. And the man before him. If he’s going to stand any chance, he should be here by now.’

They stared up at the route until their eyes stung, searching for another of the black specks that would fly down to them and grow, faster and closer, until it became a man who swooped past them in a glittering plume of speed and ice.

The mountain was empty.

They stood in a huddle, not speaking. Julia’s hands and feet were numb, but she was watching too intently to stamp and clap to try to warm them.

Another minute went by, and stretched into five. No one came, and the other spectators began to mutter at one another, eyebrows raised.

Sophia murmured, ‘Something has happened.’

Looking up, Julia suddenly saw that the mountains were hostile. Josh was somewhere up in that high, white space. She was afraid, and she shivered. Without taking her eyes off the route Belinda put her arm around her. Gratefully, Julia huddled closer. The four girls drew together, waiting.

Then Felicity shouted, ‘Look!’

At last, a black speck appeared on the lip of a col high above them. The skier seemed to hang there motionless for a second, and then he came twisting down the huge slope.

No one spoke. ‘Is it him?’ Julia almost screamed.

Sophia shook her head. ‘Josh doesn’t ski like that.’

Another skier appeared over the col, and then another. The leader came closer, and Julia heard that he was shouting something at them. They crowded forward and she saw his mouth open, a black shape under his blank goggles.

‘Av—a—lanche!’

He was French and the syllables of the word sounded too soft for the images that exploded with it. He lifted his pole and waved it backwards at the white walls. And then he hurtled past them, on and down towards Winteregg below.

Julia did scream now. ‘What does he mean? Where is the avalanche?’

The other skiers passed, unrecognisable, but not Josh. Sophia’s ruddy face had turned grey-white. Julia understood that
avalanche
was something terrible. She shrank back against the wooden wall of the funicular station, feeling the splintery planks give a little at her back. They waited, still in silence, their faces all turned upwards.

And then, again, Felicity shouted, ‘Look!’

Julia knew at once that this one was Josh. He came, seemingly, straight as an arrow down the dizzying slope. Crouching low over his skis he didn’t swoop, bird-like, as the others had done, Josh had power, not grace. A wordless cry burst out of the girls and before the echo of it had gone Josh was whirling down to them. Julia glimpsed the red silk scarf wound round his neck, the white flash of his smile, and his pole lifted in a brief salute. An instant later he was past and they swung round to watch him carving a straight path down the fall of the slope.

Julia realised that they were all cheering and whooping. The icy air tore at her throat and there were tears of relief and excitement pouring down her face. She clasped Belinda in a bear-hug and they capered in a circle, laughing and gasping.

‘He’s not there yet,’ Felicity warned.

‘But skiing like that,’ Belinda answered, ‘he’ll not only get there, he’ll bloody well win.’

Down again, after the Allmendhubel. Josh had glimpsed Julia at the funicular station, but the thought of her had vanished from his head just as quickly. He was tiring rapidly and he was skiing through open country, over and down treacherous humps, and every atom of concentration and muscle power was needed to find the right route, the fast route. But he had come this far, and determination was like a tight wire inside him.

At Winteregg, he came to the railway line. A bigger knot of spectators waited beside a little tea hut and as he reached them a storm of questions in three languages broke around him. ‘Happy Valley,’ he panted. ‘Alex Mackintosh was hurt, but they’ve got him away now.’

Someone tried to pat him on the back but he ducked away and pushed on again. Beyond Winteregg was a kilometre and a half of flat country. His body felt like lead, but he clenched his teeth and poled on. He thought of Alex Mackintosh’s faint encouraging smile.

And then, at Grütsch station, the route dived downwards again. Josh took one gasping breath and pointed his skis down the slope. Beneath him, beyond the dense fir forests, was Lauterbrunnen.

Down.

The pain had spread to his chest now, and there was burning from his armpits to the top of his thigh. But still, there was the kiss of fresh powder under his skis too, and the clearings between the black trees opening like soft, white mouths.

If he was going to make time, he must do it now. Josh flexed his knees, lower, crouched into an egg-shape. The trees and the snow and the clearings flickered by, but suddenly they were no threat. Miraculously, forgetting everything that had happened, he was part of them. He was inviolable, spawned by the snow itself. The wind of his speed sliced into his cheeks. Josh could hear his own breath rasping in his chest. He was skiing faster and better than he had ever done in his life, and he was drunk on it. In that moment he was all-powerful.

The arches of the funicular loomed and flashed overhead. Still down, crossing and recrossing under the pylons. Then he was out of the trees and open grazing fields lay below him. Swooping across them, the seconds began to beat in his head. How long? How much further? He caught the warm, lowland smell of animal dung. He saw Lauterbrunnen, a frozen sea of snowy roofs. There was the station to one side, and a little road leading to it. The finishing line. Josh’s poles bit into the snow and he flung himself forward for the last time. He knew that he was exhausted now.

A dark knot of people spread across the snowy track ahead of him. He heard them cheering and half turned his head to look for the reason. As he swished over the finishing line he understood that they were cheering for him. The Swiss timekeeper clicked his stopwatch and Josh collapsed against a wooden fence. It sagged beneath his weight but it held him. It was just as well, because Josh couldn’t stand up.

The prize-giving for the 1956 Inferno was held at the Palace Hotel, Mürren. The room was packed with competitors, finishers and non-finishers, organisers and supporters. When Julia saw Josh she felt almost shy of him. She couldn’t manage to struggle across the room to him before silence was called for the results.

Twelve skiers had finished the course.

Julia clenched her fists, struggling to hear. She couldn’t understand any German, and barely a word of the rapid French. There was a lot of cheering and laughing. The Swiss race chairman peered at a sheet of paper. As he read out a name and a number there was a burst of clapping. The winner was the Frenchman, Gacon.

Beside Julia Sophia whistled. ‘Twenty-seven minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Bloody fast. But then he was through before the avalanche.’

Everyone knew about the avalanche. On their way up, the girls had heard that someone had stopped to dig someone else out.

Amidst calls for silence, the second and third placings were read out. Neither of them was Josh. Julia stared with dull disappointment at the back of the head in front of her. She had been sure that Josh would win, whatever Belinda and the others said. She didn’t see Tuffy Brockway stand up, but as soon as he started speaking her skin prickled.

‘In announcing the fourth, and incidentally the highest amateur, placing we have a special commendation to make. This competitor was caught by the avalanche in Happy Valley. Nevertheless he freed himself and went to the rescue of Alex Mackintosh. Alex is now in the hospital in Berne. He has a broken leg, some concussion, other uncomfortable but fortunately minor damages. His fellow-competitor reached him very quickly, and there is no doubt that he was instrumental in saving his life.’

Julia’s heart began to thump in her chest. ‘Once he was assured that Mr Mackintosh was safe, he continued the race. And finished the course in the remarkable time, once credited with the minutes he had lost in helping another man, of thirty-one minutes and seventeen seconds. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to applaud the courage and spirit of Mr Joshua Flood.’

Sophia and Belinda and Felicity cheered wildly with everyone else. Julia sat silent, stock-still, hardly able to see for pride.

Josh was presented with a commemorative Inferno medal. Tuffy Brockway pinned it to his dark-blue jumper for him. In the hubbub afterwards, it was Josh who elbowed his way through the crowd to Julia. Belinda clung to his arm and Sophia and Felicity kissed a cheek each. Julia just looked up at him.

‘Well done,’ she said quietly.

Josh held out his hand and she stood up. The room might have been empty as they looked at each other.

‘Will you do me the honour, ma’am,’ Josh drawled, ‘of accompanying me to the Swann Ball tonight?’

Julia pretended to consider.

‘I might,’ she said at last. ‘I just might, at that.’

He nodded gravely, and offered her his arm. They swept out together.

There was a string orchestra that played Strauss waltzes, and polkas, and foxtrots, and a wide, shining dance-floor. Julia had giggled as Josh led her out on to it. There was no bebop and certainly no rock and roll, but Josh had been properly brought up and he knew the right steps to the right dances. Julia only had to let him whirl her in grandiose circles.