Authors: Richard Blanchard
Snow Blind (15 page)
The helicopter blades chop insistently at the air above me, releasing a metallic roar into the valley. This unnatural sky-high platform must have heavenly views of the mountain massif, reaching across Italy, France and Switzerland. For a few moments it is the lord of this place; with nothing higher it flaunts its power. What a great vantage point to look into the souls of the people inhabiting the valley.
Juliet doesn't need to stare into my soul from above. She can usually see my truth, the one I always mask. Can she see that I have Sophia's love but it is without passion? I am sure that the flavour of my love would not delight her palate. How to describe it? If my love for Sophia were an ice cream, Juliet's tongue would push expectantly towards the cone, eyes closed, expecting the refreshing flavour burst of lemon sorbet, but getting the confused disappointment of Tutti Frutti.
Our group is gathered but apart. We have no option but to wait as Aldo is ten minutes late at the designated meeting point. Skiers have to squeeze past us, as we are awkwardly accumulated beside the ski lift. Kronk our resident Dutch giant and Mari Elena stand separately away from the four of us.
“Your ski suit is really nice, what make is it?” Juliet reaches across the divide to ease the discomfort of the young girl. How does this generosity of spirit come so easily to women? They dissolve boundaries of age or any chance of competition with a pure well-meant exchange of views on ski suits. A flurry of fashion information allows them to sympathetically climb inside each other's lives.
I stand unsure that I can prove myself again. Will I fall today? Will it matter if I do? I am taken back to my first days working as a copywriter for Max, holed up in a one-room office above a pastry shop on Eastgate Street. Every time he passed on a new client brief to me I would sit frozen over a blank sheet of A4 paper. Thoughts would come quickly, but my perverse desire to write something memorable would make me tragically halt. I would keep clicking my pen top back on just when I thought I had a breakthrough. I would be paralysed for days, clinging on to the comforting smell of sausage rolls from below, hoping that Max stayed away and failed to get more clients that I couldn't write any copy for.
It was my lack of productivity that made Max insist that I started to call anyone I knew who could possibly give us any business. I remembered Sophia, one of Juliet's friends from college, had an Italian family shoe business with shops in Manchester. I called her at home, having plucked up the courage to get the number from their office. She was genuinely pleased I had called and we talked for an hour and a half; I couldn't find the point to interject the real reason for my call without hurting her feelings.
We met in Manchester but it took six more nights out before I could ask without it seeming callous. At last in Henry's bar I asked if I could approach her father to talk business, but she instantly suspected an ulterior motive. Seriousness descended upon her face. I now know that she thought that it was an elaborate way for me to move the relationship on to the next level and meet her family. She respected my apparent directness. On a battered green studded leather couch she leant over to kiss me with a determination I had never felt before. I got the meeting with her dad after a five-course Sunday dinner at her house with every relative they could dig up. Importantly Centurion got its first reasonable client. Suddenly I could write just enough to justify my existence at work. Years later she gets to marry me.
“We move away from here!” Aldo has arrived without apology and signals us away from the ski lift. We line up in front of him further down the run.
“Ciao everybody. We don't have much time but maybe we stop for coffee in an hour so we meet each other. Everyone has good night? Everybody has boots closed?” He looks at me with affection and ridicule smirked across his face.
“Okay today we try more pizzas but start to ski parallel with two skis. We move un-weighted ski in to join weighted ski. Everyone okay? I show you.”
And so the procession leads off again leaving me last in line. I wonder if my emergent ski ability will have been erased overnight. I will wait for the first edge to engage before I believe I can still do this. If you think too hard there is no logic to having control on skis. I try to walk through the ski turn in my mind, you can do it, you can do it. Hip to the hill, shoulder to the valley. I attend to the permanent running of my nose, using the integrated nose wiper on my gloves.
Just let me go please. When I am instructed to follow I defy my instincts and push my body forwards towards the snow. I scratch unconvincingly around my first turn. Carving the omnipresent snow crystals, I nervously imagine each one is only a light beam away from extinction. I am sucking in air, flying into space. Growing willpower is defeating my logical fears. However, hypercritical self-judgement follows in my tracks. How fast am I going? How smooth was that turn? How do I look? Leave me in peace to ski.
“Here comes the beach boy,” Aldo greets my arrival. “Good stag, you are forward more, we allow the ski to do the work. Skis close to parallel, good, good.” I am getting somewhere. Juliet seems much quieter today. After three more practice runs we move on to Aldo's proposed coffee break; I admire his Italian lack of urgency.
Johnny and I take our coffee from a hole in the wall of the on-piste restaurant.
“You really came on there mate,” he says with surprise obvious in his voice.
“You are not so bad yourself. I wish we could just keep going now.” My praise tries to deflect what I think is true. I can ski.
“How is the track listing coming?”
“It's almost signed, sealed and delivered,” I confidently pronounce, revealing the five tracks to date like I am presenting an Oscar.
“Great choice, but there are so many essential artists to fit in. What about Kraftwerk, New Order, The Beatles, I could go on.” Johnny remains impressed that I can pin down such a mammoth task. He would never do it just in case any of the artists found out about their exclusion.
“Maybe I will start listing some other stuff for him, things I have done, places I have been and so on. I am going to make him proud of me one day.” I speculate.
“I have been meaning to tell you something exciting. I think I am close to getting a record deal. Would you believe it, Rough Trade is interested?” I had been so wrapped up in my drama that we had not even talked about him in the two days we have been here.
“They are still going strong, with Arcade Fire and Jarvis Cocker and such like.” He continues in unnecessary justification of their impeccable pedigree.
“That's fantastic mate, after all these years it might happen for you.” Johnny has written songs all his life and they have kept his dream alive. I can't stop a pang of raw jealousy that he might step out of our shared world of fandom.
“I will find out next week I think. You can be my road manager if you want.”
“Maybe mate, but I probably have to hold down the nine to five grind now I am getting married.” I keep falling into the middle-class plot that Joe Strummer so openly exposed.
Fourteen ski boots click clack back into their skis, prefacing our return to the lesson. I make sure I stick closer to Aldo, as the plateau becomes a slope again.
“Don't get too big for those boots Dan.” Juliet smacks my bottom gently with her ski pole and gracefully slides by to where Aldo has stopped. This is the top of the run I fell down, but with sun on the slopes and my ability on the rise I look forward to taking the test again.
“This is red slope, but we can all do this no? Keep behind my line and we will be okay.” That means we must stay away from the ice. Aldo skis over the lip Juliet had paused at yesterday and I follow them both this time. Push forward, weight on one ski. The danger is much reduced as my edges bite the snow and I can see well. The point of my fall is now acknowledged as a danger spot, guarded by two crossed poles dug into the snow. This is yet more vindication that the conditions, not my ability, defeated me twenty-four hours ago. The three of us stop with the lift in sight.
Further up the slope, Johnny is tailing Mari Elena whose salopettes are covered in snow. She is moving so slowly that it is very hard for him to stay behind her; she seemed so confident yesterday.
“What happened there?” I ask Johnny when they finally join us.
“She was just about to ski off at the top when you cut across her and she fell. She has been a nervous wreck on the way down.”
“Stag no beach bum now, he Franz Klammer.” Aldo lauds me, unperturbed by her accident.
Everyone is here except Kronk, who stands still as a tree at our point of departure.
“Come on Kronk you can do it, it's easy,” I find myself shouting in vain to him. The pecking order in the group has changed and on my reckoning I am at the top with Juliet now.
“Come on Kronk, we want to get some skiing done. He looks like a ski Bambi.” Steve shouts and laughs at him. “Come on you lummox.”
“Maybe Dutch no good at skiing as they never see hill.” Aldo joins in out of Kronk's earshot. Eventually he pushes off going as flat across the slope as possible. At the point of the turn he sits down on the snow, flops his skis around and gets up to traverse in the opposite direction. His legs are so far apart in a snowplough that he is in danger of being ripped in two. With the next turn he gathers some speed and heads straight at us.
“What are you doing?” He hits Steve hard at the top of our line and apologetically gets back to his feet.
“Okay it is easy run to lift now. We stop at lift and finish today. You follow now.” Aldo falls away with superb grace. I jump the gun on everyone else to follow him. This is great; I love this now, the sense of achievement rushes through my veins. I have never been so fast; my cheeks start to feel icy with the increased wind friction.
“My stag man, you start to ski parallel now.” Aldo gives me the approval I crave. I have beaten Juliet down for the first time. Maybe I can get something right for a change.
“Go left everyone,” Robert shouts directions to the group at the top of La Flegere.
“Go right Dan,” Juliet whispers as we move in the opposite direction.
“Dan, I said go left you fool,” Robert's ungracious squeal fails to affect me as he disappears from view.
“Let's hope they never find us.” Juliet proposed at lunch that we break away and ski alone together, which I secretly jumped at. The chance to ski with her and hone my skills away from the pressure of the stags was too good to be true. The oily Spaghetti Bolognaise well may have been re-heated at lunchtime but there was no evidence of leftovers from the group. Spring sunshine finally seemed to thaw the atmosphere of them all.
I move slowly down the slope while trying to re-fit my right glove as we go. My hopes on this Friday afternoon were to kick back before the onslaught of my stag party tonight.
“Can I help you Dan?” Juliet comes alongside.
“With what?”
“To ski of course; I can help you or we can just ski for fun.” I am a little taken aback. Wasn't I the fastest down the hill before lunch? What can she teach me?
“That would be great babe.” My refusal now may lead to embarrassment later.
“Going faster can delude you into thinking you have control.” Maybe she viewed my run prior to lunch not as successfully as I did. I feel equally ashamed and relieved that someone cared.
“When you think you are leaning forward, lean forward even more. It's all about commitment, skiing is so much easier the straighter you go. Follow me. Don't forget to smile though Dan.” She sets off and I concentrate on the path of her bob of brown hair. I double my effort to lean forward, which has such an incredible braking effect that I almost tumble over my ski tips. I ease off to find a compromise position, but my turns feel more secure.
The Brit quotient is turned up in the afternoon; they dutifully force themselves out to bash the piste from morning to last light to make the most of this scarce mountainous resource. Our mainland European cousins have mountains on their doorsteps and use the afternoon for lounging in deckchairs. Brits have the afternoon to practise the barked orders from the morning's ski school, to seek out the Holy Grail of the parallel turn. The rest of Europe taught their children to ski every Saturday afternoon. British kids were inside hiding from the rain, making papier-mâché mountains out of old Littlewoods catalogues.
“That's better; you committed more. You didn't force it; your ski worked for you.” Someone I trust knows the route and I am happy to be taken for a ride.
“Let's loosen your legs up now.” I follow her in trust as I have always done. Juliet is heading for the very edge of a blue run, where the snow is churned up and hard. She leads me outside the blue marker pole onto uneven snow for the first time; I am unnerved by it and quickly dart back onto the piste for security. She turns and waves an arm to tempt me back onto the road less travelled. I follow her again and am instantly re-cast back as complete novice. My skis cut into the lumps, which completely cover my boots. As I rise out of the snow I go faster again; I am concentrating so hard on my feet and leaning forward that I missed the fact that Juliet was skiing across my path up ahead.
“Hey Juliet,” my feeble announcement arrives just as I crash into her side, pushing the legs from underneath her. I contort myself to fall backwards, away from her, and splash softly into the un-bashed snow. My skis snap off in response to their contradictory directions. All my limbs are packed snugly into the snow, like a spread hand pushed into fresh dough.
I delight at Juliet's girlish squeal as she falls onto my chest. It instantly takes years from her, revealing the young woman not the mother.
“My legs are really loose now, babe.”