The One We Fell in Love With (2 page)

But even though we look the same, and even though we came from the same, single, fertilised egg, we were separated into three before our mother even knew she was pregnant. And here’s the
crux of it: we were born three
completely different
individuals.

As time passed and our personalities began to shine through, Mum and Dad came to realise that we actually had very little in common.

Yes, we could all scream very loudly.

And yes, we were all extremely stubborn.

But that was about it.

Until we were seventeen, that is. Because when we were seventeen, Angus Templeton moved in next door. And unfortunately, all three of us fell head over heels in love with him.

Phoebe

When people say they’re living in the shadow of the mountain, it sounds kind of ominous. But there’s nothing ominous about this. The mountain is so close, I feel
like I’m
in
it. I can’t even see the top unless I sit down on the sofa, and then my eye line reaches right up to the snowy peaks. What I wouldn’t give to be up
there...

‘Why are you sighing?’

I jolt at the sound of Josie’s voice, glancing over my shoulder to see my best friend gazing down at me. ‘Nothing. I’m just happy to be back.’ I smile warmly.

It’s been almost ten years since we first came to Chamonix together at the age of eighteen.

‘What time did you get up?’ Josie asks, belatedly noticing that I’m fully dressed.

‘An hour or so ago,’ I reply, tightening my ponytail high up on my head.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ she grumbles, not expecting an answer as she flops onto the sofa beside me and yawns. Her medium-length dark hair is all tangled and her blue eyes look
half asleep. She’s still gorgeous, though.

‘Coffee?’ I ask, bounding to my feet and heading into the small kitchen.

‘Yes, please,’ she replies.

We only arrived yesterday, and last night we hit an old haunt and drank one beer too many. To Josie’s irritation, I rarely suffer with hangovers, but then again,
I
managed to
avoid being roped into the shots she did at midnight.

I switch on the radio and set about making the coffee, humming along to the music while she chills out.

‘What do you want to do today?’ she calls.

‘Climb a mountain.’ I poke my head around the door and flash her a hopeful grin.

‘Noooooo. No, no, no, no, no.’ Josie shakes her head adamantly and I continue with my task, chuckling to myself.

‘Sorry,’ she says, taking her cup from me when I reappear. ‘I don’t want to spoil your fun.’

I frown at her. ‘Don’t be silly.’

I’m getting married in two weeks, and all I wanted to do hen-wise was to come back here for a few days with my closest friend. I’ve thought a lot about Chamonix over the years, and
as Josie and I experienced it together, it felt right that we should return, just the two of us.

My sisters were a little put out at not being invited, but now they’ve made other plans. Eliza and I are going to see a band in Manchester and Rose has organised a spa day. It’ll be
great to have some one-on-one time with each of them. We don’t get to do that nearly enough these days.

‘So, aside from climbing a mountain, what else could we do?’ Josie perseveres.

‘Paraglide off one?’ I ask hopefully.

She pulls a face. ‘You know I don’t do extreme sports. I’m a boring mummy these days.’

Josie has a one-year-old son, Harry, back at home and this is the first time she’s been away from him.

‘How about we go on the Aiguille?’ I suggest. ‘You haven’t seen the top at this time of year.’

She went home towards the end of the winter season in March all those years ago, but I managed to secure a contract working on the Aiguille du Midi cable car. I loved life here so much that I
ended up staying on through the summer.

‘Okay, sure,’ she agrees, nodding. ‘Guess I’d better get cracking then. I assume we’ll have to queue for ages like all the other tourists?’

‘Mmm, unfortunately. I don’t know anyone who works there any more.’

The thought makes my heart squeeze.

A couple of hours later, we’re nearly 4,000 metres above sea level on the highest and most famous of the Aiguilles de Chamonix.

I feel giddy with elation. Or maybe it’s the altitude. Whatever it is, I’m ecstatic to be back.

‘Wow,’ Josie murmurs as we stand in quiet reverence on the panoramic viewing platform. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful it is up here.’

I gaze around at the jagged browny-grey peaks of the surrounding mountains. Mont Blanc is ahead of us and carpeted with snow, nonchalantly indifferent to the fact that it’s summer. It
looks deceptively close, but the way from here to its summit is one of the more technical climbing routes. I know because I’ve done it, as well as another route that is slightly less
challenging, but not to be underestimated.

‘I can’t believe you climbed the White Lady twice.’ Josie appears to be reading my mind.

‘Neither can I,’ I reply, as another of Mont Blanc’s nicknames comes back to me:
White Killer
... It’s hard to keep track of how many people have lost their lives
trying to reach the top of Western Europe’s highest summit, not to mention those who have perished coming back down again.

‘
Getting to the top is only halfway
’, my dad used to say. The thought of him here, now, brings with it a sharp sense of loss.

Dad died of a heart attack eight years ago, and I miss him so much, especially here in the mountains. He was the person who taught me how to climb.

Josie snorts with amusement, oblivious to the dark turn my thoughts have taken. ‘You are such a jammy git. Did you really get paid to stay overnight up here? What a view to wake up
to!’

I can’t help but smile again. ‘Well, there are no windows in the staff apartment,’ I tell her. ‘But yeah, it was pretty ridiculous walking outside in the
morning.’

When Josie and I first came to Chamonix, we started off as chambermaids, but when she went home, I set my sights higher – a
lot
higher.

I’d made friends with a few locals, and one of them, Cécile, worked here on the Aiguille du Midi. The likelihood of a non-Chamoniard securing a contract on the cable cars was so low
that it barely seemed worth applying – once you got a contract, you didn’t let it go. But my French was fluent and Cécile promised to put in a good word for me, so I sent in my
CV. When a couple of full-timers unexpectedly quit citing personal reasons, I got a lucky break.

It’s hard to convey how much I loved it. I had to do everything from manning the cable cars to picking up litter, but the icing on the cake came once a month, when two of us would be
guardians of the top, staying overnight in the staff apartment three floors down from where Josie and I are standing now. We were the last people to see the sun set at night and the first to see it
rise the next morning. The experience was unforgettable.

My thoughts flit away from me again and suddenly I’m on the footbridge, the sky tinged orange and the mountains jagged silhouettes all around. For a few moments, I let my mind drift,
before gathering myself together.

‘Let’s go to the ridge,’ I prompt Josie, bumping her arm.

Soon afterwards we’re in a shiny, dark, hollowed-out, frozen tunnel and, as I breathe in the cold air, I hear the familiar scritch-scratch of crampons on boots digging into densely packed
snow. In the oddest way, I feel like I’ve come home.

There are three climbers ahead, preparing to set off down the ridge, and as they make their way through the gate, I move out of the ice cave and into the light. I watch as they set off down the
narrow snow track, tethered together by rope.

‘Freaking nutters,’ Josie says under her breath, casting me a look. ‘And you’re a nutter as well.’

I smile a small smile. ‘It feels like a long time since I did that.’

‘You don’t really go climbing much these days,’ she observes.

‘Hardly ever,’ I reply quietly.

‘Do you miss—’

‘Yes,’ I interrupt, then smile at her properly. ‘I need to get my act together.’

She smiles back at me. ‘Plenty of time for that. What do you reckon, lunch?’

‘Good plan.’

Rose

Once, on a sleepover, I was playing a late-night game of ‘Truth or Dare’ and Becky Betts asked me to choose between my sisters.

‘You can only save one, and the other one will
die
,’ she declared melodramatically.

I didn’t hesitate to respond.

I still remember the look of shock on her face as she glanced at her sister Laura. Neither of them could believe my blasé lack of diplomacy.

But of course I’d save Phoebe. Everyone would, Eliza included.

It’s not that Eliza and I hate each other. We just don’t get on very well. We never have. She thinks I’m boring and uptight and I think she’s immature and
disrespectful.

‘You’re as thorny as your name,’ she never tires of saying. Or another variant: ‘Don’t be so prickly, Rose.’

If we weren’t sisters, it’s unlikely we’d be friends.

Phoebe, on the other hand, is like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. Her laughter is infectious.

Damn, I miss her. She’s only been gone two days.

‘You’re not taking that with you, are you?’ I ask Mum now, realising that she’s been holding the same china plate in her hands for at least two minutes.

‘I haven’t decided,’ she replies defensively, putting it down with a slight clatter.

‘You won’t need a formal dinner service in a smaller house,’ I point out pedantically.

‘I might do,’ she snaps.

‘You can’t take
all
of it with you,’ I warn wearily as she stalks out of the room. She stops abruptly in the hall, her face turned towards the front door. It breaks
into a smile.

‘Have you been busking?’ she asks over the sound of the door clunking shut.

‘Yeah, in town,’ I hear Eliza’s reply, and then a knock as she places her guitar case against the adjoining wall.

‘I thought you must’ve been at work. Come and have a cup of tea,’ Mum urges genially.

I roll my eyes. ‘Or better still, come and help!’ I call out, smoothing my hands over my floral summer dress as our mother heads spiritedly in the direction of the kitchen.

‘Do you want one, Rose?’ she calls out to me as an afterthought. She’s already put the kettle on.

‘Sure,’ I reply, as Eliza appears in the doorway.

She’s wearing ripped denim jeans with a bright orange vest top and her hair has been fashioned into pigtails.

The hairstyle is just one example of how she hasn’t grown up. Others include busking and waitressing instead of getting a proper job, going through boyfriends like they’re going out
of fashion, and still living at home. I could go on.

‘Seriously, are you going to help at all with this packing?’ I ask, as she slumps into a chair at the dining-room table. I’m kneeling on the carpet in front of Mum’s
display cabinet, wrapping yet another of her beloved ornaments in bubble wrap.

‘Why should I? I don’t want to move,’ Eliza responds sarkily.

I was the one who recently persuaded Mum to sell up and downsize.

Phoebe thought it was ‘probably a good idea’, but Eliza was just furious to be losing her free hotel room.

‘This is not about you,’ I point out.

She leans forward and rests her elbows on the table, gazing down at me intently. I shift uneasily, already bristling at whatever it is that she’s going to say.

‘Do you really have nothing better to do with your holidays?’ she asks.

I’m a nurse and I live and work in London, doing an often harrowing and stressful job. I would love to be lying on a beach right now beside my boyfriend Gerard in a hot country, but
instead I’m here in Manchester for the next two weeks, helping
our
mother to move, and
our
sister with her last-minute wedding preparations. What’s Eliza doing? A big
fat diddly squat, that’s what.

My father’s words ring in my ears:
‘Rose is a giver, not a taker. Just like her mother...’

Mum used to be a nurse – that’s how she and Dad met. Dad had a climbing accident and Mum nursed him back to health, but she gave up work when we were born. It was all hands on deck
after that.

‘I’m just saying,’ Eliza says, shrugging and looking away, dispassionately. ‘Some of us have better things to do with our time.’

I raise my voice. ‘
Some
of us need to get a proper job and stop scrounging off their elderly parent!’

‘Stop it!’ Mum barks from the doorway, making me flinch guiltily. The mugs on her tray vibrate noisily against each other as she continues. ‘You two turn into spoilt brats when
you’re together! When are you going to start acting your age?’

She has a point. We
are
twenty-seven.

‘Why don’t you go and make a start on the attic?’ Mum prompts me.

‘Fine, I will,’ I reply, grabbing my tea and flouncing out of the room in much the same manner as she did a couple of minutes ago.

When Phoebe and I were at university, our parents decided to turn our family home into a bed and breakfast. All of our childhood bits and pieces went up into the attic – even Eliza had a
tidy up, but she never moved out – and then Dad died and Mum lost interest in putting up strangers.

I’ve been meaning to sort through my stuff for ages.

On my way past the hall mirror, I catch sight of my reflection and see that my high bun has come loose into a ponytail – the no-fuss, sporty style Phoebe favours. For a split second,
it’s like I’m looking right at her.

She and I adopted our own hairstyles from an early age because we were fed up with our teachers collectively calling us ‘Miss Thomson’ when they couldn’t tell us apart. But
Eliza was responsible for me first embracing the bun.

I used to nick her scissors occasionally because I could never find mine, but one day she went mad because she had an art project due – some bizarre collage made out of cardboard –
and I told her I’d given them back. She stormed into my bedroom, vying for blood, and was so cross to see them sitting in my top drawer that she yanked my hair and snipped off a chunk. She
got into a
lot
of trouble for that.