Turning over in bed, registering the current pain-free state of her lower half, she slowly opened her eyes, using her covers as a shield against the bright light coming from the curtained window. She was wrapped up like a mountain Sherpa, with only tiny slits for her to see through exposed to the cold of the room. Turning the heat off on a night saved the pennies, but it meant waking up in a brilliant white icebox. The glamping equivalent of an igloo. It made her even less inclined to jump out of bed with glee.
‘Jesus!’ She shrieked as her bare feet finally plucked up the courage to leave the comfort of her 13.5-tog duvet. Padding across the wooden floor, she looked at the view from her bedroom window. The same view she’d looked at for the past year, since she’d moved into the master bedroom. On the other side of the thick glass, the French Alps lay glistening before her. The snow-topped mountains were a dazzling white, the powder fresh and untouched yet by man. No tell-tale sweeping scars left from skis in the snow. It looked like a picture postcard. Something to make a person marvel at the wonder of the world they inhabited. Reaching for the curtains, which were thin and utterly useless white voiles anyway, she swished them closed and dived straight back under the covers. Shivering, she pushed out a hand and grabbed her mobile phone from its charging pod.
15 MESSAGES
2 MISSED CALLS
All from one person: Mum. Unbidden, an image of the woman who gave her life popped up in her head. Crying by Rebecca’s hospital bedside when she thought her daughter was sleeping off the powerful pain meds she was dosed up on. Medicine to keep her still, to let her body heal, recover. The whispered phone calls, her mother’s desperate voice as she tried to field the questions from the press. She could still remember her mother standing there, in the doorway of the private room. Rebecca had woken with the pain, and her mother’s anguished hushed tones from the other side of the room had filtered into her foggy head. Her mother was in the doorway, her back to the room. The stark white glow from the artificially lit corridor made her mother’s complexion look a little grey, her pale white pallor highlighted more by the trademark bright colours she wore. The woman had never met a Laura Ashley design she didn’t love.
‘Rebecca will be fine, and your headline is damn right wrong, Bruce. After all the years of professional competing, I think you know the calibre of the skier that we are talking about. The Ice Rebel is down, but she’s not bloody well out.’ Her mother pushed the last of her words out with a fiery flourish, her voice almost cracking with the effort. As the tinny voice of Bruce, editor of the latest tabloid to latch on to her very public accident on the slopes, nattered back into her mother’s delicate ear on the phone, Rebecca watched her mother. The fight had left her with those words, as she watched her mother sink into the visitor’s chair and lean her head against a wall. Right there and then, she made the decision that she’d been thrashing round in her head since …
The phone rang in her hand, and ‘MUM’ flashed on the screen. Rebecca let it ring off. It was far too early to deal with speaking to her right now. Not that her phone was blowing up these days.
The thought depressed her every time. Rebecca’s mum, and Hans, her boss and once flatmate, were the only people to ever call. And even that was mostly about work. Since Hans had moved out of his flat, leaving Rebecca as a sole tenant, he’d stayed close, checking on the café below. And his friend, of course. Alpine Bites was still his baby, and although his wife Holly grew larger with their first child every time Rebecca saw her, Hans was keen to keep an eye on his business. She flicked through the messages on her screen, each one firmer in tone than the last.
DARLING, CALL ME. MUM
HELLO?
JUST READ AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN ABOUT CHILDLESS WOMEN OVER 30. DIVORCE RATES TRIPLE!
This was her latest area of interest. A grandchild. Rebecca blamed Holly being pregnant for that one. Baby fever. Not that she resented Holly and Hans for being happy, for taking the next step to add to their family. She was happy for them and couldn’t wait to be an aunt. It just didn’t mean that her clock had started ticking yet. Besides which, she’d only just recovered from a shattered pelvis. Pushing an eight-pound baby out of her hoo-haa didn’t sound like a great idea at this time in her life. And since her split with Robbie, she hadn’t exactly been surrounded by sperm donor candidates anyway.
She shook her head in disbelief and read on.
COMPETITIONS MUST BE STARTING UP NOW. HAVE YOU ENTERED?
Rebecca rolled her eyes, her gaze falling on the stack of competition entry forms that had mysteriously arrived in the post. No postmark though. Funny that. Hans really had a soft spot for her mother, and she played him like a kazoo. Rebecca could only hope she didn’t ask him to drop off a jam jar of his finest, get the ball rolling. Grow your own grandchild from the comfort of your armchair. Wi-Fi connection required.
Not feeling up to reading the rest, she was about to delete the lot when she saw the next entry. Clicking on the screen to bring up the full text, her jaw hit the floor.
DARLING, DON’T FORGET. IF YOU WON’T COMPETE, THEN OTHER OPPORTUNITIES MIGHT ARISE TO THE RIGHT YOUNG PROFESSIONAL. YOU COULD DO TV!
An image of herself with a microphone in hand came to mind, watching everybody else have fun and fulfil their dreams, whilst she stood on the sidelines grinning like a Playboy
