running down his chin, a half-eaten pomegranate on the floor.
‘Good night, Suite Prince,’ murmured Kitty, who had done
At dawn she drifted into a heavy sleep in her armchair and was woken by the telephone. She remembered the clipped, contemptuous drawl from Rannaldini’s answering machine.
‘I thought Lysander was coming off-piste with me,’ said Rupert.
The fact that Lysander was apologizing sleepily on the same telephone a few seconds later did nothing to assuage Rupert’s suspicions. Lysander could use the money Kitty paid him as a gigolo to run after Taggie.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Kitty, feeding Lysander croissant spread with apricot jam as he groggily tugged on his yellow ski pants.
‘Somewhere he called Chute des Fantomes, Shoot to Kill, I dunno. I’ll ski down as fast as I can. At least I can bend Rupert’s ear about Arthur.’
It had snowed heavily in the night, blotting out yesterday’s footprints and ski tracks, putting five inches on the parked cars and President de Gaulle’s cap in the town square. Glancing out of the window, Kitty saw Rupert’s dark blue Mercedes draw up. Getting out, he looked as chill and menacing as the day. Suddenly Kitty was frightened.
‘Please be careful,’ she said, brushing crumbs off Lysander’s chin and handing him his sweat band.
Gazing down a cliff face steep as a lift shaft, three-quarters of an hour later, Lysander wondered why the hell he’d come.
Deliberately sitting two seats away from Lysander in the helicopter on the way up, Rupert hadn’t spoken a word. The putty-grey skies, liverishly tinged with yellow, presaged further heavy snow. A howling blizzard chucked glass splinters in their faces. Below, the skein of ski runs and the fir trees herring-boning the side of the valley blurred as the visibility grew worse. Far, far down, the houses of the village, one of them containing darling Kitty, lay like ants on the snow. Lysander’s yellow ski clothes were the only note of colour in the black-and-white magpie landscape. Rupert’s slit eyes through his dark glasses were anything but friendly.
‘OK?’ he asked Lysander.
Lysander nodded, teeth chattering far more from terror than the bitter cold.
‘I’ll lead the way,’ and Rupert was off, hissing down the valley like a falling meteor, hidden in a permanent spray of snow.
‘I love you, Kitty,’ shouted Lysander to the whirling snowflakes. ‘Dear God, take me back safe to her.’
And he was off, careering after Rupert, crouched like a jockey so low over his skis that his hands were higher than his face, furiously stabbing with his poles as he tried to recapture his old skill and adjust to the rhythm.
Within seconds, as Lysander streaked past him, Rupert realized he was outclassed. Although once almost Olympic standard, he was now nearly twenty years older and lacked the boy’s suppleness, extreme fitness and split-second timing. Rupert really had to force himself to keep up and all the time was aware of going far too fast as trees rushed to meet him and crevasses loomed below. Only by straining every muscle did he avoid catapulting to his death. Almost more goading was that, once in his stride, Lysander started enjoying himself, showing off his miraculous control by going into a series of long, bounding jumps like a lurcher trying to see over the barley, each time landing perfectly. Going so fast round the final bend, he lost a ski and carried on with one, shooting straight into the bar three-quarters of the way down the mountain.
He was waiting when Rupert arrived, giggling with nervous hysteria, his cheeks flushed, his hands round a glass of Kir.
‘Jesus, that was hairy. I thought the wind was going to pound me to bits. Thank Christ we’re in one piece. I got you a whisky.’
Rupert was absolutely furious with himself. He might never have seen Taggie, the children or his dogs again — just because he wanted to scare the daffodil-yellow pants out of this cocky little sod.
‘You come down the Ghost Valley today?’ asked the barman incredulously, putting a bowl of pretzels between them. ‘Mad Englishmen and dogs! You know why eet called that?’
Lysander shook his head.
‘Because so many people been keeled. At night their ghosts ski down mountain. Local people no go near it.’
The sun was hot now, melting the snow which splodged every fir tree like soap suds. Rupert clutched his glass of whisky to stop his hand shaking. The boy’s languid beauty, his rumpled brown curls, his big, generous mouth emphasized by white lipsalve, his endless legs up on the wooden table, only increased Rupert’s dislike and jealousy.
Not understanding why Rupert was looking marginally less friendly than a rattlesnake with a hangover, but desperate to placate him, Lysander said: ‘I thought Taggie, I mean Mrs Campbell-Black, was seriously beautiful.’
‘Which is more than can be said for Mrs Rannaldini.’
Refusing to be goaded, Lysander gazed into his glass. Mistaking stillness for passivity, Rupert became almost chatty.
‘Your hotel’s dripping with gigolo fodder. Surely you could have found someone more glamorous than that cow to pick up your bills. I appreciate there’s a recession on and you have to take what you can get.’ Draining his glass, Rupert waved to the barman to refill their glasses, adding to Lysander, ‘It’s OK, the rest of the run’s a doddle. I’m amazed Rannaldini’s married,’ the drawl was becoming slower and bitchier, ‘to such a boot. Did her face get stuck in a lift door? No wonder he doesn’t let her out before sunset. Still I suppose there’s no accounting for lack of taste.’
Next minute, Rupert found himself on his back on the floor of the bar.
‘Don’t ever speak about Kitty like that again,’ yelled Lysander. ‘She’s the nicest, sweetest, loveliest woman I’ve ever met.’
As Rupert fingered his jaw and pondered whether to throw Lysander out of the window down the precipice, he decided there was no way Lysander could be after Taggie if he leapt to Kitty’s defence like that.
After that, Rupert and Lysander skiied down the rest of the mountain and, in the course of getting rather drunk together, Rupert even confessed to his reservations about being a grandfather and cramping Taggie’s style.
‘I feel I’ve stolen her youth, but I hate any man that looks at her. I wanted to kill you this morning.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Lysander. ‘I’d have killed you if you’d gone on bitching about Kitty or tried to take her off me. Did you really think I was after Taggie?’
‘You couldn’t stop staring at her last night.’
‘I was staring at you.’ Lysander blushed furiously. ‘I’ve always hero-worshipped you — even more than Donald Duck. Look what Kitty made me.’ Proudly he unzipped his yellow jacket to show off his jersey.
‘Anyway, to go back to you, my parents had a terrible row because my father thought I was too young to be allowed to stay up and watch you win your bronze in the middle of the night at Colombia.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Seven.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ said Rupert wryly.
Swearing Rupert to secrecy, Lysander explained, in his confiding way, how he had amassed quite a fortune, admittedly totally masterminded by Ferdie, making husbands jealous.
‘But now I’m in love with Kitty I’ve got to find a proper job so I can support her.’
‘You could be a presenter at Venturer,’ said Rupert. ‘All you have to do is to read an autocue.’
Lysander shook his head. ‘You’re really kind, but I’m dyslexic. It takes me all morning to read the runners in the
Rupert was touched. Taggie was dyslexic and he knew what heroic efforts she had made to overcome it.
‘What I really want to do is work with horses,’ went on Lysander. ‘I’m going to get Arthur sound, and have one more crack at the Rutminster.’
‘Penscombe Pride’s going to win that,’ said Rupert. ‘But Arthur was a good horse, I remember him winning in Ireland.’
‘He still gets fan mail and Twix bars in the post.’
