‘Well, don’t “just say”. It’s not like I was about to skim a few Euros from some bloke’s wallet. Heck.’ She put the wallet back where she found it, and then for good measure hid it under a pair of old ski gloves that were lying on the counter. ‘They left really fast. I mean really, really fast.’
‘That’s what worries me. Here, these are done. Grab yourself a pair of fancy poles and we’re away.’
They trudged through the snow carrying their new skis on their shoulders until they reached the church at the top of the hill. The streets hadn’t been cleared of snow since the evacuation, so it was an easy thing to step into their bindings and slip straight down the main road, gliding through the village to the chairlifts on the south-facing slopes. Then they had to walk for a hundred metres or so to reach the lift station.
The station was utterly silent and muffled under the recent fall of snow. Even now, though the snowstorm had long subsided, a few tiny flakes still fell around them, feathering the old layers of snow covering the roof of the station shed. Jake stepped out of his bindings and pushed at the station door.
The door was stuck, frozen. He put his shoulder to it and it flew open. The air inside was still warm, as if the heating had been left running. A couple of dull green and red lights shone from a grubby console by the smeared window, alongside a shallow bank of switches. Someone had left a pack of cigarettes and a plastic lighter on the console desk.
‘Do you know how to do it?’ Zoe asked.
‘It looks pretty much like the drag-lift equipment.
There was a nice big fat button there but I don’t see one here.’
Jake went out of the station and entered the pine shed where the giant wheels and steel cables gleamed with black grease. He stared at the immobile row of sullen chairs waiting to move through the half-light on their endless loop. As he skirted the machinery he saw what he was looking for: a row of buttons and a huge emergency stop switch. He pushed the buttons hopefully but without result. When one of the buttons triggered the sound of an engine powering up and an immediate clatter of moving parts, he startled himself. The chairlift didn’t move, however. The engine hummed loud in his ears as he looked for a way to send the chairs on their journey up the mountain. He saw a brake that was holding them back, and released it. Then he discovered a lever that cranked the giant overhead wheel. When the wheel began to move, so did the chairs.
Zoe had come out of the operator’s cabin and was getting back into her skis. He wanted her to wait for the chairs to complete a full loop, so that they could be certain they were safe. She was less patient. Then he suggested that they take different chairs.
‘Why would we do that?’
‘Because,’ he said calmly, ‘if the lift stops and there’s a healthy interval between us, at least one of us might be able to get down and do something to help the other. Whereas if we’re both stuck up there, swinging in the wind, there’s nothing we can do.’
‘I don’t see the logic. I mean, if we both happen to get off at the end just as the lift stops, then we’re in a better position than if one is safely off and one is stuck up in the air.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘No more ridiculous than your idea. It’s just random luck. Random together or random separate. We’re still subject to randomness. I’d rather we face that random together.’
There and then, in the deserted ski village, with the chairlift engine whistling over their heads and the empty, icy, snow-covered chairs proceeding up the snowy mountain one by one, they had an argument about randomness.
‘After everything that’s happened to us, I’d rather we climbed in the same chair,’ Zoe said. ‘For fuck’s sake, I can’t believe we’re arguing about this!’
Jake sighed and shuffled along to form up with his skis. They stood side by side waiting for the next sixman chair to come around, and as soon as it bunted the backs of their knees they dropped into position. Jake reached for the safety bar and pulled it down.
They ascended the slope in silence.
It was a long chairlift, and secretly both were wondering what they would do exactly if the chair
As they made their ascent, below them the build-up of snow on the branch of a pine would reach its limit and trigger a sudden spray of snow. Other than that there was no movement anywhere.
‘So quiet,’ Zoe said, if only to resist the baleful murmur of the wind in the pylons.
The chair juddered as it approached the penultimate pylon and tilted into its descent. Jake lifted back the safety bar. They shuffled their bottoms in the chair, readying their skis to glide off at the lift terminal. When they did so they hit deep snow and came to an abrupt stop. Normally the dismount point was packed and maintained by lift operators.
‘The piste is going to be deep,’ Jake said.
‘We’ll take it steady. Are you going to shut off the lift?’
‘I’ll leave it running.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Why? Why? Are you going to contradict everything I say?’ At least he was smiling about it now. ‘Why do I get a whole lifetime of why why why?
‘It just seems… a waste of energy. We should shut it off.’
‘I want it to stay running. I want people to know we’re here, okay? Stop trying to be top banana about everything, will you?’
‘You’re the one who does top banana.’
‘Listen to that! That’s such a top-banana statement. Can’t you see that?’
‘Can we just look at the map, please?’
Jake shuffled across to where Zoe was studying her map.
‘It’s not difficult,’ she said without looking up. ‘We go halfway down the piste, then cut off on this track through the woods. After a while we should meet a winding road—probably a lumber track—through the forest and we can follow it all the way to the next village. There won’t be any traffic to worry about.’
Jake fixed the retaining straps of his ski poles over his wrists.
‘Wait,’ Zoe said. ‘Take a moment to look at this, Jake. People would pay a king’s ransom to be here on virgin snow with no one else about. In fact you couldn’t buy it. No one can. Look: it’s so beautiful.’
Jake snorted. Here they were trying to get out of the place with their lives, but she was right. There wasn’t a track anywhere to be seen in the light, powdery snow. The grey, pregnant clouds loured above them, but there were blue smudges in the sky. A transforming power had breathed over the land and turned it into a perfect wedding cake, and the two of them were now perched on the top like a marzipan bride and groom.
‘Kiss me,’ Zoe said.
His lips were cold but she wanted to thaw them with her kiss. She didn’t want to pull away, but eventually Jake did. She blinked at him. For a moment she thought she saw something strange reflected in the black glass of his pupils.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Come on. It’s a black slope but it doesn’t look too steep,’ she said. ‘Just make sure you don’t miss the turn.’
‘Sounds like I’m following you again. Fucking banana-face.’
They plunged across the slope, and the snow was thick and crusty on the unprepared piste, but it represented no challenge to their abilities. Their skis ran a little slower, but the snow peeled away from the blades of their skis with a soft, sensual whisper. It was possible, on the deserted slope, to make wide, wheeling, swooping turns and leave perfect parallel tracks behind. Within a couple of minutes they were already halfway down the run. Zoe had drawn up at the side of the piste.
Jake came gliding to a stop beside her.
‘Enjoy that?’ she asked.
‘Oh yessir.’
