Chapter 3

DAY One – Sunday:

“Skiing is 50% effort, 50% skill and 50% blind faith.” Abi explained to her friends as they joined their classes.

“See you at lunch time. Love ya.” And she was off. She was skiing with her father in the morning. They watched as the two skooted towards the first lift, she glided over the snow while he poled to keep up.

“Fuck! She is really good.” said a voice behind them. Rupert answered

“Yes” before looking round and seeing Lucy. They all went to their classes. Even Keith and Melanie were having lessons. They had skied before but felt some refresher would help. Abi’s mother had opted to start slowly, She would meet Trevor at lunchtime and then they could all ski together. So the morning was spent being reminded to ‘bend ze knees’ and ‘make some progress’ (go faster). Rupert especially was rapidly realising that understanding the physics helped. Mary and Amelie tried to go slowly and in control and then do better turns; it didn’t work. He allowed himself to go faster than he wanted and then the skis turned with him. When they met at lunch time (they were in different classes), he tried to explain what he felt:

“As you go faster, you can’t move each ski round separately, you have to start doing them together, there isn’t time to do each one.”

“Oh, Mr Expert after one day, one HALF day on the slopes. Typical bloody man ... oh hi Lucy! Had fun?” Mary shouted.

“We’re just waiting for Abigail and telling Rupert that he’s an arrogant SOB.” she laughed.

“It was horrible. The instructor was horrible. The slopes are steep. The skis don’t work.”

“Come and join us. Rupert was just giving us the benefit of his 2 hours experience.” Mary replied. Lucy sat down.

“You want a coffee? No I’ll get it. You can listen to the lecture. Now, is it Cafe au lait or Cafe Creme? I don’t understand.” Lucy looked from one to the other, the only time she’d seen people be so happily rude to each other was when they spent half their time in bed together (another cousin and his lover). She couldn’t make it out; she knew they weren’t sharing a bedroom or a bed in the apartment. Amelie came back from the bar with two hot chocolates.

“I was just getting one and saw you, I thought you needed this.” Rupert put his arm round her, she was nearly crying.

“It isn’t so bad, not really. You just need to get used to not being in control. Come with us this afternoon. Mary and Amelie are so slow I swear we were overtaken by ... oh, I was going to say a snail. Not many snails here.”

“You weren’t even in our class! You cheeky bastard! But yes, come with us. We’ll be doing greens and blues and coffees; not necessarily in that order.” Once again, she could see the sexual frisson between them all. They took the rise out of each other like lovers; like her mum and dad too – and she knew they were deeply in love – she couldn’t quite work it all out.

“I’m supposed to join Mum and Dad, but I could ask if they’d mind. Can Linda come too?”

“Of course.” all three said together

“Can’t leave her with the oldies can we?” added Amelie. At that moment, Abigail was seen, she was coming down the training slope that reached the square. The slope was crowded with people going in all directions, some fast, some slow, some efficient, some hesitant. Watching her, the slope could have been empty, she just floated across the snow like she was alone and just doing turns for the pleasure of it. Then she just carried straight on towards them like a jet plane. She stopped inches from their table.

“Hi! I saw you as I was coming down. Bit crowded isn’t it? Hi Lucy, okay? So, what’s the choice? We eating in one of these cafes or ... if you fancy somewhere nicer we could go up Delacroix – the lift over there at the bottom of that slope – and then ski down to Mont Blanc. It looks nice. Whatcha say? The slopes aren’t hard, honest.”

“Abi, we’ve seen you ski, nothing is hard for you.” Rupert said.

“Oh, Rupert, how insulting for Abi; surely that isn’t true?” Amelie laughed a sexy, dirty laugh and Lucy was surprised that the other two girls laughed too. It took her a microsecond to realise they weren’t talking about skiing anymore. She was sure now, somehow, they were ALL lovers. But how? Lucy went off to find her sister and her parents, she said she’d be back in five minutes. That stretched to ten and then fifteen before they appeared.

“Sorry, parents took some persuading. They thought we’d get lost or crash and break a leg, or something. But I promised that Abigail would be with us. As well as a ‘MAN’”. She looked at Rupert and rolled her eyes. Everybody, even Rupert, laughed.

“Well,” Linda added

“Daddy did. I think Mummy was more concerned that without us she’d be expected to ski non-stop for the next four hours.”

“Right! Come on.” Rupert said.

“I’ll lead the way ... oh, Abi, which way?” He was laughing again. They all got on so well.

“Don’t leave us behind.” Abi and Amelie set off across the square, there was slight slope down and Abi just skated a little to get up speed while Amelie poled furiously to build up speed. Lucy was with Mary

“They look good don’t they?”

“Well, Abi looks good because she looks effortless, and she has a good bum. Amelie looks good because she looks good whatever she wears, and she has a fantastic bum – as you can see!” A couple of male skiers watched as she went past. The two girls smiled.

“I’m telling you the truth! She looks amazingly sexy in her school uniform; everybody in the top year just throws it on and doesn’t care. So does she, but then I’ve seen the teachers turn to look at her if they think nobody’s looking. She will drive some man to suicide I’m sure.”

“Rupert’s nice, isn’t he?”

“He is ... he’s something special. He is a dear dear friend.” And more, thought Lucy.

“And ... well he’s very nice. He cares, I think that’s the point. When he put his arm round you, it was well meant. He isn’t pushy or predatory; and he ... well he’s quite secretive. No, that’s not right. He keeps things private that should be; he doesn’t tell his boy friends everything. I don’t mean boy friends, he isn’t gay. Definitely not gay.” Lucy looked at her, she understood that what Mary had just said was confirmation. That was not a ‘definitely not gay’ as far as I know, that was a ‘definitely not gay’ given what we’ve done in the past. Oh, this could be an interesting holiday after all. Behind them, Rupert was skiing across patiently with Linda who was not sure what she had agreed to.

“Supposing I can’t cope? Supposing it’s too steep? Supposing -”

“You’ll be fine. I’ll make sure you aren’t left at the top of the slope on your own. Relax and enjoy it.” He put his hand behind her, putting it on her bottom as the centre of gravity and gave her a push to help her along. If he was unaware of the tingle that she got from that then he should have been. She was falling in lust with him. Abi was half right; it was a lovely restaurant. Half a million other people thought that too so it was packed. Luckily a table outside became vacant and two were left in possession whilst the rest went to get six Croque Monsieur and a mixture of Cokes and coffees.