‘Or me.’ Rita’s face still bore the ‘what if’ expression from earlier on. ‘But I noticed Paul looking at you, too, Paolina.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘Annie, can I ask you something? What about you? Are you all alone or have you got a boyfriend or a husband? You’re very pretty, you know.’
Annie took a deep breath. ‘I used to be married, but my husband was killed in a rock climbing accident.’ She stopped to take another breath and was pleasantly surprised to have been able to speak about Steve’s death in an almost normal voice.
‘Oh, how awful.’ Rita and Paolina exchanged glances. ‘When did it happen? Were you married long?’
So Annie told them the story. And, for once, she managed to tell the whole tale without breaking down. She told them about how she and Steve had first met at an excruciating drinks party at the British Council, how they had got married in a little church near her parents’ home in South Devon, how they had lived so happily together in Turin until that awful day. But, this time, as she told the story, she found she was recounting it factually, almost emotionlessly, almost dispassionately. And, as she told it, her eyes swept out over the snowy slopes, up the valley towards the high Alps. The sun was reflecting off the ice on the rocky summits, sending sparkling rays out in an explosion of light that disappeared into the vastness of the cloudless sky. The powerful and almost terrifying beauty of the scenery reached deep inside her and a sense of unexpected serenity spread throughout her whole body. She suddenly found she was smiling across the table at the two girls. ‘I loved him dearly, you know, and he loved me, but the mountains were in his blood.’
‘How awful for him, and for you.’ Rita was appalled. Annie managed to keep the smile on her face.
‘It was awful, really awful, but what’s done is done. I can’t bring him back, however much I’d like to.’
‘Oh, Annie.’ Paolina didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s all right, Paolina. Life goes on. It’s taken me two years to realise it, but I know that now.’ And she meant it.
When it was time to leave, they ran into a problem. First Paolina and then Annie went downstairs to the basement area of the restaurant in search of the toilets. They found them all right, but the queue of desperate-looking women waiting to take their turn was so long, it reached halfway back up the stairs. They looked at each other and Paolina shook her head. ‘Looks like a long wait.’ She gave Annie a little smile. ‘And I’m not sure I can last that long.’ Annie felt the same way, so she came up with a pragmatic suggestion.
‘Into the woods?’
Paolina nodded and they climbed back up to break the news to Rita. They left the terrace and went across to where they had left their skis. Once they were all clipped in again, Annie led them off down the slope. She scanned the trees on either side of the piste until she saw a likely spot. A couple of ski tracks ran into the trees along what was probably a path in summer. She slowed, glanced back at the others and pointed, then skied into the trees for ten or twenty metres until they were safely out of sight of anybody on the main piste.
Paolina wasted no time in stepping out of her skis and disappearing behind a bush. The snow was so deep she had trouble walking in it, but such was her desperation, she struggled through it until she reached her objective. Rita kept guard while Annie sidestepped across to a thicket on the other side of the track. Having seen the trouble that Paolina had had, she decided not to unclip her skis. She took a good look round, pulled down her trousers and squatted, praying that nobody would choose that moment to come skiing down the path.
She had just about finished doing what she had come into the trees to do when, to her horror, she saw something charging straight towards her. She just had time to realise that the big black shape was a very friendly Labrador, when the dog reached her. He was clearly delighted to find her down at his level and he put his paws up on her shoulders and set about licking her face. She put up her hands to fend him off, but he was insistent. Unfortunately, the effect of this weight suddenly pressing against her began to push her backwards. She felt herself moving, slowly at first, but gradually gathering speed, and she realised she was sliding backwards towards the main piste. She ran over a clump of some kind of plant, probably heather, covered in snow, and got a frozen, wet bottom as a result. She had ditched her poles so she scrabbled desperately at the passing branches until, mercifully, she managed to get a grip on something solid enough to arrest her descent. She glanced up and around her. The dog had stopped following her and was sitting in the snow, looking on with what could have been a smile on his face. Another six feet and she would have emerged onto the open mountainside, bare bum on display for all to see. As it was, she was still just about hidden and was able to pull up her trousers without being spotted by anybody. Well, almost anybody.
From behind her she heard hoots of laughter as Rita and Paolina followed her trail in the snow. As Annie got to her feet and zipped herself up, her face glowing with embarrassment, Rita handed over her poles, still unable to utter a word, such was her mirth. Behind her, Paolina concentrated on petting the dog, her shoulders shaking as she creased up with laughter.
‘Well, that’s a lesson learnt.’ Annie was conscious that some of the snow, if not the heather, she had run over was still sticking to her under her clothes and she felt it begin to melt. It was an uncomfortable feeling. ‘Always, always, always take your skis off before having a pee.’
‘Oh, Annie.’ That was all Paolina managed to say. The dog, in the meantime, came lurching through the snow towards Annie and stood up on his hind legs to greet her once more. She looked down at his collar and spotted the same medallion she had seen before.
‘Well, Leo, it would seem you’re fit and well again.’ Instinctively, she looked around, just in case the man with the blue eyes might appear. There was no sign of him and, although this meant he hadn’t been around to witness her recent debacle, she felt a sense of disappointment. ‘Just you watch out next time you decide to cross the piste.’ She grinned at the other two. ‘And I’ll be sure to watch out next time I have to pee in the snow.’
In spite of a strong coffee after her salad that evening, by ten o’clock Annie was feeling really tired and she headed for her temporary bedroom. Without turning on the light, she made her way across to the window and looked out into the night sky. This room was on the west side of the building and the view from the window was amazing. It was a crystal-clear, moonlit night and, to the left, she could see all the way down the valley, the steep sides rising up like walls, while, to the right, her eyes could make out the high Alps beyond which lay the French and Swiss borders. Ahead of her, snaking up the mountainside, was the road to Montalto, with faint clusters of lights marking numerous little hamlets dotted across the mountainside. Headlights showed tiny, distant cars picking their way down from the ski resort to the valley floor. Higher up above them, as Annie’s eyes acclimatised to the dark, she made out sheer, snow-covered peaks that stood out like pale ghosts against the sky. The sky itself was a deep velvety blue, almost a violet colour, studded all over with stars. It was a stunning view and she leant forward, rested her head against the freezing glass, and stared and stared, as memories came flooding through her brain.
Her thoughts turned, as they had done so often over the last two years, to Steve. Somehow she had always feared that his hobby – more of an obsession, really – of mountaineering might be the death of him. She would dearly have loved him to give it up, but she knew it would have been unfair to ask it of him. He had loved the rocks and mountains and, in a way, the manner of his death had been what he would have wanted. His death had been a freak accident when a rock fall tore him and his rope from the cliff face and sent him crashing two hundred metres to instant death. If she had insisted he give up climbing he might still be alive today, but would he be happy? The stars twinkled down at her and memories flooded her brain.
But then, out of the blue, another image entered her head. This was a different face; a face with strikingly bright blue eyes. She blinked a few times, but the image stayed clear and true before her. She shook her head and tried to rid herself of the vision by concentrating her attention on the mountains before her, but all that happened