Chapter 14 #2
They hauled their quiver of skis from the van.
So maybe the visit didn’t fulfil its intended purpose.
Sure, they’d tapped in with their speedy passes, and loaded up on deliciously rich and smoky cortados while they waited for the T-bar lift that whisked them to the bracingly cold plateau of a perfectly groomed, pristine run, and they’d skied in parallel schusses in absolute peace, Florrie beating him down by a couple of seconds, during which she’d made a perfectly controlled stop and turned to face him with a look of simple happiness.
Everywhere there were modest queues for the lifts and crowds milling, but the resort was so vast the actual pistes didn’t feel jam-packed.
Florrie and Hamish were learning nothing about the business model, other than the fact that millions of pounds in investment results in slick systems, beautifully maintained runs, and obliging workers.
None of this was replicable or within Hamish’s reach; his ski centre being funded by the Regional Authority who had next to no enthusiasm to keep the place open.
The two resorts were worlds apart. Instead of being an inspiring visit, the contrast stung.
There was nothing here Hamish could even hope to replicate, not without cash, and lots of it, and not without higher altitudes and reliable snowfall.
Not now that winters were getting wetter and warmer at all levels, but especially low ones.
What the morning did achieve, however, was to remind Hamish how much he loved to ski (and the same was true for Florrie, by the look of her as she made off in search of the lift to the top of Devil’s Basin).
The sense of being on a vast white undulating blanket spread on top of deeply buried granite, the air sharp and fresh, combined with the exhilaration of speeding downhill, calling upon all his muscle memory and concentration, meant there was no room in his brain for anything other than staying in the moment.
And if he hadn’t been, at first, completely absorbed, letting go of his worries and just allowing himself to have a good time, Florrie’s grin persuaded him into a state of absolute surrender to the mountain.
It was a perfect morning’s respite in a horribly imperfect situation, and so he determined to enjoy it.
Florrie, it turned out, was a braver and far more competent skier than he was, as though she had been born at the top of a triple black run.
He found that his thighs burned with the unfamiliarity of tucking down to catch up with Florrie, who’d bombed down into Devil’s Basin, expertly navigating every mogul and mini jump, stopping only an inch from the padding, while he’d had to take his time or risk crashing out.
He had no choice but to settle in and enjoy the sounds of cutting through helmet-muffled air, the sensory assault of the bitter cold on the exposed part of his face, his heart working hard, his lungs chilled on the inside and his brain awed by recognising himself as little more than a tiny creature, insignificant against the vast mountain terrain.
It was perspective he so dearly needed today.
She’d wanted to buy him lunch afterwards but his mood grew cloudy as they tapped off the slopes with their passes.
‘I’d better get back to clearing that lockup,’ he said, feeling his sense of duty returning now they’d descended from the heavens. He was determined to leave his ski centre in as presentable a state as possible before Christmas, and time was of the essence.
They’d drunk from their water bottles as he drove them back in near silence, leaving behind the powder white world of Glenfoss, their ears popping once more as they reacclimatised to the stubborn grey, brown and green of the Cairn Dhu valley.
‘And you’re sure you won’t let me drop you off at the repair shop?’ Hamish was pulling on the handbrake right by the lockup.
Florrie refused his offer once again before doing a double take. ‘Hey! I never told you I was staying at the repair shop.’
‘Senga’s meringue cakes? The fact you walked here this morning?
And I’ve never once seen you call a taxi.
I figured it out.’ He looked pleased with himself and she concluded anything was better than the dejected Hamish of the past hour, even if his discovery meant he could see a little through her subterfuge.
‘I figured out a lot of things up in Glenfoss. There’s nothing like hurtling down a forty-degree gradient to bring some clarity.’
She unclipped her seatbelt. Why was there a strange burst of warmth and hopefulness blooming in her chest? What was she hoping he was going to say next? Whatever these sensations signified, she wished they would go away. She made her eyes rest upon his. ‘What did you figure out?’
‘That I need to be realistic about this.’ He dropped his head back onto the driver’s seat headrest with a heavy release of breath. ‘That I need to let go. Move on. This isn’t my ski centre any more, and it’s not the town’s either.’
The threat of tears cracked his voice. Hearing it, her hand flew to cover his on his thigh. His skin was cold. It made her forget her pose of steel. He didn’t move and he didn’t react, so she kept her hand there.
‘You’ve written your report,’ he said after a silent moment, still not looking at her.
She nodded, eyes falling to where they touched and, sensing that her touch was no comfort to him whatsoever – after all, what lamb is comforted by the presence of the wolf? – she pulled her hand away. ‘I’m sorry.’ She wished the word was good enough to get across all the ways she meant it.
She had to fight the impulse to spill the things she’d been hiding, now that her job was finished.
She wanted to confess, I’m Florrie Norheim, and until last month I’d never so much as created a spreadsheet.
I’m my dad’s daughter, yes, but I’m also my mother’s, and she’d hate that I was doing this to another person.
And I’m not cut out for cutthroat business decision-making, or at least, I’m not cut out for witnessing the consequences.
He had his gaze fixed on the mountaintop behind the ski centre now.
‘I’ll go.’ Her fingers were on the door handle.
‘Hey, I have an idea,’ he said in a low tone. ‘Someone needs to make the last run down the dry slope.’
She turned to face him. ‘Who? Me?’ Alarm surged through her, and something else too; the realisation that she wanted to spend just a little more time with this man. But wouldn’t that be cruel? Twisting the knife?
‘Us,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you can make the decision to close a vital town utility without trying it out first.’
That hurt, just as it ought to.
She hesitated.
‘The sun’s going to set in the next half hour,’ he told her. ‘View from the top’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Will you do it?’
He was right. She should experience everything so that she could express in her report exactly what it was this town was losing.
Something in his blue eyes brightened to see her coming round to the idea, and it hurt all the more to see how much this parting gesture would mean to him.
‘That’ll be seven pounds ninety,’ he said, having displaced Kenneth from his spot behind the ski shop till.
‘Oh! Right.’ Florrie hadn’t expected this, and patted her pockets for her wallet.
‘No freebies accepted, right?’ A touch of vengeful wickedness curled his lips but his eyes told her he was only being playful. Maybe the bravado was helping him get through this.
She smiled back, and unlocked her phone to pay.
Kenneth, bemused, his arms folded, watched on.
‘Is there anyone else out there, Kenneth?’
‘We had a learner and a ski coach at noon, and a group of lads just left. You’ll have the place to yourselves now.’
‘You might as well get home early to Annie-Beth.’
For a moment, Florrie thought with horror she was about to witness Hamish telling Kenneth he may as well not come back, the place was closing down.
A cowardly relief washed over her when Kenneth bid his boss (and, pointedly, not her) a dry sort of ‘Cheerio’ and lumbered out into the rapidly falling winter twilight.
‘Sorry, he’s just…’
‘Don’t apologise,’ Florrie cut in. ‘He’s absolutely right to be hurting. I’m the enemy.’
‘No, you’re just the messenger. And it was a message we should have heard for ourselves long before now.’
‘You don’t have to be so generous with me. I feel terrible, if that makes you feel any better?’
‘Actually,’ he said, not at all arch or snide, as she felt she deserved. ‘It really doesn’t.’
For a strange beat, during which Florrie didn’t know how to arrange her features, they returned each other’s looks in silence.
‘Come on, boot up,’ he said. ‘Sun’s setting.’
‘Think of how many people learned to ski here over the years,’ Hamish said, out of breath from the grassy climb to the top of the dry slope.
No shiny new magic carpet lift or T-bars for Cairn Dhu.
‘And how many people rode the old chair lift, when it was working.’ There was awe in his heart, tinged only with a little sentimentality.
He tried to dial it back, so as not to prod at the guilty feelings Florrie had laid bare.