Diana Glass
The Help
Everything looks different in the morning light. The valley far below is sunk in deep blue shadow but up here the sun scatters every surface. The snow appears the brightest, most perfect white – its surface marred only by the tracks of nocturnal animals both clawed and hooved.
Mrs Bantry said she would rise late and breakfast in her room but I’ve already been up for a couple of hours, using the time to explore the hotel and its grounds.
I’ve walked the three floors of bedrooms and all the communal areas below, learning how they connect to one another.
I’ve found the hidden rustic bar beyond the main bar, the ski room and lockers beneath the hotel, the padlocked cellars for the (extensive) wine collection, and even the cheese cave, where the Grand Alpine matures its own Vacherin.
Before this I paced the twenty-minute walk to the spa building, and had a quick look inside the small bare chapel tucked away to one side of the hotel, where the nuns congregate.
Now I know the geography of the place I can be even more efficient in my duties here.
It gives me a pleasing sense of order and control, knowing the lie of the land.
Now, I walk towards the small train platform, the light covering of snow on the path stiff and squeaking beneath my boots.
I am going to take a train down to town in search of some Darjeeling – Mrs Bantry’s favourite.
I am determined to complete this small task.
I like to feel useful. I am not sure I have felt truly useful for the last few years.
‘Good morning!’
I turn to see Anthony and Catherine Narracott.
He carries, chivalrously, both pairs of skis over his shoulders.
His hair glints reddish-gold in the sun.
He looks like a hero from a wartime poster: all vitality and derring-do, or an advertisement for Alpine tourism.
In his hand he holds a steaming flask. His wife, meanwhile, is a vision in a tailored grey wool jacket and ski salopettes, a dove-coloured cashmere snood about her head and slanted dark glasses shielding her eyes.
I suspect she might be wearing them even if the sun weren’t shining.
There’s a sphinx-like reserve to her. It has a presence, seems to surround her like an invisible shield.
I wonder if even her husband gets beyond it.
‘Not skiing?’ Anthony Narracott asks me.
‘No,’ I say, my gaze going back to him. ‘I’m taking the train down.’
He frowns at me. ‘Have I seen you somewhere before?’ Then: ‘Wait – I’ve got it! You’re travelling with the two elderly treasures, yes? A granddaughter?’
‘Paid companion,’ I say, waiting for his expression to change as his estimation of me falls. To his credit it doesn’t.
‘What does that involve?’
‘Oh – running errands, providing conversation, helping out with itineraries, that sort of thing. At home it’s more secretarial work and things like booking this holiday …’
‘Noble work!’ I don’t think he’s being facetious. Then he peers at me. ‘My wife was right. You are younger than I thought.’
‘Oh,’ I say, and can’t think of anything else. What is one supposed to say when a man makes such a pronouncement?
‘Well. I do hope you have a chance to get out on the slopes. Nothing better for the soul than racing through thick powder on a winter’s morning. Have you spent any time in the mountains before?’
‘A little,’ I say. ‘But it was rather different to this.’ I gesture to the hotel in all its quiet luxury.
He chuckles. ‘Well, yes. There is nowhere quite like this.’ He points at the camera round my neck.
‘A photographess! Of what?’
‘Excuse me?’
He smiles, but there is nothing of the charming politician in this smile. It is a vulpine grin, showing too many teeth. ‘What do you like to photograph?’
‘Well ? landscapes, mainly. Some of the wildlife, too.’
‘Oh? But what wildlife can there be at this altitude?’
I stand a little straighter. ‘That’s what I’m looking to discover,’ I say. ‘Chamois, marmots … mountain quail, that sort of thing.’
He nods. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘How fascinating.’
‘And apparently there are wolves in these parts, too.’
I see a change come over his whole body at this. A predatory stillness. ‘What was that you said?’
‘Wolves. They’re rare, but apparently there are still a few about – I read it in one of the guidebooks to the area.’
‘Gosh.’ He grimaces theatrically. ‘Well, do watch out if you go into the trees alone.’
I wonder if he means this to sound as menacing as it does. And all the while his pretty little wife stands there, looking completely disconnected from her surroundings.
‘I will,’ I say. ‘Thank you. Enjoy your ski.’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘come on, darling!’ And then, to me, ‘I’m determined to make the very first gondola every day.’
The two of them walk off towards the gondola station.
I wonder if they know they have a follower.
Fifty yards farther on I spot a bobble-hatted figure stalking after them, using the trees at the side of the path as a kind of cover.
It is the young man from the Bridge table, I realise: sandy hair covered by the hat but the slightly dirty-looking glasses still in place.
He is so fixated on the Narracotts that he seems barely aware of my presence.
Then a horn sounds and the mountain train emerges from the tree line a little way down the slope.
A few moments later and it is pulling alongside the platform.
I hurry to meet it and yank at the handle of the door to the nearest carriage.
It sticks at first and then swings open heavily, abruptly, as though it has had a great weight leaning against it.
I’m not someone who is easily shocked – I think anyone who lived through the war has had some part of themselves cauterised to horror.
But I can’t help the small scream that escapes me as a man’s body plummets from within the train carriage, knocking me off my feet and landing on the platform with a sickening, inanimate thud.