Diana Glass
The Help
At breakfast the scene beyond the windows is a blur of white; the snow coming down in thick skeins, the mountains lost to view. This weather has set in so emphatically it is hard to imagine it ever stopping, as though this white wilderness is a permanent state.
‘What is it, Dolly?’ Miss Marple asks. I had been so lost in my own thoughts I hadn’t noticed – but now that I come to think of it, Mrs Bantry does look very flustered.
‘A bit of a bother,’ Mrs Bantry says, ‘very foolish of me but I seemed to have mislaid my key. Of course I will keep leaving it around. You haven’t seen it, have you, Diana?’
‘No, I’m afraid not,’ I say.
And then, in response to Miss Marple’s curious expression: ‘Oh Jane, there’s no great intrigue or mystery here!
This does happen, you know, to some of us in this later stage of life.
Not to you, my dear, your memory is as flawless as ever.
But for us mere mortals. It is the machine wearing down.
I’ll have to ask Reception for another.’
I don’t mention to either of them that I have lost something, too: the roll of film from my camera. I do not want to draw attention to the fact and am trying not to worry about it.
Mrs Bantry stops short at the sound of a glass being struck. The little hotel manager steps into the middle of the room, fingering his moustache.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs, meine Damen und Herren’ ? (I see the old colonel positively wince at the German address) ? ‘we appreciate your patience over the last twenty-four hours. We know that the situation is …’ ? a delicate cough ? ‘less than the perfect relaxation you might reasonably expect from the Grand Alpine. To provide a little amusement and some much-needed distraction and normality while we wait for the current situation to resolve itself, we have decided to go ahead with our open competition on our world-famous toboggan run, the Verglas, as scheduled. We are very proud of the Verglas … it is built anew every winter, always according to the same age-old design. But because it is built by hand and with the natural materials of packed snow and ice there are … slight variations in the course each year. Sometimes it is a little faster, a little slicker. Sometimes certain bends are a little more hair-raising. I hear that the bend at Red Folly is particularly something this year. It has claimed several riders already.’
‘Their lives?’ one female guest asks, aghast.
‘No indeed, Madame,’ he says, with a slightly obsequious chuckle, ‘only that they were thrown off the course and into the snow at the side. Although—’ he seemed to be about to say something, but evidently thinks better of it.
‘Anyway. Those who wish to take part may register their interest at Reception. Unlike the Cresta, we allow women riders, and there is no upper limit’ – I’m sure his eyes fall on Mrs Bantry and Miss Marple as he says this – ‘on age.’
A few hours later there is a festive air of nervous excitement outside, the guests pink-cheeked and huffing clouds of steam in the cold air, muffled up in sheepskin, wool and fur.
Almost everyone seems to have come out, in spite of the still-falling snow and stiff breeze.
There is a sense of relief just being out of the still, warm air of the hotel; the oppressive, endless sense of waiting.
‘Seems a litle odd, though, doesn’t it?’ A man says. ‘After a fellow’s been killed and with our being trapped here.’
‘Well,’ his wife replies, ‘they expected us to keep calm and carry on while boombs were raining down on our heads and boys were dying in their thousands overseas. So I choose to enjoy our holiday.’
The crowd is splitting now, into spectators and competitors: some of the guests claiming positions at the foot of the run, which winds up the mountainside as far as the eye can see and then disappears around the bend.
The course of the run is displayed on a metal map at the bottom and because the thing was devised by the early Victorian visitors to the area, the notable sections are annotated with English names: Red Folly, Flying Fox, Howzat! and The Fourth Horseman.
‘Trust the English,’ I hear an American man say to his wife, ‘to turn some kids’ playtime activity into a lethal sporting pastime.’
Some of the spectators are hiking up the mountain on foot or on skins to view from a more elevated position, while others are travelling up the mountain with the would-be competitors via the button lift, skis on their feet.
I see Charlie Levitt in his distinctive bobble hat making for the lift.
He seems to be casting his gaze about the crowd as though looking for someone in particular.
‘Doesn’t it smell delicious out here!’ Mrs Bantry exclaims.
The rich sweet scent of cloves and cinnamon drifts from a large vat of Glühwein that has been set up at the bottom of the button lift, where smartly dressed staff ladle the stuff into cups for the competitors lining up to be yanked up the mountain.
‘In the German-speaking areas,’ the little manager says, materialising suddenly at our side as if from nowhere (apparently we are in his favour, now that we have helped set the investigation in motion), ‘such a thing is known as schnapsidee – something that seems like a good idea once you have had a little drink!’
‘I’m not sure that it would seem a good idea after three of those,’ Mrs Bantry says.
‘It seems absolutely frightful. And that contraption’ ? she nods towards the button lift ? ‘looks incredibly uncomfortable and really rather undignified. I’m not sure you could have tempted me even in my youth – Arthur would have loved it, however. ’
‘I would like to do it,’ I say, as though I have just decided as much and hadn’t already made up my mind to do so. The two elderly ladies look at me in surprise.
‘Goodness, Diana,’ says Mrs Bantry. ‘Are you sure you’re up to it? That knock on the head …’
‘I’m fine,’ I insist. ‘In fact, I think it will be good for me.’
Mrs Bantry looks unconvinced. ‘Well, rather you than me.’
‘But will you watch?’
‘Oh yes,’ says Mrs Bantry. ‘It sounds most thrilling. Jane and I will sit at the bottom, won’t we, Jane? I heard there are more crashes than not – the last bend is apparently a real killer.’ She looks thrilled by the prospect.
In the registration area I am given a pair of metal shields to wear over my knuckles – made for a man’s hands, they gape on either side and I can’t fasten them as tightly as I would like.
I have a leather helmet, goggles, knee and elbow protectors, and boots with spiked toecaps to help me slow my progress.
And finally, I am led to the start of the run, where for the first time I can look straight down the bluish-white chute of the Verglas.
As I stare down at the near vertical channel, I am shot through with pure animal fear.
I haven’t been scared like this for a very long time.
The worst that can happen now is that I might die.
And, oddly enough, I haven’t felt so alive for years.
The snow has continued to fall all morning and there is a rime of fresh powder on top of the ice, the tracks of the previous rider running through it.
It gives the run an almost deceptively soft look, as though it were lined in white ermine.
But looking more closely at the tracks themselves you can make out the lethal sheen of the hardened ice underneath, in places glinting black as onyx.