Something Good (14 page)

H
annah had been intrigued by the idea of staying in a mansion or castle, whatever it was. She'd imagined chairs with gilt arms and polished dining tables big enough to seat twenty-eight people. She'd envisaged butlers and servants, sumptuous meals kept piping hot under silver domes, perhaps a grand piano or two. “Good journey?” asked Mrs. McFarlane.

The group clustered around the front desk. While Jane said it had been fine—she'd clearly chosen to forget about Zoë's seasickness on the ferry, not to mention thirteen hours of unadulterated hell in the car—Hannah glanced around the foyer. She skimmed the cheap-looking desk, a stack of metal-legged chairs and a fire extinguisher attached to the scuffed wall. A pinned-up message read:
Meals can be prepared in small kitchen please ask Jean if no milk in fridge.

Hannah wondered who Jean was. Could it be this small, narrow woman with pursed lips and a wrinkly neck? Mrs. McFarlane, her mother and Granny Nancy were having a rare old time discussing the weather. “I hope it improves for you,” Mrs. McFarlane said, “because it's been awful dreicht.”

Driecht?
What did that mean? Mrs. MacFarlane's accent was thick, virtually unintelligible. Yet her mother and Granny Nancy seemed to be having no trouble deciphering it. Could they just be pretending to understand, nodding like puppets while having no clue what the woman was talking about? Hannah tried to catch Zoë's eye to send a signal. She was too busy checking her reflection in the chrome bracket that clamped the fire extinguisher to the wall.

At least they were here now, liberated from that stinking car. Hannah had spent most of journey gazing at signs for places like Penrith and Carlisle—places that sounded cold and Northern. Zoë had been no comfort. Sulking over having forgotten her iPod, she'd responded to conversation openers in monosyllables and turned back to
Cosmo
or
Glamour
. For someone who scoffed at women's magazines, she always seemed to have an extensive supply.

As for her mother's driving—was she trying to kill them or what? They'd been stuck in a jam near Manchester, barely inching along, but that was no reason to start doodling in a notepad when you were responsible for four people's lives. Hannah despaired of her mother's habit of drawing while driving, the way she'd jab the pen between her thighs when the traffic started moving again. What would happen if she had to brake suddenly? She'd be speared in the belly.

“Hannah?” Her mother frowned at her. “You okay, love?”

She snapped back to reality. “Just a bit tired.”

Mrs. McFarlane gave her a tight smile. “You
look
tired, dear. Pale as a ghost. Come on, let me show you your rooms.”

Hannah watched her clomping ahead in dumpy brown shoes. Hope House felt more like a youth hostel than a hotel: acres of gloss paint in bleary browns and greens, threadbare carpets and handwritten notices stuck all over the place. Mrs. McFarlane showed Jane and Nancy to their room, then journeyed onward with Hannah and Zoë trailing behind. At the far end of a corridor she opened a door. “Here you go,” she said brightly. “I'll leave you girls to settle in.”

As Mrs. McFarlane clopped away, Hannah stepped into the room and looked around her. Granny Nancy and Jane at least had a view over the garden and sea. Hannah and Zoë's room—a dingy cell in the bowels of the house—overlooked a yard furnished with a plastic water barrel. As Hannah peered out, a dollop of bird poo splatted the window.

Beside the window the embossed peach wallpaper was mottled with damp. Hannah read a notice aloud: “‘Loo paper only down toilet please we have septic tank if blocked someone has to clean it out.' God, Zoë, how d'you reckon they clean out a septic tank?”

“No idea.”

“Will
we
have to do it?”

Zoë had dropped to her hands and knees and was crawling around at skirting board level. “Aren't there any plugs?” she muttered.

“You mean a socket?”

“Yeah. You know, to plug my hair irons in.”

Hannah spluttered with laughter. “Who's going to care about your hair?”

“
I
care.” Zoë pulled herself up, claiming the larger of the two beds by dumping her case on it and yanking out her clothes. She was in one almighty huff, as if any of this was Hannah's fault. She stared at the clothes that Zoë was flinging out of the case. Jeans—fine. Pink top, aqua strapless dress, extensive array of delicate footwear—less fine. Hannah had packed thick sweaters and ancient jeans that barely saw the light of day in London. Her mother had bought her fleecy gloves, a scarf and a pull-on wooly hat. She'd die a painful death if Ollie ever saw her in them.

Grumbling, Zoë let her head and upper body drop over the bed while she delved into her bag. Now she was tipping out a great mound of creams and oils and makeup. The deep conditioning nourishing masque caught Hannah's eye. Zoë was the only person Hannah knew whose hair required a ‘masque'.

“What are you looking for?” Hannah asked.

“Earplugs. Mum always gives me them when she's been on a plane.”

“Why d'you need earplugs? We're in the middle of—”

“Don't tell me you can't hear them, Han—the sheep and that whooshing noise, the sea or the wind…”

“You live in London,” Hannah laughed, pulling on jeans and sweater. “How can you say it's noisy here? There's just…silence.”

Locating her earplugs and stuffing them in, Zoë flopped her head back onto her pillow. “Yeah,” she murmured, “There's that, too.”

“Hey,” Hannah said gently, “cheer up.”

“It's all right for you,” Zoë muttered.

“Why? What makes it any easier for me?”

Zoë blinked at her. “You wanted to come.”

“I had no choice! Not after I'd been caught—”

“Caught what?” Zoë narrowed her eyes.

She couldn't tell her.
Only idiots get caught,
Zoë had said. “Me and Mum had a fight,” Hannah said quickly. “It was nothing really. Anyway, look, there's a plug—a socket—under the bedside table.”

Zoë's face softened. “Thank God for that.”

Hannah smiled. Even when she was acting spoiled and annoying, Zoë couldn't help being funny. Hannah wondered sometimes if this was a good thing; whether she was laughing at Zoë rather than with her, which implied that she thought of herself as somehow superior. “So,” she added, “think you can cope, now you can plug your irons in?”

Zoë rubbed her goose-pimpled arms and glanced around the room. “It'll be better when the heating comes on.”

Hannah touched an ancient radiator. “It
is
on.”

“Shit,” Zoë said.

A
rchie's studio was a proud, stone outbuilding with an end wall replaced by glass. Jane stepped inside, where mass introductions were taking place. There was a young, fresh-faced girl with cropped reddish hair and dangly feather earrings named Paula. A woman with a rich laugh and pregnant bump who spelled her name each time she introduced herself:
D-o-r-i-n-a.
There was an elderly man, whose pinched eyes and pulled-in lips gave him an air of general discontent, and a younger man in a checked flannel shirt with meaty forearms. “So you've come all the way from London?” he asked.

“I'm looking on it as a holiday,” Jane explained, then, fearing that she'd sounded too flippant added, “It was Archie's work that got me interested in stained glass.”

“Really?” Archie Snail stood in the doorway. He was shorter—way shorter—than Jane had imagined: five foot two at a guess, with a paunchy middle and a round, hot-looking face that made Jane think of a pink balloon. His mouth formed a terse smile as he strode toward her.

“This was years ago,” she added quickly, “at the Barbican. You were showing those pieces with the tiny segments, all the fiery colors—”

Amusement flickered across his face. “Ah, yes. The good days.” He glanced quizzically around the studio as if trying to figure why these random strangers with expectant expressions had clustered around his table. He marched across the room and lowered himself on to a seat behind a small desk in the corner, clutching its edge like some wooden security blanket.

An awkward silence descended on the room. The check-shirted man winked at Jane. “Okay,” Archie muttered, “what I'm hoping to do is show you folks some influences and techniques, arr…” He drifted off, as if suddenly remembering that he had something vital to attend to at home: a leg of lamb in the oven, or a pan of milk on the stove. “So, um,” he continued, “what I'll do is get started and, er, do something.”

His mouth clamped shut, and he checked his watch. Surely he hadn't run out of things to say already? Jane was overcome by a wave of foolishness. What had she been thinking, dragging Hannah and Zoë and Nancy all the way here? Archie had picked up a pencil and was scribbling urgently on a pad: making notes, perhaps, on how he might possibly struggle though the next five days.

The door opened and another man strode in. He was tall and angular, with finely sculpted cheekbones and intense blue-gray eyes that hinted at mischief. “Hi, everyone,” he said, “I'm Conor, Archie's assistant. I'll show you round the studio, and if anyone needs anything, just ask me, okay?” Jane saw Archie throwing him a relieved look. All the women, she noticed, were gazing at him intently. “If you can't find me,” Conor added, “I live down at Seal Bay. Just drop by anytime.” Through the window he indicated a tiny white cottage perched at the point where fields met cream colored sand.

“Aren't you lucky?” Paula enthused. “The island's gorgeous.”

Jane didn't register Conor's reply. She was transfixed by the way his mouth curled as he spoke, drawn in by the softness of his voice. To distract herself, she delved into her bag and pulled out her sketches for Max's window. By the time she looked up, the check-shirted man was bounding toward her. “I'm George,” he said, shaking her hand firmly and planting himself on the next stool. He snatched her wodge of sketches, licking his thumb in order to flick through them as speedily as possible. “Nice work,” he murmured. “You're a very talented lady.”

Jane recoiled in her seat. “Thanks,” she said, wishing he'd leave her drawings alone and put them back on the workbench.

“So, some dump we're staying in,” he declared. “What d'you make of the place?”

“Actually, I like it. It's fine.”

“You would—got the best room, haven't you? You and that older woman—”

“My mother.”

“Hey,” George said, nudging her, “check out those two.” Jane turned to the glass wall to see Hannah and Zoë plodding across the undulating field, their faces set in grim determination. “Blond one's wearing high heels!” George spluttered.

“That's my daughter's—” Jane started.

“You're kidding! You're not old enough, surely….”

“Friend,” she added, watching Zoë cupping her hands around her face as she tried to light a cigarette.

George made a
ffrrr
noise. “Jailbait.” He grinned leeringly. Conor, who was sliding sheets of colored glass into pigeonholes, threw Jane a sympathetic glance. She smiled, feeling warmth in the pit of her stomach. “Look like they'd rather be at the pub,” George added. “Hey, Conor, any pubs around here?”

“Yes, there's a couple in the village.”

“Great. Up for a drink later, Jane?”

“Um, maybe,” she said, glimpsing Hannah striding purposefully, Zoë tottering unsteadily behind her still trying to light her ciggie in the buffeting wind.

“Well, Jane,” George announced, shifting his stool to be as close as possible without actually clambering onto her lap, “let's do that. Find a cosy pub, warm our cockles and all that.” He beamed at her. “I think I'm going to like it around here.”

She caught Conor's glance across the studio. It didn't unnerve her, the way he kept looking as if he could read her thoughts. She wasn't in Albemarle Street, being Hannah's mum or deputy manager at Nippers. Here on this island, with its wildly changing skies, she could be anyone, do anything she wanted.

You're right, George,
she thought, returning Conor's smile.
I think I'm going to like it here, too.

T
he mountains that loomed before Max were such a familiar image, he could think only of Alpen cereal. He could picture its box in his kitchen cupboard: snow-dusted peaks, impossibly blue sky, 100 percent natural ingredients.

“Isn't it awesome?” Veronica said.

Max turned from the bedroom window. It was 8:00 a.m. and she was already kitted out in a jaunty mint-colored zip-up top and salopette ensemble. He wondered if she was wearing a base layer underneath. She hadn't worn a base layer last night; Max had been taken aback by the complicated lingerie she'd swiftly changed into while he'd been brushing his teeth in the bathroom. He'd been looking forward to snuggling against the luscious curves of her body. Instead, he'd been confronted by an abundance of complex fastening devices and dangly bits to which sheer stockings had been attached.

“It's breathtaking,” he said now, and it was. These were the Alps, for Christ's sake. Why couldn't he appreciate them? Veronica had a rosy flush to her cheeks, and her makeup—which she usually troweled on rather too enthusiastically for Max's taste—looked natural and fresh. She looked lovely, standing there in the white-and-pine bedroom, yet Max seemed to be having difficulty appreciating beauty.

He glanced back at the mountains, trying to figure out how he might describe them to Hannah. They were huge. They had snow on them. He wondered how Jane and the girls had settled into that grand stately home in Scotland, and quickly shooed the thought away.

“Aren't you getting ready?” Veronica asked. “The lifts will be open already. We don't want to waste good skiing time.”

“I am ready,” he said, throwing a
ta-da
pose in his stretchy gray boxer shorts.

Veronica smirked. “Very nice, Max. Not bad for an old man. Come on, though—Jasper and Hettie are keen to get out.”

Max eyed the jacket and waterproof trousers that lay on the bed. They were yellow. He couldn't understand why he'd picked such a color when he'd collected his kit from the ski shop yesterday. The others had rushed him, that had been the problem; slow-coach Max, the only one who didn't possess his own gear. He'd gawped at rows of padded clothing and snatched the brightest and ugliest.

Sighing, he pulled on his clothes. Jasper's voice bounded through the thin walls of their top-floor apartment.
Only a week,
Max reminded himself,
then everything will be normal again.

 

“So, Maxy,” Jasper boomed over breakfast in the pine-paneled kitchen. “I assume you'll be spending the first couple of days on the nursery slopes?”

Jasper and Hettie were tucking into great hunks of cheese, fruit and
saucisson,
which they'd had the forethought to pick up as soon as they'd arrived at Chamonix. Jasper had a thick neck, thick arms; thick everything, Max suspected. A silver wedding band pinched his thick, hairy finger.

“I, um—” Max floundered.

“Don't be silly,” Veronica cut in. “Max paid for a lift pass like the rest of us. He might as well make use of it. You'll be okay on the green runs, won't you, darling? I'll be with you. We'll take it slowly. You don't want to be stuck on the boring nursery slopes with a load of screaming children.”

Max bit into a slice of Emmenthal. Green runs, red runs, what was the difference? He wondered if Jasper was intending to call him Maxy for the entire holiday.

“I'm sure I'll be fine,” he insisted.

“Haven't you booked lessons?” Hettie asked. She had a little snub nose and subtly highlighted hair that crinkled around her face. She was around Veronica's age—thirty-five-ish—but looked younger. Must be having all that staff, Max decided; a life unencumbered by stress. During the entire flight he'd had to listen to Jasper prattling away to some poor stranger beside him: about “our” cleaner, “our” gardener, even “our” cobbler, which made Max think of a tiny person, an elf dressed in rags, stitching pieces of leather in the night. “Our” imbecile cleaner, Max learned, had shrunk Jasper's Thomas Pink lambswool sweater in the washing machine. The arsehole had docked the poor girl's wages. When Jasper hadn't been boasting about their
people,
he'd spouted mysterious skiing terms: “moguls,” “free-riding,” “carving a turn.” He might as well have been speaking another language.

“You know what lessons are like,” Veronica declared, plucking a slice of kiwi from an artful arrangement in the centre of the table. “It's days before you're properly skiing. I'll teach Max the basics. If he gets tired we can always pop off for a hot chocolate and a little relax.”

They were talking about Max as if he were four years old—or, worse, not present at all. As if wishing to highlight his insignificance, Hettie, Jasper and Veronica pushed back their chairs and started piling on hats and jackets.

Veronica opened the door and stepped outside. Biting air gusted into the kitchen, hitting Max's face. “Let's get going,” Jasper said, virtually filling the doorway as he strode through it.

“Can I just finish breakfast?” Max protested.

Jasper pulled out mirrored wraparound shades from a pocket and popped them on. “Seems a pity to waste good skiing time.”

Max popped a dog-end of
saucisson
into his mouth. “Okay, Jaspy,” he said.

 

Max hadn't realized he was scared of heights. Subconsciously, he must have spent his entire life avoiding being high, at least from a geographical point of view. Veronica leaned toward him and kissed his cheek, causing the chairlift to wobble uneasily. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Max nodded, focusing on the ragged tops of the mountains. He was troubled by the fact that he couldn't stop or climb off the lift. Max preferred modes of transport that he could control. You knew where you were with bikes. They didn't swing thirty feet off the ground or judder to a halt for no apparent reason. He felt ridiculously ungainly in ski boots and rented banana-colored clothing. His skis—Max glanced down briefly at their jaunty lime zigzag design—were alien structures that seemed to function perfectly well for other people but, he was certain, took a good decade or two to master.

As they neared the top of the lift, Max realized with alarm that it wouldn't come to a polite stop, allowing skiers to clamber off in their own time, but would keep on going, requiring one to lurch off from a significant height on to compacted snow.

Max lurched. “You did it!” Veronica enthused. “See, Max, you're a natural.”

“Thanks,” he said, shuffling uneasily toward her.

“I knew you'd get into it, babes. Just try to relax, keep your knees bent and the fronts of your skis together, like this.” She wedged them into a snowplow position.

Max tramped behind her to the start of the run. His legs were aching and he hadn't even done any skiing yet. “How many times have you been skiing?” he asked.

“Maybe sixteen, seventeen times. I've lost count.”

“Won't you get bored hanging around with me?”

She pulled down her shades into position. “Max, honey, I don't think I'll ever get bored hanging around with you. Look, I know it seems daunting. Years ago, when I was about fourteen and having lessons, my instructor said something I've never forgotten. It's like falling in love, he told me. You have to let yourself go, take a risk in the hope that something amazing will come from it.” She squeezed his gloved hand. “Think you can do that?”

Max looked at her. He wanted to see her eyes, but all that looked back at him was his own anxious reflection. “I'll try,” he murmured.

“Remember, just let yourself go.” With that, Veronica swiveled her skis to point down the slope, gave a dramatic push with her poles and was gone.

Max looked down. This was only a green run—the easiest kind. Jasper and Hettie would be tearing down sheer rockfaces by now. A kid of around four years old whipped past him. Hettie had been right; he should have booked lessons, not expected to grasp the basics from Veronica. What had he been thinking? His heart rattled in his chest. Although the air was bitingly cold, his body felt clammy beneath its layers of padding.

Max was standing side-on to the slope. He had an awful suspicion that, as soon as he started to swivel around and point his skis downward, he'd zoom off with no way of braking. How did skiers stop? Veronica had missed out that vital nugget of info. Yet he'd have to get down somehow. He glanced anxiously at the chairlift in the distance. People were sitting in pairs on the swinging seats, chatting happily; one guy was even smoking a cigarette. No one used the lift to come down. The only way down was to
ski.

“Need some help?” A tall, slender woman in a red one-piece had come to halt beside him.

“I think I'll be okay,” Max said, in a voice that he hoped conveyed cast-iron confidence.

The woman smiled encouragingly. She was wearing oval-shaped goggles and a streak of white sunblock on her nose. Some kind of polka-dotted tubular thing—could this be a buff?—was bunched around her neck. “Max, it's
me,
” the woman said, laughing.

“Oh, Hettie—I didn't realize.”

“Can you get down, do you think? You look a bit…unsure.”

He cleared his throat. Tiny, multicolored specs were milling about at the bottom. One of those specs was Veronica.
Like falling in love,
she'd said, as if that was ever simple. By now, she'd have reached the conclusion that Max was a complete incompetent. “I'm just taking my time,” he muttered.

“If you're sure—”

He nodded.
Just go away,
he thought. While he appreciated Hattie's concern, he wished she'd bloody zoom off and leave him to deal with this situation in his own time. She grinned at him. “You set off,” he answered. “I don't want to waste your skiing time.”

“Oh, you're not. Jasper's found the gang he meets up with every year. They're all going off piste. I'm happy to mess around on the green runs for the rest of the morning. I'll keep you company if you like.”

If he weren't trapped on a mountain, Max might have been able to enjoy Hettie's presence. “I don't want to be rude,” he said, “but I'd rather ski down on my own. I feel a bit self-conscious.”

Hettie smiled kindly. “Okay, Max, if you're sure.”

With a nod, he shuffled around to face down the slope. “Remember to—” Hettie called out.

“Bend my knees, yes.” Max gripped his poles, digging their points into the snow for some feeling of stability. He felt Hettie's eyes on him. He was vaguely aware of shouts and cheers and faraway chatter; people having a fun winter holiday. To calm his racing mind, he tried to conjure up pleasing images of what might follow his first day on the slopes: hot chocolate, warm bath, Veronica massaging his sore feet and legs and other sensitive areas.

Then he couldn't think, because he was careering downward with parallel skis, and an awful feeling that they shouldn't be parallel—that he was doing it all wrong—though there was nothing he could do about that now. He was gathering speed, utterly out of control on some terrible fairground ride where you'd scream for the man to stop the machinery and let you off, but he'd be too busy smoking and reading the paper. He thought he heard someone yell, “Max!” then was aware only of colors: flashes of green and searing blue, a dash of orange—that was his beanie hat flying off, Veronica had bought it at Geneva airport, what would she—

All he could see now was white: not powdery white or the white tops of mountains but the hard, sharp
thwack
of a snow-covered rock—

Then everything went black.