Tall Poppies (35 page)

‘Forget about the French coach, did you see the American one?’ Kate added, with a sly glance at Elizabeth. ‘It’s a bloody palace. Ford are sponsoring them and they’ve got a lounge area, a video …’

‘What, don’t they have their own mountain?’ Elizabeth replied sarcastically.

‘You should know, love, didn’t Jack show you .around?’

Elizabeth stiffened. She’d walked right into that. ‘Why should he? I hardly see him any more.’

‘Yeah, I heard something about that,’ Karen said. ‘Or maybe he just didn’t want you to bump into Holly Ferrell. The US team travel together, they just sleep on separate floors. Bad news if the ex bumps into the

current, ain’t it?’

‘Holly?’

‘Yes, Holly. Didn’t you know? He’s been skiing with her day in, day out since they went to Grindelwald. Doing the Lauberhorn and the White Hare …’

Elizabeth couldn’t help it, she paled. Hans and she had just done that area, the best in the Bernese Oberland, skiing the legendary runs around Wengen and the Eiger. Gradients that were so steep, runs that turned so well

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they were pure motion, a champion’s dream, like the mountain’s own git to the skier. Her heart did a slow flip in her chest at the thought of it. Jack skiing the Lauberhorn with someone else! Charming Holly Ferrell, a blonde society babe who had never greatly troubled the timekeepers nor the sports writers. A meat-and-potatoes athlete, a richer, prettier Karen. Holly would not fight with Jack. All she would do was watch him in dewy-eyed wonder, Elizabeth thought viciously, and they could hum ‘The Star-spangled Banner’ as they schussed back to their hotel at night. Holly, yes, Holly would be Ms Perfect, a nice wholesome Miss America with white teeth and no personality …

The other girls were watching her.

‘Why should I care? I’ve seen Jack ski, I don’t think I can learn anything more from him.’

‘Sure. It:s all about skiing,’ Karen said.

Ronnie Davis arrived from the back of the coach and the girls fell silent. He glanced from one flushed face to another.

‘Catfights again? Just cut it out! We’ve got a couple of weeks until the start of the bloody Games. None of you has trained on Crap Sogn Gion yet, yes, Janet, ha ha, very amusing … wait till you’re halfway down to Murtscheg. And Elizabeth - don’t even think about skiing off-piste from Cassons.’

Elizabeth’s head lifted, startled. She had been planning exactly that tomorrow, once Hans Wolf settled into his chalet on the slope above them..

‘But Ronnie, it’ll be perfect practice …’

‘Perfect for you to schuss off the edge of the cliff. No way, girl, you’re back under my orders for the duration.’

Elizabeth nodded sulkily. He was taking away her drug. Nothing but the hardest, harshest white slopes, peppered with moguls and virgin powder, could distract her from all the stress. And Jack. She wanted to forget’

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him but that was easier said than done, with all the US media out here on a feeding frenzy. Taylor this, Taylor that, it was the gossip that leaked out from the Olympic Village, it was the profiles in Newsweek and Time and the Herald Tribune.

‘I’ve already spoken to Herr Wolf.’ Ronnie’s rough voice spoke the name deferentially, you couldn’t deal with a legend any other way. ‘He agrees with me. From now on, it’s Olympic courses only. You ski them till you can see them with your eyes shut.’

‘Ronnie.’ Kate spoke up winningly. ‘If Hans is coming up here tomorrow, why don’t you have a word with him, see if he’ll take us for some training too?’

‘Get lost, Kate!’ Elizabeth exploded. ‘Hans is my coach, he doesn’t waste time with fifth-raters—’

‘That’s enough!’ Ronnie rounded on Elizabeth. ‘Christ almighty, this is supposed to be a team.’

‘So the papers are right about you,’ Janet said to Elizabeth, pink faced from being called fifth-rate. ‘The things they’re saying.’

“What things?’ Elizabeth demanded.

‘I said that’s enough.” Ronnie’s bark was sharp enough to scare them all into silence. Elizabeth saw him give Janet a death-stare. ‘You’re sharing a chalet, Janet and Kate, and Karen, you’re in with Elizabeth. One more word from anybody and I’ll report in to the Sports Council and FIS. Nobody talks in bars, and nobody,’ he added with a sweeping look, ‘speaks to the press. There are all the home comforts you’ll need in these chalets, including a weights room.’

‘Are there the papers? I’d like to see how We’re getting on in the Falklands,’ Karen said smoothly. Elizabeth looked at her; she wanted news from home as well, but there was something in Karen’s tone that made her edgy.

‘I can tell you that, love. We’re winning. There’ll be no

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papers, no radio, no distractions. From now on we’re just here to ski.’

Elizabeth unpacked her holdall inner room. It was soulless and functional, maybe the best way for an athlete’s quarters to be; a hotel-style uniformity could be Zen-like in calming the brain. There was nothing here to make her nervous, except the view from her pale blue blinds. When you opened them up you saw Mount Startgels looming over you, the vast rocky outcrop blanketed with snow, spearing the deep clear blue of the sky. When Elizabeth slept under mountains she felt them as a presence, frozen giants who could almost breathe if you had the spell to unlock them. Startgels was the site of an Olympic slalom. She would be out on it soon, in the red, white and blue. The downy snow that looked so virginal covered so many things: abysses, crevasses, cliffs,

soul-searing pleasure, death and glory.

‘Horrible, isn’t it?’

Elizabeth jumped; Karen noticed the long, glossy hair shimmer as she moved, the expensive burgundy cashmere dress, the Italian shoes. As well as the sports holdall, Elizabeth’s clothes cases were at the end of her bed; moss green leather, embossed with some heraldry thing in gold. They looked antique. Fucking hell, she was so posh you could wonder if she ever used the toilet, Karen thought. Dislike seethed in her stomach. Pictures of milady were all over Flims, usually grouped with Louise and Heidi of Switzerland. You didn’t have to speak the language to get the idea - they all thought LiZzie was the only threat. Karen had felt it keenly when Elizabeth jetted off to Klosters with Hans; the press that stayed with the official team had only asked about Elizabeth. The rest of them were a Mickey Mouse outfit, and nobody bothered pretending otherwise.

Karen was the best, though. She’d held the UK record.

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before bloody Hans Wolf called up from Saas Grund and suggested they give the stuck-up cow a trial. Karen wouldn’t have creamed off any World Cups but without

Liz she’d be the UK champion and she’d have respect. ‘What do you mean?’

‘That.’ Karen pointed at the Alp. ‘Oppressive, makes you want to see pubs and cherry trees.’

‘We get enough pubs at home, don’t we?’ Elizabeth asked mildly. She thought about Jack with a sharp ache. He felt like she did about mountains. He loved them and lived them, but they were still strange enough to enchant him; to Franz Klammer and Louise Levier they were everyday.

‘Can’t think your sort ever sees much of a pub.’ ‘You’d be surprised.’ Elizabeth looked away, partly because she didn’t want to fight, partly because she’d lust flashed on Jack again; drinking with him in the White Swan at Frant, watching the firelight crackle shadows across his face and hearing how strange he sounded under all the horse-brasses and dried hops hanging from the timbers. ‘How was Verbier? I heard you did the ogul field at Mont-Fort in record time. That must feel great.’

Karen flushed. Condescending bitch, she sounded like the Queen asking what you did for a living. Karen had squeezed everything she had to shave one second twenty off that run, a tough mogul field, relentless and very steep. And she knew she was still three or four seconds off Elizabeth’s average.

‘Hardly a record. Heidi Laufen has that and you have the British.’

‘English, then, you’ll have the English record.’ Yeah right. Karen shrugged and left the room. Elizabeth flopped down on her bed and stared out at the pistes. What the hell, it was good to have the hostility. Something other than Jack to occupy her mind.

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At six p.m. sharp Elizabeth appeared in the drawing room for supper, a tasteless fish and pasta thing cooked up by the team nutritionist.

‘Protein, carbs, bit of fat, the boffins know what they’re doing,’ Ronnie Davis said cheerily, thanking God he could go down to the Little China in the village later. ‘Here are your schedules, girls. Elizabeth, here’s yours. Hans has called and he’ll be meeting you tomorrow.’

Elizabeth dutifully wolfed her food while the other girls chattered. Teams and times and who was going to get busted in the drugs samples, the Spanish team’s new skis and who was screwing who. Janet had been asked on to A Question of Sport and Karen thought a sponsorship deal with Nike was in the works. God, as if any of it mattered! Elizabeth thought. She said nothing after Ronnie went to go and check the weights room, eating her tasteless food and trying to rehearse the courses in her mind. 5he was trying to become a race machine. Maria Perafia’s new skis and Freyja Gundstrom’s drug test, so what? If it was Louise Levier, now …

Elizabeth took her plate to the kitchen and washed it up. None of the others said a word, but she didn’t give a monkey’s. They could try and send her to Coventry like a pack of bitchy schoolgirls; she was going to work out and then head straight for bed.

On her way through to the chalet gym Elizabeth paused in the TV room. There was a bunch of papers strewn prominently over the sofas. She grinned as she saw they were English, great! Ro.nnie’s censorship hadn’t worked that well.

Elizabeth flopped down and leafed through them. Sun-speak doggerel about Our Boys in the 5outh Atlantic, but it was good to get news from the outside world. If only to remember that there were other things in this world besides the Olympics. Shooting in El Salvador, John de Lorean had gone bust and some English cricketers were

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banned for busting sanctions to tour South Africa. There were no ads for Dragon Gold, maybe they’d all run yesterday. Elizabeth flipped to the back pages. Nice snaps of Christopher Dean doing a faultless double-axel. She hoped the turnouts about those two were true, that they could skate both Yanks and Russians right off the ice … her green eyes flicked determinedly over the story topped by an unsmiling Jack Taylor, his cruel mouth set hard as a gladiator. Then there she was: big picture, her ski-poles in one hand, goggles round he/neck, hair pulled back from a chiselled face. Elizabeth recognised the shot, her triumph after a personal best Super-G in practice, back at Davos. At that moment she recalled the mix of triumph and annoyance, because it sunk in how much Jack’s training had helped her. She looked gorgeous. She

couldn’t suppress a thrill of pride.

She soon stopped grinning.

‘SNOW HELP TO BRITAIN,’ sniped the Sun. ‘TEAM SPIRIT SAVAGED,’ screeched the Mirror. ‘SELFISH SECRETIVE, SAVAGE,’ screamed the Star.

The articles were pure acid. Elizabeth was a playgirl

who insisted on luxury hotels and refused to train with the team. Not a word about the fact that her training was agreed by Ronnie, that the hotels were to keep her away from the press … if you read this you’d think Elizabeth was betraying her country, taking a skiing holiday at the nation’s expense.

‘We hope Lady Elizabeth knows what she’s doing,’

said the Sun. ‘If she gets the g01d - terrific. If not, we’ll need some answers, Lady E - England expects, you know.’

‘What the hell’s this?’

Ronnie Davis reached down and tore the papers out of

her hands. ‘Don’t pay any attention to that crap, love.’

He stuck his head into the kitchen. ‘Ladies, get in here

LOW.’

‘What’s the problem, Ronnie? Kate asked innocently. Ronnie shook the crumpled sheets of newsprint. ‘This. English papers I told you we weren’t having. Somebody must have ordered them up here. They’ve been printing crap about Elizabeth I didn’t want her to see.’

All three denied it, Karen shaking her head like butter wouldn’t melt.

Elizabeth rhade a real effort and shoved the lump back down her throat. Somebody had not only wanted her to see that, they’d been feeding the media those lies in the first place.

‘It’s OK.’ She looked at the girls with measured calm. ‘After all, I am World Champion. I don’t let fish-and-chip wrapping put me off my stroke.’ She paused and looked directly at Karen. ‘I can promise you, it’ll take a lot more than that.’

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Nina’s heart lifted as she stepped out of Swissair Flight 223. There were no soaring mountains as you came in to land at Heathrow. The sky was overcast and the plane was full of grumpy passengers carrying their Lindt selections and cuckoo clocks, all wishing they were still out on the slopes. But not Nina.

A Dragon driver, mercifully untalkative, had been sent

to pick her up. You had to give it to Tony. When you

were with Dragon, life was smooth.

‘Home or office, madam?’

‘Home, please.’ Nina was still young enough to get a kick out of being called ‘madam’. She settled back into the soft leather seat and watched the motorway slip past. She thought pleasantly that soon this would be normal for her, once she was promoted. A Golf GTi wouldn’t cut it then. And hell, why not? It happened to the young Turks in the City and Wall Street all the time. Nobody could say she didn’t deserve it.

There was a minibar, a TV and a copy of the Financial Times on the back seat. Nina flicked to the share listings. Sure enough, Dragon was up, a real big jump - two and an eighth - and if she was right, this was just the beginning. She poured a glass of mineral water with a slice of lime. It was good for the skin. She didn’t want to be all dehydrated when she saw Harry again. Once she’d talked some sense into Tony, they could start dating. Nina shifted a little. Harry still left an echo, that sweet crunch

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