Tall Poppies (9 page)

Soon it was clear they could do more than that. Elizabeth came second in her first slalom, actually won a downhill at M6ribel. To the amazement of the Europeans, the British teenager came from nowhere to finish fourth overall in her first World Cup.

Elizabeth was an overnight sensation. The story had it all - a beautiful, sexy-looking young girl, with a strong body and cascading honey hair; a British amateur beating the Alpine nations at thei own gamei and best of all, she had a title. Photos of Elizabeth smiling on the rostrum in her sapphire Ellesse skisuit were splashed all over the papers. The BBC put her on the news. Reporters were hastily dispatched to Cortina to grab a quote. She was the pin-up of the moment - recession-bound Britain, with strikes paralysing the Labour government and rubbish

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piling up on the streets, was in need of a bit of glamour. In the ‘Winter of Discontent’, sexy Lady Elizabeth Savage gave people something to smile about. The press called her ‘plucky’ and ‘gorgeous’ and praised the earl and countess for letting her have a go. To their amazement, Tony and Monica found Elizabeth was an asset, her black fleece washed white by the Alpine snow.

That Christmas, Elizabeth cautiously asked her father for a favour. She wanted to spend thee summer working at Dragon plc.

Instead of the curt refusal she’d been dreading, the earl calmly agreed.

‘If it would amuse you, Elizabeth. I believe there’s some space at head office.’

Elizabeth gaped with disbelief and stammered a thank you.

‘Switzerland has obviously been good for you, you’ve been a credit to the family. Is that going to continue?’

Shock was replaced by understanding. Swallowing a sarcastic retort, Elizabeth nodded.

“Good. I expect you’ll enjoy it. As long as you realise the arrangement is temporary. You’re bound to meet a decent chap on the winter circuit, and you’ll be far too busy with wedding plans …’

Tony couldn’t have been plainer. As long as she played ball and behaved herself, she could do what she wanted, but they were still planning on marrying her off. They just liked the added extras she could bring them right now: a whole new set of parties, terrific social clout, a new sparkle on the family crest.

To underline the point, Monica gave her a diamond bracelet for Christmas, and on New Year’s Day Tony quadrupled her allowance.

Elizabeth sold the bracelet. She opened a secret bank account in Geneva, and fed her allowance into it every month. The new star of the British team didn’t need

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money. She raced as an amateur and wasn’t allowed pay, but after the World Cup success companies fought to sponsor the team. Suddenly the Federation was swamped with funds. The team got aerodynamic, body-fitting suits especially made by Ellesse, and customised Rossignol skis with an extra edge. They booked suites at the best hotels and flew first-class instead of club. For Elizabeth, nothing was too much. She demanded an iridescent suit that caught the light when she hit the slopes, so she looked like a flashing rainbow against the snow. She never shared a room; she ignored the British coach; and she stayed up all hours on the circuit, partying, glittering, flirting, a butterfly playgirl in the skiing jet set.

It drove her teammates mad. When they were getting up at six to sweat in the hotel gyms, Elizabeth was lounging in bed with hot chocolate and a croissant. When they were slamming down the practice runs, being screamed at by the coach, Elizabeth would turn up late and do her own thing. When they were ordered to bed at nine p.m. before a race, Elizabeth would be downstairs in the cocktail bar, living it up with the Austrians, swapping notes with Franz Klammer, or draping herself over the arms of the latest beau.

Janet Marlin, Karen Carter and Kate Cox, the other British girls, thought Elizabeth was a bitch. A spoilt teenage brat, she loved the limelight and rewrote the rules. It drove them nuts the way the men swarmed around her, begging for a date, . drooling over the tight young body with its firm curves, the suntanned face with its big green eyes. Bad enough that Elizabeth was so gorgeous, without her showing up in sparkling diamond earrings and Perry Ellis cocktail gowns. And on top of that, she had a title. It was ‘Yes, my lady’, ‘No, your ladyship’, wherever they went. Even the press hounds called her ‘Lady Elizabeth’ when they were baying for a

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quote. Elizabeth never did what the officials told her, but nobody dared complain.

The bottom line was, on the day of the race, Lady Elizabeth Savage was a crouching she-wolf, one of the top ten females in the world. She was the best skier from Britain in fifty years. And she knew it.

Elizabeth clung to her new freedom fiercely. For the

first time in her life, she had nobody bossing her; not her father, not her finishing school. Unsure of what to do, she tried to act as sophisticated as possible. The skiing circuit was full of ultra-glamorous types: billionaire Americans, old English money, European princes, comtes and margraves. Everybody admired her skiing and it was easy to fit in; she was rich, titled, talented. The team didn’t

‘bother her while she kept winning races. She was the coup de foudre, the thunderbolt, famous across the Alps. She felt edgy and rebellious, she didn’t listen to her trainers. International skiing didn’t have much to do with sport: the events took up one per cent of her time; ninety nine per cent was press, publicity, planes, and parties.

“In the eye of the glittering storm, Elizabeth Savage felt lonely and empty.

She got a reputation as a playgirl. Soon she accepted

one of the persistent suitors: Karl von Hocheit, a male model and son of a German car tycoon. Karl introduced her to sex, and she felt defiant and wild, but they had nothing in common. Karl was handsome, but he was blond and bland. She dumped him for the Hon. Richard Godfrey, an Old Etonian, heir to a hotel empire; her parents were thrilled. Then Richard said she should win the title and settle down to child-rearing.

‘Who cares?’ he asked when she talked about Dragon. ‘Lizzie, don’t you realise you don’t need to work? I’ll take care of the cash.’

They broke up the same night.

Now there was Gerard, Comte de Mesnil. Gera.rd was

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a good lover and made no demands. She had been with him ever since.

In her second year of competition, Elizabeth took the individual silver for the slalom, gold for the downhill and overall bronze medal. The country went nuts, but she was bitterly disappointed. She stood beside Heidi Laufen, triumphant on the winner’s rostrum, and heard them play the Swiss national anthem.

Next year, Elizabeth swore. Next year it’ll be ‘God Save the Queen’.

That autumn, Elizabeth flew out to Davos to begin training again. She met up with Gerard and started to party. Once again, though, she began to feel a gaping emptiness inside her.

It was true that she loved to ski, but she didn’t want to be a skier. Yet she wasn’t equipped to do anything else.

All the’flashbulbs, laughter and chiming champagne glasses in the world couldn’t drown out the question pounding in her head.

My God. What am I going to do?

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‘Elizabeth, you have a visitor.’

Ronnie Davis, the British coach, studied his star athlete

with an exasperated expression. Elizabeth had come third in the downhill at Val d’Isre, trailing Louise Levier by a good six seconds. Shrugging, she had promised to do better at Mribel, but she’d still cut training yesterday. How could he ream her out for coming third when the media were all over her, celebrating another bronze? The kid had professional talent but an amateur attitude. It drove him crazy.

‘Is it Gerard again? Tell him I’m busy,’ Elizabeth said, p.ushing her dark glasses further up her nose. ‘I want to unpack and take a shower.’

They were standing in the lobby of the Antares, Mribel’s smartest hotel. Janet was already strapping up for the slopes; Kate had gone to work out in the fitness room. Ronnie knew that Elizabeth would head for a cafe and a paper, despite the slalom tomorrow. It was her

third World Cup. You could lead the mare to water … ‘No, it’s not Gerard. Regretfully.’ ‘Hans!’

Elizabeth spun round to see a tall, white-haired figure standing behind her. She rushed to give him a hug. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you retired last year.’

‘It’s true I don’t coach, but they can’t get rid of me that

fast,’ Wolf told her gravely. He nodded at Ronnie. ‘An honour, Herr Davis. You have your country wining races again.’

‘That’s all down to Elizabeth,’ Davis said flatly. ‘I’m sure you two will want to catch up. I think I’ll find Janet and run through the slalom.’ He shook hands with Hans and headed for his room. Great, just great. Another hanger-on to tell Elizabeth how wonderful she was.

Hans took Elizabeth out to lunch. They rode the La Saulire gondola, suspended high over the Trois Vall6es, the biggest skiing area in the world. Mountains stretched below them, vast craggy peaks covered with smooth blankets of snow, pine forests bisected with open trails. People swooped down the runs like colourful ants, but at this height the frantic activity seemed calm, minute, dwarfed by the immensity of the Alps.

Wolf had chosen the Pierres Plates, a chalet restaurant at the gondola station with breathtaking views down the valley. They sat on the sun-drenched terrace, the light burnishin copper highlights on Elizabeth’s tawny hair, and watched the skiers swoop away down the black runs. Pulling on his own shades because of the glare of the mountaintops, Hans ordered for them both: soup with thick, black bread, sausage and sauerkraut, and a beer and Orangina.

‘It’s a beautiful view, Night wahr? The top of the world.’

‘Stunning,’ Elizabeth agreed.

Hans waved a wrinkled hand at the scene in front of

them. ‘Ja? What do you see?’

‘See? Skiers, I suppose.’

‘Skiers. I am surprised you recognise them.’ Elizabeth glanced sharply up at the bid man, and found the pale blue eyes were narrow with disapproval. ‘What are you talking about?’ she protested. ‘I took the bronze in the Cup last year.’

‘If I was Herr Davis, I would send you home. I would not let you ski. You are a disgrace to your country.’

Hans Wolf was leaning towards her, his weatherbeaten

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face angry and passionate. ‘Everyone talks about you, how you do not train, you will not learn, you refuse all instruction. With these boys, always you are running around. You are not a skier, you are a tourist.’

Elizabeth dropped her hunk of black bread and pushed back her chair. ‘I don’t have to listen to this. Don’t you read the papers, Hans?’

‘Acb, the papers. Of course, you area big star. Coup de foudre, the thunderclap, yes? A woman Prime Minister, and now a girl ski champion.’ He snorted with

disgust. ‘You don’t notice the others saying that.’ ‘Which others?’

‘Other skiers. The pros. The men and women up here who are not impressed by your pretty face, your noble family. They know you are not trying. You have talent. So? Talent, you were born with. That is nothing to respect. What matters is what you do with it.’ Ignoring her look of outrage, Hans Wolf dipped his spoon in the spicy soup. ‘You, Frdulein, turn up to race like you were p.unching a clock.’

‘Hey, I took fourth, then the bronze. I’ll make gold this year.’ Elizabeth tried to pretend she didn’t know what Hans meant. ‘Maybe I need a little polishw’

‘Polish! You think taking gold is as easy as that? Yes, you took bronze last year, but only because Heidi fell in the Lauberhorn.” Otherwise, it would have been fourth again. You are four, five seconds behind Heidi and Louise, each race.’

‘That’s nothing,’ Elizabeth muttered.

‘It is eternity. The Swiss girls train every day, while you go shopping. They rest every night, when you giggle with your young men. But then they are not here to catch a

husband; they are here to race. And win.’

‘Hans …’

‘The young Comte de Mesnil? Very rich, a good estate. A fine catch.’ He shook his head contemptuously. ‘Aah,

Elizabeth. When I first met you, you had the passion. You could have been one of the best. I saw a great skier, not some gilded Hausfrau.’

‘I don’t intend to marry Gerard. In fact, I’m going to break up with him,’ Elizabeth said, knowing it was true. ‘Hans, I’m not out here to get a husband.’

‘Why do you resent the sport, then? Liebcben, I can’t help if you won’t tell me.’

Behind her sunglasses, Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. Nobody had dared speak this way to her since she’d started racing, but it was all true. She was coasting; she was pathetic. Hans was deadly accurate: along the way, her love of the silent, plunging world of the skier had turned into a brooding resentment.

‘Because I like to ski, but they’re making me a skier. Just a skier. I want to be in business, Hans.’

Her mentor’s face was a mask of astonishment. ‘Is this all? You do that later, no? When you finish on the slopes.’

‘No! I can’t! You don’t get it. My parents wouldn’t let me qualify for college; they don’t want me to work. I’ve got no degree, no experience, nothing. This is all I can do.’ She gestured to the crowds behind her, and then, to her embarrassment, burst out crying.

Hans Wolf handed her a handkerchief and coaxed out the whole story. Her miserable childhood, Granny, her disastrous sixteenth-birthday ball. The showdown with

Tony over the will, Switzerland, and now this. ‘So. You have no way to fend for yourself.’ Elizabeth shook her head. Now wasn’t the time to bring up her Zurich bank account; she’d been salting money away since the start of last year, but it still totalled only Ł5,ooo. Not enough to live on.

‘Well, maybe there is other things you can do. Other firms you work for, not only Dragon. Perhaps the FIS, being ?’ The Fd6ration Internationale de Ski was the

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sport’s governing body. ‘You are clever, Elizabeth. Nobody needs pieces of paper to see it. You are glamorous, well known. You might help promote the sport, but not if you continue this way - they know you are faking, they won’t touch you.’