Snow Blind (7 page)

“I thought you were going to propose to me at one point. Remember that weekend we went to Kew gardens.”

“No I don't think so.” I was desperate to tell her I loved her at that point, but clammed up with fear. The prospect of our future relationship together seemed too important to risk for a bungled expression of devotion.

“What's your boy up to now?” I shift us onward.

“He's just finishing sixth form. Bepe is so lovely don't you think?”

“We had a thing with him at the airport.” I feel as if I have no answers to anything she says. My marbled chocolate cake turns to a warm mush as I push my spoon into it.

“I know Sophia told me, god forbid, god forbid…” She tails off. It's the first time she has shown any emotion.

“He just ran out of the airport babe.”

“He's a gift you have to protect at all cost.” She can't help herself barking at me a little.

“Was Ethan's dad around when he was young?”

“No. I brought him up on my own. I had nothing to do with his dad back then. My mum helped as much as she could.”

“Was it Tristan's baby?”

“Tristan, why him?” Incredulity forms an L shape frown in between her eyes. She wraps her black hair once more around her left hand and jumps from her seat a little.

“I thought you left me for him.”

“Why ever did you think that? You thought I ran back to him?” She looked horrified; trying to imagine the twisted truth I had held all these years.

“Do I know him from college?”

“No. You just don't know him.” She never partnered anyone easily, so a one-night stand would not sit easily with her.

“You didn't have to leave college because of me though.” As well as being wracked with pain I added a large helping of guilt for seemingly driving her out of college.

“It was for the best. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was too confined…” She has no reservation in re-endorsing her self-release despite the implications for me.

Our trays are despatched from whence they came. I stretch a little and push my plastic shelf onto the seat in front.

“Ethan is my boy and my best friend.”

“Bepe was wild with mischief when we came out this morning. But at the end he really didn't want me to go.” I say with some unexpected pride.

“He just wants his dad.” Something I have failed at mentally and physically so far.

“I know but there is something in him I don't understand.”

“Don't try to unravel it. You have done your shift. You have probably had poo on your hands at 3.30 in the morning like the rest of us, so he just senses you now.” Sophia breast-fed him, which left me comfortable but excluded back in bed. In truth, most of the time he has passed me by. He is shunted from greedy grandparents to a noisy nursery, from a teatime DVD on to a book on his mum's knee at bedtime. Where have I been?

“He just needs to know who you are.” There's the rub. I can start to connect with him through music though. It was my first love, even before you Juliet, could I make it his?

“Yeah, I have been thinking about that too.” Since you just mentioned it! “I am compiling a playlist for him to start his musical education, the seven tracks that have meant the most to me in my life.” I am thinking about this really well on the spot.

“Sounds like an idea. Think about music that he can listen to though, not the usual obscure post-punk acid-house jazz-funk fusion.” Juliet has always strained to deliver deadpan humour, as it is so unnatural to her; she forces her mouth to curl downward to hide her smile.

“Listen, I wanted to say that I am really sorry for what happened to us. There is…”

“There is no need to apologise babe. You were probably right. Listen, I am just going to work on this playlist if you don't mind.” I can't stand the prospect of raking over her reasons. Juliet reluctantly picks up the in-flight magazine and seems to read intently about paper re-cycling in Norway.

With my headphones re-inserted tenderly, I consider what to call the new playlist and label it “Dan's Magnificent Seven” for now. I scroll down the alphabetically listed tracks. I touch A, the “Affectionate Punch” by the Associates appears first. Doing tracks alphabetically somehow seems fairer than choosing favoured albums and picking the best track. The letter A produces my first choice.

Number 1. “Another Star” by Stevie Wonder.

How apt is this, given the re-appearance of my ex-partner. Released in 1976 on Motown records, the cracking Latin drumbeat precedes an angelic voice that brings the band into heavenly action. Stevie screams his pain that he is blinded by love for another but they cannot see love for him; irony abounds. There is nothing worse than losing a love that remains in you. Having crashed bloodied and bruised at the bottom of a crater somewhere; you can get back onto your feet but each attempt to climb out results in you slipping back into the hole. I remember using this song when Juliet had left, caterwauling its lyrics whilst I had my headphones on. Its amazing how being jilted creates an appeal for so many songs previously discounted. I was convinced I loved her; she didn't love me, the end. However that's the point, when it is someone else's choice there is no choice. It is an end without one. I thought Juliet loved someone else, but she now says she didn't. I convinced myself it was hopeless. Maybe I am growing; I can acknowledge the size of the loss now. I lost that girl but I eventually found a son.

The dark-haired stewardess Robert was chatting up hovers over me. Having failed to retail to the rest of the plane she presents me with a bottle of Moet et Chandon. I think of Freddie Mercury on his piano singing “Killer Queen” as I wave it away.

She taps me on the knee. “It's from Robert. There is a note.” She beams back at me, glancing over her shoulder to indicate the direction from whence it came. Juliet and I are as one again. We look with suspicion at the bottle.

The note reads, “Enjoy the bubbly. Why not join the mile high club with Juliet. I just qualified for life membership with this stewardess. Robert”.

“He insists you open it.” She now has a glass in hand.

I don't know precisely when I remembered. Was it when I felt the shock of ice-cold bubbles in my groin? Was it Juliet's yelp? It was probably when the cork rebounded from the plastic light fitting into my right eye. I must remember from now on, do not trust Robert. My ears pop with a little relief though, nature's way of signalling our rapid descent.

C
HAPTER
8

Dan 18:55

The back door of the mini-van slams brutally, confirming the enclosure of all our baggage. The “Mountain drop-offs” driver scrutinises a scruffily folded piece of A4 paper that confirms our impending transfer to Chamonix.

“What the hell did you bring a guitar for?” Max understandably assumes my guitar case isn't the replacement suitcase it actually is. An overhead roar and an unnatural metallic whiff in the air confirm the arrival of another planeload of ski junkies.

“No room in here Staggie!” Robert slams the sliding door shut, leaving the driver's front bench seat as my only place of transportation. A gust of cold air questions the wisdom of me wearing my trusty purple velvet jacket in a ski resort.

“Hi, I'm Dan. When will we get to Chamonix?” I try to start up a travelling companionship.

“Maybe eight, when it's really dark.” The initial warmth of an Australasian accent reveals the clipped endings of a New Zealander by the end of his short sentence.

“We can get dinner at eightish, boys!” I shout towards the back to encourage my stags.

“That's great Dan,” Juliet responds.

“Dickheads! A bar at eight, shagging by nine,” replies Robert.

“What a crew. These guys will be sloshed on the piste tomorrow,” I say chummily. The driver stares hard at the dashboard, he holds no truck with their intentions, as he chugs the cold engine to a start. Has he seen too much disrespect of the mountains to find them humorous?

“That's their funeral,” he almost spits his disapproval.

G
ET
N
ATURAL
, the swish Swiss tourist board strap line beams from an illuminated billboard as we exit the car park. Our first mile is in heavy traffic, giving us the dubious opportunity to view the brutal architecture that shot up worldwide in the 60s and 70s.

Shunned by the disapproving driver and physically excluded from my stag group for an hour, I have the chance to fulfil my promise to my family. I wince at remembering the developing eye wound I suffered at the hands of the insistent Bepe. I am scrolling furiously through the alphabet but nothing is up to scratch. Through to the letter E and still no second track, on to letter G and nothing stands the test of time. I am getting concerned about the whole process and the inability of songwriters to produce decent songs starting with the first half of the alphabet when at last another great track appears.

Number 2. “Human” by The Human League

Released in 1986 on Virgin Records I think, great track in a bad year. My fellow Sheffielder Phil Oakey drones his excuses that being flesh and blood excuses his bad behaviour. The Human League had betrayed their avant-garde roots to become mainstream pop idols about six years previously. It felt a very serious and personal betrayal at the time, but I now realise they were just finding a new way. I hated the fact I actually loved this as I had resisted their pop onslaught for so long. I remember this track especially as I was still feeling a void from Juliet's disappearance. I suspected she had been “Human” with someone else, but she says not. I lost all trace of her when I moved to Manchester to find work. It was an unsettling time, one I wanted to move past. I regret not being able to enjoy the sheer unpredictability of where my life was going. Today's near accident dialled up a similar feeling of raw exposure to life's fate.

Looking back into the mini-van, Juliet catches my eye as she chats with Johnny. I feel a mini victory in starting to deliver and smile confidently back at her. If you didn't leave me for Tristan then who was it? Did you just leave me?

The journey speeds up and Switzerland starts to deliver on some of its tourist promise. The inviting lights of still villages climb up the hills, highlighting their little lives. Soaring pine forests seem to hold them in place. I just make out a man walking stiffly into a clutch of houses. I create a life for him: seventy-seven-year-old Jean-Baptiste Clermont, a lonely lately reformed opportunist kiddie-fiddler, the internal pain of his perversion hampers every step.

I was just warming to Switzerland when we say goodbye at the French border. My brother Chris looks nervously for his passport. Robert sneers at him and makes his Dan-has-the-cocaine joke again, but with no external audience its potency for embarrassment falls flat. However, it adds to the derision I feel from my driving companion.

The driver physically disengages even more at the prospect of us having drugs. He waves at two border guards, who don't acknowledge him. When do they stop people? Why don't you take some of these men away? What are they there for? The contrast with airport security is stark.

And now we are really climbing. The darkening hillsides are backlit by the sun which is somewhere over the next mountain range refusing to lie down. The mountains start to close their arms around us, the road zigzagging into their chest. Everything is asking us to look up.

The first sighting of a piste-basher brings me mentally back onto the snow. It clings on to a forty-five-degree snow face, pushing and rolling, producing its corduroy for us to ride tomorrow. Its headlights give it the appearance of some alien force devouring the mountain. We keep coming so the machines keep eating the snow. Something in this expended effort makes me consider why we are skiing at all. It seems so childish when we are asking so much.

Thoughts of tomorrow invade my head. Can I remember how to ski? It is a decade now since I went for a disastrous two-week jaunt to California with Donna Hammond and her family. I skied well for a beginner but the bigger disaster was our emerging five-month long relationship: I think I was too needy and maybe she was too greedy. I hear Steve over-claiming his ski prowess from the back.

We zip through short pristine phosphorescent tunnels punched into the rock core. I noticed that the Chamonix ski map claims: “The majesty of the mountains is within us.” More like we are within the majesty of the mountains. No one can quibble about the convenience the tunnels bring but you have to sigh at the result.

“Here's Cham!” shouts Robert.

The pretty town centre reveals itself at the foot of the enclosing rock. Signs for Tabac, Cadeaux and Fondue are the first reminders of the language of this foreign clime. The road becomes a single lane past a Bowling Alley roundabout. We snake behind what looks like the main shopping street.

Whenever I arrive at a new place I see promising glimpses of a future history. Will that be our bar of choice? Will I drink too much there? Maybe I will throw up on the steps there? Will we have a big meal out there? Maybe Juliet and I will walk the main shopping street buying postcards? The driver slows as we pass the main SNCF train station on the right, signalling our arrival at the Hotel Genevieve.

“You can all get out here!” The driver spits us and our belongings onto the pavement post haste.

C
HAPTER
9

Dan 20.02

Alcohol lubricates the group dynamic. We have a fire to gather around in Le Caveau bar, the hotel's local filling station.

I walk with a sullen Chris and a chirpy Juliet past the empty railway station, a chocolate-box design dwarfed by a soaring mountainous background of blackness. Its sweet appearance but lack of passengers creates a spooky redundant air.

“Just make it a couple eh!” says Chris, putting the reins on the evening without having taken a sip. He is really uncomfortable but I hope to show him they all have good souls.