One by One(27)

The bubble glides down the last part of the track, slowing dramatically as it enters the shelter of the lift terminal, and our little group surges forward and begins to clamber in as the plexiglass doors slide back. There are four seats inside each bubble, and I watch, counting under my breath as Topher, Rik, and Miranda climb in—and then it’s my chance. The lift is almost at the barrier where the door will start to close, but I go for it, lumbering towards the doors with my boots clomping on the rubber tiles. I shove my skis roughly in the pigeonholes outside, their bindings tangling with Topher’s snowboard—the doors are closing.

“Come on, Liz!” Miranda shouts encouragingly, and I scramble through the gap, sitting down, panting as the doors glide shut and the bubble shoots away up the mountain. Yes. I have done it. I am over the first hurdle.

I squeeze in beside Miranda, crushing my bulky jacket into the narrow gap, and she laughs.

“Liz, how many layers are you wearing? You look like the Michelin Man.”

Topher gives a grin.

“Don’t knock it, Miranda. Liz might have the last laugh when we get to the top.”

He nods at the window, and I realize he is right. As the lift climbs, you can literally feel the weather getting colder. The condensation on the inside of the bubble begins to bead, and then freeze, spreading into beautiful frost flowers as the lift climbs, and climbs, past the midway station, where the doors slide open invitingly, but no one moves.

Then out again, and up, past the tree line, and up, up, into the clouds. I can feel the little bubble being buffeted by the wind, feel it swaying on its wire, and I have a sudden thrill of fear at what is awaiting us at the top. Oh God, am I really going to do this? Can I really go through with it? Suddenly I am not sure if I can. My stomach is sick and clenching with nerves. I have never felt so scared in my life of what I’m about to do. But I have to go through with it. I have to.

And then the doors are sliding back and we are stumbling out into a cold so profound that it strikes right through all my layers, even inside the relative shelter of the lift terminal.

We clip on our skis and slide out—into a white wilderness.

It is snowing—hard. The wind is fierce and vicious, driving the snow into our eyes and noses, making everyone fumble to pull down their goggles and pull up their scarves. Between that and the cloud that has descended to wreathe the mountain, the visibility is not the miles the brochures promised, it is meters.

I know that there should be two runs coming off from here. To the left is the black run Topher wants to do, La Sorcière. To the right is the top part of the blue run, Blanche-Neige. They meet at the second station of the bubble lift, but Blanche-Neige takes its time, curving round the mountain in gentle loops. La Sorcière, on the other hand, follows a more direct route, zigzagging down the mountain beneath the bubble lift. Direct is an understatement. We passed over the run in the lift a few minutes ago, and it looked like a sheer sheet of ice, like the side of a hill, even seen from forty feet up in the air.

I push off, wobbling as I clear the ice from my goggles with my mittens. Ahead is a snow-covered sign that might once have been two arrows but is now nothing but an indistinct white lump. To the left there is a kind of tennis-net thing cutting off the access. By the time I see this, I’m sliding towards it.

“Help!” I shout. There is nothing any of the others can do, and I ricochet into the net, feeling its springiness catch me across the middle. I flail for a moment, my poles pinwheeling, and then I teeter ungracefully to the ground in a clatter of skis.

Rik comes sliding across, laughing, and helps me up.

“You were lucky,” he yells in my ear over the shriek of the wind, pointing to the snow-blasted piste fermée sign tacked over the net. “That’s La Sorcière. You could have been skiing your first black if they hadn’t closed the piste! Or worse.”

He is right. Beyond the net is a steep run, dropping almost vertically away. It curves around the mountain and beyond the edge of the curve is… nothing. If I had shot off the edge at speed, there would have been nothing anyone could do. I could have been plummeting to my death in the valley a thousand feet below before anyone had a chance to stop me. The thought of that fall makes my stomach lurch with nerves over what I’m about to do.

I am too out of breath to reply, but I let him haul me to my feet and then guide me back to the others who are standing in a little huddle at the top of the blue piste.

“They’ve closed La Sorcière,” Rik calls across to Topher, who nods bitterly.

“I saw. Fucking pussies.”

“Should we wait?” I hear Miranda shout. Her voice is barely audible beneath the howling of the storm. “It’s fucking freezing!”

“I think we have to,” Rik says. “We can’t go without Ani and Carl, they’re not very experienced.”

“They’ve got the others to babysit them,” Topher grumbles, but Rik shakes his head.

“What if they come up separately and try to follow? Look.” He points down the mountain where a bubble lift is emerging from the clouds, a single figure inside, or maybe two sitting close together. It’s impossible to make out at this distance. It might not even be one of our party. It is so far below that the figure looks absurdly small.

I am shaking. My heart is pounding. I can’t go through with this. But I have to. This might be my last chance—I have to say something. Now. Now.