‘I really thought you’d got him,’ Johnny murmured, pressing pause. The screen froze on Kit’s face, the last look he gave her before he walked off.
They were all in his bedroom, Clover lying on her stomach on his bed. ‘I know, so did I,’ she whispered, scrunching up her face as she ran again through the conversation. She had thought she’d done it; she’d thought she was there. She’d broken past the act, got him to admit to feelings of regret, vulnerability, loss . . . And then he’d thrown it all back at her.
‘It’s almost like he wants to take the blame,’ Johnny muttered. ‘He won’t play the victim, refuses any sympathy. He’s a heartless bastard, guilty as charged, thanks? Everything we think about him is true?’
‘Because it is. I guess this is what we wanted, right?’ Clover sighed. ‘Him admitting to that? He told us himself – he’s no underdog.’
‘Except we can’t use that footage without including your admissions too. There’s no way to edit it out and have the rest make sense.’
‘No. I know,’ Clover winced. It was attraction tactics all over again – come and get me! Check mate.
There was a silence.
‘I just can’t believe you went through all that – with your dad, I mean,’ Matty said quietly. She was sitting cross-legged on the desk chair beside Johnny. ‘You never said.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t you be sorry! I’m the one who feels bad. I assumed your trust fund was because you were this rich bitch. You hung out with that crowd at uni . . .’
Clover shrugged. ‘They liked to party. I wanted to escape.’
‘So your flat . . .?’ Johnny asked tentatively.
‘Was bought with my inheritance . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘And quite possibly lost by my stupidity.’
‘Huh?’
Clover bit her lip, knowing this was the moment she had to come clean. The film’s viability was hanging by a thread. Without some sort of confession from Kit, all they had was what looked like a vendetta against him – further proof that he was the villain of Pipe Dreams in every way. His life had been left in ruins, yes, but he showed no remorse. What were viewers supposed to take away from that? She had promised Mia an answer, but she still needed to deliver a commercial message and so far she had neither.
She looked between her two friends. ‘Liam didn’t back the film. He wanted Angelina. He thinks this will undermine Pipe Dreams.’
Matty’s and Johnny’s mouths parted.
‘So then . . . who’s producing this?’ Johnny frowned.
‘I am. I remortgaged the flat.’
‘But the budget—’
‘I know.’ She looked apologetically at Matty. ‘Hence our Saas-Fee shithole.’
Matty’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘Oh god! I feel like such a cow!’
‘Mats, you couldn’t have known. I should have told you both earlier. I just didn’t want you to panic. Or feel under pressure. This is my decision. My risk.’
They stared at one another, all understanding the stakes. The question upon which the entire film pivoted was still unanswered and if he wouldn’t give it to her after that, then when?
No one spoke for several minutes, all of them lost in thought. Was he worth it? Was Kit Foley’s big secret – and Mia’s right to know it – worth Clover losing her home?
‘Y’know, Johnny’s right that Kit seems determined to keep the blame, but there were definitely times when it also looked like he wanted to talk,’ Matty said quietly. ‘I really feel like .part of him wants to confess . . .’
‘Just not to me,’ Clover muttered, meeting her eyes.
‘. . . Yeah.’
Liam had been right. If Kit was going to talk to anyone, it would be Oprah. Not her. Never her. She had come here for Mia, to finally get full disclosure in Cory’s memory. Leaving with anything less than that would be a fail.
‘So what do we do?’ Matty almost whispered. ‘Like you said, you’ve tried everything.’
Clover’s head dropped back into the pillow. She had exposed her innermost pain and he had thrown it back in her face, leaving her feeling like she had exploited her parents’ tragedy. For nothing. She had revealed more than he had. He’d been in control almost all the way thr—
She lifted her head suddenly.
‘Johnny, just go back on the tight-shot camera to where I said all the things he’d lost – what was it . . . turned his back on the sport he loved . . . lost the sponsors blah blah . . .’
Johnny swung back round on his chair and scrolled back through the frames, finding the right one. They listened closely as Clover’s voice filled the room.
‘You lost sponsors. You even lost the woman you love.’
They watched his head jerk up.
Clover’s own head tipped to the side thoughtfully. ‘See that? See how quickly he moved? There wasn’t anything else that made him startle like that.’
‘Well, that’s the first time you let it drop that you know about Amy,’ Matty said, staring at the screen too. ‘You’ve been keeping him from knowing that you know.’
‘Yes. And I didn’t even mention her by name. But look at his expression.’
‘He’s shocked.’
‘No, it’s more than that. He looks . . . worried.’ She looked back at them, thinking harder. She scrambled up onto her knees. ‘And right after that, he took all the attention off him and put it onto me . . . Suddenly he had to ask a question too! . . . That timing isn’t a coincidence. His natural response – based on his behaviour to date – should have been to deny there was a woman he loved, or to deny that he loved her; or to ask me how I knew about her when he’s gone to such lengths to keep it hidden? But to completely invert the conversation and put it onto me . . .?’ She looked back at them. ‘He just didn’t want any attention on her whatsoever. Nothing. Not a breath.’
Matty was looking at her. ‘Meaning what?’
Clover arched an eyebrow. ‘That she’s not just an ex . . . We already know she was with Kit around the time of Cory’s accident. For him to react like that . . . she must know something about what happened between him and Cory.’ She looked at Matty. ‘We have to get hold of her. If Kit’s not going to tell us what went down, then we’re going to have to make sure she does – even if I have to fly to Sydney and doorstep her myself.’
*
Clover and Johnny sat in the gondola with three others, the windows misting up as they were whisked higher and higher towards the peaks. Matty had stayed back to transcribe Ari and Kit’s morning interviews. It had been cloudy in town and she’d been more than happy to change into her cashmere trackies and ‘have the run of the place’ for the day; Clover wondered if that also meant seeing Julian. Kit and Ari had left – naturally – while they’d all been ‘in consultation’ in Johnny’s room, leaving it to Carlotta to confirm they were back up at the pipe, training.
Clover wiggled her toes in her ski boots, trying to shake off her agitation. It was after lunch and she felt restless. She hadn’t been joking about flying out to Sydney. She would do what it took to get an answer to her question. She’d already lived in California with Cory, travelled to Austria for Kit; why not Australia too?
Johnny was reading the piste map, looking for an itinerary route. The recent heavy, relentless snowfall had brought over a metre and a half to the upper slopes and everyone wanted to play. The resort was fully open now and the town was fast filling up, with skiers and snowboarders walking through town on their way to the lifts; the car parks were full, coffee houses crammed and restaurants requiring reservations. Clover thought it was almost a shame that just as everything felt awake and came fully alive again, they would soon be leaving.
She could almost taste her escape. Her to-do list was getting shorter: Kit’s debut at St Moritz was the week after next and he was coming into his final preparations, so they needed to capture those; they would also have to record some pre- and post-competition interviews. Beau’s sit-down was still outstanding but would have to wait till he returned from Saas-Fee. She needed to get hold of Amy too – of course – and, as bruising and deeply unappetizing as it was, she knew she would have to somehow get another interview with Kit. But could she? He had fulfilled his obligation to the letter, if clearly not the spirit, of the contract: he had let her interview him, as Julian had insisted. Was it his fault she hadn’t got what she needed?
The gondola rocked as it swung into the top station and the doors slid back. She waited for everyone else to disembark first. Johnny was holding her skis for her by the time she stepped out. ‘All okay?’ he asked, handing them over and sensing her pensive mood.
‘Yeah.’
‘Still pissed off?’ he asked, patting her shoulder.
‘Wouldn’t you be? I feel like I got mugged.’
‘You’ll get the last laugh. He’s the one with something to hide, remember.’
They walked out together onto the snow and threw down their board and skis. The brightness dazzled them both as the clouds parted temporarily and the glacier shone like a crystal bowl. Skiers and boarders speckled the white canvas in multi-coloured dots, like a Slim Aarons print. The Alpine Centre, a 1960s Bond-esque circular building with a medical centre, restaurants and shops, sat off to their left. Clover felt tempted to get herself a coffee and spend the afternoon just enjoying the view; the thought of watching Kit Foley laying down tricks, flexing his latest expertise, stuck in her craw.
They poled over to the chairlift that would take them to the runs above the park and then shuffled over to allow others to sit in the empty seats beside them. Johnny winked at her as they heard people speaking in German, French, Italian, English . . . The difference a week could make! Before they’d left for Saas-Fee, this place had felt almost like their own private playground, just them and a small group of pros.
She liked the feeling of her legs hanging as they soared up and away from the ground. The sun kept playing peek-a-boo with the clouds and she watched as their shadows scudded across the vast, unpisted snow plains. She looked down, searching for animal tracks in the off-piste sections, marvelling at the grotesquely beautiful ice swellings in sudden crevasses. The Ice Camp, on the plateau just down from the snowpark, was full of skiers making the most of the fleeting sunshine and lying back in deckchairs, their faces angled to the sky. They wouldn’t have long, Clover thought, looking at the horizon; heavy clouds were coming in from the east. Yet more snow was on the way. This would be a short afternoon’s work, and that suited her fine.
‘Happy to follow me?’ Johnny asked as they disembarked at the top, gliding down the exit ramp.
‘Always.’ She adjusted the wrist straps of her poles and checked the chinstrap on her helmet – or ‘brain bucket’, as she had heard Logan calling them in Saas-Fee.
They shushed languidly down some blue runs, staying clear of the ski school groups who could be . . . unpredictable with their turns. Johnny made it look easy, boarding with equipment bags over his shoulder even though a fall onto his back would be painful – not to mention costly.
Within ten minutes, even taking their time, they could see the snowpark below them, black dots flying off white jumps, sometimes successfully, other times not. Clover gave a weary exhale. She could already anticipate the smirking look of victory in Kit’s eyes – he had not only made her confess her most shameful secret, but had taken it and used it against her. Try as she might, she could never beat him. Nothing worked.
‘Come on, while the light’s decent,’ Johnny said, as if reading her mind.
They stopped at their usual spot just above the pipe, Johnny reading the activity and light situation. The park felt even busier once they were in it. Young kids and teenagers were throwing themselves over kickers and rails that parents knew better than to attempt and Clover discerned at once that the atmosphere had changed during their absence – it felt more playful, joyous. Only the pipe remained much as it had – the dimensions of the superpipe were too advanced for pedestrian riders – but a crowd had gathered to watch those who could take it on.
‘Could be good for some extra talking heads?’ Johnny said, seeing the number of teenagers watching on. ‘The next generation – do they like him or no?’
Clover nodded reluctantly, skiing over to them and flatly making enquiries as Johnny unpacked his camera and tripod bags. She rounded up a few who were keen to see themselves on camera but their reactions were disappointingly positive: he’s a legend; rad; a dude . . . The only one she remotely liked was Kit being called ‘a bit old’.
‘I’m not sure it’s worth it,’ she said to Johnny with a defeated groan, after an hour of pointless probing. ‘They’re impressed by anyone who can do a Cab. They don’t give a stuff about something he did in the water four years ago.’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ Johnny sighed, straightening up and rubbing his face. He looked worn down too. They’d been doing this for weeks. This wasn’t what the film needed. They both watched as Kit himself dropped in again and flew up their side of the pipe, flying high above them and twisting into a Haakon Flip.
‘He’s on form today,’ Johnny murmured, watching the technicalities with an eye she would never master. All she could see was Kit flaunting his extraordinary athleticism, showing off to an adoring crowd . . .
‘Well, he’s in a good mood, isn’t he?’ she said, turning away. ‘His morning went well.’
‘Clo, stop beating yourself up. You’ll get what you need. Amy’s the missing link.’
‘And she doesn’t want to know.’
‘She doesn’t know what she wants yet. She probably thinks we’re out here to blow smoke up Kit Foley’s backside! But if things finished badly between them – and let’s face it, they would have done – then if we can get her to see that we’re not necessarily Team Kit . . .’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘Yeah. Maybe,’ she sighed. ‘I just want it to be tonight already so we can get on and ring Sydney.’
‘Mats is fully on it.’
A huge cheer went up as Kit finished his run, punching the air delightedly. ‘Wouldn’t it be great if he just caught an edge and went flying right now, in front of all these people?’ she murmured.
Johnny laughed. ‘You need sugar. I’m going to get coffee and chocolate. It’s getting cold up here.’
He was right. The clouds had pulled over the sky already, losing light and making everything feel colder. The light was flat and the wind was getting up too. She had seen the temperature as they’d got off the chairlift earlier – minus twelve then, and it had to be lower than that now. It was after three and the sun was already beginning its rapid descent. Days were short in the mountains at this time of year. It would be dark by four.
‘Look after the cameras, okay?’
‘Alternatively I could go,’ she suggested as he clipped in. Anything to get away from watching Foley show off.
‘I need the little boys’ room anyway,’ he shrugged, swerving away.
Clover sighed and looked back at the pipe. The queue feeding into it was short, but a large crowd had steadily gathered. With the weather closing in, people were taking their last runs for the day, stopping to enjoy a quick show before heading back to the lift stations.
Her phone rang.
‘Hello?’ she asked distractedly as someone she didn’t recognize went for a Front Nine, only to land badly on a Back Five. A loud gasp rippled through the crowd as he spun awkwardly, trying to hold his legs and board up from catching on the hard-packed snow.
The group of teens sitting just along from her cracked a few jokes that she couldn’t quite hear. The boarder seemed to be okay, but as he unclipped and walked out of the pipe, Clover could see he was limping.
‘Clover?’ California crashed down the line: the sound of surf in the background, kids shrieking.
‘Mia! How are you?’
Mia laughed, the sound rare. She had almost never laughed in all the time Clover had lived with them, and certainly not since Cory’s death. ‘You’ll never believe what’s happened to us, Clo! I can’t believe what’s happened!’
Clover grinned. Happiness was contagious. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Hunter, get your brother! Look, the rocks there.’ Her voice was muffled as she turned away from the receiver for a moment. ‘Sorry Clo. We’re at the beach . . . Guess which beach!’
‘Uh . . .’ Clover knew their new apartment was twelve miles inland.
‘Mavericks!’
Half Moon Bay? Their old beach? Were they picnicking? ‘. . . Ah! Is it lovely to be back?’
‘Oh, we’re back! We’re back-back, baby!’
Clover was confused. She watched blankly as another rider took off, soaring above her head moments later. Mia sounded almost high, she was so happy.
‘We got the house back, Clo!’
It took Clover a moment to understand what she was saying. ‘Your house? The old one?’
‘Yeah! Except it ain’t old now!’
Clover remembered about the developer . . . Cory threatening to knock his teeth out. ‘You bought it back?’ Clover frowned. How?
‘No! That’s the thing. It was given back to us!’ Mia gave a laugh of utter amazement.
Clover couldn’t speak for several moments. Given to them? ‘. . . Mia, that doesn’t sound . . . I mean, how is that . . . a thing?’
‘Oh that’s what I said! Believe me, you shoulda seen my face when my attorney called and said he had something for me! I went in expecting another fucking bill and instead there was a set of keys, and the deeds, in my name! It’s ours again!’
‘But why? Who . . .?’ Clover was stammering, worried about her friend.
‘It’s anonymous, he can’t tell me. It’s the one condition of the contract. But I know who it is. I mean, it’s pretty obvious really.’
Was it? ‘Who?’
‘Razorfish!’
Clover strained to place the name. Eddie Kahale. The surfer who’d led Cory’s memorial.
‘You heard what he said at the paddle-out. He said he’d make sure we were supported and protected, but I never in a million years thought he’d come good like this!’
‘But how could he afford it?’
‘Not just him!’ Mia laughed. ‘It’s everyone – the whole surf community! Everyone loved Cory. They’ve all pitched in to help us, but they’re keeping it anonymous cos they know we wouldn’t accept charity.’
Could it be true? She certainly remembered the numbers of people who’d come out on the water to pay their respects that day. And she vaguely recalled someone had set up a GoFundMe for them after the film had brought attention to their straitened circumstances . . . ‘But you’re quite sure it’s all legal and binding? It can’t be taken away from you?’
‘My attorney quadruple-checked it. He said he’s never dealt with a bequest like this before, but it’s fully legit. Kosher. So we’re back in! We moved in at the weekend. Honestly, I still didn’t really believe it myself till I saw the kids’ boards against the walls of the house again.’
Clover laughed, feeling reassured. ‘Well, my god – send me photos then! I want to see it! . . . I just can’t believe it! I mean, it’s extraordinary.’
Mia sighed contentedly. ‘It’s so good to be back, Clo. I can’t tell you what it was like, stuck in that concrete jungle. The boys just . . . faded. We were all really lost out there for a while.’
‘You deserve this, Mia! You’ve had such terrible things to contend with. I’m so glad something’s gone right at last.’
‘I tell you – you don’t know the meaning of home till you lose it.’
Clover felt her breath catch. ‘. . . No,’ she agreed quietly. She shook her head, pushing away her own problems. ‘Well, a lot of people love you very much. No matter how bad things got, you’ve never been alone.’
‘Thanks to you, Clo. You helped make this happen. You made people see . . .’ Clover heard her friend take a sharp inhale. ‘Talking of which . . . how’s it going with Foley? Where are you?’
‘Well, currently Austria. And right this moment, I am sitting beside a very large, white, shiny halfpipe.’
‘I can’t believe he’s still going for that.’ Mia’s voice was hard. ‘Is he playing his usual games?’
Clover could see the man himself across the way. He had unclipped his board to walk back up and was standing with it lying across both shoulders, arms slung over it casually. Tipper was talking intently to him, gesticulating with animation, bending his arms and demonstrating an action he clearly wanted Kit to replicate. ‘. . . Yeah. I’m afraid he is.’ This morning had been a prime example of that.
‘I heard about the punch-up . . . Sounds like he’s still an angry son-of-a-bitch.’
‘Mmm, for sure.’
‘You got any sense out of him yet?’
What she meant was, any explanations for why her husband was now dead. ‘. . . Getting there. It’s been taking a while to establish trust.’
‘Yeah. He’s cagey as hell.’ Mia’s sigh whistled down the line. ‘Brace yourself, Clo – it probably won’t ever happen.’
Clover swallowed. ‘I’m doing my best. If I can get that answer for you, I will.’
There was a silence, only the sound of the crashing waves between them; Mia’s voice, when it came back down the line, subdued. ‘Well, that would be . . . that would be the final thing to give us peace. And knowing that man as I do, he’s probably made the fatal error of underestimating you . . .’ A commotion in the background made her voice fade out momentarily. She sighed again, back in mummy mode. ‘Clo, I’ve gotta go. Taylor’s been stung by a jelly.’
‘Ouch. Give him a kiss for me. Speak soon – and send me photos!’
‘Sending now!’
They hung up. Clover looked back at the drop-in queue, waiting for the next rider to set off, but he was twisted back and talking to someone. The person behind was showing him something on their phone.
Her own buzzed with an incoming text and she clicked on it, her face breaking into a grin as she looked at Mia’s newly restored, newly gifted home. A shiny glass cube it was not. In fact, it didn’t look so very different to what had been there before. Had there been planning restrictions in place? She supposed it was a landmark plot. It had the same cottage feel as before, with the wraparound porch and louvre contrast shutters; the only difference was there were dormer windows in the roof, suggesting upstairs bedrooms now. She looked closer, smiling as she saw the familiar Allbright mess: skateboards on the grass, surfboards on trestles mid-wax. Towels and wet swimmers everywhere . . .
A sudden shout made her look up in alarm. Someone had thrown his board down the pipe and she blankly watched it slide up and down the walls in a slowing pendulum.
Huh?
She looked around. Everyone was looking at their phones. Kit was standing in front of Tipper, who was talking on the phone to someone, a hand on his head as if to keep his hat from blowing away. But he wasn’t wearing a hat . . .
She looked up and down. Some people were getting upset. There was swearing. Everyone . . .
‘Hey, what’s going on?’ she called over to the teenagers nearest her. But they didn’t hear her. They were huddled over a phone, listening to something too. ‘Hey!’
A boarder, maybe sixteen, seventeen, with blonde dreads and a gold tooth, looked back at her in surprise.
‘Sorry,’ she smiled. ‘Don’t mean to be rude. But what’s going on?’
The boy leaned towards her, one hand in the snow. ‘There’s reports that Mikey Schultz has had an accident in training in Italy.’
She stared at him. ‘Mikey?’
‘Yeah. The American. Olympic team.’
‘. . . Is it bad?’
‘They’re saying he’s dead.’ He shrugged. ‘I mean, I dunno though. Nothing’s confirmed yet. That’s just the buzz.’
Clover realized she was standing; that at some point during his words, her body had moved of its own accord, pushing her away from such a diabolical lie. She felt her breath catch in her windpipe and just hold there, neither in nor out.
Mikey? . . . No . . . There was no way . . . He couldn’t be . . . She’d only just seen him . . . She was supposed to see him in Switzerland . . . No . . . No . . .
‘Hey lady, you okay?’ the boarder asked her as she stepped back further. She stumbled against something and fell. The tripod. The camera stood inert and inactive, trained on the empty halfpipe, her skis on the snow. ‘. . . Did you know him?’
This wasn’t right. It wasn’t true. There was no way . . . he was twenty-five years old . . .
She got to her feet again, her limbs feeling strangely disconnected from her body. She looked around for Johnny. Where was Johnny? He’d tell her the truth. He’d tell her it was a vicious lie . . .
Coffee. It came to her, a distant bugle. She had to get down to the Ice Camp. It would be all right once she was there . . .
Blindly, she clipped into her skis, her hands shaking as she grabbed the poles, not bothering with the wrist straps. She had to get to Johnny.
She turned her skis down the slope, sliding down the back of the pipe, coming out along the bottom and not seeing another skier coming down from the far side until they almost collided. There wasn’t even time for her to scream and she fell awkwardly, crossing her tips as the other skier executed a sharp turn that covered her in snow.
‘Fucking moron!’ the skier yelled, continuing on.
She lay there, panting, realizing why she couldn’t see properly . . . tears were stinging her eyes. Skiers and boarders zipped past her, telling her to get out of the way—
‘Clover!’
Johnny? She looked up but she couldn’t see anything clearly. Everything was a blur. She struggled to get up again, pushing up on her poles and just letting the skis run. Her heart was beating too hard; she knew she was panicking. Shocked.
‘Clover!’
She just had to get to the Ice Camp and tell Johnny. He would know the truth. He would tell her it wasn’t real, just a vicious, wicked rumour, someone’s idea of a sick joke . . .
Mikey was not dead. No way. No.
Left, right, left . . . She let the skis traverse the piste in long meanders, not seeing beyond her own tips, barely seeing those. She was skiing badly, turning at the wrong points, going too fast.
The bar was just below the snowpark, a fifteen-minute walk back uphill . . . Coming into sight any second, surely . . .? Where was it? She glanced up, scanning down the mountain for it. It had been easy to spot from the chairlift, in the sunshine, but now, in the flat light, with the wind skimming a crust off the snow . . .
Right, left, right, left . . . The pitch became steep, the snow softer . . . All she could see was the image of Mikey swerving away from her, saluting her. Cocky, charming, sexy as hell . . .
. . . Not dead. No way.
‘Clover!’
The voice was so far away, a voice in her own head telling her to keep going. She had to get to Johnny.
‘Clover, stop!’
She heard the sound of snow being cut, sliced, thrown into the air – and then she was tumbling. Rolling and rolling . . . She felt one of her skis release. Snow was flying in her face, into her mouth, against her eyes, in her hair—
‘Fuck!’
The word tore her from her own head as she came to a stop. She was face-down in the snow, panting and sobbing, her body sprawled like she’d been dropped from a height. She opened her eyes and froze – a few metres downhill of where she lay was Kit. He was sitting back with his legs bent in front of him, with one arm hooked, at the wrist, around a sapling fir. He looked frozen into position, his body bracing with tension.
She stared at him in bewilderment. What . . .? She could see his legs shaking, the ground beneath him shorn of snow to reveal yellow grass from where he’d pushed his board as a brake.
Slowly, her gaze sharpened and she saw the sheer drop in front of him. He was on a rock outcrop. Her eyes lifted to the view and she saw the escarpment of the mountain opposite . . . This was not the plateau of the glacier. She gave a whimper of fright. Where the hell was she?
He looked back up at her. He was paler than she had ever seen him. For several moments, he didn’t seem capable of talking. He had been inches from going over that drop.
She couldn’t speak either. She couldn’t understand how they were suddenly here. What had happened . . .? She lifted her head and looked back up the slope. It was steep, an unholy mess – her parallel tracks cut through by the blade of his board as he’d chased after her.
She’d missed a turn? Come off the piste? But where? When?
Moving slowly, his arm still wrapped round the tree, he lifted his legs into him and unclipped his boots from the board. His movements were jerky and clumsy, partly from the adrenaline, partly the awkward position, and the board slipped from his feet before he could grab it, toppling over the edge and disappearing into a whistling silence.
Still they didn’t speak.
She went to get up but he heard the rustle of her clothes and turned back. ‘Don’t move. I’ll come up to you.’
His voice sounded strange, as if hollow. Everything was happening in slow motion. She watched as he crawled towards her, going up to her feet first and pushing down on the bindings of her remaining ski with his body weight. The ski released and he pushed it over to the side, out of the way. ‘Sit up.’
He held her arm by the elbow as she scrabbled onto her knees and sat back on her heels. All she could see now was the drop over his shoulder. She had been heading straight for it. She would have skied straight off it. In the flat light, against the white backdrop, she wouldn’t have seen it till . . .
He pushed her goggles – now scratched beyond repair – up onto her helmet and unbuckled her chinstrap. He laid her helmet in the snow. ‘You okay?’ he asked, seeing the tears that had pooled on her cheeks.
She nodded, even as the tears fell. Suddenly faster as it all caught up with her – fright, shock . . .
‘I know,’ he said quietly.
‘Mikey’s not . . .?’ she whispered, pleading with him with her eyes.
He looked down. She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. ‘. . . Yeah. He is.’
A cry left her and the view was blocked out as his arms wrapped around her. She felt the tension in his muscles, not releasing, as she wept. She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t . . .
Mikey Schultz was dead? Twenty-five years young – and a salute, a kiss and a smile was all she had to remember him by.