CELIA HAD ONLY closed her eyes for a moment, it seemed.
But the moment unfolds like an enormous blanket, stretches and stretches and goes on stretching until it becomes the sheerest see-through silk that floats her into the next morning, then midday.
By now the effects of the painkillers are wearing off. Cel’s eyelids are flickering, Nita is glad to notice. She has been sitting at her friend’s bedside most of the time, waking her every two hours to check she was still lucid, asking her name and date of birth as she’d been told by the doctor, in between catnapping, reading and sneaking off for the occasional quick snuggle with Silvan on her king-size bed. What on earth got into you last night? she addresses Celia silently. Grabbing that sledge and careering off like a bat out of hell? At least the cuts on Cel’s hand aren’t too bad. Not as deep as the blood had made it look at first. She’d swabbed them clean, then stuck some gauze and plaster on top, as instructed. Those metal runners can be right bastards if touched by mistake.
Nita wrings out the face cloth in the yellow plastic basin on the floor and places it across her patient’s forehead. The eyelids flutter sleepily and there’s a contented sigh. Nita almost heaves a sigh herself. She reaches for the cereal-and-apricot bar on the bedside table, bites off a big chewy chunk.
It wasn’t that much of a smash really. Considering how crazy Cel had acted, the knock on her head could have been a lot nastier. Lucky she’d had her hood up, though. Nita had found her lying near the snow wall six hairpins down, a little groggy but so what, happens to most of us once in a while. She helped her up no problem, holding her steady the way she does with her snowboarding pupils.
Christine, like some New-Age bouncer, had told the rubber-neckers to get lost, for goddess’ sake, and Cel had smiled and tried to brush the snow off her clothes. Which left smears of blood all over. ‘Blood from the rucksack, it’s torn again mygod,’ she’d moaned, staring in horror. Christine, ever practical, slipped off her fringed headscarf and wound it round Cel’s injured hand, saying not to worry, we’ll sort you out again, and gesturing to Silvan to keep an eye on her girls.
Just then that old hippy-doing-very-nicely-thank-you with his flowing iron-grey mane, curly beard, camelhair coat and Bally boots arrived on a sledge painted a vibrant pink. ‘I used to be a doctor in a previous life,’ he announced, almost cheerfully. And that’s the moment dear old Cel chose to take a tottering step and crumple back down into the snow, her scarf-wrapped hand flying out pathetically, like part of a scarecrow.
‘Fainted from shock,’ the man commented, the switch from happy hippy to laconic doctor-in-charge apparently effortless. As he knelt down to examine Cel, Chloe broke into sobs and Silvan ended up walking her and Diana away, his arms over their shoulders, whispering into their ears and making them titter – if they’d been a few years older, Nita would have got pretty cross with him.
But her attention was drawn to a group of sledgers who’d braked to a halt and begun circulating tales of how Cel had laughed and cried out and rammed into everyone like she was playing dodgems, at her age, just imagine, stoned out of her bloody mind probably! Good for Cel she’d passed out and couldn’t hear those unkind remarks.
Nita has eaten her cereal bar. The sun is shining outside and a couple of blackbirds are trilling their melodies into the monotonous whine of the skilift further up. She can feel her legs starting to twitch with impatience. Sexy Silvan left hours ago, off to do some ‘blitz skiing’ before slaving it behind his stall.
She sighs for real now, then glances over at Celia and renews the cold compress. That stalker story yesterday did sound a little hysterical. At the very least it’s a wild exaggeration, Cel’s always had a dramatic streak, even as a kid. Is this, maybe, an attempt to distract herself so that her mother’s death won’t hurt too much, too soon? Some weeks back Nita had read an article about endorphins in a sports magazine and been rather impressed by the fact that certain people’s brains produce these substances in vast enough quantities to completely block pain sensation.
Half an hour later Celia is sitting up in bed with a cup of tea balanced on her knees (a ‘restorative secret blend of herbs’ from Christine’s kitchen garden). No one had thought to remove her contact lenses last night, and she’d been relieved to find them safely lodged in her eyes on waking. Celia stares at the framed photos of snowboarders and skiers which adorn the walls of the guest room. But the breakneck stunts and spectacular crashes, the smiling groups of learners practising stem turns in caterpillar formation or reclining on their gear in the snow are lost on her entirely. She is pondering what Nita had told her about the accident. A gently expurgated account, she’s sure. Her headache has almost gone by now, but she still can’t remember much beyond a sudden feeling of numbness, a bit like when she’d fallen out of the cherry tree as a girl. Her right hand is scabby with gauze and sticking plaster. Thankgod she hadn’t harmed anyone else; the knife must have been catapulted out of her grasp just in time. Whatthehell had she thought she was doing?
Drinking Christine’s tea, Celia feels a keen flush of embarrassment.
Through the gap in the red-and-gold striped curtains she can make out a few branches of the tall rowan tree she’d admired yesterday afternoon. What she hadn’t noticed then is the icicle sparkling from one of its forks, right in front of the window. A drop of water has gathered at the tip and now hangs trembling, barely clinging on. As she watches, Celia feels a strange tingle of empathy. For a moment she seems to become it. Perfectly self-contained. Refracting rather than creating light. Held together only by surface tension. No real skin. One nip of frost and the drop freezes, gets reabsorbed by the whole. One gust of wind, one prick of a pin and it bursts, scatters into atoms which will never even affect the general level of humidity.
But that’s not the point, is it? There’s no need to have some great universal impact, a voice inside her insists. It’s enough to try and do something. Create light rather than refract it, for example.
Celia finishes her tea, then dives back under the duvet, squeezing her eyes shut so she won’t have to see that drop. Won’t have to see it fall.
When she walks into the kitchen at last, barefoot and still in her nightdress, the Babies? – No Thanks! fluorescent-red number, Nita is perched on one of the slick bar stools at the breakfast counter, gobbling bread and soup while leafing through the fat sports section of the Sunday paper. ‘Good to see you’ve made the vertical again,’ she says, looking up with a smile.
Celia slides on to the stool next to her, in front of the powder-blue linen place mat and napkin, the gleaming cutlery. ‘Nita,’ she mumbles, ‘I’m terribly sorry … I’ll never forget your kindness. And you’ve even cleaned the blood off my jacket, I saw it hanging up in the bathroom. Thanks so much.’
Nita shrugs, briefly lays a hand on her wrist. ‘S’all right. That’s what friends are for, no? Here, have some soup – Knorr’s de luxe winter veg. Help yourself to bread,’ and she fills a white porcelain bowl from the tureen at her elbow, sprinkles some greenery on top that Celia could have done without, but she won’t say anything. She’ll do her best to be good: nice as pie, her mother would have called it. She tears a slice of bread in half and begins to chew.
‘Hey, Cel, you really serious about that?’
‘What?’ Celia asks, splashing the first spoonful of soup back into her bowl and pushing her hair out of her face.
Nita is nodding towards her red nightdress. ‘You know, no kids and all that? Isn’t your biological clock ticking overtime by now? Mine certainly is.’ She laughs, slurps more soup, then picks at a smear of leek that’s got trapped between her front teeth.
Celia doesn’t want to offend her, doesn’t want to pretend either. ‘Well …’ she prevaricates and hastily bends over her food.
The piece of leek removed, Nita says, ‘The difficult bit is finding a man that’s big, blond and brainy, and disposable. Who wants to be lumbered with the same guy all her life? What for? To end up unwadding his smelly socks before every wash?’ She giggles, pauses dramatically. ‘I’d keep the kid, of course.’
Celia raises an eyebrow at her, ‘So Silvan isn’t going to be a proud father then, is he?’ Her spoon clinks against the side of the delicate bowl, far too loud.
‘Afraid not, Cel, he’s out on two counts at least!’ Nita winks, quite unconcerned. ‘How about yourself? Wouldn’t you like to have a dinky little baby one of these days, very soon?’
Celia takes a deep breath, ‘Actually, no.’ She hesitates, reminding herself to tread softly, Nita is a friend after all. ‘I mean, I don’t feel I need a child to be happy.’ She gulps down some soup to stop herself; she’d rather scald her lips, preferably even her tongue, but the liquid isn’t that hot any more and all she can do is listen, with horrified gratification, to what she’s never before voiced in so many words:
‘No, I don’t need a child to be fulfilled. Or to be in touch with life. Or to be a real woman. Or a good Catholic. Or a deserving member of society. Or to provide for old age – or whateverthe-fuckelse people are always telling me.’
In the silence that follows she suddenly becomes aware of her knuckles; they’ve gone as white as the porcelain bowl she is gripping: ‘Christ, Nita, I am sorry. I shouldn’t take this out on you. It’s just that I’ve been asked the question a lot lately – mother’s funeral was a prime occasion – and I’m sick and tired of that Whydontyouhavechildren? Istheresomethingwrongwithyou? Sick and tired of those suspicious glances, those fingers raised in warning like I’m some kind of renegade or betrayer. Sick and tired of those oily looks of pity which are so hard to wash off afterwards.’ She laughs nervously.
Nita doesn’t join in. She is cradling her bowl in both hands and sipping from it, her eyes hidden behind the rim.
‘It’s a matter of choice,’ Celia pleads. ‘And I choose not to.’
Carefully Nita sets down her bowl, then dabs at her mouth with the napkin. No, she is thinking, Not simply a matter of choice, a matter of responsibility too. Is this what Cel is shying away from? She crumples up her napkin and says, ‘Don’t worry. I understand.’ But does she? Until now she’d automatically assumed Cel would want to have a family. And after Franz’s death it had seemed only natural when she didn’t rush into a new relationship, let alone parenthood. Well, so much for trying to gauge other people …
‘Anyway,’ Nita rakes a hand through her short coppery hair, ‘if you’ve had enough soup, how about some coffee?’
The Hauskaffee, tasting more of brandy, gin and herbal liqueur than water and cream, has the soothing effect of a peace offering. They don’t talk much as they stir and drink, stir and drink, then decide to go for a walk to clear their heads.
The path has been snow-ploughed and zigzags along in the glittering sunshine, past a piste and a drag skilift hauling up children like sacks of flour, before it dips down through the shadows of fir trees and pines to skim the banks of the River Albula. The water has frozen over in parts, with black swirling channels under the ice.
‘Do I have to?’ Celia can’t help asking. They have reached a narrow slatted bridge – there are no railings, not even a rope to hold on to.
The white hillside beyond is etched with the hieroglyphics of bird claws and punctured along its wooded edges by the hoof prints of deer. A train honks, far up-valley.
‘It won’t collapse under you, Cel, you’re quite safe,’ Nita smiles from the other side. ‘The authorities here are scrupulous about the maintenance of their Wanderwege.’
As she taps one foot in front of the other, testing cautiously, Celia chokes back the feat rising in her throat. She resists the urge to close her eyes and focuses instead on an old pine tree a little way off, where the path curves upward again. Beneath its snow-heavy branches the legs of a bench stick up, stumpy and aimless, the seating planks removed until the spring thaw.
Just as they pass the big pine, a muffled shot rings out from the sunless gorge behind them.
Like thunderclaps several mountain crows lift from the depths of the tree, cawing, flapping and scattering snow.
‘Hey, watch out!’ Nita cries and jumps away.
For a moment Celia stands with her head bowed, wet and blinded, back in the nightmare of stalker and stalked.
‘What … was that?’
‘The police out on a manhunt,’ Nita replies nonchalantly. Then, noticing the haunted expression on Celia’s face, she laughs. ‘Only joking, Cel. Probably a poacher.’
In answer Celia grabs hold of a branch and yanks it hard, viciously almost. More snow comes tumbling down in a silty sibilant rush that strokes her with ice-cold fingers. ‘What about avalanches?’ she says, letting go of the branch as abruptly. ‘Won’t the shots start avalanches?’
‘Not with all those trees in between. Come on, Cel, race you to the signpost!’ Nita points up ahead and spurts off in a cloud of snow.
A metre from the post Celia catches up with her and wrestles her to the ground. They lie laughing and gasping. Later they roll apart to make angel shapes with crooked wings, like they used to when they were small and still believed in the magic of images. They’re blissfully unaware of the group of Japanese tourists in moonboots and padded jackets who’ve emerged from the Stübli Restaurant halfway up the slope and, bemused by the quaintness of local customs, zoom in on them with their Nikons and Minoltas.