One does not expect an April skiing holiday to be plagued by a surfeit of snow, but this is what happens. Snow blows in sideways all day on Tuesday, and all night. In the morning, it’s still snowing. Large sections of the mountain are closed due to high winds, the risk of avalanche and too much snow.
By lunchtime on Thursday, my children have had enough; I cannot persuade them to ski even one more run, despite my determination that they experience misery commensurate with the money I’ve spent. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll ski by myself.”
The middle one raises a pole in acknowledgment as he slides off, his form resolving into the churning whiteness. The youngest one is already gone.
At the top of the lift, all the signs and trail markers have been coated with driven snow. The wind is a deafening howl, but I experience it as a kind of silence – my children have been bickering and swearing at each other all morning, and now they’re not here. I take a deep breath and set off in the general direction of down.
I try to keep to the middle of the trail, veering left occasionally to counteract the effect of the wind. After a while, I stop to regain my bearings, but it’s a bad idea: the skiers below me instantly disappear. My immediate surroundings are an undifferentiated blankness and I am utterly alone. I am also, I realise, still moving. Suddenly, I feel air under my skis. At this point, the only organ sending useful information to my brain is my middle ear, and it’s indicating that I am no longer vertical.
The ground smashes into me from a wholly unexpected direction. My shoulder makes an unpleasant crunching sound and my ears ring inside my helmet. I sit up and wipe the snow from my goggles, but the scene before me doesn’t change. After a moment, I hear the faint scrape of skis somewhere above my head. A four-year old without poles materialises, turns neatly round me and vanishes.
When I get back to the hotel, my wife, who does not ski, is lying on the bed and reading a book. “How was it?” she asks.
“I’m broken,” I say.
“Don’t be such a baby,” my wife says. “You’re on holiday.”
On Friday, everything changes: the wind drops, the sun appears, the sky turns a hard blue. We’re on holiday with friends, but we haven’t skied with them yet because their kids are smaller and in lessons. Today, in spite of our wide range of abilities, we ski as a pack. The conditions are perfect, and the pain in my shoulder has faded. My children are surprisingly patient with the younger ones, shouting encouragement and scooping them up when they fall.
“That was the best skiing ever!” my friend says at the end of the day. “And your kids are completely charming!”
I shrug. “I guess they can be when they want to be,” I say.
“Seriously,” he says. “They’re a credit to you.” We’re sitting outside at a crowded bar, the sun is just setting and I have a second beer before me. Perhaps I really am on holiday, I think. Or maybe I died in that fall. Whichever.
The youngest one finishes his hot chocolate and gets up to go back to the hotel. He turns to my friend. “Thank you very much for everything,” he says. “I had a great time, all the usual formalities, etcetera.”
“He’s so polite!” says my friend.
The middle one puts down his drink, slides off his stool and looks at both of us. “See you on the flip side, motherfuckers,” he says. • How To Be A Husband, by Tim Dowling, is out now in paperback at £8.99 (Fourth Estate).
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