Chapter 4
Phoebe
‘What’s your greatest fear?’
Josie and I are well into our second bottle of wine and the evening has taken a turn for the philosophical.
I think for a long time before replying to her question, distracted by the movement of the waiting staff and the irritating non-appearance of our food.
‘Come on.’ She presses me for an answer, and I’m too fuzzy-headed to come up with an alternative to the truth.
‘That I’m not the one.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asks with confusion.
‘I don’t know if I’m the one for Angus.’
‘Of course you are!’ she scoffs. ‘You guys are perfect for each other! What on earth would make you think you’re not?’ Josie is comically flabbergasted, but my corresponding smile is half-hearted.
The truth is, sometimes I think that Angus and I are together for one reason and it’s very simple: I saw him first.
I was riding my bicycle home from netball practice after school one afternoon when I spied the hottie getting a box out of the back of the Roger’s Removals truck parked on the Templetons’ driveway.
You know how sometimes you drive into danger when you should be driving away from it? It is a fact that loads of people crash into cars parked on the hard shoulder of a motorway because drivers inadvertently follow the line of their sight.
Well, I’m not saying Angus was dangerous, but he was extremely attractive and I was understandably drawn to him.
‘Whoa!’ I remember him gasping, jumping out of the way as I swerved towards him.
‘Shit, sorry!’ I screeched to a halt.
He took in my netball uniform with a bemused, lovely smile, and I, in turn, took in his lack of a Roger’s Removals T-shirt.
‘Are you Mr Templeton’s grandson?’ I asked with delight, also taking in his long legs, toned arms and honey-coloured skin while I was at it. Our elderly neighbour lost his wife a few months ago, and Mum mentioned something about his daughter and grandson coming to live with him.
‘Er, yeah,’ he responded, shifting the obviously heavy box in his arms. His longish hair was partly obscuring his vision and, as he rested the box on a wall, I noticed the faded band T-shirt he was wearing, coated with a faint layer of dust. Radiohead – one of Eliza’s favourites. He was exactly her type. I couldn’t wait to show him to her.
But then he flicked his hair out of his eyes and they were so beautiful, they sort of stumped me.
‘I’m Angus,’ he introduced himself, his lips tilting up at the corners.
‘Phoebe,’ I replied, feeling inexplicably nervous. Suddenly the last thing I wanted was for him and Eliza to meet. His eyes were multi-coloured and unusual – one was mostly green and the other predominantly hazel. ‘Have you come to visit your granddad before?’ I was perplexed as to how I could have missed him.
He nodded. ‘A few times.’
Mr Templeton had always kept to himself. I sometimes saw him from my bedroom window sitting out in the garden, but the most we spoke was when one of our netball balls escaped over the back fence onto his property, and then it would only be returned with a lecture about flowerbed damage. I certainly hadn’t got into a conversation about his drop-dead-gorgeous grandson, but I wished I had.
At that point an attractive woman in her forties interrupted us. She called out hello and waved, while ducking in and out of the removal men still ferrying belongings into the house like ants.
‘Hi!’ I called back, assuming this was his mum and preparing to go into full charm offensive mode.
‘Making friends already!’ she exclaimed with delight.
‘Mmm,’ Angus murmured. ‘Mum, this is Phoebe,’ he introduced us. ‘And this is my mum, Judy.’
‘Phoebe!’ She clapped her hands together with glee. ‘You’re one of the triplets!’
So she knew more about me than I knew about her.
‘You live next door?’ Angus asked, his unusual eyes widening slightly. Okay, so they had both clearly been informed of our existence, but it had taken Angus longer to cotton on.
‘Yeah,’ I replied.
‘And your sisters are Rose and Elizabeth, is that right?’ Judy checked.
‘Yes,’ I said with a smile. ‘But don’t call Eliza “Elizabeth” if you want her to answer. She changed her name when she was twelve because she thought it sounded cooler.’ I said this with a light-hearted eyes-cast-to-the-heavens look and felt an immediate stab of remorse for poking fun at her.
‘I’ve never met identical triplets,’ Judy mused. ‘I know twins – beautiful little girls called Fifi and Bo – but they’re not identical.’
People were always telling us their twin stories, so I’d had enough practice at smiling and looking interested. I’d even heard of a couple of sets of triplets over the years, but never any identical triplets. We won.
‘You’ll be able to play Spot the Difference with us later,’ I joked.
Strangers had been known to stop us on the street to do this, and one time we even featured in a Guess the Triplet quiz at school – Mum and Dad supplied the photographs. Rose was mortified, bless her. She never liked being under the spotlight.
Angus seemed in no hurry to re-join the removal men, and I soon discovered that he and his mum had moved from Brighton because Mr Templeton had recently had a bad fall. Apparently he hadn’t been managing at all well on his own since Judy’s mum passed away, but I sensed that there was more to the move than that. I also got the impression that Angus was less than thrilled to be there.
‘It’s all a bit tough on you, isn’t it, love?’ Judy said, rubbing his back conciliatorily.
Angus shrugged and looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t bat her hand away like other boys I knew would’ve.
‘He’s got his A Levels coming up, and starting a new school at this time of year is not ideal,’ she explained.
That seemed to be understating it.
‘That sounds hard,’ I sympathised. ‘I’ve got mine coming up, too.’
We discovered that we were going to the same school so I offered to show him around. He accepted, pleased, but then my thoughts darted to Eliza and it occurred to me that there was a whole weekend between then and Monday. If I wanted to get in with Angus before my sisters, I had to be quick about it.
‘In fact,’ I said, thinking on the spot. ‘If you’re not too busy unpacking tomorrow, we could go and have lunch in town?’
Angus looked slightly taken aback, but quickly agreed. ‘Sure,’ he said with a nod. ‘That would be great.’
‘Cool.’ We smiled at each other for a moment and I only broke eye contact when I noticed Judy beaming at us from out of the corner of my eye. ‘Guess I’d better let you get on,’ I said before my face had a chance to betray me. It was a bit embarrassing to be organising a date in front of his mum. ‘But see you tomorrow. Around eleven?’
‘Sounds good,’ he confirmed.
I lost it as soon as I went inside, tearing up the stairs.
‘I’ve just met Mr Templeton’s grandson!’ I yelled, shoving open first Eliza’s bedroom door and then Rose’s. ‘Oh my God, he’s gorgeous!’ I cried from the landing, straddling the space between their two bedrooms. ‘But don’t even think about stepping on my toes because he’s having lunch with me tomorrow and I saw him first!’
Eliza was lying on her bed, half asleep, and barely looked up at me. Rose just tutted under her breath and continued with her homework at her desk.
It was only later, when they met him, that they realised what they’d lost, but by then it was too late. I’d already staked my claim on him.
Angus and I spent the whole day together that Saturday, wandering around Manchester after lunch and ending up at a pub until late into the evening. I was initially attracted to his looks and I was pretty sure that he fancied me as much as I fancied him, but there was so much more to him than that. We clicked immediately and made each other laugh. As the day progressed, our jokey banter transformed into more heartfelt conversation, and he confided in me about his family. I learned that he never knew his dad and his mum had raised him singlehandedly – he doted on her. She lost her job recently and couldn’t afford the rent on their apartment in Brighton, so moving in with his ailing granddad seemed like a good solution. But Angus was gutted to be leaving his home and his friends. He didn’t have a girlfriend. I asked. He had been seeing someone, but they’d broken up a few months ago.
Towards the end of the evening, our looks became longer and the sense of intimacy between us increased. The kiss we shared on the footpath outside our homes was sweet, and from that moment on, we were an item. Neither Eliza nor Rose ever stood a chance.
‘Don’t you think Angus and Eliza are better suited than he and I are?’ I ask Josie now.
‘What?! No!’ she spluttered. ‘Of course they’re not! Why on earth would you say that?’
‘They have so much in common. They’re both such homebodies – he’s thrilled to be moving back to Manchester, but he’s dragging me, kicking and screaming. I’d give anything to come and do another stint here instead,’ I say wistfully, looking out of the window at the mountains shrouded in darkness.
I like my job as a translator, and there’s big money in interpreting. It’s a high-pressure thrill to listen to a conversation through headphones in one language and then repeat it simultaneously into a microphone in another, and I do have a knack for languages: I’m fluent in French, German and Spanish, now.
But when we move back to Manchester, I plan to make a start on my book. I’ve had an idea kicking around in my head for years, about a girl who falls for a modern-day magician. I’ve kept notepads practically all my life and I still jot down my thoughts occasionally, in the hope that they’ll come in useful for future characters or settings.
But as I sit here now, I realise that even writing – however much I love it – pales in comparison to the rush that I used to feel when I lived here for those few months in the mountains.
Dad always used to tell us to find our passion and then work out a way to do it. I haven’t climbed in so long. Have I lost sight of what I love?
I continue with what I was saying to Josie. ‘Also, Angus and Eliza are both really into their music, and you know how he’s always refused to try rock climbing. He won’t even go skiing, for pity’s sake.’
‘Shut up,’ Josie interrupts me. ‘That’s all completely inconsequential. Angus loves you and you love him. It would be boring if you were the same.’
‘Maybe,’ I reply, and then Josie gasps, ‘Finally!’ at the sight of our approaching food.
As I move my wine glass aside to make room for the waitress, my thoughts drift back to when we first came here nearly a decade ago...
Josie and I had hit the ground running from the moment we’d arrived. After circulating our CVs to everyone under the sun, we walked straight into jobs as chambermaids for a small hotel. We had a minuscule two-bedroom apartment in Cham Sud, nicknamed The Ghetto, in a dark-wood-clad six-storey apartment block. Our days kicked off early, when we’d trudge through the snow with our pick-axes for a six-thirty start. We’d open up the hotel kitchen and lay out breakfast, then make beds, clean bathrooms and try to avoid the temptation of crawling under the soft duvets to catch up on some sleep. By eleven thirty we’d be ready to head up the slopes with the eclectic group of Swedish snowboarders we’d fallen into step with. Sleep in the early evening was an irritating necessity, but by nine thirty we’d be hitting the bars, drinking free shots and usually end up dancing on the tables. Midnight would see us move on to a club, and at around four a.m. we’d head home for a quick kip before beginning it all again two hours later.
It was sooooo much fun.
I didn’t want to leave at Christmas, even temporarily, but our apartment was being rented out for the week by its owners and Mum and Dad would have been gutted, so I didn’t have much choice. But the whole experience back home was hard.
For a start, I felt unusually disconnected from my sisters. I’d felt incredibly close to each of them individually for my entire life and I loved and trusted them more than anyone, but for some reason, when we were back together again, we jarred. At the time, I wondered if we’d taken to our newfound independence to such an extent that we struggled to find ourselves back in each other’s pockets.
Rose was certainly itching to get back to university in Portsmouth where she was doing a nursing degree. She rubbed me up the wrong way a few times, looking unimpressed when I talked about dancing on tables and doing free shots. She acted like I was a silly girl, whereas she’d matured and grown up. She was a bit full of herself.
But Eliza was especially distant and cold towards me. I assumed at the time that she blamed me for leaving her, and I felt bitter in turn about being made to feel guilty. After all, she was the one who chose to stay in Manchester to pursue her music career – nobody forced her.
The other thing that happened at Christmas was Angus and I broke up properly. Back in September, we had made a tearful but, we thought, mature decision to take a break from what had been a very intense relationship. We had been distraught knowing we were going our separate ways – him to university in London and me to Europe before settling for the winter in Chamonix – but we convinced each other that if it was meant to be between us, we would pick up again when I returned.
But, at Christmas, we decided to make the break permanent. We had barely been in touch during the three months we’d already spent apart, and Angus felt that he’d been putting his life on hold for me and wanted a clean break. I was more upset than I let on, and I couldn’t wait to escape back to France.
I met Remy in January. He was French, but lived a couple of hours away in Turin with his Italian girlfriend and would come through the Mont Blanc tunnel on weekends to snowboard. He knew some of the guys in our group so he hung out with us occasionally, but we didn’t speak much. Sometimes Josie and I would see him in his bright yellow ski jacket expertly navigating the slopes and we wouldn’t be able to look away. When he was out of sight, we’d flash each other knowing grins. Remy was cool and talented and different to the other guys we knew with their piercings and crazy-coloured hair. I adored them as mates, but I didn’t fancy any of them in the slightest.
Remy I was attracted to, I’ll confess to that. But I stayed out of his way because he had a girlfriend and, anyway, it would have been too soon after Angus.
Josie did hook up with a guy when we returned to Chamonix after Christmas, and when he went home to Birmingham in February she moped for weeks. We’d initially planned to remain abroad until April, but she called it quits in March. He didn’t appreciate her dedication, sadly – they broke up soon afterwards.
I was sorry to see her go, but for me, my love affair was still with the mountains and I realised I had no immediate reason to leave. It was around this time that I became friends with Cécile and she encouraged me to move into her apartment in Argentière, the next village along. I traded chambermaiding for a job behind a bar at The Savoy, a brilliant après-ski venue that hosted live bands on a regular basis. But what I really wanted was to work on the Aiguille du Midi like Cécile. I couldn’t believe it when I landed the contract.
The skiing and snowboarding my friends and I had done in winter gradually turned into rock climbing, hiking and mountain biking in the spring and summer. But the thought that I’d have to go home and start university in London was always at the back of my mind.
I sigh and look out of the window again at the dark night beyond, while Josie tucks into her meal beside me. I’m no longer as hungry as I thought I was.
If things had turned out differently, I could still be living here. I can’t believe it’s taken me until now to return.
‘Phoebe?’
I glance away from the window and straight into the glacier-blue eyes of the one person in the world who I should be avoiding.
‘Hello, Remy,’ I reply, feeling oddly at peace as I stare back at him.