Chapter 7
Phoebe
It’s late at night and my head is spinning and not from the wine. I sobered up after dinner, but Josie thinks I’m off my face – or out of my mind. In truth, it’s probably both. I’m sure she thinks I’m going to come to my senses in the morning, but she’s wrong. I’ve been lying here for an hour thinking about Remy and I’m becoming more and more certain that I need to see him again tomorrow.
He doesn’t seem to have changed much. He’s older, sure, but life here clearly suits him. He’s done everything he set out to do – he’s living in his favourite place in the world, climbing mountains every day and earning a salary from it. He’s stuck to his guns and I expected nothing less of him. I’m happy that he’s happy.
So why do I feel like crying? Maybe I’m drunker than I realised. I should phone Angus – he’d sort me out.
But no. I just want to think for a while, about Remy, and the night that we began...
‘Nervous?’ Cécile asked.
‘Excited,’ I replied with a grin as Marcel blew my friend a kiss. We stood and watched as he and the rest of our colleagues disappeared through the clouds on the last cable car of the day.
It was my first overnighter and Cécile had arranged for us to be guardians together. Usually she stayed up here with her boyfriend Marcel, but he hadn’t minded swapping with me. Perhaps I should’ve been nervous about being one of only two girls sleeping in a tiny apartment at the top of a mountain, but all I felt was exhilaration.
Before we could kick back and relax, we had to go through our check-list to ensure that everything was clean and in order for the next day. This meant inspecting fuel and water tank levels, machinery, toilets and stairs. Fire doors had to be closed, the cable car needed to be turned off and put on charge for the next day and one toilet was to be left open for any climbers who had missed the last cable car home.
But before we got on with our tasks, we took a moment to stand on the footbridge and breathe.
‘It’s so still and quiet,’ I murmured.
Cécile and I tended to speak in French, even though her English was good, too.
‘You should see it in a snowstorm,’ she replied, leaning over the handrail. Her wavy dark hair was blowing slightly in the breeze. ‘It’s really eerie and cold.’
‘At least you usually have Marcel to cuddle up to,’ I pointed out with a smile.
Jagged grey and brown peaks protruded through the fluffy white clouds and the vast sky curved over our heads in a pale-blue dome.
In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
It was a Tolstoy quote, but it always made me think of Dad because he said it aloud every time we went climbing. The memory of some of our summits filtered through my brain and I wished he was with me now. He had promised to try to come over in the summer so we could do Mont Blanc together, but first he needed to persuade Mum. He was in his early sixties, which she thought was too old to do a big climb, but I couldn’t imagine going up there without him.
My family had almost come to see me at Easter, but in the end, Somerset had won out. Our Aunt Suzie had a cottage there and apparently both Eliza and Rose had been keen to go. Mum had been so surprised that they’d wanted to spend the break together that she’d agreed. She would’ve done anything to keep the peace where those two were concerned, but they also had to take finances into account now that Dad was retired.
On the one hand, I felt hurt that my sisters hadn’t jumped at the chance to come and see me. Eight months earlier, when I’d first left home to go travelling, I’d cried so much. I felt like a part of my soul had been torn from my body when I said goodbye to them. But something happened to me in the days and weeks that passed. I began to enjoy my independence. It was the first time in my life that I’d been able to do exactly what I wanted, without having to take Rose or Eliza’s feelings into consideration, and I liked it more than I could have predicted. A part of me was glad that they hadn’t come to Chamonix and cramped my style.
I had also been sensing a detachment on their part, especially since Christmas when I’d briefly returned home. Rose took forever to reply to my emails, and Eliza was cold and standoffish when I called. Half the time Mum and Dad made excuses for her and she didn’t even come to the phone.
But I knew that our distance – both physical and emotional – was only temporary. I’d have time to make things right between us when I went home. I just needed to make the most of the here and now.
It was with that thought at the forefront of my mind that I took a deep breath of the crisp, clean air and felt a little more at peace.
When I started work on the Aiguille du Midi, I did a couple of days training. The staff were expected to be ‘all-rounders’, so we pitched in and took turns on a rotational basis. I could’ve been a ‘liftie’, i.e. manning the cable cars; ticket inspecting at the bottom, middle or top stations; or working as a substitute for either of these. There were also elevator lifties who brought clients up to the top terrace; and when it was open in the summer, various roles working on the Panoramic du Mont Blanc cable car to Helbronner in Italy.
Everyone had a preferred and least preferred task. After being a chambermaid, I wasn’t keen on picking up other people’s rubbish for hours on end, but some of my colleagues preferred the cleaning shifts to riding repetitively up and down the mountain in a cable car.
Personally, liftie days were my favourites. I hadn’t yet got bored of reminding tourists to take off their backpacks or hearing them exclaim how fast the cable car in the opposite direction was going. It was an optical illusion: we were on the same cable so when the cars whizzed past each other they were going exactly the same speed. I still smiled when my passengers squealed as we flew over the pylons, and I thought I’d never tire of breaking through the clouds to gasps of delight.
I wasn’t sure how I would have fared if I were caught in bad weather, though. In Cécile’s first summer season, she had been manning a cable car when the operators in charge heard of a huge storm on its way. They thought they had time to bring up the last clients of the day from Chamonix to the middle station, but the storm had come quicker than expected and Cécile had to stop the car en route and wait for the bad weather to pass.
Storms never lasted long, but she said it was scary swinging there for half an hour and calming down the passengers while huge gusts of wind blew the car this way and that. These days she just laughed if it happened, but I didn’t think I’d find it very funny.
I quickly changed my mind – being a guardian of the top was now my preferred job. I suspected it could well end up being my favourite job of all time.
Or maybe not, I thought to myself a short while later as I scrubbed away at a toilet bowl. My head shot up and my blood ran cold at the sound of Cécile crying out for help.
I scrambled to my feet and ran outside in the direction of her voice, jolting with shock at the sight of a young couple coming through the ice cave from the ridge. The man was supporting the girl and her face was creased in pain.
‘She fell. I think she’s sprained her ankle,’ he said in French.
I did a double take. ‘Remy?’
He stared back at me, disoriented.
‘You know each other?’ Cécile asked me.
‘Yes. I’m Phoebe,’ I reminded him, feeling a stab of disappointment as his face only belatedly registered recognition.
‘Hello,’ he gasped, panting.
I quickly came to my senses, rushing to his aid.
We went to the nearby staff canteen where Remy lowered his companion into a chair.
‘What’s your name?’ Cécile asked the girl.
‘Amelie,’ she replied as Remy crouched down to unlace her left boot.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
The pair had been on a day trip doing the Midi Plan crossing. They’d come up on the first cable car this morning.
‘I was too slow,’ Amelie lamented.
‘It was my fault,’ Remy chipped in miserably, gazing ruefully at her foot, which we could now see was blue and swollen.
‘No,’ she cut him off firmly, putting her hand on his arm. ‘You told me we shouldn’t take so long for lunch. But we’d gone all that way.’ She winced. ‘It was my first time doing the route,’ she explained.
The Midi Plan crossing takes about six or seven hours if you’re good, but Remy had realised they weren’t going fast enough and he knew they needed to step up their pace to catch the last cable car home at five thirty. Amelie had been at the bottom of the ridge when, tired and exhausted, she had got one of her crampons stuck in her trousers and fallen, twisting her ankle. Remy had had to help her the rest of the way.
I was intrigued as I listened to her speak. She was definitely French, but Remy’s girlfriend had been Italian. Had they broken up? But if that were the case, who was Amelie?
Although Cécile was trained in first aid, she wasn’t allowed to administer any medicine without first calling the doctor. The doctor in turn asked to speak to Amelie before determining that she’d be fine to stay at the top overnight. An ice pack, water and some pain relief tablets would see her through.
‘Is there anyone you need to contact?’ I asked Remy. Amelie had called her mother a little while ago, but Remy hadn’t rung anyone to let them know he was safe.
‘No.’ He took off his red woollen hat and dragged his hands across his scalp, skewing his short, dark-brown hair. He had stubble that was bordering on a beard and his face was tanned and lean.
I couldn’t help myself. ‘You don’t need to call anyone in Turin?’
He shook his head. ‘My girlfriend and I split up a few weeks ago.’
‘Aah.’ I glanced at Amelie and he followed the direction of my gaze.
‘Amelie is my cousin,’ he explained.
‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. I mean...’ I stuttered. ‘I’m not sorry to hear that Amelie’s your cousin.’
When Remy was snowboarding, his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, but at that moment they were a striking blue and sparkling with amusement.
‘So, you work on the Aiguille now?’ he asked, taking a sip of the coffee I’d just made him.
‘Yes.’ I smiled weakly, trying to regain my composure. ‘For a little over a month now.’
‘What happened to your friend?’
‘Josie? She went home.’ I shrugged. ‘I wanted to stay for a bit longer. I don’t go to university until September, and now I have a contract here, I think I’m going to find it hard to let it go.’
He looked impressed. ‘I know a few people who’ve tried to get a job on the Aiguille in the past with no luck. How did you manage it?’
‘Friends in high places.’ I flashed Cécile a grin. She was sitting with Amelie, but must have been eavesdropping because she returned my smile.
‘Should we carry on with the check-list?’ I asked her, slightly reluctantly. I figured the sooner our work got done, the sooner we could come back here and hang out.
‘I suppose we should.’ Cécile stood up and reached for her coat. ‘Help yourselves to anything in the kitchen,’ she told Remy and Amelie. ‘We’ll be back in a bit.’
The moment we were outside, she gave me a comically meaningful look. ‘So he’s split up with his girlfriend, has he?’
I smirked and she laughed, continuing to tease. ‘And he and Amelie are just cousins, are they?’
‘Oh, shut up.’ I shoved her arm as she giggled.
It wasn’t protocol, but after our work was done, Cécile agreed to let Remy and Amelie join us for dinner in the staff apartment.
As we all walked across the footbridge with Cécile leading the way and me bringing up the rear, my eyes, for once, were not drawn to the view.
Remy was carrying Amelie and he looked so... well, manly. He was lean but strong – probably not quite six foot tall, but much taller than my five foot six inches. Older, too – I hazarded a guess at early twenties. In contrast, Angus seemed like a lanky teenager.
I made the comparison fondly, but I still felt a pang of guilt. Angus and I were no longer a couple, but we had been trying to stay friends. I had been trying a little harder than he had, in truth. In the five months since our break-up at Christmas, I’d instigated every single one of our very occasional email exchanges.
When I thought of Angus and how close we’d been the previous summer, my memories had a surreal quality to them. I’d loved him enough to lose my virginity to him and I remembered feeling incredibly lucky to have found such a funny, kind, drop-dead-gorgeous boyfriend. Sometimes I wondered if I’d been mad not to fight harder for him when he asked to make our break permanent, but I’d told myself that if it were meant to be, we would find our way back to each other again someday.
The staff apartment was pretty cosy with four of us inside. Cécile settled our guests and sorted out drinks while I prepared dinner: homemade Bolognese and, luckily, a whole packet of spaghetti. We thought we could stretch the sauce to four.
‘What can I do?’ Remy asked, making me jump as he joined me. ‘You want me to grate some cheese?’
‘Er, sure.’ I got the Parmesan out of the fridge and found him the grater.
‘Thank you for this,’ he said as he got on with the task.
‘You’re welcome. It’s good to see you again.’ And boy, did I mean it. He had stripped down to a T-shirt and I was finding it hard not to stare at his tanned, muscled arms. I’d met a few attractive rock climbers in my time – I used to think of them as surfers of the sky, so often fit and sexy with thrill-seeking natures and a true sense of adventure. Usually Dad was around to keep me in line, but not this time.
In the nearby living room, Amelie laughed at something Cécile said. Remy smiled in their direction and then at me. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t place you earlier,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you at the top of a mountain.’
‘I suppose the last time you saw me I was on the top of a table, so it’s a fair comment.’
‘You did like dancing on those tables,’ he commented with a grin.
‘I’m still prone to the occasional tabletop dance,’ I replied as I scooped out a strand of spaghetti with a fork to check if it was cooked. ‘I mostly hang out in Argentière these days,’ I explained, draining the pasta. ‘I live with Cécile and have a part-time bar job at The Savoy.’
‘I’m surprised I haven’t seen you there,’ he said, watching as I served up.
‘You must’ve been in on my days off. It’s been, what, two months since I saw you last?’
‘Something like that. I haven’t been to Chamonix as much as I would have liked.’
‘Why is that? You seemed to be here every weekend earlier in the year.’
‘Mmm. My girlfriend, Cristina, wanted me at home more. It’s part of the reason why we broke up.’
‘Aah.’
I wanted to ask him more, but our food would’ve gone cold so I grudgingly put my questions on hold.
Amelie was in high spirits during dinner, which was amazing considering the state of her ankle. She stayed on the sofa with her foot on a chair, nursing her plate on her lap. If it weren’t for her injury, we could have been four friends chatting merrily away, but I soon became distracted thinking about our forthcoming sleeping arrangements.
In the summer months, we encouraged stranded climbers to walk back down the ridge to the Refuge du Cosmique, which is about a forty-five-minute trek on the glacier. But if they were injured or didn’t want to, then we would let them sleep on the floor of the public toilets. It might sound mean, but some people stayed at the top on purpose to avoid paying the refuge charges, and frankly, the Aiguille was not a hotel.
That evening, though, I couldn’t bear the thought of sending our two new friends to the other side of the footbridge to sleep in the loos, however warm they might’ve been.
I could’ve kissed Cécile when we were alone in the kitchen and she made a different suggestion.
‘I suppose they could sleep on the sofas,’ she whispered.
‘Really? Well, no, Amelie can have my bed. I’ll take the sofa.’
‘I bet you will.’ She gave me a mischievous look.
‘Cut it out.’ My cheeks flamed. ‘Are you serious, though? Can we let them stay here?’ I asked hopefully.
‘I won’t tell if you don’t,’ she replied with a comedy wink.
Amelie was extremely grateful and really didn’t take much convincing to sleep in my room. She was so exhausted that she went to bed straight after dinner. Cécile stayed up only a little while longer before calling it a night.
‘What about the sunset?’ I frowned at her as she stretched her arms over her head. Surely she didn’t want to miss it – she was always going on about the fact that we got the last of the sun up here.
‘Take Remy. I’ve seen enough sunsets. I’m shattered.’
It wasn’t that late, but while her yawn looked genuine, I couldn’t believe she was really that tired. She was meddling.
As soon as she went, I felt a flurry of nerves at being alone with Remy. I smiled across at him from my position on the second sofa.
‘Do you think Amelie is feeling okay?’
I regretted my chosen topic of conversation when his face fell. He shook his head with dismay, but didn’t answer.
‘It could have been a lot worse,’ I pointed out, soon regretting that comment, too.
He shuddered visibly. ‘I keep imagining having to tell her mother that she’d...’ He shuddered again, a morose look in his eyes. ‘I can’t believe I messed up so badly.’ He looked utterly miserable.
‘Hey.’ Impulsively I moved to sit beside him.
‘I should have insisted we turn back sooner, but I didn’t, and then I rushed her...’
‘You were just trying to get down in time,’ I said, squeezing his shoulder consolingly.
‘Better late than never,’ he replied darkly.
We both fell silent, deep in thought. I let my hand drop, but didn’t move back to the other sofa.
‘You two are close, aren’t you?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘We grew up in the same village. Our mothers are sisters.’
‘How old are you both?’ I asked curiously.
‘She’s twenty; I’m twenty-three. And you?’
‘Eighteen.’
He reached forward and picked up his glass, taking a sip of his water. We weren’t allowed to drink alcohol.
‘Do you climb?’ he asked casually.
‘Ever since I was small.’ He turned to face me with interest. ‘We had a climbing wall around the corner from where we lived. It isn’t in use any more, sadly. My dad tried to teach my sisters and me when we were seven.’
‘You’re an identical triplet!’ he said suddenly, his face lighting up as he remembered.
‘How did you know that?’ I asked with surprise. I’m sure I never told him myself.
‘Swedish Pete mentioned it,’ he explained, pursing his lips. That was the nickname we had for one of our wacky snowboarding friends.
‘Aah.’ I nodded at him. ‘Well, my sisters and I are very different. I took to climbing straight away, but Rose and Eliza struggled to get to grips with it. Rose didn’t want to go in the first place, but my dad insisted and then she hurt her hand and gave up.’ Rose had sat on the pavement in a sulk for ages, I remembered affectionately, although Dad had been less than impressed with her lack of effort.
‘Eliza did try, but she kept slipping and bashing her knees. She’s not the most co-ordinated person in the world, bless her, but she kept going and then suddenly, near the top, she freaked out. She was paralysed and started to scream and had to be rescued. She’s still afraid of heights to this day,’ I mused sadly, glancing at Remy. Was I boring him? I didn’t think so, from his expression.
‘Anyway, climbing became the thing that I did with Dad. We went back to the wall time and time again.’ He had taught me all of my climbing techniques and all of the various hand, finger and foot holds, everything from a knee bar to a pinch grip. ‘Then he started taking me hiking with a bit of scrambling thrown in.’ Scrambling was the link between mountain walking and rock climbing and it was excellent preparation for Alpine climbing, which involved routes with both rock and ice and snow. It took us away from paths and rock walls and was often a sanctuary for rare plants and animals, so I used to get a lesson in nature as well, remembering always to take care with my footsteps. ‘Scrambling graduated to bouldering.’ This meant climbing big boulders without safety ropes and only a crash mat and Dad to catch my falls. ‘And when I was old and strong enough to belay Dad, we’d go full-blown mixed ice and rock climbing.’ In this case, Dad used to lead and fix bolts as he went, while I belayed him from the bottom – feeding the rope out and supporting him should he fall, which was incredibly rare. He would then wait at the top for me to climb up behind him.
‘Sometimes we’d spend whole weekends away in Wales or Scotland, just the two of us, and our family holidays usually took place near well-known rock climbing routes, so we’d escape together when Mum would let us.’ These times alone with my father were among my happiest memories. ‘How about you? How did you learn?’ I asked Remy, suddenly feeling bad for hijacking the conversation, although he didn’t seem to mind.
‘Big brother,’ he replied. ‘Well, half-brother – my father’s son from an earlier marriage. I grew up in a little village, surrounded by national parks. The Gorge du Tarn was my climbing playground. My brother used to take me when he came to visit. Amelie followed on when she was sixteen. My aunt blamed me for her new hobby, of course,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘A safer one would have been preferable.’
‘Stop thinking about it,’ I said firmly as he shuddered again.
‘Do you have any photos of your sisters?’ he asked, changing the subject. It was an age-old question. People always wanted to see photos, and then they’d become obsessed with meeting all three of us at once.
‘They look exactly like me,’ I replied, but indulged him by digging into my pocket and bringing out my phone. He leaned in close while I showed him.
‘Whoa,’ he murmured, staring first at the pictures and then at me with fascination.
I laughed lightly, trying to ignore my butterflies as I placed my phone on the coffee table.
‘What’s it like, being a triplet?’ he asked.
‘I get to see what I look like from behind,’ I replied flippantly.
‘Do you play a lot of tricks on people?’
I shrugged. ‘Not really.’ I wished we’d been more inventive, considering the amount of times I’d been asked that question. ‘Eliza used to joke that we should train as magicians. We’d be able to do a great double act.’
‘Triple act, you mean.’
I smiled. ‘Exactly.’
‘You must miss them.’
I paused before admitting the truth. ‘Not as much as I thought I would.’
‘No?’ He looked intrigued.
‘It’s just... It’s weird. We’ve had eighteen years of it being the three of us. We’ve been through everything together and there’s a bond between us that can never be broken. I love them more than life and I can imagine us all growing old together and ending up living next door to one another. But then there’s the flipside of the coin.’ I stared at him levelly. ‘It’s not easy being constantly compared and having to share everything under the sun. It’s nice to just be me for once. To follow my own path.’
He nodded attentively.
‘What’s the time?’ I asked in a sudden panic, checking my phone and realising that it was almost ten o’clock. ‘We’re going to miss the sunset!’
We grabbed our coats, but still had to brace ourselves against the cold as we walked out of the apartment and down the stairs. The shop and café were dark and deserted.
‘I can’t get over how bizarre it is up here without the tourists,’ I said.
‘I love it.’ He flashed me a grin and then stopped suddenly in his tracks.
‘Wow.’ We both spoke at the same time.
The sky had turned a deep mauve, fading to a line of brilliant orange across the cottonwool cloud-line. The sun’s yellow rays were still potent, piercing my eyes and leaving impressions when I blinked. We were surrounded by mountain peaks, bathed in the last of the evening’s light.
‘What do you do, Remy?’ I asked after a moment.
‘I’m a web designer for a small company in Turin. I’ve worked there pretty much since I left school.’
‘You enjoy it?’
‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘I’m lucky. I don’t have to work weekends, so I can come here. Most of my salary goes on the Mont Blanc tunnel.’
‘There are worse ways to spend your money.’
‘My ex does not agree with you,’ he said drily.
‘She doesn’t like the mountains?’
‘She doesn’t mind looking at them, but climbing, skiing, hiking... no. We don’t have a lot in common, to be honest. I don’t know how we lasted two years.’
‘Did you live together?’
‘Yes. We still do, unfortunately.’ He turned to face me properly, leaning one elbow against the handrail. A warm glow was cast across his face, lighting his blue eyes. He was insanely attractive, even when he was talking about his ex. I tried to concentrate as he continued.
‘It’s a great apartment. Neither of us wants to give it up, but we can’t afford the rent on our own.’
‘If you like it here so much, why don’t you move?’
‘And lose my job?’ he replied.
‘Couldn’t you freelance?’
‘I don’t know if my boss would go for that.’ He paused and then looked up at Mont Blanc. ‘Maybe I’ll ask.’
‘Have you been to the summit?’ I asked after a moment. His sightline hadn’t changed.
He nodded. ‘A couple of times. You?’
‘Not yet. I’m hoping to go this summer with my dad. The last time he summited Mont Blanc, he was in his twenties and I know he’s keen to do it again. But he’s getting older now and my mum worries every time he talks about doing another big climb. I feel a bit guilty for putting the pressure on.’
‘Well, if he decides not to come, you can give me a call.’
He said it casually, but I told him I’d need his number.
‘I’ll give it to you when we go back inside,’ he promised with a smile. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘What do you want to do with your life?’
‘I like writing. I’m going to university in September to study French and English.’ I shrugged. ‘I guess I’ll take it from there, see what happens.’
He must’ve picked up on my lack of enthusiasm. ‘You’re not looking forward to university?’
‘Not yet.’ My lips turned down. ‘But only because I can’t imagine leaving here.’
He regarded me thoughtfully. ‘You don’t miss your boyfriend?’
‘My boyfriend?’ I was taken aback. ‘I don’t have one.’
His eyes widened. ‘No?’
‘I did, but we broke up at Christmas.’
‘Aah.’ He gave me a knowing look. ‘Swedish Pete got his facts wrong.’
‘Swedish Pete again?’ I asked with a disbelieving giggle.
He grinned. ‘I think he was a little besotted with you.’
I laughed and pulled a face.
We fell silent as we returned our attention to the view. I tried to relax and recapture the sense of tranquillity from earlier in the day, but my breathing was shallow and I felt strangely skittish.
The sun was dipping below the clouds.
‘Going...’ I said.
‘Going...’ he said.
‘Gone,’ we both finished at the same time, turning to face each other. I shivered.
‘You’re cold. We should go back inside,’ he said, placing his hand on my arm. I stared up at him for a long few seconds before lowering my gaze to see his smile slowly fading. I met his eyes again and involuntarily stepped closer. A moment later, his lips were on mine.
We barely slept that night, talking and kissing as we lay in each other’s arms on the sofa. Occasionally Angus would flit into my mind and that would make everything seem unreal, but I knew I had no reason to feel guilty. It was thrilling being with Remy.
In the morning we rose in time for the sunrise and went to the ice cave, our view framed by icicles clinging to the ceiling as the sparkling sun rose over the mountains and up into a clear, blue sky.
Cécile and I put Remy and Amelie on the first cable car down and stood and waved them off. But I didn’t feel sad to see them go because I knew it wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning. The beautiful beginning of a beautiful relationship that would last only a few short months.
Falling in love with Remy was easy. Letting him go at the end of the summer was the hardest thing. Neither of us believed in long-distant relationships, so when we parted it was devastatingly final.
But we almost didn’t part at all. I kept delaying my return home, and as autumn approached, I seriously considered staying in Chamonix permanently. It was Dad who talked me out of it, when he finally made it over to visit me in August.
‘You’re only eighteen!’ he exclaimed. ‘You can’t throw away your career prospects because of a man,’ he said, amongst other arguments he’d used to convince me to take up my place at university.
I told him I wanted to be a mountain guide, like Remy. He’d done as I’d suggested and moved from Turin, scoring a job with a tour company who took climbers up the mountains. He was doing what he loved, day in, day out, and getting paid for it. Why shouldn’t I aspire to do the same?
‘There’s no money in it,’ Dad said. Climbing for him had been a hobby, something he had done at weekends to get away from it all. Prior to retirement, he’d worked as a civil engineer for a large building company. He hadn’t been passionate about his job, but it had paid well and had allowed him to live the life he’d wanted outside of working hours.
In the end, I succumbed to pressure and returned to England with a broken heart.
My sadness didn’t stop me from throwing myself into life at university in London, but I knew I wasn’t done with France. And I also believed that Remy and I would cross paths again one day.
It turns out I was right. Two weeks before I’m set to marry Angus, here we are again. It should be Angus who’s filling my head tonight, with happy thoughts about our future. Instead a snowstorm is brewing that’s entirely Remy-induced. It’s scaring me.