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We’re interrupted by the sommelier with a wine list the size of an encyclopaedia. We order a glass of house white each and he retreats, with a slightly disdainful expression. I don’t hear him call us peasants, but I’m pretty sure he’s thinking it. Toby and I turn our attention to the menu, which is totally incomprehensible. The main part is all in French, but even the English translations don’t help much. In the end we order pretty much at random, hoping that we’ll be lucky. I sneak a few pictures of the food as it arrives on my iPhone, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, and Toby does the same.
‘There’s a reason I’m a travel writer and not a food critic,’ I tell him as we make our way back up to our room at the end of the meal. ‘I mean, it all tasted very nice, but I hate all the pomp and ceremony, with the synchronised lifting of the cloches, and the foams, and the little smears of stuff. It just makes me want to rush out and get a burger!’
‘It was quite a weird atmosphere,’ he replies. ‘Almost religious, in a way. I found it slightly intimidating.’
‘Exactly!’ I agree. ‘You shouldn’t be intimidated by a restaurant. Well, at least we’ve done it and we can eat somewhere else tomorrow.’
Once we’re back in the room, we take turns to use the bathroom to change and brush our teeth before climbing into bed. We lie there for a bit, as far apart as it’s possible to be without either of us falling out, and another uncomfortable silence descends.
‘Shall I turn off the light?’ Toby asks, eventually.
‘Yes,’ I tell him, as I roll onto my side with my back to him. ‘Goodnight, Toby.’
‘Goodnight, Madison.’
8
JANUARY
This is hopeless. I reach for my phone on the bedside table and check the time. It’s well past one in the morning and I’m still wide awake. Toby appears to be fast asleep; his breathing is deep and even, with the occasional little sniffle. I’ve tried lying on my right side, my left side, and my back, but I just can’t get comfortable. It’s the bloody pyjamas. The top is OK, but I’m very aware of the bottoms, particularly as they keep wrapping themselves uncomfortably around my thighs and digging into my crotch. They’re also stiflingly hot. I’ve tried sticking my legs out from under the covers to cool them down, but then my feet get cold. If I want to get any sleep tonight, the pyjama bottoms are going to have to come off. I wriggle out of them, as carefully as I can so as not to disturb Toby, and place them on the floor next to the bed so I can put them back on as soon as I wake up. Hopefully he’ll never know, and I’ve still got my knickers on so I’m not totally indecent. The relief is instant, and I soon drift off to sleep.
The room is still dark when I wake again. I lie still for a few moments, trying to work out if Toby is awake too. I listen for a while, but can’t detect his breathing, and when I open my eyes and look at his side of the bed I realise why. There’s no sign of him. Shit. I hope he hasn’t woken up, seen that I’ve broken our agreement to stay covered up, and gone off in a huff. Or worse, gone home. I leap out of bed, stuffing my legs back into the pyjama bottoms, and check to make sure he hasn’t taken all his stuff. His camera bag is gone, but his clothes are still in the drawer and his toothbrush is in the bathroom, so he hasn’t gone home at least. But where the bloody hell is he? I check the time. It’s just coming up to half past seven and it’s still dark outside. What on earth could he be doing?
I decide to get dressed. If he’s still not back after that I’ll go and look for him. I ease myself into the thermal base layers and my salopettes and pop a jumper over the top. I’ll put the rest of my ski clobber on just before we go out, otherwise I’ll cook. I’m just tying my hair back when I hear Toby’s card in the door. He’s obviously been outside for a while, as his cheeks are flushed from the sudden warmth of the hotel and I notice that he’s already fully kitted out in his ski wear.
‘Where have you been?’ I exclaim, with relief washing through me.
‘Taking photos,’ he replies, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. ‘Dawn and dusk are the best time to take landscape shots – the light is amazing. I hope I didn’t disturb you when I left?’
‘No, not at all. I was just worried that…’ I realise, as I’m forming the words, that he obviously didn’t notice that I broke our agreement, so perhaps I don’t need to mention it either. ‘Oh, never mind. Are you ready for breakfast?’
The hotel breakfast is fairly standard continental fare, with a selection of pastries, cold meats, cheeses, fruits and yoghurts. There is a menu with hot options as well, but we don’t have time for that if we’re going to get Toby to his ski school on time. I fill a small bowl with fruit and yoghurt, while Toby makes a beeline for the pastries.
‘I need the carbs if I’m going to be exerting myself,’ he explains, adding a pain au chocolat to the two croissants already on his plate. ‘Also, delicious as it was, that dinner last night wasn’t really very filling, so I’m starving!’
‘Not exactly healthy carbs though, are they?’ I tease him. ‘They’re basically just fat with a bit of flour to hold them together.’
‘I don’t care,’ he replies, adding butter and jam to his plate. ‘I need this.’
Once Toby has grabbed some hasty second helpings and we’ve finished eating, we return to the room to finish kitting ourselves out, before retrieving our skis and boots from the storage room. Toby is particularly impressed that his boots are warm, and I explain that the boot racks are heated to help dry the boots out after a day on the slopes. We locate the ski school and I wish him luck, before heading for the Verdons gondola to do the green run that I’ve selected as my refresher run. The ski runs are all colour coded: green are the beginner slopes, then you work up through blue and red to black, which are for the most serious skiers. Although I’ve done my share of red and black runs over the years, I generally steer clear of them now; they tend to attract the kamikaze skiers, who whoosh past at dizzying speeds, often missing you by a whisker.
I’m glad to see the queue for the lift is fairly short, and soon I’m whisked to the top of the slope for my first run. My exit from the chairlift is a little ungainly, as I’m rather out of practice, but at least I don’t fall over. It’s not an especially long slope, and I take it gently, doing wide traverses and letting my body get the feel of being on skis again. It takes a couple of green runs before I feel that I’ve got my balance back and I’m ready to tackle something a little more interesting. This time I take the Jardin Alpin lift as far as I can, then transfer to the Biollay lift. From here I’m able to follow a series of blue and green runs all the way down into Courchevel Village, some 300 metres lower than the main part of the town where we’re staying. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy this, the cold breeze and the bright sunlight, the gentle swish of the powdery snow under my skis, my body reacting almost instinctively to the bumps. The slope is not too crowded, so I’ve got plenty of room around me, and the scenery, particularly as I pass through the trees, is stunning. The sky is that deep, cloudless blue you only seem to get at altitude, and the snow is dazzlingly white.
In the village I stop for a coffee and an opportunity to write up some notes before catching the lift back up to the main part of Courchevel. I check my watch and see that there’s just time for a short green run before Toby’s class finishes, and I arrive just as they’re wrapping up. Poor Toby looks absolutely miserable.
‘I’ve spent most of the morning on my arse,’ he complains as soon as we’re out of earshot of the rest of the group. ‘I fell off the lift more times than I can remember, and that was before the humiliation of falling over when I actually made it to the top. I managed one successful descent in the whole morning, and that was right at the end. I was going so slowly I probably could have walked down the slope faster. Explain to me how this is fun?’
‘You’ll get there,’ I encourage him. ‘It is hard at first, particularly as an adult. Were there any others in the group who were doing it for the first time?’
‘We’re all beginners,’ he replies.
‘And did any of the others find it any easier?’
‘No, I guess not.’
‘There you are then. Stick at it. Each day will get a little easier. What’s the instructor like?’
‘Good, actually. Very patient. He’s British, works here every season.’
