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Xavier and Liv picked up their snowboards and we trudged through the main drag of Verbier, stopping off at Intersport to sort me out a board and some boots. We were swept up in a sea of skiers and snowboarders enthusiastically chatting their way towards the lift. The clickety-clack of ski boots walking in rhythm through the snow, as skiers held their skis aloft and swayed to an unheard beat, their snowboarding counterparts crunching slowly alongside them, cumbersome planks of wood in their wake.
Three pairs of boots and two boards later, I was suited and booted and ready to go.
‘On the Chalet Blanchet account,’ Xavier said to the cool kid serving me, as I went to hand over my credit card. He nodded and handed me a receipt.
‘Really?’ I said, surprised. ‘That’s so kind of them.’
‘All part of the deal.’ Xavier replied.
We queued for half an hour to get on the gondola, shuffling like penguins every thirty seconds or so until we eventually reached the front. The three of us pressed our bodies and lift passes against the scanner and bleeped through the turnstile, as the people behind us surged forward, knowing they were finally next in line to get on the lift. Skis and snowboards were slotted into the holes on the outside of the cable car, poking out precariously from all sides. I shoved the snowboard I’d had for all of twenty minutes in with the others and hoped for the best, quickly following Xavier and Liv into the cable car as people squeezed in around us. When there was finally nowhere else to squeeze to, the doors sighed shut and the cable car bobbed gently for a few beats before taking a running jump into the air. I was so close to Liv and Xavier, I had to hold my breath.
My stomach lurched as we creaked further and further up the mountain and Verbier gradually disappeared into the distance. We were walking-in-the-air Snowman style, the pine trees tickling our toes as we flew along. It was a beautiful, sunny day so I had zero excuse not to give snowboarding a go. Apart from fear of death, permanent maiming and/or pneumonia due to my frog outfit being very old and no longer fit for purpose. As we neared the top of the mountain, the penguins started to shuffle again, anxious to get their snowy hit. They peeled away in a dance-like state the second the doors opened, collecting their kit and clomping off into the distance. In short, everyone knew what they were doing apart from me.
‘Don’t forget your board, babe,’ Liv said, nodding backwards, her pigtails swinging.
I stepped off the cable car and stumbled on the springy plastic floor, steadying myself to get my bearings, as my snowboard carried on its journey, bouncing off beyond my reach. Luckily, Xavier was well ahead of me and grabbed both our snowboards simultaneously, tucking one under each arm as he crunched his way to the exit.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, they were going to make me strap that bloody thing to my feet and throw myself down the mountain. This was the last time I’d walk on my own legs as a free woman. Intensive Care, here I come.
‘We are at the top of a very easy blue run, Holly. I think you are going to like this one very much,’ Xavier said. Without a glimmer of a smile. I mean, that seemed highly unlikely.
‘Get your board on and we’ll show you what to do,’ Liv said, stamping her feet together and somehow clicking her boots straight onto her board, while I undid every single one of my bindings, put each boot into position and slowly winched the straps back together, securing my feet in place. The struggle to bend down and reach my feet was challenge enough. I dragged it out for as long as possible, but the time for dilly-dallying was done. I pushed myself up to stand and tried to balance on the board, wobbling about for five seconds before falling backwards onto the snow. Xavier slid his way over to me, his snowboard and size 10 boots enormous next to mine.
‘We can bum-shuffle to the edge of the mountain together, OK? Follow me,’ he said, caterpillar-ing along the floor to move himself from where we were to where we needed to be. This must have been highly embarrassing for him, as a virtually professional snowboarder, but I followed suit. Liv couldn’t bear it and zoomed past us on her board, blowing candyfloss vape in our direction.
‘See you down there, yeah?’ Liv called over her shoulder, putting her headphones on.
‘You have to trust the mountain,’ Xavier said earnestly as people whipped past us on both sides. ‘You’ve got a piece of wood strapped to your ankles and the only way is down. The mountain and the snow will get you down the piste; you’ve just got to learn how to start and stop.’
‘What if I can’t do it?’ I said panic-stricken, suddenly very conscious of being at the top of a mountain, with an afternoon tea shift starting in three hours.
‘You can,’ Xavier said.
Liv was already halfway down the run, waving up at us, and I looked behind me at the one-way traffic coming in our direction. It was too late to back out now; snowboarding down was my only option. I dug my heels into the snow and made a second attempt to stand up. As I wobbled my legs straight, my board promptly slid from underneath my feet and I fell back again, onto my coccyx – my bum wasn’t Kardashian-enough for this.
‘Take it nice and steady,’ Xavier said, easily standing on his board and flipping himself round to hover in front of me. He must have unbelievable core strength, of which I had zero. I briefly thought about the level of travel insurance I’d gone for and whether this day trip was going to end in a helicopter airlifting me off the mountain. Or me flying down the run in a body bag on the back of a skidoo. Both options were terrifying. Speedy and embarrassing at best, expensive and excruciatingly painful at worst. Xavier put out his hands while seemingly levitating in front of me. I took them both and attempted to wrestle myself up to standing, pulling Xavier down on top of me in the process.
‘S-s-sorry,’ I stammered, mortified, ‘I have no control over my centrifugal force.’
Xavier stared at me thoughtfully and tried a different tack.
‘OK. Instead of trying to stand up, turn your whole body over and wedge your board into the mountain, like this,’ he said, flipping himself over again and balancing at an angle while holding onto the ground. This is where I was going to die. This man had no idea what he was up against. I couldn’t stand up, let alone start Cirque de Soleil-ing along the snow.
‘Don’t worry Xavier, I’ll work it out. You go and have a… er… ride with Liv, I don’t want to hold you both up,’ I said, scrabbling with the snow to roll myself over. The boots and board were so heavy. My body could twist but my legs weren’t strong enough to follow. I was stuck mid-turn in the snow and struggling like an upside-down baby turtle, when I felt my board lift up and turn over.
‘There you go, now bend your knees, and lean into the mountain. You can do it; you can’t fall anywhere but back on your face.’
‘You say that as if it’s a good thing?’ I laughed, balancing my body out and pushing my board into the mountain as if my life depended on it. Which it did. And then I was almost, kind of, sort of UP. The wrong way around of course, but my shaky legs were up, nonetheless. I held my hands off the mountain and beamed at Xavier to show him.
‘C’est tout!’ he said, slapping me on the back and nearly pushing me back down. ‘Now just relax into it and let yourself go.’
Xavier started to slide towards the left and held my hand to encourage me to do the same. I was frozen to the spot, terrified I’d cock it up, fall backwards and break my leg.
‘Jiggle yourself along with me. Move your body and the board will do the rest.’
Skiers and snowboarders whooshed past us left, right and centre, including some very small children doing trick shots as they threw themselves down the mountain. Jiggle along, he said. Couldn’t be that hard, could it? I was frozen through and about to have a full-blown panic attack, so I had to do something. I did a small jiggle and nothing happened. A tiny bit more jiggling and the board started to creak. My knees were absolutely killing me, so I had to make myself move somehow. I shifted the angle of the board from nine o’clock to seven o’clock. I needed to get some traction, or I’d be wedged into the mountain all night. That did the trick. The board started to slide to the left, slowly at first. I gave Xavier a smiley thumbs-up as the board shifted further round to six o’clock. Was that an over-jiggle? The sliding gathered pace. Oh no. My smile dropped. Xavier hadn’t told me how to stop. Or slow down. Or steer. My weight was on the back of the board as I careered down the mountain, silently praying I wouldn’t shoot off the edge. I whizzed past Liv, who looked on in shock as I gathered pace, going faster and faster down the piste. I was thundering along, the wind in my ears and my heart in my mouth as I reached the gentle part of the slope just before the bottom of the run. A neat line of toddlers were enjoying a ski lesson and I started to panic. There was no way to avoid them and no chance they’d be out of my way in time to be avoided. I had no choice but to press the ejector button, so I threw myself forward and fell in the direction of a huge dump of snow, piling into it head-first.
‘Ugh.’ I stayed still for a few moments then rolled onto my back and scooped the snow off my face, as Xavier swooshed alongside me, his cheeks bright red.
