Chalet Girls

I’ve always been practical. I suppose you have to be when you grow up on a Highland croft. To say my parents weren’t exactly big on indulging emotions or talking about feelings would be a huge understatement. Duty to God, self-discipline and hard work were the Holy Trinity in our house. Let’s just say Verbier has been a bit of an eye-opener.

Where I do take after Mum is that I’ve got no patience with faffing. I’ve been ready for ages and am itching to get out of the tiny bunk room and into the fresh Swiss air. The scents of too many different perfumes mingle to fill the air in the bunk room, so it’s cloying and sickly sweet.

‘Hiya.’ Amelia enters the bunk room without knocking. She had the luxury of getting ready in the double room she shares with Matt.

‘What’s this film we’re going to see, again?’ Amelia asks. She looks immaculate, as always, in designer knee-high boots and a silk, jersey-blend dress. Her high blonde ponytail swishes as she moves, reminding me of the cows back home, swishing their tails at milking time.

Beth squirts yet more perfume into the air and walks into the cloud.

I take a small step back, my legs bumping against the edge of the bunk bed behind me, and sigh. I close my eyes briefly and think of all the glorious, powdery white snow just a chairlift ride away that makes all this worth it.

‘It’s a film of the line Sebastien Laroche took at the Verbier Xtreme last year. You know, he jumped that cliff that had never been jumped before? I bet Crazy White Lines will win the Valais Freeride Film Festival. No one can beat Sebastien.’ I look around, expecting to see dawning recognition in the others’ eyes but find only blank incomprehension. How can they not have heard of Sebastien Laroche? The man’s a legend.

‘Ooh, our Lucy has a crush. I think Sebastien Laroche has a fan girl slash stalker in the making here.’ Tash smirks, dropping the mascara back into her make-up case.

I glare at her.

‘Okay, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I’m coming. Impatient much?’ She adds, her lips still twitching.

‘I am not a stalker.’ I narrow my eyes. ‘But I do admire him, because he’s an amazing athlete. He takes big mountain boarding to a whole new level. Did you know companies are fighting over his sponsorship and begging to film his runs?’

Tash rolls her eyes. She likes skiing and snowboarding but isn’t serious about the sport like I am. I bite my tongue. She’s agreed to come and keep me company tonight. I just have to accept that not everyone is as into the sport as I am.

‘It’ll be fun to watch. I can’t imagine hovering over a mountain ridge in a helicopter and then having to jump out onto it.’ Rebecca zips up her make-up bag and puts it into her locker.

‘I bet he’s totally bonkers,’ Amelia adds. ‘Has to be.’

I glower at Amelia. She’s yet another casual skier with no sporting ambition beyond skiing to the nearest cantine for a champagne cocktail. Not that there’s anything wrong with cocktails, but surely life has to be about more than getting hammered every night?

‘What?’ Amelia shrugs. ‘Who but a nutter would choose to snowboard on ice and scree, knowing every line they take could be their last? It’s mad.’

I bite my lip, resisting the urge to argue with great difficulty.

‘I’m glad we’re guest-free for a few nights,’ Rebecca, ever the peacemaker, changes the subject and drops her lip gloss into her clutch bag, clicking it shut. She’s wearing a silky grey cashmere top and designer jeans. She’s also perfectly made up, with pearly-pink lips and smoky eye shadow. Everyone is looking super-glam compared to me, but I guess I have different priorities. I’m going to watch the film, not to be watched myself.

Still, maybe I should’ve made an effort with make-up, but I rarely bother these days. My skin is beautifully clear from all my time out in the fresh Swiss air and bathing in pure mountain water. I’ve never felt better. Plus I’ve got a healthy tan from spending every spare minute on the slopes.

I’ve never been a girly girl; it just isn’t me. Growing up on a croft in the Scottish Highlands in a tiny village near Drumnadrochit didn’t inspire much interest in clothes or fashion. Mum never wore make-up and would’ve come down hard on me if I’d spent precious money on anything so frivolous and selfish. As far as she was concerned vanity was a sin and, boy, didn’t I know about it! She reminded me often enough.

Instead I filled any free time I had with hiking and skiing when we had enough snow. I always dreamt of skiing in the Alps one day, maybe even competing. Skiing in Scotland wasn’t enough for me, the snow coverage far too unreliable. Moving to Verbier was a huge deal, given no one in my family has ever moved further away than a ten-mile radius of Drumnadrochit. You’d have thought I was denouncing my Scottish heritage, God and my family from the way Mum and Dad had reacted when I’d told them where I was going. Well, I say Mum and Dad, but it was Mum who did the talking, as always. Dad just gave me the silent treatment, refusing even to say goodbye to me.

They still think this is a passing fancy for me but landing this chalet-girl job was the start of living my dream.

One day I’d love to be a big-mountain skier. Not that I ever admit this to anyone. They’d probably laugh and I’ve had a lifetime of being disparaged, I can’t face anyone else trying to crush my dreams. But why shouldn’t I compete one day? I’m good, and I’ve been told I’m getting better every month. If I could find someone willing to coach me, well, who knows …

‘Earth to Lucy.’ Tash waves a hand in front of my face. ‘What are you thinking about? Or should that be ‘who’?’

‘Nothing,’ I mumble and look away, embarrassed to be caught daydreaming. ‘Can we get going now?’

Tash smirks but finally we’re out of the bunk room and I slip into my ski jacket. It‘s not stylish, but it‘s the warmest coat I own. The walk back to the chalet will be a cold one, resort temperatures plummet rapidly once darkness falls. You forget your gloves at your peril. I‘d rather be warm than look pretty on the offchance of meeting someone interesting.

‘No Matt? I thought he was coming too?’ Beth asks as she steps into her Ugg boots.

‘He‘s got some work to do.’ Amelia slips a stylish, no doubt expensive faux-fur-lined wrap over her shoulders. ‘We need all the freelance web-design work he can pick up, given we‘ve got a wedding to pay for.’

Tash rolls her eyes; something she‘s taken to doing whenever Amelia mentions her wedding. To be fair, it happens a lot. Tash said we should start a swear jar going but instead of putting money in when she swears Amelia should be made to add a Swiss franc every time she mentions her wedding. For some reason, Amelia wasn‘t amused by the idea. Let‘s just say that the relationship between the two of them is as frosty as the icicles hanging down from Chalet Repos‘ roof.

As we troop out of the warmth of the chalet into crisp, fresh snow there are thick snowflakes swirling silently overhead. They land on our hoods and hair, brushing our eyelashes and cooling our warm cheeks. After the stifling atmosphere of the dorm room it‘s a relief to be out in the snow.

We head en masse to the car park in town, where a number of large white marquees have been erected for the film festival. I fish the tickets out of my jacket pocket as we merge with the crowd hurrying out of the cold and into the warmth of the main heated tent. We‘re cutting it fine. I crane my neck to see if there‘s a group of empty seats together. No such luck.

There is one empty seat at the front. I gaze at it longingly.

‘Go on, go sit at the front. You can take that chair in the front row’ Tash gives me a none-too-gentle push. ‘We‘ll meet you afterwards. You‘re the one who‘s really into this, after all.’

I don‘t need any more urging. I rush forward before any of the other late-comers can get to it. I‘ll get a fantastic view of the screen from the front row. Once seated I‘m twitchy, eyes directly ahead on the screen, waiting for the film to start and hoping to God none of my neighbours try to make small talk.

You‘d think, given how much I love the mountains and winter sports, I‘d have loads in common with my fellow seasonnaires, right?

Wrong.

As far as I can tell, most seasonnaires are here for the après ski, with a bit of skiing thrown in. Any illusions I had of meeting a serious boyfriend here in Switzerland took a flying leap off a mountain and crashed on the rocks below long ago. It should‘ve been obvious, if I‘d thought it through properly. Seasonnaire. The very name of the type of job we do suggests a temporary arrangement – only for a season. Most of the relationships that spring up in resorts, if they last beyond a one-night stand, span only a few weeks, not even the whole season. I keep telling myself it isn‘t a big deal. After all, it‘s not the main reason I came to Verbier. But still. I had hoped …

My skin prickles to attention, my sixth sense telling me I‘m being watched. I cross my arms and stare rigidly ahead. Thankfully the screen finally flickers into life, showing a holding page, a photograph of an alpine ridge. The general hubbub dies down to the odd cough. One of Sebastien Laroche‘s sponsors from a popular outdoor clothing company comes to the front and lists some of Sebastien‘s previous triumphs by way of introduction – three times European Boardercross champion and a place on the French Winter Games team last year, only narrowly missing out on a medal.

Of course I admire him. He‘s achieved things I can only dream about. Okay, he happens to be easy on the eye too. Maybe I have just a teensy wee crush.

When the introduction is over the holding screen disappears and the screen is filled with the image of a helicopter in flight. The camera pans to the open side door. Inside is Sebastien Laroche, a huge grin lighting up his charismatic face. He has wild black curls and his face is as craggy as the mountaintops he loves. His skin is tanned, with that weather-beaten look truly outdoorsy people get, and there‘s a jagged scar on his chin. Maybe he‘s not conventionally handsome, but when he smiles, like he‘s smiling now, his face glows with a fierce, dancing light.

He‘s utterly mesmerising.

Okay, so it might be more than a wee crush.

‘Snowboarding is my life, my reason to live.’ On screen, Sebastien‘s eyes shine with anticipation of the jump, lit with pure joy.

I shift forward in my chair, my gaze trained on Sebastien as he jumps down from the helicopter onto a metre-wide snowy ridge. The camera pans out and down to show a two-thousand-metre drop to the valley below, broken only by sheer, razor-sharp rocks.

The crowd gasp, united in their incredulity at the precariousness of Sebastien‘s position.

‘Il est fou,’ a woman behind me mutters. With difficulty I resist the temptation to turn around and give her my death glare. How can she dismiss his bravery as madness?

Although, when I see the line he takes down the mountain, sliding on virtually vertical stretches of scree and accelerating when he hits patches of ice, the breath catches in my chest. A small part of me reluctantly agrees. But where do we draw the line between madness and bravery? And who gets to decide where it lies?

Perhaps he‘s both mad and brave, essential characteristics for a pioneer, someone capable of transcending the ordinary with the extraordinary.

The camera follows his path down the mountainside. Whenever he leaps to a decent patch of snow he part-glides, part-dances on the snow‘s crust. He moves so gracefully it‘s like he‘s in tune with the mountain. As though he‘s dancing in time to a mountain heartbeat no one else can hear but him.

I expected his skill but didn‘t anticipate anything so beautiful or so moving. It stirs me deep down, opening up a visceral yearning.