Things I Want My Daughters to Know (39 page)

“Bet it’s expensive out here, if the cost of my chalet is anything to go by,” said Wendy, rolling her big eyes. When she spoke, the bobbles on her hat bounced.

“Not that bad where we are. No chalet maids, you see. Unless one of the boys gets lucky, of course. We just drink it all, to be honest!” Justin cheerfully replied. By now he’d stowed his phone and put his gloves back on. “Right, ladies, let’s get out of here, and find somewhere a bit quieter and flatter, shall we. Follow me, bend zee knees. . . .”

And he tried. He really tried. Wendy was unlike most women Jennifer had ever seen on the slopes. She clearly didn’t give a fig about how she looked. When she started going faster than she wanted to go, or when her knees would not cooperate in letting her make the required turn, and she was careening toward the drifts at the edge of the piste, she simply turned into the mountain and fell. And every time she did, she laughed. She was physically incapable of getting up again, so Justin 288 e l i z a b e t h

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had to ski to her and pull her up by her pole, every time. This had the combined effect of making Jennifer feel just a bit better about her own technique, and making her laugh so much with Wendy that her stomach ached more than her legs were ever going to.

After two hours, they begged in unison for a mulled wine stop.

“You’re the customers, ladies,” Justin declared, unperturbed. He agreed to come for them in thirty minutes, and they planted themselves in a quietish corner of the nearest mountainside restaurant and ordered two large gluweins.

Jennifer had forgotten the way that you could be anyone you wanted to be in a holiday friendship. It wasn’t about lying. It was just that the person you were making friends with had no preconceptions about you—they didn’t know your history. She was happy to take Wendy’s lead and be funny and self-deprecating and jolly. It felt good. Although Jennifer would have guessed her new friend’s age as similar to her own, Wendy was a newlywed. She’d married into a long line of skiers late the previous autumn, after a courtship so whirlwind and so summery that no mention of skiing had been made during it. The skiing husband and his skiing family made this pilgrimage annually, and nonparticipation was not an option. So Wendy was fulfilling her wifely duties. With gusto.

By day two, they had mastered turning to some degree. Although Justin said he thought they held the new resort record for number of turns taken to get down a green run, he agreed that they had all been beautifully executed. Wendy’s fall rate had fallen away dramatically.

They took a two-hour lunch, dismissing a willing Justin, who made eagerly for the nearest black run. Jennifer told Wendy about her mum, surprised even as she started speaking that she should be sharing such intimacies with a virtual stranger. Wendy was a great listener—face flooded with sympathy—and Jennifer didn’t feel like she had to be polite. She talked for a while. Wendy’s mum was the domineering matriarch of a large chaotic family in Cheshire, Wendy said, and she squeezed
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her hand when she spoke and said that she couldn’t imagine losing her mum, and how awful.

On the third day, their muscles were really rebelling. The blue sky of previous days had given way to something much grayer and less inviting.

“I’m a fairweather skier, me!” Wendy declared. Despite Justin’s halfhearted protestations that the best way to deal with the pain and the weather was to ski through it, they stopped at lunchtime, and descended in the cable car back to the village to share a fondue lunch. Wendy told Jennifer she didn’t want children. Funny how, even when neither of you had them, two women their age couldn’t be friends for more than three days without talking about kids. Like men and cars.

“Never have, really. I kept waiting, you know, for my biological clock to start ticking, but it never has. Thought I heard it, a few times. But realized it was my mates’—getting louder and louder. Never heard my own. And I don’t think I ever will.”

“What about your husband?”

“He knows, of course. It wouldn’t be fair to a bloke, would it, to marry him without having that conversation first? We had it very early, to tell you the truth. When you’re our age, you can’t afford to muck about, can you? After thirty-five, the whole world is one massive speed date, isn’t it?”

“You’re not that old!”

“I’m thirty-nine. Dangerous number, that. Just about ‘too late.’”

“Too late for what?”

“Too late for babies. It’s all downhill, isn’t it, after the age of forty.

Nature remains unmoved by women’s lib. We’re supposed to have our babies when we’re in our teens, aren’t we—bodywise? Not wait until we’ve got a degree, broken through the glass ceiling at work, and slept with a load of toads looking for Prince Charming, like I did. So a woman who’s thirty-nine usually has a neon sign on her forehead, flashing baby machine at blokes. Which, strange to tell, they do not find all that al-luring. . . .”

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“But not you.”

“Nope.”

“Why not, do you think?”

Wendy shrugged. “No especially complex reasons, I don’t think. I had a perfectly normal childhood. Great parents, lots of kids around. I’m not ‘damaged’ or anything like that, I don’t think. I don’t not like babies, don’t get me wrong. Or children. In fact, I prefer children to babies. You can talk to them. Babies always frightened me a bit, to be honest. I once asked a friend of mine, who had a couple of kids, why she’d done it, and when I got her to stop going on about how wonderful it is, and how precious, and all that bollocks, she shrugged and said, ‘What about when you’re old—aren’t you worried you’ll be lonely?’ That just didn’t strike me as the best reason in the world to do it. I’m sure it’s not true for everyone, but it really made me think. I wonder why people
do
do it.

Change everything, I mean. It’s just . . . well, I suppose I think that my life is pretty great without them. I’ve always loved my freedom. I love to please myself—selfish bugger, probably. Not be tied down. I’ve got no desire to spend my life exaggerating my kids’ achievements, covered in stains, with a handbag full of Wet Ones and tiny boxes of raisins.” She’d obviously thought about this.

“But you’ve got married.”

“Yes, true, but to someone who, it turns out, thinks just like me.”

“You’re lucky.”

Wendy narrowed her eyes and stared intently at Jennifer.

“And you? You’ve had the world according to me, whether you wanted it or not. What about you and your fella?”

“I’m not sure my husband thinks just like me. I used to think he did, but now . . .”

“You’re not so sure?”

“I’m not.”

“About babies?”

“About everything.”

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Wendy waited to see if she was going to continue.

“And about babies. He really wants them.”

“And you don’t?”

“I’m not sure.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-seven.”

“See—the danger years. Told you.”

Jennifer laughed. “That’s no answer.”

“No. Don’t think I can come up with an answer, my love. I’m not a card-carrying member of the antibaby club. That’s just me. And my fella, lucky for me. Seems to me, you’ve got to think whether you don’t want babies at all, or you don’t want babies with him. And I don’t mean to sound like the time police, and you’d be entitled to tell me it’s none of my bloody business, and you wouldn’t be the first, but I’ve never thought much of small talk. I’d rather have big talk. But you’ve got to do it soon.

If it’s yes to babies but no to babies with him, you’ve got to give both of you a chance, haven’t you?”

Jennifer had a sudden image of Stephen with someone else’s children.

It was a new thought for her, and a very peculiar one.

“You’re too clever for your own good.”

“Ah! See! Babies haven’t sucked my brain out through my boobs, that’s why.” Jennifer winced, but Wendy looked unrepentant. “Can’t ski for toffee though, can I?” She laughed.

Jennifer had never had a conversation like that with anyone else, not about Stephen. Not with Lisa, nor with Mum, although she had sensed, a few times, that her mother was trying to lead her that way, and she’d panicked and drawn the conversation elsewhere. She had never really understood why she hadn’t wanted to admit these things to her mum, admit failure. It wasn’t as if her life had been perfect.

Bloody hell—who even knew, until Amanda’s letter—how imperfect a person she’d been. She didn’t know where the foolish pride came from. She was surprised that Wendy didn’t offend her, to be honest.

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But maybe it was the ephemeral quality of their relationship that made it okay, the fact that she’d probably never see her again. Or maybe she was just that desperate.

The next day was their last lesson together. Wendy was leaving that night, on the snow train. They got down a blue run with a red patch halfway down without falling once, yelling with triumph, and hugging a startled Justin at the bottom. As they parted, exchanging e-mail addresses neither of them really believed they would ever use, Wendy held her close for a minute and wished her luck.

“Think about it this way,” she said, “and see if it helps . . . imagine he’s not here anymore. Be as melodramatic or as low key as you want.

He’s left you for someone else, or you’ve moved away for some reason, or he’s dead, or in a coma or something—whatever. Then think about how that makes you feel. That’ll tell you, if you’re really honest with yourself, whether there’s something to save.”

Jennifer watched the retreating back of the temporary friend she had granted more access than people she had known her whole life, skis and poles balanced on her shoulders like a pro, and realized that the admiration of their early acquaintance had become more like envy. This woman knew exactly what she wanted. And she’d got it. How was it possible that she could still be so mired in indecision? One thing she was sure of was that she couldn’t keep blaming Stephen for it. And she couldn’t keep ignoring it.

She spent the rest of the afternoon in her room, thinking, and pretending to read. That evening was the chalet maid’s night off, and they were all to fend for themselves in the wild hinterland of the village. Emboldened, perhaps by Wendy’s words, or by that last blue run, Jennifer was determined to separate Stephen from the others, for this one night at least. They would go somewhere nice, just the two of them, and talk.

Really talk. She took a long, hot bath, full of Molton Brown bubbles, dried her hair and applied the kind of makeup that looks like you are barefaced, and waited for Stephen on their bed, naked under a dry towel.

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Sex had become, for her, leverage. She still enjoyed it and knew herself to be quite good at it, at least as far as Stephen was concerned—she hadn’t had a lot of practice on other people. Well, no one, except for John, and she didn’t remember that part of their lives as being particularly fulfilling. She was a late developer. But she knew what worked for her and Stephen. Mostly, these days, it was a means to an end. It softened Stephen up, mellowed him out.

She heard everyone come in. It was already dark outside, and it had started to snow again. Boots were stamped against the ceramic tile floor, the whistling kettle was boiled for tea. Everyone was laughing and exu-berant. Children ran up and down in the room above her head, screaming wildly. She put her head back against the wall behind the bed, closed her eyes, and tried to think sexy thoughts amid the ensuing chaos. There was this one time, really early on, when she and Stephen had made love . . . she supposed she remembered it so well, and as being so perfect, because it marked the real beginning of them. It was all new and raw. She’d been someone she didn’t recognize, and she’d liked being her.

There’d been a mirror, across from the bed, in this place they were staying and they’d watched themselves. She’d never done anything like that before; it was the first time she’d seen herself naked in such a position, and she’d surprised herself by being totally into it, watching herself climb on top of Stephen, watching them move together, their faces, their straining. She thought about that, her hand moving gently under the towel and waited for him, with increasing, delicious impatience.

He knew from the look on her face, when he closed the door behind him, and saw her lying there, what she was doing, what she wanted. And his response was gratifyingly instantaneous, despite the long day of black runs. He smiled and locked the door. Of all the things he might have expected at the end of his day, this was not one of them, and he had no urge to deconstruct it. Coming over, slowly, he kneeled beside the bed, pulling the towel to one side, and planted a trail of 294 e l i z a b e t h

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little kisses around her navel. She peeled his thermals over his head, wanting to get to his skin, and he took his ski trousers down to around his knees, his growing erection clearly visible through his long johns.

“I stink like a racehorse.” He spoke against her stomach.

“I don’t care.”

“I should take a shower?” His voice was muffled. She wasn’t sure she could wait that long. He raised his face and grinned sexily at her. “Come with me?”

“I dried my hair.”

It was his turn. “I saw. I don’t care.” He pulled her to her feet.

In the bathroom, he turned the water on to hot and pulled off the rest of his clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor. Turning back to her, he put both arms around her and drew her close, so that their bodies were touching all the way down. She watched herself again, in the mirror, watched the angle of her long neck as he gently kissed and nuzzled at it, until the steam covered it, and them. In the shower, he reached for the soap. She took it from him without speaking and lathered it between her hands, then ran them under his arms, across his shoulders, and down his stomach. He was in good shape, and she could feel the hard muscles running under the surface. His belly had a pelt of dark hair, and she ran her fingers through it possessively. He gasped when she took hold of him. The water was running on both their faces as they kissed. He pushed her hand off him then, and for a moment she was worried, but he held her close, his hands resting in the small of her back.