(1989) Dreamer (40 page)

Andreas seemed to have come alive here on the slopes; as if he could make up for what he lacked in conversation by a virtuoso performance on his skis. He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead. ‘Here, I help.’ He leaned over, grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip, and heaved her back up. ‘Hurts, doesn’t it, to make the fall?’ He stared, a piercing hard stare. ‘We make a traverse here, into a very good powder bowl I will take you down. Not many people know it.’ As he replaced his goggles, she looked at the hand he had used to pull her up, his right hand with the three useless fingers, and she remembered another time she had felt a grip like that, only once in her life, a very long time ago. He stretched his hands behind him and pulled the green hood up over his head, then launched himself off down the mountain and disappeared into a bank of mist.

Sam dusted the snow off her trousers. ‘I don’t want to ski with him any more, Richard.’

‘He’s a good skier,’ he said defensively. ‘Knows this area well. It’s good to have a guide with this mist.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Actually, I think he rather fancies you.’

She stared at him in stunned silence. ‘What am I, Richard? Part of your deal?’

He blushed, and scratched his ear. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Just keep him sweet, that’s all.’

‘God,’ she said. ‘You used to be such a proud man.’ She turned away, unable even to look at him, and began to ski down following the direction of the banker. She made a stiff, awkward turn, then another and stopped, her eyes smarting, anger and fear churning her up, fuzzing her brain.

She watched Richard hurtling down too fast as usual, in his hunched, slightly out-of-control style, and disappearing into the mist. She heard the rustling of more skis, and watched another couple ski past, the man slightly stiff, the woman elegant, flowing. The mist swallowed them as well, then there was silence. She was alone, suddenly, on the slope.

She looked around nervously. Her thigh hurt from the fall, and she was cold and wet. She wished she was home, in front of the fire, with Nicky playing on the rug.

Home was a cosy place. A safe place. Somewhere that no longer existed.

She blinked hard, pushed herself forwards halfheartedly, made a poor, jerky turn, then another, trying to get the rhythm, trying to get the enthusiasm. She felt the jar of an edge catching, and her skis crossed. The ground raced up towards her and hit her hard in the stomach, winding her.

‘Shit,’ she said. She was lying face down, one leg still in its ski jammed behind her, the other free. She crawled back to her feet, put her ski back on, and stared down into the mist that was fast rising up towards her.

Where were they?

‘Richard?’ she called.

Silence.

‘Richard?’ she shouted louder, but the mist sucked in her voice like blotting paper.

She eased her skis downhill and made two more turns, then stopped again. She saw a figure a short way below her, a dim silhouette, and skied down towards it. She got closer and saw the metallic green of Andreas’s ski suit moving off again, turning sharply to the right. There was a shadow just below her, a piste marker post, with an arrow. She skied down. It was black, a black run, pointing the opposite direction to which Andreas
had gone. There was something written on the marker, the name of the run, as there always was, and she peered closer.

AROLEID.

She stared, blinking in disbelief.

AROLEID.

The snow seemed to be swaying underneath her. Rocking her as if she was standing in a boat.

AROLEID.

Sweet Jesus, no.

AROLEID.

It was flashing at her, strobing, corning closer, closer, then it smacked her in the face and knocked her to the ground.

She lay there and stared up at it, numb with terror.

DIE ORAL!

DERAIL.

AIR DOLE.

OR I DEAL.

ORDEAL I.

REDIAL.

She heard a sound like a snigger and spun around. But there was nothing.

She scrambled back onto her skis and stared at the sign again.

AROLEID.

Pointing to the left. The solitary marker in the mist.

She stared into the mist, shaking. Terrified to stand here alone by the sign. Terrified to go. In any direction.

‘Richard!’ she shouted again, but no sound came out.

The cold gnawed at her fingers, her face, gnawed at her insides as if it was trying to eat its way through her. The mist was thickening and there was a weird dreamlike quality to it.

It’s OK.

Lucid dream.

I’m going to wake up in a minute.

Please God, I want to wake up.

She thought she heard a sound behind her and turned around. There was a silhouette just above her, like a person, but it seemed to disappear as she watched. The mist, she thought. Tricks with the eyes. ‘Richard! Is that you?’

Nothing.

The mist was thickening again and the green suit had disappeared.

AROLEID.

To the left.

The sign Slider had shown her.

No way. No which way, thank you. She turned right, pushing herself off after Andreas, pushing herself away from the sign as quickly as she could. She was gathering speed now down an incline, then felt herself jerk forwards and almost fell as her skis ran from the firm piste into deep powder snow.

The green suit had disappeared completely, but she could see his tracks, and skied in them. ‘Wait for me, you sod,’ she muttered, turning with difficulty and nearly falling again, trying to remember her powder technique, but the snow was heavy and she missed the tracks, heard a sharp scraping under her skis, and almost lost her balance as she went over a buried rock. Christ. Wait. Wait for me!

The slope fell away and she shrieked as she accelerated sharply. She turned frantically, then turned again, hurtling down a steep unskied gully. She heard the scrape of another rock then slewed on a patch of ice, peering ahead, trying to see where she was going, to see the next bump before it rose up under her and threw her off balance. She stopped, inches from a massive bare
rock, backed away, turned, skied over a bump that threw her up in the air, and she came down into deep wet powder, and started shooting up the side of the gully. She tried to turn. She hit another bump and swung around, bounced up hard, then saw Andreas’s green suit just ahead. She turned again, then again and stopped, exhausted, gasping for breath, right behind him.

‘Christ,’ she said, panting. ‘That was steep. Are you sure this is right?’

‘Yes, this is right,’ he said. ‘But from here it gets even steeper. It’s a good run, but you have to be a little careful.’ He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, and turned around.

Sam screamed.

The backs of her skis crossed and dug into the wall of the gully and she slid forward and jammed the points of her ski poles into the snow, gripped the handles hard, shaking her head, staring in wild disbelief.

Staring at the black hood with slits for the eyes, nose and mouth that he had over his face.

Staring at the metallic green suit.

Slider.

In the dream laboratory.

The metallic green suit.

That suit.

She turned around looking for Richard. Christ, where are you? Then she stared back at Andreas afraid to take her eyes off him, afraid in case—

He was smiling, enjoying himself, enjoying watching her shake. He touched the hood with his ski glove. ‘Silk balaclava – very good for keeping the face warm. We go into deep powder soon. It sprays up and makes the face cold.’

Calm down.

For Christ’s sake, calm down. Just a balaclava. Lots of skiers wear balaclavas.

Only a bloody balaclava!

Only a green metallic suit.

Coincidence. That’s all.

He tugged his goggles back on and beckoned her with his hand.

She stared, not wanting to move, but her skis began to slip, and she had to jam her poles into the snow again to stop herself from skiing straight into him. She turned her head, staring back up the gully.

Richard. Please come.

The mist lifted a little and she could see how steep and narrow it was.

‘It’s lucky for you I stopped here,’ he said, still smirking. ‘You could have had a nasty fall.’

She saw a shape appear at the top. It was Richard. Her heart leapt with relief.

He started down, turned, crossed his skis and fell head first. She watched anxiously as he lifted his face out of the snow, then he waved at her.

She looked back at Andreas. Was this a dream? Was this a lucid dream?

I’d really like to wake up now. Except she knew this time she was awake.

‘Come!’ Andreas said. ‘Come slowly, be very careful. I want to show you.’

I think it is possible that he’s someone in the present, now, who is bothering you, worrying you – someone that you are associating with this Slider
.

She edged forward, unable to take her eyes off his face, until she was beside him.

‘Now look.’ He pointed down.

She peered over the ledge she was now standing on; the gully opened onto a narrow couloir which dropped
away almost vertically. It was filled with rocks and loose snow, and its sides were rounded and covered in smooth ice, like the barrel of a cannon. It became narrower as it went down, finishing in a shelf that she could not see beyond.

‘You must be very careful down this couloir, and not fall,’ he said, grinning again. ‘You won’t stop if you fall. There is a bad drop at the end. You must turn immediately right and make a traverse. If you fall, you will go three hundred metres onto rocks.’ He jump-turned and skied gleefully down as if he was on the nursery slope, swaying his arms, pumping his legs, leaping almost like a dancer, gaining speed, ignoring his own warning.

She turned and saw Richard getting ready to start down towards her again.

‘Richard, be very careful here,’ she called. ‘Stop where I am – don’t go too fast.’

He raised a hand in acknowledgement, and she set off down, slowly, petrified, turning awkwardly through the rocks and the rubble. She halted at the bottom, and froze. The slope below her became a sheer ice wall that fell away down into the mist below; she felt her head swim with vertigo, and inched back, away from it, turning around to warn Richard. He had stopped several yards above her. ‘All right?’ he shouted.

‘Be careful. Be really careful here, it’s a sheer drop.’ She edged further backwards, afraid to turn around until she was several feet back up the couloir. Richard was still waiting for her to get clear. Silence, she thought. A frightening, terrible silence.

Where the hell was he taking her, this man? This creature. This thing. Whoever he was? She stared back up at the couloir. Christ, it would be a nightmare to climb that. It was four o’clock. The light would be going
soon, particularly if the mist got worse again. The runs would be closing, and the pisteurs would be making their sweeps of the pistes. But not here. This wasn’t a piste. They’d never get back up there before dark. The only way was to keep going down.

You have to meet your monster, Sam
.

I’m meeting him, she thought, starting the traverse across the icy narrow ledge, with the sheer drop to death two feet away. She was gathering speed, she realised, and the ledge was too narrow to turn. She stemmed the skis outwards in a snowplough and began to slide out towards the edge.

She eased them back, parallel, and the icy ground was hurtling past faster, the wind whipping her face. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Andreas, laughing through his hood, then the ledge opened up into a huge slope and her skis ran off the ice into deep soft powder snow. She stopped and looked down. It was steep. Far steeper than she normally skied. The slope went down for several hundred feet then eased into a more gentle gradient, down to a lip. Beyond that seemed to be another sheer drop.

Somewhere above was the clatter of a circling helicopter; ski patrol, she thought, straining her eyes with sudden hope, but she could not see it.

A savage gust of wind blew, whipping the surface snow up into a bitter stinging mist that she had to turn her face away from. She stared up at the sky again, dark blue through her goggles, like deep silent water. The clattering was fading into the distance.

Behind her Richard’s skis scraped on the ice; he had stopped at the lip and was peering down at the sheer ice wall.

‘Where the hell are you taking us, Andreas?’ he
shouted. ‘We’re not bloody mountaineers. Are you trying to fucking kill us?’

Andreas grinned at Sam, ignoring him. ‘This snow is sitting on ice. You must not traverse. Make your descent straight down. Short turns. Follow in my tracks exactly. If you traverse, you could cut it away and it will avalanche. Follow me exactly. If you are not turning in the right place, you go over the lip at the bottom. There’s another ice wall. Sheer.’

She stared down, then looked at him. The fear was paralysing her.

Andreas launched himself, compressing his body, exploding in a spray of powder, compressing again, exploding again, turning, sharp tight turns, controlling his speed. He compressed again, but came up oddly, twisting, tried to recover but he fell face forward, somersaulted and disappeared completely for a moment in a spray of snow. One hand emerged, then his head. He lifted himself up a fraction, and put his hands over his face.

She knew what she had to do, knew that she had to go now or she never would. She launched herself gingerly down, making the first turn, in Andreas’s tracks, too slowly. She had not enough momentum and her upper ski caught in the heavy powder and nearly pulled her over. She jerked it free, panicking, and turned again, gathering speed now, too much. She turned again, then again, surging; she saw Andreas fifty yards below her, and beyond him the lip, a long way down. Don’t look down. Don’t fall. Her muscles were so clenched she was turning all wrong. She was trying to slow, but she was not slowing; she was accelerating.

Twenty feet above him she turned out of his tracks and began to traverse across the slope, accelerating fiercely now.

‘Bugs!’ she heard Richard scream. ‘Don’t traverse! Bugs! Turn, for God’s sake,
turn
!’