Tall Poppies (37 page)

number, you didn’t see snow in Flims today. She waved cheerfully at Robin Cousins, walking past her to the ice rink; Martin Bell was queuing for the cable-car up to Cassons; the Swiss hero Pirmin Zubriggen was chatting to Alte Skaardal from Norway. The women were busier around the Murtscheg gondola. Most were clutching their skis to them like shields. French flags, Swedish, Norwegian, Austrian, Swiss. Elizabeth’s heart gave a sick little flip when Louise Levier passed her; there were six girls in the blood-red suits with the white crosses, but she knew Louise by the tight waist and lean, mean quads. The Swiss turned her head and nodded politely. Neither of them felt like small talk.

Somebody tapped her on the shoulder as she shuffled

ito the line. Karen Carter.

‘Shall we ride up together?’

‘Sure,’ Elizabeth said blandly. She breathed in, the

chilly morning air stinging her nose. Steam was rising from their breath like cows standing in the farm back home.

‘You might as well. The press heard Hans moved you

out of the team chalet.”

‘I wonder how that could have happened,’ Elizabeth

said mildly. She wasn’t rising to it. She gestured over at the queue for Cassons. ‘Look at Martin and Graham. Martin was top ten in practice yesterday. Wonder what they’re talking about?’

‘Most likely Jack Taylor,’ Karen said, glancing at her

with nasty pleasure.

Elizabeth shrugged. Maybe it was. The rumours of

Jack’s total dominance in practice surprised nobody. If he won his gold as easily as they were expecting him to, he’d be a legend, the new Franz Klammer. To Karen she only said, ‘Look lively, dear, or we’ll miss our spot.’

The gondolas swung round, scooping up the athletes. Elizabeth and Karen climbed in with some French

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officials and half the Spanish team, two hefty girls ranked twentieth and thirty-first in the world. They stared at Elizabeth most of the way up, whispering in awe. Karen was really pissed off.

Elizabeth smiled at her serenely and turned her attention to the crisp new snowfall on the Olympic runs beneath them. The gondola swung upwards and onwards, into space, flying them to the cold, white roof of the world. It was the last session before the Games, and skiing, thought Elizabeth, would be the only thing on her mind.

At Sogn Gion Karen got out, strapped up and ski’d off without another word. There was no way she was going to follow Elizabeth and be ghown up. Elizabeth smiled at the Spaniards and some others pressing round the top of the run,She felt warmly about the lower-level girls; kids for whom it was the thrill of a lifetime just to be in the Games, to march out tomorrow in their national blazers. When she saw the threats - the Austrians, Louise, Heidi or any others - Elizabeth looked away. It was like an electric shock. Those super-fit, super-skilled she-wolfs stood between her and the dream. There was no point in false friendship when the piste was the arena, and the skis on your feet were swords.

Elizabeth pulled her dark blue helmet on and clicked her Rossignols into place. This run was straightforward. Long, almost 3,500 feet vertical, with spectaculor views. Not that she had any time to. look at scenery.

She took a deep breath and pushed off. Straight away she was picking up speed, leaning into the first left. Elizabeth was skiing by reflex, her body adjusting, leaning, pushing, her weight shifting on the skis, mingling with the mountain’s slope. Fresh morning snow plumed up around her, downy as feathers, flying back from the slicing cut of her edges. She was threading her way

through other girls, diving and leaning through them with precision that left them gasping. Over a stomach flipping ridge, Elizabeth’s strong back flattening almost to horizontal, perfect lift as she landed. Exhilaration flooded her like oil round an engine, she was hot, she had it! There was Karen, Jesus, look at her, boring textbook skiing. Elizabeth flew past her. Now the run was clear for a little while, she could see the red and green of the Italians towards the finish. She turned to hug the treeline, she felt weightless, the speed and gravity had dissolved her mass. First past the ridge and then through this glade …

There was another figure on the course. Skiing in the

blind spot under the forest, so she hadn’t expected anyone there. Far too big and fast to be a female.

Wearing the starry costume of the USA.

Jack Taylor.

Elizabeth reacted fiercely. Her heart was pulsing,, it happened in a millisecond of real time, but this was ski time, parcelled in half seconds and point two-fives. She barrelled slightly to the right, her skis shooting across the diagonal, arcing powder up behind her and all over Jack as she jumped the ridge in front of him. She had faster momentum, it bombed her right in front of him, flying over the jump and landing. Point, plant, lift, slice to the right and fly down the home straight. He was coming after her. She didn’t look behind her, but his shadow was on the snow, dark on the crystals, glittering sunrise pink. Furiously Elizabeth ski’d from the gut, her waist crunching as she whipped in to the final turn, close by the orange nets. It was silent out here, their blades just skimming the snow, but the fury of her competition was totally real. Jack was gaining on her inexorably, he had too much muscle, he was going to win …

No! Elizabeth’s body screamed. No! No! She thrust violently with her poles and willed herself forwards as

Jack arrived beside her, every tendon in her legs blazing, and shot across the finish line, first by less than a head.

Elizabeth unhooked her helmet. Jack Taylor ripped off his goggles, glaring at her. She turned and pushed off without a word, skiing on to the start of an easy red.

Jack schussed down behind her, both poles tucked under one arm, his balance perfect, fluid and controlled. He grabbed her by her arm.

‘What the hell was that all about?’

‘You were in my way,’ she snapped.

‘No, ma’am, but you sure got in mine,’ Jack said. The dark eyes flicked over her body-tight suit. Elizabeth felt herself respond, an involuntary twitch between her legs, her nipples hardening under the thermal fabric.

‘If you can’t take the competition, Jack … I hear Zubriggen’s looking good this year. It must be nasty, to get bea.t out by a girl.’

‘You moved pretty fast.’

‘Fast enough to ski you off the snow, Taylor,’ Elizabeth snapped, ‘and you must have made a damn slow time from the top for me to catch you like that.’

‘Well now. Wrong again, sugar. I stopped to tighten up a clip. I’d just started up again when you came tearing down with a bug up your ass.’

‘Yeah? But you took me on, and you lost.’

Jack snorted. ‘Because you had a fifty mph start, girl. You couldn’t beat me if I was skiing on one leg.’

Elizabeth glanced up to see a small crowd of girls pretending not to watch them fight. Angrily she flattened her edges and slipped down into the trees. Jack tilted his skis in perfect harmony, so they moved with each other like synchronised swimmers.

‘Bullshit. It’s all macho bullshit, Jack,’ she taunted. ‘That what Holly Ferrell tells you when you hold her hand down the Lauberhorn? Oh, Jack, you’re so good, nobody in the world can touch you …’

Karen, Kate and Janet stood around her but didn’t bother making conversation. She almost smiled. Family and team, it was just the same; surrounded by people but on my own, Elizabeth thought.

She wondered how Jack was feeling right now.

Over her blazer her tawny hair lay long and glossy. Under the TV lights it would show up almost platinum. Maybe it would—

‘Royaume-Uni!’ bellowed the announcer. ‘Great Briz tain!’

Elizabeth straightened up as the column began to walk forwards, Lucy tilting the flag just right so it fluttered free. She thrust back the butterflies squirming in her stomach, smiled, and waved like the Queen.

,

After all, the world was watching.

Nina sat in her office and considered her future.

Her options were very limited now. She had to believe that Tony had some explanation. Without the newsletter giving her credit, it looked like this was just another success for Dragon’s team. She wasn’t even mentioned by name.

After a lot of pushing, Mrs Perkins had admitted that Tony was due back in England tomorrow. He couldn’t spend a-whole week in Switzerland glad-handing his cronies when Dragon’s stock was rising so fast. She knew the Robber Baron. Buy something fast, before all that extra cash sloshing around becomes a homing beacon for a takeover shark even bigger than him.

‘Could you try and reach him in Flims, Mrs Perkins? I

need an urgent meeting.’

‘About what?’

‘I’m afraid that’s really between me and Lord Caerhao yen,’ Nina said smoothly. Stick it up your ass, she thought sourly. Whatever Tony was playing at, she was still persona grata at this firm. The airport limo, the obsequious doormen, the very fact that Mildred Perkins was taking her calls; these things” only happened to Friends of Tony. In fact Mrs P. would probably assume Nina wanted to arrange a rendezvous, and it would be more than her job was worth to stand in the way of any pleasure of Tony’s.

‘Certainly, Miss Roth,’ said Mrs Perkins thinly, then hung up.

When Nina came back from lunch there was a message

on her voice mail. Tony telling her to meet him at the Halkin at nine p.m. He sounded pleased, like she had finally seen sense. And he had nothing on the agenda but sex.

Elizabeth stood at the start of the Lauberhorn, quietly flexing her quads and calves, waiting to be called. First in SuperoG and the two Flims downhills, second in the slalom to Levier. Best of all, Louise had crashed in the Cassons race and Marie Le Blanc came second in Super G, so right now, her competitors were spread out. The British tabloids were reserving judgment, but they’d stopped slagging her off.

, Hans was icy cool. He let her give oneline statements to ITV and Olympic Grandstand, that was it. After Flims all he said was that she needed to work on the slalom. Good old Hans; Elizabeth knew he’d be down at the bottom right now eating his heart out.

This was the Blue Riband race. Women had never been permitted to ski the Lauberhorn before in any World Cup. People died on this run, their skis tangling in orange netting, shooting into trees in the fog, taking too much speed after the endless right-hand bend; men broken like dolls under the shadow of the Eiger, looking out at the Schilthorn valley. The safety officers were screaming in protest, but the girls wanted to ski it, and TV wanted the ratings. There was no women’s.record for the Lauber horn, so Janet Fraser of Great Britain had set the first; three minutes fifteen, the first and last record she’d hold in her life.

Louise Levier made three-eight. Heidi Laufen three seven. Marie three-ten. All blazing performances. Ingmar Lystrom, the Swede, crouched in the starting hut in her blue and yellow suit, heard the gun and slipped noiselessly out into the descent. The crowd went nuts, .yelling

and ululating, shaking their cowbells and football rattl She was next.

‘Number eight, representing Great Britain, Lady Eli: beth Savage!’

Elizabeth stepped up into the starter’s hut. She was 1 favourite, the noise was deafening; a few boos w mixed in with the bells and whistles, the home cro’ were for Heidi and Louise. The countdown began, , felt strangely calm. Nerves .that seethed minutes befc you ski’d sort of evaporated once you were actually there. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the cro packed behind the nets, Union Jacks waving brigh against the snow. Behind them and the Olympic me towers the Schilthorn loomed up, white snow and crag black rock. It was settling; the Alps were uncaril unchanging; the Olympics would blink in and out of t

valley and leave no trace behind it.

She pushed off.

The schuss, leaning as low as possible, feeling the sp pick her up like a bullet and fire her down the tra Plant, slice, she had it covered, she saw the jump, soar clear and landed smoothly. The crowd shrieked but s was hundreds of yards on already. Now hug the tre careful, careful, lower with the body - Elizabeth’s tit quads steering her. Through the tunnel, bombing over I snow, the other girls had already packed it a little low squeezing out some air, the surface was faster that w’. Long, long right, Jack’s instructions flashing up and ,, shifted left milliseconds before the turn. For a mom she thought she wasn’t coming back up, her gravity v too low, but then she tilted, righted herself, she v upright again, too fast to see flags or register cheeri There was the gate! Low, if you were thinking you w too slow …

Elizabeth thrust through the gates, couldn’t slow do,

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fast enough and tumbled over under her own tidal wave

of powder. She felt like an idiot, scrambled to her feet.

For a moment they all just waited. Elizabeth hated this:

your racing heart stopped, you couldn’t breathe until the time flashed up. Hans walked over, put his bony hands on her strong shoulders.

Three-six point five-five. A roar went up from the crowd, Ronnie Davis jumped three feet in the air. 0.45 of a second faster than Heidi Laufen. The Swiss team turned away in disgust, the camera crews rushed forwards and Hans gave her a dry little nod. Her lead was extended yet again. Less time than a heartbeat, but it said, Britain one, Switzerland two and three.

‘Lady Elizabeth - CNN—’

*

‘Lady Elizabeth, can ITV have a few words—’

Camera lights shone brightly into Elizabeth’s rosy face;

microphones like fluffy marrows hung suspended over her head and hand-held ones were thrust under her nose.

‘How does it feel to win the first women’s Lauber horn?’

‘I wouldn’t know, I haven’t won. Christy and other

great skiers have to go yet. It was a thrilling course to race, and I’m just going to concentrate on the next slalom.’

‘That’s it, ladies an’ gents,’ Ronnie said, beckoning to officials to get the rat pack off his girl. ‘Liz, that was brilliant, you were flying down the fucking thing, I thought you were going to take .off!’