What Happens in the Alps...

Chapter 3

That night it started snowing again, this time seriously, and it didn’t stop for forty-eight hours. By the time Friday came along, the whole town was underneath a thick layer of the white stuff and strangely quiet, everyday noises muffled by the snow. But, among the inhabitants of Santorso, things were buzzing. Signora Toniolo in the bar told Annie first and then Paolina confirmed it; the ski lifts had started working all around the valley. The skiing season had begun and it was still just the beginning of December.

By eleven o’clock, Annie had done everything that needed doing at the school and she couldn’t wait to take advantage of her wonderful new ski pass. Leaving Paolina in charge, she pulled on her skiing clothes, strapped her skis to the roof of her little Panda and set off for Montalto.

The snowploughs had been working hard and, with the aid of her winter tyres, she found it quite easy to drive right up the winding road to Montalto through the pine trees and grassy meadows, now buried under a thick layer of snow. She parked close to the big chairlift, carefully avoiding leaving the car under any of the trees, all of which were laden with snow. She and Steve had made that mistake years ago with their old cinquecento. When they returned, they found it nearly buried in a huge pile of snow that had then frozen. It had taken them almost an hour to hack their way into the car and then reverse out again.

It was almost lunchtime by now, but it was still bitterly cold. The sun was just beginning to burn off the low cloud, but it would be an hour or two before the temperature rose above freezing. Her visit to the slopes didn’t start too auspiciously. As she stepped out of the car onto the frozen ground, her feet slid out from underneath her and she almost did the splits, ending up on her bottom on the very cold ground. She pulled herself to her feet, her breath forming clouds in front of her in the frozen air, dusted herself off and reflected that it was just as well her sister hadn’t been there to witness that little scene. She made her way gingerly around to the back and sat down on the rear bumper to put on her ski boots. As she did so, she noted that there was no queue for the main lift. Tomorrow, Saturday, once skiers from Turin and Milan had made their way up the motorway, it would be busier, but for the moment she felt as if she had the place to herself.

Once she had tightened her ski boots and fastened her jacket, she pulled on her hat and released her skis from the rack on the roof of her faithful old car. Then, finally, she was able to put her gloves on and she began to feel life returning to her frozen fingers. Feeling rather grand, she flashed her new ski pass and took the chairlift up to the first station. Below her, the pistes had been cleared, but there were very few people on the slopes. After years of riding in chairlifts, she was no longer scared stiff. Although she knew that in all probability she might be killed if she fell off one of these lifts, she wasn’t anything like as scared as when she was hundreds and hundreds of feet off the ground in a cable car. It was a question of degree. She was just grateful that Montalto didn’t have any cable cars.

Evidently, she was going to be one of the first skiers of the season. That, too, was exciting. As she skied off the lift at the top and stopped to adjust her goggles and gloves, she found she was humming to herself. She hadn’t done that for a very long time. It felt good, really good. She stood there for a few moments, staring out across the snow-covered mountains, and she felt the familiar stinging in her eyes, but this time, she didn’t cry and she didn’t stop humming. She ran a gloved hand across her face, pulled her goggles into place, and set off.

An hour later, after a few fast downhill runs, she had warmed up and decided to ski down a particularly difficult black run; a steep mogul field of dips and bumps, bordered on both sides by thick forest. It was tough, technical skiing and she was concentrating hard. As she reached the left-hand side of the piste, within touching distance of the thick canopy of conifers, she threw herself into a sharp turn back in the opposite direction, her knees flexing hard under the compression. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another skier flash past, bouncing over the bumps, hopelessly out of control. At the same time, a movement further down the slope caused her to jam in the edges of her skis and stop dead, her hand over her mouth in silent horror.

A big black dog came running out of the trees, right in the path of the other skier. The man was powerless to take evasive action and the two figures converged with an awful inevitability. She clearly heard a cry and a yelp as the skier smashed into the dog, sending both of them flying into the air. The dog landed several metres further down the slope, its body limp and lifeless like a rag doll. The man bounced, rolled, and finally ended up on his face, perilously close to the trees, one ski still attached, the other stuck upright in the soft snow at the side of the piste. As Annie looked on, he stirred, sat up and then, without making any effort to help the injured dog, pulled himself to his feet, clipped on his missing ski, and set off down the hill once more.

Annie was appalled.

She skied down to where the body of the dog lay motionless in the snow. She stepped out of her skis, sticking them into the snow in the form of a cross to warn any other skiers of the danger, and went over to the dog. He was a fine-looking black Labrador, but he was quite unconscious. She knelt closer and was relieved to see he was still alive; his white, steamy breath clearly visible in the frozen air. His tongue was hanging out and blood was running from his mouth into the snow. She sat down beside him, her hand resting on the dog’s head, and debated what to do. Then she spotted a silver medallion attached to his collar. On it was a phone number. She pulled out her phone and dialled the number. It was answered almost immediately.

‘Pronto.’ It was an old man’s voice. He was speaking Italian, so she spoke to him in the same language.

‘Hello, I’m afraid there’s been an accident.’ Annie found she was panting and had to stop for breath before being able to carry on and give the man the story of what had happened. Luckily, both he and she were very familiar with the layout of the ski runs and he understood immediately when she described where the accident had happened.

‘Thank you very much for your kindness. Somebody’ll be there in ten minutes. Can you wait?’

‘Of course.’ Just at that moment, she saw a movement. The dog’s eyes fluttered, and then opened. She was quick to relay the good news. ‘He’s just opened his eyes. I think he’s going to be all right.’

‘That’s marvellous.’ She couldn’t miss the relief in the man’s voice. ‘His name’s Leo, by the way. Ten minutes.’ He rang off.

Annie pushed her phone back into her pocket and bent down closer to Leo the dog. His eyes were rolling and he was panting for breath, but he was conscious. She reached out and cradled his big furry head in one arm, stroking his cheek with the other. Gradually, he began to come round. After a few minutes, he managed to turn his head towards her. Her eyes met his and her heart went out to him. He really was gorgeous; and all the more gorgeous for being so vulnerable.

‘How’re you feeling, handsome?’ She found she was speaking Italian to him. Remembering what his owner had told her, she tried his name, still in Italian, seeing as he was an Italian dog. ‘You okay, Leo? Are you all right, Leo?’ This time there was a definite response from him. He stirred and tried, unsuccessfully, to pull himself to his feet. He struggled for a few moments before slumping back down again, exhausted by the effort. ‘You’ll be all right, Leo. Good dog, Leo.’ Annie was still talking to him some minutes later when she heard sounds behind her. She looked up as two men appeared, one wearing a bright blue jacket and the other a ski instructor, manhandling a metal stretcher sledge. She looked up and greeted them, naturally in Italian.

The man in the blue jacket gave her a big smile and murmured his thanks as he unclipped his skis and settled down beside the dog. He was probably around her age, mid or maybe late thirties, and looked very friendly, although he was clearly concerned for the dog.

‘Ciao, Leo.’ He knelt beside the dog and ran his hands gently along the length of his body. Annie was delighted to see the end of the dog’s tail wag weakly. She shifted slightly to one side, but left her arm supporting the big dog’s head.

‘Are you all right?’ The young ski instructor’s accent was local, with a slight French inflexion. She was thankful he was speaking to her in Italian, rather than the local patois that she found almost incomprehensible. He sounded genuinely concerned for her well-being. She looked up and gave him a smile, answering in Italian that came quite naturally to her now after ten years in the country.

‘I’m fine, thanks. I’ve just got a cold bottom from sitting on the snow too long.’ She glanced down at the dog and back up again. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

The man in the blue jacket looked across at her. His face was only a few feet from hers and she couldn’t help noticing his brilliant blue eyes, the exact same colour as his jacket. ‘I don’t think he’s broken anything. He’s let me touch him all over without jumping or yelping. We’ll just have to hope he hasn’t sustained any internal injuries. He’s very groggy, but you said the impact knocked him out, didn’t you?’

Annie nodded. ‘Out like a light for a few minutes, I’m afraid.’

‘That would explain his weak state. I think it should be okay to put him on the toboggan.’ He glanced up at the other man. ‘Paul, we’ll take him down to the car park and then I’ll run him down to the vet in Santorso.’ There was authority in his voice. His accent was northern Italian and well-educated. Annie found herself wondering just what it was he did up here.

‘Sure thing.’ Paul nodded and slid the sledge as close as possible to the dog. The man in the blue jacket reached his arms underneath the Labrador and then, with Annie still cradling Leo’s head, he straightened up and lifted the dog onto the sledge. Leo didn’t make a sound. They wedged him in with a blanket and straps to stop him rolling off and then Paul didn’t waste any time. He eased the sledge out onto the piste and slipped away down the hill. As he went, he gave Annie a big smile. ‘See you again, I hope.’ Annie watched him with considerable admiration. The sledge was solid and heavy, and Paul was skiing without the use of sticks, just steering by hanging on to the handles, for all the world like skiing with a long wheelbarrow behind him.

The dog’s owner stood up and held out his hand to Annie. She took it and he helped her to her feet. Only when she was standing did she realise how tall he was for an Italian, probably as tall as Matt. As for her, she hadn’t been joking about her cold bottom. Not only was it cold; it felt as though her right buttock had gone to sleep. Surreptitiously, she hopped from one leg to the other to get the circulation flowing.

‘Thank you again, most warmly.’ The man shook her by the hand and the bright blue eyes caught hers. ‘Really, thank you. Leo’s my father’s dog and dad lets him run free all over the place. Normally he manages to keep out of trouble, but not this time. My name’s Alessandro, by the way.’

‘And I’m Annie.’ For a moment, it looked as if he was going to make a comment but then, without any more ado, he stepped into his ski bindings and headed off down the slope in the wake of the stretcher, leaving her still wondering who he was.

Annie watched him go, one hand kneading her backside to warm it up, worried for the Labrador, hoping his injuries wouldn’t prove to be too serious. The man with the blue eyes was skiing fast and well, clearly at home on the slopes. Hopefully, she would see the dog again before too long and, she realised with some considerable surprise, she found she was hoping she would also see the man with the blue eyes again. This was a very new sensation for her after her years of marriage and then two grim years of mourning. Just then, for the first time that day, a ray of sunlight cut through the cloud and illuminated the piste and the trees all around her. For the second time that day, she found she was humming to herself.

Chapter 4

Annie got back to the school just before dark and was fortunate to find a parking space very close to the front door. She rang the bell and waited for the buzzing sound that announced that the door was unlocked. The first thing she saw when she pushed the door open and stepped into the reception area was a pile of cardboard boxes and her heart lifted. The brochures had arrived.

She stood her skis up against the wall and dumped the heavy boots on the floor. Paolina got up from her desk and smiled. ‘You look as though you’ve had a good day. You’re glowing.’ This afternoon Paolina was wearing an amazingly hairy grey sweater that had evidently started life on the back of somebody a good few sizes bigger than her. She looked like an Old English sheepdog but, at least, the heating had been working less as a result and the temperature in the room was sub-tropical rather than tropical.

Annie smiled back. ‘Absolutely great and quite exciting. I’ll tell you all about it once I’ve had a look at the brochures. Everything all right?’ Annie had had a recurring dream, more of a nightmare, over the past weeks that the five thousand brochures either wouldn’t arrive in time or, if they did, that there would be some terrible typo on the cover. She picked up a copy from an open box and took a deep breath, hardly daring to look.

‘They’re perfect, Annie, and the SEA logo looks really good.’ Paolina sounded enthusiastic.

Annie braced herself and took a good look at the brochure. Paolina was right. It looked perfect. After flicking through it, she released her breath and gave Paolina a big smile.

‘Fantastic, Paolina. They look fantastic. We need to celebrate. I’ve got just the thing.’ Annie ran through to the kitchen, soon to become the teachers’ room, and pulled a bottle of Prosecco out of the fridge. She grabbed two tumblers and took them back to Paolina. She was just tearing the foil off the top when the doorbell rang. She hastily stuffed the bottle into a drawer as Paolina pressed the button to open the door. To their surprise, a man appeared, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers. Paolina’s eyes widened.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Flowers for you.’

‘For me?’ Paolina’s eyes were even wider now. The man pulled out a pair of reading glasses and studied the clipboard in his other hand, then looked up first at Paolina and then at Annie. He glanced back at Paolina.

‘It’s for somebody called Annie Brewer.’ He pronounced it Brevver.

‘That’s me.’ Annie gave the disappointed Paolina an apologetic look as she took the huge bunch of flowers from his hand.

‘Sign here, please.’ The man handed her a clipboard and she signed it absently. As he was about to go back out of the door a thought occurred to her.

‘Does it say who the flowers are from?’ He shook his head.

‘Not on my sheet, it doesn’t. There’s an envelope inside the cellophane. It’ll be in there. Goodbye, ladies.’

Together, they removed the flowers from the cellophane wrapper and found a little envelope stapled to one corner. Inside was a card with the word Grazie printed on it in big letters. Below this was a short, handwritten message. Leonardo the dog thanks you for your life-saving intervention. He has a headache but he is going to be fine. It was signed Alessandro. The other thing that was strange was that it was written in English – perfect English. Paolina was craning her neck to read the card so Annie passed it over to her without a word and went off to the kitchen to look for a vase. Nothing in there was big enough, so she ended up bringing out an old glass vase inherited from the last occupant of the apartment and a big plastic jug. As they divided the flowers between the two receptacles, Annie related the story of the Labrador on the ski slope. Paolina was impressed.

‘So the flowers are from the man in the blue jacket. Did you get the rest of his name?’ Annie shook her head.

‘Just his first name: Alessandro. And that’s all I gave him. I just said my name was Annie.’

Paolina continued. ‘And you said this Alessandro was very handsome.’

Annie didn’t remember saying anything of the kind. ‘I just said he had nice eyes.’

‘Amazing bright blue eyes, you said, which means you liked them a lot and so that means you found him handsome.’

Annie didn’t bother trying to question Paolina’s logic which, if the truth be told, was pretty much spot on. He certainly was a handsome man. Even though he had been wearing a woolly hat and heavy jacket, she had been able to see that.

‘So, if you just told him your first name, how did he know your surname and how to find you?’ Paolina sounded bemused.

Annie shook her head. The only way he could have found out her name was if he knew somebody who knew her and there was, of course, somebody up at the ski resort who did indeed know her name. ‘Massimo.’ She saw the look on Paolina’s face. ‘Signor Lagrange who gave me the lift pass. They must know each other. There can’t be too many other women up here with a name like Annie and an English accent.’

‘You haven’t got an English accent.’ Paolina sounded scathing. ‘At least, hardly at all. When I first met you I just thought you were from down the valley; Turin probably.’

Annie had no time to register the compliment. She was still thinking hard. So, she thought to herself, if Massimo and he are friends then I can easily find out about him. Once again she felt a sensation of surprise that she should be interested in a man again. This hadn’t happened since Steve’s death and it was a strange, but not altogether unwelcome, sensation. What was it Karen had said about life having to go on?

‘And seeing as the blue-eyed man was able to get to you so quickly, he must work up there. Maybe he’s something to do with the ski school or the hotel.’

‘He certainly skied well enough to be an instructor, but he wasn’t wearing the regulation red jacket with the white bands around the chest. Who knows what he does?’ Annie finished stuffing the last of the flowers into the plastic jug and looked up. ‘Why don’t you take this half of the bunch home to your mum, Paolina? It’s Friday today and they’ll probably be dead by Monday if we just leave them here. I’ll keep the ones in the vase in my office for now.’

Paolina was only too happy to accept. ‘I’ll tell her they’re a present from my new boyfriend. She’ll be ever so impressed.’

‘You’ve got a new boyfriend?’ Only a few days earlier, Paolina had been relating the sad end to her most recent romance.

Paolina grinned. ‘Well, yes, but this one would be more likely to send me saucy underwear than flowers, but mum doesn’t need to know that.’

‘That was quick.’ Annie was impressed. Clearly, Paolina hadn’t wasted time in replacing her previous boyfriend. She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s almost five o’clock. That’s when local radio said the first advert would go out. Quick, turn the radio on.’

They had to wait ten minutes until the full length version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ had finished before the advert came on, but it was worth the wait. It sounded very good, very professional, and Annie was well pleased. When it finished she looked across at Paolina with a broad smile. ‘So, it’s started. Our advertising campaign is under way. Fingers crossed that it works. Now, where’s that bottle of Prosecco?’

They were halfway through the wine when the doorbell rang again. Annie opened it to find to her surprise that it was the accountant’s secretary, accompanied by two friends. She had just heard the radio advert and they wanted some information about English courses. Annie gave them a big smile and opened a second bottle of Prosecco.

As the evening progressed, the doorbell rang three more times, producing a number of potential students, eager for information about the school. Any doubts Annie might have had about the effectiveness of radio advertising were blown away. By nine o’clock, when everybody finally left, the Academy already had half a dozen definite enrolments. Annie went down to the pizzeria with a broad smile on her face.

Annie was halfway through her Quattro Stagioni when something funny happened. She was sitting by the pizzeria window, from where she could see out onto the road, directly opposite the entrance to the Academy. As she set down the little carafe after pouring herself some more red wine, she glanced out of the window. As she watched, a man came walking along the pavement until he reached the door of her building. He glanced round furtively and then set a bag down on the ground at his feet. From it, he produced a screwdriver and, to Annie’s amazement, started to unscrew her brand-new sign. For a moment she sat there, wondering if maybe the man had been sent by the sign makers to rectify some defect, but a glance at her watch told her it was unthinkable that they would still be working at almost ten o’clock at night. What on earth was going on? She jumped to her feet and ran out into the street.

Outside, the snow had finally stopped and it was freezing fast. She rather wished she had stopped to collect her coat before rushing out as it was very cold indeed. She crossed the street and went up to the man with the screwdriver. ‘Can I help you?’

He jumped and glanced over his shoulder at her. He was a short, stocky man, maybe in his twenties or early thirties, his face half hidden by a scarf and a hat, but there was no disguising the expression of guilt on what she could see of his face. Before she could say anything else, however, he reached down, grabbed his bag, and set off along the pavement at a run. Annie followed him for a few metres, but in her indoor shoes she didn’t stand a chance. She slipped on the ice and only avoided doing herself some permanent damage by grabbing hold of the mirror of one of the parked cars. Once again she was thankful Karen hadn’t been watching. Reluctantly, she turned gingerly round and went back to inspect the sign. As she did so, she heard footsteps and turned to find Beppe, Signora Toniolo’s husband, hurrying across to see what had happened. He was a normally friendly-looking man with a shining bald head and an expansive waistline. Now he was looking worried.