the clearings between the black trees opening like soft, white mouths.
If he was going to make time, he must do it now. Josh flexed his knees, lower, crouched into an egg-shape. The trees and the snow and the clearings flickered by, but suddenly they were no threat. Miraculously, forgetting everything that had happened, he was part of them. He was inviolable, spawned by the snow itself. The wind of his speed sliced into his cheeks. Josh could hear his own breath rasping in his chest. He was skiing faster and better than he had ever done in his life, and he was drunk on it. In that moment he was all-powerful.
The arches of the funicular loomed and flashed overhead. Still down, crossing and recrossing under the pylons. Then he was out of the trees and open grazing fields lay below him. Swooping across them, the seconds began to beat in his head. How long? How much further? He caught the warm, lowland smell of animal dung. He saw Lauterbrunnen, a frozen sea of snowy roofs. There was the station to one side, and a little road leading to it. The finishing line. Josh’s poles bit into the snow and he flung himself forward for the last time. He knew that he was exhausted now.
A dark knot of people spread across the snowy track ahead of him. He heard them cheering and half turned his head to look for the reason. As he swished over the finishing line he understood that they were cheering for him. The Swiss timekeeper clicked his stopwatch and Josh collapsed against a wooden fence. It sagged beneath his weight but it held him. It was just as well, because Josh couldn’t stand up.
The prize-giving for the 1956 Inferno was held at the Palace Hotel, Mürren. The room was packed with competitors, finishers and non-finishers, organisers and supporters. When Julia saw Josh she felt almost shy of him. She couldn’t manage to struggle across the room to him before silence was called for the results.
Twelve skiers had finished the course.
Julia clenched her fists, struggling to hear. She couldn’t understand any German, and barely a word of the rapid French. There was a lot of cheering and laughing. The Swiss race chairman peered at a sheet of paper. As he read out a name and a number there was a burst of clapping. The winner was the Frenchman, Gacon.
Beside Julia Sophia whistled. ‘Twenty-seven minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Bloody fast. But then he was through before the avalanche.’
Everyone knew about the avalanche. On their way up, the girls had heard that someone had stopped to dig someone else out.
Amidst calls for silence, the second and third placings were read out. Neither of them was Josh. Julia stared with dull disappointment at the back of the head in front of her. She had been sure that Josh would win, whatever Belinda and the others said. She didn’t see Tuffy Brockway stand up, but as soon as he started speaking her skin prickled.
‘In announcing the fourth, and incidentally the highest amateur, placing we have a special commendation to make. This competitor was caught by the avalanche in Happy Valley. Nevertheless he freed himself and went to the rescue of Alex Mackintosh. Alex is now in the hospital in Berne. He has a broken leg, some concussion, other uncomfortable but fortunately minor damages. His fellow-competitor reached him very quickly, and there is no doubt that he was instrumental in saving his life.’
Julia’s heart began to thump in her chest. ‘Once he was assured that Mr Mackintosh was safe, he continued the race. And finished the course in the remarkable time, once credited with the minutes he had lost in helping another man, of thirty-one minutes and seventeen seconds. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to applaud the courage and spirit of Mr Joshua Flood.’
Sophia and Belinda and Felicity cheered wildly with everyone else. Julia sat silent, stock-still, hardly able to see for pride.
Josh was presented with a commemorative Inferno medal. Tuffy Brockway pinned it to his dark-blue jumper for him. In the hubbub afterwards, it was Josh who elbowed his way through the crowd to Julia. Belinda clung to his arm and Sophia and Felicity kissed a cheek each. Julia just looked up at him.
‘Well done,’ she said quietly.
Josh held out his hand and she stood up. The room might have been empty as they looked at each other.
‘Will you do me the honour, ma’am,’ Josh drawled, ‘of accompanying me to the Swann Ball tonight?’
Julia pretended to consider.
‘I might,’ she said at last. ‘I just might, at that.’
He nodded gravely, and offered her his arm. They swept out together.
There was a string orchestra that played Strauss waltzes, and polkas, and foxtrots, and a wide, shining dance-floor. Julia had giggled as Josh led her out on to it. There was no bebop and certainly no rock and roll, but Josh had been properly brought up and he knew the right steps to the right dances. Julia only had to let him whirl her in grandiose circles.
She felt that she had stepped, satisfyingly, into one of her own dreams.
There had been a wonderful banquet at the hotel. They had sat down at long white tables glowing with candles in branched candelabra. After the food and wine there had been speeches, speeches that had seemed funny even to Julia. There had been a toast to the race winners, a special toast to Josh that had made her glow with pride all over again. Julia was wearing Mattie’s greeny-black party dress, far too big for her around the hips and bosom, but Belinda and Sophia had pinned and stitched her into it in the latest demonstration of their new-found friendship. Julia had received enough flattering glances and invitations to dance to make her feel that even if she didn’t belong she could at least cope on her own terms. The champagne was flowing, but Julia was used to drinking at Jessie’s and Mattie’s pace, and the wine simply made her feel that she was floating on a warm tide of happiness.
And there was Josh. Josh with his black bow tie and his white starched shirt, his blond hair watered so that it lay smooth and dark, as correct as any of the Englishmen. Yet somehow wicked as well. The hero and the villain, infinitely more intriguing, all at once.
Julia laid her head against his black shoulder and sighed.
She knew that it was the most perfect evening of her life.
Josh lifted her chin with one finger so that he could look at her. ‘Are you tired?’
‘No. I want to go on dancing for ever.’
‘Mmm. Not quite for ever, perhaps. D’you remember that place that Harry took us to? The night we met?’
Julia remembered it, and she remembered how they had danced then, fused together, making a promise that was still unfulfilled.
The thought struck a white-hot bolt of longing straight through her.
Her feet tangled with Josh’s and they stood still in the swirling sea of dancers.
‘I think we should go upstairs now,’ Josh whispered.
Julia bent her head, unable to say, yes please, and he kissed the thin, warm skin over her temple before they slipped out of the crowded room and left the music soaring behind them.
They ran up the stairs and along the shadowy corridor to Josh’s room, laughing and whispering like children playing truant. But when he had unlocked his door and locked it again behind them the stillness and quiet stifled their laughter. There was a bright white moon in the star-prickled sky, and pale silver-grey squares lay over the floor in front of them. With Josh’s fingers wound in hers Julia
