He was amazed again. He didn’t think he had given any sign, but somehow she had seen it, and understood it, and excused him. He felt safe and protected, like Freddie, and filled with love for her.
Thierry skied away from the chair and stopped beside them without any flashy display of his skills. He had even removed his sunglasses.
‘That was bad, I think. I never have seen it happen before. How is my ’Annah? And Michael? Perhaps we have a drink in the bar and then go home for today?’
‘I think a drink would be a good idea,’ Hannah said.
In the chalet they were the heroes of the evening. The news of the accident had already travelled around the bars and ski rooms, and the children and adults alike were entranced to come home and discover that Michael and Hannah had been so closely involved.
‘Tell us all the details,’ the Frost boys demanded. ‘Was there any blood?’
‘For God’s sake,’ Michael protested, but Hannah only laughed. She had bathed and changed, and either the colour had properly come back into her face or else she had skilfully applied some.
‘None. I couldn’t have handled that. Remember Barney’s friend on Christmas Eve?’
Michael telephoned the Securité des Pistes, and managed to establish that the girl was in hospital in Moutiers, not badly hurt. He made a plan with Hannah to visit her the next day.
This good news was taken as reason for a celebration. Andrew went out and bought bottles of champagne, and even the chalet girl found herself able to smile as she served the dinner. Michael drank two glasses of whisky and two more of champagne and, as he had intended, became rapidly and pleasantly drunk. He embroidered Hannah’s role and his own as a comic pantomime of bravery contrasted with abject terror. Everyone laughed, egging him on as he sprawled at the foot of the table. It pleased him to be the failure of the story, and to make Hannah even more the heroine. He looked at her, shaking her head at the opposite end of the table, and knew that nothing could be more pleasurable or desirable than to undress her, and hold her, and have her for himself.
He saw that Darcy was proud of Hannah, and that his own wife, his Marcelle, was looking at him for once without disapproval or anxiety. Michael sat up straighter and focused his eyes on the golden nimbus of the candle flames, and on Hannah’s bright hair beyond them.
It was a good evening. The tensions of the first night seemed to have been forgotten, and Andrew and Janice laughed and nodded their relief and approval. The couples sat up later than usual, basking in the unexpected glow of shared happiness.
There was only a moment, when everyone was on the way to bed, when Michael wandered into the kitchen and found Hannah searching for mineral water in the fridge.
He went to her and put his arms around her waist as she stood with her back to him, feeling the breadth of her hips and the roundness of her backside against him.
‘I’m a bit drunk,’ he told her, with his mouth against her neck.
‘I know.’ She eased herself away, but smiling, indulgent with him.
He lifted her hand and turned it so that he kissed the pulse point inside her wrist.
‘There,’ he said tenderly. ‘That’s all.’
He stumbled to the door, and up the stairs to his bedroom and Marcelle’s.
Marcelle was in bed, but with the bedside light on.
Watching him undress she said, ‘You were nice tonight.’
‘I am nice.’
‘I know that.’
He groped his way across to her, and half fell on to the bed. Then he switched off the light before turning to her. He tried, but the buttons of her nightdress defeated him.
‘Take that thing off.’
He heard the whisper of the sheets and flowered cotton and his wife’s skin before she pressed herself into his arms.
He made love to her, feeling the familiar hollows and ridges of her. And all the time, as he did it, he was aware as if he was contemplating some magical photographic negative, guiltily and delightedly, of Hannah’s silvery curves above and beneath and all around him.
Barney Clegg stood back to admire his work, brushing the earth off his large hands on to the legs of his jeans.
‘There. What do you think?’
Nina stood in the doorway to survey her tiny square of back yard. The early March sunshine felt warm on the top of her head, and Barney’s opulent clumps of daffodils and grape hyacinths added to the brightness.
‘I think it’s the best instant garden I have ever seen.’
He had arrived in a van loaded with sacks of compost and pots and tubs of plants, and in the course of the morning had dug over and fed her patch of starved earth and filled it with splashy green shrubs and spring bulbs in full flower.
‘I feel fraudulent, though.’
Barney raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Why’s that?’
‘I haven’t sprinkled the seed or hoed or watered.’
‘Well, neither have I, exactly.’
‘Where did the plants come from?’
He grinned. ‘Don’t ask. But it looks good, doesn’t it?’
‘It does. I shall come and sit out here and admire it, all summer long.’
‘And think of me.’
Nina laughed. ‘Of course. I’m very grateful, Barney. I’m not quite sure why you’ve gone to so much trouble.’
She was not sure, but she was glad to have her garden so deftly transformed. Nor would she have denied to herself that it had been a pleasure to sit on a kitchen stool pretending to be busy, and covertly watching him humming and digging out in the sunshine. Barney was comfortable in the open air.
‘I promised I’d do it for you.’
‘I didn’t really expect you to keep such a rash promise.’
‘I always keep my promises, actually.’
They were standing by the French doors into the kitchen. Barney was leaning on a spade, with his shirt sleeves rolled up. There was a rim of fresh earth around his wrists.
‘Now I’ve offended you.’
‘Not seriously. You could make amends with a cup of tea.’
She had offered one earlier, but Barney had told her he wanted to get the job finished first.
‘Do you really want tea? Wouldn’t
