Beyond the High Blue Air. Lu Spinney
is trying on. He catches her eye as he walks past and wants to say, You look beautiful in that, but he doesn’t and fleetingly regrets his reserve. Soon she is forgotten and he is looking at helmets, listening carefully to the laid-back long-haired ski pro describing the merits of each. Trying them on, he is surprised by their lightness but dislikes the sensation of containment. He wonders if it might be disorienting; absolute concentration and balance are needed when making a serious jump, and the helmet could be a distraction when he is not used to it. The assistant explains the technology and shows him how the fit must be precise, the strap under the chin tightened and adjusted just so to keep it in place. And of course it needs to look cool, because undoubtedly part of the fun of snowboarding is looking cool, which he can’t help thinking is compromised by a helmet. But the jump today is very high and he is going to take it as hard and as fast as he can, so this precaution is the responsible thing to do. As he pays for the sleek black choice he’s made he senses the familiar excitement beginning to build. Picking up his snowboard as he leaves he feels an added surge of pleasure; he bought it while in the States a few months ago and he hasn’t yet seen one like it here. There’s nothing to match its curled smoothness and sleek design, not even in the racks of gleaming new boards in this shop.
Out in the sunshine he puts on his sunglasses and looks around. There is a photograph of him taken at this moment by one of the friends who has just arrived, so imagination is not necessary here: he doesn’t know it but he is as handsome as he might ever wish to be, and the girl also caught on camera coming out of the shop in her new turquoise ski suit thinks so too as she gives him an inviting smile. He doesn’t notice, for all he is interested in now is the perfection of the moment: even down here at resort level he can see the snow is still thick from last night’s fall, so he knows the slopes higher up will be ideal for snowboarders, the thin cool air just warmed enough to be comfortable for working up a sweat. If they get cracking they might have time after the jump for a quick sandwich and a beer in the sunshine before they leave. He zips up his jacket, puts on his padded gloves, and casually tucks the snowboard under his arm as he walks with his friend across to the chair lift.
Arriving at the top he thrills to the view spread before him. Pushing himself off the chairlift, he slides across to the edge and stands quietly for a moment, taking it in. It is the thrill of being on the tip of the world, snow-covered peaks in every direction fading into the blue distance, the sense of latent power brooding within the vastness. To be made aware of his insignificance in the face of nature’s grandeur but to know he is an essential part of it too; he remembers when he first thought about it in that way, a small boy talking to his mother as they sat together on the balcony of their Alpine chalet, how grown-up he felt when she took his discovery seriously.
He can hear his friends have all arrived, so he turns from the view to join them. Together they set off towards the snowboard park, moving down in unison over the freshly fallen snow.
And now he is standing at the top of a slope that leads in one steep drop to the dip and rise of the jump, a curved tusk of packed snow protruding out of the whiteness. It looks huge even from this distance and he recognizes the sudden blaze of mental clarity that accompanies adrenaline release. This is when he is at his happiest, under pressure, pushing himself to succeed. He likes the sense of breaking through ever more challenging barriers; he savors the private confirmation of his own worth. It is not conceit—depression and introspection have saved him from that; it is simply a clear conviction of his rootedness in the world, of the value of this existence, here and now, his intention to live his life to its limits.
He adjusts and fastens his new crash helmet as he was advised to by the ski pro. He checks the bindings on his snowboard; they’re working fine. He is ready to go. Adrenaline and excitement mixed with a sudden sharp twist of fear; he can smell the acrid whiff of his perspiration. Then, taking a deep breath, he pushes himself off and down the slope. At first gliding and swooping from side to side as sure as a hawk descending to its prey, his path gradually straightens into an arrow of gathering speed for the final descent towards the jump. Too fast now, he fears he could lose his balance and then he has reached the dip of the jump and he knows he is not in control as he is taken by force up the ramp, skewing sideways as his board clips the edge and then he is hurtling, spinning up, up into the free blue sky ahead . . .
The thwack of board and helmet on hard ice, the cries of onlookers, the blue of sky and white of snow. Silence. Then, very slowly, the fallen figure sits up, raises himself, stands shakily. Friends gather around, supporting him, their faces grave. After such a fall how can he be all right? He speaks: Jesus, that was something. So shocking was the fall that someone feels it necessary to ask him, Do you know where you are? Do you know what day it is? St. Anton, Sunday, he says, thickly. He takes off his helmet and slowly pushes himself on his board to the edge of the slope and sits down. Motionless, head bowed, and then, suddenly, violently, he vomits onto the clean white snow. The friends’ faces now in horror, watching as his eyes roll upwards and his body convulses in front of them all, back arched, limbs juddering. A doctor skiing past stops to help, the Rescue Patrol is called, paramedics are removing the young man’s jacket, T-shirt, cutting through his vest in the race to keep him alive, the air reverberating with the thump, thump of a helicopter’s blades.
In the helicopter the young man stops breathing. Below him the mountains glitter impassively in the slanting afternoon sun as he dies, for a moment. But the two paramedics immediately put their skills to work, passing a tube down his throat and connecting the other end to a portable ventilator. He is made to breathe again; he has been prevented from dying, but he is still critically injured. The neurosurgery team at Innsbruck University Hospital have been warned that he is coming; it is a Sunday, so the on-duty surgeons are called from their homes and when the helicopter lands on the rooftop landing pad and the young man is whisked down to the operating theater they are ready, waiting for him. Without them he would have died again, his brain bleeding and swelling, lethally compressing his brain stem, but they are excellent and dedicated neurosurgeons and for the second time in three hours his life is saved.
March 19, 2006—London
Happiness complete: a Sunday morning in early spring, pale shafts of sunshine falling through the gap where the bedroom curtains don’t quite meet and I lie in bed thinking, Ron is right. He says I wake easily, like a cat, and that is how I feel right now, the languorous contentment of a cat. The sun is shining and it’s a Sunday so Ron will be at home all day, Claudia and Marina are still asleep upstairs after getting back from university yesterday, Miles returns this afternoon, and Will is coming home for supper tonight. Added pleasure from the relief in remembering that Miles won’t be snowboarding today, he won’t have time because he’ll be traveling to the airport and that means his holiday is safely over. I can feel the background fear of the past week dissolving, the fear that always lurks when Miles or Will are away snowboarding. I’ve seen them both doing those jumps and it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Turning over lazily I find Ron is already awake, sitting up next to me reading. How gorgeous is the morning, I say, and he blows me a kiss, continuing to read. Like Miles, he’s undistractable when reading, but I continue anyway. I’ve been lying here feeling ridiculously contented, Ronathan, I tell him. It’s all your fault. It’s true; how many times have the children and I talked about the happiness Ron has brought, of a kind none of us could have dreamed of during the long, painful unraveling of my marriage to their father. Meeting Ron six months afterwards was for me, still exhausted and diminished from the divorce process, like suddenly being swept up by a giant wave at the end of a tumultuous storm and then being brought in to land somewhere far away, unfamiliar but safe. The weird thing is, I continue, even if he isn’t really listening, that this happiness feels fragile at times. Little slivers of dread that it’s too good to be true. Anyway, guess what, it is true right now. I distract his reading further with a quick kiss on the cheek as I get out of bed. I’d like another one of those, he says, putting down his book, so I stay a little longer in the warmth beside him. But we’ve got all these people coming for lunch, Ronathan, I remind him, so we should really get up and get going.
Since all the children will be home for supper tonight I asked the butcher for an extra-large piece of beef to cook for lunch. That way I’ll have enough for dinner too—cold peppered beef with rosemary and anchovy aioli is their favorite and it