Page 22 of The Boathouse By the Loch

Jake sighed. He wasn’t surprised in the least at Faye’s comment. Skiing was an expensive pastime. The destinations were expensive, the ski passes, the cost of the gear to go skiing.

‘Marcus wouldn’t let up until she came with us. I always joined in for my own selfish reasons because I wanted her to come. It just wouldn’t be the same without her.’ Jake closed his eyes thinking back to that day. ‘Every Christmas at The Lake House was the same rigmarole; we teased, she relented, and the three of us skied.’

Faye said, ‘I see.’

‘But last year was different. She was adamant that she wasn’t going. I knew that it probably marked the end of our traditional afternoon Christmas Day ski, once she missed one, but I was in total agreement; there was no way I wanted her to ski.’ Jake spoke softly. ‘Not in her condition.’

‘… condition?’ Faye prompted.

The wordsshe was pregnantcaught painfully in his throat. ‘I was going to be a father.’

‘Oh, Jake. I had no idea.’

‘Nobody knew. It was our secret. Telling her parents was to be our Christmas present to William and Grace – a grandchild, you see; their first grandchild. Marcus didn’t know, and still doesn’t, that he was going to be an uncle.’ Jake closed his eyes at the painful memory of such a joyous occasion cruelly dashed.

‘So, what made her change her mind?’ Faye ventured.

Marcus.Jake opened his eyes. ‘I’d already told Marcus to back off; Ellie was not coming with us, and that was final. Of course, he didn’t know the reason, and being Marcus, he wouldn’t let it go. I just wish we’d told him. I found out afterwards what he had been whispering to her that evening at the dinner table. He told her that we had skied off-piste when she wasn’t with us and that this time, we’d take her.’

‘Off-piste? What does that mean, exactly?’ Faye asked, interrupting Jake before he could explain what had happened next.

‘Oh, right.’ Jake had momentarily forgotten that he was talking to a non-skier. ‘Basically ski pistes are ski slopes that have been prepared for skiing.’

‘Prepared – how?’ Faye asked.

‘Well, there’s trail poles each side which mark out the route to take down the slopes. Then the slopes are prepared with something called grooming machines that smooth the surface of the snow for skiing the next day. And of course there’s the full-time ski patrol up there too who look after piste safety as well as the markers, and they are on hand in case of an emergency.’

‘I think I’m getting the picture,’ said Faye. ‘So presumably if you ski off-piste, the slopes are not prepared, which makes skiing harder. There’s no trail markers to identify the route down, and you’re unlikely to have ski patrols either on hand if something goes wrong.’

‘Unfortunately, you’ve hit the nail on the head.’ Jake sighed heavily. ‘There’s lots of reasons it’s not advisable.’

‘So, why do you do it?’

‘I have to say it’s something Marcus and I have only done a handful of times, and with a qualified guide who knows the terrain and is aware of avalanche risks.’

‘So you were with a qualified guide when you all went skiing off-piste?’

‘No.’

‘Why not, if that’s what you’d done in the past?’

‘Well, here’s the thing. We had no intention of skiing off-piste that time. I don’t know what made Marcus say that because it wasn’t true; we had never skied off-piste before in Scotland.’ The poor snowfall usually meant there were no thrills to be had skiing off-piste in the Cairngorms. How ironic that the conditions hadbeen ripe for some adventurous skiing that year.

It suddenly occurred to Jake that perhaps Marcus had seen the weather forecast and had realised that the heavy snowfall forecast that day could mean some serious skiing. Was it possible that rather than trying to persuade Ellie to go, Marcus had in fact been trying, for his own selfish reasons, to do the exact opposite; to dissuade his sister from joining them on the ski slopes and spoiling the fun?

Jake remembered asking Marcus what he had told Ellie to change her mind, furious with him for refusing to let the matter rest and allow her to remain behind just that once.

‘You would have thought it was the last thing he should have said to try and persuade her to go,’ Jake was thinking aloud. Why hadn’t he realised that before?

‘Maybe she found the excitement of it appealing?’ Faye ventured a guess.

‘No way. She always stuck to the same route, the same mountain pass, because that’s where she felt safest.’ The more Jake thought about it, the more it rang true that Marcus would not have wanted her with them. It wasn’t his fault she had inexplicably turned up despite Marcus’s warning that they were not intending to take their usual route down.

‘But that’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it, Jake?’ Faye said gently. ‘Something persuaded her to go.’

‘She went shopping,’ said Jake.

‘Why do you think she changed her mind?’

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