Weak at the Knees by Jo Kessel Page B

breath.
     
    “I’ll be fine.”
     
    I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince, her or me.
     
    “I’m glad you said that, because I’ve got a plan, and it’s non-negotiable.”
     
    I fear the worst, because there’s only one plan in my head and Gina doesn’t look like sleep is what she’s got in mind.
     
    “I’ve decided,” she continues, “that we’re not going to sit around moping all day. Let’s go find our flat, dump down our gear and then go up.”
     
    I’m confused.
     
    “Up where?”
     
    “Up there, silly.”
     
    She points to the mountains and I groan.
     
    “Please, no, anything but that. I’m freezing and exhausted.”
     
    “Non-negotiable,” she reminds me, sounding more and more like Amber. “And besides, I think it will do you the world of good. Stop you from wallowing. Life moves on.”
     
    And now she sounds like Hugo. I make a face.
     
    “Come on,” she insists, trying to drag me indoors. “Think about it. The sooner we go skiing, the sooner we get back and the sooner you get to sleep.”
     
    That’s just about enough of an incentive for me to follow Gina inside and load up our belongings.
     
    *****
     
    I should have either listened to Rod when he told me to travel light, or been more cunning in roping him to help move our bags before he left. We couldn’t do it in one go. It’s taken three round-trips and despite the freeze I can feel the layers underneath my jacket are now damp from perspiration.
     
    Montgenèvre is a picturesque sleepy town with a cluster of traditional chalets, a pretty old church and several more modern buildings which sprawl up a hillside shaped like a bowl, with some challenging staircases connecting lower tiers to upper levels. Despite being only two miles from the Italian border, its feel is typically French. Our one-bedroom studio sits above a row of shops. A small supermarket and boulangerie are conveniently located below, whilst the piano bar is a few doors down. The wafting smell of baking as we pass the boulangerie is too good to resist.
     
    “It’s going to be lethal having this place so close by,” I say, looking up to our apartment block. “If we leave our windows open this aroma’s going to reach us in bed, just like in the Bisto ad.”
     
    “You’re not wrong,” Gina agrees.
     
    I buy us a couple of bouncy pains aux raisins from the outdoor kiosk, gooey custard oozing from the sultana-filled middles. I clasp the paper bag in my teeth, pick up my giant suitcase with two hands, sighing, groaning and waddling lopsidedly the entire climb back to our flat. It’s not a bad living space, although the colour scheme is calamitous. It’s like a bunch of primary school kids have been let loose with tubs of paint and told to play at being interior designers. It’s two-tone. The walls are a bright cornflake orange up to an imaginary picture rail height – everything above is bleached white. A corner of the open-plan lounge boasts a matching orange fitted kitchen, which leads onto a large balcony which has a plastic table set with four chairs. It offers the sort of view people dream about. Today’s panorama is dramatic. The mountain bases are visible, as are their jagged peaks, but their midriff is wearing a thin sheet of cloud like a skirt. Collectively they resemble a group of fat pencils which have punctured a hole in a piece of white paper and then got stuck.
     
    We walk through all the rooms, like prospective house-buyers searching for defects, when I realise, apart from being bathless (we sadly only have a shower) we have another much more serious problem. There’s only one actual bedroom, although the lounge has a sofa bed. Gina reads my mind.
     
    “I’ll take the sofa bed,” she offers magnanimously. “I’m really not that fussed.”
     
    “Are you sure?” I ask. “I don’t mind swapping halfway if you’d prefer.”
     
    “What, halfway through the night?” jokes Gina, knowing full well that I meant