Free Grand Days by Frank Moorhouse Page A

would help her do that, just nicely.
    As she was about to let him out of the pension, she followed her grandmother’s advice that one should begin as one intended to continue, and this being her first day, she began as she, at least, hoped to continue. ‘Perhaps we could do something together at the weekend?’ she suggested, crossing her fingers, hoping that she had not committed a social gaffe, seeing that it was a breathtaking proposal that she’d made. She had spoken in a worldly voice, which she hoped didn’t sound more worldly than she could eventually carry off.
    â€˜I’d like that,’ he rushed to say.
    She pushed on. ‘We could perhaps hire a motor-car. We shan’t need a driver. I can drive. If motor-cars can be hired.’
    â€˜You can drive? Excellent. We could go touring. Motor-cars can be hired. Leave that part to me.’
    She immediately regretted her boast as unwomanly, but moved quickly to undercut it, ‘However, I have never driven in snow. If it should snow we would have to abandon the idea.’
    â€˜I am sure you could drive in snow, or through anything.’
    â€˜Thank you for your expression of confidence. Perhaps we could stay at a village inn in the Alps? Or is that a cliché for you?’
    â€˜Not a cliché at all, on the contrary, an enchanting proposal. Excellent. Take in the Alpine air.’
    She realised that it was now some months since she’d driven and that the rules of the road were different — indeed, here they drove on the other side of the road. She said this as they stood there at the door, her hand in his.
    â€˜Oh, not much traffic around the countryside. As a foreigner, you’ll be forgiven if you hit a cow. Show them your carte de légitimation ; they’ll salute and tell you to drive on.’
    The hand-holding then became a shaking of hands, they said good night, and this time they kissed lightly and he ducked out of the door and away into the cold night.
    In her rooms, brushing her hair at the dressing table, she imagined the Alpine village inn, and imagined Ambrose, in a very Continental way, creeping to her room after they’d retired for the night. Or would she have to do the creeping? In a very Continental way? She sang, ‘“Your love belongs to me, At night when you are asleep, Into your tent I’ll creep”.’
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    On their first night in the Alps, after eating fondue, drinking kirsch — for her, another First Time — and after two or three glasses of champagne beside the fire in the parlour with the only other two guests, they retired up the stairs hand in hand.
    Although she did not want another drink, on the landing she said she would come to his room for a nightcap from his regimental hip flask but would first go to her room.
    â€˜Splendid,’ he whispered on the stairs.
    In her room she examined her make-up, decided not to remove it, brushed her hair, poured water from the jug into the hand basin and washed her hands. She opened the window and the shutters and breathed deeply of the freezing Alpine air, cooling her face. She found it curious that she had no qualms about what she was now intending to happen. She wondered whether to take her nightgown with her to his room and decided that was too brazen.
    She closed the window and the shutters and gave the fire a poke and then she crept to his room along the corridors of the chilly, dark chalet.
    In his room she also opened the shutters so they could look out at the Alpine landscape, the room lit by the glow of the fireand the moon. They held hands, heads touching, and fell into a shy, tentative but arousing embrace and kissing.
    The embracing led them to lie still fully clothed on the large Swiss bed where they confided that it was not the first time for either of them. But she emphasised, a little breathlessly and shyly, but firmly, that nor was it by any means a customary thing for her. They talked of a close