Dick Francis - The Edge

Our speed had slowed from the brisk prairie rattle to a grunting uphill slither, the train taking two hours to cover the seventy miles from Calgary to Banff. When it stopped there, in the broad part of the valley, the snow-topped peaks were suddenly revealed as standing around in a towering, glistening, uneven ring, the quintessential mountains rising in bare majestic rocky grandeur from the thronging forested courtier foothills. I felt then, as most people do, the strong lure of high mysterious frozen places and, Filmer or not, I found myself smiling with pleasure, lighthearted to the bone.

It had been noticeably warm in Calgary, owing, it was said, to the north winds blowing down from the mountains, but in Banff it was suitably cold. The engine huffed and puffed about and split the train in two, taking the racegoers and all the front part off to a siding and coming back to pick up just the owners' quarters; the three sleeping cars, the dining car, the dome car and the Lorrimores. Abbreviated and much lighter, these remains of the train climbed at good speed for another three-quarters of an hour and triumphantly drew up beside the log-cabin station of Lake Louise.

With great cheerfulness the passengers disembarked, shivering even in their coats after the warmth of the cars, but full of expectation, Daffodil forgotten. They filed on to a waiting bus, while their suitcases were loaded into a separate truck. I clung to a fraction of hope that Filmer would leave his briefcase to be ferried in that fashion, but when he emerged from the train the case went with him, clutched firmly in his fist.

I told Nell I would walk up the mile or so from the station so as not to arrive until everyone had booked in and cleared the lobby. She said I could travel up anyway with the crew in their own bus, but I entrusted my bag to her keeping and in my grey regulation raincoat, buttoned to the neck, I enjoyed the fresh cold air and the deepening harvest gold of the late afternoon sunlight. When I reached the lobby of the grand Chateau, it was awash with polite young Japanese couples on honeymoon, not the Unwins, the Youngs and the Flokatis.

Nell was sprawled in a lobby armchair as if she would never be able to summon the energy to rise again, and I went and sat beside her before she'd realized I was there.

'Is everyone settled?' I asked.

She sighed deeply and made no attempt at moving. 'The suite I had reserved for the Lorrimores had been given to someone else half an hour before we got here The people are not budging, the management are not apologizing, and Bambi is not pleased.'

'I can imagine.'

'On the other hand, we are sitting with our backs to one of the greatest views on earth.'

I twisted round and looked over the back of the chair, and saw, between thronging Japanese, black and white mountains, a turquoise blue lake, green pines and an advancing glacier, all looking like painted stage scenery, awesomely close and framed by the windows.

'Wow,' I said, impressed.

'It won't go away,' Nell said, after a while. 'It'll all still be there tomorrow.'

I flopped back into the chair. 'It's amazing.'

'It's why people have been coming here to stare for generations.'

'I expected altogether more snow,' I said.

'It'll be knee-deep by Christmas.'

'Do you have any time off here?' I asked.

She looked at me sideways. 'Five seconds now and then, but almost no privacy.'

I sighed lightly, having expected nothing else. She was the focus, the centre round which the tour revolved: the most visible person, her behaviour vivisected.

'Your room is in one of the wings.' she said, handing me a card with a number on it. 'You just have to sign in at the desk and they'll give you the key. Your bag should be up there already. Most of the actors are in that wing. None of the owners.'

'Are you?'

'No.'

She didn't say where her room was, and I didn't ask. 'Where will you eat?' she said doubtfully. 'I mean… will you sit with the actors in the dining room?'

I shook my head.

'But not with the owners…'

'It's a lonely old life,' I said.

She looked at me with sudden sharp attention, and I thought ruefully that I'd told her a good deal too much.

'Do you mean,' she asked slowly, 'that you do this all the time? Play a part? Not just on the train?'

'No,' I smiled. 'I work alone. That's all I meant.'

She almost shivered. 'Are you ever yourself?'

'Sundays and Mondays.'

'Alone?'

'Well… yes.'

Her eyes, steady and grey, looked only moderately troubled. 'You don't seem unhappy,' she observed, 'being lonely.'

'Of course not. I choose it, mostly. But not when there's an alluring alternative hiding behind a clipboard.'

The armour lay on her lap at that moment, off duty. She smoothed a hand over it, trying not to laugh.

'Tomorrow,' she said, retreating into common sense, 'I'm escorting a bus load of passengers to a glacier, then to lunch in Banff, then up a mountain in cable cars.'

'And may it keep fine for you.'

'The Lorrimores have a separate chauffeur-driven car.'

'Has anyone else?'

'Not since Mrs Quentin's left.'

'Poor old Daffodil, 'I said.

'Poor?' Nell exclaimed. 'Did you know she smashed the mirror in her room?'

'Yes, I heard. Is Mr Filmer going on the bus trip?'

'I don't know yet. He wanted to know if there's an exercise gym because he likes lifting weights. The bus is simply available for anyone who wants to go. I won't know everyone who'll be on it until we set off.'

I would have to watch the departure, I thought, and that could be difficult as I would be half familiar to all of them by now and could hardly stand around invisibly for very long.

'The Unwins have come down into the hall and are heading towards me,' Nell said, looking away from me.

'Right.'

I stood up without haste, took the card she'd given me to the desk, and signed the register. Behind me, I could hear the Unwins' Australian voices telling her they were going for a stroll by the shore and it was the best trip they'd ever taken. When I turned round, holding my own key, they were letting themselves out through the glass doors to the garden.

I paused again beside Nell who was now standing up. 'Maybe I'll see you,' I said.

'Maybe.'

I smiled at her eyes. 'If anything odd happens…'

She nodded. 'You're in room six sixty-two.'

'After Vancouver,' I said, 'what then?'

'After the races I'm booked straight back to Toronto on the red-eye special.'

'What's the red-eye special?'

'The overnight flight.'

'So soon?'

'How was I to know I wouldn't want to?'

'That'll do fine,' I said, 'for now.'

'Don't get ideas,' Nell said sedately, 'above your lowly station.'

She moved away with a mischievous glint and I went contentedly up to the sixth floor in the wing where there were no owners, and found that the room allocated to me was near the end of the passage and next door to Zak's.

His door was wide open with Donna and Pierre standing half in, half out.

'Come on in,' Donna said, seeing me. 'We're just walking through tonight's scene.'

'And we've a hell of a crisis on our hands,' Pierre said. 'We need all the input we can get.'

'But Zak might not…' I began.

He came to the door himself. 'Zak is taking suggestions from chimpanzees,' he said.

'OK. I'll just take off my coat.' I pointed. 'I'm in the room next along.'

I went into my room which proved to have the same sweeping view of the mountains, the lake, the trees, and the glacier, and it was if anything more spectacular than in the lobby from being higher up I took off the raincoat and the uniform it had hidden, put on a tracksuit and trainers, and returned to Zak's fray.

The crisis was the absence of an actor who was supposed to have arrived but had sent apologies instead.