Hammond Innes - The Lonely Skier

‘My God, Neil!’ Joe tapped me on the arm. ‘Are you trying to bed that woman down?’

‘Don’t be revolting,’ I said. I “felt slightly embarrassed. Joe was so solidly British in that foreign set-up. ‘Why make a vulgar suggestion like that on a lovely morning?’

‘You were looking at her as though you wanted to eat her,’ he replied. ‘She’s got that little Valdini chap for boyfriend. You want to go steady with these people. Knives, you know. They’re not civilised. He struck me as an ugly little fellow to start an argument with over a girl.’ He was right. The man sitting opposite her was Valdini. He had his back towards us.

‘Don’t be absurd, Joe,’ I said. Then I showed him the photograph, keeping my thumb across the writing. ‘Is that the same girl?’ I asked him.

He cocked his head on one side and screwed up his little bloodshot eyes. ‘Hmm. Could be. How did you get hold of that?’

‘It’s the picture of an Italian actress,’ I lied quickly. ‘I knew her in Naples just before Anzio. She gave it to me then. The point is — is the woman sitting over there the girl I knew or not?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘And frankly, old man, I don’t give a damn. But it seems to me that the best way to find out is to go and ask her.’

Joe, of course, did not realise the difficulty. Engles had said, do nothing. But I had to be certain. It seemed so fantastic that she should turn up on the very first day I was at Col da Varda. But the likeness was certainly striking. I suddenly made up my mind and got to my feet. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and find out.’

‘Well, don’t go treading on the corns of that overdressed little pimp. I’m a good chucker-out in a London bar. But I’m too big a target to play around with people I suspect of being expert knife-throwers.’

She had seen me get up and her eyes watched me intently as I crossed the belvedere. Valdini looked up as I reached the table. ‘Excuse me,’ I said to her, ‘but I feel sure I met you when I was in Italy with the British Army.’

There was an awkward pause. She was watching me. So was Valdini. Then she gave me a sudden warm smile. ‘I do not think so,’ she said in English. Her voice was deep and liquid. It was like a purr. ‘But you look nice. Come and sit down and tell me about it.’

Valdini, who had been watching me guardedly, now sprang to his feet. Polished and suave, he produced a chair for me from the next table.

‘Well,’ she said as I sat down, ‘where was it that we met?’

I hesitated. Her eyes were very dark and they were looking at me with open amusement. ‘I think your name is Carla,’ I said.

The eyes suddenly went blank. They were cold and hard — hard like the eyes in the photograph.

‘I think you have made a mistake,’ she said coldly.

Valdini came to the rescue. ‘Perhaps I should make an introduction. This is the Contessa Forelli. And this is Mr Blair. He is from an English film company.’ I wondered how he had found that out and why he had taken the trouble.

‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘I thought your surname might be — Rometta.’

I was convinced she caught her breath. But her eyes did not change. She had control of herself. ‘Well, now perhaps you know you have made a mistake, Mr Blair,’ she said.

I was still not sure. I pulled the photograph out of my pocket and showed it to her. ‘Surely this is a photograph of you?’ I said. I kept the bottom part covered.

She leaned forward quickly. ‘Where did you get that?’ There was nothing purrful about her voice as she shot the question at me. It was hard and angry and brittle. Then, with an abrupt change of tone, she said, ‘No, you can see for yourself that it is not my photograph. But it is strange. It is a great likeness. Let me look at it.’ And she extended a strong brown hand imperiously.

I pretended not to hear her request. I put the photograph back in my pocket. ‘Most extraordinary!’ I murmured. ‘The likeness is quite remarkable. I felt certain—’ I rose to my feet. ‘You must excuse me, CONTESSA,’ I said, bowing. ‘The likeness is quite extraordinary.’

‘Don’t go, Mr Blair.’ She gave me a hard, brilliant smile and the purr was back in her voice. ‘Stay and have a drink — and tell me more about that photograph. It is so nearly myself that I would like to know more about it. I am intrigued. Stefan, order a drink for Mr Blair.’

‘No, please, Contessa,’ I said. ‘I have been guilty of sufficient bad manners for one day. Please accept my apologies. It was the likeness — I had to be certain.’

I went back to Joe. ‘Well,’ he said, as I resumed my seat, ‘was she the girl or not?’

‘I think so,’ I told him.

‘Couldn’t you make certain?’

‘She didn’t want to be recognised,’ I explained.

‘I don’t blame her,’ he grunted. ‘I wouldn’t want to be recognised in the company of that little tyke, especially if I were a woman. Look at him getting up now. He positively bounces with his own self-importance.’

I watched the Contessa rise and put on her skis. She did not once glance in my direction. The incident might never have happened. She took the dapper little Valdini out on to the snow for a moment’s conversation. Then, with a flash of her sticks, she swooped out of sight down the slalom run to Tre Croci. As he came back, Valdini darted a quick glance at me.

We had lunch out on the belvedere and, afterwards, Joe went out with his camera and a pair of borrowed snow-shoes and I retired to my room to start work on the script. But I could not settle down. I could not concentrate. My mind kept wandering to the mystery of Engles’ interest in Col da Varda. First the story of Heinrich Stelben’s arrest. Now the Contessa Forelli, who looked so like Carla. It was stretching coincidence too far to believe that there was no connection. And what was it about the place that drew them here? If only Engles had told me more. But perhaps he hadn’t known much more. The slittovia was beginning to dominate my thoughts as it dominated the rifugio. I could hear it even up in my bedroom, a low, grating drone whenever the sleigh came up or went down. And in the bar, which was right over the concrete machine room, the sound of it was almost deafening.

At length I gave up any attempt to write. I tapped out a report for Engles and went down to the bar in time to see Joe returning with his camera. The snow-shoes were circular contraptions fixed to his boots. He looked like a great clumsy elephant as he floundered up the slope of the Cortina run. The day visitors had all left long ago and it was getting dark and very cold outside. The rifugio seemed to be shrinking into itself for the night. Aldo stoked up the great tiled stove and we gravitated naturally to the bar and anisetto.

It was whilst we were standing round the bar that an incident occurred that is worth recording. It was a small thing — or appeared so at the time — yet it was very definitely a part of the pattern of events. There were four of us there at the time — Joe Wesson and myself, Valdini and the new arrival, who had introduced himself as Gilbert Mayne. He was Irish, but by his conversation appeared to have seen a good deal of the world, particularly the States.

Valdini had been trying to pump me about the photograph. It was difficult to put him off. He was what schoolboys would call ‘bumptious’. You hit him and he bounced. He had a hide like a brontosaurus. But in the end I managed to convince him that I regarded the matter as being of little importance and that I really felt that I had made a foolish mistake. The talk gradually drifted to strange means of conveyance, such as the slittovia. Mayne, I remember, was talking about riding the tubs on overhead haulage gear, when the cable machinery began to drone under our feet. The steady grinding sound of it made conversation almost impossible. The whole room seemed to shake. ‘Who’d be coming up as late as this?’ Mayne asked.