THE VIDEO
There was no filming that day; and the snow just kept on coming down.
And the next day was the same.
He sat by the window of the motor caravan parked outside, watching the flakes falling: Big flakes, floating and fluttering, drifting and changing direction - but always falling. They covered the ground and obliterated everything; and as they did so he could see the budget, Francs, Ff100, Ff200, Ff500, floating out of the van window and away. They fluttered and changed direction too; but unlike the snow which stayed, they were slipping away - but where they went to, he couldn't quite make out; and, soon, they would have to call the whole thing off and go home.
'Tomorrow,' they said, 'It'll stop snowing. Tomorrow, you will be able to film.'
The man looked up at the balcony outside of the first floor chalet windows. Behind the windows it looked warm; and he knew that his daughter was laying up the table for dinner and that the chalet guests would be lounging and sipping their mulled wine, boasting of their descents and their adventures off-piste and on-piste; and could it really have been HRH who had shared the same chair-lift that had whisked them up to the summit again?
But inside the motor caravan he felt cold; and he thought, 'Jesus, you sound just like Cecil B. de Mille, trying to direct a low budget movie!' And looking up at the window again, he added: 'And with a cast of Prima-Donnas who have just learned that their ballet tights have been wrongly misrouted to somewhere else!'
So he told himself: 'Don't be theatrical! You always get theatrical when you're tired and when it isn't going your way. Perhaps it is you who is being the Prima-Donna.'
He wasn't Cecil B. de Mille anyway. He was just a hack lawyer struggling to keep his business afloat, because he never could bring himself to charge people enough; and for divorces, he charged hardly anything at all - but, for reconciliation's, he always charged double.
The Step-mother filled his glass again and pushed a saucer of olives across the table. 'Tomorrow,' she reassured him, 'it will stop snowing. Tomorrow, you will be able to film again.'
Shortly, they would leave the motor caravan and join the guests upstairs, for dinner. He knew that he was going to enjoy that.
'She cooks, your daughter, she really does cook,' the step-mother said.
'And I paid for that,' he told her proudly, 'found money for her to learn that when there wasn't any. But I don't suppose she remembers that, now!'
But still, he knew that the conversation was all going to be about skiing; and he hadn't come here for that, not to ski. Anyway, his ski-boots had fallen apart that morning, when his daughter had taken him down the black run; and he had felt stupid about that; and he still felt stupid about it now, if he cared to think about it.
He had felt stupid because once, in times past, it was he who had encouraged her down the icy slopes, had helped her to try to overcome her fears and to gain confidence in herself, had done it by goading her to follow him wherever he went, on-piste and off-piste, over the fields of moghuls and down the steepest of the slopes; and it was he who had cut the umbilical cord before pushing her gently from the nest, over the chasms and crevasses that life was made of. And she had hated him when he had told her that life, so precious, was actually worthless - unless you lived every moment and put into it everything that you had got. She had hated him for that; but he knew it had to be said: He had wanted her to see the bottom line, unblinkered and in focus, knew that she couldn't really value life, until she had learned that.
And now here he was, whimpering on a black run when his boot had broken and because he couldn't stop falling and falling and falling, all the way down.
So he consoled himself with the wine; and he said. 'I am sure that I would have been better if it was the skiing that I had come here for.'
But he hadn't come here to ski, he hadn't spent money that he badly needed for the business, to do that: He had come because she had asked him to do the video; had come because he knew that she badly needed the break.
'I remember,' he said, trying to explain why it was so important for him to come and do the film, 'When she asked me if she should do this thing, should risk the inheritance that her mother had left her on this business venture.'
'Look,' he had told her, 'I'm rising sixty; and if I lost fifty thousand pounds on some deal at my age, that would be bad, really bad.
'But you're not mid twenty: You've got your looks and you've got your hips and you've got age on your side. You can get over it, if it doesn't work out.'
And he had nearly added, 'And you've got your man.' But he didn't, because he knew what they said about love flying out of the window when poverty stalked through the door. He knew all about that; and he didn't want it to happen to her, too. His daughter needed the break - everyone needed the break: That was why they had come out, when they couldn't afford it - that and because his daughter had always said how little he had ever done for her.
And, even if he didn't accept that, then it hurt anyway; and he wanted to come out and try and put it right.
But now the week was nearly half over and there had been no filming, because either it was snowing or, if it wasn't snowing, then she was too busy; and somehow, however hard he tried, he couldn't make her put her mind to it.
********************************************************When they went into the chalet, everything was the way he knew it would be. He wondered if it was the wine; but the guests were very relaxed and the room was glowing pink and warm and welcoming. He watched his daughter lighting up the candles on the dining table; and, as their light made flickering shadows on the warm, wood-clad walls, he watched her as she cast her spell on all the room and the people who were inside it. He was proud of her at that moment, more proud than he ever had been; and he thought, 'You're good. You do this well; and I don't know why I worry so, when I know that you're going to make it.'
The charm, of course, hadn't come from him. It had come from her mother: Along with the waxen complexion, the retrousse nose and the flair for babbling and bubbling along about nothing that was very erudite but which, in a very natural way, made people feel at home. She was just like her mother - and, in spite of all the years of hurt, he smiled as he thought: 'But, I'll tell you something, girl: Just like your mother, you are going to keep a watch on your weight, though!'
But, sometimes, when she talked about his not doing right by her, he would get angry with her; and then he would tell himself that she was too much like her mother for her own good; and then he would remind himself that he had promised that he wouldn't say bad things about her mother any more, because now she couldn't answer back and, somehow, that didn't seem fair.
'Anyway,' he said, 'that's just the insecurity that makes her talk like that;' and looking at her now, her polished performance, he knew that, apart from her man, nobody else would have guessed about the insecurity.
'The insecurity came from us both,' he said. 'It's in the genes. The genes make too much bile; and that makes for fear.' He remembered how he had felt, coming down the black run; and whenever daughter gave either him or her man a hard time, he knew that it came from the insecurity and the genes.
************************************************************
After the Quail, which were juicy-pink, they were given saddle of lamb dressed in a juniper sauce; and then someone said that tomorrow he would film, because it would be fine. So he put his hand over his glass when they brought more wine. 'No more wine,' he thought, 'Because tomorrow you have to get up in time to catch the early morning sun on the face of the mountain and when it kisses the first gondolas as they go up to the ski runs.'
But then his daughter said that she couldn't do any filming next day - she had to go down to the market to shop: She could film on Thursday, though; definitely she could film on Thursday.
He knew that they were leaving on Friday; and he thought, 'Jesus: Don't the young know that God doesn't necessarily set Thursdays aside for filming? And especially when he has another load of shitty snow up there, just ready to drop on his faithful people.'
In fact, faith was what he needed; because it stayed fine and, on the last day, they shot the film. His daughter had lost the script that he had written for her; and because she and her man were in love, they giggled a lot. But they shot the film; and on the day after, they drove all the way back with it.
*******************************************When he got home, his bank manager wanted to see him; and, because the overdraft had got so high, they pulled the rug away from under his feet and they closed him down. After that he had plenty of time to finish the video.
****************************************Years, then, went by; and with the passage of time, things changed at the skiing resort. It had grown fashionable and much bigger now, although it still managed to retain most of its old, Savoyard, charm. The old chalet had long since been pulled down; and in its place there was now a fine hotel. It had the charm of the former chalet; but it was big. Its clientele was impressive, too; and the gossip columnists often commissioned a news agency to check out the guest list and tell them who was staying there - and, more importantly, with whom.
Like the chalet it had a balcony; and a woman now stepped out of the French doors onto it. Although she carried weight, with the waxen skin and the retrousse nose, and with her couture, it gave her an aura of sophistication and charm. Her husband had gone into the town to draw wages for the ten or more staff that they employed; and the broom that she was carrying in her hands looked so strangely incongruous against the fine jewellery that adorned them.
An old man was sitting on the balcony, looking out towards the mountain; and, when she saw him, she smiled and she said softly, 'Old man, you are always sitting out here, on the balcony, looking out at the mountain.' Then, beginning to sweep, she added, 'You never do anything to help me. You just sit there, looking. You never do anything to help.'
But the old man didn't hear her. He was looking out at the mountain and he was dreaming. He was dreaming about the day that he had broken his ski-boot on the black run and had got frightened; and he was dreaming of the time that they had made the video: The video which he had shot; and had brought home; and edited and put together. The video which they had sent out to all the people on his daughter's mailing list. The video which had made them come and see for themselves and find out about her charm and her cooking.
The video that had given his daughter the break.
