There was one light on the switchboard which was off, and it was the one right up in the top right hand corner of the park. We stood there staring at it in absolute fury. "Turn it off and on again," Sue said, so we turned the switchboard off and on again and checked the wiring to the light that was off. The absolute son of a bitch. It was the light that represented the snow machine that was right up the top of the narrowest, most difficult run in the park. I looked at Sue. Sue looked at me. "Thanks," she whispered.
I got my skis and headed out. Sue got avalanched on last year. She was on her break, eating a gingerbread man at the bottom of the kids' practice slope, and an avalanche slid down the hill and trapped her up to her neck. When she was dug out she swore she'd never set foot on snow again. But of course she did. Even so, fixing the top right snow machine was pushing it. I didn't want to be the one to fix it but I figured it'd be bad for Sue's psychic energies if she had to go out that far. Sue couldn't take much more psychic damage.
Sue waved to me through the window. To get up to the top right corner you had to chairlift up from the bottom chalet to the top chalet, then get the T-bar over to Red Tower, T-bar to Gold Tower and ski cross country style to the top of Purple Trail. Hidden in the bush to the side of Purple Trail was the top right snow machine. It pumped water up the mountain and sprayed snow over two hundred metres down.
On the chairlift I swung my feet and looked out over the park. It was quiet. "Barely worth it," I complained to Sue when I checked in at Red Tower. I'd passed a pair of wealthy looking retirees in nicely-fitted outfits, and that was it. Sue didn't say anything. It wasn't like Sue to not say anything. The opposite was more typically true, when it came to Sue.
At Gold Tower she asked sheepishly if I'd turned the snow machine back on yet. "Sue," I said in a voice that hopefully communicated how deeply offended I was at her chicanery. "You can SEE that I'm calling from Gold Tower." She was apologetic. "Joel came around. He was asking if you'd turned it back on yet." Joel was an absolute son of a bitch too.
I skied out towards Purple Trail. About a third of the way there the snow ran out. I took my skis off and trudged over the brown grass.
A hundred metres down I found a mother and her child. The woman was in her mid 30s, with a tired face and unbrushed hair. Her parka was faded. She was trying to play a game with the child. The child was 3, or 4, maybe, with a sweet little monkey face and a beautiful bright yellow suit. She stood looking at her mother with an uncertain expression. The woman was scrounging up tiny handfuls of snow and patting them into snowballs and throwing them softly near the child. She threw them wide, or short, unwilling to land one on her. The balls hit on the ground with a crunch, and each time they did, the woman smiled weakly and nodded at her daughter. The child seemed to not want to disappoint her mother but was getting bored. Twice as I walked towards them she squatted down to play with the leaves on the ground until her mother pleaded with her to keep playing the snow game.
They didn't see me until I was close. "There's loads more snow down there," I said, gesturing up towards Gold Tower. They both jumped. The mother picked the child up. They stared at me with bland resentment. There was something careworn about them. It could have been a hopeful image, the mother and child. A new life. A refreshing of the old stale ways, whatever they were. That was a popular picture. The magic of an innocent little child, full of only love and wonder. The nurturing mother. I stared at them and tried to feel it. They stared back. But it didn't work. The child was bored and thin. The mother was irritated. Interrupted from her effort. She'd probably wanted the holiday to look different. Another shitty memory on a mean little pile. "I know," the mother said. "She freaks out when there's too much snow."
"I have to turn the machine back on," I told them. "There'll be lots of snow here soon." "Shit," the mother said.
I traipsed into the bush to where the snow machine was. The hose had come out of the side of it. Simple. I plugged it back in and sat down for a sip from my thermos. When I came back out the snowflakes were falling lightly on the trail, covering it all in powdery white. The child was sulking. The mother had laid down on the ground and closed her eyes. "She doesn't like much snow," I said. "Why bring her here?"
The mother sat up and squinted at me. "Because," she said softly. "She likes it when there's a little bit."
Truly part of the "journeying through landscape in order to have an experience" -cycle for the Australian king of prosa!