VI of Pentacles

The snow was white and the sky was bright. He looked down the slope and pushed off.
For five days he had been skiing; his wife had taken the day off, exhausted from the cheese-and-wine party the night before, and he had left with the dawn to criss-cross the snows. He’d left a note on her bedside table.
At lunchtime he called her to check in, sat outside in a café, drinking strong black coffee and eating a large ham and cheese baguette.
Two days later they took the flight back and watched France fall beneath them.
He woke early the next morning, even though it was Sunday; he sat watching the news in the cloud-greyed light. Three thousand miles away men were dying in the sand and he was drinking orange juice in his M&S pyjamas.