Above All Things (10 page)

“He probably just wandered off,” George said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. He won’t be able to find his way out of here.” He gestured around the Base Camp, set in the bowl of mountains, surrounded by peaks and sheer walls in every direction except for the glacial valley, down which they could see for miles. “There’s nowhere to go but up. We’ll find him.”

“He loves the Victrola,” Sandy said. “Maybe he’s there?”

“Maybe.” Scanning the camp, George rotated slowly on the spot and thought about John.

John was dogged. He’d worry at something for what seemed like hours. “Unusual in a boy,” Ruth told him, though he wasn’t so sure. Couldn’t he work on a climbing problem for hours until he figured it out? That must have started when he was a boy. How did women know these things about children anyway? John, at least, could entertain himself. Not like the girls. The girls always wanted his attention, were always grabbing at him, clinging to him.

That’s why he hadn’t worried about leaving John alone in the back garden with his football. John would happily kick the ball for an hour. More. Until he exhausted himself.

“I’ll be right back, John,” he said. “Stay here. Kick the ball, yes?” He kicked the ball once at the wall and John stumbled
after the rebound and then kicked it back. It stopped short of the wall. John looked up at him.

“Kick the ball, John.” And he did. He watched John kick it twice, three more times, and then he stepped away. John hadn’t even noticed. He’d left John alone for only a few minutes. He couldn’t even remember why. What had been so important?

When he came back John was gone. There was a metallic taste in his mouth. His heart hadn’t beat faster but slowed, painfully, even as he told himself John must be there somewhere, that he was being ridiculous.

And of course he was. He found John by the small stream at the back of the garden, poking at the wet dirt, hunting for bugs or frogs. His football, stuck behind a rock, spun in the quick current.

Dear God, his heart thumped back into his ears, his temples. He swore he’d never let the boy out of his sight again and hugged John, squirming, to his chest, even as he was making plans to return to Everest. The memory brought with it a rising feeling of panic. His heart slowed. He feared it might stop.

Near the camp the melting glacier resurfaced from under the moraine in a small rush of water. He loved the small stream, fresh and so cold it hurt his teeth. It was so dry here they were all perpetually thirsty.

Maybe water attracted all little boys.

“Teddy, have some of the porters check towards the Icefall,” he said before moving off. “It’s where I would go.”

SANDY HAD BEEN
standing not far from where he stood now, just a short distance from the mess tent. He had scanned the near horizon, the jumble of the boulder field, the hundreds, thousands of places to hide. A repeated combination of syllables
bounced around him. The Sherpas were calling the boy’s name even though he wouldn’t be able to hear it.

“Anything?” Sandy asked as Hazard approached from around the side of the mess tent.

“No. You?”

Sandy shook his head.

There was a lull in the shouting, a brief respite that drew Hazard’s attention over Sandy’s shoulder. Sandy turned to follow his look. Across the moraine, one of the porters was carrying the boy back into the camp. He was so small in the man’s arms, yet he seemed heavy too. The man staggered slightly, and then Sandy was running towards him. He reached him just as Somervell tried to take the boy from the man. The porter’s face was impassive, dark and wrinkled, but calm in a way that was unsettling. He stared blankly across the camp, not seeming to see anything, and clutched the child tight to his chest. The boy’s clothes were wet, dripping, his hair plastered to his forehead. His lips were blue, his face tinged with it too.

Sandy wanted to look away but couldn’t. He couldn’t move at all. He stared – at the boy, at the man holding him in his arms, at Somervell trying to examine the child. One of the women was crying. No, keening. A sound he’d never heard before. It slid along the full register, articulating her grief.

Norton was beside them now, drawing Somervell back and saying something in a quiet, calming tone to the porter in Tibetan. The man didn’t respond, said nothing.

“Sandy, you don’t need to see this, come on.” George was at Sandy’s elbow, pulling him back towards the mess tent. “Sandy?”

“Sandy? Are you with us?” Norton’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Sandy, I need you to focus. We need to finish this.”

Sandy closed his eyes, squeezed hard, willing the image of the dead boy away. When he opened them again, he stared hard
at the loads lined up in front of him. Tomorrow, the first group of climbers would be heading up to the next camp. They had to stay on schedule. They couldn’t afford any delay. Not for the drowned boy. Not for anything. “We only have so much time on the mountain,” Norton had said. “If we want to succeed we can’t get derailed now.” Sandy tried to understand. Tried to believe that they didn’t have the luxury of showing the simple respect of waiting one day.

“The list for the next five camps,” he said now, handing the manifest to Norton. “And what needs to go to each one.”

“There isn’t much wiggle room,” Somervell cut in.

“There never is,” Norton said.

“Why did you let them bring him here?” Sandy’s voice was louder than he meant it to be, sharper. It sounded like an accusation. Norton and Somes exchanged glances. Somes turned to walk away.

“These loads look good,” Norton said, ignoring the outburst. Then, “They’re not children, Sandy. They can make their own decisions. Decide what risks they’re willing to take. We don’t force them to do anything. Bad decisions get made. By all of us. The only thing to do now is not make any more and not make things worse.”

“Right. Don’t make things worse.”

Norton squeezed Sandy’s arm and then handed him a tangle of ribbons and garters. “Put one of these on each of the loads.”

“These are the porters’,” Sandy said, taking them.

“They’ll recognize which ones are theirs tomorrow and they’ll take that load when it’s time to go. No squabbling, no complaining. It’s the fairest way. You, George, and Odell, you’ll take the lighter loads. If the coolies rundown, that’s one thing. There are only a few of us who can climb. You need to take care of yourself.”

“And the oxygen?” Sandy asked.

“It’ll go up soon. The food and tents first. If those aren’t up there, people die,” Norton explained. “Oxygen we’ll take up later.”

Sandy nodded.

“You’ll be fine, Sandy.” Norton stared hard at him. “Just do as you’re told.”

“And don’t make things worse,” Sandy repeated.

“Right. I have to check in with Noel, see how he’s coming along.”

Noel had his own miniature expedition arranged and would be heading off after they’d established Camp III to set up his own high camp across from the Col on the flanks of Pumori. From there he’d have a clear view of the summit ridge. He’d wait and film them from there. Noel documented everything. Sandy was surprised he hadn’t taken pictures of the boy’s body. Or the parents. No, maybe that wasn’t fair. Noel just wanted a record of what happened. He’d make his movie and secure his own fame. That’s what he was there to do.

Each member of the expedition had his role to perform. Sandy had somehow forgotten in the sweep of the journey, the exotic locales, that he had a job to do. There was so much more at stake than just their lives. They couldn’t get waylaid. By anything. He’d thought he understood that. After watching the boy’s body brought back to camp, though, he was unsure. But Norton had made it clear: no matter what, they were going up the mountain tomorrow. He was going up the mountain tomorrow. That’s what he’d come here to do.

BREAKFAST
7 O’CLOCK

W
hen I enter the nursery the children are still tousled in their beds, the room under the eaves stale from having been closed up all night. I open the window onto the long back garden. The colour of the willow tree is deepening and I am reminded of how George always comments on the tender green of spring growth. He hasn’t seen this garden in spring yet, missed the press of shoots up through the black soil.

Sliding into bed behind John, I pull his body to me, damp with sweat and sleep. He mewls like a small animal and pulls away from me. On his shoulder I trace landscapes, the great bulges of mountains and vast troughs of seas. He calms under these images, my touch.

The three of them are just beginning to wake; there is the slightest shift of breath as they climb slowly from the depths of sleep into daylight. Part of me wants to hurry them along, pull them towards wakefulness so I can hear the chirp and cry of them, for the distraction of them. They are always wanting something, their insistent demands giving shape to the long days, creating the comfort of routine. Hours can be filled attending to their needs: meals and naps and lessons and playing.

John rolls over in my arms and smiles widely when he sees me. Pure joy. He puts his small, sticky hand to my cheek, pushing at it. Then he is holding his arms out over my shoulder, past me, to Vi, the same smile turned to her. Vi has been with us since Clare was born, and she is as familiar to them as I am. Maybe more so than their own father. I keep my back to the nurse, facing my son. Our son.

Sometimes I wonder what he thinks of George, if he does at all. He knows his father is gone, that much is obvious.
When I finally returned home after seeing you off
, I wrote to George,
John wandered from room to room, stood at the bottom of the stairs and called up them: Papa? Papa? It was enough to break my heart
. But in the last few weeks he hasn’t done that. I worry he is more accustomed to his father’s absence than his presence, though if Berry or Clare ask about Daddy, he will ask too.

When it feels as though Vi has turned away, I roll over and watch as she touches the shoulders of the girls and shifts John to her hip. They rise silent from their beds and I am struck anew by the height of them, tall and thin. Their nightgowns were new when you left, too long on them; now the gowns brush their shins. Clare will need a new one, Berry will take her sister’s hand-me-down. Another task for the list that is filling up in my head.

I sit up and the creaking of the bed stops the girls, who look at me. Berry smiles automatically, as John did. Clare doesn’t.

“Good morning, Clare-Bear,” I say, their collective nickname.

“Say good morning to your mother, girls,” Vi instructs them.

“Good morning,
maman
,” they chorus.

They have taken to calling me by the French term since Cottie began her lessons with them, and I love it. It warms me, even when prompted, like this.

“I think, Vi, I’ll have breakfast with them this morning. Have their things ready for their French lesson. We’ll leave by ten.”

Berry smiles. John is curled into Vi’s neck. Clare stares at me. I don’t wait for a response from Vi. She considers me silly, I think, as I step past her and make my way back down the stairs. That I suffer George’s absence poorly. That I spend too much time “wandering like a little lost lamb,” she says. Drifting from room to room, piling and unpiling books, papers, linens.

It isn’t hard to understand why. She lost her husband in the war. As did so many others, of course, God rest them. But his body was destroyed and never found.

“Where was he?” George asked when he was evacuated home. I hadn’t told him in the hospital, but George had asked after him during his weeks at home, before his return to duty. Not to France as he wished, but to train recruits not far away. He wasn’t glad to be home. His safe return was all I had been praying for, for months, and he wanted to be somewhere else.

How could he feel that he should be away from us
, I wrote to Marby, forgetting she had just recently married a career military man.
It’s his duty, Ruth
, she wrote back.
It isn’t a want, it’s a duty. And you have a duty as well. It’s time for you to grow up
.

“Ypres, I think,” I told him. I should have remembered. It was important to remember, wasn’t it?

George looked grim. “I’m not surprised they didn’t find anything. She wouldn’t have wanted to see what they would have found.” He had forgotten he was talking to me. His usual indomitable calm had vanished. When he saw my face, though, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

But the idea of those smashed bodies stayed with me. More so when word came only a few days later about Trafford. There was no body to bury, only the empty coffin at the front of Reverend Mallory’s church. For days George’s mother and sister were silent, and we sat in Mrs. Mallory’s over-warm kitchen, the light outside bright and sharp. She drew the
curtains. In the next room George and his father argued. “I wish they’d stop,” his mother said. “If Trafford was here, he’d make them stop.”

“What’s the use of being home,” George told me, sitting outside the rectory, his red-rimmed eyes squinted against the sun, “if I can’t even make my father care.”