Above All Things (40 page)

AHEAD OF GEORGE
the Second Step loomed, a rock outcropping some one hundred feet high, like the corner of a great cathedral.

“I can turn that,” he said, and passed the spyglass back to Geoffrey.

“I don’t know, George. You might be best to skirt it, find a way around it.”

“There isn’t another way. We’d have to double back. We’d have to drop down, take Teddy’s route. It would take us hours.”

“He can’t do it. The boy. He can’t climb that.”

“You don’t know that. I have faith in him. You used to have it in me.”

“Yes, well,” Geoffrey continued, “you were the one who left me behind. I should be the one climbing Everest.”

Geoffrey was right, of course. It should have been him. And it probably would have been him, if not for the war. He was a better climber than any of the rest of them – Teddy, Somes, Odell. The two of them on the rope together would have been unbeatable. “If you hadn’t lost your leg.” It was the first time he’d ever said it aloud.

“Lost. Ha.” Geoffrey laughed mirthlessly.

He’d never asked Geoffrey if they’d found his leg.

“Why not? Why didn’t you ask?”

“I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it.”

“Bullshit, George. You didn’t want to talk about it. You didn’t want to know. You wanted to keep climbing as if nothing had changed.”

“That’s not true.”

“Sure it is, George. As long as everything works out in your favour, as long as you can continue to go along on your merry way, it doesn’t much matter what happens to anyone else. As long as we’re still there to play the audience to your adventures.”

He started to say he was sorry, but Geoffrey wasn’t there. There was just him and Sandy on the ridge. He couldn’t drift off like that. Had to stay focused.

He looked down below the Step, deep into the couloir.

Geoffrey was wrong. There was no way to skirt the Step, not without downclimbing at a mad angle that would send them sliding down the face. Still, the Step appeared immovable and already he felt exhausted. With every step his head throbbed and the pain rocketed down his spine, into his joints and the small of his back, where the oxygen tank had rubbed his skin raw. But it was the last obstacle. He’d pointed it out to Sandy all those weeks ago:
the Second Step – it’s the only one that counts. After that it’s a clear run to the base of the pyramid
.

There was someone there, below them. He could see him. He raised his arm again, to wave, to point him out to Sandy. A man, there, curled on his side. Knees drawn up. He shouldn’t be there.

Wilson maybe? No. Couldn’t be. Wilson was waiting for them below the North Col. Sandy then? He focused his eyes on the shape. But Sandy was behind him on the rope. He glanced back to check on Sandy, plodding up the ridge. Slowly, painfully slow – step and stop, step and stop.

Then who was on the mountain with them?

“Higher up, on her shoulders,” he heard Virgil saying, “the demons wait.” When he tried to spot the man again, the shape was gone. Resolved into grey stone.

He leaned back against the wall of the Second Step and watched Sandy climbing towards him, slowing with each long minute that ticked by. He should move, at least into the patch of sun on the snow slope, out of the shadow cast by the overhang of the cliff. Instead George closed his eyes against the bright sky, blanched to almost white at the horizon.

The stone behind him leached the heat from his body. He was shivering, his teeth chattering in the stale smell of his mask. He tried to still his body, would give anything to be warm. How long had he been climbing? Time stretched and
compressed. His watch wasn’t at his wrist, just smears of blood. And slivers of glass burrowing into him, drawing the cold into his veins.

He closed his eyes and there was the dry, earth scent of tea. He reached to take the cup from Ruth, but his hands were shaking. He drew them back, tucked them into his armpits and inhaled slowly before he reached out again, trying to force them steady.

“You don’t look well,” she said.

“Better now.”

“For the tea.”

“For you being here.”

“Nonsense. You like your adventures. Set off every chance you get. Tuck me away at the back of the cupboard and then pick me up and dust me off when you see fit.”

“No.” He set down the tea, drew her to him. He could feel her warmth dissipating. She’d be cold. “No. You’re perfect. I shouldn’t have left. I won’t leave again. You’re where I want to be.”

“But you have to climb her first.” He couldn’t tell if it was a demand or resignation. But she was right. He did have to climb her first.

And then Sandy was beside him, slumped against his shoulder. “What time is it?”

Slowly Sandy peeled back his glove, his sleeve, found his watch. “Quarter to two?” A long pause. “We should turn back. You said we should be here by noon.”

“How do you feel?”

“Tired. Good. Cold. I can make it.” Sandy pushed himself to his feet.

“Good.” He stood too, held his hand up to Sandy, rotated it and waited as Sandy turned his back to him. His hands were on Sandy’s shoulders. The slightest pressure and Sandy would plummet down the mountain to the glacier far below.

He unclipped the tank, slid the straps from Sandy’s shoulders. He watched as Sandy’s shoulders straightened a little without the weight, only to slouch again as the gas wore off.

He would have liked to hurl the canister, to make a show of throwing it in the mountain’s face, but he couldn’t. He let it slip from his fingers, heard the metallic clang of it, once, as it cartwheeled into space, and then disappeared below them. He turned his back to Sandy and waited for the same release. It came, but only as a brief reprieve. Without the forced oxygen his breath came harder, slower. He struggled to send oxygen to his lungs, to his limbs on his own. What little warmth he had curled back into his chest, his guts, retreating from his limbs.

He had hoped they would have enough gas to at least make the summit, or even part of the way back. A miscalculation. They were moving too slowly.

The stone was cold. He’d pulled off his outer mittens, had on only the thin wool gloves. He had to feel the stone, would have preferred his skin on the flesh of the mountain – stone that had never been touched, virgin behind its veil – but the tips of his fingers were numbing already, frostbite settling in. The blood in them would expand as it froze, exploding his cells, destroying them.

One hold, then another.

There was someone beside him as he climbed. Another climber, making every move he did. A reflection just off to his side. Maybe he had the better route. George reached out to him and the man beside him reached away. He had to beat him.

His lungs filled with empty air as he lifted his right foot to a hold, a tiny indentation in the face. The muscles in his legs, his back and arms burned, the lactic acid bubbling in them. A long pause and then the pull up. An inch. Two. Just the rock in front of him. And the wind – an inaudible roar, so constant
it fell silent, just a pressure on his ears, his body. And the man beside him.

At the top of the Step, George looped the rope around a stable rock, wrapped it around his waist and felt Sandy’s weight on it, stuttering and stopping. His wrist ached with the jolts. The clouds had begun to rise up around them, swelling from below, slowly swallowing the ridge in white, cutting them off from the mountain. The way to the summit was still clear, even though it was hidden coyly, behind the shoulder of the mountain.

Where did he go, the other climber? The one who had been on the Step. He cast about for him. Were those footprints in the snow ahead of him? Or just the shape of the wind?

He leaned against the counterweight of the rope.

His muscles quivered against his joints and bones. He closed his eyes. Small paws crawled all over him, digging in with their claws, sending sharp currents through his limbs. Laughter. The other climber had sent them down – these creatures all over him – so he would get to the summit first. A razored talon drew a line around his scalp, then peeled back the skin. The white of his skull reflected the sunlight. Another plucked the tendon in his ankle like a bowstring. He kicked, jerked his foot away, and his hobnails caught his other leg. He barely felt it through the layers of cloth.

He jolted himself awake. What if it was on the rope? Virgil’s demon. Climbing towards him.

Maybe he should cut the rope. That would be the only way to be sure that the demon didn’t reach him, didn’t tear him from the mountain.

“Don’t be so rash, George.” Will’s hands were over his, helping him hold the belay. “You’re always so damned rash.”

“I’m not.” He squeezed the words out through clenched teeth.

“That would be a first, then, no?” Will’s hands were steadying. Warming.

“Maybe. But that’s why we have you, Ruth and I. Someone to take care of us both.”

“I have taken care of her, George. And a damn sight better than you. She would have been happier with me. You know that, don’t you? She is happier with me.”

The wind hollowed him out, scraped him clean, stole away what he needed to say to Will. He could see the words, scattered like bits of ribbon, blowing out over Tibet.

SANDY PULLED A
tin from his pocket, put the lozenge on his tongue to try to wet it. He could hardly believe he’d made the Second Step and George was pushing on, not even allowing him a moment to rest. He had to go with him. Had to. In another minute he’d get back up. Just a minute. Two.

“Come on, slowpoke,” Marjory teased him. She was standing in the doorway, beckoning him with her finger. “Someone might see you.”

What was he doing? She was right. Dick might see him. Still, his head was bubbling from the champagne at dinner and the whisky after, the hangover already thumping behind it.

“Just one foot in front of the other,” she encouraged, opening the door wider. She had changed, from the pale silk dress into a robe. It was belted loosely, plunged open to reveal the long drop between her breasts.

“No.” He pressed his eyes closed, shook his head. He couldn’t go to her. He wouldn’t. When he opened his eyes again, his mother was standing there.

“I asked you not to go, Sandy. Now please, just come home.”

He stepped towards her but was stopped by a hand on his
shoulder. He tried to shrug it off, but then his mum was gone and George’s fingers were digging into his arm, hauling him back from where his foot hung over empty space, pulling him back to the ridge. Sandy fought to get away.

“Jesus, Sandy. Jesus.” George’s breath was hot on his face, his arms clasped around him, pinning him down. Slowly he calmed and collapsed to the ground. “You’re all right,” George was saying, over and over again. “You’re all right.” But he wasn’t. He needed George to turn around; they should have already.

“Sandy, I need you to stay here. You’re moving too slow. We won’t make it at this pace. But there’s still a chance. I can go on my own. I can make it. But you have to stay here and not move.”

Why wouldn’t George listen to him?

“Do you understand?” George’s voice creaked, slipped in and out with the wind. George leaned close to him, tightened the muffler around his neck, tugged at the earflaps of his hat. It felt as though George was dressing him, preparing him.

“No,” he said, as George folded his arms against him, pulled his legs up. “No.”

“Sandy, I need you to stay here.” George was fumbling at the knot at his waist, undoing it so that they would no longer be tied together. George was leaving him behind.

He couldn’t. He’d get up. Go with him. They had to do it together. He didn’t want to be left alone. Not here. Struggling, he made to rise, but George’s hand was on his shoulder. There was a squeeze, and a thump. “If I’m not back in an hour, two, go down.” George pointed past him, down the way they’d come.

George turned up the ridge, moved off. Slow. So slow. As if he was barely moving. He could still catch him. He’d get up and follow. After a minute. A few minutes.

Sandy stared out at the horizon – at the curvature of the Earth. He was so high. He tried to work out the numbers, calculate how high they must be, how far away George was. The
highest thing on Earth. There were things he had to remember to do: factor the angles, their rate of ascent. It had been so slow. They’d been climbing all day. All day and they still hadn’t reached the summit. It was two hours away. Maybe three. He wouldn’t reach it, but George might. How long had George told him to wait?

It didn’t matter. He’d wait.

His heart pounded and he thought of his blood, mapped the course of it in his system – tracing its dark red colour from his heart, through the aorta and then his arteries, twisting and turning. Carrying warmth. Oxygen. He pulled off his glove and watched as what little oxygen remained in his blood was leached away as it crept back towards his heart. But it was too sluggish. It would get caught up in his heart. He would die.

He didn’t want to die here.

Where was George? How long had he been gone?

He numbered the hours by the angle of the sun. Time slowed. Everything slowed. The sun was getting low. Low. Nearing the peaks to the west. “We don’t want to be caught out after dark,” George had said. “You’ll tell me when to turn around. Can you do that?”