Far, Far the Mountain Peak

by Arthur Clifford

  For three weeks nothing happened. Eventually, out of exasperation, he telephoned them. After all sorts of referrals to this department and that extension, an anxious voice condescended to reply. Yes, the council had every sympathy with him. Of course they took his point. But, well… the Youth Outreach Committee relied on the unpaid voluntary work of people like Brian Dobson, and he was doing sterling work, you couldn’t deny that. So they couldn’t possibly afford to offend him. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand.’

  Steadman didn’t ‘understand’: or, rather, he understood just too well. There things rested for a while.

  ‘The Lives of Children at Risk’

  In the end chance came to the rescue; or was it fate, or perhaps event the hand of God? Who knew? The Youth and Community Safety Committee got involved. After all, what was it there for if not to ensure the ‘safety’of the Boldonbridge Youth and Community? An expedition organised by the Youth Outreach Committee, no less, was clearly in their remit. And, youth swanning off into the wilds of North Africa could hardly be deemed ‘safe’, could it? Hackles rose. ‘The lives of children’ were at risk. Something had to be done. The proposed expedition went under the microscope.

  But unfortunately, all seemed to be in place. The leaders were all ‘properly qualified’, especially Brian Dobson, the ‘Senior Coordinator’.. For who could possibly be better qualified to lead a youth expedition than the ‘Chief Expedition Advisor’ for the region? So, alas, there was no comfort for the would-be ‘children in danger’ crusaders, not even a crumb.

  Or was there? Suddenly, somebody remembered that people in North Africa didn’t speak English. And, worthy as they undoubtedly were, none of the designated expedition leaders spoke a word of any foreign language. Neither had any of them ever set foot in North Africa. It just wouldn’t do, would it?

  In short, the expedition couldn’t possibly be allowed to proceed if this were not remedied. Unless an additional leader with the requisite skills could be found, it would have to be cancelled. Sad, very sad. The Youth and Community Safety Committee ‘deeply regretted’ having to say this, but where ‘the lives of children’ were at stake, they had no choice. Victory for the Youth and Community Safety Committee.

  But then it transpired that there was in fact one local youth leader who filled the bill: The Reverend Bob Steadman. In his younger and wilder days he had backpacked his way round Morocco, tramping over the Atlas Mountains from end to end, living with Berber shepherds in remote and inaccessible valleys, and becoming fluent in Arabic and picking up a working knowledge of Berber as well. As a matter of fact, he was also fluent in French.

  Steadman was duly approached, and agreed to join the expedition. Dobson was ‘disgusted’, but was given an ultimatum: it was either accept Steadman or no expedition – which, being fully translated, meant egg all over his face. The Chief Expedition Advisor for the region incapable of leading an overseas expedition? It was a middle-class put-down, a direct assault on his working class origins, a deep personal insult. But in the end he had to ‘eat shit’ and accept Steadman.

  For his part, Steadman agreed to accept Dobson as expedition leader, but he insisted on bringing his two Beaconsfield lads along.

  ‘That’s out of the question, I’m afraid,’ was the sulky response, ‘This is a serious expedition and we’ve got to keep standards up.’

  ‘Take it or leave it, Dobbie.’

  Dobson took it; with a sullen grunt, of course. But every cloud is apt to have its silver lining. He’d acquired one more grievance, to be lovingly polished up, treasured and added to his cherished collection.

  ‘Officially Selected to Join the Expedition’

  ‘Well, John,’ said Steadman after the Sunday service, ‘you and Mike Connolly are going to Morocco, after all. You’ve been officially selected to join the expedition.’

  John lit up like a floodlight, flashed his ingratiating smile and clasped Steadman’s hand. ‘Thanks, Bob,’ he spluttered. ‘Oh, thanks! I’m so pleased! ‘You’re so kind to me,’ he added. ‘What can I do to thank you?’

  ‘Just do your best and don’t let me down,’ Steadman replied. ‘Prove that you’re just as good, if not better, than the other kids. That’ll be more than enough! And there’s something else,’ he continued. ‘How good’s your French?’

  ‘Well, I learned a bit at Rickerby Hall, but I was never very good at it. Anyway, it was yonks ago and I’ve forgotten most of it.’

  ‘Well, that can be remedied. Come round to my place on Friday evening and we’ll start some lessons. You can be expedition interpreter. None of the other kids’ll speak a word of any foreign language. That I know for certs! There’s a role for you.’

  There was, of course, another – far less mentionable! – way that John could say thank you. But Steadman quickly erased that satanic thought from his consciousness.

  A Gorgeous Puppy – But Changing into What?

  Elated John rushed round to Fern Avenue to see Dorothy.

  ‘Miss! Miss! Me and Mike have been chosen to go to Morocco!’

  Dorothy lit up: ‘That’s wonderful, John! Wonderful!’

  Then she did something that she hadn’t done for a long time. She hugged him. The truth was that, throughout the year, she’d been having renewed doubts about her protégé. Once he’d been a gorgeous puppy, so full of creativity and childhood wonder. But now he was changing – and changing into what? He was still pink and hairless, but he was no longer cute. He had become scrawny and gangling, with a husky voice and blackheads in his once cherubic face. A sullen and argumentative streak was developing. Was all that childhood exuberance draining away into a morass of adolescent surliness and banality? Danny Fleetwood had already gone that way, so why not John? And in his case it would be even more depressing. Not just a teenage lout slipping out of control, but a homosexual teenage lout!

  Try as she might to rationalise it, that ‘shower affair’ had shaken her. But here was reassurance. Chosen to go on a hazardous expedition with the elite of the city. Picked, not by people like the Bishop who had an obvious axe to grind, but by an impartial tribunal. What an honour! What an honour for Beaconsfield School! What an honour for her! She hugged John again.

  Positive Behaviour Gets Positive Results

  At Assembly the next morning Dorothy made an announcement. John Denby and Michael Connolly had been chosen by the Boldonbridge Youth Outreach Committee to go on a tough and demanding expedition to North Africa. It was a triumph for the two boys and a great honour for Beaconsfield School. When the requisite applause had died down she delivered a little homily about how positive behaviour gets positive results.

  John walked on air.

  Not that Simple

  But things weren’t that simple. Steadman had been careful not to tell Dorothy the whole truth. The backroom machinations had been carefully concealed from her and, moreover, Dobson was not beaten yet.

  A week later he phoned Steadman. ‘Yes, you can rest assured that your expedition expenses will be paid. But, I’m afraid we cannot subsidise your two lads.’

  The tone grated on Steadman; he could just picture the triumphant leer at the other end of the line. Battle was renewed.

  ‘And just why not? They’re just as deserving as the other kids, aren’t they?’

  ‘In your eyes, perhaps, but I’m afraid that’s not what the Committee thinks. They aren’t prepared to spend money on kids from private schools. Anyway, they just haven’t got the funds. They’re overspent as it is.’

  Socialist Rectitude

  Steadman duly phoned Dorothy. ‘I’m afraid we’ve hit a snag. The Committee says it can’t fund our two lads. Something to do with bureaucracy and private schools. Also, it seems that they’re running out of money.’

  ‘I suppose that’s only to be expected,’ she sighed. ‘But not to worry, I’m sure Dr Denby will pay up. He usually does. Anything to get shot
of his son. I’ll give him a ring tonight.’

  But Dr Denby wouldn’t pay up.

  Maggie Wright happened to be away visiting her sick mother and was not there to soften his hard ideological edges. So when Dorothy rang he was in full ‘socialist rectitude’ mode. No, he couldn’t possibly subsidise his son, or Michael Connolly either, for that matter. As Labour member for Boldonbridge West he could not possibly be seen to give favours to relatives. That would be nepotism: corruption, in case Dorothy found the word too difficult to understand. If the local Youth Outreach Committee didn’t think they were worth subsidising, he would abide by their decision. Anyway, it would do his son good to be brought down a peg or two. He’d been indulged quite enough already, what with his being sent to a private school instead of a proper state school, etc., etc., etc.

  Good Samaritan

  Dorothy phoned Steadman. ‘Bob, what are we going to do? I mean, we can’t stop the two lads going, not after all that we’ve said. It would be a terrible blow for them. They have been so looking forward to it.’

  And a terrible blow for her, too. Think of the fallout! John reverting to a sullen and hostile teenager, Michael Connolly reverting to the adolescent slob that she so desperately wanted to redeem. All her talk about the ‘rewards of positive behaviour’ exposed as mendacious hot air.

  Steadman was silent for a while. Then he spoke up. ‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to subsidise them.’

  ‘You? How can you possibly afford it?’

  ‘Actually, between you, I and the doorpost, I can afford it. I’ve got a little nest egg, you know…’

  He spoke the truth. Unbeknown to all, he had private means. When he’d been ordained, he’d thought of giving it all to the poor. ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast and give it to the poor.’ But, on reflection, he’d decided not to. It wouldn’t have gone to the poor so much as into the pockets of the self-appointed ‘guardians of the poor’, all those ‘highly qualified’ and ‘exceptionally able’ administrators who ‘so merited’ the gargantuan salaries they demanded. Not quite what he had in mind. Better keep it yourself and use it at your own discretion. Perfectly Christian this: after all, what use would the Good Samaritan have been to the man who fell among thieves if he hadn’t been able to pay his hotel bills?

  ‘Well, that’s very good of you, Bob,’ replied a relieved Dorothy. ‘But, please, let me make a contribution.’ She could afford to do this. The school was doing well and numbers were up. Time to be a proper Christian, Dolly, old girl!

  ‘But, for heaven’s sake,’ she added. ‘Let’s keep this from the boys. We don’t want any feelings of inferiority.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Blissfully unaware of all the backstage goings-on, John’s ego swelled. Numbered among the ‘chosen’! Chosen to go on a hazardous expedition. Here at last was the solid achievement he so craved. Here was redemption. He flung himself into the preparations with tremendous gusto, assiduously attending all Steadman’s French lessons and taking the horrors of French irregular verbs head on.

  Hearing that many of his fellow expeditioners would be ‘deprived children’, in a burst of Christian altruism he gathered together a great heap of discarded clothes and kit to give them. Poor, naïve, innocent John Denby!

  Away to the Far-Off Blue Beyond

  July 25th. The day of departure. Windy, bright, clear. Away! Away! Away! Away to the far-off blue beyond!

  John and Michael arrived at the school, weighed down by massive rucksacks and attired in full expedition kit: boots, anoraks, jeans, water bottles full of specially Puritabbed water dangling from their belts. John even sported an Australian bush hat that he’d bought as a visible sign of his preparations for the Sahara. A beaming Steadman, similarly arrayed, joined them.

  Somehow managing to squeeze everything into her little car, Dorothy drove them down to Heathrow, where they were to meet the rest of the expedition and catch the plane to Marrakesh.

  ‘Now you will do your best, won’t you, lads?’ she said as she dropped them at the entrance to Terminal Two. ‘Don’t let the school down. We’re relying on you.’

  With that, she drove back to Boldonbridge. She was a chequered pattern of elation and misgivings. Persistent doubts nagged her. Michael was no problem: under the irredeemably disorganised exterior there was a core of solid common sense. John was the problem. Perform well, and triumphant success would follow. But would he ‘go silly’ as he had done on that famous first Adventure Weekend in the Lake District back in ’82? And this time it wouldn’t be an angry farmer sounding off on the telephone about dirty language. It could be the British Embassy at Rabat ‘regretfully informing’ her about drugs and prison. And – God forbid! – would he go and have another homosexual ‘accident’ like that one in the shower two years ago? She was in his unstable hands.

  ‘Young People from Deprived Areas’, and a Little Ideology

  Meanwhile ‘his best’ was what John was most emphatically doing. Frantically eager to make the right impression, he’d gone into ‘enhanced good expeditioner’ mode: selfless, energetic, full of team spirit and concern for others. In an altruistic frenzy he rushed round, commandeering trolleys and loading the rucksacks onto them.

  Coaxing their laden vehicles through the revolving doors, the two boys followed Steadman into the terminal. It was John’s first visit to an airport, and the seething hubbub was wildly exciting: the mountains of luggage, the boiling mass of humanity on the move, the great variety of people – grave men in dark suits, scrubbed and shiny children in brilliant T-shirts, dark-skinned men in turbans, elegant Indian women gliding along in colourful saris… even black men in vivid tribal robes. It was a new world of exotic adventure.

  They struggled through the crowds to the agreed rendezvous point at the Mediterranean Airways check-in desk. Having been told that the expedition consisted of ‘underprivileged young people from deprived areas’, John was expecting to see a bunch of ragamuffin paupers; not quite Oliver Twist style, but of that order. Indeed, that was why he had stuffed so much of his rucksack with the spare shirts, socks and sweaters that he was sure they’d be needing. He was even prepared to part with his anorak should the need arise. (Team spirit… lots of Brownie points in the offing.)

  Yet when they eventually reached the check-in desk the only youngsters he could see looked anything but deprived. Positively gorgeous in the very latest and greatest outdoor gear: Gore-Tex cagoules, state-of-the-art rucksacks, glossy new boots… you name it! They could have been a group of tailor’s dummies in the shop window of Wilderness Paths. Strutting round in front of them was a lean and spare young man with closely cropped hair. Honed down, immaculately dressed and sporting a large ‘Mountain Leader’ badge on his spotless safari jacket, he exuded clipped efficiency.

  ‘That must be another group going to Morocco,’ said John. ‘I thought we were the only one.’

  ‘Whoever they is,’ added Michael, ‘Somebody’s got some money, it must be the Stirling Academy.’

  ‘It’s not the Stirling Academy,’ said Steadman. ‘It’s our lot.’

  ‘But you said they were deprived kids!’ expostulated a bewildered John.

  ‘So they are. What you’re seeing is the visible part of – I quote – “the Boldonbridge Council’s Initiative to Combat Poverty and Deprivation”.’

  He pointed to the elegant young man in the safari jacket. ‘And that’s Joe Morris, my colleague and co-leader.’

  ‘Well, I needn’t have brought all those spare things,’ muttered John. ‘I suppose I’d better give them to the local people in Morocco instead.’

  ‘I’d hang on to them for the moment,’ replied Steadman sagely. ‘We could well be needing them before we’re through.’

  John’s surprise was followed by a shock.

  A resplendent Dobson stepped forward. He cast a baleful eye at Steadman.

  ‘I see
you’ve got company. I thought we’d decided that these two weren’t coming along.’

  John felt the temperature drop 20 degrees.

  ‘Oh no,’ replied Steadman, exuding a contrived bonhomie, ‘they’ve both been paid for. It’s quite above board. Now this is Michael Connolly, the one I told you about. I think you’ve met John Denby before.’

  Dobson turned his baleful stare onto John, nodded his head and turned to Steadman. ‘Well I trust they’re not expecting to be part of the expedition.’

  ‘Oh yes they are. John here is going to be our interpreter.’

  ‘Huh!’

  With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, Dobson turned to his group and went into a whispering huddle with Morris. Another grievance had been notched up.

  A frosty silence ensued for the next few moments.

  Eventually John approached a big, burly youth and extended his hand in welcome. ‘I’m John, what’s your name?’

  Without a word, the lad turned his back on him. Almost on cue, his mates moved away from him and Michael, leaving them isolated as if they were radioactive. The air temperature plunged even lower.

  John shuddered. Something was up, and it wasn’t very nice, either. He had a sudden flashback to that ghastly Thursday morning after his ‘homosexual accident’ in the shower.

  He saw Dobson laughing and joking away in the midst of his group, free and easy, relaxed and friendly, a wholly different person. It was like a story he’d read about a bloke who was two different people at the same time: Dr Jeykell who was good and kind, and Mr Hyde who was an evil fiend. But what the hell was it all about? What had he possibly done to deserve this rejection?

  Then he remembered. It was obvious, wasn’t it? Dodson knew that he was a shit-stabber. They all knew, both the boys and the girls. Briggs must have told them. What would they do to him? Pull his pants off and get to work, Freddy Hazlett style, with a bicycle pump? Why not? It was what shit-stabbers deserved, wasn’t it?