Far, Far the Mountain Peak

by Arthur Clifford

  He turned to Michael. ‘They don’t seem to want us here, do they?’

  Michael seemed unconcerned. ‘That’s just folk, ain’t it?’ He paused and then delivered a little Michael-style homily. ‘I don’t like that Dobson bloke me. I mean he’s just like Darran.’

  ‘Darran?’

  ‘The bloke me mam’s gone an’ shacked up with. Sittin’ in the hoos like, livin’ off her social security an’ that. Feedin’ her with dope an’ all. Wants me ooota the place. Keeps givin’ us the X-ray eyes an’ sayin’ that Ah oughta look after mesell an’ that. Says he’s gonna kick us oot if Ah divvent gan mesell like. Well Ah’d like ter see ’im try. He’s soft as shit. Ah’d ’ave ’im any day. Yer knaaa John, yer daft you.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, yer livin’ in fairy land. Yer thinks folk is sensible an’ that. They’re not like that. Bob’s great, mind, but most folk ain’t like him. You should know that by now.’

  That was the gospel according to Michael Connolly. A bleak perspective: don’t expect too much; most people are nasty, so be pleased when you find the odd one or two who aren’t.

  Meanwhile Steadman was at the check-in desk. Having been deputed to get the party onto the plane, he was busy talking to the lady in fluent French and brandishing a heap of passports and air tickets.

  Crestfallen, John approached him. ‘Bob,’ he whispered, ‘Can I have a private word?’

  ‘Not now, John, I’ve got to get everybody onto the plane.’

  ‘But it’s urgent.’

  ‘If you need the toilet, it’s over there.’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  Steadman looked up angrily. ‘Well what is it then?’

  Almost on cue a loud Geordie bawled out from behind. ‘The poofter’s shat hissell, that’s what!’

  An explosion of raucous laughter followed. Steadman winced. Trouble already, and they’d hardly even got started.

  ‘Come on, boy, out with it!’

  ‘Could you come over here where the others can’t hear.’

  Steadman obeyed.

  ‘Seulment un moment,’ he said to the check-in lady. ‘Je suis un petit peu pressé.’

  ‘Bob, this is embarrassing.’

  ‘Well get on with it, boy, I’ve got to get this lot into the departure lounge before they start getting out of hand.’

  ‘Nobody’s told Dobson about… well, what I did to Danny in the shower, have they? I mean Briggs hasn’t been saying things, has he?’

  ‘Good Lord, no! You can set your mind at rest on that one. You don’t think a snob like Dobson would condescend to talk to a bloke like Briggs, do you?’

  John felt a great wave of relief, almost as if a painful boil had been lanced.

  ‘But what’s all this about?’ he added. ‘I mean we are part of the expedition, aren’t we?’

  ‘Of course you are. It’s just Dobbie being Dobbie. Don’t worry, it’ll all work out. Just show them what you’re made of. But for heaven’s sake don’t start losing your temper. O.K., reassured? Now I’d better get back to work.’

  The luggage was duly dispatched and the boarding passes issued. They proceeded to the departure lounge.

  Synthetic Class War Ahead

  Inwardly, Steadman was seething. Dobson was living up to his worst expectations. And this was only the start. Five weeks of synthetic class war stretched out before him in all its dreary futility. What would happen when they reached Morocco? As the designated ‘North Africa expert’, Steadman had been deputed to arrange things there. Accommodation, transport, guides, mules, camels… that was his remit.

  ‘This expedition will be a new departure,’ the blurb on the handouts had declared. ‘It will give the young people who are to be our future leaders first-hand experience of a very different culture.’ Well, ‘first-hand experience of a very different culture’ was exactly what those ‘future leaders’ were going to get. No comfortable Western-style hotels in the modern part of Marrakesh. Not even the sparse and spartan International Youth Hostel. It was to be a pension in the old town run by Moroccan friends of his. It would be sitting cross-legged on cushions, sipping mint tea and eating bits of barbecued lamb with their fingers. And when nature called, it would be off to a squatty toilet with a bowl of water instead of paper. Then it would be Berber villages in the Atlas Mountains, and nomad tents in the desert. John, he knew, would lap it up.

  But Dobson certainly wouldn’t. It was doubtful if he would even hack the mounds of dried food they’d brought along. ‘I’m not chancing myself on the local muck,’ he had vehemently declared before they set off. ‘Nor the lads neither. We’ll have to have food we understand.’ Food Dobson ‘understood’ meant things like sausage and chips and, of course, beer. Well, sausage, chips and beer was what he wasn’t going to get. Almost certainly, he’d freak out. It would all, of course, be a matter of ‘safety’, which being translated into Dobsonese, meant doing things the Dobson way. Stormy waters ahead, but, also, the thrill of coming battle.

  But, also, a less mentionable thrill. Having been rejected by the others, John was dependent on him… and that would make him pliable. But don’t go down that path! Don’t even think about it!

  In the Aeroplane: ‘Deprived Kids’ Have Their Bit of Fun

  They boarded the plane. Ignoring the air hostess’s repeated instructions to sit in their assigned places, Dobson’s group commandeered the back of the plane, filling any empty seats with bags of half-eaten chips and empty crisp packets. It was a case of the young bloods assuming their rightful place in the order of things and carving out an exclusive enclave for the elite. The outcasts, Steadman and his two pariahs, took up their assigned places near the front.

  In his excitement John forgot his ‘good expeditioner’ pose and bagged the window seat. It was his first ever flight and he gazed in awe at the nearby aircraft with their huge, vividly coloured tails, and at the distant ones thundering down the runway and roaring off into the vastness of the sky above.

  Then it was their turn. Fasten seat belts. Seats upright. The safety demonstration, which proved that you were doing something dangerous – not quite going to the Moon with Neil Armstrong, but of that order of things… They were moving. The surge of power. Pressed back into your seat as you hurtle down the runway. Airborne. Flying through the sky! Heathrow spread out below you like the town you made for the model railway at Beaconsfield. The Thames, London, the Houses of Parliament… like one of those picture maps you get at a tourist information office. Up through puffy white clouds and into the dazzling blue immensity beyond. On! On! On!

  Yes, he’d show them! He’d be worthy of the trust Bob and Dolly had placed in him. He’d wipe out the stain of… well… that!

  Things settled down. The plane levelled off, a little tube of mundanity alone in a grandiose vastness, suspended and seemingly motionless. Below it was a boundless ocean of white cloud, above it a dark blue void. Seat belts were unfastened. People got up and started walking round. The drinks trolley jangled slowly down the aisle.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’

  It was time for John to try out some of the French he’d been learning with Bob.

  ‘Coca-Cola, si’il vous plait… Merci beaucoup.’

  ‘De rien! C’est mon plaisir.’

  He’d survived his first encounter with a foreign language! His ego swelled!

  Then it was the lunch trolley. The excitement of prising open your steamed metal carton and discovering what was inside; a brief return to the childhood thrill of your Christmas stocking.

  The loo queue formed.

  Suddenly there was an uproar at the back of the plane, an explosion of loud Geordie voices and peals of raucous laughter. One of Dobson’s lads, a great red-headed lump of a youth, came lurching down the aisle and began pushing his way through the loo queue.

  Outraged consternation. ‘Ste
ady on! It’s not your turn! There is a queue, you know! Do you mind?’

  Slurred reply: ‘Gorra get to the bog, me! Gorra!’

  Then he vomited loudly and copiously, all down his front, onto the sandal of the man in front of him and into a nearby seat, which luckily happened to be unoccupied.

  A bewildered John looked on as pandemonium broke out.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘He’s drunk! What the hell’s going on back there!’

  ‘Les Anglais! Comme toujours!’

  An angry air hostess approached Steadman. ‘He’s one of yours, isn’t he? I don’t see why I should have to clean up this mess!’

  ‘No, he’s not mine. He belongs back there, but I’ll see to it.’

  With that, he marched the soiled and stinking youth to the back of the plane. A great cheer erupted from the ‘In’ group.

  ‘Good on yer, Kev lad!’

  ‘That’ll show the Pakkies!’

  Dobson beamed at his crestfallen protégé: ‘You’re learning, lad! You’re learning! The best thing ter dee when yer pissed like is ter throw it all up!’

  ‘That’s as maybe!’ snorted Steadman, ‘But in the meantime somebody’s got to clear up the mess over there.’

  On cue Dobson went into Mr Hyde mode. A sullen grunt. ‘The air hostess will do it. That’s what she’s paid for, isn’t it?’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to think so.’

  ‘Huh!’

  ‘Well, you’re the expedition leader. You’d better placate her!’

  ‘Huh!’

  A resentful Dobson eventually extracted his bulk from his seat and followed Steadman up the aisle.

  ‘Well,’ exclaimed the air hostess pointing to the sticky green slurry on the seat. ‘What are you going to do about this? I see you’ve been letting your boys drink alcohol. That’s against the rules, you know.’

  Dobson nodded in a vague acknowledgement. After a frosty silence he spoke up. ‘Well, I’m not mopping it up, if that’s what you think.’

  ‘Well get Kevin to do it,’ said Steadman. ‘He made the mess, didn’t he?’

  ‘He’s too pissed.’

  ‘Well get the others to help him.’

  Suddenly Dobson came to life. ‘And just why should they demean themselves by mopping us spew? Yes, I see, it’s because they are deprived kids, that’s why. Working-class mops up spew. Upper-class doesn’t get its hands dirty. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘You brought class into this. I didn’t.’

  Steadman felt his temper rising. ‘And another thing. You really shouldn’t be letting them drink alcohol. The Committee won’t exactly clap their hands with joy when this leaks out. The papers could have a field day.’

  ‘But they’re deprived kids. Why shouldn’t they have their bit of fun? They don’t get much fun, you know, not like your two over there.’

  He threw a contemptuous glance at John and Michael.

  ‘Well, are you going to clean this mess up or not?’ said the air hostess, increasingly impatient. ‘I’ve got to collect the lunch trays, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  Deadlock. None of the protagonists were willing to lose face.

  John saw his chance. Help Bob out of this fix. Show him that you are worthy of him! And collect a few Brownie points as well! Perhaps it might even placate Dobson.

  He stood up and squeezed past Michael. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up.’

  ‘There’s my lad!’ exclaimed a relieved Steadman. God! How he liked this kid!

  ‘Think that’ll get you onto the expedition, do you?’ hissed Dobson as he went back to his group.

  The air hostess went into the kitchen area and returned with a wet cloth, paper towels and a bottle of washing up liquid.

  ‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ she said as John attacked the mephitic green sludge.

  ‘De rien,’ he replied. ‘De rien. C’est mon devoir.’

  ‘Comme vous êtes sympa!’

  ‘Can’t stop showing off, him!’ growled Dobson from the back.

  ‘Well done, lad!’ said a big man in bright Bermuda shorts as John emerged from the toilet, having disposed of the disgusting paper towels and floor cloth. ‘Lucky they’ve got you as their nursemaid.’

  As John sat down, Michael started up. ‘That Dobson blerk! Now if it hadda bin one o’ us like what got pissed and spewed, he wouldn’t half ’ave created him. Ain’t right! Like me mam’s Darran. Gets pissed an’ spews all over the floor like. An’ she’s gorra mop it up else he thumps ’er. Daft cow let’s ’im do it an’ all.’ He eyed John with a sad look. ‘Yer shouldn’t ’ave done it. Suckin’ up ter Dobson won’t dee yer nee good, yer knaa. He’ll just think yer soft.’

  John noticed the way that he was slipping into an exaggerated Geordie – obviously a survival strategy. But was speaking the truth. He was being a little suck-up. More than ever, he wanted to be a proper lad! But how he needed Bob, the friend and protector who alone could see him through these stormy waters.

  Africa!

  Over Africa now. Yellow dusty land below. As the plane turns a glimpse of rumpled brown mountains surging off into a hazy distance. Just as he’d pictured it. Adrenaline rush. Adventure. Redemption.

  Bump! Trundle, trundle, trundle. We’re down!

  Half an hour of impatient confusion as people get out of their seats and start pulling luggage out of the storage lockers. Then out into the blinding sun. Blinking in the brilliant light. Onto the blistering tarmac where the heat assaults you, wave after soporific wave of it.

  ‘Fuck me, Brian! You never said it would be this hot, like!’

  ‘How’s we meant ter handle this, like?’

  John relished the heat. It was the first big challenge to be overcome, and a chance to prove his worth.

  With Steadman in the lead, they trailed through the passport control and customs and set about retrieving their luggage. Dobson’s lot were surly and listless; a side-effect of the ‘fun’ on the plane. Bright and frisky, John saw a chance to win more Brownie points and was soon hauling rucksacks off the carousel.

  ‘Is this one yours? Hang on while I fetch a trolley.’

  A big, red-faced girl with long black hair beamed at him. ‘Aye, you’re a canny lad you. Yer’s not posh, is yer? We berra be mates. Me name’s Tracy. What’s yours?’

  ‘John.’

  They shook hands.

  A flicker of hope. A gap in the enemy line. Get in and exploit it. But he noticed Dobson glaring at him and set to work with renewed vigour, hauling the remaining bits of luggage off the caroused and stacking them up on more trolleys. Not through the wood yet.

  A Little Bit of Culture Shock

  They went out of the airport where once again the great waves of heat assaulted them.

  ‘Cor, Brian, how much o’ this ’ave we gorra hack, eh?’

  A hiatus ensued. Everybody milled around in a confused huddle. Nobody seemed to know what to do next. Steadman was quite deliberately testing Dobson, and stayed ostentatiously in the background.

  Eventually Dobson broke the silence. ‘Well, where do we go from here?’ he said aggressively.

  ‘You’re the leader,’ replied Steadman. ‘It’s up to you. You’re in charge.’

  ‘Huh! We’d better get to our accommodation. You have booked it, haven’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Even for these two?’ Contemptuous glance at John and Michael.

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Huh!’

  Silence.

  ‘Well, how are we supposed to get there?’

  ‘We’ll have to get some taxis, won’t we?’

  Steadman pointed to a swarm of yellow cars parked on the far side of the sun-blasted tarmac.

  ‘Can you dea
l with it, then?’ said Dobson.

  ‘Let’s give the expedition members a chance,’ replied Steadman with a mischievous smirk.

  ‘Hey, you lot!’ he said to Dobson’s group, ‘Can anybody get some taxis for us? You’ll have to talk French, mind. I’m afraid they don’t speak much English here.’

  Silence.

  ‘Anybody speak French?’

  Hostile silence.

  ‘These aren’t privileged kids, Mr Steadman,’ said Dobson reprovingly. ‘You can’t expect them to have polite accomplishments. They’ve more important things to do than fiddling around with fancy things like learning French.’

  ‘But they do teach French at Morton Hill, don’t they?’

  ‘Only to the better-off middle-class kids. The real kids, the deprived kids, haven’t time to waste on that sort of triviality. They live in the real world, you know.’

  Silence.

  ‘Well, John,’ said Steadman eventually, ‘It’s time to parade your frivolous middle-class accomplishments. You sort out the taxis for us. Here’s where we are going.’

  He handed him a piece of paper with an address written on it in Arabic.

  John walked over to the nearest taxi. As a large man, bejeaned and sporting a luxurious black moustache, approached him, he began to recite one of the French exercises he’d done with Steadman. ‘Excusez-moi, monsieur. Nous avons besoin de trois ou quatre taxis pour transporter ces gens là à cette addresse.’

  He handed him Steadman’s paper and continued slowly and robotically, carefully mouthing each syllable.

  ‘Malaigrement, nous avons beaucoup de baggage. Combien pour chaque taxi?’

  ‘Cinquante dirhams.’

  ‘D’accord.’

  Phew! Survived the encounter with a foreign language! But, bloody hell, I’ve probably been done! Fifty dirhams is way over the top. Still, with any luck, nobody will notice. Dobson’s lot are dripping with dosh anyway.

  He waved to the mob, signalling them to come over.