Far, Far the Mountain Peak

by Arthur Clifford

  A pause.

  ‘You do make things difficult for me,’ said Morris eventually.

  ‘But,’ replied Jim in his gentle voice, ‘there’s an easy way oot for all of us.’

  It seemed to John as if Jim were now the adult and Morris the wayward youth who needed straightening out. He’d become caring and paternal. It was a side of him he’d never imagined was there. Jim was… well… multifaceted.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You just tell Brian that you led us up Toubkal and that, due ter your great leadership an’ that, we all got ter the top, like, and had a great time. He’ll thank yer forrit, because it gets him off the hook and you ’an all! We’ll all be happy then!’

  ‘But that’s not true.’

  ‘Who’s ter know that if we all sticks to the same story, like?’

  John felt even more sorry for Morris. Poor, poor bloke! A teacher, a leader, at the mercy of a clever and wholly unscrupulous pupil. The sheer humiliation of the situation!

  After another pause, Morris surrendered to the inevitable. ‘Let’s call it quits, then. It’s no use crying over spilt milk, is it? You’re all safe and sound and that’s what matters. And, on reflection, you’ve all done very well.’

  He turned to John. ‘Sorry I snapped at you. I didn’t mean it. You’re a great lad, really, you know. But what’s happened to your face? Have you been in a fight?’

  ‘Well, sort of… Some locals tried to rob us, but well, with the help of the lads I managed to drive them off.’

  ‘Well done! Yes, you really are quite a lad, aren’t you!’

  John glowed with satisfaction. He’d broken through another barrier. Acceptance at last. But then came a warning bell: not a shrill alarm, but just a faint tinkle. Be careful! You’re not through the woods yet, Jonnie boy. This could be a tactical withdrawal. Morris needs you at the moment, just to save himself. Later on he won’t need you, and things could change. You should know that!

  Three Different Truths

  John spent the rest of the day writing up his diary. A cliff band was placed in that corrie on the Toubkal with a few desperate moves needed to wriggle up the only crack in its sheer face. But as he wrote this an awkward thought flitted through his mind. Hope nobody who reads this has actually climbed the Toubkal! The ascent of the Toubkal really was a doddle, wasn’t it? You’ll have to climb a harder mountain than this if you’re to prove yourself, Jonnie, my lad!

  He came to the robbery. He’d boldly confronted the thieves and, after a vicious punch up, they’d fled. A black eye and a bleeding nose? Honourable wounds gained in battle! Indeed, that coveted Red Badge of Courage! No mention of being sent sprawling on the ground and shitting yourself with fright. That hadn’t happened.

  Another pause for reflection. There seemed to be three truths in the offing. The ‘official truth’ agreed with Jim, with a highly competent Morris leading them to the summit of the Toubkal. The sanitised and heroic ‘truth’ in his diary. And what had actually happened in all its stringy banality. So just what was the truth about John Denby? Fantasising wannabe who was in reality just a shit-stabbing little wimp? Or a bold and enterprising mountain explorer? Who knew? He certainly didn’t.

  Expedition Saved

  At nine o’clock the following morning, Steadman erupted into the courtyard.

  ‘Hello, people! How are we? Still alive, are we?’ Beaming away, full of heartiness and bounce, clearly relieved to have been released from an onerous burden.

  Hearing the booming voice, John scrambled out of bed and dashed out to meet him. All through the night, tedious hour by tedious hour, the tale of his adventures had been waxing ever more dramatic. He just had to release the head of accumulated steam.

  ‘Bob!’ he spluttered. ‘We’ve had a great time! We’ve actually climbed the Toubkal and I led the way!’

  ‘Tell me about it later, John,’ replied Steadman. ‘I’ve got to see Joe Morris, first. Keep to the modalities, you know.’

  ‘Where’s Dobson?’

  ‘He’s at the airport.’

  ‘He’s not going home, is he?’ Hopefully, yes! Gone for good! Hooray! Hooray!

  ‘Be patient, young man. All will be revealed.’

  With that, Steadman disappeared upstairs.

  Half an hour later he and Morris emerged and a meeting took place under the palm tree in the courtyard. Steadman spoke first.

  ‘First of all, chaps, congratulations to you all on your splendid ascent of the Jebel Toubkal, and especial congratulations to Joe Morris here for leading the way. Very well done all round!’

  There was a hint of irony here. Clearly Steadman had swallowed the ‘official version’ of events.

  ‘Now the sitrep.’

  ‘He’s still playin’ soldiers, ain’t he?’ Michael whispered into John’s ear.

  ‘Kev and his merry men are being sent home. The British Consul managed to swing the lead on their behalf.’

  ‘What about Brian?’

  ‘He’s got to go home with them. They’re all at the airport now.’

  ‘And good riddance to the lot of them!’ exclaimed John with a malicious glee, ‘Hooray! Hooray!’

  ‘John, that’s quite inappropriate!’ snapped Morris.

  Steadman continued, ‘We can now get on with the expedition. Because of the extra expenses – like going to Rabat and getting our erring bretheren back home and out of harm’s way – money’s a bit short. So it’ll have to be public transport from now on. No more taxis, I’m afraid. Still, that won’t stop us. Tomorrow morning at six o’clock sharp we’ll catch the bus to Zagora. That’s over the mountains and into the desert, where you are all going to do your Lawrence of Arabia act and ride camels for three or more days.

  ‘After that we’ll come back here, rest a bit, and then we’ll go off into the mountains and do some real mountaineering in places where few foreign tourists ever get to. That should satisfy some of you would-be Bonningtons.

  ‘In the meantime, you can spend today getting yourselves ready for the desert. We’ll check your kit at eight o’clock this evening.’

  Reimbursement

  As the meeting dispersed, John sidled up to Steadman. ‘Bob, please can I have some more money?’

  ‘So you managed to blow the eighty quid I gave you? That must have taken some doing.’

  Shamefaced look onto the ground. ‘I’m sorry, Bob.And I lost my camera, too. It was nicked by some thieves.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. I suppose you want me to buy you another one?’

  ‘Well, yes. And I’ll need to buy some film, too.’

  ‘So fairy godmother here will have to provide? That’s your little game, is it? Well, here’s fifteen quid. That’ll have to do. Can’t give you any more, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But what about the camera? I was so looking forward to taking photos of the desert. I mean, it wasn’t my fault that my camera was nicked. We were held up and robbed.’

  ‘Were you, indeed? Joe didn’t say anything about that.’

  Pause.

  ‘Well,’ declared Steadman, ‘I suppose you’d better borrow my camera. What with all the recent comings and goings, I just haven’t had the urge to take pictures. You can be the official expedition photographer from now on. Off you go, then and buy yourself some more film. Here’s a few dihrams.’

  ‘Cor, thanks, Bob! Thanks a bomb! You’re so kind.’

  ‘A great big softy is what you really mean.’

  Versions of Truth: Objective Reality versus Factualism

  A foray into the town with Michael, Jim and Tracy followed. They returned towards evening, and while the others went upstairs to see Rob, John slipped into his bedroom to load Steadman’s camera with one of the films he’d bought. Inside, he found Steadman reading the diary he’d been so avidly writing up the previous day.

&n
bsp; ‘You seem to have had quite a time climbing Toubkal.’

  John swelled with pride: this was the first of the many rave reviews he was going to get. ‘Yes, we did! I’m thinking of writing all this up as a book and sending it to the publishers along with the photos I’ve taken.’

  ‘I’d be a little careful about that, if I were you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Unexpected deflation here! Not the accolade he’d been expecting.

  ‘Well, before you let anybody see it, you’ll have to do a bit of editing. Quite a lot, in fact.’

  ‘But why? It’s all true. It all happened. Like Stephen Crane in the Red Badge of Courage. I’ve written it as it was.’

  ‘“As it was?” That’s what you think, is it?’

  Pouty expression. ‘Yes!’

  ‘Well, what’s all this about climbing up a four hundred foot sheer cliff to reach the final knife-edge ridge, which led to the fifteen thousand foot summit of the Jebel Toubkal?’

  He began to read from the open notebook: ‘We had to squeeze our way up the narrow crack. It was really scary without ropes. One false move and we would be hurled to our deaths on the brutal rocks far below. Clambering along that terrifying knife-edge ridge towards the summit, our feet were dangling precariously over a sheer thousand-foot drop. Just one slip and we would fall into the fiery furnace of the Sahara Desert.’

  Steadman paused and looked him full in the face.

  ‘Well it is true!’ protested John. ‘It did happen.’

  ‘Oh come on, young man!’ Steadman retorted. ‘And piggy-wiggies can fly! I’ve done the normal route up the Toubkal three times. There’re no four hundred cliff bands or knife-edged ridges. It’s just an easy path. You’ve written a load of rubbish, haven’t you?’

  Sussed. Sussed to a crust. John blushed bright red.

  But Steadman was relentless, remorseless. Turning a few pages he continued to read. ‘Very horny. Knocked Tracy off that night. What a bang!’ Once more he stared him in the face. ‘That never happened, did it?’

  ‘Yes it did.’

  ‘Look, young fellow, I know all about all your proclivities. It couldn’t have happened, could it?’

  Squashed like a buzzing fly! The ‘great climber’ reduced to a pathetic retard. How were the mighty fallen.

  Steadman shifted gear from inquisitorial judge into avuncular friend. ‘Let’s have the truth, shall we? Did you really climb Toubkal, or have you made it all up?’

  ‘Yes we did, honestly we did.’

  ‘And did Joe Morris really lead the way?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’ Be loyal to your mates! Don’t shop them! Stick to the agreed story or Jim and Rob’ll do you over.

  ‘Well, that’s not the impression I’ve been getting. Morris seems to know next to nothing about the route up Toubkal; so little, in fact, that I don’t think he can ever have been there. So exactly what did happen?’

  Long pause.

  ‘All right, I’ll tell you. But please don’t tell the others or they’ll do me over. But, well, we sneaked off without Joe’s permission and did it ourselves. I’ve got photos to prove it.’

  Bit by bit the story came out. Even the robbery by the road. But not, of course, the bit about shitting his pants with fright. Out of pure self-respect, something has to be hidden from prying eyes.

  ‘I see,’ said Steadman when the confession finally petered out. ‘But, tell me, were you the ringleader?’

  ‘Yes, but Jim and Rob were in it too. It was Jim who wrote that letter to Joe. And it was Jim who laced Joe’s brandy with milk of magnesia to give him the gut rot so he wouldn’t come chasing after us.’

  ‘Yes, I get you.’

  Another pause.

  After a while, John spoke up. ‘Will I get my Duke of Edinburgh’s Silver Award for it? After all it was a four-day, self-managed expedition in wild country, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid you won’t.’

  Sulky adolescent pout. ‘But why not?’

  Steadman got up, closed the bedroom door and locked it.

  ‘This is strictly between you and me. Understand? We don’t want big ears flapping and rumours being spread around.’ Sitting down on the bed, he became conspiratorial. ‘Now, just listen to me. Things aren’t nearly as simple as you think they are. I’m going to have to write a full report to the Committee when we get back home. There’s going to be a pretty good stink, I can tell you. What with the antics of Kev and his crew, Dobby’s got egg all over his face and he doesn’t like it. So when he gets back to Boldonbridge he’s going to look for scapegoats, isn’t he? It wasn’t his fault, was it? And it wasn’t Kev’s fault either. Nor Jakie’s. Nor Sandra’s. Nor any of them. They’re deprived proletarians and in Dobbyland proletarians can’t sin. So whose fault was it?’

  Theatrical pause.

  ‘No prize for guessing who was to blame?’ he eventually said.

  ‘You?’ replied John.

  ‘Yes, and you too, young man.’

  ‘Me?’ exclaimed John. ‘But I had nothing to do with Kev and his drugs. You know that!’ The old dread was reigniting.

  ‘Of course you hadn’t. I know that. So do the police here. But the literal truth is irrelevant.’

  ‘What do you mean? Facts are facts. You can’t alter facts.’

  Steadman shook his head and smiled in a condescending way. ‘I’d better give you a little lesson in Marxist philosophy,’ he said. ‘There’s “Factualism”: that’s what you think when you just look at the proven facts. And there’s “Objective Reality”: that’s the reality behind the observed facts which is only apparent to trained Marxists. Follow me?’

  ‘Not really, but go on.’

  ‘Well look at our situation through Marxist eyes. Just think of the scenario. Simple, good-hearted, proletarian youngsters, deprived children to boot, are taken to Morocco by a correct-thinking proletarian leader. All are above sin. But, posh, moneyed, upper-class public schoolboy, John Denby, inveigles his way onto the expedition, despite the correct-thinking Marxist leader’s worst fears and in open defiance of the left-leaning Committee’s express instructions. Being bourgeois, he is only able to think in terms of petty financial gain. It’s wired into his genes. Inevitably he uses his privileged education and superior wealth to buy drugs and sell them to the poor, innocent deprived kids, and when his bourgeois iniquity is unmasked, he uses the corrupt capitalist system to oil and grease his way out of trouble.’

  ‘But that’s a load of crap!’ exclaimed John. ‘It’s just not true!’ That Greenhill feeling of helpless dread before wild, irrational forces was rising fast.

  ‘Of course it isn’t true,’ said Steadman. ‘But that’s Factualism. Objective Reality says it is true. You try to convince the Sociology Department up at Boldonbridge University that it’s not true! What people think is the truth is more important than the real truth – whatever that is.’

  ‘Oh God!’ groaned John, ‘But what the hell am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Don’t worry!’ replied Steadman, adopting a paternal and comforting tone. ‘The whole world isn’t as daft as Boldonbridge University. At least not yet. There are still plenty of sane people around who know fact from fiction. That’s why you’ll have to be very careful with the truth when push comes to shove. Now, this diary of yours. They’d want to see that, and the first thing they’d jump on would be the lies you’ve told about cliff bands and knife-edged ridges on the tourist route up Toubkal. And if you tell lies about that, you’re perfectly capable of telling lies about buying drugs, aren’t you? Get it?

  ‘And another thing,’ he added. ‘That nonsense about having sex with Tracy. That’s another thing they’d jump on. Upper-class seducer of innocent proletarian girls. Thinks he can use deprived kids as sex objects. And they’d start investigating. You wouldn’t want that business with young Fleetwood in the shower to be made public, wou
ld you? But let me tell you, that’s just the sort of juicy tit-bit they’d love!’

  Steadman paused again and shook his head. ‘You’re landing yourself right in it with your self-serving fantasies. And if you go up to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award people and demand a Silver medal on the strength of your Toubkal effort, what do you think would happen? Deliberately deceiving your teacher, sneaking off on an unauthorised and hair-brained adventure up a dangerous mountain and getting yourselves robbed into the bargain? They’d have a heart attack. They’re already up to their eyes in the safety thing. They’d disown you. You’d be labelled as untrustworthy, deceitful and, above all, a dangerous liability. Dobson, of course, would have a field day.’

  John felt crestfallen. Crushed. Down came those airy castles he’d been constructing.

  ‘But,’ he eventually managed to say, ‘I thought I was doing something good when I went up Toubkal. You know, showing initiative, being positive and adventurous and that.’

  ‘So you were, young man, so you were,’ replied Steadman in a kindly tone. ‘And, you know, I’m proud of you. You’re a splendid lad. You’re brave, enterprising and creative. You’ve probably saved this expedition. But you’d better start saving yourself. Now, we’ll rewrite this whole Toubkal thing in your diary, shall we? First, though, we’d better clean it up a bit.’

  Deftly he tore out the offending pages and ripped them to shreds.

  ‘Now get your biro,’ he said, ‘and start writing. The truth this time: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, if you don’t mind. Oh, apart from one thing. You’d better include Joe Morris in your ascent of Toubkal.’

  ‘But it’s not true!’

  ‘Of course it isn’t, but it’s what we call “necessary expediency”. It’ll solve a lot of problems. You look bewildered? History, my man, history! After all, does anybody know what really happened when Henry Tudor beat Richard III on the field of Bosworth?’

  A Ghastly Reality

  So John lay on the bed and began to scribble furiously. Steadman looked at the youth as he lay sprawled across the sheets, and his mind began to seethe. Something was happening to him, something he couldn’t control and that he’d long dreaded. Something he’d desperately wanted not to happen. That exquisite young body in the full bloom of adolescent youth, that fleeting moment before the onset of manhood coarsened it. And that eager, enthusiastic nature, so full of good things, and yet so vulnerable and so much in need of a defender. And ‘one of us’. Too good to be true. A gift from heaven to a lonely, isolated and unfulfilled man who longed for marriage and a family, but knew he could never have it.