The Cruel Peak

by Gil Hogg

  “He did love the farm, and I believe he loved me. There was a lot of doubt about the cause of his death, but I know it was suicide. Whisky and sleeping pills in a snowstorm on a remote part of the farm. The pathologists report said he had a bad heart, which could have been the cause.”

  “Health troubles?”

  “No.”

  “Why did he do it, Patricia?”

  “He was apparently being questioned in a police enquiry.”

  “You’re telling me something that doesn’t seem possible. What was the enquiry about?”

  A whole spectrum of possible offences ran through his mind without any one of them associating itself with George. George had a persona that didn’t even faintly suggest the possibility of criminality. He even drove his car within the speed limit.

  “A sex crime, I suppose you’d call it.” She looked pale now, drained.

  “That’s a big category.” He prepared himself to hear about the other woman. Not very likely a man. George was as macho as they come. Certainly not a child; not in the case of George Hedley.

  She put her empty glass down on the side table and straightened her shoulders. “Indecent assault on a boy.”

  Ten guesses might have got him to indecent assault, but not on a boy. Yes, this was the countryside where tough, fit men, sometimes men who were starved of women, wrestled with sheep and cattle. Adrenalin and testosterone pulsed. And so sex happened in odd ways. Rarely? Frequently? How could anybody know? And it was a crime.

  “That’s incredibly out of character, virtually unbelievable.”

  “I know.”

  “Who was the other party?”

  “A boy of fourteen who was in care. Somebody George was supposed to be mentoring in farm studies for a charity.”

  “And the discovery was enough to cause George to…?”

  “I believe so, Tom.”

  He found it hard to understand why a man should value a spurious reputation for probity enough to kill himself. But shame could burn in some people like sulphuric acid. Stuart felt shamed by his failures on Mt Vogel.

  “There’s no doubt is there, Patricia? You know, proof…” He was thinking as a lawyer.

  “I don’t think there’s any doubt. I don’t even have that comfort. There’s a public track which crosses the farm to the north. I understand George was seen with the boy by two trampers, strangers to the district, who were using the track. They complained to the police, and they produced a photograph taken with a telescopic lens, although I’ve never seen it. I got the impression that there wouldn’t have been a complaint, but for these witnesses. The boy wasn’t complaining. An enquiry, not limited to George, had been going a while, but I never knew anything about it until after George’s death. I probably would never have known, but the local police sergeant thought I might be worried that the enquiry would continue and awful things would come out. He wanted to assure me that the file was closed, and that there would be no mention of the complaint at the inquest.”

  “And mercifully the newshounds never got wind of the complaint.”

  “The police were pretty good about shutting it up. George was a Mason and so is the sergeant and the coroner. The verdict was death as a result of heart failure. He was buried as a highly respected person.”

  He lay back on the cushioned couch and contemplated this abnormal but virtually private stain on what must have been two near-blameless lives. Was Patricia blameless? He could hardly ask, even assuming there was acertain aridity in her relationship with George, why George should prefer a boy to her. That’s how it would sound. That would be a question too far. The reality for him wasn’t too hard to imagine. A sudden surge of sexual feeling in the heat and imagined solitariness of the farm. He’d had the feeling himself, the erection. There was surely something sexy about the lonely outdoors, with the wind blowing the grass and trees gently in the sunshine. What happened may have had little to do with the relationship with Patricia.

  “Well, Tom?”

  He could see from the stiffness of her jaw and the way she was braced in the chair how hard it had been to talk, and that the complexities of her sexual relationship with her husband were beyond mention even in their frank talk.

  “It’s not a big deal, and you shouldn’t let it shock you into immobility - as I think it has,” he said.

  She thought about this and seemed to accept. They finished their drinks and promised to meet at the wedding. “Petra’s a lovely girl, Tom. I hope she’ll be happy,” she said. But when he closed the front gate of Patricia’s cottage, his vision of the Hedleys was reeling.

  After dinner that night at Tamaki Downs, Tia and Stuart went to the study to work on one of his scripts and Tom was left with Robyn. He mentioned his visit.

  “What did you make of Patricia?” Robyn asked with a self-satisfied smile.

  “A little bit lost after her husband’s death and unable to move forward.”

  “She’s too perfect, isn’t she? I only hope Stu doesn’t go on with her. I want Tia to have a fair chance.”

  “What are you telling me? You mean she’s one of Stuart’s…?”

  “Sure. Didn’t you know? Quite a few people know it. Not George - in his time. If he did know, he didn’t object.”

  “How long?”

  “Oh, years, I suppose.”

  “Years! Do you think it’s still going on…?”

  “Could be. I hope not, for Tia’s sake, but…”

  He thought of the composed, even slightly prim woman with whom he had spent the afternoon, so convincing in her quiet solitariness and rigid social morality.

  “I’m astonished. I can’t reconcile that with the Patricia Hedley I know. I always thought of her as the devoted Catholic wife. Even today…”

  Robyn brushed this aside. “She has a brilliant act. She’d be quite good on stage. She might have been hurt by the fact that she had become available for marriage and Stuart chose Tia. But I don’t think she’s given up on Stuart. She’s waiting quietly in Geraldine.” Robyn clamped her mouth shut confidently.

  “But Stuart had others…”

  “Certainly. Who knows whether she was number one or number three?” She made a blasé gesture with her hand.

  “And George. I always thought of George as a devoted family man.”

  “Didn’t you know that George was gay?”

  “No. Not a clue. He and Patricia seemed very happy with their girls. No signs I ever saw. How do you know?”

  “He was always involved with so-called charitable work with boys. He wasn’t a Catholic himself, but he was pally with the Catholic priest through Patricia. There were complaints and rumours that boiled up more than once, but nothing ever came of them, until just before he died. The police had a case involving several boys, the priest and George, and were about to prosecute. You see the excitement you miss in moving away from here, Tom?”

  “How did he die?”

  “The official verdict was heart failure due to exposure, but there was a lot of gossip…”

  He would be saying to Alison when he called her, ‘You can’t imagine what I’ve learned today. Remember George Hedley who died a while ago, and Patricia? I couldn’t have been more wrong in my assessment of that couple. I sat and listened to the perfect Patricia this afternoon… I’m giving her a lot of crappy advice as a big brother, all about finding another bloke, and I learn from Robyn that she’s always had somebody around the corner and probably still has! What an arse I am!’

  Alison would probably observe, ‘Robyn has a tongue like a razor.’

  But he was in doubt whether he would mention that the bloke was Stuart, or refer to the possible cracks in Stuart’s union with Tia. It was a subject Alison would find distasteful, and it would be a slight against his friend.

  11

  He lay on his bed at Tamaki Downs and talked to Alison in London the day before the wedding.

  “Everything ready, Tom?”

  “Formally, yes. The marquees are up on the lawn.
The delectable food and drink is arriving. The weather report is good. Robyn says everything is going to plan.”

  “You sound doubtful. What’s wrong, then?”

  “This Mt Vogel business has cast a shadow. Petra and Darren don’t seem interested or concerned, but the old man and Stuart are so much at odds that it’s unsettling.”

  “The news must have travelled around South Canterbury. The guests will know, won’t they?” Alison asked.

  “Oh, yes, but they won’t quite know what to make of it at this point. It’s one of those stories which will gather momentum and excite more interest.”

  “Tom, The Times has a story today about Mt Vogel, what a difficult mountain it is, and the history, and what a distinguished climber Ernest is. It talks about the Swiss report, but it’s all queries.”

  “If the full story comes out, it’s going to be widely reported.”

  “Will it come out?”

  “There’s nothing much to go on if the notebook isn’t seen by anybody. You remember I told you Bill Stavely’s actual declaration that he made it?”

  “Who knows about the notebook?”

  “Only Ernest, Stuart and me. But we don’t know if the Swiss team photographed any of the papers they saw.”

  “What does Ernest actually say?You’re with him.”

  “It depends when you talk to him. One moment it’s absolute denial, and the next, a kind of acceptance, but with complete contempt about any efforts to get at him. He really is a wicked old bugger. What I found in speaking to him was the absolute impossibility of their problem on the mountain. I’m not talking about how or when my old man fell, or what Ernest might have done or not done - we’ll only be able to surmise that. I think it just could not be, it could not happen, that Ernest was bested by his bag-carrier. Ernest would have been destroyed by that. His whole future depended on stopping that. There were only two possible outcomes in his mind; either they both climbed the peak, in which case Bill would play Tensing to Ernest’s Hillary, or Ernest achieved it alone.”

  “Is Ernest that hubristic?”

  “I believe so. That’s what it is, hubris. He’s mired in it. I’d guess his mood when he descended the mountain was near suicidal until he was gifted with a way to claim the victory for himself. When he left my father for dead and descended, he must have been seething in confusion. He never radioed his base camp, claiming his radio was broken, and the first words spoken, according to his own account, were from his team when he arrived - fulsome congratulations, based on the radio message from the spotter plane, and the arrogant assumption that the spotter must have seen Ernest. He didn‘t have to claim a victory; it was given to him. And perhaps, in a flash, he thought, why not?”

  “What does Stuart say to him?”

  “They keep apart. Ernest more or less lives upstairs. Has his meals brought to him by Beryl.”

  “She’s still there? I remember her.”

  “Yeah, crusty old stick, fawning over Ernest.”

  “Is Stuart still going to climb Mt Vogel?”

  “Yeah. He’s busy with preparations.”

  “It seems like an illogical reaction.”

  “It is, but it’s his way of engaging with the problem. Better than going upstairs and choking his father.”

  “Say he succeeds on the mountain, would it make that much difference?”

  “Well, he would join very select company… Yes, it would redeem him in a way. It would, at the same time, focus public attention more closely on what happened with Ernest.”

  “Can he succeed, Tom?”

  “All the odds are against him, if you look at Mt Vogel’s record.”

  “A kind of do or die effort?”

  “I think it is. Sadly. He’s fit enough physically, but I don’t think he’s well enough to make the judgments the climb will involve. He’ll be risking the lives of his companions.”

  “Can’t you talk to him?”

  “I’ve tried. It’s no good. He won’t listen to me.”

  “What about Tia? She has influence with him, from what you’ve said.”

  “She has, but no.”

  “Then he won’t listen to anyone. It sounds awful, and I’m glad you’re not involved, even in a supporting role. Nobody should encourage him. Is Stuart making too much of the damage he’s going to suffer?”

  “No, I don’t think so. What’s happened is a stain on the kind of life he wants - the brave climber-journalist, the cultured adventurer, the man of the outdoors. Whether the facts come out or not, Stuart is already undermined. He knows the truth, knows that the whole Fateful Snows thing is a fraud. Nobody could forget this taint. Stuart has tied himself up with his father’s following, and with The Fateful Snows. He did it, I think, in the belief that he could best his father in both mountaineering and writing. Besting his father has become a kind of mania. Now he could be notable because of his father’s wickedness, instead of being seen as the son of a hero, who is himself a hero. You know how people behave over this sort of thing. They don’t say anything, but back off after a while. Stuart could find he’s not the sought after celebrity he thought he was in mountaineering.”

  “It sounds like the same disease as Ernest has. Hubris.”

  “Ernest has always been bigger than Stuart and Stuart has always played the ‘son

  of Ernest’ prominently as part of his game. Now, by this monstrous act, Ernest has increased his shadow, which we find is very ugly. A vital point is that you and I might not think it’s that important, but Stuart feels it deeply as a betrayal and a potential public put-down.”

  “Stuart can turn his journalism to another field, or work in the family business.”

  “Of course he can! He has the ability, the financial security and a world of other opportunities. But he wants what he wants.”

  “Come home soon.”

  “You’d be interested to see all this, Ally.”

  “Hearing from you is enough. I don’t want to participate in the orgy. I know what it’ll be like. Everybody will arrive, decked out in the latest fashion, and in three or four hours they’ll be throwing up over the roses.”

  “It won’t be like the old days, Ally.”

  “We’ll see. You take care when you meet the scrawny crows of yesteryear. And tell Petra I’m thinking of her, and wishing her the loveliest day in a long, long marriage.”

  He had seen the guest lists. The wedding was to be a great dynastic event, with Ernest’s younger brothers and sister, and their children, plus two hundred and fifty guests from all over New Zealand and abroad. Petra and Darren were like dolls in this ritual; an essential, but not a talking or feeling part. If Stuart cheated his father by marrying on the marae, that situation was to be reversed now. The preparations had been going on for weeks, as the Downs was made ready.

  He viewed the event, as Robyn envisaged it, as embarrassingly excessive; more an excuse for the Ashtons to celebrate themselves. Petra and Darren were pleasant young people, but their wedding wasn’t exactly a noteworthy union, and they wouldn’t know many of the people present. It was Robyn’s show, and in her mind seemed to be just that - a show. She was very good at organising shows. He had never questioned her motives behind this one, or even intimated his feelings; to do so would only evoke a rebuff. ‘You’d deny your daughter the best…’

  Robyn hoped that the weather would permit a reception in marquees on the lawn, but plans were laid to move the whole party under cover in the house if necessary. Rooms that had been virtually unoccupied over recent years had been thrown open and redecorated. The guest wing, usually cold and deserted, but luxurious, had been made ready.

  In all this, Beryl Dilsey, the housekeeper, had been pushed aside. He had seen her tight-mouthed submission to the director whom Robyn had employed to organise and manage the party. He was a bustling young man in a dark suit with thick spectacles who was always moving, not looking at anybody, but speaking out of the corner of his mouth.

  The director had brought caterers f
rom Christchurch and a ‘television’ chef was in charge of the menu and wines. In the last few days, trailer trucks had unloaded a huge variety of local and international seafood, meats, fish, game and poultry to be stowed in refrigerated cabins, and an elaborate camp kitchen at the rear of the house, discreetly hidden from the view of guests.

  As he strolled around the manicured grounds and through the refurbished reception rooms, he couldn’t help thinking that this could have been his wedding to Robyn in 1984. Nothing was very different; the lawns, the gardens, the marquees, the chef, the musicians, the complexion of the guest list - even many of the guests, businessmen, politicians, a sprinkling of judges, senior civil servants and military men. Tomorrow, when the tables were laid and decorated with flowers, he expected this eerie feeling to be confirmed. The bid for the ‘wedding of the year’ status was as evident now as it had been when he and Robyn married. He wondered if in some strange way Robyn was trying to recreate the event, with Petra playing Robyn.

  The morning of the wedding was clear and calm. A perfect blue dome topped South Canterbury. Order had returned to the Downs overnight. All the ropes, ladders, electric cables, toolboxes, paint pots, platforms and planks had been stowed away. The florists arrived at 7am with profuse bunches of flowers; rooms and marquees were decorated. The tables were laid with an array of silver and crystal on the starched white cloths. Small huddles of waiters and managers could be seen conferring discreetly in one tent or another. At nine in the morning, all the exquisite presentation lacked was guests.

  He breakfasted with the morning-suited Stuart in the dining room. Robyn and Petra were engrossed in their preparations, and ate upstairs, if they ate at all. Ernest had never joined them in the dining room for any meals, an effect which reduced the amount of argument and recrimination, and even produced an uneasy armistice.

  He rode to the church with Stuart and Tia in the Ashtons’ Bentley. He hadn’t bothered to arrange for a morning-suit when he knew he wouldn’t be giving away the bride; the navy blue tailored suit he had was smart enough, and when Robyn, meticulous in her survey of detail, had asked him a few days ago what he would be wearing, he pointed out that he wasn’t part of the official wedding party. “Second order may dress second order,” he said. “You can’t expect me to walk around looking like a penguin without a pond.” Robyn crimped her mouth together and said nothing. If Alison knew what he had done, she would say it was pusillanimous, but he couldn’t resist it. However, he found an immaculate morning-suit with a quiet brocade waistcoat lying on his bed the evening before the wedding. He took pleasure in not wearing it the next morning.