Shadow of the Mountain

by Mackenzie, Anna

She, her father, Stephen, and his friend Mike — her father had taken the photo on her wall, the one of her and the guys. They’d all climbed together at first, until her father suggested they break into two teams, claiming he couldn’t hack the pace the boys were setting. Geneva had known it was her that he was thinking of. It was one of the few times she and her father had climbed together. That alone should have made it stand out in her memory…

  ‘Are you all right, Geneva? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’ Keith stood watching her.

  When Tink had picked her up at the Argyle junction, Geneva had felt enthusiastic about the day ahead, even if her positive mood had been tinged by an overtone of guilt at the note she’d left for her parents, telling them she was taking some books back to the library. She didn’t like lying to them — even knowing that her father would see through it. Or part-way through it: he’d assume she wanted to test herself on the bike. He understood that she needed to get back to some sort of independence. But now — she shook her head impatiently. ‘No, it’s just …’ She stopped, studying the stark outline of the rock behind him. ‘Where are we climbing?’ she asked.

  ‘There are a couple of options. How’re those cuts doing?’

  ‘Fine I think.’

  Keith looked for a moment as if he was about to say something else, then tapped his fingers on the bonnet of the van and visibly changed tack. ‘Right. Let’s get moving. Geneva climbs with me, Angus with Simon. Dan, Keri and Teagan with Tink,’ he announced. ‘We’ll mix it up after lunch.’

  Glancing apologetically at Angus, Geneva began to get her gear organised. Keith wanted to check whether she was up to it.

  She wasn’t. The cuts were a distraction, taking her attention away from the climb. Years ago she’d chopped the end off her thumb slicing cabbage, the concentric layers of skin neatly severed to expose the vulnerable white flesh beneath. The cut hadn’t been deep, healing over within a week, but she’d had trouble with it for half a year, particularly on the bike, when changing gears applied pressure to the exact point of the scar.

  She wondered now whether the glass cuts were going to prove similarly problematic. The smaller one was only a minor discomfort, the scab pulling uncomfortably when she flexed her toes, but her knee ached continually after the first half-hour. After she lost her footing for the third time, Keith called a break.

  She was angry with her performance. It had been the same the last time she’d been here, two years ago. Stephen had pushed her beyond her ability then been frustrated when she hadn’t lived up to his expectations. They’d have fallen out over it if her father hadn’t intervened. She’d told Stephen she wasn’t interested in his climbing trips if all he was going to do was shout at her, but he’d managed to talk her round. He always did.

  ‘I said,’ Keith broke in on her reverie, ‘you’re favouring your left leg. Is the knee giving you trouble?’

  Geneva stared at him blankly. ‘No … yes. It aches a bit. I think I’m just a bit off form.’

  ‘Your focus is all over the place,’ he said mildly. ‘Could be you’re expecting the cuts to be a problem.’

  She kicked a loose stone with the toe of her boot. ‘I know I’m making a mess of it,’ she answered. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Keith shook his head. ‘There’s no need to be sorry, lass. Everyone has off days — and it’s good sense to recognise that. In this game you have to know when to back off.’

  Geneva felt winded by his words, though she knew her reaction was out of kilter. Keith would begin to think she was a nutter if she kept this up. She turned her face towards the sun, squinting as her eyes watered in the glare. Keith nudged her shoulder with a water bottle. She shaded her face with one hand as she turned to take it, grateful for the excuse to maintain her silence.

  ‘Are you still thinking about Kaitiaki?’ he asked as she lifted it to her lips.

  Geneva spluttered on a mouthful. He’d probably refuse to take her after today’s performance. The plastic bottle creaked as she squeezed it. ‘Maybe after the cuts have healed properly,’ she suggested.

  Keith smiled. ‘Glad you think so. You know, you could be a good climber if you want to work at it.’

  Geneva studied the textured browns and greys of the rock they were sitting on. One of the reasons she liked climbing was the varied nature of rock. Not as a climber sees it, all pitches and handholds and means to an end. Just as it was.

  Keith’s voice was quiet. ‘Do you want to tell me about why you want to do that particular mountain?’

  She turned startled eyes towards him. His gaze was steady. Geneva couldn’t match it. ‘I just … I’ve grown up with it. It’s always there. I promised myself I’d do it one day.’

  Keith waited for a while, then nodded. ‘Okay. Early summer’s the best bet. We’ll aim for that. Team of three or four, and what I say goes. Plus, there are no guarantees.’

  Geneva’s heart was racing erratically. She nodded.

  ‘It’d be good to have Tink on board.’ He paused. ‘And maybe Angus?’

  15.

  The telephone broke the Sunday silence with an insistent shriek. Geneva peeled open her eyelids and focused on her alarm clock. She’d slept in — it was after ten. Her father would be out on the farm and her mother never answered the phone these days. She scrambled out of bed and headed for the kitchen, feeling the stiffness in her arms and thighs; the tight pull of the cut on her knee. Rolling her shoulders experimentally she reached for the phone.

  ‘Genna?’ The voice was familiar but she didn’t immediately place it.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I — I thought you’d like to know…’ It was Sonya. ‘It’s about Kitty. She … I know you two haven’t …’ She seemed to be struggling to finish a sentence.

  Geneva leant into the pantry and pulled out a box of muesli, the receiver tucked under her chin. ‘What’s up, Sonya?’

  There was an intake of breath. ‘Kitty’s had an accident. She’s all right, but —’

  Geneva’s hand stilled on the fridge door. ‘What kind of accident? Are you okay?’ There was a quality to Sonya’s voice — and her silence — that felt wrong.

  ‘I’m fine, and Kitty will be. Look, I wasn’t sure whether to ring. I was so pleased that you two seemed to be sorting out your differences, but — well, you saw for yourself how things are.’ There was a brittle laugh. Geneva waited. Something she didn’t want to hear seemed to be waiting too.

  ‘They were in a car accident,’ Sonya said. ‘Jax was driving.’

  Geneva let herself slide down the wall till she was sitting on the cold terracotta tiles. She laid one palm flat against them, pressing her fingers down hard. There was a tiny sliver of glass, not more than half a millimetre long, hard up against the skirting board; it must have been missed when she and Angus cleaned up after her mother’s fall.

  ‘How is she?’ she asked, her voice compressed into a thinned down version of itself.

  ‘It’s her leg, mainly. It was crushed quite badly. They had to cut her out of the car, but they operated yesterday and they say it’ll heal, more or less, though she might have a limp. She’s concussed and a bit bruised,’ Sonya’s voice wobbled but she steadied herself with an audible breath. ‘It could have been much worse.’

  Recalling the way Jax drove, Geneva didn’t doubt it. He’d been a walking time bomb. A driving time bomb. ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Early hours of Saturday morning. They were on their way home from a party.’ Sonya hesitated. ‘The thing is, she won’t talk to me and I wondered if maybe you — maybe she might —’ She paused to clear her throat. ‘She won’t talk to the police either.’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘Yes. Look, I know it’s difficult and I wouldn’t have bothered you, except one of the nurses suggested she might find it easier to talk to a friend and …’

  Geneva flinched at the word ‘friend’.

  ‘Genna? If there’s someone else — it’s just, I don’t know, you see. Kitty doesn’t
tell me much these days. I —’ Sonya’s voice cracked.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Geneva said. ‘I’ll come in.’ Sonya, as well as Kitty, had been important in her life for a long time. Reaching for a pen, she scrawled down the room number. She’d barely hung up when the phone rang again.

  ‘Morning.’ Angus’s voice came exuberantly down the line. ‘How’s the knee after yesterday’s climb? Got any plans for today?’

  She told him about the accident.

  ‘So you’re going to see her?’

  Geneva tried to mask her reluctance. ‘Yep. Visiting starts at two.’

  ‘We could meet up afterwards — or I could come with you if you want.’

  She hesitated. She wanted to see Angus — far more than she wanted to see Kitty. ‘Afterwards,’ she said. ‘Only I’m not sure how long I’ll be.’

  ‘I’ll wait in the main foyer of the hospital — about three o’clock? You can text if the plan changes,’ he suggested.

  Hanging up, Geneva felt disembodied, as if the calls had come from different planets. What were the chances of Kitty wanting to talk to her? For a moment she toyed with phoning Sonya back, but she’d sounded desperate and it wasn’t Sonya that Geneva had fallen out with.

  Tapping lightly on the door of her parents’ bedroom, Geneva peered inside. Her mother was still asleep. The phone beside the bed was either unplugged or her mother was so far out of it that the ringing hadn’t penetrated. Her father’s side of the bed was empty, the duvet pulled tidily into place. There had always been times of the year when he worked seven days a week: she wrinkled her forehead, trying to decide if this was one of them. It might not be that he was avoiding things. He might be making up for the time he’d lost in driving her to and from school.

  Closing the door gently, Geneva headed for the shower.

  Kitty looked terrible. She was asleep when Geneva arrived, garishly coloured swelling distorting her thin face into a caricature.

  ‘It’s surface damage mostly,’ Sonya said, releasing Geneva from a hug. ‘The cut on her temple might leave a scar but the rest will heal.’ The words sounded as if they had come from someone else and Sonya was still struggling to believe them. Geneva nodded, eyeing the track of blue stitches that echoed the curve of Kitty’s eyebrow.

  ‘She’s been sleeping on and off all day,’ Sonya added. ‘They say that’s good too.’

  Geneva perched on the edge of a long stool leaving the room’s only chair to Sonya. Tubes ran into Kitty’s arm, connecting her to a bag of fluid that hung from a metal pole beside the bed. There was a small screen beside it, a glowing droplet signalling her heartbeat while a line of numbers flipped from one vital statistic to another. Geneva turned her eyes away, unwilling to watch that record of Kitty’s life. She hated the bleeps — hated knowing they could stop.

  Sonya had a hand on her arm. ‘Are you all right? You look — oh, Genna, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have asked you to come.’

  Geneva felt her loathing of hospitals rise as bile in her throat. She shook her head. ‘No, it’s fine. I’m fine.’ She gathered herself together, willing blood back into her cheeks. Her hands felt clammy. ‘I’m not sure whether I’ll be any help, though. Kitty and I had a bit of an argument after you left the restaurant the other weekend. Our reunion wasn’t what you’d call a success.’

  Sonya made a sharp, exasperated sound. ‘I’m sorry, honey, I thought something must have gone wrong, but Kitty doesn’t exactly confide in me these days.’ Her tone was as battered as her daughter’s face. ‘Maybe this’ll change things.’

  Doubting it, Geneva studied the enlarged mound that was Kitty’s leg, the blankets tented above it by some sort of rectangular frame. ‘What about Jax?’ she asked. ‘Is he …?’

  Sonya’s expression hardened. ‘Minor injuries. According to the police, he claims it was the other driver’s fault: that’s why they want to talk to Kitty.’ She sighed. ‘She wouldn’t even look at them when they tried to speak to her this morning.’

  Sonya took out a tissue and blew her nose, folding it into a tiny square before she dropped it in the waste bin. ‘The driver of the other car is in intensive care. It’s awful and I feel guilty, but I’m just so glad it’s him and not Kitty!’

  ‘That’s normal, isn’t it? You shouldn’t feel bad.’ Geneva pulled at a loose thread on the cuff of her sweatshirt, longing to be elsewhere.

  Sonya smiled. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Look, I appreciate your coming, hon, and I feel all the better for seeing you, but you don’t need to stay. Kitty might sleep for hours, she was very groggy earlier.’ She leant forward to smooth the blanket over her daughter’s arm. ‘We’ll be fine. Is your dad here?’

  Geneva shook her head. ‘I biked in.’ She paused. ‘I can ask a couple of her friends from school to come up and see her,’ she offered. ‘That might help.’ More than seeing me, anyway, she added silently.

  Sonya nodded, her eyes bleak.

  From the doorway she looked back. Sonya was stroking a stray strand of hair from her daughter’s cheek, tucking it smoothly behind her ear in a way Kitty would never have tolerated if she was awake. Taking a deep breath, Geneva retraced her steps through the hospital’s corridors, her thoughts on escape, on concrete-edged car parks and air that smelt of traffic and industry rather than antiseptic and fear. She’d reached the main reception and had the sliding glass doors in sight when Angus surged upwards from a dark vinyl couch.

  ‘Hi.’ He smiled hesitantly. The bands of metal that seemed to encircle her chest contracted. A few paces away the doors beckoned. ‘Are you okay?’

  She nodded. Before she could find her voice a tall, elegantly dressed woman stepped forward, right hand extended. ‘You must be Geneva — I won’t wait for Angus to remember his manners, though he does have them somewhere. I’m Miriam.’ Her handshake suited her: firm, dry, no nonsense. Geneva felt summed up by her cool gaze. ‘Angus’s mother. I was very sorry to hear about your friend.’

  Retrieving her hand, Geneva tried to smile.

  ‘How is she?’

  Geneva opened her mouth, then closed it. Miriam raised a hand, palm forward. ‘No, don’t answer that. It’s always difficult, putting things into words: it makes them real, somehow. Not that you want to bottle things up; that’s a recipe for disaster.’ She stared briskly around. ‘I think a hot drink is in order. We could get one here, unless you’d prefer to go somewhere else?’

  Geneva managed to nod.

  ‘Fine,’ Miriam said. ‘The city gallery has a reasonable café and their exhibitions are occasionally worth a look, as long as you can get past the dreadful water feature in the courtyard. And you can stop giving me the evil eye, Angus. I’m not planning to sit in on your tête-à-tête. I do have some sensitivity.’

  Angus made a guttural noise in his throat. Geneva risked a sideways glance but he was staring at one of the artworks on the wall. She studied the painting: a two-tone lino cut of the sea.

  ‘Angus told me about your mother’s accident,’ Miriam continued as she began to shepherd them towards the doors. ‘It must seem overwhelming, to have this happen in such quick succession.’

  Geneva forced her lips into a small polite smile.

  ‘How is your mother now?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ She shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other, feeling the edge of her helmet dig into her shoulder-blade.

  ‘Angus tells me you live miles out in the country and bike everywhere.’ The woman’s steady brown eyes surveyed her.

  ‘It’s not that far,’ Geneva said, clamping her teeth against further explanation. There was something intrusive yet compelling about the woman’s brusque manner.

  ‘We’ll put the bike in the back of the car,’ Miriam announced. ‘Unless you’re planning to come back and see your friend again later?’

  Geneva shook her head.

  As they drove across town Miriam expounded a theory that accidents could be both a version of self-harm and a cry for help, breaking off as they r
eached the gallery. ‘But you’d no doubt rather talk to each other than to me. I’ll collect you in,’ she considered her watch, ‘an hour?’ She raised her eyebrows, as if it were a question, though Geneva doubted it was. In the organising sweepstakes, she’d put her money on Miriam every time. She scrambled thankfully out of the car.

  ‘Schedule in place and instructions issued,’ Angus said beneath his breath as his mother pulled away. Ignoring the branching wings of the gallery, he led the way to the small chrome-tabled café. The stark white of the walls made Geneva aware of how rumpled she felt. She looked around for a toilet.

  ‘What would you like?’ Angus asked.

  The woman behind the counter met her eyes and Geneva looked hastily away. ‘Just a coffee,’ she said. ‘I need to go to the loo.’

  The mirror showed her face, pale and strained. She blew her nose and ran her fingers through her flattened hair. By the time she returned to the café Angus was sitting near the wall, two cappuccinos on the table in front of him.

  ‘I got you that just in case,’ he said, indicating a lone chocolate brownie. ‘Fuel for the ride home. If you’d rather have something else I can —’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ she cut in. ‘Thanks.’

  She turned her cup in its saucer and looked around, flinching away as she again met the eyes of the woman behind the counter. ‘I wish she’d stop watching us.’

  ‘You should have seen the look she gave me after you went to the loo.’

  Geneva felt anger surge through her. She was fed up with Kitty, with Jax, even with Sonya — and certainly with a stranger making judgements about something she knew absolutely nothing about. Impulsively, she reached across and squeezed Angus’s hand where it lay palm down on the table beside his cup. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  Angus’s steady brown eyes — his mother’s eyes, she realised — surveyed her. ‘Was that for me, or for her?’ he asked, tilting his head slightly towards their audience of one.

  ‘Both probably. I don’t know.’ She hesitated. ‘You said something like this would happen,’ she remembered. ‘Jax, I mean.’