Over the Sea to Death

by Gwen Moffat

  In a dream she returned and, still below the crest, heard familiar voices. She stopped, saw a party climbing along the ridge and heard George Watkins say: ‘I haven’t got all bloody day to hang around pulling you up; you go round the side and up the chimney.’

  Miss Pink wore drab colours and she was in shadow. She sat down in a corner and watched the Lindsays climbing carefully behind their guide towards what climbers called the Bad Step. The clients carried rucksacks but Watkins was unencumbered except for a rope. Betty Lindsay had the second rope.

  The acoustics were in Miss Pink’s favour. She heard Betty Lindsay say clearly: ‘There’s plenty of time. Really, George, if you’re so concerned at getting down for opening time—’

  Lindsay said, ‘Oh, come off it; stop needling him!’

  ‘Me needling him! He’s been getting at me all day—’

  ‘Shut up!’ Watkins was standing below the Bad Step, uncoiling the rope. He hesitated, then handed the end to Betty without looking at her, and turned to the rock. Unsecured, Betty pulled out a few coils deftly so that the rope wouldn’t snag as he stepped up the broken wall. It was only a few moves but there was a nasty drop underneath. Watkins’ climbing was clumsy and, although he got up, he was not a pleasure to watch. He belayed at the top and took in the slack. Betty tied on casually and waited. Her pack looked enormous.

  ‘Come on,’ Watkins said.

  She stepped off the ground and went up the wall with astonishing neatness considering her build and her load. As she drew level with Watkins she must have said something because he exclaimed, ‘Christ! You think I’d trust him to you? Take that rope off and get out of the bloody way!’

  She untied and moved on a few yards to sit down and watch. Miss Pink took the binoculars out of her sack and raised them carefully. Adjusting the range, the other woman’s face was in startling close-up: flushed from the sun and the constriction of her helmet certainly, but not appearing in the least put out by the outrageous behaviour of the guide.

  Lindsay was making a hash of the Bad Step. The secret was knowing where the fingerholds were, for the rock overhung slightly and the footholds sloped. Miss Pink suspected that, far from being the kind of man who was encouraged when others encountered no difficulty, the reverse was the case here. His standard was far below that of his wife.

  A steady murmur of encouragement came from the guide, punctuated by complaints from Lindsay. The man was tired and inclining to panic.

  ‘All right then,’ he cried suddenly on a rising note. ‘If I come off—you’ve got me?’

  ‘Sure.’ Watkins was chuckling. ‘Come on then: up you come!’

  Watkins braced himself for a fall but with a wild heave and a grab Lindsay was up. There were exclamations of relief and congratulation from Betty, and Watkins was laughing loudly. They milled a little, the rope was coiled and, still oblivious of the watcher, the party moved away towards the summit.

  Miss Pink replaced the binoculars and fastened the strap of her pack. Her eyes wandered over the ridges and down to the corrie underneath where a little brown and green lochan shone in the sun and two remote figures made splashes close to the shore. She smiled. That was more pleasant than the scene she had just witnessed.

  After a while the bathers came out of the water and they were so consistently pale in that well of boulder fields that they must be naked. Miss Pink was in the act of rising when she paused and took another look at them. Two climbers—and Maynard and Madge were in that corrie. . . . She shrugged. In her own youth she had often swum in mountain lakes with male climbers but—and she pursed her lips in disapproval—none of them had a wife like Lavender.

  *

  ‘How long has MacNeill been tipping down Scarf Geo?’

  Behind the bar Hamlyn turned slowly to face Miss Pink. ‘Two years.’ His eyes were furious.

  ‘We had the same trouble in Wales when I lived there.’ She spoke with sympathy. ‘I haven’t come across it in Cornwall—yet.’

  ‘The English are civilised. Here they’ve hardly advanced since the Dark Ages.’ He warmed to the theme. ‘Timothy Barker was here in May: the anthropologist. He was explaining the development of civilisation—domestically, that is. You start with a house of sorts, which is nothing more than a shelter from the elements; that’s subsistence level. But once cultivators have a surplus, first they build up stock and implements, then domestic appliances: pots, pans, a better cooking range; nowadays it’s deep freezers and spin dryers, of course—bought by women whose mothers took in washing! And after necessities, or what they think of as necessities, they start to ornament their houses: plastic flowers, china Alsations on the window sill, coloured bathroom suites. They’ve gone past the stage of keeping the coal in the bath and they don’t throw their rubbish out of the back door any longer. No, they take it to the edge of their land and tip it over a cliff.’

  Miss Pink’s shoulders slumped but she tried again.

  ‘Doesn’t the Council collect rubbish from the glen?’

  ‘Of course it does. But the lorry can’t cross to Rahane; there’s only the footbridge. The ford is negotiable for the tractor, and young MacNeill even takes the cattle wagon across, but the Council lorry won’t risk getting bogged down and asking the MacNeills to pull it out with the tractor, so Rahane’s meant to take their rubbish across to the camp site in bags. They’re too bone idle for that.’

  There were footsteps on the gravel outside the front door, and voices.

  ‘Ah, Miss Pink!’ Betty Lindsay came in, hot and jolly, ‘Where did you go?’

  She murmured something about Sgumain, and Lindsay and Watkins shouldered into the room, a little larger than life, like all parties just down off the hill. Miss Pink had come in half an hour ago and had already bathed and changed.

  ‘We’ll have a pint of draught lager each,’ Watkins ordered. ‘Off the ice.’

  Hamlyn stared at him without moving.

  ‘Please,’ Watkins added, and grinned sheepishly.

  Hamlyn drew the lager with obvious reluctance. The Lindsays’ faces were carefully expressionless.

  Lavender entered with a swirl of skirts. She was in orange tonight and smelt of musky scent. She started to talk to Miss Pink intimately, as if they were old acquaintances. Madge and Maynard appeared in the hall, seeming subdued after the impact of the first party. As Madge came to the bar Betty asked: ‘Did you do the White Slab?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Nothing else,’ Maynard put in, following his guide, smiling at Miss Pink. ‘It was too hot. Good evening, dear,’ to his wife.

  Watkins said, with a nasty gleam in his eye: ‘That was you swimming, in Coir’ a’ Ghrunnda.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Madge took a whisky from Hamlyn. ‘What did you do?’ she asked Lindsay.

  Lavender had gone rigid. For the second time in twenty-four hours, Miss Pink walked across the room and sought solace in the vista of the Cuillin.

  *

  After dinner she joined Betty and Madge at the table in the window.

  ‘Was anything said about Terry today?’ she asked of Betty.

  ‘Why, yes.’ The other paused, then said confidentially, ‘She’s been an awful nuisance. In fact, she’s cleared off.’

  Madge looked at Betty but said nothing. Miss Pink said, ‘He beat her up badly last night and she took refuge with Colin Irwin.’

  Betty stirred uneasily. ‘Well, that’s her story. He did tell us she’d shacked up with Irwin, but as for beating her up: when they got back to the tent it was she who attacked him. He had to throw her out to protect himself.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘No, and I don’t want to. I know her type.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’ Madge asked Miss Pink with interest.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘George always knocks his women about; he’d be hard put to it to find one more stupid than himself and he resents anyone who’s more intelligent.’ She considered her own words. ‘He kic
ks the rock when he can’t get up a climb,’ she added.

  Betty, who had been smouldering during the first part of this, was suddenly deflated. ‘That kicking business,’ she said earnestly, ‘He’s so furious with himself.’

  ‘I know.’ Madge agreed with the obvious. ‘He’s immature.’ She turned to Miss Pink. ‘So what will Terry do now?’

  ‘I hope she’ll stay with Irwin, at least for long enough for him to try to instil some values into her.’

  ‘She’d be all right with Colin,’ Madge agreed.

  ‘The trouble is,’ Miss Pink said, looking at Betty, ‘Irwin’s going to Sligachan for two days.’

  The other frowned but it was Madge who responded. ‘George isn’t going to go across to Largo while Colin’s away. I mean, if he’s thrown her out, he doesn’t want her. He’s not neurotic, you know. I expect she got too much for him.’

  ‘Just what do you mean by that?’ Betty was belligerent.

  ‘She’s too sexy.’

  ‘Do you think that’s all George wants?’

  ‘You weren’t listening; I was saying the opposite. He doesn’t want it.’

  ‘Oh, you’re impossible!’

  Betty got up quickly and flung out of the room.

  ‘Got her on the raw,’ Madge remarked. ‘Silly woman. Nice climber though.’

  ‘Do you always say what comes into your mind?’ Miss Pink asked, between awe and amusement.

  Madge gave a little snort of appreciation. ‘Why not? I’ve got my hands full just living—or rather, making a living. I can’t be bothered to think as well.’

  ‘Like Terry,’ Miss Pink murmured.

  ‘Not quite.’ The guide was dry. ‘She’s not making a living—poor kid.’

  ‘Why “poor kid”?’

  ‘Well, she’s cut out for trouble, isn’t she?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I think she’ll make a go of it with young Irwin.’ Miss Pink looked at the other defiantly but surprised at herself for getting worked up about this.

  Madge grinned. ‘You’ve got to keep that kind on a collar and chain. I don’t give much for Colin’s chances if he’s going to leave her for two days after only just meeting her.’

  Chapter Five

  Her glimpses of the Sron had unsettled Miss Pink and although a scramble along the crest of the Cuillin was great fun, she knew that she would be even happier were she to reach the top by way of a rock climb. Maynard perceived this and before she went to bed an invitation to climb tomorrow had been made and accepted.

  So the following morning they tramped up Coire na Banachdich and climbed the easy Window Buttress of Sgurr Dearg—a puzzling choice for it was a short route on the side of the mountain, but one which was explained when they were lunching on the summit under the Inaccessible Pinnacle. Maynard said diffidently: ‘Madge wants to do the South Crack; would you care to have a go?’ Miss Pink glanced at the expressionless guide and knew that it was the client who had set his heart on the route.

  ‘I have a dim memory of something overhanging for a hundred feet,’ she countered cautiously.

  ‘The pinnacle leans back,’ Madge told her. ‘It’s nearer seventy feet than a hundred and it’s got holds.’

  ‘I’ll watch you first.’

  ‘Watch me,’ Maynard said ruefully. ‘That’s more to the point.’

  It was an interesting performance and it possessed a significance which she was to remember afterwards. There was a casual intimacy between the climbers which was intriguing because it was more the activity to which the intimacy referred, rather than an emotional relationship.

  Although Madge was obviously the superior they worked as a team and Miss Pink realised that the guide had an unexpected grace. It was evident from her familiarity with the holds that she could have climbed the route solo, yet as she placed her slings, clipped in her rope and, watching it fall, caught her second’s eye—throughout balanced on small holds above a deepening drop—she had the air of accepting the man as an integral part of this delicate machine. There was a mutual illusion of dependence, but on her part, assumed. It put a gloss on her ability.

  Maynard followed, struggling a little, his breathing audible to the watcher on the ground. Then she tied on and, with a sinking stomach, stepped into the crack.

  It was not so steep as she’d imagined, and all the holds were there so long as she didn’t panic and miss them. Like Maynard, she had trouble with a bulge at thirty feet where she was forced to leave the spurious security of the crack and emerge on the smooth wall but otherwise the climb was a matter of striking a balance between the need to proceed slowly enough that she had time to find the next hold, yet not so slow that her strength gave out. She reached the top exhausted, trembling, and glowing with achievement.

  Madge continued to surprise her. When Maynard was taking photographs of hazy depths framed between gully walls, and trying to find the right filter to bring out the inkiness of Loch Coruisk against its sunlit shore, Miss Pink voiced her trepidation. He was like a heedless child, scrambling one-handed above the tremendous drops.

  ‘He won’t hurt,’ Madge chided. ‘You worry too much.’ She caught the other’s glance and smiled. ‘You can’t worry in this job.’

  ‘What about your responsibility?’

  ‘Don’t know if it’s ever been defined, as to limits. So far as I’m concerned, when the client’s off the rope, providing he’s adult, he’s responsible, not I. Can you imagine me, now, calling across to him not to get too near the edge? How many clients would I keep that way?’

  ‘You might save some.’

  ‘If they’re that daft, they can be spared.’

  ‘You’re a hard woman, Madge.’

  The other sighed. ‘You thought that last night. That was because of Terry getting into trouble.’ She turned candid eyes on Miss Pink. ‘So she gets knocked about by fellows and will have two or three kids before she’s twenty: what can you do about it? Why waste your energy on her?’

  ‘You seem to be looking at it from a biological point of view: basically, survival of the fittest. But on that basis, she’s definitely worth helping because of her beauty and her health.’

  ‘That’s nothing. She’s got no brain.’

  ‘Oh come! Just because she was infatuated with Watkins! She’s learned her lesson.’

  ‘Rubbish. She’ll be bored with Colin within the week and she’ll go back to George or, if he won’t have her, to another guy who’ll knock her about. She’s made for it—like battered wives. Surely you’ve come across those?’

  Miss Pink nodded sadly. ‘But it’s her youth; that’s what’s so shocking.’

  ‘Well, her age,’ Madge demurred. ‘She’s experienced enough.’

  ‘Hardly.’ The tone was firm. ‘She may have had more sexual adventures than many mature women but she’s too young to have learned anything from them. That’s her tragedy.’

  ‘But not mine.’ The guide’s face was set and surprisingly angry. She stood up. ‘I have to look for a cache.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A place to hide some food. I’m going to do the ridge when I can get a couple of days to myself.’

  The whole range: seven miles long, with twenty peaks, was a test of endurance for mountaineers. Miss Pink accompanied the guide like an interested terrier, peering with her into holes under rocks, sniffing out a place that would be recognisable in mist. Some distance away was a tall rock shaped like a man and rather larger.

  ‘That stands out in cloud,’ Madge observed. ‘I always mistake it for a person.’

  They scrambled across to this bollard and found a place where food might be cached under a slab about six feet from its base.

  ‘If I roll a stone against the opening, no one will know anything’s inside.’

  ‘Would climbers steal food?’

  ‘They’d take anything. Some of them live by stealing.’ She seemed to have recovered her spirits.

  They descended to Glen Shira by way of the splendid headwall of Coire na
Banachdich: a place where Miss Pink had never been before, and when they reached the floor of the corrie and looked back, she was awe-struck.

  ‘How did we come down? It’s all rock. I never realised we were on such a wall.’

  ‘You only see the walls looking up,’ Madge reminded her. ‘We zig-zagged down the ledges.’

  ‘She knows the way,’ Maynard said. ‘She can do it in cloud—and in the dark.’

  ‘Anyone can,’ Madge pointed out. ‘It’s only a matter of experience—’ She grinned at Miss Pink.

  ‘Of knowledge,’ Maynard corrected. ‘Not necessarily of this ground, but of any mountain terrain. It’s also a matter of knowing one’s limits, and after that: concentration, keeping your cool. A guide doesn’t panic, right?’

  Madge shrugged, too sure of herself to be embarrassed.

  ‘You’re never worried?’ Miss Pink asked casually as they turned to the glen.

  ‘No, not really.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Not up here.’

  *

  Miss Pink entered her room and crossed to the window. Largo’s door was open and a naked figure lay on the grass in front of the cottage. A man was approaching from the direction of Rahane. As Miss Pink watched, he stopped, the sunbather sat up, then rose and went indoors. The visitor could be Willie MacNeill.

  Terry emerged wearing jeans and some kind of pink top. The man approached now and the two of them went inside the cottage. Miss Pink thought the whole episode was an amusing display of etiquette.

  She ran her bath. After a few minutes she noticed that Largo’s chimney was smoking thickly.

  She went down to the cocktail lounge to find all the residents assembled. Lavender tried to corner her and draw her out on the events of the day. Who had climbed with whom? When Miss Pink had made it plain that they had all been on one rope, she was pressed as to the order in which they’d climbed. She found Lavender’s obsessive jealousy tiresome, and eventually managed to address herself to Hamlyn, demanding details from him of the Cuillin traverse. But he failed to come to her assistance; on the contrary, he added fuel to Lavender’s fire by mention of ‘constricted stances’ and laboured jokes on the embarrassing situations which resulted when strangers of mixed sex were in close proximity above big drops. Lavender plucked restlessly at her neck.