by Tim Scott
“Yup,” said Mat. “But hell, let’s be cool about it.”
“Yeah, I guess. Can I use your phone, please, Mat? I could ring Eli, then call those punks who stole my house.” As I’ve said before, Mat stuck with a handset and had never signed up for Skin Media. He’d held out for so long, handsets had almost become interesting again.
“Might be low on horse manure,” he said, throwing my standard joke back at me with a satisfied smile.
“Yes,” I said. “But as long as it’s wound up that shouldn’t matter.”
I tried Eli, but she wasn’t answering and I was partly relieved. I didn’t know how much I wanted to say over the phone, anyway. Mat dug out the crumpled card and handed it to me before I had to ask.
“Fuckers,” I added, thinking back.
“Fuckers,” echoed Mat and I smiled, tapping in the number. It sounded like the same hood as last time picked up.
“Eddy-yo!”
“You still got my house?”
“Hey! Moose! It’s you!” he cried. “I knew you’d call! It’s the Moose again,” he shouted to someone farther off.
“You still got my house?” I repeated.
“’Course! We love your house, Moose. I was getting worried about you, after all that shooting last time. Did you try the singing thing I told you about to calm down?”
“Listen,” I said, trying to keep to the point, “we had a deal. The books and things I want from my house for the information you need about how to work the lights in the bathroom and where the stairs are for the roof garden.”
“Sure, Moose. I’m cool about that. Our client hasn’t asked about delivery yet, anyway. Come on, try some singing for me. Just for me.”
“Forget the singing,” I said, “I’ll be over tonight. Now, where the fuck are you?”
36
I handed the phone back to Mat, feeling a vague sense of shock that I finally might get some answers. Outside I caught a glimpse of a bike in the FBZ and had a terrible sense of déjà vu, but when I looked again it was gone and I put it down to my brain being overloaded. Eli appeared at the end of the room and my throat swelled.
Seeing her made the sadness from the day on the mountain fall over everything again like a thick velvet blanket.
“Hey, you guys!” she said with a kick of surprise, and ran up to give first Mat, then me, a hug. “This is cool. A final drink together in the old haunt. That seems appropriate, doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“You’ve not heard? We got a call from the management ten minutes ago, saying the bar was getting too convenient, so they decided to move straightaway. Customers weren’t happy,” she said, indicating the mess.
“Where to?” I said, considering where actually could be more inconvenient than this place.
“Nebraska,” she said. “At least, that’s the rumor the guys have heard. They’ve decided not to give out the address so it’s more inconvenient to find. Even for staff. You have to hand it to them, I suppose.”
“Shame,” I said, thinking I would miss the place.
“Are you OK, Jonny? You look really tired. Is it Emma?”
“No, that’s all finished now, but I’m cool about it. It’s something else, Eli. It’s Jack.”
“Jack?” Her whole tiny body seemed to stiffen with surprise.
“I’ve just got my memory back about the day.”
“Oh, Jonny. You didn’t have to come here.”
“I did, Eli. I had to tell you. I have to. Please.”
“Jonny,” she said softly, and I sensed she had always known this moment would come, but she had not expected it now. I could see her eyes glisten with sadness as her love for her brother Jack shone through.
“I have to tell you. I want you to know how it was. I have to get it all out. Please.”
She sat down on Mat’s chair, eyes wide with held tears.
“You know Jack and I got separated from Mat on the snowed-up ridge, as the weather swamped us?” I said, and she nodded. “Mat had gone ahead to check the route, and we waited for half an hour, then knew we had to get moving or we’d freeze.” She had heard all of that before, but I wanted to make sure she remembered.
She looked at me. And I suddenly realized how difficult this was for her—suddenly saw the depth of her loss—and I wondered if it was too selfish to tell her like this. But she had to know and I sensed, deep down, that this was the right thing to do.
I took a breath, immersing myself in the memory, and told Eli and Mat everything.
37
I had been roped up with Jack, but by the time we got sorted, Mat’s tracks were pretty well bleached away by the wind and whipping snow. We were scared about Mat, but the only plan that made sense was to make our way along the ridge and hope for some reason he had gone on ahead and we’d catch him. It didn’t even cross our minds he might have got disoriented and was walking down one of the other arêtes, but as it turned out it was just as well that he did.
I was leading Jack out, prodding with my ice ax to make sure we weren’t strolling out onto some gigantic cornice, when the wind just exploded in a freak gust. I turned to see the whole side of the mountain bend like plastic, then shudder before it gave under us in a neat slab of avalanche, like a curtain poletearing out its fixings and the cloth falling in one single, smooth sheet.
I remember watching Jack go, almost transfixed by the sight, then in the next sliver of a moment I went too, legs sucked down the mountain in a screaming swarm of white. It was as if I had been standing on an old-fashioned haystack that had broken up beneath me into a rain of tumbling bales. I was tossed about, all the time terrified I’d land on my ice ax. I kept thinking about how you are supposed to try and swim to the top of an avalanche, so when it settles you aren’t frozen in, but I might as well have been dropped through a never-ending stack of greenhouse roofs for all the control I had. The seconds stretched like chewing gum, each one on a knife-edge of confusion and survival, then abruptly the gray light of the world shut off, everything snapped pitch-black, and I just fell, for ages and ages, as though I had dropped into another sort of world.
I stopped in the darkness with a jolt that pulled every limb out of its socket. It took me a moment to get my breath and find my senses, then I found I ached—chronically. I moved my arms and legs; nothing was broken. I tried to focus, but found I was hanging. I reached out with my arms and just spun, like a sycamore seed in the darkness. I felt for the pencil light around my neck and tilted it up. There was a bulging shadow about fifteen feet above me and I stared, because it seemed somehow familiar. Then I recognized the shape of a boot, and the whole thing clicked into place; it was Jack up there. I shouted for maybe five minutes, but I got no reply, and my throat swelled with worry.
I trained the thin pencil beam of light up into the darkness, but it just vanished into nothingness. We were both hanging in some gigantic crevasse, and all I could think was that the middle of the rope must have snagged somewhere above us, perhaps over a snow bridge, leaving us both dangling on either side like two limp bits of fishing bait. I checked my harness, hoping to find some gear, but it had been ripped off. All I had was one crampon on my left boot.
I tried to climb the rope, but the vibration just caused it to drop a couple of inches with an alarming shudder. Whatever was snagging the rope above, it wasn’t that solid, and it wasn’t going to hold forever.
I flicked the flashlight around. The right-hand side of the crevasse was perhaps fifteen feet away, but to my left the light just dropped away into thick darkness. Primeval creaks were groaning from the depths of the chasm, and I knew this was not a place meant for humans. I felt a horrible fear ache through my chest. I put the flashlight in my mouth and, trying not to shake, carefully took the crampon off my left boot and slipped the straps over my right hand so the crampon spikes faced outwards. Then I leaned back and began to make the rope swing, gaining momentum, but when I was almost within reach of the ice wall, the rope gave, jerk
ing downward alarmingly. I closed my eyes.
After a moment, it steadied.
I summoned the courage to try again, flashlight in my mouth. Another swing and I almost reached the wall, then another and I was able to scrape the crampon along the ice. The next time, I came at it hard and thudded the crampon on my hand straight in so it held. I hung off it precariously, scrabbling with the numb fingers of my other hand to find a fissure in the wall to hold. Then I kicked about for a ledge and slowly put the weight of my right foot on a tiny lip. When I was balanced, I gingerly twisted the crampon free, reached up above my head, and swung it into the ice again.
My breath was stuttering in tight staccato bursts with the intensity of each action, and I was trying not to think about the terrifying situation we were in, just focusing on each little movement.
I pulled myself up with my right hand, and the tightness in the rope eased off slightly. Jack dropped down a little bit in the darkness, taking up the slack in the rope. I searched about for more holds and slowly made my way up the ice wall like that.
With every step I went up, Jack dropped a little on the rope.
Eventually, I had made about ten feet and reckoned I was level with him. I hung the flashlight back around my neck, took a deep breath, and let go of the ice wall, swinging out into the deep nothingness of the chasm.
I collided heavily with Jack above the abyss, and bear hugged him wildly. After a few seconds, I was suddenly aware I was shouting his name, and tried to calm myself down. I touched his head and felt warmth, then I heard him cough thickly.
“Jonny?” he said faintly. “Are we nearly home?”
“Not quite, Jack,” I said with tears of relief. “Another little climb.”
“I’m cold,” he said weakly.
“Yes,” I answered, and hugged him. “Just hang in there.” I held him in that moment with a wave of love that seemed to defy that whole place. Maybe it was triggered by the fear of dying, and I was saying good-bye to him and to the world, I don’t know.
But after a few minutes, I wiped the tears away and got more of a grip. I searched Jack’s harness and found he still had a full set of ice screws and climbing gear on him. I thought if we could both get to the wall, we could climb our way out.
It felt like a flicker of hope.
“Jack,” I shouted. “Wake up. Come on. Get a grip. Jack!” And I could see his eyes were fighting some inner voice that was cajoling him into a warm, dangerous sleep. He had taken some kind of injury but there was nothing I could do about that here.
“Eyes open, Jack. Come on. Don’t mess about!” I cried, and he eventually forced his eyes open in a glassy stare.
“Ready,” he said, with no real idea where he was.
“Good. We’ve some climbing to do. Understand?”
I joined our harnesses together with a quick-draw, then I swung us clumsily together toward the ice wall, feeling the rope cutting frighteningly through the support above. When I was in range, I lunged at the wall with his climbing ax so it gripped, and we both froze at the end of the arc. I fumbled with an ice screw and, holding it awkwardly with my free hand, somehow managed to twist it into the wall. Then I took a quick-draw and clipped one end onto the carabiner on Jack’s harness and the other on the ice screw, so he was attached to the wall. I did the same for myself, then worked as quickly as I could with my numb hands to get another ice screw into the face and clipped us both onto that one too.
That felt good.
There was a flutter from above, and the body of the rope dropped heavily past us, snaking into the chasm below, the ends yanking at our harnesses like playful dogs. That felt bad. Very bad. I shuddered at the thought of not being attached to the wall and crashing down into that blackness below. I wound in another couple of ice screws and found my hands were shaking. Then I leaned back and saw Jack was asleep again.
“Jack!” I shouted. “Jack! Come on! Help me!” He opened his eyes and smiled drowsily.
“OK,” he said.
“You mustn’t sleep, Jack!” I shouted.
“No, no sleeping,” he said, with a weak smile.
I put my one crampon back on my left boot, stuck the flashlight in my mouth, took all the gear from Jack’s harness, and clipped it onto the one loop that was still intact on my own. Then I started to climb up the crevasse wall in the darkness. I swung the ice ax, jabbed in the toe spikes of the crampon, then heaved myself up.
Resting there, I twisted in an ice screw and clipped myself on. And so I continued up, always clipping myself onto gear I had put into the face, feeling it was too risky to free climb. My hands turned blue with the cold, my mouth went dry and raw with the struggle to hold the flashlight; but I edged my way up, bit by bit, until I could no longer see Jack below in the darkness.
Once or twice I called to him, but he didn’t respond.
The rope was still attached to my harness and to Jack’s, so I knew if it went taut I would have climbed a hundred feet, then I would somehow have to pull him up. Above, I suddenly noticed a faint glow of light on the ice, and my throat swelled. I wondered if I was seeing things, but the glow seemed to pool on the wall.
I climbed feverishly, now focused on this light.
I still couldn’t make out what it was, and even when I had almost reached it, I was confused. Then I put my hand on a solid lip and realized it was a small cave—a fissure about six feet wide with a smooth floor of soft snow leading off to a glimmer of daylight maybe a hundred feet away up a slope. If I could just get Jack up here, we’d be OK, and I felt a whack of adrenaline.
There was a way out of this thing.
I heaved myself onto the smooth floor of the fissure, then feverishly got to work twisting a couple of ice screws into the roof to hold two carabiners. Then, I untied the rope from my waist and threaded it through the gear, stuffed it into the belay device on my harness, and retied the end. I yelled to Jack to unclip the quick-draws from the ice wall so I could haul him up. I yelled and yelled, but each time I hauled on the rope, I couldn’t budge him, and I knew he must be asleep and still clipped firmly to the wall below.
I wanted to cry, but I got a grip and tried to focus, pulling the rope out of my belay device and tying some huge shanks so the end couldn’t slip through the carabiners in the roof. I tugged it to make sure it was secure, clipped the ice ax to my harness, stood on the edge of the fissure, and eased myself off, back down to him. Hand over hand, I scraped my way back down into the crevasse, as my fingers screamed with cold.
“Jack!” I cried, clipping myself on as I reached him. “Jack! Fucking wake up! Wake up.”
“Shot in Quebec,” he whispered. “Here it comes again.”
“Jack!” I cried. “Wake up!” And I rubbed his face and hands.
“Don’t leave me,” he said with sudden clarity, looking into my eyes. “Please don’t leave me.”
“No one’s going to leave you, Jack!” I said, unclipping the quick-draws, so all his weight was taken by the rope that was belayed at the fissure above. He swung away from the ice wall, and I realized the crevasse must be at a slight angle. “No one’s leaving you. Now just stay awake! Please!” I began to climb back up the ice wall again. At least this time, all the gear was fixed in place, but I found it hard to locate in the fading glow of my flashlight and I scrabbled about with my numb hands until I felt each of the small metal fixings so I could clip on. My hands had all the dexterity of bear paws by now. I knew they were frostbitten, but I reached the cavelike fissure after about twenty minutes, slid myself onto the ice floor, then took the loose end of the rope and forced it to bend so I could stuff it through my belay device. I struggled to untie the shanks I‘d put in the rope as a stopper knot because they had Jack’s weight on them now, but when they eventually pulled free, the rope strained on my harness. I heaved on it and felt Jack move up a few inches. It was going to work.
I hauled again, and tried to lose the pain I could feel in my hands in the rhythm of the never-ending flow of some bea
t. As I did so, I called to Jack to keep alert, to keep feeling human, and I was wild with hope that some part of him would hear my voice and lock on to it. “Stay awake, Jack! Stay awake!” I remember shouting, then I was suddenly flooded with a sharp, distinct memory.
“Remember when we went out with those two girls and ended up skinny-dipping in the river? Remember the warm evening that was thick with crickets and a moon so full it was like a bulging sack of presents? That girl I was with had the bluest eyes I have ever seen, and I was so deeply in love with her, I could have skated over that water. Then we lay, rolled in blankets under a massive sheet of stars, and drank margaritas and rum straight from the bottle. You remember all that, Jack? You remember I cried, because the moment was so full of being alive? You remember?”
I was hardly able to believe it myself.
I heard a scrape of ice, and realized Jack hung just below the fissure. I took the whole strain of the rope with my right hand, reached over the ledge with my left, felt the icy smooth material of his jacket, and took a big, firm grip. Then I hauled with everything I had, and he landed onto the floor of the fissure like a deadweight.
“Jack, wake up,” I whispered breathlessly. “Fucking wake up!” I tried to shout, lying spilled on the ground next to him, but I found I was utterly empty, as though my adrenaline had run out and the bottles needed changing.
The ice felt warm and comfortable against my face, so I closed my eyes just for a few seconds. There was a desperate voice telling me not to, but it was just too quiet, just too far away, just too small.
38
I slept immediately, dropping into a weird restless doze, where shadows moved. I didn’t dream exactly, but just met some formless, towering thing that reared up screaming in my mind, and I knew I had blundered into another place where I wasn’t meant to be.
There was the sense of boundaries breaking, of whole other worlds grinding against our own, of life being sucked away, of love and evil sweeping unchecked, flowing across the surface like blown sand. I fought this formless screaming thing that had got inside of me, knowing I must not bend or run, and for minutes we locked in a battle of will, until my sheer stubbornness seemed to tire its patience and it melted away.
