Which opens with a blood curdling Edgar Allan Poe creak. The side passage is, if anything, even darker and more scary, as it runs between the house wall and the garage, and smells of goblins and trolls. I edge forwards and blink into the inscrutable distance. A few hundred micrograms of good quality alcohol take fright and evaporate with each mincing step. It’s bad enough being scared in a dark alley in the small hours. Far worse being scared in a dark alley in the small hours sober. But I’m most definitely sober - bar rustling things rustling, the entire landscape is now unmoving.
But sober has its compensations. Once half way down the house wall (big house and then some) I realise that the area of brightness in the far distance on the patio, is not a desperation-generated mirage after all, but actually a photon based puddle of light. I trip towards it and find myself in a black hole back garden, adjacent to a window from which a blue light emits.
The light, it turns out, comes from a computer monitor. I’m outside what looks like a second division sitting room. There are wall to wall books, a big desk, a plaid armchair. And the room has a decidedly masculine feel. And an empty one. As it would, as there’s nobody in it. And even as I rap on the patio door, I know that I’ve just done a ridiculous thing and will now have to walk all the way home, in the dark, on my own.
Chapter 27
To sing or not to sing?
When I was a little girl accepted wisdom was always that you sung if you were scared. Singing, the idea went, would keep your mind occupied, strengthen your resolve, bolster your courage, and advertise your lack of fear.
And advertise your existence to any passing serial killers at a loose end. I break off my wavering Ghostbusters tribute (the one with the proper words, not the crappy Metro ad version), and squelch on in silence. Such a little thing, changing into more sensible footwear, but, nevertheless, too large for a Simpson to manage.
The trouble with people who live in lanes off of lanes is that they generally have several reliable cars, thus don’t feel the need to make any concessions to pedestrians. Even the post around here comes in a van. And, goodness, a lane is a long scary prospect when you’re traversing it in black and impenetrable darkness at the speed of a hamster on crutches.
I’m just deciding to treat slugs with a lot more respect and a good deal less salt, when a white beam arcs over the top of the far hedgerow and outlines the hawthorn in a soft pearly light.
My first thought, obviously, is ‘ah! It’s Adam!’ but as I have already passed at least four more big houses, plus a couple of farms, plus a side-lane to God knows where, plus, ominously, a lay-by, my second and third thoughts are far less promising ones. As the headlamps get nearer, I take a policy decision. I can either flatten myself, face first, against a small gap in the hedgerow, or stand boldy in the lane and flap my arms about. Given the time of night the first course of action is less risky, but I am an optimist (drunk still?) so opt for the flap.
I am just positioning myself when a car sweeps around the corner. Then brakes hard (much mud), and slews left, against the hedge. I cannot see which car as I am blinded by headlamps, but I can certainly hear the sharp scrape of bramble on wing. I cross my fingers.
A man jumps out. Who, though? (Still blinded.) He says,
‘Jesus!’ then, ‘Good God!’ then, ‘What on earth!’ then, ‘Hello? Who’s there?’’
‘Erm...’ I begin. Then he gets a bit closer.
‘Charlie? Charlie, is that you? God, I thought you were a bear!’
I am so utterly, totally, overwhelmingly grateful to see him that I answer, with feeling,
‘Don’t be so stupid! Everyone knows that there aren’t any bears left in Britain. Besides, do I look like a bear?’
He is standing close to me now, hands on hips, in front of the bumper. His hair has a small golden halo around it, where midges pay homage in the shimmering light. His expression (one of mild shock) tells me nothing.
‘Yes, you do, quite frankly. And would it be presumptuous to enquire why you are walking along the outer reaches of Cefn Melin at - he checks his watch - twenty past one in the morning?’
He has a trace of a smile at the edge of his mouth. But then he hasn’t inspected his nearside as yet.
‘I’m here,’ I reply, feeling my confidence ebb, ‘in response to your phone call earlier this evening. You neglected to leave a number. And it might have been urgent so I hurried straight round.’
He peers at me closely. As if there is, after all, something a little bizarre about having this conversation, at this time, in this place. Oh, I wish such a thought had occurred to me earlier.
‘Really?’ he asks.
‘Really.’
He shakes his head. ‘Then where’s your car?’
‘At home. I couldn’t drive here. I’d had too much to drink at the ball.’
He nods. ‘Of course. Yes.’
‘Though I have to say, right now, I’ve never felt so sober.’ I pull my coat a little tighter around me.
‘God, yes!’ He moves towards me. ‘What am I thinking! You must be frozen. Come on, let’s get you in the car and home.’ He ushers me around to the passenger door and helps me inside. ‘Wow, Charlie, you are something else, you know that?’
He slides back into the driver’s side, pulls the door shut and, grinning at me now, then re-starts the car. The warm air is suddenly filled with the scent of him, and low music pours out and swirls in the space. Stravinsky. Stravinsky! We begin to purr back up the lane.
My mind is seething with all sorts of desperate questions. Most of which I’m too scared to even think about asking.
‘So,’ my mouth manages. ‘What was the phone call about?’
As I say it, I realise it’s never occurred to me that it may have been something entirely unrelated to the dizzying prospect of what I so want it to be about. A new Asthma breakthrough. Some geological news. Sponsorship (uurgh) for he and Davina’s Romania campaign? Stupid twit, Simpson. Even so, his small hesitation feels like an aeon.
‘I was hoping to catch you. I wanted to talk to you -’
‘About what?’
‘About everything, really. About Davina and I. And, well...’
We’re in the driveway already. My lips feel as if a puppeteer is holding a string.
Oh, God. I got it wrong. He’s going to start on some earnest apology.
‘I think I know all I want to about Davina and you.’
The engine dies and he pulls the key from the ignition.
‘Do you?’
Bad move, Simpson.
‘You said “and well”. And well what?’
‘And well, us, of course,’ he says, turning.
‘Which us?’
‘Us us. Which other us is there?’
I’m hot in my coat now. Hot and light headed.
‘The Davina us. The you and Davina bit. The dress, the crying, the giving up work, the euphoria, God, the dress, the hair, the excitement, the clubbing, the baby nonsense - Adam, the baby nonsense. What is all that baby nonsense?’
Adam pauses for a moment with one hand on the steering wheel, then smiles again and opens his door. Then he gets out, comes round, opens my door, helps me out. Then, finally, finally, he answers my question. Is he on some different time plane to mine?
‘The baby nonsense - if nonsense it is, and I’m inclined to go with you on that one - is nothing to do with me, Charlie. God, you don’t actually know, do you? You don’t know any of it.’
‘Know what?’
‘About Davina.’
‘All I know is that I’ve been through all kinds of horrors in the past few weeks. Horrors. I can tell you. We made love, Adam. God! Was I just supposed to forget about it? I’ve been in agony. So, no. I don’t know. You tell me. Or, rather, don’t. I don’t think I can stomach any more tonight.’
Tears spring in my eyes. This is like pulling a plaster off, slowly. We should either get back in the car or go in. It’s late, it’s dark, and it’s very cold out here. But w
e don’t. Instead, we continue to stand face to face by the passenger door. Me in my fur coat. Him in his Barbour. Like we’re posing for Hello! Or advertising the car. Looking, at any rate, like two plastic dummies. His reticence with me is breaking my heart.
Except it’s already broken. C’est la vie. Que sera.
He reaches around me and clunks the car door shut. I can breathe him beside me. I fill my cold lungs.
‘Davina’s gone to live with Ianthe,’ he says. ‘You know Ianthe? The -’
‘Of course I know Ianthe,’ I snap, blinking hard. ‘I can’t see a pond or a frog without her springing instantly to mind.’
Then my brain slips back into gear.
Wham.
‘You mean gone? You mean permanently? You mean you’ve split up? With Davina?’
He spreads his hands. Nods. While I wipe my eyes and struggle to assimilate this wonder.
‘Of course I have,’ he continues. ‘I just told you, she’s gone to live with Ianthe. Live with her, Charlie. As in.....Look, what about Rhys? I thought you and he...’
I shake my head. ‘You thought wrong.’
‘So did he, then,’ he tells me.
‘He didn’t, you know. He’d guessed all about us.’
He holds up a finger. Touches it lightly to my face. And smiles.
‘Ah! Would that be you us, or us us?’
‘What do you think, you wuss?’
‘In that case...’ He moves closer. Slips his keys in his pocket. Slides his cold lovely hands between the edges of my coat ‘At the very least I think I should have a share of that pelt.’
‘It’s not real,’ I tell him.
‘So what?’ Now he’s laughing. ‘Your clam digger from Tenby isn’t real either.’
His lips find my own.
‘But this is,’ he says.
THE END
Epilogue
Even though it was more than eighty kilometres away, Everest felt close enough to be touched. The fine details of the North Face, more perfectly triangular than I had imagined, were easily visible to the naked eye even at this long distance. Now I could understand why to the Tibetans Everest was ‘Chomolungma’, the goddess mother of the earth, long before western surveyors determined its status scientifically as the highest summit in the world.
Seen from the Tibetan Plateau, Everest’s greatness does not need theodolites for confirmation; it is, indisputably, head and shoulders above everything else on earth, with a grandeur, a presence, that far outweighs that of the other Himalayan giants.
From the north, Everest does not hide behind any veil, it reveals itself in all its glory with no preamble or guile. It just sits there alone, proud and magnificent, a pyramid of rock, sculpted by the most powerful forces on earth over millions of years. No other peak encroaches on it: none would dare. It effortlessly fills what seems to be half the horizon. Seen from where we stood, there was no room for any doubt at all: this was the ultimate mountain.
Sounds from outside interrupt my reading. The clattering chit-chat of boots on loose stones. I look out. The huge sky is marine-dark and cloudless, and colours the spaces between the majestic shoulders of blue-white and charcoal. Then there’s shadow.
‘Ah! Awake at last! What are you reading?’
‘The Death Zone. I can’t put it down. It’s brilliant.’
‘Sounds harrowing.’
‘It will be. But no less good for that.’
‘Two minutes, okay? I’ll go bag us some drinks.’
‘Two minutes. No problem.’ I unzip my bag.
The open flap admits a swirl of cold air that glitters with crystals of bright dancing ice. I slip my book under my pillow, slide my pen between the pages of my diary, and restore Minnie’s coin to its home in my purse. Then I pull on my own boots and wriggle out into the sunshine, where my own Sherpa Tenby awaits me, for tea.
Author’s Note
The epilogue extract, taken from The Death Zone, by Matt Dickinson, describes the North Face of Everest, as seen from Tibet, and not Nepal. Everest straddles China and Nepal, and climbers of the North Face begin their ascent from the Rongbuk glacier, at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau.
Most successful Everest attempts, however, have been of its South West Face, the one that the mountain shows to Nepal. Trekkers who wish to see the foot of Everest for themselves would journey by bus from Kathmandu up to Jiri, and then trek there, via Namche Bazaar and Pheriche. Everest Base Camp sits at the foot of the Khumbu Icefall, at a little over seventeen and a half thousand feet.
Acclimatization is essential.
LBL
November 1999
Virtual Strangers Page 29
