Above All Things (42 page)

He stepped forward, the mountain dragging him downward.

There was tug at the rope. By the time he turned around Sandy had righted himself and was watching the gravel and snow tumble away from him. They plodded on, stopping every step to inhale.

He stepped forward, felt the loose fall of stones.

They had to be nearly there.

He tried to count the hours back in his head. They couldn’t go on for much longer.

Ahead there was a smudge of rock. The Yellow Band. They would make it. George moved imperceptibly towards the spot, his eyes fixed on it. It shifted in the clouds and darkness, the scattershot of snow. What if he was wrong?

He stepped forward.

SANDY TRIED TO
place his feet where George had, each step a labour. Ordered his muscles to be ready, lift, shift his weight. He couldn’t believe his legs still held him; he could barely feel them. All he was was the burn in his lungs, his head, the cold burrowing into his ears, ice picks of pain. He wanted to sit down, dig into the rock and snow. Sleep. He would finish this tomorrow.

And then there was the pull of the rope and the mountain slamming into him. The last of his breath was torn from his
lungs and something seized him around his chest and stomach, crushing him. He scrambled at breaking stone that ricocheted down into the inky void. He strained against the rope tearing at him, tried to grasp at anything, his last glove ripping from his hand. He clung to the ridge.

He stilled against the weight of the rope. Nothing moved except for the wind across his body and his hands, uncurling his fingers where he tried to hold on to the rope. He was cold and wet. As he tried to breathe against the rope gripping him, his head exploded in bursts of light, of colour.

“George!” It was a rasp. No sound. He held the rope. His bare hand shuddered, a pale white claw. The thought came slowly. George had fallen. George was on the other end of the rope. He leaned his weight back against it, tried to reel it in. His head was fogging, his sight contracting to a pinpoint. He knocked his head back against the mountain so the pain would keep him focused. No. George had made the summit. They had to get down.

He moved his hand on the rope. Forwards. Forwards.

And then it was over.

He was flung back, his spine and skull bashed against the ridge of the mountain. There was no sound but the wind and his gasping in the heavy dark. He lay there swallowing air into empty lungs, feeling the pressure on them ease slightly. Still he couldn’t breathe. There were streaks of colour in his eyes.

“What do I do?”

“You die. Alone. Like me.” Lapkha was beside him, his eyes bulging out at Sandy, who felt his own with his frozen hand.

“No. I can’t.”

Lapkha’s breath rattled in his throat and lungs. “You not help me. No one help you.”

“I’ll help George. George will help me.”

He hauled himself to sitting and began to pull back on the rope, waiting for resistance. Lapkha’s bulging eyes followed his
movements. When there was tension on the rope again, he’d tug on it to let George know he was there, that he was coming. He reeled it in, using the crook of his arm and his good hand.

The end of the rope slipped through his numb hand in the darkness and he pulled in empty air, the rope piled beside him. The end was broken, the fray of it already beginning to show, the rope unwinding from itself.

He stared at it.

“Just be calm. Use your head,” his father said. “Be calm. Think. You’re a smart lad. You’ll figure it out.”

The rope had broken and George had fallen, was below him somewhere. His breath came in choked gasps. He was going to die. They both were. He didn’t know how to find George. Didn’t know how to find the camp. Panic rose in him like a wave.

A stumbling slide downwards, scrape of scree and gravel under his feet, ripping up his legs. He tried to grasp at the mountain, to slow his descent. He had to find George. Get down. A new rhythm in his head. With each sliding step he thought he might plunge into the empty void around him. The thought stopped him for long moments and he sat, too terrified to move until the cold made him get up again, call for George. His voice was a whisper. The mountain creaking with cold. Settling.

He would rest. Just a minute.

If he rested he could catch his breath. Could make a decision. Find George. Get down. Find the tent. Odell might be there, waiting. Watching for them. Maybe Odell was on his way up to them. No. They hadn’t had a light. Odell wouldn’t have seen anything. He couldn’t see anything. The stars crept out above him, the clouds peeling them back.

There were tears on his face. Freezing. He wiped at them with his bare hands. Where were his gloves? He couldn’t feel his fingers on his cheeks. The tips of them were white, mushroom
swollen. He touched his fingers against each other – they knocked solidly.

He drew up his knees, hid his hands down between his legs. He dropped his head and breathed into the small space between his chest and his knees. He could see his breath. The condensation of it sparkled slightly, but there wasn’t enough of it. Claustrophobia washed over him and he thrust his head up, back into the cold night air, gasping, shouting with what little air he could press from his lungs. His voice sounded wounded, dead.

He had to get up.

If he didn’t get up he would die, and he didn’t want to die. Not alone. Not without anyone knowing. He didn’t want to pay that price. He had to get down. If he told everyone what George had done, then it might be worth it.

Another minute. It was warmer now. So warm, comfortable. Like his old bed at home. He tore at his muffler. Why was he wearing that here? Pulled off his fur hat, tucked it under his head.

“I don’t want to die here.”

“You won’t.” His mum tucked the blanket in around him. It was too tight. He couldn’t move. “Do you see that flame?” She pointed. But there were so many. So many flickering fires all around him. In hearths, candles in windows. Far away. They winked at him.

“Which one?” he asked.

“That one …”

He nodded, could barely move his head. Didn’t want to move at all.

“I’ll keep that one lit for you.”

He focused on the twinkling fire his mother indicated. It burned brighter. It was close by. He could see his mother’s candle in the window. He dragged himself towards it and tapped
at the glass. He reached for the door, but couldn’t find it. His hands tore at the stone wall, at the iced glass of the window.

He slumped against the house. She wouldn’t let him in.

The cold bubbled in his veins. He was freezing solid. His hands holding his legs were blocks of ice.

“We made it,” he tried to tell his mum.

There was no answer.

Sandy’s mind floated away from his body, calm and light, the air easy in his lungs. He was dying. A flush of warmth raced through him, soothing him. Where was the pain? He wanted it back.

The blowing snow gathered around him, small drifts around his knees and chest. It no longer melted where it touched him, just brushed his face, like the back of his mum’s fingers. His eyebrows were frosted, the edges of his blond hair, his hands ghost white, the blood pulled from them, the flesh frozen.

He couldn’t open his eyes, iced over by the mountain.

A FALSE STEP –
and the mountain slipped out from underneath him.

He was falling, his body cartwheeling in space. “If you fall” – Geoffrey’s voice in his head – “you still have three seconds to live.” He’d been falling longer than that. He’d been falling forever. It didn’t hurt, this eternal free fall.

Then the pain – a crushing of his ribs, his lungs, and a wrenching up where the rope caught. The air was choked out of him. He couldn’t breathe. There was only pain. In his ribs. In his lungs. He wanted to scream, but it came out as a small whimper. A breath of sound. There was a moaning in his ear. Then a tearing, a release. Another moan.

The mountain rushed up to meet him.

His right foot slammed against the granite face and he heard his leg snap, audible in spite of the wind and the moaning in his head. Then the sharp burning stab of it and the white gleam of bone through flesh.

He clawed at the crumbling stone as he scraped down against the slope. His fingers and hands were shredded by the knife edges of rock that tore him apart, flaying the flesh on his chest and stomach to ribbons as his clothing was ripped away from him. The pain came in waves of heat.

Somewhere too close there was screaming that died off at the end of a breath. Then the struggle to inhale and another scream. It was him. He was choking.

His head snapped forward, ricocheting off stone, off ice and grit. There was blood in his eyes, the warmth of it blinding him.

The mountain clung to him, refused to let him go. He slowed and stopped, his hands still tearing at the scree, scrambling for some kind of hold. His fingers were bloodied pulp. He bled onto the frozen rock.

He crossed his good leg over the broken one and tried to lift his head. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. His body was burning. He was grateful for the warmth.

His hands still gripped the mountain. He tried to call for Sandy. His swollen lips could barely shape the sound. And not enough air in his lungs to push the name out.

Sandy’s name was a soft moan on the mountain.
Sandy
. He was sorry.
I didn’t mean for this to happen
. He had to get up and go to Sandy. He had to get him home.

He tried to lift himself up, but the mountain held him close.

“Ruth?” He needed her here. “Ruth?” Where was she?

Sandy would tell her what happened. Unless Sandy fell too. No. He’d get home. He’d see Ruth.
I’m sorry. Please, forgive me. Please. Ruth?

He looked for her, but couldn’t see through the blood congealing, freezing in his eyes. His split fingers pulled at the mountain. He tried to push with his broken leg. Pain shot through him. He collapsed against the mountain’s face. She held him there.

He just wanted to stay still. Wanted it to end.

The mountain clung to him, claimed him. The cold seeped into his body from the stone, the air. She was lying beside him. Her breath on his cheek. Her hand on his brow. The cold numbed him, the cuts and bruises, the break of bone shining where it pierced the flesh above his boot.

She catalogued the injuries. Caressing them, soothing them.

He existed only in the quarter-inch of flesh below the skin that no longer felt the burn of cold. His heart slowed, the blood at his temple ebbed and sparkled with the forming of tiny ice crystals.

His breath faltered, the ache in his ribs eased. The wind fingered the edges of his clothes, peeked under them, slid in against his skin. He couldn’t feel her caress any more.

His mind slowed.

He was lying on the blank snowfield of their bed, waiting. He would wait for her now. He would wait and she would come.

He was still. His heart. His breath.

His body froze around him.

He listened for the sound of her footsteps.

VISITATIONS

T
he morning light in the room has that curious end-of-summer hue – yellowish, as though a storm is gathering itself on the horizon. Like a fading bruise. There are no shadows, so everything appears flat, as if cast in a medieval painting – objects sized by their importance, rather than perspective. The largest object in the room is the desk, with its pile of unacknowledged correspondence. But the painting of the canals on the near-empty bookshelves seems to have expanded in size, from that of a large book to something unwieldy. With effort, I take it down from where it leans, place it in the box in the centre of the room. The box, too, seems very large as his belongings disappear into it. I am the only thing that is small.

In the kitchen Edith moves gingerly. She is trying to be quiet, but in the way of people tiptoeing about, her noises are all the more noticeable for it. The single clang of the kettle on the burner is more startling than the persistent small clatter she usually makes. The smell of scones wafts in the air – lemon maybe? Or lavender. And the hint of cinnamon. It is her way of doing what she can. Her way of paying tribute. The ache that I have been holding down wells up now into my lungs. I
inhale and hold my breath against it. Try to get hold of myself.