North Face (12 page)

“Oh,” said Mrs Kearsey. “Oh, I see.” Her voice had an ascending note of enlightened relief. “Well, of course, that would account for it. I did think I heard someone moving about.”

Left with his bacon and egg, he found his mind reverting to the young man who, in retrospect, reminded him of a shaving-cream advertisement more forcibly than ever. Really, he thought, she’s not an unintelligent-looking girl, she should have had more sense. She seems to have learned the hard way … Of course, there may be a reconciliation later. A good job, I suppose; we shall have some cheerful evenings if they’re not on speaking terms.

At this point the post arrived, with a business letter for him which, having been delayed by forwarding, must be answered at once. It took him an hour of irritable semi-concentration, during which the bell rang again, a telegram this time. He went out into the hall to look, with the reasonless dread of those who have once received sudden and disastrous news. The wire however was for one Phillips; this, he now remembered from something heard last night, was young Shavex’s name. Neil looked at his watch. There was a call-box just down the road, convenient for anyone anxious to send himself an early wire. So, whatever had happened, there was no doubt about it. Neil found himself unsurprised; the young woman had struck him as confused, but not irresolute.

He finished his letter, collected in his rucksack his lunch and the other oddments he needed, and started out.

Now that the sun was well up, it had turned out a sweltering day. He reached the cliff-top with his shirt sticking to him; even when he got down into the woods, the shade was warm and still, what slight breeze there was came from the land. He picked his way downward; the old track, since the day of smugglers and wreckers never repaired, was broken away here and there; roots had humped up into it, stones from its outer wall, fallen in remote years, were bedded deep and mossed over like the rest; here and there a fallen tree lay across. All the timber here lay where it fell at its natural death; the slope was too steep and overgrown to make retrieving it worth the labour. Often a bole hung precariously, its dead branches caught in those of a living neighbour or lashed to them with ivy; even a slight wind brought from somewhere the solitary, eerie creak of limb sawing on limb. He might have been a hundred miles from the next human being. He was too high up, on this calm day, to hear the sea; where the cliff below was steeply broken he caught sight of it, the waves turned by distance to faint creases that seemed not to move.

A day or two ago he had seen hereabouts, through the funnel-like perspective of a gully, a narrow glimpse of stony beach. Since half the morning was gone, he decided to fill in the rest by trying to make his way down to it for a bathe; his little climb could wait till the afternoon. The fact that he had brought no costume wouldn’t matter in this almost inaccessible solitude, and it would be pleasanter without one.

The whole semi-precipitous slope was honeycombed with tracks. He worked along them to take in the gully; the excitement with which he had first discovered it had not worn off yet. When Miss Searle had mentioned
Kubla Khan
and he had incautiously answered, “I’ve been there,” it was this that he had meant. Discount the Oriental trimmings, the magnification of opium, and it was all here; the deep romantic chasm plunging down through immemorial trees; the brooding silence which only the noise of water broke; the cascade disappearing under the great boulder placed, heaven knew how or when, to form a monolithic bridge. Coleridge had lived only a mile or two off; his temperament, and the cult of the periods being what they were, he could scarcely have kept away. If anyone else had discovered this place, Neil hadn’t heard of it; his childish pleasure in his little secret had been a turning-point of recovery, since when he had made progress every day.

He stood for a little while listening to the water, and taking another look at the rock-face he had earmarked for the afternoon. He could trace two possible ways up; but that would keep. He found a promising track, and followed it down.

It took him so close to the edge of the gully that at one point he could see along it, under its cave-like roof of trees. It was rather like looking down a huge telescope from the wrong end; a round patch of sunlit pebbles ended the perspective, a glimpse of the beach. A mixed splash of pale colour among the stones puzzled him; he looked again. It was a pile of clothes, a woman’s.

Neil said, “Damn,” and then, suddenly, on an indrawn breath, “Oh, God.” The pale green of the dress had been familiar; he remembered now. The girl at the breakfast-table had worn that colour.

The path here was easy going. It was not till he had almost run himself over a straight drop, and checked himself with a tree, that he questioned his own impulse, and referred it to commonsense. This melodramatic surmise, he told himself savagely, would occur to no one but a neurotic drawing on his own experience. Whatever had been the matter with her (and it might really have been a bilious attack for all he knew) it was fantastic to assume …

The pile of clothes meant, of course, nothing either way. Even if one had not a friend or relative in the world, simple pride would prompt one to arrange an accident. Reaching another gap, he looked again. No towel. But that proved nothing either, he had none himself.

He was now only about seventy feet above sea-level, thinking as he went; the next glimpse he got showed him, as well as the beach, a patch of sea. There was a head in it, no great way out but moving away with a purposeful rhythm.

“This,” said Neil furiously to himself, “is too bloody ridiculous.” He had a scarifying vision of taking a dramatic plunge, in his clothes or stark naked, pursuing a young woman to whom he had said “Good morning” without the benefit of an introduction, and hauling her in from an innocuous bathe. She would probably take him for a sex-maniac and proceed to drown both of them in self-defence. Or one could bawl politely, from here, “Excuse me, but are you committing suicide? Sorry if I’m wrong, but I thought you looked like it at breakfast?”

The trees, at this level, were getting much thinner; they opened at a new point, giving him an extensive vista of beach and sea. The girl, who must have put her feet down on the bottom, suddenly stood up in the water. It only reached her waist. She was quite unclothed.

Faster than he had ever done it on an Army course, Neil dropped flat into cover. His embarrassment and self-exasperation were such that if she had had a fish’s torso instead of a woman’s, he could scarcely have sworn to the difference afterwards. He had lain there some minutes, telling himself that people went to psychiatrists with minds less disorganised than his, when a further thought struck him. The girl had shown every sign of being about to wade in; as soon as she came through the bushes that fringed the beach she could not fail to see him, lurking in the brake with a furtiveness that could only bear one interpretation. The situation, seen for the first time in this light, raised the hair on his neck. He was right on the path she must go up by; she would be certain to hear him if he went crashing about among the trees. All he could see for it was to get down into the gully till she had gone. He eased himself down through a patch of brambles, landing ankle-deep in the stream.

Neil had been a schoolmaster too long to enjoy making himself more than reasonably ridiculous; as a doctor would put it, he had a low threshold to indignity. He had also a scratched hand and a torn shirt. Climbing out of the water on to a wobbling stone, he cursed the young woman with silent concentration; recognised, unwillingly, the injustice of this; cursed himself; and suddenly started to laugh. It overtook him so unexpectedly that he only smothered it just in time. His recent tension, though brief, had been acute, and he was feeling the reaction.

The cover, if highly uncomfortable, was good; he could just see part of the path, and would have to wait till she crossed it. Since his Actaeon-like situation carried none of Actaeon’s privileges, there was no saying when this would be. She would probably decide to eat her lunch.

Evidently she did, for he was there twenty minutes; ample time, if he had known beforehand, to have got comfortably away. He did not enjoy his vigil. Besides having humiliated himself by a panic which now looked hysterical, he had time to reflect on the loss of his private wilderness. This wretched girl, who was clearly in a state to seek solitude, would probably haunt it for the rest of her stay; a stranger, to whom he need not speak, wouldn’t have been so bad. He knew the tracks and could no doubt avoid her; but the fine edge of enjoyment would be gone.

With relief he heard her, at last, on the path below. Presently she came into his line of vision at the steady plod of one with a long climb ahead. Her profile was turned to him; it was, he saw, clear and good, with a short straight nose. Her mouth and jaw, set in some private resolution, had a firmness which much improved their line. The pleasure of getting rid of her made him feel more kindly disposed; her methods of exorcism had his sympathy. He might as well get down to the beach himself now, and have his own lunch in the sun.

It was pleasant there, with an interesting miscellany of bleached driftwood to poke about in; he quite forgot her, till the heat again reminded him that he had meant to bathe, when it occurred to him that she might still be about somewhere. So what? he thought, pulling his shirt off. Let her do the worrying, for a change.

He had his swim, his lunch, and a cigarette in leisured peace; dressed again; and, feeling much better, recalled his plan for the afternoon. The climber’s approach to a climb, even a short one; is nearly automatic; he made his way up the tracks to the steep part of the gully at a leisurely, energy-saving slouch. There was plenty of time. The sun was still high when he reached the cascade.

He had brought a pair of binoculars with him, to look for small holds near the top where he knew them to be scarce. As he unslung his rucksack for them, something caught his eye; another rucksack, loosely filled like his own but smaller, was lying on the path. He looked up. Half-way up the face, poised motionless in a pause of her progress, was the girl.

It was with some effort that Neil refrained from swearing audibly. This time he did not rebuke himself; it would have been, he felt, too much for anyone.

Clinging close to an almost vertical slab, she had not seen him. He gazed up at her, nursing his resentment. Of course she had taken the specious-looking route, so inviting from the bottom, which he had rejected in advance; she had just got to the point where he was pretty sure it petered out. When she found that it wouldn’t go, perhaps she would clear out and leave it to people who knew what they were doing. But he was sick of standing second in the queue for all the local attractions; besides, if he were here when she came down, he would have to talk to her. He might as well write it off.

He picked up his rucksack again, taking another look at her. Why the hell doesn’t she get on with it, he thought. You can’t dawdle about on a pitch like that. She had not moved hand or foot for nearly a minute. He saw her head turn, first to the left, then to the right. A new thought struck him. He fished quickly in his rucksack for the binoculars and focussed them. He wanted detail. With them he could see her as well as if she had been a few yards away. Her feet were badly stanced, on little more than toe-holds, and her hands looked as if they had nothing very adequate either. They were cramped, and the knuckles showed white in the clear eye of the lens.

This, thought Neil, is the last straw. The fool of a woman’s got herself stuck.

Dropping his gear, he walked up to the foot of the cliff. She was fifty to sixty feet up, with nothing to check a very unpleasant fall. The path itself was narrow; she might well bounce off it and go on into the gully, which, here, was deep and choked with thorn.

Raising his voice just above talking pitch (a sudden shout, if things were as they looked, might be more than enough) he said, “Hullo. Are you all right up there?”

Her head moved, but not far enough to see clear of the rock. Anyone in good balance, he thought, could have managed that. He noticed too that she did not try to look down.

“Who are you?” she said.

Of all the damn fool questions, Neil thought. Shall I go back and fetch someone to introduce us? “My name’s Langton. We met at the house this morning.”

“Oh, hullo,” said the girl. “I’m all right, thanks, I’m just resting.”

Neil, whom this had rendered speechless, thought, Resting! She must be off her head. This is a nice proposition. His mind however was moving rapidly under conditions which had given him practise in rapid thought. The significance of her first question suddenly got through to him, with a muffled but hideous shock. She didn’t believe he could do it. Too old, or did he look like a crock?

Hating her now without reserve, he looked at the rock again, and took off his shoes.

“Hold on,” he said. “I’m coming up.”

“No, wait. Have you ever climbed before?”

“Good lord, yes,” he shouted, “Keep still and don’t fuss.” His elementary cause for her doubts had simply not occurred to him. She had the best of reasons to know that it was no place for a beginner. The surrounding scenery suddenly looked much better arranged. As he wriggled up round an awkward bit of overhang at the bottom (it was this, no doubt, which had put her off the sounder route) it occurred to him that not many women in her situation would have bothered to ask.

A rope would be nice, he remarked to himself. There were plenty of trees at the top to belay to, and abseil her down if she had got to the paralytic stage. Having none, he might as usefully consider levitation. Pausing on a good stance at twenty-five feet, he studied the rock again. As he had thought, the route he had picked out was practicable all the way; but now the problem was altered. He would come up ten feet to the right of her, and in order to do anything would have to traverse along. The prospect looked unpromising; but till one was there it often did. The crack immediately ahead was good enough; too narrow to get the feet into, but as one edge projected it would do for a layback. He hooked his fingers in sideways, braced with his feet against the other side, and began to work upward. It was some years since he had had occasion to use this arduous trick, in which the arms bear the body’s weight and leverage as well; by the time he got out on to a ledge, the sweat was running into his eyes. He had been facing away from the girl; now, nearly level with her, he was able to look again, and could see a series of small holds which would get him there. Whether they would get her back was another thing.