Authors: Iain Banks
One arm-thick tree root angles across the slip, its rough brown spiral slowly thinning before it forms a sort of elbow a metre away from the lip and heads back again to disappear into the ground, as though avoiding the edge. There are a few big boulders in the mix too. The soil doesn’t look like it’s been washed away much, or smoothed by the rain, so it probably happened in the last week; maybe just in the last few days. I think back to try to remember any unusual noises from this end of the garden, but I can’t recall any.
It doesn’t look like the rock beneath has fallen; it’s all just the topsoil and earth, maybe two metres deep, which has slumped away towards and – partially – over the lip of the quarry. Probably all the recent rain added just enough extra weight and lubrication to send it over the edge. I doubt we’re in any danger or anything – the rock here is solid, which is why you have to drill and blast it to get it to fall and break up – but I do feel suddenly exposed and vulnerable, perched on the wall like this. It’s not impossible the wall’s been destabilised by this latest ground movement and having an extra hundred kilos draped over the top of it could, conceivably, be just enough to trigger another landslip, taking the wall with it. And, right now, me too, of course. I look to either side. The wall still appears straight and level, not bowed or slumping.
I take a final, measured look round, just to prove to myself I’m not
that
intimidated and fearful, then get carefully back down and retreat from the wall, standing there and looking for a while at the ground at its foot, in case there’s any sign on this side that it’s been undermined or started to shift.
Then I continue my walk round the garden, though with a frown on my face.
Because there are some changes on this side of the wall that are recent, too. Nothing as obviously dramatic as the landslip on the quarry side, of course, and nothing to indicate that the wall is in immediate danger of collapsing, but changes, all the same, from the last time I walked this way, which was a full three days ago (a long time by my standards of regularity).
The marks made by the rubber foot on the bottom of a standard NHS-issue forearm crutch are generally fairly shallow, unless there’s been a lot of rain previously and the ground is soft. Even then, you could easily miss the signs, and if there was just one, you probably wouldn’t spot it at all.
When there are a few, though, measured out at roughly one-pace intervals on the sodden, winter-thin grass by the side of the little path here, and a little freckle of further indentations, just in front of the centre of the wall, as though somebody stopped there for a short while, shifting their weight from foot to foot and foot to crutch, perhaps, while they did something, presumably with their hands, then – if you’re sort of observant by nature, which I guess I am – it’s all kind of obvious.
I go back into the house and stand in the back porch for a moment, then step into the kitchen itself and stand quietly for a moment longer. I can’t hear anything; it seems there’s still nobody else up.
I go out to the garage, where the Volvo sits wrapped in its smell of oil. Hanging on the back wall there’s a big looped clump of climbing rope from about ten years ago when Guy thought he might take up rock climbing (he frightened himself, first time he tried, so never did). The rope’s here in case, for some highly non-foreseeable reason, the car ever needs a tow-rope fifty metres long. I think that way Guy feels its purchase wasn’t a complete waste of money.
I take the rope, sling it over my shoulder, then remove the pair of binoculars from the car’s glovebox and put those round my neck. I leave the garage and go round the back of the little copse of oaks between the garage and the garden’s west-facing wall. There’s a way over the wall here too, provided by an old oil drum standing upright. Guy was going to turn it into a barbecue, but never got round to it.
On the other side, at the edge of a broad, darkly ploughed field, I walk up to the corner where the quarry edge begins, keeping close to the wall so I’m not stepping on the ridged brown earth and so that I can’t be seen from the house.
At the corner of the field where a double wire fence joins up with our wall and the quarry drops away, the landslip further along looks slightly less dramatic.
Once I’m over the two fences I loop some of the rope round one of the strainer posts and walk out to the edge of the quarry, keeping the rope tight. I get to the very edge, just centimetres from the drop; closer than I’ve ever been, made confident by the rope twisted round my arm and gripped threefold in my hand. I look into the quarry, straight down the face and along.
The vertical walls, greyly slick with the recent rain, stretch away, circling back round to the kilometre-distant gap where the buildings and machinery sit.
Relatively little of the landslip seems to have gone over the edge and fallen to the roadway, thirty metres down. Beyond that broad shelf there’s another cliff and then, maybe fifteen metres down, the base of the quarry, largely filled with two giant pools separated by a sort of causeway of rubble, one truck wide and rutted.
When I look carefully, more of the landslide becomes obvious. I use the binoculars, one-handed, scanning all I can of the earth and rocks that have fallen, both where the debris has been caught by little ledges on the way down, and where it’s hit or been washed down onto the rock platform at the base of the cliff. I can hear a buzzard mewling somewhere above my head and feel a faint breeze flowing upwards out of the quarry, cold and damp. It moves my hair about, blowing it over my forehead. I remember the feeling of Hol running her fingers through my hair last night, and shiver without warning.
One or two of the ledges down there have been around long enough for a few small plants to have taken root, though they look pretty lean and scraggy. Their dark greens, browns and beiges are about the only interruption to the slate-grey bedrock. A crude shape of brown twigs on one ledge halfway down might be an old birds’ nest. I inspect the rest of the ledges carefully, and the base of the cliff that runs beneath our garden wall.
I leave the edge, unloop the rope and throw it over my shoulder again, then start to sidle along the wall with my back to the stonework, looking down towards the exposed jumble of boulders, clods and turf marking the new edge.
I’m breathing fairly quickly, and my heart is hammering away like it was last night when I thought I might finally be going to get laid, because although the slope of crumpled ground looks stable in its new slumped configuration, what the hell do I know? It might be poised to slip again as soon as the first idiot comes lumbering along, disturbing things (this would be me).
I crab my way along the wall until I get to the bit just below where I was balancing on top earlier, where the strip of remaining grass is only just wide enough to take my boots.
The thick tree root protruding from the slip feels reassuringly solid. I tie the rope to it near where it’s thickest and first emerges from beneath the wall. I tie the other end round my chest, keeping this part loose to pass the rest of the rope bundle through and slinging it over my shoulder again, then I tighten up the knot in front of me, settling the rope under my armpits. I’m good with knots; it’s my mountaineering technique that is doubtless rubbish. Still, the rope seems to pay out okay and if I do fall it should tighten up and stop me. I think I’ll keep a really good grip on the rope anyway, just to be sure.
Tromping backwards through the mud and earth, roots and stones to the edge is pretty unpleasant; my boots sink in up to the ankle. I’m leaving a really obvious trail, too. Just before I get to the lip, the ground gives way beneath my feet and I go down with an ‘Oof!’ I can do nothing about, landing partly on my knees on a thin covering of muck right on the edge, and partly on my elbows in thicker earth, as I pull tight on the rope. My feet must be hanging over the edge. I can hear stones and lumps of soil clattering and thudding down the cliff just beneath my shins.
‘Uh-huh,’ I say to myself, and haul hard on the rope as I pull myself back up. I risk a glance down. It looks more sheer from this angle. Not encouraging.
I stand right on the lip, pay out a little more rope until I’m leaning out over the drop, then – with a dust-dry mouth and a heart spasming so hard and fast it’s making my vision pulse like a faulty strip light – I start down the cliff.
We did this kind of thing once on an adventure day with the school, though I seem to recall there was more than just one rope involved: lots of ropes, they had, and a variety of shiny and very colourful carabiners of anodised aluminium, plus buckles and harnesses and safety helmets and other highly reassuring bits of patently over-engineered climbing paraphernalia.
‘If I die a virgin, Hol,’ I whisper to myself (it’s always a sign I’m nervous when I talk to myself), ‘I hope you have the good grace to weep at my funeral.’
Mostly I’m terrified of the tree root turning out to be not actually attached to anything else after all, and getting pulled out of the earth by my own weight, sending me plummeting to the rock below. But losing my footing and thudding into the cliff face, my insides constricted by a mis-tied knot overtightening round my chest, is something to consider as well. I’m starting to re-evaluate my sticking-to-one-hundred-kilos weight-management policy.
‘A little late, admittedly,’ I mutter to myself, walking slowly down the cliff backwards, trying to pay out rope at just the right rate to keep me at an angle that makes this frankly bizarre mode of travel possible.
My phone goes. ‘Aww …’ I hear myself say, exasperated. It’s Guy’s ringtone. He’ll just persist if I don’t answer. The rope’s wrapped round my right hand so I have to use the wrong hand to dig awkwardly around in my gilet pocket for the phone. I nearly drop it, but manage to catch it against my chest, then bring it up to my left ear.
‘Hello?’
‘Where the fuck are you?’
‘I went for a walk,’ I tell him. Technically, this is true.
‘Well, get your arse back here. I need getting up.’
‘I’ll be maybe ten, fifteen minutes. Can you manage till then?’
‘No, I bloody can’t, but I’ll just bloody have to, won’t I? I can smell some bugger making toast, too, and it’s fucking tormenting. I’ll struggle out of bed myself, or shout for somebody. Just you enjoy your morning constitutional, young sir.’
‘Aww, Dad,’ I begin, but he rings off.
I put the phone into a more convenient pocket.
I lose my footing once, trying to swing out to one side to investigate a particular ledge. I pendulum in and thump against the cliff wall, twisting slightly to the left as I go, so that when I hit I have to absorb the blow on my right shoulder. The binoculars clatter.
‘Shit,’ I say. At least the rope hasn’t strangled my chest. I push back out, get my legs to the right angle on the second attempt and resume the position, then collect myself – let my hammering heart slow down a bit, for a start – and then pay out a little more rope and swing to the side, bounce-walking along the cliff face. The rope, stretched tight over the lip of cliff above, dislodges a little earth and a pebble or two as I go, spraying and rattling down to one side.
The interesting stuff on the ledge I was trying to reach proves to be a few weathered, sun-bleached bones; they’re those of a sheep, maybe a lamb. I let myself further down the cliff.
I get centred under where the landslip happened, watching the edge above for any boulders deciding to fall on top of me. My arms and legs are aching and the rope is digging painfully into my back and the sides of my upper ribs. I think I need to ascend soon.
I look down again, then bring the binoculars up with my left hand. This is enough to destabilise me once more; one foot, then the other, skids downwards off the rock as I lose grip. I thump into the rock a second time, the binoculars whacking into my chest.
‘Fuck!’ I say. I don’t like to swear, so I must be upset.
I pause for a moment, sort of kneeling against the cliff face. My shoulders and ribs are really hurting now. I take one last look with the binoculars, at a ledge near the bottom of the cliff. The extra distance means I have to adjust the focus, while keeping hold of the rope means I have to do this one-handed, which is not easy.
More white straight lines, sticking out of the fallen earth of the landslip, on the last ledge before the stone roadway beneath. Maybe bleached bones, maybe not. The twisted, grey-brown branches of a stunted bush get in the way.
‘Hmm,’ I say to myself. I rest the binoculars against my chest and push away from the rock, then start walking upwards, pulling on the rope to keep the angle right. This is harder and more strenuous than it sounds. It was definitely easier on the school adventure-day outing to the climbing wall. I suspect the harness they used – it went under the groin as well as round the shoulders, like you were a parachutist or something – meant we were properly balanced somehow, whereas my cobbled-together arrangement makes the whole business more awkward, difficult and, for that matter, painful. I’m trailing great long dangling loops of untidy rope now, too, because, clearly, my gathering-it-over-my-shoulder regime has proved lax. This can’t be great; what if it gets snagged on something further down?
It takes a lot of muttered cursing before I get to the lip of the cliff. Even there I lose my footing as I try to step up the very last bit and impact with the stone and clodded ground again, getting a mouthful of earth in the process. I spit and splutter as I hang there, nearly gagging. My back and upper chest feel like they’re on fire. My hands are right on the cliff edge, sunk in soft soil and small stones. I kick out, heave and haul, and my legs flail like a cartoon character trying to run through thin air, but, at last, I get all of me over the edge and kneeling in the muck a couple of metres in front of the wall where the rope is tied.
‘Oh. Hello, Kit.’
I nearly fall back into the quarry. I stare at the top of the wall, where Haze is looking down at me, just his head and one hand holding a roll-up visible. ‘You all right there, mate?’ He takes a drag, exhales a cloud of grey-blue smoke.