He
stands there on a dilapidated wooden lookout, looking south toward
the coast. A low-slung, grass-covered hill fades in and out of ashen
cloud. He stares past the hill, above dark andesitic columns and
walls of conglomerate that plunge, unseen, into space where the earth
ends abruptly. The ocean is beyond, slated and churned by winds that
blur directly from the great southern ice. Dirtied-white horses froth
at the peaks of swells, slugging away at coastal stacks hundreds of
meters beneath him. Even at the lookout, the salt spray films his
face, damp and caustic.
His
chest constricts against the vortex of wind. He struggles to focus.
This isn't love. Driving out along the convoluted gravel road,
he hadn't decided, or didn't know that he'd decided. But the sway of
the grasses back and forth, the sweep of the thick clouds with the
wind, the sound of the surf's last throes – the abyss that lies
within each of us, sometimes so close to the surface.
He
cups his hands and rubs them. The cold makes him feel better, more in
the headspace he wants to be. The edginess is now a familiar feeling:
a tightness in his neck and shoulders, a way that certain objects
appear glass-clear while others fade toward insignificance. “I just
need time to myself, see where I'm at,” she'd explained a month
ago, in a cafe boisterous with lunchtime excess. He'd caught his
breath, holding back the sudden words he wanted to shout. The voices
at the next table formed a dull white noise that seemed to compress
against him; her face blurred out of focus. He scraped back his chair
and stood without replying. He'd already known.
A
faint, narrow path leads down a spiny ridge on the far side of the
lookout. Muddy and slippery, it jags steeply through scrub and rotten
sheep droppings. He grabs a fistful of grass and grovels his torso
over a short bluff. Here, the track is undercut with erosion, and
part has collapsed entirely. The air is heavy with spray and the
sounds of the waves. Through the vapor, a spire of rock breathes in
to view, a dark finger against the grey.
Months
earlier, they'd been at a pub, enjoying drunken banter with the
locals. As always, she was articulate and engaging. He sat and
listened, watching the two of her – her reflection just as
captivating against the surface of the pub's dark windows. Her smile
encouraged an old fisherman to join them in another round of drinks.
“You
climbing types would love it,” the fisherman had said, mostly to
her. “We call her The Maiden, but you can only see her properly
from the water, standing there, still waiting after all these years.”
“How
high?” she'd asked. She leaned forward.
“What?”
The old guy scratched at his scabby, balding head.
“How
high is the stack? How big?”
“Big
enough.”
“We
should find it,” she'd said to him later, raising her hand, palm up
above the table. “Bet it's never been climbed.”
“For
good reason no doubt,” he'd replied. He spiraled his glass of beer.
“Probably a crumbly pile of weetbix, if it even exists.”
“Of
course it bloody exists!”
He
wondered now whether his pessimism was another factor.
“Come
climbing with us,” his friends had coaxed. “It'll take your mind
off things.”
But
it hadn't. At the belay he recalled climbing with her, how he'd
poured so much energy into their relationship, working at what he
thought she wanted. That wasted effort still haunts him. He thinks of
her – blonde, tanned and strong. As usual, he realized, he'd become
infatuated with the physical, understanding nothing of what was
important, what could last. After she left, the texture of rock,
something he'd once relied upon, began to feel foreign. His fingers
struggled to find the right way to grip; his body always seemed
slightly off balance. As a young boy, he'd imagined a kind of
insulating layer in his mind, a shield. Whenever something troubled
him at school, he could sit under a lone tree at the edge of the
playing fields and the shield would descend over the branches like an
invisible, protective dome. In other relationships, he'd been able to
project an image behind that shield, a belief almost, of strength and
confidence. Only this time, that image made his insecurity more
apparent, at least to him. Train harder, be stronger, climb better
used to be his mantra. Yet it isn't physical ability he lacks.
“Don't
worry, it's just a climber thing,” a friend had said. “We become
so focused, so intent on completing the task that some of us can't
deal with failure, whatever it is. We say we can, but that's not the
same.”
But
he feels as if his very fabric has ruptured, barely meshing what's
left. There are no more crossroads in his mind, only a constricting
corridor that surely ends.
There's
a dip in the coast, a cove sheltering from the heaving sea and force
of the wind. This is where she waits, he thinks, slipping into
an old habit. To personify his climbs, he knows, is to place his own
hopes and imperfections onto their curves and within their cracks. He
doesn't care. Anymore. Elongated, freestanding and almost fragile in
appearance, her edges rise nearly parallel towards the clouds.
Beautiful. Enticing. Like an ill-timed voiceover, his thinking
distances from his movement. With more purpose than he has felt for
so long, he scratches the last few meters over the water-worn
boulders, looks up at the conglomerate base and the toned andesite
above. When they find my body, they'll know what I was trying to
do.
He
starts tenderly, testing and weighting each hold before reaching for
another. The stone feels chilled and sleek, yet reassuring. The
surface of rocks is deceitful. In a way he has always known this. The
elements have polished the minerals, dulled reds and greens within
the fawn of the breccia. The wall is slick with salt spray. Yet even
though he's climbing in running shoes, he starts to move efficiently.
The commotion of the sea recedes. This feels different...better.
Then his wet hands start slipping from the dimpled incuts. His
shoes scrape against pocked slabs. He panics, but remembers: I
just need to get high enough.
Seagulls
squawk from their pedestals, and before long he joins them on a jut
in the rock. Breathing heavily and shaking slightly, he laughs at the
irony of having come this far, almost ten meters off the ground
already. Slowly, the breathing eases, and he looks up. A thin,
sharp-edged crack points through the start of the andesite. Steep and
damp, the crack looks too shallow and the faces on either side too
smooth. Normally, this is where he'd baulk, even with a rope and
climbing shoes. Now he reaches up and forces the fingers of one hand
and then the other into the crack. He twists them sideways, and
pulls. I want this. I want them to see how good I can be.
The
first moves are the hardest, his fingertips barely fitting and his
shoes smearing across folds on the rock. Both feet slip off, and he's
hanging by two knuckles. The seagulls hold their breath. Instead of
cringing, he pulls in and reaches up with his other hand. So strong.
So free. The crack widens, and now he can securely twist both hands
and feet into it. He pauses.
For
the first time, he looks down at the choppy surge of the sea, and
then across at grey, broken cliffs along the main coast – the walls
of a fortress. The cloud lifts for a while, allowing sunlight to
sponge across their ramparts and catch in the wings of seabirds as
they glide between the freestanding spire he is clinging to and the
mainland. The light allows him to judge how much height he has
gained, and how far he has to go. He rests his head against a scoop
of rock. This is ludicrous. I can't even pick the right bloody way
to end it! He struggles to move
again. Why didn't I just jump? At least it would have been
quick. But now I'm here. Now I have to do this.
His
fingers run across the rock's surface, searching for memories that
its texture might inspire. Mental images begin to unveil, half
shrouded but enough to remind him of the essence of what really might
have brought him here.
Finally,
he inches upward – the only thing he can do – following the crack
that keeps broadening. Armbar, shuffle, twist, thrutch. He
focuses on the moves themselves, defining each body position in his
mind, and then the one after it, searching for a way back to his
shield, for some means of forgetting where and who he is. Everything
other than the right thing fades away to blurred peripheries.
The
crack ends abruptly at a precarious crumbling ledge. Only a few
meters away, a nightmarish jumble of stacked flakes separates him
from the top of the pillar. He can see gannets circling over it,
rising and dipping with the wind, so close now. It's too steep. I
can't do it. He squeezes his eyes shut and hugs the rock.
Eventually, a measured breath comes. She owes me this.
The
first two holds disintegrate in his hands. He fights the suck of
space, recovers and starts hyperventilating. His ledge begins to
disintegrate. He lunges for the most solid chunk of rock he can see,
wrapping both hands around it as the last of the ledge peels away,
crumbling and falling, slowly at first, then accelerating, bouncing
once, twice, before slapping into the sea.
NnnggggFFaaarrrrkkk!
The gannets scatter at his sudden arrival at the top of the pillar.
He stays on his hands and knees for a time, pulling deep breaths into
his lungs and pushing his hands into the heavy soil. Slowly he
stands, and then calls into the clouds for help, his voice echoing
between the cliffs. He shuffles cautiously to the edge and peers
over, wondering for a moment but then shaking his head.
Shadows
stretch over the land. He starts to shiver, and curls with his hands
between his legs. The wind has eased and the sea begins to calm. The
last of the light flickers across smoothing ocean swells, broken
mirrors reflecting back towards him. He keeps his eyes open. He prays
for the slow draw toward the dark not to finish. At nightfall, the
temperature drops, holding him conscious for a time. He hopes someone
might come in the morning. He thinks he has the right to hope
because, if nothing else, she has finally accepted him. Of course, he
dreams of her again, languid, floating, the two of them climbing as
one. Then, when he looks back, he doesn't see her any more. There is
simply more rock, another climb.
He
wakes quickly, as if someone has kicked him. He lies there in the
frigid dark, wondering whether this, any of this, is worth it. Not
long before the cold finally takes him, he realizes the worth of a
thing doesn't really come in to it.
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