Rosie Thomas - White

‘Nice. But I’d still rather have the doc to hold my hand.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Is that what all this is about? You should see me when I’m really looking my best.’

‘She told me to keep an eye on you.’

‘Ah. I see.’ Adam lay back again. ‘I appreciate it. I think I may go back to sleep. Don’t need you to watch me any more. Honestly.’

Sam stood up. ‘I’ll catch you later.’

‘Ahuh.’

There was no one to be seen downstairs. Sam hung around for a minute or two, hoping that Finch might appear again, but in the end he gave up. He found a bar a hundred yards from the hotel gates and sat at a rickety iron table under a bamboo awning, keeping watch.

He didn’t have much of an idea about what he was going to do next.

Al was in a taxi on his way in from the airport. He had been to Kathmandu a dozen times before, so did not have much attention to spare for the congested road and the scrubby concrete housing that lined it. He sat motionless in the back of the worn-out Mercedes, his eyes apparently fixed on the grime-marked collar of the driver’s blue shirt.

Karachi had been a last-minute diversion, a visit to an old climbing friend. They had sat for a long time over too many glasses of whisky, not talking very much, merely pursuing their memories in one another’s company. When it was time for Al to leave again Stuart had come to see him off.

‘Drop in and see me on the way back, when you’ve got the big hill in your pocket.’

‘I might just do that.’

Stuart stood watching Al’s back as he moved in the line of veiled women and men in loose shalwar kameez towards the barrier. He stood a full head taller than anyone else, and he looked fit and relaxed. Just before he disappeared Al glanced round and nodded a last goodbye. Stuart lifted his hand and held it up long after Al had gone. They had known each other for many years and had said casual goodbyes before a score of expeditions. That was what happened and this was no different. History made no difference. It was the present and the future tenses that counted for climbers.

As his taxi approached the Buddha’s Garden Al was acknowledging to himself that the stopoff to see Stuart Frost had been a delaying tactic. He hadn’t wanted to get to Kathmandu, to join this group, until the last moment. But now that he was here he focused his mind on what was to be done. It was a job, like any other, as well as a climb.

As he was checking in, with his weather-beaten packs piled beside him, George Heywood came out of the bar. He shook Al’s hand, enclosing it warmly in both of his. George was bald, with a seamed face and sharp grey eyes.

‘Good to see you, Al. Thought you might be going AWOL at the last minute.’

‘Why?’

George laughed. ‘Now I see you I realise I was worrying about nothing. You look good.’

‘Everyone here?’

‘Yup. You’re the last.’

‘Good.’

‘Ken’s in the bar, with Pemba and Mingma. You want to go and change or something, or will you come and join us?’

‘I’ll come,’ Al said.

The three men stood up when they saw Al’s tall frame following George to the table. Pemba Chhotta and Mingma Nawang were the climbing sirdars – experienced Sherpa mountaineers who would be sharing the guiding duties with Al and Ken. They had worked with Al in the past and they showed their liking for him in broad smiles of greeting.

‘ Namaste , Alyn,’ Pemba said formally.

Ken was more laconic. He clasped Al’s hand very briefly. ‘Yeah, mate. Here we are.’

‘Ken. I saw Stu in Karachi. Sends you his best.’

Their eyes met briefly. Everyone sat down and George ordered more drinks. There was the business of supplies and logistics and porters and yaks to be discussed, then George briefly described their six clients, mostly for the benefit of the two Sherpas who would act as second guides to Ken and Al. The two Britons had been on Everest the year before, but with a different company who they believed had let them down. Now they had come to George and his US-based Mountain People to make one more attempt. The two Americans were experienced mountaineers too; the Australian was a less well-known quantity but he had been recommended by previous clients.

The Canadian doctor, George explained, had climbed McKinley in a group led by Ed Vansittart. Everyone at the table nodded. Ed had written to him to say that Dr Buchanan was an excellent medic, who really understood the demands of high-altitude climbing. She was in a unique position in the group because she had a staff role, but she was also a client who hoped to reach the summit with the rest of them. Although not highly experienced herself, she was physically strong and as tough-minded as any mountaineer he had ever met. She was also good company, he had added.

‘I think we’re lucky to have her with us,’ George concluded. ‘Al agreed with me.’

‘Seems A-okay to me,’ Ken said.

Al listened impassively to all of this, with the edge of his thumbnail minutely chafing the corner of his mouth.

George was folding up his lists. ‘And Adam Vries is sick.’

Ken clicked his tongue.

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Al.

‘Just a gut thing. A day or two, the doc says. We leave the day after tomorrow, as planned.’

Once the last pieces of equipment and batches of food supplies had been assembled, there was nothing more for the expedition members to do in Kathmandu but enjoy what would almost certainly be their last hot baths and clean sheets for two months.

‘Another beer?’ George asked them all, by way of a conclusion.

Ken had glanced up. ‘Speak of the devil,’ he said in a warmer voice than he had used before. The rest of them looked in the same direction.

Finch was hesitating in the doorway. Filling most of the wall behind the little group of climbers was a huge colour photograph. Against a hyper-real blue sky stood the huge bracket ridge and summit of Nuptse. Everest stood to the left, farther back and seeming smaller than its neighbour, and in the foreground was the monstrous spillage of the icefall and the dirty grey rubble of the Khumbu glacier.

George beckoned cheerfully, his head bobbing up to obliterate the South Col. ‘Here’s our doc. Come and join us, Finch.’ She stood at the edge of the group. Ken levered himself out of his wicker chair and offered it, but she only smiled at him. ‘I’ve just been to see Adam again.’

‘And?’

‘It’s a bad bout. But he should be okay to leave as planned.’

‘Finch, this is Pemba, and Mingma.’ She shook hands with each of them. ‘And Alyn Hood.’

Al had risen to his feet. He was much taller than Finch but when their eyes met they seemed on a level.

‘Hello,’ Finch said quietly.

Al said nothing at all. He held on to her hand for one second, then carefully released it. In the confusion of introductions no one else noticed the way that their eyes briefly locked and the flash of acknowledgement that passed between them. No one could have guessed that they knew each other already, or deduced a single episode of their history from the way they moved quietly apart again.