Authors: Richard Blanchard
Snow Blind (28 page)
What the hell is in front of us? My brain shifts and I recoil slightly as an ice cliff sheers up at me. Its physicality makes me topple back a step. Desperately my eyes try to pick out its form, but it seems impassable.
“You re-trace our steps and find where that fucking hut has gone. I will walk along here and find a way up.” Robert says anxiously.
I work my way back to the others, checking over my shoulder every two steps to see when the hut re-appears.
“Why are you coming back?” Steve is close to breaking point.
“The hut must be on top of a cliffside. As we get closer it disappears,” I explain.
“It's on that rock face over to our right.”
“Did you factor in a rock climb before bedtime Juliet?” Max chides. He, like Robert, perceives no barrier, they are almost off the hook.
“Let's keep going guys. We've got to stay positive. There may be a path up when we get there,” Johnny implores.
“Yes, sure.” I don't convince myself. I have been looking down; my heads swims as I search the horizon for shape. I see the small window of light from the hut again, but in the darkness it blinds everything in that direction. Give it up for mercy's sake. We have suffered enough banality and brutality this week. Please let us go, please. Let us rescue all souls from this brutal occasion.
We press on towards Robert and the ice. The steepness of the cliff in front of us can't properly be judged, nor its composition.
“Help me!” shouts Steve, “Help me.” The second request fades; the ice in front of us eats it up.
I anxiously rip off my ski gloves to assist him. A deep chunk at the top of my thumbnail comes with it. My whelp starts as an expression of surprise pain. It ends as a cry of exasperation.
Could we be rescued from here? The distance isn't the problem. We are fifty feet under the hut, close enough to hold a conversation with anyone there. But there appears no reason for anyone to do so. We may as well be with Dan in his crevasse.
The men around me howl abrasively, the pack of wolves baying for relief. Steve prays on his knees. Robert throws a ski pole at the wall. It hits the ice cliff abruptly and falls to ground, now we can what is set in front of us. Even the wolves have limits; every thought produces the same stark outcome. However tantalisingly close, we are abandoned. They had no comfort for the prospective newly wed, but have to respect our plight.
It is not the woman who is wailing. I may wish for a hand to pluck me to up to safety on the ledge, but screaming won't make that happen. They moan in despair and guilt. We have found our way here but I need to find a way back to Ethan.
Focus on the light to get me back to my boys.
“Number one. Have a passion boys⦠mine was music. I could play but listened better⦠Music locates you. Whatever⦠pick something you can share with others⦠Maybe I let music exclude me.” I pause again for my teeth chatter to die away.
I shift onto my side to give my back the chance to warm.
“Number two. Think. Think brilliantly. Think⦠Thoughts are things.” A fading pink blanket still burns visible on the mountain tops. Sun long gone from view, leaving today's crime scene red-handed. My sunset? I will myself into that light.
“Create your own reality. I spend too much time creating for capitalists⦔
Non-stop now, my shuddering body is racked with the jitters. Maybe it will create my warmth and be my salvation? My right ski anchors me in roughly the same spot. No room.
“She's as cold as ice. He's as cold as ice.” Both things shriek in my head. Again and again they take my focus. “He's as cold as ice.” I'm sure now. Guinness Ice, Bud Ice, this ice, that ice.
I realise I am still recording. “Number three. What was number three? Magnificent Seven I think. No take responsibility boys⦠I have to face up now⦠Get married⦠love you. Face up boys. Take responsibility for your self, your kids⦠don't blow it. Don't blow it.
I hear the iPhone chirrup. There is no power left, it has been drained away more in the extreme cold. In my jacket pocket, put the phone in my pocket. I struggle but it slips into my jacket just as it has done a hundred times in the past few days.
Wrap up. Zip up. I have had my right hand exposed for too long and my jacket open at the top.
I hear feet I am sure. Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. Light feet I'm sure.
Sophia, Sophia. I shudder to think when I last thought of her. Marrying her, marrying her. Life with or without me? All I see is her future anger. Anger at the lunacy that got me here. Anger at cancellation. Her day, her dad's doing. Sophia calm down, calm⦠A wave takes over. My extreme chattering chips an incisor, I ingest ivory.
Those boys, the boys, the men, the stags. Johnny will remember me. Johnny will cherish me. Where are they? The Aiguilles is too far for them to get back to. They have pushed me too far. Where could they go? Will they take care of Juliet? Robert and Max will keep themselves alive.
Where is the edge now? Can't look, must not look.
Feet dance into fresh snow above me and stop. Is someone up there? Not human, no chance. Rabbit, fox or maybe a bear?
Sophia and Bepe will just stay with her parents now. There will be no new house for us, no new nuclear family formed. Not needed, superfluous. I can't shake this wave off. Numb from shoulder blades to calf. Sweet Bepe will be lost in over compensation, he is a brat in the making even now. I am losing him to that already. Ethan is lost to me. Never recover now. What was Juliet thinking? Pushing me, pushing buttons.
“Aaaah!” The sound scampers down the wall and loops back. I am surprised at the noise even though it was mine. My left elbow had fallen away and I panicked. I shuffle right towards the wall. I push my right shoulder up to it. I will be vibrated off the ledge by my chattering. Can't sleep now; have to control it or let myself go. But I am so tired of the shaking, tired and aching.
Walking again, that is no rabbit at the lip. A fox? How hungry? He's thinking of me. My god he wouldn't. A wolf? An easy jump but no way back up, but can he calculate that? The black figure turns and scampers back above my head from view.
Pitch black and sadness fills the gaping hole. Two, three figures are back, weighing up the jump.
“Noooâ¦aaagh!” I scream at them. Preserve yourself, selfpreservation⦠society.
“Aaaaagh!” Has the desired effect. The horizon is clear but I'm not on it.
Pitch black. A shudder rises. Uncontrollable jerks start at my back and arms and flow to my feet. I somehow relish the sensation of being pounded on the ice; it stimulates warmth.
It's not enough; I've not been good enough. I am the boy who didn't cry wolf. My shudder fades out. I have been my worst enemy, my lousy defence. Best to let it be.
“W
HY IS IT ALWAYS A WOMAN?”
Their noise has gone. No more fighting, enough now. I am fighting for breath but know the next one will come.
There is blood on the snow but I am no killer. It is my blood and I am a saviour. Salvation is close.
Why am I praying? On my knees and shins in the snow as I hold my body together in a ball. I cradle my sore arms, that were almost ripped from my body. My shins are screaming cold. An exploding heart beats in my ears. It's stopped now. Ethan is close. Elbows dig my calves as I huddle all the pieces of my body back together. Breasts snug against thighs. Holding my kneecaps, I rock for warmth, but such pain. Shoulders scream of distress; one pull away from dislocation. God has had a hand in it; but I have had both. I have so much life to save now, so much to rescue from itself.
The window light restores sight. Why am I holding back? Light streams around me, great strands of it. I lift my head to see the source of the blood. My palms are exposed through my gloves. The wounds leak blood consistently. I cleanse them with snow. Blood drips into the substantial kidney-shaped pool in front of me. A pair of palm prints to my right trace the last parts of my crawl. Just stay here a while. Suspend your life for a moment. My body is intact and I have a soul that's clean. I feel such a roar gathering. Take this moment to release.
The wooden door is within easy reach. I push onto all fours and recover myself to stand. Blood being called to my core makes my first steps wobbly. It is my upper body that screams, but I still stumble. No call bell here. Two stone steps later I elect to fall against the wooden door and cause an alerting thump. The bump in the night brings no response. I reach for a rock at the foot of the steps and bring it in one motion to the door, clattering into the metal door catch. I won't fail here. Each effort brings life.
After a neat click overhead, the rock flies from my hand when it doesn't meet the expected door.
“
Merde. Hal, Hal!
” is shouted back into the building.
I rest my eyes. Job done. I grimace to fight back a cry but my eyelids leak.
Within seconds I am pulled from the doorway. Strong arms lock into the back of my knees and behind my back; swept in like the newly wed bride I have never been. Laid on a table now. I hear metal bowls hit the stone floor.
“
Regardez-moi. Vous avez mal quelque part?
” A full-faced beard hides a man of maybe thirty years. He seems so sure of what he is doing I don't want to interrupt him.
“
Je vois que vous vous êtes blessée aux mains, mais vous avez mal ailleurs?
”
“
Elle vient d'où ?
” There are maybe three people who have joined him.
“
Vous êtes toute seule?
” I think he's asking me if I'm alone. I shake my head.
I remember the howling at the foot of the ice cliff. Robert attempted to climb the wall and slid down within a minute. Max and Steve offered desperate and less frequent screams.
It was Johnny who helped me. I started to bend my remaining ski pole in two. He managed to finally snap it.
“Get us all out of here Juliet.” He handed me the shortened pole handle and the bottom end with the ski basket, in great faith. And so my climb began, with the stiffer re-freezing ice taking the poles readily.
Although all hope hinged on me I could feel male smirking on my back; that bint will never make it. After five clean holds from the poles the group fell quiet. Hope had sprung to smother fear. The slope was steep but steady. I kicked footholds in the snow and etched others out with the pole. Half way up there was no banter. Grudging support sustained me. Before long I had fallen onto the beaten path to this door. Gravity had sustained me.
“I am with five others.
Oui, cinq hommes.
Under the Refuge. Below here. No, there are four others, only four. One is lost.” The whole roomed clatters. Torches, ropes, zips, belays, crampons, helmets.
“Is your guide dead?” someone asks, but I shake my head. These men seize the chance to help without being asked. This manhood bursts out into the night.
I am safely abandoned; exhaustion means I don't protest and go to help. I am sat in a clumsy wooden chair smothered in sleeping bags; my weariness seeps into it. The fire is waning; it expects to be left to fizzle out. The solidity and steadiness of the stone and oak refuge, its shelter and normality, stand up calmly to the fierce nature outside. My core is impenetrable at first but gradually re-admits warmth. Blissful silence again. Every man departed, except those in my heart. Shivering stops me from sleeping.
“I
S THERE HOPE FOR A MAN?”
God sped me through the darkness. I will hold Ethan too tightly tonight; my head pressed onto his chest hearing the booming heartbeat I created. He will flush at his mum's desperation but welcome it easily.
Where is the door, by my side or at the foot of the bed? I have no sense of orientation. No light through yonder window breaks. My blackberry says 05.45 local time and shows 107 emails that I refuse to acknowledge but couldn't anyway. Souped-up work dramas await me tomorrow. Should I suspend Charles for his wandering hands? When can Primark see me on Monday afternoon? Should we bother lowering our day rate just to get on a six-month contract? How can we achieve a step change in margin without changing the headline rate to clients? These questions occupy me but never engage me; my dispassion is lauded as a strength.
Why am I the only one awake? Is Dan awake or unable to sleep with the cold? Is he taking in the morning through hyperventilating lungs, cursing his misfortune? I hope he is occupied thinking about Ethan and his impending marriage.
No noise in the Refuge de Requin. No one stirs, not a begrudging owner nor an expectant climber. I waited up for all the sheep to come in last night. Robert and Max came in together, nonchalantly knocking the standard of accommodation. They fraudulently talked beyond thoughts of the danger they had faced. It was midnight when Johnny was brought in. He had replaced Dan as the misguidedly generous host having given the others priority. Steve was already asleep by then; the first one relayed up the slope because of his distress. He stared at the fire I had enlivened, sat on the stone floor at my feet, hugging my legs. He nervously swept the corners of his mouth on my ski pants, his bristles scraping the nylon.
“Steve. Take care of yourself for now. We will do our best for Dan.” Without acknowledgement he rolled onto his right side into the foetal position.
I called Chris at the hotel when everyone except his brother was safe. He said less than Steve.
“You must call the family Chris. I would do but I can't from here. We will rescue him at first light. We have a helicopter coming. Have faith and give it to your mum, and Sophia⦔ I know it's beyond him. Maybe he will call his mother and let her spread the news that her son is in mortal danger. Let a woman cope with another woman. The collective word for females is that of a “woe man”, that never occurred to me before. This would have been a male take on our disposition if it were intended.