“Tranquilo. Tranquilo. Vamos a ver tu futuro.”
She wants to tell me my future. She’s lit her stove again and she’s melting lead in a pan. Now the lead is molten she pours it on the floor. She is sat on her haunches looking at me grinning from her big head. “Kamisiraki,” I say, my only Quecha word. “Gualiki,” she replies. The lead is set and she peels it up and lifts it in the air. She studies the frozen molten shapes, tracing them with her finger, and holds my wrist. She speaks.
“Te vas a mejorar, Y te vas a llegar a tu hogar algun dia pronto.”
I will be better. I will get home soon. Thanks, witch. Gracias, gracias …
We are below a chimney and the sun is burning again. I wipe the sweat from my forehead with my T-shirt. I move into the coolness of the shadows and bridge and back and foot easily upwards, though some gear would be nice. The clouds come swiftly back again, swirling hands fingering my passage. They take Kiko and the whole world away from me and I move as fast as I can to outrun their grasp. Into the light again. And back into chilly fog. I can hear something. Morena la de los ojos azules. No. That’s not right.
“La reina de las mujeres.”
I can hear a serenade. And laughter. It’s the Basques on the balcony. They’re inside now taking lines and going on about some sleazy club they’re off to in the centre of La Paz. Cuidado, guys. Watch out for sucia policia. The cops are bad news here. They took Kiko’s passport off him the other day and said he couldn’t have it back unless he gave them fifty bucks. The lad had no choice. The military are crazy, too … I am walking along minding my own business. A mumbling has started in the street. El Terror, El Terror they whisper. The mumbling has turned into shouts and people begin to panic. Street traders hurriedly pack up their jewellery and start to run. I just stand here and wait like an idiot. Then I hear the engine and into the street rumbles a yellow armoured vehicle and on its flank, in black, is painted EL TERROR. The soldier on top opens fire with his water cannon and sprays anyone who comes into the monster’s way. I cower in a doorway and feel appalled at this mindless intimidation. I want to go home now.
The angle is easier now. We can see the top and we are cruising.
I feel more alive today. The guys are back off the mountains and I ate some more rice. Hope I can hold it down.
Look, I’ve found a metal tin. There’s a scruffy little book. Let’s sign our names in it. Ours are the first non-Brazilian names in here. Across the cloud forest we can see false horizons, one dome of granite after another stretching past the horizon. Our sun is setting and backlighting them.
Night-time. They are all bladdered and loudly asleep. Something’s changed. I feel OK. No more possessed by that heinous virus. God, I’m hungry. I want cornflakes, cheese on toast and beans, doughnuts and custard slices. But first I need to shower the past ten days from me.
I hate rappeling in this darkness. I can never find the belays. The air has become heavy and moist and cold. Ten raps they said but I can only just see a metre in this fog. We have hit a terrace of spiky plants and it’s my turn to go first. I slime over the edge and begin to descend. I have tied a knot in the end of my double ropes. When I reach the end of them I am still on a smooth wall. I swing back and forth in the whiteness of my headtorch beam, expecting to find a ledge but there’s nothing. I am carrying Rat’s rope, so I tie that on and rap again. Another fifty metres and still nothing. Guess this is the wrong spot. In this cold it doesn’t seem very important to me. I just wish I had some prusik loops. I tie my shoe-laces onto the rope and begin to struggle upwards. It is boring and difficult. I tie the climbing rope to my harness at intervals so that if my shoe-laces snap I won’t die. It’s an hour or so later and I slump back onto the ledge. Iñaki has gone completely silent and is shaking violently. I question him but he won’t answer. This is annoying me. Rat is the only other that has climbed anything big before so the two of us hold a conference, in English so the other two can’t listen. “God knows what’s down there, Rat. It could have been three metres to the ground or a hundred. I feel wasted now.”
“Let me take over, Paul. You look after Iñaki.” Rat disappears down a different route and I don’t know what to do with our hypothermic friend. We huddle together and shake in our T-shirts. Then there’s a shout. Very faint but we just hear it. “Come On Down Venga.” I send the others and follow them to a ledge with a worn tree. This is the one, look, it’s been abbed on before. Now there is more hope the boys buck up and in a couple more rope-lengths we hit the deck.
There must be a path here somewhere but I think we lost it long ago. There’s no point in backtracking. We’ll just have to keep crashing downwards over small cliffs and through spiky bushes. Bet this place is crawling with spiders and snakes at night. What’s that? Eyes! No, glow worms I think. Get me out of here. They have coral snakes, you know. The most dangerous snakes in the world. Dead in seconds and this place could be crawling with them.
I can breath again. We are out of the undergrowth and into a pasture. Look there’s the hut. I look up at the sky. The stars are out now. “Hijo de puta,” says Iñaki. ”Vamos a Bolivia.” I couldn’t agree more. Let’s get to La Paz where there’s warm beds and bars and parties. I’ve had it with these walls.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A GAME ONE
CLIMBER PLAYED
I am lying in long grass, naked, I think, foetal. Warm. It’s so pleasantly warm. I can hear distant cries. Children playing? I am adrift, going further and further toward slumber. I don’t see but I feel I am surrounded by tall hedges. Insects buzz. Darkness begins to creep over me – my eyes are shut but I can feel it. Still warmth and a smiling comfort. Someone takes my hand – she must be knelt by me. I don’t open my eyes, nothing need be physically gestured.
Then the hand slips inevitably away and I am left in a cavernous night with all the contentedness of a young child dozing in the afternoon. This is it, the most beautiful part of all my life. Utterly final.
“Paul.” A distant voice calls out.
“Paul, wake up.” Nearer now.
“WAKE UP.”
Leave me alone. Let me sleep. Let me go.
“Come on, Paul, WAKE UP.” My body is being shaken violently.
In anger now I turn to scold my disturber. “Why don’t you just …”
… LIGHT – My eyes open. Someone has just thrown an electrical appliance into my wet dream and 240 volts are put through me. A blur. It’s too bright for me to see. I want to ask questions (Where am I? What the hell is going on?) But it’s impossible. I am just a single painful thought in a space of white noise. Then somewhere, below me and my thought, a body, I think related to me, attempts to breathe. An implosion of sharp points. The body convulses and is thrown onto its side. Lines, horizontal, vertical, diagonal. Beginning to focus. And colours, too. I gain some comprehension of what I am. And colour! A jet of red pisses out of my mouth and then a deafening sigh. Convulsions follow. More red water. Enormous gasps. Daggers are screwed further into my chest. My chest!
“Paul, you’re in Wen Zawn and you’ve just ripped all your gear. You hit these rocks and then you went in the water. This is Glenn.”
The words swim around in my head looking for a place to attach themselves. They settle in all the wrong places, though anagramatically they make some sense … Glenn Zawn … Hit the sea rocks … “You’ve been wedged under water for about ten minutes. I pulled you out feet first.” Glenn … Gogarth … “Glenn,” I shout but no sound comes. Again I try to inhale the white noise but my throat will not allow it. Something stabs and twists. This is it. You’ve done it now. You’ve punctured your lungs for sure. Sleep … Sleep. Yeah go on, go to sleep and you’ll die, you pathetic shit. Is that me or someone else being cruel? I sob uncontrollably. My eyes focus now on Glenn. He’s trying to solo up the wall of the Zawn. My whole body feels broken. Is it spread over all these rocks. “Don’t leave me, Glenn.” Still nothing comes out. Like a dolphin I dive in and out of a sea of unconsciousness. I wa
nt to continue my sleep, but my slumber is intruded upon.
“Paul, wake up – I’m your doctor and I just want to put this tube up your nose. Swallow as I push it in.”
The sky, the sea, the walls of the zawn are stark white and ugly. The whole world is ugly. The pieces of my life are shaken through a sieve and the finer particles settle around me. My family, my friends, the woman I love. My body shudders in waves. I’m falling again but I can never tell if it’s for the last time.
“Paul, it’s raining outside. Let’s stay warm under the covers. Let’s stay in bed.”
Am I this sad for them or for me? What a profound welling up of all the unfinished stories. The potential fairytale endings or the emotional farewells. From my right temple blood wicks across my wet face. It’s still raining. My shoulders feel like they’re in pieces. With each tiny gulp of air I inhale more panic. I want oxygen. Another time I slip into blackness.
“Paul, wake up – the stars are out, the weather’s clear. We could be at the base of the Torre by 8.30.”
Pain in back, in pelvis, in both ankles.
Glenn has dressed me in his clothes, but still I have gone beyond the shivers. From time to time the rigidity falls from me as though I am soaked in a hot bath. Then again distant voices laugh and shout. I strain but they don’t come nearer. My imaginary saviours drift away. I am held.
“Paul, wake up.” Glenn is slapping me about my face. “Don’t sleep, it’s dangerous.” Now he’s holding up a piece of frayed wire. “Look, you snapped a bloody wire. And the tide’s coming in pretty fast.” The bag of bones rattles on the hard, spiky floor. The tide could come in, night could fall, a storm could blow in from the west. I could slip out of my own back door and never return. It’s not a problem for the bones. But it is a problem for Glenn. I hear him shouting. He informs me that five hours have passed.
My eyes hinge open. Above, the walls of the zawn are like the ribcage of some giant animal seen from the inside. The clouds are bent. For a fabulous moment my view becomes the cupola of Madrid’s church of San Antonio, a circular sweep of Goya’s colourful people against dull grey and green. The saint performs his miracle as the murderer slinks off into the crowd. The livid corpse I don’t see. Over the railing San Antonio beckons to us down here. He waves. I feel important, at the centre of his miracle. They all wave.
“Paul, they’re here. The rescue team.”
Rescue? Ah! The cliff top. Adrenaline-fuelled ambivalence gives way to momentary excitedness, and more gulping for air. I hear the throbbing pulse of a helicopter and out beyond the neck there is a red boat which says RNLI. A dinghy speeds in and out clamber men without faces. As they lash me to a stretcher one of them asks me, “What’s wrong? You’ve done way harder things in this zawn.” I laugh. They are good at their job. I get panicky as I’m nonchalantly passed around inches above a clawing swell, all strapped up. Little gulps. Small gulps.
I am clipped into cables, winched up, swung around, lowered down, winched up again and pulled into a hovering yellow helicopter. The noise worries me. A mask is planted over my nose and mouth, a tap is turned and with a hiss my anxieties dissipate. The men grow faces. I shut my eyes … A sloping shelf running with water. I can’t swing my feet back onto the rock. I can’t hold on any longer. I try to move up but I am strapped down. I slump back and relax. My body and the day begin to fit together.
I had wanted to reacquaint myself with the intricacies of climbing in Wen Zawn before attempting the big new line again up the back wall. It is wild rock down there. Unpredictable, untamable for some. You have to take time to build up a relationship where you and the rock can trust each other. I had been here many times, scared myself and forged partnerships. Conan with Dave Green, The Unrideable Donkey with Nick Dixon, Rubble (the softest route in the world) with Leigh McGinley. ‘An easy day,’ on the direct start to Games Climbers Play, I had said to Glenn. It went near the line of my project and we would have a good view across. We rappeled in to the foot of the zawn and Glenn got a belay about fifteen feet up above the lapping waves. Drizzle steadily fell. The moves began scary and awkward. I had to climb down twice before I could arrange some protection in clay/rock mix. I started to move up, confidently, with all the inflated ego of a seasoned Gogarth climber about to plod up an easy Extreme. A couple more small wires, tips laybacking, then dripping hand cracks through steps of roofs. I was tiring but I knew how far I could go after I had hit the lactic acid wall. The belay was right there. Chalk was turning to mud in the cracks. I hung in there, pumping heavily and my forearms burned. I threw in a couple of extra Friends in case I should fall. “Jeez, Glenn, this is strenuous for E4!”
In the flared crack, fisting to the cuffs, I was faced with a choice; continue with deadmeat hands for six more feet and step across to the ledge, or move right now and grab hold of the same ledge. The decision had to be made in less than a second. I swung right from the crack and grabbed the ledge with my right hand. Water began to make little rivers down to my armpit. My feet cut loose into space, so I repositioned them on greasy smears and brought my left hand over. My error became apparent – the ledge was smooth and moist and sloped toward me alarmingly. I tried to mantel. No. Again. No. One more time. Utterly pumped I hung like a rag doll for a few timeless seconds contemplating the inevitable.
Without shouting to Glenn I throw myself off the rock to avoid falling badly. I am not too worried as I’ve got plenty of gear in, but I begin to accelerate. The horrid notion flashes across my mind that the cams haven’t held and I brace myself for a longer fall. In the confusion I feel myself slow down imperceptibly and almost begin to relax. Then I continue to accelerate again. Instinctively, like other animals, I prepare to land on my feet. Ten pieces of gear explode from the rock. I land atop a sharp ridge sticking up out of the zawn floor and my right ankle crushes with the impact. In the same blurred moment I rocket head first into a narrow cleft of flushing sea water and stop.
And then I am lying in long grass, naked, I think.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ADRIFT
A bare room. A cell within a cell within a cell. Solitary confinement at a high angle. Under the interrogation lamp. Trickling salty sweat. Blinded by the light. Ball and chained by my rack of iron. I contemplate the pendulum from where I am. Riveted to the spot – on a ladder of rusty dots. Halfway up a clown’s face, bending over us. With orange skin and black streaks where his mascara has run. Yes, he gets crazy and cries, but now he’s laughing. The victims of his slapstick humour hold on, not getting the joke, getting nervy. Whilst the crowd below roars with laughter.
One, two, go.
No.
One, two, three, go.
One, two, three, shit.
One, two, go.
Again.
One, two, three, no.
One, two, three, yes, yes, c’mon, shit, no.
“Steeeeeve.”
“Whaaaat?”
“I’m level with a spike. ’Bout twenty-five feet away. Trying to lasso it.”
“Okaaay.”
One, two … No.
Two, three … No.
What’s wrong with the thing.
One, one, go. Why do I bother …
“Paauul.”
“Wot?”
“What’s taking so long?”
“It’s not easy, Steve, believe me.”
One, two, three, no.
This time. One, two, yes. Ahaah. Yes.
“Got it, Steve.”
“Niiice work.”
Tie in to the lasso rope.
“Now lower me.”
Come on, calm down, You can’t hurt yourself yet.
I’m scared.
You’re scared of failing in front of him. That’s what it is.
But what about all these ropes and knots? I’m confused.
Concentrate on your job, man.
Swooosh.
The peregrine again.
Just climb the rope and prepare the spike for the pendulum, will yo
u.
OK, the sling’s on but the spike’s a bit rounded now that I look a bit closer.
It’ll do fine. You’re just bottling.
“OK, Steve. Lower us, will you.”
Why do I use ‘us’? It implies that there’s more than one of me.
“That’ll do.”
Perhaps there is.
There’s only one of you. Now think about this swing … You don’t need to check your knot, you checked it ten minutes ago!
“OK. Hold me there. I’ll get a swing going.”
(From the meadow a wall-watcher sees a tiny dot, like a money spider, swinging left and right, left and right in a draft a little higher than some white bags).
There’s an edge, an edge.
No, can’t reach.
(The swinger’s arc decreases and stops).
“I’ll have to come down some more, Steve.”
(The watcher’s eye is still on the lens as the dot swings further and further.
The watcher feels giddy just looking. The dot bounces out as well as across).
The edge – go on.
No.
One more.
One, two, three, jump … One, two.
One, two, jump … One, yurs!
(The dot stops at the end of its swing. Like an executive toy disobeying gravity).
OK, more edges. Free climb but keep the tension.
Sweat. Grains of granite the size of boulders.
“Keep the tension.”
Can’t go any further, I’ll take a pisser. I’m level with the spike. It’s miles away.
Get a hook on.
Fuck, fuck the hooks. Where the fuck’re the hooks?
On your left, idiot.
Found them. But the ledge slants. If he gives me slack my body weight will be pulling straight down and the hook’ll roll off.
Use two hooks in opposition then.
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