The Cruel Peak

by Gil Hogg

  ‘You’d sort of fallen for her?’

  ‘No, she was just a playmate.’ That at least was true. He had never had romantic ideas about Robyn then or since.

  ‘We began to meet again when I left university with my law degree, and came back to Springvale to stay with a friend of my mother’s. I don’t think the Ashtons would have allowed me through the back door if I’d been a mechanic or a cabinet-maker, even though I’d grown up on the place, but I was a ‘clever boy’ according to Springvale gossip, with a ‘future’.’

  Of course he never mentioned the couch specifically to Alison, only the effect. ‘It seemed to dictate paths. I wasn’t free any longer. The exhilaration of being independent, of having a professional skill that I could practice where I chose, the excitement of the future, all began to evaporate,’ he said.

  A watercolour portrait of Robyn Ashton aged about eighteen was on the wall of the drawing room, not too far from the couch. The artist had captured her determined stare, the only thing that was remarkable about a soft, small- featured face. She had been sexually attractive, and he was drawn to her - in part - for that reason, but he was also, he had to admit, impelled by another motive which he had never mentioned to Alison or anybody else, although he had always acknowledged it to himself.

  He was, at one time, ‘Bill Stavely’s lad’, who could be ordered to milk the house cows, clean the stables or help with the lambing or the fencing. Home was a rickety cottage on Tamaki Downs, but that was in the past at the time of the red couch incident. He had no need of the Ashtons in his new stance as a graduate, and there was a special sense of conquest in penetrating Ernest Ashton’s socially sought-after daughter, and Stuart Ashton’s beloved sister. It felt as though he was driving a wedge into the Ashton clan’s comfortable assumptions of superiority. He knew at the time that such an impulse was ignoble, but it was so sweet!

  The triumph was short-lived. In this ultimate moment of his success, he seemed to have locked himself in with the Ashtons forever.

  He stood in the bay window before the lawns. He was looking back on a finality which couldn’t be unravelled; it was pointless to feel regret; directions he might have taken were no more than fantasies, and he rejected them as such, but he wanted to understand where and why he had taken one road rather than another; it was like discovering a map which to some extent explained to him the mystery of himself.

  He detected a movement through the trees. A half a mile away, Stuart Ashton was riding up the ridge toward the house on a chestnut hack, straight-backed, like the ex-army man he was. How like Stuart to ride a hack when the other workers rode trail-bikes. He felt uncertain. Although he and Stuart had been apart for years at a time, they had been friends for almost all of Tom’s forty-seven years, and there were complicated strands of emotion between them.

  Stuart entered the drawing room where he was waiting; they embraced stiffly. Stuart was in stockinged feet, and still wearing his jeans and workshirt. They muttered banalities about a safe journey, and declared their good health and spirits.

  “I’m surprised to find you riding the range, Stu.”

  “I do as little as I can, believe me. Why are you in here, this museum?” Stuart’s eyes clashed with the ornate furniture.

  “Memories.”

  “We’d be more comfortable in the study.”

  “You must tell me about Tia.”

  “We’d been going around for a while and just decided to get hitched.”

  Stuart spoke in a guileless way, as though it was a small and pleasant happening, but Tom knew Stuart was not a guileless man. He had seemed, to Tom, set to go on womanising without a lasting attachment. He had a tall, athletic figure and a youthfully thick thatch of hair, now greying. Tom thought him deeply narcissistic. A woman might think his lined, square-jawed face showed strength. He certainly had physical strength. Rich, cultured and capable of compelling charm if he wished to use it, Stuart was an extremely marriageable bachelor. Tom hadn’t been close enough to him in recent years to know whether his longer- term girlfriends of the past had been cast away, or whether one of them might still be watching from the windows of her apartment and warming a king-sized bed.

  “Tia tells me you got married on the marae. Didn’t Ernest want a big knees-up?”

  “That was a big knees-up. Best wedding I ever attended. In any case, I didn’t consult the old man. And he stayed away from the marae.” Stuart gave a savage leer.

  He would say to Alison, although she would be reluctant to accept it, ‘Maybe the marriage to Tia is intended to be provocative.’

  The kind of reply that she would make would be, ‘I don’t know Tia, but I do know Stuart, and he’s too dynastically minded to use marriage as a stick to beat his father, Tom. Marriage is a serious business to the Ashtons. You should know that from experience.’

  After Stuart had showered and changed, they settled in the study with a beer. “All right,” Stuart said, dropping his heavy frame into a chair with a thud that made it cry out. They talked casually, but Tom could see that he was preoccupied. Stuart didn’t seem to want to let the conversation ramble casually over their friends and the events of the last few years; after a while, he interrupted the flow. “Hey, you know Tom, something’s come up about Mt Vogel.”

  Mt Vogel again. The red light blinked. It wasn’t that he found it a sensitive subject, because it was long past. It was about events viewed as a child, which didn’t turn out too badly for him. At the time, he only half understood them, and even now they remained an area of mist and uncertainty.

  “We should have climbed Mt Vogel years ago, Tom!” Stuart spoke vehemently, and closed his eyes at the thought.

  “It’s too late now,” he responded quietly, startled by the force of Stuart’s regret.

  They had talked about the climb for years, always agreeing that they would make an attempt together, but they never did. He knew now that the mountain was out of his class, but he had at one time seriously intended to tackle it. It happened that the tracks of their different lives never allowed them to slow down and do the long-term planning and training that were necessary. When he could have been available, Stuart wasn’t, and the reverse. Also, as the years passed, he developed what he would admit only to himself was a fear of Mt Vogel. He read the stories of the climbers who failed or died. His availability to make the climb lessened as his fears increased over time, and as his own modest mountaineering capability lessened. Now, he believed that time had excused him. “Well, we didn’t have a go… Only Ernest, and what, one other, succeeded?”

  “A Swiss, Meisner… I failed too - twice!”

  He had heard from Stuart about his failed attempts. He didn’t comment on them now. If he said they were creditable - as they were - Stuart would find it patronising. The failures, given excessive publicity because of his father’s success, and the difficulty - near impossibility - of the climb, had lacerated Stuart; virtually shamed him. Tom thought it was daft to feel diminished by these events, but that was how Stuart felt.

  “We could have done it, Tom. You and I together.”

  “Ha!” he scoffed. Stuart was talking about a fantasy world. “I’ve never been your partner on the big ones. I couldn’t have managed Everest or K2. I was never good enough, Stu. So the idea that you and I somehow had the magic ingredient for Vogel when you’ve already tried twice is just…”

  Mt Vogel lured climbers from all over the world. It was known to mountaineers as a supreme challenge, like K2, although just a hundred feet or so short of Mt Cook in height.

  “You don’t know… about the shame of public failure…” Stuart disappeared behind his hooded eyes for a few moments. Then he brightened. “I’ll tell you what we could do. We could climb Mt Vogel now, Tom. The season is right.”

  It was as though Stuart hadn’t heard him, and he laughed. “That’s a mad idea.”

  “Why not?” Stuart protested loudly.

  “I’ve told you, because I’m not skilful enough - or fit enough.�
�

  “We could get you fit, Tom. Christ, you haven’t forgotten anything. It’s like riding a bicycle.”

  “Don’t be stupid, man. Vogel is challenged year by year. The death and injury toll is terrible. Meisner’s success must be over ten years ago. It isn’t like Everest. Hillary and Tensing broke through a barrier on Everest, like the four minute mile. Once the barrier was broken and the trail blazed, others could follow. Vogel isn’t like that. Technical advances in equipment haven’t helped either. Ice and the weather make it a virtually unclimable peak. You know these things better than I do. Wasn’t it a Swiss team who got into trouble last year? Frostbite. Broken bones. The idea that we could just run up there because we’ve suddenly decided we want to is barmy.”

  “I realise it’s difficult for you, Tom, because of your father, but -”

  “That’s not it at all. As I’ve said to you before, Stu, it was probably a good thing for me and my mother that my father was killed on Mt Vogel. That sounds unfeeling, but you know why. It’s a pragmatic judgment that I made years ago. As far as I’m concerned, Vogel means nothing to me. I doubt if I was a good enough climber to do it ten or twenty years ago. And now - forget it.”

  Stuart wasn’t listening. He was focussing on his own thoughts. “We could get a team together…”

  “Why are you bringing it up now? What’s happened?”

  Stuart drained his beer, stood up and started fussing around the cabinet to get a whisky. He kept his back to Tom, not replying, not having to answer. Eventually, he clinked a couple of ice cubes into a big slug of whisky and sat down with a flourish that looked like a determination to speak. “Like one?”

  “Not now. What is it, Stu?”

  “I got some information from The Mountaineer magazine that the Swiss team who had an unsuccessful go recently, came across an old guy on their way down who spends a bit of time on the slopes. He’s apparently been finding equipment brought down the mountain by the glaciers and snows for years. The story is that he has some interesting stuff from old expeditions. Wouldn’t it be good to see it?”

  “Yeah. That’s different. A trek around the area would be fine, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” He had a few days to spare, even with the friends he intended to see. He didn’t anticipate that he would have a great deal of time with Petra. “You think this man might have something from the Ashton-Stavely climb? It would be interesting to find out, but it’s a hell of a long shot, isn’t it?”

  His lack of real interest in the relics, if there were any relics, was showing. Stuart’s agitation couldn’t merely be about the prospect of seeing them. There was another pause.

  “Come on, Stu.”

  Stuart winced, and passed his hand over his face, a web of lines. “There is something more. About the mountain.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Stuart looked uncomprehending. He fumbled the glass in his hand and slopped some whisky. He opened his mouth but didn’t speak. He gulped the whisky. “A rumour… A vile rumour, that there’s some doubt about whether Ernest ever made the summit.”

  “Ernest didn’t climb Vogel?“ Tom rocked back in his chair, not sure at first that he’d heard correctly. He took a moment to appreciate this. “How can that possibly be! More than thirty years ago. It’s stupid! We have Ernest’s book. There’s a photo of him on the summit. And there was a spotter plane in the air, if I remember. You can’t do better than that!”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “I must have read The Fateful Snows about three times as a teenager.”

  “Suppose the photo wasn’t the old man?”

  “You’re kidding. Somebody made it to the summit. The pilot of the spotter reported it.”

  “The pilot wouldn’t be able to tell who it was, would he?”

  “Then it was my father, instead? There were only the two of them. Well, lovely, but I can’t believe it.” He said this easily, unable to take Stuart seriously.

  “What are you smirking at? It isn’t funny.” Stuart’s usually suntanned face had paled and crumpled.

  “Let’s get this straight, Stu. It’s rumoured, merely rumoured, that thirty-something years ago Ernest Ashton failed to reach the summit of Mt Vogel, but claimed he had. That means that Bill Stavely, my father, summited Mt Vogel - because one of them did - and was killed coming down, rather than going up as Ernest claimed.”

  “That’s… the lie.” Stuart looked stunned. “The lie!”

  His response was dismissive. “Ah, Stu! Be real. It would be monstrous and unthinkable if it was true. And how could Ernest possibly set up such a deception? How did this story start? I mean, we - the whole mountaineering community worldwide have been brought up on the fact that -”

  “I know, I know. These Swiss guys apparently looked over the stuff that had been found, bags, maps, gloves, you know, the usual dreck, and read some notes amongst them. Maybe they didn’t understand them correctly. They said the geezer wouldn’t part with anything. They took what they saw seriously. Maybe they were pissed off about their own failure. When they got back home, they reported it to their club, who no doubt passed it on to the Alpine Club here. Charlie Swift, the chairman, informed me with a sort of ‘this is nonsense but we thought we ought to tell you’ call. Later, a staffer on The Mountaineer magazine rang me. Told me. Asked a lot of questions. That’s all I know.”

  “It certainly has the makings of a very dirty story, but Ernest would never claim a peak he hadn’t climbed… I mean, there are limits to the perfidy he is capable of.”

  He had no liking for Ernest Ashton, but the man did have a public reputation for integrity. He was certainly a famous and respected mountaineer but also a major figure on the country’s business landscape through the Ashton Group. He was or used to be, the kind of man whose advice was sought by cabinet ministers.

  “Are there limits to his perfidy?” Stuart asked with a distant look, his eyes gleaming from dark pits.

  “You hate your old man, Stu. We know that. OK. But this is something else. You’re biased. Horribly biased.” He grinned again, unable to restrain himself.

  “For Christ’s sake, this isn’t funny, Tom!”

  “Forget the whole business, Stu. I’m serious.”

  “No!” Stuart bulldozed on. “If Ernest did lie about it, stole your father’s triumph, and that was shown up, I don’t know what I’d do….”

  To Tom, the thought was grotesque, and somehow fanciful; a product of Stuart’s solitary brooding. Stuart leaned over toward him, eyes fixed on his, like an angry schoolteacher with an obtuse child, trying to communicate something very obvious he thought Tom didn’t understand.

  “You see, Tom, although I loathe the idea in one sense, I have to admit that my name as a climber and journalist is founded on what my father did. The Ashton name echoed around the mountaineering world thirty-three years ago. The Fateful Snows followed, and it’s still read and remembered everywhere. It’s even on the reading list of high schools now, do you realise that? Vogel was a great conquest. I’m known because, all right, I’m a competent mountaineer myself…”

  “You’re too modest…” Actually, he thought Stuart immodest, but he wanted to soothe his friend.

  “And I guess I could have published my mountaineering writings without Ernest, but there’s no getting away from the bald fact that people know me, and want to meet me because I’m Ernest Ashton’s son. It’s what makes me special… There’s something about celebrity, Tom.”

  He wanted to ask what there was about celebrity, but Stuart was in no mood to debate. “I understand how important your name is, but…”

  “It’s my name that means everything. I’ve built a career on it.”

  “Ease up and forget it, man. And let me have another beer.”

  “Get it yourself. You don’t understand, Tom,” Stuart said, aggravated, shaking his head, “I have to exorcise this bloody ghastly idea. That’s why I want to look at the mountain man’s junk collection.”

  �
�OK, OK, we can go to the lower levels of Vogel, but I’m not climbing, understand?”

  Tom pondered what he was supposed to feel in this situation if the rumour was true. Hurt or let down? No, it was too many years ago. Anger or indignation? His father’s death was a release. He and his mother were beneficiaries. Anger and indignation didn’t come into it. What about the glory of being the son of the man who climbed a peak that nobody had climbed before, and only one person since? Yes, that glimmer of reflected light might have been desirable for a conceited law graduate years ago, but it would hardly penetrate to a lawyer working in London today. Nobody there was interested in how many peaks your father had climbed. Altogether, he recognised quickly that while this was a nightmare possibility for Stuart, it was almost a matter of indifference to him. But he was tense at the way the past might be disturbed by the rumour, and the unknown implications.

  “What did Ernest say about it, Stuart?”

  “He said it was rubbish, lies, and went into a long self- justificatory tirade.”

  “It was a hell of a thing to put to him. I would have expected him to explode. You believed him, didn’t you?”

  Stuart looked at the carpet, and then raised his head slowly to Tom. His expression drained. “I don’t have confidence in anything he says. You know that. I haven’t for years.”

  “Don’t let your feelings about you father get in the way. I imagine the Swiss team were coming down beaten and broken, possibly even angry at their defeat, and in pain with their injuries. They must have met this feller in a hut. You don’t stop to discuss past expeditions on the slopes. They’re all stamping round in a small, poorly lit space drinking tea and chewing fruit bars and aching. He shows them his booty. They see some papers. They jump to mad conclusions because they’re exhausted. How in hell can they work out anything factual from an encounter like that?”

  Stuart was a little reassured. “I have to see this man. Do you get that, Tom?”

  3

  Robyn telephoned the Downs to say she would be arriving that afternoon. After lunch with Stuart and Tia, he waited for her in the library. There was hardly a place of greater ease for him to meet Robyn than at the Downs; it had ceased to be her home in any real sense long before she left it as a bride. Now, with Ernest’s incapacity, it was a kind of lodging-house in the management of a housekeeper, Beryl Dilsey, a retainer of the family when he was a child. The earliest sort of refrain he recalled from Beryl was ‘Get away from this doorstep Tommy Stavely, you dirty little boy! You’re not coming in here!’ She was a broomstick, now topped with a tight posy of grey curls. She took instructions from her new mistress, Tia, he noticed, with an insubordinate blankness of expression. Beryl’s view of Tom, it seemed, had changed little. She had always been affronted that as Robyn’s husband he sat at the dining room table with the master and mistress and she had to wait on him, a task she avoided whenever she could by sending a minion instead. He had taken pleasure at times in giving her instructions she could not avoid fulfilling. ‘Beryl, would you mind passing me the vinegar carafe from the buffet…?’