I’d lost my glasses. Thirsty and a bit dizzy, I looked round. The slope above ended about twelve or fifteen feet up, and the ragged edge overhung. I’d only fallen that far. Once on that slope, it might not be difficult to make the road, which was out of sight from here—careful handholds and footholds, testing the green stuff and the grass inch by inch. But how to make a beginning? This was the shallowest point. Twenty yards on the buttress ended abruptly, back it ran down, making the proportion of cliff to slope greater before it also petered out.
I carefully got up, and my head lurched. Something the matter with my eye? No, that seemed all right, thank God. Bump on the back of my head. Didn’t remember that. On hands and knees again, I looked down, and the view made me feel pretty sick. There was no going down this slope—except the quick way. The bottom of the gorge was green enough, and between the trees was a stream and some goats grazing. Sun was brilliant in the valley, but this side was in the shade. Ten minutes after six. My watch was still ticking.
I lit a cigarette and was a bit surprised to find I could hardly hold the lighter steady.
Work it out. One couldn’t climb up, unless one was a fly or twelve feet tall just to begin. Going farther round the buttress was impossible: one could only go back, following the bend in the cliff that the road followed. A hundred yards back the road made a sharp turn inward, where the cliff formation was V-shaped; and the road followed the inside of the V. It was a deep indentation in the side of the gorge. I began to make towards this round the foot of the first buttress, keeping well in to the wall and scrambling through the low-growing shrubs and stuff towards the corner. It was downhill and the cliff above me grew in size; still, it was movement, progress of a sort.
I got into the wind and the cigarette began to sweal away at one side, so I chucked it down. There was a waterfall somewhere near: the hiss of it had grown louder as I came round. Here the buttress came to an end and the rest was more or less precipice; but it wasn’t absolutely straight up and there were a good many ridges and clefts in the rock, one in particular being a sort of volcanic fissure starting practically in the corner and running at an angle across the cliff face to the bushes below the road.
I was still furious—it didn’t make much sense, but that’s the way I was—and it took me all my time not to try climbing the thing right away. I just had the sense to sit down and take a rest before making any definite move.
Think it out. Down below was the floor of the valley. No houses, no smoke, no road, no railway line. Only the goats. Did the farmer come to milk then? If he did, would he hear any shouts? Very unlikely. The stream added to the noise. The road then? But here the road wasn’t quite on the edge. And who would come past but half a dozen cars a day driving along in a cloud of dust? Sensible thing was to stay here one day, or two, or even three, until the search began or the car was found. An ordeal, but safety at the end of it. Safe enough here in the meantime to think over the whole miserable business at leisure.
That fissure was a break in the cliff like a split in a tree. For the most part it looked about four feet wide at the mouth, but here and there it was probably a good deal less. The angle wasn’t at all bad, a bit steeper than forty-five degrees, and really only a very short distance to go—the road looked quite close. Not the sort of climb you would choose to make perhaps, but quite a reasonable one provided you kept your mind on the climb and not on the drop. A very different matter from any wild-cat idea of getting up the cliff face. The alternative was to sit and wait. I wasn’t in the mood for waiting. It seemed a justifiable risk.
Any experienced climber would have made short work of it. I remember thinking I was lucky to have shoes with rubber soles. I remember thinking, when I get to the top … In fifteen minutes I shall be back on the road again.…
The way up to the root of the cleft was by a few small bushes and comfortable footholds. It was hot in spite of the wind. When I got to the cleft I was panting a bit. I hastily pulled myself into it, because this was right over the precipice, and there was that hint of dizziness in my head which came from the first fall.
In this semi-shelter it was better, though not as comfortable as I’d expected. The fissure didn’t slope the right way at the mouth. One could so easily slip out. I began to work slowly up it, with back and hands and knees, like an old-time chimney sweep.
There was a good deal of faded green stuff at the edges and some etiolated plant life in its depths. At some seasons it might act as an additional escape for the water draining from the road and the cliffs. At about halfway I stopped to rest. Well over the precipice now. Sweat on face and hands. Wouldn’t do. Rest a bit. I leaned back, wriggled out of my coat, took wallet; cigarettes, lighter, passport, and pocket-knife, put them in other pockets; and then like a fool threw the coat away. It went off into the wind, swirling and twirling down like an autumn leaf, and I watched it all the way getting smaller and smaller, till it disappeared out of sight far down. Seeing that made the sweat worse, not better.
There was nothing to worry about so long as I kept cool.
Chapter 20
I lit another cigarette, to make myself rest.
To take my mind off the drop I tried to think about Alix again. I don’t know what the fall had done, but just then I seemed to see with a furious clarity things that had never been clear before. I saw that Alix’s hostility when I came back from England had had instinct, and even common sense, at its back as well as fright. The ruling force in her life was Charles and always would be. It had been hopeless from the start to try to break that down. For a few minutes last night I’d succeeded, but she’d slid back as soon as she saw him to-day. There would never be any permanent cleavage between them; it was like the affinity between twins; I remembered the difference in her attitude to me that night after we’d surprised him in the café at Villefranche. It had been there unknown to me all the time last year like an underground cable. It always would be there. No way of breaking it.
Only three cigarettes left, but I threw this one away half smoked and began to climb again. It couldn’t be a great way now. My fingers and hands were sore and scratched.
The heat of the sun made the air shimmer across the other side of the valley where the slope looked gentler. It was on that side farther along that the Villa Lavandou was built—so as to get all the evening sun.
How Alix’s hero-worship of Jacques must have piqued Charles. Queer he had not told her the truth if, after the war, he got to know about Jacques himself. Perhaps a dead hero was useful in keeping live ones away. Perhaps I should never know, and in this new bitterness it didn’t much seem to matter.
I slipped.
It was only a matter of an inch or two, because I was in a very narrow bit of the fissure, but the shock brought the sweat out again. The rocks held me firmly and there was no danger at all of falling. I groped about with my foot and found the place again and pushed up. Nothing moved. I was fixed awkwardly with my chest wedged between the rocks and not a very good chance of a firm foothold below. I tried to wriggle round and get a hand against something to push outwards, but didn’t seem able to get the right sort of leverage.
Rest a minute. Now, let the air out, right out, tense muscles and heave. My foot slipped again. Stop, take three breaths, or half breaths, tense muscles, and again … no movement. My shirt seemed to stick to the rock. Twist a bit, a fractional shift. Was it for better or worse? Another effort. Keep it up. No air yet. Another shift. My foot slipped once more, and I clawed with finger-nails to stop any sliding back. Lungs expanded, a full breath of air at last.
Foothold again. Now claw away from the insupportable weight; fingers on a new grip testing, pulling. I was free.… The rest of the fissure was climbed in a hurry, and after a minute I was getting my breath at the top where it split into five or six cracks and was covered over by a steep pile of loose stones and rubble tipped down from the road.
Nearly done now. Except for that one nasty moment it hadn’t been at all bad. The noise of t
he water was much nearer now. It was probably falling somewhere in the inner angle of the V, which was crossed by a road bridge.
This was where all the rubbish and all the fallen stones from the road above had evidently been tipped for years—and in course of time the thing had become a small moving mountain of rubble. Any time more was tipped on it it would slither and slide down the side of the slope and so much would go over the precipice into the valley. When I got out of the fissure my scramblings had sent a great shower of stones and rubble over the edge, and so much more had come rumbling down to take its place. I was sitting on the edge of this slope, and any attempt to climb it would be hopeless. But just round the corner, a little farther into the angle of the V, one could get out of range of the tip, and from here the bushes would make the last lap easy.
With safety so near there was no holding back. I slipped and slid along the edge of the rubble, and more stones went rattling over the edge and vanished, as if they’d disappeared, not fallen.
There was just one bit left. Between me and where the bushes grew was a little bulge of rock shaped not unlike the upturned keel of a boat. It marked the end of the rubble, was several feet across and stuck out. It meant leaning face forward on it and stretching across to the firm ground on the other side. It was only an awkward stretch of four or five feet, made a bit chancy because the rock bulged out. Anyway, it was a safe enough foothold, just clear of the loose stuff.
I slid to the edge as far as I could and got my left toe fixed firmly into a good solid ridge of rock just clear of the rubble. Then I slowly leaned out over the projecting bit till my weight was fairly distributed. I put my right arm over, hugging the rock, and slid my right leg across to find the ground at the other side.
I groped and found nothing but smooth rock. Nothing at all. Because of my one-sided eyesight I’d misjudged the distance.
I was making some sort of a noise. I heard it almost without realising where it came from, a sort of groan of protest that having got so near safety I was cheated right at the end. It seemed bitterly unfair.
I was only just keeping my balance and began to feel dizzy. The rock seemed to be thrusting me away from the cliff, as if it were in fact an upturned boat I was clutching as it pushed out into the air. I lacked the initiative to draw back or power to cling on. But because my weight just kept me there I didn’t fall.
I began to think about the fall. I deliberately hadn’t looked down so I wasn’t sure what was underneath. But from the way the stones had fallen it was likely to be a sheer drop. There’d be some seconds of knowing before the ground came up slap like a hand and obliterated you. Or perhaps you’d fall across a tree and break your spine. Or you might bound from rock to rock hammered at every touch, until a limp rag of a dead man rolled in a bundle down the last gentle slope to the stream.
In light-headedness and frustration I began to toy with the idea of giving myself the inconsiderable push that would start it all. Just a tiny spasm of the muscles, a lifting of the head and shoulders, or a shifting of the left leg.
It seemed to be quite another part of me which at the same time was thinking that when I did get to safety I should dream about this, have nightmares, for the rest of my life. As soon as I shut my eyes I should be back in this place, the wind flapping and pushing at me, over the fall. I should close my eyes as I was doing now, and the cliff and the sky would slowly swirl round so that I was leaning on a slippery rock in space, turning over and over like my coat, like a leaf, already falling, no feeling but the pain in my leg falling …
Pain in the leg, that was real enough. Open my eyes; fingernails clutching at the rock; left leg aching. All the muscles quivering, threatening cramp. This was the only support, nearly gone. The cliffs and the sky steadied up. This was real enough; I was on the cliff face, no escape. Couldn’t move to to-morrow and look back and think: it was terrible but it’s over. It wasn’t over. There was no to-morrow—yet.
With a great effort I pushed myself back; crouched against the sloping rubble, trembling fighting the dizziness and the panic. No way up. No way back— not down that fissure again. Shouting would never be heard here through the noise of the water. Queer to think this was perhaps just a few minutes before death. Not ill. But in five minutes, ten minutes, a couple of hours, whenever the brain next put it all in motion.…
Had all my life been working towards this, all heading for this senseless finish up? It seemed very silly. I laughed. An end worthy of Charles’s philosophy. I’d been thinking a lot about Charles’s philosophy lately.
My head was hot. I smoked two more cigarettes, trying to cool down. When they were done it would be time to make a last attempt.
I got my shoes off and tied about my neck. Then a wry idea took me and I unhitched them and threw them round the hump of rock. They landed safely in the bushes. I wondered how long they’d last up there in the wind and the sun. Maybe a bird would nest in them, or the spiders find their dark corners useful. Pity they weren’t the shoes Alix had sold me: that would have been symbolic.
Well, this was it, I thought. Either I had to stay here until I fell off from fatigue or it had to be faced while there was still some daylight. An extra stretch of the foot, that was all. I got up and stuck my toe in the same place and began all over again.
I think really I might have managed it quite well if I’d been in a normal condition; but as soon as I got the other leg over and began to stretch out with it, the dizziness came back. It came in waves. It wasn’t that I was afraid to die, but that I was afraid to fall.
I stretched and stretched, groping feverishly for a foothold. The extraordinary feeling I got in the dizziness was that I was almost on my back clinging to an overhanging roof of rock, and that it would be hopeless even to get a foot grounded on the other side because it couldn’t help. I dug my nails into the rock and pressed my face against it, absolutely unable to move. The damned wind kept pushing and pulling, and I cursed it weakly and fearfully every time a strong gust came. It seemed to suck at me like a vacuum, out of the depths of the valley.
I think it was in one of the worst moods of dizziness that I finally slipped, and I clung like a fly and felt the rock moving up slowly under my fingers. The sky was circling round. I jerked my right foot out and found the rocky ledge at last. It wasn’t any use because I was already falling with the cliff. The whole cliff side was toppling into the valley. I slid another inch or two as it swayed and I moved my right hand, then my left, pulling into the shelter of the other side. Left foot was numbed and slow to move. It dragged behind. I hurt my knee. Then I fell forward into the safety of the bushes.
Chapter 21
Sometimes when you go through an ordeal and come out of it all right you feel uplifted and thankful. That was the way when my eyesight came back. Other times the processes work differently. This was one of the other times.
There was no one about and I sat by the road for ages, tying my shoes—which wouldn’t be spiders’ nests after all—vaguely straightening shirt and tie and trousers. They were in a pretty bad state, but it was instinctive to do something about them. Dizziness was better away from the heights, but a headache remained and I was chiefly worried about that, afraid it was something to do with my eyes. No one passed, not a car or a bicycle or a walker. The sun had left the valley and the wind was dropping.
It would be nice to recall that sitting there out of reach of the cliffs brought me at least relief or satisfaction. I don’t remember it. Everything tasted too bitter. The anger had gone and left this.
It seemed to me then that I’d failed in the one thing that mattered, indeed that I’d never had the least chance of bringing it off. Realising that was the one outcome of the attempt on my life: now I knew where I was. I’d failed where Alix was concerned, and because of that I’d somehow failed towards myself. All that remained was to tidy up the loose ends and go.
I began to walk up the road towards the Villa Lavandou. It didn’t occur to me that there might be any further dang
er there. For a time the things I did were as if worked out and decided by someone else. It was all gone through by a stranger.
Not many yards on I found a rivulet trickling down the rocks, and I drank some of this and washed the blood and dirt off my hands. After sitting there for a good time I began to feel better.
As the villa came in sight I saw there were two cars outside, but neither was the Studebaker. There was an old chap working in the lavender fields, and he gave me a glance but no more. I was surprised at that. Either he took no interest in an unusual sight, or I was less unusual than I thought.
The sun had set now, and the first twilight was fading. There were two or three lights in the villa, one being in the long Renaissance room. I was pretty clumsy and reckless, but I did have a twinge of caution at this point, and made across the lavender beds towards this light, hoping to look in without attracting attention.
As I got near I saw there were about half a dozen people in the room, and the first one I made out was Alix in a chair. She didn’t look as if she was enjoying herself. Armand Delaisse, sulky and flushed, was beside her, and Charles stood by the mantelpiece. They seemed to be arguing with a man who had his back to me. As I moved nearer someone tapped me on the shoulder.…
I jerked round: a man had come up behind me: a policeman.
We stared at each other. “Your business, please.”
“My name—Gordon. I came to see M. Bénat.”
“May I see your passport?”
I showed it him. He said: “Will you come with me.”
As we passed across the window I think Charles saw me. This development was a shock and I couldn’t make sense of it.
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