And so I sat and looked at the screen.
As usual there was the logjam in my head, and nothing was arriving apart from my deadline.
Luckily, there was a knock on the door to disturb me.
It could only be one person.
The postman.
I walked upstairs as the knocking continued, wondering what he had for me, maybe some small bit of gear sent for review, or a book or video I’d ordered. Maybe it was a cheque? I could see him through the window, a blue Father Christmas, his bulk blocking out the light.
I felt privileged that he always wanted to stop and chat, usually me standing in my dressing gown, feeling a bit embarrassed at my idle appearance, a slice of toast in my hand, while he was obviously on the job, doing his round. He was a stout-looking man, solidly constructed from a lifetime’s worth of walking and posting, his shoulders muscular and square, perfect for the huge red bags of post.
I’d always envied postmen and the physicality of their day, out on their own, not stuck inside like me, doing something solid and honest. I guess he envied me, sat at home everyday in my dressing gown, presumably watching daytime television and eating toast.
Being a postman wasn’t for me though. The mental aspect, sorting post out down the depot, would be beyond me. As a kid, I’d had a paper round for a day, but lost it because I stuck most of the papers in the wrong letterboxes. I’d posted them in the correct doors, but I’d been in the wrong block of flats, a bit like getting the right house, but on the wrong street.
It also took me so long, running up and down stairs in a panic after I realised my error, that I was late for school, turning up looking like a chimney sweep, my face streaked with newsprint. I’ll give things my best shot, but there are some things I just can’t do, no matter how careful I am, a lesson learned from bitter experience.
I had a job collating sheets of paper in a printer’s, which showed me that organisational tasks involving numbers had to be avoided at all cost. Doing them sent me into a funk that I was useless. By avoiding them, I could maintain the impression I was a competent and fully functioning human being. I guess my present situation stemmed from avoiding any sort of job that required I disturb what had become the off-limits part of my brain, boarded up for my own safety. The problem now was that I was employing myself. To be honest, I’d have sacked myself if I could.
I opened the door.
‘Hello,’ said the postman, tugging a big envelope out of his bag. ‘Something to sign for.’
I took the large envelope and sticking it under my arm signed his little book with an illegible scribble, my name being far too long to ever complete, and passed it back. I could tell by its weight and shape the envelope contained some slides being returned.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ said the postman, as he stuffed his recorded delivery book back in his pocket. ‘I need to buy some boots and thought you were the right man to ask.’
We chatted about the usual things, leather versus fabric boots, Gore-tex inserts, Vibram soles and how bendy a boot needs to be. It was a conversation I often had with strangers. I guess he’d spotted all the climbing magazines I got sent every month, and assumed I was an expert. I almost said, ‘Come into the shop and I’ll do you a dodgy deal.’ But then remembered I was no longer in that line of work.
‘Thanks for that’ he said smiling.
‘No worries,’ I said, the full stop in our short conversation. But as he began to turn away, and I started to close the door, he stopped.
‘By the way, did you know that climber who died this week?’ he asked ‘He was from Sheffield, wasn’t he?’
I stopped, my hand resting on the door, caught out by his question, unexpectedly emotional, stirred, unable to speak.
He was talking about Jules Cartwright.
Jules, like everyone else I knew apart from Ian, had decided to become a guide, and had begun his training in the Alps. As was the case in most things, I was jealous. Here was another climber I knew who would be out every day, living in the Alps, probably ending up marrying one of their rich clients, a surgeon perhaps, living an ideal life in some amazing house in the mountains.
On hearing the news I’d wondered if this was a turning point for Jules, one of the most ambitious and uncompromising climbers I’d ever met. Now he’d be taking punters up mountains, going skiing, having fun. It didn’t fit with the man I knew. To me, he seemed fuelled by more than a hedonistic escape from the real word, but something dark and noble, his life a project. Like Ian, for a long time Jules had no apparent connections to the world. He was a free agent, able to go where he wanted, and climb what he wished. Then something changed. He met someone, he mellowed, and that summer was working as an aspirant guide in the Alps.
Ian had emailed me the news a few days before. The subject line ‘Jules Cartwright’ popped up in my inbox. I knew straightaway he must have died.
I’d sat there and looked at it, read the words and imagined it happening: walking in to the North Face of the Piz Badile, walking along the top of some cliffs, either he or his client slipping on some loose stones, and, being roped together, both falling to their deaths.
It wasn’t like when someone disappears or is stuck on a mountain, when there is hope they may reappear when all hope is lost. Jules was gone.
The news was a wall.
It stopped there.
He was dead.
It was tragic, but not for the usual reasons. There was always a good chance Jules was going to die climbing. It’s something all climbers who push the limits accept, both about themselves and one another. When you hear they have died climbing it’s never unexpected; not like being killed in a car or by a blood vessel popping in a brain. But for Jules to die simply walking to a climb, that was something shocking. It made you see that there was no line between extreme risk and safety.
I imagined Jules sat beside me, probably with a beer in his hand, his boyish face, his mind always turning, and imagined what he would say if it had been someone else: ‘Stupid wanker.’
I’d known him for a long time, sat in pubs with him on lost winter afternoons, sparring, bullshitting, checking each other out. In my class-conscious mind he was posh, like a lot of people you find in alpinism, their love of the Alps stemming from skiing holidays as kids.
Jules’ parents were doctors. I usually hated people like him, hatred of the worst kind, a mix of blind bigotry and envy. But I didn’t hate him. I really liked him. He knew himself well, and had no reason to go looking for what was missing in others.
He’d once stuck up for me when I wasn’t there and someone had said I was a crap climber. Finding this out made me more relaxed with him; I had nothing to prove. I thought back to him picking me up from work once and taking me to the pub where he grilled me with questions about my life. I just thought he was being friendly, but afterwards realised it was a sort of interview. Jules was always a man with a plan, and no doubt had a climb in mind. But if it was an interview, I guess I failed, as we never climbed together.
And now he was dead.
I always told people, when asked how dangerous climbing was, that none of my friends had died. It was a lie, the qualifications of friendship always growing stricter, any connection with the dead deniable. It kept my head straight.
The postman stood there, waiting for an answer, my face no doubt blank as I searched for words, as memories of Jules drifted through me like smoke, seeing him laughing at the table at the Sports Bar in Chamonix, so full of life – a force now entirely dissipated.
He was someone else’s mate.
He was someone else’s partner.
We’d never climbed together.
I hardly knew him.
He had nothing to do with me.
Just another climber.
‘Yes, I knew him,’ I said. ‘He was a friend of mine.’
SEVENTEEN
Charlie
August 2004
‘Do you fancy working with children, dwarfs and chocolate?�
�� Nick said down the line from America. ‘And Johnny Depp?’
It was obviously not your standard job offer, but I had an inkling what he was talking about: the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
‘It should be a month’s work, maybe longer,’ he continued, calling from the East Coast, where he lived.
‘How come you’re asking me?’ I asked, knowing I’d never been invited to work on any other of Nick’s film safety jobs: Batman, James Bond or Shackleton.
‘I thought you would fit in well with the Oompa Loompas,’ said Nick, laughing.
It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Working on a film – proper work; not writing or talking about climbing, something almost grown-up.
And yet, as always, there was climbing.
I’d been scheming to go back to Yosemite, a place I knew could break my run of bad luck, where I could climb something hard, get back on track. My heart was set on a solo attempt of a route that had been tagged ‘harder than the Reticent Wall.’ If I took this job then there would be no climbing, and I’d have to wait until the winter to do something. Could I wait that long?
I needed to climb something.
Only then would I be right with myself.
I’d never let work get in the way of climbing before. I shouldn’t start now.
‘The day rate is two fifty,’ said Nick.
‘Two fifty an hour?’ I replied, thinking it was a bit low.
‘No,’ said Nick. ‘Two hundred and fifty pounds a day.’
…
‘I’m in,’ I said.
The last time I’d climbed with Nick Lewis was in Patagonia in 1999. It had been a life changing experience and my first expedition. I’d been asked along by Nick, Paul Ramsden and Jim Hall, all much more experienced than me, and who no doubt saw a masochistic streak in me that would come in handy.
The highpoint of the trip – if that’s the right word – had been an attempt on a winter ascent of Fitz Roy up the seventeen hundred metre Super Couloir, the route where Frank had died. We’d got within a few pitches of the top, only to get caught in a major storm in a homemade tent lashed to a small ice ledge. We sat there for twenty hours, unable to sleep or go up or down, until the tent finally ripped apart. With no other choice, we began our descent, rappelling all night, exhausted, having not eaten or drunk anything for three days.
All the while I was convinced we couldn’t make it, that we’d be swept away by an avalanche or our ropes would become stuck and we’d freeze to death. But we did make it down, reaching the base early in the morning, after fourteen hours of abseiling. Hardly believing we were alive, we staggered to our tent, staked out on the glacier, this tiny haven full of food and fuel, the focus of our prayers all the way down, only to find it had blown away.
Even though I felt I went to the brink in Patagonia, after that l knew I could cope with anything.
But for Nick I felt it was the end.
Nick was a very thoughtful climber, and on that trip you could tell he was grappling with what climbing meant to him, and whether the risks were worth it. Our Patagonia epic had come on the heels of a few other close calls.
How many times can you escape?
After Patagonia Nick focused his energy on work, and being highly motivated, with tons of energy and drive, he did well.
Always a great logistics man, learned from a wealth of expedition experience, he began helping oil companies access remote places, and then television and film crews. He was still going on expeditions, only now he was being paid.
Much of this work involved looking after people on ice, and so when the new Bond film featured a car chase on a frozen sea, Nick got the job as safety man and fixer.
At the time I was so jealous, especially when several mutual friends got work on the film, which was shot in Iceland. The wages were high and the work interesting, but for me the jealously stemmed more from missing a chance to work on a big movie.
All my life I’ve been a huge film fan. Beyond climbing, cinema has been my biggest passion. When you’re a poor youth, going to the cinema is always a big deal, and many of my best memories revolve around going to the pictures. A dark cinema is as close to heaven as standing on top of a mountain.
I had never understood why I never got the call to work on any of Nick’s projects, until one day I asked Paul Ramsden, racking up to climb an ice route in France, Paul having worked on many of Nick’s projects.
‘It’s because he doesn’t want you to take the piss out of him, or say something embarrassing to the director,’ he said. I was shocked. Nick, although not much older than me, was my hero, the archetypal gnarly alpinist, climbing hard routes and always in winter.
The truth was I wanted to be just like Nick, but thinking back to our trip to Patagonia, I saw I had been quite merciless, taking the piss out of him, which was easy as he was always honest and sincere. In Patagonia he’d been the voice of reason, while I had been the voice of dangerous over-enthusiasm.
On our first route we’d come to an impasse, an icy slot that looked very easy to fall off. Nick had said that so far from help, we couldn’t afford to climb anything we might fall off. To which I replied: ‘What’s the point of bloody coming then.’ And with that I led the pitch.
Nick was my hero, but he disappointed me in Patagonia. My preconceptions let me down. The weaker he became, the stronger it made me. Every sly joke I made at his expense, every time I saw fear or hesitation in his eyes, I knew I was the better climber, better than my hero.
I was too blind and ambitious to see he was only human, and that he wasn’t weak, only changing.
‘You need to be down at Pinewood Studios next Wednesday, is that alright?’ said Nick. ‘There’ll be five people running safety on the set, including me and Ramsden.’
My heart pounded at the thought of finally working on a film, working with the stars, the lights, the cameras, the five-star hotels.
‘As it’s in the United Kingdom we get no accommodation, so we’ll be camping.’
‘What’s so dangerous about the set?’ I asked, wondering if they’d built a chocolate Matterhorn, having heard on the grapevine that Nick had been teaching the guy who played the Oompa Loompa how to climb.
‘No, it’s not really climbing safety. In fact, it’s probably going to be more like chocolate lifeguard work. Anyway, you’ll see when you get there.’
The chocolate safety team stood outside the huge sliding doors of the 007
Stage at Pinewood Studios, dressed in climbing harnesses and helmets, badged up members of Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory crew. Everyone was wearing shorts and T-shirts, with a reflective safety vest over the top, the overall effect less ‘safety’ more ‘Village People.’
Apart from me there was Paul Ramsden, Nick, Neil Bentley – a hulk of a man and one of the best climbers in the world – and Nick’s business partner Dave Rootes, a former British Antarctic base commander, and the man who had looked after Michael Palin on his ‘Pole to Pole’ trip. You might say the team was more than qualified to handle anything that lay beyond the studio doors.
Nick and Dave’s company was called Poles Apart, indicating the polar nature of much of their work, but had been renamed ‘Legs Apart’ by Paul, probably because they could turn their hands to anything for money.
‘Right guys,’ said Nick, everyone standing to attention, me especially, wanting to make a good impression. ‘Is anyone on drugs?’
We all shook our heads.
‘Good, because if anyone is on drugs then your brains may explode when you go inside and see the set.’
With Nick leading, we walked into the hangar-like building, the largest sound stage in Europe, big enough to hold a jumbo jet or two, and the location for just about every amazing set ever built, from Bond villain lairs to the Death Star from Star Wars.
I was expecting a huge white space of gleaming paint and technology, film types in turtleneck sweaters running around and actors swooning under the giant lights.
Instead the first thing I saw was the crack of some builder’s arse as he manhandled a length of rubber pipe, the space looking like a dilapidated shed or factory: dirty, smelly and full of cockney builders sat around drinking tea from Styrofoam cups and reading The Sun. Instead of an amazing set all I could see was a wall of scaffolding and plywood.
I was a bit disappointed.
‘Right team, check this out,’ said Nick, running up some stairs that led to the lip of the wall.
As I climbed after him, I spotted the top of something out of place in this dingy shed, in fact, something out of place in this world, a gleaming alien tree, its branches red-and-white-striped candy cane, limbs twisting around and up, up towards the giant lights that hung from the ceiling.
‘That’s got to be a snozzberry tree,’ I said, but no one was listening. Looking over the wall, our eyes were transfixed.
Spread out before us in a space as large as a football pitch was the most amazing place I’d ever seen, a life-sized version of Willy Wonka’s chocolate garden. Hills of brilliant green grass rose up from the far end, their heights covered in marshmallow trees and bushes hung with gobstoppers as big as your head. A huge tunnel was cut into the side of the hills from which emerged a chocolate river that ran through the middle of the set, its length spanned by two high-arching chocolate bridges, until it ended in a lake of chocolate below what seemed to be a chocolatefall – currently switched off – about a hundred feet high.
‘Is it real chocolate?’ we all asked in unison.
‘No. It’s more like washing-up liquid,’ said Nick.
‘Oh,’ we all said, shoulders dropping in disappointment.
‘They tried real chocolate but it was just a mess. There’s two hundred thousand gallons of the stuff down there.’
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