Bright Air

by Barry Maitland

  Looking back now, I can barely recognise myself in all this secretive and rather obsessive activity. Although I saw Luce from time to time in the following weeks, helping her with her statistics assignments or going out to the pub, I didn’t mention anything about my training. I avoided seeing her with her friends, and made excuses for not going to their next climbing sessions while I desperately tried to get fit, strengthen the peculiar muscles that seemed to be crucial, and develop some minimal expertise. After a few weeks of excuses I could see that she was losing interest, and I realised I was going to have to make an appearance. They were all clearly surprised when I turned up, and more so when I put on my no-longer pristine shoes and made a reasonable showing on the wall. I was still hopelessly inferior to the girls, and to a lesser degree Curtis and Owen, but I actually outpaced Damien, who was probably still hung-over from lunchtime, and he generously conceded that I might be okay and said he’d shout us all at the bar.

  We sat around a table together, Owen, Anna, Luce and I, with Damien and Curtis returning from the counter with beer, and they were friendly enough, but I still felt uncomfortable, the outsider, their conversation and humour full of references I didn’t know and which they didn’t bother to explain. I remembered Luce saying that six of them had gone climbing in Yosemite together, and I wondered who the other one had been. Then Curtis raised his arm and waved to someone at the door, and I turned and saw a tall lean man wearing a black shirt and jeans. He had shoulder-length black hair swept back from his face, and as he made his way towards us I saw that he was limping heavily, putting his weight on a stick in his left hand.

  Curtis jumped to his feet and pulled another chair into the circle, and the man sank into it with a grunt, handing Curtis a fifty-dollar note which he took up to the bar.

  Luce said, ‘Marcus, this is Josh. Josh Ambler, Marcus Fenn.’

  I got up and stretched my hand out to shake his. His face was deeply lined and tanned, his hair touched in places with grey, and I saw that he was much older than us, maybe mid-forties. He regarded me impassively.

  ‘Josh has been climbing with us this evening, Marcus.’

  ‘Really?’ His voice was soft. Curtis returned and placed a large Scotch by his hand, and laid the change beside it. ‘What do you do, Josh?’

  ‘I’ve just started an MBA.’

  His expression registered an involuntary wince and he took a quick gulp of whisky as if to clear a bad taste. ‘Merchant banker, eh?’ This caused general merriment.

  ‘That sort of thing. How about you? What do you do, Marcus?’

  ‘Oh, I work for this godforsaken institution, I’m sorry to say, and occasionally try to squeeze a little understanding into these guys’ heads. Fairly unsuccessfully, I’d have to admit.’

  I couldn’t pin down his accent—Australian, certainly, but with what might have been an American flavour. His attention turned to Owen. ‘How’s Pop bearing up?’

  Owen shook his head wearily. ‘Bushed. If you have some dope for crying babies, please can I have some.’ This was the first time I’d heard that Owen was a father. Apparently he was also married. ‘Suzi’s going spare.’

  ‘If she needs a break,’ Luce said, ‘I don’t mind doing the odd babysit.’

  Owen seized on the offer. ‘We’d really appreciate that, Luce.’

  Marcus was observing this domestic exchange with a sardonic smile, as if he found the whole idea vaguely pitiful.

  There was karaoke in the adjoining room, and everyone looked up and listened as the next song began. It was an INXS track, and they all joined loudly in the refrain, Falling down the mountain, all that is except Marcus, who leaned forward, shaking his head as if some kind of joke was on him.

  They were all big INXS fans, apparently, still grieving for Michael Hutchence who’d died just over a year before. Trying to get more of a handle on each of them, I asked what else they liked. Curtis was toying with heavy metal, Owen nominated Silverchair, Damien Shania Twain, Anna U2 and Luce Savage Garden (possibly for the name). Marcus said nothing, but I’d have put him down for Leonard Cohen. Seeing my lip curl at this selection, Luce said, ‘Well, what about you?’

  ‘How about The Fall?’

  They looked blank, then sceptical, as if I’d made it up following on the INXS number.

  ‘Never heard of it,’ Owen said.

  ‘But you’ve heard their music. Remember that last scene in The Silence of the Lambs, when Clarice Starling stalks the Buffalo Bill/Jame Gumb character through the dark house? The background music was The Fall, from their album Hex Enduction Hour. The track was called …’ I hesitated as if pondering, then looked straight at Marcus, ‘… “Hip Priest”.’

  He stared right back at me, and there was a moment’s silence. They still thought I was making all this up, and probably taking a poke at their crippled guru.

  Then Marcus suddenly tossed his head back with a short bark of a laugh. ‘You know, I believe he’s right.’ He slid the cash lying beside his whisky across the table towards me and said, ‘Get us another round in, merchant banker, eh?’

  I grinned and got up. ‘Sure, Marcus.’

  After that the evening went just fine, and when it was over Luce and I walked back to her place while the others got a lift in Marcus’s old Jaguar, which he was able to drive with his good leg. I asked Luce what had happened to him, and she confirmed that he had been the sixth member of their climbing group in California, fifteen months before, and that it had been on that trip that he had taken the fall that had shattered his left leg, just a month or so after Hutchence hanged himself, hence the references.

  ‘What happened?’

  She shrugged. ‘He just tried to push himself that little bit too far. He was a really good climber, and he’d have been able to make the move without any problem ten years earlier, but I think he was trying to prove something to himself, or to us, and got taught a nasty lesson. It was a terrible thing when it happened, right at the end of our trip. We had to climb up to him and bring him down. He was in shocking pain. He was in hospital in San Francisco for a week before they could fly him back, and then in Royal North Shore for another six weeks.’

  We walked on for a while, and then she said, ‘What did you think of Marcus?’

  ‘I don’t know … You all seemed rather overawed by him.’

  ‘He’s become more sombre since the accident, more angry. He used to be great fun. But he’s brilliant, Josh, the most inspiring person I’ve ever met. Look, I’ll show you.’

  We had reached the door of the flat she shared with Anna, and she took me inside, where Anna was setting up an ironing board.

  ‘We were talking about Marcus,’ Luce explained to her. ‘I want to show Josh the Oslo tape.’

  ‘Fine.’ Anna turned to me. ‘We were debating in the car whether you made that up about The Fall. Marcus said no, but the others thought you were.’

  ‘What about you?’

  She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘I think you told the truth. I can usually tell when people are lying.’

  ‘Clever you.’

  Luce found the tape she wanted and we sat together on the sofa as the picture came on. The scene was a stage with a lectern, large letters on the wall behind proclaiming OSLO ECOSOPHY SYMPOSIUM. A lone figure took his place behind the microphone to some scattered applause. I recognised a younger Marcus, vigorous, bright-eyed. His speech was in English, but I can’t remember much of what he actually said, and what I can remember—something about the ancient Greek word for house, oikos, being the root for economy (stewardship of the household), ecology (knowledge of the household) and ecosophy (wisdom of the household)—didn’t sound very exciting. But his presentation was inspiring, riveting in fact, as became apparent from the murmurs of approval from the unseen audience, gradually building to bursts of spontaneous clapping that punctuated his impassioned speech. The end was greeted with a huge wave of applause, and a second, rather elderly figure came striding onto the stage and grasped Marcus in a hug. />
  ‘That’s Arne Naess,’ Luce said, in a tone that suggested Moses himself had appeared.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Arne Naess—you must have heard of him.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Anna made a sort of clucking noise behind me, accompanied by a hiss of steam from her iron. ‘He’s just about the most important philosopher of the twentieth century, that’s all. He invented deep ecology.’

  I hadn’t heard of that, either.

  Luce said, ‘He’s also a great climber. The day after this he took Marcus onto the Troll Wall at Romsdalen. That is awesome.’

  ‘Looks a bit old for that.’

  Anna butted in again. ‘His nephew, also called Arne Naess, led the first Norwegian Everest expedition. He’s married to Diana Ross.’

  I turned and stared at her. ‘Now you are having me on.’

  She shrugged, poker-faced, enjoying herself, and went on with her ironing.

  When I left the flat I lingered with Luce on the doorstep, giving her a kiss, and was gratified by the response. Suddenly she was interested in me again, really interested it seemed, and I wondered if there was some quirk of wiring in her brain linking climbing and sex. I said, as if the idea had just popped into my head, ‘Hey, how about I come and help you babysit Owen’s kid?’ I imagined a quiet romantic evening, a sofa or even a bed, free of Anna, there being no privacy in the primitive flat that I was sharing at that time.

  She looked at me in surprise. ‘You don’t want to do that.’

  ‘Yes I do. We can work on your statistics.’

  She laughed. ‘All right. I’ll speak to Suzi.’ Then she slipped away, giving me a beautiful smile as she disappeared through the door.

  Memories of those times came painfully back to me when I finally sat down on the terrace with a stiff whisky to read Detective Senior Constable Maddox’s weighty report. He had been sent out to Lord Howe on the third of October, the day following Luce’s disappearance, to support the sole police officer on the island, Constable Grant Campbell. Together they had examined the scene of the accident and taken statements from just about everyone who had had contact with Luce during her month there. There are some three hundred and thirty permanent residents on the island, and visitor numbers are restricted to about four hundred. At that time of the year, mid-spring, Maddox reckoned there were three hundred and twenty visitors, their numbers boosted a few days before by the arrival of a dozen yachts taking part in the annual Sydney to Lord Howe Island race.

  Maddox paid closest attention, naturally enough, to those nearest to Luce, the group from Sydney, interviewing each of them several times. They began by expressing their shock at what had happened and their dismay at the loss of such a wonderful friend. Their accounts of the accident were consistent, and they described the relationships within the scientific study team as harmonious and Luce’s mood as happy. However, a shadow was cast over this rather bland and comforting story by some of the other people that the police spoke to. A young woman, Sophie Kalajzich, a temporary resident on the island working as a waitress and cleaner on a twelve-month contract, had become friends with Luce, and described her as being withdrawn and depressed on occasions, especially towards the end of her stay. She also said that Luce had referred to some disagreement among the research team, and that she felt that Luce had seemed isolated and marginalised as the only woman in the group. She mentioned that Luce had been to see the island’s doctor several times. Dr Richard Passlow confirmed that he had seen her twice, treating her for diarrhoea, nausea and insomnia. He described her mood as subdued rather than depressed.

  Faced with these comments, the others in her party modified their statements. Luce had seemed a bit down lately, Curtis said, and Owen agreed that she hadn’t been her usual cheerful self, though they denied there had been a disagreement with her. Curtis put it down to the time of the month. Finally Damien, no doubt sensing the way things were going, came out with the fact that she had broken up with her boyfriend shortly before coming on the trip, and he attributed her moodiness to that. Maddox had added a note in his report that the boyfriend, Joshua Ambler, had moved to the United Kingdom and he had been unable to contact him at the London address provided. But when Maddox bluntly asked them if Luce might have taken risks on those cliffs, or even deliberately jumped, they were all adamant that that was impossible.

  As I read through these statements I felt I saw Luce emerge as if through a mist, vague and unfamiliar at first, then in sharper focus, a sadder, darker version of the woman I’d known. This glimpse of her, over the gap of four years, made me feel terrible, and for a while I pushed the report away and couldn’t go on with it.

  My eyes strayed to the morning newspaper on the table at my elbow, folded to an article on the sentencing of the double-murderer on the train. Rory had sent him down for thirty-four years. It struck me as an odd figure—why not a nice round thirty-five?—until I realised that the victims had been aged sixteen and eighteen. Also, the murderer was aged thirty-three and Rory sixty-seven. A methodical and precise man, our Rory. I wondered how he might calculate my guilt.

  Mary came out onto the terrace, carrying a plate of savoury tidbits that she’d been experimenting with in the kitchen. As I tried a couple, she took in the coroner’s report and the whisky.

  ‘I thought you were a beer man, Josh. I never saw you drink Scotch until that day Anna came.’ She tilted her head so that she could read the title on the report. ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Anna and I persuaded Damien to get hold of it for us.’

  ‘Ah.’ Mary sat down facing me, a worried frown on her face. ‘If you need help I could always ask Rory, you know. I’m sure he could arrange for you to talk to the policeman who went out there, if it would make you feel any better. I think his name was mentioned in the press at the time.’

  ‘Thanks. Maybe later.’ It was a kind thought, but the last thing I wanted was to get Rory involved.

  ‘I wonder if this is such a good idea, Josh, raking over the past like this.’

  I looked at her in surprise. ‘I thought you were for it.’

  She gave me a sad smile. ‘I didn’t realise then that you’re still in love with her. You are, aren’t you, dear?’

  I blinked at her, and remembered a crack my father had made one Christmas, that Mary was a witch, with the gift of second sight. I think she’d caught him out over something to do with Pam, while my mum was still alive.

  She reached forward and squeezed my hand. ‘We’re all just ships that pass in the night, Josh. For a brief time we make friends, we fall in love, and then we’re alone again. We all have to cope with that.’

  ‘Sure.’ I shrugged, embarrassed by this bit of homespun wisdom. Four years before I would have said coping wasn’t a problem, but I seemed to be getting softer with time. ‘With a little help from these …’ She thought I was reaching for the whisky, but instead I grabbed a couple of her savouries. She laughed and clipped my ear as she went back to the kitchen.

  I was drawn back to the report by a lie. In one of his statements Marcus, the leader of the team, had described Luce as being a ‘highly skilled but impetuous climber’. I supposed he’d said it as a precaution, as a first small step to protecting himself and the university against any future accusations of negligence. But it was a lie—Luce was never impetuous. That was the amazing thing about her, that she could do the most breathtaking things with such control and deliberation.

  That got me thinking about Marcus again, the most enigmatic and, for me at least, the most perplexing of our circle. For although he was one of us, it was never quite possible to forget that he was also a member of staff, a senior lecturer and director of the university’s Conservation Biology Centre within the Department of Zoology, and tutor to Luce, Curtis and Owen. He elided the two roles, teacher and friend, in a way that I hadn’t seen before at university, allowing him to slip from one to the other, so it seemed to me, according to the circumstance. His social life seemed to revolve enti
rely around his tutorial students, with whom he would be viciously funny, putting down his academic colleagues and deriding the ways of the university—then he’d abruptly assert the authority of his position and turn on one of them with some scolding remark.

  That wasn’t the only ambiguous thing about him; it was hard to be sure how old he was, dressing young, usually in black with his hair often pulled back in a ponytail. And then there was his sexuality, a continuing topic of discussion among us. He’d never been married, and though his manner seemed mildly camp he was reputed to have once got a female student pregnant. He seemed to exercise a hold over both male and female students that to me seemed sexual.

  Luce disagreed with me about this of course, putting his charisma down to his brilliance and his standing in his field. There was that; after watching that video of him in Oslo I could imagine the impact he must have had on his students. None of my lecturers were inspiring, and the idea of any of us wanting to own a video of one of them giving a conference speech was laughable. We all needed our heroes, and his green credentials were impeccable. He’d done his doctoral and post-doc studies at Oxford and Caltech, and he had an endless store of anecdotes about the great figures he had drunk and argued with—Richard Sylvan on anarchy, cannibalism and deep green theory, and Peter Singer on animal liberation, as well as the mythical Norwegian Arne Naess, with whom he claimed to have debated the eight principles of deep ecology in a sauna in the Arctic forests before falling into a vodka- and heat-induced coma.

  To add to this intriguing background, Marcus lived in a very strange house half buried into a rock face in the northern Sydney suburb of Castlecrag, to which we were occasionally invited to celebrate some triumph over the reactionary establishment where he worked. He was very generous with booze and other more exotic stimulants, and after that first bemused encounter with him it seemed quite natural that he should always be around, a magus with a droll wit and a savage contempt for the university, the government, the country and pretty much everything else.