White. Rosie Thomas
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and loud talk. Most of the customers were very young Westerners with the suntans, bleached hair and ripped shorts of backpackers, although there were a few Thais and Japanese among them. He edged his way through the babble of American, British and indeterminate accents to the bar, and positioned himself in front of it. He searched the crowd with his eyes, looking for her.
Finch wasn’t there. Within a minute he knew it for certain but he still examined each of the groups more carefully and drank some weak beer while he waited in case she had gone outside for five minutes. It took him much less than five minutes to identify the group of Everest mountaineers. They were older than most of the other drinkers and were gathered in a tight group around two rickety little tables. One of them had a goatee and wore his long hair tied back in a lank ponytail, another had an effete blond fringe, the rest had brutally short crops. They all had worked-out, hard-looking rather than muscular physiques. The look was familiar enough to Sam: for years he had seen men with similar bodies high on the pillars in Yosemite, or drinking beers with his father and exchanging the arcane details of routes and lines and remote peaks.
There was an empty chair at the far side of their group, next to the blond man. Sam strolled casually across the room and hesitated beside it. ‘Mind if I take this?’
‘Sure. Help yourself.’
He sat down, carefully placing his drink on the table. He relaxed for a minute, gazing into the room with unfocused eyes and letting their conversation drift around him.
‘The man’s an asshole. Forget the hills. I wouldn’t go as far as the Bronx with him leading …’
‘… into a heap of shit. So I say to the guy, this place is a latrine …’
‘A brand new camera, a Nikon AX.’
‘I’m ready for it. But if I don’t make it this year I’ll be back. And I’ll keep on coming back until I do make it.’
‘You’ll do it, man. George Heywood’s put thirty-five clients up there already. Why not you? And Al Hood’s a fine leader.’
‘He’s never climbed it.’
‘He’s climbed every other fucker in the known world.’
Meditatively, Sam drained his glass. These men were going to be Finch’s companions for two months. ‘You heading up for some climbing?’ he asked the blond in a friendly voice.
‘Yeah, man.’
‘What’re you planning?’
‘The big one. Everest.’
Sam gave a soundless, admiring whistle. ‘Is that right? I envy you. You all going?’
‘It’s a commercial expedition. Six clients, or five if you don’t count the chick medic. Two guides, Ken here and another guy. The boss is out here this trip as Base Camp manager. He’s climbed the hill twice himself. I work for the company, supplies and communications manager, but I’m kind of hoping to get a shot at the summit. Have to see how things pan out, though.’
‘Ahuh. Sounds good.’
‘You climbing? My name’s Adam Vries, by the way.’
‘Sam McGrath. Not this time,’ Sam said cautiously. He didn’t want to exclude himself from the company that included Finch.
‘Pity. Want some of this?’ He held up a jug of beer and Sam nudged his glass across. Adam filled it up for him.
‘Thanks. So, where’re you from?’
Adam named a little town in Connecticut but said that he spent most of his teenage years in Geneva. Under the careful pressure of Sam’s questions he hitched his boot on the rung of a chair, locked his hands behind his head and talked about climbing in the Alps. His fine, slightly girlish features lit up with passion as he reminisced about the big faces of the Eiger and Mont Blanc, and Sam found his initial antipathy melting away. Even though he had dismissed Finch as the chick medic, this was a nice guy. For a climber, he was an exceptionally nice guy.
In turn, Adam extracted from Sam the details of his own mountain history. He shook his head disparagingly. ‘Man, that’s tough. But you can still climb, can’t you? Without your old man, I mean.’
‘I suppose I could.’
He had merged into the group now. The two British expedition members had introduced themselves as Mark Mason and Hugh Rix – ‘Just call me Rix,’ the blunt-faced man insisted – and Ken Kennedy stretched out a hand and shook Sam’s. His grip was like a juice presser.
The jug of beer was filled and refilled, and the level of noise and laughter rose.
‘What are you doing in Kathmandu?’ Rix demanded in his loud voice.
‘Just travelling. Taking a break from the world.’
‘Sounds like a waste of good climbing time to me.’
Sam laughed. ‘Could be. Do you reckon you’re going to get to the top?’ With Finch to treat your frostnip and your constipation, and monitor you for oedema on the way, you bullet-headed bastard?
Rix leaned forward. He was red-faced with beer and the drink made his Yorkshire accent even more pronounced. He put his big, meaty hands flat on the table. ‘Listen up. I know what people say. The old brigade of professional climbers who had bugger all in their back pockets and that mountain in their dreams, who clawed their way to the summit or died in the doing. I know they say the South Col route is a yak track and that any fat fucker with fifty grand to spare can get himself hauled up there if he can be bothered to go to the gym twice a week for a couple of months beforehand. They claim that Everest’s been turned into an adventure playground for software salesmen by the commercial companies dragging along anyone who can pay the money.
‘And that may well be true, mate. All I know is that I’ve dreamed of standing on that peak since I was a snotty kid at home in Halifax. I’ve climbed Makalu and Cho Oyu and Aconcagua, and enough peaks in the Alps, and I’m still as hungry for Everest as I was when I was a lad. I was out here this time last year and I got turned back by the weather at 25,000 feet. But I’ve made my money and this is the way I choose to spend it, and no bugger’s going to stop me. I’ll climb the hill. It’s not a question for me.’
‘No,’ Sam said thoughtfully.
Adam was three-quarters drunk now. He propped his blond head against the wall. ‘Rix’s right. I know it. I know that feeling. Ever since I started, from the first climb, it’s what I’ve existed to do. It’s been the focus of my life. Every time I reach the summit of a new mountain I know no one can take that away from me. It’s concrete. Like, there it is. Mine. And you know’ – he waved his hand along the group around the two tables – ‘there’s this family. If you’re some Yank kid lost in a Swiss school where you can’t even talk to the class losers let alone the cool kids, and your old man’s always travelling and your mom goes shopping, you can go climbing and you find people who’ll be with you. You’re in the mountains and you’re not lonely any more. It’s …’ His head rolled and his eyes drifted shut. ‘Hey, I am wasted … it’s everything you need in the world.’
There was a small silence, then Adam’s eyes snapped open again. ‘You know what I’m saying, man. You climb yourself.’
Seven pairs of eyes looked at the newcomer.
‘Yes,’ Sam said.
Much later, by the time the bar was closing, everyone except Ken Kennedy was drunk. ‘Come on, the lot of you. Get to your beds,’ he ordered.
Adam and Sam made their way unsteadily down the stairs together, Adam’s arm looped over Sam’s shoulder.
When the thick-scented air hit them they staggered a little and Adam coughed with laughter. ‘Need a scotch to settle my gut after all that beer. You coming back to the hotel for one more?’
Even with his head spinning, and his ears and tongue clogged with the dull wadding