Bright Air Part 6

One evening at the pub the others made plans to head out of the city for a weekend climbing in the Watagans National Park north of Sydney, and I found myself included in the arrangements, as if this was now a natural a.s.sumption. We set off early the next Sat.u.r.day morning in two cars up the F3 freeway, me in the back of Marcus's with Curtis and Owen, and the girls with Damien in a four-wheel drive he'd borrowed from his parents. Marcus's driving was as erratic as his veering walk, and we were thrown about a bit on the ancient cracked leather seats. He revealed that one of his many areas of interest was old pubs, in one of which, a grandly verandaed Federation hotel in the Hunter Valley coalfields, he had booked us rooms.

We turned off the freeway into the bush, and as the road turned into a dirt track, winding higher and higher into thick forest, I became apprehensive. This was the first real climbing that I'd done with them all, and I hoped I was up to it. I wasn't much comforted by Curtis and Owen's a.s.surances that, although we were heading for the largest crag in the park, the climbing would be moderate and the routes short at around only twenty metres. What was twenty metres, after all, compared with six hundred on the DNB? The equivalent of a six- or seven-storey building, that was all. I felt my palms go sweaty, and wondered if it wouldn't be better to be a non-partic.i.p.ant like Marcus, and spend the day with him drinking in the bar of the Hibernian Hotel. Curtis added that unfortunately most of the climbs had been a.s.sisted with permanent bolts fixed into the rock, which seemed an excellent idea to me but not to the others, who tended to be purists on this question. Moreover, many of the bolts weren't the modern stainless steel sort glued into place, he said, but old mild steel types hammered into lead, and liable to pull out without warning. Also, I should be wary of the sandstone rock face itself, which could be a bit crumbly. I said thanks.

We reached the car park in thick bush at the base of the crag and tumbled out of the cars, taking in big lungfuls of the fresh forest air, the others loud and cheerful at the prospect of the day ahead. It seemed that Marcus wasn't going to spend the time in the bar after all, but had brought a folding seat and table as well as a bag of gear, including a camera with tripod and a.s.sorted zoology field equipment. We got these out of the boot and set them up for him, then changed our shoes, strapped on our harnesses and helmets, and shared out the wedges, carabiners and slings that would secure us and our ropes to the rock face as we climbed. Then we took the track up the slope to the base of the cliff. Along the way we disturbed a wallaby, as black as the fire-charred tree ferns in the bush around us. It hurtled away down the hill, weaving and bounding among the rocks.

We came to the crag, and the others selected the pitch, three parallel routes to the top of a cliff creased with cracks and wrinkles like an ancient petrified brown face. I had hoped I might climb with Luce, but it quickly became apparent that I was to be paired with Damien, which I saw made sense, for we were about the same weight and strength.

He said he'd lead for the first half of the climb, and I took my stance as his second at the foot of the crag, paying out his rope while he worked his way steadily upward. After five metres or so he jammed a wedge into a crack in the rock, and clipped his rope to it as an anchor in case he fell. Then he continued across what looked like a difficult section with few apparent handholds, until he reached a ledge on which he found a steel bolt that he used as a second anchor and tied himself to it. Then he called down to me, 'On belay,' the signal to let go of his rope. I released the belay brake at my waist and shouted up, 'Belay off,' and he began to haul up the rope until I felt it tug at the carabiner on my harness to which I'd tied its end with my much-practised retraced figure-eight and stopper knot. Up above, Damien was feeding the rope through his belaying plate, then shouted 'On belay,' again. I called out, 'Climbing,' then dug my hands into the chalk bag hanging in the small of my back and stretched for the first hold.

By the time I reached the first anchor, I was breathing hard and sweat was trickling down my back. I'd grazed my cheek and sc.r.a.ped my fingertips on the hard granular rock. But I was moving all right. I eased the wedge out of the crack and clipped it to my belt, then looked up at the smooth bulge above me. From here it swelled out much more than I'd realised from the ground, like a pregnant belly, and I couldn't see Damien at the end of the rope that stretched up across it. For a moment I was at a loss, unable to read the surface for places to grip, but then I noticed the traces of chalk where he'd placed his hands, and I stretched out across the warm rock to the first. There was a small indentation, and I pressed my fingers in and shifted my weight upwards.

'You all right?' Damien asked as I finally hauled myself up onto the ledge beside him.

'Sure,' I panted. Even after such a short climb, my hands and shoulders were aching, with tension as much as effort.

'Let's keep going then.'

I looked across the cliff at the others, Owen leading Curtis on their second pitch, and Luce beyond them already nearing the top of her climb. I glanced down and caught a glimpse of Marcus in his camp chair, watching us through a pair of binoculars, and felt myself sway. I turned back and gazed up at the cliff rising above us, and my heart sank. Climbing isn't just about stamina and technique, it's also about reading the rock face and understanding its possibilities. With time and experience this becomes second nature, matching your body's abilities to the subtle variations in the rock's surface. I didn't have that experience. There were no chalk marks to follow now, and my mind went blank. I thought I'd have to ask Damien, but I felt his eyes on me, waiting, and I guessed that might be a mistake.

Then I noticed a series of shallow depressions leading up to the left, followed by a thin vertical crack. I knew that if I stopped to think about it I'd never go, so I abruptly tied onto the anchor, took the gear he offered me to hang on the rack around my waist and set off.

The important thing was to maintain momentum, I thought; momentum and focus. And not to look down. This wasn't like the gym-I was suspended in an airy void, with no well-designed grips thoughtfully placed by human hand and no safety rope ready to support me from above. If I made a mistake now, I would fall twice the distance that I was above Damien before the rope caught me, a.s.suming that the bolt held. If it didn't, that was me gone.

Arms aching, I reached the base of the crack and fumbled a small wedge into it. I tugged, it held, and I hooked on and breathed a sigh of relief. After that the going became easier, and I finally scrambled over the lip and rolled onto the broad flat rock at the top of the pitch, heart pounding.

As I waited for Damien to follow me I gazed out over the treetops to the hazy horizon, then looked down. The snapping whoop of a whipbird sounded far below. I felt the nauseating tug of the void, the familiar weakening in my knees and stomach as if it were literally sucking at my insides. But I had made it, and a sense of relief flooded through me.

Perhaps the shot of adrenaline cleared my brain, for as I pulled in Damien's rope a very obvious thought occurred to me. For most purposes you climb in pairs, one supporting the other with the safety rope, but without me-and without Marcus-they had been five. Later I learned that there had been a sixth during the previous year, but he hadn't fitted in with the group and had moved on. When I came along they must have been looking for someone to even the numbers. It was a sobering thought. Was that all that Luce had seen in me? You could tell, just by watching them, that the other pairs, Luce and Anna, Curtis and Owen, understood exactly what their partners were going to do without a word being spoken. Damien and I, however, clearly had a relationship to work out. We abseiled back down to the foot of the cliff and moved on to another route, neither commenting on the other's performance.

Again he took the first pitch, and as I waited for him to move off I looked up and saw the dark shadow of a substantial overhang, a 'roof', halfway up the cliff. Damien climbed to about five metres below it and anch.o.r.ed himself on a shallow ledge. I followed.

There was little room to manoeuvre on the ledge, and the roof above us now projected alarmingly.

He repeated his earlier question, expressionless. 'You all right?'

'Sure.'

Luce and I had practised on overhangs on the cliffs at Clovelly, but I hadn't attempted hauling myself over an obstacle like this before. I set off cautiously to the base of the shelf, then stretched out beneath it, clinging to the surface like a bat. If I lost my grip now I'd drop clean past Damien to bounce on the cliff face beneath him. As I reached one hand out to the lip of the roof I felt one foot lose its purchase, then the other slipped away, and in a moment I was swinging on my fingertips, dangling helplessly. The momentum of my fall took me out and then back, and I arched my back, straining every muscle, and brought one foot up over the ledge, and hauled myself over. It wasn't the most elegant of moves, but it got me there.

I was shaking with effort as I reached the next belay point, and collapsed back against the rock for a moment, catching my breath. Down below I saw the glint of Marcus's binoculars. Though he was roped, I was pleased to see that Damien wasn't too smooth on his manoeuvre over the shelf, and his face was red, his beard bristling and gleaming with sweat, by the time he stood beside me, breathing heavily. I asked if he wanted me to lead the final pitch to the top, which looked straightforward enough, but he shook his head impatiently, annoyed with himself I think, and set off without taking a break. He should have done, though. He'd gone barely a couple of metres before he made a mistake with his footing and began to slide. He scrambled to correct his balance but couldn't, and now he was falling. I caught him, hauling his rope tight before any damage was done, and he clambered back onto my ledge.

'Aah ...' He stood gasping for breath, face turned up to the sky, then muttered, 'Thanks, mate.'

After he'd recovered a little he set off again, much more cautiously, and I followed without further incident. I felt pretty good.

Later we returned to the foot of the crag for some lunch. I was the first to get out of my gear, and went down to the cars to get the esky with our sandwiches and cold drinks from the boot of the Jag. There was no sign of Marcus by his chair and bag of equipment, and I wondered where he might have got to. I went over there, peering around, and noticed his stick lying at the top of a steep bank leading down to a dark pool in a stream. Then I saw his foot, almost invisible beneath an overhanging bush.

I scrambled halfway down the slope and dropped to my knees and made out his p.r.o.ne body, face almost in the water. The bush tore at my arms as I grabbed hold of his leg and desperately tried to haul him back up the bank. The earth was damp and slippery, his body awkward, and I slipped and struggled to get him to the top when I became aware of his m.u.f.fled cursing. I was relieved that he was conscious until I realised that he was cursing me. I fell backwards and we sat facing each other in astonishment, covered in dirt and wet leaves. He was still cursing me when the others arrived.

They hauled him to his feet and brushed him down, while I recovered his stick, still not sure what was going on. Finally, grasping a stiff shot of whisky in a plastic cup, he told us that he'd discovered what he believed to be the entrance to a platypus burrow, hidden behind a tangle of roots on the opposite bank of the pool. From his pocket he produced a tiny triple-cusped tooth which he'd found at the waterline, which he said had belonged to an infant platypus, discarded at the time of its leaving the breeding burrow. My rescue efforts caused much predictable amus.e.m.e.nt, and I had to put up with a good deal of ribbing while we ate lunch.

Afterwards, as the others moved away, Marcus waved me over and proceeded to give me a detailed critique of everything that was wrong with my climbing technique. He was quite merciless and I felt humiliated as I stood there, staring at the ground. It was all no doubt absolutely true and invaluable, but I found it hard to absorb those quiet, relentless words. Then, when he had finished, he asked me to help him up, and led me to a clearing nearby. I didn't notice anything at first, but then I made out a small area in the middle that had been demarcated by plastic strips driven edge-on into the soil.

'A square metre of forest floor,' he said. 'What do you see?'

I shrugged. 'Nothing.'

'Nothing. And what would it be worth?'

I looked blank, not sure what this game was all about.

'Come on, Mr Merchant Banker. What would this fetch on the market? What's its dollar value, would you say?'

He was p.i.s.sing me off now, so I said again, 'Nothing.'

He smiled. 'Right. Now, go and do some more climbing, and remember what I just told you-especially the way you're handling that rope, otherwise you'll end up hanging from the ankle upside down.' Then he added, 'I should know.'

The way he said it made me look at his face, and I saw a smile, and had the sudden vivid impression that he cared and that it was as if he'd been lecturing his own younger self. The trick of a good teacher, I suppose.

At the end of the day's climbing I stood beside Damien watching the two women on a final pitch. We had gone well that afternoon, becoming much more effective as a pair, but nowhere near as intuitively understanding of each other's moves as Anna and Luce. As always, I was captivated by the grace and speed of Luce's ascent. Although, being smaller, her reach was less than the men's, her strong slender fingers were able to grip narrow fissures and creases on which we could get no purchase. Her strength-to-weight ratio was about perfect, and she seemed to glide across the rock, as if she had some innate knowledge of its inflexions and could effortlessly match her body's movements to them.

'Climbs like a b.l.o.o.d.y angel, doesn't she?' Damien murmured at my side, and I realised he'd been watching me, engrossed in my study of Luce.

'Yes, amazing. What's she like in the lab?'

'Marcus says she's the best student he's ever had.'

I encountered Marcus again when we'd descended to the valley floor. He was in the clearing, half crouched, half lying beside his square metre of dirt. I knew better than to try to rescue him this time.

'Ah, the merchant banker. How did it go?'

'Good,' I said. 'We're climbing better together, Damien and I.'

'Yes,' he said absently, entering something in his notebook, as if we were an experiment he'd already disposed of. There was a field microscope and a magnifying gla.s.s lying beside his square metre, which I saw had been excavated to a depth of twenty centimetres or so. 'How about you?'

'Yes, I've been studying your patch of worthless nothing. This is what I've got so far.'

He showed me his book with its entries and calculations under a series of species headings. As he explained the scribbles I began to understand his point-that the area had been teeming with life: ants, lice, spiders, mites, and then increasingly minute specimens, their numbers meticulously totted up, amounting to a whole township, a city quarter of thousands of inhabitants. And then he outlined their mutually intersecting roles, their conflicts and alliances, right down to the personal narratives and dramas the debris sc.r.a.ped out of the shallow hole revealed. There were the fragments of a tiny marsupial vole that had died there, for example, and the traces of a nest of centipedes that had been eliminated by the fiercer ants.

He didn't have to spell out the equation he was making, between money-value and life-value. It was a little demonstration, a mastercla.s.s, for me, the barbarian economist. I understood this, and even felt rather privileged to have had this effort expended on me. But I also felt that the pa.s.sion behind the message was not what it had once been, that I was maybe one dumb student too many.

That evening we retired to the Hibernian Hotel, a ma.s.sive monument to coalminers' thirst, built in 1910, and the largest building in the little village it occupied. There Marcus entertained us, while we wolfed down large steaks, with an erudite account of the improbable s.e.xual practices of certain snakes and stick insects, but given the sleeping arrangements-we had four rooms, Luce with Anna, Curtis with Owen, me and Damien, and Marcus on his own-I saw little opportunity to investigate if they might be adapted to humans. Instead his flagrantly grotesque descriptions seemed designed to draw attention to my increasingly desperate longing for the girl on the other side of the table, who seemed oblivious to my surrept.i.tiously yearning looks. However, as we started making our way towards the stairs, Anna came to my side and whispered, 'Wanna swap?'

I looked at her in surprise. 'Eh?'

'Beds.'

'Um ... Did Luce ...?'

She looked at me as if I was being a bit slow, and I quickly nodded, feeling a sudden agitation in my chest, a brightening in my gloomy mood.

She said, 'Use the veranda. Marcus'll be roaming around the corridor.'

The pub was on a street corner, with deep verandas around two sides, onto which all the bedrooms had shuttered doors. By the time I'd cleaned my teeth, Damien was already fast asleep, snoring softly. I turned the key in the veranda door and pushed it open with barely a squeak, and stepped out into the chilly night air. Down below in the street a group of locals was spilling out of the bar, yelling cheerfully at each other as they made their way to their utes. I padded softly along the deck until I came to what I thought was Luce and Anna's room. Now what? My bare feet were freezing and I had the sudden sickening thought that this was some kind of prank, a trick to maroon me out on the balcony all night. Then the door in front of me clicked open, and Anna slid out. Like me she was wearing a sh.e.l.l jacket over a T-shirt and pants. She grinned at me, gave me a quick peck on the cheek and padded off. I stared after her, then a voice whispered from the door, 'Hurry up, I'm cold.'

Luce was wearing a coat, but nothing else. I stepped inside and took her in my arms, and decided that this was just about the best of the eight thousand-odd days I'd spent on the planet.

I think it was fairly apparent to the others over breakfast the next morning what had happened between Luce and me. I thought I was playing it pretty cool, but each in turn, coming down into the dining room, blinked at the pair of us, then grinned and winked, as if we had neon signs on our heads. I couldn't read the signs with Anna and Damien, though, and as we carried our bags out to the cars I got a chance to speak to her.

'You okay?'

'Yes.'

'I mean ... good night?'

She gave me a patient smile and turned away, me none the wiser.

We returned to the Watagans and, in an unspoken agreement, Anna, Luce, Damien and I switched climbing partners, so that I spent the day climbing with Luce, a breathtaking experience. In the mid-afternoon we made our last ascent together, me exhausted, and I staggered into her arms on the scrubby plateau at the top. She pulled me away from the edge, out of the line of sight of Damien and Anna making their way up below us, and I told her she was beautiful and that I loved her. She smiled and took my hand and led me back into an area of huge boulders and thick clumps of tall gra.s.s. We rounded an outcrop, searching for a place to settle, when we were suddenly presented with a sight that stopped us dead. Curtis and Owen were together in a sheltered nook, their climbing helmets and harnesses discarded on the ground nearby. Curtis was on his back, groaning, eyes closed, while Owen knelt over his midriff, head down.

My shoe sent a stone skittering noisily away and Owen opened his eyes, pushed himself marginally upright and stared at us. For a moment we were frozen, the four of us, then Owen said, 'Aw, f.u.c.k.'

I muttered, 'Sorry,' and turned away, following Luce, already retreating around the outcrop.

I followed her back to the cliff edge, where Damien was standing now, pulling in the rope on which Anna was secured. I reached for Luce's hand, feeling the tension in her, not sure what to say. Finally I whispered, 'Things happen.'

She turned slowly and stared at me. 'Poor Suzi.'

Anna called me the day after I'd visited the nursing home to arrange to discuss the report. We settled on Sat.u.r.day afternoon at the hotel. I said it'd be private and convenient, but the truth was that I wanted Mary to have time to meet her, and tell me if she thought Anna was making too much of this.

It was another beautiful warm spring day, the air still, but Anna didn't like the idea of working on the terrace where we might be interrupted. Instead we moved in to Mary's sitting room, Anna setting her stuff out on the table like someone preparing for a major presentation. As she was unpacking her bag Mary came in with a pot of coffee. They seemed genuinely pleased to see each other again, as if there had been some earlier bond of understanding or sympathy that they both remembered.

'Josh has told me all about your trip to Christchurch,' Mary said. 'You poor thing. It must have been a terrible experience.' I could see the appraising look in her eye. 'I'm so sorry you've had to deal with all this, Anna. You were a good friend to them, flying out like that. And then to hear that terrible confession. You're quite sure he wasn't just confused or hallucinating? People say strange things when they're drugged and in shock and as desperately ill as he was.'

'I know, I've been wrestling with that ever since. It's just that he was, briefly, so lucid.'

My aunt nodded sadly. 'Well, you were there. Couldn't you speak to someone about it, though? Perhaps the police officer who looked into the matter? We have a regular guest here-a good friend-who's a Supreme Court judge, and I was saying to Josh that I'm sure he would pull a few strings to help you get the ear of the right person.'

'That's very kind of you,' Anna said cautiously. 'But I think we should try to be as clear as possible in our own minds before we go as far as that.'

'Maybe that's wise.' Mary hesitated, unwilling to let it go. 'Of course, the other aspect of this is, what happens if what Owen said was true? They're all dead now-Lucy, Curtis and Owen. What good can it do? And think of the possible harm, the distress to Lucy's family, for instance.'

'But they aren't all dead, Mary. There were two other people in their group, Damien Stokes and Marcus Fenn. They're very much alive.'

Mary looked shocked. 'Oh, but surely you don't imagine they ...?'

'I don't know.'

'Well ...' Mary stared at her, then turned to go, catching my eye with a look that I took to be a warning to be careful.

'So, what did you come up with?' Anna asked as I poured the coffee.

'Not a lot.' I'd wanted to avoid talking about how Luce had been depressed, but in the end it was all I had to say.

Anna looked at me pointedly. 'Yes. They shifted their ground, didn't they? And in the end Damien put the blame onto you.'

I took a deep breath. 'Was he right, do you think? You saw her after I left, didn't you?'

'Yes, she was down. But she wasn't suicidal. She was looking forward to going on the trip. I mean, she was really fired up about how important the work was, and about doing some climbing, and what a beautiful place it was. Something changed while she was out there. Despite all their protests that Luce wouldn't have deliberately stepped off that cliff, Damien and the others planted the seed of the possibility. I think it was a smokescreen, in case Maddox found something that didn't fit the picture of an accident.'

'Could be.'

'Anything else?'

I mentioned Marcus's description of Luce as impetuous, another smokescreen.

Anna agreed, but was obviously disappointed by my lack of progress, so I asked, 'What about you, then? What did you find?'

She unfolded several large handwritten tables and charts and spread them out. One was a timeline, tracing Luce's movements on the island according to witness statements, and another was a chart showing the names and connections of all of the people referred to in the police report. A third was a large map of the island locating all the places mentioned. I was impressed. She'd obviously approached it in a methodical, scientific manner, making my casual observations look pretty thin. I put it down to a lack of mental challenge at the Walter Murchison Memorial Nursing Home.

'They arrived on the first of September,' she said, pointing to the timeline, 'moving into the same cottage belonging to the Kelso family that Marcus had rented in previous years. During the first two weeks they worked on the accessible small islands off the north end of Lord Howe. Then, when Damien arrived to make up two climbing pairs, they tackled the more difficult cliffs at the south end, below Mount Gower. Each day Marcus would go out with them in Bob Kelso's boat, and return for them in the evening. They all kept work diaries, which Marcus would compile, day by day, into the research log. The weather was generally good, although there were a number of stormy days, especially towards the end, when they couldn't go out.

'On Wednesday the twenty-seventh, the ocean-going yachts on the Sydney to Lord Howe race arrived at the island, and on the following evening the Kelsos, who are an important family on the island, threw a party for the yachties, to which Marcus and his team were invited. On the Friday they returned to Mount Gower for what was originally scheduled to be their last day in the field. However, a bad storm blew in on the Sat.u.r.day, disrupting flights to the island, and because of time lost earlier Marcus decided that they would stay on for a few more days to finish their work. The weather cleared on the Sunday, and on the Monday they lost Luce. The search and police interviews went on for another week.'

I had been following her finger as she traced this chain of events across the page. Seeing it laid out graphically like that made it easier to get a feel for the pattern. It struck me that there was a sort of congestion towards the end-the arrival of the yachts, the party, the bad weather, the delayed departure-disrupting the even repet.i.tion of the previous weeks.

When I mentioned this, Anna nodded and said, 'Something else odd about those last few days ...' She pointed to the names written against each day, referring to witness sightings of Luce. 'After that party on the Thursday night, the only people who mentioned seeing Luce again were the three other climbers, plus Marcus and Bob Kelso, whereas in the days before Thursday, lots of people saw her around-Sophie Kalajzich, Dr Pa.s.slow and his wife, the other Kelsos, the National Parks and Wildlife ranger, the people who ran the grocery store ...'

'What do you make of that?'

'It's like Luce withdrew, kept herself to herself, don't you think? As if she wanted to be alone.'

I thought about it, then I said, 'I just can't get over the fact that she should never have been there at all on that Monday. They should all have been back in Sydney by then.'

'Yes,' Anna said.

'And they should never have tackled that cliff without Damien. I mean, it's just so b.l.o.o.d.y stupid. It shouldn't have happened.'

'So what are we going to do about it?'

'I wonder if Mary isn't right, Anna, about how we should be thinking more about the impact on Suzi and the other families if we go on with this. I mean, supposing we did discover something nasty?'

She frowned at me. 'How do you mean?'

'Did Luce ever tell you about something that happened that first time I went climbing with you all at the Watagans? Something about Curtis and Owen?'

She looked blank and shook her head, so I told her. A couple of days after that weekend, Owen had come to see me. He was in quite a state, desperate to convince me that what we'd witnessed had been a terrible mistake, a moment of madness on his part. He was utterly devoted to Suzi and the baby, he said, and begged me to keep it to myself. I said, fair enough, it wasn't my business and I had no intention of mentioning it to anyone else, but what about Luce? He'd already seen her, apparently, and she too had agreed to keep quiet, so we left it at that.

Anna was surprised, but not as much as I'd expected. She'd known that Curtis had had relationships with men, but hadn't thought about Owen.