Page 63 of Kiwi Gold
The calls, then, and me saying the same thing over and over. That I didn’t know. That I hadn’t heard for sure.
I couldn’t turn the phone off. How could I, until I got the call that would tell me the truth? I put it on vibrate, and it kept buzzing. With every buzz, my heart would give a lurch, and I’d answer. Because I didn’t know where the truth would come from, and I didn’t know when.
Putting the girls to bed, finally, and having them pop up again, over and over. My body so heavy and so cold, I felt like I couldn’t keep going, except that there was no choice.
A night on the couch, answering the phone, until I fell asleep sitting up. I woke with a start in the morning to the buzz of the phone again.
“Mrs. Ashford?” An official voice. “This is Deirdre Rawlings with the consulate in Mumbai. I’m very sorry to tell you …” The words I’d known I’d hear, because I’d known, deep within the ball of frozen ice that was my belly, that there would be no miracle.
My dad had been in Shanghai when it happened, but he flew home the next day, coming straight to me. The way I’d crumpled when I opened the door at midnight to see him standing there, solid and strong. The way he’d pulled me close, and the way my mouth had twisted and then opened in the sobs I’d been holding back until then, because I couldn’t fall apart and take care of my girls, and I had to take care of my girls.
And, yes, the country was mourning with me, or at least grieving the loss of the parts of Kegan they knew: the stoical, laconic, impossibly strong, oddly charismatic person who’d been my husband. A quintessential New Zealander, and a man full of mana.
And then the coldest moment of all. The moment that had frozen me so deeply, I hadn’t thawed yet, and I wondered if I ever would. When I found out the whole truth, because Colin rang days later from a hospital in Kathmandu and told me why he wasn’t in that avalanche, and why he hadn’t even known it had happened until later.
“I think I should keep it to myself,” he said. “What use is it to tell, and disappoint everybody like that? Ruin his reputation? But …”
I put my fingers against my forehead and tried to think, but my brain felt sluggish, as if the very neurons had shut down. I finally said. “You need to do what you think is right.”
A long, long pause, and I said, “Hello? Colin? Still there?”
“Yeh.” It was a breath. A sound of defeat. “I don’t know. If I change my mind, I’ll tell you first.”
He hadn’t. Hadn’t been able to face me, maybe, or had blamed me, somehow, as if Kegan had been pushed beyond the limits of good sense for me, or maybe evenbyme. By domesticity, and the money it cost. Climbers didn’t always like things that got in the way of climbing, and Colin had shared a bond with Kegan that I couldn’t. He was my rival, except that he wasn’t. The real rival was the mountains. The snow, the ice, the rock, the challenge.
When we’d got married, I’d told Kegan that I’d never interfere with climbing. It had been such an easy promise to make, back then. It had felt noble, the same way my dad had converted to Islam for my mum, had changed his life for her. My promise had made me feel like I had a great love, too, even though I’d probably known, deep down, that it wasn’t true.
Now? The truth was here, bald and unadorned. There’d been one thing Kegan had loved best, and it had never been me. And however exposed and ashamed I felt, he was still the girls’ dad, and I was still their mum. I was still here, and I needed to keep going.
That was why, though, when the news of the way Kegan had abandoned the other climber had hit the media and blown up with no advance warning, it could barely touch me. That was how cold I was already, and how numb.
The effort it had been, all the same, the morning of the memorial service, after the news had broken, to brush my teeth and comb my hair, because my hands barely wanted to move. To cook breakfast for the girls, to buckle them into their car seats, then to climb into the passenger seat beside my dad. Staring straight ahead at the stream of cars, the flat gray of the motorway, the white lines between the lanes, as my dad drove and didn’t speak.
Taking my seat with the girls up front in the hall, not wanting to see that the place was only half full, or to wonder how many more would come, because so many of them must have heard by now. Hearing the chatter start behind me, then hearing it grow louder. They’d have wondered whether they should come today, but some of them had decided, in their confusion and anger, that they needed to be with their friends, with their peers. With other climbers. The second the ceremony was over, they’d be gathering in their little groups to talk about it, to try to make sense of it. To put Kegan into a new category.
Not an icon, and not a hero. A gifted climber, and that was all. A man without mana.
28
HEROIC DEEDS
Lachlan
We sat with her girls, and she told them the truth. Steady eyes, steady voice. When she got to the part where Kegan had abandoned the injured climber, had left his mate behind in pursuit of the glory, Amira shouted, “No, he didn’t! You’re lying, because you hate Daddy!”
“No, darling,” Laila said, looking more tired than ever. “I wish I were.”
The dog, Long John, whined anxiously and shoved his nose against Amira’s leg, but she didn’t seem to see him. Amira burst into tears, and Yasmin had never stopped crying, not really. Now, she ran across to her mum and scrambled up beside her, and I went in search of tissues. I came back with the toilet roll and handed it to Laila. She mopped her daughter’s faces with it and tried to smile, and I thought,How do you live with something like this? And with the shame of it, when everybody knows?
Amira said, “Maybe that man was lying, then. Maybe he was jealous of Daddy, because Daddy was handsome and famous!”
Yasmin looked up. “Because Daddy couldn’t say for himself! Because he got killed!”
“Remember,” Laila said, “that the other climber was there, too, to tell the story. I’m sorry. I wish it weren’t true, but it is, and we have to face it.”
Amira slid straight off the couch and shouted, “It isn’t! I hate you! You’re probably just saying bad things about him because he didn’t make enough money so we could be rich! That’s what he said! That you only cared about money!” Then she ran to her bedroom and slammed the door.
Laila said, “What? No.” Her hand shook as she pushed back Yasmin’s hair. Yasmin was crying harder, though, and now, she slid down, too, and ran off after her sister.
