Chapter 15
15
‘A mountaintop wedding is the stupidest idea I have ever heard!’
‘You don’t mean that,’ came the crooning response from several feet above her.
‘Don’t tell me what I mean!’ Sophie snapped. Her fingers ached and sweat dripped from her forehead. ‘You know Reshma is advertising this as a special package? “Adventure weddings”?’
‘I think you mentioned that.’
Sophie leaned her helmet on the thick cable bolted into the stone and closed her eyes, but she could still see the sharp drop on the inside of her eyelids, even though she knew better than to look down. ‘What will the next couple want? A bungee ceremony? Jet skis?’ The rock was jagged under her bare fingertips – good for grip, she remembered Andreas telling her years ago. But that didn’t help her find her missing courage. ‘Did you know a couple got married underwater? They were keen divers. Get your PADI licence at the same time as your marriage licence. Reshma could advertise that! Can you dive?’
‘Mmhmm.’ She knew that patient tone from Andreas, but she hated to think what opinion he had of her, freezing up on a basic via ferrata.
‘Why would someone want to climb up here to get married ?’ she continued, venting her frustration.
‘We’re not up there yet.’
‘Oh God, do you think I don’t know that?’ Her voice sounded shrill even to her own ears. ‘Why are you so calm?’
‘I’ve taken a lot of people on vie ferrate before, Fini. Only a handful of times we haven’t made it, and usually that was because of the weather.’ His voice was smooth and slow.
Whether he was purposefully mirroring her words about weddings from a few days ago, she wasn’t sure, but it felt easier to get married than to find footing on the rock.
But then she’d already failed at marriage once and despite her panicked words, she didn’t want to give up on this via ferrata. It annoyed her that Andreas knew that.
The rainy weather had given way to bright sunshine that day. Andreas had insisted on setting off early and they’d walked nearly an hour, clambering over rocks, to reach the bottom of the route. For all Andreas’s insistence that this was a popular climb, it had felt as though they were the only people for miles in the scrubby forest, the red-and-white way markers their only company, although the galleries and hides from World War I hinted at the darker history of the mountain.
Then they’d reached the bottom of the via ferrata. Sophie had managed to scramble up the first part that was little more than a steep walking trail, but as soon as they’d reached the initial vertical section – where she now clung to the cable – she’d lost her nerve.
The lake was so far below her, the cliff so steep, she could have been flying – or weightless. But she was acutely conscious of her mass, of the vortex of gravity that seemed to suck her in when she looked down. She was clipped into the safety cable. Andreas had taught her painstakingly – both back when they were together and again that morning – to unclip one carabiner at a time at each bolt to ensure she always had at least one strap tethering her to the steel.
All she had to do was grip the brackets and climb, but she was frozen with fear.
‘Remember Cristallo di Mezzo?’ Andreas called down cheerfully. He was waiting for her, casually hanging off the rock, unconcerned that her knees were shaking and her hands clutched the cable so tightly, they hurt.
‘I remember the ladders,’ she said, her voice weak. Ladders over nothing, suspended from rocky outcrops.
‘I was thinking about when you got to the top.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘You yelled like an Amazon at the top.’
‘A battle cry,’ she snorted, searching for a foothold in the jagged rock and finding nothing. ‘Andreas, I was a lot younger then,’ she said with a sigh.
‘And you’re even tougher now.’
She looked up and narrowed her eyes at him. She was tougher than he realised – inside. She’d lost a lot more than just a dodgy husband and a slippery mountaineer boyfriend and she was still here to fight to enjoy another day. But her body…
‘My muscles aren’t.’
‘I know,’ he said, still smiling. He was so damn tranquil up a mountain. ‘But this is an easier route than the Marino Bianchi. You’ve got the muscle for it.’
‘I can’t believe this is an easy route,’ she grumbled.
‘Allora,’ he said expectantly.
‘Well what?’ she prompted him peevishly. ‘Don’t you mean, “Avanti, hopp hopp”?’
‘I’m trying to be gentle with you for now.’
That ‘for now’ was ominous, but she slung her leg to a higher notch this time and hauled herself up. Her safety straps were level with her waist, so she unclipped one and hooked it into the cable above the next bolt, repeating the process with the second.
There was memory in the action, in the feel of the carabiner in her hand, the gentle clink of metal, the creak of the straps of her harness – even the way her skin prickled on the back of her neck, knowing there was nothing but air behind her, came with a deep-buried affinity.
She focused on the rock in front of her, on breathing in and out, footholds, ascent, clipping one carabiner back into the cable, then the other. She wasn’t climbing. She was just taking small steps, feeling the equipment in her hands – having a fun day out , she thought snidely.
‘I can’t imagine the wedding party doing this.’
‘Fair enough,’ came Andreas’s reply. ‘But you’re the one who has to tell them that.’
She chuckled as the clambered up another few feet. ‘Are you using emotional blackmail to get me up?’
‘I didn’t think it was emotional. Just the usual sort of blackmail. I’ll bribe you, too, if you like.’
‘Or a bet?’
He grumbled inarticulately and she wasn’t sure why his tone had suddenly grown belligerent.
‘A bribe,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll take you out for Knodel tonight to celebrate reaching the top. I know a place.’
Sophie had to stop climbing while she laughed.
‘Something funny?’
‘It was just something Tita said after we met you all in Weymouth. She thought it sounded like canoodle,’ she explained with a snort. ‘You know what canoodle means? It means?—’
‘No,’ Andreas said with a groan. ‘I mean, yes, I know what it means, but no – just no. That’s not funny.’
‘ I thought it was.’
‘Because you don’t speak German. We have a perfectly good word for “canoodle” and it’s “knuddeln”, not “Knodel”.’
She snorted another laugh.
‘What is it now?’
‘Because “knuddeln” and “Knodel” are sooooo different,’ she said with what sounded alarmingly like a hysterical giggle.
‘They’re entirely different!’
‘Okay, fine. I understand you’re very serious about your dumplings.’ She shot him a teasing look, but wrenched her gaze right back down, then unfortunately caught sight of the distant, deep blue of the lake, so far below her that the town of Riva was in miniature and a mountain range took shape behind.
She heard voices below and the clink of carabiners.
‘Should we let them overtake?’ she asked Andreas. She remembered him telling her that allowing faster climbers to overtake was one of the rules of the vie ferrate.
‘Not here. Up there will be safer. Buongiorno!’ he called to the other climbers. While he discussed the plan for overtaking, Sophie tucked her tongue between her lips and hauled herself up after him. ‘Clip in here, past the pole at the top,’ Andreas called down to her from where he was partially obscured by the rock.
Sophie was surprised to realise she’d been planning to do exactly that. He’d taught her well all those years ago, when she’d hung on his every word. He spoke more on the mountain than in the valley. After he’d ended things, she’d been embarrassed to realise that he’d treated her like a climbing partner and not a romantic one, but that seemed for the best, now.
As she clipped her carabiners above her head, she realised Andreas treated everyone that way. Was he close to anyone? She thought of Miro with a twinge. She hadn’t been there when Andreas had returned from Gasherbrum and it was a gap in her understanding of him that she suddenly resented – not that he would ever talk to her about it.
But two nights ago, he hadn’t treated her like a climbing partner. She shook off the memories of that scorching kiss before her knees turned weak. Andreas had kissed her hundreds of times. What was one more?
Ever since they’d kissed, her stomach had been in a slow freefall, buffeted every time his gaze connected with hers. Something about their time together hadn’t been closed off yet – a thought that sent twinges of remorse through her and triggered other feelings she hoped would stay buried, feelings about marriage.
Dragging Andreas around to discuss ribbons and boutonnieres had only made everything worse, reminding her why she shouldn’t want him.
Now he was praising her in his smooth, mountain-guide voice and she didn’t understand how that sound could both melt her bones and turn her spine to steel.
Gripping the cable that ran along the ridge, she scrambled all the way up, hauling herself to her feet, and then the world began to spin. She slammed her eyes shut, but it turned out the spinning was actually in her head and didn’t stop, so she forced them open again and then her stomach dipped at the same time as her heart leaped and for a moment, she wondered if she were falling.
But she wasn’t falling. Her hands were firm on the cable. Her feet were planted on rock. The slightly delirious feeling was the world expanding around her, her heart expanding in her chest and her blood pumping. Although the mountain crags rose higher on one side, at the top of this spur, she was surrounded by sky. The world revealed its extremes of colour and form and she was part of it.
‘It’s so damn beautiful up here!’ she blurted out. She couldn’t have stopped herself.
Andreas watched her closely, a grin forming on his lips, and she couldn’t help matching it, laughing because her chest was so tight and she was so full of emotion.
She waited for him to say, I told you so , but he remained silent, studying her with a glow of approval. Giving her upper arm a quick squeeze, he pressed a kiss to her cheek – softer and more tender than the smacking congratulatory peck she would have expected, but nowhere near enough to settle the flutter she’d been experiencing since he’d kissed her properly two nights ago.
The other climbers were right behind them and without any more time to examine the threads of emotion coiling inside her, Sophie moved further along to make space.
‘It’s probably safe enough here to unclip, but let’s have a little overtaking practice, shall we?’
‘Because I’m so slow, another group might appear at any time?’
He wisely didn’t respond.
When the first climber from the other group emerged at the top, Sophie was shocked to see a woman with a grey ponytail sticking out from below her helmet. She wore a compact rucksack with a pair of telescopic hiking poles tucked on one side.
‘Buongiorno,’ she said, not even breathing hard after the ascent. ‘Mi scusi, bellissimo,’ she said to Andreas as she clipped one of her straps around him, following a moment later with the other one.
It turned out there was an entire seniors’ day outing behind them and they waited while eight older people emerged onto the ridge and passed them with a smile.
‘Wow, they showed me,’ Sophie commented, shifting her rucksack on her shoulders. ‘But no one called me beautiful!’
‘Did you want a stranger to call you beautiful?’
‘Not really,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘It’s just a bit awkward that you’re apparently so blindingly attractive.’
‘I can’t help that,’ he said with a wide shrug. ‘Let’s go,’ he continued, gesturing her ahead of him, ‘bellissima,’ he added quietly after she’d turned away.
After another short clamber, she emerged through the bushes at the first summit of the tour, Cima Capi, a protrusion of rock that ranged above everything in its immediate vicinity. The dramatic slope of the landscape, the enormous lake and the mountain panorama that extended with every metre of altitude gain struck her powerfully.
‘Na?’ she heard as Andreas came up behind her.
‘Bellissimo!’ she said with a smile. ‘Wedding photos up here would be one-of-a-kind. The photographer I’ve booked also uses a drone.’
‘But there’s no cross,’ he pointed out, gesturing to the wonky Italian flag that marked the summit.
‘No cross,’ she agreed glumly. ‘But the next summit has one?’
Andreas nodded. ‘And the view is just as good – better even.’
‘I don’t think we’d fit the whole wedding party here at once anyway,’ Sophie said thoughtfully, teetering when she peered down one steep drop for too long. She saw Andreas lift a hand to steady her, but he dropped it again when she righted herself. She took a deep breath, feeling the strength in her limbs in the slight soreness of her muscles.
‘You okay?’ Andreas asked. ‘Can we keep going or do you want to rest?’
She nodded hastily. ‘I’m okay. Sorry I freaked out.’
‘It’s all right. You probably needed it. Next time, I recommend swearing and keeping going.’
She headed for the path down the other side of the peak where the seniors’ group had gone ahead. ‘That’s your mountain-guide advice? Break open the curse words and keep going?’
‘Yep,’ he said cheerfully, clipping in his carabiners ahead of her. ‘It’s worked for me so far.’
‘I’ll give it a try,’ she said drily. ‘But do you know what, I actually think I can do this.’