Chapter 45
Chapter 45
I nexperienced Gertie and Struan didn’t realize what was happening—the rope had relaxed in their hands when she had reached the ground—until it was too late. It skittered out of their fingers and vanished over the side of the cliff, far down below.
Gertie made a desperate grab for it but it was too late and Struan had to pull her back before she nearly hurtled over the edge too.
Together they stood, looking down in horror.
M RS. M C G INTY HAD made it halfway down the scree before she had realized she was still attached to the gear, and had turned back with a scared expression on her face. Ranald swore mightily into the radio.
“I’m... I’m sorry?” came Mrs. McGinty’s voice, sounding dazed, but it was too late. Ranald tried a couple of things to throw the rope up, but throwing a rope—even knotted, or tied as a lasso, or with a rock attached—directly upward 18 feet is more or less impossible without a bow and arrow. Gertie told him to stop trying; he had been out there too long and was getting chilled. They had supplies. The others would just have to leave Struan and Gertie behind.
So they watched, from high up and far away, as the mismatched little party, Mrs. McGinty stumbling ahead in front of Ranald, vanished surprisingly quickly into the snowstorm, their feet silent under the roaring wind.
And just like that, Struan and Gertie were completely alone.
T HE FIRST THING to do was get back to the cave. Gertie grabbed the remains of the parcel and took it in. The fire was just about still going, and she took out the paper in the parcel and burned it. It flamed up, just a little.
“There we are,” said Gertie cheerfully. “I’ll get the water on. See where we’re at.”
The children had taken all of the chocolate, but there were a couple of packets of biscuits, and some tea bags. Presumably they could melt snow over the fire in the old pot that had been left there. She couldn’t imagine how long it would take but they might as well get on with it.
She turned round. Struan was still standing out in the howling gale, staring down the crevasse and the empty road that wound its way down to safety—empty and out of reach. Snow was already covering up the children’s footprints.
Gertie blinked for a second, and called his name again but he didn’t turn.
That’s when she realized what was wrong. Whilst they had been making their way up, in their professional bad weather gear, he’d been standing here, all day and in fact most of the night, in the snow, still helping the children, getting colder and colder and wetter, in his absurd, not at all suitable festival clothing.
Whilst the others had huddled round the fire Struan had been out helping the children play; whilst they had jumped and clambered down the rock, he had stood, steady as a rock, in his ill-fitting and hastily put together outerwear.
Now he wasn’t sure what was going on. He was feeling hazy and sleepy and suddenly, to Gertie’s absolute horror, he sat down in the snow.
“S TRUAN!” SHE SHOUTED, but he didn’t respond. Gertie rushed to him, attempted gently to tug him into the cave.
“I’m sleepy,” he muttered. “Just going to have a wee nap.”
“You are not!” said Gertie, as sternly as she’d ever said anything.
She began to drag him into the cave. Hypothermia killed in these mountains. If you lived anywhere near them, you couldn’t escape it. Every year climbers died. People thought that because Britain had a temperate climate it wasn’t dangerous in the way South America or the Himalayas were dangerous. People were so wrong. Normally the amazing Mountain Rescue Team managed to get out in time.
But nobody was coming today.
She knew what to do; everyone got taught it at school. Unfortunately it rather depended on the person who had hypothermia realizing they had it and agreeing to come with you, rather than sitting like a blob and insisting they were going to take a nap in a freezing snowstorm.
Gertie went and put another log on the fire back in the cave and gritted her teeth. The cave was smoky and unpleasant, but it was gradually warming up; it was still cold, but certainly warmer out of the wind. It crackled, at least. Okay. One thing at a time.
“STRUAN,” Gertie yelled, raising her voice as she went back out again. No response. She tried again, slightly louder. Still nothing.
Gertie was trembling and not just from the cold. What if she couldn’t move him? What if he wouldn’t go? What was she going to do? He couldn’t possibly survive a night out here and night was coming. It was entirely possible he would make himself so ill he couldn’t get down the slope even with a new rope, and then it wouldn’t even be worth being picked up at all. It didn’t bear thinking about. She had to get him in. But he wasn’t listening to her.
Gertie knelt down. And said the words people had been saying to her her whole life.
“Wake up,” she whispered. “Wake up now. Stop dreaming. Wake up.”
“Huh?”
“Wake up. Wake up. You have to move. This is real. Move.”
Struan’s head twisted and his eyes cracked. He looked around him as if not realizing where he was.
“That’s right,” she said. “Stay with me. Wake up. Go toward the fire! Go! Now! Stay awake. Stay awake with me.”
Gertie yanked him up, hard, onto his feet and he stumbled a few steps in the right general direction.
“That’s it,” she said, in a voice growing stronger, even in the noise of the storm. “Stay awake. Stay with me. No dreaming. No more dreaming, Struan. Do you know who I am?”
“I have... I have always known who you are,” came his voice, low and confused. “I have always known you.”
Oh for heaven’s sake, thought Gertie. He was delirious. Completely delirious. Frightened suddenly, she sharpened her voice even more. “MOVE!” she screeched, in a voice that would have surprised Jean, if not her fishing ancestors. “Move yourself! Move! This is happening! This is real! And you Have! To! Move!!!”
And suddenly, incredibly, he was obeying. It was working. And he was following, shakily, blindly as she hauled him into the cave and sat him down by the stuttering fire.
G ERTIE LOOKED AT Struan. At this stupid face she had mooned at for so long; had dreamed of and longed for. Not as soft now his cheeks; stubble where before they had been smooth and com pletely hairless; a formed jawline where it had once been undefined; and hollows where there had once been plump skin. But still a lovely-looking man. She winced internally, figuring the only way she could get this close to him was when he was semi-comatose from a dangerous illness. Still. There was no other way. She knew what she had to do.
And this was not a fantasy, or a daydream. The time for those was over. This was the real world, and she had to live in it.
She gathered up the sleeping bags the children had left behind and threw some over the entrance to the cave. It was getting very smoky but that didn’t matter; she had to warm it up at any cost.
Then she took more of the blankets and, from the box they’d dropped, pulled out fresh socks and blankets and heated them by the fire. She zipped two sleeping bags together and placed them likewise.
Then carefully, she dropped to her knees and started unlacing Struan’s boots.
T HE FIRE CRACKLED as she dried off his feet with a towel—they were blue and soaked through. Gertie realized immediately his trousers would have to come off too. This was ridiculous. If her thirteen-year-old self could see her now. Well, she wouldn’t have a clue what to do, but nonetheless. She told herself this was a medical procedure and she had to be strictly professional.
And there it was, as she leaned forward; just the tiniest hint of the aftershave he used to wear. It wasn’t anything expensive; he’d got it for Christmas one year and just stuck with it; a genderless, watery nineties scent. Gertie had always had terrible trouble around other men who had worn it.
She forced herself to focus on the matter at hand.
“I’m taking off your trousers,” she said as sternly as she could manage. “To make you feel better.” He tugged his mitts off, slowly, attempted to fumble with his buttons, but couldn’t make his fingers bend. They had gone very dark. Gertie looked at them, worried. She pulled off his trousers quickly, then his top and wet fleece. Even the undershirt was wet. His skin was like marble; completely lifeless.
Gertie thought about it. There wasn’t much else for it. She was correctly dressed and the smoky cave was heating up. She bundled Struan, only wearing his boxer shorts, into the first sleeping bag.
Then she sighed, rolled her eyes at herself, and at the ridiculousness of everything; she pulled off her outer clothes, and, as the instruction manuals always said, hopped in with him.