eyes opening on me. I hacked up the hill through a visor of rain, and stood at the top exactly where I had first stood with Alice, looking out over the bay. A single gull dropped and veered in the air, no longer serenely riding the weather, but seeming to be imprisoned by it now, tangled in its darkening bluster and conflict. I went to the newsagentâs at the top of the hill and looked out briefly over that bay which had seemed so idyllic when we arrived, and now was nothing but a squall of rain and vacancy. Then I went into the café nearby, and after only a twitch of hesitation as I looked at the menu, I ordered egg and bacon and sausage. Iâd left one vegetarian behind in the blue house and maybe the ghost of another too. I flicked through the pages and I only registered the obituary because of the photograph. Mick Tiller. We had climbed together on the Yorkshire outcrops years before. But Mick was a rising star and I wasnât even a falling one, even when I fell. I could only follow on behind him, helping with belays and brewing the tea. Mick was our golden boy. He trained almost every day on the Don Robinson climbing wall at the university. He was the most supple and gymnastic human being I have ever seen, and when he turned his strength and grace and courage towards a new gritstone line, crowds would form at the foot of the rock to watch him. Thatâs when there were any people around. Often it was just us, in bleak moorland rain, with the grey fields beneath us stretching away to the horizon. I liked it best of all then.
I can still see him putting up his own route on Almscliffe, the one he named Axle-Grip, upside down on the overhang, with only one nut twenty-five feet below him for protection. It would have ripped out if heâd fallen, he knew that as well as we did. But he didnât fall. Instead he ended up on the cover of Climbing World. I still have my grainy black-and-white photographs somewhere, of Mick in his dirty sweater and jeans and his battered EBs, standing proud of the rock with his curly black hair flowing wildly in the wind, as he overcame one more impossibility. He put all his new routes down as âVery Severeâ, but theyâre classified a lot higher than that in the Yorkshire gritstone guidebooks these days. E5, E6. Warning signs to the uninitiated: donât try climbing these, if you have any sense at all. Most of them I couldnât even make the first swooping moves on â they were so demanding, I simply couldnât get off the ground.
Then we all used to drink together, either up on the crags when the weather was fine, or back in town when it wasnât. Whatever heâd done the night before never seemed to affect him when he started climbing the next morning. Until he tore his hand trying to open a can of beer with a serrated knife at some midnight party. The major tendons in two fingers were severed. At first we didnât think it was so bad. He told us heâd be roped up again within a month. He didnât even bother to find any medical help for a while, but when he did, it suddenly became apparent how serious the injury was. He never fully recovered, and although he could still climb better than most people would ever dream of doing, heâd lost that mysterious edge the top boys had. Too much of his grip had gone. He couldnât do the fresh routes that make the headlines any more, though he would still solo old ones from time to time with astonishing speed. Then gradually he dropped out of sight altogether.
I had heard accounts of him now and then; that he lived in a caravan somewhere in North Yorkshire; that he drank a lot, and had become morose and bitter, but now I was reading his obituary, and seeing that young godâs face stare out at me from twelve years before. Apparently he had climbed alone to the top of Malham Cove, taking with him in his bag nothing but a bottle of tequila, and when the bottle was empty, heâd
I can still see him putting up his own route on Almscliffe, the one he named Axle-Grip, upside down on the overhang, with only one nut twenty-five feet below him for protection. It would have ripped out if heâd fallen, he knew that as well as we did. But he didnât fall. Instead he ended up on the cover of Climbing World. I still have my grainy black-and-white photographs somewhere, of Mick in his dirty sweater and jeans and his battered EBs, standing proud of the rock with his curly black hair flowing wildly in the wind, as he overcame one more impossibility. He put all his new routes down as âVery Severeâ, but theyâre classified a lot higher than that in the Yorkshire gritstone guidebooks these days. E5, E6. Warning signs to the uninitiated: donât try climbing these, if you have any sense at all. Most of them I couldnât even make the first swooping moves on â they were so demanding, I simply couldnât get off the ground.
Then we all used to drink together, either up on the crags when the weather was fine, or back in town when it wasnât. Whatever heâd done the night before never seemed to affect him when he started climbing the next morning. Until he tore his hand trying to open a can of beer with a serrated knife at some midnight party. The major tendons in two fingers were severed. At first we didnât think it was so bad. He told us heâd be roped up again within a month. He didnât even bother to find any medical help for a while, but when he did, it suddenly became apparent how serious the injury was. He never fully recovered, and although he could still climb better than most people would ever dream of doing, heâd lost that mysterious edge the top boys had. Too much of his grip had gone. He couldnât do the fresh routes that make the headlines any more, though he would still solo old ones from time to time with astonishing speed. Then gradually he dropped out of sight altogether.
I had heard accounts of him now and then; that he lived in a caravan somewhere in North Yorkshire; that he drank a lot, and had become morose and bitter, but now I was reading his obituary, and seeing that young godâs face stare out at me from twelve years before. Apparently he had climbed alone to the top of Malham Cove, taking with him in his bag nothing but a bottle of tequila, and when the bottle was empty, heâd
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