Watching the Climbers on the Mountain by Alex Miller Page A

spray against a protruding bar of serrated quartzite that had withstood the erosion better than the softer sandstone in which it was embedded. The air down here was filled with a fine mist that was gently saturating the sun-warmed rocks, so that a thin steam dissolved from them into the still air of the afternoon.
    Startled by the stockman’s yell Ida looked up to see him sliding helplessly down the chute towards her. She tightened her grip on the branch and instinctively ducked her head to one side as he grabbed at her desperately, covering her hands with his as his body thumped heavily against her. For a moment he clung to her in the rushing water, cupped on either side by the concave walls of the narrow chute, the current forcing their bodies together. Then he let go. As he slid past she grabbed for him uselessly, turning in time to see his outstretched feet strike against the raised bar. Half standing, he tried to turn and gain his balance, crouching unsteadily against the rush of the water. ‘Sorry, Mrs Rankin!’ he called, poised precariously in mid-stream. The water shooting over his knees formed a seething wave against his thighs and the sharp serrations of the quartzite were cutting into the soles of his feet, making him grimace with the sudden pain.
    She climbed out quickly and reached towards him. ‘Give me your hand.’ Steadying herself against the rock face she leaned out over the water to him. ‘Come on!’ she shouted sternly when he hesitated. ‘You wouldn’t want to go over on your back on that quartz.’ He took her hand and stepped shakily across to the wide ledge on which she was standing.
    â€˜Thanks, Mrs Rankin.’
    As she pulled him towards her, and then as he stepped in close to her, she felt an irresistible impulse to clasp the stockman’s glistening flanks. But she hesitated just a fraction of a second and their awkwardness was at once acute. It was the tone of his voice that made her hesitate. ‘Thanks, Mrs Rankin’—it echoed in her mind, the sounds chiming together. ‘Sorry, Mrs Rankin’, ‘Thanks, Mrs Rankin’ . . . There had been a slight delay, then she had registered it, that stupid flatness, as if he were referring to an organisation—Thanks, Rotary Club—or to something equally inert!
    She realised she was blushing. She moved to the back of the ledge and ran her hand across the rough surface of the rock, aggressively swiping aside a trembling spider and its web. She felt frustrated that reality should be such a difficult business. If there was ever an awkwardness in daydreams, it was only so that a deeper ease might be revealed. She glanced at him wonderingly; was that a possibility?
    â€˜I should have been watching what I was doing,’ he said, as if he expected her to reprimand him.
    She observed him glumly. She was angry with him, with herself, with the frigidity of the situation. What if she were to say to him, You look like Tarzan but you behave like Pluto. Would it make any sense to him? Or would he just say sorry and try to adjust? She felt cheated. A moment ago she had been feeling quite like a young girl again; the exhilaration of the sudden action had aroused in her a warm sensation of heightened physicalness. Every nerve was tingling and alert—ready for more! She had been on the point of enthusiasm! Her feelings had been completely unreserved towards him. For an instant it had seemed that all the ordinary, difficult preliminaries of getting to know each other on a more intimate level had been dispensed with. She had felt convinced, just for that moment, that they had—with no need for further words—abandoned their more formal relationship and welcomed in its place something much more interesting.
    And she had been about to act on that perception when his impersonal tone had checked her. She watched him examining his injured feet and she said nothing, unable to bring herself to