CHAPTER 47
I let her walk in before me, and not so I could get another view of her rear end. This was all going too quick, or so one of the Greek chorus of voices in my head was proclaiming, while another was insisting that going at any speed at all, over any period whatsoever, would remain too quick. Did I not love my wife? How could I even think of heading down that path?

It left me a little out of sorts for the rest of our session, and I noticed slightly more distance between the two of us, especially after that mutual grope we had almost shared. So much for finding my little place of comfort and solitude.

Once again, my mental debate picked up on the salient word. Did I really want solitude? Discuss… Did I find myself attracted to Maryam? Nem con on that one; she was stunning, and given Dal’s evident crush, not just in my eyes. I was spotting her on some more boulder moves, once again catching her as she fell backwards from her landing, when she murmured, “I am so sorry, Mike”

“What for?”

“Being so pushy. We need… I need…”

She sighed, standing up.

“We both need a proper talk. There are things you don’t know about me, and, well, I am starting to get tired”

She raised her voice to a more normal conversational level.

“This is incredibly hard work, isn’t it?”

I took the baton from her as smoothly as I could.

“It’s bloody good cardio, for starters. Builds different muscles as well, depending on technique”

She snorted out on of her adorable (‘Adulterer!’) laughs, the dimples there as she grinned.

“Right, like you compared to that Vern!”

I nodded.

“Racing snakes and thugs, Maz. There are some routes, chimney climbs, I can’t get into. I have to climb the outside. One of the reasons I love hand jams”

“A man’s grip for a man’s climb?”

“Sort of, yeah”

We were talking again, and it was all safe stuff, as I described the differences between gritstone thugging, slate crimping, Welsh balance, and insane trust-to-friction-I-hope-there’s-no-damp-patches during suicidal run-outs on Scottish granite slabs. Vern caught the tail end of that one.

“Run-outs?”

“Yeah. Huge slabs of granite, minimal holds. Limited runners, too. There’s a couple in Glen Etive where the pitch is longer than the rope”

“What the fu---sorry, Maz. You mean?”

“Yup. Second has to untie and follow the leader until that one reaches the next stance”

“And, just guessing here, but this is trad? No bolts?”

“Try bolting a route up there and you will be lynched. If you can’t climb it as it is, leave it to someone who can”

Vern shook his head in disbelief.

“You poms got no fear at all?”

I had a sudden split screen burst of memory: Steph on high, soloing the last moves of Tennis Shoe while almost certainly still drunk, and myself, in the same spot, awareness hitting me like stonefall.

“Oh, trust me, Vern: we get bloody terrified. Makes us climb better, and it certainly improves our runner placement. Now, I think my lot are starting to tire, and Kul has been spending a lot of time sitting on that sofa”

Dal called across, “Well, that’s what happens when you get old and past it!”

The silliness ramped up, until Chad called time.

“We eating soon? My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut, and I’m drier than---”

In chorus, Maz and I called out “A wombat’s ringpiece!”, and Chad blushed pink.

“I was bloody well hung over, you bastards!”

A wave of laughter followed, and not just from our little crew. Once we had sobered again, Vern held out a USB stick.

“Tim’s copied your bits—no, Chad, not THOSE bits--- onto this stick, so we can have a watch later”

Kul and Sangeeta stared at each other for a few seconds before nodding simultaneously, and Geeta turned to the lad.

“We’re having drinks at our place, with some people staying over, after the meal. Would you like to join us?”

“Well, Chad’s sort of driving me today, so I can always grab the bus home”

Geeta put a Mum look on, as Dal tried not to snigger.

“Vern, we have room, and we, well, as my husband puts it, can haz booze. You would be welcome. Think of it as a thank you for your generosity the other weekend. We had a wonderful day out, which you helped with. Need to stop at a bottle shop?”

Another, even pinker, blush from Chad.

“I sort of presumed, Geeta, and I put a load in the boot. It’ll need chilling when we get there”

Kul spread his arms.

“Well, we’ll just have to drink our stuff, which is in the fridge, before stealing all of yours. Food now?”

I waved at my shorts and vest.

“Dress code in that place?”

Kul waved a hand.

“Oh, as long as you’re not naked. They’ve got an outside area, sort of. Tent extension with fly screens. I mean, nobody wants a botfly on their calamari, do they?”

In the end, Maz opted to duck into the ladies to pull on her beach dress once more, and Vern paid for my impromptu video star work by giving me a free T-shirt from their shop. The seafood place had enough parking, the layout was just as I remembered from our earlier visit, and The Doctor was blowing steadily through the meshing around us. As we entered, I reminded Kul that asking for ‘sea locust’ would not endear us to the staff, and Chad that ‘marsupial anus’ might receive a similar response.

The food was superb. We started with a massive sharing platter, which included abalone, as well as all sorts of other items I failed to recognise but whose tastes were more than acceptable. I could get used to that sort of meal, I decided.

The conversation was lively, but avoided both work, due to our visiting stranger, and the topics Maz, Sangeeta and myself had been discussing, separately or in pairs. We ate, some of us drank, and then we left in convoy for Joondalup. The flies had eased, so we ended up in the yard/on the patio/whatever the Aussie equivalent was. Chad and Vern’s contribution, or a large part of it, went into the fridge, and before we went out back, Dal set his laptop up so that we could watch ourselves cavort on the ‘rock’.

It was actually illuminating, watching it once removed from such considerations as belaying a leader. I found myself almost blushing at my own performance while realising a few things about the others.

Vern was potentially a very good climber, if he could get past some confidence issues. His balance was superb.

Dal was all tension and coiled-spring-trembling. His heels were lifting too far for some of the moves, so I took a mental note to explain that to him later.

Maz was so different, reminding me, in the nicest way, of a chameleon stalking prey, but without the rocking. Slow, calm, her foot movement mostly precise rather than hop-scuffing, and the way she rolled her foot into that hook on the hold was perfect. And her arse, also.

(‘Cheater!’)

Outside into the warmth of the night, spoiled slightly by the screeching of a flock of some sort of Aussie birds heading for their roost. I moved to the darker end of the garden for another attempt at locating the Sothern Cross, but there was still a lot of light pollution from the wider city. Ah well; wait for that Margaret River trip.

“Mike?”

Ah.

“Maz? You okay?”

She stepped closer.

“Not sure, really. Up and down today, and, well, sorry about grabbing you. There”

“I did sort of do it to you”

“Obligation, I suspect. Felt you had to. Would you mind if I drank a bit too much tonight?”

“Need to or want to?”

She sighed, yet again.

“Both, I suppose. Lets me say things, and to an extent stops me worrying about it, at least for the moment. I wasn’t… I haven’t been touched like that for… No. I’ve been groped more than a few times, on buses and that, but that’s a different thing. It’s just, seeing you with your clothes off… Oh, shit. You know what I mean”

My heart rate was up, and the voices were screaming at me, and each other.

“I understand. I didn’t realise how much of my thighs those shorts reveal. I just bought them for free movement. Your vest isn’t exactly, you know, either”

There was a clink behind us, and I turned to see Geeta putting some beers onto the wall by us.

“Saves you two having to come in before you’ve had a chance to sort it out. Leaving you to it, okay?”

She walked off, and I stood shaking my head until Maryam called me by name.

“Mike, I need to say a few things, and I need to say them before I am drunk, and then I need to get drunk so I can pretend I don’t remember saying them. If you feel that you can talk too, that would be good. Or perhaps not”

She stood facing the outer darkness, and I soon realised she was seeing an inner lack of light, possibly even darker.

“Told you a few things… Oh, shit. This should be that thing on a beach, waiting for the morning light”

“We work with what we have, Maz”

“Yeah. Sometimes we are lucky, other times… Alan and me, we married, and my parents didn’t come, nor my brothers, despite the very pointed invitations. Good Muslim girls don’t marry the infidel, the haram. They stay at home and marry solid dependable Malay men, who wear a songkok and baju melayu, or a sarong, and have many Malay children. They don’t marry round-eyed and big-nosed men”

“You really loved him, didn’t you?”

“Oh god, yes I did, and I still do, but life, it continues, and then I hear about you, and I have a dream already, so… and you are here, and what Kul has said, and Dal, it is clearly true. But I am still a good Malay girl, and I am, or should be, modest and chaste, so my thoughts are wrong. At the same time, Alan is still there for me, still… I see you leap round that overhang, and every muscle is there, from your ankles to your forearms, and the chaste woman, she hides for a moment, before she is back to remind me of my husband”

I was without words for a few moments, so I simply turned to pick up a couple of beers and hide my face while I tried to return the confession she had offered.

“Maryam? Here”

We each took a sip from our fresh drink, and I drew my breath in, ready to make that dyno, om faith and a foothold.

“I had a problem, Maz, and I am told that my wife, my Caro, she shared it. I find it hard to see value in myself. Intellectually, yes, but away from that, I get stuck. When she first smiled at me, my thoughts were ‘Why me? What do I have to offer someone like her?’. And then Pen, and another friend, Audrey, they are explaining that Caro is exactly the same, and I was astonished, for she was lovely. We danced around each other, and I am told she spoke about not believing her good luck, and that’s not something I can just accept.

“I don’t know if I can talk like this without being drunk, but I am trying as best I can. I see you, especially when you tease---”

There was the slightest hint of a chuckle from her.

“When you see me from behind?”

Bugger it. In for a pound.

“When I see you from any direction, Maz. You are able to distract me very easily, and that is where we are alike. Your conscience screams about chastity, mine about adultery. What you said about Alan…”

“What you said about me really loving him? That’s you and your wife, isn’t it?”

“Yup. That’s me and Caro”

“Mike?”

“Yes?”

“Do you fancy coshing our consciences a bit? See what happens?”

I turned back to face her, as she mirrored my gesture.

“Mike?”

“Would you mind… could you… Oh, shit”

She stepped forward, and what else could I do but accept her embrace?