In the Shadow of Piper Alpha: Christmas, 2000
Dunedin, New Zealand, December 25th 2000
Christmas was a day like any other. A Monday, in fact, and Monday was a day of work. I was sure Graeme would have been happy with me cooking him a turkey but I was having none of that. If I was taking the day off I wasn’t going to spend it in the house. Climbing seemed the obvious thing to do.
There were plenty of places to climb in Dunedin, but lacking a car limited our options. Mike had left his bike behind so once we’d fixed Graeme up with boots we cycled away from Dunedin out to the Peninsula along Highcliff Road and down Sandymount to Lover’s Leap, a crag facing out into the ocean. It was a beautiful day as we rode through the undulating green landscape, the sea iris blue between hills, the fields of sheep basking in the sun.
‘It looks like Scotland,’ said Graeme.
It was an outing in itself rather than a journey, and the roads that early were empty. We cycled side-by-side taking climbs in our stride, free-wheeled winding downhills, content with the chatter of lambs and the burr of wheels.
We carried the bikes down the gully and round to the crag. It stood perpendicular to the sea facing west, still in shade at that time of the day. I stretched and got everything ready, boots on and rope set. I usually went climbing at Long Beach. There was a cave with loads of bouldering lines, so I could go myself and didn’t need to cart all the gear, but the climbing at Lover’s Leap was great, basalt organ pipes meaning loads of long single- pitch routes. Getting started was tricky because of all the unclimbable choss but there were enough bolts and chains so that once you were over it, you were off. Occasionally it was better to be with someone.
Crimps and fingerlocks, highsteps and kneebars, there was nothing else in your mind but the rock, your position on it, where you were going next, next, next. Fingers rusty, I slipped and Graeme lowered me, we changed places, tried different lines, the sun at noon, warming the crags. We stopped for Christmas lunch on the grass, salad and leftovers, fruit juice and bottled water.
‘I like this,’ said Graeme. A chain of sea kayaks, violent orange against the bruise-dark sea, rounded the headland in caravan. ‘I could stay here forever.’
‘Three thousand years ago people set out across these waters, starting from Indonesia and spreading through the Polynesian islands, Fiji, Samoa, the Cooks and down here, up to Hawaii, right across to Easter Island. Almost all the way across the Pacific in canoes. They didn’t even know if there was anything out there. They just got in their boats with some supplies and kicked off, knowing they’d never be back.’ The hard curve of the horizon. ‘Some stayed, made a home. Others kept going.’
‘We’re always searching for something. Some people never find it.’
‘Like Bono.’
He laughed, threw a grape at me.
‘How long are you staying? You didn’t say,’ I asked.
He finished his mango smoothie, waiting with the bottle upturned over his mouth for the pulp to drop out. He deliberately screwed the lid back on and put the empty into his bag. Got a tissue and dabbed at his mouth. ‘No idea.’ He wouldn’t look at me.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘I don’t know.’ He must have noticed my increasing exasperation because he continued. ‘I mean, I don’t know because I haven’t decided. I… I had to get away.’
‘Are you in trouble?’
‘No, nothing like that. I just… I don’t know.’
‘You’re very happy to admit what you don’t know. You’d make a good scientist.’
He laughed, but it was empty. ‘I was supposed to be a lawyer, remember? Lawyers always know everything.’
‘Do you regret that? Not going to law school?’
‘No, it was the right decision at the time. And thank you for that. Talking, that day in Café Continental. Your advice.’
‘Yeah, I’ve always been good at what other people should be doing.’
‘But Dad was right – I can’t be a professional snowboarder my whole life.’
‘So that’s it? Career crisis?’
‘Midlife crisis.’
‘You’re twenty-eight, you can’t be having a midlife crisis.’
‘Depends how old I am when I die.’
‘God, you’re cheery today.’
‘Merry Christmas. Let’s get back up there. Not thinking helps.’
‘I’m not sure it does, but I know what you mean.’
Graeme was set on conquering a tricky line and I let him take a few runs at it. What do professional snowboarders do when they retire? Retiring at twenty-eight, the idea. I was just getting started on my career, still finding my feet in my first job. I was building a reputation, citations of my papers increasing. I had all these plans, the research I wanted to do, the papers I needed to write, the books. How lucky I’d been. Not everyone knew with complete certainty what they wanted to do with their lives. People drifted. Changed their minds. Tried different things. Took wrong turns. Hannah was like me, sure from a young age. Dad ended up in the oil industry because it came along when he was unsure. He’d have been happier as a field geologist than in an office making money for billionaires. The choices you made, they could take you by surprise.
We cycled home, silent, each with our thoughts, put the bikes in the garage. I wondered what to do about dinner, what to do with the evening. There’d be a restaurant open somewhere. Or we could eat in. Or we could go our separate ways. I felt like curling up on the couch with a film, maybe make a pizza. But it was Christmas. I had a depressed guest. Maybe he had some idea, knew his own mind. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I need a shower.’
‘Do you need to go back to your hotel?’
‘Depends. I have clothes with me. Do you want to do something? Get some dinner?’
What a pair. ‘Have a shower here and we can come up with a plan.’ I wasn’t used to being around one person this much, or having someone in my house. Apart from Mike, obviously, but Mike kept to himself. ‘Shower’s in there, towels in the cupboard, everything’s self-explanatory.’
I straightened the place, made sure there were no stray items of underwear drying, opened the French windows to air the room. I turned on the TV so he’d have something to do while I showered. The news was full of the bombings in Indonesia, al-Qaeda, talking heads, carnage. Those families at home, in hospitals, waiting for news. Waiting to hear. I changed the channel, found The Muppets Christmas Carol. Graeme came out, fresh and damp, we swapped places. He fell asleep on the couch, Michael Caine and the Ghost of Christmas Present watching the Cratchits through the window.
Graeme slept for an hour while I prepared dinner. Homemade pizza and salad, ice cream for dessert. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I’d had worse Christmases. The sun set, a chill wind off the sea rolled over the garden so I closed the doors, pulled the curtains.
‘I should have got you a present,’ he said. ‘I never thought.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ I was sitting on the floor, my back against the couch. He was above me, half lying, legs curled. I could feel his knee just behind my head.
‘I wouldn’t have known what to buy anyway. I usually give people bottles of stuff. Champagne. Wine. You don’t drink.’
‘It’s a pain, isn’t it?’
‘You never did like making things easy.’
‘I think I’m pretty straightforward.’
‘Yeah, but in your own way. At school all the other girls were easy to work out. Kim, Lesley, Julie. You knew where you were with them. You were a whole different puzzle.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sean Connery had been shot. Harrison Ford was approaching the first test, the spinning blade that decapitated all but the penitent.
‘You just always did your own thing.’
Ford was through and faced with the name of God.
‘I seem to remember not having much choice with that.’
‘Mark? Sure there were dicks, but most of us were on your side. And then with your dad. We wanted to help but we… I… we couldn’t find a way.’
Ford made it and now faced the final challenge. The leap from the lion’s mouth. A test of faith. I remember the first time I watched this, Indiana Jones stepping off a cliff. Even now I still held my breath.
‘You know I really liked you?’ he said.
‘At school?’
‘I had such a thing for you.’
‘Shut up.’
‘I did.’
I looked up at him. On the screen Indiana Jones found the knight, the room with the grail. ‘You did?’
‘I did. I do.’ And he leaned over and kissed me. And I kissed him back.