THE ALPS
Jack flicked the page of thick cartridge paper up and over itself, taking the picture away.
He frowned, annoyed, because the sketch hadn’t come out as he wanted it. It had been in charcoal, dark lines swirling over and over each other until the shape had slowly began to emerge from the gloom, except it hadn’t worked out. Hard enough to draw himself without a mirror, but he wanted to tap more into what was inside. It wasn’t just his looks he was trying to capture.
Gaston was about nine feet away, reading on another of the smooth, lumpy red rocks. Christine, his daughter, was running around, rooting beneath some bushes, just within sight. It was starting to think about getting dark. Around them and down below was such a vast volume of sky and scenery. It was awe inspiring, staggering, wonderful, amazing, the most beautiful place Jack had ever been and none of the above. He’d always loved clichés and here was another: that words COULD NOT GRASP what his eyes and his other senses were describing of this place.
He had never seen mountains, he had seen hills that were huge, he had been to Wales, but this was more than all of that.
He and Gaston were really high now. The road they had taken to reach here had curved back and back and back and back, zigzagging up the gradient, cutting away the height until they reached what was close to the top. And now, stretching out below them so that they were actually looking down, were more and more mountains, filling the breadth of the horizon.
It was a glorious, life-filled desolation. There were villages visible down there but there were miles and miles between them and they were each half a mile across at best. On the mountain way across at the other side of the valley was another deserted town.
Jack laid the drawing pad and his charcoal down on the rock beside his crossed legs and leaned back on his hands, half smiling in the beam and glory of the dying sun.
Without glancing at Gaston, he said, “What are you reading?”
“Mmmm? Nabokov.”
“Title?”
Gaston turned the book round to flash the cover. “Lolita. In French of course. I should be trying to improve my English I know, but I love reading too much. Who wants to spoil it by working?”
“Is it good?”
“It’s different than I imagined. I thought I was going to be more repulsed than I am. You know what it’s about?”
Jack shrugged. “Vaguely. I think I saw the film once but I don’t remember much more than the basic premise: A man travelling round with an underage girl and having sex with her and being obsessed.”
“Yes,” said Gaston, nodding as he laid the book down open and flat on his knee. “It’s interesting to find out about a character who breaks a critical moral law but is still so difficult to hate.”
“Isn’t that just good writing?”
“Perhaps. But worrying nonetheless.”
Both of them laughed. Jack looked out again across the mountains down below. There were pine trees clustered to his left, obscuring some of the scenery, but they gave a view of their own of deep green in amongst all this rock and stiff grass. Single buildings were dotted all over the place that were as abandoned as the village they had seen but they were apparently still used from time to time by shepherds. “I don’t want this to be over,” said Jack, not troubling to look across at Gaston, “this company and this mini-adventure we’ve been having.”
“You can stay as long as you want,” replied Gaston, “It’s not as though it’s a financial strain – your gift of the money was unnecessary but very welcome – and I need somebody around to talk to. Christine has a way to go yet before we will be talking philosophy. I was in the United States so long this last time that it would have been a bit shocking to come back to all this quiet by myself.”
Gaston glanced back at his book. After a second he looked up but he was clearly drawn back into the page. Jack let him read for another half-hour or so. He didn’t get back to his drawing. He wasn’t in the mood clearly. He had managed quite a few sketches all around of landscapes; of mountains and waterfalls and sometimes simple things like fields of grass or the troughs the cows used to drink from, frogs hiding buried under the dead leaves at the bottom. He couldn’t seem to get going on the portrait though.
Molly’s warning about Lucy’s brother came back to him, spliced with a memory of the way Sam had looked at him in that bar and in the alley when they fought. Was it really dangerous to be here? Perhaps it was.
He watched the view, the mountains seen from above and the pine trees and the grass and all the air, and as he allowed his eyes to partially close it seemed as though he could see a vast translucent web covering everything he could see. It rose above the moulded peaks and down into the grooves and valleys. It concentrated itself in the patches of civilisation he could make out. It moved, glittering in the noon sun, flowing into and through everything, unreal and nothing more than light and imagination being refracted through his half-closed eyelashes.
“I sometimes think there’s a design to all of this,” said Jack, talking quietly, not minding particularly if Gaston could hear him or would respond. “I mean to say, I choose to believe that there’s a design. I don’t go around claiming to know anything of the sort. I don’t hear voices. I don’t even know if I ever feel the touch of some higher power except maybe in my most passionate moments or when I’m angry; but I like to think that God is there, or Fate – as a person; as a force – touching our lives from day to day; pushing us forward or back depending on our own resolve and ambition. It’s a comforting thought... in the cold; at night. It’s comforting when bad things happen; that maybe it’s because it’s leading you on to the next thing; the good thing; the thing you’re really meant to do that will change everything.
“Since I inherited the money— No. Before that.... It’s been as though I’ve been closer to this design or the Hand that guides it. But I’m not seeing the design yet. I still don’t know where I’m going. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Jack didn’t say anything for a few moments.
“I’ve been thinking that I’m going to move on now Gaston. I don’t see the design but I know that what I’m looking for isn’t here. I think it meant for me to come here but now it’s time to go. I’m sorry it’s been so brief. Something in me keeps pushing me to move on. I need more opportunities for Fate to show me what the hell I’m supposed to be doing.”
Another pause as he thought things through, figuring the best way to phrase what he wanted to say. “I was wondering if you’d like to come along for a while... as my guest: I mean I’d pay your airfare and hotel bills. We could continue our conversation.” He paused, looking out over the mountains again. “And I have the faintest instinct telling me there’s still something you need to show me; that you’re part of this somehow.”
Jack turned to Gaston. Gaston was looking at him very quietly, his book hanging down from his fingers and Jack realised he’d been sitting like that, watching, the whole time.
Jack flicked the page of thick cartridge paper up and over itself, taking the picture away.
He frowned, annoyed, because the sketch hadn’t come out as he wanted it. It had been in charcoal, dark lines swirling over and over each other until the shape had slowly began to emerge from the gloom, except it hadn’t worked out. Hard enough to draw himself without a mirror, but he wanted to tap more into what was inside. It wasn’t just his looks he was trying to capture.
Gaston was about nine feet away, reading on another of the smooth, lumpy red rocks. Christine, his daughter, was running around, rooting beneath some bushes, just within sight. It was starting to think about getting dark. Around them and down below was such a vast volume of sky and scenery. It was awe inspiring, staggering, wonderful, amazing, the most beautiful place Jack had ever been and none of the above. He’d always loved clichés and here was another: that words COULD NOT GRASP what his eyes and his other senses were describing of this place.
He had never seen mountains, he had seen hills that were huge, he had been to Wales, but this was more than all of that.
He and Gaston were really high now. The road they had taken to reach here had curved back and back and back and back, zigzagging up the gradient, cutting away the height until they reached what was close to the top. And now, stretching out below them so that they were actually looking down, were more and more mountains, filling the breadth of the horizon.
It was a glorious, life-filled desolation. There were villages visible down there but there were miles and miles between them and they were each half a mile across at best. On the mountain way across at the other side of the valley was another deserted town.
Jack laid the drawing pad and his charcoal down on the rock beside his crossed legs and leaned back on his hands, half smiling in the beam and glory of the dying sun.
Without glancing at Gaston, he said, “What are you reading?”
“Mmmm? Nabokov.”
“Title?”
Gaston turned the book round to flash the cover. “Lolita. In French of course. I should be trying to improve my English I know, but I love reading too much. Who wants to spoil it by working?”
“Is it good?”
“It’s different than I imagined. I thought I was going to be more repulsed than I am. You know what it’s about?”
Jack shrugged. “Vaguely. I think I saw the film once but I don’t remember much more than the basic premise: A man travelling round with an underage girl and having sex with her and being obsessed.”
“Yes,” said Gaston, nodding as he laid the book down open and flat on his knee. “It’s interesting to find out about a character who breaks a critical moral law but is still so difficult to hate.”
“Isn’t that just good writing?”
“Perhaps. But worrying nonetheless.”
Both of them laughed. Jack looked out again across the mountains down below. There were pine trees clustered to his left, obscuring some of the scenery, but they gave a view of their own of deep green in amongst all this rock and stiff grass. Single buildings were dotted all over the place that were as abandoned as the village they had seen but they were apparently still used from time to time by shepherds. “I don’t want this to be over,” said Jack, not troubling to look across at Gaston, “this company and this mini-adventure we’ve been having.”
“You can stay as long as you want,” replied Gaston, “It’s not as though it’s a financial strain – your gift of the money was unnecessary but very welcome – and I need somebody around to talk to. Christine has a way to go yet before we will be talking philosophy. I was in the United States so long this last time that it would have been a bit shocking to come back to all this quiet by myself.”
Gaston glanced back at his book. After a second he looked up but he was clearly drawn back into the page. Jack let him read for another half-hour or so. He didn’t get back to his drawing. He wasn’t in the mood clearly. He had managed quite a few sketches all around of landscapes; of mountains and waterfalls and sometimes simple things like fields of grass or the troughs the cows used to drink from, frogs hiding buried under the dead leaves at the bottom. He couldn’t seem to get going on the portrait though.
Molly’s warning about Lucy’s brother came back to him, spliced with a memory of the way Sam had looked at him in that bar and in the alley when they fought. Was it really dangerous to be here? Perhaps it was.
He watched the view, the mountains seen from above and the pine trees and the grass and all the air, and as he allowed his eyes to partially close it seemed as though he could see a vast translucent web covering everything he could see. It rose above the moulded peaks and down into the grooves and valleys. It concentrated itself in the patches of civilisation he could make out. It moved, glittering in the noon sun, flowing into and through everything, unreal and nothing more than light and imagination being refracted through his half-closed eyelashes.
“I sometimes think there’s a design to all of this,” said Jack, talking quietly, not minding particularly if Gaston could hear him or would respond. “I mean to say, I choose to believe that there’s a design. I don’t go around claiming to know anything of the sort. I don’t hear voices. I don’t even know if I ever feel the touch of some higher power except maybe in my most passionate moments or when I’m angry; but I like to think that God is there, or Fate – as a person; as a force – touching our lives from day to day; pushing us forward or back depending on our own resolve and ambition. It’s a comforting thought... in the cold; at night. It’s comforting when bad things happen; that maybe it’s because it’s leading you on to the next thing; the good thing; the thing you’re really meant to do that will change everything.
“Since I inherited the money— No. Before that.... It’s been as though I’ve been closer to this design or the Hand that guides it. But I’m not seeing the design yet. I still don’t know where I’m going. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Jack didn’t say anything for a few moments.
“I’ve been thinking that I’m going to move on now Gaston. I don’t see the design but I know that what I’m looking for isn’t here. I think it meant for me to come here but now it’s time to go. I’m sorry it’s been so brief. Something in me keeps pushing me to move on. I need more opportunities for Fate to show me what the hell I’m supposed to be doing.”
Another pause as he thought things through, figuring the best way to phrase what he wanted to say. “I was wondering if you’d like to come along for a while... as my guest: I mean I’d pay your airfare and hotel bills. We could continue our conversation.” He paused, looking out over the mountains again. “And I have the faintest instinct telling me there’s still something you need to show me; that you’re part of this somehow.”
Jack turned to Gaston. Gaston was looking at him very quietly, his book hanging down from his fingers and Jack realised he’d been sitting like that, watching, the whole time.
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