We sat around a table together, Owen, Anna, Luce and I, with Damien and Curtis returning from the counter with beer, and they were friendly enough, but I still felt uncomfortable, the outsider, their conversation and humour full of references I didn’t know and which they didn’t bother to explain. I remembered Luce saying that six of them had gone climbing in Yosemite together, and I wondered who the other one had been. Then Curtis raised his arm and waved to someone at the door, and I turned and saw a tall lean man wearing a black shirt and jeans. He had shoulder-length black hair swept back from his face, and as he made his way towards us I saw that he was limping heavily, putting his weight on a stick in his left hand.
Curtis jumped to his feet and pulled another chair into the circle, and the man sank into it with a grunt, handing Curtis a fifty-dollar note which he took up to the bar.
Luce said, ‘Marcus, this is Josh. Josh Ambler, Marcus Fenn.’
I got up and stretched my hand out to shake his. His face was deeply lined and tanned, his hair touched in places with grey, and I saw that he was much older than us, maybe mid-forties. He regarded me impassively.
‘Josh has been climbing with us this evening, Marcus.’
‘Really?’ His voice was soft. Curtis returned and placed a large Scotch by his hand, and laid the change beside it. ‘What do you do, Josh?’
‘I’ve just started an MBA.’
His expression registered an involuntary wince and he took a quick gulp of whisky as if to clear a bad taste. ‘Merchant banker, eh?’ This caused general merriment.
‘That sort of thing. How about you? What do you do, Marcus?’
‘Oh, I work for this godforsaken institution, I’m sorry to say, and occasionally try to squeeze a little understanding into these guys’ heads. Fairly unsuccessfully, I’d have to admit.’
I couldn’t pin down his accent-Australian, certainly, but with what might have been an American flavour. His attention turned to Owen. ‘How’s Pop bearing up?’
Owen shook his head wearily. ‘Bushed. If you have some dope for crying babies, please can I have some.’ This was the first time I’d heard that Owen was a father. Apparently he was also married. ‘Suzi’s going spare.’
‘If she needs a break,’ Luce said, ‘I don’t mind doing the odd babysit.’
Owen seized on the offer. ‘We’d really appreciate that, Luce.’
Marcus was observing this domestic exchange with a sardonic smile, as if he found the whole idea vaguely pitiful.
There was karaoke in the adjoining room, and everyone looked up and listened as the next song began. It was an INXS track, and they all joined loudly in the refrain, Falling down the mountain, all that is except Marcus, who leaned forward, shaking his head as if some kind of joke was on him.
They were all big INXS fans, apparently, still grieving for Michael Hutchence who’d died just over a year before. Trying to get more of a handle on each of them, I asked what else they liked. Curtis was toying with heavy metal, Owen nominated Silverchair, Damien Shania Twain, Anna U2 and Luce Savage Garden (possibly for the name). Marcus said nothing, but I’d have put him down for Leonard Cohen. Seeing my lip curl at this selection, Luce said, ‘Well, what about you?’
‘How about The Fall?’
They looked blank, then sceptical, as if I’d made it up following on the INXS number.
‘Never heard of it,’ Owen said.
‘But you’ve heard their music. Remember that last scene in The Silence of the Lambs, when Clarice Starling stalks the Buffalo Bill/Jame Gumb character through the dark house? The background music was The Fall, from their album Hex Enduction Hour. The track was called …’ I hesitated as if pondering, then looked straight at Marcus, ‘… “Hip Priest”.’
He stared right back at me, and there was a moment’s silence. They still thought I was making all this up, and probably taking a poke at their crippled guru.
Then Marcus suddenly tossed his head back with a short bark of a laugh. ‘You know, I believe he’s right.’ He slid the cash lying beside his whisky across the table towards me and said, ‘Get us another round in, merchant banker, eh?’
I grinned and got up. ‘Sure, Marcus.’
After that the evening went just fine, and when it was over Luce and I walked back to her place while the others got a lift in Marcus’s old Jaguar, which he was able to drive with his good leg. I asked Luce what had happened to him, and she confirmed that he had been the sixth member of their climbing group in California, fifteen months before, and that it had been on that trip that he had taken the fall that had shattered his left leg, just a month or so after Hutchence hanged himself, hence the references.
‘What happened?’
She shrugged. ‘He just tried to push himself that little bit too far. He was a really good climber, and he’d have been able to make the move without any problem ten years earlier, but I think he was trying to prove something to himself, or to us, and got taught a nasty lesson. It was a terrible thing when it happened, right at the end of our trip. We had to climb up to him and bring him down. He was in shocking pain. He was in hospital in San Francisco for a week before they could fly him back, and then in Royal North Shore for another six weeks.’
We walked on for a while, and then she said, ‘What did you think of Marcus?’
‘I don’t know … You all seemed rather overawed by him.’
‘He’s become more sombre since the accident, more angry. He used to be great fun. But he’s brilliant, Josh, the most inspiring person I’ve ever met. Look, I’ll show you.’
We had reached the door of the flat she shared with Anna, and she took me inside, where Anna was setting up an ironing board.
‘We were talking about Marcus,’ Luce explained to her. ‘I want to show Josh the Oslo tape.’
‘Fine.’ Anna turned to me. ‘We were debating in the car whether you made that up about The Fall. Marcus said no, but the others thought you were.’
‘What about you?’
She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘I think you told the truth. I can usually tell when people are lying.’
‘Clever you.’
Luce found the tape she wanted and we sat together on the sofa as the picture came on. The scene was a stage with a lectern, large letters on the wall behind proclaiming OSLO ECOSOPHY SYMPOSIUM. A lone figure took his place behind the microphone to some scattered applause. I recognised a younger Marcus, vigorous, bright-eyed. His speech was in English, but I can’t remember much of what he actually said, and what I can remember-something about the ancient Greek word for house, oikos, being the root for economy (stewardship of the household), ecology (knowledge of the household) and ecosophy (wisdom of the household)-didn’t sound very exciting. But his presentation was inspiring, riveting in fact, as became apparent from the murmurs of approval from the unseen audience, gradually building to bursts of spontaneous clapping that punctuated his impassioned speech. The end was greeted with a huge wave of applause, and a second, rather elderly figure came striding onto the stage and grasped Marcus in a hug.