The Wall(61)
‘Well, here’s to the hermit,’ I said, raising my tin. ‘Our hermit.’
‘Our hermit,’ said Hifa, clinking her tin against mine.
We went downstairs to the second level of the tower.
‘We’re going to go and get the stuff from our boat,’ Hifa told the hermit. He was still at his box, moving his bits of paper around. ‘We have food and supplies. We think they will be safer in the tower. But there’s quite a lot of it so it will take a long time. I hope that’s OK.’
He gave no sign of having heard.
Hifa and I looked at each other. His lack of response, indeed everything about him, was eerie, but there was nothing we could do to make it less so. He had taken us in; he had opened the door; that was all we could ask for. We went down to the lowest floor of the tower, and then opened the metal door out onto the platform. I looked down at the ladder, and further down at the sea far below, and felt sick with vertigo. After all we had gone through, all we had seen and done, it felt pathetic that I was still afraid of heights. And yet there was no denying: I was still afraid of heights. The drop to sea level was more than two hundred feet: say, two hundred and thirty feet, the height of a twenty-three-storey building, accessible only by that vertical metal ladder. I knew that the more frightened I was, the more likely I was to panic halfway, to tense up on the ladder and be unable to move. I also knew that there was no alternative, no plan B, nobody to carry me or shove me back up: if I froze, I’d be stuck until and unless I either unfroze or fell. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate.
I sat down on the platform and took my glasses off and put them in my pocket and tried to slow my breathing. It didn’t work, and then after a while it did. Sometimes you can take strength from the thought that you have no choice. I got up and without delaying any further, started down the ladder. I stared straight ahead and counted the rungs in tens and tried to go not too fast and not too slow. Hifa waited at the top, probably because she thought I might freak out and start climbing back up and she didn’t want to be in the way. I counted ten rungs, then another ten, and ten more, and lost count of how many sets I had done, and suddenly I was at the halfway resting stage. The sea was much closer from here. I knew I would be able to do it. Hifa came down the ladder much more quickly than I had and gave me a hug.
‘It’s going to be OK from here,’ she said. And it was, at first – though it was very hard physical work, as hard as any I had ever done. We decided to empty the storage compartment of the lifeboat. There was a security-blanket feeling to keeping our secret supplies of food and water, but we couldn’t guarantee that somebody wouldn’t come and take our boat. If they came to the installation, which somebody at some stage was likely to do, and couldn’t get up it, which was also likely – in fact was certain, since we knew from experience that the only way up was up the ladder, and the only way up the ladder was if the occupants chose to let you use it – then the only thing for them to take would be our lifeboat and its contents.
The decision was simple, but the work of carrying everything up to the platform was not. The tinned food was in boxes and we couldn’t think of any way to get those up the ladder. The only possible course of action was to take everything out of the boxes and carry it up in our pockets and in a single small heavy-duty bag which would go over the shoulders and leave our arms free. It would be three trips each to take care of the food, and another five each to move the water. We decided to do it in stages, first carrying our load to the halfway resting point. The formula was, drag self up the ladder, dump what we were hefting, collapse onto the platform and wait until our arms had stopped burning, then go back down the ladder, rest again for a few moments, repeat. As the day went on the rests grew gradually longer and less effective. By the time we had each taken eight trips, the halfway platform was full of boxes and cans and bottles and my whole body was burning and shaking.
I was lying on the floor of the halfway platform when Hifa came up, threw the last contents of the lifeboat beside me and dropped to the metal deck, gasping with effort. By now we had each climbed nearly a thousand feet of vertical ladder and the sun was low in the afternoon sky. We must have lain there without speaking for the best part of half an hour. I didn’t feel much better for the rest.
‘This isn’t going to happen,’ I said. ‘Not today.’
‘No,’ said Hifa, still lying on her back.
‘I don’t even know how I’m going to make it up from here.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Let alone carry everything.’
We lay there for a little while longer. It was oddly peaceful. The resting stage had a low metal ledge around the outside, and when we were lying down, we were below the lip, so we were sheltered from the wind but could still feel the effect of the sun. I felt no impulse to move or be anywhere else.
‘We have to go down one more time, to check the ropes. And then we’re done,’ said Hifa.
‘OK. But not today.’
‘No, not today.’
She took two power bars out of a trouser pocket and slid one over to me. I unwrapped it and started eating. It was mainly nuts, pleasantly complicated in flavour but very drying in the mouth. I raided the supply of water, took several swigs, then passed the flagon to Hifa. She had already finished her bar.
‘We leave all this stuff here tonight,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow we finish. Then we can retract the ladder, and we’re safe.’