Cravings
My van veers toward the centre of the coast road. I’m fighting gusts of wind. I’m desperate to finish this arduous journey, desperate to see friends and make last orders in the pub, desperate to nestle into the folds of my lover’s familiar-smooth-skin. Rain runs in rivulets across the windscreen. I look to the dark-sea. White-frothing waves whipped to a curling-cornice-frenzy.
Yes, I’m happy to be back in North Wales, I’m so happy to have escaped Chamonix. Yesterday I sent a begging text message to my sister in England: ‘Please can you transfer £100 into my bank account, I don’t have money to get home.’ Thirty minutes later my out-of-credit phone beeped, the money had been deposited. And so the 800-mile drive began.
Three months of child-like-inadequacy with the French language had taken a toll. A constant stream of sofa-surfers invading my personal space and eating my food had taken a toll. My bank account haemorrhaging had taken a toll. A set of new ski-skins catching fire, flames lapping the ceiling and acrid smoke pouring from them, this had taken a toll (although the heat generated was welcomed in the cautiously-calculated, Scottish-controlled central-heating). The dog-turds spreading like vivid brown fungus, melting into the slushy cracks of Cham’s cobbled streets had taken a toll.
A bitter-Baltic winter in the French Alps had worn me down. The mountains constantly whispered. As I walked the streets of Chamonix my gaze would turn to the cliffs above the town, my eyes hunting continuous-silver streaks.
The winter had given me several moments of success: Hugging McAleese on the summit crest of the Petites Jorasses with the first free ascent of Omega. Swinging from an overhanging crux, out there and on my own soloing Madness Tres Mince. And topping out in the alpen glow on the Charlet-Gallini, my climbing partner’s shining blue eyes rimmed with red, alive and bright.
The winter gave a few abortive attempts, a few close scrapes and lucky escapes. A cold night on The Droits sitting huddled on a ledge waiting for the dawn; worrying, between bouts of shivering, that when the sun finally came it would only light the way to my obituary. An easy route soloed on the Tacul that was anything but easy. Where the spindrift pounded heavier than thunder-storm-rain. And that ski down the Valley Blanche afterwards, through blinding snow and gloom, goggles frozen, and hidden slots lurking - that still quickens my pulse.
I craved escape. I craved shopping for food with labels I could understand. I craved money in my account to be able to buy a new mini-disk. I wanted my books and CDs close at hand. I craved radio in the morning with a stiff-upper-lip public-school-accent. And toast in front of a crackling open fire. I craved solid stone cottages sunk into green-rolling hills. Grazing sheep, and lambs bumping their mother’s underbelly. I craved dark streaks of wet on the cleaved-grey slate of a Llanberis stone-mine. I craved regular money at the end of each month, with work and routine.
‘Hold it a minute - I crave work and routine?’ Indeed the winter had been long and hard … but not that hard. The wind buffets the car, pulls me out of my reverie. Rain runs in rivulets down the windscreen. Looks like I’m going to make last orders. Soon I will be in a warm Welsh pub with friends. But already I’m thinking:
‘I’ll book my flight for Alaska tomorrow.’