White - Hardcover

Thomas, Rosie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434004618 ISBN 13: 9780434004614

Verlag: William Heinemann Ltd, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

At the heart of this story set on the iron peaks of Everest and worked out against threats of weather and altitude, is the combative, passionate and ultimately tragic triangular relationship between two mountaineers, each driven by different demons but in love with Finch, the lovely young expedition doctor with her own history,

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One

So many weddings, Finch Buchanan thought.

Weddings under awnings in summer gardens. Weddings in Toronto or New York, out on the coast, in white-walled Presbyterian churches, in flower-decorated homes or smart hotels. One at a ski lodge up in the Cariboo mountains and another at sunset on a Caribbean beach.

Long-planned or recklessly impromptu, wherever or however they happened they all seemed the same and this one was no different. Except more so. This time it was her dearest friend Finch was watching, standing beside an urn of white lilies and stephanotis, and shape-changing from Suzy Shepherd into Mrs Jeffery Sutton of Medford, Oregon. Suzy was about the last of their group to be married, except for Finch herself.

The bride was wearing an ivory satin Donna Karan suit and the groom had been coaxed into navy-blue Armani. As bridesmaid, Finch was wearing a little suit too, hyacinth-blue, of a cut that made her stand with her ankles together and her hands meekly clasped.

I'm too old to be got up as a fucking bridesmaid, she was thinking.

Suzy and Finch were both thirty-two years old. They had been room-mates in their first year at med school at the University of British Columbia and they had gone all the way through training together. Now Suzy was in paediatrics and had moved down to Oregon to be with Jeff, while Finch had stayed on in Vancouver as a medical practitioner. They called each other often, and e-mailed gossip and jokes and medical titbits almost every day, and they met whenever they could. But still Finch missed her friend and ally, and Suzy's marriage could only move her a further step out of reach.

They were exchanging rings. Watching and blinking away embarrassing tears, Finch was in no doubt that the two of them were happy. They were woozy with it, as dopey as a pair of Suzy's neonates after a six-ounce feed. Finch didn't feel envious, exactly; what she did feel was faintly baffled. She had never worked out the secret of connubiality herself. There had been men, of course there had. Both short-term and longer. But lately, not that many.

The short civil ceremony was over. Suzy and Jeff walked arm in arm between the rows of their beaming friends and out under an awning. Beyond it the March rain was ribbed with sleet. A photographer busied around with his Nikon.

After she had kissed her mother and her aunts and her new in-laws, Suzy opened an umbrella to exclude the rest of the audience and whispered to Finch, "Jesus, did you see that? I did it. I married someone."

"You married Jeff."

"Yeah. I love him."

"I know you do."

Suzy laughed, showing the gap between her top front teeth. She didn't come from orthodontically obsessive stock, which was one of the reasons why Finch had loved her right from the start--for her difference from and indifference to everything Finch herself was accustomed to and thought she valued. The first time they met, Suzy marched into their room on campus, dropped a duffel bag and an armful of supermarket carriers, and eyed the matching luggage and K2 ski bags that two of Finch's three older brothers had carried up the stairs for her.

"I suppose you're some Vancouver princess?"

"You can suppose whatever you like."

"Well, I'm po' white trash. My mom lives in a rented two-room and I haven't seen my dad for 12 years."

It was true. And it was also true that Suzy was by far the cleverest student in their year.

She twirled her umbrella now, sending icy droplets centrifugally spinning. "Shit, I'm a married woman. You better lead me straight to the drink, help me get over the shock," Mrs Jeffery Sutton said.

The reception was in a new restaurant and bar that had been designed and fitted by Jeff's company. "Like it?" he asked Finch.

There were snug booths and wood floors and tricksy mirrors and halogen lighting. It wasn't original but it was well done.

"Very much," Finch said.

"Well, I guess you don't need me to introduce you to people," Jeff said. His silk tie was already loosened and his top button undone.

"No." Finch smiled. Most of Suzy's friends who had travelled to Oregon were hers too. "Go on, enjoy the party."

She slid into the nearest booth with her glass of French champagne and found that Taylor Buckaby and his wife were already sitting there. Taylor had dated Suzy for a while, in the very early days, but in the end he had settled for the secretary to the Dean of Faculty who was a svelte blonde. She was a plump blonde now, but otherwise nothing had changed. Taylor was an orthopaedic surgeon. Finch could imagine just how happy he would be among his bone saws and glinting titanium joints.

"Hello, Taylor, Maddie."

"Ah, Finch. Hello there."

They chatted for a while, about friends and work and the Buckabys' children.

"No plans to settle down yourself, Finch?" Maddie asked.

"No, none."

"Finch goes in for bigger challenges than a husband and kids," Taylor explained jovially, puffing out his already rounded cheeks. "Last year she went up to Alaska and climbed McKinley."

Maddie focused her pale-blue eyes. She looked as if she was used to putting away plenty of champagne, or whatever else might be going.

"Why?"

There were a couple of beats of silence while Finch considered her answer. It was not quite the first time she had heard the question, it was just unusual to encounter such dazed incredulity in the asking. She remembered the temperatures on the mountain of forty below, and the avalanching ice, and the risk of cerebral or pulmonary oedema, and the blade-thin ridge that ran up from 16,000 feet with a drop of 2000 feet on either side of it.

"Uh ..."

She also remembered the easy comradeship and the gallows humour of the group of climbers she had done it with--only by the West Buttress route, "The Butt", nothing fancy. Most sharply of all she recalled the hit of euphoria that had wiped everything else from her mind as she hauled herself to the summit.

"Because I thought I would enjoy it," she said equably. "And I did." Maddie blinked and ran her tongue over her lipstick. "Each to her own, I guess."

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: William Heinemann Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2000
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0434004618
• ISBN 13: 9780434004614
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar