In reply to Goucho:
Sacrilege to have a sport route; ludicrous to have one lost amid muddy landslips. But it was in a place I loved, for people I loved - even if one of them was absent and the other one was dead.
'One day it came to me that the soloing had to stop, at least on the east coast, before it was too late. Soon afterwards, the drinking also got back under control. I returned to life’s battles. There seemed nothing better than to fight on. But, with Will’s death, something vital had gone from me. Life was a joyless spread of days, to be endured until it was all over.
How do you love someone with no joy? Michèle struggled, but things got worse. In the end, for both of us, I had to leave the island. Quixotic or not, I wanted to leave a legacy in stone for Will. For two years, I’d explored the crags, searching for the right line, yet too mentally and physically drained for the necessary cleaning and bolting.
Finally, running out of time made everything brutally simple. The weather was horrendous as, once again, I shouldered huge loads of new routing gear to the top of Wallsend. Swinging around in space, in a spider’s web of ropes, in howling gales, prising blocks from the wall. Skyhooks popping. Jumaring back up at day’s end, body numb with cold, mind numb with fear. It was a kind of penance.
On a dire day, with very little time left, I finally set off up the chosen line, my last new route on Portland. Steve Muncaster, bless him, belayed. The good handhold at the base of the main groove was slick as a bar of soap. I flew off, repulsed by the only easy move on the entire route, beaten before I’d properly begun.
So… back up then. A hopeless venture, but you’re here, so why not? Touch the bar of soap for a necessary moment, then quickly move past. Furiously chalk up. Increasingly technical moves lead to the overlap and a sopping, vital, crimpy layaway. More chalk. Giving it all I’ve got now, I somehow teeter past, into the rest, and hang there, panting like a dog. I fight to get my breathing under control. Slowly my pulse comes back down. But I know, deep inside, that the struggles below have taken too much out of me. I’m f*cked. The crux is just above. Steve is silent. There’s just the emptiness of Wallsend. The silence. Me. And the crux above.
With the pain of a wounded animal, I contort into the first Egyptian, then the second. Reach for the crucial crimp. It’s not there. My frozen brain tries to comprehend. It can’t not be there. And I can’t hold this position any longer. Each precious second draws me closer to inevitable conclusion. My body is gone now. I’m almost off. I know that, when I fall, I’ll be too shattered, too beaten to try again.
My time is long gone, yet somehow I’m still there. Far too late, questing fingers brush against the crimp, reflexively lock. With infinite delicacy, I step through, pirouetting on a tiny smear. All of Wallsend is spread out below me. Disbelievingly, I reach for the mono. With dying arms and shaking legs, I slap for the greasy break, then the next soaking one. For the third time I slap, by some miracle catch the undercut and hang from it, breath coming in great shuddering whoops. I’m dimly aware of Steve, far away, can sense his uncertainty and encouragement across the gossamer strand of rope connecting us.
It’s an old, tired man that leaves the security of the undercut and heads out across the top wall. Pinch, undercut, crimp, pinch. And then finally there is joy beyond compare in those last few exquisite moments as I realise that, against all expectation, it’s going to happen. There’s an hallucinogenic sensation of utter incredulity as my rope goes through the belay karabiner. Thus does Will come into being. Just beside it is Michèle. It means far more than I can ever express that, barring rockfall, these two routes will remain, side by side together, long after I’ve gone. My beloved Wallsend has given me so many wonderful days. Will and Michèle are mementoes in stone to those I have loved.'
Mick