Читать книгу The Reservoir Tapes - Jon McGregor - Страница 10

The important thing to remember, Graham always said afterwards, was that no one had actually died.

There were questions to answer, and lessons would be learned; of that there was no doubt. But those people who had made so much fuss about what had happened would do well to bear in mind the lack of fatalities.

Vijay wasn’t immediately reassured by this. Shouldn’t they have taken more precautions, he said; shouldn’t they have cut the walk short as soon as the weather turned?

Everyone had signed consent forms, Graham reminded him. They knew what they were letting themselves in for.

Graham and Vijay had led these walks for several years without incident. This was another overlooked factor in the subsequent hullabaloo: the number of miles they’d covered without mishap of any kind. In fact, if you were to calculate the average length of walk, and the average number of walkers, you’d be talking about many thousands of miles of incident-free walking.

But, no. People preferred to accentuate the negative.

The buck stopped with Graham, unfortunately. He was employed by the Park Authority, and had completed the risk assessment. He had written up the incident report. Vijay had been there in a strictly voluntary capacity, and his liability was limited. Not that there was anything to be liable for, as Graham was able to make clear.

They operated well as a team, but it would be fair to say that Vijay was the more cautious of the two, the more inclined to worry. This perhaps had to do with his day job, as an insurance broker. Plenty of the old crunching numbers, double-checking the paperwork. Graham had always been more of a seat-of-the-pants man, by contrast; stick a finger in the air and see which way the wind’s blowing was his approach.

Not that Vijay wasn’t an outdoorsman. Far from it. He was a very keen walker. He had all the gear. This was one of their few differences. Graham was of the opinion that good shoes were all that counted; everything else was just the leisure industries taking you for a ride. Whereas Vijay always had the latest piece of gear, the technical fabrics and spring-heeled shoes and GPS what-have-yous. And walking poles. They’d had some lively discussions about the need for walking poles. Vijay had a lot to say about hip alignment and cartilage impact. Graham’s point of view tended towards the fact that they weren’t in the ruddy Himalayas.

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The walk that day was a butterfly safari, which was always popular. A full seventeen people turned up, including a party of Girl Guides and their leader. The forecast was good, and the weather when they set off from the visitor center was still and fair.

The first part of the walk was straightforward enough, although as always there were those who struggled. The climb up the track towards Black Bull Rocks could be thought steepish if you weren’t used to it, and the Girl Guides were carrying a full set of camping gear each, for some reason. They swayed as they walked, with the weight. The chatter and giggles soon died down, and they were left with the tapping of Vijay’s walking poles. The ground was hard—it had been dry for weeks, after a month of heavy rains, which turned out to be relevant, later—and the dust kicked up around their boots.

Graham took the opportunity to tell the group a little more about where they’d be walking and which species they might see. The heather beds they would pass were good feeding grounds for common blues and small coppers, and the knapweeds around the old mine workings were regular haunts for painted ladies. He told them a little about the industrial heritage: mines, quarries, the modern cement works. It’s important not to see this as any kind of unspoiled, “natural” environment, he said. There’s plenty of nature here, but there’s nothing natural about the landscape.

As always, people’s attention started to drift.

They came over the top of the hill and set out along the ridge, and the noise level rose again. The Girl Guides lagged behind quite early on, stooping under their heavy loads.