Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [69]
He pressed ahead during the initial ascent, anger and anxiety making him rush, and he put a solid twenty-five yards between them. He didn’t even want to speak to her. He didn’t care if it were dangerous? She was the one making him take her. Livid, he pushed himself harder. When he did glance back, the distance between them had increased, but she wasn’t even looking to see where he was. He knew she knew what he was doing. It was a challenge, a game of chicken. He was daring her to either storm off or keep up, the latter forcing her to realize the futility of completing her expedition. The harder he pushed, the sooner she’d fail—the sooner, that is, they’d be safe.
But keep up she did. He finally had to slow down himself, due not only to the difficulty of the climb but also to the overwhelming beauty of the Na Pali. During the ascent the trail was rocky, pocked with boulders he had to climb over, slide down, or hug around, the path interrupted by streams, staggered by roots that tripped him and threw his pack toward his head and sent him falling forward, only the steepness of the incline catching him, saving him from injury, a thing to remember coming down. Along the steepest section there was nothing to see but the trail in front of you. The foliage was so dense it blocked both sun and breeze and acted as a blanket that trapped the humidity. But at the top there was a clearing and the wind hit him full force, cooling him down, the sun drying the sweat from his shirt. To his right was Ke’e Beach below, the bathers the size of commas; ahead, the fluted cliffs of the coast jutted out one after the other like the toes of a giant reptile, their faces so thick with vegetation they looked covered in fur. From this vista he could see for several miles. A white tracery of surf was etched along the line where the rocks plunged into the water.
The sight calmed him, as the ascent had cleared his mind. He knew what he wanted: to get his wife back. He needed her. He now wanted them to leave. It was time for this to end. David looked down the trail and Alice was laboring toward him. She had caught up, and perhaps she too had detected the clearing where he stood waiting. When she stopped, he would apologize. He was sure the spectacle of this place would soften her heart too.
“Look at this,” he said when she came up to him.
“Fuck you,” she said, and walked on, disappearing around a turn.
David blinked, half laughed, then hurried after her.
He got to where he was right behind her. He would’ve liked to walk next to her, but the trail was too narrow: cliffs to the left, sheer drop-off to the right. With her pack on, he could only see her legs, and, when she gestured, her hands and arms. So he talked to the back of the pack. “Fuck me?” he said. “What did I do?”
“Don’t even talk,” she said.
“We haven’t talked since we got here.”
“You haven’t wanted to.”
“That’s all I’ve wanted to.”
“You don’t say anything,” she said. “You just repeat everything I say.”
“I’m waiting for you to speak.”
“Please.”
“I’m waiting for you to look at me for once.”
“Oh, of course it’s me.”
“Here we go.”
“It’s always me.” She half turned, speed walking. She’d pinched her thumbs to her index fingers. “I am a leper to you.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
“A lep-per.”
“Can you cut the drama? Pull yourself out of it for a change? So I don’t have to be the one who has to wait and then apologize.”
“You and your fucking apologies. You think they undo everything. Like