The Forbidden Temple Read Online Free PDF Page A

and continued walking, his gloved hands clenched into fists by his sides.
    It took them two weeks to get back home, a procession of clambering aboard planes and dismounting trains throughout Tibet, Nepal, and eventually England.
    During the journey, the subject of the climb had been broached, but not resolved. Both of them had ended up apologising for what they had said on the mountain, and both had nominally forgiven the other for all that had been said. But it was as if a shadow had fallen over them, a lurking feeling of distrust that had never before been part of their friendship. They still bantered together but it had become stilted and hesitant, as if their time on Makalu was something to be ashamed of, rather than a near victory over one of the world’s hardest peaks.
    Now they stood stiffly on the platform by the Heathrow Express, their brightly coloured rucksacks and tanned faces drawing some curious glances from passing commuters.
    The normal ritual was for the two men to go to the Windsor Castle together for a celebratory pint before they split off in their different directions, but this time it was tacitly understood that this was not going to happen.
    ‘Well, here we are again,’ said Luca, attempting to sound cheerful. ‘Your missus will be pleased to see you’re back in one piece. You can tell her it’s my fault we’re late again.’
    ‘Yeah, well . . . maybe,’ said Bill, smiling awkwardly.
    Luca stuck out his hand and they gave each other a perfunctory handshake.
    ‘I’ll see you around then,’ Bill said, and for a second his habitually cheerful expression flickered, revealing the bleakness beneath. Then he set his jaw and, grasping the straps of his rucksack, turned and disappeared quickly into the sea of commuters.
    Luca stood looking after him, part of him wanting to call out. He had had two long weeks to come up with something to break the ice between them. It was just a matter of apologising again for what had happened up there on the ridge, acknowledging that he’d screwed up. He’d never seen Bill lose his temper before, and knew how hurt he must still be.
    But somehow the words stuck in his throat. That mention of Everest had cut deep and over the time spent travelling back, fermented into a hard bitterness that he just couldn’t seem to shrug off. Hoisting his rucksack off the grimy concrete floor, Luca walked towards the gaudy lighting of a café populated by commuters drinking lattes and leafing through the morning papers. Scraping back one of the metal chairs, he ordered a double espresso from the waitress, his eyes wandering idly across the ant-like hordes thronging the platforms, and fixing upon the triangular glass ceiling of the old Victorian train station.
    The prism of light slowly bled through into an image of the pyramid mountain. It had been haunting him ever since the climb down. It was there whenever he closed his eyes; in the cloudscape as he’d stared out of the plane windows, in the distant skyline as the train rumbledinto the city centre. Several times on the journey back he had opened his mouth to talk to Bill about it, but whatever it was that was hanging in the air between them had prevented him from saying anything more.
    He could picture it now as if he were still sitting on that ledge: one face gleaming in the sunshine, edges looking like they had been filed straight then dusted with ice and snow. It was better proportioned even than the Matterhorn, like a child’s drawing of the perfect mountain.
    Each time Luca thought about it he kicked himself for not having taken a photo. But by the time he had pulled Bill off the ledge the cloud had rolled back in, and not even the ring of mountains surrounding it was visible. Like his chance of reaching the summit, there had been only the briefest of windows. And thanks to Bill, he had missed both opportunities.
    Someone brushed past him in a mackintosh wet from the rain, spilling some of his coffee on to the table.