My afternoon with Maria Coffey was almost over. She had a flight to catch back to Vancouver. As we finished our coffee, she said, ‘After Joe died, my life was a blur and I can’t remember much about how Alex reacted. Everyone was devastated. Of all the young climbers around, Pete and Joe were seen as the invincible duo.’
For the first time Maria looked sombre as her memories took shape. ‘I do remember Alex coming around the night before I set off to go to Everest base camp. He tried hard to talk me out of going, saying it was ghoulish and sentimental. He displayed his usual ‘get over it’ attitude. But it was a really tense meeting, because Alex was about to leave for Annapurna and I said to him be really careful. He was just dismissive, saying, “don’t be stupid, and don’t lecture me.” He was really quite harsh and angry with me. Maybe it was his own concern about what he was doing, or maybe he was worried going to Everest would hurt me more. Or maybe he was just in denial.’
During the summer of 1982, Alex was focussed on our plans for Annapurna and behaving with his usual pragmatism. But now he seemed to me to be caught in two minds – confident, even arrogant one moment, but then ever so slightly uncertain about the speed at which things were happening. Back to back successes on Dhaulagiri and Shisha Pangma had convinced him that more success was inevitable if he stuck to the plan.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the realisation that the next trip might be fatal was something mountaineers accepted. Subconsciously they prepared for the possibility each time they discovered an unclimbed project. We knew the risks, but never thought it might be our friends who were killed. Increasingly, we all became aware of the emotional consequences experienced by their relatives and partners when they fell into the dark abyss of grief and loss. The climbing community who stuck to their tasks inevitably felt survivor’s guilt and the knowledge that somehow we were all accessories before and after the fact.
That summer the realisation that Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker were gone put a dampener on our climbing. The Everest attempt was the first lightweight expedition Chris Bonington had led to an 8,000-metre peak. This ridge was seen, along with the Kangshung Face, as the last great problem on Everest. There were only four climbers on the trip. Pete and Joe, Chris and Dick Renshaw. After Dick became ill – he had a minor stroke – and Chris realised he was not acclimatised and fit enough to move at the speed required to cover nearly a kilometre of difficult pinnacles above 27,000 feet, Joe and Pete had gone off for one last attempt and not returned. We all went to the memorial services. Pete and Joe were good friends, very different in character but they had set a standard with their ascent of Changabang and the new route they’d climbed with Doug Scott on the north-west face of Kangchenjunga.
I talked with Sarah Richard on Alex’s behaviour during the summer leading up to Annapurna. ‘The whole thing was odd before Alex left. It was as if we knew,’ Sarah recalled. ‘I remember speaking to Al Rouse after he’d fallen in love with Hilary and he said to me that falling in love was the worst thing that could happen to a climber. It meant you couldn’t face up to the climbing with the same commitment. I had a letter from Alex from somewhere on the walk-in saying how hard it was, how cold and miserable and how he just wanted to be back with me. And he said “remember how much I love you”, as if he was preparing himself. I detected other things in Alex, his wanting to speed up the process of getting known as if he were running out of time. Do you remember that weekend with the film crew a month before you left for Annapurna?’
Until she mentioned it, I had forgotten this rather sad and peculiar episode. I had met Alex and Sarah on Friday evening in July at the Black Cock in Broughton-in-Furness. We had a pint and a meal before going to our place in Millom. He was in a strange mood: beyond excited, more dangerously ecstatic. ‘Don’t worry anymore about money for the trip kid. We’re about to become famous. I’ve got a production company lined up who want to make a film about the climb. They’re coming up next week to film us here making preparations. René may come over if he’s not guiding.’
My first thought was absolutely no way; a film team accompanying us on an alpine-style ascent of Annapurna? How could that work? It made no sense at all, big cheque or not. They would totally disrupt the flow and concentration of the trip however far they came with us. I had found it disruptive enough having a film team on our winter Everest trip the year before. On that expedition, we were a big team of eight sieging the west ridge. There were no issues with the film team itself. We got on well enough with the crew. The cameraman was a climber and once got himself up to the first camp on the fixed ropes on his own. But much energy was expended bringing all the necessary film equipment up – the big 16-millimetre Arriflex camera and tripod, batteries and rolls of film. I soon got fed up with this imposition and my solution was to stay as high on the mountain as possible to keep away from the cameras.
All this raced through my mind before I responded to Alex. ‘Okay, who are these guys, where do they come from, what’s the story for the film, what’s their track record of making films in the mountains and, most importantly, are they climbers and why do they want to make a film?’ I noticed Sarah looking at me with a quizzical smile, urging me on. Go on, she seemed to be saying, talk some sense into him.
‘They don’t have experience but they have money and want to make the film. They tracked me down through the BMC after they saw me on TV being interviewed after we climbed Shisha Pangma. It will be fine. We’ll tell them how it all works, and maybe they won’t even get to base camp, which will be fine because they will still have paid for the trip.’
They arrived next weekend with their cameras, a pretty alien and yahoo bunch, southerners with money and a new company. My friend, Pete Clark, organised a party for us after a day’s climbing. After too many drinks, I agreed to get wired up, but with a plan, knowing Alex would spot the fact that he was being secretly recorded. I wanted to get his reaction and it was, as I suspected, negative. He was not going to be taped when he wasn’t totally in control.
Sarah phoned me a week later. She told me with relief that Alex had dropped the idea and the reason why. After the filmmakers had completed the weekend filming us climbing and partying in the Lakes, the director had a further phone conversation with Alex, thinking he was reassuring him and sealing the deal.
‘Whatever happens, it is going to be a great film and you will be the star. And if you die, we’ll do a really sensitive interview with your mum and your memory will go on and on.’
Alex cut him short: ‘Excuse me, wait a minute, if I’m killed there’s no interview with my mum.’ And with that, Alex told the guy to get lost and put the phone down.
As Sarah and I talked through these memories, she speculated what it might have meant. ‘I think that final conversation with the producer sowed a seed. He was reluctant to discuss his fears with me in any detail, but he would say things like “it’s my destiny,” and he implied that he would go on the trip even if he knew he was going to die.’
Sarah paused and then continued. ‘And it wasn’t just once. It happened several times, but then he would say things like “but you don’t need to worry about me on this one, it’s the next one you need to worry about.” One day it got so bad, I just left him and went for a walk.’
Hearing this from Sarah, I recalled the cracks beginning to appear in Alex’s armour, the antithesis of his usual brash confidence. Looking back at my notes from base camp, I realised that Alex was saying similar things to me. At the time, I was psychologically beaten trying to deal with these same questions myself.
Before Alex left for Annapurna, he and Sarah talked about getting a proper house together. Sarah told Alex she wanted to have children. She knew Alex’s Catholic upbringing meant they would get married. ‘If you get pregnant Sarah, you’re the one telling my mum, not me. You realise it will be a full church wedding with all the trimmings. My mother won’t have it any other way.’