The Climber

By Jon Presswell

Josh Weaver is very good at his job. But, in his clawing organisation, this is never enough. Always the passive and bemused outsider, he is an indifferent victim to the corporate machinations and intrigues that envelop him; and ultimately threaten to destroy him and those he holds most dear. Yet, sometimes in the heady game of offices people cross the line, sometimes they unearth the unexpected and sometimes they get hurt. Or worse. And, ultimately, when the past comes calling, we all learn that we cannot escape the dark shadows of the days before yesterday.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Presswell
• Release date: Jan 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005278427

Jon Presswell

Jon Presswell lives in the Victorian High Country, beneath the peaks of the Australian Alps. He unreliably divides his time between his family, bush walking, writing and his bicycles. He is unashamedly besotted with the Australian bush and landscape and is presently working on his fifth novel. He is a past recipient of the Sunshine Coast Literary Association Short Story Award and has been published multiple times in the Stringybark Short Story collections.

Book preview

Prologue

She slumped back to the ground, exhausted and defeated. Above her the bewildered onlookers remained where their vigil had begun, staring, hoping, mute with shock. None of them had tried to help, except one bloke who had a fair crack, but between them they had failed. The man was gone and she suspected they had been flogging a dead horse from the outset. Someone had called an ambulance, but it would be a recovery exercise, she knew the nearest one would be stationed hours away. She wondered if they should try and shift the body or at least place a sheet over him?

The game had been declared over and they were still waiting for everyone to come back in from the bush. Christ, they were scattered far and wide. Someone patted her shoulder reassuringly but she ignored it. She felt sick with loss and somehow the curse of public failure was creeping in. Take the lead, take the fall.

A hubbub of voices told her the last group of the players must have finally made it home. She looked up to see her two drinking partners from the night before and suppressed a sad laugh. The younger of the two had offered to fuck her. Several times. To cure you he had said, just to cure you.

She nodded a greeting and crawled to her feet as they absorbed the sight of the body lying on the cement in front of her. She noticed then that one of them was missing, where there should have been three, there were only two.

Where is... she began, but the wreckage strewn on their faces stopped her cold. Whatever the cause of their angst, it was not the dead man at her feet.

Somewhere over near the accommodation block someone began wailing.

Chapter One

The Territory

Josh sat in the car with the engine running, waiting for the song to finish. When it did so he remained there, motionless, while the next one played too. Some days he would listen to a whole album.

He closed his eyes and gently rested his head on the steering wheel. Okay, the circus awaits me. Who shall I be today, what character should I channel? Emotionally scarred veteran? Silent and serious? Loveable clown? Perhaps I will just stick with grumpy old fuck.

The inevitable finally won over and he climbed out of the car and walked slowly to the elevator, unaware he was being watched, as he frequently was, from a window above.

He unlocked the door to his office and quickly closed it behind him. He had barely reached the refuge of his desk when it opened again.

Meeting in the Beagle Room Josh. Right now, apparently.

What’s it about? he asked over his shoulder, but the messenger had gone.

He walked into the meeting room wondering if he had known about it beforehand or had he just forgotten again? He shivered. The air-conditioning was always cold in here. Such was the depth of the chill that one could believe for a moment that they had inexplicably changed latitudes. He nodded a vague, general greeting and selected the one vacant seat. Judging by the faces waiting for him he realised he was obviously late for something special as they waited pointedly while he sat down.

Good to see you could make it, said the head of the gathering. Martin Wiley. To Josh he was a.k.a. Useless Fat Bastard.

Josh shrugged.

With the reprimand duly delivered, proceedings got underway.

So, when did they sign? Martin asked, rubbing his hands together.

The Sales Manager was ready. Skinny Little Prick.

Four o’clock yesterday Martin, right on the dot. He held up a sheaf of papers, rifled them open to the final page and jabbed at some indistinguishable scrawl. The assembled crowd murmured admirably. Josh looked at his watch.

Done and dusted mate and the opposition will be crying into their coffee right now, the Sales Manager added. Mate, I would like to be a fly on the wall over there.

It’s an idea thought Josh.

Someone was telling him he was lucky. Josh mate, we covered your butt big time on this one. It was the Sales Manager again. Lionel the labels man. XS the office called him. Lucky, they make them in XS.

Josh raised an eyebrow and made no attempt to respond. He loved the way Skinny Little Prick steepled his hands as he looked about the room conspiratorially. He did it a lot.

This was your customer, he was saying. We made the sale and we got the signature. Some people are saying they signed in spite of you.

Josh said nothing. Good for some people then. It was Friday and in eight more hours he could go to the pub and meet Kate for a drink, maybe they might stay for dinner.

Let’s accept the fact that Lionel bagged this one for us, said Martin. And we should be grateful to him for his efforts. He looked at Josh.

Josh held his gaze but said nothing. He knew they would stop in a minute. He also knew they were talking nonsense and so did the rest of the room. It was no big secret why the customer had agreed at the last minute to the contract terms, but they left him alone to fend off the mistruth. He knew his colleagues risked their battles carefully; they had testy brats in private schools and oversized houses in leafy, aspirational suburbs. Annual bonuses funded skiing trips and European cars and their husbands had quit work to renovate.

Shortly the meeting disbanded and Josh was left alone. He gazed about empty room. Yep, another stitch up, but what did it matter?

Mate, they should fix the fucking air-conditioning in this icebox he said aloud to himself.

•

The Sales Manager laughed out loud as he made his way back to his office. He just couldn’t understand Josh Weaver’s face when it had dawned on the idiot that he had been done over, again. No reaction, nothing. An absolute born loser that one.

Lionel liked this company. Lots of scope and lots of opportunities lying around unguarded. Like loading up your trolley in a liquor store with no checkout. It had been an easy enough company to get into of course. For him they all were; there was an interview script you needed to deliver at precisely the right pitch and a persona you needed to present. Done. State the money. And the interview panel that hired him? Lightweights the lot of them and he had decided that two of them would definitely have to go, and they did in the end. They all did with Lionel.

The Chief Engineer pocketed his change and nodded at the pint he had just bought his colleague.

Get that into you mate, fuck knows you need it. Is Kate coming later?

Yeah, she’s giving Billie a lift actually.

Cool. Mate, why do you let those fuckheads walk all over you?

Josh smiled. He’d wondered about that himself.

The thing is Mick, he said. You can’t walk over something that isn’t there. Mate, I am a hologram these days. There isn’t a thing they can do to get a rise out of me.

But you set the whole deal up mate, everyone knows that. Those dicks just waltzed over, shook hands and collected the signature.

They need to feel included, said Josh. It’s my way of helping them along.

You are such an idiot, said Mick, shaking his head. Anyway, I’d kill that prick for two cents.

•

The prick in question pulled back when he saw Kate and Billie enter the bar. Fortunately, he was close enough to allow his eyes to eagerly follow Kate’s jean clad behind as she entered. He sucked in his breath. God, I could do that some damage. Killer arse and smarter than fucking Molly, which wasn’t saying much.

He continued past the pub on his way to a wine bar where Molly would be waiting. They would have a drink or two and they would head home and she could explain why she tried to ring him multiple times during the day when she knew it was against his strict rules.

•

Josh saved the document for the last time, clicked print and closed the word processor. He punched the air with forced triumph. The document was the culmination of a month’s work and it needed to hit the mark without fail and pass what some in his company glibly called the sniff test.

The paper did that and he knew it for he had two key elements on his side. Firstly, he understood succinctly what business his company was in and the peculiarity of its’ local market position within the framework, and not infrequent juxtapositions, of the company’s national agenda.

Secondly, he could lay it on paper such that anyone in his company, from the simple to the affectedly complex could fathom it. And he had nailed it which was fortunate because people in Josh’s company liked it when things were nailed and they said so a lot.

He gathered the printer’s efforts to his satchel, switched off the computer and headed for the door. It was late on a cool Saturday morning and he had a date with his wife and his mountain bike. On Monday morning he would hand the document to Martin and he could wipe his arse with it for all Josh cared because it was the national stage that really mattered and the document would find its way there, with Josh’s name on it, soon enough.

•

The Sydney conference room was smaller than Josh remembered and like all of his company’s meeting rooms it insisted upon an historical name. This one was the ‘The Henry Lawson’. Next door was ‘The Matthew Flinders’. Their own up north was dubbed ‘The Beagle Room’. He wondered why there was never a Ned Kelly or a Peter Lalor Room?

His internal banter was ostensibly to calm his nerves as he was, in the context of his organization, in august company. Managing Directors and General Managers lay about the room like walruses between mating sessions, picking their teeth, making in-house jokes and occasionally swearing with histrionic impetus at some work-related matter. Most of the discourse seemed to be on the evils of premature market moves and loss leaders but Josh was too concerned with his own part to pay much heed.

Shortly the CEO was expected, famously an unforgiving brusque Irishman given to tearing down opinions and spotting fakirs a mile away. Josh’s document was to be the main subject of the esteemed gathering but if any of the walruses thought so they kept mum about it, in fact half of them had ignored him altogether.

Josh knew they all bettered him for annual salary by about two million apiece, some probably more. The inequity of this left him with unresolved feelings; if a boilermaker in a mining camp in the remote north-west earned a hundred grand a year it was judged to be a national productivity crisis, yet the fact that these blue suited beer bellies could siphon off two to three million apiece from the gross domestic product for flogging overseas made electronic devices to disaffected teenagers failed to turn a head.

As for Martin, even this goose appeared fidgety and ill at ease. Josh supposed there was a lot at stake. If you failed to convince the Irishman of the bountiful merits of your branch’s strategic plan you would be assured of being torn three fresh arse holes in the learning of this. Josh believed Martin lacked the insight to know the plan was good enough and though Josh trusted his own work, the occasion demanded nervousness.

Paul Sherwin was taller than Josh had been led to believe; perhaps it was the lightness and subtlety of his frame that caused others to label him short. He was built like a marathon runner and moved with the grace and purpose of a ballerina. Despite being almost completely bald he looked younger than his stated fifty-three years. Perhaps he used a good moisturizer. He was something of a cult figure in the company; an intense, tightly wound man, by all accounts brilliant and given to working extremely long hours.

He immediately deduced Josh to be the stranger in the room and flitted over, shaking his hand warmly. Welcome to Sydney, he offered warmly. Josh noticed his Irish accent was as strong as his handshake.

The walruses had become falcons in his presence, alert and ice-eyed. One General Manager thumbed to the middle of the document in a contrived show of checking a final fact and, feigning satisfaction at his find, folded his hands like a schoolboy who had just been told to sit up straight and stop fiddling. All eyes were on the Irishman.

Well done Martin, said Sherwin. Some of the Sydney team could learn from a strategy document like this. Josh thought he detected an air of mischief and conspiracy in his tone. I can’t fault it. Your team is to be congratulated.

Martin looked enormously pleased and relief flooded back to his beaming face. We do our best Paul, he said.

Paul thought Josh? He is on a first name basis with this bloke?

It’s a tick from me too, added one of the falcons.

It works for me too, said another. It really nails it.

Josh tried to suppress a huge sigh of relief. Even Martin would have to acknowledge that Josh had outdone himself as the surprising lack of criticism and nit picking was unprecedented in a branch strategy document.

Done then, said Sherwin. Back here in an hour for the Melbourne people, he continued, addressing the falcons. He turned to Martin.

Martin, who in your team was responsible for putting this wee masterpiece together? He looked briefly at Josh expectantly.

Well, said Martin. I’m led to believe that Josh here knocked the paper up, pulled it all together if you know what I mean. The bloke is a genius with a word processor. Anyway, the bulk of the smarts, you know, the actual meaty stuff came from our Sales Manager, Lionel Windlass. He does all the heavy lifting for us in this space.

Then make sure you hang onto him, advised Sherwin. He is clearly your best asset up there. And bring him down next time, I would like to meet him. He didn’t add instead of this bloke, but he may as well have.

They were all on their feet except Josh and it was clear the room was being evacuated. He stared, speechless, as they filed out into a long corridor that had earlier reminded Josh of a hotel. Plush dark carpet and wood paneled walls created a quiet and muffled atmosphere. Martin and the Sydney team were gone and he was alone in the room.

Unexpectedly Martin poked his head back through the door. You know Josh, you could learn a lot from Lionel if you made the effort, he said. With that, he turned away and was gone again.

Later that evening, while Josh brutalized the minibar in his hotel room trying to be angry, Martin and Paul Sherwin were getting roaring drunk, plucking the wings off falcons and beaching a few walruses.

Chapter Two

Queensland

The community centre was packed and even the abundant standing room, normally reserved for dancing and like shenanigans was consumed. Full houses were not uncommon here as the townsfolk loved a good get together over an issue and frequently gathered en masse to tear at the topic of the moment.

The topic for today was the new koala sanctuary declared on the eastern slopes of the range and Josh had been instructed to attend by his wife Kate, if only to get him out of the house. Go and find out what’s going on Josh she had said, you can have another beer when you get home. As for herself, she had a yoga class to attend. Of prime concern to the assembled citizenry tonight was the size of the declared area; in short, it was inadequate.

Last month the topic of ire had been car parking in the main street. Josh and his wife had not attended on that occasion; the town’s main street rumor mill had reported that the meeting had wrapped up with a not very competent fistfight between opposing factions. The word was that a local real estate agent had torn the shirt of a local astrologer which meant the victim could have been any of twenty or so people if the classified ads’ in the local newspaper were anything to go by. The town was awash with stargazers and real estate agents weren’t an endangered local species either.

Josh decided that the feeling in the room today was safely collegiate. Heads nodded in assent. Warm handshakes complimented back pats and it was clear the day was destined to be one of vigorous and vocal agreement.

Eventually a silver haired fellow clad in corduroys and desert boots shuffled onto the small stage and took possession of the house microphone.

Good evening everyone and welcome, he began. Well, I think we know why we are all here. He surveyed the room with what Josh sensed to be surprising apprehension and continued.

Before we get proceedings underway, a bit of housekeeping… A few minutes were wasted on telling the less observant in the crowd where the toilets and exits were.

Okay, he said. Now, I would like to introduce…

Hang on Bob, came a loud voice from somewhere to Josh’s right. As we are all here, I think it’s a good opportunity for an update on the precinct.

Bob looked crestfallen as if he had foreseen this development.

Well, Steve, he said. I think it’s best if we stick to the agenda.

As if a venomous snake had been hurled into the crowd, pandemonium flooded the room and the resulting cacophony was not unlike a crowded bar where everyone sought the bartender’s attention at once. The earlier sense of togetherness and bonhomie, so promising, dissolved.

What’s the precinct? asked Josh of his neighbour who was a plump, red-faced fellow with a ponytail. Josh noticed that he had it fastened in place with a silver clip depicting the yin yang symbol. He looked at Josh incredulously.

How long have you lived here mate? he asked.

About a year, said Josh. The din in the room made any further enlightenment impossible so Josh joined his companion in listening to the stoush. It was over before it began and it was clear the new agenda for the day would be the precinct. Koalas were on the backburner.

Listen and learn, advised his neighbour. There was an air of combat in his tone that Josh found amusing. And attractive.

The issues are inseparable, cried someone behind them. It’s fucking self-evident.

Common enemy, said another. Someone else suggested it was just plain bullshit and another dubbed it chalk and cheese.

Josh sat bewildered amid the bickering and gesturing, blind to the nuances of the debate and unable to fathom just what the issue was. Slowly the argument became clear and he grasped the basis of the divide. It would seem the local council had been gifted a large tract of disused farming land, clapped out dairy country according to Josh’s neighbour, located on the edge of the town and he discerned that a long running debate had raged between irreconcilable lobby groups about what should be done with it. There was clearly an organized voice for a golf course, another for re-foresting the entire shooting match with native vegetation and some other less successful and vague groups in-between who wanted everyone to be nice and sit down. Present too were curious onlookers who seemed to be there for the spectacle and to have a good shout.

They are covering our best farming land with suburbs and golf courses, complained Josh’s neighbour. Out west it’s fucking coal mines, he lamented further. It should be returned to native forest, he stated desperately, driving the fist of one hand into the palm of another.

Golf’s an elitist sport, he continued. The golfing lobby has the council fooled; we need a solution that pleases everybody. No one wants a golf course.

Could have fooled me thought Josh. He decided to escape this circus of vile and abuse as the indignant interruptions and deeply strained civilities wore him down. The oxygen in the room was souring rapidly and so too were the tempers. Best I get out before someone hits me. He fled into the street, closing the door on the mounting civil disorder behind him.

What is the matter with people? How do they arrive at such moribund positions? His neighbour had looked like a reasonable fellow. Something of an affected hippy perhaps with all the accouterments of affluent alternativeness; ponytail, leather bracelet, hand-stitched hippy shirt, expensive watch; his position that nobody in the room wanted a golf course was nonsense. If that were the case then those nobody’s were doing a damn fine job of making themselves heard.

Sadly, he later learned he had departed the ruckus too early as he missed a terrific scrap between his ponytailed neighbour and another bloke who, word had it, bit ponytail on the ear and was awarded a solid clout to the nose for his efforts.

•

She’s fucking what? said Josh. She’s coming here? Molly is coming here?

Kate Weaver regarded her husband sympathetically. I’m sorry mate, I forgot to mention it, I had an email from her and she mentioned that she will be in Queensland and might drop in. Actually, she sounded pretty definite. The expression that erupted on her husband’s face upon hearing this news did not surprise her.

It’s all in the past mate, she said. Let it go. It was a familiar refrain. A hundred different people had said this a hundred times before.

Molly was Lionel’s widow. His shocking and untimely death had been particularly challenging for Josh as he had been the one to break the tragic news to Molly and this event now seemed to define his life. He did not want to see Molly again. Ever.

Kate placed a hand over his. We’ll deal with it, mate.

They had been sitting on the banks of the creek that ran along the southern boundary of their mountain property. A strip of remnant riparian rainforest shaded them from the morning sun; the same shade ensured the wide, shallow surface of the watercourse was still shrouded in mist. On the other side of the creek the dark, comforting wall of a rainforest reserve completed a wild feel that pervaded the shallow valley on their bend of the creek.

Want to go for a ride mate? said Kate.

Josh nodded and said nothing.

Chapter Three

The Territory

Lionel finished deleting most of the emails he had received that day and sat back, content. His email management strategy was simple; if the sender was internal and not of greater rank to yourself the message was deleted before reading.

He turned his attention to his mobile phone where there were two missed calls from Molly. They hadn’t been missed; they had been ignored. How many times did he have to tell that dumb bitch not to call him during the day?

Weaver. Josh fucking Weaver. What a ditz. The cunt just didn’t get it. Didn’t know his place. He would learn though soon enough. He would learn.

He banged his mouse impatiently, waiting for his computer to wake again so this time he could pen an email rather than delete a score of them. What was the fucking matter with people? That bitch better have a good reason for disturbing me. He thumped the desk angrily and began typing.

His email complete he clicked Send, then logged onto to the internet and checked the contents of his favourite bank account. Sated, he high fived himself and smiled quietly. Sweet as. The plan was that it was to be all his. Yep, he’d make sure of that. He cleared his internet history, checked the Trash folder on his email once more to make certain it was empty and re-arranged the icons on his desktop again.

His mobile phone rang and he glared at the incoming number. Satisfied he took the call.

Lionel here, yeah, yeah it’s a lovely day up here. What’s it’s worth?

The solicitor told him.

"Good, get them to list it. You heard me, just list it. No, I am not coming down for the funeral. She’s still got that dumb sister down there who can handle it can’t she? No, there is nothing in the house I want. Sell it furnished or call