CHAPTER 30
Mr Edwards was the one who picked us up from the station, with a forceful hug for both of us together and then each in turn, and an even more forceful reminder that we had less than a week before the start of the new school year.

“Going to need to split up, girls. The last thing any of us needs is for the gossip mill to get started”

Alys squeezed my arm, then put a finger to my lips as I started to speak.

“I know what Enfys wants to say, Dad, and it will be stuff about not being ashamed, all that”

She looked me in the eye, before smiling as she turned her head to speak to the back of her father’s.

“I was going to say something like ‘all that rubbish about not being ashamed’, but it’s not rubbish, is it? Enfys, till I’m eighteen, and signed off by the shrinks, we still need to be careful”

She shook her head, then grinned at me.

“Yes, it’s ‘we’. You’re not the only one who isn’t ashamed here”

Her Dad chuckled, waving his left hand over his shoulder.

“Sometimes we get things right, your Mam and me! Enfys, it’s an extended family meal at your place tonight. Both mothers are doing the cooking--- I’ve heard about Keith’s abilities”

I couldn’t argue with that one, so I settled back into our snuggle on the back seat.

“How was the weekend girls?”

I answered for us, as Alys was taken by another attack of the giggles.

“Much like last year, but with a few more of their friends along. One of them said we shouldn’t expect sanity, and that it’s overrated. That sort of weekend”

Alys moved mu hand, so that her mouth was free to speak.

“Dad?”

“Yes, love?”

“Could we all go together one year? Take the harp with us?”

“Don’t see why not. Could always see if anyone wants a feature done, I suppose, and it’s out of the school year. Keith might have a problem though, in peak season. We’ll have a think, and we have a year to decide”

“Thanks, Dad. Any idea what they are cooking tonight?”

“Stroganoff, I believe, which reminds me: we need to pick up some ale on the way”

“Dad?”

“Yes again?”

“You do know the festival has a real ale thing on as well?”

“I take back everything I said about me and Mam getting anything right!”

We made a brief stop in Asda to pick up some of the required ales, as well as a mix of finger foods and desserts, before getting back onto the A5 for the run home. The welcome there was just as warm, the meal was superb, and the finger food served us later as snacks while we held a near-repeat of that video night that already seemed a lifetime ago. Alys, Nansi Edwards and I shared a bottle of wine, while the other three worked through the mixture of beers, as videos and still pictures flowed across our TV screen. Mam snorted happily, until that changed to a coughing fit as she couldn’t hold the laughter back. Once she had her breathing under control, she waved at the sight of Steph and Annie doing their unhinged thing. Ginny had been absolutely right in her comments about sanity.

“I’d forgotten she can get like that, but her mate, oh god! Separated at birth or what?”

Alys lowered her glass.

“That’s Annie. Absolutely sweetness and light, butter wouldn’t melt, till she gets going. Lots of talent in that lot. It’s why I want to take the harp next time, cause none of them can compete there”

I had picked up that phrasing earlier, so I raised an eyebrow at her.

“THE harp? Not MY harp?”

“Well, what’s mine is yours, right? So what’s yours is ours. Fair’s fair!”

Once again, I couldn’t argue with that point, although I suspected I was missing some sneaky bit of language somewhere. It did warm my heart, though; Alys had always been a bit of a tease, playful in her conversation, at least since she had been Alys and herself, rather than a confused and depressed ‘boy’.

Far too few days later, I was riding down to the school once more. I say ‘far too few’, but it actually felt like an age, because Alys and I were once more apart, for the sake of what Mam called ‘appearances’ but which felt to me far more like ‘disappearance’. We were friends, close ones, but no more. We shared many classes, but on others we would be apart. Everything that we had shared through the holidays had to be wrapped carefully and placed in storage until we were freed from the need to prioritise her future, and I suppose it was one more touch of what must have been my own impending maturity that I was able to handle our separation without any equivalent of a foot-stamp and shout of ‘IT’S NOT FAIR!’

She was already at the gate when I arrived, and I got a smile, as well as a suitably distant hug, before I locked the bike up and we made our way together to registration, which was still with Mrs Preece, who gave us both a long stare as we entered. Here we go, I thought. One more drip of the tap, one more little prod; I could see my love’s shoulders sag in anticipation. Mrs Preece picked up the register, and began the ritual

“Ailsa!”

“Yes!”

“Alwyn!”

“Here”

“Alys!”

She jerked in shock, but managed an “Um, yes! Here!”, before Mrs Preece, after another sharp look at her, carried on with the girls, before turning to the same sexist surname game she always inflicted on the boys. Mrs Preece finished calling the roll, then settled back onto her perch on the edge of her desk.

“This is what may be called an orientation talk, as the Americans would put it, but I prefer to say that I will now set out some new ground rules. Today, you have crossed a Rubicon in your academic career. You are no longer schoolchildren, but students. Yes, I do know that many people use that word to refer to anyone in education, but I do not, for there is a fundamental difference. You are here to study, and not because the law requires that you do so but because you have chosen that path. It brings privileges, but also responsibilities. We will be looking to appoint prefects from among you, and you will remember, for it is not a choice, that you now represent the school.

“For yourselves, this is the most important part of your life so far. Work hard, gain the best results you can, and the world will open for you like a flower. Lack of effort, on the other hand, will bring other, far less welcome, results”

She paused for breath,, or perhaps for dramatic purposes, before glancing sharply at Alys.

“I am certain that each and every one of you knows what happened a few weeks ago. There will be no repeat of such attitudes, or that voluntary choice of academic career will be curtailed, once again as the Americans say, with the most extreme of prejudice. There will be no second chance, for such actions are not ones that can ever be undone. Do I make myself clear?”

There was a mumbled chorus of assent, with more than a few glances towards Alys, Sali squeezing her shoulder, and then Mrs Preece began the ‘orientation’, covering topics such as common room access, uniform policy and so on. She finished, to my astonishment, with a laugh.

“Over the next two years, I anticipate many of you will pass your driving tests. Yes, there will be a small number of places to park for those who get cars, but always remember that there is one golden rule that must be respected: none of you is allowed to bring a car that makes ours, the teachers’, look bad”

A pause, and then, amazingly for her, a grin.

“Unless that car belongs to Mr Potter, of course! Welcome to young adulthood; your study plans and timetables are in the envelopes on the table on the right. Good luck!”

That was the start of some serious challenges, for everything was different, from the attitude of our teachers to the odd deference that the very youngest children showed us. The work was indeed hard, but it was done in lessons and tutorials where our teachers engaged with us rather than simply handing down their message like some odd version of Moses and the tablets of the law. I could see so much of my mother in the way our lessons worked, and it suddenly made sense, especially as we were doing such a reduced number of courses and subjects. As the weeks went by, I found myself staying on after the end of lessons, and it was voluntarily.

Our school music sessions continued almost unchanged, but our fortnightly climbing trips changed markedly, at least for me, as Mr Lewis was using me more as a second instructor than as a pupil. He explained that to me with a grin, halfway through the first of the new school year’s sessions at Tryfan Fach.

“Enfys, no talking rubbish here—you are a far, far better climber than I will ever be. I have only two things I can offer, and the first is simply—Ha! ‘Simply’, he says. The first thing is advice and experience in handling groups, which I hope and trust will give you a head start at university”

“What’s the other one?”

Yet another grin, something I was starting to expect from our teachers at the new and heady heights of the Sixth Form.

“Oh, I am a coward when it comes to climbing, or, as I prefer to put it, I have a healthy dislike of forceful impacts with the ground. Accordingly, I can be more than a little devious and sneaky when it comes to finding places for gear. Seriously, I have a couple of books to lend you; I’ll let you have them after the lesson—oh, for god’s sake! Gethin Wallis, you have got your leg through the waistbelt!”

He grinned again.

“First lesson, there: never underestimate what they can get wrong, and check it three times”

The books turned out to be small paperbacks (plastic, in one case, to be precise) by a man called Bill March, and they were all about rope techniques in mountaineering, from knots through belays to roped rescue techniques, and if I felt one thing on reading them, it was the simple realisation of exactly how little I really knew. It fitted, though: if I had to be sneaky around Alys, then I could certainly pick some other devious habits up for my climbing!

There was a down side, of course. I wanted a better bike, but at the same time I NEEDED so much new gear. Rocks, Friends, sticky boots…

Ah well. I shrugged my mental shoulders, and accepted my future life of being gear-rich and money-poor. Life was still good, though, and getting better, as certain events faded a little as the rains of autumn settled in.

I added ‘new cag trousers’ to my wish list.