CHAPTER 1
“You down the club on Wednesday, Keith?”
He looked up from his feet, losing enough concentration in the darkness to stumble on the verge.
“Bugger! Why do I always forget to bring a head torch? Who’s on?”
“Jez again. Got a new album out, I hear. I’ll be there; lot simpler now I’m off shifts”
He shrugged, just visible in the darkness.
“I think I’m off. Pen?”
She called from behind us.
“Yes you are. Early turn on the Wednesday, then late on the Thursday”
“Thank you, Secretary Hiatt!”
“Less of that, or it’ll be you driving”
“Sod that you are!”
“But you love me!”
I left them to their teasing, concentrating on my own feet. Three of us, all supposed to be Great Outdoors Explorers, or something like that, and not one of us had thought to bring a light for the walk back from the Village pubs, probably on a mutual assumption about ‘one of the others’. It wasn’t that much further to Sundon Park and their house, so I settled into the last bit of navigation down an unlit country lane while Keith and Penny bounced off each other, their teasing comfortably spiced with long and almost symbiotic familiarity.
My sleeping bag was already laid out on the sofa, part of our familiar ritual. They lived in a redbrick estate on the northern edge of Luton, while my own place was over to its East. While the pubs nearby were pretty dire, each of us had some more rural ones a reasonable walk away, mine being in Cockernhoe and theirs in Sundon Village. When our work patterns allowed, and the two of them weren’t zooming off climbing somewhere, we would use one house as a base and crashpad for the chance of a decent pint and its friends away from the feral nastiness of Luton’s town centre. I will be honest and admit that I never actually slept that well on their sofa, but the company was worth the slightly stiff neck I invariably woke to.
Penny opened the door, grinning as she beat both of us up the stairs to the loo, and Keith just shrugged once more. Dark country lanes and hedgerows had given us ample opportunity to ease that problem, so neither of us was in any hurry. He led the way into the kitchen, and I filled the kettle as he sorted the pot and mugs, and it was a minute before I realised he was still facing away from me. When he spoke, his voice was soft.
“Mike? Can I ask a question? About work?”
He did not sound at all happy.
“Go ahead”
“Farrell. What can I do about them? Both of them are getting worse”
“Ah. Why do you think I put in for that move?”
He turned to face me again, arms wrapped around himself.
“Yes, but you’ve got skills, letters after your name. Me… I mean, Penny’s got the qualifications, I know, but I would feel I was sponging off her if, you know”
He turned back to fill the pot as the kettle clicked off, talking quietly as he worked.
“It’s, well, had a few beers, so probably saying too much. Just that he is such an arsehole, and I don’t know if he’s infectious or what, but the whole mood in that place, I dread going in. And I find myself getting angry, short with people, when there’s no need. That’s not me, mate”
I put a hand out to squeeze his shoulder, and ha laid one of his over mine for a second before finishing with the kettle and pot. Voice still low, he continued.
“Penny’s not happy. For once, I really don’t know what to do”
Sodding hell. I could understand his pain, for Farrell was a particularly unpleasant manager, both of him. It wasn’t the fact that he was bipolar, manic-depressive, whatever the official term then was, but that the personality underpinning both modes was that of a hyena with a bad case of haemorrhoids. Derek Simon Farrell was colloquially known as Doctor Derek and Mister Simes, but there the resemblance to Jekyll and Hyde ended. While Doctor Jekyll was written as a genuinely nice man, both Derek and Simes were simply two cheeks of the previously-described pile-riddled arse.
I really felt for Keith, but there was literally nothing I could do. I had had enough trouble with him myself, and it was only a change of specialism that had moved me away from his management chain. That said, I still had to share the same office complex with him, and sharing the same planet was already bad enough.
My friend dropped the subject as Penny made her appearance along with some cheeky remarks about the tea not being ready in her mug, and the subject of Farrell was dropped. We settled into the chairs in the living room, drank our tea, said our goodnights, and I lay awake half the night in my sleeping bag as my memory brought up wonderful moment after glowing incident of Farrell’s benevolent humanity. The last to play across my closed eyelids was the one where Farrell had bullied one new starter so badly that they had gone to the rest room to write a complaint to their trade union rep, and Farrell had followed them there, taking away the paper they were about to write on as it was ‘property of the business’.
Thank god my own time there was coming to an end in less than a year.
That morning, I left them both sleeping, slipping off after tidying the sofa and closing the front door as quietly as could manage. My Suzi 400 was quiet enough not to disturb them, I hoped, so I made my way through the slowly increasing traffic to my own place, by way of the greasy spoon in the middle of Stopsley village for a traditional fry-up. That triggered a little of my own angst, as I was on my own, and had been for far too long. Penny and Keith would be sorting their breakfast together, and there was I reduced to a cheap café.
I could have cooked my own, of course, keeping a supply of the necessaries in my own fridge, but doing so would simply have reopened my own old wounds. It had always been a joint thing for me and Carolyn, made our own by her insistence that tinned ‘pisgetti’ was preferable to baked beans, and that set of memories would always interfere with my own attempts at a Full English.
Enough, Rhodes. Think nicer thoughts. Think of the move coming up. Now, could I find a house with a cellar, and set up a bouldering cave of my own?
I stopped in the florist’s after I had finished in the café, picking up some flowers to leave with Carolyn before I went to work. When I stopped by her plot, I saw that the grass had been cut recently, and the old blooms cleared away. That left space for my new offering, and I took a few moments to stand in silence by her grave, somehow finding a smile as I thought once more of tinned ‘pisgetti’ and black pudding, and the time she had tried to make laver bread one morning after a day spent picking what she hoped was the right sort of seaweed off a Pembrokeshire beach.
I couldn’t make up my mind when I arrived at work as to who was actually in luck due to both Doctor Derek and Mister Simes being off sick. We were all in luck, of course, those of us on shift or otherwise there, but the mood my visit to Carolyn had stirred up was turning a little dark, and I suspected I might have been rather direct with him, whichever face he were to show. Not. In. The. Mood.
I got through the day, accordingly, rather more easily than I had expected, and then the day’s friends and followers, with the planned evening at the folk club going exactly as I had expected. Jez was as entertaining and as charming as ever, several of the regular female members, plus extra visiting ladies, swooning over him, and none of us bought his new album until after the raffle had been drawn, for the very simple reason that it was one of the prizes.
It was three weeks later that Keith dropped his bombshell, as I parked my bike in the garage for once, noting the absence of their little van.
“Where’s the doss machine, mate?”
“Er, Penny’s got it”
“Oh, right. When’s she due back?”
“Um. She isn’t”
“Sorry?”
“She’s walked out, mate. Gone”
CHAPTER 2
I felt my world wobble for a moment, before Keith simply tugged at my sleeve.
“Come in and sit down, Mike. I’ll talk you through it. Not what it sounds like”
I was lost. How could it not… Penny? Gone? They were joined at the bloody hip, for god’s sake. He towed me into the living room, pushing me down into one of the armchairs, then disappearing into the kitchen for a few seconds before returning with a couple of bottles of Shefford Old Strong and a pair of glasses. I found myself on autopilot as I used the bottle opener that lived on my key ring, poured and sipped.
“Penny”
“Um, yeah. Was after the last climbing trip. Not what you’ll be thinking”
“What will I be thinking, Keith?”
“That she’s fucked off. Am I right?”
“Well, yeah! Of course I am! Talk straight just this once”
He settled himself into the other armchair, staring at the mantlepiece for a moment, where their wedding photo stood.
“It was that last trip, mate. We met someone”
I must have twitched, because he was suddenly waving a hand in denial.
“No, not like that. Someone that let us see a bit more clearly. Mike, can I be rude?”
“You often are, so why change?”
He sat looking down at his cup for a few seconds before raising his eyes again.
“You and Carolyn. Did you, you know, did you want? Kids?”
Hit me where it hurts, mate. Thanks.
“I think you know the answer to that one”
“Sorry, but… Penny’s the same”
“I always knew that, Keith. Just had to watch the way she was around other people’s children. I assume you saw the same thing I did, being closer to things”
He sipped his beer before nodding.
“Yeah, exactly. What she said, mate, a bit soppy”
“I get that. She can be right soft for such a strong woman”
“Yeah, that’s the whole thing. Something we talked through when we first, you know, realised it was a serious thing. The two of us. Together”
“And? What was this thing, this person you met?”
“Ah, long story, not really the point here. Just someone we met who had been through… No. Someone who was just starting to come out of a shitty place. Pen, she has a chat with me afterwards, sets out her thoughts on stuff. Mike, be honest: what do you think of the blokes I work with?”
“Honestly?”
“Please”
“Bunch of arseholes, self-selected. Anyone who has half a brain cell gets out of there as soon as--- sorry. Not thinking”
Another, longer swallow of his ale, then a twisted smile.
“That is sort of Pen’s thing, mate. Her point, if you will. She said I was getting infected, was becoming someone different to the man she married. That she loved”
He blinked rapidly, clearly fighting tears, so I looked down at my lap to give him a chance to settle again. Once the silence had gone on long enough, I asked the obvious question.
“What exactly has she said, then? And done?”
That twisted smile once more.
“Packed up and left. Left Luton, that is. Not me. Not yet. She says… She is sorting out somewhere for us to live, somewhere better than this shithole, finding a job as well. Once she’s sorted, then, well, that’s her ultimatum. I join her, or that’s it for us. Says the man she married will make the right choice, and if I don’t, well, I’m not that man. She’s renting a place for now, looking for a proper job. Actually running a till in a supermarket for the moment”
I stared at him for another long moment as I gathered my thoughts.
“Who is paying her rent, mate?”
“Joint account, Mike. Me, I suppose”
“You’ve decided, haven’t you?”
“Of course I bloody have. She’s right, isn’t she? I mean, my temper, my tolerance, all draining away. Self-control, I mean, and sometimes, when I can, I have moments where I sort of stand outside, listen to myself, and it’s not good. I hear Derek and Simes there, instead of my own voice”
Another swallow, another wry smile.
“Sorry, mate, but not really in a pub mood tonight”
My own smile felt better than his had looked.
“Understood. How many bottles you got in?”
“More than enough! Fancy a walk to the chippy in a bit?”
“Fine by me. If you don’t mind, though, bit of info? Knowing you two, her idea of a decent place would be somewhere with Scenery. Lumpy bits. Peak, Scotland or Wales?”
“Um, Snowdonia. Hence that stuff over there”
He pointed at a small pile of books on the dining table, the thickest being something called ‘Y Geiriadur Mawr’. There were also boxes of cassettes.
“You really going for it? Language and all?”
“Yup. Pen’s idea, really. Got both her ‘teacher’ and ‘respect-the-locals’ heads on. If we settle there, it’s a Welsh-speaking area, and she wants our kid to fit in”
“You’re really… she’s really planning ahead”
“Yup. You know Pen: once she decides on a course of action, then it gets done. I am sort of spinning in her slipstream. She’s right, though. Fitting in will be important for our kid, and the language will be the key”
I couldn’t argue with that one, so I moved the conversation on, waving an arm at the room.
“And this place?”
“Going on the market next week. Estate agent’s already been round for a rough valuation. I have a sort of plan about work”
He told me, and I nearly snorted up my beer. We had pie and chips, and more beer, and I made my own plan to invest in popcorn.
Work was getting busier as the weather warmed up, and my own house-hunting finally bore fruit in a reasonable terraced place in Crookes, to the West of Sheffield. Cellar, three bedrooms courtesy of an extension to the rear, and a reasonably quick drive out to Stanage and the other nice bits. If I took my time, I’d even be able to cycle to North Leas rather than drive. Even closer was Rivelin, so I had more than enough to keep me happy.
I knew one or two of Keith’s colleagues as a legacy of my own period of servitude there, and I made sure I earwigged every so often, just in case someone had picked up on Keith and Penny’s plan, but there was nothing in the mill that came anywhere near me. I had managed to get my deposit down on the Crookes place, and as my employer was actually paying for the move, I was more than relaxed about selling my place in Luton.
We had stopped our Sundon pub trips, as they would never be the same without Penny, but the walk across the fields to Cockernhoe and the King Billy still drew us every so often, especially as we were unlikely to run into any of our acquaintances there, for most of them were more attracted to the lager palaces in the town centre, with the attendant joys of Jimmy’s Kebabs or the multiple late-night curry houses. Those evenings let us refine our strategy.
Keith had picked up on my use of that word, but I shut his objections down.
“Here’s the plan, as I see it, mate. Pen’s got that flat, am I right? In Bangor? One bedroom?”
“Yeah. Told you that lots of times”
“So where are you going to store your stuff? Not in a one-bed place, that’s for sure”
“She’s looking for a self-store place, or a shed somewhere. Garage”
“Well, been thinking. I’ve had an acceptance from the people in Sheffield, for my offer. My people… I’m on a bridging loan, mate, and work is paying for it. I can take my time selling this place. My offer is simple: you shuffle your bits and pieces over to mine once I’ve cleared it of my own stuff. I can doss on your bed for a while, until you get a new place sorted properly”
He stared at me for a few seconds, then shook his head.
“Pen was right about me”
“What do you mean?”
“I was just about to ask if you were serious, why would you do that sort of thing, all that sort of shit, and then I realised I was thinking like the people I work with, not like me”
He took a mouthful of beer, swallowed, and smiled at me.
“Be nice getting back to myself, mate. Thank you. That will really help. And there’s news, about a new place. Think we’ve found it, and it’s more than we were hoping for. Not just a house, but a business. Going concern”
“Really? You sure? Not the same, working for yourself. What sort of business?”
“Terraced house, three bed, usual extension out the back to give us that extra. Bit like that place you’re buying, just without a cellar. Business is a bunkhouse”
“Risky, Keith”
“Ah, Penny’s found a berth as well, at the University. Doing TEFL and admin. Er, teaching English as a foreign language”
He snorted, as his thoughts caught up with his words.
“Which it bloody well is, going on what I heard when I was up there last. Remember Bethesda?”
I nodded.
“Bloody insular, that place”
“Yeah, but this house is up in Gerlan. Bit of a hippy colony, by all accounts. Once I’ve washed off Derek and Simes, we should fit right in. And there’s a folk club. In a pub”
“All necessities on hand, then?”
“Married no stupid woman, mate! Be good…”
I realised his eyes were a little moist, and he reached out to squeeze my hand, then grinned.
“No, not like that, me. Just feeling like a trap’s finally opening. Would have said cage, but this place, it’s worse than that. Right. When are we moving your own shit? And no arguments about that---we do it together”
“Not going to turn down an offer like that, as long as it goes for both loads. And if you are going to have a bunkhouse, I might just feel a need to test my waterproofs again. I know what the weather’s like over there”
I got the keys to my new place a fortnight later, and drove up with Keith to meet the removals van outside it. The men were efficient, my stuff left where it was, packed away in boxes, as Keith and I returned to Luton down the M1 the next day, and his own stuff went over to my old house a lot less efficiently in a hired box van.
Two weeks after that, he exchanged contracts with the new owner of what had been a home for him and Penny. When I asked how he felt about that, he simply grinned and shook his head.
“Shelter, mate, not home! This town will never, ever be that, and certainly not after next week. I have my departure planned, and the resignation letter written”
“What are you doing about notice?”
He shrugged.
“I worked out I have enough Time Off in Lieu of overtime, and unused annual leave, to, well, it’s more than the notice period they require. Once I give him the letter, I’m gone”
“Busiest time of the year, mate. Whichever one’s in charge of his head, they’ll go spare”
Keith sat back in his chair, grinning, my old mate shining through again.
“Well, what I say is, every silver lining’s got a silver lining! Another pint?”
CHAPTER 3
I managed to spin out my own house sale for two months, which rather pissed off the estate agents I had entrusted with my former home. They did know that I was covered by a bridging loan that was being paid by someone else, but they still wanted their percentage as soon as they could get it into the bank. In the end, I was up in Sheffield, Keith and Penny’s furniture in my old place, and a warm spot in my heart from what I had heard about my friend’s leave-taking.
I had managed to sort a last evening out in the Nickel Bag with some of my former colleagues, who were now by definition also Keith’s, and most definitely ‘former’, Andy Sellers and Ray Davenport. Andy, a rail-thin chain-smoker, was almost giggling over the departure.
“Yeah, so we had fucking Simes on, miserable fucker, and he’s been, they’ve both been, closing down the summer leave lists, all apart from the Sarahs, of course”
I shook my head, puzzled, and he grinned.
“Sorry. After your time, they are, pair of girls, and I mean girls, not that old, yeah, and he’s… Drooling after both of them, but we can’t work out which one Derek fancies, which one’s Simes’ little wank target, or if they’re both feeling the lust, equal opportunities shit. Where was I?”
I shrugged. By then, we were all on the downslope from ‘refreshed’ to ‘blotto’, and I was starting to find an alternate timescale.
“Leave lists, I think”
“Yeah. Right. So he’s been on one cause so many people have sodded off in the last year, and in goes Keefy Boy, and Johnny Trigg, he’s earwigging, and Keefy plonks this letter down on Simes’ desk, lets the cunt read it, and then, as he snarls out some shit about notice period, it’s ‘Got enough TOIL and annual leave bye-bye’, dumps his ID and keys and shit on top of it and walks out”
Ray almost spat out his mouthful of beer.
“Fuck yeah! I was on a late shift that day. Keith was gone when I got in, but Simes was still in full target-acquisition mode. Tried to pick a fight with Tom Sinclair—remember him?”
“The big Glaswegian sod?”
“The very one! Told Simes that if he ever spoke to him like that again, he’d be on hospital rations. Was magic! Just got one question, Mike. Well, two”
“They are?”
“How long’s he been planning this, and where’s he gone?”
I shook my head, smiling as I did so to ease the reply.
“Second question is simply ‘somewhere worth living”
Andy laughed, ruefully.
“Not fucking Luton, then. Knowing him, it’ll be somewhere lumpy”
“Not difficult to guess, really. As for the other question, long enough to make sure he really, really pissed off Derek and Simes”
Ray’s turn to laugh.
“That worked well, then! You coming down the Studio after this, Mike? Students are back. Be loads of gash there”
“Ah, not really my thing. Got loads to do with my own move, anyway”
The two men went on a tag-team effort about my own lost one, but as it was mostly tied to the easy availability of drunk students, I did my best to rune it out until they had both buggered off. I was still tender from Keith’s unintentionally barbed remark about their house being a shelter rather than a home, and that raw spot would always be there, because our house had always been a home, right up to her end. If it hadn’t been for the joint efforts of MacMillan and Marie Curie nurses, I would almost certainly have folded and joined Carolyn.
Leaving the house for my trip to Sheffield didn’t actually mean that final departure, of course, for it was still being used by people I loved, even if only as a repository for their stuff, but ‘final’ was how it felt.
Sod it. Lock the door, turn round, don’t look back. Crank up the bike, and sod those rear-view mirrors. Wind sting, not emotion, that was what pulled the tears from me.
It had always been a shared joke among the four of us that the one good thing about Luton was how easy it was to leave. Work through the town until I hit Waller Avenue, then past the washing machine factory, right at the lights and a short run to the M1 junction and a steady run north. I could do it on autopilot, almost, only really surfacing at the junction with the M6, and again at Junction 29, with muttered reminders to myself that I was going neither to North Wales nor to the Peak.
Some hours later, I pulled up outside the new place, easing the bike onto its centre stand on the little bit of hard standing under my new living room window, and starting the process of bringing a house to life. I stood for a while as the immersion heater started its job of giving me enough water before shaking my head.
Still light, still dry; I hauled off my leathers, changing into my old Fawcett rock pants, threw my older rock boots into a rucksack, and got back on the bike.
Burbage North gave me enough scope for an evening’s soloing, the sun warming the rock nicely, and I finished off with a solo of Amazon Crack, the jams solid enough to make me smile, while the grade was high enough to force me to stay in sharp focus. I finished off sitting on a block near the start of the path, as an older couple walked hand-in-hand down the lower path. A lovely evening, in so many ways, but. Always a but.
The new job was a challenge, in ways that were so close to my feelings on Amazon Crack. I knew I could do it, I was confident in the moves, but the difference between a solo and a lead was paralleled in the work, as I was no longer following someone else’s guidance in completing a task, but setting my own. I was deep in some issue regarding accounting protocols for the recycling of waste cooking oils when there was a cough at my shoulder.
“Mngff?”
“Hi. Mike, isn’t it?”
“Er, yeah. Sorry. Miles away”
“Pretty obviously! Seen what time it is?”
“Um—shit! Sorry. Best get this lot put away, mate”
“Cool”
“Pardon? “
“No, ‘Kul’. Short for Kulwinder”
I took his hand, then grinned as I caught on.
“You do that deliberately, don’t you? To every new chum?”
He shrugged, doing his best to look innocent, but still grinning through his beard.
“Don’t know what you mean! Anyway, a few of us are off to the bar down the road. They do good mocktails, if you prefer”
“What on Earth is one of them?”
“Cocktail, just without the boozohol”
“Ah! How many?”
“Usually six or seven. Gives us a chance to unwind before heading back to the soom beaus and hoom beaus”
That is what it sounded like, but je laughed again before explaining.
“Rider Haggard, filtered through a former colleague who was Welsh. She or He Who Must Be Obeyed. You married, er, Mike?”
“Er, sort of sore point. Widowed”
“Of shit. Sorry!”
“Oh, don’t be, Kul. Getting used to it, really. Part of why I made the break. Anyway, get these books locked up, and offski? How far?”
“Oh, about two, three hundred yards. You won’t need the bike”
It was actually quite fun, seven of us ending up sharing a pile of bags of crisps, before I succumbed to what the landlord, who was certainly not from Sheffield, called a ‘pie floater’, consisting of a meat pie on a pile of mushy peas. Kul was shaking his head, while one of the women, Betty, made a comment about food groups.
“Got everything there in terms of what a man needs, Mike. Lard, grease, fat, burnt crispy bits and stuff to make you fart. All it’s missing is the alcohol”
“Well, I AM on the waste cooking fat account! Getting a sort of hands--- I mean, tongues-on experience”
“Hmmm. Which end of the office do you sit at, and do the windows open?”
I found myself laughing happily, for the first time since I had waved goodbye to Keith, and Betty simply grinned back.
“Where are you from, Mike?”
“Originally from Sussex, but I moved from there a long time ago”
“Where to?”
“Place I don’t want to name. Speak of the Devil, sort of thing, or the p-word in cycling. Let’s just say it is north of London, starts with an ‘L’ and rhymes with Boot On”
Kul reached out to pat my shoulder, clearly in Manly Sympathy.
“I was once there, on my way from somewhere to visit family in Leicester, and I had to change trains. Some things were not meant to be borne by mortal men. Or, sorry Bets, women. But what’s the cycling p-word?”
“Ah, rhymes with ‘juncture’. Caused by faeries, that’s ‘F-A-E’, with sharp teeth and claws. Say the p-word, and they descend and wreak havoc, or at least holes. Need propitiating, or whatever the word is. Dancing widdershins round a willow, naked, allegedly”
The evening continued like that, before people started slipping away to their own homes, SWMBOs or HWMBOs, and I sat with a proper pint before making my own move. It was my first full confirmation that I had, most definitely, made the right choice.
It set a pattern that I found more than comfortable, as it wasn’t so much a mirror of the atmosphere in Luton as a sort of photo-negative. In Luton, people went from work straight to the pub, where they fought their taste buds to get their bodies outside as much alcohol as they could, as quickly as possible. Their humour was all points-scoring rather than actual jokes, and my new colleagues were so, so different.
I had mentally slapped myself when that thought first hit me, for, in reality, I hardly knew these people; not yet, anyway.
I found a new direction a month later, when a letter arrived from Keith: they had actually got the property they had been looking at, and the final chapter in the life I had shared with Carolyn was coming to an end. I rang him from work the next day, and that was when the reality of our lives started throwing stones and spanners at our plans.
I had just put the phone down after speaking to Keith, when I realised Kul was at my shoulder again.
“Problems?”
“Sort of”
“Anything I could help with?”
“Doubt it. It’s a house move. My old place, well, a mate has his stuff stored there, and it needs moving”
“You not sold it yet?”
“Will do, once his stuff’s out”
“Let me guess: he can’t afford a removal company?”
“Spot on. And he’s just taken on a new business; no chance of getting time off. I’m going to hire a wagon, but, well. House full of furniture”
“Right… When are you doing this?”
“This coming weekend”
“Could you pass me the phone?”
That Friday, after pulling in some favours that seemed to be given freely rather than Luton-style, I drove from Luton to Bethesda, Keith and Penny’s stuff piled in the van I had hired, Kul and his sixteen-year-old son beside me on the bench seat.
Definitely better than Luton.
CHAPTER 4
I knew Bethesda reasonably well, at least in a strip-map sense. I had ridden through it countless times, often stopped in one or more of the pubs, and replenished my longer-term food stocks from the little supermarket and my shorter-term ones from the chip shop or Chinese takeaway. What I had never done was to move any meaningful distance from the high street, so working through the narrower lanes up to the new chez Hiatt was a bit of a puzzle. I found it, in the end, a typical mining town terrace with a narrow front, some distance up the increasingly steep side of the valley. I gave a tap to the horn, and Penny was first out of the house, wrapping herself round me as I stepped down from the rather appropriately named Luton box-van’s driving seat.
“So good to see you, love!”
I grinned back at her.
“Does your being here to say hello mean what I think it does?”
“Yup! He’s sorting the kettle. Who’re these two new chums?”
I stepped back, one arm still around her waist, and waved at Dad and Lad, but before I could say anything, Kul cracked His One Joke. I gave him a mock glare.
“He does that to everyone, I am told. New colleague Kulwinder, his son Dal. I said I was running this lot up, and Kul offered. I assumed that, you know, you’d have space, what with taking on a bunkhouse”
She laughed out loud, pulling away to lead us into the house.
“How long are you all staying?”
“Oh, Kul and I negotiated Monday off, and Dal’s just finished his O-levels, so we have no rush”
“Well, this is going to sound pushy, then, but if we make a start on stuff tonight…”
I finished the sentence for her.
“We will have two full days for the hills?”
She stopped in her tracks, frowning slightly.
“I’m really sorry, Kul, but we’re being rude. Making assumptions. All three of us are outdoors types, climbers. I’m making plans, but I don’t know if that’s your sort of thing. Exercise and high places”
Dal laughed in an utterly open way.
“Mrs Hiatt, I do 400 metre running, and done loads of Duke of Edinburgh stuff. That was all around home, though. Do you know the Dark Peak?”
It was Penny’s turn to bark out a laugh.
“Er, just a bit. What about your Dad?”
“Dad? Oh, he’s all old and fat, but if you have a pub we can leave him in, he’ll be fine, as long as he doesn’t wander off”
Kul was snorting as well.
“Trained the lad well, I have! Penny, me and the lad did the Pennine Way together two years ago. That an adequate answer? And did you mention tea?”
Another laugh from Pen, and we entered the house, where I found myself hugging my old friend for the first time in what felt like far too long. Introductions made, tea consumed, and in a remarkably short time, five of us had the van emptied and furniture stowed. Dal and Pen swapped repeated references to a certain brand of tea and their chimpanzee-starring adverts, which even had Keith giggling, and then, as we stood panting, Kul asked the obvious question.
“You got a local yet? Hint! And do they do food?”
Pen looked across at Keith, eyebrows raised.
“Don’t want to make any more assumptions, love, but we’ve been okay so far. Kul, we have, and what you need to know is that Mike and us two share a lot of interests. No, Dal. Not that way. You have trained him far too well, my friend”
Kul mock-bowed, and raised his own eyebrows back in turn, so Penny spilled the beans.
“Yes, the pub we now treat as our local does food, and, well, it’s a club night tonight. As in folk music”
Dal turned a lot more serious.
“This like guitars and fiddles and stuff?”
“Yes, and singing. Got a guest on tonight, sings about the Royal Navy. Amazing voice. If that’s not your thing, there’s another couple of pubs”
Pen’s description caught my attention.
“Cyril?”
“The very same”
“What’s he doing all the way up here?”
“Well, we are sort of getting our feet under the table here. Improving our Welsh seems to be making a real difference. Now, anyone feel they need a shower? We’ll set you up in the bunkhouse first, and there’s three cubicles there”
The sun was dropping towards the other side of the valley as we ambled down the steep little hill to the High Street once more, and a pub called the Spotted Cow. There was a mixed clientele, including some obvious tourists, but I was pleased to see that the majority appeared to be locals. Keith nodded to a man sitting at the bar, then to the barman.
“Illtyd, Owen, [something incomprehensible]”
The man at the bar repeated what sounded like the same thing back, emphasising one word, and Keith nodded.
“Ah. Diolch, mate. [Something else incomprehensible] Mike, Kul, a Dal”
The man, Illtyd, held out his hand for a shake.
“You the lads bringing their furniture up, from that place he never wants naming? My round, Keith. You’ll be wanting to order food, ah?”
One thing I did know was the beer, so it was a simple choice, Dal’s age apparently being ignored by the barman as he was served a pint of cooking lager, and with a nod from Illtyd, we joined the other two. The menu was pretty standard pub grub, and, when the club got going, it was pretty much everything I expected. The main act was as good as ever, and I noticed no sign of resentment from the locals as they willingly sang away in the choruses of songs written by a man from Gosport. The only thing that irked me slightly was one of the floor spots. He was a fiddler, incredibly talented at what he did, but absolutely pissed as a newt, and lacking the slightest hint of a smile, or even conversation beyond ordering his net pint, in Welsh. He was gone before the club finished, the place seeming rather better lit after he went, almost as of he carried his own personal dark cloud with him.
Yes, we did get chips to eat on the way back up the hill to the new place, Penny deep in refreshed conversation with Kul’s boy, who was, to my astonishment, actually considering the Navy as a career.
“Yeah, Mrs Hiatt, those songs, he must really be singing from life”
“Penny, son. And how many pints have you had?”
Kul called over, “Four. I moved him to shandy after that. What did you think of the music, son?”
“Live stuff, Dad. Different to recordings, aye? Were a mixed lot, though. Couple of the singers, well, I should have had some more beer for them, but that fiddler, he was amazing”
Keith called over in his turn.
“Steve Jones, apparently. Climber. Cycles over from Betws or up from Bangor, camps, climbs, always gets wrecked. Word is he’s only ever here on a club night; goes over to Capel Curig other nights”
I held up a hand.
“Speaking of climbing, what’s the plan?”
Dal was softly singing ‘Sally, free and easy’ as Keith considered, then chuckled.
“See what this lad’s head is like tomorrow, then I think we can look at Y Garn north ridge and Idwal loop. Go up the ridge, come down the Kitchen. Cuppa off Dennis, and maybe the bright lights, big city not of Bangor for the evening. Fancy a go at some climbing, Kul? We’ve got a really easy beginner’s crag up the road. Take a picnic, relax in the sun if you prefer”
Kul watched his boy stumble slightly.
“Yup. Save the climbing stuff till laddo here is back on dry land. It’s ‘call away the daighsoe’, not ‘mice oh’, son!”
We had sleeping bags and blankets, there was a big padded sleeping platform at the bunkhouse, along with a well-stocked kitchen area for the breakfast we shared as a party of five, and the sun was still with us even on the tops, fair-weather cumulus scudding across the sky, and both my newer friends delighted when Pen announced that yes, it was indeed downhill all the way from the summit of Y Garn. I realised we had hooked both lads when we got the standard request to spend just a little bit more time on the peak, coupled with serial binocular-hogging and incessant clicking of camera shutters.
Wind was curling up and over the cliff edge that ended the broad sweep of the rear of that mountain, bringing with it the pure joy that comes from a lovely day at height, and Pen was chatting away to the younger man about all the other peaks that could be seen around us, until we arrived at the Dog Lake to pick up the path over to the Kitchen. It’s a descent that can appear frightening at first, as you appear to be walking directly towards a vertical cliff, which you are, until the broad shelf slanting down to the left becomes visible. We took the east side of Llyn Idwal for symmetry, and paused below the slabs so that Pen and Keith could call off and name climbing routes. The place was busy, as was only to be expected on such a gorgeous day, and while Keith was talking through the full list of UK climbing grades, and how they worked, Kul was scanning the rock with the binoculars.
“How high is this place, Mike?”
“Ah… see that ledge up there, where there are loads of people? That’s the top of the proper climbing, and then there’s easy scrambling up to the start of the descent path. About four hundred feet to that ledge, another three hundred to the path down”
“Right… so everything up to that ledge is proper climbing, including that sticky-out bit over there?”
“Where?”
“Over there on the edge. With what looks like a big rock sitting on top”
“That’s the top of Tennis Shoe, the hard bit. Round that edge is Suicide Wall”
“Right. Well, there’s somebody climbing it, and I can’t see any rope or that”
“Rope might be out of sight”
“Aye, but there’s no belt, harness thing to tie it to”
“Could I have a look?”
“Here”
I took the bins from him, and looked up at Tennis Shoe’s horribly polished and exposed ‘perched boulder’ finish, and swore under my breath as I recognised the clearly solo climber.
“That pisshead from last night, isn’t it?”
Kul nodded.
“Aye, I believe so. Steve something? Booze he put away last night, he wouldn’t be safe to drive, never mind this shit. I think we should wait here a while, till we see him safe on the path you mentioned. Then we’re off”
He sat down on a boulder, and gave me a weak smile.
“Wouldn’t feel right going off without knowing he’s down safe. On the other hand, don’t want to see him going back up, and having to worry all over again”
I let the Hiatts know, and we sat together until Keith spotted a pony-tailed figure partway down the descent path, and we packed up and left, doing our best to convince ourselves he wasn’t simply going to go back up again, still solo.
CHAPTER 5
We were back down the Cow that evening, as I vetoed a trip to Bangor to avoid dumping ‘designated driver’ on someone’s shoulders. It obviously wasn’t a club night, so I had much more opportunity to speak to the locals. We were joined at our table around nine o’clock by a couple that looked to be around the same age as myself, who were introduced as Vic and Nancy Edwards, although I found out later that the spelling was not what I assumed. Keith said Foreign-Not-really Things to them, before turning to the rest of us with a smile.
“Mike, one of our older friends, his mate Kul, and his son Dal. They are the ones who brought the rest of our stuff up from That Place We Don’t Name”
Nansi (I was learning) snorted out a laugh.
“Mike, does Keith always talk in Capital Letters?”
She put on a portentous tone for the last two words, Dal giggling away as I shrugged.
“There is no other way to talk about it, Nansi. It really is that bad. Definitely the right move by these two”
She nodded.
“Penny explained all that when she first moved over this way. This place can have, does have, a bit of a reputation, but that town just sounds, well, [something Welsh]”
“Sorry? Bit non-Welsh, me”
Vic put down his pint.
“Twll o le, Mike. Dump. Literally means a hole of a place, and with what we’ve heard about that place you boys worked at, well, good move by these two. You’ve moved as well?”
“Yup. Sheffield now. That’s where I met these two”
“Why Sheffield?”
I looked at Kul, wondering if I would upset him or not by talking down his town, but I caught the twinkle before I spoke.
“Ah, it has one of the same advantages as a certain other place, and that is that it is easy to get away from”
I left that barb for a second, before adding the rest of my reasons.
“The main thing for me, though, was the rock. I’m a climber as well, like these two, but I’m not exactly built for delicate footwork”
Keith muttered “He’s a thug”, and I nodded.
“Yup. That’s a gritstone term for someone who does things more by brute force than subtlety, shut up you three. Lots of hand jams, that sort of thing. Not balance stuff. Going to let Dal and Kul have a go at some easy bits tomorrow, up the Valley. Little Tryfan”
Vic nodded.
“School goes up there for their outdoor stuff”
Kul looked at his boy, raising an eyebrow, and Dal took the hint.
“Aye, we go out to Stanage a lot, or at least my school does. I don’t do PE anymore, but it’s nice to do a run along the top. Lots of grouse on the Moor, makes it interesting”
I mock-scowled at him.
“I thought you two said you hadn’t done any climbing before?”
The lad’s grin was as evil as his father’s worst.
“Yeah, but Dad hasn’t, and this way I get to embarrass the old man”
Nansi’s laugh was absolutely genuine.
“Pen, were you all separated at birth, or what?2
My friend shook her head, expression a lot more serious.
“Not really, Nansi. I think it’s sort of like release from prison, getting Keith away from that office, that town. You react, you open up. People see that”
Kul held up a hand, ready to add his own snippet.
“Aye, and that was the thing when Mike first joined us, me and my colleagues. Like, I dunno… like one of those self-lofting mats they sell now. Undo the valve, and they slowly unroll, open out. Just got to do the valve up again, otherwise they go flat as soon as you sit on them. Sorry; bit metaphor too far sort of thing”
Keith was shaking his head.
“No, Kul. That’s spot on. Going to strain it some more, but that was where I worked. Pen saw it better than I did, but taking what you said, it would either have been a valve failure, go all flat like the bastards I was working with, or just go bang. Burst. This place, we are sort of inflated just right, valve shut tight so we can stay that way”
The man called Illtyd had clearly been earwigging, as he set his pint on the table and pulled over another chair.
“Keep popping into the chippy, Mr Hiatt, and you will end up very over-inflated indeed! When are you three boys off, then?”
Kul smiled at him, clearly amused by Illtyd’s casual assumption of a welcome at our table.
“Ah, a day out tomorrow, then it’s set off for Sheffield late afternoon. Two of us are working on Monday, while this one is at college. A-levels on the way”
“Ah? You got a plan, boy? Career choice?”
“I am looking at the Navy, Mister. One of the tech branches, not just a seaman, that is”
Illtyd raised an eyebrow.
“Go on? And no ‘Mister’ for me, ah? Just Illtyd will do”
“Don’t know if I can say that properly… Anyway, if I get the right grades, there’s an Officer route that gets me a degree, and what I would like, well, helicopter pilot”
Illtyd laughed.
“Not being nasty there, boy. I just like your style: no low level of ambition in you. You’ll have to come back here with your uniform on if you make it. Now, who wants a drink?”
I was sober enough to drive the next day, but we were a little late getting to the crag, the Hiatts following us in their car so that the three Sheffield-bound could get straight onto the road after our fun and games. We spent a couple of hours messing about on the slab itself before moving round the bottom to push Dad and Lad up Curving Corner. Kul really struggled, while Dal cruised the whole thing, sneakily having let his father have the first go. There is one short problem there that allows for a proper hand jam, so rare in the Valley, and I used that to demonstrate exactly what we meant by ‘thugging’, before it was time for us to finish the last bits of our picnic, hug, and go our separate ways.
I sat in the van for a few minutes after the Hiatts had driven off, setting the weekend into context, before Kul coughed.
“Mike? Can I say something about your mates?”
“As long as it’s either nice or funny, mate”
“Don’t know if it’s either, but here goes. Keith’s almost broken, isn’t he? Not broken all the way through, but close to it”
I found myself nodding.
“Yeah. Now you see why I did what I could for them. The furniture and that was a help, but I just wish it could have been more”
“It was more, Mike. Two of you, together, and that Penny’s one formidable woman, like a lifebuoy, you two. I had a chat with that Illtyd bloke, at the bar. He says the same, and there’s more. Penny came over first, he said, and Dal, just between us three, okay? Yes, before you say anything, I know you can keep your gob shut, but this is deep stuff. Anyway, what their mate says, he was going to chat her up when she first came, and I get the impression he’s like that all the time, and then he realises she’s trying to use Welsh, so she’s not just a tourist, and he takes a sort of randiness step back. He was very clear about that bit. What did he mean about a ‘reputation’ for that town?”
I got the van rolling before I replied, choosing my words as carefully as I could.
“Bethesda is a very, very Welsh town. Not known for its welcoming attitude to outsiders, but that bit where Keith and Penny live, Gerlan, is called a hippy colony. The ‘bad reputation’ isn’t just about hostility, but about inbreeding. That’s what he was on about”
“Incest?”
“Yup. Not true, but it’s very much a local joke. Like any isolated place, really”
Kul laughed out loud.
“Or anywhere in Norfolk?”
I couldn’t help my grin.
“I’ll give you that one!”
“Indeed. Anyway, what the man was saying was that he’s watched your friends, and they’re doing their best to fit in, which is earning real brownie points with the locals, and he just wanted to let me know that their backs are covered. He said there are always one or two dickheads that come in to the town for an evening, and they sometimes needed a slap”
He paused again.
“Fallen on their feet, your mates have. Nice to see. Now, want to let me know when you want to switch drivers?”
It wasn’t a short drive back to Sheffield, but it wasn’t as long as others I had done, and with Dal’s help we made good time, leaving the van at the hire centre after I had dropped Dad and Lad off so that he could pick me up with his own car.
Work the next day was a little wearying, as I was still recovering from the weekend’s exertions, but my mood was lifted by the teasing from my new colleagues. There were all the usual jokes about sheep, Betty adding traditional variety in a series of remarks about rain, plus a remarkably detailed account of the ‘office goss’ arising from our absence from the Friday evening’s post-office pub trip, and I continued to appreciate how right my move had been.
My trips to Bethesda became quite a regular event after that, the bike learning its way from Sheffield via a loop around Manchester for the ‘Expressway’ as it was to become known, along the north coast to Conwy. I could have stayed with that road a lot further, of course, but I would have delt somehow incomplete without the approach from Betws and all the familiar landmarks, from Ugly House to Idwal Cottage.
I found that while my spirits were lifted by the place, it wasn’t quite as far as it had been when arriving from Luton, because my week already held things like Burbage Brook rather than Bury Park. It was in the Spotted Cow with the Edwards that Penny dropped the next bit of news, about a year after I had first moved. The folk club was without a guest artist that evening, so it was purely floor spots. I had noticed the absence of a certain ginger pisshead, after craning my head around trying to spot him while wondering if he was still breathing, when I realised that Penny was calling my name.
“Um, sorry? Miles away”
“Yes, obviously. Just be nice to have you a bit closer for a second or three. Keith and I have an announcement. Stop grinning, Nansi”
That woman chuckled, looking smug, and Penny sighed.
“Some friends… Mike, when I told you what I was doing, remember? These two already know the story, so no secret”
“Yeah: leaving him, wasn’t it? That the job he had was making him someone else?”
“There was more, love. I said I wanted a kid with him, but never in That Place”
Nansi was smiling happily now, as the penny dropped, and as I thought that phrase, I realised how apt it was, because it could only mean one thing: my Penny was, indeed, preparing to drop. I swallowed a couple of times before asking the obvious question.
“When, love? When are you due?”
She reached across to take Keith’s hand.
“Six months from now, Mike. Mrs Smug Chops there is about a month ahead, which is why she’s grinning like the proverbial cat. You’ve got uncle duties ahead of you, so get preparing!”
I gave them all my best smile, making sure we pre-emptively wetted the heads pf both babies-to-be in as adequate a manner as possible, but it was still a wound to my soul. I was ecstatic for the two of them of course, but there was still that hole in my life.
My next weekend was spent in Luton with the woman I had loved.
CHAPTER 6
Carolyn was resting in Luton Vale, not that far from my old place. When I had first decided to move, I had spent hours trying to work out how I could take her with me, to let her follow me to a new home, away from the shithole we had shared, but as I had no idea as to where I would go, that idea had quickly fallen.
It had been lust at first sight, at least as far as I was concerned, for the idea of anyone lusting after myself had always been, in my view, profoundly risible. I had been shopping in my usual supermarket when I had been ambushed with a crushing hug from Audrey, the girlfriend of Alan, one of my occasional climbing partners. Auds had been as cheeky as ever.
“Hiya, Mike! What you got in your trolleys? I mean, trolley?”
“Leave my trolleys out of it, woman! What are you doing here, anyway? You live the other side of Chapel Street--- didn’t the defences hold out?”
“Well, I had a sneaksy sneaksiness to get me through them. This is Caro; she lives in Telscombe Way”
That was less than half a mile from my own front door back then.
“Hiya Caro!”
She wasn’t a big girl, perhaps 5’3 or so, blonde, glasses, but she had as cheeky a grin as Audrey, and I could see how well they fitted together in terms of their sense of humour. We had swapped predictable jokes, many with equally predictable double meanings, and I thought no more of the meeting for at least an hour after we had parted.
There had been something about her, something that had grabbed me by the hindbrain. As I lay in bed that night, I had found myself musing on odd things such as the shape of her nose and the dimple in her left cheek when she smiled…
The next meeting started with a knock on my front door as I ironed my work shirts. It was, of course, Audrey, with Carolyn in tow. All I had on was a dressing gown, and I found myself in the very odd position of continuing to iron as Auds prattled on about the next climbing trip Alan and I had planned, while Carolyn simply sat and listened. Auds had been oddly insistent as they left.
“You down the Nickel Bag on Friday, Mike? We got a pool match, could do with some support?”
“Don’t know, love”
“We need the support, mate!”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do, okay?”
“That better be a ‘yes’, mate! Anyway, bus is due. See you Friday!”
All through this, Carolyn had said sod all. I spent another night thinking of that dimple, and to no surprise on the part of anyone, I was down at the Bag for the pool match. It was an odd one, in that the pub left the juke box running as the match progressed, and both women were dropping coins and selecting tracks after my arrival.
Caro, as I was already thinking of her, picked two tracks several times, tunes by Led Zep and Cyndi Lauper, and they ended up as two of my favourite songs ever: ‘No Quarter’ and ‘True Colours’.
She was wearing stretch ski trousers combined with slingback stiletto shoes, a loose blouse held away from her chest by the nipples of her breasts and…
I found myself rewinding the whole thing, as my hindbrain continued to react to the way the fabric of her trousers stretched across her bum as she bent over the pool table, and while a small part of my sensible mind was saying ‘She’s doing it for your benefit, Mike’, the rest of my brain was simply going ‘Phwooar!’.
There was a Hawkwind gig at the Queensway Hall in a week: what else could I do but ask her out?
She turned up in loose jeans and trainers, and when my eyebrows lifted, remembering taut fabric and heels, she just grinned and made a comment about planted hooks and comfort.
I was lost from that moment on. We made our way into the hall, settling against the edge of the stage, and as I did my best to relax with a woman who was most definitely getting under my skin, the young man next to me started to bullshit about how well he knew the band. A band I knew well enough to go drinking with, for fuck’s sake.
As he prattled on, a familiar figure appeared on stage to fiddle with some cables, a mass of dark curls falling around his face. I called out a ‘Hiya!’, and as he turned towards me, his face broke into a broad grin.
“Hiya, mate!”
“What’s the plan tonight?”
“Ah, the usual. Loads of stuff to sell the new album, then a shitload of standards. You coming back after? I can leave word on the door if you want?”
“Ah, be good. Got a friend with me, so it’ll be up to her, if you don’t mind”
“Course not, Mike. Option will be there. See you in a bit, either way”
As he disappeared backstage, my Hawkwind-expert new friend asked me whether it had been one of the roadies. I put on my best ‘puzzled’ face.
“I thought you knew all the band? That was Harvey, the bass and keyboards player”
His face fell.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you knew the band?”
His face jerked once more.
“Did he just invite you backstage?”
I answered “Yup, as usual”, before turning away from and ignoring him from then on. Caro was sniggering.
“Thought you were a nice guy”
I leant closer to her.
“I think I am”
She slipped a hand around my back to squeeze my bum.
“That wasn’t a complaint, Mike”
I spent the gig itself with my arms braced against the stage as she danced in their shelter, my new friend having drifted away along the stage, We did end up backstage with the band, and yes, my memories of that were subject to some interruption
What I do remember so, so well is that Caro and I woke up together, and that was the start of the best part of my life, ever.
It was an odd relationship to start with, at least to conventional sensitivities, as we didn’t move in together for a long time. I quickly realised that she was far deeper than the tight trousers and heels had suggested, and then that I was going to take a very, very long time to get to know her properly, if I ever would. I rarely saw her dressed up that way again, for starters, and her logic in keeping separate addresses was flawless.
“We’ve each got our own habits, Mike. Be far easier to knock the sharp edges off if we have breathing room. Like ships, yeah? Sea room. Anyway, how else could I find the time to work my way through the first team at Stockwood Park?”
That was one thing I had learned almost immediately, and cherished deeply: she could never stay serious for long, and a joke would follow almost every statement that could lay claim to any level of gravity.
Unlike Audrey, she was never a climber, but would still come along on club nights at the local wall, which is where I first met Penny, and then Keith. Pen was one of a number of women who would turn up each week, work quietly away at some problem or other, and chat together between bouts of effort. Auds wasn’t exactly part of the little circle, but she always had a smile for them, whereas once Caro started coming along, she fitted in like a missing piece to a jigsaw.
That was another of her talents, for she was never part of the climbing discussions, and made it very clear that she knew absolutely nothing about it worth sharing, she was a hillwalker of the most old-fashioned and solitary kind. Her vice was in gear purchases, particularly tents, and each time we went anywhere near an outdoor equipment shop, she would stop at the entrance, smile at me, and pass me her purse, ‘just in case’.
If a new one-woman tent came out promising a few ounces less in weight than the one she was already using, her bank balance was likely to take a hit. Where Imelda Marcos had rooms filled with shoes, Caro’s flat held ripstop nylon structures, and those conversations with the other women were about such things as the merits of the new carbon fibre versus aluminium alloy.
I had started my climbing ‘career’ in the days of flared jeans and loon pants, and the climbing magazines back then had been filled with pictures of male climbers in unfeasibly tight-thighed denim, the flares rolled up to just below the knee. I still ask myself how on Earth they had ever managed to get off the ground in such clothing, but that all changed when Pete Livesey came onto the scene and introduced the concepts of athleticism rather than simple talent, and fitness rather than just turning up at the crag. Running gear back then involved the tiniest of nylon short-shorts, followed shortly thereafter by Lycra leggings, and of course that became a trend followed by climbers at all levels, just as chalk had become ubiquitous, even on gritstone.
Keith’s first visit to the club involved some decently efficient technical moves performed in the shortest and tightest pair of running shorts I had ever seen, and as he pinch-gripped his way up the two edges that formed our ‘chimney’, I found Caro standing beside me.
“How the hell does he get into those, never mind out of them?”
I looked at her, a little puzzled as to which way her mind was going, still a little uncertain as to how strong my claim was on her, and she reached across to squeeze my backside.
“No, not thinking that, love. Got my bear’s bum right here. Going to have it bare later, if you play your cards right, and I’ve bribed the dealer. No: look at that mouth on Penny. Is she actually bloody drooling?”
Another grin from her.
“That is a very fine bum indeed, but I have two that are much nicer, and they are both mine, all mine, mwahahaha!”
“Two?”
“Don’t pretend my arse wasn’t the first thing you looked at, Mike!”
I shook my head, smiling at her.
“It wasn’t, actually. It was that dimple when you grin, so there”
“Okay, then my arse was the second thing!”
I had to laugh at that.
“Guilty!”
She gave mine another squeeze, turning a much more serious face to me.
“Let’s agree one thing, love: no piss-taking around Penny. She’s been a bit down, a bit solo, more than a bit lonely. I heard you with him earlier, before he got changed”
“Yeah. He’s just started at my place; don’t really know him yet, didn’t realise he was a crag rat”
“Well then, you have an excuse to sit with him for a pint afterwards, and I will see if I can work with Auds to get Penny at the same table”
Another squeeze of my backside, and she turned to walk over to the women’s group.
“Oh, Mike?”
“Yes?”
“That wasn’t a slip. That was my cards on the table. If…”
For the first time, I saw her confidence cracking.
“One deal I haven’t stacked, that one. Not putting pressure on you, just letting you know”
I just nodded at her, as my heart tried to burst out of my chest.
“Not a problem. You set those hooks into Penny, and I’ll do what I can with Keith. You just make sure you grab us all a table, love”
CHAPTER 7
That marked a new period in our lives, as that uncertainty I had picked up on steadily became more evident. Caro, it turned out, was a classic case of imposter syndrome, amazingly well concealed. While she was absolutely realistic about the allure of her rear view, she was far less confident about her worth as a person. She was never completely open about her history, but I worked out that she had stumbled out of a number of relationships, and assumed that each break-up had been down to her failings. She covered it up amazingly well, but in the end, she was always running to a timetable in her affairs of the heart: get what she could before the other person got fed up with her.
I heard the same phrase later, so many times, in so many variations: why are the good ones always so thick? It took a little while for me to spot it, despite the fact that I shared much of the same failings, but once I had worked out her blind spot, I resolved to do my best to steer her away from the edge of her fears.
She was always a creature of impulse, in the finest and most amazing of ways. Easyjet was just starting up in the eighties, and there is a rather well-known airport in Luton that was their home for quite a while. Caro knew my work pattern, and every now and again she would spot something in a Sunday newspaper supplement, or in one of the travel books she devoured, and we would be off for a weekend in a surprising place. I was collecting air miles on my credit card, so we had several summer holidays that involved flying somewhere and then using Interrail to make our way home, usually with only the vaguest of plans.
One classic trip was a flight to Rome, the home of the absolutely shit cup of tea, made with a glass, a teabag and water from the hot tap. We ambled and shambled through the amazing city for a few days before hitting the train north to the South Tyrol, Innsbruck, Lindau (one of her Sunday supplement spots) and couchettes from there back to Ostend and the Jetfoil back to the UK.
Lindau was so typical of her impulse trips, and I will never forget the amazing model railway society there. A huge hangar of a building, incredible track layouts, and a collection of utterly miserable middle-aged men who clearly resented having to let the paying public into their playground.
We learned how pizza varied across a variety of European countries, especially in Slovakia, where you had to pay extra to get tomato sauce on the base, and I realised with each morning how deeply I loved her. That had been confirmed as we stood on the Spanish Steps, arms around each other’s waist, while some random Italian man grabbed her bum. I don’t know quite how she took hold of his hand, and the only words I understood from her sharp comment in Italian were variations on ‘Cazzo’ and ‘Cornuto’, but he left in a hurry, and her smile (and, as she immediately confirmed, her bum) were all for me.
I had to challenge her after that display of fluency.
“You never told me you spoke Italian!”
One of her trademark grins.
“I don’t”
“Well, didn’t sound that way to me, or to him, from the look on his face”
“Nope. I just like learning bits of languages. The sweary bits. Want to hear some Spanish or Dutch rudery? Arabic?”
We made our way back to our hotel near Maria Maggiore, laughing like idiots for much of the way. That was yet another of my favourite memories of her.
In daily life, however, I was also bonding with Keith. Unfortunately for Keith, he wasn’t doing the same with several of our colleagues, which was far from a surprise, given the prevailing atmosphere in the place. A lot of it came down to one specific manager, the famously bipolar Doctor Derek and Mister Simes, but it led to so much fallout in terms of backbiting and snide remarks that it became a signature of the office environment. It wasn’t ‘turtles all the way down’, but snide remarks and petty points-scoring. Even on the ‘team nights out’ that I did my best to avoid, the atmosphere was unfailingly one of men keeping their heads above the notional water by climbing on the backs of others. Those that ended up drowning, who left the job for their health or their sanity, were laughed at as weaklings.
It was almost all men there, but the few women did their level best to outdo them in snark and snidery. I had been looking for a new post for some months when Keith arrived, but the job market was absolutely stagnant under That Woman. Keith was a life preserver, to keep the drowning analogy going, and a lifesaver for my social life.
He had initially found a half-decent flat just off Crawley Green Road, and once we had both realised that we shared an interest in folk music, it became a stop-off for me on the long walk back from the Red Lion to my own place.
That had been an unexpected meeting. Caro being on a late shift, I had turned up at the bar to get my first pint ready for the early floor spots, on the sensible basis that if a certain member was going to perform that evening I would need some analgesia, when Keith came and stood next to me. He looked more than a little surprised to see me.
“Thought you’d be down at the Plume with the rest”
“No, mate. This is my regular, at least this night of the week”
“This night… You here for the folk club?”
“Guilty as charged. You as well?”
“Yup. Got someone I want to hear; had some good reports. Trouble is, they do a lot of Welsh stuff”
I chuckled.
“And you don’t speak any?”
A broad grin.
“I may climb there a lot, but my Welsh is limited to please/thanks/two beers. That and some of the road signs, anyway. You heard them before?”
“Nope. Not that bothered if they turn out to be shite, though: still better than being down the Plume with that lot”
I realised I had most definitely shown him all of my cards, but I had a good feeling about him, and that was borne out over the next few months as we grew to know and like each other. The shit at work was so much easier to bear when I knew there was someone decent to talk to and share a raised eyebrow with when Doctor or Mister got even harder to tolerate. Life preserver, and indeed job preserver, that was Keith.
We became a threesome at the club whenever Caro was free, and then Penny made it four, as she seemed to find Keith’s arse as magnetic a feature as I did Caro’s grin-dimple; nobody at all was surprised when they moved in together in his flat, followed by a move out to Sundon Park and those walks out away from the plastic lager dispensary just around the corner from their 1950s semi.
Life was good, at least those parts that didn’t directly involve our workplace. We started planning weekends away, hen shifts allowed, and while the shorter ones usually meant time at the Peak gritstone edges, the longer ones usually meant North Wales. In both cases, as we men were both bikers, the accommodation was of necessity in whichever youth hostel was nearest. Carrying a full set of climbing gear along with camping equipment for two was never really an option, not if either of us wanted a modicum for comfort on or off the bike. The only time we managed to combine the two loads was when Alan and Auds joined us, their car becoming a joint asset, and those trips were almost always in either North Leas below Stanage or Little Willy’s below the east face of Tryfan.
The folk club became our other anchor in a town full of dark undercurrents and open nastiness, where every group seemed to hate every other one. I was most definitely looking for an exit strategy, but that went on hold the day Carolyn proposed to me.
“Mike, love?”
It was about four in the morning, and I was in that odd state of semi-waking that comes with knowing the alarm is going to go off, but not for at least another ninety minutes. I grunted out something approximating a working brain, and Caro snuggled closer to me as the rain rattled against the window and I realised the ride into work was going to be a miserable one.
“Was talking to Penny last week. She says she’s been dropping hints to Keith”
“Mmfff?”
“Yes. Exactly. Heavy hints. That suit still fit, or do we need to go shopping?”
“Gnumf?”
“Heavy hints, love. Keithy Boy needs to start paying attention, and you need to start writing a speech”
That one woke me up properly.
“Speech? You mean, as in wedding stuff?”
“As in hints he couldn’t miss, love. Not forever, anyway. Question has been popped and ring will be visible next climbing club night”
“Shit! He never said anything to me!”
“More important people to talk to. Pen, for one. She drops good hints, does Pen. I don’t do hints, never have”
I mumbled something about stretchy trousers and pool tables, and she poked me in the ribs.
“Those weren’t hints, they were hooks”
All of a sudden, I was wide awake, eyes and mind fully open.
“So what you’re saying is that you think we…”
Another dig in the ribs.
“Nope. None of that. Just need to know what date works best for you, marriage wise. Not taking no for an answer, and I don’t think ‘No’ is going to be anywhere in your thoughts. I know how well my hooks are set, Mike. Now, how much time before the alarm goes off?”
“About an hour and ten”
“Then we’ve got time for a shower afterwards. Come here, love”
CHAPTER 8
There were very few people from work at the reception, which Penny and Keith held in the Red Lion, in the same stables bar the folk club usually occupied. As many of the guests were fellow folk club members, it was familiar territory for them; the climbers, being climbers, simply needed to know what direction the bar was in.
The wedding itself was held in the Registry Office on George Street, and our plan was to wander back that way later in the evening to hit the India Garden on Wellington Street for a final refuelling stop. As the soon-to-be-married couple would be flying to Palma the next day, I pitied anyone sharing the plane’s cabin and their curry-related effusions.
Auds and Caro did the bridesmaid thing, I did the best man bit with the ring, and about twenty of us then descended on the Lion. They had a proper meal for us, the staff having gone above and beyond, and of course someone had brought their guitar, another two their fiddles, plus some squeezeboxes, and if the people from our climbing club didn’t know the songs when we started, they did by the time we decamped to the Garden.
Parts of my memories of that day were somewhat blurred the next morning, and I felt rather fragile for the early part of the day, but as Keith always said, the liver is evil and must be punished. Caro didn’t rise from our bed till gone eleven, and when she did, she just pointed at the kettle.
“Tea. Now”
There was no way we would have been at the airport in time to wave them off, so we just spent the morning planning our own trip for the following weekend, four days’ worth of it after some convenient swaps of our shifts. I had traded up to a 900 Kwak by then, and after some careful studying of the bus timetables, we had a Plan.
I stood astride the Kwak that Friday morning as Caro mounted behind me. The tent and sleep mats were on the rack, our other kit spread around throwovers, tank bag and a rucksack Caro was wearing. That nearly meant her falling over backwards, but she flung out a hand to grab my shoulder, finally settling down with a wriggle. I tried not to laugh out loud.
“You’ll have to grow some longer legs, love”
“Yeah, and you’d love that, you lech, wouldn’t you? Let’s get rolling before the rain starts!”
“It’s set fine, woman”
“We’re heading for Wales, so enough said. That and the soul sucker”
Her name for the stretch around Birmingham; I set the bike into first gear, and we were indeed rolling, through the edge of the town to the M1 and a peel off onto the M6 after Watford Gap services. I gritted my teeth as we approached the pit of despair that is the urban stretch of motorway through Birmingham, where it became a mixture of stop-go-stop-go with occasional filtering when the cars became stationary.
My mind was in its usual odd mix of concentration and silliness, and when a number of stationary cars did let us through, I thought ‘letters’, ‘stationary’, ‘stationery’, and of course I ended up trying not to laugh too hard. I am far too easily amused when locked into a bike helmet, oh my.
Finally, as we approached Hilton Park, the traffic started to speed up, and when we peeled off onto the M54 I was able to let the Kwak have its head, despite the shitty concrete surface to the road. Through Telford, and then watching for the tail of the inevitable queue as the three-lanes-each-way motorway abruptly became a single carriageway road with one lane each way.
I will never understand how such a road scheme ever got signed off as acceptable. The traffic wasn’t that bad, for once, and finally, after threading Shrewsbury centre, we were waiting at the lights by the Welshpool turning. On through Bicton and Montford Bridge, my spirits lifting as we got closer to the border and landmarks came and went. The Old Three Pigeons and its tank, better roads with decent sightlines, and much less traffic. The first raindrops hit us just before Oswestry, so I pulled into our usual spot for a hot drink and its consequences.
Little Chef was the place back then. The food was never outstanding, but both of us found it tasty, and this one did pots of tea rather than single cups, along with cafetieres of reasonable coffee. Dropping Caro off to order our refreshments, I took the bike around to the pumps to refill the tank, using its lack of width to sneak back to the café through some bollards rather than ride it all the way round again. Sod having a car.
Back in, as the rain squall blew through, and blue followed. I still grabbed both pairs of overtrousers before entering the café.
Hot tea for her. Hot coffee for me. An Olympic breakfast for each of us, despite the time of day, and once refuelled and drained pf non-precious bodily fluids, we were onto the last short stretch of English roads. There was the usual wriggle as we dropped into the valley before Chirk, as Caro craned her neck to look at the canal aqua/viaduct, and then it was ‘Croeso i Gymru’, and much nicer roads after Chirk. The rain held off, my spirits lifting with each familiar spot, and then that view from the Geeler Arms before the descent to Pentrefoelas. The hills closed in on us before the more open space by the Waterloo Bridge and the usual Betws traffic jam.
Breathe, Michael. Not far now.
Right-left by the Ugly House, carefully through Capel, grin at the sunlight gilding pen Llithrig and finally, finally the long straight past Helyg to Little Willy’s. Caro used the gate post to steady her as she dismounted before the cattle grid, and then we were parked up against Emlyn’s garden wall as we unloaded and dumped our bags on a suitable sweep of grass.
Sod Caro’s cobwebs and elf spoo tents; we had my Wild Country dome tent with us. I was all too familiar with the winds in that place. While I set out the bedrolls, Caro erected our little windbreak and stove before walking over to the waterpoint so that we could get outside another cuppa. We were alive once again, rather than just enduring another day.
I did the usual run down into Bethesda for beers and chips, along with our usual basics for breakfast and a couple of evening meals, and once back at the tent we settled down with my purchases before pulling out the bus timetable I had managed to find in the post office, confirming our plans for the morning. By eight thirty, we were in bed, at peace with each other and the place that held us to itself like a second home.
A walk past the Milestone the next morning left me twitchy, because I would normally have peeled off at that point for the crag and some favourite routes. Instead, we kept walking until Idwal Cottage and its bus stop. I was still awash with tea, so we left Dennis and Dafydd’s place alone and simply settled into our seats for the first part of our expedition.
Two bus rides and a stroll up a track, and we were under the Aber waterfall and checking our loading once again. We weren’t heavily laden, as we only planned to be out for one night, but things like sleeping bags are bulky things. We were carrying one of Caro’s lightweight tents rather than my fortress, but our intention was to overnight in the Foel Grach shelter rather than pitch it.
Through the firebreak tracks in the conifer plantations, goldcrests and other small birds calling before ducking out of sight, past the slightly awkward but at the top of the falls, and then out onto the open moorland. It wasn’t an area I really knew, but the walk was an obvious one for anyone with a soul, and both of us had been planning it, separately, for years. We stood at the top of the escarpment, looking out to the Irish Sea, hand in hand and grinning.
Sod Luton.
The next several miles were all new to both of us, even though there were several places, such as the wire fence on Drum, that I had seen in multiple photographs, usually with long streamers of ice and wind-driven hoar frost. It wasn’t that sort of day, thank god, and while our gaiters were essential, we didn’t need our waterproofs at all. We passed the minor summits before the first of our six three-thousand-footers, Foel Fras, and it was already heading into late afternoon. The whole route was around fifteen miles long, and if we had pushed harder we could have knocked it off in a day, but that wasn’t the point. We had taken a long break sitting on grass by the drystone wall near Drum, enjoying the sun and the games being played by ravens and buzzards in the cloud-studded blue dome above us, just holding hands as our others held a brew from a thermos flask Caro had squeezed into her rucksack.
“Mike?”
“Yes, love?”
“What did you think of that do? Penny and Keith’s?”
“Um, thought it was a good one. The bits I remember, anyway”
“Yeah. I did as well. Our sort of people, most of the ones who were there. Gave me some ideas, it did, but I had another thought. Any idea what the rules are about getting wed somewhere you don’t live?”
“Dunno, love. Where were you thinking of?”
“Not sure. I mean, somewhere like Lindau would be magic, but that’s a bit of a stretch. I was wondering if somewhere up here, or maybe by Fort Bill, that sort of place, might do it”
“Would put the mockers on some people coming, too much travel. That and time off from work and stuff”
She grimaced.
“Yeah, I know all that, just as I know we’re going to end up in bloody George Street, but we don’t have to stay there. Split the hitching and the knees-up? There’s a bunkhouse in Llanberis we could block book, and plenty of hotels there have a decent function room”
I shuffled across to her so that I could lay an arm over her shoulder.
“Not been thinking much at all, then?”
That trademark grin, dimple and all.
“Well, not beyond ringing the bunkhouse and seeing when they’re free. October do you? And. Er. The registry office has a slot, and I sort of sent a cheque off to that bunkhouse for a deposit…”
Of course I kissed her. She had stitched me up properly, but then again, as it was something I was coming to realise more and more, that stitching was taking me somewhere I really wanted to go. As we separated, she grinned once more.
“How much room in this shelter place, then?”
“Well, two people can fit in, side by side, or spooned, as long as they are REALLY close friends!”
A happy laugh.
“Or I could just lie on top of you…”
The rest of the walk took enough breath away to stop most of our laughter, but our smiles never left us. Finally, Foel Fras and Carnedd Uchaf were behind us, and we were coming towards the top of the third of our three thousands, Foel Grach, hand in hand once more. I led the way round the scabby pile of rocks that gave the summit its name, to find the shelter door open, and a middle-aged couple sitting outside. A sleeping bag was just visible inside. Bollocks.
I still had to ask.
“Excuse me--- are you planning on staying the night here?”
The woman answered, as her obvious other half worked a small stove rather similar to my own. She looked to be in her forties or so, very slim, in a powder-blue T-shirt and baggy walking trousers, boots unlaced. I recognised her as someone I had met more than a few times in the usual places, like the Vaynol Arms and the Idwal snack bar, as well as on some of the wilder walking routes.
“We are that. Were you hoping to do the same?”
Caro answered for me.
“We were that. Just walked up from Aber; going on to Little Willy’s in the morning”
The older woman winced.
“So sorry, love. Bit of a tradition for us, this one. Wedding anniversary. What do you have with you, kit wise?”
Caro was firmly in charge at that point.
“We have a decent tent broken down between us, so don’t worry. Just need to find a softer spot. I’m Carolyn, by the way, and the big lump’s Mike”
“Well, I’m Pat, him now literally indoors is Rob. Nice to meet you. Got a stove and water?”
I nodded, and Pat grinned.
“Get it set up next to ours, then, and I’ll show you a decent pitch for the night”
As I dragged out the necessary bits and pieces, she led my lover off around a corner of the rocks. I squeezed into the shelter next to a walnut-coloured man who seemed to be all sinew and flashing grin.
“Get brewing then, son! Devious, is my lass, and if that’s her usual site, it’s a bomb-proof one. How long are you up for, wherever it is you’ve escaped from?”
“Just a long weekend, and it was… Luton”
As I started our own stove, he winced.
“Oh dear. You have all of my sympathy indeed! Now, you smuggled anything past your own lass?”
“Sorry?”
“I humped up a couple of bottles of vino. Don’t tell me you don’t have those bottles I saw you load up with in Bethesda yesterday? It was you, wasn’t it? Big red and white Kawasaki?”
I couldn’t help shaking my head and grinning.
“I think I’ve met Pat and you a couple of times, or at least enough for a wave and a hello”
“Probably. Answer the question, son!”
I couldn’t help yet another grin.
“Guilty”
“Then, if you don’t mind, we can have a decent evening together, and toast the sunset together. Here’s the other two back. Pat? Met this’un before, we have”
She peered at me, then grinned.
“On Crib Goch once?”
“Indeed. Not to mention the Vaynol and the Bryn Tyrch”
“Ha! A man of taste”
Rob called past me.
“I saw him in the Co-Op yesterday. He’s come adequately suppled, he has, hint hint!”
Pat’s eyebrows rose, and a grin almost as dazzling as Caro’s shone out.
“Red or white, Mike?”
Later, as Caro and I were cooling down from making love in our little tent, I caught the sound of Pat as she and Rob did the same. I couldn’t begrudge them their place in the shelter, and I took comfort in the simple fact that people like them existed. People like me and my own lover.
‘Sod Luton’ was my last clear thought before sleep took me.
CHAPTER 9
The tent’s flysheet was soaking when I woke, but with dew rather than downpour. Our little spot was to the East of the rock pile that held the shelter, so the sun was already having an effect on the moisture. I wriggled into my breeks and shirt before slithering out, standing barefoot on a rock before stepping sockless into my boots. Nature was calling in an urgent way, and once I had disposed of that night’s wine I pulled the kettle out of my rucksack ready for Caro’s wake-up drink.
“You both up, love? I heard the clanking”
Pat’s voice was absolutely overflowing with good cheer, so clearly genuine. I stepped round the boulders to see her sitting outside the shelter as Rob worked the stove inside, and she waved a hand at him.
“Got enough water for another couple of mugs, love, if you want to grab them. Oh, and take a look over there past Yr Elen”
I did as she suggested, and it was stunning, the lower ground covered in fog, or the top of low cloud, the peaks around us standing clear in bright sunlight like islands in a pearly sea. I had only ever seen a few cloud inversions before, usually in wintertime, but I was most definitely sharing this one with my own lover.
Pat just stood grinning.
“Grab your mugs, then, and give her indoors, or intent, a prod. She won’t want to miss this!”
I did as advised, giving the tent a little shake to see if Caro had joined the land of the living. Almost…
“You better have tea ready for me”
“It’s being made. You need to get up; something special to see”
There was a little bit of grunting before she was sitting in the tent’s entrance, bare feet sliding into her boots.
“And?”
“Walk this way, Madam”
“I’ll walk my own way, if you don’t mind---fuck! That’s magic! Hang on; I need my camera”
A quick dive back into our tent, and she was back with me, her old SLR in hand, and our walk round to the shelter was interrupted by a couple of stops for pictures of the surrounding islands in the gloom. Pat had her own camera out, and I left the two of them to snap away, handing Rob our mugs as his stove hissed away. Once the tea was brewed, we both stepped out and settled onto a couple of convenient slabs, Rob sighing in obvious contentment.
“Which way are you going from here, Mike?”
“Oh, over the big lump, then down the zigzags to Llugwy and the CEGB road. You?”
“Pat likes the Ladders, so along them to Dafydd and then the gentler way off Pen yr Ole Wen. We’re in Little Willy’s as well, for a week”
“Oh, we’ve just got the weekend. Back to work for us both on Tuesday”
He grinned again.
“In That Place, then?”
“Oh yes. Need an exit strategy at some point, but, well, a job’s a job these days, and we have a roof, so, well. Caro? Tea!”
The two women ambled back to us, clearly discussing the finer points of their over-complicated cameras, and Pat sighed.
“People we know, Rob and me, they always ask why I keep taking pictures of the same mountains, and I always say---”
Caro interrupted just then.
“That it’s never the same mountain? Always different?”
Pat frowned slightly, then grinned yet again.
“Exactly that! One of those things, not got the word for it. Rob said it, years ago”
He nodded.
“Aye. Never found the right word myself, but it’s a soul thing. One of those ‘If you have to ask, you’ll never understand’ wotsits. It’s either in you, or it isn’t, and if it is, then you don’t really need a special word. Just sometimes, you see something, or you’re just in a place, and someone else, someone you’ve never met before, you just grin at each other, no words. Soul, that’s what it is. Being alive, properly”
Caro was nodding in agreement, but she had to slide a joke in, being who she was.
“Yes, but this one pushes his luck, though, being silly on rocky bits”
Pat’s eyebrows rose.
“You a climber, then, Mike? Not just a walker?”
I nodded.
“I am, but not the usual route into it, I suspect. Always been a hillwalker, but it was in Glencoe, years ago; got myself into a couple of places that felt hairy. Didn’t have the skills, I suppose, or better, the right state of mind, self-confidence. Found a local climbing club to try and sort that out, and ended up hooked”
Rob was frowning slightly.
“Am I thinking the same thing as you here? People who only see one game in the hills?”
Caro was nodding now, and when she spoke it was in a far more serious way than was usual for her.
“Yes, that’s it. One of the things that did catch my attention when we first met. I’m not a climber, never will be, but I’m happy on steep ground. It’s what they call the gestalt for me, the whole thing, whether it be the peaks, or the open spaces, or the natural history stuff”
Pat looked up sharply at that, as Caro continued.
“We are both in a club, down in what you call That Place. It’s supposed to be a multi thingy, climbing, caving and outdoors, but the cavers are only interested in holes, while most of the climbers--- we meet at an indoor climbing wall in a sports centre. Most of the climbers see real crags as being like an outdoor version of that wall, and I swear some of them seem to expect bloody cleaners to come round after them”
Pat snapped out a terse “If you can carry it up the hill when it’s full, you can bloody well carry it back down when it’s empty!”, and we all nodded, silent as we each sipped our tea.
Rob muttered something under his breath, and Pat nudged him to share it.
“Aye, I was in the climber’s caff in Llanberis once, having a look through the new routes book. Someone hadn’t understood what the book was for, and put in a comment on a day’s walking, and instead of just putting a label on the book explaining what it was for, loads of ‘real climbers’ had written a whole series of things like ‘wanker’ and that. I think here, the four of us, I think we all know who the real wankers are, am I right?”
There was no disagreement to that, so Caro turned the conversation away from the nastiness to lighter things, from bird life to the best local places for getting pictures developed.
“I always leave mine till we get home, otherwise, on a bike, with rain, the prints get ruined”
Pat shrugged.
“We’re in the car, so we pop into Bangor, use the one hour service at Addison’s. Gives us time to get some groceries and stuff; better choice in the big city than in Bethesda”
Rob barked out a laugh.
“Aye, and the rest! You two, she has somewhere else she spends a lot of time in over there. You going to admit it, love?”
Another shrug from his wife.
“Guilty, I suppose. Cob Records. Got a superb folk section, and obviously loads of the Welsh stuff you can’t find anywhere down our way”
It was my own turn to look up sharply, before grinning.
“You two folkies as well, then? Got our own club down in That Place. Good crowd, there. They get some good acts in, but then the club gets a grant from the local arts council. Be all floor spots without that, it would”
Pat laughed.
“Nothing wrong with a decent floor spot. Unless it’s from Rob, there. Sometimes he thinks he can sing. You know there’s a club in Bethesda? Can be a bit irregular in the Summer, but me and him, we drive down, toss a coin for who stays off the beer. You’ve missed it this week, though”
That was me shown up as a fount of local knowledge, for I hadn’t realised such a place existed.
“If we’d known, hell! Always avoided Bethesda. Bit of a reputation, that place. And being on a bike puts the mockers on things”
Pat was insistent.
“You got out to the Vaynol, though, and the Bryn”
“Ah, the Bryn’s next door to the Youth Hostel, almost. If I’m climbing, I don’t camp; no room for both on the bike. If I’m up with the club, they tend to blitz the Pass, so we camp at the Grochan, or doss at Humphrey’s bunkhouse, so it’s a walk to the Vaynol. Been warned off Bethesda too often”
Rob was shaking his head.
“Place has a reputation, I’ll give you that, but once you’re inside it, they’re good folk. Tell you what: if we bump into each other again, at Willy’s, me or Pat will drive you down for a pint and some music. Now, I think it’s time for bacon sarnies. What have you two brought?”
We finally parted on the top of the ‘Big Lump’ after a round of hugs and handshakes, as Caro and I turned South-East for the Saddle and the other two set off along the ridge to Dafydd. I hadn’t been wrong about the gloom, and by the time we were on the Zig-Zags it was raining steadily. We had paused at the base of the little rock step to pull on our waterproofs, and after the knee-destroying descent of the VEGB road, we were sweating heavily. I really needed to get one of the new breathable jackets, I realised, but it was still far better being warm and moist than cold and wet. My bigger tent was still dry inside, of course, and after topping up our water supplies, Caro and I left our boots and waterproofs in the rear vestibule while brewing up in the front one, then settled down to read as the sound of the rain on our fly gradually diminished, an opened sleeping back laid over our lower halves..
“Mike, love?”
“Yes?”
“That couple, Pat and Rob. They’re really, dunno, right? I mean, right in their skins, right for each other. Do you think we’ll ever get that settled?”
I turned onto my side, setting down my book and pulling her to me.
“Only one way to find out, love, so you better be ready for October”
She squeezed me tightly enough to stop my breath, before kissing me.
“Walk those paths together, then?”
I kissed the tip of her nose.
“Oh yes!”
There was a rattle of pans outside, just as things might have become more interesting., and Pat’s voice.
“I’m driving tonight, if that’s Mike and Carolyn in there; we’re eating in the dry at the Bryn. Fancy a lift?”
Living life the way we needed to, together, and with new friends. As soon as we were back in Luto, Caro and I sorted out the banns. October 12th would be our wedding day, followed by a long weekend in Llanberis. The Rogal Victoria had a function room for a blow-out, and the bunkhouse was more than glad to take a party booking for what was heading for the off-season.
The one place I didn’t shout too loudly about our nuptials was at work. Derek and Simes were most definitely not going to be welcome at the feast.
CHAPTER 10
It was a hell of a do. While there were a lot of folkies along, the atmosphere was predominantly focussed on climbing. I was a little surprised at how many of said folkies were ready to engage in outdoor stuff, but Caro had nudged me early on with a very heavy hint about tradition, land, culture and, overall, being a folky. When the instruments came out, a couple of the waiters in the Royal Vic said something about music licences, until their duty manager appeared, said something more pointed about taste, and then, clearly deliberately, sat down for a listen.
The couple of days after the reception were wonderful, ours spent almost entirely at Tryfan Fach ferrying newbies up the easy slab. I really didn’t mind, because they were all our friends, and they were smiling, and that was more than enough for me—for us.
Luton had been different, and I will gloss over the interrogation I got from Dr Derek (for it was him driving that day). I gave an answer involving privacy, difficult family and other lies, and left it at that.
Fuck him.
We had the formal bit, just as with Keith and Penny’s wedding, at the Registry office in George Street, followed by a piss up that started in the Lion, ‘because tradition’, went to the usual restaurant, ‘because more tradition’, and then continued in The Two Brewers because ‘independent brewery with decent ales’. Tradition was most definitely not observed in the aftermath, which left rather a lot of us crashed on floor space offered by those of our crowd that had some available. What we had in the way of a ‘honeymoon’ followed the days in Snowdonia as Caro and I took a cheap package to the North of Mallorca and hiked and scrambled on the sharp limestone of the Serra Tramuntana, staying in the resort town of Port de Pollenca.
Caro loved the place, because it was absolutely overflowing with exotic birds, from hoopoes to a large number of gulls, including one that ambled around on top od the little breakwaters just offshore, allowing us to swim to within six or seven feet of them. There were rock pinnacles at the entrance to one little valley, where I spent a couple of our evenings soloing as Caro watched all sorts of rarities, and that same valley gave us access to one of the most wonderful of the ridges, where the crest was at the top of a natural arch that pierced the whole thing from East to West. The food, once we found our way past the ubiquitous ‘English pubs’ and other rubbish, was another delight, despite the lousy excuse for beer.
The local drink was at least rather better than the keg piss on sale in those ‘English pubs’, so we managed; besides, there was always wine. I found myself laughing happily on one scramble, and that brought a smile from my wife.
“What’s funny, Mister Rhodes? Or are you just happy?”
“Well, I am indeed happy. Mrs Rhodes, but I was actually laughing at a sort of reversal”
We were sitting on top of that same ridge just then, about fifty yards from one of the ‘windows’, and I just waved my water bottle at her.
“Here we are, with loads of things to keep water in, and if we were back in Wales, we would be more worried about keeping it out!”
She shook her head, grinning.
“You are perverse, Mike”
“Guilty, but you love me anyway”
That brought a much wider grin from her, and a “Guilty!” of her own, before she turned back to more important things.
“You having that octopus on a plank again tonight?”
“You mind?”
“No, as long as I can have one of those stuffed bream things”
Her laughter was sudden and loud.
“Those poor, stupid buggers going to that crap chippy place. Will they ever see what they’re missing?”
“No sense, no feeling, no tastebuds. Oh, and I did a sneaky for two days’ time”
“And?”
“Got hire bikes reserved for a ride down to that reserve you wanted to visit”
“On their saddles?”
“Well, I suggest you wear your cycle shorts for it”
“Yeah, I’ll just pop home, then”
“Nope. Packed them with mine, when you weren’t looking”
That was a snapshot of our honeymoon, in so many ways, almost all of them of the very best. I will gloss over her occasional kicks to my shins when, as she claimed, my snoring got excessive.
Luton was a shock in some of the worst ways, only slightly eased by our existing familiarity with the place. We took the time on our last day off to spend a silly amount of money at the ‘one hour’ photograph place, getting two sets of prints from each roll of film so that we could each get the obligatory interrogation by colleagues out of the way. I had my own little worry just then, because I was expecting a number of letters, and four days after our return, four of them had landed on my doormat.
Four of us were sitting in the Two Brewers that evening, our packets of holiday snaps doing the rounds, when I drew the letters from my coat pocket.
“Keith, Pen: Caro and I have talked about this, and we’re on the same page, so don’t worry about domestics, but it had to be done”
Pen looked sharply at my wife, and she nodded back.
“Yes, love. I’m on the same page as you here. Two can live as cheaply as one, so on and so forth, and that gives my boy here a choice. Doesn’t have to put up with that shit any more, does he?”
Pen shook her head.
“Two shits. One body, but two shits, and there are others there as well. Not as shitty, though”
Caro shrugged.
“Toilet’s a toilet, however many turds are in it. Can’t flush that one, though. Want to show them what we’ve got, lover mine?”
That warmed my heart beyond words, for she could have argued in so many ways, about steadiness of income, stability, financial risk, and all she had said after I had revealed my plan had been “Bastards, all of them, except Keith, of course. You need out. How are we doing it?”
‘We’.
I pulled the letters out, fanning them on the pub table.
“I put in ten applications. Six never replied. These four are one rejection due to ‘the economic climate’, one ‘please ask again in two months’, and two offers of a contract. One’s as a sort of peripatetic rescue service for people who’ve got their accounts into shit state, and the other’s a settled post in the company HQ, working in market development”
Penny looked up at that.
“Which means?”
“Place has a lot of irons in a lot of fires. I would overlook the various accounts, look at profitability, suggest where the best opportunities lie”
Keith put his glass down, looking at mine to see if I wanted a refill. I nodded, and as he rose, he pointed at the first letter.
“My tuppence worth is that if you are forever out and about sorting other people’s crap, you won’t actually be going anywhere in the job. SOS?”
“Could I have a SOD instead? Fancy something a bit chunkier after all that lager”
Penny waited till he had gathered the empties and left for the bar before passing her own comment.
“Not spoken to him yet, but, well, I’m in the same boat here. Or rather, we are. Don’t know what to do, though, cause Keith hasn’t got your qualifications”
I shook my head.
“He’s a solid worker, Pen”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t… Look, it’s a warzone out there, finding jobs right now. He’s not got the ammunition he needs”
“Want me to see what’s about?”
She looked over her shoulder towards the bar, then back towards me and Caro.
“No, ta. For those reasons only, not slapping you down. I’m working on it, trying to think of a way to sort it. You two with us on that one?”
Caro reached out for her hand, giving it a squeeze.
“I can answer for both of us here, and it’s a simple one: don’t be silly. Of course we are. Hi, Keith--- we’re talking about the best way to wind up your boss-stroke-bosses when my darling here jumps ship. Any fun ideas? The nastier and more perverse the better”
Penny raised her fresh glass of Shefford Old Strong, to clink it in turn against each of ours, starting with my pint of Old Dark.
“We likes perverse, we does!”
I started to draft an acceptance letter for the better job as soon as we were home. I left the planning of perverse exits to my wife; she was ever a mile ahead of me in such matters. In the end, we kept it low key, Penny’s suggestion of inviting Simes and Derek to a leaving do in a pub we would be nowhere near being dismissed as too complicated. I simply did the standard thing of paying some money to the nearest pub to the office, for sandwiches and a few drinks ‘behind the bar’, before handing back all my keys, pass, date stamp and so on.
The real do, of course, was held in the Lion as part of the Folk Club, and our journey home was by taxi.
I was free
I will admit that the new job was a challenge, but it was a refreshing change in management style. Derek/Simes Farrell had always concentrated on what could be called ‘process’, whereas the new place was clearly focussed on ‘outcome’. Harry Bartholomew, my new boss, or rather immediate manager, spent quite a while explaining what he wanted me to achieve, only leaving what he called signposts for the method, and as long as I could demonstrate appropriate results, it would be down to me how I got them. I was almost in shock at the change.
When I say Farrell concentrated on ‘process’, of course, I really mean nitpicking. His attitude was that whatever good result had been achieved, there had to be a thread he could find to tug that would unravel it all to demonstrate how only he was in any way competent, and that everyone else was useless. I was definitely well out of there, and as I was now settling into a more normal pattern of working hours, Caro and I were able to spend more evenings and mornings with the Hiatts exploring how well the pubs in Sundon kept their ale. Ride the bike there, lay out the bedding, put the world to rights, and chuckle over Caro’s idea of a ‘perverse’ departure.
It was simple, in the end. Once my feet were properly under the table at my new job, she had taken some of the photos from our honeymoon to a printer we knew through the folk club, and prepared a postcard. The idea was that a card would pass through the mailroom, where it could be read by anyone, and the gossip machine set going.
The picture showed me and Caro in the Los Faroles restaurant, smiling over a collection of wonderful seafood as a friendly waiter took a snap. The card was addressed to both Derek and Simes, and read “Bloody glad you weren’t here. Even happier you’ll never be anywhere near us again!”
CHAPTER 11
Routine could now be a thing in our lives, but that didn’t mean boring. Our weeks and months of domesticity were moored to fixed points, such as the folk and climbing clubs, and if Keith couldn’t make them due to his shifts, Pen was there to hold up their end of the deal. Whenever we could, Caro and I would pack our tent for a weekend of walking, or four of us would head off together for some climbing.
Caro was never a climber, which puzzled me, for she was unworried at height, as well as being more than competent on steep ground. When we needed a rope, such as during one horrendously iced-up traverse of Crib Goch or a seriously worrying bit of vile weather on Nevis that saw us having to make repeated abseils down via the Carn Mor Dearg arete, she knew exactly what she was doing, but she declined every offer of what she called ‘gymnastics’ on rock.
It took me a long while to work it out, but I suspected in the end that it was down to imposter syndrome. I would catch her looking at me every so often, with either a small frown or a hint of a smile, and things slowly came together in my mind.
Her lack of any sense of personal worth was well-hidden, but it was there all of the time. She had spent so much of her own hill-time solo, and each time she declined a rope and a chance at a route, it became clearer to me.
I won’t walk with others because I’ll be too slow for them.
I won’t climb with others because I’ll just look stupid, faff about and spoil their day.
If I really study routes, maps, history and gear, I won’t sound as stupid as I know I really am.
If I adopt a brash and cocky persona, nobody will be able to tell how rubbish I am.
A couple of anodyne conversations with Auds confirmed my suspicions, as she revealed how Caro’s love life had been a series of short, unfinished moments of ‘not quite’.
“Yeah, Mike, she saw you that first time, and it wasn’t as bad as Penny drooling over Keith’s shorts, but, well!”
“Auds: please don’t put images like that in my head. They’re not good ones”
“Yeah, well. Telling tales out of school, Mike, but she was all questions about you”
“What sort?”
“Well, apart from ‘Is he single?’, you mean? She did ask that, yes. Then it was ‘why’, Mike”
“And? What did you say?”
We were sitting in the bar after the climbing club that evening, Keith and Al being on the wrong shifts and the two women off to see some girly film or other, and Audrey reached across for my hand.
“What’s the worry, Mike? She’s not looking elsewhere, far as I can see”
“Oh, it’s not that, love. It’s just that sometimes she seems a little lost. Odd, really: only getting to know a woman properly after I marry her”
“Confidence, Mike. Self-confidence. Cards on table here, okay? She saw you, fancied you, and then, well, you are right. All the questions then, all the worry. It was me who suggested that bit over the pool table, with her arse and those trousers, by the way”
“Um, I had noticed that bit”
“Ha! Caught your eye, though, didn’t it?”
“That wasn’t what did it, Auds”
“What was it, then?”
“Honestly? It was her smile”
“Really?”
“Yup. Dimples and all”
She paused a moment for a sip of her orange juice, then smiled at me, a little sadly.
“I ran it past Al, to be honest. You two are much the same, you know? Not you and my fellah, of course. I mean you and her, not you and Al, course. Confidence thing. Both you and her, you and confidence. You cover it up with jokes and that, but it doesn’t always work”
Some ‘anodyne chat’. I tried to turn it away from the serious stuff, but Audrey just waved a hand.
“Shush! Me talking. Anyway, Al said it reminded him of something, of someone else, and he’s right. When he was at college, he had a friend, a girl friend not a girlfriend woman, and she was fat. He liked dancing with her, in the folk dance club, because she was big enough to balance his weight when it was a ‘swing your partner’. Sylvia, that was her name. Anyway, in the third term this new lad turns up, Malcolm, like half a hillside he was, and Sylvia just goes all slack-jawed and soppy. When everyone comes back after Summer holidays, she’s lost half her bodyweight. She saw what she wanted, and she went for it. That was Caro with you”
“She didn’t diet, did she?”
“Caro? No. Just sorted out a few things to boost her confidence, like that outfit at the pool, but it was more me and Al pushing her. Well, not pushing, really; just keeping her on course. You know something? I actually met Sylvia and Mal, just by chance. We’d gone to that place, folk day thing, near Aylesbury, and this absolutely gorgeous blonde comes up to Al, asks if he’s who she thinks he is, and then calls hubby over for a catch-up. Got her man, she did. Same with Caro. Same with you”
She paused for a while, as I sought for words, any words, words that might turn the conversation away from such private matters, but Auds wasn’t finished.
“I was going to say the usual shit, Mike, about not hurting her and that, but, well. No need for that one, is there?”
All I could do was shake my head, for she understood. Another squeeze of my hand.
“You’re just like her, love, and what you are both thinking, each about the other, is that you’ll fail them. Not going to happen, in my opinion. Just need to teach you what actually counts as failing, and get you to understand it isn’t in either of you. Anyway, sup up. Got a warm man due home shortly, and I have a cold bed to get him into. Think on, okay? Don’t do yourself down”
She was off, and I was left stunned. People, other people, seemed to see things so much more clearly than I ever could, or at least find better words, but I was still the one in the hot seat. I made that resolution anew: I would never let Caro down, whatever it took.
We had the tome and the weather forecast the following weekend, so we were off on the bike as soon as we were both home and changed. This was a walking weekend, based at a pub near Beachy Head. Ni climbing for me, but I would be with my wife, and she would be happy with the cliffs and the birdwatching, and there was always that trump card: it wasn’t Luton.
The pub was a great one, with some really good ale, as well as bloody good food, and the weather kept its promises. The cliff scenery was spectacular, and the ladder at Birling let us explore the beach and the base of those cliffs. I could see why the place drew suicides, but that wasn’t on that day’s list of things to think about as I spread a rug on a patch of shingle so we could enjoy our picnic properly.
“What are we going to do if those gulls nick our sarnies?”
I waved at the ladder.
“Café up there, love”
“Well, you’re the climber, so…”
“Cheeky!”
There was a loud crack followed by a squeal further up the beach, and I spotted a family playing a sort of cricket with a flat piece of driftwood. Dad was wielding the ‘bat’ while a couple of children took turns at lobbing pebbles to him, each one being smashed out into the waves. Caro chuckled at the sight.
“If we have kids, don’t do it the other way round, or you’ll just get the stone whacked back in your face. Same goes for me, I suppose!”
The way her eyes lingered on the family game roused my suspicions, so I just left her to watch rather than reply, until I was as sure as could be.
“Caro?”
“Yeah?”
My mouth almost locked up, and I could hear Audrey’s voice in my head, damning my self-confidence.
“You… Is that… Would you want…”
Deep breath; try again.
“Thinking about going for one of our own, love?”
She sat in silence for about twenty seconds, before almost whispering her reply.
“Would bugger up weekends away, love. Need to fit a sidecar”
My heart was pounding, and all I could hear was Audrey damning our shared lack of any trust in ourselves.
“Caro? Love?”
Still that faint voice, still looking away from me.
“I know what you want to ask me, love”
“Already asked that one, haven’t I?”
“Nope. It’s the other question. You want to ask if I think you’d be a good Dad”
She turned her face back towards me.
“Honest answer, love? I can’t think of anyone who could be a better one”
Suddenly, she was laughing, and then we were kissing, and it was as right as anything could ever be, as her sense of humour came back.
“Not letting any other bloke have a go, am I? When do we start?”
I couldn’t let her have the last quip.
“How’s your calendar for about nine months from tonight?”
CHAPTER 12
That next morning will always be special to me. I woke to bright sunlight shining around the edges of the curtains and filtering through the material, Caro still burbling away in her sleep, the room ripe with the smell of our demonstration of parental intent the night before. I felt embarrassed as I imagined what the cleaners would make of the state of our bedding.
She woke as I kissed her, and I whispered that we really needed to shower before finding out whether the pub breakfast would be as tasty as the previous evening’s meal. Yes, we did end up showering together, but a rumble from my stomach drew attention away from naughtiness to nourishment. We were both in similar outfits of shorts, T-shirts and approach shoes, as the press called our footwear, so apart from a quick attack of her hair with towel and brush there wasn’t much to delay us.
A decent selection of cereals and juices awaited us, and from what we saw another couple digging into, the Full English would be a good one. A waitress delivered two steaming pots to our table, and after I had poured our first cups of tea, Caro popped the lid from the pot and went to pour in the extra hot water to top it up.
The extra hot water turned out to be coffee. As the waitress delivered a rack of toast, she looked at Caro, her hand still on said coffee pot, and sniffed.
“Just topped the tea up with the coffee, haven’t you?”
Caro was very, very pink, too pink to speak, it seemed, for she just nodded.
A sigh from our waitress.
“D’ya want coffee, tea or both?”
I smiled at her.
“We’re tea people, Miss”
“Tina, that’s me. Give me five minutes and you’ll have a fresh pot. Now, are you going for cooked stuff after your cereal? You have a choice of…”
A long list of ingredients followed, which seemed to give Caro time to recover her voice, for when the waitress looked at her, pen poised over her little notepad, my lover just said “Yes”
Tina’s eyebrows lifted, and as she looked at me, I simply shrugged and nodded.
“How do yer want yer eggs? Fried, poached or scrambled?”
We had no need for lunch that day, which we spent threading our way down through the maze of embankments and paths to Cuckmere Haven, where Caro went a little intense over some birds. Our pub was at the Birling end of the Seven Sisters, so my bike sat safely in the visitor centre car park while a very nice woman in the visitor centre looked after our riding kit and we walked free. I do not believe I had ever been happier than I was that day.
The slog up to the top of the first/last Sister left us sweating, but of course one of us had brought a flask, and we took some time sprawled on the close-cropped turf simply staring up into the huge blue bowl of the sky as gulls and loose children competed at which could scream the loudest. Despite the noise, I was absolutely at peace, neither of us seeming to feel the need to speak, perhaps in fear of breaking the spell that held us.
We had to move, in the end, after a huge number of photos had been seized, and as I took one of Caro staring out to sea through her binoculars, I was approached by a smiling middle-aged woman.
“Would you like a picture together, love?”
I nodded my thanks, and she dropped her voice to a whisper.
“You on honeymoon?”
“Pardon? Oh; no. Just happy”
“Long may that continue. So many smiles from you two, I just thought, you know”
“It’s that obvious?”
She chuckled, pointing out a group of rather noisy youngsters.
“If you two can lie all peaceful on the grass while my grandkids try and kill each other, then that’s special on its own. Which way do you want the shot?”
We faced south-east for the photo, and years later I was amused to see that the reverse view, from the Coastguard Cottages near Seaford, had become a ‘standard’ shot for everything from calendars through book covers to electronic computer wallpaper. Our own picture ended up enlarged and framed, and the older woman got a hug from each of us before she went back to rounding up her brood and Caro and I started towards the Campbell monument.
The bench there gave us a comfy spot to drink our second flask of tea, which set Caro giggling.
“Penny for them?”
“She’s not here, love!”
“You know what I meant”
“Ah, just thinking of another brew up, and state of this bench, well, it’s as bad as that shelter on Foel Grach”
“Scenery’s better there, though”
She turned almost serious.
“Not sure… Well, yes, I am, and you’re right, but this is different. Got its own grandeur, this place, and you don’t get fulmars in the Carneddau”
“You do get thieving bloody gulls, though”
“Fair point, fairly made, Mister R!”
“How could it not be, Mrs R”
I grinned at her, stupidly happy.
“Back to the bike by way of the valley or the South Downs Way?”
“Ah, stay high for a bit. Should pick up some passerines, and before you say it, different habitat to the flood plain”
“I love it when you get all serious”
“Bloody well hope so! And all the other times as well, I trust”
“Of course. Offski?”
“Offski”
The visitor centre had our kit, as well as a café, so we did the traditional thing of a cake stop before our ride back to the pub, where we took a slightly later evening meal as a result of the extra calories.
The next day gave us the usual choice of which side of London to ride round. Queue at Heathrow or queue at the Dartford Crossing? I opted for Dartford, as the other side of London always seems far worse to me, and in the end there were fewer dickheads than was usual for those toll gates, and once we were north of the river and the Southend traffic had peeled off, we made good time to my sneaky corner-cut along the A414 to the M1, the bike running like clockwork as the roundabouts on the shortcut gave me a chance to do some riding as opposed to the steady monotony of the motorway. It wasn’t long before I was settling the bike onto its centre stand in our garage as Caro set the kettle going along with the immersion heater for a proper soak in the bath—for her, naturally: I would make do with a shower.
There was a message waiting on our answer machine, from Keith. They would both be free Friday evening onwards, and did we fancy a walk out to the Village, and by Village, they didn’t care whether it was our one or theirs. I tossed a coin, which Caro took from me.
“Nope. No sofa for me. They can come over; I’ll change the spare bed on Thursday. Give them a shout and ask if they want to eat out or in. Oh; ask them who’s on in the folk club this week. Lost track, I have, with all that shagging”
As I picked up the phone, she grinned again.
“And NO, Mr R, do NOT tell them why I have lost track”
They weren’t in, so I left a message for them, and it was just after Caro and I had settled our freshly-bathed bodies under the duvet that the phone rang.
“Hiya, Mike! Sorry about the hour; we were up Eyam again”
“Anything decent?”
“Er, I led Long John’s and Pen did Sunset Slab”
“Bloody hell! Did she find any gear placements?”
“ER, no. I was crapping myself all the way up. Her way up”
“Keep her away from Sundowner, then”
“I was thinking more of the Etive Slabs”
“Of come on! Neither of you is that mad! Anyway, Caro is insistent that you two come over here, and we hit Cutenhoe. She’s being picky about sleeping in a bed again”
‘She’ managed to get a hand free to slap my bare arse, and as Keith laughed and made silly jokes about sado-masochism, we confirmed arrangements for the following weekend. A meal in one of the pubs to be followed by some liver damaging, Keith’s bike sleeping next to ours in our garage.
It turned into another great evening, as was to be expected when four good friends got together. Caro had slipped behind my back to give Auds and Alan a ring, so there were six of us, which made it an even better night, filled with bragging about grades and routes, none of it really serious.
At no point did either of us mention our decision. I think we both held a superstitious dread of naming a future that might decide to take another path. What we did do was agree to a joint trip up three weeks later, to the Dark Peak. Alan was clear about logistics.
“Me and Auds, got our car. We can squeeze most of the kit in, if you like, You four will be biking, won’t you?”
Keith simply raised his pint glass.
“That’s us, mate! Lean and efficient”
Auds snorted out a laugh.
“Yeah, as long as someone else carries all your kit!”
The plan worked well in the end, despite our less-than honest protests, and it became yet another ritual. We would camp at North Leas under Stanage, walking across field paths in failing light to Hathersage for the pubs, returning with the help of Petzl head torches, our days spent on steep, rough rock, with the exception of Caro, who would drift off onto the moor, surrounded by red grouse, meadow pipits, ring ouzels and god knew what else.
Life was bloody good. Suck that up, Derek and Simes!
CHAPTER 13
The year turned, the seasons shifted, and no doubt Doctor Derek and Mister Simes continued to fight for dominance in their bony cave. Caro and I simply carried on in that same traditional way, both of the clubs taking enough of our spare time to make life worthwhile in other ways.
Sundon and Cutenhoe continued to receive our custom when Keith’s shifts allowed, and our bikes and outdoor kit earned their keep. The climbing club’s Christmas dinner that year was in Langdale, a very decent spread put on by the Sticklebarn in Langdale, a row of holiday let cottages putting up our very motley crew and a minibus delivering us there. It was Winter, and we were in the Lake District, so the weather could fairly be described as ‘moist’. That didn’t really matter, for we had waterproofs along with a rather different approach to being out in the wet.
We bouldered on the rocks below Scout Crags, did a few easier ‘big boots routes’ on the crags themselves, and Caro and I spent a very wet day, even for the Lakes, walking up to Stickle Tarn and then down past Easedale Tarn to Grasmere and a solid pub meal before sod-it-we’ll-get-a-taxi back to our cottage and a shared hot shower. There was snow on the higher tops, but all we had was rain, thankfully without wind, and when the bus arrived back in Luton, almost everyone in it was asleep. Not my usual means of travel, but I was not complaining. I was home and dry, in both senses.
We had a night at the other club just before Christmas itself, which was entirely floor spots from members, with no paid guest artist. All the usual traditions were in place, such as silly Christmas jumpers in the worst possible taste, as well as a surprising quantity of food brought in my ourselves and other members. Penny surprised almost everyone by bringing in a real, and very solid, Christmas fruit cake, which didn’t last the first half of the evening before it was devoured. As the last slice disappeared, Pen leant over and whispered to Caro, who laughed happily, but it wasn’t until we were home that she showed me the package Pen had slipped to her.
“She made four cakes, lover mine. Said she was fully aware of the predatory appetites of our fellow lovers of traditional music”
“No she bloody didn’t say that!”
Another happy laugh, and she held up a hand.
“Guilty as charged. She actually said ‘I know what bloody gannets this lot are’. Four cakes, she said. One for us, one for Alan and Auds, one to keep at home”
Suddenly, she was completely serious, and I saw her insecurity asserting itself yet again.
“Love, what did we ever do to deserve such good friends? I mean, what did I do? You’re just you, just yourself, so yeah, that bit’s obvious. Just, well… Boy or girl, love? Which?”
Subject changed before I could reassure her, so I just went with the flow.
“Doesn’t really matter to me, love, as long as they’re healthy and happy”
“Yeah, but with a boy, you’d get the chance to take them climbing, teach them how to play football!”
“Football? Really?”
“Point made, yeah”
“And girls can climb as well. Don’t be sexist!”
Another grin.
“But you love it when I’m sexist! Well, something that starts with sex, and ---”
We didn’t get out of bed till after the following noon, and no, it was certainly not a waste of a day.
New Year was seen in at Keith and Penny’s, with just a few other friends, and then it was into the long grey weeks until the pussy willows started to bring a little hope to the world. We spent a few days in Capel Curig youth hostel, walking through the rain until it turned to snow at the higher levels, and on one horrible valley day we slogged up the CEGB road to the top of the Carneddau and out to the shelter on Foel Grach. Not only was it deserted that day, but the drift of snow against the door showed it hadn’t had a visit for some time. Even with our stove running to make a fresh brew, the inside was like an icebox. There similar conditions on Moel Siabod, when we went up to do some polybagging, and I almost broke a tooth trying to bite into a frozen Mars bar.
Bring on the better weather. We filled our time in other ways, which included the usual pedestrian excursions to Cutenhoe and Sundon villages.
We got so fed up with being locked in that we bit the bullet and endured the holiday traffic to spend Easter at North Leas. Keith was on the wrong shifts, so in the end it was just the two of us, joining Alan and Auds, who had made a longer stay by coming up the weekend before, as well as doing us a favour in carrying my climbing kit in their car. While three of us jammed our way up thug routes, or balanced across thin slabs, Caro walked the length of Stanage to the North, or south past Carl Wark and Higgar Tor past Millstone to Owler. The April weather was kind to us, and while the Little John was packed, they knew us and managed to find us somewhere to sit to tuck into their generous portions of tasty food.
The Popular End and Robin Hood area were heaving with group trips, all in identical helmets, queuing up Grotto Slab and Flying Buttress, so we ended up by High Neb, exploring routes that saw far less traffic, and avoided Froggatt and Birchen completely. One afternoon was spent on Higgar Tor exploring our personal pain limits, at least as far as shredded knuckles were concerned. It’s fifty-foot leaning block, the angle leaving to top overhanging the base by fourteen feet. Climbing is mainly by handjamming. The result should be obvious, which is why we left it to the very last day of our mini-holiday.
A last night in the Little John, and everything packed away. Alan came over as we struggled to get our tent into its bag.
“Mike, you doing anything else in the week?”
“Work, that’s all”
“Well, why don’t you leave your camping kit with us as well? Motorway’s going to be shit state, and filtering would be easier without so much luggage”
“You’re a star, Al! I can get all we need in the tank bag. What do you think, love?”
Caro grinned.
“No argument from me—more room to wiggle, no rucksack. Just make sure you keep the front door key, love. And the petrol money!”
The bike felt so much nicer as we made our way down towards Chatsworth, sure-footed on the bends and a delight to ride. We climbed onto the moor past the end of Chatsworth Edge, averted our eyes from the temptation of Birchen’s, and left the wildness behind as we entered the edge of Chesterfield. Brampton was as grim as ever, but we fought our way past the local traffic until we finally made the A617 and then the M1.
It wasn’t that bad in terms of traffic, apart from the usual bit near the edge of Nottingham, where everything slowed down. There was another hold-up as we hit the hill after Loughborough, lorries queuing in the middle lane to pass some old Commer van with a large trailer and a stacked roof rack as it ground up the slope.
I knew what was coming, so we took a break and a duel stop at Leicester Forest, Caro almost sprinting to the ladies while I ordered two teas and a couple of ‘two for the price of three’ sandwiches to tide us over until home. We had around seventy-five miles left, but that included the delights of the traffic arriving from the M6. We spent as much time stretching and relaxing as we could before Caro simply slapped my thigh.
“Let’s get it done, love, and bagsy the first bath!”
“Okay. I’ll just drain and then we’ll get rolling. We got any milk at home?”
“You go and pee, I’ll do the milk run. We need petrol?”
“Be a good idea. Not filling up, not at these prices”
“Get moving, then!”
I put a tenner’s worth into the tank before we rejoined the M1, and just as I expected, it wasn’t that long before we hit stationary traffic just before the two motorways merged. That was the bit I always hated, where there was a choice between filtering between the lanes of stationary cars and lorries, or sitting watching the engine temperature climb until the fan kicked in and blasted hot air over my legs.
Five miles of stationary or slow-moving lumps of metal, the occasional driver pulling to one side to let us through, along with others who did exactly the opposite. We were just coming up on some foreign-plated articulated beast when it happened.
It wasn’t one of the trailer tyres but one from the rear offside driving wheel, I saw it as it blew, and the chunk of rubber hit me full in the chest before I could do anything. The bike shimmied, and I only just managed to keep it upright as horns blared around me. I felt something missing, and reached behind me to check.
Caro wasn’t there.
CHAPTER 14
I managed to steady the bike enough to get it onto its sidestand, pain ripping into my chest as I did so. Something felt broken there, and I found my vision greying out as I struggled to get off. There was a lorry stopped just to my left, another pulled slightly away to my right, angled into traffic. I found myself falling, another agonising stab from my chest as I sat down hard on the tarmac. I really didn’t want to look behind me, but it had to be done. I had to know.
Caro was lying on her side immediately in front of yet another artic, her head resting on her left arm. She would have looked as if she was sleeping, if her right arm hadn’t been ticked far too tightly into the small of her back. There were chunks of tyre all around us, and horns were blaring everywhere. As I struggled to make sense of it all, the driver of the truck to my nearside clambered down.
“Fuck, mate! You okay?”
He turned to look behind me.
“Oh shit… Mate’s run off to the SOS phone, putting a call in for an ambulance. Stay down, mate. I… shit. Other bloke’s checking. Stay down”
I found the pain getting steadily worse, and as I slumped back onto the road, he grabbed my throwovers and stuck them under my head as a pillow.
“Caro… Carolyn. Wife. How’s…”
He was looking back towards her, and I can only guess that some signal was passed, because he winced.
“Mate…”
A deep breath.
“Sorry. Sorry”
Another pause, and then he tried to brighten up.
“Jim’s back, went for the phone call, yeah? Says ambulance and that on their way. No. Stay down. You’ve got blood on your lips, and I don’t like that”
Things went away just then, and when they came back, there was someone in a yellow jacket kneeling next to me.
“Hello love. Can you tell me your name?”
“Michael Rhodes. Mike”
“I’m going to move you in a minute. Not far, and I will warn you first. I’m Jenny Hinton, I’m a paramedic. Got my mate Sean with me. We need to undo your jacket to see what things look like. Can you handle a little bright light?”
I nodded, and she shone a little torch into each eye in turn.
“Reactive and equal, Sean. Mike? I need you to tell me if you are in pain. Zero for nothing, ten for really bad. Got me”
“Ten. Fucking ten!”
“Right. Going to need to move you, get you onto a backboard and a collar, and get that lid off”
“Caro? My wife?”
There was a little catch in her voice.
“Not just now, okay?”
I am pretty dure I passed out as they moved me, and when I came to, they had an oxygen mask on my face and a group of police and lorry drivers was around the board thing I was now on.
“Two three, lift!”
I swung a little as they moved me to the trolley, and then I was in the ambulance, my jacket having vanished somewhere, and there was the prick of a needle in my arm, and then it all went away properly.
Light, and that smell that said ‘hospital’. I had a drip in my arm, and a mask over my mouth and nose, and I hurt. As I stirred, a policeman, who had clearly been dozing next to my bed, jerked upright.
“Mr Rhodes?”
My answer was a little muffled, with the mask in place, so I nodded.
“Going to call a medic, Mr Rhodes. Don’t think the normal way’s going to work here. Hang on a second, please”
He left my little room, returning three or four minutes later, a nurse in tow as well as another copper.
“Mr Rhodes, I am really sorry about this, but because you have been in a road traffic accident, I am required to check if you have any impairment through alcohol. The thing is, with your injuries, I don’t think it would be appropriate to take a sample of breath”
“Injuries?”
The nurse fiddled with the drip.
“Fractured sternum and two ribs, and a damaged lung, Michael. Doctor will tell you more when he does his rounds, but you are doing well now”
The first copper nodded.
“Not right to make you blow into my little machine, Mr Rhodes. I simply need your permission to take a blood sample. Sorry for this bit, but a refusal to comply is an offence in itself, for which you may be arrested. I am also sorry for the next questions, but when did you last have a drink?”
“About ten last night. We only had a few, cause we were… I don’t drive or ride with a hangover”
“Thank you, and that is appreciated. Nurse here will take some blood, and then we are done”
“What about Caro? My wife?”
The second copper made a face, and my man shook his head.
“Mr Rhodes, I am PC 433 Ibbotson, traffic officer, just for reference. I’ll leave you a note with my details. I am with the Northants force. I am really sorry to have to tell you this…”
He was as kind as he could be, as kind as anyone could ever have managed, but there is nothing kind in such news, nor could there ever be.
I was released after far too long a stay, as my various fractures and wounds settled into ache rather than agony, but I had a bottle of oxygen in the house for quite a while before my lung was properly healed, and there was an inquest.
PC Ibbotson was there, a man who had taken the trouble to ring me at home to confirm that my blood sample had returned the result he had expected. Jenny my paramedic was there, along with Cam Mackie, who had been driving the wagon behind us, and still had nightmares where he hadn’t been able to stop, as he had managed. Jim, who had called the emergency services, said his bit, as did Neil Shepherd, his driver, whose tyre it was that had caused so much pain, and who broke down in the middle of his evidence.
The verdict was simple: misadventure. Accident. The doctor’s evidence was that she had sustained a broken neck and a dislocated shoulder, but he couldn’t be sure if the damage had been done before or after she had hit the road.
The coroner gave his verdict, expressed his sympathy, and I went home and lined up all my bottles of single malt after one look into our wardrobes.
Alan and Auds didn’t push to drop off our kit, and Keith and Penny popped in frequently enough to make sure I was eating, often actually bringing food and insisting on eating it with me. Once my lover’s body was released, it was the two of them who stirred me into organising her funeral, and by ‘stirred’ I mean they actually did most of the arranging off their own bat.
It wasn’t a big thing. We buried her in Stopsley, and what passed for a wake/reception, whatever the bloody term it is for an afternoon piss-up when the love of your life goes into the ground, was of course held in the Red Lion. I ended up at Keith and Pen’s, throwing up in the small hours into a bowl they had left by the sofa.
It took a long, longtime before I could function again, but my employers were diamonds, utterly unlike the shitfest that Derek/Simes would no doubt have gloried in unleashing. It was two months before Alan and Auds turned up at my door on a Saturday, pushed their way in and simply stuffed my harness and rock boots into a rucksack. Audrey was insistent.
“Change. Now”
I was shoved and tugged into their car, and to my surprise we set off south, around the M25 and past the Dartford crossing. Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, and finally into a carpark with a long stretch of tawny rocks that looked rather soft, like gritstone’s soppier brother. Alan turned in his seat.
“Needed to get you out, mate, but didn’t want to take you… Well, you understand. This is Bowles Rocks, pay to climb, and the rock is weird, but well, you understand. This is a day out, with an option to climb if you want. Otherwise, just sit in the sun with a cuppa, and we’ll climb. Now…”
He went through a recitation of local etiquette, largely based on the simple fact that the alleged rock was as soft as butter, so no gear, long extensions over the edge to avoid rope-cut grooves, bar towels to wipe sandy dust off holds, and so on.
Of course I climbed. What else could I do? There were very few jams, a lot of palming and friction moves, and everything was rounded, and as a result I found myself getting more and more absorbed in the physical poetry of climbing. It was weird rock; where I would have thugged a grit route, I had to pull back and use control and, to be honest, delicacy in some moves. I ended up really enjoying it, in a perverse way.
Gradually, then, I came out into the world again, and everyone seemed to be happy with that. I kept my own counsel, though, about the thing I had found in Carolyn’s…
That particular act very nearly broke me, clearing her clothes from our home. Some went to friends, most to charity shops, and throughout it all I felt a horrible and painful sense of finality. She was really dead, and that just confirmed it, as did the used pregnancy test kit in her bedside drawer,
Positive.
CHAPTER 15
That was when I nearly broke, but I had a long chat with myself. Stupid bloody thing to say, really, but while my thoughts were screaming and painful, there was a little voice underneath the agony whispering words of… What? Not solace; not comfort. Just words of sense and sentiment.
Carolyn had loved me, at least as much as I still loved her, and I had absolutely no doubts on that score. She was gone, and I took what solace, what comfort I could, in the fact that it had been so quick. To be honest, there was nothing better I could find to lift me from my bed, but in the end it was all I had, and it was enough.
My first day back in work was awful, every colleague avoiding my gaze as well as the subject. My first evening back at the folk club was much the same, at first, until ‘Graham Two’ did his floor spot. He was always an odd mixture, our second Graham, the sort of man who went to a singaround with a guitar, but his heart was there, and his introduction was to the point.
“Bit awkward for me, this, but I am looking over there at someone we have known for years, and he is hurting, and we all know why. I don’t do sensitive, you all know that. I usually don’t sing in tune, but, well. I’m going to do this song, and I hope Mike understands why I’ve chosen it. You all know it, so please join in, drown me out if possible. This is for Caro”
He looked at his guitar, then took it off and leant it against the wall, before starting to sing.
“The first time ever I saw your face…”
I wept, as did just about everyone else, but we raised our voices, and there were other songs before Graham One led us into ‘Chemical Worker’s Song’, and my glass kept refilling itself, and yes, I was absolutely bladdered, but when I woke on Pen and Keith’s sofa, I was starting to sort my life once more.
Caro had given me so much of that life, so it was never mine to throw away. I started pushing myself out of the door, and our walks to Sundon and Cutenhoe were central to my healing. I no longer had family, but I had true friends, and they had earned their returns.
I really needed to leave that town, though, and when Keith and Penny shared their own plans, I was fully with them.
It chimed so well with my own position, with my mood. Penny loved her man so much she had left him, and I realised that my love would have been at her side in every way. What else could I do other than take her place? Pen left, and in essence Keith and I were living together, shuffling from house to house as shifts, weather and pub choice dictated.
His questions about our hopes for kids opened so many wounds, but I clung to that newborn sense of love and friendship. They needed me, just then, even though Pen was hundreds of miles away. She would ring Keith every day, and how she juggled her life around his shifts would have impressed me if I hadn’t already understood what a formidable woman she was. My turn to step up and do what was required. I kept my answers to ‘smile and agree’.
I doubt very much they were surprised when I announced my own move to Sheffield, and Pen was cackling with glee, in the end.
“Bugger me, Mike, but if only you were still working for that bastard! The two of you could do a synchronised sod-you….”
She collapsed into even more raucous laughter, while Keith just held his hand out for the phone handset.
“I can hear the noise she’s making, mate, even from where I’m sitting. She’ll go on for ages like that. Let me deal with it”
And do it went, along with their house after a couple of false alarms, and my second-best friend was away to the hills. I spent a while explaining it all to Caro, as I set a small potted plant on her grave. No, I didn’t believe she could hear me, nothing like that; It was just that the simple act of talking helped me sort out my own mind, to set my chaotic thoughts into better order. I became moot, a little while later, and I was in Sheffield, as my own life moved on and my old one slept in a Stopsley cemetery.
That new life had its issues, of course, as Sheffield had and has its own, but Kul and the Gang (of course he called them that!) were almost always delightful, and the work challenging and rewarding. That last needs some explanation, for accountancy is usually considered to be one of the most boring professions the world has ever seen, a synonym for ‘grey’, but ‘accounting’ wasn’t exactly what we did.
I suppose the modern term would be financial, or perhaps business, ‘consultants’, for we did things beyond checking and submitting annual accounts or checking VAT records. We went into a small to medium-sized business, and looked holistically at what they did, how they did it, and what records they kept. It could be the simplest of advice to a one-man business, say the old ‘odd-year/even-year’ record system, right up to Kul’s speciality, which was the expanding world of computerised records, or Betty’s, which was the subtle, and occasionally far from subtle, art of getting debtors to pay their bills.
I was immensely gratified to discover that there were two folk clubs within easy reach of my new home, one of them actually in Crookes, so another segment of my new life settled itself into place, and both Kul and his boy were more than happy to share their car with me for regular trips to visit the Hiatts. I asked Kul about that once, and only once. We were sitting in a Little Chef or Happy Eater or whatever, somewhere near Chester, grabbing a cuppa before the last run into the hills.
“Not wanting to head over to Leicester, see the family, at the weekend?”
Kul looked to Dal, who just shrugged a clear message of ‘Your tackle’. The man grimaced.
“What do you know about Leicester, Mike?”
“Been past it on the M1, on the way to the Peak. That’s about all”
“Well, let’s just say it’s another town that starts with an ‘L’, but this one rhymes with ‘fester’. Me and the missus brought the lad over here for much the same reasons you moved. We do the family thing now and again, but not that often. Me and this one, we spend, used to spend most of our time in the Peak, but then there’s you come along, and suddenly we’ve got free digs in the middle of real mountains! Win all round, we say”
Dal held up a hand to shush his father.
“Not really like he says, Mike. I know for a fact he’s tried to pay Penny and Keith for the stay, but they just ignore him, or tell him not to be silly. It’s why he’s grabbed the bill for so many meals over there. Doesn’t like to be beholden to anyone, my Dad”
Kul shook his head.
“Not what I think, son, not now, anyway. You have good friends there, mate. Thank you for sharing them”
The rest of the drive went quickly, but still too slowly, as I strained for the first sight of familiar hills. Down the coast road, with a slight twinge at the signpost for Aber Falls, then loop across smaller roads to pick up the A5, and finally, that time in the rain again, park up by the bunkhouse. It was quite busy that weekend, Keith cleaning out a shower stall as we walked in.
“Hiya, you lot. Can you go to the house for now? Pen’ll sort you out a cuppa. Got some mixing and matching of bed spaces just now; the rain’s brought a few of the campers in. If you leave your bags here, I’ll sort”
A knock on the front door was answered by a waddling woman, showing in all the traditional ways.
“Croeso, y bechgyn! [Lots more Welsh]. Tea’s hot; can one of you pour while I sort some snacks?”
She reached gingerly into a cupboard for some small plates, then a biscuit tin, leaving Dal to sort the drinks as she led us into the living room. There were extra cushions on her chair, along with a pillow, and a small rucksack leaning against the wall by the door. She caught my gaze.
“Grab bag, love. I should be dropping any time now. Nansi’s already done so”
Kul grinned.
“And?”
“Boy. Eight pounds four ounces. Calling him Dafydd Iestyn”
“Nice! What are you hoping for?”
Pen grinned.
“Healthy and happy, that’s all we want. Everything else is secondary. Now, other stuff. I am not going climbing with anyone…”
It was another good weekend, and the club was as fun and friendly as ever, but oddly, there was no sign of the miserable ginger fiddler. I found myself chatting to Illtyd at one point, because of course he simply settled at our table without asking, so I asked.
“Odd, Mike. Not seen him in ages, and he’s not been down the Bryn, which is his usual place to get pissed at. You never know; he might have succeeded”
I looked at him hard for a second, and he shrugged.
“You don’t think he had a death wish, ah? Amount of booze he put away?”
I had a flashback to that day we had watched him soling what I remembered as a thin and polished crux move, and shuddered. Illtyd took another slurp of his beer.
“Regular visitor, older woman, Pat, aye?”
“I know her”
“Aye. Well, she sometimes has a friend with her. Tall woman, hard-faced as anything. One winter, it was a hard one. That Steve Jones, he’d walked down here from Emlyn’s place, so a couple of us had a word with the two, that’s Pat and hatchet-face, and they gave him a lift back. Way the weather was, state he was in, he’d not have managed. Mike?”
“Yes?”
“He might be a miserable pisshead, but I don’t feel there’s any harm in him. This is my serious head on, ah? Be a shame if that’s it, lights out, but, that’s the way he’s always been heading. Just hoping he’s stopped coming for better reasons”
Those thoughts stayed with me all weekend, as we laughed and joked, and penny complained that she already had lousy bladder control because of her passenger, so STOP MAKING HER LAUGH.
Four days after we left Bethesda, that passenger disembarked safely. Seven pounds nine ounces, and her name was Enfys.
I was very, very drunk that night, and it was something I did at home and alone.
CHAPTER 16
I left it a fortnight before I next rode across to Bethesda, on the simple basis that not only would things be a little hectic there, but that the two of them---no, three of them now---might want or need some privacy. Family time.
I went over eventually, of course, with a present of a plush stuffed narwhal in deference to an old sequence of jokes in the climbing club back in That Place.
Enfys turned out to be a greedy little bundle, multiply wrapped, clamped to Penny’s chest, and I almost lost my parental urges until I watched the way her hands opened and closed on her mother’s breast, and the intimacy and need took my soul from me. I had to take a walk outside, the mountains a darker stain in the starry blackness of a rare clear Bethesda night. I found a wall to sit on as I struggled to bring my thoughts down to a reasonable level.
I couldn’t hate that driver, for I had met him, and I knew that he would carry Carolyn at least as long as I would. Who, in the end, could I blame?
“You alright, mate?”
Keith had settled onto the wall next to me as I had disappeared into the shitty morass of my life. He reached across and, to my surprise, took my hand.
“I don’t know if this is the right thing to say, just now… but I know. Caro spoke to Pen, before, yeah? Before… Fuck. Don’t get me weepy, mate. Caro… It was a big thing for her, being so…”
He stopped talking for a few minutes before pointing upwards.
“Clear skies here, Mike, when it isn’t raining. Stars. Planets. Being able to see other things we could never have done in That Place. Caro… Mike? She really loved you, but all that crap with her, not good enough for you, yeah? She needed approval, assurance that she wasn’t reading it wrong. Wishful thinking”
“But I told her, so many times…”
“I know, mate. I know. Two of you with the same blinkers on, both with the same fears. What she asked, told Pen, it was so typical of her. If it was anyone else, I’d be using words like ‘stupid’, but that wasn’t it. She wanted to know… Pen says Caro asked if she thought she could ever be a good mother. If Pen thought Caro could be, I mean. Just so unsure of herself”
He gave my hand another squeeze.
“Two of you the same, Mike, and what I saw, well, you’d both make amazing parents. Shit. Would have… sorry. Look, what do you think me and Pen know about it? Or Nansi and Vic? All parents have to find their way, even with all the books and that. What you can do now… What you need to do now is live the best life you can. Confirm what Caro thought of you”
He sat for a while in silence, then rose.
“Putting the kettle on, Mike. Cuppa?”
“Yeah, go on”
“What are you up to tomorrow? Got some stuff I really need to do at the bunkhouse, otherwise I’d come out with you”
“Well, Pen can’t, can she?”
He chuckled.
“Well, your arse will go to sleep if you sit there much longer. See you in a couple. I know how you take it”
He ambled off, and when I joined him in the house, the subject wasn’t mentioned again, although I am sure Penny had been brought up to speed by Keith. Men’s way of sharing, I suppose. I knew, and I suppose always had, that he cared, but gushing wasn’t the Manly Way. He knew, as did I, as did Pen. That was all that mattered.
I didn’t sleep that well, but the day dawned clear, so I packed my basics for a day in the Valley. I parked the bike in front of Dafydd and Dennis’ tea kiosk, leaving my lid and gloves with them and setting off for the walk up into Cwm Idwal. My mind was still restless, still running over things again and again, which was why I hadn’t been able to sleep. The more tired I got, the more the thoughts surged forward, in a nasty feedback loop that drove rationality away. I was at the gates by the lake before I knew it, and then, of course, at the foot of the Slabs. Bugger it: stick the climbing boots on, hang the approach shoes from my chalk bag’s belt, and solo some of the lower stuff. Run up Ordinary, slither up Charity, bounce up Hope, hop up the opening groove of Tennis Shoe to the top of that first little pinnacle before…
I was cruising up the easy slabby bit, working over to the final tower, perched boulder above me, sloping slippery foothold only letting me stay on when I found the little two-dinger pocket for my right hand to unload my feet just enough..
What the fuck was I doing?
I held the rush of shock and realisation and channelled it into as smooth a surge onto the summit as I could manage, the drop down Suicide Wall seizing my attention as I sprawled on the flat rock while the shakes took me. Idiot! The same place Kul, Dal and I had watched that Steve Jones climbing unroped, and he was an idiot, and I was…
As my heartrate slowed, I slithered down onto the safer ground behind the tower while I waited out the shakes.
I could so easily have died just then. Climbing is a game of risks, of course, but it is all about mitigating the dangers. Use ropes. Place runners. Do it with a partner. Drop the grade right down when soloing. Severe was well within my abilities, of course, but that move was exposed and bloody polished, and a long, long way up, and I was absolutely on my own. I scanned the Slabs to my left, noticing a couple of people clearly staring at me. I gave them a little wave of reassurance: no I’m not mad, just doing some easy stuff, nothing to worry about, and after a few more minutes of sitting on the little patch of grass I heard voices from behind the tower.
“Watch me, it’s fucking polished. Feet are going to go…”
Deep breath.
“Hi; I’m just behind the tower. Want a hint?”
“Fucking aye, whoever you are! Bit gripped here!”
“Okay. See a recess above your head?”
“Yes. All flared, though”
“Feel around to the right. Small pocket, two fingers”
“To the right… you fucking beauty! Got me, Hal?”
Another voice, from further down.
“Aye aye!”
“Going for it… fuck fuck fuck YES!”
A bright orange Joe Brown helmet appeared above the perched boulder, underneath it a panting man in his forties. He half-rolled onto the top of the lump, clutching tightly to the edge, before calling out “SAFE!”
He spotted me and grinned, nodding his thanks.
“Hang on while I set up a belay---shit, that’s a long way down. Be with you in a minute”
He put in something like five anchors, spending a long while arranging clove hitches and such before settling himself back on the boulder, calling to me over his shoulder, “I’m John, Hal’s my second. ON BELAY!”
“Aye aye!”
I raised a hand.
“Mike”
“Pleased to meet you, Mike. And relieved”
We both waited for the obligatory sequence to run its course: “Take in”, “That’s me”, “Climb when ready”, “Climbing”, before John started talking to me again.
“You done that one, then?”
“Few times”
“Traversed in from the finishing ledge?”
“Er, yeah”, I lied.
“That’s as polished as they say the Twin Cracks are, but if you fall off them, the book says you just land on a massive ledge. That bit, fuck. Straight into fresh air. Didn’t expect that on a Diff”
I had a sudden suspicion.
“What route are you doing?”
“Ordinary”
“That’s…”
“Yeah. Up the groove thing”
“It’s actually up a much deeper groove thing”
“There was a gully up the slab, but that’s just a stream”
“That’s just the route you wanted. That was Ordinary”
John paused as he brought his second across, prompting a complaint of “Take in!” from below us.
“Shitting hell. Sorry, but what route is this?”
“Tennis Shoe. Severe; that bit was 4b, though I think, with the polish, it’s more like 4c, and I would give the finish HS”
“Fuck! I’ve only ever led V Diff up to now”
The voice below was closer, and John murmured “Don’t tell Hal till he’s up, okay?”
I agreed, and then John talked an obviously terrified second through the moves over the crux, his manner so much more composed than he had been with me. I was impressed, and when Hal finally appeared, John sent him straight past the belay to join me on the grass. Hal proved to be another middle-aged gent, in my youthful opinion, with the remains of what looked like two black eyes, and for safety’s sake, I set up a belay for him from the gear he had collected on the way up, while John moved back himself to the safer ground, where he coiled the rope without untying, before disassembling his bomb-proof collection of anchors.
“Hal, this is Mike. He’s come in the easy way, and I am sure he knows the way off this place, he remarked knowingly”
I waved, feeling silly.
“Er, yes. It’s up, though. Easy scrambling now”
Hal looked to John.
“Will we need to pitch it, lo—John?”
Ah. I hadn’t met that many queers back then, but it wasn’t a problem for me. It was a little while before I learned better terms for them, though. John’s face twitched at his second’s slip, before he asked me what I thought. I shrugged.
“How much climbing have you done, the two of you?”
John smiled.
“Don’t know if you’d call it climbing. We use an indoor wall, but we live in Crowborough”
“Where’s that?”
“South of Tunbridge Wells. Got some climbing near us”
My mood broke, and I found myself laughing.
“I went there once! All soft sandstone”
Hal looked up at that.
“Where did you go?”
“Somewhere called Bowles, if I remember right”
“Ha! That’s just down the road from us. Where we do our climbing”
John barked out his own laugh.
“Compared to this it’s not real climbing. What grade’s this scramble then, mike?”
“Really easy. Well, I think so”
“Then here’s a suggestion, if you don’t mind. If you show me the way, I’ll just tow the rope up, and Hal can follow after the first rope’s length. See how comfortable he is, then we can decide if we need the rope or not”
“Fine by me!”
I led him up the first hundred and fifty feet of the scramble, chatting away as we went, and he did seem comfortable with the moves. We set up a belay as the rope ran out, and Hal fairly flew up, so the rest of the ascent was done unroped. When we came to the tricky and polished bad step down to the footpath, I went down first to talk him through the moves, and then we sat down together as all three of us changed footwear, which was one thing they had definitely both got right.
“Mike?”
“Yes, John?”
“Please tell Hal what you told me”
“Ah. Right. That route wasn’t actually Ordinary, mate. It’s called Tennis Shoe”
Hal was shaking his head.
“You never could read a map… John. What grade, Mike?”
“Um, overall is a Severe, but some people give the final pitch an HS”
“Oh dear… Tech grade? We only use tech grades in Sussex”
“Was 4b, but once again, with all the polish, some people give it 4c”
“I’ve… My hardest so far at Bowles was 3b. Oh my”
He took some deep breaths.
“Well, shall we get down? Tea won’t drink itself. You coming down as well, Mike?”
I nodded.
“Not got any tea with me; I was going to get some from the place by the car park. Not got a mug with me”
“Don’t worry about that; each of our flasks has two cups with it. Off we jolly well et cetera. Oh: any more tricky bits on the way down?”
“Nope. Just this sort of path”
“Fine!”
We shuffled down the gravel track, settling ourselves onto some of the boulders at the foot of the Slabs as John poured a welcome hot drink for each of us. I pointed out the glaringly obvious gully-line of the Ordinary Route. John was pensive.
“We thought that looked too easy by far. We did some stuff in the Peak District before. That was my hardest lead till now”
“Which route?”
“Flying Buttress, at Stanage”
“Lovely route. Explains how you managed those finishing moves today”
Hal laughed out loud.
“Now I know it’s no comparison, and today was a lot higher than at Stanage, but that move on Flying whatever felt just as high. Once I’d done it, I mean. Couldn’t really see anything but the rock and holds and stuff while I was doing it”
I took a sip of my tea, then waved at the rock.
“Focus. Keeps you safe. Now, what other routes do you fancy?”
John looked hard at me.
“We haven’t got another rope or harness, and from the size of your bag there, neither have you. What routes do you suggest?”
“Well, given that you’ve just done a Severe, there’s one you’ve already mentioned”
Hal smiled at that.
“The book really praises Hope. Where is it?”
I pointed to the starting slab and following groove.
“That’s it there. If you don’t mind, I’d climb it beneath John, unless you want to lead it”
Hal shook his head.
“Not my job! You’ll be okay without a rope?”
I nodded, and John grunted.
“You didn’t traverse in from the belay ledge, did you?”
I found my face warming, so ducked my head as I shook it. John sighed deeply, then began gearing up.
“Let’s do this thing, then!”
He proved to be a steady and plodding leader, but his runners were bomb-proof, and he managed the Twin Cracks at his first attempt, unlike me. He fairly cruised my favourite corner pitch, as did Hal, and once again there was the up-and-down of the descent, the two dispensing with the rope that time. The day was moving on, though, so we decided together that we would pack up, and a slow amble brought us back down to the car park. As Hal loaded their gear into the boot of their car ready for their departure to the Pen y Pass hostel, John had a quiet word with me.
“Please don’t take offence, Mike, but I know you heard Hal slip up. Yes: we are. Is that a problem for you?”
I shook my head.
“Your business, not mine”
“You noticed the bruises as well, I saw”
“Yes”
“That’s from some skinheads. Queerbashing. That is why we are out here doing the fresh air shit, trying to get him happier and me less angry”
I nodded.
“Makes sense to me”
“Yeah… I sort of suspect it’s the same with you. Not being, you know, but…”
He looked around for eavesdroppers once again.
“Whatever’s hurt you, please don’t let it kill you”
CHAPTER 17
I rode back in a state of hyper-awareness, my mind locked on memories of a miserable ginger bastard high on the Slabs.
What the fuck had I been doing? What on Earth would the police have said to Keith and Pen? I pulled over halfway down the long road to Bethesda, by the old ruin, and sat the bike, thighs threatening to cramp as I tried to force some sort of sensible interpretation into my head.
‘What had I been thinking?’ was the obvious question, quickly answered by the twin revelations that (a) I hadn’t actually been thinking, and (b) that there hadn’t been any obvious difference between my own thought processes and those I presumed that miserable ginger sod had experienced.
Idiot.
I popped the side stand down and slithered off the bike, turning to look back up towards the looming bulkiness of Y Garn and Tryfan, the Slabs well-hidden from my view. I could still feel that space under my feet as I had soloed the final tower on Tennis Shoe, and suddenly I was shaking in a mixture of relief and the fear that hadn’t made itself manifest as I had done the moves. Keith and Penny, indeed, as well as a little girl who I had yet to meet in any meaningful way. The sudden tears were no surprise, but the raw sobs were. The feelings of loss, though, they would always be there.
It took a few minutes, but finally I found a safer state of mind for riding, and set off back to the bunkhouse, where I took a shower in order to wash away the fear-sweat and give me an excuse for my face.
Yeah, got shampoo in my eyes, that’s why they’re so red…
Keith had got some beers in for the evening, as the pub was a bit out of the question for the new arrival, and as Pen sipped her own pint, I found myself laughing. She paused mid-sip.
“What?”
“Oh, just my warped sense of humour!”
“Yeah, nothing new there, is there? And I’m just having the one”
“Yeah, well; thinking about the littl’un. What with her drinking from you, while you drink Marston’s, I was wondering if the taste gets passed on. Get her used to drinking the real stuff before she even cuts a tooth”
“Yup. Warped as ever, [something in Welsh]”
“Eh?”
Pen shrugged as well as she could manage, with a glass in one hand and an infant in her arms.
“We decided we would start her in the local language rather than English, Mike. This is… We’re cutting off that other place as much as we can, because this is our home, now. This is going to be our daughter’s home, and we will give her as good a start as we can, as many ways to fit in as possible”
Keith was nodding along.
“That’s the key here, Mike. We aren’t natives here. We never will be. But if we show enough respect to the place, then Enfys has that opportunity.”
He looked at his glass.
“Maybe I’ve had one too many of these, but it was just one of those thoughts you get. This isn’t our world, mate, but somewhere we hold in trust for our kids. Our responsibility not to leave it in shit state”
That cut me less than it might have done, probably because Enfys was there with us. My ride back to Sheffield the next day wasn’t as frantic as it might otherwise have been, and for a few days I was able to lose myself in work rather than brood. I decided to stay off the ale for a while, as I spent what would have been pub hours straightening my own head out.
Penny had shown the depth of her love for her husband with her ultimatum, and that could so easily have been my own situation, mine and my wife’s. Things had happened. Things would always happen, for that was how the world worked, but I didn’t have to live in thrall to them, dance to their tune. The pain and loss I felt each day wouldn’t leave me, as I knew full well, unless I did something even more stupid than those moves at the top of the Slabs, but that option--- well, a world held in trust for a tiny bundle.
I still found myself weeping some evenings, at stupid things like songs on the radio, words in a newspaper or book, or even just the sound of birdsong that Caro had taught me to recognise and name, but that was done alone, in private; just for the two of us.
As the months flew by, my little girl became far more real, rather like the myth that bear mothers literally licked their cubs into shape. Her first smile purely for me stole my heart, confirming my choice to stay with the world, and as months became years, she became a human being, a personality showing itself in a mix of laughter and acute stubbornness. I read later that while the first word for many children is the obvious ‘Mam’, the second and third ones are often ‘Mine’ and ‘NO!’. Enfys was most definitely in that camp, in one sense, but the words that she used were the Welsh versions.
I was never good with the language, but I did my best to learn a few phrases, recognise the words that are important to little people, and as night becomes day, so I became ‘Unca Mike’ and she became ‘The Carrier of Gloves’ whenever I arrived on my bike, the formal handing over of which was always preceded by her demanding a sit on the bike so she could pretend to ride it.
We did get down the pub, along with Vic, Nansi and their own ‘Davvy’, as I heard it, who was a lot quieter than Enfys but more than happy to play with her. Kul and Dal were also regular visitors, and it was after one of the folk club nights that Kul mentioned something I had missed as I had doted on the two kids. We were all in the bunkhouse having a mug of hot chocolate each before turning in.
“Not normal, that. I don’t meant that: more not typical, yeah?”
“Sorry, what’s not normal?”
“The kids, Mike. Didn’t mean it in a bad way. Wrong word choice. What I mean is… Dal?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“Remember Mr and Mrs Handknit?”
“Oh! At that Martin Simpson evening?”
I was impressed at the lad’s musical knowledge yet again, and Dal took over.
“It’s a couple we’ve seen a lot, at concerts. They come in a great big Rover, three and a half litre thing, but they’re all patchwork trousers and floppy jumpers and pewter tankards hanging from their belts. Posh as posh, they are, but they do the whole folky thing”
Kul snorted.
“Overdo it, in my view. Tell them about the concert, son”
“Oh, yeah. They brought their kid, about two years old. Tou heard of Martin Simpson, Mike?”
I laughed out loud.
“Just slightly, lad! Go on”
“Yeah, well, this kid, it just wouldn’t shut up. All ‘Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!’. I thought Mr Simpson was going to get up and smack them, or at least say something. I would have. That what you meant, Dad?”
Kul nodded.
“Yup. Just that. These two, Enfys and Davvy: they just listen, like really listen, when the music’s on. Never shut up the rest of the time, but all attention to the music. Don’t know how their parents have managed that. I couldn’t, not with this one, anyway”
“Dad! I’m not like that!”
Kul turned a very obvious Dad Stare onto his son.
“Lad, you sometimes even think you can sing. You not hear the stampede when people see your mouth opening?”
“You are a right sod sometimes, Dad!”
“I am indeed, son. All part of the valuable lessons I impart to my offspring in order better to equip him to navigate the perilous and uncertain squalls and tempests of---”
“And you talk an awful lot of rubbish as well!”
As they continued their sparring, I found myself laughing so hard I spilled some of my hot chocolate, my choice to stay with the world so utterly and completely the right and proper thing.
CHAPTER 18
I was on another trip out to Bethesda around two years later when I got a serious surprise. The way time was flying was more than enough of a shock to start with, but then I was getting used to that as both Enfys and little Davvy seemed to change markedly on a weekly basis.
Kul and his boy were unavailable that weekend, so it was just me who loaded the bike for the run up to the bunkhouse. The forecast wasn’t the greatest, but I didn’t care. Sheffield was fine in its own ways, and the climbing was perfect for a thug like me, but I had always been a sucker for the call of real mountains.
The ride across wasn’t too bad, although my gloves were dripping, and I stood beside the bike as it ticked its heat away, stretching my back after I had doffed my lid and unzipped my jacket. Keith was there in a few minutes to help dump my bedding in the dorm, and then Penny with my little girl.
“Hiya, Enfys! How’s you?”
“Unca Mike! Menig! Got losyn?”
I knew both of those words, and shook my head as I handed her my soaked gloves for the ritual.
“Sorry, love. Not this time”
“No! Got losyn! Me!”
I realised she was waving a bag of jellies at me, and mentally slapped myself.
“What’s best?”
She said something I couldn’t follow, and Pen called out, “She says the coke bottles are the best, Mike”
I dipped a hand into the bag, only taking one ‘bottle’ so that Enfys could have more of what she liked, and after she had trotted off with my gloves, I raised an eyebrow to my friend.
“You all living totally Welsh now, then?”
She shrugged, said something else in Foreign, and grinned.
“Got to be done, love. Leaving the L-place well behind, like we said”
I laughed and shrugged simultaneously.
“Best thing to do with the place. Be a bit antisocial to nearby towns to nuke it. Anyway, what plans do we have? Getting a bit wet for serious stuff”
“Ah, club tonight, then see what the morning brings. Keith fancies a trip to Tremadog if it’s wet up here. Tends to stay drier down there. If it stops up here, he fancies exploring Craig Aderyn”
“Where’s that one?”
“By the hydro pipe down from Cwm Dyli. Bit obscure, but supposed to be a nice slab. Now, Enfys wants to help you lay out your bag”
Before I could argue, she held up a silencing hand.
“When children offer to help, best let them. Anyway, I do believe we may have a surprise for you tonight”
“In what way?”
“Wait and see, you impatient bugger. Enfys! [Welsh stuff]”
That summed up so well her utter commitment to making a new life for what was now a true family, and I had a sudden moment of utter loss. Despite her confidence issues, in the end my Caro had been at least as strong, in her own way. Hold it together, lad. You’re in company.
Tea was already brewed, and Enfys offered me the biscuit barrel, needing both hands to hold it. I had a sudden thought.
“Keith?”
“Yes, mate?”
“Folk club tonight?”
He nodded.
“As Pen and I really fancy a decent pint tonight, and we assume you do, it’s going to be too late for her and Davvy, so this time we’ve got a babysitter due, local girl. That’s who the other biccies are for”
“What other biccies?”
“The ones Enfys didn’t offer you because she’ll be eating half of them herself, no doubt. Anyway, Galadriel will do the two of them the pizzas we’ve left in the fridge, and we can eat at the Cow”
“Galadriel? Really?”
It was Keith’s turn to shrug.
“We did say this place was a sort of hippy colony. Her middle name’s even worse, so don’t ask”
I shook my head, settling into one of the armchairs, quickly gaining a passenger as Enfys clambered up into my lap for a cuddle, still clutching her bag of sweets, but thankfully without my gloves. Pen called out in more Welsh, from which I picked out the words ‘losyn’ and ‘pizza’. That exchange at least I could work out: if you don’t put the sweets away, you’ll get no pizza.
The bag went into a drawer, a little girl went upstairs for ‘Jimjams’, apparently the same term in Welsh, and I popped out to switch from leathers to jeans. When Galadriel turned up, she was reassuringly normal, bringing with her a small backpack of homework. After a quick confirmation of what was clearly the ‘usuals’, once again in Welsh, we each hugged Enfys in turn before setting off for the Cow. Keith matched his steps to mine.
“Got a surprise for you this evening”
“Penny said. Hint would be nice”
“Nope. Just asking you to keep an open mind. I know that’s who you are, what you are. Pen and I have some new friends, that’s all. And that is actually the real reason we haven’t got the kids with us”
I had to laugh at his comment about friends, as I had met so many of them the first time I had come up, along with Kul, his boy and a truckload of furniture, and Keith clearly read my mind.
“No. Not quite like that. You’ll understand when we get there, but this time, tonight… Just go with the flow for now, please”
“Got me worried now, mate”
“Ah, nothing to worry about, really. Just play nicely. Hiya, Nansi! [Welsh stuff]”
Nansi finished locking her door, smiled at me and wagged a finger at Keith.
“Babysitter’s with him. And I know this one, and I also know he’s linguistically challenged, so stop showing off. Hi, Mike. Your mates not with you this time?”
“Not this time, no. Kul’s got some big family thing on over in Doncaster. Something about feeding folk. They all get together and set up a sort of Sikh soup kitchen for the homeless. Or is that a curry and samosa kitchen? Anyway, busy. Just me this time”
“And you brought the rain. Very uncivil of you”
I spotted the twitch to her lips just in time, and she waved a hand at Keith.
“Vic’s down the Cow already sorting a table for us, which was what Mister Practise-my-Welsh over there was asking. Gets busy on a club night, especially if you want to eat”
We carried on down the hill to the pub, and yes, Vic was there at a table, the bar meals menu to hand. Illtyd was at the bar, Owen behind it, and everything suddenly felt familiar and comfortable. I hadn’t known these people that long, in real terms, but they seemed to have taken me as I was. More importantly, despite the reputation of that area, they had welcomed my friends. Illtyd said something in Welsh to Keith, whose answer contained the word ‘Galadriel’, and Illtyd performed a classic eye roll before turning back to me.
“At least you have a sensible name, Mike. Could almost be Welsh, ah? Anyway, I’d go for the steak and kidney pie tonight. Good, it is. Floor spot? Me that’s doing the compere thing tonight, it is”
“Got room for a song or two? I doubt you’ll have heard them, but good chorus stuff. Industrial songs, er, ah?”
“Second half, then. Let you fill your face first. Guest’s another English fiddler”
“Thanks”
I went for the pie, as advised, and in a moment of instant generosity I paid for all five meals. Sod it: the Hiatts were doing all the rest of my food for the weekend, as well as giving me a bed and occasional loan of a little girl (return unbroken, in original packaging if possible), so it was nothing over the top. I was indeed feeling relaxed, and the first pint of Robinson’s helped.
The first floor spots went down just as well as the pint and the food, and it wasn’t until the third performer that I realised we still had two spare seats at our table, a couple of raincoats laid over the backs to mark them as taken, rather like the proverbial German beach towel. Just before the guest was due on, a short and very fit-looking man put his hand on one of the chairs.
“These ours, Keith?”
“Yes, mate. You lost her?”
“Nope, just her usual silliness with pots of tea. She’s in the ladies’. Anyone need a refill?”
Keith raised his almost empty glass.
“Popes and bears? Who’s driving?”
“Can we be cheeky tonight?”
Pen snorted with laughter.
“You parked there already?”
“Er… yeah. Couldn’t agree whose turn it was to be designated driver, especially with who’s playing. Too cheeky?”
She grinned.
“Don’t be silly. Now, don’t think you’ve met Mike, our friend from that place we lived…”
“…that mustn’t be named?”
“That’s the one. He’s moved away, though. Now lives in Sheffield”
“Oh! Bloody good climbing there, lucky man. We’re stuck in Surrey, near Gatwick. Anyway, drinks?”
We gave him a list, and as he went over to the bar, I realised I hadn’t caught his name. I looked back to the table just as Penny’s gaze lifted and a smile broke out.
“Here she is! Hiya, you, and yes he has asked, and you already know the answer, so he’s getting you a pint”
I was sat in front of a pillar, which made it difficult to turn, but I managed it just as a long arm placed a fiddle case onto the table, and a tall woman settled into one of the two seats.
Woman. Or not. My mind was screaming in confusion. Tall; ginger pony tail. Fiddle.
On the other hand, breasts. More importantly, a smile that reached eyes and voice.
Penny made the introductions, properly this time.
“Mike Rhodes, one of our best mates. Best mate indeed, when we all lived in That Place That Begins With An L. Mike, these two are Steph and Geoff Woodruff, and all the jokes have already been made”
I looked sharply at Keith, and he nodded back, just as sharply.
“Yes, mate. Same person. How’s it go, Steph? Same person, just better understood?”
She nodded, just as sharply.
“Aye, exactly. Mike, you have an odd expression on your face, so I am going to make an unnecessary guess. You met me before? Oh, thanks, love. Need this”
‘Geoff’ was handing out the drinks, and I turned slightly to accept mine, my eyes having temporarily lost the battle to correlate sight and memory. I took a long drink from my pint as Geoff slid onto the seat next to… her, casually draping one arm over… her shoulder as he raised his glass.
“Cheers, all! We ate at the tent, but we’ve got a load of extra brekkie stuff for the morning. Not a veggie, are you, Mike?”
“Er, no. Um”
“Ah. How do you know my lovely wife here? Nothing to worry about; just like the air clear”
I took some slow breaths as I worked on my perceptions.
“I remember seeing her here a few times. Climbing and fiddle playing”
He gave his… My mind clicked into gear. I had managed with John and Hal, and I was a bloody adult, after all. He gave his wife a quick look, and me a quick “Ah”, before she started her own explanation.
“Back before we met then, love. Told you what I was like back then, didn’t I?”
As he grimaced and nodded, she turned directly to me, her eyes startlingly green, with brown centres, but clear and in the there-and-then rather than the thousand yard and year stare I had seen in the past.
“Mike, I was in a very bad place back then. Did some stupid things. Got drunk a lot”
I found myself getting angry, for some reason.
“Stupid things like soloing Tennis Shoe when probably still pissed from the night before?”
She reached up to take Geoff’s hand, holding it to her shoulder, murmuring a reassurance to him.
“Yes. Bloody stupid things. All in the past now. All I needed to do was find someone to help me see the way out, and I was very, very lucky there. And no: it wasn’t Geoff, but he was there for me just when I needed him. Now, don’t want to be rude, and it is rude talking over the music. We are sharing the bunkhouse tonight, if that is your bike there. Jimmy’s due on, and we have all night to talk, if you want. Sup up and listen in, and sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable”
I could argue with none of that, so I settled down to listen to another ‘name’ act, a fine fiddler who was also a ‘professional Geordie’, and who seemed to know the two newcomers. I did my best to settle myself down and go with the music, and that worked up to the half-time break, when Jimmy (Kerr) came over to hug Steph properly. He slipped past her to the bar, and Penny grinned once more.
“He’s got the separate bedroom in the bunkhouse, Mike. Now, what are you doing in your spot?”
“Ah, two of Graeme One’s. ‘Brickmaking’ and ‘Chemical Worker’s’. I mean, I know the second one isn’t, but the first one, well, you know what I mean”
Pen turned to Steph to explain.
“Lad who was sort of leader at our old folk club, Graeme Meek. Great songwriter, and did original trad stuff, if you see what I mean, all about the local area. Lots of clay pits and brick works there. Other song’s from Teesside, by Ron Angel. It was a club tradition to sing it each session”
I realised what she was doing, as she talked down my confusion with excess detail, and all too soon, Illtyd was bilingually demanding my presence in the little stage area. I saw the little fiddler staring at me, Steph whispering in his ear as his eyebrows lifted, and he shouted out to me as I waited for Illtyd to give the word.
“How, bonny lad…”
I puzzled out the rest as meaning something like “Do you want accompaniment with that song?”
Why not? I nodded and turned back to the room as Illtyd finished introducing me. I took a little bow, and began.
“First, a song from a friend of ours. That’s me and the Hiatts, that is. Then another from the North-East of England. First one’s about hacking clay out of wet pits to make bricks, and there is a chorus”
They were in good voice, and as I finished the altered final chorus, “And there’s no more work and there’s no more pay, it’s a hard life not working in the clay”, they gave me a decent round of applause.
Jimmy stepped up beside me, fiddle in hand, accompanied by Steph with her own and Geoff on what looked like a bouzouki or octave mandolin. Jimmy simply said, “Gie’s the first line, just that, so we can get the key, like”
I replied with “And it’s go, boys, go, they’ll time your every breath”, to a shout of recognition from someone other than the Hiatts, and Jimmy just said “Aye, that’s canny”, and we were off.
I could hardly hear myself by the time the final chorus was bellowed out, and while I took the applause as I made my way back to the table, the other three just carried on into Jimmy’s second set.
Keith put a hand on my shoulder.
“I know, mate, but, well, like ripping a plaster off. Lots to talk about, but not now. Just enjoy the evening; talk later”
CHAPTER 19
We finished our last drinks after Jimmy’s final tune, played solo as the Woodruffs sat down for their own pints, and started back up the hill to the bunkhouse and our beds. I hung back a little as the ginger non-misery led the way. I watched as her hand slipped into that of her husband, and almost by the second my focus shifted.
There was nothing false there, nothing feigned. They looked each other in the eye, they grinned as one, and when their hands joined it was as natural as it would have been for any normal couple.
I gave myself a mental slap at that word, as the more I watched them together, the more…
Not ‘normal’, because that word implied ‘abnormal. No; ‘natural’ was the word I dragged out. Natural.
Vic, Pen, Keith and Nansi prattled away about nothings as we walked, and I realised it was their way of distracting me, derailing any awkward thought processes, until Keith dropped in beside me, almost in lockstep.
“You know that Illtyd tried to chat her up, mate?”
“You what? Illtyd? Surely he knew who she was?”
“Yup. I asked him about it afterwards, and he just laughed, said ‘Well, she scrubs up well’, and then went on for a bit about how it all made sense”
“How did she take it? Him trying it on?”
“Oh, typical for her, as I have discovered. Just asked if he wanted her or her husband to cut his balls off. Illtyd tells me that bit about sense, he understands now why she was such a miserable sod. Says he thought he’d just make sure he understood”
“What? By trying to get into her knickers?”
Keith shook his head.
“Lot more to him than you might realise. His way of, what’s the word? Affirming her? Yeah; that’ll do”
I watched the couple again, her head thrown back in laughter at some joke or other of Jimmy’s, and I turned back to Keith.
“Obviously made sense to you lot”
“Oh yes! When she first turned up, well, when SHE first turned up, if you take my point, the two of them got some shit from a couple of lads from one of the farms out past Tregarth. Rather, Geoff did, and she all but ripped their heads off to piss down their necks”
“What happened?”
“Oh, they did the cliché shit, saying something nasty in Welsh while smiling, so she just carries on chatting to the barman. In Welsh”
“Oh”
“Then turns to the two idiots and tells them to fuck off. So Owen says ’You heard her, you’re barred’, and that’s when Vic stepped in”
“I always see him as Mister Softy!”
“What? No! Not like that. Just invites the two of them to sit with us, and that’s the start of it all”
He paused for a few seconds, before his next words.
“It was later in the week, mate. Owen said to me that he had spotted who she was when they first came in, recognised her, and it was like a slap in the face. His words, ah?”
“Keith, you’re picking up that local stuff”
“What? Oh, not surprising, is it? Anyway, Owen. What he said: she smiled at Geoff, and it was, shit, Steve had never… You heard about that winter night?”
“When he got that lift back up the road? I heard, yeah”
“Owen’s a sound bloke, mate. Proper old-school publican. Knows his customers, knows more than they realise. Said to me he was worried, when he, she didn’t come by for ages.. That it would all be in some local paper, wherever they lived. One paragraph stuff. Sees her come in, and he was, I don’t know? He was almost poetic in the way he described it. Head dipped down to Geoff, eyes on him and him alone. Absolutely besotted, he said”
Another pause, then a twisted grin.
“He made a crap joke about lost customers meaning lost revenue, but we’d had a chat a couple of weeks before after two regulars had died in an accident on Cloggy, so I knew he was talking shite. This is a bloody good community here, Mike. People…”
Another few breaths, another oddly warped grin.
“They care about people, Mike, but they care about their own first, and they have a very flexible interpretation of what that means. The two twats got it wrong, but Owen remembered Steve-as-was at the club, and that was a trump card. Miserable bastard, but never, ever hurt anyone. Then she walks in and, well, light-bulb moment. That’s the thing: as soon as we spoke to her, it was so clear how sorted she is. Geoff too. She tells me he can get very protective”
He chuckled, happily.
“I don’t normally support violence, Mike. Now and again, though… He broke a hand punching someone who upset her. Hell of a story to the two of them”
We were just coming up to his house, Vic and Nansi having slipped away earlier, and there was a round of hugs as we all said our goodnights, and I noticed Keith give Steph a peck on the cheek. Into the bunkhouse, and Steph simply held up a couple of mugs as we all dumped our jackets. Jimmy said something about netties and old man’s prostates, I think, before she shrugged and headed off to the showers with a small carrier bag. That finally crystallised my perception of her: privacy to change clothes. Even though I knew her history, my instincts were feeling that we needed that separation just then.
I pulled on my sleep suit, which was just my thermal undies, to be honest, and after she had returned wearing much the same, we all did our bedtime ablutions before Jimmy settled into his single room. I found my space on the huge bed shelf, wriggling into my bag, and wondering what the following day would bring.
“Mike?”
Steph’s voice was softer than it had been in the pub. I turned over to face the two. Fortunately, there were no other residents that night.
“Yes?”
“Sorry for the shock. Thank you for not… Thank you for your kindness”
I took a few deep breaths, feeling that she really wanted to talk, as Geoff whispered something to her. I could see her head shake.
“Air needs clearing, love. Done it before, more than a few times. Mike knows some of it, knows I was in a bad place. Owen told Mike about that winter night, I think”
I found my own voice.
“Yeah, he did. Woman who gave you a lift, she was our friend. Um, me and my wife’s friend”
I found myself gushing, much to my embarrassment.
“Years back. Caro and I, that’s my, my wife, we were doing the walk from Aber over the Carneddau”
“Kipping in the little shelter? Bit cramped, that”
“You know it, then?”
“We do”
One word, one pronoun, said so much to me just then, picking at my own wound.
“We got there, and Pat, that’s your driver, she was already in place, with her husband. They come up here every now and again, but I haven’t seen her for a while”
“Well, if you see her, just say thanks. Your wife?”
The tears were there, but no sobs, thankfully.
“Motorcycle accident. Before we all moved away from That Place”
“Oh hell. Sorry; didn’t mean to bring that up”
“Life goes on, Steph”
A very long sigh from her, and I saw her shift position as her husband very obviously spooned her from behind, just as obviously in reassurance.
“Yes. Something I know all too well. Get this bit over, while I can. Always known who I am, what I am, but tried to make a life the way the doctors said when I was born. Didn’t work. Lots of self-harm, and lots of risk-taking. What you talked about was just part of it, just one moment. Alcohol, as well, and I know full well you saw that too. I had a moment of sanity one day, and I spoke to my GP about depression, so he found me a therapist. Woman called Sally. Funny… We have another friend, trans man called Jerry, and he says much the same thing”
“Sorry, Steph, but not that clued up on this stuff. Trans man?”
“Oh, sort of the inverse of people like me. Recorded as a girl at birth, but know they’re a boy. Bit in your face is Jerry. Anyway, he was in hospital for ages, doped to the gills on Valium or whatever, and he gets a shrink who finally listens to him properly. That was me, I suppose”
“Sally listened to you?”
“Sort of. More truthful to say she challenged me. Took all of my assumptions about the chances I had and turned them back on me. I’d wobble, say I couldn’t do something, and she’d just ask me why not. Got me onto the hormones, and… do you want all the details, Mike?”
“Go on. Please”
“Okay… well, they worked rather well, in Geoff’s opinion, but he’s just a lech”
There was a quick whispered ‘bitch/sod’ exchange before she continued.
“Mood swings, mood changes, and that’s a confused area. Do I start reacting to things in a stereotypical girly way because of the little blue pills, or because my mind thinks it now has permission to do so? Add in coming down off the booze, and there were so many things going on simultaneously I was almost lost. Sal and I had a chat about that, and you have to understand I was having to wear a bloody binder back then, elastic bandages and stuff to flatten my chest. Physically, I was getting, it would have been impossible to pretend much longer.
“Sal says I should do a trial run and go somewhere I had never really been to, just spend some time being me. My bank cards and cheque book were all initial and surname, so no worries there. I finally took the hint, or rather her boot up my arse, and I decided on a music festival, in Shrewsbury. As soon as I got there, I’m into a massive panic attack, and by amazing luck I’m pitched right next to Geoff’s brother and his family”
She paused as Geoff whispered something else.
“Yes, love. Dead right. Lots of amazing luck; I must have been a saint in a previous life, what with Sal, and you, and yes, those. I am actually trying to be serious”
She drew in a much longer breath.
“The rest can be summed up as finding out how many friends I had at work, real friends, and meeting some people like myself. One of them’s a biker as well. Her husband’s got some old British thing that she goes absolutely silly over”
“Sounds like you’ve all been lucky, Steph”
She was silent for nearly half a minute before speaking again, this time in a much flatter voice.
“Not really. If it hadn’t been for your friend, I wouldn’t have made it, and that wasn’t luck, it was kindness. We had somebody else, though, and her luck…”
Her voice cracked just then, and Geoff chipped in.
“Leave that one for tonight, love. We had to organise her funeral, Mike. There was someone else, someone I loved. That’s where we are, Steph and me and Sarah, lucky in that we seem to pick up the good stuff that others don’t get. Sorry for putting myself in there, but without that luck, I wouldn’t have my wife, and I am really sorry if that hurts you, but I am guessing with your own story, you know where we are at. Thank you from me for being as generous of spirit as I sort of sense you are. Now, are you up to climbing tomorrow?”
“I hope so”
He chuckled.
“Blatant change of subject there, he says in satisfaction. Where do you have planned?”
“Keith was talking about Craig Aderyn, in Cwm Dyli. Get to it off the Miners’ Path before Llyn Llydaw”
“Do you know that place, love?”
He seemed to sprinkle that word around so liberally I wondered if it were reassurance for his wife, but then asked myself another question: why shouldn’t he? I had guessed he had groped her in some way when that little whispered exchange had taken place, and I couldn’t think of a better word to have used on oneself. Steph yawned, then wriggled down into their double bag.
“Heard of it, but not been on it. Remind me to take some gardening kit, just in case. Night, my friend. Enough heavy stuff for one day; we’ve got the breakfast duty tomorrow”
The night felt sleepless, so much to process, and I only realised I had actually slept when the dawn took me by surprise.
CHAPTER 20
I woke in a warm fuzz, my bag snug around me and my bladder, for once, not that insistent. I slithered out of it nonetheless, and after I had done the necessary, I started a trawl through the food left ready for breakfast by the Woodruffs.
That term finally made sense to me, for Steph was now so clearly right in her skin, content as she was, and if someone who shared a bed with her had no issues, then why should I? I decided I would keep telling myself that until I was convinced.
Kettle on, pans heating on the gas range and oven on ready for the sausages. Fry them first before finishing in the oven… black pudding? Laver bread? Where on Earth had they found that? More to the point, how to cook it?
The toilet flushed again, and Geoff joined me in the kitchen, as I stared at the seaweedy stuff.
“Don’t worry, Mike. She’ll sort it. Rolls it in some of the porridge and fries it. You’ll need to get the other bag out of the fridge”
“What other bag?”
“The cockles, of course”
He couldn’t keep the poker face for long, and what seemed to be a trademark grin resurfaced quickly.
“She got fed up with Jimmy. He does that over-the-top accent thing”
“I’ve noticed”
“Hard not to. And he’s always teasing about food, coming up with things we’ve never heard of, so she decided she’d try and outdo him without having to risk the family tastebuds. In other words, that seaweed might not all disappear. That kettle done?”
“Seems so. I’d warm the pot first”
“Will do. Can I be personal, Mike?”
“Depends what about”
“Us, really. Me and Hairy”
I must have looked puzzled, because he waved an apologetic hand.
“Sorry. Nickname for her, from when she goes overboard in her playing. Her hair goes everywhere. You knew her before I did”
“Not really. I knew some… Sorry about saying this, but I knew some pisshead of a misery who did stupid things. I didn’t know her”
“I understand. That wasn’t really what I wanted to ask, though. It’s more… Look, just observation. My family, well, there are reasons. We tend to be able to spot folk in, well, people who might welcome a smile, bit of comfort”
He paused, shaking his head.
“Sorry, but this is coming out all shite and patronising. Let’s just say our family had an issue. Steph helped sort it, but she wouldn’t have been, we wouldn’t have spotted her, if things hadn’t, you know. In the first place. So what I am leading up to is, well, what happened? In your life? Penny gave us the story of That Place, and let us know how you’d helped. It’s just, well…”
Another long pause, another shake of his head, and he simply turned away to pour three mugs of tea, speaking with his face turned away from me.
“Steph mentioned Melanie, the woman who was murdered. There are a lot like that, I have learned, and we both ended up, like I said, able to spot the wobbly ones, and that is what she called you. You said about your wife, and what my girl said to me was, well, you’re wobbling. Steph said it was like looking into a mirror and seeing her old self. That’s really the personal bit, Mike. Are you okay, and is there anything we could offer?”
He turned round, a mug in his left hand.
“Just going to give her this, then we’ll finish sorting the brekky. No need to answer my question; just letting you know, and hoping I haven’t offended you. Back in a few”
He left to deliver the tea, and I finished setting everything going on and in the stove. There was a series of raucous coughs, and then I was joined by Jimmy, a cigarette in his hand.
“Gorra spare one there for us, son? Just gannin’ oot for a tab”
Sod it. I passed him one of the two full mugs before finding an empty one for myself and pouring from the pot. Geoff was back just as Jimmy left, reaching over to give a stir to the pot of beans, and I reached over to squeeze his shoulder, hoping he read the message correctly: no offence taken. I realised I was the one who was taking his time to get there.
Steph was with us a little later, hair in a tangle, and my decision about taking time was given a kick in the arse by the way Geoff kissed her good morning. Shift that viewpoint, Michael.
She did indeed sort the sloppy green slime, and when Jimmy reappeared, the stink of cigarettes strong on his breath, she made a comment about the food.
“Got no pernackity, nor carlings or stotty, but we have got bara lawr. Your turn, Mister Kerr!”
He stared at the objects she was now frying, then grinned in an absolutely natural way.
“Ah think ye might just have outbid us, pet!”
She stared him down.
“You saying you’re bottling out of eating this?”
“Nah! Gie’s a bit, but make sure there’s some left in case Ah like it”
That was the keynote of the meal, and when Keith arrived in his climbing gear, he raised the stakes further.
“Right, you two! There is no room in your van for four. Mr Woodruff. There are, however, two pillion seats going, and me and Pen, we haz gots spare lidz”
Geoff looked worried, but Keith shrugged.
“Parking’ll be easier at Pen y Pass on the bikes. And neither me nor Mike has killed anyone on a bike. Yet. Right, Mike?”
The silence must have made the point, for he blushed at the obvious dropped bollock, so I cut in before it got stupid.
“I’m bigger than Mike, so best Steph comes with me. We doing this, then?”
She stood up, arms folded.
“You saying I’m fat?”
The complaint was ruined by her collapse into snorts of laughter, but she still chose my pillion as we set off.
I had yet another example of Keith’s ‘feet under the table’ approach when we were allowed to leave our gloves, helmets and other stuff in a back room in the Gorphwysfa building before setting out along the Miners’ Track.
A boggy walk to the pipeline, a weird full-body roll across the horrible thing, and there was the slab. I was pleasantly surprised, realising that if the slab had been more visible, it would not only have been less vegetated as a result of being far more popular. We did a few Diffs and V Diffs to get the feel of the place, before moving onto the ‘signature’ VS that went up a very plant-bedecked slab, mixing and matching partners as the day moved on. I knew Keith’s style, of course, and I was well aware of Steph’s abilities, even if it had once been when she was clearly pissed, so it was Geoff I was watching.
He was clearly new to VS and upward, and I wondered if he was simply trying to please his wife, but then realised that he had superb balance, and quite a nice technique. It wasn’t that he was chasing Steph, but more that she was offering him a chance to take that next step.
Another shift In perception.
It was a very good day, on rock I would have missed despite its delights, and more to the point I could see some lines that weren’t recorded in the guide book. Mine, mine, my precious.
My return to Sheffield left me pondering as I sat in my usual armchair, out of my leathers and clutching a mug of tea, a fish supper on my lap, half-watching some TV crap or other; when I was back in work, I had to handle Kul’s questions.
“How was it, then? Lots of silliness on the rocks?”
“Um, not that so much. Got… need to say something in confidence”
Kul shrugged, but he was staring at me, brow slightly furrowed.
“I know--- I HOPE you know and trust me enough for that. What happened?”
“Remember the ginger misery?”
“Fuck, yes!”
“Well, I met them properly, this trip. Mate of Keith and Pen’s, now”
“They cheered up, then?”
“Oh god, yes. I think her husband has really helped”
Kul paused for around a minute before speaking again.
“Coffee room, now”
He led the way, and took his time making us each a brew before his next words burst out.
“What the fucking hell are you on about?”
I shrugged, waving my hands.
“Sorry, mate. Messy, complicated. Turns out our miserable friend is transgender. Came out, both as in coming out as herself and out the other side of the miseries, got married to a man, stuff like that”
He was shaking his head, so I held up a hand once more.
“Yes, I know. Join the club. It’s just, when you see her with er husband, it makes sense, And yes, the she/her shit makes sense. Can you see how that works?”
He shook his head.
“Mike, not being dense, yeah? And it’s not you, but, well, not sitting that well with me. Not saying---just can’t see it. Have to see it, me, see things in the flesh, that sort of thing”
I nodded, to his evident agreement.
“Same here, mate. If Keith or Pen had just come out with it, said to me what the score was, well, no. Just, well, dropped into it, then seeing them with each other, and a friend of theirs. They cadged a spot in the bunkhouse as well, so we had breakfast and a day of climbing together”
“Shit…”
I reached into my fleece pocket for my little digital camera.
“I have stuff on here, Kul. Might help. Here… Pen snapped this one when I did a floor spot”
“Right--- shit! That’s Jimmy Kerr!”
“Yup. Seems he’s a friend of theirs. That’s Ginger and hubby, I mean, and that’s them behind me”
“Shit again, then. Those… Those real?”
He made a gesture at his chest, and I nodded.
“Looked like it”
His eyes opened wider.
“When they were in the bunkhouse, they didn’t, you know? Hide the whatsits?”
“I really don’t think I want an answer to that one, and I also don’t think you should be bloody asking it!”
I got a ghost of a grin.
“We each have our ways of coping, Mike. Now, what’s that stuff?”
“Welsh breakfast stuff”
“Looks gopping”
“It wasn’t bad. And think about what black pudding is, and you happily eat that”
“Yeah, but I’m a Yorkshire lad”
“Kul, mate, you’re from Leicester”
“Adopted Yorkshire, then. Still counts”
He was running through the pictures as he joked, obviously as his way of coping, and he ended up at a picture I had taken at the slab in Cwm Dyli. He simply sat staring at the camera screen as I sipped my tea, then handed the thing back to me.
“That shot has it, Mike. They’re just sitting grinning at each other”
“And?”
“If you want my guess, just then, well, I don’t think there was anyone else around but the two of them. At least, not that they were noticing”
He busied himself with emptying his cup, then grinned, almost back to his usual self.
“At least that solves one problem I didn’t realise I had”
“Oh?”
“Now I know how I can get my Jimmy Kerr albums signed!”
CHAPTER 21
We washed up our empty mugs, and then Kul grinned at me.
“Sod it. Refill to take with us? I can do them both. People will gossip if we come back together”
“People already gossip in this place, especially Betty!”
“Yeah, mate, but I like to steer it a bit if I can. Let her make up her own shit, and well never hear the end of it. Given where you get off to, it would all be ovine”
“All be what?”
“Ovine. To do with sheep”
“Fancy some grousing, then?”
“Eh?”
“Can’t afford Wales every weekend. The lad fancy getting shouted at by some red grouse at Stanage? Plenty of easy stuff there”
“I’ll have a word. Mike. Tea, or another coffee?”
“Ah, tea this time, please”
By the time he reappeared, I was already deep into a business plan review, and my mind had slid away from Wales and its issues.
At the weekend, Dal drove us all out to the Edge, where we pottered around at the Popular End, and I led them up the usual beginners’ routes, such as Grotto Slab, Flying Buttress, Black Hawk Traverse and Hollybush Crack, which had Kul wimping a little, especially on the final moves. Afterwards, the three of us made our way back round to the base of the cliff and our flasks, as the wind was particularly raw that afternoon. Hot tea, and some samosas from Kul’s wife Sangeeta, as well as our fleeces, did some good. It became a bit of a habit. Not long after that drive over to Stanage, Kul set out his stall, starting with a comment about Hollybush.
“Mike?”
“Yeah, mate?”
“That lean-back thing?”
“Layback”
“Whatever. How do you do that without a rope to catch you? A rope from above, I mean”
“Confidence, I suppose. And practice”
“Yeah. Sort of my point, really. That stuff we did in Wales, that’s all sloping stuff. This is different, all straight up and down”
“And?”
“And the lad’s asked for some proper shoes for it. Boots. Whatever. You got any tips?”
I stared at him, and in the end, he just grinned and nodded.
“Yeah, yeah. Two pairs. You have us hooked, Mike. I’m just a bit jealous of the lad now. That right, Dal?”
“Yeah. Dad says it’s not fair, cause he has to start from scratch when he’s really old”
Kul sat up straighter.
“That is not what I said! I said that you had an advantage because you are starting younger!”
“Same thing”
“No it bloody isn’t!”
They were still sparring on the drive back that day, but we arranged a post-work visit to the local climbing shop for the middle of the following week, and of course we were back on the rock the next weekend for a test drive of their new footwear. We stayed at the Popular End, and after a rerun of Flying Buttress, at Dal’s request, which became a habit, I had started them on the easier ’classics’.
That warmed my heart, in so many ways, and showed me that Dal at least was in it for the right reasons. Too many people, usually male, come into the sport as a way of willy-waving. They are there only to show others how hard they can climb, not that they enjoy it for the move, the situation, but…
The first time that thought crossed my mind, as I watched Dal laughing with his father as we walked back down from another run up Flying Buttress, I had to take a pause, looking back over the moor. The simile had come from Caro, when she had spoken about the difference between birdwatchers and twitchers, about Men with Big Lists in contrast with those who simply loved nature and its creatures.
Sod, it, Rhodes. Focus on the grouse shouting ‘GO BACK!’ and find a smile for a couple of friends. Time for them to practise an easy lead. If this was going to be a regular thing, they needed to gain the skills to do it on their own.
I think I had my face under control when I caught up with them, and did the old game of soloing roped up a climb so that each could follow and place gear, and of course I stiffed them by taking each one up a different one of the neighbouring routes Anatomy and Physiology. No cribbing allowed.
I had a bit too much to drink that evening.
Four weeks later, we were back yet again, and this time Dal led Black Hawk Traverse, with its long stride secured by horizontal hand jams. He did well, especially in setting up a big hex nut so that it ‘cammed’, but I still soloed up the Chimney to check his belay on the stance. As I looked down to the car park, I saw a small van pull in. Nothing unusual, but then two people emerged from it, and the usual Stanage wind caught the long hair of the taller person, and shit.
“Dal?”
“Yes?”
“Putting the rope like that is risky. If one of those nuts comes out, you’ll still have the same length of rope in play, and you’ll lurch a long way forward if your Dad comes off. Know how to tie a clove hitch?”
“No”
“What are they teaching in the Cubs these days”
“Bit too old for the Cubs, me”
“Never mind! Now, this is how you tie a clove hitch. Two loops and…”
“Right!”
“You could always tie each anchor separately into your harness, but this allows adjustment. Enough practice, and you can tie it one-handed. Now, there’s a related knot, the Italian Hitch, but not for today. Sorted? Time to shout at your Dad!”
He grinned happily.
“Yeah, I get to tell him what to do, don’t I?”
“Yup. Don’t put the rope through the Sticht before you’ve got it all up. Takes ages, otherwise”
By the time I had talked him through the right way to bring his Dad up, and we were once more standing on top of the Edge, the two figures were at the foot of Grotto Slab. I walked a little way back from the actual edge of the rock, and held a finger to my lips. The two lads looked puzzled.
“Kul, remember what I told you about that ginger fiddler?”
His eyes widened, and his head jerked round to look over towards Lose and Win Hills.
“You’re not joking, are you? Where are they?”
“From what I saw, laying out their gear twenty yards away from ours”
“Bloody hell! And, well, bugger”
He looked hard at his son, mouth a little twisted.
“Dal, Mike here shared something with me a little while ago. Didn’t know if I should share it with you, but it’s a bit late now”
“You’re talking about that alkie in Wales, aren’t you? From that first trip we did?”
“I am, son. Been a few changes in their life, Mike tells me”
“And he’s sat next to our bags?”
“Um. Not quite. She’s sat next to our bags”
“Fuck! Er, sorry, but Dad: you--- it’s not a joke, is it?”
Kul looked to me for help, and I shook my head.
“Don’t know if they’ll remember me, but I think I should do the first bit of talking. Time for a cuppa, and to get stuff out of the way”
Kul muttered something, and as agreed I led us down and round.
Steph’n’Geoff were uncoiling twin ropes when we arrived, and as I approached their spot, Geoff spotted me, his face breaking into a broad smile.
“Hiya! Mike, isn’t it? Keith’s mate?”
He nudged his wife, and as she looked up, her own smile outdid his. I waved at my two companions.
“That’s me! Steph and Geoff Woodruff, this is my colleague Kul, and his boy Dal. Boy’s just done his first lead”
Steph immediately set her focus on Dal.
“Which route, Dal?”
He was suddenly nervous.
“Er, Black Hawk Traverse”
“Ooh! Nice route. Did you get any gear in the horizontal crack?”
“Mike showed me how to get a hexagonal thing to cam”
“Nicely done. I’ve brought some of these; they’re called Friends”
She held up her rack of gear, and suddenly Dal was locked onto the Shiny, minor things like a sex change fading into the background.
Kul whispered a soft “I see what you meant” to me before speaking up.
“Son, before you get a touch of the all-consuming avarice, ask the important question: how much are they?”
Geoff ducked his head.
“So I got a work bonus. I’m allowed to buy my wife a present”
Steph’s turn to stare.
“I think the custom and practice when buying presents for your beloved is to get them something that is entirely for them, and not, in reality, for yourself!”
That started some serious teasing between them, so I simply said we were about to pour some tea, that our bags were just over there, and so forth, and once the three of us had slipped past, Kul whispered again.
“That’s so sodding different. So bloody natural!”
I kept my reply to a sharp nod, and as we pulled out our flasks and snacks, Dal just whispered “She’s real, isn’t she? I mean, living colour, whatever? What must… Talk later, okay? Just getting my viewpoint settled”
A couple of deep breaths, than a question.
“Why do they have two ropes, Mike?”
“For double roping and twin-roping, Dal”
I took a few minutes explaining the difference, as the two newcomers quickly soloed Grotto Slab in what seemed like seconds and on their return started to gear up to its left. Abruptly, Dal stood.
“Going to ask. Need to break some more ice”
Kul and I left him to chat with them as we finished our mugs, then joined him as Steph finished tying on, Geoff now on a very solid ground belay.
“Dad, Steph here says she’ll show me a variation on that route I did. They’re going to go up this bit here, Heather Wall they say it’s called, and I can have a go after”
I looked at the Woodruffs.
“A VS, you two? He’s only done up to V Doff so far”
Steph nodded.
“And I can always lower him off if he can’t make the top moves, but we’d need to borrow your rope so that Hubby here can tow it up. I hate trying to throw ropes down off here, and that wind doesn’t help. I keep meaning to bring ski goggles for my eyes!”
Kul just nodded, collecting our line, and then Steph was off. There was that same economy and ease of movement I had seen even when she was living as a pisshead man. As she moved left and then back right, I explained to my two companions how the twin ropes worked to prevent a pendulum swing if she came off, while man and wife (it was getting easier to say that) rattled off a series of bad jokes until Steph was at the top of the wall. Her next words brought a soft hiss of breath from Kul.
“Watch me here, love. Awkward moves; need to get them in sequence and pull through before your arms get pumped”
“Aye aye, love!”
That bit of the route is pure thuggery, being one of my favourites, but rather than muscling through, she seemed to flow before disappearing from sight. Her voice came down, faintly, first “Safe!” and a minute later, “On belay”
Geoff started taking the ropes out of his belay device, asking one of us to tie a figure-of-eight on the end of my rope. He clipped it to the rear of his harness, then bellowed upwards.
“TAKE IN!”
Once the rope was taught, there were the usual calls before he started up the slab, collecting runners as he went, until he was under the right edge of the huge roof.
“Give a few seconds to get my head right, love!”
“Aye aye!”
I could actually see his back move as he hyperventilated, clearly psyching himself up, and I understood how far he was past his comfort zone, and then he was moving. It wasn’t as smooth, certainly not as flowing, but with a final series of obscenities, he was over the lip. Kul looked at his boy.
“Sure you want to try this?”
“Yes, Dad. Got to, yeah? And, well, she really is what she says she is, isn’t she? Especially the way they keep saying that word”
“Aye, son. I think you have that right. Makes a change, you being right”
“You’re a sod, Dad!”
Steph’s voice came down again.
“Dal! On belay!”
I checked he was tied on properly before shouting “Take in, Steph!”, and the rope started to vanish upwards. As it finished, and Dal staggered forward slightly, he made his own call of “That’s me”, followed a few seconds later by her “Climb when ready!”
He actually made simple work of the slab, which delighted me, and then he was at the roof, and having a conversation with Geoff, whose head I could see over the lip. The man was clearly talking the boy through the crux sequence, and then the lad made his move, jerky, flailing, with what I suspected was more than a little assistance from a tight rope, but he made it.
I stared at his father, and he shrugged.
“Going to have to try now, aren’t I?”
I nodded, just as Geoff’s head reappeared with a call of “Who’s next?”
Kul failed on the crux in the end, being lowered eventually to the ground muttering about never living it down, before the other three came back round to our spot.
More tea, and a sharing of the snacks we had left, followed by Steph and I doing some much harder routes as Geoff looked after the boys, and that ice Dal had mentioned not just broken but melted entirely away.
CHAPTER 22
It was a day that left me more than a little out of sorts. I had smiled at the way Steph’n’Geoff danced attendance on each other, but each little moment raised Caro’s memory. That could, should, have been us, was my first thought, which was then kicked well into touch by the simple understanding that it HAD been us. The wave of loss left me silent most of the way back to Sheffield, and after Kul dropped me off I waited at my closed front door before he had turned the corner, then walked to the local convenience store and bought a half bottle of Grouse and a bottle of dry white.
Both were empty when I woke the next morning, but at least I was in bed, and undressed, although when I went to the loo I had to wipe a small puddle I had left during the night. Not good. I looked at the bike, realised I would definitely not be safe to ride, and after some milky cereal and a couple of slices of toast, I walked down to the bus stop and took the first one into town.
It was a pretty aimless day, wandering around the shops, having a second, greasier breakfast in a greasy spoon and picking up a couple of books as well as two CDs I had been eyeing for a couple of months. Stuff for a proper meal could come from my freezer, but I left the alcohol on the shelves, as I had already played that game for far too long back in That Place.
I simply felt empty.
“Mike?”
I looked round so sharply I felt my neck click
“Betty? Sorry; I was miles away”
“No you weren’t You’re about four feet away. What are you up to?”
“Ah, I was out with Kul and his boy yesterday, and today’s sort of all loose ends, so I just thought I’d have a bimble round the shops”
“Not that much open on a Sunday, is there?”
“Well, more than was available in That Place”
“The L-word?”
“Yes indeed. We had the Arndale Centre and, well, a load of Asian grocers and that sort of thing. And pubs. Lots of pubs”
“Well, I fancy a cuppa. You dry?”
Not last night, I wasn’t.
“You trying to entice me, Mrs Ansell?”
“Oh give over! Got enough problems with the old man!”
“I was referring to tempting me to drink a cuppa, woman”
“Oh, and there I was thinking… Well, a woman can dream. Cuppa, aye. Got some goss to share”
“Juicy?”
“Could be, but more likely to be greasy”
I could feel my mood lifting as she rattled away, and led me off to Marks and Spencer’s café. I was now feeling really hungry as I came down from my drunkenness, and along with my little pot of tea, I bought us each a toasted sandwich and a slice of “Ooh, just this once, then” cake. After my first bite of cheese and ham, I wiped my mouth and asked the obvious question.
“This gossip, then?”
“Eh? Oh, aye! Well, you know the Fettler’s?”
“The mocktails and pie floater place? I should bloody well think so by now”
“Well, the landlord had an idea”
“Why am I getting worried?”
“Oh? No, not that sort of idea. One to do with where he’s from”
“Not bloody ostrich steaks, like that other place in Leeds?”
“What place?”
“Out by the college. Was in the news the other day. You can order all sorts of meat as a burger or a steak. Ostrich, alligator, that sort of thing”
“Ah. No, not like that. And wouldn’t his be emu, anyway?”
“Good point. So what’s his idea?”
“Well, he’s from Australia, right?”
“Well, yes”
“He’s got family down there still, and he’s been speaking to the boss. Our boss, that is”
“Bit confused, Bets. What’s he want with the boss?”
She took a sip of her tea, staring at the cup for a few seconds.
“More the Board than Mr Enright. Jacko—the landlord—has a proposal”
“Decent or indecent?”
“Oh, give over! Decent, and interesting as well. His family, it is”
“You are a worse tease then… Sorry. Can’t think of an example. Tease, anyway. What’s he asking?”
“Well, it’s that turn-round thing. He’s got family back there, like I said, and they have friends and that, and it’s what we do with the grease and that. What you and Kul do, really”
“Me? I just give advice”
“Exactly. Thing is, them Aussies, they’re going all green and eco-stuff. The recycling thing is big, and his brother, he does biodiesel. Converts chip fat into road fuel. He could do with a few more grease suppliers. Jacko fancies having us sort some out for Big Brother, hands-on style”
“Bloody hell! You mean someone going over there, don’t you?”
“Yup. But don’t get your hopes up, there’ll be a lot of folk wanting that job”
“Hell, Bets, I’m still settling down”
She stared at me, very directly, for nearly a minute, then smiled.
“Aye. Put my foot in it right at the start, didn’t I? right. No teasing, Mike. How long has it been since, you know?”
I knew exactly what she meant, so I fixed the best smile I could drag out.
“Not that long, love. Don’t think it ever will be long enough”
She put her hand on mine.
“Aye. That I understand. Like me and my Mam, if you don’t mind me saying that. All I will say is, well, if the chance comes up, it might help the whatsit, grieving process. If I am out of order, mate, just tell me. Sod it”
She drew a slow breath.
“If I am out of order, forget telling me, just slap me. I think moving up here really helped you. I suspect going even further might do better, There: said it. News will come out in the next two days, so have a think. Now, how’s Kul doing with the climbing? Any really embarrassing goss?”
I did my best to come up with enough silliness to satisfy her, but my mind was on her news, and I am sure she fully understood that. The following weekend, I was back over in Bethesda, with a present for the Hiatts of a ‘Ouistiti’ children’s harness. Penny was giggling.
“You just assume, don’t you?”
“Oh, and knowing you two, could I ever be wrong?”
Keith was doing his best not to corpse himself, so I dragged out the harness and presented it to the Bearer Of The Gloves herself.
“Enfys?”
She put down her current Lego sculpture to look at the harness.
“Beth sy?”
Penny smiled at her.
“Dydy Ewi Mike ddim yn siarad yr iaith, cariad. English, ah?”
“Wossit, Uncle Mike?”
“It’s something you wear to go with Mum and Dad when they climb rocks, love”
“I got rocks!”
Penny laughed again.
“We sorted out a couple of those old belts from the club, made her a Parisian baudrier and sit harness with two of them and an eight foot sling”
“You got her climbing already?”
“Very small boulders, very tight rope. More sack hauling as yet than climbing. You up for a route this weekend? Weather’s not looking great. Could take her round the Kitchen, I suppose. Oh, and Geoff said he’d run into you and your mates at Stanage”
“Oh; yes. Bit of a shock for Dal. I’d already given Kul the heads-up at work, but the Woodruffs just turned up, plonked their kit next to ours and whoosh, steep learning curve for the lad. Anyway, a walk sounds good if it’s going to be wet”
“Well, she’ll want to visit the old bridge, for the waterfalls. Definitely goes on a rope there, especially when the water’s high.”
“Club tonight?”
“Yup. Vic and Nansi might not be out, though. Their kid’s being a bit difficult. Lots of sulks”
“Oh? That surprises me, after they’ve both been so good with the music”
“He’s still great there; just the rest of the time that’s the problem, and you can’t live your life in a pub, can you?”
Keith and I just stared at each other, eyebrows raised, until it became impossible not to corpse. Pen gave a sharp “Men!”, before she herself succumbed, and the laughter became even more raucous when Enfys appeared wearing her new harness, which was upside down.
She insisted on wearing it for our walk down to the hidden bridge the next day, as well as for that walk around Idwal, wearing what looked like a sailor’s dry suit and wellies. We did have the Edwards with us, their boy looking pale and drawn right up to the point where the children were released onto the broad path after the first wooden bridge.
The two little bundles of energy were yelling happily as they Splashed In Puddles and Stepped In Sheep Poo. The Slabs were running with water, especially the Ordinary Route, which was, in essence, a watercourse in spate, so of course there was a couple climbing it, water breaking round the leader’s waist. A moment of pain hit, remembering that day soling, and then the kids were Being Seagulls, with appropriate noises, and we were making our way up towards the Kitchen, a watercourse of our own to cross over which we handed the children, as their wellies were rather shorter than the water was deep, and socks and feet needed to stay dry.
The rain, which had been pretty persistent precipitation developed into a deluge as we arrived back at the gate by the lake, and my own socks were starting to feel moist as we started the descent. Dennis in the tea kiosk had hot jam doughnuts for the kids, which he insisted be left for a few minutes because they would be “Poeth yn y ganol” and he didn’t want little faces burned by hot strawberry sludge.
The club was without paid guest that night; after we had all dried off and two children were made ready to bed down in Enfys’ room under Galadriel’s watchful eye, five of us started what was now for me a familiar walk down to the Cow. Sausage and mash, with several pints of decent ale, and I found myself chuckling at Penny’s claim about living in a pub. As the rain hammered against the windows, it seemed an eminently practical idea. That rain was running down the streets as we trudged back up, and once I had my boots back off and stuffed with newspaper (Welsh ones, I noted), two women and myself looked in on the children, both fast asleep in the one bed.
Nansi shook her head in an odd way, and then we went back down for a last cuppa before the two couples headed for ‘master’ and ‘spare’ bedrooms, and I slipped on my approach shoes for the walk to the bunkhouse, boots left to dry in the Hiatts’ kitchen. Nansi looked pensive.
“I won’t say ‘penny for them’, Nansi, because these two will simply make a joke, but you know what I mean”
Her lips quirked, and she took Vic’s hand.
“Ah, Mike, been hard recently. Today was typical, really. Miserable as all hell before we came out, then he’s with her and it’s like a switch is thrown. They’re in a reception year now, and the teacher says Dafi doesn’t want to play with anyone else. Seeing them lying like that, I worry he’s getting a fixation. He won’t go near the other boys, and that could cause real problems when he gets older”
“You can’t… That age is a bit young to be thinking ‘gay’, Nansi. That is what you’ve got in mind, isn’t it?”
She shook her head.
“Ah, never that simple, Mike. I mean, if they were older and locked together like that, it would all be normal, something for the other kids to be jealous of, but boys hanging round girls, young ones, ah? He’ll be getting called a sissy till teenage years, and, well, everything that goes with it”
I couldn’t do anything but agree with her.
“Yup. Means we will all have to watch his back, then. Not tonight, though: don’t think the two of them could have looked more at peace”
Vic looked at me across their joined hands.
“You mean that. Statement, not question, ah? These two don’t pick bad folk for friends, do they?”
I could feel my cheeks heating, so I finished my cup and rose from my seat.
“Well, I owe them both a lot, so yes. Now, time to get to my pit, I think. Soonest into that rain, soonest out of it”
Keith waved at the door.
“Got a brolly in the porch; would help”
I grinned, slightly sheepish.
“Yes, it would. Just hope nobody sees me with it. Night, all!”
The umbrella did help, and after doing my teeth, and a last visit to the loo, I settled down in a space that didn’t hold one of the various campers who had chosen a roof over a tent in that weather.
I did owe them a lot: a wife, for starters, and now a back to watch.
CHAPTER 23
The news was officially announced in an office meeting, and it was a little deeper than Betty had suggested. The boss was very clear in what the requirements of the posting would be. Yes, he did use that word.
“There’s been a lot of rubbish coming out about this one, so let’s put some of that silliness to bed. We are not going to be shipping lard and chip fat to Australia, no matter how wonderful Yorkshire lard products may be. We need the successful candidate to have an understanding of the processes involved, but that’s all. What we will be offering is much more along the lines of our management consultancy work”
I sneaked a look at Betty, and she shrugged in a pretty clear acknowledgement that she had caught the wrong end of the stick. The boss was still in full flow, so I switched back to him.
“The required skill set is quite a full one, so while it might look like we are playing favourites that is definitely not the case. Well, it is, but only in the sense that we need old hands to make sure this experiment works. It’s a big step into the unknown, and we may come a cropper, so it is those old hands, that experience, that we need. Now, we all know each other here, so no silliness about secret ballots and anonymised applications. Some of you are not suited for a number of reasons, and those reasons are all about experience. I’m looking directly at you, Mike”
“What the hell? I mean, sorry?”
He smiled.
“You would have been on the shortlist, especially as a single man, but you really need another six months to a year under your belt here before we can let you out to fly free. It’s a company mindset thing. We do indeed have a company mindset here, and for this trial we really need someone properly housebroken”
Betty called out something about him simply making things worse, which brought a sheepish grin from him, but he pulled back some officialish dignity and closed the meeting on the promise of a fair crack of the proverbial whip, with a sharp remark to Betty about even thinking of a joke about chains.
“I expect a few applications, but bear in mind what we seek here. It’s your own time you’ll be wasting, and I’d rather have people excited about their own turn coming up than getting disappointed about not getting to do the first footing”
The message to me was quite explicit, far more so than I would have expected, but I realised he was right. It was the subtext that got me: ‘you would have been our first choice, but…’. A vote of confidence, in a way. Get me housebroken…
It was a while before I was able to get across to Bethesda again, and that time there were three of us, Kul and his boy being let out for a weekend by what Kul called his dragon.
“More like that Greek myths hound sometimes. That one with the three heads. She needs that to keep the extra tongue for effective lashing”
I found myself laughing properly again.
“Kul, you do talk crap at times! Sangeeta, well, she’s not like that, from what I’ve seen of her”
Dal called over from the back seat, “Mike’s right, Dad, and don’t give us any rubbish about respecting tradition, men’s jokes and that!”
Kul sighed.
“Kids these days, eh? Think they know everything. Trouble is, with the bloody internet, they usually do. What’s a traditional sexist supposed to do now, I ask you? Endangered species, we are. Shall we just get him drunk and leave him halfway up a cliff?”
That was a good journey, switching between silly jokes and decent music. Dal had found a recording of Cyril Tawney from somewhere, and of course I had some Jez Lowe, as well as Brass Monkey and Eric Bogle, and when we weren’t verbally sparring, we were singing along, especially to Cyril and Eric; when I heard a sniffle behind me at ‘Reason For It All’, I avoided looking back. The lad had heart, I already knew that; he didn’t need embarrassing.
It was dry when we arrived, which disappointed my young lady, as there were no gloves to carry. The three of us settled our gear into the bunkhouse, and then it was a family meal, the ‘family’ in question including the Edwards, Dafi, as ever, close-coupled to Enfys throughout. Galadriel was there for the evening, and I noticed that neither Penny nor Keith used any English at all when speaking to her. I was a little in awe at both their commitment to their new home and their ability to pick up the language: I had never been a linguist, not really.
The club was on, this time without the complication the Woodruffs’ presence would have brought, which was fortunate, because Kul wanted to talk about Australia. During the break, as our friends went over to buy the obligatory raffle tickets, he prodded Dal to go and check out the crisp and dried fat selection, then turned back to me once the lad was far enough away.
“He had a little dig at you, Mike, mate”
“Don’t think it was a dig. I saw it---well, you’ll think I’m mad. I saw it as a vote of confidence. He’s right, really. Needs someone who’s been with the firm, the, bugger, the company ethos, yeah? Not that I wasn’t tempted, though”
Kul stared at me for a few seconds, before smiling and putting a hand on my forearm.
“No. Not coming on to you, mate. The lad’s spot on about her indoors. Can I ask a personal question?”
“Not stopped you before, mate, has it?”
He looked down at the table for a few seconds,
“When was the last time you went to see her, Mike?”
That cut straight through my armour, thinner by far than I had imagined it to be.
“Far too long, Kul”
“Then perhaps you need a visit. Betty says you were out of sorts the other day”
Shit. That was like the bloody Borg; that ‘corporate attitude’ the boss had been so insistent on clearly went further. Kul wasn’t finished, though.
“Please, once again, hear this how I mean it, yes? You have roots here. So do I, we, me and the boy. And the missus, to be clear. If I say ‘that other town that starts with L’, will you understand?”
“You’re talking about your own family”
“And its traditions? Oh, absolutely. They are a bit traditional, both sides”
He took a slow drink from his pint,
“What do you know about Sikhism, mate?”
I shrugged.
“Not much. Stuff like hair, and the bangle and knife thing”
“The Five K’s. Hair, comb, bangle, knife and underpants”
I must have looked surprised, for he grinned at me.
“Nothing kinky, mate. Just like shorts with a drawstring. And the knife’s really just symbolic, not like it used to be. Anyway, those are all just symbols. We have a very simple philosophy. One deity, equality for all human beings, protection of the weak. Those are probably why we got so much crap from the other big religions, and that’s why we got good at the fighting stuff”
“You good at fighting, then?”
“Me? Absolutely shit at it. Anyway, that’s the theory. Oh, and if you’re ever hungry near one of our temples, we give a free feed. Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, and he chuckled, not in a nice way, taking a quick look over his shoulder to see where Dal was, which was leaning against the bar watching us.
“My boy’s a good lad, Mike”
“I know that, Kul”
“And he knows when I want to have a bit of space. Right. This is the crunchy bit. We’re not that strict, our family. I mean, I wear the Five K’s, and so does the lad, but we’re not into five prayers in the morning or things like that. The faith does speak to me, though, because of what I told you: equality, respect, standing up for the weak, charity for anyone who needs it. It even kicked my backside when we met Stephanie as she now is”
“Eh?”
“Big tenet, Mike. Our deity is neither male nor female. None of that stuff about sky fathers. Got our own beards, we have; don’t need one up there. Anyway, we had loads of problems from the religions that were already there when we started out, and they left some marks”
“Such as?”
“Fucking caste system, mate. We’ve got our own little clubs, sects, whatever the right word is, and one of the things we picked up in India was their caste system. I mean, we’re supposed to be about equality, so how does that work?”
“Ah. Are you leading up to saying you’ve got a problem with the in-laws?”
“Not quite. It’s Sanny that’s from the wrong side, not me. My family’s the bigger problem. Hence that other Place That Starts With L. We do the family stuff now and again, like that day in Donny, but, well, going to Oz is not going to strain any bonds. Hang on”
He beckoned his son over, and once Dal was settled, Kul drained his pint.
“I’ll say this now, then I’ll get us a refill. It’s me that’s got the post in Australia”
Dal nodded at his words.
“You’ve been telling mike about Nana Butt, haven’t you?”
“Yes. Mike, there’s a lot of shit with the caste thing, and if I say ‘polluting precious bodily fluids’ or ‘touch of the tar brush’ you should get it”
“Ah. Yes”
“Indeed. Should have married a decent girl, possibly one of the cousins she had lined up ready. I said ‘no’, and that, my friend, is why it is me that is probably getting that move to Perth, and why I am actually looking forward to it despite all the upheaval. Sorry, but it really should have been you”
He rose, reaching for my glass.
“Same again? Oh, and the lad wants to know where we’re going tomorrow”
I slept well that night, and the morning arrived in a sunny mood. Enfys and Dafi were with us for a family breakfast in the house, my appetite already titillated by the smell of the fry-up some of the paying guests were preparing. The two kids were happily bouncing off each other, as well as what seemed like all the walls and floor, no sign of the misery the Edwards were worried about, and of course the prattle was all in Welsh. Penny looked at me with a broad grin.
“You’re not missing anything, Mike. They’re in a reception class at the moment, and it’s all about other kids and toys and stuff like that. What’s the plan for today?”
“Slog up a loose hillside, I think, for a couple of lower-grade classics. Just trying to decide between the Pass and the Valley”
“Valley. You’ll be thinking of Wrinkle or Flying Buttress, and if you do them both, that’s two big slogs. Got the Slabs, Tarw, Bochlwyd and the Milestone close together just up the road. How hard a route?”
Dal had looked up from his cereal as she spoke.
“Done Flying Buttress, Mrs Hiatt”
“Penny, son. Same name, different route, and this one’s a lot longer. Easier, mostly, though the walk in is a slog. Cromlech’s a long way up. What’s he done so far, Mike? Grade-wise?”
“Steph took him up a VS at Stanage. Heather Wall”
“Nice! How did you find that?”
“Dad couldn’t manage it”
“Not a competition, love. Except with yourself. Gloating’s not good”
Having said that, she looked at Keith and burst out laughing.
“Remember when you fell off The Tippler? Yes, Dal, no gloating, but friendly pi—er, mickey taking is fine. ‘Get a good jam in’, you said, if I remember correctly”
Keith was looking slightly pink.
“I did. It was a very good jam. Which is why I couldn’t get it out when I moved up”
I remembered that story, and took over.
“Big sticky-out roof climb, Dal. E1. You move out onto the lip of the roof, stick a bit of gear in, which is where something like that Friend thing Steph showed you is ideal. Pull up onto the face above using a heel hook and jams. Keith got halfway through, fully committed, and then he realised his hand jam was stuck in the crack”
“What did he do?”
Keith raised his left arm.
“Obviously didn’t fall on it. I got Pen to lock me off on the rope, and then I let go. Jam came free as I dropped, but then I’m hanging off a Hex 5 six feet from the rock. Bit ignominious, but I was about to peel anyway. I just got to keep my forearm unbroken. Mike?”
“Yes?”
One of us will do sprog watch, the other come with you. All multi-pitch routes up there, so this will let you do harder stuff without soloing next to them. Let’s do Arete and Marble on Bochlwyd, then walk over to Milestone for some of the simple stuff like Pulpit and Direct. Sound good?”
I nodded, and he grinned.
“Pen, we’ve got enough guests in for once, so it’s you that can get out. Kids can help me with the bunkhouse”
She looked down at Enfys and Dafi.
“You sure? Not seen him this bouncy for a while”
“They’ll wear out soon enough, once they’ve done a couple of chimneys”
“You, Hiatt, are a sod”
“But you love me for it!”
He was right, of course, and that was how our day went. Kul dithered over the awkward step past the overlap on Marble Slab, which always reminds me of the one on Seamstress, and once we were all sorted, we tramped across the hillside to Milestone, where Kul found the infamous knee-eating crack. It was a cracking hill day, and it was becoming crystal clear that Dal had been deeply bitten by the bug.
No, they weren’t off to Perth the next day, because there was an awful lot of paperwork to get sorted, but three months later, we gave the whole family a send-off in the Fettler’s. I stayed reasonably sober, and the day after they took a coach down to a hotel next to Gatwick, I was on much the same road, to visit Caro.
CHAPTER 24
Her place was a little overgrown, but I’d brought a few tools down with me just in case. As I removed a few weeds, preparing to plant a couple of bulbs, I found a plastic-wrapped card fastened to one of the flower pots.
‘If you read this Mike, a couple of us from the (climbing and folk) clubs stop by every couple of weeks to clean up. Not forgotten’
I had to take a few minutes on a bench after finding the note, for it dredged up a deep well of pain that I had almost managed to slip away from. It also showed me exactly how true my friends were. Our friends, that is, and in a perverse way, the responsibility I felt to them was what I was using to keep myself going. Can’t break, can’t let all our friends down.
I found a scrap of paper, jotting down a ‘Thanks; Mike’, and tucked it into the bag with the little card. Let them know I was still holding up, take one little bit of worry and pain from them. The decision came immediately, and it was ‘sod this place’; I went back to the bike, with no clear plan but to get away, and I ended up at a Youth Hostel I remembered from many years ago, at a place in Suffolk called Blaxhall. There was a common nearby, with a few tumuli on, and it was a short ride to Aldeburgh, where I spent the next day walking the length of Orford Ness, ostensibly for a look at the nuclear weapons test site but actually for the solitude that the huge sweep of shaggy grass and endless expanse of sea provided. American fighter jets roared overhead every so often, a few gulls screamed, and it all matched my mood as exactly as I could have wished.
Yes, there was a pub near the hostel.
Work felt strange without my sparring partner, but Betty and the rest did what they could to fill the gap, and yes, I did find my grins and jokes again. I had responsibilities, after all. Those responsibilities were actually more varied and very real, for without Kul, our individual workload naturally had to increase. The bosses were looking for new staff, but even after they had arrived, they would take time to get into the swing of it.
It was absorbing, though, which was exactly what I needed. We received an ‘all staff’ letter from Kul and his family a fortnight after they had left us, which carried a few pictures, all seeming to show nothing but blue skies. When they were passed around, Betty was the one to wave at the rain streaming down the office window, with a withering observation that it was ‘all right for some’.
That was a surprise, for she wasn’t usually one for snarkiness. I took the chance to ask when we were both brewing a cuppa, and she put her cup back down, leaning on the worktop on straight arms, head bowed.
“Mike, it’s not you, but, well, it is, sort of. Not deliberate, but with the Board, yeah?”
“Me? Have I done, said, something stupid? Sorry, whatever it is, was!”
She turned back to me, backside against the cupboards, arms folded.
“No, Mike, no you haven’t. Just, well, I would have fitted that Perth job as well as Kul. As well as you, in fact. Yes, I do understand you’re the one being groomed for any stage two expansion, and the reason is bloody sexism”
I couldn’t find anything sensible to say, but she switched to a slightly timorous smile.
“Sorry, Mike. None of that’s your fault, and anyway, I really doubt I could persuade him indoors to move all that way. It would be nice just to be bloody asked, for once!”
She stepped forward to give me a one-armed hug.
“Anyway, how did that trip to visit, you know… How was it?”
I found myself repeating her own posture, resting against the cupboards, my mug cradled in both hands.
“Found a note on her… you know; there, by the bulbs and stuff. Climbing club and the other lot, the folk club, they’re doing gardening there for me. Yes, I left a thank-you note. I couldn’t…”
I drew a long breath before trying to match her smile.
“I couldn’t face staying there, so I went somewhere we visited, early days, yeah? In Suffolk. Youth hostel on some proper heathland, then a walk from Aldeburgh, down Orford Ness”
“Heard of Aldeburgh. Music festival place?”
“Yes; Benjamin Britten. Anyway, there’s a long spit, Orford Ness, that I walked the length of”
“Not your usual sort of place, that. All flat”
“Whole point. Nothing to the East but open sea, and just rough grassland on the Ness. Solitude, Betty. Got some photos of the nuclear bomb test place, though”
Her jaw dropped.
“I thought we only tested those bloody things in the middle of sodding nowhere!”
“Not the actual bombs; just the explosive compression harness things. Got some old hangar things down there, very evocative for photos”
“So you’re not glowing in the dark, then?”
“Apparently not. But there is a nuclear power station just up the coast”
“Oh dear. Fish caught ready-cooked, then? Extra fingers on them?”
“Fish don’t have fingers, Betty”
“Well, explain what I gave my lot for tea yesterday, then!”
She was back, almost. I made to rise, and she put a hand against my chest.
“Forget what I said, Mike. You need this move, if it comes off, but don’t be surprised if I do my best to persuade my feller to go for the next one after you. No resentment?”
“No need, Bet. I was just surprised, you know. These days. Sexism and that”
She raised an eyebrow.
“What’s that yank phrase? Skin in the game? Well, if you have some, that’s when you start noticing. Better than it was, but not by much. Anyway, work won’t do itself, will it?”
Never a truer word, but I found myself watching others far more closely than I had been. ‘Skin in the game’, eh? Time to open my eyes wider, it seemed.
My own letter, together with a bundle of photographs, was waiting for me on the doormat three days later.
‘Dear Mike
Not going to write loads of stuff here, because Dad says it’s unmanly and inappropriate for Yorkshiremen, so I reminded him that we aren’t, but you know him. Just puts on a silly accent and talks nonsense. Locals think he’s hilarious.
Pictures are a mix. One is of the view over the Swan brewery from King’s Park in Perth. Another is a sea stack called the Sugarloaf, a long way from Perth. Dad’s got the loan of a car as part of the package, so we’ve been exploring. Another one’s of the huge beach near that stack—yes, we’ve been swimming! Not eaten by a shark yet. Not found anywhere to climb yet, either.
Company Dad’s contracting for have sorted us out a rental place at somewhere called Nollamarra or Nollamarrow or something like that. Address is at top of letter. People are being really friendly and stuff. Had a proper ‘barbie’ party a couple of days ago.
A different hand took over.
Hiya, mate. That’s the lad’s take, so I’ll add mine and Sanny’s bit. Flight was a slog, Dubai’s a hole, but this place is a jewel. It’s a big place, but most people still seem to act like it’s a village. They TALK to you, not like it is in those three Places That Start With L (third one’s London). Sanny’s reet made up, ‘appen (that’s for the boy’s benefit), because there’s a decent bus system, there’s masses to see and do, and this place really understands food. Says she’ll end up developing her own gravitation if we stay here.
Seriously, we are already wondering if it would be good to make this a permanent move. Early days, obviously, but…
Write soon, mate.
Kul, Dal, Sangeeta
The photos were stunning, and the beach one was odd, in that while I had seen more spectacular beach pictures, this expanse of sand clearly extended halfway to the next country, only the odd groyne breaking up the line of very gentle waves-to-land until it all hit a vanishing point. No crowds; very few people visible, full stop.
The ‘View from King’s Park’ made me smile, because of course Kul had included a brewery as a hint. If he couldn’t actually buy me a pint, then a picture of the source was better than nothing. It all looked clean, modern in a restrained way, and, above all, spacious. Two of the photos were of parrots, one a bottle-green, the other a soft pink, and they were the ones that had me setting it all aside, letter, pictures, half-drunk tea, and walking out into the rain as it fell on my little rear garden.
Birdwatching, indeed. Caroline’s life had been full of things she loved. The birds were one thing I had only half-shared, of course, as she was never as focused on climbing as myself, but in the others, we had found so much in common that we might have shared DNA. That thought, of course, brought up so many worms, so much might-have-been-and nearly-was, that I nearly found myself heading for the corner shop once more.
I was actually pulling on my jacket, having dumped my soaked sweater, when the phone rang.
“Hiya. Can I help you?”
“Mike? Bets here. What you up to tonight?”
Walking over to the Co-Op and buying booze, before starting the process of getting pissed, woman.
“Nothing in particular. Why?”
“You get a package from Kul? Letter and pics?”
“Yes. You as well?”
“Yup. Fancy comparing them? Down the Fettler’s? Give us a chance to check them with the owner. Didn’t fancy cooking, and him indoors can burn a salad, so we are eating there, and not fish fingers this time. You up for it?”
Not really, but it would interfere with getting wrecked: I couldn’t decide whether that would be a good or a bad thing, in the wider scheme of things.
“Yeah; go on. Time?”
“We’re setting off now. Got them to put a table aside for us. Dress code is whatever you didn’t sleep in last night”
I laughed, dutifully, and went to change into something better than the vest I had been wearing under the now-soaked sweater. I found an old rugby shirt that was recently washed, thought of running an iron over it, then decided against. Pint and a pie in a pub, not a posh feed. I did sort out a decent cag jacket, though; that rain was heavy.
The landlord caught my eye as I ordered a pint from his barman.
“With Bets tonight, mate?”
“Yup”
“Table over there by the fire‘ll be right, then. Got Parmo on special tonight, with wedges”
I nodded, wondering exactly what Aussie peculiarity a ‘Parmo’ might be, and settled into a chair close enough to the fireplace to stay warm without losing body hair, and took a deliberately-slow mouthful of ale. Better than falling asleep in a chair again, surely?
“Hiya Mike!”
“Oh, hi Doug, Bets!”
Betsy’s husband was carefully peeling his raincoat off so as not to shake water everywhere, as Betsy struggled to control their two nearly-teens.
“Joe! Take your sister’s coat as well! Doug, yours? Ta! Hang these up, and then back. You ordered, Mike?”
“Not yet. Our Host said something about a special tonight, but I have no idea what on Earth it is”
Doug pointed at my glass, and made the obvious gesture. I was more than a little surprised to see that my ‘deliberate mouthful’ had somehow almost emptied the glass.
“Yes, please, mate. And do you have any idea what a Parmo is?”
“Aye, I do. I’ll grab us drinks, and then explain. Teesside thing, it is”
That left me even more confused, but he was soon back with a tray of drinks, as two excited kids and Betsy settled themselves at the table, along with a woman I had never seen before.
Doug handed out the glasses, taking a chair next to his wife.
“Cheers, all! Oh, and this is my cousin, down from York for a few days. Pam Birtles, Betsy’s workmate, Mike Rhodes”
CHAPTER 25
She looked to be a year or two older than me, but her smile was a genuine one, if a little uncertain. It was clearly a set-up, but I didn’t think it would be polite to make a fuss. Have our meeting, poke fun at the photos, and then make a quick exit. Doug was back with the drinks, passing me a pint and his children a coke each before returning for the other adult drinks. Once settled, he passed me a sheet of paper with the day’s ‘specials’ listed.
“Parmo’s something popular up Teesside way, as I said. Now, I’ve had a word with him behind the bar, and he said something about it not being exactly what he expected. Seems there’s a difference between the Aussie one and the one his cook’s banged our”
I had no idea what that would be, so did the dumb-show for ‘And? Explain?’, but Bets was laughing. She turned to her husband.
“Remember Tim?”
“Aye, course”
“He said he tried one once, when he was up in Billingham. Couldn’t decide which smelled worse, the parmo or the chemical works”
Pam was shaking her head.
“You two are really selling this, but I’m still lost. Difference between Aussie and sort-of-local?”
Doug grinned.
“Well, the Aussie one is what was expected, which is chicken in breadcrumbs with a tomatoey pasta sauce stuff on top and a load of melted mozzarella. That’s chicken parmigiana. Parmo starts the same way, with the breaded chicken, but the topping’s a white sauce and melted cheddar. Betcher meal sauce?”
Pam said “Béchamel” and Doug nodded.
“That’s the one. Anyway, orders. Kids?”
Joe and Amy went for burgers, to nobody’s surprise. Betty opted for steak pie and chips, Pam for Cumberland sausage and mash, while Doug grinned at me.
“You know you want to! Go on; I am”
Two chicken parmos. I was feeling more than a little cornered, so my odd brain retaliated by paying for the food. I was just finishing the transaction when the cheesy smell caught my nose. Shaun, our landlord, winced slightly.
“Mate, that is so NOT what I bloody expected, ey? I mean, back home, everywhere, it’s a proper parmigiana and a bucket of wedges, that or fish and chips, and what he’s cooked up, all wrong. Where’s the sauce?”
I was still able to laugh.
“Well, I’ll let you know what I think. Now, if you get a few minutes, we’re actually here to look at some pictures”
“Didn’t think you lot were like that, mate. What’s the prices?”
“What? Oh! Not that sort of picture, you cheeky bugger. Kul’s sent us some from Perth”
“Oh! Ripper!”
“Sorry?”
He dropped his voice a little.
“Mate, sometimes I forget, doing the professional Aussie routine. If you ever catch me saying ‘cobber’ or ‘arvo’, just kick me”
“Will do”
“Food’s going to be half an hour, mate. And we actually have a run on the parmos. I blame that ale you all drink—kills the taste buds! Be over when I get a gap, but wait till after you’ve eaten; keep the grease off the pics”
I couldn’t argue with that last bit, so made my way back to our table.
“That’s the food ordered; half an hour or so till we get it. Compare pictures before we eat? Landlord’ll have a peek afterwards. Here’s my bundle”
Betty waved a similar envelope at me.
“Kul said he wasn’t going to duplicate any of the snaps, cause the cost gets silly.. Very clear that we have to share and compare”
Pam held up a hand.
“Greasy fingers, remember?”
Betty shrugged.
“Got a load of wet wipes in the handbag. Got three kids with me, so got into the habit. Yes I meant you, Doug. I think we do one pack now, then the other after filling our faces. Mike?”
“Okay, then. I’ll try and remember what Kul wrote about them. This is the brewery…”
I worked steadily through the ten pictures, the beach photo bringing a sigh from Betty.
“All that sand, and nobody there! Marbella it isn’t. Every square foot there has someone on it!”
We were on the parrot pictures when Shaun brought our food over, and he pointed at the pink one.
“Galah, that one. Common as, that. So’s the other; it’s a Twenty-Eight”
Pam grinned up at him.
“Why Twenty-Eight? There’s only one in the picture”
“Ah, it’s their call”
He made an odd sort of squeak or rather squawk, with that rhythm, ‘twenty eight’, and Bets snorted.
“You being serious? Noise like that?”
“Ah, you want to hear the magpies when they get going. Who’s got the pie?”
He dished out the food, and yes, the smell of the parmo had an almost solid existence of its own. I simply stared at it for a minute, remembering Sangeeta’s reported comment about developing her own gravitational field. How many bloody calories were in the thing? Sod it: dive in, Rhodes.
It wasn’t bad, but I couldn’t see myself eating it on a regular basis, as the cheese alone would probably fill a week’s allowance of lard, fat, grease, whatever it was Bets had called men’s essential food groups. Doug topped up our drinks partway through, but even with the ale as a solvent, I couldn’t finish the thing.
Shaun appeared at the table, an old pia box in hand.
“Doggy bag?”
Betty’s husband looked up at that, then at me, so I just nodded and Betty herself turned the word from ‘doggy’ to ‘Dougie’ before producing the promised pack of wet wipes. Shaun spotted her move, and pulled over another chair.
“Right, you lot… Ah! Swan brewery. That’s all the Swan river, all that water. Got dolphins in there”
Joe looked up sharply.
“Really? Can you swim with them?”
“Ah not so much there, mate. Better to go down to Mandurah. They come into the shallows”
Both Joe and Amy were hanging on Shaun’s words, and as the rest of us sipped, he worked through the two bundles.
“That’s a magpie, mate! Bloody vicious bastards. Don’t like cyclists; go for your eyes, they do”
Pam looked at the bird, a pied thing that looked nothing like a real magpie, especially not in its long and pointed beak.
“You said about their song, Shaun?”
“Oh! Oh, yeah/ Perth’s a bit odd with birdsong, cause they introduced a lot of stuff without thinking”
Ammy asked, “Like rabbits? I heard about the fences”
“yes, love. Like the rabbits. Mostly in the East, though. Perth’s got Aussie birds that don’t belong there, though. Kookaburra’s one, rainbow lorikeet’s another. Both noisy bastards. Maggies, though, they’re native. Sorry, don’t know your name?”
“Pam. His cousin”
“Pam. Hi; Shaun. You see that Vin Diesel film? The darkness one?”
“Pitch Black? Oh, yes. Bloody scary!”
“Well, maggies and currawongs, which are even bigger bastards, are part of a group called butcher birds”
Betty burst out laughing.
“You are not exactly selling that place, mate!”
He grinned happily.
“Wait till I get onto spiders and snakes, woman. And box jellies, blue rings, salties, white pointers…. Anyway. Maggie song. All the butcher birds like to sing, and maggies are usually in mobs, and it’s like a choir. That noise in the film, where the monsters are waking up? That’s what maggie song is like”
Pam was clearly fascinated.
“That’s… That’s scary!”
“Yup. Some people like it, but it always makes my skin crawl”
“Do the wotsit keets sing?”
“The rainbow lorikeets? No, they just squawk. They’re really Queensland birds, so they’re as thick as those rednecks are. That’s the far North East of Oz. Think hats with corks on strings around them, men in singlets and knee-shorts”
“Singlet?”
“Vest. Think the Yanks call them wifebeaters”
Doug coughed, and Shaun blushed slightly.
“Sorry, mate. Just getting a bit nostalgic. Oh, that’s Maggy River. Think tour cliché Aussie bloke, that’s Queensland. This is Maggy River; think more like Haworth, or maybe Richmond. Culture, right?”
Betty waved another picture at him, with what looked like badly-made cut-outs of Beefeaters and similar non-Australian imagery.
“And this rubbish? This is culture?”
His blush grew stronger.
“Yes, well. Really nice buildings there, honest. That’s London Court”
He spread his arms.
“What can I say? It’s a tourist attraction!”
Doug laughed.
“I ask myself what sort of tourists your city is trying to attract, and why! Given what the rest of the pics show, why on Earth would anyone want this?”
Pam slapped his arm.
“You’re embarrassing him, Dougie! Stop it”
“Okay, but, well! Shaun?”
“Yes, mate?”
“Last question, cause there’s someone at the bar. What the hell is that?
The photo showed a solid-looking lizard with tiny legs, a bright blue tonguing hanging from its open mouth. Shaun perked up again.
“Ah, that’s a bluey! Some people call them stumpies, cause of the tail. Blue-tongued skink. Harmless as, they are”
He paused for a few seconds, then said, in a much quieter voice, “Learned something I didn’t know about them, couple of years ago. I’LL BE WITH YOU IN A MINUTE, MATE!”
He turned back to us with a hint of a grimace.
“We get a lot of roadkill back home, especially in the RFO. Much of it’s roos, and they can do a lot of damage when you hit them. Blueys, though; you find them on the edges of the roads, usually alive, next to a squished one”
He drew a breath before looking directly at me, then quickly away.
“Thing I learned is that they mate for life. When one of them gets squished, the other one stays with the body. You can work out the rest. They don’t move on, just stay there and wait their own turn. Sorry: bit of a downer, that”
He rose abruptly, heading towards his customer, and I caught his train of thought without the need for telepathy.
Was that me, waiting for my own turn?
I looked across at Pam, who was staring towards the bar, and caught her whisper to her cousin.
“Is Shaun single, Dougie?”
CHAPTER 26
I found myself struggling to keep my grin down, as Betty had clearly planned on shoving Pam in my direction. Shaun’s comments about his local lizard were still at the front of my mind, though, and I took a moment to think it all through.
Was I pleased at Pam’s shift of focus onto Shaun because I was one more roadside lizard waiting for the squish, or for other reasons? She was far from unattractive, and seemed good company, at least so far. Was I tuning all women out, or just her? Was I waiting for someone to enter my life, or just for the next car?
“You okay, Mike?”
“Um? Sorry; miles away, Bets”
“Thinking about Australia?”
“Sort of. Kul seems to have fallen on his feet out there”
“Yeah, but I was looking at a map the other day, seeing where exactly it’s near. Perth. Short answer is sod all”
I watched as Pam made a point of going to the bar to order the next round, and took a mouthful of beer before turning to Betty with a smile.
“Yeah, I read somewhere that it’s the most isolated capital city in the world. State capital, of course. Then I looked at that pic of the brewery, and thought, Mike, my boy, it’ll all be lager, and there’s nowhere even close you can escape to for a decent pint”
Betty waved her glass at me.
“Yeah, but some of us like a glass of better stuff, and there’s supposed to be good wine out there. And sorry about Pam”
“Pardon?”
“Ah, just a thought, aye?”
I put my glass down, turning back to Betty.
“No matchmaking, please, love. Things will happen, or they won’t, and no sense in trying to force them along. Anyway, Shaun and her seem to have hit it off, so the evening’s not been wasted”
“Yeah, but, well. But. What you said, that’s the thing. The isolation. Dal’s off to university soon, and that would have to be in Perth. If we move out there, it’ll be the same for Joe and Amy, and neither of them is as academic as Kul’s boy. If they do their college time here, there’s a load of places, choices. Opportunities that don’t mean having to move thousands of miles away. Yes, I would be off to Oz like a shot, but the more I think about the kids, the less comfortable I feel about a move”
She sipped her own wine, watching as her children bounced pool balls off each other on the pay-to-play table.
“Leaving the next slot for you, Mike. What I said about skin in the game goes for the kids as well. Doug and me, well, we’ve talked it all out, and until they’re through college, that’s us tied to England. Speaking of which… Not England. Would you be up for showing us all a bit of that bit of Wales you go to? Won’t be getting us up any crags, but be nice to see the big hills”
“You worried about me being there on my own?”
My thoughts twitched straight back to myself unroped on the Slabs, and Steph as well, and something must have shown in my face, for Betty took my hand for a couple of seconds.
“No, cause I know you stay with friends. Be nice to be cheeky and use them for an adventure”
“Eh?”
“Kids, love. Let them play at expeditions in that bunkhouse, and me and Doug, we can read maps. I can squeeze onto the back seat with the offspring. Never been over that way, so it will be a first for me and him as well. You okay with the idea?”
Her gaze went over to the bar, where Pam was still standing, despite all of our drinks having been delivered, the woman deep in smiling conversation with our pet ‘cobber’.
“Yeah. Why not? Let me know which weekend works for you. Got decent outdoor kit? Waterproofs?”
She burst out laughing.
“Doug’s got family in Manchester, Mike. What do you think?”
I gave her the obligatory laugh, and settled down to my pint.
Isolation, indeed. Nothing to remind me of certain things, and that note from the clubs had left me in a better state of mind about her grave. Right… If Kul could show the value of the idea, that it made sense economically, then we were Go. Could I step away from that next car?
Either way, a fortnight later we were packed into Doug and Betty’s Volvo as we rolled smoothly along the north Welsh coast before the turn down the Conwy Valley.
“Why not come in from the Bangor end, Mike? Looked simpler on the map”
“Simple, Doug. Popping down to Betws is a much, much prettier way. Kids got their cameras?”
Betty gave an affirmative from the back seat, and I turned back to Doug.
“Couple of good photo opportunities on the road. I’ll give you fair warning before them, but only if the clouds are up on top rather than clagging the valley bottom”
“Will we see Snowdon, Uncle Mike?”
“I hope so, Joe. That’s why we’re coming this way. Great view of Snowdon, then a really spectacular valley”
Amy piped up.
“I need a wee, Mam!”
Joy.
“There’s a supermarket in about two miles, Doug. I know for a fact they’ve got loos. Joe?”
Betty called back.
“He’ll go when Amy does. Give us a chance to get a peace offering for your mates. What do they drink?”
“Alcohol. And tea”
“Men! Ale, wine, what?”
“Keith and Penny are both ale drinkers, but wine is still welcome. Don’t know about the Edwards”
“Who are we staying with?”
“Keith and Pen, the Hiatts. They’ve got the bunkhouse. Edwards are their best mates, so you’ll meet them”
“Right. The Hiatts snobby about cans?”
“As opposed to bottles? Don’t think so. As long as it’s a decent brew”
“Then we’ll get a slab, if they have one, and a couple of bottles. Oh, and usual brekky stuff. That it ahead?”
“Yup! In here, mate”
The shopping was done efficiently, and for once Betws wasn’t a solid traffic jam. Up past the Falls, the Ugly House drawing laughter from the children, and then the steady ascent past the pubs until we were approaching the Caernarfon turn.
“Down here to the left, mate. There’s a couple of lakes that’ll give you a view”
Past the Brenin, almost to Garth Farm, the oohs and ahs growing more frequent from the back seat, and finally into a favourite lay by, where we all scrambled out, several cameras ready. Joe was snapping away, but Amy was the more curious.
“Is that Snowdon, Uncle Mike?”
“Yes. See the three peaks on the right? Snowdon’s the left hand one”
“Have you climbed it?”
“Many times, love. Bit of a long walk, but not too hard”
Joe was insistent now.
“Can we go up it, Dad?”
“We can, son, if Uncle Mike thinks it’s safe”
There went my Saturday, I realised. Never mind; it would repay them for the lift, and I could do with a day in company. I smiled at them all.
“If it’s a decent day, we’ll do the Pyg track, but we will need to get there early or all the parking will be gone”
Betty murmured something about not getting wrecked that evening, and I grinned.
“Probably down the pub on Saturday night, though, so you will have the opportunity”
I almost dragged them back to the car, and we turned in the road to head back to Capel Curig and the run through the Valley, which brought more gasps and three, count them, photo stops, including the obligatory ‘secret bridge’ one, which left Betty laughing with joy. Finally, we were at the bunkhouse and unloading. I had given Keith a ring as we crested the pass below Pen yr Ole Wen, and two more small persons were waiting to help lift and carry. As usual, they were chattering away to each other, and I had to explain to Joe and Amy that yes, people around that part of the world had their own language. Pen looked a little stressed to my eyes, but she still found smiles for all four children.
“What you up to tomorrow, Mike?”
“Ah, this lot fancy Snowdon, so I thought I’d take them up the Pyg. Get up early for the parking”
“No need. Bus running this time of year, and we have a friend who’ll let us park at the Brenin. Nine of us will fit in two cars”
“Nine?”
Keith, me, two kids, your crew”
She waved at Dafi as he ran after Enfys carrying a rolled up sleeping bag.
“This one… issues, ah? He’s fine with ours, but has been having panic attacks around other boys. Your mate’s lad, well, got his sister with him, so the focus is altered. Anyway, how’s your other mate doing? And his own boy?”
“Ah, we’ve brought some photos up. Thought we’d share them down the pub tomorrow”
Keith called over, “And what’s wrong with at the pub tonight?”
I shrugged.
“I was working on an assumption of the usual shite parking at Pen y Pass, so an early start. I assume we can forget that as a need, then?”
“Yup. And it’s a club night tonight, so usual plan. No paid guest. Your mates like music?”
“Ask them yourself!”
It turned out that all four of them were willing to adapt their musical tastes for the sake of beer and pub grub, so it was a party of eleven that evening, which became a potentially unlucky thirteen, until that man Illtyd joined Steph’n’Geoff at our little group of tables. Beer was indeed drunk, I had gammon and chips, and I almost missed it when Enfys, Amy and Dafi went off to the loo together.
I supposed it was safer that way, and while he was almost ready for junior school, he was still a ‘little’. Nansi caught my eye, after a sharp look over at Steph, and slipped into the chair Bets had vacated on her way to the bar.
“I saw where you were looking, Mike. He’s getting a bit funny about toilets. Teachers say he won’t go into the boys, won’t use urinals. He’s… He won’t really settle with boys, r a lot of the girls. I know Pen had a word with you, but when you’re out tomorrow, just let him go where he wants, please. And he does a CBT, not a stand and point”
Cold Bum Toilet; one of Caro’s jokes, one she had shared with Penny. Squatting in the open rather than standing, hence the name for it. I watched Steph head off to the ladies’ just as all three kids returned, and I wondered.
The weather the next morning was superb, and I was pleased to see that none of my Sheffield friends was wearing jeans, always a ‘NO!’ for the hills. The bus was on time at the Brenin, and all four kids were chattering away, Enfys and Dafi switching seamlessly from English to Welsh and back again. We passed through the little gateway, and yet again had a photo stop when I pointed out the view down the Pass, with the huge open-book corner of the Cromlech. Over the Bwlch y Moch and around the bowl of Cwm Dyli, the kids all bouncing while Bets panted a little, and then that slog up the zigzags to the railway line, which brought some gasps from the older pair of children. That was topped by their delight at finding a café at the summit, where they each sent a Specially Stamped Postcard home before running up the steps to the actual summit marker and even more photos.
I had to kick myself a couple of times in reminder that this was their very first time experiencing things I had done all too many times. And yes: Dafi did insist on using the ladies’ toilets, but he was still smiling when we got back down to the car park.