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?”