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’

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”

CHAPTER 70
I followed them down, working through Lexie’s revelations. Hywel’s hints about the Roberts rape trial had hit home, especially that little snippet about ‘mother in law’, and I found myself revisiting what had happened to my own lover.

How on Earth had this lot survived, never mind managed to retain their sanity? I thought once more of the blonde woman, Candice, paddling out onto the lake each day, eyes somewhere I never wanted to be, seeing, remembering…

CHAPTER 68
I really didn’t put much into that Christmas, but I really think everyone understood why. I was more than a little surprised when Warren turned out to be a solid source of support.

“Simples, Enfys. Never thought I’d be where I am, and now I’ve had the surprise, I can’t imagine not being where I am. Sort of, well, knew what I was missing, then found it. Realised it was actually more than I had hoped for. Don’t want to be without her, do I? Don’t, can’t even think what that would be like. What it would mean. And I know you have your parents, both sets, and all your friends”

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.

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”

CHAPTER 65
We ended up borrowing the class minibus for the trip up to Shrewsbury, our housemates pulling out various excuses for coming back to college early. We stayed Thursday night in a Holiday Inn on the edge of the town so that we could get a decent pitch the next morning, and settled down in our rooms after a rather limited choice of evening meal.

The breakfast was adequate, and not long afterwards Jordan was steering us aimlessly through the town centre. It was only when I spotted a particular pub that I remembered the way to the site, despite all the big signs we had been passing. Some navigator I was!

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.

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.

CHAPTER 64
We clicked back into our courses as if we had never been away, my slightly skewed beak bringing more than a few jokes, including one from our tutor. His was a cheeky remark about remembering the old formula ‘Grid to mag, add’ if I ever found myself following my nose.

Cheeky, but actually quite clever.

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.

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.

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”

CHAPTER 7
The next few months were as routine as anything could be when held as a prisoner. Jim had a degree of freedom he had never expected the day he had been marched away from a Flanders canalside. Two days in the camp would be followed by five in the castle, largely outdoors. A couple of the Fritzes spoke some English, and they served two purposes. The first was the obvious one, passing on Jim’s instructions to the small group of labourers that he led, while the second was something he should really have expected.

CHAPTER 63
I was more than a little nervous as we waited for the arrival of Kitzy’s father. We were sitting on the sofa and armchairs in a way that felt profoundly artificial, and all I could imagine was that it was all too obvious. I couldn’t see anyone in possession of any working braincells missing how Alys and I moved in each other’s presence, even if Tref and his boy didn’t slip up.

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.

CHAPTER 62
We had the next week before the new term started, and as the other four had cleared off back to the shared house that meant a week shared with a friend I hadn’t seen in what felt like a lifetime. Mike had always been there, and after Mam’s rather fuller explanation of the role he had played in my family’s move, I realised that it was indeed that, my own lifetime. That week was filled with familiarity, as Mike revisited places we both knew so, so well, and I got to watch Ish as he found new joys in wild places. He really seemed to click with Alys, and to no surprise on my part, it was all about birds.

CHAOTER 61
The morning dawned in a lighter grey than the previous one had offered, and I assumed that meant rain. To my surprise, after I had dealt with my morning necessities, it turned out to be a dry one, the clouds having retreated well above the three thousand foot level. I started a couple of kettles heating, and that, along with the sound of the toilet flush, seemed to stir people up.

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.

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”

CHAPTER 59
Alys was waiting for us at the Uni, along with both of our mothers, which was a surprise. Mam, my Mam, of course, was straight to the point, as well as to a hands-on inspection of my nose, after a chuckled comment to Alys.

“Put Enfys down, love!”

CHAPTER 57
The place we were based at was indeed a clone of the Brenin, with extras in some ways, and surprising omissions in others. The dorms were larger, and we ended up all in one ’gender-neutral’ bunkhouse affair, which demanded a certain finesse in dressing and undressing. Looking at the rows of bunks, I remembered all those jokes about ‘The Promise’ and blessed my Dad’s insistence that I travelled with a little box of reusable foam earplugs.

CHAPTER 55
I prodded Tref a few more times over those few days, as his story of the Cardiff trans girl intrigued me. Alys, for her part, avoided those discussions, but she grilled me on that subject when we were in bed.

CHAPTER 53
I spent a long while taking all of that apart, for while I had no doubts at all, Elen’s revelations had rippled that millpond of certainty.

In some ways, I suppose, our time living as a couple had raised a few issues. For starters, we didn’t always agree, whether it be on meal plans or which film we might choose for an evening out. My dreams as a girl had been pretty conventional, where a person of unspecified gender would arrive, white horses, happily ever after, et cetera, that gender clarifying in my mind as I moved from fairy stories to puberty.