CHAPTER 31
The other side of the ‘dinosaur' was lit up in the orange of the sunrise, and so were several other hills showing to the right of its northern slope. The hill we had passed on the way in, a chaotic pile of loose rock from the road, showed a grander flank, holding what looked like a hollow above steady slopes of green dotted with white sheep. People were already moving on the campsite, with several cooking bacon of porridge on little stoves.

“Morning, love!”

I started at the greeting, which came from a slender woman in her sixties or so.

“Morning, missus!”

“Pat, love! No silliness in a place like this. Lovely morning! Your first time here?”

“Yes. I’m Debbie. This is lovely!”

“What are you doing today?”

“Huh?”

“Sorry, Debbie. Most people here have a plan for the day, some route or other. I’m off to Glyder Fach, for example”

I must have looked particularly blank, so she smiled and sat down next to our tent.

“That kettle about to go on, hint hint?”

I laughed out loud, for she had such an impish way with her that it was impossible to take offence.

“Could do! Mam and Dad will want their cuppa”

“White, no sugar, then! Now, can you see the lake over there? That’s where Arthur threw his sword…”

She was off, and I busied myself with the kettle while she did all the talking. It didn’t feel like a lecture but more like someone offering their love of the whole place, sharing as opposed to declaiming.

“The big mountain there is Tryfan. Two pillars on the top, and to get the freedom of the valley you have to jump from Adam to Eve, or other way round. Not sure”

“You done it, Pat?”

“Me? Do I look stupid? Don’t answer that!”

Another happy laugh.

“Some people are here for the climbing, some for walking. I sometimes come up with a friend or two, and we do the climbing, but I’m on my own this weekend, so it’s just the walking for me. Weather like this makes it a lot easier, but I still carry the kit. It can get wild on the tops, even when the day looks set fair. That’s what I meant by asking what you are doing”

“I’d love to do something like that. Got no kit, though”

“You got boots?”

“Old army boots, surplus, like. They OK?”

A grunt behind me. “Morning, Dad! Kettle’s on!”

“You making friends again, duck?”

“Sort of. This is Pat. She’s telling me what the hills are called”

“Morning, Pat! I’m Ken. That’s Loz in there, snoring away”

There was a half-muffled shout of ‘Cheeky bastard!’ from inside the tent, and Dad grinned happily.

“Hope Debbie here isn’t giving you grief, Pat”

“She’s giving me a cuppa, I hope. Got my own mug. Her first time up here, Ken?”

“Aye. We’re taking a couple of days off, so I thought this would be good for her. Never really seen mountains, or at least not seen them outside a raincloud. What do you think, Deb? Want to see them from the top?”

He looked over towards our new friend.

“Heard what you were saying, duck, about kit and that. I was a squaddie, and we did a lot of our training around here. That old hut still there out to the North?”

A happy grin split Pat’s face.

“Foel Grach? Oh yes! I could tell you some stories about that place, but I think calling it a ‘hut’ is being polite!”

I was pouring the tea, so I missed some of the chat, but somehow I ended up being pushed into a day with Pat. Once she went to sort out her ‘kit’, I turned to Dad.

“You trust her? You trust me, on these hills?”

Mam was looking over Dad’s shoulder by this point, a mug in her hand, and she was nodding between mouthfuls.

“Deb, a lesson for you, love. Listen to how people say things, and not to what they say. Pat’s on the straight. Not asking for anything, is she?”

“She asked for a cup of tea!”

“Sensible woman, then! No. Ken is right. This weather is amazing, and if we ever see it like this again, well, I will be a bloody sight more than surprised. Your boots will do, and those cords we got in Swansea. T-shirt, army jumper, one of those foul-weather tops. I can run up some sandwiches. PAT?”

The older woman called “Yes?” back from her tent.

“Not vegetarian, are you?”

“Not as long as I don’t have to kill it first!”

Mam turned back to smile at me.

“See what I mean? Taking your camera?”

It turned out to be a very, very full day. We left my parents at the campsite, passing over a couple of ladder stiles before heading for a rough track behind a small peak.

“Beginners’ climbing place on the other side, but not for me, not on my own…”

There was a fleeting expression in her eyes just then, but she smiled, almost back to the woman I had met over a cup of tea that morning.

“Levels out in a little bit, then it’s just a walk uphill to a little lake, turn right, steeper bit, and then the top. Loads to see up there!”

The walk uphill she had described was enchanting, especially when we passed through a large flock of goats, who seemed to be entirely unruffled by our presence, unlike the animal looping away from us at speed, which Pat said was a stoat.

“Do you know how to tell the difference between a weasel and a stoat, Debbie?”

“No”

“Well, one is weasily recognisable, while the other is stotally different”

“You sod!”

So the day went, as we edged along a narrow path across a steep slope that brought us up to a tiny lake Pat called ‘the speckled mare’, then up that ‘steeper bit’, which was a field of large boulders and seemed to go on forever. She did this for fun? It levelled out eventually, and she pointed to an odd rock that looked a bit like a cockscomb.

“See that, love? See how the rocks behind look a little bit like a wall rising out of the ground?”

“I see that, yes”

“Top of Bristly Ridge, that is. Not an easy way down, but it shows you the way we came up. Remember to look for it on the way back. Now, something special for you”

That turned out to be spectacular, a rock finger sticking out like half a bridge from a heap of rock splinters. It took me a while to work out how to climb up to it, but in the end, we were both sitting on its tip, legs dangling, after Pat had used my camera for a shot of me standing there.

“What are the sandwiches, Deb?”

“Ham and cheese, I think”

“Share them out, then, and I’ll share the tea, biccies and chocolate”

How could I not like someone with such an open attitude? As usual, Dad was spot on in his judgement. As we ate and drank, she showed me the view, describing each ripple and lump with affection.

“See that plume of smoke? Snowdon railway, running one of their steam locos today. Summit will be bloody crowded. This is far nicer. What do you think, girl?”

It was lovely, and I said so.

“Well, got a choice, now. We can either go back the way we came, or go right over and down through Idwal, but that leaves a long walk by the road. There is another way, though, if you think you are up to it”

“What way’s that?”

“Down the Gribin to Bochlwyd, over the South Col and then back down Cwm Tryfan”

“You’ve lost me!”

“Not to worry. Walk along here to the Castle of the Winds, and I will show you the choices”

The hilltop we were walking across was surprisingly flat, dipping a little in front of us, with what looked like an exploding stone haystack on the edge of a huge drop to our right.

“Castle of the Winds, Debbie. Easy to get onto, and then I can show you the choices”

One more amazing place, with incredible views that went all the way out to sea, and according to Pat would have reached Ireland if there hadn’t been some huge lump called Y Garn in the way, “But that’s another day out!”

A sip of water from the bottle Mam had insisted I carry, and then Pat showed me her suggestion.

“Not as steep as it looks, and an awful lot easier than people claim. Takes us down by that lake, then over that saddle and back to the tents”

It took us a while, but eventually I found myself walking once more walking around the back of the farmhouse, feet feeling bruised, as I promised myself that I would start treating words like ‘easier’ with more scepticism. It hadn’t actually been hard, but it had been narrow and high up, finally opening out onto an amazingly broad and level grassy field before the next steeper bit. Pat had been there to talk me through the hardest parts, but I had still danced around the edge of panic. None of that had stopped me using up almost all of my film.

Dad was under the bonnet doing something mechanical, while Mam looked utterly relaxed, stretched out on a towel on the grass, wearing a bikini I hadn’t known she had.

“Deb behaved herself, Pat? Cuppa?”

“Oh god, please! Dry as a bone, me. Deb did amazingly well, but I don’t think she’s quite taken with the climbing game. We did a sort of scramble back down, but I don’t think it was her best bit of the day”

I shook my head.

“Magic day, Mam, but not doing that bit again. Got loads of pictures!”

“We’ll get them sent off when we can, then. Must be a post office or box nearby”

Mam poured the tea, which was nectar after such a hot day on the mountain, and Pat raised a hand after making the usual appreciative sounds.

“Post office in Capel, Loz. Pubs as well”

Dad’s head appeared around the side of the van.

“Not really the sort of vehicle to take down the pub, Pat”

“Not what I was suggesting, Ken. Got my own car, and I don’t really drink, so I was actually offering rather than asking. Got friends at the pub, locals, and after such good company on the hill, it would be nice to repay the favour”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“After the way I complained all the way down that ridge?”

“Complained and still did it, Debbie. What it is, in simple terms, is an easy thing to sum up. It’s great to be out on your own, if you’re competent, but every now and again it’s nice to be able to turn and say to someone ‘Look at that! Lovely, isn’t it?’. That’s what I miss”

Mam sat up straight.

“Want to talk about it, love?”

Pat shrugged, just a hint of moisture in her eyes.

“Nothing special, Loz. Hubby was a serious climber. Got avalanched on An Teallach in Scotland. That’s all. Left me a little lacking in this sort of company”

She drew in a long, slow breath.

“We doing the pub tonight, or what?”

We went to the pub, dropping off the packages of films using stamps Pat had in her purse, and settled into a corner of a large room with an aeroplane propeller standing next to the bar, Pat immediately into conversation with a couple of local men, with the ease of long familiarity. We were introduced, the two making appreciative comments about my climbing skills on the Gribin, and four of us shared a meal that Pat insisted be split three ways, as I didn’t really count on the basis of lack of earnings. She was funny, and chatty, and very good company, but every so often I caught her eyes looking towards a notice board covered with photos of ‘regulars’, and wondered which of the smiling faces had belonged to her husband.

That evening continued the process that had started at my first meeting with Benny, as I recognised that more people than me could and did suffer.