CHAPTER 12
We had a mixed Summer, weatherwise, but that was one of the reasons Dad managed to make a half-decent income for us from the bunkhouse. I loved camping, especially that sense of a nest, being safe from the weather even if only behind a couple of layers of nylon. Listening to rain on my tent was a wonderful lullaby, but it rather obviously meant that the world outside would be rather moist.

We got people who wanted somewhere dry outside their sleeping bag, people who wanted somewhere to hang their waterproofs or let their boots dry out naturally, people who loved and lived for the mountains, in any weather. Dad had learned several hard lessons in filtering those who simply wanted to have a relatively cheap place to crash out when drunk, particularly groups of ‘lads’, of both sexes. Group trade was thus mainly from climbing or walking clubs, and the one time we relaxed things was at Christmas, when we had two separate clubs who had a standing arrangement for their members’ dinners.

I say ‘we’, and that is what it felt like, as my Summer was usually spent helping out with things like clearing the rubbish and recycling bins (we had a couple of skips out the back, and a contract with a bulk recycling company). Certainly not child labour, and it had perks. Our clientele included an awful lot of regulars, and every so often, one, or more usually a couple, would arrive, Dad would smile, and I would be off for a day’s climbing with someone I half knew.

That Summer, before the new term, Alys worked alongside me, or, occasionally, went out with small groups to show them some of the birdwatching or other places that naturalists love. We did our light duties with a couple of bin bags and a pack of toilet rolls, a sweep round the bunkrooms, and then either found something of our own to do in the lounge, or were already out on the hill, or in Alys’ case, on some dune field or in a bog. I didn’t care. I got time with her, and I got days on the rock, even if I occasionally had to explain to well-meaning ‘guides’ that I wasn’t so much struggling up V Diffs as knocking on the door of Extreme.

They did indeed mean well, and there was a particular couple whose slight reservations about ‘dragging a kid out’ turned into a real glint in their eyes, and I had several days out on the slate and, after they had indulged in a much longer and more serious chat with Dad, I found myself on a sea cliff near North Stack on Ynys Gybi, just off Anglesey in the middle of a rope of three on the route ‘A Dream of White Horses’. Only HVS 4c, but what a place, and what a situation the climb took us to.

Those were indeed my thoughts: ‘Only…’, at least as far as the stance in the middle, where I suddenly realised how far out we were, and how much air there was between the soles of my feet and the seals watching from Gogarth Bay beneath us. I found my arrogance disappearing almost as fast as it had arrived.

That was our Summer, but like all seasons, it came to an end, and the start of September saw the two of us back at the school gates, where I had to fight the other new arrival, the urge to hold her hand whenever the chance arose.

We got all the gossip, of course, from Elen, Sali and the rest, and there were comments about the relative qualities of our tans as well as a few tart and juicy comments on whether Spanish, Greek or Turkish waiters had the best backsides, and of course both of us were asked about our own holidays. Alys simply shrugged.

“Dad likes castles, so we went up to the North of England and looked at loads. With our tent”

The other girls made some odd cooing noises, followed by their repeated expressions of deep sympathy, et cetera, before they started pulling up photos on their phones, ‘Poor Alys’ and her miserable excuse for a summer holiday forgotten as they swapped pictures of swarthy men and bikini selfies. As I had kept my own account to “Went climbing with some friends and worked in the bunkhouse”, I was left well out of the giggling, for I was seen as a total loss on the gossip front.

It was a slightly different matter when our first Wednesday climbing trip came round. Mr Lewis took us out to Tryfan Fach, as the weather was fine and we had some new members of his class, who had changed from other activities they had followed before the break. We parked the minibus at the start of the long layby before heading up the path through the tussocks and boulders to the foot of the slab, where he sat us all down for the safety talk.

“Right, most of you will have heard this before, but we have a couple of newcomers here in Tomos and Ioan. You want to wave, lads? Ta. Now…”

He rattled through the basics, with particular emphasis on not dropping or throwing stuff down from any height, basic climbing calls and so on, then went round the group for a ‘what we did on our holidays’ session. When it was my turn, I shrugged.

“Went out with my parents, then some friends of theirs”

“Ah! Good! What did you do?”

“Well, I led Milestone Direct and Pulpit/Ivy Chimney”

“Excellent stuff! Good routes, they are. Anything else worth sharing?”

“Um, did some stuff on different rock”

“Oh! Where?”

“Valkyrie at the Roaches, Seamstress, Dream of White Horses”

He didn’t actually say the word, nor did his lips form it, but I could read his mind extremely clearly.

“Fuck!”

He recovered well, to give him credit.

“Right, you lot: what Enfys has managed is rather harder than anything we will be doing together, so I am going to make a suggestion, which will help us to get a bit more done than usual. Enfys?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I would like you to set up a top rope for me. Geth will belay you up, as you place protection. Once you have set up an anchor, I will then climb up to check it for soundness, and then you can take half the group for a while. Do you feel up to that? Oh, and what was your hardest lead?”

“Um, I think HS 4b, sir”

He grinned, obviously pleased.

“Keep doing as you are, and there is a route you will simply have to do, in the quarries where you were climbing. Your name, almost: Rainbow of Recalcitrance. Very, well, very out there, it is, but if you can handle the head games in White Horses, then it will be your sort of thing. Oh, and I feel evil today, so once we have finished on the front, I have some treats for you. You might not agree they are treats when you try them, though”

He indicated the first point he wanted a top rope set up, so I sorted through the gear he had, racking it Steph-style as he watched, nodding occasionally in approval. I found myself learning a valuable lesson two minutes later, as I discovered the difference between the speed I was scampering up the slab and the much slower rate that Geth was able to feed me rope. Mr Lewis had a slight smirk on his lips as he joined me at the stance I had chosen.

“Yes, I set you up. Always remember that you are part of a team, and never assume the other person is at the same level that you are. Now I want you to wait here while I go down, then Geth can lower you off”

“I can just climb down!”

“And he doesn’t get to learn anything?”

“Oh. Sorry”

He actually chuckled at that one.

“I am here to teach you, Enfys. The way your climbing is coming along, you’ll leave me well behind in technique, but that’s not everything. I hear you want to do Adventure Sports after your A-levels. This is part of it, knowing how to look after all sorts of level of ability”

I didn’t ask what sources regarding my plans he may have had right then, but of course he was right. He slowly descended, then backed up Geth on the rope as I walked backwards down the rock. From then on, I was the one in charge, secured to a ground anchor set up by our teacher, and while I didn’t get that much climbing in, I enjoyed helping the others as they developed their own skills, or, to be honest, didn’t.

Mr Lewis kept his promise, and led us round the base of the main slab to a much steeper but shorter face, where there what he called ‘problems’, and they definitely sorted the sheep from the goats, those who could ascend from those whose feet seemed nailed to the ground. I filed each one away as a game to play on later dates, especially the odd little layback-into-a-corner route. He was right: this was indeed the way to connect with how others climbed. I had become far too accustomed to climbing with people who could cruise most of what I had to work hard at, and the real world would never be like that.

I got a mixed reaction from the rest of the class, though, as some of them clearly resented being shown up as being in some way inferior, while others went in the opposite direction in deluging me with questions about where, what and how scary. In an odd way, I felt some insight into what Alys had gone through, and still did, following her transition: while Ifor and some others were directly hostile, others were accepting, or curious, often excessively so. At least my pointed questions were less intrusive than the knicker-contents speculation that she had to deal with.

I had another revelation on our return ride to school, in that I felt nowhere near as tired as I had done previously. All the days out with Steph’n’Geoff, my parents and the various semi-friends from the bunkhouse were pushing my fitness along in a big way. For once, I didn’t doze off in the minibus, and the little bit of homework I had for other subjects was done and dusted before our evening meal.

That week also saw another visit to the folk club at the Cow, more fun coaxing tunes out of my harp, and, most importantly, time spent with Alys. Happy days indeed.

The homework, however, did drop an awful lot of hints, as we were now into a far more serious part of our education. The two years we were starting would end with our first GCSE exams, the O-levels, which would determine which subjects we would be allowed to take in sixth form, which would end up with exams that would serve as either gateway to university and career, or a roadblock. I couldn’t see Ifor staying that particular course, as the most distant horizon in his life would forever be a choice between the view over a Massey-Ferguson tractor bonnet or that from the saddle of a quad bike. Narrow horizons indeed, for an even narrower mind.

That was the pattern from then until Christmas: meet my love at the school gates, share some classes, giggle together (I couldn’t help it!) at lunchtime, home to a session with books and laptop followed by some odds and sods in the bunkhouse to give Dad some support as Mam did the dinner.

I collared her about gender roles one evening. I didn’t call them that, of course, but simply asked why it was that our main breadwinner, who was not Dad, was also expected, for what seemed like sexist reasons, to do all the cooking. She just laughed out loud.

“Enfys, love: admit it. We have both tasted your father’s cooking. You really want that every night?”

I laughed in turn.

“Point taken, Mam!”

“Anyway, think about it. All the peeling and chopping is done by him, during the day. You set it going before I get in, and all I am really doing is finishing things off, or setting up the roast or whatever before I go. Called teamwork, love. Speaking of which, we’ve got guests this Sunday for a proper meal, so you will need to wear something other than Tracksters”

“Who is it?”

“The Edwards, of course. What sort of roast would you like?”

Before I could answer, she started a slow count down from five. I must have looked puzzled, because she laughed once more.

“Me? Just counting the seconds until you give me the same answer your Dad would. Pork, am I right? With crackling?”

I couldn’t help it, and my own laughter went on for ages despite my struggle to make bad jokes about being a woman of mystery, spoiling my plans, and so forth. It was yet another moment when I found myself mentally standing to one side of my family, seeing yet another reason that my father loved her so much.

I set the table with decent crockery on Sunday, as the aroma from the kitchen set my mouth to watering and, embarrassingly, my stomach to rumbling, in a dress for the first time in ages. As I finished the last place setting, the doorbell rang, and I scurried off to get it before either of my parents could. Alys was looking lovely in a dress of her own, and I got a pointed look from Mrs Edwards as I stood in the doorway.

“Inside first, Enfys!”

I stepped to one side, and as her parents went straight past in the most obvious of ways, Alys shut the door and took me in her arms. It wasn’t a full-on bodice-ripping surge of passion, just the glint of her eyes and the warmth of her body against mine. I didn’t feel confident enough to kiss her in front of our parents, but I took her hand as we entered the living room, and made sure we took two places on the settee.

Mine; not letting go.

Mr Edwards smiled at us, then waggled his head.

“Not a problem with us, Enfys, but it is something we are going to talk over while we relax after dinner. Not while we eat, okay?”

I nodded, and did my best to keep everything as light as I could while we disposed of roast pork and then apple and blackberry crumble with custard, Mam’s cooking as superb as ever even though it had been Dad and myself who had collected the fruit, and me who had, as always, done the ‘crumbling’. As we settled into our comfy places again, Mr Edwards handed my Dad a USB stick.

“Got a load of pictures for you lot on that, from the Northumberland trip. Want to look through them before we do the heavy stuff?”

Dad grinned.

“I am with you there, because I also have this!”

He held up a second memory stick, and started attaching various leads to our television, talking over his shoulder.

“Geoff sent this a couple of weeks ago, love. More pics from the Summer and the slate”

Why wait a fortnight before telling me? Leave it for the moment; I snuggled back into the settee’s softness, and we started the picture show. It did, of course, involve an awful lot of castles, but there were many more that showed Alys and myself laughing together over ice cream, or lying on our backs in our swimming costumes amid Lindisfarne dunes. The ones of me in a climbing helmet being dive-bombed by Arctic terns brought some raucous laughter, but as Mr Edwards had also caught some amazing shots of seals and puffins, there were also many sighs of fluffy delight at their cuteness.

When Dad switched to the shots from the Woodruffs, there were far more gasps from our visitors. I don’t know how Geoff had managed it, but there were shots of me traversing out onto the undercut nose of Maud’s Garden as well as some that could only have been taken by Steph, from the niche before the traverse. The overriding impression was that I was poised above absolute nothingness, and although I pointed out the runner I had on the lip of the block, as well as how big the holds were, I don’t think any of the Edwards were convinced. One of the Woodruffs had also caught some other climbers as they went up, across and down the crux of Valkyrie, and then there were shots of me on Seamstress and other routes.

I felt myself blushing, but Alys squeezed my hand, and that helped. Mr Edwards sighed, and that was an obvious signal. Dad nodded at him.

“You and Nansi happy to start, Vince?”

“Yes. Got to be… Enfys, please don’t worry, but we have a few things to say this afternoon, and some of them are heavy subjects, but all we want to do is set some boundaries and explain what we need to do. Will that be okay? You have done nothing wrong, either of you”

I nodded, and he settled himself down into his armchair, a glass of wine in his hand.

“We’ve talked to Alys, and we know she’s told you a few things, but what I will do is set out where we are. Adult subjects, Enfys, but we will explain anything confusing. What do you understand when we say Alys is transitioning?”

“Um, that she is changing… that she is putting things right from what was wrong for her when she was born”

“Good answer. There’s a lot to it, but what you need to know is that much of it can’t happen until she is eighteen. Stuff like changing her name, sorting out a passport, and…”

There was a catch in his voice, which he covered up with a cough before continuing.

“What Alys wants is to change her body. Correct it, ah? She can’t do that until… She can do it, in one way, to an extent, from when she is sixteen, as long as her doctors agree, but the other way, the… Alys can go onto what are called cross-sex hormones from sixteen, but she can only get surgery after she is eighteen. Nansi… her mother and I worry about that, but we have a few years left to think it through. We’re happy with the idea of the hormones, though”

Alys snorted, waving at her chest.

“Ifor Watkins will get his wish, Enfys! More importantly…”

I squeezed her hand.

“More importantly, you’ll get yours?”

She blushed, and I turned back to Mr Edwards.

“Yes, Enfys. It will make her a lot happier, and that is something she never was, never happy. You’ve helped a lot with that, so take some credit. What we have to do is complicated, and it all depends on what is called gatekeeping. I know you are starting on a lot of biology and that for your future, so you’ll know a lot of this, but we, our family, we live it. At the moment, Alys is on what are called blockers, and they act like a pause button on a video. Stop her going through puberty as a boy, until we can get the approval for the oestrogen, and then she can go through it as a girl. Two years till then, so we have to make sure we keep her on the blockers”

He sighed deeply, and her Mam took over.

“Going to swear, love, but her doctor, he’s an arsehole. Everything has to be done his way, or she gets no help. Girls are what he says they are, act the way he approves of, or they aren’t girls. She wore jeans to one interview, girl’s jeans, with flowers on the pockets, and he went spare. Girls wear skirts, never trousers, in his world. And girls are… Girls are heterosexual. No! Shush, it’s okay!”

I had started out of my seat, tears threatening, but she waved me back down, and of course Alys still held my hand, so all was still right with us. Her mother gave us both a gentle smile.

“You think we weren’t watching you both on that trip? Sweetest thing I have seen in years. If Alys had stayed as--- if Alys hadn’t shown us who she really is, it would have been so easy, and that, my darling daughter, is not a complaint. If we can accept a trans daughter, it’s hardly a leap to accept a gay one, is it? Anyway, we know you two have had a chat about this, so you understand. We simply need to agree some ground rules”

Mr Edwards held up a hand to interrupt.

“That sounds too heavy, Nans. Better to say we need to agree some camouflage, ah? And we have some ideas about that, and some other offers”

Dad was grinning as Mr Edwards started talking about castles, and then I caught what he was saying”

“So many of the best ones are abroad, so two things Nansi and I have always wanted to do is follow a couple of rivers, the Rhine and the Loire, and we can’t do that with Alys right now. Well, we could, but it wouldn’t be as Alys, and that isn’t something any of us want. Our plan is, er, to do some scouting”

Alys was giggling now, and I stared at her till she stopped and found her sensible voice again.

“Dad wants to go anyway, but is feeling guilty. I’ve said he can go, but once I’m eighteen and it’s all legal, he goes again, and takes me. He gets to find out where all the nice places are, then be cocky and superior by showing them to us when we’re eighteen”

One word was leaping out at me.

“What do you mean by ‘we’, Alys?”

“Both of us. We get all of our summer holidays together from now on, whether or not these two are here”

Mr Edwards coughed again.

“Yes, basically. I need the trips for my own work, to be honest. Got two commissions to fill, photo books. You will be together while we’re away, and Mr and Mrs Hiatt have agreed that you can stay here for those weeks. Then, well, their summer is a working one, so if they take a trip anywhere, it will be during another part of the year. We just need promises from you, promises of discretion and, well… Just be as adult as you can, as careful as you can, as sensible, all that stuff. Now, changing the subject. Christmas: whose house?”