CHAPTER 14
Our Christmas meal was more than satisfactory. It was effectively soporific, and we spent the afternoon slumped in various chairs. Mam had set out some rules about our plans for that part of the day, and they were based on a review of the programmes offered up on the television. Our concerted opinion, following her lead, was just ‘No’.

Instead, we had each selected a favourite film on DVD, and a favourite album on CD, so our time was spent in a silence that was utterly comfortable, because nothing needed to be said, and a similar lack of any need to speak merely to be heard to do so. Alys and I ended up sprawled together on camping mats in front of the settee, alternately on our backs as we listened to some surprisingly varied music or on our fronts to watch the gogglebox. The selection there ranged from Alys’ Mam’s offering of ‘Chicken Run’ to my own father’s compilation of some odd climbing videos, where older climbers were taken up the routes of their youth. Even Alys enjoyed bits of that one, but only because some of the old men had amazing senses of humour. I recognised one, because he had a couple of local climbing shops, and his mate had been extremely well-known to locals.

Dad paused at one point, where three old men were on a slab that they called ‘Cloggy’, on the flanks of Snowdon.

“Last climb for some of them, love. Don Whillans there, he died in bed a little while after the filming. Bill Peascod… Bill had a heart attack right there, died on the climb. I was doing some work there, when they brought him down. They were paying lads to carry loads up the hill for them, nothing technical. Sorry, but there’s a funnier bit later. Need to take a little bit of time before that. Anyone fancy a cuppa? Nansi, your music time?”

I followed him into the kitchen, and gave him a hug. My father had always been a softy, in so many ways, and as he wiped his eyes, I could see exactly why Mam had felt it necessary to force him to leave the mire of that office in Luton.

“You okay, Dad?”

He took a deep breath, before dropping tea bags into the pot.

“I am, love. Just a bit of a year, with you and Alys being a big part of that”

I went to say something, to apologise or make some stupid offer, but he simply put a finger to my lips.

“No, Enfys. No. That wasn’t a complaint. It is an observation, and that is all. Your Mam and me, we simply need to keep on learning, and that is never a bad thing. I just need a promise from you. We all do”

He looked into my eyes for a few seconds, as he held me a foot away from his own, then spoke softly.

“You were always there as a friend for Alys, before, well, before Alys. You’ve been there for her since then, and now things are going that bit further… That promise, okay? First love, it’s always a big thing, and sometimes it stays that way, but more often than not it doesn’t. The promise is simply that if it all goes wrong, ends, you don’t drop her as a friend. There is a lot going on in her life right now”

“You’ve been waiting to have this chat, haven’t you?”

He nodded.

“I know she’s had words herself, told you some things, but she’s told her mother more. You do know that her doctors would give her grief for being gay, don’t you? Block her transition?”

“Yes, she told me. We need to keep it quiet”

Dad nodded, once more, but this time his mouth twisted.

“According to Nansi, her shrink wanted to know how she masturbated, and what or who she thought about while she did so”

I found myself exploding, as Dad’s finger came once more to my lips.

“Yes, Enfys. That blunt. That creepy. And Alys told her Mam that she had dropped hints at school before she realised how sick the shrink was, and we can’t be sure now how many people picked up on that. Nansi hasn’t heard any gossip yet, and neither has Illtyd, and if there was anything going on, he’d pick up on it, you know that”

His dark mood broke in a sudden bout of chuckling, and he grinned at me.

“Typical of him, it is. Tried chatting up Steph, got it wrong, and suddenly he is the biggest trans ally in Wales!”

He caught something in my expression, and shook his head sharply.

“No, not like that. Not a pose. He is just someone of a rare type, and when he gets things wrong, he admits he was wrong and does his best to make it right again, make himself right as well. Wouldn’t have him for a friend otherwise, would I?”

I shook my head, wondering where the conversation was going.

“What we need from you, love, is that promise, and a little bit of dishonesty outside, in public. Show all the affection the two of you feel is right, but only in here, or at her place. Just until it doesn’t have consequences for her. Can you manage that, the two of you?”

I nodded back.

“Priorities, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely, love. Now, the tea will be brewed by now, and there’s a bit of that video with Pete Livesey that should make you giggle”

We carried in a tray of cups, milk pot and a bowl of biscuits Mam and I had made, and once the CD had finished, he clicked back onto his video. I wasn’t disappointed, but I was certainly astonished. The climber in question was all beard, greying long hair and specs, and wearing the shortest running shorts I could ever remember seeing on a human. He was leading a Very Famous Climber up something so technical that the VFC had to do a pendulum traverse at the end of a tight rope to easier ground, while, in total contrast, the man in the shorts looked absolutely at home through moves that left me open-mouthed. I felt Alys take my hand, and she snuggled closer after a quick look over to my Dad and his nod in return.

“Enfys, love?”

“Yes? Love?”

“Don’t ever try and take me somewhere like that. I can feel my bum twitching just watching it!”

I pushed my luck, and kissed the tip of her nose.

“I doubt I could even start that one, love!”

Dad called across to us.

“Met Livesey once, girls. You’ll never guess where”

Mam sniffed.

“How many times are you going to tell that one again?”

He laughed.

“Until there’s nobody left who hasn’t heard it!”

Alys giggled.

“I’ll bite! Where? And what did he say to you?”

Mam held up a hand, coughing for attention.

“I’ll tell this one, and I will tell the truth! We were in a climbing shop, and there was a guidebook on sale, or rather a ‘Beginner’s Guide to Climbing’ book, and so he’s flipping through it, and there’s a photo of a girl on some rock, and your Dad says, ‘I remember her! That was on Tryfan Fach, near the top, and I showed her how to foot jam, and there was a man belaying her, and he had a lot of hair, and, and!’, so in your Dad’s mind, that became ‘I met Pete Livesey’. That about right, love?”

He huffed.

“I tell it better, Pen!”

“Yes, love, but I tell it more accurately”

She sniffed.

“Rather like his route-finding. Remember that day at Polldubh? That Diff you were going to solo that turned out to be HS?”

“We all make mistakes!”

That set the tone for the rest of the day, the nastiness revealed in the kitchen losing some of its bite and allowing me to settle far more comfortably against my girlfriend, as my life slowly started to take a shape I could not only understand, but like.

I didn’t get any more winter climbing that year, as the initial snow and ice turned to rain and sludge in early January, and before then, I was reminded that the Woodruffs each had a working life to consider. We were back in school, of course, so I had my own distractions, the main one being that promise Dad had extracted from me. Each time the temptation rose in me to try and snatch a cuddle with Alys, my mind’s eye provided me with a clichéd vision of a cartoon psychiatrist’s room, all couch and Freud-alike shrink, coupled with heavy breathing demands to demonstrate wanking techniques.

What planet did these dinosaurs inhabit, or was it a different geological age? Never mind; she was still there beside me, in some of the classes we shared, and I caught a smile every so often, one that I knew was meant for me, and me alone.

We had passed the solstice, and days were getting longer. Our day would come.