CHAPTER 38
I sat for a while, mulling over her revelation, and in the end decided to leave it for a private moment; there was clearly so much hiding behind her words that it would have been unfair to put her on the spot in public. We ate our rice and stuff, piling up prawn shells (is that the word?), and drank far too much, as was traditional for Brits in Tenerife.

It was more than that, I realised, as I looked around the group and saw how many were staring at their plates or glasses, or simply into space, and after a while, I recognised the mood.

Guilt.

They had teased Warren from the start, and even Sali’s initial invitation to my lover and myself had come with an explicit dismissal of him. I watched Elen for a few minutes, and she had clearly lost her focus on Rump of Waiter.

A flash of memory: a dark-haired woman and her taller russet-haired friend, in unison, saying ‘Arsebollocks’. Not now, girl. Elen rose, clearly on the way to the ladies’, and I followed her.

It wasn’t the largest of rooms, only five cubicles, but I picked up the sound of a sob from one of them, so simply stood by the sinks until she decided she was in a fit state to emerge. It took a few minutes, but the lock on the cubicle finally clicked, the door opened, and she emerged, looking me briefly in the eye before busying herself at a sink. A couple of deep breaths, and then, in the quietest of voices, she spoke to me while looking in the mirror.

“You must think I’m a cow, Enfys”

“Why would I think that, love?”

“He could…”

Her dam burst again, and she was bent over the taps as I held her from behind”

“He… he could… have died!”

I did my best to hold her tight, whispering in her ear, no, Elen, no, he didn’t die, did he, and who was it that watched over him in the hospital, and he would be back soon, and so much else that I found myself repeating things, until she finally caught her self-control and dragged it back into place.

“Enfys?”

“That’s my name”

“Thank you”

A few deep breaths, then a squeeze of my hand.

“Doesn’t mean I’m getting onto your bus, though”

“Only room for two there”

Another squeeze, and then, in a wondering tone, “You really do love her, don’t you?”

“Yes”

Another pause.

“And it is ‘her’. I see that more clearly, every day, you know?. That lecturer, Megan Charlton’s, yeah? How can anyone be so clever and so thick, all at once?”

She sighed.

“What are we going to do about Warren?”

I stepped back a little.

“What do you want to do, Elen?”

“I don’t know. I mean… he’s never been a creep about things, you know? Not pushed it, not hung around drooling. Not been in my face. Just…”

She stood upright as I released her, checking her face one last time in the mirror before speaking again.

“I think I should give him a chance. No”

A little shake of her shoulders, before she turned to face me once more.

“No. I am GOING to give him a chance. You never know”

Suddenly, she was giggling, her mood swinging wildly.

“Anyway, what I said? About leaving his underpants on when they cooled him down?”

“And?”

“Well, you can’t see it when he’s in the board shorts he swims in, but he wears briefs, not boxers, and…”

She simply held her hands apart, like a fisherman’s boast about ‘the one that got away’, and I felt my jaw drop.

“You are shameless!”

She grinned, her mood settling.

“Well… I have to say it, don’t I?”

“Say what?”

“I’m, er, willing to take one for the team. Especially one that size”

By the time we were back with our friends, I had almost got the snorting under control. We dug into the dessert menu, drank more cold sangria, and then returned to our hotel, where, from the sounds around us, almost everyone proceeded to do their best to chase all thoughts of death away. I know that Alys and I tried rather hard to do exactly that, and the shower was most definitely in great demand the next morning.

We made our way down to our original beach the next day, and at around eleven we were rejoined by a shamefaced Warren, in his board shorts and a T-shirt, who simply walked slowly down to our group holding a carrier bag, which proved to hold two sets of fins, face masks and snorkels.

“I stopped at that shop Alys showed us. Think I’ll stay cooler in the water than I was on that bloody mountain?”

Colin shot a look at Sali, who simply nodded. He rose and made his way over the sand to hug the other young man.

“Welcome back, mate. We were all really worried. How do you feel?”

Warren shrugged.

“Honestly? I hurt. Had a splitting head, and my legs ache from all that slogging uphill. And I’ve got a hole in the arm from where they stick a drip in. I’ll live, though”

A sudden grin.

“Sorry and all, to disappoint you! Tonight, we do tapas. Please?”

There was a murmur of agreement, and that brought another grin from him.

“Right! Who wants to see that octopus we won’t be eating tonight, then?”

Elen laughed out loud.

“You really going for that tonight?”

“Yup! YOLO, aye? But still not eating snails! Anyway, spare set of kit for anyone that wants to come out to the rocky bit. Feel free; I’m going in right now”

With no ceremony at all, he pulled off his T-shirt and headed for the water. I looked to my lover, who nodded and reached for the bag with our own kit, as Elen looked round the group, a wry smile in place”

“Yes. I do intend to give him a chance, but please: no piss-taking from anyone?”

She reached for the remaining set of equipment, and once she had adjusted the fit of the mask, the three of us followed Warren down to the water.

The octopus was there, as were a number of large fish, including some rays. We did indeed have tapas that evening, along with a whole trolley-load of little dishes Warren had identified from his little crib-sheet, and there was laughter, and not quite too much alcohol, and the next night saw Elen switch rooms so that she was sharing a bed with him.

The journey back at the end of the holiday was an anti-climax in so many ways, the group broken up among three different flights, and I wondered how much of that was down to an attempt to fool Dear Parents into believing that their precious daughters had been on a girls-only trip. If said parents were anything like our own, of course, they’d have been fully aware of everyone who had been with us, but it was clear that some appearances simply had to be maintained. We landed almost on time at Birmingham, and after we had collected our luggage, made our way to the train, which took us as far as Shrewsbury. Twenty minutes after we had emerged into the car park, Dad was there to pick us up for the final leg.

“You two will be fed up with this place soon! Steph’s been asking if you’re up for the festival”

Alys was slumped against me in the back seat as Dad drove, and she answered for us both.

“Got that trip with Dad in September, and with this holiday, well, lots of money. Wouldn’t be right”

He laughed at that.

“You think Mrs Woodruff ever takes no for an answer? Look in the pocket on the back of the passenger seat”

There was an envelope there, addressed to Dad, and inside were familiar pieces of card. I found my hands starting to shake.

“But the cost…”

He cut me off, eyes fixed on the road as he drove.

“Don’t worry about it. And I mean DON’T. Those are gifts from Steph’s lot, her family and the friends you met there last time. They clubbed together, Steph says. About ten of them, all told, so it wasn’t that much of a hit to their wallet. Wallets. Purses. Seems you made a big impression on them all, but one of them, well, she has other reasons”

Alys stirred next to me, a slight frown in place

“And those other reasons; did Steph say what they are?”

Dad laughed out loud.

“Something about an opportunity to take lots of photos of you both, for fun and profit through blackmail. According to Steph’n’Geoff, that was their mate Eric. You still want to go?”

My lover was giggling away, so I tickled her to keep it going, and eventually managed to get my answer out after she started tickling me back.

“Of course we do, but I thought we were supposed to be working?”

Dad’s voice softened.

“Seriously, love? This is your last Summer before everything gets serious. We will cope for that weekend, and don’t forget your Mam will be around. Both of you, you’ve been through the mill. Not just exams, is it? Come October, the work really starts, for the rest of your life, or rather so that you can have a life, the sort of life you want. Now, do you both feel up to the Cow tonight for dinner? Because that is going to be YOUR treat for us older folk. We had you two for a reason, you know”

Alys bit.

“Which was?”

“To sponge off you in our dotage, of course. Oh, and your friend Sali rang. Wants to bring some friends out tonight; the Cow was her suggestion”

“Which friends?”

“Colin, Elen and Warren. She said you would understand why”