CHAPTER 46
University life was so very different from school. It looked, on the surface, as if we had much less work to do, lessons being fewer, free time seeming to be endless, but it wasn’t at all that way. There was so much background reading to do, for starters, and then we weren’t being handed the answers for later parroting. Our lecturers actually expected us to go out and bloody RESEARCH things, the sods.

That meant long hours spent in the library or online, hours the lecture plan suggested could have been free time. Every so often, we would be handed an essay title, and after a couple of utterly abortive attempts on my part, we were given a crash course in academic writing, including in-text references as well as how to list sources.

That last included a very scathing comment that Wikipedia was a gateway to sources and not a source in itself, as well as a very, very unsubtle hint that we should always ask ourselves why a ‘source’ author was writing. We had just been told about Andrew Wakefield and his debunked articles about vaccines when I was handed a topic that led to some truly fascinating reading: environmental issues in high altitude mountaineering.

Dad caught me reading internet articles on frostbite and cerebral oedema, shook his head, walked out and came back to my room with some paperbacks.

“Joe Simpson, love. Read ‘Touching the Void first, then take a break. ‘Dark Shadows Falling’ will leave you bloody angry, so take it in sections. The Harrer book is a bit dated, but it hits all the right points about objective danger”

He went to leave, then turned as he was about to shut my bedroom door.

“When you’ve had enough, give a shout and I’ll put the kettle on. And I’ve been looking at bookings: let me know how many you’ll want beds for, okay?”

I read the three books across the next week, and I was so glad that I took his advice. That first Simpson book was absolutely harrowing, Harrer’s ‘White Spider’ left me shuddering about stonefall—was that what Steph had meant by ‘mixed climbing’?

The second Simpson book, though; that left me in tears, especially when he described how an Indian climber had died alone, friendless, while another climbing party had returned to their tents after filming him.

“Couldn’t one of them had held his hand?”, Simpson had asked, and in that I was with him, heart and soul. In his writing, I heard Neil’s breakdown after he had found Alys. Was that what I had signed up for?

I answered my own question, of course, and made sure that Simpson’s anger was made clear in my essay. ‘Adventure sport and mental health’, that was my justification.

The evening I read the section about the Indian, Dad saw my face as I came into the living room, and drew me into a hug.

“I believe I know the bit you’ve just read. Got me the same way. Tea?”

I nodded.

“How could other people do that, Dad? Just leave someone like that? To die?”

“Ah, love that was Simpson’s point. Krakauer and that, they call it ‘The Death Zone’. People die; you walk on, leave them, or you die with them. It is really a different world, up there”

“Yes, but it wasn’t like that! He was outside their tent!”

His mouth twisted.

“Yes. That’s the other lesson, love: some people are just… Well, there are words, just not nice ones. Anyway, change of subject. Steph’n’Geoff are up in three weeks, Neil as well; that suit you?”

I nodded, and when he brought in the tea, I found myself settling into the warmth of his cuddle, as if I had lost fifteen years of growth, regressing to childhood in the simple understanding that his love was mine, that he would be there for me as long as he lived.

I checked the Cow’s website for details and ran the offer through with my tutorial group over a lunch break, as Alys joined us with her own people, and it was Lee who reacted first.

“Him? Bloody hell! I am definitely in if it’s Jimmy Kerr that’s on”

Alys was chuckling.

“That will definitely spoil his night, having someone laugh at his jokes straight away rather than after he explains them. We asking the girls, love? Sali and that?”

“Why not? And we can warn Colin we’ll be taking over the chippy afterwards. How many are up for this?”

Eight confirmations, and I set off to have a word with ‘Prof Matt’ about my other idea, only to find that Mam had beaten me to it.

“Is this intended to be a full-on debauch, or a cultural evening as part of a team-building exercise?”

“Um…”

“I have already planned this one, and liaised to the best of my ability. We will have an optional exercise, where some of your partner’s group will be plant mapping, beetle counting or whatever, and we will be practising rope work on the Gribin. I’ll come back in the morning to collect you. No: you do NOT need your tutor along on a piss-up. Some things I need not to see, if you take my point”

I did, and a week later, after an afternoon spent re-enacting half of those Bill March books I had been given, we were all dropped off at the bunkhouse, where Sali, Elen, Warren and Neil were already ensconced. As the various sleeping bags were laid out, Tref looked pointedly at me and Alys.

“Where are your bags?”

I just raised an eyebrow, pointing behind me.

“When I have my own bed next door? Give me credit! Alys and I will rejoin you for breakfast, and we have left enough here for a decent one. Thank our parents for that”

There was a rumble outside, and Alys perked up at the sound, her whole face shining, and rushed out of the door. I called over to Trefor.

“Sounds like someone you might want a natter with, lad; a friend of ours. I’ll introduce you once Alys lets him breathe again”

Sali winced.

“Please tell me—Trefor, was it? You another lunatic, then?”

Alys returned, wrapped around Neil, who was blushing bright red, and it was only the excuse of having to get out of his bike kit that broke her embrace. I waved across to him as he struggled with a boot.

“Hiya, Neil! Got someone here you should have a chat with. He’s another lunatic”

Neil’s forehead wrinkled, before he caught on.

“Caver?”

I nodded.

“Even worse”

“Cave diver?”

“Neil, Tref; Tref, Neil”

That was the start of the evening, and it just got better. We walked down to the High Street as a solid mass of people, picking up our parents en route, and took over half the pub after an early descent on Colin’s place for ballast, Elen and Warren so utterly relaxed with each other I could have wept, and the first drinks were slipping down just as the Woodruffs arrived.

“Hi, Enfys! Our stuff’s in the bunkhouse already, and we dropped your harp down. We’ve been on the Serengeti”

I looked across to Jordan, and he was almost sliding under the table with embarrassment. Steph being Steph, and her job being what it was, she noticed, pouncing on him with right hand outstretched for a shake.

“I recognise you! Tin tray man! Shrewsbury!”

Jordan was blushing like a stop light.

“Um, yes… Look, it’s the session, it gets you going, and I can’t play anything, but I thought if I just banged the rhythm, and the tray was there, and…”

Her grin changed to a softer smile.

“Trust me, we know all about that. You have a sense of rhythm, and there’s lots that don’t even have that”

Alys was snorting.

“What Jan said about bodhrans, Steph?”

“Absolutely! I’m Steph, my hubby Geoff”

“I’m Jordan. I’m, uh, gay”

He stopped dead.

“Why did I say that?”

Steph just shrugged.

“Does it matter why? Anyway, does it matter at all, given who you are out with? JIMMY!”

That evening went exactly as I had expected, with Lee almost fainting in his hero worship, which sent Jimmy’s accent even further from rational discourse, Tref pumping Neil for advice at every break in the music, and Steph not quite going as over the top as I knew full well she was capable of. We left the pub quite late, my harp spending the night in the storeroom and Colin leaving his parents to finish off for the evening so that he could join us, or rather Sali, in the bunkhouse. I was really gratified that the disparate groups, as well as the age range, had settled into a cheerful friendliness, and even more so when I saw the hand-holding, from Sali and Colin to both sets of parents.

Lee dropped back to walk beside Alys and myself, sounding slightly tipsy, but still in touch with reality.

“You are bloody jammy, Enfys! Pet pub landlord, pet musicians, pet bunkhouse owners. Got any pet pets?”

I shook my head.

“Wouldn’t be fair, all of us being out so much. I mean, Dad runs the bunkhouse, but even so, we all spend as much time on the hill as we can. Anyway, what about you? What have you got at home? Dog, cat, aardvark?”

“Na. Just me, Mam, one big sister, one bigger brother”

“Your Dad… sorry, love”

His mood settled downward.

“Ate. We all were. He was on the Tynemouth station. Bad blow, bad luck. Tell you about it some day…”

He took a couple pf slow breaths, then tried for ‘cheerful’.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow, then? Time to go out somewhere? I sort of packed my boots and rack”

“You not going back with the Prof?”

“Na. Weekend looks fine, so thought I’d get a bus back after, well, see how it goes, like. Your Dad; he mind if I cadge another night here?”

“Why not ask him? DAD?”

Lee ran through his idea, with some embarrassment, and I began to realise exactly how shy he really was, and how rubbish I had been at reading personalities. Dad was happy with the idea, so of course he shouted for the double act. Steph was as upbeat as ever.

“What’s your grade, Lee? And do you prefer a comfortable day, or a bit of a push?”

I couldn’t see his face that clearly, but from his posture, I guessed he was blushing.

“Whey, shall we see what the hangover’s like the morn?”

“Okay… Enfys? You out for this one?”

“If you’re offering. Where?”

She paused for a few seconds, then turned back to Lee.

“What grade are you comfy at, and what rock?”

“Um, I started out on sandstone, in Northumberland, and Whinstone. Done a lot on grit. Not done any slate. Best lead was a VS at Froggatt”

Even in the poor light, I could see Steph straighten up.

“Which one?”

“Sunset Crack”

“I love that one! Enfys?”

“That’s my name”

“And that’s Alys’s line, if I am not mistaken. You up for the Bus Stop, then maybe the Serengeti? Some old faves?”

I nodded.

“Suits me fine. Alys likes that area as well, what with the bird life. Transport?”

“Penny!”

Mam dropped back, and Steph outlined the plan, which set Mam laughing.

“Yes, I would come out, but haven’t you forgotten something else, such as who passed her driving test this Summer? Nansi! You put her on the insurance, then?”

Mrs Edwards laughingly called back, “Yes, but she’ll pay for her own petrol”

Steph turned back to Lee, Alys and myself.

“There you have it, then. Two cars to fit people into, and our van for the kit. That sound good? If you three can see how many of your friends fancy a day out, tomorrow is sorted”

We left Lee to do the ‘sorting’, as first Mr and Mrs Edwards peeled off for their home, and then four of us for mine. There was no question at all as to where Alys would be sleeping, even though all I had was a single bed. While she took her turn in the bathroom, I switched on my laptop. Armed with the search words ‘Wardle’, ‘RNLI’ and ‘Tynemouth, I found the story in seconds. It involved a small coasting ship that had lost power, the lifeboat that had gone out to help secure the crew, and a small explosion. Small, but more than big enough.

Once more, I was left counting our blessings.