CHAPTER 47
I settled into bed, Alys joining me there once she had done her teeth, and of course she picked up on my mood.

“What’s up?”

“I looked up Lee’s Dad”

“Oh. A bad one, then”

“Yes. Not now, all right?”

We settled under the duvet, Alys spooning me, and I gave her what I could manage, without sharing too many of the starker details.

“His Dad went in a bad way. I looked up… Sorry. Give me a minute”

There had been another incident that had bubbled up nastily in the search results, about a man trapped in a rising tide, but I dearly wanted to forget that one. I found some balance, finally.

“Problem with internet searches, love. You find other stuff, not all of it nice. His Dad went quickly, trying to do, no. Actually doing something worthwhile. Heroic, even”

I paused for a moment, then hugged her.

“Sort of a lesson for me, you know? Always, as a kid, always thought of heroes, thought they’d be like they are in the films. Chin like Dinas Mot, shoulders the width of whatever, stupid Bruce Willis joke as they do their thing. Not like that, is it? Just ordinary people who aren’t that ordinary”

She cuddled up to me, pulling me to her.

“Like Neil, you mean”

“Oh? Yes. Exactly that. He could have, I don’t know. He did what he had to do”

“He did what he thought was right, Enfys. I just wonder, sometimes… Is he ever going to be okay again? I watch him, when…”

She was suddenly laughing, her arm tightening on me as it lay across my chest.

“I really think Trefor calmed him down. Gave him a focus on something else, something he can feel he has control of. You know something?”

“What?”

“Spotted how nobody from my course came along for the club? Trust me, I’m working on them, but it’s going to be an uphill job”

“Obviously”

“Eh?”

“Well, mountaineers…”

“Sod!”

I tickled her, and stuff, and I almost managed to forget about the crewmate of Lee’s Dad, who had drowned as the tide rose and his foot had remained jammed in the rocks he had stood on to try and refloat a small boat.

Count your blessings, girl.

Morning came at its usual time, far too early, and I pulled on my antique pair of Ron Fawcett climbing trousers (ta, Mam) and sorted some lunch for the day, or rather packed what Mam had already prepared. I had a lot to live up to, a fact I had understood many years before.

Alys drove, Steph beside her, while Dad and Geoff drove the other two vehicles and, to my surprise, Neil handed Tref a spare lid and took him as a pillion. Even more to my surprise, there was a solid turn-out from our school friends, represented by Colin and Sali, Warren and Elen, and all four of them had come in ‘outdoor’ clothing.

We started at the Bus Stop, with a mixed bag of successes on Equinox, followed by a more uniform set of failures on Solstice. That didn’t surprise me, because that reach up the crux flake was always a bastard, but both routes were short enough to allow people to be lowered off laughing without frightening them too much. Elem was the one who cornered me after my lead of Equinox.

“How do you do that, Enfys?”

“Do what?”

“Stick your leg out level with your shoulder? And don’t you dare say anything involving ‘I just…’, okay?”

I shook my head, laughing.

“It’s just the way I am!”

That, really, summed up the day. People who had no experience of climbing having a go, those with a little being pushed, not too hard, and then we ended up out at the Serengeti. Steph was in her serious mood just then.

“Lee?”

“Aye?”

“How would you like to lead an HVS?”

“Oh, no bloody way! Only ever managed grit VS, aye?”

“Well… Here’s the plan. Enfys leads me, you follow right behind, with Geoff as second. You get to see each gear placement as I remove it, as well as the sequency bits. To be honest, it’s just that bit past the overlap; bit narrow-track there. Need your hands wide apart”

Lee was still looking a little lost, so Steph grinned at him.

“If it all goes to ratshit, I can just drop you a toprope”

There was a moment, just then, when I saw directly into Lee’s soul.

“You think I can’t do it?”

Steph shook her head.

“Not at all. We are just offering you a chance to realise you can”

That bit where it overlaps is far more awkward than it should be, a funny foot-shuffle while standing on the absolute tips of one’s toes. I led straight through, more on momentum than technique, stitching the long crack with runners I had borrowed from Steph, including some amazingly small Friends. I actually found the head-game of runner placement overriding the nerve game of ‘THIS IS HVS!’, and as the crack is constant from bottom to top, there was never a moment where I needed to worry about finding somewhere to fit the gear. Steph’s ‘key ring’ system worked and, to be honest, my main worry was that she would look upon my amateurish efforts at protection and tut. I was astonished when I looked up from setting an HB brassy with a sharp downward tug, only to find I was at the broken section just below the exit slot. Extender on, two quick moves, and walk away from the edge until I could turn safely to pull some slack up. Out with the big slings, three anchors, and set a couple of clove hitches before finding a seat where I could look down the crag.

“ON BELAY!”

Steph’s voice came up loudly.

“OKAY!”

I knew it wouldn’t be a quick process, as she had to sort Lee out, and then had a little moment of worry. I had all her bits, or at least all those that were of any use on the crag.

“What you got left, Enfys?”

I nearly fell off in shock. Geoff clearly saw, for he laughed out loud.

“I let you get your belay set up first, girl! If you can let me have the spare gear, I’ll drop back down the descent and pass it to Lee. Stick it all on this four-footer for me… Ta!. How did you find leading that?”

“Odd. I mean, at the sharp end, on a slate HVS, and all I could think about---not being nasty, aye? Just ‘What will Steph say about this runner?’ and that”

He was nodding.

“Displacement thing, that. Hairy says it was something the other way round for her, before, when she was, you know. Not being herself. She could forget about her life because she was concentrating on not having a terminal Steph-ground interface. Remember that story about Right Route at the Roaches? Runner lifting out?”

I grinned at him, getting one back in return.

“I’ll pop down and tie on, then Steph will follow you so the lad can see how it’s done. I was looking at his face, love: I think you scored some serious brownie points there. Nice style; very economical”

He slithered down the loose track, and three minutes later, I got the start of the ritual from Steph.

Take in.
That’s me.
Climb when ready.
Climbing.

I had to remind myself several times that she wasn’t dawdling but doing two jobs at once, and when she topped out, she walked straight past me, waving a hand at my belay.

“Stay tied on, Enfys”, she whispered, “He’s wobbling a little; might need that toprope”

She posted herself to one side of the exit notch, and looked down the slab.

“Doing well, mate! See the break here, about six feet above your top hand? Loads of jugs there. Just two or three of the delicate moves left, then you can thug it. One more runner will do you… that Rock 2 is perfect. Extend it… yes, flip the gate over. Perfect. Trust your feet and step up. See the jugs? Bucket handles, more like! Shuffle round, Enfys!”

Lee appeared in the opening, his breath going ‘Foo! Foo!’ through his pursed lips, and then he was sprawled over one of the slate blocks I was tied to.

“Fuck me, that’s committing! No way could I have done that on-sight! Enfys, shit, the Prof, he wasn’t joking about you”

Suddenly, he was hugging me, then Steph.

“Never, bloody NEVER, did I think I could do that!”

Steph laughed, squeezing him back.

“You haven’t done it yet, Lee! I have a husband for you to collect”

She quickly inspected my slings, and gave a satisfied nod.

“Lee?”

“Aye?”

“Mind just tying on to this one’s gear, just to save time?”

“No problem”

We did a rapid hand-over, Steph double checking every karabiner and knot before she was satisfied, then grinned once more at Lee.

“Levitate my husband for me, lad!”

She turned away sharply, and I was surprised to see a hint of a blush. The calls ran their usual sequence once more, Geoff eventually arrived, and then Lee had the job of toproping Neil and Tref, all of the others making a number of rude comments that included the famous Tobruk comment about “A game of soldiers”. We gathered at the bottom as a group, though, especially as both Neil and Tref had backpacked the usual collection of Thermos flasks that Steph always seemed to have with her on the hill. She was musing.

“Lovely slab, this, and it is a really good example of how perspective shifts. See that line over there, Enfys? Just to the left of our route?”

“Yes… finish to the right? Cut across to Seamstress?”

She nodded.

“Lee? See how the sequence works as you start the traverse?”

“Aye, I think so”

“Congratulations. You’ve just worked out how to do an E4. There’s an E7 to the right there, but it will probably just look like a blank wall to you now. That’s what I meant about perception, perspective. You wouldn’t be able to climb that on sight right now, but you can see how it goes”

Lee was nodding.

“See further than you can reach. Aye. What’s that one called?”

“Stack of nudebooks meets the stickman”

It was Colin who disgraced himself by snorting up half his tea, and Steph shrugged.

“Some really, really odd names for routes around here, loads of them rude. That one? The Stick Man was a nickname for one of the lads who put the route up, and they found a pile of, er, recreational left-handed reading material under a slate block at the start”

I looked quickly towards my lover, knowing full well what that might mean to her and Neil, but she was laughing along with the others, apparently unconcerned. Steph waited until they had settled before standing and gesturing at the crag.

“Want to see where the E7 goes?”

We ambled over to the right side of the main face, and she waved vaguely at an utterly blank sweep of purple-grey slate.

“Up there”

Lee just turned away, shaking his head, and my schoolfriends simply said a number of things that implied complete disbelief. Little Tryfan it most definitely wasn’t.

There was a little tap on my head, and Steph swore, politely, if that was possible. Rain. We crunched our way back through the quarry to the transport, and as we went, I managed to get Steph a little way apart from the others.

“What was that about at the top, Steph?”

“What was what about?”

“Tell me to mind my own business if you want, but you were blushing”

That comment brought a full-on crimson face, but she was giggling, so I felt safe to push it a little.

“And?”

“Something I nearly said to Lee. He did really well, by the way”

“I know. Subject is not changing”

“Well… I nearly said one thing, and that would have made me nearly say another thing”

“That doesn’t really make sense”

“When I said ‘Levitate my husband’, what I nearly said was ‘Get Geoff up’, but I caught myself in time”

“Ah. And? The other thing, that you nearly nearly said?”

“That it was my job to do that”

I felt my mouth drop open.

“Steph Woodruff!”

She was chuckling.

“Not the thing to say to a teenage lad, is it? And that’s the thing, what we were saying about perspective. I used to come out here to take risks. That was… A few times I came really close. That was then, though. Things change, and he’s walking there taking the piss out of Trefor and Neil. Lifesaver”

She paused, then grinned at me.

“Married woman, now, me. Healthy married woman with healthy appetites, and several of them will be satisfied tonight”

“You have no shame!”

“And you have a dirty mind. I was talking about curry and beer”

A deliberate pause.

“I’ll save the shag for afterwards, of course “