CHAPTER 50
I didn’t know what to do. Steph’n’Geoff were such a part of my life, and Steph so utterly right in herself, in her femininity, that I found it hard to imagine, to recognise, that she had ever been any other way. I could remember Alys, of course, before she was ever visible; when my mind whispered “Before there was an Alys”, it immediately gave itself the answer “There always was an Alys, just hidden”, and I wondered what Steph had shown the world before she shook herself free of it.

I walked back to my lover, settled against her, whispering a quick warning, and she simply squeezed my knee, whispering in turn, “talk later”.

We got through the evening, as I tried my best not to stare at the woman asking the questions. What was her issue? Later, as we lay in bed, Alys wrapped around me, she spoke to the top of my head.

“I think I know, or at least, well, what Steph’s told me”

There were a few moments of silence, and then she started again, as if changing the subject.

“Do you remember me saying to you not to drop me? That I would break?”

“Oh god yes. Do you think I would do that?”

Once more, she kissed the top of my head.

“Not a chance, love. I know you…”

Her breath caught, and yet again, that fresh start.

“I do know you, now, and you are everything I hoped you would be, and you never… You have never, ever, disappointed me, and I KNOW you never will. I have you, and I know that isn’t true for most girls like me. I wonder about those girls that woman brings to the Cow, and if she does the same for them. I really think Steph spoke to me about her, you know?”

“Really?”

“Yes. It was before Geoff, she said. It was…”

She twisted herself in the bed, as if seeking a more comfortable position, then pulled me closer again.

“What I said to you about me, and my parents, that wasn’t how it was for her. She was on her own, she says, and she was lost, and it was all self-harm and that until she met Sally, her shrink. Then it was a bit better, and then she met Geoff, and it was sorted, and so on. But before all that”

A tight squeeze.

“Before all that, she was like me before Mam and Dad finally listened. She was lost”

I tried to lighten things, to make a joke.

“I thought you’d say stuff about me, love”

Once more, a wriggle as she cuddled even closer.

“Oh, love, you are, you are the confirmation, you are life to me, but Mam and Dad, they were life savers. Once they let me see I had a chance, aye? You, you are my all, but without them I would never have been here to love you. To BE loved, by you. Steph, she never had that. The things she told me… she used to come up here, cycling from Betws to Gwern y Gof Isaf, camp, then do silly things”

Another catch in her voice.

“Self-destructive things, love. Silly climbing. Looking to fall off. Getting very drunk all the time, like Annie used to”

“Drunk? Those two? I mean, I know they get merry, but not falling down!”

She wriggled closer to me.

“Not how Annie or Ginny tell it. Annie says she was often very close to wetting her bed, she got that drunk”

“Hell!”

“Welcome to our world, my love. I know you were already there, but you get my point. Anyway, that other woman, Pat, she’s been a fixture for years, according to Dil. Back in the days of the old landlord, when we were both little. Owen Madoc, he was. Steph tells me that one night she had hitched down to Bethesda, with her fiddle. Played a floor spot, going to walk back, absolutely stinking drunk, and there was snow on the ground. Don’t need to spell that one out, do I?”

I shuddered. More than seven miles, uphill, in snow, well after midnight, steaming drunk: she’d have been risking hypothermia and death.

“What happened?”

“She thinks it was Mr Madoc, sorted her a lift. From what she remembers, I think it was that woman with the girls. Steph was very, very clear; thinks they saved her life. Got her thinking about her future, it did. The rest, well, she was still healing when she met Geoff. Real near miss”

She paused for a few seconds.

“Do you think we should tell the woman, Enfys? I mean, we need to let Steph know, so she can choose… I think I’ve just answered my own question”

I kissed her cheek.

“It’s nice when you let me see your thoughts working, love”

That made her smile, and then she had other thoughts, and I shared them, and for a while I forgot all about other people. We sent the Woodruffs an e-mail the next morning.

Our University work continued to gather pace and complexity, but I started to feel a little left out. With Trefor and Lee, I could share thoughts on our lectures, compare approaches to assignments and so on, whereas with Alys I was lost. It wasn’t a nastiness, or a wall between us, but simply an almost complete lack of any meaningful crossover between our two courses. Now and again, we would welcome two or three of her fellows so that they could work together on some project or other. Apart from that, and the unavoidable stress that any degree course imposes, I was content. We were content.

That stress was a constant in my course. The academic side was really stretching me, and I found myself drifting away every so often at the weirdest times, such as shopping for food, where I would suddenly see the person in front of me dissolve into a collection of muscles, tendons and joints. It nearly turned me vegetarian—but not quite.

The other big stress factor was when water entered into things, and not just as rain. Lee had joined the canoe polo club, while I restricted my own engagement to the full-sized things, finally perfecting the ‘Eskimo roll’ self-righting technique, something both lads seemed to do without thinking, as well as being able to work with others to sail a small yacht. I found it much harder getting anywhere near competent in a Laser dinghy, and had to get used to our various instructors shouting occasionally comprehensible, and sometimes but not always helpful, advice across the water.

The climbing activities were a different kind of challenge. Depending on weather, the Climbing Club would go out to a range of crags, and I started to push my ‘sports’ climbing on bolted routes on limestone and slate, but I always felt they were really cheating. Nevertheless, I was operating at a consistent 6b by the end of my first year.

The formal part was utterly different; they expected, required, a particular level of competence, but nowhere near as (literally) extreme as my own. What they did hammer away at was the stuff Matt had shown us in the film session: safety, both of oneself and any ‘client’, and what to do when things went wrong.

That last was utterly fascinating to me, and at Matt’s very, very heavily hinting advice, I volunteered for the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue. He had been quite direct in our end-of-year discussion.

“Enfys, you are climbing as well as anyone on the course, and better than most. You’ve got the Summer ahead, grockle season. No way are you competent enough to do a season as a lifeguard, but you have a real eye for safe anchors”

He snorted at that one, then grinned.

“Rock ones, that is! What you do in water… Micky Shortland said you needed reminding that boats go up and down with the tide”

“I’m a climber, Matt”

“You are that, and becoming a bloody good one, and a safe one at that. Your skiing’s coming along well, your swimming’s excellent, canoeing and paddle-boarding are going well. It is just your dinghy sailing that really needs work”

“I know. It’s… I think it’s because I’m removed from the boat, Matt”

“Bit difficult sailing sat somewhere else!”

“Not want I meant. It’s, well, in a canoe, or on a paddleboard, it’s mostly me steering, bodyweight and stuff. I can follow instructions on a bigger boat, but in the Lasers, well, ropes, judging what the wind’s doing. Like the windsurfing, sailboarding stuff. I can run with the wind, because I’m sort of hanging directly off it. Changing direction, well, I fall off”

He was nodding emphatically.

“Part of my advice for the Summer, Enfys. If you are going to do any form of sailing, I want it to be with tuition. If you are going to attempt drowning yourself, do it in term time so that we can take photos and laugh”

He couldn’t hold back his grin, so I took his comments as I thought they were meant. We shook hands as I rose to head home, and he held mine a little longer.

“Last thing, Ms Hiatt: this Christmas break. Cairngorms?”

He meant the out-of-term ‘optional’ winter course, which I had already run past my parents, so I simply nodded. He grinned back.

“We will look forward to making a real climber of you, then! Have a good Summer!”

My Honda was back home, now, and Dad had already cleared our stuff from the shared house, so once we had said farewell to the boys, Alys and I settled outside Mam’s office for the run home. I made sure I dropped in at Glan Dena to offer my services, which brought a grin from Clive, the MRT leader, who simply pointed at the organisation chart on the wall.

“Already got your name on that. Love. Just need your mobile number and any commitments. Mat rang us weeks ago”

Cheeky tutor. I shrugged back at Clive.

“Commitments? Apart from August bank holiday weekend, I will just be working at our bunkhouse”

“Easy to find then!”

He turned serious.

“We do a couple or three exercises, love. Be nice to get you out on those, get the team to gel, aye? Just be nice if we don’t get any real callouts”

Ten days later, at nine in the evening, my mobile rang, and it was Clive.

“If you’re fit, we can be with you in twenty minutes. Casualty halfway down Tryfan East Face. Can’t get the chopper in close enough to put us there, so it’ll be an ab off the top. You go for this one?”