CHAPTER 19
We finished our last drinks after Jimmy’s final tune, played solo as the Woodruffs sat down for their own pints, and started back up the hill to the bunkhouse and our beds. I hung back a little as the ginger non-misery led the way. I watched as her hand slipped into that of her husband, and almost by the second my focus shifted.

There was nothing false there, nothing feigned. They looked each other in the eye, they grinned as one, and when their hands joined it was as natural as it would have been for any normal couple.

I gave myself a mental slap at that word, as the more I watched them together, the more…

Not ‘normal’, because that word implied ‘abnormal. No; ‘natural’ was the word I dragged out. Natural.

Vic, Pen, Keith and Nansi prattled away about nothings as we walked, and I realised it was their way of distracting me, derailing any awkward thought processes, until Keith dropped in beside me, almost in lockstep.

“You know that Illtyd tried to chat her up, mate?”

“You what? Illtyd? Surely he knew who she was?”

“Yup. I asked him about it afterwards, and he just laughed, said ‘Well, she scrubs up well’, and then went on for a bit about how it all made sense”

“How did she take it? Him trying it on?”

“Oh, typical for her, as I have discovered. Just asked if he wanted her or her husband to cut his balls off. Illtyd tells me that bit about sense, he understands now why she was such a miserable sod. Says he thought he’d just make sure he understood”

“What? By trying to get into her knickers?”

Keith shook his head.

“Lot more to him than you might realise. His way of, what’s the word? Affirming her? Yeah; that’ll do”

I watched the couple again, her head thrown back in laughter at some joke or other of Jimmy’s, and I turned back to Keith.

“Obviously made sense to you lot”

“Oh yes! When she first turned up, well, when SHE first turned up, if you take my point, the two of them got some shit from a couple of lads from one of the farms out past Tregarth. Rather, Geoff did, and she all but ripped their heads off to piss down their necks”

“What happened?”

“Oh, they did the cliché shit, saying something nasty in Welsh while smiling, so she just carries on chatting to the barman. In Welsh”

“Oh”

“Then turns to the two idiots and tells them to fuck off. So Owen says ’You heard her, you’re barred’, and that’s when Vic stepped in”

“I always see him as Mister Softy!”

“What? No! Not like that. Just invites the two of them to sit with us, and that’s the start of it all”

He paused for a few seconds, before his next words.

“It was later in the week, mate. Owen said to me that he had spotted who she was when they first came in, recognised her, and it was like a slap in the face. His words, ah?”

“Keith, you’re picking up that local stuff”

“What? Oh, not surprising, is it? Anyway, Owen. What he said: she smiled at Geoff, and it was, shit, Steve had never… You heard about that winter night?”

“When he got that lift back up the road? I heard, yeah”

“Owen’s a sound bloke, mate. Proper old-school publican. Knows his customers, knows more than they realise. Said to me he was worried, when he, she didn’t come by for ages.. That it would all be in some local paper, wherever they lived. One paragraph stuff. Sees her come in, and he was, I don’t know? He was almost poetic in the way he described it. Head dipped down to Geoff, eyes on him and him alone. Absolutely besotted, he said”

Another pause, then a twisted grin.

“He made a crap joke about lost customers meaning lost revenue, but we’d had a chat a couple of weeks before after two regulars had died in an accident on Cloggy, so I knew he was talking shite. This is a bloody good community here, Mike. People…”

Another few breaths, another oddly warped grin.

“They care about people, Mike, but they care about their own first, and they have a very flexible interpretation of what that means. The two twats got it wrong, but Owen remembered Steve-as-was at the club, and that was a trump card. Miserable bastard, but never, ever hurt anyone. Then she walks in and, well, light-bulb moment. That’s the thing: as soon as we spoke to her, it was so clear how sorted she is. Geoff too. She tells me he can get very protective”

He chuckled, happily.

“I don’t normally support violence, Mike. Now and again, though… He broke a hand punching someone who upset her. Hell of a story to the two of them”

We were just coming up to his house, Vic and Nansi having slipped away earlier, and there was a round of hugs as we all said our goodnights, and I noticed Keith give Steph a peck on the cheek. Into the bunkhouse, and Steph simply held up a couple of mugs as we all dumped our jackets. Jimmy said something about netties and old man’s prostates, I think, before she shrugged and headed off to the showers with a small carrier bag. That finally crystallised my perception of her: privacy to change clothes. Even though I knew her history, my instincts were feeling that we needed that separation just then.

I pulled on my sleep suit, which was just my thermal undies, to be honest, and after she had returned wearing much the same, we all did our bedtime ablutions before Jimmy settled into his single room. I found my space on the huge bed shelf, wriggling into my bag, and wondering what the following day would bring.

“Mike?”

Steph’s voice was softer than it had been in the pub. I turned over to face the two. Fortunately, there were no other residents that night.

“Yes?”

“Sorry for the shock. Thank you for not… Thank you for your kindness”

I took a few deep breaths, feeling that she really wanted to talk, as Geoff whispered something to her. I could see her head shake.

“Air needs clearing, love. Done it before, more than a few times. Mike knows some of it, knows I was in a bad place. Owen told Mike about that winter night, I think”

I found my own voice.

“Yeah, he did. Woman who gave you a lift, she was our friend. Um, me and my wife’s friend”

I found myself gushing, much to my embarrassment.

“Years back. Caro and I, that’s my, my wife, we were doing the walk from Aber over the Carneddau”

“Kipping in the little shelter? Bit cramped, that”

“You know it, then?”

“We do”

One word, one pronoun, said so much to me just then, picking at my own wound.

“We got there, and Pat, that’s your driver, she was already in place, with her husband. They come up here every now and again, but I haven’t seen her for a while”

“Well, if you see her, just say thanks. Your wife?”

The tears were there, but no sobs, thankfully.

“Motorcycle accident. Before we all moved away from That Place”

“Oh hell. Sorry; didn’t mean to bring that up”

“Life goes on, Steph”

A very long sigh from her, and I saw her shift position as her husband very obviously spooned her from behind, just as obviously in reassurance.

“Yes. Something I know all too well. Get this bit over, while I can. Always known who I am, what I am, but tried to make a life the way the doctors said when I was born. Didn’t work. Lots of self-harm, and lots of risk-taking. What you talked about was just part of it, just one moment. Alcohol, as well, and I know full well you saw that too. I had a moment of sanity one day, and I spoke to my GP about depression, so he found me a therapist. Woman called Sally. Funny… We have another friend, trans man called Jerry, and he says much the same thing”

“Sorry, Steph, but not that clued up on this stuff. Trans man?”

“Oh, sort of the inverse of people like me. Recorded as a girl at birth, but know they’re a boy. Bit in your face is Jerry. Anyway, he was in hospital for ages, doped to the gills on Valium or whatever, and he gets a shrink who finally listens to him properly. That was me, I suppose”

“Sally listened to you?”

“Sort of. More truthful to say she challenged me. Took all of my assumptions about the chances I had and turned them back on me. I’d wobble, say I couldn’t do something, and she’d just ask me why not. Got me onto the hormones, and… do you want all the details, Mike?”

“Go on. Please”

“Okay… well, they worked rather well, in Geoff’s opinion, but he’s just a lech”

There was a quick whispered ‘bitch/sod’ exchange before she continued.

“Mood swings, mood changes, and that’s a confused area. Do I start reacting to things in a stereotypical girly way because of the little blue pills, or because my mind thinks it now has permission to do so? Add in coming down off the booze, and there were so many things going on simultaneously I was almost lost. Sal and I had a chat about that, and you have to understand I was having to wear a bloody binder back then, elastic bandages and stuff to flatten my chest. Physically, I was getting, it would have been impossible to pretend much longer.

“Sal says I should do a trial run and go somewhere I had never really been to, just spend some time being me. My bank cards and cheque book were all initial and surname, so no worries there. I finally took the hint, or rather her boot up my arse, and I decided on a music festival, in Shrewsbury. As soon as I got there, I’m into a massive panic attack, and by amazing luck I’m pitched right next to Geoff’s brother and his family”

She paused as Geoff whispered something else.

“Yes, love. Dead right. Lots of amazing luck; I must have been a saint in a previous life, what with Sal, and you, and yes, those. I am actually trying to be serious”

She drew in a much longer breath.

“The rest can be summed up as finding out how many friends I had at work, real friends, and meeting some people like myself. One of them’s a biker as well. Her husband’s got some old British thing that she goes absolutely silly over”

“Sounds like you’ve all been lucky, Steph”

She was silent for nearly half a minute before speaking again, this time in a much flatter voice.

“Not really. If it hadn’t been for your friend, I wouldn’t have made it, and that wasn’t luck, it was kindness. We had somebody else, though, and her luck…”

Her voice cracked just then, and Geoff chipped in.

“Leave that one for tonight, love. We had to organise her funeral, Mike. There was someone else, someone I loved. That’s where we are, Steph and me and Sarah, lucky in that we seem to pick up the good stuff that others don’t get. Sorry for putting myself in there, but without that luck, I wouldn’t have my wife, and I am really sorry if that hurts you, but I am guessing with your own story, you know where we are at. Thank you from me for being as generous of spirit as I sort of sense you are. Now, are you up to climbing tomorrow?”

“I hope so”

He chuckled.

“Blatant change of subject there, he says in satisfaction. Where do you have planned?”

“Keith was talking about Craig Aderyn, in Cwm Dyli. Get to it off the Miners’ Path before Llyn Llydaw”

“Do you know that place, love?”

He seemed to sprinkle that word around so liberally I wondered if it were reassurance for his wife, but then asked myself another question: why shouldn’t he? I had guessed he had groped her in some way when that little whispered exchange had taken place, and I couldn’t think of a better word to have used on oneself. Steph yawned, then wriggled down into their double bag.

“Heard of it, but not been on it. Remind me to take some gardening kit, just in case. Night, my friend. Enough heavy stuff for one day; we’ve got the breakfast duty tomorrow”

The night felt sleepless, so much to process, and I only realised I had actually slept when the dawn took me by surprise.