Yet again that comment. I decided to leave it for as long as I could so that whatever surprise they were clearly organising would remain just that: a surprise.

We said our goodnights, and ambled back to my family, just as the food was arriving. Ish was staring at his glass.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“This doesn’t really taste like beer”

“Not quite right, son. It’s the stuff back home that doesn’t taste like beer”

Carolyn was eating for Northumberland, offering the odd bite of sausage to her bear, while Maz just smiled at her. Neil held up a hand, as he often did before speaking.

“It is the yeast, Ish. You are drinking ale, which uses a yeast that rises to the surface during fermentation. Australian beer is lager, which uses a yeast that sinks to the bottom, and works at lower temperatures. It makes beers with less flavour, and they need to be stored longer until they mature, which is why they are called lager, which is German for ‘store’, so--- I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”

Ish patted his arm.

“Not at all, Neil. You just told me almost everything I needed to know, in one bite”

“Oh. Could I give you two more?”

“Go ahead”

“First, there’s another type of beer, from Belgium, called lambic. It is only brewed in colder months, and it’s just left open for wild yeasts to get into it. Yeasts that live in the vats, that is. Second, you are drinking IPA, which stands for ‘India Pale Ale’. Beer shipped out to India during the Empire would go off, so they added lots of hops to it. Hops are a preservative, but they make things taste bitter. People liked the taste, though. It needed a particular type of mineral water, from Burton on Trent, so they found a way to add stuff to water to ‘burtonise’ it and…”

He started laughing.

“Nobody expects the Neilish Inquisition, eh?”

He was so clearly on that spectrum, but this was so different in tone to those days of anguish I remembered. Still ploughing his own furrow, still recognising it, but now able to laugh at it, or himself, or both. It didn’t matter which: he was laughing.

Neil got the next round in, returning with the dessert menu along with the drinks. They had apple and blackberry crumble, which was my target, Ish choosing STP and Neil opting for tiramisu. Maz and Carolyn looked confused, my wife admitting she had no idea what half the choices actually were. Ish was still on form.

“Mum, me and Dad, ey? We get ours, you two try a bit of both, and then choose. I had STP first time I came here with Dad. It’s really nice. Or, Carolyn?”

“Yes?”

“They have ice cream as well”

“Do they have mint and chocolate?”

“I’ll ask for you, okay?”

He was back a couple of minutes later, grinning.

“Ordered the three puds, and explained that Mum will deice in a bit. Landlord said he has no choc and mint ice cream, but he can offer something like it”

Maz decided on STP after some serious tasting, and LC’s treat turned out to be on of those Cornetto ice creams, capped with chocolate and filled with mint ice cream and yes, it got offered to her bear.

In the end, I carried her the last few hundred yards back to our cottage as she was fast asleep. She woke as I was removing the harness, and she suddenly flung her arms around my neck, squeezing as hard as she could, whispering, “Thank you, Dad”

Maz was already in bed awaiting me, and we settled down into that comfortable cuddle, her head on my shoulder, as we talked through the day.

“I was worried about Carolyn, love. Pork and that”

“Sorry?”

“They covered her hair, didn’t they?”

“Yes. Hypocrites to a shit, they were”

“And food?”

“We ate what they gave us. If you didn’t, someone else would, and you went hungry. Simple as that. This is… It’s all new, darling. She gets a choice, that’s a big thing, but she’s asked what her choice is, and that’s even bigger. Never had that. She’s…”

Maz wriggled a little to get closer to me.

“Her play, now. It’s a little bit, well, younger kid stuff? But she’s playing, for the first time. The climbing, wow. That one, I think, well, choices again. Choices of which holds to use, realising some won’t work, but all the time she’s doing it off her own bat, not just what someone else is telling her to do. She could be a handful when teenager time comes. Anyway, she’s happy. That’s what she tells me. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. It’s a drive out bit of a trek, but more of your bucket list thing. Now…”

“Yes. Now would be a very good time, love. And…oh yes! Stay on your back, love, and…”

‘Now’ was indeed a very good time, as we continued to make amends for so many years apart.

The weather was much greyer in the morning, but we weren’t going high. Flasks filled, snacks ready to hand, Ish squeezed into the back seat with the girls as Neil took the front and we were off, not long after seven o’clock. I drove back along the Military Road to the bridge near Chesters, where I turned North, sticking to quieter roads rather than going back to the big city and the A1. Postcard-perfect village after village went past until I cut the corner from (Shew us the way to) Wallington to Morpeth (Rant). I couldn’t help it, as so many of the places we were passing featured in tunes I loved. We were soon on the A1 north, and after Alnwick I turned off for Beal, which was when Maz started making happy sounds.

“My man loves me indeed!”

I gave her a quick grin.

“This is only part of the day. Morning here, more later”

I had spent ages studying the tide tables, and we were slowly following the retreating water as the causeway revealed itself foot by foot, Carolyn’s eyes wide at the apparent magic.

“Neil’s going to do some work in the Priory, but we will have about three hours to wander around”

“Eider!”

“Yes, love. Lots of them here. Lunch will be down the coast a bit, before Part Two”

I dropped Neil off in the village before parking in the visitors’ facility, leading my family north rather than down to the Priory, Kawan riding in his carrier but his lady in more sensible clothing than her princess dress.

“This is for your Mum, okay? Dune system, Maz, very similar to a place near where Enfys lives. Dunes, the North Sea and… there. See?”

“A gannet! So many of them!”

We spent an hour relaxing in the dunes, as Maz sighed each time one of the huge birds plunged into the water, wings folded straight back. There were all sorts of other birds scuttling or hopping around the dunes, far too many for me to keep track of, but she was in her own world of delight, LC running around the place in delight, chattering away to her furry friend, as Ish and I relaxed on the top of a dune.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Elsie asked something yesterday. When we were climbing”

“And?”

“She was waiting to climb, that first route. She asked me if she had to climb, and… if she said ‘no’, would you beat her?”

“Oh hell! I thought she’d enjoyed it”

“She did, really did. It was her idea to keep the harness on, just in case there was more. She’s just not… It’s taking her a while to understand she can make choices”

He paused, watching as another gannet hit the sea like a missile.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“Those men. Are they all dead now?”

“I believe so”

“Good. And… and my grandmother, she can go fuck herself. Sorry”

I slithered across the grass to hug him, and he squeezed me back hard.

“Just, well, learning a lot of things right now, the hard way. I think Mum’s coming back to us, but Elsie, well: Mum’s already been in the world, already knows how it works. Elsie’s having to learn it all so, so quickly”

“You’re doing so well, son. You make me so proud of you”

“She’s my sister, Dad. Those people took six years of our lives away. Never again. Now: what have you planned for later?”

“You’ll find out when you find out, son”

“Tease. Anyway, if we want to see the other bits, we should move”

He was right, so we gathered the others and made our way through the village to the Priory and the views of the castle, cobles and coble huts along the beach.

“Dad?”

Another direct question from LC, praise be whatever.

“Is that a hut or a boat?”

“That, love, was a coble, a local type of boat. When it got old, they cut it in half, turned it upside down and made it into a hut, so it’s really both”

“And what’s that?”

“That is Bamburgh castle, we’ll be driving there in a little while. Now, where we were climbing, that rock, is all part of a long line of the same stuff. The little castle over there is on a bit of it, and so is Bamburgh”

“What’s a castle?”

Breathe, Rhodes.

“It’s a place where princesses sometimes live.”

We collected Neil from his odd position lying underneath one of the statues in the Priory, taking upwards, upskirt almost, shots, and collected the car to cross a drier causeway back to the mainland. As we hit the coast again, he called over his shoulder to LC.

“I’ve been taking photographs. Carolyn, and I had a thought. Can you grab this, Ish?”

He handed the lad what turned out to be a compact digital camera.

“I always take a few plotting shots, for the layout, with that. It’s a lot quicker than my other cameras, and it makes a record of how things tie together when I do the closer-up shots. Carolyn, would you like to try taking some pictures? Ish can show you how. It’s got a clean SD card in it, Ish”

Her voice was almost inaudible.

“I can take photos?”

“Several of us at once said “Yes”, but she wasn’t finished.

“What do I take photos of?”

Another multitude of answers, but they all meant the same thing: your choice.

I did stop by the huge castle, but I had other plans, so we simply took a few shots of its bulk from outside before I set off for the real treat. By coincidence, it was the car park of the Bamburgh Castle Inn where I left the Vauxhall, before a simple lunch without alcohol. I led the way to the harbour afterwards. Maz rhapsodising about all the eider swimming so close to us, apparently unconcerned.

“So many bords here, love!”

“Well, if you would all like to put these on, please”, I said, handing out our collection of sun hats, and her face lit up.

“Arctic terns?”

“Arctic terns”

So much passion in her kiss, so little flesh on her bones, but still there, still my lover.

I had, of course, booked us onto a boat trip to the Inner Farnes, complete with bobbing seals and divebombing seabirds, hence the headwear.Ish had a handkerchief; Kawan gained a bandanna.

I dropped the rest off at the pub with my order before parking in front of the cottage once more and then walking down. Ish carried his sister home that evening, and Maz passed an entire night without a single twitch or kick.