Our burst of laughter was interrupted by a call of “Budge over!” from Pen, as she and Keith appeared, each carrying a folded camping stool.

“If you lot are annexing our bunkhouse, me and Keefy will get a drink out of you, at least. You eaten?”

Maz grinned a welcome, her mood clearly on an upswing.

“Just ordered. Please tell me we’re not planning on hitting the chippy afterwards!”

I noticed a sharp look from Frank towards his wife, but she simply slipped an arm through his for a squeeze. Their business. That was when LC announced that she liked crunchy sausages, which drew Deb’s attention back to the rest of us.

“What are crunchy sausages, Carolyn?”

“They’re like fish”

“How are they like fish?”

“They’re crunchy”

Scott was the one now laughing, and he called out, “She means ‘battered’, Mr Rhodes”

“Ah!”

Nell took over.

“Remember that place in Fort William, darling?”

Her man shuddered.

“Oh, dio mio, I was trying to forget it!”

“Not possible, Leo. Not possible. GEMMA!”

Another bit of wriggling, just as our food arrived, LC on non-crunchy sausages for now, and Gemma settled herself a little away from our table.

“Nell?”

“I wanted your professional opinion, as a chef type person. Leo has already given his as an Italian. That Scottish trip we did years ago?”

“The, er, pointless one?”

Nell actually blushed at that, then grinned.

“Yes, that one. We were trying out Scots food, like you do, and some of it was inspired, like clampi”

The rest of us made a range of uncomprehending noises, and Leo said, “Vongole in tempura. Battered clams, without shells. Like scampi”

“Thank you, love. So we had things like clampi, Cullen skink, lots of salmon dishes, and then… We saw a chip shop when we passed through Glasgow, and they offered deep fried battered Mars bars”

Gemma made a peculiar noise, and Cathy waved at her.

“She won’t even cook doughnuts”

Keith and Penny were chuckling now, and he simply nodded at his wife before saying, “We do believe we know where this is going. Chip shop in Fort Bill? Run by Turkish people?”

Nell nodded.

“You’ll have guessed right, then. So, we look at the sign, and it’s one of those places that does all sorts of fast food: kebabs, chips and pizza, so Leo says—”

“Can we see what the pizza was like. A really stupid thing to do”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes you just have to see something, even if it’s impossible to unsee later. We go in, and we ask what the pizza is like, and what they have is those little ‘individual’ cheese, tomato and pepperoni things from a freezer. My husband here, he shrugs and says ’Okay’, and the man takes the pizza and only dips it into the batter tray and drops it into the fish frier”

Gemma looked ill, but Nell was now in full flow.

“And it wasn’t just pizzas they did that with. Black pudding, haggis, meat pies, Scotch pies, all battered and deep-fried. And no, Leo. It isn’t tempura. It’s just thick, thick batter. The Scottish heart disease figures are awful. Which is partly why I am having this mushroom stroganoff. I won’t have chips later”

Dab murmured, “We’ll see…”, and got another blush. Gemma changed the subject abruptly, asking when we were leaving.

“Mid September, love. Maz and I are off work for now, but Ish is back to his studies in October. We still have to, um, smooth off some rough edges before our new flower is planted out”

“You’re coming down to Cardiff, though?”

I nodded.

“Got a lot of people to thank down there, Gem, so yes”

“Where are you staying?”

“No idea as yet”

Deb grunted.

“I have”

“Sorry?”

“Already had an offer for you, if Ish doesn’t mind sleeping on the floor, or a sofa. By ‘floor’, I mean on a camping mat, of course. Or Carolyn here. I mean her on the mat, not Ish on her”

“Where’s this?”

“A number of friends know about you from the news reports, Mike. Some of them worked out that you’d probably stop by, and they’ve offered spare bedrooms and that”

“To strangers?”

“To other victims, Mike. More importantly, to survivors. Obs. I’ll talk more once you have your dates sorted, but accommodation is already there, depending only on those dates. Just let me know, or Di, or Lexie”

Someone obviously took ‘paying it forward’ bloody seriously. Deb smiled, cheekily.

“Of course, there is always the offer of space in the clubhouse, but I somehow doubt that place would be suitable for Di and her mates. Oh, while I remember: I checked out Neil’s website and, well, we spoke. He has offered me a package, and it will be free, and… sorry”

Frank hugged her to him.

“Been said before, Mike, about wounds that don’t heal”

Deb kissed his cheek.

“It was your suggestion, love, and it was a sound one”

“Aye. Just occasionally, I do something right. Anyway, Neil wants to say goodbye to his wife, and as he was there when Deb did that for her Mam and Dad, she’s going to return the honour”

“Yup. Like your accommodation, we just need to agree a suitable date. Make a weekend of it, a long one. We’ll do the… we’ll do what needs doing, and then I’ll take him round some places I need pictures of. Warmer memories”

I settled down to my meal just then, as well as finishing my pint, leaving my half-empty plate for a visit to the bar to get another round, Ish appearing at my shoulder, empty glasses in hand.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“Is it always like this? The teasing? They’re boosting each other, more and more”

I nodded.

“Get used to it, son, but always remember how much worse it could be”

“How could it get worse?”

“You’d get no teasing if you were still on your own. That sort of worse”

“Oh. Hadn’t thought of that. What’s their Nana said about Cardiff? The girls keep asking”

“As I understand it, we’re being offered crashing space. People’s spare rooms, possibly with you camping on a floor, I’m afraid”

“Some of them said about a bike place, Dad”

“Not somewhere Di or Lexie could go, son. Now, what would you like to do tomorrow?”

“Have you asked Mum that?”

He was absolutely right, I realised. The last few days, I had been so locked onto the climbing, I had simply assumed her agreement to whatever plans Enfys and I had cooked up.

“Has she said anything, son?”

“Not like that, Dad, but she has three of her bucket list things, and another bird place. They’re in opposite directions, though”

“Where’s the bird place?”

“Far side of Anglesey. Other ones are a bit south of here”

“They are?”

“That Italian village, the steam train near it and something about a dog’s grave. Got a suggestion, if you want”

“Go on”

“We do one day for the three to the south, and we do it on Clara’s last full day here, please”

“Okay… and the birds?”

“We do that the morning of their folk club day, and then we keep Elsie happy by spending the later part of the day on that easy slab thing by the campsite. She’d complain if we didn’t give her some climbing”

“Right. And tomorrow?”

He grinned.

“Horseshoe. Those girls go on and on about it, and if you talk to Mum…”

I did, on the way back to the bunkhouse, and got a kiss.

“He’s a very wise boy, darling. Debbie told me about Cemlyn, and we can drive there by way of Malltraeth and a side trip to South Stack. Roseate terns!”

Another kiss.

“Portmeirion and Ffestiniog are from very old telly programmes that Alan liked”

“The Prisoner?”

“Yes, and Ivor the Engine”

“I remember that one. You know the dog story isn’t true?”

“Don’t care. It’s a good story, and there’s something else there, something for our little girl”

That intrigued me, but we had a good set of plans, courtesy of our boy, and I slept well. I wasn’t in quite so good a mood in the morning, as getting into the car park at Pen y Pass was a slow business. The day came with a surprise, though, as we slogged our way up to the ridge, LC on a short safety line, and Clara casually announced that she loved the spot.

“Done it several times, I… sorry”

She cast a quick glance at Ish, slightly pink in the cheeks, then continued, with a smile.

“I’ve been along the edge a few times, with Cath and Nell and their husbands, and with Debbie. I love it!”

That eased some of my worries, changing the dynamics considerably, and she proved to be both confident and competent on the narrow sections of the ridge. Maz was ecstatic, even though LC had to be reminded that Kawan didn’t really need to see that bit all the way over there, but stay close to us until we were in the promised café.

We arrived at the top of the very last square pinnacle on Crib Goch, and I released LC to scramble down into the saddle and join Ish and Clara just as Maz turned to look back along the ridge, muttering under her breath.

“What was that, love?”

She turned a stiff smile my way.

“I said ‘Fuck you Suleiman’, darling”

And your bloody mother, my love, but I didn’t say that aloud. Instead, I looked back down into the saddle, where my boy was rather busy with his lips as well as those of our guest, oh dear.

Along the next ridge, which is wider but longer, past the trig point, down to the railway line and then into the café, before the slippery descent on the Watkin Path to the ascent to the fresher-seeming air on top of Lliwedd, and finally another cuppa at the car park., which meant I could put down LC, whose energy reserves had vanished as soon as we had reached the Miners’ Track. My own knees were aching, and for the first time, we had received a little shower of rain just as we came within sight of the last bend of the footpath.

It didn’t last, and we were soon back to fair-weather cumulus set in expanses of blue, and a ride back to Bethesda which left me the only one awake in the car until we were parked outside the little supermarket, where I chivvied them all awake to gather the makings of an evening meal and the next morning’s breakfast.

I was asleep by eight that night. Getting old, Rhodes.

Ish and Clara were off together in the morning by bus, their target a certain record shop, while Maz, LC and I visited Caernarfon for yet another tick for Maz’s list. Pasta and salad that evening, none of it deep-fried, and another sober night. I almost felt virtuous, consoling myself with the fact that we would have music and silliness the following evening. We spent our time relaxing in the bunkhouse, downloading all of our photos, including those taken by LC, and mailing them to everyone we thought needed a smile, or a laugh, or maybe assurance we hadn’t forgotten them. On a hunch, I clicked onto the climbing wall’s website, and yes, there we were.

Among a flurry of bad puns and phrases such as ‘Like father(and mother)…’ we had LC on Equinox, as well as Seamstress, Ish emerging from the exit of Ivy Chimney, a comparable set of videos of Ish, Clara and LC on the Twin Cracks, and several shots of Maz smiling, along with the information that we would be back ‘soon’ and touting for other families to visit the place. My beloved simply laughed, asking if we should try negotiating a fee, while Clara asked if there was any way her own video could be removed.

Ish looked a little puzzled.

“Why, Clar?”

“Cause it makes me look silly, falling off like that”

“It shows you getting up it as well. That’s the point of it, that you didn’t give up, that you worked on it and solved it”

“Yeah, but you and your Dad just reached up!”

“Each of us is nearly two metres tall, Clar. And before you mention my sister, she’s got tiny fingers. You climbed it, made me proud of you. That’s the point. And then you went off and climbed that stuff on slate”

“You sure?”

He reached over the table for her hands.

“I’m sure”

There was another meaning there, it seemed, but they only had a couple of days, so I decided it was best left lying.