CHAPTER 27
Work was a bit of a cold shower after the weekend, but Betty had enough pictures on her digital camera to keep our colleagues happy at our first post-work visit to the regular place for drinkies and pisstaking. There were the usual dreadful-but-traditional joking comments about rain and sheep, plus far more serious ones about the shots of the Hiatt’s bunkhouse.

Betty’s kids had been lifted onto the top of the summit pillar on Snowdon, so those pics brought appreciative noises, and when Shaun collected the first of our empties, he took a moment to look through some of the shots.

“Who’re the two girls, mate?”

Bets looked up from sorting her cash for another round.

“My Amy, love, and little Enfys. She’s Mike’s mates’ kid”

Shaun shook his head.

“No, Bets. I know your kids. The other littler one”

“That’s the… He’s the son of some friends of Mike’s mates, Shaun. Him and Enfys, joined at the hip, they are. Fit as little fit things as well, going up that mountain. Thought I was going to see my breakfast again, along with my lungs, and they’re playing bloody tag”

I kept my counsel about that particular issue, because Shaun’s comment had started a train of thought that was, in the end, inevitable. Little Dafi didn’t play any musical instruments, as far as I knew, and unless the Edwards were remarkably liberal, he certainly wasn’t going to be spending a lot of his time like the proverbial newt, but. Just but.

I said nothing, but when I had settled into bed that evening I still found those thoughts tumbling round each other. Sleep was slow in coming, mostly down to one unanswered question: should I presume to ask the Edwards? They were friends of Penny and Keith, first and foremost, and while I now considered them as my own, what place was it of mine to interfere in how they saw and brought up their child?

My last thought as I drifted off was ‘leave well alone’, combined with ‘be there if needed’.

Doug, Betty and their two weren’t as committed to the hills as Kul and his boy, but we did get some reasonably regular trips in, and I managed some outings to Stanage and Froggatt by way of second-hand arrangement via Keith. I always enjoyed a bit of soloing, and it was fun to help kids or newbies to take their first upward steps, but now and again I really needed the chance to push myself on something hard that wasn’t likely to leave an impact crater if I got it wrong. That meant having a second capable of handling the other end of the rope in a competent way, especially if using twin technique.

That brought another little moment of education, or perhaps realisation. The Woodruffs lived south of London, almost under Gatwick Airport’s flightpath, and it made no sense to me that they should book a hotel or camp when my own house was almost next door to the Edges. The realisation in question was that while I had thought I accepted her as what she had declared herself to be, I still seemed to have some remnants of memory blurring my perception.

Tall men didn’t sleep with shorter men if both declared themselves to be straight. Straight men didn’t come downstairs to breakfast in a cotton nighty and slobby cardigan, and kiss men on the cheek in greeting. Straight men sharing a bed didn’t make the sort of noise I half-heard when going to the loo in the middle of the night.

It seemed that my hindbrain was far less adaptable and accepting than I had realised, but it was that sound of their intimacy that finally cracked the dam that was blocking things. It was nothing like a porn film’s soundtrack, certainly nothing graphic, but rather a few soft moans and two words from Steph.

“Oh, love!”

How hard must she have had to work at her life to hide who she so obviously was in reality? I felt absolutely awful, first for overhearing such a private moment, but then, in shame, for my own prejudice. I had thought myself so modern in my outlook, so up to the moment with Stuff, and yet there I was. I found myself thinking of little Dafi, and slowly becoming more and more certain about the source of their problems.

Oh, for a bloody simple life.

Trips to North Wales continued, of course, sometimes accompanied by Bets and her family, and each time I saw Dafi, my certainty grew. I simply couldn’t bring myself to raise the subject until the two children were around eight years old, and in junior school. I had turned up solo for a surprise visit, a last-minute Friday afternoon decision, working on the assumption that there would be room at the bunkhouse or maybe in a spare bed or on a vacant piece of floor at Chez Hiatt, and to my surprise Keith was on his own. He didn’t exactly seem overjoyed to see me--- no. He didn’t seem displeased to see me, but rather that he didn’t know what to do about my presence at his door. As I smiled, he visibly collected himself before inviting me in.

“Sorry, mate. Stuff going on. Cuppa?”

“Please. Penny not back? Enfys?”

He stopped in the kitchen, kettle in hand and his back to me, shoulders slumped.

“Pen’s down the hospital with her. Ysbyty Gwynedd, ym Mangor—er, in Bangor. Habit”

“Shit! They okay?”

He took a long, sighing breath and started to fill the kettle, setting it onto its stand and flicking the switch.

“Tea or coffee, Mike?”

“Tea. Please answer the question, Keith. Starting to worry me”

Another deep sigh.

“Not us or ours, mate. It’s the Edwards”

“What’s happened?”

“Dafi. He… Dafi took an overdose”

“You fucking what?”

“What I said. Not sure what he took, but Pen took Enfys down because, well, because. Dafi talks to her. Nansi and Vic, they’re in real shit state”

I found myself sitting on one of the little stools, my legs deciding to do their own thing just then.

“But he’s, what? Nine years old?”

“Coming up to ten. Old enough, Mike, or so it seems”

“Yes, but why?”

The answer to that question was already there, of course, but I held it back. Not my place, and if I were wrong, it could cause all sorts of issues that the Edwards clearly didn’t need right then, as their plate would be far more than full.

“Talk to me, Keith. Don’t need to know everything. Just, well, you know”

He set a couple of mugs onto the little table and pulled up another stool.

“Pen’s supporting them, you know what she’s like. Littl’un is there in case the kid wants to talk. She’s the only one he does engage with. Shit. Using bloody stupid words now. Mike, Dafi’s been getting steadily more of a problem, especially over the last year. He’s been beaten up by several of the other boys, a couple of them making it a regular thing. Not washing hasn’t helped, I suppose. I’ve been wondering all sorts of things, particularly about autism, but the main thought is about senior school. If he’s getting slappings and shoeings from Junior school kids, it’s going to get a lot worse in big school”

He took a sip from his own mug.

“Enfys has been superb with him, but she’s the only one he ever spends time with. That’s why she’s over there with Pen. Oh, and you are on your own this trip?”

I smiled.

“Bit late to ask, but yes”

“Thank fuck for that. Not putting down your friends, but we’re in a bit of a state here just now. Got space in the bunkhouse, of course, but you might be a bit left on your own. Sorry”

His expression was bleak.

“What do we do, mate?”

I put a hand to his forearm, remembering that word from Steph, knowing how different Keith and I were in our friendship to how she was with her husband, but still reaching deep to find something like their strength.

“We do what we can, Keith. First, though, we do our best to find out what they need from us”

“True words, mate, as always. Hang on—phone’s ringing”

He went into the living room, and I got the standard half a conversation until he explained my presence to whoever was at the other end.

“Mike’s turned up, Vic. What’s the plan? Okay, I’ll ask”

He turned back to me.

“Nansi and the other two girls are staying the night. Vic’s heading back, and intends to pick up some chips. Just needs your order”

“Um, steak and kidney pie and chips?”

“Right. You get that, Vic? Kate and Sidney plus chips. Couple of battered sausages for me. Yes chips as well. In an hour? I’ll have the kettle on. Oh, and do any of them need a night bag?”

He listened in silence for a few seconds, then nodded at the phone.

“You wait there, then. I know where Pen keeps her night stuff, and I’ll nick something for Nansi. Got an unused toothbrush or two in the bathroom. I’ll drop that lot off and bring you back, so that Nansi and Pen have two cars. Flexibility, ah?

He switched to Welsh for a couple of exchanges, and then finished the call.

“Mike, you happy waiting here? I assume you got the gist of that. Be off as soon as I’ve packed, and then we, me and Vic, we’ll grab food on the way back. Sorry, but not doing ale tonight. Just in case, ah?”

“Understandable, mate. What was all that… Start again. Are you able to tell me what all that was in Welsh?”

He shook his head.

“Sorry, Mike, but not just yet. The Edwards’ business. I’ll be as quick as I can. Broadband wi-fi code’s next to the telly if you want it”

Ten minutes later and he was gone, as I wondered how right I was in my suspicions.