CHAPTER 28
Tessa was suddenly looking more than a little confused.

“I’m not used to this….this sort of acceptance”

I had to laugh. “Look, just look around you. Ignoring me, just for the moment, You’ve got three gay men, one elderly female fell runner, one man who made a fortune by kicking as bag of wind about a patch of grass in shorts and a funny shirt, a schoolteacher who’s shagging her pupil’s bodyguard, and a truly beautiful woman who somehow manages to be a human being. In a pub full of people that make sheep nervous and who talk to magpies, and who commute by toy train... You still feel odd?”

She did laugh at that. I am obviously writing this some time after the events, which is how I am able to ease into the correct pronoun, but as we spoke, and as she relaxed and realised that nobody thought her strange, she slowly came out of her shell, sitting straighter and losing some of the hunted look. Sid noticed as well, and in a mock-serious tone said “A hint: don’t EVER try to outdo our Stephen here in the world of pain competition, he’s seen it, done it and got the T-shirt”

I looked a little harshly at him, and he winced. “Yes, mate, and it was pink”

Change the subject, Steve. “You read? I first met these two in the library, which was rather lucky for me as it turned out”

Another blush rose through her face, and I realised. “Don’t tell me….you are just like Kaz and Em.”

“Em?”

“Em, my girlfriend. Mills….”

“And Boon!” finished Sid. “Please tell me you’re not into that silly cow Cartland…oh, no, she is! Kaz, bring me another fan, this one is playing for your team”

One honey-smooth slither later, and my red lady was sitting on the bench next to him. “I know, Roger told me just now.”

Sid grinned. “No, this is something important. She’s not a fan, she’s one of yours, like Emily!”

Her face lit up, and in a remarkably silly voice she said “Gurly gurl books?”

Tess nodded. “Yes...romances. It’s a bit like window shopping somewhere expensive, though; you can see what you would really love, but the price is just…”

Karen was looking hard at her. With the fingertips of her left hand, she lifted Tessa’s head, turning it to get different angles.

“Sally, front and centre, girl!”

My teacher joined us. “What’s the score, Karen?”

“Sal, meet Tessa. She has a similar problem to our boy here, just sort of arsey-varsey. What do you think?”

Sally was very, very quick off the mark, and I wondered if some planning was involved beforehand.

“Nice shape to the face, though the nose is a bit strong”

“Ah” said Tessa, “That’s a family thing. Our mothers were sisters”

Karen still had that studious expression. “Think we could, Sally? Think we can work with it?”

“I think so, Kaz”

Tessa and I were looking hard at the two, and Karen put on a fine display of mock indignation, all waving hands and fluttering eyelashes, like some Thirties film star. “What? You think looking this gorgeous is EASY?”

She turned to me and Sid. “Right, you two, bugger off to the rest of the lads. This is girl talk. Tess, what size are you? Bring any clothes?”

The last I heard was “Sixteen, fourteen in some, and yeah, I did”

Simon looked sharply at me as we joined them.

“Well?”

“Well, you’ve stitched me up, haven’t you, but I might just forgive you this once. She’s in a bad way, isn’t she?”

Roger took my hand. “Thank you for getting that bit right. Not many do.”

“Yeah, well, I do have a sort of inside track on it, don’t I? Tell me, though, whose benefit is she here for, really?”

Simon gave Roger a look, as if to say “Go on”

“It’s all a bit odd, Steve. We’ve been trying to find somebody who can get a handle on what is driving her, but there’s not a lot of literature about, and most of the shrinks we have tried tend to be of the “Pull yourself together sonny” variety, or insist that she’s a gay man with a fetish for transvestism. Has she given you the ‘I’m not gay’ line yet? That’s the thing that’s driving her spare. I just wish there were someone around who understood…and then I thought of you, and, well, sorry if it’s a bit of a surprise.

“Look, we’ve tried to find anything published that might be of use, and the only thing we keep coming back to is some odd bloke called Money who seems obsessed by it all”

“Valerie mentioned him”

“Valerie?”

“My new shrink. She says he talks out of his arse, all about things being learned. All I ever learned was how to switch off”

Simon leant towards me. “Well, darling, do you think you might be able to help each other?”

I gave that a few seconds. “No, I don’t. But I do think we can listen; we each have a lot to talk about. Better than nowt.”

“Right, got that settled, then. Now, on to other things…tomorrow. What do you think about a little drive out to Borrowdale? There’s a crag near the road there that has a classic beginner’s route for you. I assume your dishy bodyguard has done some cragging, so that would make two ropes of two, much easier than one of three. See how you get on there, and then we might go up high in Langdale, or even up Wasdale and do the Needle”

Roger grinned. “Not CB?”

“No, darling, not the mess you made of it last time. Central Buttress, Steve, a rather large flake with a long layback, and he’s getting on a bit, a little past it for that. But he’s still aged well”

“Like a fine brandy, my love”

“And just as intoxicating”

I looked from one to the other. “You two are even worse than those stupid books the girls like.”

Simon gave me a very pointed look from under his eyebrows. “Just remember…for years just talking like we are now was enough to get us sent to prison. What happened to you was the sort of thing that happened to men like us in places like Pentonville. They can’t touch us now, so we are determined to be as open as we can. There are a lot of dead to remember. Just think what was done to Sid.”

“Well, I promise nothing, but I will say, I think she and I will get on fine. Just a pity about her tastes”

So, the next day, while Sally and Karen settled in for some female thing or other with Tessa, and Nana muttered something about ‘scab picking’, Brian, Tom and I followed the Toffs out to near Derwentwater to a place the boys called ‘Shepherd’s Crag of Borrowdale’, a great lump of pale rock rising out of the vegetation.

The boys were uncoiling great lengths of rope and had all sorts of odd bits of tape and rope loops, giant snap links they called karabiners, lumps of metal like old engineering nuts on more bits of rope, and a number of odd belt things with tape hanging off them, one of which I was required to step into. A strap came up between my legs, and it all sort of fastened together into something like the skeleton of a nappy.

Simon demonstrated by picking me up from a seated position. “Whillans harness, Steve, lets you sit on the rope.”

He then proceeded to hang all sorts of stuff round his neck and shoulders before tying the rope onto my harness with a complicated knot and then the same with the other end to his harness. He passed the rope through a sort of figure of eight shaped piece of metal and gave me a few hints on what to do if he fell off, tied me bodily to the ground after some advice about what I should say in mid air apart from “Oh bugger!” and was off. Tom was doing much the same with Roger, and when Simon shouted “On belay!” Rog unfastened the main rope from my metal thing and yelled “Take in!”

The rope started to snake up the rock, and when it came tight he shouted “That’s Steve!”

A long pause, then we heard “Climb when ready!”

Roger undid all the bits holding me to the ground, ushered me to the rock, and said “Now shout out ‘climbing’ “

I did, and I was. The first part was easy, and I joined Simon at a resting point, quickly followed by Roger, who tied me to the rock and showed me how to control the rope for the next bit, and off I went again, air around me, at one point on what felt like the top of a roof, legs dangling down either side as I wriggled along, and then….then there was this great overhanging wall and I thought, you are taking the`piss.

Roger was just behind me. “Looks steep, doesn’t it? Now look closer. Can you see the marks on the rock from hobnails? See how the little folds and knobbles show you the way up? Just trust the boots, trust your feet, and try not to reach up too high or your arms will lose all strength. Balance and steadiness….”

Off I went, and it was steep, and it was high, and the views out were amazing, and I had never, ever done something so completely absorbing. I finally arrived right at the top, where Simon was sat tied to a tree while he pulled the rope in, and he just grinned and said “Good, wasn’t it?” and there was nothing else for it but to give him a kiss on the cheek.

We moved back from the edge as Roger arrived, and tied himself on to bring up Tom, and the rhythm of it all, and the ritual of the calls, was so absorbing that I nearly cried at the loss of so many years I could have been climbing.

Tom was grinning. “Bugger, so that’s what it’s meant to be like! I only ever did it in the dark and wet before”

We and looked out over the lake, just soaking up the beauty, and in a moment of mixed pain and joy I realised how many people, from Cunningham to Child Q, would never see this or feel such delight.