CHAPTER 77
Annie was smirking, and although Eric was doing his best, his own mouth was twitching. I gave him a by-now-well-practised Mother Look, and he shrugged.

“They did it to us, Di, years ago”

Annie slapped his arm.

“You mean me, love! Di, first time I went to that music day event, and they had video of the whole sodding thing!”

Eric took her hand,

“Forgetting something, woman? First festival?”

Annie blushed at that, then smiled. It wasn’t quite as radiant as the one that had shone from her face at her wedding, but there wasn’t much in it.

“Yeah… I will give you that one, aye? Hairy there did me a compilation of the photos of…”

She shook herself, and Steph reached out for her other hand.

“Di, it was so sweet, in the end, and no, Annie, I am not going to share too many details, so don’t worry. Charlie, you have to understand a few things here, understand why we are looking after you. I suspect you are feeling like a freeloader at the moment. Am I right?”

My young friend looked profoundly uncomfortable at that, but her spirit was stull there, and she nodded sharply. Steph smiled, tilting her head just a little.

“What it is, Charlie, is really simple. I have been remarkably lucky, but I didn’t realise how much until I met my family here. Sorry to get a bit heavy, but there were other people who didn’t have that luck”

I looked across to Annie, who actually shuddered. I didn’t need further explanation of what Steph meant, and after such a tasty meal I really didn’t want it. Steph hadn’t finished.

“Ginny, what was it you said? How did you put it?”

“Said lots of things, didn’t I? Stupid woman that she was! Wasted all that time pretending to be a bloke when she could have been out shagging one”

Her daughter barked out a laugh.

“Mum! You didn’t say ‘shagging’, you said ‘snogging’!”

A manic grin.

“Yeah, but that was before Thailand and shit, wasn’t it?”

Steph sat open-mouthed for nearly three seconds, before turning back to Charlie.

“I should know better by now. Anyway, what Annie is on about: photos and stuff. What happened that August was realisation. Nobody changed, nobody had some mad revelation. Just like me, a couple of people looked at each other a little more clearly. That’s what we photographed. Same with Diane here. How much do you know about what she went through, Charlie? Before that trip up North?”

The younger woman gave me a very long and appraising look.

“Quite a lot, Steph. I know Lexie got shot, for a start. And Paula as well”

“More than enough to stress anyone, you’d agree? Now, what we were doing with the video was showing her laughing. Di? Can I be honest? And blunt?”

“I can’t imagine you otherwise. Go on”

“You know we get a lot of stress in my own job, yes?”

“Yeah…”

“We get good at spotting the cracks, some of us. That bus of years, when we got on, there were cracks everywhere. All of you on the edge. We get a few beers down you, a decent meal, do some silly stuff outdoors, and there’s the result. I spoke to Candice, you know”

“Oh yes?”

“She did it the other way. She never came out in the hills, did she?”

“No, now you mention it. Stayed with the wet stuff”

“Stayed with solitude, repetitive motion, effort. Zen, I call it. Annie and me, we always did the same thing with long rides. Sarah’s the same. When you’ve got a head full of tumbled bits and pieces, it gives you an opportunity to file them away, make sense of your life. Annie has that memory stick with the pictures on to show her what life can and should be, because some things stay with you. We can’t go back and change the past, that’s obvious, so what we do is try and improve the future. That’s what we are hoping to give you. No freeloading, no sponging. We get to feel good about ourselves, and that helps put some of our own nasties into their own files”

Darren, the young man cuddled up to Ginny’s daughter was nodding in agreement and recognition.

“Charlie, has anyone told you what I am?”

She was looking a little worried at that, and I wondered how far the true confessions were going.

“Annie and Eric’s son, yeah? Adopted and that?”

“I was a thief, Charlie. A good one, when I wanted, like. And I was gonna sort out all my own shit, and probably end up killed doing it, and then it’s Annie, my Mum, and Eric my Dad there, and before that my Nan and Grandad over there, and I know I ain’t sponged or freeloaded or any other silly words. You wondering why we suddenly got heavy?”

Mouth shut, DC Sutton. Watch and wait. Charlie, for her part, was shaking her head slowly, and the lad continued.

“Shan’s been watching you, Charlie. That’s why. She knows people. She knows me, she knows I was the same, yeah? What they’re all talking about, really, it’s fear. I KNEW I’d stuff up, end up back in some home. I KNEW they was all just playing with me. That’s how stupid I am. Who is Di, Charlie?”

Her voice was very, very soft, but she was looking at me as she spoke.

“My sister, isn’t it?”

Darren was nodding, his own smile emerging.

“Shan?”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s Annie?”

“My big sis!”

The conversation was finally making sense to me, and as I looked at my young friend the tells that had always been there were finally visible. I moved across to her chair, kneeling on the ground and taking her hands.

“Sorry, love. I don’t know how I missed that. You really think this is freeloading?”

Her tears started slowly, but increased in volume as she started to break, and she just nodded into my shoulder as I pulled her into an embrace. I knew what it was, and it was Ashley fucking Evans, same as it had been for so long with me, same as it always would be in small ways. I remembered that phrase I had snarled at Blake a lifetime ago: not fucking, but fucking up. I pulled back, just a little.

“Stones, love. Stones in the Bay. And Seb waiting for you”

The words sounded wrenched from her as her fingers sank into my shoulders.

“I shouldn’t have to be… I shouldn’t NEED to be fucking validated!”

She wrestled her sobs down, turning red-rimmed eyes on Chantelle.

“How did you know, Shan?”

The smile from the young blonde was almost heartbreakingly sad.

“Me, Di, you: all sisters as well. All you need to know today. Mum Ginny, could we have the frozz yog in a mo? And got the Chrimbo video for after the climbing stuff? Charlie and me, we need some air”

She rose, took my friend’s hand and led her outside, Darren looking proud. I raised an eyebrow in silent query, and got a smile to match Chantelle’s.

“Not gonna say a lot, Di, but Shan knows what rape is, and we all know about feeling like a fraud. Sometimes…”

He looked across at his adoptive mother.

“Something Mum taught me. Sometimes you can’t rebuild without a bit of like knocking down first”

Quarter of an hour later, the two girls were back with us, and so was the frozen yoghurt, along with more climbing footage. Subject changed in silent agreement, Steph was casting a critical eye over my technique at that odd suspended corner thing Enfys had shown us.

“Not bad, Di. You could make quite a good climber if you stuck at it”

“Blake’s better. That thing they took us up at Idwal, yeah? Hope? With that really awkward move—yes, Geoffrey, you sneaky, lying bastard, THAT move---Blake just cruised that bit”

Geoff was grinning.

“Yeah, but he cheats! He’s a lot taller than normal people!”

Steph squeezed his knee.

“No, Di, it’s your body position. You integrate things, put moves together in sequence. You see connections where most people just look for the next big lump to grab hold of. If we ever get you onto the slate, there are climbs there where if you don’t follow a sequence, you can’t do the route”

I made a number of short and pithy comments about the chances of my doing anything as silly as attempting to climb a quarry made of such slippery stuff, and then we were onto the other video. Charlie really seemed to have perked up again after the chat with Chantelle, and as the shots of tents and smiling people filled the TV screen, she was letting her curiosity out rather than chaining it up to avoid offence.

“So what’s this, Di? Oh, look! Doesn’t Rhod look sweet in his woolly hat!”

“What this is, Charlie love, is a sort of charity do that the local vicar does at Christmas. There’s another one they do in Summer that we are looking to be at. Annie? Simon?”

“He’ll be over in half an hour, Di”

“Ta! You’ll get to meet the vicar in question, but it’s actually something Rhod said, woolly hat included. He asked if we could go camping when it’s warm, and the Summer thing is what we are thinking of. Ah! That’s the Edifice!”

“Bloody hell! That’s a tent?”

Steph called over.

“My family’s. First time I met them, I am in this tiny little cycle-touring tent, and they even have a dining room in theirs. Only reason I took up with this husband of mine, to be honest. You ever been camping?”

Charlie shook her head, and I pointed to the screen.

“See that ridge tent there?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s the sort of thing Dad would take me camping with. Up where the climbing was. That thing Bill and Jan have, that’s over the top. Want to tag along if we go out, me and my two men?”

She nodded, her smile steadily warming.

“And Seb?”

Definitely coming back to life!

The Christmas video was as suitable for blackmail purposes as I should have guessed, right down to both of my more musical friends being shown in the full flight of their utter insanity, and as we paused the video for a few minutes while Steph answered her front door, Charlie was back to a far livelier mood.

“We ought to show this to Deb and Frank, yeah? All that folk stuff they go to, this would be right up their street”

“Sort of the plan, girl. I am hoping to get my team across for the weekend, and Deb as well if she’s able. Ah!”

I rose to greet Simon the vicar and his wife, and after the necessary introductions I made my play.

“Could I have a quiet word?”