CHAPTER 94
I woke in some confusion, unsure where I was, until the bedroom door opened as Frank came in with a mug of tea and a small cloth bag.

“Morning, you”

I shuffled up in the bed, still naked under the duvet.

“Morning…”

“Been up for a while, starting the day’s load. How’re you feeling?”

I reached out for the mug, finding it too hot to drink, and set it down on the bedside cabinet. How did I feel? I looked around the room, seeing one or two things that needed a bit of a tart-up, especially what was clearly a flatpack wardrobe that was sagging a little.

Shit. I ran those thoughts past my Inner Debbie once more, feeling the ache down below, and then simply smiled at him.

“I feel good, Frank. Thank you”

“Gemma’s in, and she brought you these”

He handed me the bag, and it proved to hold a new toothbrush, some of the deodorant I usually used and two pairs of knickers in my size.

“Cheeky cow! When did she grab this lot?”

“Marty dropped it off when he picked me up last night. I think Gemma was rather optimistic”

“Well, just this once…”

He leant forward, and the kiss was a little tentative at first, but it was a genuine one, and my doubts wilted away in its warmth. More than one dawn, it seemed; he sat back on the edge of the bed, still holding my hand, and smiled.

“Living to earn, Debbie, for both of us. Can’t offer you a Full Welsh, but I can do toast and cereal, and Gemma is going to put together some rolls for your break today. Not pushing you out, but you do need to get a shuffle on for your own job”

I tried my tea once more, and it was just about cool enough.

“Where are we going to, Frank?”

Another squeeze of my hand.

“Wherever you want, girl. Just be nice if I can come along with you”

He was chuckling then, all of a sudden, and I nearly spilled my tea as I got the unconscious joke, and… I had to get to work.

I used his shower one more time, along with Gemma’s gifts, and then after the promised toast and cereal, joined three of them downstairs, Gemma looking smug, and Frank blushing slightly as Judy muttered “About bloody time, you two!”. I wobbled; it was like being a teenager again, coming downstairs into a room of people who all knew what I had been doing the night before, and of course that had never been something I had been allowed to experience. A little flood of Cooper-hate washed over me, but there was Gemma, holding out a carrier bag of food, and behind her was a man who still seemed to care for me despite so many wasted years.

I shoved the bag into my rucksack, hauled my leather on and grabbed my lid and keys.

“Want me to leave that lid here for you, Frank?”

His smile was still there as well, as he muttered that he would go shopping for a better one, oh the expense, so I kissed hm once more and set off for work, the day floating by.

I found the next few weeks confusing, because everything was out of kilter. I had developed, established, a routine over the years, and I now saw it far more clearly as a rut. The same high points were there, such as our Summer in the North, but it was the parts in between that I now saw for what they were. I had wished my life away in those spaces, rather than living it. Now, I looked forward to our trip north, and my first thought was “He’s got a business to run”.

My life was never going to be a simple one. Sod it; carpe diem, whatever, I left it till the Saturday before I was back in his bed, and that Sunday morning was, quite simply, all I had hoped for. We spent the afternoon wandering around the city-centre shops, where I bought him a new waterproof jacket to go with his own purchase of a pair of boots, as well as my own small but significant list of items that would not be going back to the House but finding a place in his flat. I was unsure about the boots, having explained that the waterproof could be used on the bike, talking and justifying far too much, but he shut me up in that nice way I was getting more and more used to.

“Gemma has described how you all clear off to the hills, and while I can’t afford to take off a lot of time, I can manage a week. That means Gemma will be free as well”

“Yeah, but she looks after the House while we are away”

“And she has already persuaded all of your girls that it will be a great holiday. House will be empty, Debbie. If I close for a week, Marty can take the three of us up”

“Yeah, but… do you even have a tent?”

“I think so”

“What state is it in?”

“Dunno. Not seen it yet, have I?”

I caught the twinkle, as well as his meaning, and he smiled once more.

“I assume you have that covered, girl. Enough space for the pair of us?”

I couldn’t argue that one, as I had shared that space with more than one troubled girl, so I simply nodded back, as I recognised another mood in his eyes, and just for a second, I was unsure about how to take it.

There were a number of words jostling for primacy, and the first one was ‘smugness’, followed by ‘complacency’ and ‘assumptions’, but in the end, winning place was taken by ‘tranquillity’.

It wasn’t the smug and snide assumptions of a man who had ‘got into my knickers’, but the calm acceptance of a man who simply gelt that joy of arrival on a distant shore, knowing that the reefs and storms were behind him. Not assumption, but contentment. I decided to be subtle and mature about things.

“Fuck it, then. You’ll need a decent rucksack and your own mug, then”

We managed to get nearly three weeks in the mountains that Summer, or at least some of us did. Phil and Kim joined us for the first two, Alun for the second and third, and to my astonishment, when Cathy and Nell turned up with their partners partway through the first week, they had company. I came down with a troop of girls and an older woman from that loop of the Carneddau from Pen yr Ole Wen to the knee-sapping CEGB road from the Ffynnon Llugwy zig-zags. As Pat went across to Cathy for the first hugs, followed by Maisie’s cheeky instruction to “Get the kettle on while you’re there, woman!”, I turned to a pair of older men with bemusement and delight.

“Benny? Peter? When… How long…”

Hugs, kisses, smiles, as Benny and I stared at each other, and a short ‘woman’ answered for them. Steve Elliott.

“Aye, Roger’s got us cottaging again, pet, down Beddgelert way. Rest of the horde is down there, but your lass there told us you’d be here”

He pointed at Cathy, then grinned.

“Em and me, we know this place very well indeed, and as we are polluters of the minds of young people, we get the school holidays off. Where’ve you been?”

I kept an arm around benny and waved the free one to the North.

“Up the grass to Pen yr Ole Wen, across to the big one, then down the CEGB”

He winced a little.

“I think that has done more damage to my knees than any fell-running. Now, we are all eating in the pub tonight, and no arguments because I have booked a room for us all. Time for a catch-up, and a bit more”

That worried me, and I dropped my voice a little.

“Problems?”

His face softened considerably.

“No, Deb. Simply following up what I said in Chester, aye? We all make these promises to keep in touch, and it never happens, so I just had a thought, and that lass of yours dropped me a message on that book face thing. We’re going to get some routes done down this way, and I’ll be showing Scott and Leo the Serengeti”

“What?”

Cathy was with us by then, laughing.

“No, Nana, not the one in Africa. It’s part of the slate quarries by Llanberis”

I closed my mouth, with a little difficulty.

“Slate. Climbing up slate. You are insane, woman!”

She waved her ring at me, so very different from that neatly blazered ‘schoolboy’ I had first met.

“Absolutely! You up for next April?”

“Oh! Where?”

“Aber. Both of us. Both in a registry office, but we are having a joint knees up, and Leo’s family are organising a blessing in their own church the next month”

“Leo’s family?”

She was nodding.

“They have a place in a town called Vercurago. Local priest is a family friend, a bit more flexible than some of them. Bit like the UK, I suppose. If you want to do the whole church thing, you really need to find a vicar or whatever who’s got an open mind, or say goodbye to the whole idea. Registry will do us, but his family are a bit traditional”

She caught my wince, and shook her head.

“No, Nana. Not ‘traditional’ that way, just typical Italian about family. That’s all. Got a passport?”

So, so different, and so right in her skin.

We did the big meal thing, Brian Dennahy being as generous as ever in paying for a minibus to avoid having to worry about ‘designated drivers’, and it was happy, and cheeky, and heart-warming, to such an extent that I almost warmed to Cooper as the unconscious instigator of our joy in each other’s company, but no: not quite. That thought came out to play in the small hours, and that was when I had my own epiphany, for all I did was to reach out for Frank, and even though he wasn’t actually there, my soul knew, knew enough to put one filthy bastard back in his box tightly enough that I could slip back into better dreams.

The weather kept Stevie and my girls happy for the next few days, as they exercised their insanity on slippery grey roofing material, and it was almost warm enough to make swimming a pleasure when we drove out to the sands at Trearddur. I have no idea how pleasurable, for once I had dropped off the idiots who were happy to go into that freezing sea, Pat and I continued on to South Stack for more sensible activities, together with Cathy, Nell, Scott and Leo in one of their cars, followed by several of the Elliotts.

That was an eye-opener indeed, for Pat and I took a little detour behind the cars, so that Cathy and Nell could show us exactly where the boys had proposed to them, dear god. They had also brought all their kit so that they could revisit said romantic spot; I felt my guts churn just looking across from the grassy headland they had taken us to.

No. Just no, yet again.

So we had a split group, until the Elliotts and four of mine headed off for the Lakes, and Alun arrived to join his daughter, and we did the Folk Club silliness yet again, and finally, finally, a familiar car rumbled over the cattle grid as we all lay on the grass recovering from a mass circuit of the complete Horseshoe, mugs in hand. Marty was second out, Gemma having all but erupted from the back seat as she threw herself at Cathy and Nell, and finally, FINALLY, my own man was walking over towards me where I lay stretched out on a rug by my tent.

“Hello, Deb”

I felt my heart pounding, but feigned uninterest as best I could.

“Smile nicely at Pat, Frank. She’s got permanent kettle duty”

“Debbie…”

“Can’t stand up. Got my boots off”

“In that case…”

He slowly folded himself down to the ground before stretching out on the rug beside me. One arm propping up his head, he just smiled into my eyes, then pulled me to him for a serious kiss.

The cheering went on for ages, and then Pat spoke.

“You take sugar, love?”