CHAPTER 5
I didn’t sleep well, unsurprisingly, and was up well before either Mam or Dad. Mam was down a little while later, and as we worked through cereal and toast, Dad arrived. While Mam left the subject of the previous night’s confessional strictly alone, Dad’s occasional glance my way left no doubt in my mind that they had discussed me in their own bed. He said nothing about it, though, but the force of his hug as he left the house was as plain an answer as I could ask for.

I had my own worries, though, as this would be the first time I would see Alys after all but declaring I was in love with her. I had no idea what the proper approach was, what rules and etiquette would be in play. I had never been with anyone, ever, in any way. My understanding that there might be important reasons for getting close to someone had arrived at the same time as my realisation that my desires went across a boundary that I was frankly terrified of crossing. It felt even worse to me right then, as now my mother would be watching for signs, signals, who knew what. Then there was Alys herself: had I misread her response?

I could just about remember her as she had been, with that boy’s name and almost permanent stooping posture, as if expecting a slap to arrive, every minute of the day, junior school a hell of bullying and abuse. The boys, and many of the girls, might not actually have had any understanding of what a word like ‘queer’ really meant, but they knew it hurt, and that was all they needed. Alys-as-a-boy somehow made it to the age of eleven, and then disappeared. The first day we attended senior school, she was in a girl’s uniform, including a skirt, her hair having grown over the long summer break that she and her family had spent away from the Ogwen.

That day, of course, was also when the bullying had ramped up, including some nasty little games by some of the teachers. That didn’t seem to matter to Alys-as-a-girl, though, for the stoop was gone, and a smile had arrived, along with the eventual confession that the family had been staying in Manchester for the last month, where doctors had been Doing Things to her to ensure that ‘as-a-boy’ could take its leave.

I think that was when I first started to think about her in a different way, for that smile was so free and happy I wanted to see it every day. If I could help, if I could stand between her and the haters, it might help that smile to linger, and as I went through the next two years beside her, those hopes only got stronger. No, Mam: not a crush.

My mother dropped me and my bike off once more, with a knowing look as we spotted Alys’ mother driving off. Mam hugged me in farewell, whispered “Good luck, my love”, and was gone, as a visibly nervous young woman walked over to me.

With a quick look around for anyone who might overhear, Alys murmured “Not today, Enfys. Got Manchester tomorrow, lot to think about, and…”

She winced, then tried to smile.

“Big thing, ah? Got my doctor tomorrow, need to talk to him about stuff, and… Enfys?”

I tried one of her own jokes.

“That’s my name”

“Enfys… The doctor, yes? He’s one of the people who says whether or not I can be made legal, as me, as a girl. If I do the wrong thing, if he doesn’t like girl queers, if he thinks I’m like that thing Sali was saying that professor thinks?”

She caught herself just as she was starting to flow.

“No. Not today. See what he says, talk next week, okay? I mean, still talk today, just not about that. Sorry”

So it went that day, almost as it normally did, and we gathered as a group of girls at lunchtime, Sali sharing gossip about which girls had been rolling their skirts shorter to tease the new biology teacher, and Nea droning on about Harry Styles and some other boy band instant eye candy. One moment, though, delighted me. As Nea and Sali were rating young men on a scale of ten, Alys looked across to me, giving a slightly twisted smile together with a raised eyebrow, our secret safe between us while still being shared in a wat lifted my heart and my hopes.

I missed her over the weekend, which Dad must have worked out.

“Weather’s looking set fair for Sunday, love. Want to try some of that adventure stuff, the three of us?”

“Ooh yeah! Where?”

“I was thinking you might want to try a lead or two. You up for that? Nothing too serious, though, and I’d be soloing beside you. How does Pulpit or Direct sound, on the Milestone?”

I grinned at that.

“How about both? You sure about soloing Ivy Chimney? Or the Bivalve?”

“Lesson for you there, love. They’re both easy. Ish. Big holds, just a bit exposed, that’s all. Head games, love. You want to try some of the Peak stuff, on the grit. All friction and no gear, some of those routes. So, you’re up for it, then?”

“You sort the rack out for me?”

“Of course, love. Both routes have loads of gear, anyway”

That was settled then, and as he headed for the box room to start packing his crag bag, Dad turned back and grinned.

“Early birthday present, yeah?”

“For you or me, Dad?”

Another grin, and I tried to imagine him as he had been before Mam had broken him out of Luton. It was impossible.

We managed to find some space on the lake shore, and as we fastened on our sacks, Dad pointed to a small van parked on the other side of the road and called to Mam.

“Looks like they’ve got here early, love”

Mam laughed happily.

“They’ll have stuck the tent up and driven straight round here, this weather. Bet they haven’t even stopped for a cuppa!”

Dad was still chuckling as we crossed the A5 and started up the steep but short path to the Buttress. There were already ropes and gear-decked climbers on some of the routes, including a large group on Rowan. Dad led us straight past them to the foot of the slab below the Pulpit, where he tied Mam and me on, hanging a mixed collection of protection from my harness.

“Belay on the Pulpit top, love, and I will check your belay before you take Mam up. Then over the bush, through the square trench and belay. I’ll talk you through the Chimney when we’re there. You got a ground anchor, Penny?”

“Yup. Just sorting the belay plate… Done! Climb when ready, love”

I took a couple of deep breaths. The route was an easy one, but for the first time, I would be at the top of the rope rather than being under it. ‘Head games’, Dad had called it. I floated up the slab to the Pulpit, where Dad talked me through my belay, and I brought Mam up. She handed over the gear she had collected, and once again we went through the ritual call and response. The slab was a little steeper. And there was a slightly awkward move through what had once been a bush, Dad showed me a couple of decent nut placements as he soloed the moves a couple of feet to my right.

“Up there love, and through the square trench. Find an anchor, and I’ll follow once you’re settled”

It went smoothly, the slab not as steep, and by the time I was through the ‘square trench’, I was onto that odd sort of ground where you are still climbing; but feel as if you should be walking. I Found a couple of big cracks and clipped my harness to them as Dad fairly flew up the pitch to me. Some fiddling with the rope, and then I was able to call down to Mam. We worked the sequence of calls once more, and then she was beside me. Dad was pointing at my anchors.

“One thing to remember here, Enfys, is that you need a multi-directional anchor if you’re leading through. Watch how your Mam sets up hers”

I saw what he meant, and after another round of calls, I stepped over the gash at the foot of the Ivy Chimney, Dad at my shoulder.

“This is an easy bit, but there’s a trap at the top. Perfect Hex 12 placement—that big one--- but you need to use a four foot sling to extend it, or you’ll get really bad rope drag”

He was laughing, all of a sudden.

“Trap for me, love, in another way---it’s one of the very few decent hand jams round here! I never want to leave it”

I knew what was coming, and my courage was draining, but Dad squeezed my shoulder.

“I’ll be right beside you, love. Big holds; you just need to have the control to see them as they are”
Into the Chimney, then, as I had no real choice. It slants slightly to the right, so you are thrown a little off balance, but it’s still easy, right up to where you hit the roof formed by a huge capstone. I could see the hold Dad meant, but there was no way I could jam it without using both hands. It took the Hexcentric 12, though. He was right there, as promised, still chuckling.

“Number four Friend, joke is you can use it as a boat anchor. Hex 12, they say, you use it as an emergency shelter, crawl inside it. Now, see why you need the extension? You ready?”

“I think so”

“Then up into the window, and take a few seconds. Right… see those jugs above your head? And the chickenheads just below you?”

“Got them”

“Get hold of the jugs, step down with your right… now bring your left out… Yay! Well done! Move back, slip an anchor in, and I’ll be with you in a sec. Try threading a sling underneath you”

That window opens onto a vertical sheet of rock, and while it is exactly as Dad described, that sudden emergence from the claustrophobic Chimney is a courage wrecker. I was actually shaking as I sat on the rock, but Dad was as good as his word, and the smile was still there.

“Let’s get Mam up, and we can finish this one. You could let her lead through, if you want”

“No! Doing all of this, I am!”

We sorted better anchors, and Dad soloed the very short and easy finish to leave room at the stance for Mam, who arrived with a little bit of gasping.

“That bit always throws me, love. I’ll just clip this sling… climb when ready!”

Mam and I abseiled Little Gully to the easier ground, Dad bringing down the rope, and once we were back at the packs, he grinned at me yet again.

“Direct, then? After a cuppa, though!”

Out with the packs, and then his grin broadened as he looked straight past me, flask in hand.

“Hiya! We saw the van, and Penny said she bets you haven’t even had a cuppa. We packed spares”

I squirmed round, and it was the couple I had spoken of to Alys, the ginger fiddler and her husband. Dad switched to English.

“Hiya, Geoff! What bloody time did you set off?”

“Four this morning, don’t I know it. How’s the birthday girl?”

I was starting to smell a stitch-up.

“I’m fine. Just done my first multi-pitch lead”

Mr Woodruff gave a little cheer.

“Which route?”

“Pulpit and Ivy Chimney”

“Ha! You sure your Dad loves you? You’re a sadist, Keith! What’s her next? Direct?”

“We think so”

“Good choice. My dearest darling here wants to do Superdirect. Talked her out of Soapgut, it’s still seeping”

“What’s your plan for the week?”

“Got a 300 perm for midweek, but she fancies spending time at the Bus Stop and Tremadog. You’d like Tremadog, Enfys. Probably like the Bus Stop as well”

“What’s a 300 perm, Mr Woodruff?”

“Enfys, I think that with your birthday coming up, you can stop with the ‘Mister’. A 300 perm is a bike ride. 300 is the distance, in kilometres”

He went on to describe a set route, to be ridden while self-timing using things like garage and cashpoint receipts, but it was the distance that threw me. Three hundred kilometres. In one go.

He was mad. I already knew his wife was, but this took it to another level of gratuitous insanity. Dad gave my shoulder a squeeze once more, as the tea seemed to have evaporated.

“Come on, love. You up for Direct?”

I nodded, and he turned back to ‘Geoff’.

“Want me to check your tent while you’re doing the perm?”

“That would be good, ta. Better get this one moving, or she’ll be trying to drag me up Wrinkled Retainer, and she definitely can’t manage that one”

His wife called across us to him.

“Oy, Woodruff! A two person tent can suddenly become a solo when prospective occupants get cheeky!”

He laughed, and it was an easy and happy sound, just as I had described him to Alys.

“She’ll be rewriting The Pledge if I’m not careful! Sorry, love: one of her little jokes, about, um, sharing sleeping space: no snoring or farting. She’ll be adding ‘no criticism of climbing ability/ to that one”

His chuckle suddenly became a snort, and after a quick look at his wife’s blushing face, he turned back to me.

“She’s worked out what I’m thinking, Enfys. That right, Steph? Ooh, pink! Anyway, that pledge: we both live on curry and real ale, when we’re not working. Think about it. Where did you put the guide book, Steph?”

“Rolled it up in my cagtrousers, love”

I was getting lost again. Dad had been bad enough, using all sorts of odd names for the bits and pieces we had slipped into cracks, and I was still learning the knots, but what on Earth were ‘cagtrousers’? What else could I do but ask?

Geoff waved a lazy hand at his wife as he pulled a bundle out of her rucksack.

“Her term for waterproof overtrousers, love. From an old word for a waterproof jacket, cagoule. Being her, she takes it that bit further, so when it’s really muddy, they become ‘clagtrousers’. God alone knows what she does to your own language!”

It felt wonderful being treated as an equal by him, rather than a little girl, and I watched with fascination as Stephanie racked her gear ready for climbing. Dad tapped me on the shoulder once more, speaking to Geoff as he did.

“Enfys has to choose her O-level subjects, and she has already decided what she wants to go for after her A-levels. Sports science in Bangor”

I held a hand up.

“ADVENTURE sports science, Dad!”

Geoff roared at that.

“You and my missus separated at birth, love? Steph, if she’s going for that, want to explain your system?”

The tall woman nodded.

“All personal, it is, but this is what I do…”

She explained how she racked her runners as if they were a collection of giant key rings, with short extenders she called ‘quickdraws’ at her right hip.

“I can fiddle a bunch of wires around till I get one that fits, so they’re grouped by size. Quickdraw between the wire and the rope stops the nut lifting out of the crack. Remember that time at the Roaches, darling man?”

“Not likely to when you keep talking about it! Enfys, I was twenty feet up. One runner at ten feet, so if I fell off I was going to do a Desmond. Um, hit the ground. Desmond Dekker. Oh, never mind; you get the meaning. He was a musician. Anyway, it’s a steep slab, and there’s a technical move, so I stick in a wired nut, level with my chest. Safe, now; I start the move, and just as I am committed, halfway through, the bloody wire lifts out and slides down the rope to the bottom one. Nothing I could do but finish the move and hope not to mess it up. I finish, and get a runner in as quick as I can, and what does she do? Only calls up that she’ll make sure to find good homes for my bikes!”

Steph was laughing as happily as her husband.

“A ‘good home’ would have meant my home, but he was inconsiderate enough to be shorter than me. Wrong size bikes. Men, pah!”

Mam was almost in tears of laughter as the two bounced off each other, and then Steph rose and made her way to the start of my climb.

“Enfys, just a couple of tips. You can actually climb this slab anywhere, and it’s easier than the crack. Extend at the overlap, and look for the foothold—it’s really shiny. Don’t get your knee jammed at the next bit, and, well, just enjoy it!”

I did, and the buzz was amazing, Dad followed me up as before, and when we finally got home, he treated us all to a meal in the Tafarn Tryfan. I felt ten feet tall, and absolutely at the peak of maturity, a proper climber now on first name terms with other proper climbers, but I ended up so tired I nearly fell asleep in the bath.

No Alys at school on Monday, and when I rang her number, it went straight to the messaging service. It was the same throughout Tuesday.

Where was she? Had I scared her off?