CHAPTER 33
My last exam was on a Thursday afternoon, and it left me drained. Alys was still due for another session, on the Friday morning, so there could be no mad celebration, or even easing of mental aches and pains, until she was finally released. I found my way to the familiar spot on the school wall, Sali joining me a few minutes later.

“You done, Enfys?”

I nodded.

“Just waiting for Alys. You?”

She slumped for a second, before looking back up at me and returning my nod.

“Yes. Finally. Couldn’t face much more; is this what it’s going to be like at university?”

“I hope not! You finally decided where you’re going?”

“Got two offers, depending on grades. Had three, to be honest, but don’t fancy one of them. In England; Salford. Thought about it, but, well, don’t fancy having to do everything in foreign. Put in for Aberystwyth and Swansea”

“You’re doing that funny design thing still?”

“Ergonomics? Yeah; they call it different things, like ‘human factor design’ and stuff, but it means the same thing. Bit scared, to be honest. Don’t know if I’m up to it. Not like you two, am I?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re both doing what you’ve always done, aren’t you? You playing with ropes, and Alys with bugs and beetles and stuff. You even have a, don’t know, crib sheet? Everything round here’s like a teaching aid for you”

She laughed, shaking her head.

“What are you doing for the Summer, Enfys?”

“Working at the bunkhouse, mostly. Mr Edwards has some photography work to do in September, before we start at college, so he says he’ll take us along for that”

“So you’re not coming with the rest of us to Tenerife, then?”

“Define ‘the rest of us’, Sali”

“Well, there’s six of us girls going”

I could see her grin trying to break free, and I couldn’t resist a little push.

“Would that be ‘six of us girls for starters’, Sali? And maybe another party, just by chance going there on the same day? Maybe, perhaps, just guessing, not a party of girls?”

Her grin came out to dance, and with it a theatrical shrug.

“Might be. That a problem?”

“You are such a tart!”

All of a sudden, she sobered.

“Enfys, the others wanted to go to Ibiza. I argued them down, okay? I did some reading, and Tenerife… It has lots of gay stuff. Ibiza, well, it’s… I just thought, if you do come, you and Alys, and it is, we all know that, you and Alys, yeah?”

She stood a little straighter, choosing her words.

“You and Alys, yeah? Gay, isn’t it? Yes, I know we talked and stuff, but it’s the whole school now. Everyone knows. Can’t really hide it now, so I thought, if you do come, it would be somewhere you could relax, be yourselves, yes?”

“When is this, Sali?”

“Two weeks. We’ve booked an apartment, in Playa de las Americas. Three bedrooms and a sofa bed”

She grinned, once again.

“My idea, that. Means we can have space if you do come. Speaking of which, here she is now. Hiya, Alys. I’ve just told her!”

They had clearly been plotting, so I put on a mock frown for my lover.

“Going behind my back, woman?”

She just laughed at me, so the frown obviously wasn’t that believable.

“Yup! Been at your parents, as well. My new passport came yesterday, and I know you’ve got yours for September!”

I found myself grinning at her.

“Some Summer we’ll have, then. I just hope we do okay for university, or it’ll be the last holiday we get”

She grinned back, her eyes crinkled in delight.

“Keep saying that!”

“Keep saying what?”

“We!”

I shook my head, then turned back to Sali as a thought arrived rather late.

“Boys, then? How many?”

She looked at her feet.

“Um, Colin and, um, four others”

“Staying where?”

There was a distinct hint of pink to her cheeks.

“Um, there’s more than one apartment in the block…”

“Right. I think two of us might need earplugs, then. Who is going, on our side?

“Me, Nea, both the Susans, Cerys and Elen. It’s Cerys and Elen who…”

Her blush was taking over her ability to speak, so I put a hand to her arm.

“The ones who aren’t expecting a friend next door? But you said there were five lads”

“Yes, but one of them is Warren, with the glasses, so not exactly on anyone’s wish list, is he?”

“The others?”

“Tomos, Ioan and Geth”

I snorted.

“Half my climbing class! You sure you don’t want to come out with us some day?”

She shook her head sharply.

“Not a topic for today, Enfys. We just need an answer as soon as possible, about you two. We’re flying from Manchester with Easyjet, but there might not be space if you leave it too late. Space on the plane, that is”

Alys coughed, in an extremely theatrical way.

“There’s space from Birmingham”

I looked hard at her, and once again there was a shrug.

“I spoke to both sets of parents, just in case”

I couldn’t work out which way I was supposed to react. Should I fall down on the side of resentment, that my life was being run for me without consultation, or on that of gratitude, that my lover felt comfortable in arranging something that she was sure would be good for us as a couple, something time critical? She was blushing a little, and then started the traditional process of over-explanation.

“It’s not just the gay bars and beaches, Enfys. There’s Spain’s highest mountain there, but it’s not really Spain, it’s Africa, so the birds are different, and it’s volcanic, so the geology is interesting, and there’s lots of climbing and serious walking and…”

I reached out and put a finger to her lips, and to my astonishment, in front of Sali and with no more than half a second of hesitation, she kissed it.

I felt myself blush slightly, so started my own excess of chatter.

“We need to talk about this, both families. It’ll be a lot of money”

She nodded.

“Already arranged, for tomorrow, once my last exam is done. Family dinner at ours”

The mood broke, and I simply started laughing.

“What a stitch up!”

Yet another shrug from her.

“Something I had to learn as a little girl, love”

Sali twitched slightly at that word, as Alys carried on.

“When you want something, it’s no good waiting for someone else to get it for you. Sometimes, the only way is to make the moves yourself. Lie when you’re not sure if a bus is due”

“Sorry?”

“Like when you’re fifty yards short of the stop, and you don’t know if it’s already gone, so you can either amble on or run, just in case, and if you don’t run, and the bus goes past when you could have caught it, and you know that you could have caught it, but you couldn’t make yourself believe, and if you had just made a move, and decided to run…”

I put my finger back to stop her babble, but this time she took my hand in hers and continued to speak.

“Sali gets it, I think. This is a girls’ holiday, love. Just girls together, even if, you know, just normal girls, and that is all I ever wanted. Like those trips to Shrewsbury, but without a safety net. I’ve wanted…”

She took a couple of deep breaths, then started again.

“I have a plan. Not holding ropes for you, but I have done a lot of research, in between revision. The mountain’s about a five too six hour walk, one way, twelve thousand feet of it. Three and a bit Wyddfas. There’s a cable car as well—no! Not suggesting we do that. Walk up, ride down, cause it’s a really big hill. There’s a permit system for the top, but there’s an organised guided group thing. That’s part of what I want to do with you, so you will need to pack walking kit”

I picked up on her phrasing, and she nodded.

“Yes: part of what I want to do. The rest… would you be okay spending a lot of our time lazing on the beach, and swimming? Eating tapas and maybe drinking a bit too much sangria?”

She grinned across to Sali.

“Nope! Clubbing is SO not us!”

She suddenly blushed.

“I was going to say something else, but not now. Anyway, Mam’s here. One more exam, then freedom. I’ll call you tonight, love!”

She was gone, and Sali was almost whispering.

“How many times did she say that word, Enfys?”

My courage was finally there, for how could it not be after my lover’s example?

“Not enough times, Sali. Nowhere near enough”

I ground my way up the hill, and started the dinner cooking in my usual way, Dad and Mam arriving as their own working days came to an end, although I knew Mam would still be sitting at her computer for several hours after dinner, as exam season was as much part of the university year as it was of our own school’s. We were having sausages and mash with carrots, red cabbage and onion gravy, so the cooking wasn’t exactly technical or difficult, but I still got a little involved in turning the links so that they didn’t explode and split as the fat bubbled away inside them. I hadn’t noticed the front door, so Mam’s appearance in the kitchen made me jump slightly.

“Smells nice, love! Dad back yet?”

“Not seen him, so no. Potatoes are ready to mash, and cabbage has just gone into the steamer”

“Good good! And is that look on your face about what I think it is?”

“You mean going behind my back with Alys? I suppose it is”

“Well, can we leave that till we’re all together? Oh, and could you open a bottle of the Burgundy to breathe while I get changed? It was your last one today, wasn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Alys still has one for tomorrow. She says we’re eating there that evening”

“Yes, if you don’t mind. Give us a chance to plan the Summer properly”

“I’m involved this time?”

“Can we hold that thought till Dad’s home? I’m off to change”

I carried on with the preparations, trying to work out where she was taking things, but it only became clear when we were all sat together and the last of the gravy was being mopped up by some crusty bread Mam had picked up fresh on her way home. Dad opened the exchange.

“Alys has spoken to you, then?”

I finished my last mouthful, nodding as I swallowed.

“Yes. It would have been nice to have known”

Mam put down her glass and took my hand.

“It was Alys who suggested we do it this way, love”

“Why?”

Dad answered that one.

“She was very clear about it, Enfys. It was all about you”

Mam was shaking her head.

“Not quite, Keith. Enfys, she was… What she said was that you didn’t need a distraction, and she needed a target. That you knew where you need to go, and she didn’t want you off the path, but that she wanted a carrot she could chase after rather than what…”

She let go of my hand to pir some more wine, then reached out for me once more.

“What she said was that you know where you are going, where you need to go, and that you will get there unless something pulls you off-route. She’s different. She says she’s been running away all her life, running from what she was born as, that even that… Even what happened with that bastard Watkins was more of the same, and now, now she has things to run to. This is part of her carrot, and if she had told you, you’d have spent all day and night worried about her being safe in the Canaries and not concentrating on your own exams”

Dad was nodding.

“She’s a very deep girl, love. Very mature for her age. Not that surprising, though, considering… Look: we’ve already got the flight tickets, and Vic and Nansi have covered the room costs. You can earn the rest, spending money and that, sort of retrospectively over the Summer, in the bunkhouse”

“But I’d already be doing that!”

Dad echoed Alys in the showiness of his shrug.

“Did you expect logic and consistency? From me?”

Fair point, fairly made, and one I could hardly argue with. I found myself welling up, so I did my best to move onto safer ground, which still meant, in the end, a session on the internet with Dad looking up route maps and topos for Mount Teide, while Mam did her ‘homework.

I lay in bed that night, mind buzzing with information and ideas, and my phone chirped beside me.

Free to chat?

I rang her number, and we talked through the same stuff my parents had covered, but the mood was so different. How on Earth could I condemn her, or fault her logic? There was one thing outstanding, though, and that was her comment as we had left school.

“What was it you were going to say, love?”

“Um, yeah. Beaches… Yes, I do want to spend time just getting all tanned, swimming and so on”

“I got that bit”

“Yeah… It’s… I was just going to say I won’t be going topless”

She paused.

“Not yet. The hormones are doing stuff, but not enough. So we will have to wait for another holiday before… Doesn’t stop you, though”

She started giggling at that point, and it was a profoundly happy sound, and the giggling led to a series of dreadful puns about spoke nipples and car air bags, until I finally called it a night and left her to sleep.

We had created a monster.