Our first morning in the UK was brighter, a communal breakfast taken in the conservatory and garden, bunkhouse style in the way everyone clubbed together. I still felt like shit, my usual reaction to long haul flights, but Maz and I had been woken by our daughter at about seven, Maz pretending to be asleep even after a prod from the girl. I understood why when LC finally turned to me for permission.

“Dad?”

“Yes, love?”

The slightest of twitches from her, and then that surge of confidence, or maybe hope, that warmed my heart.

“Can I play with the dogs again?”

“If they are awake, love. You need to ask their owners if it’s okay first, though”

“Am I allowed to speak to them?”

That bastard’s dead, Rhodes. Deal with what he’s left behind, but nicely.

“Want me to come with you?”

“Want Mum to”

I looked down at Maz, who had her back to LC but was wide awake, and she mouthed ‘You go’ at me.

“Your Mum’s asleep, love”

I lip read ‘hangover’ and wriggled out of my side of the duvet, thankful I was wearing sleep shorts and a T-shirt, and slipped my feet into my trainers.

“Leave Mum to sleep, and I will come downstairs with you. Get Mum a cup of tea for when she wakes up, and see what the doggies are doing”

We padded down the stairs to find a reasonable number of people getting outside their own hot drinks, the two hounds curled up against each other right in the doorway. So typical of dogs: won’t play with me? I’ll just get right in your way till you do. LC walked up to them and bent down to pat the tops of their heads, one hand for each of them. One of the younger people called out to her.

“If I say the word, Pie will go mad, so do you want me to get the thing to throw?”

LC looked at me for permission yet again, and I nodded.

“Yes please, Tuan”

The lad laughed happily.

“I’m not Dwayne, or whatever. I’m Jim”

He waved her forward, slipping her a tennis ball and telling her to keep it out of sight, then called “Pie!”

The collie sat up, the spaniel looking a little aggrieved.

“Go with Carolyn!”

Once she was in the garden, he added, “Now let him see the ball”

That brought both dogs to their feet and outside, and all I then heard of them was a mixture of yips and laughter. No dogs at that slave camp, then.

I nodded my thanks and quickly assembled a cuppa for my wife, who sat up in bed to take it from me.

“How is she doing, darling?”

“Out with those two dogs. What does ‘Tuan’ mean?”

“Oh, Malay for ‘Sir’. Who did she call that?”

“Lad with the dogs. Jim”

“Fits. We were both… we quickly learned to be polite to them”

So many bruises.

“In the past, love, so let’s keep it there. What do you remember from last night?”

“I—oh! What is happening with our car? Hire car?”

“You were out of it, then. We have an offer of a loan rather than a hire, from one of the collective. He runs a hire business, and he just offered, out of the blue. He’s sorting us a reasonable estate car, and we’ve got about eighty offers of tents, sleeping bags, et cetera. And a lot of questions about the end of August, for some reason”

She slurped her tea, sighing in satisfaction, and I pointed to the bedroom door.

“Looks like they are starting a big fry-up, love. You okay for that?”

She stared into her mug for a moment.

“Still doesn’t seem real, my love. Sleeping in a bed, not on the floor of a hole in the ground. Proper drink. Proper food. Having you with me again… I need a Full English; prove this is real”

We had our Full And Extended English, before most of the visitors packed up and left for their homes, but Jim and his family, with their dog, stayed another night, which brought more happy laughter from a giggly girl, and that night Maz and I found an old, traditional way of proving that things really were as they seemed.

She was still so horribly thin, though.

Stewie’s temporary present arrived two days later, a well-worn Vauxhall that he assured us was in perfect condition, or at least as perfect as Vauxhalls could ever be. I got used to it with a few shopping trips into Crawley, where we picked up extra bits and pieces for our journey that included fleece jackets and walking boots for Carolyn, along with another childhood necessity in the shape of a bear. LC was fascinated by the Italian Kitchen place, with its multitude of salads and sandwich fillings, and the whole food court seemed to put her at risk of over-stimulation in offering too many new things at once.

She never asked for anything, though. Beaten out of her, I realised.

Our time with the Woodruffs was over far too soon, but they were storing our cases and some other bits ready for our return flight home in September. It was an emotional departure, of course, but this time the emotions were positive ones. LC was gradually emerging, helped immensely by such treats as a half day on Brighton’s remaining pier with its rides and games, where she finally decided to make a positive statement about, of all things, ice cream. Specifically, how her favourite flavour was choc-chip mint.

The drive up country was not exactly pleasurable, as it involved almost entirely motorways, but things improved a little north of the Dartford Tunnel. Ish was navigating for me, using my phone and a UK SIM, not that I needed it, and I was fretting slightly, as Auds and Alan, who were putting us up, had moved from That Place to Toddington some years before, so I would miss the opportunity to drive through the scenic wonders that are Chapel Street and Hockwell Ring, and so confirm that said That Place deserves not to be named fully.

It simply meant driving two junctions further up the M1 before once more pulling off onto rural roads.

“Nearly there, girls! How are you finding it?”

Maz shouted something about boring motorways, and I had to agree.

“I’m afraid it’s like that a lot, but some of the places we are going are much nicer, but those blocks to your right there, they are Hockwell Ring, and that is definitely not one of the nice places”

“What are the nice places like, Dad?”

I had to concentrate just then, as Carolyn had asked that question, totally out of the blue. Thank you, god, fate, whatever.

“There are a few of them, my darling. One in particular has a lot of friends, and a lot of mountains”

Ish laughed, saying “And a lot of sheep, and a lot of rain, so a lot of wet sheep”, but LC hadn’t finished.

“Will there be music there again?”

Oh wow.

“Do you mean like the music that Steph and Annie and their friends played?”

“Where I got my dress, and met the dogs, yes. It was nice. Will there be more?”

“Ish?”

“Yes, Dad?”

“I don’t need the maps. Could you use my phone to call Audrey for me? Number’s already entered”

“Okay… Hi! This is Ish Rhodes! Fine, thank you. Just passed a place Dad called Hockwell Ring. Yeah… Looked it. Anyway, Dad has a question. Dad?”

“Just ask when the folk club’s next on, or if it’s already the Summer break”

“He says is the folk club on, or is it Summer… right. Who’s on? Okay, we know him. Jimmy Kerr, Dad. Tonight”

I concentrated on getting us safely off the M1, as that exit has quite a tight bend and I certainly didn’t want to lose a family I had only just regained. Ish chuckled.

“Dad hasn’t said it out loud, but I know he’s thinking it. We’re just leaving the motorway, so is the kettle on?”

A couple more jokes, and he hung up.

“She said the club’s moved, Dad. Really awkward to get to now”

“Where to?”

“Pub called the Sow and Pigs. Where’s that, do you know?”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“I suspect it is now their local, as it is in the same village! Sorry, son, but Auds has always been a joker. She…”

I bit down hard on what I was about to say, for while Carolyn needed to know where her name came from, it wasn’t the right time. We would say hello as a family, and that information could wait until we were all ready.

“Carolyn?”

“Yes… Dad?”

“There will be music tonight, and it will be very good. A man who plays the fiddle, like the lady with the long red hair”

Maz added, “Just not as mad, I would guess”

‘At least Steph speaks English’ was my silent response, but they would find out the simple way. Leighton Road… Right! They had plenty of room out front of their house, and before I had turned the engine off, Auds was waiting for her hug, and it was nothing subtle. Alan held back slightly after a brief squeeze of Ish, and then softly asked Maz if a hug would be okay, and to my horror she started to weep before answering the question by embracing Alan as she tried to explain.

“I am sorry, but it was two things, together, and I am still not, you know, recovered. Someone asking me for permission, to do anything at all to me, that… It hasn’t been a feature of my recent life. And then, sorry, but your name. I lost another Alan”

She squeezed him again.

“I will be fine. It is simply that everything is still a bit raw, a bit sensory overload. I heard someone say ‘kettle’, I believe”

Auds led the way in, and there was indeed tea waiting for us. I settled into the sofa with a sigh, LC bookending her mother as always, and looked at our hosts.

“The kids?”

Alan laughed happily, pointing at some graduation photos on the wall by the door to the dining room.

“Not been ‘kids’ for some years, mate. Al’s on a dig up near York, and Gina’s counting beavers in Devon. Things they couldn’t get out of, I’m afraid, but they send their best. You’re looking well, Mike”

“Boy here pronounces that as ‘old’, Alan. Carolyn, what Mum and I explained to you, these are friends… I met the lady you are named after because she was a friend of this lady here. We all used to go and listen to music together. The man who is playing tonight is a friend of the lady with the red hair”

Audrey looked at her husband for a second before turning to me.

“Mike, this friend of yours, would she be called Steph?”

I nodded.

“Well, muggins here ended up running the club when we lost the grant. That’s how it ended up here rather than staying in Lu—”

I think I was first, but both wife and son matched my shout of ‘Don’t say the name!’. Auds gave me a funny look, so I simply suggested she think of ‘Candyman’ films and ‘P Fairies’, which got the message across, and she chuckled.

“Point taken, then. Well, we had to leave That Place That Begins With L, and the landlord here is amenable. What I was going to say was that we didn’t book the act, the act asked us to book him, and he said he’d been asked by someone called Steph. At least, that’s what I think he said. Steph?”

“Friend of ours. Lives near Gatwick, but I know her and her husband by way of climbing”

“Ah! Peak? Lakes? Snowdonia?”

“Peak and Eryri. They’re mates of Penny and Keith”

Al nodded in understanding.

“Yeah, we assumed you’d end up heading that way. Anyway, Jimmy’s basically doing tonight in return for a few pints and a place to kip. I suspect he’s fully aware of…”

He stared at Maz for a few seconds, then put his tea down.

“Maryam, this is awkward. I don’t mean the old history stuff, for we have had a very long time to move on, after. What I mean is, well, you and the child. Neither of us knows how to talk about those things, if we should, if you’d want to, so if we put our feet in it, please let us know”

My wife hugged our daughter after thanking Alan for his kindness, and LC spoke up, for once.

“Mum?”

“Yes, love?”

“Is everybody here our friends now? Nobody was before”

Audrey shuffled across to kneel by the girl.

“We are all your Dad’s friends, love, so we should be yours too”

“Dad said he had friends who had lots of mountains”

“He does. Some of them are our friends too. Mike?”

“Yup?”

“Can I assume you’ll be spending a lot of time with Penny and Keith?”

Ish was nodding and smiling, so I squeezed my wife’s hand, which was an easy thing to do as I was trying my best never to let go of it if possible.

“Well, plan is a bit long-winded, but here goes. I have a duty in Stopsley, where I have some people to introduce, as you know. Once we’re done there, it’ll be over to Suffolk. Boy wants to see Dunwich again, and, well, there’s a treat there for Maz”

My wife looked up sharply.

“What sort of treat?”

There was a way in which she pronounced that last word that worried me, but not now. Another squeeze of her hand.

“I haven’t really given you a route yet, have I? Anyway… Ish can explain Dunwich to you, but it sits right next to Minsmere, which is an important reserve for the Royal Society for Protection of Birds. Ish?”

“Dad?”

“Those parcels in the back of the car? What I got in Singapore?”

“Right!”

I tossed him the keys, and he left the room, as I turned to smile at my wife, something I had missed more than I had ever realised.

“From there we go up the East coast, ish, with a stop in Norfolk for more birds on the Broads, then York, Durham, and then one of Maz’s bucket list things”

Her voice was hesitant.

“The Wall?”

“Yes, love. Exactly that. There’s loads more I wanted to do, like the Lakes, and Scotland, but we’ve got other appointments. Last one’s in Cardiff with Di and her friends”

Shit: she was weeping. I went to wipe the tears away, but she just waved a hand at me and shook her head.

“Sorry, my friends. Memories. ‘Treat’, that was a word they used a lot. It meant a beating. That’s said: no more about it, please. You have to… We were in a pit. Both of us had been gagged and blindfolded, our hands and feet tied, so when the hatch was opened, all we had was a hint of light, and the sound, and then someone threatened to shoot us. I was…”

She pulled our daughter to her.

“They snatched her, and pulled off her gag first, and I remember she screamed, and I thought ‘This is it, finally’, but then they untied me, and they were soldiers. I got to the top of a ladder, and there were soldiers everywhere, and this woman, she had a face so hard, so angry, and I couldn’t see our girl, and then…”

She paused for a few seconds, breathing deeply, before continuing.

“I was in a panic, and then I saw a face, one I recognised, and it was a friend, Bobby, and that was when I realised, and suddenly there was my man. I think a couple of the soldiers tried to keep him back”

I found myself laughing at that particular memory.

“They did, love. Was never going to happen”

“I saw, love. Never again”

“Never, love. Auds, Di was one of the coppers that found her. There’s a whole team of them, in Cardiff, and one of them is a friend of Enfys, Keith and Penny’s daughter. That’s why we are saving the Lakes and Scotland for another visit: we’ll be in Snowdonia for a while, then South Wales, and we… Carolyn?”

“Yes?”

“In both places we have so many friends I can’t count them. Do you remember Diane?”

“Was she the lady who gave me sweets? On the aeroplane to Australia?”

Ish was back, and called across to his sister, “Yes, that’s her”, before handing me the parcels he had collected from the car. I left them on the coffee table, and smiled at my wife once more.

“Neil will be in North Wales, love, but he also knows the Roman Wall, so he will meet us there first to show us about. In the meantime, as we are off to Minsmere, I bought you these, and this package is for you, Carolyn”

Carolyn watched her mother ripping off paper before remembering how parcels worked, and in short order each was holding a pair of binoculars, LC’s being rather smaller and simpler. I received a kiss from my wife, and a puzzled look from our daughter. Ah, well.

“I suspect there’s something being plotted, because everyone kept asking about the end of August. That will be revealed when they’re ready, I suppose”

Alan looked at his own wife before speaking.

“Camping kit?”

“Been lent a load by friends near Gatwick, and got a load of outdoor stuff in Crawley. About as sorted as we can be”

“Right. I suppose we should therefore start getting ready for the club, then! We’ll have a meal there early doors, and then it’s Jimmy”

“Mum?”

“Yes, love?”

“Can I wear my new dress?”

“Of course”

That evening, Jimmy was exactly as I had expected, and Carolyn as entranced as she had been at the Woodruffs’, but she was asleep by the time the evening ended. Ish was the one to carry her home

“Hello, you. I have brought some new friends to meet you. This is my wife Maryam, and our daughter Carolyn. She was named in your memory, my love”

I didn’t normally speak to her grave so directly, but that day it felt absolutely right to do so. We were in a larger group as well, for half of both of our old clubs had turned out to share the day. We had a number of small plants to set by the headstone, as well as a continuous and copious supply of hugs from so many friends I hadn’t seen for far too long. In the end, though, we had to get rolling. I had decided to take a more northerly route than I usually did, to avoid motorways as much as possible, and so set off up the A505 towards Royston and Cambridge, as it led straight from Stopsley and avoided the centre of That Place, so it was a mixture of urban and rural driving for me.

My family sat silently most of the time, still slightly worn from the previous evening and, to be honest, a little hungover. Auds and Alan had felt the need to ensure as many people as possible got their chance to say hello, and as each of them felt the need to bring a bottle or more of alcohol, it had become hard work. I chose the more complicated route out of necessity, so as not to risk falling asleep.

Ish was tapping away on his tablet, of course, as Carolyn dozed against Maz in the back seat, when my boy went “Ooh, Dad!”

“What, son?”

“Imperial War Museum ahead!”

“Duxford. I know”

“Yes, Dad, but one of the exhibits--- could we please stop? This could be important for Mum”

I was intrigued, to say the least, as Ish hadn’t been one for Big Boys’ Toys like tanks and jets as a kid, but agreed to stump up the entrance fee, which wasn’t that cheap. The place had a café, of course, so we took a breather there and I went to gather drinks and snacks while Ish talked his Mum through whatever he had discovered. I was just paying for our mini-feast when I heard her yelp, in an absolutely Aussie way, “You beauty, son!”

When I set the tray down at our table, Maz was beaming, almost pushing the screen into my face.

“Our clever, clever boy, love! See what he found?”

The site was that of the museum, with a list of its exhibits, which were mostly aircraft, each with a sort of mini-biography attached. The one Maz had open was of some antique airliner, and I couldn’t see what had her so excited, until she paused, told herself “Calm down, Mrs Rhodes”, and began slowly explaining, as if forcing herself to avoid exploding.

“This aeroplane… When Alan’s Dad flew out to Singapore, it was in this plane. And you can go aboard it”

I started to ask how many such planes were left, and she cut me off abruptly.

“No, love: from what the old man told Alan, and he was very, very meticulous in what he recorded, this isn’t the type of plane he flew out on, but THE plane. The actual aircraft. How wonderful is that?”

My son is a genius sometimes.

We spent too much time wandering around the exhibits for Carolyn, but there was a playground, something else she had never encountered, and my son the generous genius volunteered to stay with the girl while Maz and I explored the four-prop airliner. Maz was snapping away with my camera, but surprised me by opening one of the toilets and taking several shots.

“Alan’s Dad told him he was airsick for the whole flight. This was where he was too much of the time”

Suddenly, she was wrapped around me, almost stopping my breathing.

“I feel like Kul, now, my love. He spent all that time telling the office what you were like, before we met, and the office, we all wondered how you would match up, and you did, more than I could have hoped… When that woman asked about the cutting, Carolyn… I said it to Suleiman and the others: touch my girl, and either me or you would find them and kill them. When Carolyn would ask why we spoke English, why she had to learn, I always told her it was because you would be coming for us, that she needed to be able to talk to her father, because you would never give up”

I squeezed her back, my guilt almost unbearable, because I had indeed given up on her, and she spoke again, clearly reading my mind.

“No, love. Coming to terms is not giving up. All you needed was a way, and I need to find a way of thanking Neil that won’t terrify him. Now, a few more photos, and then we gather our offspring”

We finally crossed the high bridge at Ipswich before switching to smaller roads as we approached Dunwich, Ish explaining its history with its Great Storm while, thankfully, avoiding tales of tumbling coffins or non-Euclidean geometry, with or without added tentacles. I had booked us two nights in a cottage not far from the beach and within a very short walk of another facility of some importance, which was the Ship, which might have been, you know, a pub. That sold Adnam’s.

I mean, I had been away from decent ale in Australia, Maz had been without her whole life, and the lad was now legal, so there was a need they could fill. As we awaited our starters in the Ship that evening, I handed Maz the present Steph had slipped to me as we had left Charlwood: the Collins guide to British birds, and I am almost certain I got a slightly miffed look from our daughter, as her own present count was a little behind. The meal was lovely, and the ale slipped down nicely, but it was soon a little girl’s bed time. I had slipped Ish the wink as we had finished our desserts, and he had himself slipped away on a ‘loo break’, returning a little out of breath but with a grin that announced ‘job done’. I looked at the other two with a smile

“Long day out tomorrow, people. Out past the graveyard for Ish, then through the woods to a car park. Down onto the beach and then the back gate to Minsmere. Be about five miles of walking, all told, but it’s almost all flat”

I checked all drinks were finished, paid the tab, and led the way from the pub back to our little cottage, where I ostentatiously wished the younger two good night. Our peace was shattered thirty seconds later when Carolyn reappeared, clutching her two new presents, her gaze flicking from her mother to myself and back again so I held out a hand.

“Shall I show you how it fastens, love?”

It was something Auds had spotted, and the idea had tickled me: a teddy bear, and a miniature ‘rucksack child carrier’ for it. Caro was nodding, entranced, so I simply talked her through the straps before asking what her bear was called.

“Don’t know!”

Maz waved for her to come closer, so she could see the rig more clearly, and simply said, “If you sleep together the bear might whisper their name to you”

LC simply looked confused, but it was our son’s turn to help, Ish calling out, “When I was very little, I had a stuffed rabbit”

“What’s a rabbit?”

Moments like that cut me, for each was a reminder of how much of our child’s life had been stolen by those bastards, along with that of my wife. Ish was still on point, though.

“It’s a little animal, Carolyn. We’ll show you some real ones, but mine was a toy, like your bear, for cuddling. Another name for a rabbits is ‘Bunny,’ and because I was very little, I called mine Bunbun”

“Have you still got it?”

“It’s at home, I think. Would you lie to see it?”

“Is home the place with the man with the smiley beard?”

“Yes. Our home, in Australia”

“Are we going back there?”

“Yes, after we have seen more friends here”

My heart lurched again, as I decoded what she must be thinking, that everything was temporary.

“Carolyn?”

“Yes, Tua—Dad?”

“We’ve met lots of friends, haven’t we?”

She nodded once, but said nothing.

“We have friends all over the world, love. We see them when we can, but when we’re in one place, we can only see the friends from there. They don’t stop being friends when we are somewhere else. We have a plan, though, when we get to one place where we have a lot of friends, and that is to talk to the ones back at home with them all together”

“How?”

How to explain a video meeting to someone who had never used a computer? Bugger it; the times would work. I pulled out my phone and rang Kul, sod the expense yet again.

“Hiya Mike---something up?”

“Not at all, mate. Could you switch to video? Someone wants to say hello”

Once he was on screen, I turned my phone to show the girl, and for almost the first time, her squeal was one of utter joy.

“Say hello, Carolyn”

“HELLO!”

Kul was grinning, that smiley beard in full force, when Carolyn suddenly turned away from the screen. It was a second before I realised she was still wearing her bear-carrier, and a memory of Enfys showing me her sweets came out from hiding. Kul chuckled.

“What’s his name, love?”

“Don’t know!”

“Shall we both think of names, then?”

All of a sudden, she launched into a rush of childish prattle, and it was all for Kul, but I didn’t care. Whatever it took to break through to my daughter’s heart was fine by me. No resentment, no jealousy. Maz was grinning happily, but Kul still had a sensible head on.

“Carolyn, love, I’m getting ready for work, so I have to go. Your Dad has planned some longer chats with us, so you’ll get to see Dal as well. Will you be there for me?”

“Yes!”

“And the bear?”

He caught her confusion, so channelled Maz.

“Ask him tonight, then. We will see each other soon, love!”

He cut the call, Carolyn wide-eyed in real delight, which meant a little delay in settling her down for the night after I had showed her where the loo was. The first time she had used ours in Scarborough, she had asked for permission to leave her room, dear god.

Stay with the joy, Rhodes.

Yes, we walked, Maz reminding me quite sharply that she and LC had ‘enjoyed’ an awful lot of opportunities for physical exercise over the years, which left things a little jagged between us until she saw her first ever European jay in the woods.

Through the carpark and down the little gully to the beach and its concrete blocks, right up to the public hide by the back door to the Minsmere reserve, and then it was with a sigh of absolute bliss that she settled onto a bench with book and binoculars, as well as the flasks of tea that Ish had carried in his rucksack.

She had her bins straight to her eyes, and…

“Avocet!”

The names followed in sequence, as they always had before that awful day, her little notebook filling up quickly.

“Mike?”

“Yes, love?”

“There were birds in Sumatra as well. Ones I knew well, nothing rare, nothing new, but… Carolyn? Remember what I taught you about the birds, back in that place?”

“Yes, Mum”

“These are all new ones here. Would you like to see?”

“Can Kawan look?”

She turned her back so that Maz could take her bear.

“He told me his name last night, like Mum said. Can I go to the water?”

Ish was straight up, yet again, taking the girl out to the edge of a very calm sea after promising to show her how to skip stones, and I settled down by my wife, pouring us each more tea.

“What does that name mean, love?”

“Just ‘friend’, darling. I think that’s the word that is triggering her. We haven’t had any for so long, the whole of her own life, yes? And now, so many, and you just called up Kul, and he was there. Lets her see things exist beyond what she can touch and see. Godwit… which one… black-tailed! Sorry, but the birds, it was a real cliché for me. They were there, they were free, even if we weren’t. We… I had my dreams, Mike, my hopes, but she, I never knew what she held to her. Nothing for her to work from, no past. All I could do was try to give her a future to believe in, even if I didn’t. Green plover… Now we give her friends, love. We give her a real future”

I reached across to take her binoculars, but only so I could kiss her. Outside, I could hear the squealing of a little girl, and later, when we returned to our cottage, she rode on my shouldeRS.

We spent some time at the Wetlands Trust reserve at the Ouse Washes on our way north, Maz slightly disappointed not to have been there for the mass Winter invasion of various types of swan, but she was still happy with what she saw. My target was York that day, by way of the long bridge over the Humber, but we weren’t staying in the city. I had spotted a campsite next to a village called Acaster Malbis, for some reason the name stirring a vague memory, and it was small enough to let me try out how Carolyn felt in a tent while still having the possibility of somewhere more solid nearby if she were unable to cope.

“Welcome to Moor End, Mr Rhodes. This your first time staying here?”

“First time in this part of Yorkshire, to be honest”

“Can I ask how you found out about us, just so we can tweak our marketing? Internet? Word of mouth?”

I laughed at that question, as I had no idea at all.

“I don’t know, my friend. It was something about the village name; seen it somewhere before”

“Ah! I suspect I know the answer, then. Any canals or other inland waterways near where you live?”

Ish snorted.

“We live in Australia, mate”

I held a hand up.

“Yes, but I used to live near the Grand Union”

The camp site man was nodding happily.

“That’ll be it, then. We have a lot of hire centres here, boats that is, like Dobbs and Barker, even though Old Man Barker followed Mr Dobbs a few years ago…. Lovely man, Gerald Barker, absolute gent. Anyway, I know they do one-way hires down there. Other yard fettles them and then hires them out for the trip back”

Maz almost snorted up her breakfast at that one.

“Sorry, but, well, we do, my husband and I, we do business consultancy in Australia and--- Darling, those must be the people you got the idea from”

She quickly explained about our Canning Vans solution, and our man was chuckling away.

“All the way to Australia, eh? I shall have to let them know, if that’s okay. They’ll be chuffed, though Susie might want a cut, woman as now runs the place. I’m joking! Right. Two nights, two tents, then, three adults and one child, and the car?”

I paid, he showed us the pitches, and then the facility that had really caught my eye: a family shower room, where Maz and Carolyn could shower together without risking terrifying our daughter. We pitched our two shelters, and that evening ate in a pub, also called the Ship, where the ale was Timothy Taylor’s rather than Adnam’s, and a little girl fell asleep after her ice cream was finished.

We did the City the next day, walking its walls and wandering through the Shambles, with time in the museum by Clifford’s Tower, both girls fascinated by the reconstructed rooms and period streets, and as LC had seemed to settle easily on her first night in a tent, I booked us an extra one, just so she could spend more time feeding the swans, ducks and geese by the marina.

More and more the inner child was emerging from the victim, and Maz seemed to kick far less in her sleep when under canvas. I mentioned that as we sat on a convenient bench while LC insisted on listening to a busker, music clearly calling to her more and more with each day. Maz was pensive when I mentioned her bad dreams.

“Darling, I think.. It’s memories, love. The tent… It’s Gracetown, yes? The Bibbulmun as well. It’s… I had to wash so much when we got home, wash that place off me, and this, it’s like being back there”

She barked out a laugh.

“Just a bit wetter, fewer nasty biting things… Oh! Is that a skylark?”

One more day of healing.

We headed off after that third night of Maz as close to me as she could get, LC clasping Kawan while still pressed against her mother, and we took lunch in Durham City before a break at Marsden for the seabirds I had researched on the net, and then into Newcastle and a couple of nights in the Station hotel, the first of which included the folk club at the Bridge hotel. As we walked down from our hotel, Ish dropped in beside me, his voice soft.

“She’s healing, Dad. It’s two things, really, and one of them’s the music. I mean… well, how could it not be, in our family?”

“The other?”

“She keeps asking about friends, Dad. She’s very…. Look, you said it to me, once, about linear maps. When you were explaining about where the Hiatts live”

“Eh?”

“You told me you only knew Bethesda as the road through it, a linear map, not all the places to the sides, like where they lived. I think Elsie’s like that: sees friends as, well, she meets them, then they’re gone, and that’s it. What she can no longer see is gone”

He paused for a moment, then smiled.

“When you called up Kul the other night, when she saw he was still there, still her smiley beard, I think you broke a hole in her shell”

Before I could embarrass him by saying something soppy about pride, he changed the subject, asking, “So who’s on tonight?”

I still hugged him before replying.

“Oddly, Jimmy again, but as a support. Jez is headlining”

“Jez Lowe?”

“Yup”

“Ripper, bonzer, she’ll be right!”

Jimmy was waiting at the bar, and to her delight, as soon as he saw LC, he waved, saying something I only half understood, which still made her laugh, and that was the start of her best evening since her rescue. Jimmy was funny, Jez was Jez, and I made sure I spent a decent sum on their discs before the walk back to our rooms, for I was determined my girls would have something more than fading memories, something to fasten the good times to them. There was, after all, a CD player in the car.

Our second evening was almost as good, spent in the Forth, just up Pink Lane from our hotel, because we had a visitor. We had just given our food order at the bar when Maz squealed, LC looking terrified for a few seconds as Ish calmed her, before turning to offer a hand to our new arrival after he had released Maz from his hug and finished wiping his eyes.

“Neil. Be welcome, mate. Be so bloody welcome! Carolyn?”

She started, almost as if slapped.

“Ish?”

“This is Neil. He is not just your friend, he is someone who helped Dad find you”

I stepped forward to relieve my wife and son of their hugging duties, but I felt all too reluctant to release him, for Ish had been absolutely on the mark. Without Neil, no Lexie, no Di, no Rahim. No family.

I could feel him starting to tremble, so set him free to take the seat we had held for him. He settled himself, then smiled at LC, who recoiled slightly.

“Carolyn?”

“Yes, Dad?”

“Remember when Mum and me showed you our wedding photos?”

“Yes?”

“This is the man who took them. Do you remember Lexie? Di’s friend?”

“Was she the one with the hole in her head?”

Shit.

“Yes, that’s the one.. Neil was the man… the friend who said to Lexie that we had lost you. Before Lexie and Di did their thing to find you. Do you want to say thank you?”

“Thank you”

She clearly didn’t get it fully, but she was still so young; it would come. I turned my smile back to Neil.

“What do you have for us, mate?”

“Are you okay with a youth hostel, mate?”

“I am not sure”

“It’s next to a pub”

“Ah! That’ll be the Twice Brewed, then. Still not sure, though”

I glanced at Carolyn, and he nodded.

“That’ll be why I booked the cottage up the lane, then”

He was grinning, but I could still detect the fragility it covered, as he kept glancing at my wife, almost as if checking a scorecard. Two found, but one lost.

“I’m on the Kwak today, Mike”

“That still running?”

“Sort of. I swapped engines about ten thousand miles ago, and the forks and rear shocks have all been replaced twice, so it’s a bit Argo Navis”

“What’s a go nah viss, Tuan?”

Maz patted her shoulder.

“This is Neil, my darling. He is and always will be a friend. Just ‘Neil’, okay?”

“Neil. Sorry”

He turned his smile on, it seeming to come far more easily for a child.

“Argo Navis means ‘the ship Argo’, Carolyn. It’s from a very old story. If you have a… do you know what an axe is?”

She twitched, but nodded. There was a story there I wasn’t sure I needed to hear any day soon.

“Well, if I have an old axe, and it’s so old that I have had to change the handle six times, and replace the head four times, is it still the same axe? Argo Navis is like that, but about a wooden ship”

“No. Is your quacker made of wood?”

“No, love. My Kwak is a motorbike, and the frame is still the original one. And the petrol tank. Everything else—oh, and the handlebars and stuff. Everything else is newer”

He turned back to me.

“Got a room in the Station, mate, so we can plot last details over breakfast. I… can we have a couple of minutes outside, just for a chat?”

I nodded, slipping a quiet “Back in a bit” to my wife before following him out into the street, where he found some space sitting on a window ledge of the Town Wall pub. I joined him, asking what was up, and he sighed.

“History, Mike. I want to… I used to go up… WE used to go up to the Wall regularly. Maddy and me. It was… We had been… Start again. I was staying at Garrigill, doing some general work. Maddy was, coincidence, was working in Durham City. That was when we got together. That was… first times, Mike. First of everything. We found a helmet for her, and we spent the next day visiting the Wall. Never looked back from there, either of us, and we came back up so many times. Stayed in the pub so often they knew what we drank and almost had it ready before we ordered it”

He paused, his gaze years away in memory.

“There’s a place we loved, a little Roman temple, not an obvious thing from the road”

“Brocolitia?”

“That’s the one. Place really spoke to both of us, and, well, Maddy and me, both sort of isolated from the mainstream ourselves, it really was ours. We have an entire section of our catalogue devoted to it. I might… First times, yeah? This is the first time I have been back, will have been, since I lost her. If I get silly, please don’t worry”

I laid an arm over his shoulder as a group of young men walked past.

“Ah haddaway, ye fuckin’ aad puffs!”

Pull it back in, Rhodes. Not the time.

Neil was chuckling now, which was odd.

“Perfectly wrong timing, mate! Anyway, bit of odd coincidence stuff. When Maddy… When we first went there, someone was sprinkling ashes. I am pretty certain it was Debbie, the one with the girls? Old Pat’s friend?”

“Really?”

He nodded.

“Some day, I’ll have to tell her. I, we, we took loads of photos that day. She might want one or two”

And you might just put your foot in it big style, mate, but once again, not now.

“You okay to join the others now?”

“Better be. She’s terrified, isn’t she? Carolyn?”

“I think so. Ish was saying how she talks about friends, frightened they disappear once out of sight”

“Frightened her freedom is temporary I’d guess”

“I rang Kul a few days ago, as a video call”

“That must have cost a bomb!”

“Priorities, Neil”

“Point taken, mate. Did it help?”

“I do believe it did. She calls him the ‘smiley beard’, and that’s what she got”

“Oh… nearly forgot. Did you pack your rock boots?”

“Me and Ish both, just in case. We sort of assumed we’d need them with the Hiatts”

I lowered my voice, checking the door of the Forth, just in case.

“Also brought her boots, Neil. Ust in case”

“What I would have expected. Right, time for another pint”

He rose from his impromptu seat and led the way back in, where we found Maz and LC guzzling crisps as Ish guided the barman through the creation of an LLB. Neil did, of course, have a paper map with him, and it was a specific archaeological one of the Roman Wall, with all the relevant sites marked. Maz was beaming.

“What you called my ‘bucket list’, husband of mine?”

“Well, you are my SWMBO, after all, wife of mine. Oh, Ish? She Who Must be Obeyed. H. Rider Haggard, not H.P.L. Fewer tentacles”

Neil chuckled at that one before adding that Alys had now moved on to the works of Charlie Stross, which had more than enough tentacles to go around, thank you very much, and I realised that my pint had been replenished rather more often than I had noticed, the clock advancing in parallel, and that was the first inkling that I was accepting a new condition in my life.

Safety. My family, all of us, were safe. Finally.

Breakfast was a solid one, and yes, we did leave with a few sandwiches, muffins and pieces of fruit for later. After a short visit to a corner shop to top up our tea and breakfast supplies, Neil led the way out of the city until we were on a fast dual carriageway, where I nearly lost him as he flicked through the junctions at Heddon. The road had changed little since my last visit, and old memories were warming me as Maz slipped our new copy of ‘Old Durham Road’ into the CD player, with a grinning comment about accents and old straight roads as Ish almost obsessively followed our progress on his phone’s mapping app.

We had agreed to stop at Chesters for a look at the museum, which forcibly reminded me that this was the first time there for my whole family, even though it was all so familiar to me. That was when I understood that Carolyn hadn’t even known what ‘Roman’ meant until we had entered that same museum. So many gaps to fill, as Maryam might have said, all those years ago. It was actually a good thing that we had agreed that stop, because Maz had insisted we stop for a bird check at Harlow Hill and the Whittle Dene reservoirs, and she was, after all, SWMBO.

I was actually feeling a little excited myself, as I knew what was coming, and it would bring joy magnified by the number of new eyes I was bringing to enjoy it, so it took me a little time before I realised that Carolyn was now joining in with the rest of us as we sang along with Jez Lowe.

Our last stop before a visit to the massive Housesteads fort was, of course, to a tiny temple, hidden away from the road. I made an excuse about needing a coffee from the stand in the car park, which allowed Neil a few moments on his own to salve his grief. As Ish talked LC through the soft drinks, yet another blinded spot in her knowledge, I explained to Maz.

“This was where he took Maddy, love. The morning after, well, after they had…”

“After she had first become his, and vice versa?”

“Yes. Exactly”

“Shit. He’ll be wobbly tonight, then”

“We have a cottage, love, and he will be fine”

“And if he isn’t fine, he will be later, yes?”

“We will make sure of it, love”

We gave him twenty minutes before following the path round the former fort walls until we found Neil leaning on the wooden fence next to the stile, his eyes more than a little red. Maz and the kids hung back for a while as I checked on him.

“You okay, mate?”

“Sorry, Mike. Just realising I should have come here years ago. Let Maddy have this place to dance in. I looked it up, you know?”

“Sorry? What did you look up?”

“When I saw what I think was Debbie, and they were sprinkling ashes. What one of them said, and I am pretty sure, it was in Welsh, yeah? I think it was ‘Dance on the wind’ and, well, made a decision. Maddy is still at home with me, but I think I should let her dance as well”

He gave me a weary smile.

“Like I said, first time I have been back here since things happened. This… I will be back here in a month or so, and my wife will get her dance”

He drew in a long breath before asking, in a steadier voice, what our next destination would be.

“Sheffield”

That broke the spell.

“Why didn’t you go there on the way to York?”

“Ah, timing. I want to catch the office lot on a Friday, for the post-office drinks. Then it’s a surprise for Ish before we hit North Wales. Talk us through the temple, mate?”

The cottage was in a prime position, a short way up a lane from the Youth Hostel, which was in turn almost next door to the pub. I parked the car on the patch of hard standing out the front while Neil walked his Kwak into the garden before applying a multitude of locks. Once we had shed our loads in appropriate rooms, I convened the family.

“Right, you lot! Time for an amble, and just this once it will be away from the pub. Outdoor clothes and rucksacks. Got that bag I gave you, Ish?”

“Yes, Dad!”

“Dad?”

Where was her new confidence coming from?

“Yes, love?”

“Can I take Kawan?”

“Of course. He’d be lonely here, wouldn’t he? Chop-chop, then!”

No sooner in the cottage than out of it, up the road to the Pennine Way just before the Steel Rigg carpark and that iconic view across to Crag Lough, the Wall running along the top of Peel Crags before the dip of Sycamore Gap, Maz seeming more excited with each step. I let Neil stride ahead, a massive rucksack on his back and our children in his wake, as I took time for two of us.

“Remember what I said about bucket lists, love?”

She grinned, far more relaxed than she had been at Dunwich.

“I remember us saying we weren’t going to see it as a ‘before I die’ thing!”

“Exactly. Can we see it now as an ‘I’M ALIVE’ one?”

I took a kiss before she could answer, so she left that as her reply, and her response to the view of Crag Lough was similarly wordless. We followed the Way across the top of Peel Crags, the Wall marching beside us, until we arrived at the famous Gap., and the dance began as Neil, Ish and myself worked several cameras to get as many memories as possible locked down, and once again, as in Espy, Maz found a random passing stranger to ensure we had photos of the whole family, including Kawan.

Once she had slaked her lust for her list tick, I whispered in her ear, “Something else for you round the corner, love”

Neil led the way again, back across the wall and then traversing the hillside towards the crags between the dark waters of the lough and the crags of the Whin Sill below the Wall, and Maz’ smile became a grin as I took her hand once again.

“When we went out to Statham’s that first time, and I asked what the rock was, and then said I was familiar with it?”

“That you’d climbed on it before? This is the place, isn’t it?”

“Yup. Hang on… Ish?”

“Yeah?”

“By That obvious chimney, son”

I turned back to my wife.

“Time to crack the flasks, I think. Got that bag, son?”

I settled myself on the grass, as he handed Maz the package.

“Best get these on, Mum”

She squealed with joy as he handed over her rock shoes, Neil laughing as he brought out a rope and some basic protection kit, mostly slings and krabs.

“It’s SRT rope, Maz, so no leading today. Soloing and toproping only”

Her brow furrowed.

“I don’t know…. What does ‘SRT’ mean?”

“Ah. Caving thing. Single Rope Technique. Cavers do more abseiling and Jumaring than leading, so SRT ropes are made with much less elasticity. No need for shock absorption, no abbing ropes suddenly flying up out of reach when we unclip. It’s…”

He had been tapping a finger against his leg until he abruptly stopped speaking, then grinned.

“Back to word counting. Nearly away on an explanation loop there. Anyway, I can set up some toprope belays. Brought two ropes, and… And Enfys sent me something for Carolyn, just in case. Remember this?”

I did indeed remember the child’s harness from all those years ago, but I didn’t want to put our daughter somewhere she might not want to go. Let her watch for a while, make up her own mind. I slurped my tea, pulled on my shoes and waved at the crag.

“Right, people: this is the Whin Sill, and the rock is dolerite, same stuff as at Statham’s in Perth. Carolyn, love, all of us here like a thing we call ‘rock climbing’, or just ‘climbing’. We have places back home, indoors as well as outdoors, where we do this. Smiley Beard and his son also climb with us. We are going to do some here, but you only have to do it yourself if you really want to”

“Why do you do it?”

Maz chipped in with, “Because it’s fun!”, while I thought about that focus that could chase away the demons in one’s life, even if that relief might only be temporary. Not today, Rhodes.

“Right! That is a local joke, because it is always described as both the first and the last route here, as which it is depends on where you start from. It’s West Chimney, but I remember it being called ‘Introductory’, because it’s the first route and it’s a good introduction to climbing. Ish and Mum, friction’s not great here, so don’t rely on it too much. Now, let me show you…”

I took my time over the chimney, so many memories coming with each hold, and secured it at the top with three anchor points before reversing the route. Maz was now in her own harness, another portion of the package I had entrusted to Ish, and as he held one end of the rope, I smiled at my lover before she answered my simple “Ready?” with an emphatic nod. I tied her in with a figure eight knot, and called out the familiar opening words to Ish.

“Take in!”

Some hours later, when we walked down to the pub for our evening meal, Carolyn insisted on wearing her gifted harness over her princess dress, while Kawan wore his own kit, made from an eight-foot sling and a single screwgate krab. My wife simply kept smiling.

-----0-----

The pub was almost empty, save for a group of obvious hostellers in one corner, but the barman had a smile for us.

“Evening, just! What can I get yez?”

His smile dropped almost at once.

“Sorry, but you look like… Neil? Neil Strachan?”

Neil’s face lit up.

“Anth! Great! I didn’t know if… I’ve not been back for…”

“Neil, marra, I… I followed the news, so can I just say how sorry I am? So many years before that bastard… No. Drinks first, marra?”

I nodded, pointing at one of the local ales.

“I’ll have a pint of that, my friend. My son here will probably want a lager”

“No he won’t, Dad! I’ll have the same as you. Mum?”

“Um, a large pinot grigio, please, and…”

She whispered to LC.

“And a small coke with a slice and ice for our daughter here, and could she have another one for her bear?”

As I passed the drinks one by one to the others, ‘Anth’ looked at me rather closely, before dropping his voice.

“I do follow the news. Not much else to do out here when I’m not working. I don’t want to put my foot in it, so please tell me if I have the right idea about who you lot are”

“What idea is that?”

“Kidnap and slavery”

I nodded, and he winced.

“I’ll change the subject, then. I didn’t realise what had happened to Neil and Maddy until I saw that cu--- that arsehole’s trial in the news. How is he holding up?”

I looked over my shoulder to see the others settling into another corner, around a large table.

“Better than he was, mate. Much better. Thanks for your concern”

“Aye, well. You’ll understand that”

Suddenly, he laughed.

“Sorry, Mr Rhodes. Just a joke we have on our website”

“Mike. The others are Ish, Carolyn and Maz. What joke?”

“Ah, we stole it from a pub in Glen Coe, sort of. They have a sign saying something like ‘No hawkers, tinkers or Campbells’, so we have a ‘You’re barred!’ list. A few different categories, like, with a few jokes, but a lot of them are deadly serious. There’s a cooperative one where been banned from a load of pubs: banned from one, banned from all, aye? Then there’s a sort of ‘celebrity nasty’ list, the serious ones, not just a goalie that missed a penalty, like. That cu—arsehole Forbes is on that one”

“Cunt, mate. You can say cunt. Neil is a very close friend, and to a large extent, I have my wife and daughter here only because of his help. We have another friend that owes him her life, so enough said”

“Oh aye? I’ll leave that for Neil to tell, then. All I’ll say is, well, be welcome. Looking at the little lass, I’ll guess you’ve been cragging. Crag Lough rocks?”

I nodded.

“First time for the, er, little lass. First…”

I realised that I was being ambushed by emotion, and took a few deep breaths until I felt I could control my voice.

“My wife, Maz, she has had a bit of a break from climbing, unsurprisingly. Anyway, Neil’s more of a caver, but he knows how to use a rope properly. Bit fussy with it, sometimes”

“Aye. I know he’s a bit trainspotterish, but does that bloody matter? Now, thank you for bringing him back up, letting us see he’s still wi’ wa; specials board is over there, and here’s the main menu. And put your card away, Mike. That round’s on me”

“Thanks, Anth. I’ll be back with the orders in a few”

“Ne hurry. Oh: that pint’s one of ours, so let us know what you think”

I joined the others, passing round the cardboard menu as I studied the ‘specials’, which had more than a few oddities I suspected Maz wouldn’t recognise. As I read, it struck me that despite the hair covering in Sumatra. Carolyn had raised no objections at all when offered a traditional pork-heavy breakfast.

She was talking to Kawan, offering him sips of ‘his’ drink while repeatedly undoing the screwgate before re-tightening it and ‘checking.

“Carolyn?”

Once again, she jerked, with a look of guilt fleetingly crossing her face.

“What did you think of the rock climbing?”

I could hear her thoughts: do I say what I think, or might it displease the master?

“It was good. Easier than palms”

Leave that one for now, Rhodes. Maz was watching closely as I asked the next question.

“Did Kawan enjoy it?”

Her most natural grin so far burst from her face.

“Yes! That is why he is so thirsty!”

“Well, back at our home, I have something I made for Ish. It’s like a copy of rocks to climb on. Would you like me to set it ip again for you and Kawan?”

“Which place is home?”

“That place where we had the barbie with Mister Smiley Beard”

“We are going back there?”

“Yes. We have some more friends to meet here, and I know they love to climb. Now, I have to do some long driving tomorrow, so we need to choose what we want to eat. Would you like your brother to help you choose?”

My boy was as reliable as ever, leaning across to talk her through the ‘small bites’ and ‘kids’ plates’. Maz was far more direct.

“Remember those sausages at Soapy Joe’s. darling?”

“I remember a lot of his sausages, love”

“The venison ones. I think that might have been on our first.... They have a venison stew here, with wild mushrooms. Please”

“Neil?”

“The steak and ale pie and mash?”

“Okay. Kids?”

Ish looked at his sister for confirmation, then gave ne their order.

“The gammon for me please, Dad. With pineapple, and chips. Carolyn would like what she had for breakfast, she says: sausages. With mash”

I rose to head for the bar.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“Where are we going tomorrow?”

“Somewhere for your Mum, son. No climbing, I’m afraid. Neil? Quick chat?”

I led the way outside, Neil looking a little apprehensive, but I smiled as best I could to reassure him.

“Nothing to worry about, mate, just wondering if you would be okay squeezed into the car. Didn’t want to assume”

To my surprise, he laughed out loud.

“I was going to ask the same question about the day after! Bit of walking I’d prefer to do in proper boots”

“Oh! Where are you planning?”

“Simonside”

“Perfect!”

“Where are we going tomorrow, then?”

“Wait and see, mate”

“Right… Carolyn’s still nervous, isn’t she?”

“Absolutely”

“She’s opening up, though. Excuse me…”

He pulled out his phone, dialled and then put it on speaker.

“Ga’I helpio chi?”

“Hiya, Alys”

“Neil! Yay! Where are you to?”

“Hadrian’s Wall, with Mike. On speaker, so he can hear you”

“Hiya, Mike! How are your women?”

I sat on the surge of emotion boiling beneath me.

“Both fine, love. Went climbing today. First time for Maz since, you know, and first time ever for our daughter”

“How did she like it? Carolyn, that is?”

“She’s made a harness for her teddy bear, and of course she was wearing… we got the present from Enfys, and Carolyn is STILL wearing it. Over a princess dress”

“Ha! I will let my darling know: she’s on a shout this evening. Michael, my, our, love, we have so much planned for you”

“Well, if some of our time ends up devoted to lying on our hacks looking at the mountains, that is all we need. That and the right company, of course”

“What are your plans?”

“Couple of days out from here, then Neil leaves us. We head down to Sheffield to see my old team, camp out at North Leas and do some stuff on Stanage, then it’s across to yours”

“My other Dad’s put a chunk of the bunkhouse aside for you, Mike. Will Carolyn be okay with that? If not, we have two houses—three, like the Spanish Inquisition. We have three houses to share. And you have tents as well, yes?”

“Absolutely”

“Then the end of August is a goer, then”

Yet again that comment. I decided to leave it for as long as I could so that whatever surprise they were clearly organising would remain just that: a surprise.

We said our goodnights, and ambled back to my family, just as the food was arriving. Ish was staring at his glass.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“This doesn’t really taste like beer”

“Not quite right, son. It’s the stuff back home that doesn’t taste like beer”

Carolyn was eating for Northumberland, offering the odd bite of sausage to her bear, while Maz just smiled at her. Neil held up a hand, as he often did before speaking.

“It is the yeast, Ish. You are drinking ale, which uses a yeast that rises to the surface during fermentation. Australian beer is lager, which uses a yeast that sinks to the bottom, and works at lower temperatures. It makes beers with less flavour, and they need to be stored longer until they mature, which is why they are called lager, which is German for ‘store’, so--- I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”

Ish patted his arm.

“Not at all, Neil. You just told me almost everything I needed to know, in one bite”

“Oh. Could I give you two more?”

“Go ahead”

“First, there’s another type of beer, from Belgium, called lambic. It is only brewed in colder months, and it’s just left open for wild yeasts to get into it. Yeasts that live in the vats, that is. Second, you are drinking IPA, which stands for ‘India Pale Ale’. Beer shipped out to India during the Empire would go off, so they added lots of hops to it. Hops are a preservative, but they make things taste bitter. People liked the taste, though. It needed a particular type of mineral water, from Burton on Trent, so they found a way to add stuff to water to ‘burtonise’ it and…”

He started laughing.

“Nobody expects the Neilish Inquisition, eh?”

He was so clearly on that spectrum, but this was so different in tone to those days of anguish I remembered. Still ploughing his own furrow, still recognising it, but now able to laugh at it, or himself, or both. It didn’t matter which: he was laughing.

Neil got the next round in, returning with the dessert menu along with the drinks. They had apple and blackberry crumble, which was my target, Ish choosing STP and Neil opting for tiramisu. Maz and Carolyn looked confused, my wife admitting she had no idea what half the choices actually were. Ish was still on form.

“Mum, me and Dad, ey? We get ours, you two try a bit of both, and then choose. I had STP first time I came here with Dad. It’s really nice. Or, Carolyn?”

“Yes?”

“They have ice cream as well”

“Do they have mint and chocolate?”

“I’ll ask for you, okay?”

He was back a couple of minutes later, grinning.

“Ordered the three puds, and explained that Mum will deice in a bit. Landlord said he has no choc and mint ice cream, but he can offer something like it”

Maz decided on STP after some serious tasting, and LC’s treat turned out to be on of those Cornetto ice creams, capped with chocolate and filled with mint ice cream and yes, it got offered to her bear.

In the end, I carried her the last few hundred yards back to our cottage as she was fast asleep. She woke as I was removing the harness, and she suddenly flung her arms around my neck, squeezing as hard as she could, whispering, “Thank you, Dad”

Maz was already in bed awaiting me, and we settled down into that comfortable cuddle, her head on my shoulder, as we talked through the day.

“I was worried about Carolyn, love. Pork and that”

“Sorry?”

“They covered her hair, didn’t they?”

“Yes. Hypocrites to a shit, they were”

“And food?”

“We ate what they gave us. If you didn’t, someone else would, and you went hungry. Simple as that. This is… It’s all new, darling. She gets a choice, that’s a big thing, but she’s asked what her choice is, and that’s even bigger. Never had that. She’s…”

Maz wriggled a little to get closer to me.

“Her play, now. It’s a little bit, well, younger kid stuff? But she’s playing, for the first time. The climbing, wow. That one, I think, well, choices again. Choices of which holds to use, realising some won’t work, but all the time she’s doing it off her own bat, not just what someone else is telling her to do. She could be a handful when teenager time comes. Anyway, she’s happy. That’s what she tells me. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. It’s a drive out bit of a trek, but more of your bucket list thing. Now…”

“Yes. Now would be a very good time, love. And…oh yes! Stay on your back, love, and…”

‘Now’ was indeed a very good time, as we continued to make amends for so many years apart.

The weather was much greyer in the morning, but we weren’t going high. Flasks filled, snacks ready to hand, Ish squeezed into the back seat with the girls as Neil took the front and we were off, not long after seven o’clock. I drove back along the Military Road to the bridge near Chesters, where I turned North, sticking to quieter roads rather than going back to the big city and the A1. Postcard-perfect village after village went past until I cut the corner from (Shew us the way to) Wallington to Morpeth (Rant). I couldn’t help it, as so many of the places we were passing featured in tunes I loved. We were soon on the A1 north, and after Alnwick I turned off for Beal, which was when Maz started making happy sounds.

“My man loves me indeed!”

I gave her a quick grin.

“This is only part of the day. Morning here, more later”

I had spent ages studying the tide tables, and we were slowly following the retreating water as the causeway revealed itself foot by foot, Carolyn’s eyes wide at the apparent magic.

“Neil’s going to do some work in the Priory, but we will have about three hours to wander around”

“Eider!”

“Yes, love. Lots of them here. Lunch will be down the coast a bit, before Part Two”

I dropped Neil off in the village before parking in the visitors’ facility, leading my family north rather than down to the Priory, Kawan riding in his carrier but his lady in more sensible clothing than her princess dress.

“This is for your Mum, okay? Dune system, Maz, very similar to a place near where Enfys lives. Dunes, the North Sea and… there. See?”

“A gannet! So many of them!”

We spent an hour relaxing in the dunes, as Maz sighed each time one of the huge birds plunged into the water, wings folded straight back. There were all sorts of other birds scuttling or hopping around the dunes, far too many for me to keep track of, but she was in her own world of delight, LC running around the place in delight, chattering away to her furry friend, as Ish and I relaxed on the top of a dune.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Elsie asked something yesterday. When we were climbing”

“And?”

“She was waiting to climb, that first route. She asked me if she had to climb, and… if she said ‘no’, would you beat her?”

“Oh hell! I thought she’d enjoyed it”

“She did, really did. It was her idea to keep the harness on, just in case there was more. She’s just not… It’s taking her a while to understand she can make choices”

He paused, watching as another gannet hit the sea like a missile.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“Those men. Are they all dead now?”

“I believe so”

“Good. And… and my grandmother, she can go fuck herself. Sorry”

I slithered across the grass to hug him, and he squeezed me back hard.

“Just, well, learning a lot of things right now, the hard way. I think Mum’s coming back to us, but Elsie, well: Mum’s already been in the world, already knows how it works. Elsie’s having to learn it all so, so quickly”

“You’re doing so well, son. You make me so proud of you”

“She’s my sister, Dad. Those people took six years of our lives away. Never again. Now: what have you planned for later?”

“You’ll find out when you find out, son”

“Tease. Anyway, if we want to see the other bits, we should move”

He was right, so we gathered the others and made our way through the village to the Priory and the views of the castle, cobles and coble huts along the beach.

“Dad?”

Another direct question from LC, praise be whatever.

“Is that a hut or a boat?”

“That, love, was a coble, a local type of boat. When it got old, they cut it in half, turned it upside down and made it into a hut, so it’s really both”

“And what’s that?”

“That is Bamburgh castle, we’ll be driving there in a little while. Now, where we were climbing, that rock, is all part of a long line of the same stuff. The little castle over there is on a bit of it, and so is Bamburgh”

“What’s a castle?”

Breathe, Rhodes.

“It’s a place where princesses sometimes live.”

We collected Neil from his odd position lying underneath one of the statues in the Priory, taking upwards, upskirt almost, shots, and collected the car to cross a drier causeway back to the mainland. As we hit the coast again, he called over his shoulder to LC.

“I’ve been taking photographs. Carolyn, and I had a thought. Can you grab this, Ish?”

He handed the lad what turned out to be a compact digital camera.

“I always take a few plotting shots, for the layout, with that. It’s a lot quicker than my other cameras, and it makes a record of how things tie together when I do the closer-up shots. Carolyn, would you like to try taking some pictures? Ish can show you how. It’s got a clean SD card in it, Ish”

Her voice was almost inaudible.

“I can take photos?”

“Several of us at once said “Yes”, but she wasn’t finished.

“What do I take photos of?”

Another multitude of answers, but they all meant the same thing: your choice.

I did stop by the huge castle, but I had other plans, so we simply took a few shots of its bulk from outside before I set off for the real treat. By coincidence, it was the car park of the Bamburgh Castle Inn where I left the Vauxhall, before a simple lunch without alcohol. I led the way to the harbour afterwards. Maz rhapsodising about all the eider swimming so close to us, apparently unconcerned.

“So many bords here, love!”

“Well, if you would all like to put these on, please”, I said, handing out our collection of sun hats, and her face lit up.

“Arctic terns?”

“Arctic terns”

So much passion in her kiss, so little flesh on her bones, but still there, still my lover.

I had, of course, booked us onto a boat trip to the Inner Farnes, complete with bobbing seals and divebombing seabirds, hence the headwear.Ish had a handkerchief; Kawan gained a bandanna.

I dropped the rest off at the pub with my order before parking in front of the cottage once more and then walking down. Ish carried his sister home that evening, and Maz passed an entire night without a single twitch or kick.

Neil directed us the next day, even though I knew the way, which allowed him to prattle on about the local sites and sights while I simply drove. For once, his chatter fitted the day for it worked like a cross between a sat nav and a tour guide. We heard all about how Cragside in Rothbury, powered by hydroelectricity. how the steam turbine was invented in Newcastle, which also had the world’s first electric public lighting, using the light bulb invented in Sunderland and copied by a man called Edison, and Neil was partway through a rather too detailed account of lawsuits and combined companies when he stopped dead.

“Sorry, all. I got talking, and then I remembered another place I want to see. It’s a little before the car park, Mike”

We were already on the open moor road, heather in great sweeps to either side, when he simply said, “Next right to park”, and I turned into a rather full rough car park. Once we were out of the car, he gathered us together, now almost schoolteacherish in his manner.

“Please don’t stand or climb on any of the rock around here. This is Lordenshaws, and it’s very, very old. We’ll walk there and back, so I can get some photos and you can see something special”

He led us up a gentle slope on a pleasant grassy track, Maz chanting away bout meadow pipits and curlews, until some ridges became apparent to our right.

“Maz, Mike said something to me one night in Australia. About four years ago. He might not remember, because he was very drunk at the time. About a bucket list”

She raised both eyebrows.

“I don’t remember anything around here, except the Wall and Holy Island”

He shook his head.

“No, but you did say ‘Stonehenge’. I don’t know if you’ll get to see that one, but this might be close. That’s a hill fort, and it’s around two thousand years old”

“Wow!”

“Not finished yet”

He led us to a slab of rock sitting just off the path. It was speckled with odd holes, each surrounded by carved rings that looked as if someone had tried to depict raindrops hitting water.

“These are cup and ring marks. They’re about SIX thousand years old, which is older than Stonehenge”

“I’m… Neil? You are bloody amazing!”

She flung her arms around him, planting a very tender kiss on his cheek before pulling out her own camera, LC following suit, before discovering how she could lean against the wind by holding her opened jacket out wide. As Neil began his ‘proper job’ on the markings, the other three headed up to the fort as I hung back for a few moments.

“It’s okay, Mike: I’ve been up there several times. You don’t have to wait for me”

“Just a question, mate. I don’t remember that chat”

He stared at me, that tight focus he showed sometimes locked on my face.

“Ish was staying with the Butts that night. You were very drunk, Mike. And you were crying. I didn’t think that would be a helpful thing to mention. She’s not healed fully, has she?”

I shook my head.

“She’s getting better, Neil, but I don’t know if she’ll ever be back to who she was”

“She’ll always be who she was, Mike. Just bend with her… Sorry. I am giving you instructions. Not my place”

“No, mate, you’re not out of place. Thanks for all you’ve done”

“I’ll change the subject then, sort of. She was laughing so much on the rock, and so was your little girl. I know you’re going down to Sheffield, but you won’t have any gear. Oh, I’m guessing you’ll be going to the Peak. I have some portraits work booked, so I can’t join you”

I found myself grinning.

“Already covered, mate! Maz is starting to discover how many friends she has that she hadn’t met. Speaking of which, how much longer here?”

“Ah, about another hour for me. Go and catch up with the others, then collect me on the way down. I’ve… Maddy made me set my phone alarm when I started something detailed. I’ll do that now”

I gave him a quick hug, without the snog, then joined my family, who were entranced. Maz settled against me as a I sat on a grassy lump.

“He is inspired, man of mine! Six thousand years, wow. I thought the Wall was old!”

“So this suits you, then?”

“Oh most definitely! What are the hills over there?”

“Edge of the Cheviots, love. Scotland on the other side of them”

“So close?”

“The Border slants”

“Could we…?”

I had planned out a route for the following day, skirting the edge of Newcastle to pick up the A1 south, but… juggling routes in my head, I was considering Gretna and cutting back through Skipton, but that would mean crap around Bradford, and…

Neil’s alarm obviously worked better than my internal one, for it was he who collected us, rather than the other way round. We drove the short distance to the Simonside car park, where all our climbing kit was gathered, and we set off for the summit rocks. Just as we passed through one of the areas planted with conifers, Ish held a hand out, then put a finger to his lips, as a rather large deer walked out of the trees to stand on the path looking at us from a distance that must have been less than forty yards, before something about us registered and it took off at speed.

“Dad?”

“Yes, love?”

“What was it?”

“That was a deer, love”

“Is this a good picture?”

That it was. She had caught it beautifully, and I knew we had a job to do back home.

“Mum? Come and see what Carolyn got for us”

Maz and the others gathered round, making appreciative noises, until I simply said , “Print?”, and Maz replied, “For the wall at home!”, as Ish added, “And e-mails to the Butts and your work” and a little girl preened.

It’s a bit of a walk to the rocks, but we were eventually there, settling on the Picnic Boulder for a look at the crag proper, before we started uphill once more, and my family were introduced to decent Northumbrian sandstone. In between toproping some lower-grade stuff, from Mod to Hard V Diff, which suited LC, Ish and I soloed some Severes. Maz gradually pushed her own limits, until we had her finishing a couple of routes at HVS.

It was hard to pick out a highlight for the day, but, just possibly, it was Great Chimney, always one of my favourite easier climbs. You start and finish up said chimney, but halfway through you come out of the back of the chimney into a pleasant little cave. I soloed up to the cave, followed by Maz, as Ish followed LC as Neil worked the toprope. Once we were all cuddled in the cave, I showed them the finish, Neil following after I had reset the belay and taken in the rope. He could have soloed it quite easily, but he never seemed to feel willing to push that boat out very far.

It was windy on top, as usual, but the views were even wider than they had been at the fort, the North Sea glinting to the East, and my family happy around me.

I changed the route back, curling round by way of Elsdon while avoiding its famous gibbet for obvious reasons of not having to try and explain what it was for to a six-year-old, and took the road up past Otterburn until Maz got her tick at the Border, in the lay-by at Carter Bar, where we fed ourselves bacon buns from a van marked ‘Reiver’s View’, which naturally led to all sorts of questions from my lot. There was a man in a kilt playing the great pipes, various bits of souvenir tat to but and the usual excess of national symbols found at any border. As we drove back towards our cottage, Neil did his schoolteacher thing once again.

“A reiver was a man who stole from his neighbours, and it was very violent. The local word ‘rive’ means to twist and jerk at something until it comes loose, and it was like that. Films all show Scots reivers coming into England to steal cattle, but it was usually the other way, as you can see from where the fertile land is”

“On the Scottish side?”

“Yes, Maz, except that’s also not quite right. Both sides were neither Scots nor English, and it was all based on family. English Armstrongs, for example, would rob in Scotland and England, and when the authorities, such as they were, came looking for them, they would stay on whichever side of the border was safest. Then there came the Union of the Crowns, and they had nowhere to go. That piper there, that’s from the North of Scotland, and has nothing at all to do with this place. All rubbish for tourists. You were laughing when we got down from Simonside, Mike”

A change in subject, thank god.

“A memory, Neil, from a solo trip there years ago. Got a good day’s climbing in, and got down to the car park just as twilight was starting to come on”

Maz prompted me with her “And?”

“And the midges came out. I was in my full gear except for my helmet, so I quickly pulled it on and dropped the visor”

“What’s midges, Dad” came simultaneously from both kids.

“Midges are small insects, bloodsucking ones. They come in clouds, big ones”

“What’s a visor?”

“That thing on Neil’s motorbike hat that he looks through”

Maz suddenly burst into laughter.

“Let me guess! You dropped the visor on a lid filled with midges?”

“Absolutely! Goy just past the trees before I nearly dropped the bike. They were only under those trees, so once I pulled the lid off, they were cleared away by the wind, but, well, just glad we left there when we did today”

“Did midges bite reivers, Dad?”

“Certainly, love. Possibly explains their bad attitude. Anyway, Neil gave me an idea for tonight”

“I did? When?”

“Earlier, mate. Maz, kids, after we’ve eaten tonight, we need to take a walk up from the cottage, just to get away from the pub’s lights. Stars, Maz: the Northern Cross will be up, and this is a ‘dark sky’ reserve. Chance to see some new stars”

We got home while it was still light, the northern Summer giving us so much more daylight, and our meals were just as tasty, Anth offering LC a ‘special pudding’ of her own, which consisted of four small bowls holding different desserts, which tempted her enough that she didn’t need ice cream. We had enough ale, wine or coke to satisfy us, and then said a proper farewell to a superb host.

“Neil, marra: you’ll be coming back now?”

“Anth, well, I have a plan. Maddy… She’s still at home. I think she needs to be free. The first time we came up here, we saw someone spreading ashes. ‘Dance on the wind’, those were the words. I think she needs that”

“She deserves it, Neil. You let us know when and where, and I’ll sort out a room for you, okay. And you can have our company for it as well. Which way are yez all heading the morn?”

“I’m off back home in Cheshire. This lot are heading down to Sheffield and the Peak, then over to North Wales”

Anth smiled at me, and it was indeed an open and warm one, as yet another decent human helped me cope with the world’s population of Nigels and Suleimans.

“What time are you all setting off?”

I shrugged.

“Probably about ten. Some crap driving to do, and I want to avoid any risk of hitting rush hour”

“Right. I’ll see you all about nine, then. Knock on the door, and I’ll shout yex all a family breakfast”

I started to argue, and he shook his head.

“Call it that ‘paying forward’ thing, Mike. I know you all live too far away to be regulars, like, but if you’re ever back this way, tell us in advance so I can get some of the right ice cream in for the lass”

So many good people; so, so lucky.

It was dark as we arrived at the cottage; I gathered our camping chairs and led the way up the lane until the few lights behind us were obscured, and the Milky Way emerged from obscurity as we settled ourselves on the footpath.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“There’s no such constellation as the Northern Cross. I looked it up”

I pointed straight up at Cygnus.

“And what’s that?”

“It’s a big cross…”

“So shush for a bit and watch”

“Dad, it’s OH!”

“It’s the Perseid meteor shower, son, not ‘OH’, as you seem to want to be pedantic”

Apart from several more murmurs of appreciation, we all sat in silence for an hour, except for Neil, who was doing something with a tripod every so often, and then, as the chill finally started to settle along with some dew, we headed back for our last night in Northumberland.

The drive south was awful, almost entirely on motorways once we had hit the edge of Newcastle. Partway through, Maz passed a disc forward, and we spent the next fifty minutes or so listening to ‘Galloways’ by Jez Lowe.

“Dad?”

LC, once again daring to break a silence, even if it was filled with someone else’s music.

“Yes, love?”

“Is that the man we saw playing things the wrong way in that city?”

“What do you mean by ‘the wrong way’, love?”

“He was using his dirty hand”

Fuck you, you bastards.

“Mum will explain it to you as well, love, but some people are simply left-handed. It’s how they’re made. Nothing dirty about it”

I took a slow breath to calm myself, choosing my words and running them through my sense-checker before I spoke.

“I think what I can say… Everything those people told you was wrong. They said it to hurt you, or Mum, or someone else. We, our family, and that means you, love, we don’t do that”

We do make some fucking exceptions, though, especially for people called Nigel or Suleiman. I would always keep a little space free for that sort of exception.

She changed the subject abruptly, as children so often do.

“Are we going to see Neil again? He was nice to me and Kawan”

Maz answered that one, as I overtook a line of lorries.

“We will see Neil in a few days, love”

“Will there be more music?”

“Dad?”

I had intended a surprise, but, well, arse.

“There will be, love. Where we are going now is where I used to work with Mr Smiley Beard, and I have timed it so we can have music. Then, when we get to the mountains, there will be more, and Neil will be there”

LC was silent, possibly having exhausted her courage., but Ish was on point.

“There’s a folk club in the mountains, Carolyn, and I think there’s one in Sheffield”

“Will there be falling stars?”
Ish gave up on that one, leaving it as my own hospital pass.

“There won’t be on the first night, but then we move to a tent, and I am hoping we will have clear skies for more falling stars. What is really good is that we will have to walk some way in the dark for a meal2

And beer

“So we will be in the dark for that bit, really dark, so, here’s hoping”

Sheffield arrived, having taken its time, and I stop-started my way to the city centre, or rather the western edge of it, where I had booked a Premier Inn, with some argument.

We had, in the end, a room with a double bed and a convertible sofa, which suited three of us, but LC ended up in bed with me and Maz that night. The problem wasn’t sleeping with our daughter, but rathe explaining to the receptionist that it wouldn’t be a problem. There was a pub a short walk away, but I had other plans, which involved a taxi.

We walked into the club, and there was a round of applause and shouts of greeting, half of my office there to cheer my return.

“Mike, mate?”

“Shaun! Who’s watching the pub?”

“The wife, mate. Got a proper business head on her, and she doesn’t like this sort of music, she says. Anyway, your boss is in, and he’s put some money behind the bar for us”

He waved towards the other end of the room, where Mr Charteris himself was recovering some of it in the shape of a pint. I warned Maz before leading my family over to him, His smile of welcome seemed absolutely genuine.

“Mike! And Maz… do you do hugs?”

She nodded, but to my surprise, it was me he embraced first.

“I was talking to both of you, Mike. Maz…”

He did spend longer with her, and I asked myself what he must be feeling. Was it guilt, perhaps, for putting us in harm’s way, even if indirectly, or perhaps that deeper sense of failure in not being able to bring her back? In the end, it didn’t matter.

“Pint, Mike? I’ve put a couple of hundred behind the bar for the staff, and there’s some finger food over there. I’m told it’s only floor spots tonight. Why here, and not just at the pub, by the way?”

I indicated Carolyn.

“Because our daughter here likes the music”

“Ah. Maryam? Drink?”

I went for a summer ale, Ish choosing an IPA, while Maz opted for some sort of ‘Mexican’ lager. Caro had two glasses of coke once again, because Kawan had developed a thirst during the long drive. The barman understood, and I got a happy grin from him.

The current club chair was Dick, and as he trawled the crowd for performers, he had a quiet word with all of us.

“Don’t want to put you on the spot, Mike, except as a floor spot. If you fancy giving a little chat about where you’ve been, I’ll understand, but only if you fancy. Plenty of new faces won’t know you, but there’ll still be loads of them as will have seen the news. If I put you on last thing before the break gives you time for a, well, an informed catch-up. That suit you?”

“Absolutely fine, Dick. It’ll just be me, and I’ve got two songs”

“Chorus stuff?”

“Second one, most definitely”

I did the rounds of former colleagues and club members, many of whom seemed somewhat reticent as they were clearly trying not to open wounds that might not have healed. Carolyn sat with us in silence, broken only by a whispered question about being allowed to sing when the first ‘chorus’ appeared.

My own spot came, and I ambled out to the front, in the familiar way of fplk clubs everywhere.

“Hiya, everybody! I’m Mike, and that’s my wife Maz and our kids Ish and Carolyn over there; we are visiting from a Land Down Under and, no: I am not doing that song. Nor am I doing any Eric Bogle, and certainly no Dylan, ey, ey, ey?”

That reference got a laugh, which was a good start.

“Those of you I used to work here, know me, and I’d like to thank our boss Mr Charteris for his hospitality. Could I have a ‘thank you’ from the audience? Thank you!”

I let the noise die down again before continuing.

“Most of you will be aware that my family suffered a serious loss six years ago, only now put right. This evening is part of that recovery process, so if my singing creaks a bit, blame it on not really feeling in the mood until very recently. I have two songs for you, and they’re sort of apt. Join in, please!”

I started with ‘All Things Are Quite Silent’, a song about losing a husband to the Press Gang, which sort of fitted, and my voice did indeed creak, but the audience were in fine form.

“Now for number two, and it’s one of the best chorus songs I know, and very fitting”

‘When We Go Rolling Home’ is actually about the end of a working day for farm labourers, but it worked well for me, and that was all that mattered. I was watching my family as I led the belter of a chorus, and both wife and son had their heads back and eyes closed as they gave it their best. LC, on the other hand, was staring at her bear. I saw her lips moving, and with a little surge of joy I realised she was singing to Kawan.

It was a wonderful night, and it felt almost like that time walking back from a Cyril Tawney gig, so many years ago, as the taxi took us back to our hotel. That night, I slept spooned around Maz, as she herself spooned LC, and our daughter did the same with her bear. Once again, that seemed to keep the night terrors away from my wife.

The breakfast was adequate, but nothing like the spread Anth had treated us to, and well below the standard at the Station. Maz was bubbling away over breakfast, still reliving the previous evening.

“Seen this, love?”

She handed me a small notebook, the cover clearly adapted with stuck-on paper to read ‘Aussie Family Rhodes’.

“It’s just a collection of best wishes, darling, but so many of them it would have been too much for a card. I was worried when they gave it to me”

“Why worried?”

“That it would be a mass of e-mail addresses we’d have to reply to. Is that being ungrateful?”

“No, love. Just realistic. Anyway, there’s a cheat for that”

“Which is?”

“Global messages. One to the office, one to the club. Simple as”

Bollocks: they had me doing it.

It wasn’t that much of a drive to the camp site, but I took the Ringinglow road for the views, with an obligatory stop at the Burbage bridge for the view down the valley.

“That’s all sorts of routes right next to the path. Really easy ones, plus some harder stuff. Bottom end is a former quarry, with REALLY hard stuff. Now, we aren’t due at the camp site until the afternoon, so I thought we could just boulder here for a bit, let you get used to the rock”

“What’s bouldering, Dad?”

“Very short climbs, just trying to make a move but only as high as you can jump down from”

“Will I need my harness?”

“Not for here, love”

I packed our rock boots into a day pack and led my family down from the road until we were at the first low walls.

“Now, you lot, THIS is what we came for. This is a hand jam, and you do it like so…”

I soloed a couple of severe cracks, just to feel the joy of thuggery while sanctimoniously claiming it was purely to demonstrate how jamming worked, and then spotted the other three for some low level gymnastics. For Carolyn, that actually meant standing with my hands either side of her hips, while she told me her own hands were too small.

“That, my love, is why we have fists. Try it this way”

A standard hand jam consists of sliding a bladed hand into a crack, pulling the thumb across the palm to make it bulge; if placed thumb down, the jam naturally cams as it is weighted, effectively allowing a hold that takes no real strength to maintain, although one’s pain threshold may be crossed first.

A fist jam involves placing the hand across width of the crack, and as it is clenched, the fist widens. LC tried it, and suddenly she was laughing, freely and openly. She pulled on her tiny fist jam, reached above her to put another one in, and forgot all about her feet, which left me with my arms full of six-year-old girl.

“DO IT AGAIN!”

So we did.

Whatever they had made her do, it had left her with surprising strength, and it was Maz who cried a halt to the games for the simple reason that it was nearly one o’clock and therefore, by definition, afternoon. Back into the car, LC demonstrating her fist technique to Kawan, and along to the Fiddler’s Elbow and a right turn.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“That flat bit, with the path over it. I’ve seen it before somewhere”

“Princess Bride, son. Lot of it was filmed around here. That’s Carl wark, another hill fort, and… that bit there is Higger Tor”

“Any climbing there, Dad?”

“Loads, as long as you don’t mind leaving all your skin behind. Overhangs a bit”

“A bit? How much of a bit?”

“It’s a leaning block, so like a reverse slab. Fifteen metres high, four metres of lean. Too painful even for me. Now, we’re just coming round to the… Right. Going to pull over for a few minutes. This is called the Popular End”

Ish went “Wow!”, while Maz asked the obvious question.

“How much of it is there, love?”

“Five kilometres, love. This is where I was taking Dal and Kul, or at least on day trips That’s Smily Beard, Carolyn, when we all lived here. Oh… there are red grouse behind the edge, Maz”

“How far’s the camp site, Dad?”

“See those trees in front of us?”

“Yeah”

“Just downhill from that. Seen enough for now?”

I had been silently texting as I spoke, with a kettle request, so when I finally pulled up at the North Lees site, Auds had tea ready. LC’s face lit up on seeing her, and I caught a whisper from Ish to her. I couldn’t quite hear, but I could guess the content: ‘See how your friends are still your friends, even if you can’t see them’.

“What kept you dirty stop-outs?”

“Please Miss, I can’t tell a lie, but bigger boys made me do it, and they’re called Burbage North”

“What kit have you got?”

“Rock boots for three of us, and one eight foot sling and an HMS screwgate, although they’re in use as a harness for Carolyn’s bear Oh, and she has her own harness”

“Right! I will admit I did some sneaksing, and checked littl’un’s shoe size. One of our lot works in London, so took a trip to Kensington High Street. Dose she remember who we are, Mike?”

“Yes, but it’s a bit of a trust issue. Not you; she doesn’t seem to understand that people, friends, don’t vanish from the planet when out of sight”

“Not being funny, Mike, bit I doubt she’s ever had a friend before. Maz, yeah, but mums are a different thing. Tell you what: let’s get this brew sorted, your tents up, and then we can natter”

She was right, and once we had our accommodation sorted, we gathered around one of the tables, friends around us in camping chairs or sprawled on rugs or mats, mugs in hands. LC was clamped to Maz, but didn’t seem frightened so much as overwhelmed by the number of people present. Auds did the FAQ bit for late arrivals, such as ourselves.

“Right! No fires, for very bright and warm reasons, but we have been put up in the upper field so that we can have a bit of music. The warden has told everyone who has booked that we will be having a sing-song, so expect some extra company. Just in case we are presented with some miserable campers, we have a noise curfew of ten o’clock, so be aware. Now, it is damper here than up on the moor, so we have permission for barbies, which should help make this lot feel at home. Once we’ve necked these, it’s an amble up past the Plantation for some exercise. Al?”

Her husband walked over to us, a bag in hand, and Audrey waved to LC.

“Hiya, Carolyn. Remember me?”

LC looked sharply up at her mother, before turning back to Auds and nodding.

“Well, we heard you’ve learned how to do fist jams, am I right?”

Another uncertain nod.

“Your Dad tells me you got so busy with hand jams you forgot your feet”

A much quicker nod, followed by, “But he caught me”

“And what did you say when he did?”

That brought a wide grin, and a shout of “Do it again!”, as Auds raised her eyebrows.

“You didn’t say ‘Thank you’, then?”

The grin vanished as quickly as it had arrived, with another jerk of her head to check for any hint from her mother, as Auds shook her hands to signal ‘No’.

“We only want to help you remember your feet, so we found these for you”

It was little Enfys once again, as Al unwrapped a tiny, tiny pair of rocks boots. Auds was so much softer in her tone.

“Want to try them out? We’re going for a walk up to the rocks, but we have ropes and things. Coming?”

Vigorous nodding, followed by an extremely quick look at her mother: ‘Have I done the wrong thing?” unspoken but clear in her expression. Maz hugged her, before asking, “Do you have harnesses for the rest of us? Our girl here has her own”

Auds nodded.

“And ropes and a few racks of gear. Shell we get moving, people?”

We ended up around the Twin Chimneys area, plus some time by Robin Hood’s Cave. I just had to do it, of course, and soloed Hollybush Crack, but much more of my time was spent watching one little girl, face set in concentration as she tried to compensate for her innate lack of reach. On a hunch, I walked my family down to Straight Chimney, an old favourite of mine for having two really sweet jams.

“Right, you lot. I am going to tow a rope up, but will set some runners, so set a ground anchor, Ish. Maz to second, then Carolyn, if she wants to try. Photos please, son, and then we’ll bring you up”

I checked over my borrowed rack, which carried a decent mix of wired and rope-slung nuts, plus slings and quickdraws. Dad and Lad, we danced through the ritual calls before I set off up the introductory wall.

In essence, the route is a wall followed by a narrow chimney, which is capped. There are footholds out on the ribs that form the chimney, but to get to them involves slipping a hand jam in either side of the capstone and sort of leaning backwards a bit. It’s not difficult: you’re only technically sort of a little bit upside down until you’ve brought the first foot out onto one of those holds on the rib. Honest.

It's then a matter of adjusting your jams one by one until you can step onto the capstone and finish. Easy peasy. I set up a multi-anchor direct belay, just in case, and brought Maz up. She arrived grinning like an idiot, and as soon as she was safe, I got a very, vert serious snog.

“That, husband of mine, was SO different! I see why you love it. Those jams, they’re just so, well, like the rock was made for it. You think she’ll manage?”

“One way to find out. Could you belay, so I can watch her?”

“No worries. Give me a few to tie into this…”

“Not that sort of belay, love. Direct: you’re out of the loop, deliberately, just in case. ISH?”

“Yes?”

“Carolyn still want to come up?”

“Oh yes! She said you were like an orang utan”

“Climbed like one, or, and be very careful, looked like one?”

His laughter came up on the wind, and I gathered the rope end.

“ROPE BELOW!”

Another well-rehearsed sequence, and LC was climbing. I clambered a short way down the broken stuff to her right, until I could see her, hair streaming out in the wind.

“Nearly at the chimney, love. Turn to face to your left when you get into it”

“Dad? Where’s Mum?”

“Waiting for you and Ish at the top”

I had to describe back-and-foot technique a few times before she caught on, but her jams were superb. Being so short, she simply stepped straight out onto the footholds, rather than gibbon about, but each upward movement of her hands brought a grin of pure delight. I scrambled back up as she topped out, and then it was another crushing hug for Maz, followed, after no hesitation at all, the same favour for me. I almost forgot about our son, until he casually coughed for attention as he cruised over the capstone.

“Not the only one who can solo, Dad”

“And you won’t be the first to crack a spine here, son. Please get used to the rock first”

He looked a bit shamefaced, but that mood was broken when something nearby shouted “Go back go back go back”, and a happy wife called out, “Red grouse!”

It was still light as we strolled back to the campsite, where one of our few non-climbers had set the barbecues burning, and in short order bottles were being opened as various food products were set out for conversion to crispy burnt bits. As half the climbing club or more was also in the folk club, the rest of the evening was absolutely predictable, with a steady flow of campers from the lower field heading up to join in. We had songs, we had tunes, we had ale, or beer, or coke, and that night’s sleep was as peaceful as I had ever enjoyed in a tent.

“Dad?”

LC’s voice drew me from a confused dream involving a barbecued melodeon.

“Yes, love?”

“Mum said I have to ask you”

“Ask me what?”

“Can we do the climbing thing again today?”

“Right… Could you squeeze across a bit, Maz, so Carolyn can get in the middle? Easier to talk that way”

The girl exchanged a glance with her mother, but was soon eliciting a series of grunts and comments like “Watch your elbow” until she settled down inside our double bag. I moved some of her hair away from her face, and while the flinch was still there, it was much less obvious than it had been.

“Has Mum told you what the plan is, for the rest of our holiday?”

“I can’t remember it all”

“Well, Ish and I have been here before, as well as other places. We are spending two more days here, and they will include climbing. Do you like climbing?”

“I like this climbing!”

“What’s the best bit?”

“It’s not like trees. I can’t fall off”

Maz simply murmured “Palm trees and coconuts, love, and rambutans, sometimes”, and I had to strangle my ‘for fuck’s sake’ before its birth.

“And I like the bit where you don’t have to grip”

“Sorry?”

She made a couple of moves with her hand, and it clicked.

“Jamming! My favourite, too”

“Yes. In that tunnel one, with the roof, that was best”

“That was called ‘Straight Chimney’, love, and it’s a little harder if you’re tall. Ish and me, we have to twist a bit”

“Did the new shoes help?”

“YES!”

“Then This is our plan. We have two days here, as I said, and then we drive to meet other friends, where there are mountains, and there will be a lot of climbing there”

She almost whispered her next question.

“Will there be music?”

“Oh yes, love. Our friend Enfys plays the harp, and do you remember Steph, Mrs Woodruff? With the long red hair?”

“Who jumps about?”

“That’s the one. There may also be some other friends, like Lexie, the woman with the hole in her head, who helped find you and Mum”

She looked at her mother for permission, and then asked the obvious question.

“How did she get the hole?”

“Ah, love, Di—remember Di? Yes? Well, Lexie and Di work to keep people safe, and that was what Lexie was doing when a bad man shot at her.”

“She was nice to me. Di was nice to me, but she’s scary”

Too bloody right, she was.

“Love, she’s scary against bad people, and that’s her job. Anyway, that’s another part of the plan, visiting Di and her friends, before we drive back to the airport”

“Why the airport?”

“Because we have our home a long, long way away, and we need to fly back”

“What will I do? Will it be cleaning again?”

Once more, I throttled the words I needed to say.

“No, love, except for helping me, Ish or Mum sometimes. We will be finding a school for you”

“School?”

“Where you will learn things, with other children your age. Make more friends. Oh, and we live next to the sea, remember? Lots of swimming”

“Will there be climbing?”

Maz answered that one.

“Yes, darling. Smiley Beard and us, we have a group of friends, and… Mike? When we get reception for the phones, that video?”

“Of course! Carolyn, we can show you what we do, and there is also a bit showing Ish, when he was just little. Would you like to see that?”

“Yes please”

I squeezed LC’s arm.

“Right, then. I think Auds mentioned Froggatt for tomorrow, so it will be the Popular End for today, and I can smell bacon already. Ready for breakfast, love?”

“Will they have sausages?”

“They will, love, because WE have sausages, in the eskie bag. Shall we see who is up?”

She wriggled out, unzipping the tent to exit barefoot, wearing her new pyjamas, and Maz chuckled.

“I suppose we have no choice now. Up and at ’em, Mr MBR”

“At your command, Mrs MBR”

A typical communal campers’ breakfast was followed by another walk uphill, where some groups were already gathering at said Popular End, and I began the mental process of ticking off the great routes that LC would be physically unable to complete, simply due to her lack of reach. No Flying Buttress, no Black Hawk Traverse, but there were still plenty of others available. Ish led her up Castle/Black Hawk Chimney, which actually left LC giggling. As for me, I decided that while she might be too short for the high step on Flying Buttress, I could pass her up to the start of the flake. Thus, she climbed the initial slab on a toprope, I placed her on the footholds so she could access the flake, which she fairly flew up, and then I hoisted her over the awkward finish for our son to secure.

That was how the day went, and I had no complaints at all, especially after soloing all three ‘Via’ routes and leading both FB Direct and The Tippler.

Thug is as thug does, naturally. Both Maz and Ish were able to follow me up FB Direct, with its heel hooks and roof, but neither of them managed the crux move on The Tippler. I still had my edge, appropriately.

We ate that night in the Little John, after a walk into town by way of Baulk Lane, and yes, there were a few falling stars. The next morning, we drove out to Froggatt by way of Grindleford’s station café, where we had a Proper Breakfast, and LC discovered what she said was her favourite climb ever, Heather Wall.

It’s a pretty low-grade Severe, but the middle part is the loveliest jamming crack, in a corner to the right of a nice rough slab. For me, it’s basically tow jams and up, but for LC it was a whole sequence of fist and foot jams until she could reach the finishing ledge, and once more I got a shout of “DO IT AGAIN!”

Driving allowed us to pick up some more supplies in Hathersage, and our last night with so many of my oldest friends involved another camp cooking session, a copious quantity of bottled drinks, and LC’s discovery that she could climb the outside wall of the toilet block, oh dear. Our final morning was more than a little emotional, as Auds actually wept into my chest. In the end, she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, before pulling Maz into the hug.

“Maz, I am probably putting my foot into things, but, well, Caro was my best mate, and, well, painful. When Penny told us about you, well, big shoes to fill, I thought, and now, here you are, and… I still mourn my friend, but you two, well. Shoes filled. Shutting up now, but please promise you’ll be back, all of you. Enjoy the mountains, and give them all our love”

I left Hathersage by way of the Hope Valley, making a stop in Castleton for simple tourist games, and a longer one for a boat ride in the Speedwell cavern. That one nearly fell apart, though, as LC froze at the entrance.

Maz and Ish had a quiet chat with her, Ish reporting back to me with a frown.

“Caves, Dad, Being locked up in one, to be exact”

“Ah. Hadn’t even considered that. What do you think?”

“What I am thinking right now is that I am glad those bastards are dead, but Mum is being clever. Telling her that Kawan might like to go instead, while she and Elsie wait outside for us. Anything else I can try?”

“Tell her there’s a boat ride”

“Really? Underground?”

“Yes. That’s why I picked this one rather than, say, Bluejohn or Treak”

“Right… Give us a minute then, Dad”

The bear ploy worked, and the boat ride even more, and LC was clearly entranced. Needless to say, her reaction quickly transformed into that she had shown in the climbing, and we were asked if she could do it again.

It wasn’t the shout we had heard at the crag, though, but much quieter and more hesitant, clearly still frightened at making a personal request. I explained a few things to her, and in parallel to the others, of course, as we had a cuppa before leaving.

“What it is here is that we have left the gritstone behind, love. That’s the rock with the jams. It’s why that part is called the ‘Dark’. This bit now is a different rock, one called limestone. It’s a very pale colour, so this area is called the ‘White’. It’s…”

Sod it, I thought, It’s only money.

“Right, then. We are going to go up a very steep road, where you will see lots of limestone. It’s called Winnats Pass. We’ll then turn off along a road that keeps falling down, because the hill above it is crumbling, to another cave. No boat, but lots to see. Would you like that, love?”

She nodded, slowly. Maz leant closer to her.

“Remember Neil?”

A rapid nod, accompanied by a broad grin.

“Well, Neil likes going into caves, to take photographs. Maybe he would like to see some of yours?”

Whatever you say, dearest wife, do not mention the diving.

So yes, we drove up the Pass, with its maximum steepness of twenty-eight bloody percent leaving me a little worried, before turning off to loop round the end of what had once been the Edale road. Before they had finally given up trying to repair it. Photos, park up at the second cavern, donate a huge sum of money once again, and then more cash, because my wife and our daughter each got a pendant of Bluejohn.

I could economise later; it was time to live in the ‘now’. Our child was slowly coming out of her shell.

We continued along Rushup Edge before joining bigger roads, something I had not been looking forward to, past Chapel-en-le-Frith and Whaley Bridge until we hit the ring road past Manchester airport, which left me thinking of Caro and Penny, and their term for the Birmingham stretch of motorways, the ‘Soul Sucker’. Past Runcorn, and memories from so many years ago, of yet another hell-on-Earth children’s home, which simply added another layer of value to my child, as she was out from hell, no Eurydice lost at the last moment.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“What’s up? You’ve gone all tense”

“Sorry, Ish. It’s just, well, thinking about escapes, horrible places. There was a really bad one in that town we’re passing”

“Mersey View”

“You read about it?”

“Lexie told me about it, Dad. She has a friend who was sent there, and her and Di, their lot, they had the case”

“Oh shit. Sorry, girls”

“Not happening again, Dad”

How the hell did Di and Lexie ever manage to sleep? As I learned more about them, I understood so much more fully why Lexie and Enfys were so close. Ish was so right, yet again.

I put Runcorn behind us, physically at least, and concentrated on the traffic as we bypassed Chester and approached Connah’s Quay.

“Girls? We’re about to leave England. Another country for you! Watch for the sign… just coming up… There you are!”

‘Croeso I Gymru’ indeed.

“Dad?”

“Carolyn?”

“I couldn’t read that”

I was struck by an obvious question, which was how on Earth Maz had managed to teach our daughter so much, including actual literacy. If it hadn’t already been at maximum, my respect for my wife would have peaked just then.

Ish took the lead, yet again.

“They have their own language here, love. You’ll see it on the signs, stuff in both languages. The people we will be staying with, they speak it2

“How will I know which one is right, though?”

A fair question, but one with no easy answer. Ish was still working, though.

“Well, shall we see what we can spot?”

That was followed by some excruciatingly mangled pronunciation from each of them, particularly when we passed some motorway services (‘Gwasanaethau’), but it lifted the mood delightfully. We were soon on the Expressway proper, and after passing the Scouse Riviera, we hit the coast near Abergele, and its “Not a real one, love” castle.

LC was entranced at seeing the sea once more, but wanted to know where the mountains were, as the inland hills clearly weren’t up to her standards.

“Just coming, love. We turn inland just here… right. Soon be there”

I drove down the Conway valley, through Llanrwst, where we stopped at the Co-Op and loaded up with breakfast necessities, to the junction at Betws. Over the Waterloo Bridge and park.

“Right, you lot. Time for something to eat, and there are outdoor shops here, and two of you need some extra stuff. It can rain a bit here, so you ladies need jackets. Food first, pick up some extra breakfast stuff as well if we see it, then up the hill”

“This is a pretty town, darling”

I took her hand, still feeling delight at having the chance to do so once more.

“It’s a bit twee, love, and it is a real tourist trap. Gets very busy, but I still like it”

“How far do we have left to go?”

“Only about half an hour, now. Might take longer, because I want to stop a couple of times”

“Views or bladder, man of mine?”

“Depends on how much tea we have, woman of mine”

Kawan came with us in his carrier, of course, and after we had eaten some chip-based meals, it was the old round of camping and outdoor shops, and that was when I had the stab to the heart. Maz noticed, of course, and took me aside for a moment as Ish big brothered our girl.

“What’s up, love?”

“Just memories, Maz. Caro. My lost one, I mean”

“Talk to me?”

“Ah, she was a gear hound, especially about tents. We’d go from shop to shop, bit like this, and she’d hand me her purse so that she couldn’t do an impulse purpose of a new tent or sleeping bag, whatever”

“Want to call it a day, then?”

I drew in a deep breath, counting more blessings than I could ever have earned, and shook my head..

“No, love. Deep end, jump in, and…”

Suddenly, I found myself laughing. Maz just waited until I ran down, then simply said, “Well?”

“Nothing clever, love. Just that I was talking about jumping into the deep end, then remembered how hard it can rain here, and, well, silly thoughts, silly times”

She stepped forward into my embrace.

“Not silly, not at all. Now, I intend to buy a new harness and some bits to hang off it, and Carolyn needs something as well.

A memory hit me, a little girl awaiting my gloves.

“Chalk bag, Maz. Penny adapted one for Enfys, so that she could carry essentials with her”

“Such as?”

“Sweets, mostly. Lollies, I mean”

Another financial hit, but it was fucking Cousin Suleiman’s money, in the end, so bugger it. We came out with a new jacket each for three of them (Ish was STILL bloody growing), a chalk bag and a couple of krabs for LC, a decent harness for Maz, and two new guidebooks, to Llanberis and Ogwen. Oh, and that third one, that sort of slipped into the basket, the North Wales slate one.

They also had fleece hats in all sorts of sizes, especially a Welsh flag one small enough for both a little girl and her friend. Oh, yet again, and a spare SD card for a little camera. It seemed I was exactly the sort of customer the shops liked.

Arse.

Back to the Vauxhall, and on up said hill past the waterfall, zig-zag bridge and Ugly House, so many memories of trips with Kul or Bets and her family warming me with each landmark. Of course we drove past the Brenin for the view across the twin lakes, as well as the long layby at Little Willy’s with the drama of Tryfan unfolding magnificently as we approached.

Those were most definitely camera moments.

“We stopping at the secret bridge, Dad?”

“Not today, son. I really want to dump the car for a bit, and we’re almost there”

“Understood. It’s the club tonight, isn’t it?”

“Yup. That’s why I fancy a bit of a lie=down before we get moving again”

“Excuse me, are you Mike Rhodes?”

“Do I know you?”

“Oh, sorry. We met a few years ago. I’m Alun Wallis. Camped in here”

I was still a little lost, until he said, “One of Debbie’s girls is my daughter”

“Guitar?”

“That’s me! Oh, um, I saw the news as well. I am so sorry, not sorry, if you see what I mean. I’ll just say that I also have a daughter who was lost and found. Are you staying here?”

“No. Mate’s bunkhouse in Bethesda”

He grinned happily.

“Cow tonight, then?”

I was most definitely warming to him.

“Yup. Who’s driving you, then?”

“Ah, it’s my penance. Booked some taxis for the return, but getting the bus down from Idwal Cottage”

“How many of you here?”

“Fourteen, all told. Most of them are up on the Glyderau today, or at the Perving Slab, as they call it”

Ah. I remembered hearing that one.

“Going to be a busy night, then”

“Hopefully! Hi. I know Mike here from the folk club. I remember you, son, but not quite as big as you are now. I’m Alun Wallis, here with my daughter and a load of her friends. Are you all climbers?”

To my astonishment, LC was first to reply, holding up Kawan as she gave him a very firm, “Yes! We like jamming!”

Maz gasped.

“Oh! I forgot! That video, darling. Carolyn, we said we would show you Ish when he was little. I have it here…”

She played it through a few times, Ish almost blushing as Carolyn informed him how little he was, while Alun made appreciative noises along with vows never to challenge me at arm wrestling, before quietly admitting that his reason for still being at the camp was a blister from wearing the wrong socks.

“Still got my guitar, though. See you all later, then”

He was off back to his tent, as LC stared after him.

“Dad”

“Yes love?”

“Do you…”

She paused, looking hard at Ish, and then at her mother, before continuing.

“Do… do we have friends everywhere?”

Maz hugged our girl.

“We have friends in lots of places, darling, which is why we go there. If we haven’t, we try and make new ones. Dad has friends here. I know some of them from talking to them like you did with Smiley Beard, and he has others that I’ll meet tonight, and you are right, my love: our friends, all of them”

It felt unnatural driving straight past Idwal, but the afternoon was almost gone, and I did indeed want a stretch out on a mattress before the evening, so it was down the hill, away from the big mountains and into Bethesda and up to the front of the bunkhouse, where a small area was coned off for us to park. The first one out to greet us from the building was Keith, who simply, wordlessly, hit me with a monster hug, before offering his arms to Maryam, which was when I realised he was crying. He reached past her to shake Ish’s hand.

“Could you got down to the house, mate, and let them know you’re here? It’s just Pen and Alys at the moment”

He turned back to Maz, apologising for his weakness, and she just hauled him back into her embrace as she called for LC.

“Darling, this is Keith. He is a very old friend of your Dad, so he’s our friend as well, and… Penny! We meet at last, meet properly, I mean”

Things got a little messy and soppy just then, as Alys and the rest of us danced through hugs single and combined. Alys made jokes about whether we now qualified as real sand gropers, while complimenting Kawan’s hat, and then we jointly dragged in our bedding and breakfast supplies, preparing our nests for later.

Our more serious heads vanished once again, of course, as soon as Enfys arrived, and then Vic and Nansi. We all settled into the bunkhouse for its greater room, as tea was prepared, and that video passed around yet again. Penny seemed clamped to Maz, Ish was comfortably chatting with our former house guest and her parents, while Enfys all but grilled me.

“Right, Neil and the Woodruffs have called, and they are each about an hour or so away. Neil told us that my old harness fitted Carolyn, so we need to know: climber or not?”

I called across to our daughter.

“Carolyn? Enfys here has a question”

There was the usual look of apprehension, but she came to me, and I waved at Enfys to go ahead”

“Carolyn, I sent you my old climbing harness. Did it fit you?”

A slow nod, and I could read her mind: is this woman taking it back?

“Well, good. Did you like the climbing?”

This time, it was the slow blossoming of her smile.

“Yes!”

I squeezed LC’s hand.

“What did you say afterwards, love?”

“DO IT AGAIN!”

Enfys snorted with happy laughter.

“Did you do it again, then?”

“YES!”

“Well, well. What grade did you put her up, Uncle Mike?”

“Um, some little boulder stuff. Usual”

“Right”

“Then a Mod, a V Diff, an HVD and a Severe”

“Sorry? At six?”

“Well, a couple of them had a long reach at the start, so I gave her a bit of a lift, but she loved it. You like jamming, don’t you, love?”

“YES! HAND AND FIST!”

LC paused for a second, before asking, “Is there climbing here?”

Enfys reached out for her other hand.

“Oh, lots. But I was thinking of going somewhere really easy. I might think of somewhere more interesting, and---Of course! Mum?”

“Daughter?”

“Have you still got that box with my old rock boots in? My kiddy ones, that I kept growing out of?”

“Yes. Under the stairs, as far as I can remember”

“Diolch! Now, Carolyn, I started climbing when I was very little, as well, so I had rock boots, but my feet kept getting bigger. Would you like them for yourself?”

“Can I say yes, Dad?”

I was adding up the extra weight of what we had already purchased, in terms of excess baggage fees, and Alys noticed.

“You’re thinking about overweight luggage, aren’t you? I had the same thing when I came back. Here’s our offer: you leave whatever here, we pack it for you, and send it by surface mail, package, thingy. Deal?”

“You can say ‘yes’, love”

She didn’t say anything, just breaking free and running, straight to Neil, who was still holding his lid. She was a climber, though, and she was up and in his arms in a second.

“Hiya, all! Can someone please take this, as I seem to have acquired a little girl from somewhere”

After a serious bit of hugging, or maybe strangling, by our girl, he passed her to her brother as Enfys set his lid onto a bunk. Settling himself onto a chair after doffing his jacket, he simply held out a hand as Alys placed a cup into it.

“How was the ride, Neil?”

“Not a bad one, mate, but I’m on the Beemer today, so took it a bit more gently. Club tonight?”

Keith was nodding and grinning simultaneously.

“You were ambushed by Jimmy again, I hear”

“We were. Steph’s plotting, apparently, oh: speak of ginger devils!”

More hugs, more rattling of teacups and sharing of journey details, clothing appropriate for visiting bears, and so on, until I turned back to the subject of the club.

“Picking up where we left off, yes, Jimmy did say he had effectively been sent by that one grinning behind her mug. Are you saying it’s Jimmy again?”

“Not tonight, mate. Chrissy Morgan is the pro turn tonight”

“Wow! I’ve been playing her stuff to Maz. How did you get her to come out here?”

Enfys and Alys shared a look just before corpsing, so I played the eyebrows game.

“And? You have something to admit?”

Alys looked at her hands before speaking.

“She’s, er, a friend of Diane Sutton, and Lexie. They each gave her a call when we knew the date you’d be here”

Maz started laughing, and it was a few minutes before she had fully stopped, with occasional snorted words such as ‘Assimilated’ and ‘Borg’. I held up a hand for silence, or sanity, or something.

“I’ve already been ambushed at Little willy’s, so I realise there will be a lot of visitors tonight. Penny? Oh, some man called Alun, Wallis I think. I remember him from years ago. He’s here with that Debbie, said there’s fourteen of them”

Keith nodded.

“They’ve been there for a week so far. Usual older ones, a few new younger girls. Alun’s sound; I’ll make sure they keep a spot for him”

I turned to LC to explain.

“We have a lot of friends, love, as Mum told you. Lots of our friends have other friends, and we know some of them, but not all of them. Lexie knows the woman who will play us her music tonight, and the man who spoke to us when we stopped by the big mountain is another friend of theirs. He will have lots more friends with him, some of whom I know, some of whom I don’t”

“What will we do with them? The not friends?”

I shrugged.

“Probably make them friends as well, love. Speaking of which, is Pat up?”

Alys looked straight at her wife, whose face had fallen, all humour gone, and I knew, immediately.

“How did it happen, love?”

Enfys looked at Steph, who was similarly slumped in her expression, and the younger woman explained.

“We got the call, Uncle Mike, that’s us in the Rescue, ah? You know the shelter up on Foel Grach?”

“It’s where…” Caro and me “It’s where we met”

“Well, she went up for an overnight with Debbie, and… In her sleep. Steph was one of those who came up on foot, but we brought the doctor, and… Sorry. Still hurts. Doc said she was lucky. Peacefully, ah? In a lovely spot, with someone who loved her. The Cow…”

She paused to wipe some tears away, then forced a smile.

“Illtyd sorted out a little plaque for the bar, an ‘in memory of’ thing. All we could do. We took her back up so she could, as Debbie put it, dance on the wind”

Neil looked up sharply at that, and I understood immediately. Time to change subjects.

“Food for tonight?”

Nansi said something in Welsh, which her daughter translated as “Lamb stew, with loads of extra veg”, followed by Ish’s laughed “And the chip shop on the way home?”, and that broke the spell.

LC was in an odd outfit as we walked down the hill, wearing boots and her new hat and jacket over the top of her princess dress, Kawan on her back in his own harness. The meal had been a delight, but I was now focussed on getting outside a pint and hearing some decent music. There was a corner of the pub taped off for us, which we swamped, Kawan taking a seat on the window ledge, even more hugs, including some from a surprisingly emotional Illtyd, and there was, indeed, beer.

Illtyd was busy in the traditional way, filling a little list with the names of those willing or wanting to do floor spots, so of course I said yes.

“Dad?”

“Yes, love?”

“Are you going to sing again?”

“Yes, I am”

“Could you do that one you did before? The one about rolling? Kawan liked that”

“I can indeed. Anyway, I’m only allowed to do one song tonight, because there are lots and lots of people who also want to do songs or play tunes, but that one will work”

“Will you sing in English?”

“I have to, love. I don’t know anything else”

“Is that Welsh? What the ladies are speaking?”

Alys, Enfys and their mothers were having some sort of discussion, so I nodded.

“Yes, but I don’t know what they’re saying”

Illtyd was talking to a tall woman I recognised as Ms Morgan just as the pub door opened and Alun’s horde began to troop in, and he was far from the only man there. I recognised one couple as that pastry chef and---yes, the second ring was there—her husband, and of course I knew Debbie, who had her own man in tow, but so many of the girls were not only strangers to me but looked a little apprehensive. Their guardian had her usual ‘don’t even THINK of getting me upset’ expression, but Alun tugged her elbow and nodded at me, and it was sunrise on a Summer morning as her smile emerged from hiding.

The two of them came over to me, Alun nodding to the barman.

“Ga’i tri pheint Butty Bach, Dil?”, then called over his shoulder, “Frank! Mae peint yma i ti”

Debbie shook my hand, her grip firm.

“We read what happened. Mike. Be welcome, all of you. What happened to the cunts responsible?”

As in-your-face as ever.

“Um, I am told a firing squad”

“Good. You singing tonight?”

“I am indeed. My daughter… OUR daughter requested a song”

“Which one?”

“One by Roy Bailey”

“Rolling Home?”

“That’s the one”

“Mam and Dad loved that song, Mike. I’ll let Martie know, in case he’s planning on doing it. Same for you, Frank, love”

The tall man was beside her, that third pint in his hand and his other arm around her waist.

“Dunno, love. Mike, is it? The floor spot card’s got a bit crowded, I’m told. How would you feel doing a group spot? Same song, just with a couple of us?”

I couldn’t really object, and LC’s question came back to me: did we have friends everywhere?

“Who would that be, er, Frank?”

“Me and Martie. Alun’s got weedy lungs. Oh, that your boy? How’s his voice?”

“Fine, but I don’t think he knows the words”

“Not thinking of that, butt. You do the verse, we all join the chorus, try and outdo the audience, aye? Diana Ross and the Supremes sort of thing, just a lot more butch”

I could see why Debbie liked him, and left them to rearrange things with Illtyd as I returned to my family with my own order of drinks.

The first spasm was soon over, having included Enfys on harp playing some traditional Welsh stuff, Alun playing and singing ‘Norwegian Wood’, and Steph going slightly berserk through a set of Irish tunes, before Chrissy Morgan took her seat.

“You lot are evil! I have to follow THAT lot?”

She really knew how to work an audience, which pleased me, as all too many musicians record well but fall flat when playing live. She was funny, sharp in her observations, and excruciating in her puns.

“A couple of great friends suggested I play here tonight, so here, indeed, I am. Brace yourself now as you get hurdied and gurdied”

There were songs and tunes, on multiple instruments, and abundant jokes, and I was shocked when she announced the end of the first half: time hadn’t just flown, it had vanished over the horizon. I was at the bar with LC in the interval when she approached me.

“You’ll be Mike Rhodes, then And are you Carolyn? Hiya! Mutual friends send their best, Mike”

“I heard”

“You haven’t heard it all. I’ll need a hand, several hands, later. I’m parked up at your mate’s bunkhouse, so getting this lot up the hill is going to be fun on my own”

“How did you get it down?”

“Unloaded it here first, before parking up there. Do I look stupid? Don’t answer that”

She grinned.

“Keith’s already agreed on your behalf, anyway. Love the princess dress, Carolyn. See you later!”

She was off to the ladies’, and LC asked that question again, about ‘how many more friends’ we had.

“Look around you, love. I think it might be everyone here”

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Who’s Ish talking to?”

“That’s Mr Wallis, love. Alun. He sang earlier”

“No. I remember him. It’s the three ladies and another man”

“Ah, that’s a woman who makes cakes and things, and that’s her… That’s Marty, her husband, I think. I’m going to be singing with him and some other men”

“Why?”

“Because lots of people want to sing, and there’s only so much time for it before bedtime. They suggested Ish sings with me as well”

“Who are the other ladies?”

“I think one of them is Alun’s daughter. Don’t know who the other one is”

“Are they our friends? She keeps smiling at Ish”

Oh…

“We can ask Ish later, love. Now, it’s nearly time for the second half. Is Kawan still thirsty?”

“No. He’s had enough, but I haven’t”

It took me four runs to get the drinks back to our table, finishing just as Illtyd started the traditional ‘parish notices’ and drawing of the raffle, which was won by some of Debbie’s girls. A couple of other performers did their thing, and then I was out in front of everyone except for Frank, Marty and Ish, who whispered, “Remind me why I’m here, Dad”

“Chorus, son. That ‘Rolling Home’ song. Just harmonise with the others. Failing that, just shout, like you usually do”

“You are a sod, Dad”

“Yup. Evening, all! We have all agreed to combine our spots so that we can fit us all in, as it is such a popular evening tonight. I’m Mike, my son Ishmael, Frank, and Marty ---and Illtyd, it appears. It’s a chorus song you’ll know, and you certainly will by the end of it. Give it some oomph!”

As I started the first verse, there were a couple of shouts of ‘Yes!’ or similar, and when the first chorus came in, the volume from the audience just about matched that of my chorus. By the end of the song, there was no contest, so I simply sang the first verse again, and we stepped out of the spotlight to absolutely thunderous applause.

“What are you lot like? Bad enough following that lot in the first half, and now you serve up those lads? It’s not fair. I’m going to have to beat you down with the octave mando, so let’s banish your misfortune!”

It was a superb set, and once she had finished and started her last bit of CD selling, I let the others know of our imminent use as pack mules, and Penny chortled.

“Don’t bother, Mike. Illtyd’s already snaffled the bottle store for her. Just need a couple of hands to move the cases when she’s ready”

“Better tell her, then”

“I’ll do it, Dad. Have we got any of her discs?”

“We have all of them, son, but she’ll have a mailing list”

“Okay”

He was out of his seat like a rocket, calling back a request for another pint, and over to the little table, where he smiled at Chrissy, wrote on what was obviously said list, and then…

And then spent some time chatting with one of the girls who Carolyn had pointed out, and not the one I had marked down as Alun’s daughter. This one was all smiles, and as she asked one obvious question, she made a funny wave of her arms that I realised was meant to depict ‘climbing’, and my lad just nodded before pointing towards our table and holding his hand out palm down, which I guessed was his estimate of LC’s height.

I could almost read his mind as he spoke: ‘Yes, I climb, and so does my family, including my sister, who is only little’. That was fine, but I was a little surprised when the girl reached out to squeeze his forearm.

I had to mentally slap myself. If it was okay for Alys, and Steph, and poor dead Maddy, what was my problem?

I kept my counsel, in the end, as we finished our drinks, went next door to ‘Colin’s’ for chips to fuel our epic ascent to our beds, and I settled by our son as he paused to tie a lace.

“Sorry for dropping you in it like that, son. You enjoy it?”

“Bit nervous at first, Dad, but the others, you couldn’t see them, ey? They, it was all eye contact and nods, and it was… The harmony, Dad. Finding a different note that’s still the right one. And then the audience, wow!”

“It’s a great song for that, son. Simple enough to remember, no extremely high or low notes, and a chorus that just begs to be roared out as well as one to harmonise to”

“Absolutely, Dad. I couldn’t hear myself by the end”

“I heard you, son”

“You’re going to say I was rubbish, aren’t you”

“No, son. I was going to say we need to get some more songs learnt. Just one thing I did notice---”

“She’s called Clara, Dad. And yes, I know about her. You aren’t subtle when you stare”

“Ah. And what… How long are they here for?”

“Another week, then back to Cardiff”

“Which is where we will be going before we fly home, of course”

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“She’s… she’s nice. Am I being stupid?”

So much slammed into focus just then, as I realised how few chances he had been allowed for a normal adolescence. With his mother gone, presumed fucking dead, he had been my prop in so many ways. The Butts were always there for me, of course, along with all my other colleagues, customers and friends, but Ish had been the support, the only bit of his mother I had been allowed to keep, for all of his teens. I had never realised, never considered, what effect that must have had on him.

“No, son. Not at all. What was she asking you about climbing?”

“You heard?”

“I saw how she moved her hands, son”

“Ah. She said she liked to watch it”

I couldn’t help my snort, but apologised immediately.

“Sorry, son, but did she mention anything about a slab near their tents?”

“Yes. She said lots of climbers go there”

“So do most of her friends, son. To watch the climbers. The male climbers”

“Oh! You mean to, you know…”

“To watch and dream? Oh yes: they call it the Perving Slab. I rather think you have pulled, Ish”

We joined the others just as Chrissy caught us up.

“They’re a friendly lot in there, Mike. All my stuff locked away, no humping, not even the nice sort—er, sorry. Sense of humour gets a little direct when I’m tired. Got my ear plugs, so should be safe from snorers”

Ish looked directly at me, before saying “Snap!”, and then we were inside, the lad beginning a round of introductions for the woman, before she simply cornered Steph for a chat about strings or soundposts, or perhaps sanity and its retention. As usual, Geoff simply sat and laughed, as LC quite casually sat in Neil’s lap to show him her photos

The morning was a clear one, and Chrissy was already gone by the time I awoke, off to her next gig, which was apparently at a club in Worcester. Not my idea of a life, that. I took a walk outside with Enfys for a quiet chat, but she was already prepared for me.

“It’s that girl with Debbie, isn’t it? The--- I was going to say ‘the trans one’, but that’s a bit redundant with that lot. Getting a bit of the ‘icks’, Uncle Mike?”

“I think I was, love. It was… Look, I should know better, me”

“You’re the one who brought me Alys. I think we can give you some slack”

“Yeah, that’s the thing that got me. Like with Steph. I had… Look, this is going to sound creepy, but she didn’t really come into focus with me till I, um, heard her and Geoff together”

“Oh!”

“No details. It just suddenly made sense. Why I can’t, couldn’t, with Ish, god knows”

“Different when it’s your family, love, I suppose. I had another thought, though, and it’s something you can help with, I hope. He’s never… Maz went when he was twelve, and it was just us for all his adolescence, and that’s the thing: he never actually got to have one. Two of us, it was. Always in each other’s pockets until Di found her, and since then, we’ve been looking inward all the time, all four of us, and LC, well”

“Elsie?”

“L. C. Little Carolyn. Maz named her after my late wife, she says as a way to keep me alive in her head. She never got to be a little girl, and now Ish is locked on keeping her safe and happy, real big brothering stuff. Hasn’t left, doesn’t leave, time for him to be a lad, a young man”

“And Debbie’s girl?”

“Oh, I’ve got the waking mind sorted. Just need to slap the hindbrain a few times till it learns. Bit of help be nice”

She drew a slow breath, before smiling at me.

“Mental health stuff is part of my role, you know? And yes, I do have an obvious insight here, but, well, we’re starting from a good place in that none of us knew the girl before she came out, ah? No script to overwrite, no need for palimpsesting”

“That is not one of yours, love!”

“Nope. Blame the wife for that one, but it fits. You want to go to the Perving Slab with Ish, don’t you? So he can be perved at? I was going to suggest Milestone, but we can start off at the slab first. Anyway, I remember how Mam met Dad, so please tell me he won’t be in microshorts!”

“More like board shorts, knowing him”

“Then we have a plan. Breakfast first, my ‘rents are doing a mass of sandwiches, or so they said, then it’s on the road. We have a load of gear, and both nine and fifteen millimetre ropes, and I found a kid-sized helmet. And Nansi is cooking something up with Vic”

Breakfast was exactly as anyone would expect, and Steph spent some time filling flasks with tea before our little convoy set off, Neil riding with us once again as Keith simply locked up his business and climbed in with his two younger women. As we ambled through the campsite before the first ladder stall, I saw Marty and Alun tending to a number of kettles, the younger man calling out a greeting to Ish as we passed.

Up the hill, over the rock platform, LC needing a little boost over the ladders by the farmhouse but bouncing away over the rest, until we were at the foot of the great sweep of slab that is the introduction to so many new climbers, LC now staring at all the sheep, who simply stared back.

“Jamming, Dad?”

“Not so much here, love. All about balance and how small a hold you can use. Now, this is a bigger hill, so we have something else for you”

Enfys and Alys were approaching, carrying the promised lid, which fitted nicely after some adjustments. LC loved it, the little gearhound, but stared meaningfully at her bear until Alys laughed and produced a carrier bag.

“Mam and Dad made this. Shall we see if it will fit?”

They had simply taken a plastic camping bowl, cut out some holes for the bear’s ears and rivetted in a length of elastic tape as a chin strap. And it fitted, which delighted our girl. We left her explaining to her bear what we would be doing, and how he had to look after our bags, as those of us out for a climb changed our footwear and started to fasten on harnesses and then rack gear. The change of footwear was what brought child away from bear, and soon she was “READY TO CLIMB!”

Steph watched her as she bounced up the very easy broken ground at the lefthand foot of the slab, before pointing out a pale bulge on the rock, with a thin crack crossing it.

“Take her up the flake crack first, before doing that one? She’ll get some jams in on the flake route, but the second one will show her some gibboning and small hold stuff”

“Two pitches?”

“Enfys has sourced an extra length rope. One pitch only”

“Sounds good to me. Just going to solo the first route, get my head working”

Up the easy first crack, over the two little corners, and jog-slither back down to the group in time to watch as Geoff belayed his wife up the thinner crack, LC seated on an outcrop to watch.

“It’s flatter, Dad. Not so up and down, like the Dark was”

“It’s a slab, love. Come and try this with me”

I showed her one spot where, with clean rock boots, you can simply walk up the smooth slab, at least for a few feet. I got to my usual spot, stood on nothing, then eased upright to clap my hands. LC squealed in delight, demanding her turn, and then shouted “MAGIC FEET!” as she clapped.

Geoff simply carried on belaying his wife until she had taken her stance at the top, then called LC to him so that he could tie her on.

“Right, Carolyn, we have something for you here. It’s called a nut key, so you can take out the gear Aunty Steph’s put in. You use this bit to wiggle anything that’s stuck We fasten it here, with this screwgate, so if you drop it, it gets caught by this string. That okay?”

He grinned at me.

“Hairy’s doing without cams and that today. Almost had a strop, she did. Anyway, THAT’S CAROLYN!”

A short pause before we heard “Climb when ready”, but it was LC who yelled “CLIMBING!” and started up the route, and yes, her hands were small enough to find jams. It seemed our daughter was a thug.

Other pairs and groups were drifting up to the crag, as Neil set up what looked like his ‘Very Serious Photographer’ kit, including a tabard reading ‘N&M Strachan Photography’, the sneaky sod. He caught my stare, and grinned, our old friend clearly recovering from his despair.

“I have a living to make, mate!”

“How does that work?”

“People ask me for a snap, I take their e-mail, send them a watermarked proof. If they like it, they send me money and I send them a file, or whatever sort of print they fancy”

I laughed.

“You’ll get a few more customers here than in a cave”

“You’d be surprised”

“Let me rephrase that: more than in a flooded cave”

He just mock-whistled, and I gave up, as a shout came from above, “She’s up, but she is coming down by rope”

It wasn’t abseiling, but my daughter walked backwards down the route like a pro, to the astonishment of a couple gearing up to repeat the same route.

“Your kid?”

“She is”

“How old is she?”

“Six”

“Bloody hell! She’s doing well”

“Only up to Severe, so far”

“Shit! Where was that?”

“Froggatt Edge”

His mate elbowed him.

“Shall we just give up now, Gray?”

He turned to look at me instead of his mate.

“How long’s she been climbing, my friend?”

“Um, ten days or so”

“Right… Anyway, good luck. I’m just here to enjoy the rock, not compete. Certainly not with little girls. Six; oh dear me”

“Well, I will point out our mate over there. He’s a very good photographer, doing a sort of open shop day”

“Bit more sensible, then”

“Not really. He’s also a cave diver”

I left them to it after some good-natured assassination of Neil’s sanity, and collected LC, who was now chatting away at nineteen to the dozen.

“You enjoy that, love?”

“Hand jams, Dad!”

“Good, love. Did the nut key work?”

“Yes! Can we buy one?”

Geoff laughed, just as ‘Gray’ set off.

“That’s your nut key, Carolyn. Aunty Steph and me, we didn’t want to buy you things if you didn’t like the climbing, but Uncle Neil told us how good you were, so that’s our present to you. Severe, Mike?”

“Just Heather Wall, mate”

“Good start”

“She did Straight Chimney at Stanage the day before”

“Now that one, I think, is actually harder than the Froggatt one”

“Carolyn likes jamming, mate”

“Hands and fists!”

The volume was lower, but the sentiment was the same. Steph joined us, and I led my girl across the blanker piece of slab as Steph followed close behind to talk her through small hold technique, until we were once again jog-sliding down from the top to make some inroads on Steph’s flasks.

All through this, Ish and Maz had been climbing gentler stuff, and while we had been busy, a steady flow of girls had assembled at the foot of the slab, Clara among them. I made a decision, finally, praying it was the right one, and took a seat next to her and Alun’s daughter, as he poured from his own flask.

“Hiya, Mike. That was a bloody good night, wasn’t it, Alicia? This is Mr Rhodes, love”

Alicia prodded her father.

“Met him years ago, Dad! Friend of Enfys, aren’t you?”

“Yup. First time here for my wife and daughter, though”

She looked down at her hands.

“We all know, Mr Rhodes. We follow the news, and Alys, well, Enfys explained where she was staying. This isn’t the place… Not the right words. You got your family back. This is where I got my own back, right, Dad?”

Alun gave her a one-armed hug.

“It’s where I found my daughter, Mike, so yes, not the place for sad thoughts. The little girl really loves the climbing, doesn’t she?”

I could hear the laughter as LC worked through some little toprope problems under the huge ledge, belayed by Geoff as Steph offered advice, and I realised this was just about as far as she had been from me and her Mum since their rescue. Recovery, most definitely.

“She does. Alun, as well as the music”

I waved at Ish, some way up a blank section of slab.

“My son’s been a godsend in so many ways. Just…”

The words were there; all I had to do was let them out.

“Maz was snatched when he was twelve, and that was six years out of our lives. We’re all finding each other again. Finding ourselves as well”

Clara found her tongue at last.

“He’s really gentle, isn’t he?”

I laughed out loud.

“Say that after you’ve seen him playing rugby or Aussie Rules, girl!”

“Wish I could… I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry”

Keep that momentum, Rhodes.

“It’s not a problem, Clara”

“But he’s, and I’m not…”

“I said it’s not a problem, love. Now, I am going to break every rule of being a Dad and simply say that he thinks you’re nice, and no, what we are talking about isn’t a problem for him. I am boing to be busy with his sister, but we are looking to move on down the valley in a bit. Now, we have some spare harnesses. What would be nice for him is the chance to help someone learn to climb. You up for that?”

She nodded, eyes moist, and twenty minutes later, she was half way up the easy crack on her way to join Ish at the top. Maz simply sat watching, but Alicia had her own words.

“Thank you, Mr Rhodes. I need to tell you a few things about her, just in case. You already know the big thing, but it’s Clara’s history. Do you know what I mean when I say ‘chaser’?”

I nodded, remembering Neil’s use of that word, and as Maz stiffened, Alicia smiled.

“Innocent sounding word for something very nasty. With Deb, in the House, well, we have a lot of shared experiences. Like a hive mind, we are. Right, Dad?”

Alun just chuckled, and she carried on.

“Clara and the rest of us, well, we all share. Part of having so much common ground. We all had a moment, a sort of choice of paths, but that’s now the big thing. That big thing is luck, that’s all. Deb, a few others, they’re lie a net. Some of us get caught in it, the rest slip through. Clara was one we could have lost. We… Serena, Dad?”

“Yes, love. I know”

“Indeed. Could have been me in her place… Anyway. Clara was with a chaser, very young, she was. He was a drug dealer, as well, but I don’t think he’d got past the stage of getting his own jollies and onto the bit where the girl gets handed round various customers for fun and profit”

She paused at a shriek of laughter from LC, then tilted her head as she looked me in the eyes.

“Flippancy is how so many of us cope, Mr Rhodes. It won’t bring Serena back, or her mother, but it lets us talk about things without breaking. Sorry if it comes across wrong, but I do believe you understand. Clara was groomed. Thought it was all real. Then he made sure she was about when he had company, and all she had was a minidress. Police put his door in, though, arrested him for dealing coke, and didn’t even know she was there. That’s what I mean about luck: their custody sergeant knew someone who knew Nana Deb, and that is how Clara found us”

Alun tightened his embrace on his daughter.

“Mike. Maz, four of Deb’s brood have got married, so far. They, well, Gem and Marty are already here, but the others will be along later today”

Alicia nodded.

“Yup. Some real climbers there. The rest of us, well, we dream, but we see those who have made it, and it’s not jealousy so much as hope,; expectancy, almost. Freaked Dad out for a bit”

Alun laughed, but it held some bitterness.

“She’s right. One thing accepting your daughter’s, well, your actual daughter, but courting, that’s… It’s sort of homophobia, Mike, in my view. I try and think… You’ll laugh: I try and imagine any prospective boyfriend as a possible friend, for me, that is”

Maryam burst into happy laughter, which puzzled me, until she simply kissed my cheek and said, “Alan”

She turned to the others, with the warmest of smiles.

“It’s not a story for today, but each of us was married before, and each… We both lost our lovers. I had a thought, a bit like yours: if it was possible for my lost man to meet my found one, what would he say? I came down on the side of going for a pint together. This trip, it’s a sort of pilgrimage, partly, for Mike. There’s a shelter on a mountain somewhere over there that I want to see, a place with lots of memories”

Alun winced, and went to speak, but Alicia shushed him.

“Enfys said she’d explained about Pat. Another one who helped with that net, Mr Rhodes”

Maryam held a finger to my lips.

“My turn, love. Clara’s lonely, isn’t she?”

She turned to me with a Mum-stare.

“Not the only one who can watch and listen, love. He’s my son as well, and he’s been on his own for too long. We have another week with this lot, so let’s not push him, or her. Now, what’s this other cliff we’re heading for? I think we can squeeze one more into a car”

A rapid bit or negotiation followed, as Debbie clearly needed assurance her charge would be safe, and Neil was initially reluctant to move, as his little notebook was filling with e-mail addresses and names, but the promise of fresh victims finally settled the deal.

It had obviously been years since I had climbed on Milestone, but it had always been a favourite spot, right from my earliest puzzlement at how to use the unfriendly voids on Direct up to my realisation that the slab held enough holds in its ripples to make the climbing far more straightforward. As we uncoiled the ropes, Enfys was chuckling.

“Share, divulge, reveal, woman?”

“Oh, we had shout here a while back. Man got stuck. Guess where?”

“That carnivorous crack with a taste for knees?”

“Spot on. He’d apparently just warned his son about it. We rigged a hoist, lifted him out; as soon as he could take the weight off the leg, out it came”. How are we doing this?”

“Um, I lead, LC next, someone follow behind her?”

“I can do that, but I’ll be on a tope. That step around the Bivalve is an easy one, but it’s a silly place to risk a slip”

A memory surged, sitting shocked behind the finish of Tennis Shoe. Not today.

“What are the rest doing?”

“Steph’n’Geoff are going to do Soapgut later, but Steph will follow Maz, Ish and Clara while they’re doing Pulpit/Ivy”

“Have you warned them?

“Nope, but I have given Neil a heads-up, so he’s around by Little Gully Wall with his cameras”

“You are perverse!”

“Indeed. Alys loves me that way”

Possibly not her best choice of words, but I understood. Ish was clearly at the over-explaining stage of things with Clara, while Steph simply worked on his rack of gear, adding and removing bundles of nuts before slipping a doubled rope sling over one of his shoulders. I heard her slightly raised voice as he clearly asked what it was for.

“Extension at the top of the chimney, Ish. Don’t argue---you’ll understand when you get there. Oh, and I’ll set up an anchor at the top of Little Gully”

“What for? Is it a hard descent?”

“Not hard, just somewhere a quick ab or lowering off speeds the day along”

I missed the rest, as the wind backed, but I could read her gestures clearly enough: up there, onto that, over that bit, through there, into the chimney. I turned back to my ropemates.

“You all ready, then? Direct belay, love?”

“Mountain leader thing, Uncle Mike”

“Okay. Climbing!”

I made my way up the ripples, calling down to LC that it was exactly like the ripples on the first rock, just a little steeper. I slapped a runner in at the overlap for the sake of reassuring my friends, extended it, and was then up and onto the first huge stance. I was using twin rope technique, but only clipping one, Enfys on the yellow one and LC on the blue. I went through the ritual before bringing up a bouncy little girl, who I secured properly before taking in the yellow rope.

None of us got our legs trapped, nobody peeled at the Bivalve, but Enfys had to offer LC a boost into the final chimney, before we made our way round to Little Gully, LC still roped to me, Alpine style. We got there just as Maz was about to start Ivy Chimney, which was delayed for the simple reason that Clara and Ish were wrapped round each other like a pair of flexible limpets. Enfys was straight across to them.

“I’ll sort; you take over the belay and bring her up, please. Best to drop down to the top of the capstone””

Her authority surprised me, but she was right. I srambled down, set some fresh anchors for my own direct belay, having parked LC in a safe spot with a promise not to move, and started bringing Maz up as Enfys sorted the other two.

“Hi, Clara: that get to you, that bit?”

The kid had looked white.

“I didn’t expect that!”

“It’s a bit of a surprise. Guidebooks call it ‘amusing’ or ‘interesting’, which are both codewords for ‘terrifying’. You did it, though. One of my first ever leads, that”

She was still carrying on in that manner as I called down to my wife that I was on belay. She climbed easily up to the other side of the capstone from me, then lowered her voice.

“I am not sure if Clara screamed or yelped, love, but Ish: where did he learn those words? This is a frightener, isn’t it?”

“Ah, it can be, if stress blinkers go on. You go through the hole, and you’re on a vertical wall. Lots of chicken heads to stand on, and a forest of jugs over your head. Step out, stand up, pull round. Easy staircase to finish, so just go straight past me to the others”

“How’s Carolyn?”

“Guess”

“Do it again?”

“Exactly. Now, the wall you come out onto is to the side of the descent gully, and Neil is waiting there with his cameras”

“He’s a sod”

“He’s a sod who wants to repeat the route with a GoPro! Where’s Staph?”

“Right behind me”

“Hi, Mike! Drop me a rope end once Maz is clear?”

“Can do. You need one?”

“Reassures the girl if she sees me on a rope when I appear. Bit of a confidence wrecker, that move”

Maz was round the roof smoothly, and I watched her up the final steps before lowering the freed rope for Steph to snag, following Maz while still tied on. I recovered all of my gear before my own little clamber.

Lad was still attached to lass, even when they stood to follow Enfys to the descent, where two girls were lowered and the rest of us abseiled to the path proper. LC looked at the start, and simply said, “Dad?”

Neil led Steph up it, following me as I led LC, with Neil belaying me from the base of Ivy Chimney until LC was ‘READY TO CLIMB!’, and that evening our time in the pub was enlivened by scrolling through his downloaded stills and bits of video. Ish wasn’t with us, because I had dropped him off in the Valley with his little tent for a couple of nights.

We still had an agreed rendezvous the first morning, though, as my family had a duty to old memories. I parked in the long layby again. Ish waiting with Frank, Clara and Debbie, who were both in proper walking kit. That was a bit of a surprise, and not quite what I had planned. Deb was, as usual, straight to the point.

“Nell, Cath and their men are looking after the rest, on a wander over the Glyders, so we are free. I do believe we each have some memories over that way, Mike. Ish here explained it. You were luckier than me, getting to meet her man”

“He was a---”

“Good man. I know. Or rather, he would have to have been for Pat to have loved him. Which way?”

“I hate the CEGB road”

“Good. Cwm Lloer it is, then”

We had managed to persuade LC to leave her harness and helmet behind, but Kawan was with us, helmet firmly in place because I had told her there would be some rock work. The initial approach is over expansive grasslands by a tumbling stream, which left LC free to wander freely until we got to the hole in the wall and that little bit of scrambling, which she flew up, Maz immediately below her just in case. Onto Pen Yr Ole Wen, across to Dafydd, the long ridge to Llywelyn and a cuppa, before we struck out for a familiar little shelter in the rock.

The memories were savage, but still sweet, and I noticed Ish and the two girls hanging back as four of us approached the door, and I felt the need to say something.

“My wife… my first wife, the other Carolyn, and me, we were walking Aber Falls to the Valley. Ultralight tent, just in case, but we intended to sleep here. It was occupied, and that was when we met Pat and Rob, properly. Familiar faces, we all were, and he had some wine for their anniversary, and he’d seen me in Bethesda when I’d bought some to sneak up here. We camped over there, and, well, we…”

The tears were there again.

“I lost Carolyn in a road accident, and it was an accident, not an ‘incident’ or ‘collision’, and it turned out that she had been… She was expecting. This is one of the places we… Enough. Special place. Special memories”

Maz was cuddled into me, as Deb settled against my other side, Frank making it a foursome. His wife’s voice was fainter than usual, as she told of anniversaries, drunken birthdays, and shared nights spooned into each other as the stars moved towards another dawn. She opened her sack, producing a small bouquet, and Maz wriggled a little before announcing “Snap!” and setting ours with Deb’s on the little work surface inside the place.

The walk back down went by way of the CEGB road, and Ish and Clara were hand in hand for all of it.

With the new week, Keith had opened the bunkhouse once more to paying customers for simple reasons of economics and paying bills, but we had surprisingly few due to the seemingly settled fine weather. That second night without Ish meant a shared meal with Keith and Pen, the young couple back in Bangor for similar reasons of work, the Woodruffs away to their own place, but Neil still with us. I asked, he laughed, and explained.

“Couple of employees in the shop, Mike. All that stuff I did on the hill is web-based. I can edit the images on my laptop, send the samples, process the payments, and let the shop staff know what hard copy is wanted. I can even maintain the website from here”

“Why have the shop, then?”

“Passing trade, mate, and… And it was Maddy’s shop too”

“Sorry, Neil. Didn’t think”

“No, Mike. You did, which is why I didn’t get offended. Things are a bit different now, though, with Forbes on trial”

“Thought that was done and dusted”

“Not quite. That team are as persistent as…no, Strachan. ‘herpes’ is not a good example. Anyway, they have been digging into his electronics. Loads of porn, of course, some of it skirting the edge of legality, but, well, there’s more. I don’t know what it is, but Candice was chortling about upcoming headlines”

He grinned, which always transformed his face.

“I do believe I have something nice to look forward to! Now, tomorrow?”

“Ish likes castles”

“So do I”

“And both Maz and Deb like birds”

“And so?”

“We drive up to collect lad, by way of a certain bridge for a little girl, then we tick off Beaumaris castle, and another Maz request at a certain railway station”

“Clan fair twiddly bits?”

“That’s the one. Then Deb has some birding spots for Maz. She’s offered to fit all of us in her minibus for the day. Time for Maz to have some more of her own moments, I believe”

Neil left us to our own devices the next day, which disappointed LC, but not before he had taken a whole series of shots of the ‘Secret Bridge’. I parked the car next to the tents, with the farmer’s express permission, and after striking our son’s little shelter, we were off down the A5 in a rather comfy fifteen-seat bus, the ‘we’ in question being our family, Deb and Frank, Gemma and Marty, and a very quiet Clara.

“Where are the rest off to, Deb?”

“Cathy and Nell are shepherding them round the Horseshoe. Should mean a quiet night’s kip this evening”

“They’ll be shattered after yesterday!”

“Yup. That’s the point. And before you ask, those two leading them round, you will never guess where their lads proposed to them”

“Go on…”

“Middle of some rock climb. White Horse Dreams or some such”

“A Dream of White Horses?”

“That’s the one”

I started to describe the climb to the others, as Deb muttered, “Typical bloody climbers”, telling them of seals in the water looking up at the climbers, and once again LC blindsided me.

“What’s a seal?”

Maz piped up, describing the sea lions and fur seals of Esperance, and Debbie harrumphed.

“Fur seals are not seals. They’re in the same family as sea lions. External ears and rotatable back feet”

Ish started laughing, and I waited for him to calm down before asking what had tickled him.

“Just thinking, Dad. Mum’ll be doing her usual ‘bird name, bird name, bird name’---"

“I don’t do that! Er… do I?”

“Yes, Mum, you do. Anyway, I was imagining Debbie and her muttering away: name, correction, name, correction. Not saying who would be doing the correcting, though. Anyway, where are we going, Nana?”

“Don’t you bloody start as well! Bad enough with the girls. We’re off to Biwmaris Castle first, then a certain railway station. You seen castles, Carolyn?”

“Yes. Where princesses live”

“Be a bit draughty for them there, love. Anyway, next place isa lesson in what happens when you bug--- er, mess about with mobile dune systems. Good place for SEOs and warblers, plus some goof orchids. After that, a little bit of very productive wetlands and then South Stack for all sorts of seabirds, including chough, puffins and peregrines. Oh, and seals in the water, if we’re lucky”

Maz called over to the front passenger seat.

“Frank?”

“Yes?”

“Do you fancy divorcing Deb so that I can marry her?”

She let the laughter die down before asking what exactly an ‘SEO’ was.

“Short-eared owl, Maz. Hunt in daylight, they do. Oh, and I’m taking the suspension bridge rather than the Britannia”

She was as good as her word, parking up at the Antelope so the newbies could get some decent pictures of the structure and the Straits. She asked me to hang back for a quiet word, as Frank led the others over the road.

“Just wanted to say thanks for yesterday, Mike. It was… I still hold Pat to me, yeah? Still raw, and warm, both at once. Hearing how you saw her, that… It brought back so many wonderful memories”

“When did you first meet her?”

“Bloody long time ago, Mike. Nineteen seventy six, at the camp site. Then again, after Mam and Dad… after it was just me, I found her again, and then she met my first girl, Kim. All of this, apart from the castle and that silly station sign, it’s all stuff she showed me. Me and Kim together, as well”

She paused, watching as the others sought just the right angle for their photos.

“You were up at the Wall, as well, I hear. Little temple. Ish was quite eloquent about it”

“Ah. Yes. I have a little warning about that”

She turned a harder face to me.

“What have they done to it?”

“Nothing, Deb. It’s Neil, to be honest. I just need to give you a heads up”

“He’s autistic, isn’t he?”

I nodded, slowly.

“Borderline Asperger’s, he says. It was Neil who showed us the temple. It was a favourite place of him and his wife”

“The one… Chaser? Arsehole in a wankpanzer? Nigel something?”

“That’s the one. When Neil took us to the temple, it was the first time he’d felt able to go there since he lost his wife. He’s planning to take her back there, he says, so she… so she can dance on the wind”

Another sharp look.

“That’s what one of Carl’s brothers said about my Mam and Dad. That’s where I let them go”

“That’s the thing, Deb. Neil and Maddy were there when you did”

“Oh… and?”

“He’s likely to put his foot squarely in it, the way je is at times. He simply wants to offer you some pro photos of the place. I didn’t know if you’d find that offensive, or intrusive, and I’d rather you punched me than him”

“Ha! You two, you and him, you’re too soppy for words, sometimes. Tell him… No. He has a website?”

“Yes, and a whole section of pics from there”

“Right. I’ll order some, but what would be… sorry. Memories”

I took her into a hug, and her tears into my shirt, until she came back to the there and then.

“Mam, she was terminal, and Dad… We had a place, a car park, where we would overnight, and the views at sunset and rise were magical/ We’d share breakfasts with people doing the Pennine Way, and there were owls, and that was where they went to sleep.. No more details, okay, but if Neil has any shots of that bit, he has a customer. Thanks for the tact, Mike. Sorry for the weeping, but I suspect we understand each other, me, you, Maz and Neil himself. Frank’s not been to see that particular elephant. My eyes red?”

“Not too bad, Deb”

“They’ll have to do. Let’s get this lot rounded up, and on the road. Lots to see”

Once again, those words punched themselves into my soul: not just me.

The castle was a hit with our children, LC had to count all the letters on the station sign and tell Kawan how may there were, and to my surprise it was Clara who explained the situation at Newborough rather than Debbie.

It’s a simple thing, in essence: new boss shows up, this one of the Norman persuasion, and decides he like the ‘pretty water meadows’ as a site for his great big castle, just needing the eviction of everyone already living there. Hence, the New Borough, which was inconveniently forested. Once al the trees were down, and the houses built, they discovered that said trees had been securing a mobile dune system, which was indeed now fully mobile, and it promptly mobilised itself to the point of burying the new dwellings.

It’s now a nature reserve, rather than just another tacky golf course filled with florid fat tossers . We had a walk across the grassy lumps and bumps to the sea, with its view of the whole of Snowdonia, just about, Clara naming each peak for Ish and LC, Maz and Deb swapping murmured bird names, while the rest of us just sat at the edge of the beach soaking in the peace.

“DAD!”

“Um, yes, love?”

“What’s that?”

“Oh. That’s a bunny rabbit”

“Like Ish’s Bunbun?”

“Yes, that’s it”

“It looks silly”

And back to her castle building. She had a point, I suppose.

Maz got her other treats at Malltraeth and south Stack, as well as a surprise chambered cairn, LC got to paddle in a very cold Irish Sea and build her first ever sandcastle, with a bear in residence rather than a princess, and there were indeed seals for her to go with the rabbits on the dunes. The only thing she lacked was someone specific to hold her hand, as everyone else’s was occupied.

It was a very, very good day, but the sea at home was an awful lot warmer than said Irish Sea would ever be.

Deb dropped us off at the camp site, where a limping Alun was trying to sort out brews for some very, very tired younger people, and four of us headed back to the car.

Five of us, as it turned out, for Clara was there, sleeping bag in hand along with a small holdall. It was Maz who turned to me, Maz who explained, as it was Maz who had been having her own conversation with Debbie in between correcting bird names.

“It’s not sharing a bed, love. And it’s a public sleeping shelf. These two have less than a week left, and after that we’ll be on the other side of the world. Time to let them have a bit of personal time, don’t you think? Now, where are we climbing tomorrow?”

We ate in the pub again, as neither of us wanted to wrestle with the influx of paying guests for the cooking facilities, and Neil was on his last night with us before heading home. Our two girls came over from Bangor, but just for the evening, and there was a very obvious bit of silent communication between them as they clocked our (bunk)house guest.

I had slipped back for a quiet talk with Maz on the way downhill, surprised at her surge of decisiveness.

“It’s simple, Mike. He’s our boy, and, well, I wasn’t exactly permitted much agency in that place, no power to make decisions. I did as I was told, or I got hurt. Simple as. Nothing at all will come out of this, most likely, but he gets to make choices when he can. We’re here for advice and picking up pieces, but he gets what I didn’t have”

“And how do you think it will go?”

“No real idea, but admit it: you’d love another guest to show Perth off to, ey?”

Leave it for now, Rhodes.

Enfys closed the menu.

“I know what they have by heart. What are you doing tomorrow, Uncle Mike?”

“Not sure, Enfys. I was thinking of the Slabs, but that’s all multi pitch, and there’s the descent. Maz and Ish are both competent, but trad stuff is about being sneaky, with runners and that”

“I can solve that. I’ve had a cancellation for tomorrow”

“Guiding?”

“Yes. Introduction to climbing, so there’s a fair few no-shows among the bookings”

“How much does that cost you?”

Alys laughed.

“My beloved here is far from stupid. Sliding scale fees, Mike, in advance. They tell us a month or more in advance that they can’t make it, we just keep a ten percent deposit. They do it less than a week before, we keep the lot”

Enfys turned to stare at her lover.

“We? I wasn’t aware you were helping with things like carrying gear on that slog up to the Cromlech!”

“Dearest wifey, all I will say is joint account, what’s yours is mine, and so on. Game, set and whatsits, and I will have the pork chops. Oh: if you are going out tomorrow, want to kip at your olds’ place? I can pick you up in the evening

“That would make sense, love. Maz, the Slabs are a lot higher than the paces you’ve already been, but the descent is a sod, because you have to go up almost as far again before you hit the descent path. There’s one bad step on it, a bulge with some very polished foot jams, but we can always lower Carolyn. What routes, Uncle Mike?”

“Cliché stuff, love. Hope and Charity will take a big chunk of the day. I’d like to do Tennis Shoe, but that finish is too big a reach for the little one. Nowhere safe to stand for combined tactics, unlike the Twin Cracks”

“Climbing, Dad? Now?”

“No, love. Tomorrow”

Ish looked up from his own menu perusal, or rather the discussion he was having with someone I was now subtitling as ‘his girlfriend’.

“Pardon me if I am getting suspicious, Dad, but what nasty little surprises are you cooking up?”

“None, really. The Twin Cracks are simply a very polished bit on a very good and popular route. First ascent was an on-sight by a woman, Maz”

I turned back to the lad.

“It’s a long route, son, over four hundred feet, and there’s one bit, a pocketed slab after the Twin Cracks, that needs a bit of thought about runner placement. Climbing’s straightforward, but I am….”

Once again, where had that come from?

“I am prioritising keeping all of my family, Ish”

That got through, as he simply nodded, wordless.

“Mr Rhodes?”

“Clara?”

“Nana gave me some money for you. to pay for meals and stuff. Do you… would you like it now?”

“How old ae you, love? Don’t worry; it’s not a trick question”

“I’m eighteen, coming up to nineteen”

“Then, once we’ve eaten, I know what Ish is like, and I am much the same. We will probably end up wanting some crisps or that. You keep it, and maybe you can spot us a cuppa tomorrow. There’s a little kiosk at the car park”

“Oh. You don’t want the money?”

“You’re a guest, love. Right: let’s have the food orders”

She turned out to be good company once we’d fought past the shyness, and once the subject of rugby came up, they were both away in a flow of conversation interspersed with a list of rugby union players Gemma had fancied and a detailed account of why ‘footy’ was superior to all other ball games.

“There’s catching, Clara. Got to be able to jump for that, get really high. It’s like something I want to try on the rock, yeah?”

Enfys nearly spat out her drink.

“Ish ? I remember what a nutter you were on the zip wires. Please promise me you will NOT be trying dynos tomorrow!”

I saw Maz twitch, and tried to match the power of her Mum-stare, but there could be no real contest. Clara, possibly sensing something divisive, chipped in with, “Where do you climb, Enfys?”

“Oh, everywhere, really, round here. Steph’n’Geoff introduced me to gritstone”

“JAMS! HAND AND FIST!”

“Yes, love. They also showed me winter climbing”

Alys snorted then, reaching across to wiggle her wife’s nose. Enfys sighed.

“Yeah, yeah. Collapsed snow hole in the Cairngorms; roof sort of collapsed my nose when it came down. Good partner; managed to dig us back out”

Clara was fascinated.

“And you still do it?”

“Oh, yes. Anyway, favourite places to climb: I suspect that’s what you meant. Slate quarries. There are some amazing routes”

Alys lifted her wife’s hand to kiss it.

“One she spent ages on, with her Dad, with her name. Rainbow of Recalcitrance. Carolyn, ‘Enfys’ means ‘rainbow’ in Welsh. I made her take her ring off first, in case it got scratched”

Clara was still fascinated.

“Isn’t it all slippery? Slate?”

“Oh yes, and rain is a real problem, but it’s technique. Holds can be really sharp, so it’s about using the edges of your boots and being very precise. Oh, and runners can be impossible to place, so the quarries are one place where bolts are used, and yes, Ish, I know all about Aussie bolts. Why not the Bus Stop for one day, Uncle Mike, or Serengeti?”

I found myself barking laughter, but the others waited until I could talk rationally.

“Maz, Ish? One of you got that video?”

“Baby Ish!”

“Yes, Carolyn, that one. When we first went to our climbing club…”

We played the video a couple of times, as Clara made comments about muscles and how ‘sweet’ our boy was, and then I explained my humour.

“Just imagine if we had walked in with Carolyn here, after we spend some time on slate. ‘Ey, ey, ey, mate, how old’s littl’un? Six? What’s she climb at? SEVENTEEN?’ That, I think, is the Aussie equivalent of HVS, Enfys. Hard Very Severe, Clara. That’s about five grades above what you did yesterday. Maz?”

“Oh, memories stirred, darling. How quickly that place married us off”

“Ah, they were just a little early, my love”

“Darling, we just have to take our girl here to Espy”

“I have other plans, love”

“And they are?”

“Not for this year. Still doing the research. Anyway, Clara: tell us about you”

A bunbun in headlights, that girl.

“I… well…”

She gathered herself, as I began to regret my bluntness, then smiled around the group.

“I left home, sort of. Kicked out. Met a man, he, well, stupid thing to do. Not for tonight, okay? Ish knows the story”

So do I, love, so do I. Please take us past that part.

“Someone knew a social worker, lovely woman, and they knew Nana Deb, and she just walked into the police station, drove me back to the House, and that was, well, it was like a dream, yeah? And I met Diane as well, the first day. And, well, I know about you and her, so yeah. Right. We have friends there, and they’re such a mixture! I mean, Christmas is in a drag bar, and New Year’s Eve, um… Motorcycle place”

“Clara?”

“Yes, Mister Rhodes?”

“Do these people have things on the back of their jackets? Like coloured patches with a club name?”

She nodded rapidly.

“Yes! That’s them! They’re really kind”

That fitted exactly with Neil’s description of Debbie’s friends in Northumberland: a back-patch club. ‘Really kind’? As long as you were inside the camp looking out, to mangle a metaphor. It also explained an awful lot of Debbie’s approach to life. Move it on, Rhodes.

“But what do YOU do?”

“Oh, I’m at Cardiff Uni, doing English. I want to be a teacher. I was really worried, being in a home, and…”

She waved at her body, and Alys was the other one to reach out for her hand.

“The other girls, they were so good, especially Alicia and Tricia, got me through my GCSEs and then, for my A-levels, there was a woman, a writer, policeman’s wife, Paula she’s called, and she really, really helped. So I’m at Uni, but. Well, when I’m not there I like music”

I swooped.

“What sort?”

“Oh, all sorts, but in the House we get a LOT of folk, so, yes. And I paint”

Maz slipped in her own question.

“What medium, Clara?”

“Watercolour, mostly. I’d like to try oils, but they’re not really practical in a shared room. We have… Nana and Kim, they say it’s like Number Ten, with pictures of all the Prime Ministers up the stairs, so we have all sorts of photos there, like us in the mountains, or at rallies, and in our study room, Nana’s put up some of my paintings. Just landscapes. I don’t think I could do portraits”

She stopped abruptly, and I drew breath in admiration at what she had already achieved. My son just looked smug, as Clara blushed.

“Sorry. I don’t say much, most of the time, but when I do, I gush. What’s Espy?”

Maz explained that one, and the child in Clara gave a delighted squeal when my lover described the arrival of the little blue penguins.

“This is where you had the sea lions and stuff? Oh wow! You are SO lucky!”

Ish was using his own free hand to pull out his phone when Alys stopped him.

“Got my laptop in here, Ish. Clara, I spent my work experience year staying with Mike and Ish, so here are some better photos…”

In the end, Maz declared that we needed to get our own princess and her bear to bed, so we left the youngsters to it and headed off up the hill. To my surprise, Alys and Enfys joined us, with the latter suggesting that two other young folk might appreciate some time of their own.

They came in around an hour after us, and quietly slipped into their bags. They were in separate bags, but when I slipped out for a small hours visit to the loo, they were fast asleep, Ish spooned around his new girl and her hand on his arm.

Time to give them space.

We ate breakfast as a family plus one (plus bear), and I noticed little nudges by Clara to Ish, with the occasional meaningful look towards Maz or myself. I waited until we had done the dishes and cleared everything away before dropping the hint.

“You want a word with me, son?”

He looked down at his feet for a few seconds, then nodded, so I led him outside into the slowly warming day.

“What is it, Ish?”

“Um, Clara, Dad. She says… Look, her staying with us was my idea, and it’s really nice, and… but she thinks you might see her as pushy, and she doesn’t want that. She wanted me to let you know that if it’s awkward, she can always go back with the others”

I settled myself, choosing what I was saying as carefully as I could. I knew far too much about imposter syndrome: who better?

“She’s shy, isn’t she?”

“Dad, she’s… We both are, Dad”

He looked away towards the Glyders, and away from me, before he spoke again.

“Not easy talking to girls, Dad. I wanted, I HAVE wanted to try at school and at college, but, well, I’m no good at it, I know that, and if I said the wrong thing, it would stay with me, stay with everyone I know. Here, it’s different”

He looked up sharply.

“That sounds wrong too, like I’m just playing with her, and, well, not. It’s just… Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t want to sound stupid, but when Mum was… We both know what being lonely is like. Loads of friends around us, but there’s still a big hole. Wants filling. I don’t know where things are going to go, but least I get that thing that Mr Nguyen always talks about, a fair go. Clara’s told me a lot about that man. Sort of defuses any ideas I have, things that might end up hurting her. She’s… Look. I saw you talking with Alicia and her Dad: did they mention someone called Serena?”

“I’ve heard the name”

“Right, then. Alicia went back to her Dad for one Christmas, and Serena went back to her Mum, same deal. Both went really well. Only difference is that while ‘Licia’s Mum cleared off, Serena’s Dad came back, in the small hours. He…”

A much longer pause.

“I’ve been lonely, Dad. Nana Deb’s girls, lots of them, have had much worse. That’s why I want to do the right things around Clara”

I didn’t want to know about Serena, but I simply had to, so I asked, stupidly.

“What happened, son? To this Serena?”

“When he… When her Dad came round that night, he brought what he needed to torch the house. Both Serena and her Mum. I lost mine for six years, but I, we, we got her back”

Another long pause.

“What do I say to Clara, Dad? About her offer?”

“Ah, son…”

I hugged him hard.

“Go and tell her she needs to start filling flasks and getting her boots on. Day’s wasting”

Enfys was waiting for us at Idwal Cottage, her bike properly locked and her riding kit stored in the café, so we were soon over the little wooden bridge and heading for the Kitchen, Maz oohing at the views while our local guide prattled on about synclines and the folding of rock strata. We stopped at the iron gate so that LC could skim some stones across the water and then continued up the rocky path, as I pointed out Bochlwyd Buttress and the Gribin Facet.

“Your Dad did himself an injury on that slope, Enfys”

She laughed out loud.

“Oh, would that have involved crampons and wet grass?”

“Yes”

“I KNEW it was him! All that ‘I knew someone once who…’ rubbish!”

I shared the story, which brought copious laughter as I came to the bit about a short technical axe, neglecting to mention that both myself and Steph had taken very similar slips, and then we were at the foot of the Slabs.

“Anyone need a shave, or to check their make-up, just look at one of the shiny bits as a mirror”

Enfys was indicating the two routes we would do, which start close together, while Ish and I racked our gear. He was going for an alternate lead with Maz, while Enfys led Clara. I would go fist, followed closely behind LC by Enfys, and then Ish. It meant I would miss seeing the fun at the Twin Cracks, but that couldn’t be helped. As is my custom, I strung the first two pitches together, arriving at the huge stance by the Twin Cracks, where there was more than enough room for all six of us. I’m tall enough to be able to set a foot on one of the polished excuses for footholds and ‘extend’ to reach the huge jug formed by the flake, and I suspected Ish would be the same, but as for the others---well.

“Ish?”

“Dad?”

“Next bit is easy, but gear can be thin. Make sure you extend any wires. It’s mostly pockets, so trust your feet”

That pitch can feel a bit way-out-there, but it is safe when taken steadily. I soon arrived at the base of the long corner, and brought LC up, Enfys climbing just beneath her and collecting my gear.

“Who lifted her at the Cracks, love?”

“Nobody, Uncle Mike. She looked at the Cracks, said ‘Jams!’, and her fingers were small enough. Could you shift up the corner a bit so that I can bring Clara up? Just a couple of feet. Just set some higher anchors, then transfer to them one by one”

“Who’s been climbing longest, love?”

“Who’s the professional here, love?”

She spoilt it by giggling, but who cared? I got myself and LC up further, Clara duly appeared and was secured in turn.

“I had forgotten I knew those words, Mr Rhodes! Any more hard bits?”

“Nope, but this part is really nice. Way up in the air, but easy climbing, and the views are sublime”

“Right. Thanks”

Enfys took my rope, and I started to float up what is, for so many people, the best part of the climb, for there are gear placements literally everywhere, the moves are simple and repetitive, and the climber is left to enjoy being four hundred feet or so from the ground with al that entails.

Up; a last savour of the position, and onto the belay ledge to bring up my daughter, who was laughing happily all the way.

“Do it again, Dad? I climbed the Cracks!”

“Not doing this one again, love, but another one, a bit harder. That one’s all sparkly”

Enfys brought Clara, who was clearly blown away, but nicely, and then Ish topped out. It was a little while before Maz got there, though. As we waited, Clara quite casually turned to Ish, said “Thank you”, and kissed him on the lips. That brought a stupendous blush from him, so I muttered something about ‘taking in’, and he then turned his concentration to securing his mother.

“Ish?”

“Yes, Mum?”

“Runners, Ish. Put some in. I was supposed to be leading that last bit, OK?”

I had a sudden flashback of myself on Tennis Shoe, so gave him a bit of a glare.

“But it was so easy, Dad”

“So’s hitting the ground, son. Your Mum’s right. Now, what did you mean you climbed the Cracks, Carolyn?”

Maz laughed and tousled the girls hair through the slots in her helmet.

“Small fingers, darling. They were massive holds to her. Four moves and she was on top of the flake”

Up we went, then, and down the scramble, where I did indeed lower off LC at the bulge, before we settled ourselves at the base of the slabs for lunch, followed by Charity, which I noticed had been upgraded from V Diff to Severe, just as Tennis Shoe had followed my own views of it and been raised to Hard Severe.

Back down again, LC chattering away about sparkles (there’s a lot of quartz on the route, and Maz was much calmer about Ish and his use of runners.

“Yeah, Dad, but that start! I got six feet up, and then I just slid all the way back down. That’s polished! Made me want to get some gear in”

Thank god for that. Climbing as three ropes had eaten almost all of the day, but my crew looked happy with what they had done.

“I have a suggestion, folks”

“What, Dad?”

“An easier route on the Gribin, and then…ice cream”

Enfys simply said, “Slab?”, and I nodded.

“Then straight down to the kiosk”

I was just slinging my rucksack, when the half-expected question arrived, from a typically grubby ‘traditional walker’.

“Been climbing, little lady?”

“Yes! Doing more!”

“Don’t go up too high, though. You toproping the mite?”

I shook my head.

“Nope. She’s seconding me”

“Really? Where?”

“Hope and Charity, so far. We’re off to push her grades tomorrow, cause she’s only managed Severe so far. There’s an HVS she’ll enjoy, a slate one. Anyway, we’re off for another route, and then she and her bear need ice cream”

I waved and set off before he could manage anything coherent, and it was Clara, of all people, who laughingly told me how bad I was. I reached out one-armed to hug her and immediately released her.

“Fancy leading one?”

We walked our ice creams down to the Chapel Rocks once we had finished the long routes for the day, so of course I had to set up a top rope for the ‘problems’. Clara had declined the offer of a go at leading, but she had clearly been hard-bitten by the bug, so we played around on the boulders in question until it was time to head down to Bethesda.

“Enfys?”

“Yes?”

“That slip by the Gribin. There’s another story, from here. An impromptu group of hostellers, both sexes, all in their twenties, yeah?”

“Go on…”

“Well, one of the lads, he has his eye on a particular girl, so he’s out to impress her. That little roof there?”

“I know it, yes. I may already be familiar with this story”

“I’m not, Mr Rhodes”

“Thank you, Clara. Anyway, there he is, tight T-shirt and short shorts”

“Like at the Perving Slab?”

“Exactly. So he’s under the roof, and he’s basically tensing and flexing so it all stands out, his muscle definition, and then he makes that energetic pull around the roof”

“And?”

“And he lets out the loudest of loud farts as he does so. Dreams shattered, oh dear”

“Ish?”

“Yeah?”

“Does your Dad always tell such crap jokes?”

I humphed.

“For an English teacher, oh dear. Anecdotes, woman, not jokes”

Ish snorted happily.

“They’re still crap, Dad”

“Remember one little thing son, he says aptly”

“Which is?”

“Clara will be leaving me with her e-mail address”

“Why?”

“So I can send her some of the photos we’ve taken today”

“And so?”

“And it’s traditional. She’s already seen you as a little kid. Not yet as a baby. And just remember the title of that O’Rourke book: Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut”

“Well, got you there then, cause to have a haircut, good or bad, you need to have some hair”

“Cheeky pup!”

“You’ve trained me well, Dad”

I turned to Maz to get her input, and she was weeping. Ish went straight to his mother, as did LC, so I joined them, for we were a family, and Maz buried her face in my shoulder.

“Sorry, sorry… Just seeing how much I missed, how much they stole from us”

“No need for sorry, love”

“Not just from me, darling! They stole it from all of us. It’s… It’s grief, love, but it’s also joy, and…”

She looked up, eyes screwed up to try and break the flow of tears, and kissed my cheek.

“It’s odd, darling. The loss, yeah? It’s there all the time, but then I see you, together with our son, and, well, pride, joy: I chose this man, we made this other man, look how right I was in my choices… Sorry, Enfys, Clara: still finding my feet again. Sorry”

Enfys joined us in the hug.

“Are we not bloody family, Maz? All of us, ah? What you lot have done for Alys? Amazed at your strength, we are”

“I haven’t done anything for her…”

“Your man and your son, as you said. You shaped them, so no more of that. Now, here’s our plan. Want to join us, Clara? Hugs are good”

“I’m not…”

“Get in and hug, woman. We’re plotting, and I need some of your input”

“What about?”

“I’m off home tonight, but I’ll try and pop out tomorrow, if you’re at the Bus Stop. For now, I think you need to report in, back to Deb. Then back to the bunkhouse, where I will have a menu awaiting, for the Dwr y Mynydd. You eat Chinese food, Clara?”

Maz laughed suddenly, and I pulled back slightly so I could see her face.

“The joke is?”

“Oh, I can’t remember which of them it was, but when we did that video meeting, all those years ago, one of them, Alys or Enfys, looked at me and said ‘Dwr y Mynydd eyes!’. And I suspect the culprit is the one here right now. So we have come full circle!”

That was my wife, in essence. Even when crushed, she was still finding joy behind the darkness.

We filled the old Hafod road as we walked back to car and bike, leaving Enfys to ride back as we drove the short distance to the camp site so that Clara could make her dirty-stop-out report. Gemma was watching as we walked in, her expression dismal, but when Ish took his girl’s hand, her smile could have dimmed the early evening sun.

“She behaved herself, Mike?”

“Impeccably, Deb”

An older girl was looking past Deb.

“What routes? Sorry, I’m Cathy”

“What did we do, Mr Rhodes?”

“Hope and Charity on the Slabs, and Slab on the Gribin”

“Oh! Polished as polished things”

Deb held up a hand.

“Sorry, Cathy, but need to sort something sharpish. You back with us, Clara? Meal portions need adjusting if you are, that’s all”

The girl looked at me, as if for permission, then gave her answer.

“Um, no. Enfys is ordering Chinese for us”

Deb’s smile was warmer than I had seen for ages.

“Just remember what the departure day is, woman. Plans for tomorrow?”

“Mr Rhodes said something about a Bus Stop”

Cathy yelped, then called out “Scott! Nell! Leo!”

When they arrived, Cathy grinned.

“Fancy keeping a clean slate tomorrow? That’s where this lot are going”

She then dropped her grin.

“Sorry, Mr Rhodes. Presumptuous of us. We’ve done a lot, but it’s mostly been in the Lakes, Scotland or the Alps. Never felt the confidence to try slate”

“Hang on… Are you the ones who got engaged halfway across ‘Dream of White Horses’?”

‘Nell’ nodded happily, as Cathy continued.

“What grade do you climb at, Mr Rhodes? Nell and me, we’ve managed E1 so far, at Tremadog”

“Oh, I’m pretty comfortable around E6, but I’m more of a grit climber”

Maz grinned, so much brighter since her spasm on the old road.

“Our child is up to Severe now”

As ‘Scott’ turned to Ish, clearly to ask which climbs, Maz simply carried on.

“No, our other child. Don’t know how she’ll cope on slate, as she likes gritstone---”

“JAMMING! HANDS AND FISTS!”

“---as you can hear”

Cathy mugged at Nell, saying, “Shall we just give up now?”, before laughing happily. I smiled back.

“The plan is to head over to the Bus Stop quarry, which is ideal for newcomers to slate, and then head in for Serengeti, which has some real classics. There’s a superb HVS, for example, with no long reaches”

Leo, who sounded Italian, blanched.

“You’re going to take the little girl up HVS?”

“Knowing her, she’ll take herself up. She’ll have a top and tail rope, though. If you want to meet us there, it would be nice”

“Right.. Clara? What are you wearing on your feet for this?”

“Rock shoes. Enfys found me some from her work place. Better than trainers”

She was suddenly filled with confidence, grinning at Ish before adding, “And my view’s better than at the Perving Slab”

A chorus of “Oh you tart, Clara!” erupted from every girl in earshot, and she blushed, but kept the grin. Time to get moving, Rhodes, and an idea hit me. We arranged a time for a morning rendezvous at the bunkhouse, and I rattled off a quick e-mail from my phone.

Enfys had the menus, I had the credit card, we all had the Chinese, and before we all met the others at the Bunkhouse, we had a video meeting with Keith and Penny, and the office staff who were in at work got to meet Kawan.

It was another superb day, LC managing Equinox, at VS, but I drew the line at Solstice, as it is not just HVS but involves a particularly nasty and sustained layback. We’d started on the relatively easy slab of Jagged Face, which is a balance and small holds affair, going as low as Hard Very difficult or Mild severe, before the far more technical (and vertical) Solstice face.

Leo and Scott each managed the layback on Solstice, after peeling on a toprope, and agreed that they really, REALLY didn’t fancy leading it, but everyone including LC cruised the easier route, Clara requiring quite a bit of advice before managing the finish.. We played on the easier slab for a bit, before Ish belayed me up Massambula, E2 5b, and none of the sods could follow. It was the same with Scarlet Runner, but then that is E4 5c, so not surprising. Enfys had now arrived, so at least I didn’t have to collect my own gear while being lowered off.

“Not your style of climb, Uncle Mike, all that delicate slab stuff”

“Variety is the spice of life, love. Who’s been pissing about with the grades?”

“Where?”

“Had a look at the new guides. Tennis Shoe has gone up from S to HS, Charity from V Diff to Severe, both of which are fair, but who downgraded Seamstress to VS from HVS?”

She just laughed, the heartless sod, so I resolved to keep using the old guidebook. We followed her into the maze that is the Dinorwic quarry, and finally arrived at the amazing feature that is the Seamstress Slab, like an axe head chopped into the Earth.

Scott was looking at it with wide eyes, his hand waving vaguely as he spotted the lines,

“Which one’s Seamstress, Mr Rhodes?”

Sod the new guidebook.

“That crack there son, with the narrow-track step over the overlap. HVS, The crack to the right is a lot harder. E2 5b. That one there… that’s 8a”

“Shit!”

“Bolted, though. I came here once, years ago, and someone had drawn a diagram on a bit of slate, with the words ‘Y Gwaedlyd’ on it. New guide says it’s that bit over there, grades it 7a, and that is an example of what I hate about so-called sport climbing”

“Which is?”

“When I found that piece of slate, I could see chalk on the route. What I couldn’t see were bolts. They’ve been added since. Someone who wanted to do the moves, but didn’t have the courage”

“What’s the name mean?”

“No idea. Enfys?”

“It means ’The one covered in blood’, Scott”

We spent several hours there, everyone but Enfys, Clara and LC leading Seamstress, but everybody successful in climbing it, while Enfys and myself led Seams The Same, with a few failures in both seconding and toproping. All three of the younger women failed, and I didn’t even try with LC, but Maz cruised ut after our sone peeled at the crux.

Different people, different strengths. Enfys was looking twitchy, and when I asked, she just pointed at a line of bolts.

“Heading the Shot, Uncle Mike. I’d like to try it, but I would need a really sound second. It’s been regraded as well”

“To?”

“E5 mumble”

“Sorry?”

“7a… Well, it’s 6b, but there’s a variation, and that pushes up the tech grade”

It was a full digit past my comfort zone, but, well, we wouldn’t be back here for ages, and I would be seconding.

“Okay, then”

This was Enfys as I had never seen her before, standing at the foot of a blank slab, gaze somewhere else, making little practice moves, and then “Climbing!”

She peeled at the crux, almost running down the face as she fell, and then insisted we pull the rope down so she could do it again. More deep breathing, more mental preparation, and this time she cracked it, moving up much faster on the upper slab.

How old and fat was I? How stupid? Sod it.

“Climbing!”

It was bloody hard, but I managed to reach the overlap without peeling, and equally without any idea as to why, and how, I hadn’t come off.

“Where to now, love?”

“Hand traverse left to that groove”

“Call that a groove?”

“It’s all you have”

“I left one of your quickdraws behind. I’d have peeled if I’d tried to recover it”

“No worries. I’ll ab down for it. Now…”

I had to sit at the top for a few minutes, my forearms and calves screaming at me, but I was grinning.

“I’ll wait here till you’re down, love, then take down the belay. Want a back up rope?”

“Please. Never happy with abbing”

I got Ish to attach a second rope to ours, and pulled it up to set up another belay before securing her as she abseiled down the slab to collect her quickdraw, and I then carried everything down the descent path to find Ish grinning.

“First time I’ve ever seen you with disco leg, Dad!”

“Cheeky monkey”

“Oh, not as cheeky as Mum”

“What have you done, my love?”

Maz was twinkling with glee.

“Got it all on video”

“And? I am sure there is more”

“E-mailed it to Chad and Ku”

“They’ll put it up on that website!”

“That, dear husband, is exactly what I suggested”

She was coming back to me. Staggering occasionally, often reaching out for a hand, but slowly learning to walk again.

We finished our time at the quarry with a tour-guide session from Enfys, pointing out the various ridiculously-hard test pieces, including one that started her giggling.

“That one’s called ‘Stack of nude books meets the Stick Man’. The ‘Stick Man’ is a nickname for one of the slate pioneers, and, well… The route’s E4 6a, so I think not for today, ah?”

Leo looked confused.

“This stack, of nude books?”

Enfys laughed, once again.

“The books weren’t nude, they were collections of nudes. I suppose the books WERE nude, in that sense”

Ish called out, “Get to the point!”

“Okay. When our heroes arrived at the crag, there was a pile of magazines by the start. Gentlemen’s magazines. Um, left-handed reading material”

Leo was still puzzled, clearly.

“Why is reading left-handed?”

Nell and Cathy were lost in hilarity, so Scott leant in closer and whispered to him before making a rapid and very graphic motion with his right hand, and the lad’s eyes went wide.

“NO!”

Enfys just replied. “YES!” and then gave an anecdote about her wife’s studies.

“Alys had to do various biome, ecosystem, whatever the word is: she did ecology and conservation, so she had to look at all sorts of different environments. We have an invasive species here; most people don’t understand how destructive it is, cause it looks pretty”

I offered “Rhododendrons?”, and she nodded.

“Anyway, one of the standard research topics for her course is in ways to get rid of them, and she was down near Beddgelert. Bunch of the things had formed a sort of bower, and, little ears?”

I looked across to LC, who was showing Kawan how to draw pictures on bits of slate.

“Fine, love”

“Okay. So there is my beloved, looking into this little space, and there is, as you have guessed, a pile of magazines there. What made her laugh wasn’t the fact that there was a single right-hand rubber dishwashing glove on top of the pile, but that a rather rare fungus was growing next to it, Called Caninis mutinus or something like that”

Clara was chuckling, obviously in full understanding, and Enfys just nodded at her as Cathy asked, “And?”. Enfys simply waved at Clara to deliver the punch line.

“Well, I like mushrooms, and when we go camping, Deb knows some tasty ones, so we have a guidebook at the House. I see Cathy and Nell know what I’m about to deliver”

Two smirking nods.

“So that fungus is part of the stinkhorn family, and its Englishname is what it looks like: dog’s dick”

That broke the silence, as laughter took our group, and then we started the process of packing, delayed only by LC’s demands for ‘just one more, which were allayed by Enfys planting a runner at about fifteen feet in the Seamstress crack so that our daughter could have a little play on the ‘blank’ slate beside it.

“Wife of mine?”

“Husband?”

“What I said about a chalk bag for her sweets? I think she now needs a second one, for her chalk. I suspect we have another Enfys here”

“consider it listed, Mr MBR. Now, what is our plan for the evening? Pub?”

“Sounds good to me”

Enfys confirmed that she would be going home to Bangor, but Cathy was waving her mobile.

“Just checked with Deb. She’s happy to do designated driver tonight, so we’ll be there as well. I’ve also had a cheeky thought: is there room for four tonight in your bunkhouse?”

Enfys pulled her phone out, tapped a key, and then launched into her own language, which had LC fascinated, before confirming that her father had agreed to reserve some shelf space for them. Cathy smiled, which seemed to be her default state.

“Then we are agreed. Enfys, if I give you my addy, could you mail me any vids or pics you’ve got, and I’ll bring my laptop. Ish? You up for that? I’ve already got Clara’s”

My boy surprised me just then, as well as making me proud.

“Need to clear it with Dad, because that is the first time I have ever seen him shake on a climb, and while it’s okay to laugh when we’re like this, it’s not the same with strangers”

Our boy. I shook my head.

“Thanks, son, but it’s actually a good training point. I should have kept that heel lower. I think we should be asking Enfys, really, after that peel”

That woman just laughed out, “Na! Shows them that falling is part of the game, as well as proving that gear works”

So it was back to the bunkhouse, some of us to queue for the shower while others got the use of the Hiatts’ bathroom, and then some quiet time reading or napping before the walk down to the Cow, which was pretty quiet until the arrival of Debbie’s horde, who seemed to gravitate directly to Ish, who received a large number of hugs. Debbie and her husband found seats near me and my girls, however.

“Any issues, Mr Rhodes?”

I shook my head, but with a smile.

“We’ve had our conversations with both of them, Deb. He’s happy, but realistic, and she, well, still bloody waters, there”

“Aye, there are. That’s the thing with so many of them. Everyone locks onto ‘what’ they are instead of ‘who’. That’s part of what I try to give them, space to be a person. Like Gemma, there: has her own reputation now, as a pro chef. My man here found the key to that, didn’t you?”

Frank shrugged.

“Simple, really. Just pointed out to a few idiots that if they were willing to queue to buy what she made, it probably made sense to keep her as sweet as her pastries. Worked, mostly”

Maz asked, “Mostly?”, and he grinned.

“Aye, ‘mostly’. One time, it was almost funny. Someone started the usual stuff, no originality to them at all, is there? When I say ‘almost funny’, there was a couple there, two lads, I mean, and one of them fronted up to the arsehole, and got a smack for his trouble”

Maz looked at me with a wince.

“How could that be funny, Frank?”

“Oh, we have some very regular customers, and a couple were there from Diane’s crew. What’s that phrase they like, love?”

Debbie grinned happily, but also surprisingly ferally at the same time.

“Only the most necessary of force was used in their arrest”

Our burst of laughter was interrupted by a call of “Budge over!” from Pen, as she and Keith appeared, each carrying a folded camping stool.

“If you lot are annexing our bunkhouse, me and Keefy will get a drink out of you, at least. You eaten?”

Maz grinned a welcome, her mood clearly on an upswing.

“Just ordered. Please tell me we’re not planning on hitting the chippy afterwards!”

I noticed a sharp look from Frank towards his wife, but she simply slipped an arm through his for a squeeze. Their business. That was when LC announced that she liked crunchy sausages, which drew Deb’s attention back to the rest of us.

“What are crunchy sausages, Carolyn?”

“They’re like fish”

“How are they like fish?”

“They’re crunchy”

Scott was the one now laughing, and he called out, “She means ‘battered’, Mr Rhodes”

“Ah!”

Nell took over.

“Remember that place in Fort William, darling?”

Her man shuddered.

“Oh, dio mio, I was trying to forget it!”

“Not possible, Leo. Not possible. GEMMA!”

Another bit of wriggling, just as our food arrived, LC on non-crunchy sausages for now, and Gemma settled herself a little away from our table.

“Nell?”

“I wanted your professional opinion, as a chef type person. Leo has already given his as an Italian. That Scottish trip we did years ago?”

“The, er, pointless one?”

Nell actually blushed at that, then grinned.

“Yes, that one. We were trying out Scots food, like you do, and some of it was inspired, like clampi”

The rest of us made a range of uncomprehending noises, and Leo said, “Vongole in tempura. Battered clams, without shells. Like scampi”

“Thank you, love. So we had things like clampi, Cullen skink, lots of salmon dishes, and then… We saw a chip shop when we passed through Glasgow, and they offered deep fried battered Mars bars”

Gemma made a peculiar noise, and Cathy waved at her.

“She won’t even cook doughnuts”

Keith and Penny were chuckling now, and he simply nodded at his wife before saying, “We do believe we know where this is going. Chip shop in Fort Bill? Run by Turkish people?”

Nell nodded.

“You’ll have guessed right, then. So, we look at the sign, and it’s one of those places that does all sorts of fast food: kebabs, chips and pizza, so Leo says—”

“Can we see what the pizza was like. A really stupid thing to do”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes you just have to see something, even if it’s impossible to unsee later. We go in, and we ask what the pizza is like, and what they have is those little ‘individual’ cheese, tomato and pepperoni things from a freezer. My husband here, he shrugs and says ’Okay’, and the man takes the pizza and only dips it into the batter tray and drops it into the fish frier”

Gemma looked ill, but Nell was now in full flow.

“And it wasn’t just pizzas they did that with. Black pudding, haggis, meat pies, Scotch pies, all battered and deep-fried. And no, Leo. It isn’t tempura. It’s just thick, thick batter. The Scottish heart disease figures are awful. Which is partly why I am having this mushroom stroganoff. I won’t have chips later”

Dab murmured, “We’ll see…”, and got another blush. Gemma changed the subject abruptly, asking when we were leaving.

“Mid September, love. Maz and I are off work for now, but Ish is back to his studies in October. We still have to, um, smooth off some rough edges before our new flower is planted out”

“You’re coming down to Cardiff, though?”

I nodded.

“Got a lot of people to thank down there, Gem, so yes”

“Where are you staying?”

“No idea as yet”

Deb grunted.

“I have”

“Sorry?”

“Already had an offer for you, if Ish doesn’t mind sleeping on the floor, or a sofa. By ‘floor’, I mean on a camping mat, of course. Or Carolyn here. I mean her on the mat, not Ish on her”

“Where’s this?”

“A number of friends know about you from the news reports, Mike. Some of them worked out that you’d probably stop by, and they’ve offered spare bedrooms and that”

“To strangers?”

“To other victims, Mike. More importantly, to survivors. Obs. I’ll talk more once you have your dates sorted, but accommodation is already there, depending only on those dates. Just let me know, or Di, or Lexie”

Someone obviously took ‘paying it forward’ bloody seriously. Deb smiled, cheekily.

“Of course, there is always the offer of space in the clubhouse, but I somehow doubt that place would be suitable for Di and her mates. Oh, while I remember: I checked out Neil’s website and, well, we spoke. He has offered me a package, and it will be free, and… sorry”

Frank hugged her to him.

“Been said before, Mike, about wounds that don’t heal”

Deb kissed his cheek.

“It was your suggestion, love, and it was a sound one”

“Aye. Just occasionally, I do something right. Anyway, Neil wants to say goodbye to his wife, and as he was there when Deb did that for her Mam and Dad, she’s going to return the honour”

“Yup. Like your accommodation, we just need to agree a suitable date. Make a weekend of it, a long one. We’ll do the… we’ll do what needs doing, and then I’ll take him round some places I need pictures of. Warmer memories”

I settled down to my meal just then, as well as finishing my pint, leaving my half-empty plate for a visit to the bar to get another round, Ish appearing at my shoulder, empty glasses in hand.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“Is it always like this? The teasing? They’re boosting each other, more and more”

I nodded.

“Get used to it, son, but always remember how much worse it could be”

“How could it get worse?”

“You’d get no teasing if you were still on your own. That sort of worse”

“Oh. Hadn’t thought of that. What’s their Nana said about Cardiff? The girls keep asking”

“As I understand it, we’re being offered crashing space. People’s spare rooms, possibly with you camping on a floor, I’m afraid”

“Some of them said about a bike place, Dad”

“Not somewhere Di or Lexie could go, son. Now, what would you like to do tomorrow?”

“Have you asked Mum that?”

He was absolutely right, I realised. The last few days, I had been so locked onto the climbing, I had simply assumed her agreement to whatever plans Enfys and I had cooked up.

“Has she said anything, son?”

“Not like that, Dad, but she has three of her bucket list things, and another bird place. They’re in opposite directions, though”

“Where’s the bird place?”

“Far side of Anglesey. Other ones are a bit south of here”

“They are?”

“That Italian village, the steam train near it and something about a dog’s grave. Got a suggestion, if you want”

“Go on”

“We do one day for the three to the south, and we do it on Clara’s last full day here, please”

“Okay… and the birds?”

“We do that the morning of their folk club day, and then we keep Elsie happy by spending the later part of the day on that easy slab thing by the campsite. She’d complain if we didn’t give her some climbing”

“Right. And tomorrow?”

He grinned.

“Horseshoe. Those girls go on and on about it, and if you talk to Mum…”

I did, on the way back to the bunkhouse, and got a kiss.

“He’s a very wise boy, darling. Debbie told me about Cemlyn, and we can drive there by way of Malltraeth and a side trip to South Stack. Roseate terns!”

Another kiss.

“Portmeirion and Ffestiniog are from very old telly programmes that Alan liked”

“The Prisoner?”

“Yes, and Ivor the Engine”

“I remember that one. You know the dog story isn’t true?”

“Don’t care. It’s a good story, and there’s something else there, something for our little girl”

That intrigued me, but we had a good set of plans, courtesy of our boy, and I slept well. I wasn’t in quite so good a mood in the morning, as getting into the car park at Pen y Pass was a slow business. The day came with a surprise, though, as we slogged our way up to the ridge, LC on a short safety line, and Clara casually announced that she loved the spot.

“Done it several times, I… sorry”

She cast a quick glance at Ish, slightly pink in the cheeks, then continued, with a smile.

“I’ve been along the edge a few times, with Cath and Nell and their husbands, and with Debbie. I love it!”

That eased some of my worries, changing the dynamics considerably, and she proved to be both confident and competent on the narrow sections of the ridge. Maz was ecstatic, even though LC had to be reminded that Kawan didn’t really need to see that bit all the way over there, but stay close to us until we were in the promised café.

We arrived at the top of the very last square pinnacle on Crib Goch, and I released LC to scramble down into the saddle and join Ish and Clara just as Maz turned to look back along the ridge, muttering under her breath.

“What was that, love?”

She turned a stiff smile my way.

“I said ‘Fuck you Suleiman’, darling”

And your bloody mother, my love, but I didn’t say that aloud. Instead, I looked back down into the saddle, where my boy was rather busy with his lips as well as those of our guest, oh dear.

Along the next ridge, which is wider but longer, past the trig point, down to the railway line and then into the café, before the slippery descent on the Watkin Path to the ascent to the fresher-seeming air on top of Lliwedd, and finally another cuppa at the car park., which meant I could put down LC, whose energy reserves had vanished as soon as we had reached the Miners’ Track. My own knees were aching, and for the first time, we had received a little shower of rain just as we came within sight of the last bend of the footpath.

It didn’t last, and we were soon back to fair-weather cumulus set in expanses of blue, and a ride back to Bethesda which left me the only one awake in the car until we were parked outside the little supermarket, where I chivvied them all awake to gather the makings of an evening meal and the next morning’s breakfast.

I was asleep by eight that night. Getting old, Rhodes.

Ish and Clara were off together in the morning by bus, their target a certain record shop, while Maz, LC and I visited Caernarfon for yet another tick for Maz’s list. Pasta and salad that evening, none of it deep-fried, and another sober night. I almost felt virtuous, consoling myself with the fact that we would have music and silliness the following evening. We spent our time relaxing in the bunkhouse, downloading all of our photos, including those taken by LC, and mailing them to everyone we thought needed a smile, or a laugh, or maybe assurance we hadn’t forgotten them. On a hunch, I clicked onto the climbing wall’s website, and yes, there we were.

Among a flurry of bad puns and phrases such as ‘Like father(and mother)…’ we had LC on Equinox, as well as Seamstress, Ish emerging from the exit of Ivy Chimney, a comparable set of videos of Ish, Clara and LC on the Twin Cracks, and several shots of Maz smiling, along with the information that we would be back ‘soon’ and touting for other families to visit the place. My beloved simply laughed, asking if we should try negotiating a fee, while Clara asked if there was any way her own video could be removed.

Ish looked a little puzzled.

“Why, Clar?”

“Cause it makes me look silly, falling off like that”

“It shows you getting up it as well. That’s the point of it, that you didn’t give up, that you worked on it and solved it”

“Yeah, but you and your Dad just reached up!”

“Each of us is nearly two metres tall, Clar. And before you mention my sister, she’s got tiny fingers. You climbed it, made me proud of you. That’s the point. And then you went off and climbed that stuff on slate”

“You sure?”

He reached over the table for her hands.

“I’m sure”

There was another meaning there, it seemed, but they only had a couple of days, so I decided it was best left lying.

We stayed in the car while Maz did her bird-naming extravaganza, listening to a new disc Ish had found in Bangor, before heading off to South Stack for more of the same, with the addition of LC’s insistence on counting every step from the top to the bridge over to the lighthouse, and Clara came to the fore just then, explaining what exactly a lighthouse was, as well as its purpose, while I filled the gaps by pointing out seals as well as some of the more famous climbs up the churned semi-rock of Mousetrap Zawn.

“What exactly is that…stuff, Dad?”

“I am told it’s sandstone, folded up, with quartzite intrusions. I just think of it as ‘cheese’, or, really, someone else’s route. Gritstone, it isn’t”

“Why do people climb it, then?”

“Same reason people climb chalk cliffs with ice tools, son”

Clara chipped in a quick, “Cause they’re mad?”

“Some are. Some just like a challenge, but some are, well, yes. That stop before Dagenham”

“Sorry? I’m from Cardiff”

“Oh: Barking”

Maz got her fill, partially at least, and we took a drive back to the main island for the run up to Cemlyn, which was a surprise, a lovely one. It was like a miniature Chesil Beach, a long shingle spit cutting a lagoon off from the sea, and there was a constant stream of various tern species in both directions, all seeming to be calling ‘Creak, creak!’. LC spotted that the ones heading for the lagoon all seemed to be carrying small fish, and that was her day made, at least that far.

We had lunch in ‘Clan Fair Twiddly’, Clara surprising me yet again by managing to say the whole of the name from memory, as well as translating it, which made Ish so smug he was almost unbearable, and then I made the almost final part of our journey past the Cow and up to the campsite. As we exited the car, LC came directly to me, looking stricken.

“Is Clara staying here, Dad?”

“Not tonight, love. She has to go home on Sunday, though”

“Kawan likes her. She’s nice. And she likes Ish”

She paused, then added something which asked questions I really didn’t want answered.

“Ish is good. I like having my brother. He would have stopped the man with the axe”

She ran off then, happy that Kawan and Ish would still have their friend for a couple more days. I called her back, though.

“Carolyn?”

“What?”

“Not want these?”

I was holding her little rock boots and harness, and of course I got a squeal that should have left my ears bleeding.

It turned out that the girls were having a rest day, which seemed, for most of them, to mean reclining at the foot of their Perving Slab and taking in the views, but several of them swarmed us as soon as they saw our gear, and it just became a day of toproped silliness, which was no bad thing in my view. Enfys had tested my limits a couple of days before; I was entitled to a little fun.

Alan, Scott and Leo confirmed they had combined their funds for a couple of minibus taxis back, so everyone was free for a different sort of fun that evening, which would be a floor spot only evening. We rounded off that day’s sort-of-exercise with a session of shower-queuing before the familiar walk down to the Cow, both Keith and Pen with us from the start this time, along with Alys and her parents. Maz asked the obvious question.

“No Enfys?”

Keith simply said, “On a shout. Could be a long one. Said she’d let us know if and when”

Pen shrugged, spreading her hands wide.

“Goes with the turf. Mike. Apparently, they’ve had to get the Llanberis lot out as well. I’ve put some bottled in the fridge for her. Just in case”

None of our group of adults needed to know the ‘What’ of ‘just in case, for three of us, to my knowledge, had helped recover what had once been a person from somewhere that had called to them like the Lorelei or Sirens, and in the case of myself, that had been four times.

“Will she be all right, Pen?”

Alys took my hand, squeezing it.

“I’ll be waiting for her in her old room, Uncle Mike. You understand, I know. Subject change, please. Clara: what sort of stuff do you like to read?”

The girl was startled, but she quickly caught on.

“Oh, I do love David Crystal’s writing”

Ish was chuckling as Alys started her ‘Who’s he?’ routine, but Ish interrupted.

“He writes about language and how it works, Alys. Clara is a Dane, I’m afraid”

The girl objected, quite reasonably, that she was Welsh, so Ish began his usual explanation of Fen versus Danes, those who were fans of SF and those who didn’t get it.

“So there’s this town in Lovecraft’s books called Dunwich, and there’s a place in England with the same name. ‘No tentacles there’, says Dad, when we went there, my first time over in the UK. Remember the zip wires, Alys?”

“Unfortunately, yes”

“Well, anyway. So there are no tentacle monsters in the real Dunwich, but then Dad shows me the nuclear test pagoda things nearby, so you never know for the future…”

Clara looked at her feet for a few moments, then said, “I did read one book, once, because… It was sort of a dream thing. The reason I read it, not the book”

Alys looked at Ish, who asked so, so gently, “What was the dream, Clar?”

Her gaze went off to the bulk of the mountain ahead of us.

“I think it’s… All girls like me, I think we all have a dream of waking up and everything being changed, being right. Being all sorted out. Never going to happen, but a nice dream to curl up with. This book, there were these hidden jewels, on this planet”

“Janus. It was called Janus, and the author was Andre Norton”

“Thank you! I’ve been trying to find it for ages”

Alys took her hand.

“There are actually two books, and you can get then for pennies as an e-book. I’ll send you the link. Oh, and Andre Norton was a woman, and her real name was actually Alice”

“Wow! Thank you so much. Oh, and I’m also reading a book Ish bought me in Bangor. Man called Pratchett. It’s about cats”

“Educated Maurice etc?”

“No, cats. Unadulterated ones. Got cartoons by Gray somebody”

Penny’s sudden laugh was raucous in the extreme, even for her.

“Gray Jolliffe, oh dear! Man who did that book ‘Man’s Best Friend’. Ish, you…”

Clara was lost.

“Was that one about dogs?”

Penny almost fell over, she was laughing so much, and Keith had to explain.

“Main character was called ‘Wicked Willie’, because not only was he wicked, as in cheeky, he was a willy”

“Do you mean a---?”

“An appendage like that mushroom we mentioned. Let’s just say he could have been called, to rephrase a cartoon name, Dastardly Dick”

Clara stopped dead, staring at Ish, who was now squirming with embarrassment.

“I didn’t know, honest, Clar!”

“Then I shall look forward to getting Janus from the internet and wicked willy from you”

A pause.

“That is not how I meant to say that. What’s tickled you, Mrs Rhodes?”

“Oh, Clara! You’re doing me!”

“How?”

“I have a long history of saying things that have two meanings, but not realising until it comes out of my mouth”

Her turn to pause.

“Er, a bit like that. Look, the pub door, our saviour. I want a pint of ale this time, Mr MBR, please”

Into our corner, Kawan onto his window shelf, meals ordered from memory, first pints down, and names onto Illtyd’s list as Deb’s people arrived, Alun with his guitar case, and the old and familiar routine ran its course. When my turn came, I gave them Cyril’s ‘Grey Funnel Line’ and later joined Ish, Illtyd and Marty for a rendition of ‘A Miner’s Life’. Before that, though, both Alun and Frank surprised me.

The former settled into a chair, with his usual jokes about people having time to escape while he detuned his guitar.

“Done this one before, and it’s still for a wonderful woman over there, and I will still never be Jarvis Cocker”

He jangled his way through that well-known Pulp song, before setting down his guitar, smiling, and saying that the next one was for his daughter.

By the time he had finished ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ Alicia wasn’t the only one in tears. He didn’t have the purest of voices, but he took that song and made it his, and then gave it to her. What a man; what a father.

Frank’s moment came, and he spoke a few sentences in Welsh before launching into a real crown pleaser, ‘Yma o Hŷd’, Which had the crowd roaring along and Illtyd hugging him as he finished. Frank said something else, and Illtyd simply nodded.

“Dw i’n deall. Cer ymlaen”

Frank turned to the rest of us, smiling.

“Our good friend Alun sang his first song to my wife Debbie, so I am going to offer her another song, one she learned from her parents, one that was sung by our friends at our wedding, and one whose final words sum up her approach to life: be yourself, be good to those around you, and damn what fools might think. Please join in when you recognise it”

He settled himself and began a familiar opening.

“Come my own one, come my fair one…”

Various voices from other corners of the room joined in, one by one, Frank giving a little smile or nod to each, and by the time that very direct statement was given at the end of the song, that we were frolicsome and easy, good-tempered and free, and had no pins to give for the opinions of others, the whole pub was roaring, so Frank just wound his arm in the traditional gesture for ‘one more time’, and we managed to get even louder.

Several of the girls were cuddling his wife, who was in tears, but somehow grinning as well. Frank settled beside us, Illtyd handing him a pint as he passed, and Frank put it on the table before giving Deb a proper, no holds barred, kiss.

He turned to me with a smile.

“Your mate Neil, aye?”

I had to correct him on that point.

“OUR mate Neil, Frank”

“Aye, fair point. Anyway, I know you were worried, but what he has for her isn’t just the pics, it’s the obs. Obligations”

Ish muttered “Eric Frank Russell, Dad”

Frank smiled.

“Yes. We heard about that, and found the book, and it makes bloody good sense to me. Anyway, doesn’t matter what this idiot I married does for others, she always feels guilty that she can’t do, hasn’t done, more. Any chance to do that forward stuff, she’s there. Gives me all sorts of problems”

Deb pulled herself together enough to ask, “Such as?”

“How do I ever repay such a woman for agreeing to marry me?”

Deb laughed, wiping her eyes.

“You been talking to Charlie’s fella again?”

“Of course, my love. He gave me a high bar to aim at, after all. Mike?”

“Aye?”

“Illtyd has stood a round for the singers tonight. He’ll be back in a bit to ask what you and Ish want. Now, I know Debbie has told you about spaces in Cardiff, so I will apologise and say that our place is a flat over the bakery, otherwise I would be proud to see you there. We also have a folk club we like, but they are a Welsh language place. No worries for the non-speakers, not like that, but they do a good evening. Let us know, okay. Where are you taking Clara tomorrow?”

“Beddgelert, Porthmadog, Ffestiniog and Portmeirion”

“Ah. She’ll be asleep all the way back home, then”

Illtyd was back with a couple of pints just then, clearly based on what we had been drinking, and time was called not long after the last floor spot. We filed out of the pub into light drizzle, and straight into what Alys called ‘Colin’s place’, where LC got a ‘crunchy sausage’ before we set off up the hill, Maz towing me backwards so that we drifted away from the others.

“Did you hear that the way I did, love? What Clara said?”

I laid my jacket over her shoulders against the rain.

“You talking about the willy stuff?”

“Yes. She hadn’t… I don’t think it was planned, thought out in advance, but she was seizing the opportunity. For an invitation”

“Offering, well, intimacy?”

“Sometimes, husband of mine, you can be really twee. You can say ‘sex’, I am sure. Before you ask, no, I have no opinion either way, and I certainly do NOT wish to discuss, well, anatomical issues. I simply do not want our son hurt. We have two nights left before Clara leaves, but we will certainly see her again in Cardiff. They will have no opportunities here, but, well… Mike, darling?”

“Yes, my love?”

“Please consider this the way I mean it. When we are in Cardiff, might it be a good idea to, well, not watch them too closely? Let them… It will work or it won’t, but at the moment it is working well, and she is a lovely girl, despite, well, stuff. I lost so many of his years. All I want now is to see him happy”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“Are we not his parents? We’ve coped with much worse, my love. Now, with Carolyn, do you think Ish’s old school would work?”

The message was clear: subject closed. If it all went wrong, of course, there remained the simple fact that we lived rather further away than the next town. I decided to leave it and follow my wife’s counsel; she was usually sound.

That, of course, brought back thoughts of her decision to go back for that funeral, and my own regret that I hadn’t walked up to that Rahim bloke and simply taken the stick from him, or just punched Suleiman before Rahim’s men punched his ticket.

I realised I was gripping her hand a bit too firmly, so calmed myself with deliberate thoughts about being silly, largely centring on being a free man and not a number, ust before I realised Ish and Clara were dropping back.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“That Illtyd, he asked me why we were driving tomorrow. Said there’s an easier way”

“Sorry?”

“When we were in Beddgelert, first time we came? The old footpath was closed?”

“Yeah. Putting the little train back in”

“Well, it’s not just back in, but it goes all the way to Ffestiniog from Caernarfon, and there’s a stop where you can do a reasonable walk to the Prisoner place. So, there’s a bus to Caernarfon… and there are pubs all along the way”

“You sure?”

“I asked Alys, and she looked it up for us. Ma=um, would you prefer to do the whole thing by steam train? Apart from the bus bits in and out of Caernarfon?”

My wife astonished me just then by actually doing a run in the spot while repeatedly saying “Yes!”, so we took a swing past the Hiatts before the bunkhouse, and my credit card got another beating.

It’s only money.

We had left Ish and his girl to sort LC for us, so as not to overcrowd Keith and Penny’s living room, and no sooner had I received the confirmation and transferred it to my phone than the front door banged, and Enfys walked over to a dining chair, wordlessly undoing her jacket, boots already off.

Alys looked around the rest of us, smiled sadly, just as Enfys began to weep, and simply drew her from her chair and led her upstairs. Nobody had said a single word, probably because each of us had recognised that whatever she had been dealing with was, just then, beyond any words we might have found. All the two of us could do was hug our goodnights and hope for a decent night’s rest for the girls.

We were woken by brilliant sunshine, as well as the banging of pans from paying guests as they made an early breakfast of their own, and after sorting our own meal, started to pack what we’d need. Clara surprised me by wearing a sundress, which brought some grumpling from LC until we had let her get into her old faithful princess outfit, teamed with walking shoes, fleece and bear carrier. I made sure the older girl had some leggings with her, just in case, as well as a fleece, and then called in at the Hiatts as a courtesy combined with real worry for my self-appointed nieces.

Penny looked drawn, and asked if the rest could stay outside as I went in for a hug of a broken-looking young women. Penny settled down beside her, pulling her gently into a cuddle.

“Me and Dad have both been there, love, but not as many times as your Uncle Mike. We can listen, if that would help”

“Not supposed to talk about it, Mam”

“Understood, cariad”

“But I need to. It was on the main cliffs, Glyder Fawr, and it was… That’s what hurts, Mam: it was so stupd!”

She stumbled through the story, voice hollow and almost too faint to hear at times, a tale of four climbers caught by Just One Of Those Things. A rope of three, putting the weakest member of their crew at the tail instead of centrally, out with their own personal Rock Star, on a VS that he was soloing just in front of their leader, when all the dominoes fell the wrong way.

It had started with some goats, who had crossed the cliff above them. The goats had delivered a loose block, which had hit the soloist somewhere, it didn’t matter exactly, because what had killed him had been the impact with the staring ledge, some forty feet beneath that first impact, or perhaps the next stance, another thirty feet below his first landing.

What had killed the leader of the rope of three had been his attempt to grab his mate as he fell past, the attempt pulling him off his holds and head first onto a sharp flake, because the second had jerked away from the initial falling block and not managed to lock off the rope until the leader was already coming down at speed. That was when the second had discovered the logic of direct belays, as well as the ‘why’ of ground anchors, and had been spun face first into the rock as he was jerked up from his stance, all his belay anchors lifting out.

In the meantime, the third one on the rope had been left tied to a stance with no means of retreat and insufficient skill or confidence to climb up to see to their friends.

“Two dead when we arrived, Uncle Mike. Took us a while to get down to the second, because the cliff was too steep to get the chopper close enough, so we had to rope down with the stretcher, and we couldn’t get the second off till we had secured the leader’s body, and I don’t know if we had been quicker… he died on the way to Ysbyty Gwynedd. He was holding my hand…”

I was expecting her to break down, but is didn’t happen, for she simply kept staring into space, before saying something in Welsh. Pen looked at Alys, who said “Wrth gwrs, fy nghariad” and led her wife from the room as Penny explained.

“She just wants to go back to bed for a while, Mike. She’ll be fine, she says, but from experience, this one will go to an inquest, so she’s kicking herself about not getting to that second quickly enough”

“Fuck’s sake, Pen: two bodies on one rope, hanging either side of a runner? No way can you be quick with that!”

“I know, love, which is why the chopper sped off to grab some of the Llanberis team. I think what’s really got to her is that the number three was married to the soloist”

“Shit. Look, we’re here for a few more days, but we can always change plans if you need us. We’re pretty flexible about everything except our flight date”

“I know, love, so check your e-mail. Steph should have sent them by now”

“Sent what?”

“Festival tickets. We arranged it all as soon as we knew when you were coming”

“What bloody festival?”

“Shrewsbury folk festival. Bit of history there, to say the least. It’s where the Woodruffs met for starters, as well as where Annie and Eric got together. It was also the girls’ first trip away, as a couple, that is, and not with either set of parents. We thought it would, well; it’s not just a chance for you to get some relaxed time with both of them, but it also seemed like a proper present for Maz and the little one. They tell me it’s very good for kids, loads of activities just for them. The last weekend of the month, ah? Give my girl a chance to breathe. I’ll let you know who’s on, but not today. Enjoy the trip, love. We’ll be fine”

I went out into the sunshine after a hug, thinking of how Pen had said ‘we’, as always so strong in her sense of family, and Maz raised her eyebrows in silent query. I simply sighed, and said, as gently as I could manage, “Not now, love. Let’s have a brighter day”

The first bus went from a stop a little west of Gerlan, and dropped us off at the big shopping centre near Bangor bus station, where we did a quick grocery run for our lunch provisions, as well as for a word LC had quickly picked up, ‘losyn’—sweets (“Lollies, Dad!”), and then the next bus took us along the Menai to Caernarfon, where the train terminus was right next to the castle, which delighted LC. It was also a steam day, rather than diesel, which had Maz, Ish and Clara swooning. We found seats, things went chuff, hiss and bang, and we were off. Once the train was rolling, I called for their attention.

“Penny, Mrs Hiatt, has bought us--- Start again. Several of our friends over here, like Penny and the Woodruffs, have bought us a present, and it will mean rejigging our plans a little. That’s us four, Clara. Not meaning to be rude. Anyway, it’s August, last weekend, and it’s a folk festival that Pen says is very good for kids”

“Which one, Dad?”

“Shrewsbury, son. Don’t know who’s on, but it will be camping”

“Yay!”

He waved his phone.

“Give me a minute and I’ll tell you the line-up”

While he tapped away, and we gradually neared the bigger hills, Clara asked a question out of the blue.

“Why ‘elephant view’, Mr Rhodes?”

“Sorry?”

She waved her own mobile.

“Hut place on the map called that”

“Ah! Mynydd Mawr. Means, well, ‘Big Mountain’, but English walkers call it ‘Elephant Mountain’ because it looks like the back and top of the head of an elephant. On something called the Nantlle Ridge”

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“Steeleye Span, a load of African groups I don’t know, some man from northern Spain who plays bagpipes, Afro-Celt something, Lindisfarne, Richard Thompson, Show of Hands and loads of others. I think there’s three main stages, and a dance tent”

“That’s a lot! How many nights?”

“Says early entries on the Thursday, main event starts Friday afternoon and finishes early Monday evening. Looks like a busy weekend. Found it on the map as well”

He paused, with a sneaky smile.

“Beer festival as well”

That actually sounded like a seriously attractive weekend, as well as a ‘busy’ one. If we timed our move from Bethesda, it was a comparatively short run to Shrewsbury, and then we could bimble down through the Malverns or the Wye Valley to get to Cardiff. It would work nicely.

Ah.

“Just coming towards what I call the Quellyn Valley, folks. There’ll be a lake, and---Elephant Mountain”

Maz was the first to spot it, laughing happily, and then cameras and phones were clicking away as the scenery got steadily more dramatic. LC shouted happily each time the steam whistle went, waving back frantically as random walkers cheered the train on. There were some comments about the names, especially when we rattled through Salem, and Clara held forth on the two youth hostels, one of them now private, and their associated footpaths to the summit of Yr Wyddfa, an area I had never really explored. Mountains, a lake, a quarry without climbing, and finally Beddgelert itself. I had to agree that it was a far nicer way to arrive than driving.

We disembarked, Maz frowning at her phone while tugging us towards a group of small shops. One had a window display dominated by a very familiar cartoon bear, which had Maz sighing contentedly.

“Stuff from my childhood, darling. I read the strips when I was little, but Mum wouldn’t have them in the house because of the pig and dog”

I understood immediately.

“I never got into it, because it was too twee, and it was in the Express. My parents wouldn’t have that in the house, also because it was full of pigs. Just, these ones were human. I always thought of it as utterly English”

“He lived here, the artist and writer, love”

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“What are you two going on about?”

I pointed at the posters and stuffed toy display.

“Rupert the Bear, son”

“Oh, whatever. Elsie wants to know why that bear is wearing trousers”

I had anticipated a request/demand for another bear, but LC was clear in her dismissal. While bears might wear hats, helmets and climbing harnesses, trousers were a step too far. Never mind; Maz bought one for herself.

We ambled past the church and out into the big field that held the ‘grave’, as I tried to find circumlocutions to tell the invented tale of a fictitious dog, so as to avoid risking an upset daughter, and the word that came to mind concerning my wife was, oddly, preening. She caught my look, and grinned.

“So many little things here, love, so many of them with huge shadows. It was… drop back a little”

We let the kids get a little ahead of us, and dropped her voice.

“When I was a student, I had a room mate who, well, she left a book out once, and it was all about master/slave silliness. That was her thing. One paragraph—I didn’t read it, just opened it, and this jumped out at me. It was something about the master limiting how far his woman slave could move. No chains, no bonds, just a notional boundary she wasn’t allowed to cross. I thought of that a lot when… Before you found us. We had boundaries, but they were more concrete. I’m here, now, on this field. No limits, no overseer waiting”

“No man with an axe?”

She turned, her eyes wide.

“How do you--- Carolyn?”

“Yes. She said her big brother Ish would keep the man with the axe away”

“Oh. I… No. Like the dog, love. Not a day for such details. Just, well, tradition and religion”

She lowered her voice to add, “And fucking inhumanity. Sorry”

I took her fully into my arms.

“Never, ever, sorry, love. Sunshine, now, sunshine and Rupert and hills and steam trains. Wander back?”

She nodded, and I gathered our little brood for the walk back to the train, which rattled its way through the Aberglaslyn gorge, Clara again adding surprising context.

“Nana had a couple of friends, Pat and a man called Stevie”

“I knew Pat, love. Someone I really miss”

She winced.

“Yes… She was there for so many of us, Mr Rhodes. Trying to remember her when she was with us, not, you know. Anyway, Pat and this Stevie, they said that this used to be a footpath, but it had---there! Tunnels! And at least one of them curved enough that you couldn’t see the light when you were in the middle. Don’t know if I’d like that. Oh, and they shot some film or other around here. ‘Sixth Inn’ or something, and this was supposed to be China. In the film, I mean”

We pooped out of the tunnel, Ish tapping away on his phone, until he called out “Inn of the Sixth Happiness”

He was chuckling, as well as shaking his head, sharing his phone screen with his girlfriend.

“Dad, this Wiki page is hilarious! They film in North Wales for China, they use a tall Swedish woman for a short cockney, and all the Cninese parts are played by European people”

I grimaced, terrible memories bursting out.

“That was the thing back then, son. They would do this”

I squinted, pulling my kips into that ‘buck-toothed’ expression.

“They thought that made them look Chinese. Some of the casting back then was unbelievable. Fu Manchu played by Christopher Lee, for example, or Omar Sharif as Genghis Khan”

“Tell me you’re joking, Dad”

“Nope. There was an even worse choice for Genghis Khan than an Egyptian, though”

I left them hanging, before I added, “John Wayne”, to a chorus of “NO!”, even from Maz. I decided not to mention Benny bloody Hill; I have my limits. Distraction time.

“Over there, son, is some really good climbing. The original sea cliffs, at Tremadog. If we have time, we can do something there. See that building, you can just see the roof?”

“Yeah…”

“That’s Eric Jones’ café. Don’t know if he’s still there, though, because he must be in his eighties by now. One of the really great climbers”

“What did he do?”

“First British solo ascents of the Matterhorn and Eiger north faces, just for starters”

That stunned him, but I got an audible gasp when I added, “I think he mostly does skydiving now. Saw a video once of him BASE-umping Angel Falls”

Again, Clara surprised me, translating it to “Building, Aerial, Span, Earth. Jumping off a high building, a transmitter mast, a bridge and a cliff. Saw a picture of someone BASE jumping St Paul’s in London”

Maz said something about clearing the dome, and Clara shook her head.

“No. They were landing, photo I saw. INSIDE the place”

That set me laughing, and we had a short discussion about limits to sanity, before I mentioned parapenting off Crib Goch rather than walking back to the car park.

Maz stared at me.

“Tell me you didn’t”

“I didn’t. But I know a man and woman who have, and they now run a folk club in Bedfordshire. Running into the port now, people. Time for lunch, I suggest”

I had had a suspicion that Maz might just delay things once she realised where exactly the station sat, and I was right. We gathered our lunch supplies, , ignoring the pub, and crossed the road to find a spot overlooking the wetlands and nature reserve behind the Cob, which brought a sharp look from Ish, so I let him know what was just around the corner, that being the main shop for Cob Records.

“Hence the name, son. Here’s a suggestion, okay? I know they do mail order, so rather than me having to traipse round there, or you spending all your money, you make a list of what looks good, and then we do it from their website, delivery to the Woodruffs. Now, your Mum wants to do some bird naming, and I have a taxi booked in one hour for Portmeirion. Only so many hours in a day”

Carolyn and Kawan stayed with me, Maz went into her bird zone, and I simply sat and enjoyed the day, relishing the ‘high’ that came from my family rather than needing that lift from a high place. Life was not just good, but getting steadily better.

The taxi man was chatty, Portmeirion was smaller than I expected (the buildings aren’t full size, but use a lot of forced perspective, or whatever it’s called, but none of us were numbers, and we were most definitely free. And the taxi was there for us for the trip to the Minfordd station and the continuation of our train ride up to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where it rained. All od us were fascinated by the spiral turn at Dduallt, which was amazing, but Blaenau brought less appreciative comments.

Slate quarries, slate spoil heaps, house built slate with slate roofs, and rain. I knew Neil loved the changing colours on wet slate, but there is a difference between wet and dripping. We took a short walk around part of the slatery, looked at the rime, and decided to ignore the draw of a slate safari and visit to a slate quarry and simply board the train once again and descend to the light.

All three kids slept much of the way back, which confirmed my logic in taking the taxis, as it had been a much fuller day than I had anticipated. We stumbled onto the bus up to Bangor, then the second up to Bethesda, where we simply picked up a large package of chips, ‘crunchy’ sausages and so on, as well as a few drinks from the supermarket. Just as we were settling down to our food, Clara’s phone chirped, and as she read the message, she winced.

“Holiday is over. That’s from Nana; they’ve already packed my other bits and pieces away, and they’ll pick me up from the Cow at ten tomorrow morning. I… It’s silly. I don’t want to go, but I DO want to go, because college and stuff, but, well. Got to go. This is me being an adult, I suppose, which is a joke. I just… Can I just say thank you, all of you, for making me so welcome. I felt like I’d be intruding, but you’ve all been so sweet, I…”

She was crying by then, so as I poured the wine and beer, the rest all cuddled up to her, LC simply saying, “You are my big sister, Clar. No crying. Crying doesn’t help. Where are you going?”

“Cardiff, Carolyn, where I live”

“Can we go to Cardiff, Dad?”

I smiled at her directness.

“We are going there, love, in about ten days”

She turned back to Clara with the widest of grins.

“Kawan and me will see you in Cardiff. Do you have climbing in Cardiff?”

It was surprisingly quiet as we turned left off the Welsh Bridge on the ‘Festival Thursday’, but traffic built up a little as we hit the rise to the Berwick Road traffic lights. We were waved straight past what I had assumed would be the entrance and down to a field gate, where a rough track gave way to a series of ups and downs that had me a little worried about speed. We arrived at the other side unharmed and undamaged, however, and went through the ticket check and across the lane into the site proper. The first thing to grab my attention was the sign ‘Kill your speed, not a folkie’, which appealed to my sense of logic. Ish was on his phone.

“She says come straight past the office building thing, with the smaller marquee on your left after a sort of picnic area and sandpit---got the sandpit! Straight on, Dad”

Not that many tents thus far, but a few motor homes and caravans and---

“There they are, Dad. Turn left down this sort of lane thing”

I could see a flurry of people moving camping chairs and tables, and then I was parking next to the Woodruff van. There was an immense tunnel tent on one side of a sort of hollow square of canvas, and as I hauled myself out of the driver’s seat, I was hugged by an extremely bouncy Steph.

“Space in the middle is for your tents, Mike. Get them up, but there’s another few tents due, so don’t take all the space, and there’s stew and rice for you once you’re ready. I’ll do the introductions in stages, but you first need to know that the Edifice there is my in-laws’, Bill and Jan. It’s got a dining room if it decides to piss down. That’s their daughter Kelly over there, with her Mark, and…”

She prattled away with names and descriptions I mostly forgot, but our tents were soon up, bedding sorted, and bums on seats in the ‘dining room’ as we got our meal, clearly served well after their own.

“Stewie wanted us to let him know how the car’s running”

“Ah, apart from a flat near Chirk, not even a hint of a problem. We’d have been here a lot earlier otherwise”

“Dim ots, love. Plan for this evening is to rest and refuel for a bi, then wander over to the main bar”

“Already?”

“Sorry? Oh, not drinkies. There’s some coffee and cake outside, and there’ll be a bit of music, some of it planned. THEN we hit the long bar, and that’s for more playing, and probably a singaround. Oh, and beer. None of you play anything, do you?”

Heads shook in unison.

“Pity. Sessions are great here. We’ve got the programme printed off, so we can have a planning session before we go out. Kate should be back shortly with the girls, so don’t want to start that bit too early—ah! Here they are, one lot, anyway”

Enfys and Alys, of course, I assumed, and I was right. More hugs, more queries about our journey, even though we had seen both of them that same morning, Enfys herself seeming slightly on edge.

“It’s in the last bedroom thingy, Enfys. Don’t worry!”

Steph turned back to with a grin.

“Wanted to bring her harp, but that little car of theirs is a non-starter, especially as they both hate long drives. When we went home last time, we put it in the van. We’re due back up in a fortnight, so we’ll reverse the process then”

That late afternoon and evening started exactly the way Steph had proposed, and after plotting our listening tactics, we were soon topping up calories and caffeine near the big sand pit we had passed earlier, several of our friends carrying instrument cases, as were a large number of other festivalgoers. A group of them started playing some morris tunes, which made Annie chuckle.

“Me and Hairy here, Mike: if we started on that, we’d end up over the top so quickly we’d probably get lynched, aye? I mean, we can do it when it’s just one of us, but, well, we’re like mutual catalysts. Ah1 Here’s the next lot”

A solidly built woman with a child attached to each hand was walking towards us, her face split by an extremely wide grin. She was followed by a slightly smaller woman with a mass of red curls, who gave Annie a hug before towing the two children towards the coffee and cake stand. The first woman, having released her hands, was holding both of Ammie’s. only releasing her right to offer it to me.

“You’ll be Mike Rhodes, then. Elaine Powell. Di Sutton was one of mine. And… Maryam? Will you accept a hug from a cynical old woman you made proud?”

Maz looked puzzled, but took the hug, and as the redhead returned with drinks and cakes, plus children with their own cake, she got her explanation.

“I’m Inspector Powell, Maryam. That was my team, aye? I had to change roles, bit of political stuff, as I’m with a different force. Di was my best girl, and Sammy Patel, her new boss, he really brought her on. I’m proud of her, aye? Oh, this is the wife, Siân; kids are Sassy and Tone. Kids—can I introduce them, Mike, Maryam?”

I waved at LC.

“This is Carolyn, kids. Carolyn, these are Sassy and Tone”

“Can I play in the sand, Dad?”

“The sign says that is what it’s for, so yes”

‘Sassy’ looked up at Elaine.

“Can we, Mam?”

“Yes, but don’t eat too much of it”

Three children were off like rockets, just as another three people appeared, their own child breaking away to join the others, as Diane hit Maz with another monster of a hug. I found myself laughing, out of sheer joy, I suppose.

“I thought we were meant to be meeting you in bloody Cardiff!”

“Yeah, and? The boy likes camping, and so does the bigger boy here. Lainey’s in the Edifice, where all our kids will be, so it’s just a bit of adulting for those two, and me and Blake here. Oh: Blake, Mike, Mike, Blake, and the unguided sand-seeking missile is Rhod. Hiya, Enfys!”

There seemed to be half of Steph’s house party guests with us, from lovely Shan with her ‘two Mums’ to a tall couple with a mixed race teenage child, also collected by one of Shan’s mothers. Jan, Steph’s sister in law and provider of bloody good stew and rice, confirmed that there was enough room for their two tents, and the group started to fragment, in a nice way, along lines of age.

I couldn’t place the accent of the tall man, but ‘Pablo’ confirmed he was actually Cuban, which was a surprise.

“Ah, I am at the Embassy, in London, but we live in Crawley”

Maz, joined to me yet again as closely as she could decently manage, asked the obvious question.

“How did you meet, given the sort of, well, political issues?”

Pablo laughed happily.

“Oh, I am the foreign man gathered up by the tourist woman, the dishy waiter, as they say, although I am neither a waiter nor dishy”

His wife simply said, “I disagree with the latter, of course, and will refute that later”

“As you wish, Caroline. No… Mike? I heard them speak of you. Mike, I was a professional birdwatching guide in my country, and now I am a cultural attaché, a very junior one, in London”

Maz had, of course, sat up a lot straighter at his words.

“You are… Both of you?”

I sat up straighter myself, and did a mock introduction.

“Pablo, Caroline, my wife Maryam, Maz. Pablo, does Caroline also mutter bird names all the time?”

Caroline laughed out loud, ending in a snort.

“No, but he bloody does! Have you been to Gibraltar, Maz? For the migrations?”

“No. We live in Australia. Bit far for a weekend, and, well, this trip is a big enough one. I’ve seen loads of life ticks, though, just in the UK”

The two of them were off, naming birds I hadn’t realised existed, while Pablo just relaxed with a happy smile, before beckoning to their teenager.

“Rita, this is Mike. The lady sharing an interrogation with Caroline is Maz. She also likes birds. Have you found the right cake?”

“Si, Papa”

He handed her a tenner and rattled something off in Spanish; she grinned, and trotted away.

“She knows what we like, Mike, so we will leave it to her. Who are you here to listen to, in the music?”

“Ah! Thompson, of course, and Steeleye. Plus Lindisfarne and Show of Hands. You?”

“Ah, Carlos Nuñez, and of course Steeleye Span”

“They are popular in Cuba?”

“Not as far as I know, but they were the very first music my lady here took us to see, and Rita adores them. Do you know of someone called ‘Keelhauled’?”

“Never heard of them”

“There is no loss to you, then. As we entered, one of the people checking tickets said that they have illness, and will not be here. They have a replacement I am familiar with, though. Have you heard of a Chrissy Morgan?”

“Oh, indeed! She is a superb musician. This weekend is getting better!”

“I hope so. It is new to me, and my daughter. Our daughter, now, I should call her. Caroline has shown us a lot of music, and we have done much camping in tents, but this is a new experience. Is there an etiquette?”

“Um, have fun, nicely?”

“I will do my best. Thank you, Rita: that looks nice. Can you place hers in front of Caroline to distract her?”

It worked, and we got our wives back.

“There’s a pied-billed grebe in the Quarry Park, love”

“There’s a free bus into town, love”

“Could we just…”

“We can go in when they do the big dance thing there, and a detour might be in order”

I got a kiss, of course.

We were, as said earlier, in subgroups now, with little ones in the sand, big ones awaiting the spliced yard arm brace or whatever for their ale, and a bunch of those in the middle who all seemed to be doing something with their mobile phones. The morris session was ticking along nicely, I could hear an Irish or whatever session starting up inside the bar, and more and more people, many in unconventional clothing, were gathering in knots to sit at picnic tables or sprawl on the grass, amid an utterly relaxed atmosphere. I turned to ‘Hairy’, and smiled as nicely as I could manage.

“You just knew this would be right up our street, didn’t you?”

“Yup!”

“Is there anyone else due?”

“Of our people? Not as far as I know, Mike. I mean, there are loads of people we already know, that’s ‘we’ on my side, and we’re expecting to run into a couple of friends of Alys and Enfys, but that’s it for our little army. Where’s Carolyn sleeping tonight?”

“Next to us, I would imagine”

“Well, what we often do when we have kids with us is bed them down together in a pile of duvets. You’d call them dooners, Maz. Anyway, one of the compartments in the Edifice, big nest of quilts, no torches. Would Carolyn feel safe doing that?”

Would she feel safe? She still surprised, sometimes shocked, me with occasional comments, such as that about ‘the man with the axe’ or that flat statement to Clara that ‘crying doesn’t help’. The answer couldn’t be a simple one.

“I don’t know, Steph. Still so many little twitches. Shall we see how she gets on with the others first, and then I’ll ask her. She might panic, or she might see it as a continuation of her playing. She’s… She’s never had friends. That’s what she called her bear, the Malay word for ‘friend’. She’s doing a lot of growing up, sort of other way round, in a very short time”

“Got you. Shan has said she’ll watch her for us, as she sort of has skin in the game, Annie’s Darren as well”

“I just know I don’t want to hear the answer, but…?”

“Darren was used by a Fagin type. The beater, fences, even the cow’s lawyer, were paid in kind. With Shan. Starting around nine years old, and before you ask, the ‘Fagin’ in question was her grandmother”

“Oh, fuck”

“Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s the only way I can get that out. She’s a bloody strong young woman, and Darren is an absolute gem. You can trust their instincts here, Mike”

She looked up into the sky for a few seconds.

“Dunno why, but I get fascinated by the clouds here. When I came the first time, I thought I was going to stay hiding in my tent, and I have just realised what I said, so it isn’t just you who makes those slips, Maz. How do your two get on?”

That was a far easier question to answer, and it brought a smile from my wife.

“Ah, he is utterly protective, and she says things every now and again, mostly about her ‘Big Brother’ being there to keep her safe. They lost six years of each other; I think they’re trying to cram them all in at once”

“That sounds good, love. Now, I do believe it may be time for a first visit to the bar”

The next morning was another bright one, but Maz was still snoring beside me. I could hear the chatter of the four little ones, though, and my bladder was issuing warnings, so I slipped out of our bedding and pulled on some shorts and ‘thongs’ for a slip-slap to the loo. That stirred Maz, who groaned “Bring tea”

“Hangover?”

“Oh god yes. That Elaine, once she got the taste, oh dear”

I crawled out of our tent, making a beeline for the ‘Berwick Bar’ and its toilets. Once pressure was released, I walked back at a slower pace, finding the front of the Edifice open and Jan agitating a large teapot.

“Morning, Mike! You in a fit state to help with brekky?”

“I think so. Got a cuppa I can take to my wife?”

A happy laugh.

“She enjoyed herself fully last night, then”

“It would seem so. What’s the plan?”

“This is when the bulk of people arrive, so it’s off to the gate to get our wristbands, then wander round the shop stands to see what’s what and who’s there. Some of us will be off to a session workshop at about four, from memory, then it’s an early meal and a dance before a couple of the people we don’t know followed by Steeleye, which will most likely be followed by ale and a session”

“Sounds good to me”

“Ah, it’s basically the same pattern each day, just with different music. Here’s that cuppa”

I delivered the mug, finding several people gathering round the table, some trying to help with the cooking, just as four excited children and a bear ran past me.

“Going to the sand, Dad!”

I found myself tearing up, as it was so utterly normal, and Jan noticed, handing me a tea towel for my eyes before pushing me towards a frying pan.

“Bacon, love, and some of it needs to be crispy, for Kate. Chop-chop!”

Maz, Jan and I took our breakfasts last of all, as the earlier diners attacked the pile of dirty dishes or simply sat and drank more tea. More and more vehicles were pulling in, and I understood why my friends, new and old, came the day before. As I finally sat in the sun with my own cuppa, a bald man in a kilt called out as he passed, “Morning, Mike! Great singing last night!”

How many pints had I had? I called out a sunny “Cheers, mate!” and left it at that, as the safest option. I…

“Wake up, Dad!”

How long had I been asleep? LC was tugging at my arm.

“Can we look at the shops and things?”

“Of course, love. Where’s Mum?”

“She’s arguing with Ish”

“What about?”

“He wants to buy something”

“What?”

“A cooly aily”

“Ukelele?”

“Yes. What does it do, Dad?”

“Makes a noise, love”

I walked over to wife and son, realising as I did that Maz was clearly not arguing but teasing.

“Husband of mine, our son wants to perform”

“It’s a learning thing, Dad! You learn basic stuff, and then there’s a concert, all the learners. Last night, I didn’t have anything to play, and I can’t play, and they say they’re easy, and the ones here are really cheap”

“Right… us two are off to the shops, so maybe we could look. If the shopkeeper can let you have a go, it might show you if your idea’s a goer, okay?”

He nodded.

“The kids’ stuff is over that way as well, Dad. Lainey was saying her kids love it”

“What is it?”

“There’s a sort of theatre thing, plus circus skills stuff, and the website says lantern making. Would you like to check that out, Sis?”

A rapid series of nods, and by the time we were halfway to the service road, we had three more little people in tow. The four of us converted our tickets to wrist bands before heading to the play area, which was definitely a success as far as four children were concerned. We left them there to mingle with others around their age, while we nominal adults made our way around the tents and stalls until Ish arrived at the musical instruments.

I mean, a ukelele, for god’s sake.

The man selling them was nice, showing Ish a few chords and getting him to strum it in various odd ways, and the look on our son’s face as he made sort of musical sounds was too much to ignore, and so he got his ‘cooly aily’, along with a little bag for it, and a ‘uking for idiots’ or something booklet.

We were heading back towards the children’s area to assess whether we should just leave them there, when the lad’s mobile started to cheep and chirrup in his pocket. He looked at the screen, and blushed.

“It’s, er, Clara. Hiya, Clar. We’re in Shrewsbury now”

His face twitched.

“How… Where are you? Okay… Stay there. I’ll tell my parents”

He cut the call, turning to us with a frown of confusion.

“Clara. She’s at the main gate”

Maz looked up at me with her ‘WTF?’ expression at full power, and Ish continued.

“I had no idea she was coming, Dad, Mum. I don’t know how, but I better go and collect her. Bring her here?”

I nodded.

“LC’s here, so best place for now. Is she inside or outside the gate?”

“What?”

“Has she got a ticket or not?”

“She’s inside, Dad”

“Right… Sort her wristband out first, then bring her back here”

He was off at a run, phone already back to his ear. We walked around a few more shop tents, as a displacement activity, until we spotted the two approaching, hand in hand. She had a large rucksack and something in a long bag that I guessed, correctly, was a camping chair. The closer they got, the more her embarrassment became clear.

“Mr Rhodes, Mrs Rhodes… Sorry. It wasn’t planned. We got home, and…”

She stood up straighter.

“It was Charlie and Tiff, mostly. They got together with the rest, and they all put money in, and there were still tickets. Nana bought me a train ticket, and she said… She said that I might be right when I said this was stupid, and I might be wrong, but I’d never know if I didn’t try, but I feel really stupid now”

Maz gave her a hug, then took her spare hand, dropped by Ish, and simply said, “Come along, girl”

We walked back to the play area, where our daughter was doing something with ropes and wooden planks. As soon as she saw Clara, her face lit up, and she sprinted into her own hug, prattling away about ‘backwards bike-a-sills’ and ‘cooly ailies’ until pausing.

“Are you going to Cardiff now?”

“No, Carolyn. I am here for the music, or I hope I am”

Maz looked her up and down.

“Apart from the chair, what do you have with you?”

“Um, my sleeping bag and mat, clothes, usual stuff. Nana said I should bring a couple of bottles of something as a present, so there’s two bottles of Chardonnay as well”

“Right. We need to head back to the tents, get that lot stowed, and then confirm our plans with the others. I don’t know how much… Clara?”

“Yes?”

“Where did you intend to sleep? Some friends have a very big tent, but I suspect it might be full up”

There was a flicker of the girl’s eyes towards Ish, and my wife sighed.

“Thought so. Discuss it later, but dump it in his FOR NOW, okay?”

We left three children to play while LC led Clara back to our encampment, where various other alleged adults were lazing about, and Di smiled at her.

“How was the train ride, Clara?”

“Hi Di, Blake. Bit spur of the moment, this. You expecting me?”

“Deb dropped a massive hint, love, but it was a ‘probably’ rather than a ‘possibly’. Gives you the option of a ride back with us rather than the train”

She pointed at her hand, the one now back in our son’s possession.

“That explains a lot, but it leaves me with a dilemma. Who do I threaten?”

Both young people said “Threaten?” in unison, and Di laughed.

“Oh. Traditional. Someone goes out with someone I care about, and I tell them I’ll kill them if they hurt my friend. Now there’s two of you I care about, so what do I do? Mister Rhodes?”

“Yes?”

“Is our own offspring having fun?”

“Well, he was screaming when we left him”

“Sounds good for ‘fun’, then. Time for a walk, Big Boy? And grab some lunch? Carolyn?”

“Yes?”

“Did you want to go back to the circus things?”

“YES!”

“Come with us, then. Anything she doesn’t eat, Maz?”

“Neither of us is a fussy eater, Di”

Just a little darkness, yet again.

“Right. We’ll feed and water them, but no guarantees about their energy levels. See you all later!”

We were quickly left as a foursome, obviously deliberately, but it was clear that the Edifice was pretty much full, Steph’n’Geoff having eschewed their own camping kit in favour of that belonging to Annie and Eric, who had come by train and bicycle. The Woodruffs also had a certain harp, of course. Maz sat in silence as Clara talked through her journey, a surprisingly simple one via a direct train from Cardiff and a taxi from the local station, before she began listing the acts she wanted to see, which was when Maz interrupted.

“Ish, please go and sort out your girlfriend’s bedding. Best to let the bag loft early”

She waited until Ish was some distance away before returning to her interrogation.

“Clara, this isn’t meant to be rude, or nasty, but what are you hoping for with Ish?”

“I… I don’t know, Mrs Rhodes”

“You’re a dreamer, aren’t you?”

“I suppose I am. When I… I left home far too young. Kicked out, really, but I didn’t mind”

I couldn’t help my own “What?”, and she smiled, rather sadly.

“Too young, too naïve. Too much of a dreamer, really. I wasn’t worried, because I had a boyfriend, or thought I did. Ritchie. I let him know, and he picked me up, and that was the last time I was outside until the police broke in. There was me, it was all going to be hand-in-hand at posh coffee shops and meals with other couples, and all I saw was the inside of his flat. Still had my dreams, though. Ish is lovely, been lovely to me, but it’s all so limited. I mean, time. Not like Gemma, or the swots, or Charlie and Tiff’s. He’s going to be in Australia, and, well, I get some more time with him, recharge my dreams, yeah? And I don’t sit there years later wondering ‘What if?’, like Nana said she did too many times”

Maz was so soft in her tone as she took the girl’s hands in hers.

“And if this is all?”

“Then I come out ahead, for I get something rather than nothing. So does Ish, I believe”

My wife nodded.

“Do you want to go and help him sort your stuff out?”

Once Clara was with Ish, Maz sighed.

“Let’s leave them to it, darling. I mean, it’s not as if she can end up pregnant, unfortunately. Shall we join Di and Blake when those two are done? Get some lunch?”

It wasn’t far off the girl’s dream, I realised, as four of us in two couples joined another couple (ignoring the four kids) for a meal consisting of pie and mash in a cardboard box, which was actually tasty. Our son looked slightly woozy, in the happiest of ways, and both Blake and Di joined us in absolutely not teasing him. That restraint was clearly telling on Di, for she suddenly stood up and called out “OY!” to someone behind me, followed by “Just walk past and ignore me, why don’t you?”

“Sorry, Diane. Didn’t realise you’d be here”

“Just you?”

“Yup”

“Eat with us? I’ll grab a spare chair”

It turned out to be Chrissy Morgan, the late addition to the line-up. As Diane made the introductions, the girl smiled, pointing at me.

“I remember some of you! Bethesda? Bunkhouse? Non-humped cases? Small world! Where’s the bear with the crash hat?”

She had a massive platter of mixed veggie food, as well as a beaker of tea, which she slurped from before continuing.

“Didn’t know I was coming, either. My agent rang me two days ago, that’s all. I’m supposed to be a shanty group, all men, or at least that’s who I’m replacing. Apparently, one of them caught a bug, it spread to two of the others, and now they’re just renting any food they eat. Both ends”

She looked down at her plate.

“Um, probably not the best topic of conversation right now. Anyway, how do you know Diane?”

I responded with a quick reversal, asking how Chrissy knew her.

“Oh, it was a gig in Cardiff. She and her mates solved a stalker problem for me. Do you know Candice as well?”

Maz nodded.

“Very well, in a way. We… did you read about the Rhodes family? Modern slavery thing?”

“Over in Indonesia? That was awful!”

“We’re the Rhodes family. Candice and Di here brought us home”

“Oh, I am so sorry! Rerunning what I said now to see if it was anything awkward. Change subject, Christina. Who are you looking forward to hearing?”

Ish laughed, saying “You again, now we know you’re here”

“Flattery will get you nothing except a potential slap from your girlfriend, matey!”

Clara found some more self-confidence just then.

“Do you camp with the other acts?”

“Yup. They’ve given me a spare glamping tent”

“Well, my Nana, she has a song she loved. Her man sang it in the Bethesda club a while ago, and she had it for her wedding, and it was the song she says makes her think of her parents”

“Ah. Can I take it that they are no longer around?”

Wordless for the moment, Clara shook her head.

“What’s the song, love?”

“It’s a Steeleye Span song. Saucy Sailor. I know they video the groups so you can watch it later, and if they sang it, it would mean a lot to her”

“The song?”

“Saucy Sailor”

“Right. I know Maddy, so I will ask, but their set is likely to be tied down tight. Mine isn’t, on forty eight hours’ notice. If they can’t fit it in, I will. Deal?”

“What do you mean ‘deal’? I haven’t given you anything”

“Just make sure she sees the performance. Can I have a name for your Nana, please?”

“Debbie. Debbie Prosser. She says it’s the last verse, the bit about not caring what the world thinks, that describes her parents”

“They’re strong words, love”

I tried to change the subject, asking about her accent, and she laughed.

“Ah, I was a Forces brat, so while I am indeed Welsh, and am learning the language, I lived all over the place, by RAF bases. Lived everywhere from Penzance to Lossiemouth, and spent quite a bit of time in Northumberland, near Boulmer, hence some of my accent and a lot of my music”

LC added her bit, once more proving the resilience of her soul.

“We were in Northumberland. There’s a little wall there and climbing with jams, and lots of castles for princesses”

“There are indeed, little darling. Did you see the very big castle at Bamburgh?”

“Yes! And the shouty birds on the island”

“The Farnes?”

I answered for her.

“Arctic terns are what she means. We were staying near Once Brewed”

“Good beer there!”

“Good people, too. We were with a very close friend, and he’s sort of… sorry, personal stuff. He lost his wife several years ago, and where Clara says about his Nana’s parents, he’s looking to do the same with his wife’s remains”

“Ashes… Lovely place to… Di?”

“Yes?”

“Another of your cases, wasn’t it? Absolute delight of a man called Nigel something?”

“That’s the one. Neil, the widower, was the one who pointed us at these people’s case, so it all ties together”

“Right. You still in touch with this Neil?”

“We are, officially, but Mike and Maz are really close, just not geographically”

Chrissy scribbled on a piece of paper, handing it to Maz.

“My e-mail and mobile number. Get him to give me a ring. Where exactly is the spot?”

Ish answered before I could, and she simply smiled at an obviously warm memory.

“That place is so evocative: more bang for your bucks than sites a hundred times the size. I will have a word with the others, and you’ll hear it from one of us. Now, talk among yourselves: I need to graze before I fall over. Busy day”

Once her plate was cleared she apologised and trotted off for a sound check or something, as Ish checked his watch.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“Ukelele workshop is in half an hour”

“Best get moving, then. We’re eating at the Edifice at five, remember”

“Got it”

He was off, new toy in one hand, girl in the other and life in both their eyes.

Our evening meal was pasta and salad, and the first event was in the dance tent, which seemed to have attracted a lot of the real youngsters, marshalled into sets by a number of stewards, who guided them through the easier dances. So many of the others didn’t just look happy at the idea of a bop, but showed actual and avid hunger for it. One of them was Steph, who didn’t really count, though, because I was already fully aware of how unhinged she could be. Annie and Eric were also a known factor, as were Enfys and Alys, but Caroline and Pablo almost leapt up when the first dance was called, and I noticed she was actually wearing heels. Some hopeful youth asked Rita up, and as the rest of our group moved into position, it seemed like we had taken over half the floor.

I danced with my beloved, of course, which brought back memories of our wedding. The music played, the caller gave his instructions, and most of us got somewhere near getting it right. The music was well-played, which meant that even sitting out was fun, and the large collection of water bottles brought along by the Woodruff clan did exactly what was needed.

Neither Ish nor Clara proved to be dancers, however, but they still had a go, and both were still smiling even as they got it wrong.

We couldn’t stay all night, though, because the music was due to start, and our first ‘tick list’ entry was Lindisfarne, or what was left of them, including Alan Hull’s son-in-law. They weren’t quite what I remembered, but they were close, and as we sat in our chairs in the last of the sunshine, Rod Clements asked who had and hadn’t seen them before. When he asked why the latter hadn’t. a woman called out “We weren’t born then!”, which was followed by a roar of laughter.

The next act centred on a Gambian kora player, which had LC fascinated by both sound and technique, and then a group of acapella male singers, which had her staring at me and Ish, obviously wondering why we weren’t up there too. Shortly after they had finished, Pablo and his girls were squeezing their chairs into the spaces near us, Rita bouncing with anticipation.

“This group, Mr Rhodes, Caroline, she sent me a disc of it and the first time we come to stay, she has tickets, and we are jetlagged, but SO good! Is where we meet Steph and Annie”

So many memories tied up in one place, with one band, and I noticed Pablo lean across to kiss his wife gently just as the MC reappeared.

“Good evening Shrewsbury!”

She waited for the audience to settle again, then reminded people of the live streaming, which brought a gasp from Clara, who started typing rapidly on her phone as the spiel continued.

“One of the original folk rock bands, this group has hosted so many of the greatest of our performers, such as Peters both Zorn and Knight and even, briefly, a certain Mr David Bowie. They also worked with the great Terry Pratchett! Speaking of authors, they themselves almost wrote the book on how to be a folk rock band. So, please, let’s have a huge Shrewsbury welcome for STEELEYE SPAN!”

It had been years since I had seen them live, and the ever-flexible line-up had changed, but they still drew great musicians, even great musicians who were the offspring of great musicians, and they hit the stage running, or, in Maddy’s case, swaying gently while nailing the vocals down superbly. Rita had simply turned in her seat to say “Papa?” and received a nod before she was off down the front to dance. Ish looked at Clara; there was a similar nod, and they were gone as well.

Maz sighed.

“Why did we bother carrying the chairs, love?”

It was good, it was tight, and when they started a song called ‘The Gardener’, Caroline simply oozed pleasure, especially when the young woman now playing fiddle for them swapped to an electric instrument and started to scream the stage down with it.

Record tent: new entry on list of things to seek out. It couldn’t last, of course, and they took their bows to start the traditional tease, as the MC appeared once again.

“We still have some time left. Would you like more? Sorry, I couldn’t hear that. Would you like MORE?”

The crowd roared, the band reappeared, and Maddy took the mike.

“Haven’t you lot got tents and that to go to, or maybe a bar? Anyway, we have had a request! A real, honest request, and not just for that hit you all know the words to, so before that one, this is dedicated to Debbie Prosser and her parents”

The familiar guitar figure started up, and Maddy crooned the opening words as the crowd roared its approval, but after the final verse, as the acoustic guitar softly played the song out, there was utter silence until the last note was done. That brought the biggest roar, almost, because it simply got louder when they began ‘All Round My Hat’.

Once everything was done, we waited in place for our moshers to return, and to my surprise, Clara was in tears. Ish showed me a couple of texts on her phone, one from someone called Kim, which simply said

Nana in tears. U genius grl. Happy tears!!!

The second one was from Frank.

Deb in floods of tears. That was inspired. Deb said I should say she loves you, but I am saying WE do. Come home safe. All our love to you and Ish

We folded our chairs, joining the masses as they headed back to ‘tents and that, or maybe a bar’, in our case the Berwick Bar, and then settled down for another night under canvas, LC by now most definitely demanding that she sleep with the other three.

I was woken by my bladder at around three, but before I could use the appropriate bottle, I caught the sound of whispering.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Really sure. Please!”

“I’m”

“You’re amazing”

“Worried I’ll hurt you”

“I’ll…oh god that’s so warm! I’ll tell you when”

“Where do I?”

“Just there. Just…. Yeah. Push. Gently. It’s…. stop. Wait. Now push… stop stop. Let me wait a sec… Again, Ish, and OH”

“Is it hurting?”

“Not now! Oh, that’s so good. Just lie still for a second… now. Slowly, move and, oh god, I’m, is that nice for you?”

“It’s… I…”

“Just shush for now, and your hand—oh yes. Kiss me?”

The whispering stopped but was gradually replaced by gasps, and finally a grunt. Then:

“Did I hurt you when I did that?”

“Ish, I am still seeing stars! I haven’t… That was amazing. When you… that pushed me so high. Can you find some tissues? Need to wipe. Did you like it?”

“When can we do it again?”

“Whenever you want to”

“Did you come here planning to do it?”

“No, but I came wanting to, and, well, Kim said I should come prepared”

“That bottle?”

“Some stuff she uses. Much better than what Ritchie had”

Not your business, Rhodes. I decided to leave the associated hygiene lecture until the weekend was over, for I knew full well exactly what they had been doing. Not today; let them have their weekend together. I saw to my own needs as quietly as possible before settling down again with my wife, realising she was awake as I did so. She put her mouth close to my ear, her whisper barely audible.

“I heard. Should we speak to them?”

“After the weekend, love. They’re both adults, sort of. Let them have their fairy tale for now”

“And my bus ride into town this morning?”

“Of course”

“How quiet can you keep?”

Quieter than the others, it turned out, although Maz stuffed her face into a pillow towards the end of things.

Another glorious morning, refuting all my assumptions about rain and mud, another epic breakfast, prepared by others this time, before my family was off into town, accompanied by Pablo’s lot, plus Alys and a grinning Steph.

“So I like birds too! And the boys want a long ride out today, so it will be all testosterone wars and sweatiness”

The bus dropped us off by some half-timbered houses, which delighted Maz, and Steph led us through the town pointing out her own ideas of highlights, such as a bicycle shop, an outdoor equipment shop, and “That supermarket where Geoff and me were caught snogging”, until we were at the edge of a small park.

“The festival used to be here, I’m told, but I only started coming after it moved. There’s a lake, in the middle of some sort of formalish flower gardens, and I am assuming that’s where our bird---there. See the twitchers?”

As we approached the huddle of men with their tripods and huge camera lenses, Caroline remarked, “Hate to break it to you, Steph, but we are actually being twitchers ourselves today”

“Yeah, but we can stop. They can’t. And we’ve got taste in music as well”

It was a bird, a small one shaped like a rubber duck, that kept diving just as people were getting their cameras ready for THAT photo. Our own birders were constantly muttering under their breath, until we finally had a full set of relieved sighs, and LC asked us where the dancing was. We left the (other) twitchers to their triple exposure sounds and worked our way back to the rather aptly named Pride Hill, given the natures of so many of our friends. A number of morris sides were already waving hankies or bashing sticks, which delighted our daughter almost to the point of wanting to stay and watch rather than sit and listen, a dilemma solved by Steph’s handy comment that there was a dance stage in what she called ‘The Village’, which wasn’t a flashback to Portmeirion but simply what the organisers called the collection of trade stands and ‘tent shops’, as I thought of them.

Before we caught the bus once again, we had ice creams. From a proper ice cream van. It had to be done, according to Maz, as part of her non-bucket list, and we spent the rest of that morning and lunchtime slumped by the ‘Village Stage’ as LC oscillated between riding things, or rather falling off them, with the three other little ones, and staring at the dancers as they did flashy things with their feet or noisy things with bits of wood or metal. We lost love’s young dreamers, though, for Ish had a cooly aily workshop and, I assume, Clara had swooning dreamily practice. I wasn’t coping with it, though. I was certain I jnew what exactly they had been doing, and while my sensible head was reminding me that it was a pretty common practice among straight couples, it was my son. I need to talk him through the risks, general safety, hygiene and so on, but my hindbrain was still going ‘Ick!’. Was that really me? Dad the homophobe? That thought alone brought another wave of emotion and confusion, because it wasn’t homophobia, sort of officially, but…

I slapped the negative thoughts down hard. They had the weekend, and they would have whatever time we had in Cardiff, and one way or other they would survive their inevitable parting.

We met at the food tent, as previously arranged, before another visit to the dance marquee for willow stripping and chaining ladies, once again hitting the water bottles, before heading back to the previous evening’s stage for a Galician piper and Show of Hands. First, though, we had an apology from the MC.

“Hello again! We have a great evening for you here tonight, but those of you expecting some shanty singing will have to satisfy yourselves with the Longest Johns, who are in the Sabrina tent tomorrow afternoon and then the Severn stage tomorrow evening. Our programmed act for this evening was ‘Keelhauled’, but they have been taken rather ill, and, well, I am told I don’t want to know the details. Instead, and at amazingly short notice, we have a young woman who puts the ‘multi’ into multi-instrumental, so let’s have that huge Shrewsbury welcome for the talented, the amazing, the sometimes hilarious, CHRISSY MORGAN!”

Diane was sitting next to Maz, and I caught her leaning over to Maz to pass a comment, which resulted in a grimace from my wife and a shrug from our friend. I would find out later, no doubt, but for now it was Chrissy again, and we got the full range of jokes and silliness together with heartfelt songs and amazing virtuoso playing. When she hurdied and gurdied, as she described it, there was near silence as she played. When she dragged out her ‘Border pipes’, it was with her trademark grin and apologies for sneaking in before the bagpipe specialist.

“Anyway, he’s from Galicia, and I’m not. Now, I don’t know if I should tell this, but Keelhauled are suffering from the inability to retain nutriment in an internal way---yeah, yeah, get the groans out, better that than something else. Oddly, a friend of mine is here, and she had to leave one of her offspring behind for much the same reason. Anyway, my set here is a bit impromptu, so I have decided on a number I don’t normally do, as it seems apt. First, some jigs. If you want to dance, try not to shake loose any body parts”

Ish and Clara were away with Rita to the front, not returning until the interval, and I was astonished when the next song turned out to be by the Bonzos. It wasn’t exactly apt, as it was about the inability to deposit rather than a failure to retain, but Chrissy described the ‘chorus’ succinctly: “It just goes ‘Nnnnnnggggnnnnngggggnnnnnggg’ and pause! You’ll get it. Or rather, I hope you won’t, at least not in the sense of Keelhauled”

I took the opportunity to grab some drinks in the break, and when I delivered hers to my wife (want to go off dancing, son, I’m not getting you ale), I took the chance to catch up with Di about whatever had brought that grimace from Maz.

“Oh, sort of same thing as that missing act, except it’s Rhod’s little sis. Just before we were all packed up to come here, she’s firing at both ends. Sort of okay now, but she’s with my parents for the weekend. Didn’t want to risk a relapse. Something she picked up at her play group, we think. Remember the washing machine bit in ‘Trainspotting’?”

My mind wanted to say yes, but my mouth came out with “Oh god!”

“Yup. Who are the Bonzos, by the way?”

Another reminder of my age.

“Oh, old sort of comedy group. Bit weird. What’s your girl called?”

“Tabitha Anne Bridget. She’s just coming up to three. We were tempted to cancel, but, well, you, Maz and the kids. Had to be done”

“HELLO SHREWSBURY!”

We were off again, this time led by a slim and very bald man who couldn’t seem to stop dancing as he played. In fact, he ended up with what seemed like a major part of the audience on stage with him as he led a sort of conga dance, and while Caroline and her husband weren’t among those, they were both missing-presumed-dancing-at-the-front while he was playing. In fact, we didn’t get any of our absent friends back until Show of Hands had finished with ‘Galway Farmer’ by way of ‘Roots’, ‘Cousin Jack’, ‘Columbus’, ‘Santiago’, ‘Country Life’ and others that I simply settled down and bellowed or crooned along to.

Musical instruments are great things, and I can get very into a good tune, but my thing is and always has been songs: words that mean things, words that can be shared and returned. Words bind in ways that differ from tunes, for while tunes can cut straight through to that famous hindbrain, spurring the need to move, or steering emotions, words can make you think; while it is a dead heat in raising emotions, those from inspired lyrics can put a sharper focus on it.

‘I won’t celebrate five hundred years of plundering wealth and scattering tears’
‘I hope you died quick, I hope you died clean…’
‘Keep your hand upon your wages, and your eyes upon the scales’

Ye gods, I was getting maudlin, and we hadn’t even heard Richard Thompson yet.

The music had finished, and our pilgrims returned two by two to gather their chairs and other bits and pieces as I watched LC, who seemed remarkably awake, given the hour. We headed back to our tents, or at least in that direction, because we were sideswiped by the sounds coming from the Berwick Bar, as a tunes session was hammering away at one end while a singaround dominated the other.

Well, it was only sleep, and they had ale. We stowed our folding furniture, grabbed whatever instruments people had, or girded our lungs, and I do believe it was about two in the morning when we finally surrendered.

Maz and I found some ear plugs.

For some unknown reason, most people were up later for their breakfast the following morning. The exceptions, of course, were the four young people nesting in the Edifice, who were clearly audible, even through earplugs, from shortly after dawn. I popped my plugs out just in case we were to be visited by a lively LC, only to hear the typically calm voice of Jan as she corralled and fed the child pack. By the time I finally surfaced, they were gone, apparently delivered by Shan’s Mum Ginny to the children’s play area.

Priorities at that age are somewhat fickle.

The day was almost identical to the previous one, though without the bus ride, which sounds boring but was far from it. We ate another decent breakfast in the sun, culinary and cleaning duties having rotated again, we ambled around the ‘Village’, we ate ice creams (delivering some to abandonous infants), watched a variety of dance sides and musical acts on the Village Stage, while our older offspring disappeared for cooly aily practice, gathering together for a light lunch in the food tent, where another impromptu session was underway.

Maz sat with her thigh pressed against mine, both of us in shorts and T-shirt, as I followed up an idea that had come to me, as usual, at about two in the morning.

“I could get Used to this life, Mr MBR”

“Well, Mrs MBR, I’ve been doing some research”

“Do tell”

“There’s a regular festival in about six weeks at Hillary’s”

“Yes, but that won’t be camping”

“And there’s one in November in the forest inland from Mandurah”

“Ooh! Can we see if there are tickets?”

I showed her my phone screen.

“They had some”

“When you say they ‘had’ tickets…”

“They had them, we now have them”

I expected a snog, but what I got were tears. Di was nearest to us, and she looked shocked, reaching over to take my wife’s hand. Maz simply squeezed it, then released the clasp to wave reassurance.

“I’m so sorry, but it’s just, well… Things don’t go away. I sit here, and it is wonderful, and I KNOW it’s real, but every so often, my subconscious says ‘This is a dream’ and that when I wake up, it will be back in that place, and each time Mike, or you, or whoever, each time you do something amazing--- something ELSE amazing--- I get the terrors. Mike, darling?”

“Yes love?”

“Like our little voices, way back, yes?”

She wiped her eyes, giving us all a smile; weak but yet a smile.

“My beloved man here has just shown me two dates for later this year, for music, and that’s another thing I never had: planning for a future. Actually having a future, in essence. Nobody here has done anything wrong, quite the opposite, but it’s like… It’s like managing to get my head above water, and the breathing is wonderful, but I can’t forget the drowning”

She grimaced, before adding, “I’ll be fine. Just taking time to get used to being free. It was fine when we were climbing, but now, I don’t know. Too many choices available, all at once. Now, who’s on tonight, big name?”

Blake answered for the rest.

“Adro-Celt Sound System. Finally someone I’ve heard of”

Di gave him a Mum-stare.

“You’d heard of Chrissy!”

“That’s different! That was work”

“Bollocks was it. You were the one who bought her albums. Anyway, tonight is them, and tomorrow is Richard somebody”

Both the Woodruffs, extended edition, and the Johnsons were at her like a shot, Enfys and Alys just laughing, until Ginny asked, quite politely for her, “Is he the really miserable fu— er, sod?” and was answered by a wave of nods and a quiet whisper from Annie of “Fuck, yeah”

Kate was far saner in ger response, with a wave to Shan.

“This one’s too old now for doing kiddy stuff…”

“No I’m not!”

“…unless she really wants to. Anyway, remember there will be a massed uklear attack tomorrow, and tonight will be the lantern parade”

Maz gave me a puzzled look, which was a huge improvement over the earlier tears, and Ginny explained.

“They are given all wicker and coloured paper and shit, and they make lanterns, Chinesey style ones, with a tea light in, and there’s a parade when it’s dark, so we’ve got to hang around here for a bit, cause we haz gotz kidletz what haz gots lantlightz”

Something else I had missed in watching over son and wife, or perhaps while lazing in the sun. Not good, Rhodes. Alys was the voice of reason, yet again, but I was steadily discovering that being said reasonable voice was remarkably easy when competing against Shan’s Mum Ginny, who almost outdid Steph at what her husband called ‘her hairiest’. Alys had the simplest of solutions.

“Unless someone has a specific act to see, we can hear the bands from the beer tent over there, so if we sit there for a bit after some set dancing, watch the glowwwww—er, sorry, an attack of Tom Lehrer, blame Eric and Annie. Anyway, see the lights, collect and distribute infants, and dance ourselves silly to the Afro-Celts. Sound like a plan?”

It did indeed, and after another solid meal and a turn around the dance floor after Love’s Young Dream had returned, we waited until the procession of other people’s offspring and some of our own.

The lanterns were a mixture of thins ranging from surprisingly artistic to items worthy of, well, a mother’s love, and LC’s effort was an aeroplane. Oddly shaped, with peculiar proportions, it was still recognisable, and that was a dilemma: how the hell would we be able to transport that back home?

Maz was almost back to herself once again, whispering in my ear that she knew exactly what I was thinking, and that she had a solution in mind.

“Leave it with me, my darling”

Lantern extinguished, chairs and blankets gathered and up to the Pengwern again, just as the interval was called before the Afro-Celts. Time for a beer, and it was the only one I drank until we arrived back at the Berwick Bar, because I, ME, was dancing at the front throughout the set, like some bloody teenager. It was Steph who explained it to me, or at least told me her thoughts.

“When we met, Mike, me and Geoff, that is, it was all about dancing”

Enfys was grinning as she and her wife nodded along.

“Steph trots this one out regularly, Uncle Mike. Still makes sense, though”

The redhead simply waved at Enfys.

“You say it, then”

“Okay. It’s music. Some of it makes you want to sing along, some makes you want to move to it. Music, different types for different people, it gets you wanting to be a part of it. Some people play, some simply listen and feel it, but if you don’t get some urge from hearing it, are you fully human?”

Annie chipped in.

“Our son there, and don’t blush, Daz, that’s Shan’s job. Our boy plays, er, is it ‘boss’ or ‘wicked’ these days?”

The lad laughed, calling back “Neither, Mum!”, and Annie grinned again.

“He is a superb bodhran player, Mike, and when he first realised that, he said something about the difference between being ‘at’ music and being ‘in’ it. Everybody here is like that, in our group. Not all ‘in’ the stuff, but feeling the pull. Even the kids, at the ceilidh”

Memories… I pointed at Enfys and Alys.

“Tradition time, people. Now, I am not a parent to these two, so I can’t do the usual trick of dragging out the baby photos, but I have known them for a very long time, which is their entire lives. Something lots of people commented on, when they were little, was how intent they were at the Cow, the local folk club. They weren’t just being quiet, they were listening. Music’s always been a huge part of their lives”

Annie shot Kelly a smile, and that girl’s Mark blushed bright red before smiling and giving a nod of agreement.

“Aye, it were like Kell here: found some lad, he met the family, ran away screaming. With my Granda, I’d been sort of inoculated already”

That was when I put his surname together with recent memory, and Mark nodded.

“Granda’s been busy this weekend, so he’s only here for the Monday. On at two, stay for the big session, then off Tuesday morn for a gig in Salisbury. He says he’s looking forward to seeing you all again, especially the little girl. Hang on… I like that tune!”

He pulled a bundle of whistles from his rucksack and headed for a drift of tables, already joining in with something Irish, and then out of cases and bags came fiddle and flute, bodhrans and squeezebox, banjo and bouzouki, even a cooly aily, and yet again, we were extremely late to bed.

Or early; it blurs.

Monday morning arrived, or rather continued with a lot more light. I was on dish duty for breakfast, along with our son, LC and the other three insisting on running a shuttle service of clean dishes back to the Edifice, which was helped by the simple fact that all dishes were unbreakable.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“You know that Clar’s got a train ticket, but Di and Blake have offered a lift?”

Maz AND I had been anticipating the moment, so we had our specific ducks in a very neat row,

“Yes, son”

“Well, I was just wondering…”

“I said ‘Yes’, son”

“Do you mean…?”

“It’ll be a squeeze, but LC can take the middle seat”

At six, going on seven, LC was large enough not to need a booster seat, which was probably something to do with my genes, and Clara was skinny enough, given that my own beloved was still far too thin, but getting there, albeit slowly.

Before he could reply, I turned him to face me.

“Your Mum and I have already discussed it, so it’s not just me saying yes, Ish. LC has already said her bit. And… neither your mother nor I is deaf. At some point we will need to have a very personal chat with you about that”

He looked round, checking who was in earshot, before stammering out a reply about girls, and anatomical limits, and that she was a woman, and an adult, and, and, but it was a jumbled mess, and he looked so close to tears that all I could do was put a gentle finger to his lips.

“Not now, son. This is a very big thing for all of us, and for me and Mum, well. You are our baby, son. You always will be. We, to be honest, we’d have preferred different circumstances”

“Oh. Because she’s trans? That’s a problem for you?”

There was a hint of anger there, so I pulled hard on those thoughts of Steph, Alys, Annie, even bloody Neil’s wife.

“In one way, son, it is, so hear me out, please. Clara has massive issues in her life. We understand that. It’s not that we disapprove of Clara, it’s that we are sorry that she has been dealt the hand she has. Means that you have to stay strong. Life for all of us would have been easier without those issues, but they exist, they’re real, and so we have to dig in, as a family. That’s all. Now, want to let her know? We will be taking a slightly devious route to Cardiff, as Mum spotted some place called Slimbridge, so we shall be heading down to Gloucester, then to the Wye Valley, before the big city”

“These places, Dad: would they involve birds?”

“Might do, son”

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“I… I didn’t choose Clara. It just sort of happened. It’s all new to me, but she was…”

He paused for a while, wiped his eyes and then continued.

“Please help me make sure I don’t make a mess of it all”

I stepped up to my baby, laying an arm over his shoulders.

“Do you think you will?”

“How do I know, Dad? Not exactly been in any sort of thing with a girl before, have I?”

“Son… Mum and me, we talked you through where we were, before we met. When we were with Alan and Carolyn”

“They’re still family, Dad”

“Thank you, son. That means more than I think you know. Right… What I am hearing from you, I have heard before, and so has your Mum, so did Carolyn, the original. Confidence. Self-confidence, to be exact. None of us has it, or maybe had it, back then, and Auds said it so well, when… before Caro and I got together. Neither of us had any belief that we were worth anything”

“Dad…”

“Shush, son. If what you’re trying to say is that the sun shines out of my backside, I’ll take that under advice, but not now. Everyone outside the two of us, both pairings, that is, everyone else could see where we should be heading, but what sealed it…”

I drew in a deep breath, checking we were still alone.

“Little voices, Ish, for both of us. Whispering about adultery and betrayal”

“But that’s ridiculous!”

“Yup. That’s imposter syndrome, though. Pretty common, I’m told. What I did to cool it down was tell myself that there in front of me is the finest of women, and she has chosen me. She says she did the same, but it was easier for me because I got your Mum, and all she got was me”

“You do still talk some crap, Dad”

“Maybe, but look at it this way. You two met in a really busy place, with loads of fit young men on the rock. Clara’s at college, surrounded by more young men. She still chose you, though. If you value her opinion, then there’s your answer. As for getting it wrong, well, we all do. When it goes tits up, what you do is backtrack, go back to the basics of the relationship. And say sorry, even if you aren’t the one who slipped up”

I gave him another squeeze.

“And do the Big Picture thing: what might you lose in proving that you’re ‘right’?”

I made the appropriate finger wiggle for that one, and got a chuckle in return.

“Now, what’s the plan for this cooly aily thing?”

“Are you going to keep calling it that?”

I shrugged, grinning.

“Well, it’s your sister’s gift to the family, son”

“Okay. We are doing it on the grass between the beer and food tents. Be there or be rectangular. Shall we get this stuff back to the kitchen, then?”

I hugged him properly, getting a solid one in return, with a whispered “Thanks, Dad. I love you”

Maz and I lazed away our morning by the Village Stage once again before disentangling LC from a diablo rope with a promise of worms (noodles) for lunch and delivering it to her and Clara at the food tent, as our extended ‘tribe’ waited to cheer on our musical superstar-in-embryo. Pablo and Caroline settled themselves near us with a sigh, but no Rita, and as Pablo grinned and made an expansive gesture to the assembling ‘ukelele massive’, I spotted her in the not-inconsiderable crowd. Caroline did the honours.

“As she told you, when they first came to the UK, I treated them to a Steeleye gig, and she worships that new young fiddler of theirs. She’s clear she’ll never be as good, but it’s a sort of start. Right! Here we go. I’ll use my usual camera technique, love”

She gave me a grin and indicated her DSLR.

“I set it for multi-frame, so it fires off five shots each time. I get a lot of crap, but that’s the great thing about digitals—no film to waste. There she is, love, on the end, our left”

Clackclackclackclackclack.

There were all ages involved, and an obvious ‘steering group at the front. They played actual tunes while their ‘massive’ did what I always thought of as waving away flies. There were more than a few whose lips were moving as they clearly counted the beat, but it was largely in time and mostly in tune, and it was fun to watch so many people fulfilling young Darren’s observation as they entered into the music rather than simply being present while someone else delivered it.

LC ate her worms, but stopped for a cheer when she spotted her brother, who was grinning happily as he waved at his flies, but as one of the tallest there, he was in the back row, so none of us could catch more than a few glimpses of his cooly aily. Caroline held up a hand and pointed to the side, trotting off to what my military reading called an ‘enfilade’ position, and as the performance finished and the ‘massive’ dispersed, she came back with Rita, who was laughing happily.

“Got them both, people. ISH!”

She wasn’t up to Neil’s standards, for bloody obvious reasons, but there were some wonderful captures of both fly sweeping and facial expressions. Caroline beamed with satisfaction, looking around at our two families.

“Happy with that lot, I am. I’ll mail Steph the best of yours, Ish, and she can send them on”

He simply asked if he could just give her his own address, and Caroline shook her head.

“She says she always wants a first look at anything like that for, what’s the phrase, love?”

Pablo, in an atrocious attempt at a Welsh accent, said “Fun and profit through blackmail, I believe”

Steph shouted across, “Oy! I resemble that remark!”, before dissolving in laughter, at which point a very hushed Clara asked if she could have some sent to her. I couldn’t help thinking of that famous line from ‘Casablanca’, about always having Paris.

Enough of that, Rhodes: it was time to see Jimmy yet again, and to my surprise he called Mark up on stage to join him after about ten minutes. Jimmy’s accent was even thicker than normal, clearly for effect, but I gathered he was having plumbing difficulties, a clear reference to the lad’s smallpipes.

Another ten minutes, and it was a shout of “HOW STEPH! HOWAY UP HEOR!”

Ah. I was seeing a pattern in how he strove to keep his act fresh, and when he feigned surprise at something large and covered by a sheet, wanting to know who had left it there.

Off went the sheet, and I started laughing before he had barely begun shouting the next question: was there a harpist in the tent?

Up she went, and then Mark started his own cod-posh questions.

“My grandfather here believes that we require a rhythm section. Specifically, a young man called Darren”

It shouldn’t have worked: two fiddles, a set of Northumbrian smallpipes, a medium-sized harp and a bodhran, which had already been on stage awaiting the lad, but it did. They gradually increased speed, two fiddlers harmonising with the pipes, switching leads between the three of them, while Enfys used her harp almost like a rhythm guitar and Daz showed me exactly what Annie had described. Then…

“HOW! ANNIE!”, and then “HOW! KELLY!”

Annie slipped into the mix seamlessly, but Kelly had a board awaiting her, and as the band, as it now was, slowed slightly, she started clogging.

Eric leant across to me, during a pause for some incomprehensible announcement from Jimmy.

“They sometimes do a thing here they call a ‘folk slam’, Mike, but that’s all done by the pros. This is Jimmy’s answer to it. Blake?”

The big man leant forward in surprise.

“What exactly are you up to, Eric?”

“Wife’s idea, mate. I hope you, Mike and Ish are in good voice”

Jimmy put out the triple shout, and the three of us headed forward, where Stewards led us around the side and onto the stage, oh shit: those were the bloody Wilsons! One of them winked at me.

“Two songs only, lads. You know ‘Miner’s Life’? And ‘Rolling Home’? aye? Job’s a good’un, then. We’ll lead on the verses, you give us the boost in the choruses, okay? he’s a devious old bugger, is Kerr. Getting the appearance fee and leaving the work to everyone else”

There was a twinkle in his eye as he said it, which reassured me. Out we walked, Mark now doing the announcing after the applause on recognition of the Wilsons.

“Thank you, Shrewsbury. We’re tired of doing all the work, so it’s your turn to sing. The Wilsons are lending us their lungs, but we have three more very good friends: Blake Sutton, of Cardiff, give a wave, marra; and Mike and Ish Rhodes, all the way from Perth in Australia. Granda?”

Talk about intense. The band wove little details around our singing, but it was the four Teesside veterans who claimed the stage, the three of us simply bobbing in their wake, but still there, still feeling that thump to the diaphragm that a solid vocal group delivers.

The first song brought a full-throated response from the audience, but it was the second where I picked out the harmonies from both men and women. So, so REAL.

We were shepherded straight off stage, of course, while the band played some more tunes to finish their set.

The hairiest Wilson shook hands with me, another dangerous grin lurking there.

“Jimmy tells us ye’ve got a working song. About clay. We had a listen. Encore is a tune from the album, then you’re leading the song, if you like. If not, don’t worry. Anyway, you’ve got the voice for it, Mike. I’d take a chance. Right—they’ve finished the clapping”

The MC hadn’t finished, as she started the traditional ‘do you want more/can’t hear you’ speech, and then our friends started playing ‘Bonelace’. It’s a really sweet, melancholy piece, and they passed it round the group, all except the bodhran giving their own interpretation, until it was left to Annie and her flute to bring it to a soft conclusion.

Jimmy waited for the applause to die down, before saying something like, “Ye cannat gan hyem feeling like that! Howay back, lads”

They shuffled me to the right spot, I drew breath, and…

Darren was so abso bloody lutely right.

We sang; we finished. The crowd roared. Jimmy and the others took a standing bow in line with us, and the MC made her announcement.

“JIMMY KERR AND STEPHANIE WOODRUFF ON FIDDLE! MARK WOODRUFF-KERR ON NORTHUMBRIAN SMALLPIPES! ENFYS HIATT-EDWARDS ON HARP! ANNIE JOHNSON ON FLUTE! DARREN EYRES-JOHNSON ON BODHRAN! MIKE AND ISH RHODES AND BLAKE SUTTON ON VOCALS! KELLY WOODRUFF-KERR ON CLOGS! AAAAAAAAAND----THE WILSONS!”

It got even more embarrassing as we made our way back to our ‘tribe’, for random groups in the audience kept stopping by us to applaud, or shake hands, or simply say some form of ‘thanks’. There were other expressions of appreciation, but as they were between pairs of individuals, they were rather more intimate, and neither Ish nor Clara held back. Enfys was in her own world of happiness, as Alys stopped snogging her, and the former just grinned at me.

“All Jimmy’s idea, Mike. That’s why I brought my harp, or rather Geoff did. Can’t exactly lug it around sessions, can I?”

Jan and Elaine were conspiring, gathering together some of the uninvolved, and as we headed for the picnic tables for a rest, they came trooping back with our eskie, which held a collection of ice lollies and cans of fizz.

As we sipped and sucked, Clara’s phone chirped. She tapped it open, then squealed.

“It’s from Kim! They were all watching the live stream! You’re famous!”

Jimmy settled down next to us, just as Mark returned from the bar.

“Shropshire Gold, Granda”

“Aye, that’ll de, son. Ah!”

The ‘ah’ came after a slow but long sip from his pint.

“Champion”

His accent faded a little, his speech now oddly precise, exactly as Steph and Annie had described.

“Ah hev a gig the morn, and the Wilsons are driving us. I am gan te find a space in the shade where I can listen te Mister Thompson withoot getting crisped by the sun. Ye wez aal canny up there, by the way, but divvent ask us for a cut of the fee”

He can never stay serious for long.

“Mike?”

“Aye, Jimmy?”

“Thy bairn, aye? Been watching hor, each time we’ve met since that shite got sorted. She is coming alang champion. Ah wez worried. But, well, ganna embarrass ye here by saying ye are a bloody good Dad and husband. Aye, ye an aal, Maz. I mean, getting better, not being a Dad, like. Aye, we plotted te get the gigs, but it’s been a real delight. Ah, we aal knaa, ye’ll be gone soon, but divvent forget us, for we will nivvor forget thee”

I shook his hand, the lovely old sod, and tried not to sound rude.

“Long way to and from our place, Jimmy”

“Ah knaas, but it’s not that far te thy Scottish Fiddlers’ Club, even though Ah’m ne Scot, and that little festival in the woods sounds canny”

I watched my wife’s jaw drop.

“You’re coming over to Perth?”

He took another long pull from his pint.

“Aye. Ah dee foreign tours ivvory couple o year. Not deein America for a few years, and so it’s Oz. Beer’s a little better there, at least, than Yankland. Got twenty dates doon there. Just need somewhere te kip when Ah’m in Western Oz. Any ideas?”

I was up very late on Tuesday morning, and in the end we were one of the last groups to leave, as I wanted to male sure my blood cells outnumbered the alcohol. I had switched to softer drinks after midnight, just to be sure, but I waited until noon and they were actually kicking us off the site. The traffic had dropped considerably by then, so we were soon out of Shrewsbury and on the A49 heading towards the Shropshire Hills. The day before had been, as the cliché goes, one to remember, but I suspected it might just have been erased from some people’s memories.

Thompson had been even better than I remembered, with an inspired rhythm section of drums and bass. It struck me that, despite all the comment about him being miserable, that wasn’t quite true. He wasn’t sad or downcast, but bloody angry. There was a real twinkle of humour there, especially when he did his party piece shifting guitar styles from Django Reinhardt through Hank Marvin and almost up to date, but he came most brilliantly to life when he snarled ‘Put it there, pal!’ or an incredible performance of ‘Can’t Win’, and then shattered that mood with his encore, a heartbreakingly beautiful solo acoustic rendition of ‘Beeswing’ that even left Ish moist in the eyes.

We were still sitting there long after the well-deserved standing ovation, and I simply shook my head at our boy.

“Sorry, Dad?”

“Record tent, son. We’ve already got all of his albums. Any word from your lot, Clara?”

She waved her phone.

“Yeah! Nana says it was just what she needed, and Rachel says Emma and Maisie were up with Nana and dancing to a lot of it”

I have been to many gigs, and some of them are a clock watch, where the thoughts are about when I’ll be able to go home. Others are neatly satisfying, where I leave the venue, musical itch fully scratched. This was one of the rare ones, not just in its ‘Where the hell did ninety minutes go?’ but also with a clear complaint of ‘He can’t stop now!’.

We all spent tome time recovering, in various ways, from a performance that had left us as drained as the musicians. People drifted away in smaller groups, seeking their own last supplies from the catering stands, as Jan and Bill prepared some boxes of salad and cold meats, as well as a prodigious quantity of tea. The littlest ones were already asking why there was no play group, as several of us tried to explain about the end of the event. Little Tone was insistent.

“Can we camp at home, Mums?”

Elaine was the calm one that time.

“Your Aunty Sar is coming over in a couple of weeks, and she’ll be staying with your Uncle Arwel. I’ll ask her if she fancies a tent in the garden, aye?”

“Bendigedig!”

I will gloss over large parts of the evening that followed Thompson, because it had been almost chaotic. Three different tune sessions were playing away in different parts of the room, while the people who ran the 'wine bar' in an old Routemaster double-decker had manhandled their upright piano on board, driven the bus carefully over to the Berwick Bar, where the piano had been transferred to the bar, where Ish and I were effectively taken hostage for a singaround. I caught odd glimpses of my friends as they went for it with their instruments, in the case of Annie and Steph going rather further than most people suspected was conceivable. Enfys had her harp, Alys a borhran, Eric a banjo, and among all the others, LC had a shaky-egg rattle thing, and I suspect she was having her own 'in the music' revelation before Shan's Mums took the four littlest off to bed, which is where my memory becomes a little less reliable. Not because of the alcohol, as I was heading for the soft stuff, but more because of the mass of stimulus coming from all directions. I had just carried on singing.

We were finally off, all embraces given and promises shared, the three girls lining the Vauxhall’s back seat while Ish rode shotgun with me for the rather short drive to Wenlock, where we cleared our heads with a stroll along part of the Edge. I really didn’t care how many miles we put into the day, as long as they held quality. I had done a lot of research, and so we had a late lunch/afternoon tea at the spectacular old ‘feathers’ pub in Ludlow, the whole family amazed at the details of the building, and that thought brought another close behind.

Clara was, in a way, and for the moment, part of the family. Keep that mood, Rhodes.

We passed Leominster and bypassed Hereford, finally arriving at Ross on Wye which had a campsite where I had reserved two tent spaces, so close to the river it had a rowing club..

“Why are we stopping here, Dad?”

“Because it’s not that far from the best bit of the Wye Valley, son. Two nights here, with tomorrow spent along the Wye. Town to explore, as well”

He had his phone out, tapping away as usual, and Clara laughed.

“So, Mr Rhodes: your choice wasn’t in any way influenced by what looks like four nearby pubs?”

“You wound me, girl. We need somewhere to eat, don’t we?”

The rest of the afternoon was more than adequately filled by a walk along the riverbank followed bu a gentle amble around the old town, LC by then riding on my shoulders, before deciding on a curry for our evening meal, which was followed by a quiet pint in one of the pubs Clara had spotted, rather undermining my excuse for choosing the site. It felt odd not to be up and down for music, but it was still a lovely day, and even without the ales at the Berwick Bar, I slept so soundly Maz had to shake me up in time for our breakfast, cooked by two teenagers with the well-meant assistance of a laughing little girl.

She was coming on well, but there was one thing she lacked, compared to other children of her age, and that was what is sometimes referred to as ‘tears before bedtime’. She had come out with that phrase, how crying didn’t help, just once, but it had struck me as nastily as her comments about axes, which Maz still refused to explain properly. To be honest, given the hints she had dropped about tradition, I had what was probably a very good idea of what was involved, but no: I needed no more detail.

We spent the day as a mixture of walking and driving, because there were things I knew Maz wanted to see, as well as things she didn’t yet know she wanted to. Symonds Yat was one of the former, as were Tintern Abbey and the old Severn bridge, but she hadn’t picked up on Chepstow or Monmouth, much to my surprise. Her focus on birds was proving to be even narrower than I had suspected, which proved itself when she decided exactly where we were going to stop for our rather late lunch, a pub called The Boat in Chepstow. Now, call me man=minded, or just old-fashioned, but if I choose somewhere to eat off a mapping website, I start with the reviews. Maz simply saw the satellite picture, and that was enough.

It turned out to be rather good, with decent food (I obviously avoided the ale), but what had attracted Maz to the place became clear after we had parked. Across a quiet back road, right on the riverbank, was an outdoor eating area, and the tide was out.

“Mud, Mike! See the waders? Oh, and is that chalk over there?”

I shook my head, peering at the white cliff.

“Not round here, love. That’s limestone. Ish?”

“Dad?”

“Could you pop in, see if they serve out here, and if they do, grab some menus? Oh, grab this, and mine’s a pot of tea”

I handed him a couple of tenners before settling myself next to a wife already adorned with a pair of binoculars.

“Admit it: this is all for your benefit, this stop”

She turned to grin at me before trying a silly voice for “Don’t you want me to be hap pee?”, but couldn’t sustain it. I straddled the bench so that she could lean back against me.

“Are you happy, love?”

“Darling, as that Ginny would say, fuck, yeah. It’s taking a while---no, not you and the boy. It’s just that we, Carolyn and myself, we have to unlearn some reflexes”

“I heard her laughing this morning”

“Oh, so did I! She’s learning that she can be herself, without risking a slap. Have you noticed how she is spending less time talking to her bear? No, not that love. Not tired of it. She just realises she can talk directly to real people. Goosander”

“And how is it going for you, love?”

She paused for a few seconds, and I wondered whether it was avian distraction before she started again, her voice softer.

“When the soldiers brought me out of that hole, love, I was bloody terrified. They’d just grabbed Carolyn, while I was still blindfolded, and I wondered whether all the shouts about armed police were just another gang, on a rip-off of some kind, then they were carrying me up that ladder, and I just knew I was going to get shot. Then I saw Bobby, and those stab vest things Di and her friends were wearing, and there YOU were, and that was when I knew it was over. It’s funny… Yes, it is actually almost amusing. Keith and Pen talk about That Place, and it’s like those horror films, they tell me, where if you Speak The Name too many times, the demon comes for you, or maybe that cop-out in Dallas”

“Sorry?”

“The old TV show, love. A whole season’s worth of plot about a major character being shot, ending up with ‘Oh, it was all a bad dream!’ and then carrying on from before that whole thing started. It gets me like that, sometimes, but the other way round. I’ll go to sleep, and when I wake up there, this, all this, will turn out to be a dream. It’s why I like to wake up before you. No dream could be that realistic, especially with the snoring and those little farts you let out”

“I don’t snore that badly, do I?”

“No, darling; you’re a world-class snorer, and the way you can say ‘pop-pop-pop’ without moving your lips is quite sweet”

I laughed, and she wriggled closer against me.

“See? My reality. I know that we are on holiday, here, and that we will be going back to work, but at the moment I feel like each day is a gift, and I believe it will stay that way when we return”

I bent forward to kiss her cheek, just as LC asked if she could have crunchy fish. The three emissaries were back, with menus and a ‘specials’ list, which Ish handed to me.

“Yes, we can eat out here, but they say we can’t run a tab unless we sit inside”

“Makes sense to me. Tea?”

“On its way. Proper pot, with two cups for you. Elsie and Kawan are on coke again, and I managed to persuade the barman to make LLBs for us two. As Clar has already downed half of hers, I suspect she likes it”

“Oh, it was so funny, Mr Rhodes! Ish asked if they had any bitters, so the man pointed to a row of beer pumps, while Ish is pointing to a little bottle, all wrapped in paper, with a yellow top, and then explaining what to do. It’s nice!”

She looked over the rail, frowning slightly.

“Tide’s out, though. Pity”

Maz chuckled.

“Nope! Part of the plan. No mud, no wading birds. Curlew”

LC got her crunchy fish, with chips as well as mushy peas, while the rest of us had a proper roast lamb dinner before heading back up the Severn by way of Lydney and the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail, along with several stops on the riverbank as Maz spotted some cluster of dots out on the mud.

We walked along to the Pavilion that evening, a restaurant set right on the bank of the Wye, for a lovely meal, before decamping to the Hope and Anchor, the next door pub, which also had a large outdoor area, smack on the river bank. There was definitely a theme in my wife’s suggestions.

That evening, once again, I had the joy of simply lying beside her, LC to her other side, warm, safe and reunited.

Our last morning in a tent for a while dawned with a slight hint of miserable weather, the first in what seemed like an age. It had rained during the night, but nobody seemed to care much. All our girls were in light dresses and flip-flops or sandals, on the basis that if they got wet feet, who cared? I remembered the old Scouts camping adage that site dress should be shorts and canvas plimsolls, on the same principle. I somehow doubted that people at Everest Base Camp would concur, but it worked for a typical British Summer.

Our route was a loop, literally all the way back to Chepstow, but passing above it on the old bridge before joining the M4 for Cardiff. I had three initial stops planned, only one of them explicitly for Maz, and the third one a real exercise in nostalgia.

Number one was a visit to Gloucester cathedral, which is a lovely building. I stayed clear of the main part of the town, as I didn’t want to get snarled in traffic, but I realised I would have to find new memory cards for those cameras in younger hands. I’d spotted a W.H.Smith’s the previous evening, so I made a quick stop as we left Ross on Wye, which brought a slightly smug look from our son.

“These days we use our phones, Dad”

“Where are you storing the pictures, son? Phone or SIM card or Cloud? How much space have they got? How much are your data charges? Et bloody cetera”

He still used his card, and his phone, the sod, as I hadn’t realised he had a plug-in adapter to increase storage, the little sod.

Stop two was Slimbridge, where I volunteered child-minding duties; while Maz took the other two around the ‘wild’ part, I walked her around the captive stock, Kawan on her back, allowing her to read out the exhibit labels to me and the bear., before settling down to a pot of tea and two Cokes.

Oh, yes. We, um, had ice creams as well.

The other three were back just as I was looking at the puzzles I didn’t like, LC asleep next to me on the grass, the day having dried out properly. Maz looked absolutely smug, even more so that Ish had.

“Should’ve come with us, Mike! You wouldn’t have missed it if you had”

“Missed what, love?”

“The bittern we all saw. Ish even got some video”

“Yeah, Dad. Phones do that as well these days”

“Well, son, your sister saw something none of you did”

“What?”

“Choc’n’mint Cornetto. I called out ‘Would you like an ice cream, Ish?’ but you didn’t reply”

I did buy them their ice creams, of course, for I am a soft touch where my family is concerned, before urging them into the car for stop the third, which was my own nostalgia trip. I tried to explain it as I drove.

“I used to come over to Wales quite a bit, and I mean South Wales now, with the old climbing club. There are caves near the Beacons for lunatics like Neil, and there’s climbing near where we were yesterday, or way, way out in Pembrokeshire. There was only the one bridge back then, and it’s usually windy, so if I was on the bike, I’d stop at this next place to psych myself up. Used to be a separate, cheaper place for what they called commercial drivers, so I’d just say I was a DR—despatch rider—and eat there”

Clara asked if it was good food.

“Nope. Usually crap, but it was warm and dry in there. Pity about the milk”

Ish looked round at that apparent non-sequitur, and I shrugged.

“Before your time, son, or rather in the wrong place. It was always UHT, a different sort of treatment to what we get, Made the milk taste awful, but gave it a massive shelf life out of the fridge. You got used to it, but I never got to like it. This used to be the main route into Wales, used to be toll booths going both ways, then they changed to charging you to leave Wales. All gone now”

I chuckled at a surfacing memory.

“Steph once, when she was a bit well-oiled and feeling mischievous, said she used to joke about with passengers, telling them they’d need to have their passports ready if they were going into Wales, and I am sure her oppos in Pembroke Dock and Fishguard did much the same. Just, it’s a couple of times, years and years ago, when I was lining up for the tolls coming out of Wales, and I was behind an obvious hire car, and the driver passed up the toll money and a couple of passports”

Clara snorted.

“What did the man in the toll booth do?”

“Um, opened them, checked the photo matched, then handed them back with a nod”

“NOOOOOOOO!”

“YESSSSSSSSSS! Anyway, this place is on a long distance path called something like the ‘Severn Way’, and you can walk a little way out to a viewpoint overlooking the bridge. Daft thing is that we will almost be able to see yesterday’s lunch spot; it is only a mile or so away from the bridge. Right. Got to concentrate a bit here”

The place looked much the same, but behind it was a Travelodge and what looked like a corporate GQ or similar. Inside the services, the facilities were a little different, but the atmosphere only needed rain on the windows to have matched my memories.

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“Why is that burger place using the Hungry Jack’s logo?”

“Long story, son. Short version: two businesses decided to work together, then decided they didn’t And they then hired lawyers”

“Messy?”

“Oh yes. Same sort of food, really, except BK won’t put beetroot on your burger”

“Why not?”

“Son, when that sort of burger first arrived in the UK, people would throw away the slice of pickled gherkin. Local tastes. Clata’s lot eat seaweed, for example”

She immediately hit back with “So do you! Don’t you eat sushi? Anyway, it’s not really time for a meal, is it?”

I nodded agreement.

“Yup. A snack, and a coffee from that other place, just so we can justify the parking, then out to the viewpoint”

Another blast from the past caught up with me as I sorted our drinks, and pieces of cake, as I remembered that old joke about motorway services: ‘Two for the price of three’.

The tide was out, showing a lot of mud as well as a few ribs of the rock that had served to support the bridge’s two immense towers, and I was able to point out some of the places across the brown sludge that is the end of the Severn, in essence, and the start of the Bristol Channel. The viewpoint was a pretty grim concrete area with a couple of those coin-operated telescopes, making the ambience even grimmer. We still took a load of photos.

“They go surfing here, son”

“Where?”

Clara answered for me.

“It’s the tides, cariad. When a really high tide comes up THIS way, it meets a massive river going THAT way, and there’s what they call a bore. Big wave that rolls upriver for miles and miles. People surf it, or ride it in canoes”

‘Cariad’? Shit. I knew that bit of Welsh. I realised I needed to keep eyes and ears even more open around them.

It started to rain.

Back to the car, then, LC wearing her jacket unfastened, so that the only bit on her was the hood, the rest of the coat draping over Kawan. I negotiated the roundabout once more, putting us back onto the approach road for the bridege, and once we were climbing towards the span’s summit, I waved to the left.

You can see the new bridge over there. Lot longer and lower than this one, and takes most of the traffic. This used to be a nightmare on a motorbike, with loads of lorries and always a really, really nasty sidewind. And I can’t really remember a crossing when it wasn’t raining. Now, Chepstow’s coming up on your right, and there’s another little bridge--- this one. That was the Wye afain, and we are back in Wales. You can say ‘Yay’, Clara”

“Yay!”

“Now, you have a job, girl. Two, really. First is to ring whoever is organising our stay and let them know where we are, so they can tell us, nicely, where to go. Second is to actually do a little navigating for me. I know the roads past, but not the city itself”

“On it!”

We skirted Newport, which is always best avoided, and then hit the edges of Cardiff. I followed Clara’s instructions, finally parking in front of a Costa Coffee place just off a massive roundabout.

“There he is, Mr Rhodes!”

We all stepped out, Clara running to a tall man, possibly in his early forties or late thirties, and threw her arms around him, which set him laughing happily.

“Easy, woman: you’ll make the Missus jealous! Introductions, please, but put me down first.”

“Sorry, Paul. Mr Rhodes—Mike, Maz Rhodes, Carolyn Rhodes”

“And Ish?”

“Yes”

“I see Gemma isn’t the only one who likes then big”

“So do Di, and Candice, and…”

“I know. You forgot to introduce me, love. Now, I am Paul Welby, and I’m a copper, so if you need to know the time, I’m officially allowed to tell you. And, to avoid awkwardness, I know what happened. Do you take hugs, handshakes, that sort of thing?”

LC astonished me just then, for she held out her bear to him.

“Kawan does”

Paul did the honours, and then did the rounds, alternating Warm Hug with Manly Shake, then pointing to a well-worn white Ford Focus.

“We had a brainstorm about where to fit you. There are two rooms near Deb’s, but they are in separate buildings, and one’s a pub, so not ideal. The Suttons are keeping their pair apart until the little lady stops repeating her meals, and The House isn’t really the place for lads. My other half offered. Her idea, even though I fully agreed. We have a three-bed semi, and no kids, so that’s two bedrooms, and a sofa or camping mat if necessary. I’ll drive, you follow, and I’ll give you the address before we go”

It was somewhere called Wordsworth Terrace, right in the middle of the city, so I had Ish track our route on his phone just in case. The traffic seemed to suffer a lot from something I heard called the ‘Whatsapp Gap’, where a lights change or movement of the car in front is only responded to after a few seconds, as the idiot driver lifts his attention from his bloody phone screen. We got there in the end, though, and it turned out to have an odd mix of houses rather than the surrounding endless rows of terraces. It was on-street parking, but there was space, and as I finally turned off the engine for the day, a slim woman came out of a front door to kiss a welcome home to Paul, which was when a story I had heard from Lexie came to mind.

Shot, both of them, next to Di in each case. Smile nicely and change your thoughts, Rhodes. I extended my hand to ger after stepping out of the car.

“Mike Rhodes! Maz, Carolyn, Ish, and I assume you know Clara”

“I’m Paula. Yes, I know. Get the bad jokes out of the way while I pour the tea? And what’s the bear called?”

LC held him up.

“He’s called Kawan, Missus”

“Does he drink tea?”

“He likes Coke”

“I do believe we have some. In you all come—it’s in the conservatory, darling”

The place proved to be rather like the Cow in Bethesda, in that the slightly narrow frontage had been extended some way back into what still remained as a rather long garden, complete with a slightly smaller version of Steph’s conservatory. All this on a copper’s wage? We were shown to our rooms, Paul indicating a separate, smaller room of the type I would have called a ‘box room’.

“We weren’t sure where Carolyn would want to sleep, so Paula cleared this one for her, just in case. We have a couple of those folding sun loungers, so she could have one for a bed. Just need to know where works best”

LC was listening closely.

“What’s that?”

That, little lady, is a folding stool. See?”

He set up one of those minimalist bits of kit where two rectangular frames are pulled apart to stretch a rectangle of fabric.

“Dad?”

“Yes, love?”

“Kawan’s bed?”

Paula had also been listening closely, and she took over smoothly.

“He will need sheets and a blanket, then. Shall we get some?”

As Maz, Ish and I hauled in our necessities, Paul set up a sunlounger in the box room, ready for LC’s sleeping bag, and when the two girls returned with the bear, Kawan received his own bedclothes, consisting of two tea-towels, a bath towel and a large bath sponge for a pillow. Our daughter was as open as I had ever seen her, explaining in her own version of a Mum-voice that if the bear messed his bed, he would be beaten with the rattan.

Fuck, yet again.

“Carolyn?”

“Yes, Dad?”

“We don’t have any rattan, and we don’t beat people. And Kawan is your friend”

There was a little flicker there, but she nodded, thank god.

Change the subject, Rhodes.

“This is a nice place, Paula”

“It should be. Cost us an arm and a leg. Or rather, in my case, nearly an arm”

“Um… Lexie and I share a few friends. I think I know what you mean”

She nodded, her smile wistful.

“Yup. Just another thing I owe to Diane and the rest. Mo had a lot of assets, and they came my way”

“Mo?”

“My former owner. Anyway, I earn a proper living now. Book royalties are still coming in, and a couple of papers have me on retainers for social commentary stuff. Paul and I are, well, comfortable now. Enough. Clara: how are you getting home?”

The girl had been leaning against Ish, her hand either on his waist or on his arse, and she jerked in surprise.

“Don’t know, Paula. Was thinking of walking it with Ish”

“Not going to happen, love. He doesn’t get into the House, does he? Not like with Frank or Blake, at least not yet. Anyway, how does he get back? Oh…”

She had clearly read something in the girl’s face.

“I see. Right: ring Debbie now. Tell her where you are, and you can use the living room. Oh, and confirm whether we are meeting Harry or Marlene tonight. Use the conservatory, please. Mike, Maz?”

She waved the two of us towards the bathroom, closing the door behind us.

“They’re sleeping together, or SLEEPING together?”

I answered for the two of us.

“In all senses, Paula. I’ve had a word with the lad, but, well, not my place to talk to Clara, is it?”

“And how do you feel about that? Them having sex, I mean?”

Maz spoke, for what felt like the first time.

“We both wish things were different, Paula”

“You don’t like the idea of him with a trans girl?”

Maz drew in a long breath, then let it go, all at once.

“Not what I meant, not at all. I suspect our son is head over heels, and she used a Welsh word that makes me think she’s in the same place”

I raised my eyebrows, and Maz fixed me with a much better Mum-stare than LC would ever be capable of.

“So I’m a Malay, but we spent enough time with our friends up North for me to pick up some words. I know what ‘cariad’ means”

She turned back to Paula.

“What I would wish different is the geography, Mrs Welby. We live literally a world away. To be blunt, part of the problems Ish has had, in my view, are down to racism. The rest is fallout from my… From my absence. Those are my only issues with the girl, and my husband here has the same views, don’t you, darling?”

“Racism? Really?”

“We live in a bubble in Perth, darling. School is a different place. Remember Dal’s mock turban? I suspect there was some peer pressure behind that”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. Geeta and I talk just as much as you and Kul do, just differently. So, Paula? Have we passed muster?”

“I am sorry, Maz. I just get protective”

“Paula, I read your book. Just put two and two together. You most certainly have nothing to apologise for. Just a pity I haven’t brought my copy with me for an autograph”

“Ha! Easily sorted, and at least you didn’t bloody ask ‘Where did you get the idea?’. Right: if you are sure you have Romeo in hand, I am off to sort out Juliet. You realise he’ll be sneaking down in the night if she stays?”

Another shrug from my wife.

“Both adults, now. As long as they are happy. Oh, Marlene and Harry?”

“Tonight’s pub choice. Back in a bit. And you don’t have to stay in this bathroom”

Twenty minutes later, as we sat in the living room, there was a banging on the front door. Paul answered, returning with what I immediately dubbed Biker Deb.

“My girl been good, Mike?”

I resisted the temptation to reply ‘Ask Ish’, and instead, in the old, old way, changed the subject.

“I keep hearing ‘Harry or Marlene’, Deb. Explain?”

“Ah. Harry runs the trad-style local just up from our place. Marlene’s Frank’s cousin, and she runs a rather different place in the city centre”

“How different?”

“Very, very different, Mike. It’s a gay bar”

I laughed.

“Making assumptions about our daughter, we don’t qualify!”

“Yes you do”

“Sorry?”

Paula took over.

“You, we—me and Paul—we’re on their side. Which is a big thing. I mean, there are times when we’re… It isn’t that we’re unwelcome there, rather that it would be inappropriate. There are always some people who take a harder line, but that’s not the culture at the Smuggler’s”

“Would that sort of place be suitable for a six year old, then?”

“No, not really. We run a sort of creche system. If it’s just Di’s two, her Mum or a couple of the girls do the duty. If more, say if Lainey and Siân are over, we put them together. Here, sometimes. Make it a camping out thing, sleeping bags in the conservatory, with a couple of babysitters. No abandoning of our children”

There was, once again, just a touch of darkness behind her words, as Debbie’s expression tightened, but this time I understood why, for what else was the House (I could hear the capital letter) about? Paula pulled her mobile from a pocket.

“That was my phone, Mike. Text…excuse me a second”

She peered at the screen, tapping it a few times before smiling.

“From Diane. She has been speaking to Lainey, and is asking if we can be Home Base for tonight. I would suggest she do it herself but…. That was a joke. Anyway, if we have her two, plus the Powell pair, and yours, that would work. Smugglers, Deb? Who would be up for a bit of sprog wrangling?”

“Hmmm. Looks like Clara wants to stay here, which would mean she’d have the sofa if the kids are camping in the glasshouse. Might be a couple of girls up for it, but that would most definitely cramp the style of our Romeo and Juliet here”

Bollocks to it all. Time to take that step into the void.

“Deb, they’ve been sharing a tent all this time. Would you… Sorry, Paula: your house. Would either of you… love, you thinking what I am?”

Maz shrugged, face deadpan.

“His bed is a double, so there’s room”

Two young people were fixed on her words, but Clara’s knuckles were white where she held our boy’s hand. Paula gave a nod, and Deb stared at Claras’s bag before giving a ‘go on’ nod of her own head towards the stairs, and as the pair leapt up, she called out, “Your slots on the dishwashing and laundry rosters aren’t being erased, Clara, just postponed!”

Once they were gone, she settled visibly into her chair.

“Thanks, both. Her experiences have sort of marked her, but even after that chaser, she’s still a romantic. Any plans for when you all fly off to Down Under?”

Maz was in the driving seat by then.

“None at all, Deb, apart from keeping an eye on both of them. It’s going to be a safety net and support thing, to be honest”

Deb was still in pointy mode, so Maz continued,

“Basic hygiene stuff, Deb. That’s all”

“Thanks, Maz. Sorry for pushing it, but I am a bit protective”

“No worries. We are, well, more likely to understand, ey? So what’s the timing?”

“Well, Lainey is on her way, as is Di or so they tell me. Rachel and Emma are now also on their way. Clara?”

“Yes, Nana?”

“Last chance. Are you sure about this?”

She looked up at Ish, possibly for reassurance, and to my immense pride, he simply said, “Has to be your decision, Clar”

“Okay… Yes”

Maz nodded at our boy, then turned back to Deb.

“Anything we need to know about tonight’s venue? Any toes to avoid treading on?”

Deb sighed, but still gave an answer that made sense.

“Just don’t piss people off”

Lainey and her wife, plus offspring, arrived just before Di’s lot, and to my relief, LC was ecstatic. I reminded myself that these were, in essence, her first friends.

“Dad! Dad! Are we camping?”

“Only in the… only in here, love. Remember Rachel and Emma?”

“They liked the Perving Slab!”

Rachel, or Emma, saved me just then.

“We both do, but we have PIXAR!”

“What’s that?”

“You like cartoons?”

Job done.

Di and Blake settled their pair in, the two babysitters incredibly attentive to little Tabitha, and we were off.

It wasn’t that far a walk, to be honest, but once we arrived, the pub was almost a cliché. A couple of leather boys were smoking outside the door of what looked like a huge pub.

“What you bringing us tonight. Deb?”

“Nothing for you, Aidan. All straight, as far as I know”

“Dommage. I do like a decent big boy. And I already know about Blake and Frank. Marlene’s expecting you, in your bar, Lainey”

She nodded.

“I’d expect no less”

“Well, usual disco is on, and there’s a hen party there that looks likely to be leaving shortly”

“Do they know they’re about to leave?”

“Don’t think so. Oh, and Tin-Tin has already been booted out, again”

Elaine frowned.

“Do I know him?”

“Don’t know. Chaser, he is. Likes his aftershave. Tries his luck once or twice a month, but as soon as one of the regular staff spot or smell him, he gets his trolling orders”

“Why does he keep coming, then?”

“Because this is the best place for someone to get lucky. I assume he sees it as a risk-reward balance”

“You going to need my sensible head on with the hens?”

“Oh, ask Marlene, but Lexie, Blondie and a few of the others are already in, and that includes their boss”

“Right. Wife?”

“Yes, fy nghariad?”

“Pass me my drinking head!”

One of those evenings, then. Into the pub, round the corner, and there was the explanation for that comment from ‘Aidan’: the ‘Elaine Powell Var. Probably the best bar named after a policewoman in the world’.

Something over seven feet of drag queen, if I included her wig, came striding across to us, and to my surprise all but ignored Deb, Lainey and the rest, going straight to Maz.

Her voice was incredibly soft, clearly for our ears only, as she took both of my wife’s hands on hers.

“Maryam. I would guess. Be welcome here, love, and understand that this is a safe space. I’m Marlene, and this is my pub. Any issues, ask for me. End of. Mike?”

She transferred one hand and took my right for a very firm shake.

“How’s the little one?”

“With, well, I realised she’s with the first proper friends she’s ever had. Four other kids”

Her jaw set slightly.

“Ever been allowed to have, you mean. Lainey, you trained Di well. Keep making an old queen happy, you lot”

Her voice rose, sharpening in tone.

“Clara, darling: are you trying to outdo Diane in the beef stakes? If he doesn’t work out, I can throw him to the bears”

She then turned to some customer at the bar, verbally and profanely stripped seven layers of skin from him, then dropped her voice again.

“Lil there’s tonight’s head honcho in this bar. Moi will be doing some moving, shaking and REmoving in a little while, but we shall have a catch-up in a few. Laters!”

She was off out the door, and Elaine was already at the bar before she caught Lexie’s shout.

“Got a whip set up. Lainey!”

“How much do you need?”

“Twenty a head”

“Tell you what: I’ll get this as a round for us, and Siân can donate for the whip. What are you drinking, Mike?”

I looked at the line of pumps, for once lost as to which to drink, for they were all strange to me. The barperson, a tall woman (I assumed) with shoulder-length hair pointed at one with a Welsh name.

“Horny Goat, Mike. Start with that. Nice drop. Want a taste?”

I nodded, and she poured some into a glass. Rather nice; I offered some to Maz and Ish, and they both nodded.

“Three goats, then, please. Lil?”

“No; Alwen. Lil’s just changing a piss keg for the lager drinkers. How’s the little girl?”

“Coming on superbly, love. Everyone in here on our case?”

“A lot of us, Mike. This is a close community in here, and you are the biggest story we’ve had in years, and it is a happy ending one, which is even better. Lot of people have got your backs, which is Lainey’s fault. Enjoy your evening. That your boy?”

I nodded, and she raised her voice.

“CLAR! I heard what Marlene said, but that isn’t going to happen. Calling first dibs on him!”

Our son, the rugby forward and footy star, looked to be blushing, but Clara simply laughed, cuddling up to him.

“Nope! Get your own, you tart. This one’s mine!”

Get used to it, son. Welcome to teasing and girly dominance games. I took my pint as Lainey passed out the drinks one by one, and Di led us over to a wiry Asian man who almost reminded me of Stewie.

“Mike, Maz: Sammy Patel, our Inspector. You know those two, these are Rhys, Jonny, Rob, Ellen, Abby, Alun…”

I started to drown in names, so waved a hand to slow her down.

“Di, unless you label everyone, I am not going to remember all those names. Also, as Lainey said, I do believe drinking heads are on”

Sammy laughed, and it was warm and honest.

“Bit like Deb’s brood. I will admit I get lost now and again myself. I just say ‘Hi, girls!’ and leave it at that. Except for Gemma, of course. With her, it’s more ‘Hi, Gem, and do you have any…’ et cetera. How long are you here for?”

“Not sure. Our flight’s on September twenty third, and we’re staying near Gatwick the few days before. I’ve got some box-ticking stuff before then”

“Box ticking?”

“Maz?”

She took over.

“I have a sort of bucket list, Sammy. Not ‘things to see before I die’, but more of a ‘to see now I’m alive again’ list, if you get me”

His gaze turned to the other side of the room, where some more of ‘Deb’s brood’ were clustered around Paula.

“I do get that, Maz. We have more than a little experience between us of being given that new lease. Now, I do have one official request, and it is entirely up to you: would you be willing to do a quick bit on camera? It’s pure politics, I’m afraid, justifying our funding”

“What would it involve?”

“The four of you meeting me and the team, plus our Super Bev Williams. Not so much a ‘Here’s one we prepared earlier’ as a ‘Here’s one we got to in time’. It’s not just part of avoiding budget cuts, which is always on the bloody cards, as a way of stopping a turf war”

“Sorry?”

“Bev was the one who set the unit up, in a way. Under Elaine, they were set up as a task group for a specific case, but Bev saw a niche for them. He’s a very hands-on hands-off manager”

Maz shook her head in some confusion, and Sammy grinned.

“He is fully in control, and keeps other empire builders away from his turf, but he leaves it at that. We get a steer, a strategic direction, but we are left to get on with things as we see fit. It’s called trust, and there are a lot of bosses don’t get that. Lets us use specific talents as a team, as well”

“Like Di’s statement taker thing?”

“You’ve got it. You think she’s dozing off, and then she comes out with something everyone else has missed. That’s how we got that cunt Forbes”

He paused, looking at his glass.

“Did I just say ‘cunt’? Naughty mouth! Well, that is what he is, and that’s the, or rather Another good thing about the team, as we agreed the other day. We get to meet the arseholes of this world, and we get to bang them away, and most importantly, when we’re really, really lucky, we get to see the nice people, the victims, we get to see them smile again”

I started to do a countback on my booze intake, and Sammy clearly noticed, laughing out loud.

“None of us bothered tonight, mate. Not asking for a go/no go tonight, just setting a seed. That’s your mate over there, I believe”

The last confused me, until I saw where he was looking, which was in the direction of a very lost-looking Neil. As I started to move, Maz tugged me gently back.

“The lad’s turn, darling. See?”

Ish was already there, hugging my, our friend while clearly struggling to explain why he had some young woman attached to one hand.

“Time to leave them to it, Mike. There is music next door. It’s not our style, but could we… Music Is not ‘traditional’, and this time I just need you”

She drew me from the Powell Bar, and we followed the pulse and the bass beat to another, larger room, where the music was most definitely not to our usual taste, nor the pairings of the dancers to anything coming within any reasonable distance of conventionality.

It was an education, I suppose, for while there were any number of skinny and shirtless young men revisiting that moment from ‘Rite of Spring’ and dance themselves to death, there were also others who were simply glommed together in happy mutual comfort, including a pair of the leather bears from the entrance. The DJ was playing all sorts of heavier ‘glam’, and my mind simply went with it. There was a beat, there was some grunt to the music, and there was a wife who wanted to let rip.

Nobody need know what we danced to, but dance we did.

I could see so much more clearly why Marlene’s place was so busy, as well as appreciate the service she offered to her community. We were so lucky in the end, and by ‘we’ I meant what might be considered our community, for we had everywhere outside the pub’s walls to relax in while for many of those here, it was all they had. For a second or two, I felt guilty, an intruder, but then I simply thought “Six fucking years” and got on with the shaking and sweating.

It wore us out, though, and we had responsibilities, so we gathered our breath and with it brought our heart rate back down, before heading back to the Powell, where Neil was at the bar sandwiched between Candice and Diane. Maz was straight across for a hug, and Neil and I shook spare hands around her.

“Where are you staying, mate?”

“I booked into that Sleeperz place by the station, but Candice here cancelled it as soon as I told her”

“Course I did! Plenty of room at ours, I said”

Blondie flicked a look towards Sammy, then snapped her smile back on once more.

“Not a case no more, is it? Sammy there likes to say ‘family’ a lot, so we’ll call it that, and now it’s not a case, we can forget case rules”

She furrowed her brow theatrically, leaning past us to shout a question at her other half.

“Barry, love? Am I doing ‘blonde’ or ‘borg’ tonight?”

The shout came back: “Blonde borg, I believe”

“Yeah, but I’d never get into that costume, never mind out of it again, so you lot can all put your minds away right now. Sixty of nine? Blonde! Anyway, serious head? We have all sorts of offers for you lot, and none of them involve rubber or lycra. Unless you’re as perverse as us, of course”

Once again, her eyes swept the room, locking for a few seconds on Ish, who was, naturally, in the middle of a crowd of Deb’s charges.

“What are you doing about the boy’s situation, Mike? Not a lecture, don’t worry, and I don’t really believe this of you, but she doesn’t get ghosted when you all fly off again”

Maz took point.

“None of us know, Candice. Ish has spoken to us both at length and, well, things change. I suspect we will be looking at a lot of video calls. Those cost nothing, unlike the old phone days. When I used to ring the family home from Australia, that was silly money”

“And the video stuff, Maz?”

My wife looked quickly up at me before continuing.

“They will either peter out, or they will continue. Both people involved are committed to their studies, so no excess, but if it’s ‘peter out’, then I am between two stools. I don’t know which of them has it worse, which one might drift, if at all. Then it’s family time. Oh, and Clara doesn’t lose us if she loses Ish, not unless she wants to. I have had more than enough of locked doors”

Candice sang a few words, ‘Had his moment of doubt and shame’, then grinned in that false way of hers.

“Yeah, love. A few of us here been in shit places. Obs, as Debbie puts it”

I gave her what I hoped was a better smile.

“Protective lot, aren’t you?”

Her answering look held dark pools of bitterness.

“You don’t need to know. Maddy, Neil’s Maddy, she was one we could have saved if someone hadn’t decided to be a complete and utter cunt, and as that one still IS a case, I need to STFU. It’s… Neil?”

“Yeah?”

“Just need a quiet few words with these two, sorry. Lil?”

She waited a couple of seconds, then tried again.

“Lil, put Jennifer down and please give Marlene a shout for me… Hiya. Could we use the foot of your stairs for a chat? Just for privacy?”

A quick nod, the passing of a key, and then the three of us were in a stairwell behind a soundproofed door. The fluffy act evaporated immediately from Candice as she came directly to the point.

“Failing, you two. All of us have. Debbie’s early life, there were coppers involved. Same with what happened to Di and Paula, some of Deb’s girls, some other victims you won’t meet tonight, like Lainey’s little sister. My man there, he’s firearms. If he has to act, he’s already failed, as he sees it, and he has had to act more than enough times. Anyway, we understand pernicious guilt by transference. What I am on about now is real guilt, where we let those coppers do Forbes’ work, and that is setting us up for a much deeper look at Nigel’s mates, and no, I am not going into detail. It’s not over. It’s the other side of things that worry us, and that is how Neil will react when he realises he is doing that famous pushing at an open door, and then meets Part Two coming through”

Maz simply nodded, as I said, “Where else would we be but ready to catch him?”

“Thank you. He’s a lovely man, but not a survivor, not on his own. It’s that Part Two thing you need a hint about”

Maz asked, “What’s happening to those police officers, you mean?”

“That’s part of it. It’s… Here, we had other issues. Long story short, there was a series of rapes. One woman came forward, got the conviction, and then several others, and we got that bastard locked up for the rest of his life”

My wife’s voice was like a caress.

“Ashley Evans?”

Candice’s face set hard.

“That’s the one. How do you know?”

“I read Paula’s book, so I know who else was involved. I think I know what you’re doing with Forbes now”

“Yeah. Which is my worry about how Neil might react on seeing the news”

I felt a little lost, so Maz explained.

“Something Lexie said to me, darling, about him trawling venues like galleries for ‘posh tottie’. ‘Thick posh tottie, those were the words, but ‘vulnerable’ is a better one in my view”

Candice nodded.

“Yes. There are separate investigations, as I have NOT hinted, but the tottie one might draw some public attention precisely because going public is what draws the other victims out. That’s the plan, anyway. The rest depends on what Forbes was specifically targeting”

I pulled my wife closer to me, a little ripple of worry crossing my mind.

“In what way, Candice?”

“Ah. Don’t want to go into too much detail, but Maddy may or may not have been typical. He was quick to dump her once he’d got his cock off, but I am not sure… Details, Mike. Think US Army doctors in Afghanistan, just closer to home. That bit where he got Maddy to pay for the meal even though HE was the one taking HER out. I think… Look, do I overdo the ‘blonde’ shit?”

“Sometimes, but, not by much”

“Well, when we get offences from a particular group, whether it be catfishing, cuckooing or whatever, the victims always get the shame bomb, the ‘how could I be so stupid?’ crap, and that is a bloody uphill slog. What we need from Neil’s friends is simple: just be there to let him see he’s the bloody victim, not the accomplice”

Maz still had that soft whisper to her voice.

“You have someone already, then”

“Time to get back in, or Barry’ll be getting confused. Have I got my blonde back on properly?”

We both nodded, and she opened the connecting door before heading to the bar to rejoin our family, extended now so, so far. Deb was wrapped up by her man as she prodded and slid the face of a tablet she was showing Neil, and to no surprise on my part he was returning the favour via his own tablet. I guessed they were discussing photo sets, perhaps even a commission. Ish was nowhere to be seen, but then again, all the ‘Brood’ were similarly missing, so I had no worries on that front. ‘Alwen’ was at the bar again, as I secured a Goat, with a large white for Maz, so I asked where our boy might be.

“Oh, Clar got him surrounded and dragged him off to the disco once they were sure it was safe”

“Safe?”

“As in, a parent-free zone. He’s a shy one, isn’t he?”

Maz looked around me.

“You lusting after him didn’t help!”

That actually brought a blush, so yet again I heard my wife soften her manner.

“You okay, girl?”

“Ah, easy being behind the bar. Bit of banter’s expected. Face to face is another thing. Anyway, I’ll see a few of the girls through the week for updates”

She grinned, clearly settling down once again.

“Some of us are students at the same uni, but it’s the Summer hols right now. Chance to boost savings before the next term, and in a safe space”

She grimaced at some memory or other.

“First New Year’s Eve I ever worked here, there was a beating. There’s always beatings, of course, but this one, two of our regulars found him, and this was where they brought him, to wait for ambulance and police. ‘Safe space’ isn’t just a saying here. Anyway, here’s your boy”

Maz and I turned, and he was somewhat red in the face, hair plastered to his head.

“Been dancing, son?”

“Yes, Dad”

“Ish?”

“Mum?”

“Was that timing to avoid us seeing you dancing, or you to avoid having to see your parents dance?”

There were several girls clustered round, one of whom purred, “Do tell, Ishy sweety!”, and he blushed an even deeper colour.

“Not now, Maria. Bad enough when that bloke….”

‘Maria’ chuckled happily.

“I think Clar set him straight, Ishy! Or rather, not straight, seeing where we are, but it was weird when the music stopped”

I was having some mad vision of musical lap-sitting with that remark, So I gave the Maz-eyebrows to the lad.

“Oh, somebody got thrown out, and EVERYBODY stopped dead to watch, or maybe help, and as he leaves, Marlene says something about a chipolata and ‘half a badly-packed kebab from Chippy Lane’ and he’s nearly running out the door”

Maria laughed out loud.

“Nice try, Ishy!”

She turned to me.

“That was an earlier one, man we call Tin Tin. This was a whole mass of women”

Her manner changed, abruptly.

“Chloe, can you grab Lil? First aid box?”

“On my way”

Maria looked at Clara, clearly for permission, then lifted the edge of our boy’s shirt with a wince.

“Stupid bloody false nails”

Lil appeared, another woman in tow, and the former took a quick look around the Powell bar before turning to her companion.

“Lock the door for now, Jen. Little lever under the doorknob. What we got Maria?”

“I hadn’t realised until we were joking away, and then spotted some, well, spots. Mr Rhodes?”

“Yes?”

“Ish did nothing wrong. He just got targeted. What it is, Marlene has some shot sellers in the other bars, all men, all ripped as anything, no shirts, and all gay as a gay thing. Hen party liked that. Thought it was all for their benefit, then decided to spread it about, try to pull lads’ shirts off. Just noticed the blood. Oh, Clara?”

The girl looked terrified.

“Yes?”

“Bloody good backhand on the fat one. Yes, I do know most od them were”

Tick tock and Marlene was with us, via the bar.

“You on it, Lil?”

“Yup. Jen’s got the door for now”

“Good woman”

“I already know that, boss. Anyway, few slices, nothing deep. Wiped the little ones down, and there were only three cuts needed a plaster. If Ish is happy to leave his shirt off till things dry out, he’ll not have to peel it off later”

“How is Moi expected to work efficiently if I am to be so distracted?”

“Boss, you already pay for the shots boys, so don’t talk bollocks”

The queen shrugged.

“Fair point, but you wound me. Should have blocked those fuckers on sight. You okay, Ish? Need anything? Cold drink? Hot drink? Moi?”

She rose, turning to Sammy.

“Catch all that, Inspector? Let me know when you want the discs from the cameras. Ish?”

“Yes?”

“Big bath towel, lengthwise across the bed, not down it. Allows you to be both passionate and agile without leaving claret on the sheets. Later!”