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?”