CHAPTER 56
Jordan didn’t actually move in to our shared house directly, but he became a very regular visitor. Our beds were all doubles, so there was presumably enough room, although lee did try being smug about it. We were sitting down to breakfast one November morning, the hints about milk purchases and porridge consumption having finally worked their way into the usual suspect’s understanding, when he stretched theatrically and grinned at the rest of us.

“Never it be said Geordies aren’t switched on! One of us here, and only one, gets to stretch out at night. I get my beauty sleep, even If I’m the one who doesn’t need it”

Tref threw a crust of toast at his head, as Alys made some comment about who was down for kitchen-cleaning duties, and I realised that Jordan was looking a little abashed. My lover caught the direction I was looking, and put a hand to his.

“Okay, love?”

He let out a long sigh.

“Not really sure, to be honest. Bit guilty, really. Look…”

He sat up straighter, taking a mouthful of tea, and all of that term’s basic psychology lessons sat up in my own mind to play close attention. Displacement activity, distancing, thinking space, whatever.

“I’m spending a lot of time here. I eat breakfast, and we share evening meals”

Lee in turn reached out to pat his hand, which actually impressed me.

“You bring plenty of food and stuff, marra, if that’s what’s worrying you. I wasn’t dropping hints. I mean, I might, you know. Want to bring someone else back now and again”

Traf grinned at that.

“Really? Who would that be, then?”

Alys had a hand up immediately.

“Not now, Tref. I think Jordan wants to say something he thinks is important. Go ahead, love”

The young man was blushing, stumbling over his words and seemingly fascinated by his mug, but he made a clear effort and set it down.

“Shit. Well, I really wanted to say this in private, just the two of us, yeah? Still; seems easier to get it out with you three here. You’re…we’re all friends, I think. No: just nod”

There was a mutual look around, then all of us did as he had asked, and he grinned, in a slightly nervous way.

“Alys and Enfys, yeah? You were there from day one, at the Freshers’ Bazaar. I’d watched you, from the very first tutorial, and you were just so, so open about who you were, and… and who you loved. No, shush. My turn. You took me along to the LGBT group. That was my coming out, really. Being outed to Mum, well, that would have been…”

He shook his head, a far more natural grin arriving.

“Chicken and egg, yeah? If it hadn’t been for you two, I’d never have come out at all, us two probably wouldn’t be together, so there’d have been nothing for anyone to take back to Mum. Circles… Anyway. What I wanted to say is that I rent my digs by the term. Getting used to the company, so I would like to make it a regular thing. Sorry, Tref, but I couldn’t get myself to dive in with this, just the two of us. These three talk sense, thought they’d spot any silliness, keep my head grounded”

Tref was almost expressionless, but I could see a vein pulsing rapidly in his neck.

“What are you asking, Jordy? Or offering?”

“Saving one set of rent, in short”

“Here, or there? I mean, which one of us would move?”

Jordan looked around the table once again.

“Partly why I wanted to say it in front of this lot. Not just us two involved, is it? Lee?”

“Aye? Oh. Well, saves us all a big problem if you move in here”

I found myself nodding, and after a glance at my girl, I offered my pearl of wisdom.

“Aye; would save us all on rent if Jordan moves in here. Win-win”

Lee snorted out a laugh.

“Rent’s last of my worries, lass! It’s getting back from the pub that’s important!”

The other three were staring at each other in confusion as obvious as my own, so Lee just spread his arms wide.

“Look: we go out to the pub, aye? Get a few bevvies down our necks, like? The more of us there are, the more likely there’ll be one of us with enough working brain cells to be able to find their way home and show the rest where it is!”

As the rest of us laughed, he buffed his nails in mock modesty before heading for the kitchen with a promise of a fresh pot of tea., picking up the piece of toast as he went, and I followed him, shutting the door behind us both.

“You fill the kettle, Lee, I’ll sort the pot”

“Grand!”

“And you can tell me what’s jerking your chain right now”

“Oh, nowt wrong with me”

I waited until he had set the kettle to boil before going up and putting my hands to his shoulders.

“Not saying there is, mate, but once I’d spotted Tref’s little tics, I could see yours. We’re both doing the same courses, after all. You got a problem with them moving in together? Two lads?”

He stared hard at me, before shaking his own head.

“Touché with the courses, woman. I was going to ask if you really thought that, but I can see your own little tics, as you put it. If each of them is happy having someone to fart next to them, who am I to object?”

I felt my own grin again.

“Steph calls that ‘The Promise’. Camping, aye? It’s no snoring or farting”

He laughed, but it was still not quite relaxed.

“What’s up, Lee?”

“Well, nothing”

“Rubbish is it nothing”

He stepped away from me, turning his back as he poured the now-boiling water into the teapot.

“Enfys… You know what I said about the only straight in the village, aye?”

“Yes?”

“Well, not just that, is it? I’m the only single one too. The only only one, to bugger up a phrase”

Oh dear. I stepped closer, hugging him from behind.

“Are you okay, love?”

Yet another deep sigh, his back pressing against me as he drew in the air, before slumping as he exhaled.

“Sort of, and sort of not, sort of. I don’t know, really. Never been good with the chat-up, me. Never any luck at home, and I though being at Uni, you know what they say. Hurts, sometimes. I mean, that day you took us all out on the slate, when Steph showed me what I could really do, and everyone there was sort of joined at the hip. I was watching, you know? That lad who does the chips and his missus, they’re so placid about it all, complacent, aye? And Steph and her man, they’re grinning at each other all day. I want something like that, and, well. Just doesn’t happen, not for me. No. No problem from me about Tref and, what was that? Jordy. Confusing, that. Anyway, tea will stew if we leave it any longer. Not a word to the rest, please. Things will happen when they happen, and same if they don’t happen. We’ll sort out divvying up the rent payments later, okay?”

Je was back to bright-and-cheeky when we returned to the table, and I kept my promise. Not a word even to Alys, but all I could see was another Warren. Why was life never simple?

Just over a month later, after a Christmas that seemed slightly hollow without the spice that the Woodruffs normally sprinkled everywhere, we were in a pair of minibuses pulling into a car park outside a place that felt like home, as it was so similar to Idwal YHA that I felt a slight shock at finding none of the signs in anything other than English. It had rained almost non-stop from Bangor, but by the time we settled into our rooms in Aviemore, it had turned to snow. I wasn’t alone in finding the pull of my bunk easily overriding any desire to hit the bar, and the net thing I registered was the faint smell of a fried breakfast coming from somewhere in the building.

Matt was stupidly upbeat for someone who claimed not to be a climber, and in response to my slightly shop-worn reminder to him on that subject, he was absolutely blasé about it.

“Mountain sports, Enfys, WINTER mountain sports, include more than scrambling up lumpy bits of ground. I fully intend to slide down a lot of it, before rinse, rise and repeat. Skiing, woman! You not read the prospectus?”

Lee dove straight in.

“Silly question, Matt, but why you on this trip? Why not one of the other tutors, one who climbs?”

“Pastoral care, my friend. Because I actually am YOUR tutor. Instructors are all local, so I can take a back seat. Watch the group dynamics, coordinate reports on your learning outcomes, keep your continuous assessment modules up to date”

Ricky followed him seamlessly with “… and get a ski holiday in as well”

Matt shrugged.

“Not just women who can multitask, is it? Anyway, getting a little more serious. I actually will be on most of your sessions here, as I believe in continuous learning as well as continuous assessment. I am building, as I have been for years, my own portfolio of mountaineering skills. Not climbing as such, not in a really technical sense, but mountaineering as a gestalt. I have real ambitions to do some seriously off-piste skiing in the Alps one day, and these are the skills I will need if something goes to ratshit. Yes, I will be sharing a snow cave with somebody for that part of the fortnight”

Lee called my name across the table, grinning in anticipation.

“Enfys?”

“Yes?”

“Shall we make him give The Promise, then?”

“Certainly! Matt?”

“Yes, Ms Hiatt? Why do I feel this is some sort of set-up?”

“Not at all. We just need a promise. Well, The Promise”

“Which is?”

“When sharing a tent or, in this instance, a snow cave: no snoring or farting!”

Ricky had his hand up for his own comment.

“And no going for a curry the night before, then! There’s smelly and, well, I’ve used that curry house down the road before, and anything emitted after eating in that place will dissolve its own snow cave!”

Six days later, and all I could think of was his words, as Lee and myself were taking turns to dig through what felt like a mile of snow towards what we hoped would be fresh air.