CHAPTER 5
We were back down the Cow that evening, as I vetoed a trip to Bangor to avoid dumping ‘designated driver’ on someone’s shoulders. It obviously wasn’t a club night, so I had much more opportunity to speak to the locals. We were joined at our table around nine o’clock by a couple that looked to be around the same age as myself, who were introduced as Vic and Nancy Edwards, although I found out later that the spelling was not what I assumed. Keith said Foreign-Not-really Things to them, before turning to the rest of us with a smile.

“Mike, one of our older friends, his mate Kul, and his son Dal. They are the ones who brought the rest of our stuff up from That Place We Don’t Name”

Nansi (I was learning) snorted out a laugh.

“Mike, does Keith always talk in Capital Letters?”

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 2
I felt my world wobble for a moment, before Keith simply tugged at my sleeve.

“Come in and sit down, Mike. I’ll talk you through it. Not what it sounds like”

I was lost. How could it not… Penny? Gone? They were joined at the bloody hip, for god’s sake. He towed me into the living room, pushing me down into one of the armchairs, then disappearing into the kitchen for a few seconds before returning with a couple of bottles of Shefford Old Strong and a pair of glasses. I found myself on autopilot as I used the bottle opener that lived on my key ring, poured and sipped.

CHAPTER 60
My feet knew their own way down to the Cow, as did my family’s, so the others simply followed. I had settled into a linked-arms walk with my lover, because after Mike’s revelations I simply didn’t feel like letting her go.

My stomach was still churning. I was so, so lucky in my family, as was Alys, and once again my mind was racing ahead, seeing us all simply as one family. Sod formality: Tref’s comment had set a very deep hook into my soul.

CHAPTER 58
The paramedic met us at the centre, seeming oddly satisfied with the state of my nose.

“It’s not broken, Enfys. That’s the good news. What it looks like is that the septum, the bit of gristle between your nostrils, has been bent”

“Hurts like it’s broken!”

She laughed.

“Aye, but it has to be there to hurt! What I am going to do is place a little bit of plastic over the top… Hold still… Got it. Try not to bang it again, and see your own GP when you get home. I know Cubby’s lot keep some basic painkillers here, but try not to overdo them, or those he’s about to give you in Aviemore”

“Eh?”

“At the pub. Don’t get plastered tonight just because I didn’t plaster you right now”

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.

CHAPTER 54
Lee was the first to spot the bruising.

“What the hell, mate? Who did that, and don’t give me any shite about walking into a cupboard door!”

The bruise was clearly fading, yellowish around the edges, but still very evident. Tref was looking down at the top of our dining table, the wood grain clearly fascinating.

“Went to the wrong pub, didn’t I?”

CHAPTER 52
It was Dad who started the healing process, pulling out a whole collection of anecdotes and references.

“People do silly things, love. They do them everywhere; it’s just that when it’s in the hills, it can get serious. That’s the thing about it: something happens, no warning, and, well. I… Before your Mam and me got together, I used to spend a lot of time in Scotland, with your uncle Mike. We were called out…”

He shook his head.

CHAPTER 50
I didn’t know what to do. Steph’n’Geoff were such a part of my life, and Steph so utterly right in herself, in her femininity, that I found it hard to imagine, to recognise, that she had ever been any other way. I could remember Alys, of course, before she was ever visible; when my mind whispered “Before there was an Alys”, it immediately gave itself the answer “There always was an Alys, just hidden”, and I wondered what Steph had shown the world before she shook herself free of it.

CHAPTER 48
We were back to the grind of our studies after that, of course, and I found it a particular variety of ‘interesting’ the way my attitude to them was changing. In climbing guides, ‘interesting’ is often a euphemism for ‘terrifying’, but this was the more commonly understood meaning.

CHAPTER 46
University life was so very different from school. It looked, on the surface, as if we had much less work to do, lessons being fewer, free time seeming to be endless, but it wasn’t at all that way. There was so much background reading to do, for starters, and then we weren’t being handed the answers for later parroting. Our lecturers actually expected us to go out and bloody RESEARCH things, the sods.

CHAPTER 44
The rest of the week found its pattern, each day book-ended by a ride with Mam, and punctuated with a shared lunch. I am sure I was just as vocal as Alys was, about the way my course was going, but so much of what she described sailed right past me. At least with my stuff, it was rooted in daily life, at least the sort of daily life lived by someone who lived in the middle of mountains sprinkled with lakes.

CHAPTER 42
We moved on the next day, and had three days of progressing from castle to castle. Vic too his snaps, Nansi dispensed nuggets of history, and we ate all sorts of interesting meals. It should have been boring and repetitive, but it was far from that, and not just because of the company I was in.

Some of the historical stuff was amusing, much of it surprising, and every now and again, Nansi came out with something that deeply shocked me. There is a world of difference between hearing of Carcassonne’s flying pig and being told of how ‘Crusaders’, full of Christian charity, had herded 200 people out of Montségur castle and burned them all alive.

CHAPTER 40
We finally arrived in what was clearly the Deep South, at least of France, and I must have muttered something along those lines as Nansi Edwards immediately corrected me. She did it nicely, she did it with a smile, but it was clearly a very polite slap down.

“Politics, Enfys, and religion. You don’t need to know the details, but this was a different country back then. Paris-based France it wasn’t; different language, different culture. Once they had an excuse to come down from the North, well, lots of castle building, lots of land and property to be redistributed. Local language made illegal. Sound familiar?”

CHAPTER 38
I sat for a while, mulling over her revelation, and in the end decided to leave it for a private moment; there was clearly so much hiding behind her words that it would have been unfair to put her on the spot in public. We ate our rice and stuff, piling up prawn shells (is that the word?), and drank far too much, as was traditional for Brits in Tenerife.

It was more than that, I realised, as I looked around the group and saw how many were staring at their plates or glasses, or simply into space, and after a while, I recognised the mood.

Guilt.

CHAPTER 36
A tern creak-calling above us, we made our way slowly back to shore, a little warmer in the shallower water, and while Warren walked straight out of the waves, Alys and I had to do the wriggling dance to get our fins off before we could follow. Sali called over to us as we approached the group.

“Saw you coming! Got cold ones for you—no, don’t look like that! Not beers, cokes. See anything?”

CHAPTER 34
It was the first time I had ever flown, and all too obviously the first time I had experienced the other joys of an airport, especially the other passengers. I know that my home is in a prime tourist area, but this was something completely different. Our flight left mid morning, so Mrs Edwards drove us across country well before dawn, leaving us with a hug after ensuring we were properly checked-in and queuing for the security controls, and also leaving us with a collection of people who seemed to have abandoned all taste, if they had ever owned any in the first place.

CHAPTER 32
We fed everyone, at least those who wanted feeding, and then it was time for a weather check. It had rained in the night, so a lot of the crags were moist enough to put the serious climbers off, but Dad had already sorted out a fallback plan.

CHAPTER 30
Mr Edwards was the one who picked us up from the station, with a forceful hug for both of us together and then each in turn, and an even more forceful reminder that we had less than a week before the start of the new school year.

“Going to need to split up, girls. The last thing any of us needs is for the gossip mill to get started”

Alys squeezed my arm, then put a finger to my lips as I started to speak.

“I know what Enfys wants to say, Dad, and it will be stuff about not being ashamed, all that”

CHAPTER 29
It was the start of a wonderful month, made even better by the simple fact that there was no way at all that Mr and Mrs Edwards would be heading off castle-snapping. I was starting to see them as being as much a part of my family as my own parents, and being together was a blessing. I could never discount the reason, never forget it, but as she healed physically, my lover seemed to be finding her own spark again. We had a treat ahead, of course, at the end of August, but it was the weeks at home that I loved.

CHAPTER 27
I had bent over the bed as she started to tremble, half-formed words gradually increasing in volume, and when she realised it was me, she crashed awake, pulling my arms about her.

“Shush, love. Let me move, just a second, okay?”

CHAPTER 25
Hollis led the conversation, interrogation, interview, Baillie making notes in an A4 book rather than the little notebook I expected. The woman was quietly spoken, but very clear in her questions.

“You were found in a disused blast shelter in the Dinorwic quarries, Alys. You were last heard of near the Penrhyn quarries, the other side of the hill. Can you tell us how you got there? From the beginning, please. Take your time, but it would help us if you could explain why you were there in the first place. DC Baillie here is what we call a statement taker, as am I. We will not put words in your mouth, but rather do our best to help you be clear in what you say. Is that acceptable?”

CHAPTER 23
Thank god it wasn’t term time, because I would never have been able to face the rest of them. I stayed with the Edwards for a few days, Mam and Dad having livings to earn. I felt guilty leaving Dad with the bunkhouse, but each time I tried to do the loyal thing and pull my weight, I was swamped by memories of Alys working beside me.

I tried, but the second time Dad caught me in tears, I was packed off back to the Edwards house. I suppose it was a clear mark of how much my parents loved me, leaving me to huddle in her bed, her sheets, the memories of my lover surrounding me.

Three days… four… I was huddled in her bed, my default comfort zone, when Nansi Edwards pulled the door open.