CHAPTER 24
Her place was a little overgrown, but I’d brought a few tools down with me just in case. As I removed a few weeds, preparing to plant a couple of bulbs, I found a plastic-wrapped card fastened to one of the flower pots.

‘If you read this Mike, a couple of us from the (climbing and folk) clubs stop by every couple of weeks to clean up. Not forgotten’

I had to take a few minutes on a bench after finding the note, for it dredged up a deep well of pain that I had almost managed to slip away from. It also showed me exactly how true my friends were. Our friends, that is, and in a perverse way, the responsibility I felt to them was what I was using to keep myself going. Can’t break, can’t let all our friends down.

I found a scrap of paper, jotting down a ‘Thanks; Mike’, and tucked it into the bag with the little card. Let them know I was still holding up, take one little bit of worry and pain from them. The decision came immediately, and it was ‘sod this place’; I went back to the bike, with no clear plan but to get away, and I ended up at a Youth Hostel I remembered from many years ago, at a place in Suffolk called Blaxhall. There was a common nearby, with a few tumuli on, and it was a short ride to Aldeburgh, where I spent the next day walking the length of Orford Ness, ostensibly for a look at the nuclear weapons test site but actually for the solitude that the huge sweep of shaggy grass and endless expanse of sea provided. American fighter jets roared overhead every so often, a few gulls screamed, and it all matched my mood as exactly as I could have wished.

Yes, there was a pub near the hostel.

Work felt strange without my sparring partner, but Betty and the rest did what they could to fill the gap, and yes, I did find my grins and jokes again. I had responsibilities, after all. Those responsibilities were actually more varied and very real, for without Kul, our individual workload naturally had to increase. The bosses were looking for new staff, but even after they had arrived, they would take time to get into the swing of it.

It was absorbing, though, which was exactly what I needed. We received an ‘all staff’ letter from Kul and his family a fortnight after they had left us, which carried a few pictures, all seeming to show nothing but blue skies. When they were passed around, Betty was the one to wave at the rain streaming down the office window, with a withering observation that it was ‘all right for some’.

That was a surprise, for she wasn’t usually one for snarkiness. I took the chance to ask when we were both brewing a cuppa, and she put her cup back down, leaning on the worktop on straight arms, head bowed.

“Mike, it’s not you, but, well, it is, sort of. Not deliberate, but with the Board, yeah?”

“Me? Have I done, said, something stupid? Sorry, whatever it is, was!”

She turned back to me, backside against the cupboards, arms folded.

“No, Mike, no you haven’t. Just, well, I would have fitted that Perth job as well as Kul. As well as you, in fact. Yes, I do understand you’re the one being groomed for any stage two expansion, and the reason is bloody sexism”

I couldn’t find anything sensible to say, but she switched to a slightly timorous smile.

“Sorry, Mike. None of that’s your fault, and anyway, I really doubt I could persuade him indoors to move all that way. It would be nice just to be bloody asked, for once!”

She stepped forward to give me a one-armed hug.

“Anyway, how did that trip to visit, you know… How was it?”

I found myself repeating her own posture, resting against the cupboards, my mug cradled in both hands.

“Found a note on her… you know; there, by the bulbs and stuff. Climbing club and the other lot, the folk club, they’re doing gardening there for me. Yes, I left a thank-you note. I couldn’t…”

I drew a long breath before trying to match her smile.

“I couldn’t face staying there, so I went somewhere we visited, early days, yeah? In Suffolk. Youth hostel on some proper heathland, then a walk from Aldeburgh, down Orford Ness”

“Heard of Aldeburgh. Music festival place?”

“Yes; Benjamin Britten. Anyway, there’s a long spit, Orford Ness, that I walked the length of”

“Not your usual sort of place, that. All flat”

“Whole point. Nothing to the East but open sea, and just rough grassland on the Ness. Solitude, Betty. Got some photos of the nuclear bomb test place, though”

Her jaw dropped.

“I thought we only tested those bloody things in the middle of sodding nowhere!”

“Not the actual bombs; just the explosive compression harness things. Got some old hangar things down there, very evocative for photos”

“So you’re not glowing in the dark, then?”

“Apparently not. But there is a nuclear power station just up the coast”

“Oh dear. Fish caught ready-cooked, then? Extra fingers on them?”

“Fish don’t have fingers, Betty”

“Well, explain what I gave my lot for tea yesterday, then!”

She was back, almost. I made to rise, and she put a hand against my chest.

“Forget what I said, Mike. You need this move, if it comes off, but don’t be surprised if I do my best to persuade my feller to go for the next one after you. No resentment?”

“No need, Bet. I was just surprised, you know. These days. Sexism and that”

She raised an eyebrow.

“What’s that yank phrase? Skin in the game? Well, if you have some, that’s when you start noticing. Better than it was, but not by much. Anyway, work won’t do itself, will it?”

Never a truer word, but I found myself watching others far more closely than I had been. ‘Skin in the game’, eh? Time to open my eyes wider, it seemed.

My own letter, together with a bundle of photographs, was waiting for me on the doormat three days later.

‘Dear Mike
Not going to write loads of stuff here, because Dad says it’s unmanly and inappropriate for Yorkshiremen, so I reminded him that we aren’t, but you know him. Just puts on a silly accent and talks nonsense. Locals think he’s hilarious.

Pictures are a mix. One is of the view over the Swan brewery from King’s Park in Perth. Another is a sea stack called the Sugarloaf, a long way from Perth. Dad’s got the loan of a car as part of the package, so we’ve been exploring. Another one’s of the huge beach near that stack—yes, we’ve been swimming! Not eaten by a shark yet. Not found anywhere to climb yet, either.

Company Dad’s contracting for have sorted us out a rental place at somewhere called Nollamarra or Nollamarrow or something like that. Address is at top of letter. People are being really friendly and stuff. Had a proper ‘barbie’ party a couple of days ago.

A different hand took over.

Hiya, mate. That’s the lad’s take, so I’ll add mine and Sanny’s bit. Flight was a slog, Dubai’s a hole, but this place is a jewel. It’s a big place, but most people still seem to act like it’s a village. They TALK to you, not like it is in those three Places That Start With L (third one’s London). Sanny’s reet made up, ‘appen (that’s for the boy’s benefit), because there’s a decent bus system, there’s masses to see and do, and this place really understands food. Says she’ll end up developing her own gravitation if we stay here.

Seriously, we are already wondering if it would be good to make this a permanent move. Early days, obviously, but…

Write soon, mate.

Kul, Dal, Sangeeta

The photos were stunning, and the beach one was odd, in that while I had seen more spectacular beach pictures, this expanse of sand clearly extended halfway to the next country, only the odd groyne breaking up the line of very gentle waves-to-land until it all hit a vanishing point. No crowds; very few people visible, full stop.

The ‘View from King’s Park’ made me smile, because of course Kul had included a brewery as a hint. If he couldn’t actually buy me a pint, then a picture of the source was better than nothing. It all looked clean, modern in a restrained way, and, above all, spacious. Two of the photos were of parrots, one a bottle-green, the other a soft pink, and they were the ones that had me setting it all aside, letter, pictures, half-drunk tea, and walking out into the rain as it fell on my little rear garden.

Birdwatching, indeed. Caroline’s life had been full of things she loved. The birds were one thing I had only half-shared, of course, as she was never as focused on climbing as myself, but in the others, we had found so much in common that we might have shared DNA. That thought, of course, brought up so many worms, so much might-have-been-and nearly-was, that I nearly found myself heading for the corner shop once more.

I was actually pulling on my jacket, having dumped my soaked sweater, when the phone rang.

“Hiya. Can I help you?”

“Mike? Bets here. What you up to tonight?”

Walking over to the Co-Op and buying booze, before starting the process of getting pissed, woman.

“Nothing in particular. Why?”

“You get a package from Kul? Letter and pics?”

“Yes. You as well?”

“Yup. Fancy comparing them? Down the Fettler’s? Give us a chance to check them with the owner. Didn’t fancy cooking, and him indoors can burn a salad, so we are eating there, and not fish fingers this time. You up for it?”

Not really, but it would interfere with getting wrecked: I couldn’t decide whether that would be a good or a bad thing, in the wider scheme of things.

“Yeah; go on. Time?”

“We’re setting off now. Got them to put a table aside for us. Dress code is whatever you didn’t sleep in last night”

I laughed, dutifully, and went to change into something better than the vest I had been wearing under the now-soaked sweater. I found an old rugby shirt that was recently washed, thought of running an iron over it, then decided against. Pint and a pie in a pub, not a posh feed. I did sort out a decent cag jacket, though; that rain was heavy.

The landlord caught my eye as I ordered a pint from his barman.

“With Bets tonight, mate?”

“Yup”

“Table over there by the fire‘ll be right, then. Got Parmo on special tonight, with wedges”

I nodded, wondering exactly what Aussie peculiarity a ‘Parmo’ might be, and settled into a chair close enough to the fireplace to stay warm without losing body hair, and took a deliberately-slow mouthful of ale. Better than falling asleep in a chair again, surely?

“Hiya Mike!”

“Oh, hi Doug, Bets!”

Betsy’s husband was carefully peeling his raincoat off so as not to shake water everywhere, as Betsy struggled to control their two nearly-teens.

“Joe! Take your sister’s coat as well! Doug, yours? Ta! Hang these up, and then back. You ordered, Mike?”

“Not yet. Our Host said something about a special tonight, but I have no idea what on Earth it is”

Doug pointed at my glass, and made the obvious gesture. I was more than a little surprised to see that my ‘deliberate mouthful’ had somehow almost emptied the glass.

“Yes, please, mate. And do you have any idea what a Parmo is?”

“Aye, I do. I’ll grab us drinks, and then explain. Teesside thing, it is”

That left me even more confused, but he was soon back with a tray of drinks, as two excited kids and Betsy settled themselves at the table, along with a woman I had never seen before.

Doug handed out the glasses, taking a chair next to his wife.

“Cheers, all! Oh, and this is my cousin, down from York for a few days. Pam Birtles, Betsy’s workmate, Mike Rhodes”