We’d got it down to a fine art by then, even though it had to involve the Youth Hostel Association and two of their nicest buildings. Once Keith had finished work on the Friday, the Little Kat was loaded with tank bag and throwovers and once I had managed to settle my bum onto what passed for a pillion on a Suzuki GS550 Katana, I could let the shoulder straps out on the frame rucksack I was wearing, so that it sat on the tailpiece of the bike and I could actually straighten out my neck.

Out of Sundon Park on the quieter roads to Harlington, and then a loop round to Junction 12 and wind the solid little engine up as we joined the M1 traffic, always that little bit lighter than it would have been if we had fought our way on from the middle of Luton. Keith rarely let rip, his riding almost soporifically smooth, so much so that I had fallen asleep more than once as we rode home on a Sunday evening, the tips of my fingers burning in my gloves.

The traffic was a little nastier as we passed Shitton Keynes, where we filtered for a couple of miles between lines of stationary tin boxes, and once again at Northampton, but it eased steadily as we sped north, especially after the junction with the M6. We left the boulders at Watford Gap to look after themselves this time. Eighty-odd miles saw us past Leicester, and then we dipped down past Stanton and Staveley, where they Made Things, god alone knew what, and every building and factory sign was a countdown to better things. By the time we passed Hardwick Hall, Keith was already settling into the inside lane for our exit at Junction 29.

Off the motorway at the top of a hill, rolling downwards as the moor beyond tugged at us, until the twisted spire was there to be added to my tick-list of waymarks, and then the crap part through Brampton to Ladywood, where the road kicked up past the garage, and suddenly we were free. As the streets and terraced houses vanished behind us, the green came back, until the left-hander and the edge of bracken and our first grit outcrops. As we had approached the pub at Eastmoor, Keith had squeezed my left knee, and I understood immediately.

Sod stopping for a cuppa; let’s just get somewhere worth being. Past the hint of Chatsworth Edge, and the faint temptation of Birchen’s, we hit the turn through Baslow, and then it was Calver and the turning for Eyam. I was surprised that my man rode straight past Lover’s Leap, where we usually stopped for a cuppa and a condemnation of limestone as the work of Satan, but something seemed to be niggling him. It didn’t disturb his calm control of the bike, but he was clearly far from relaxed. It wasn’t that far to Eyam hostel, so I left it for then. He would tell me, or he wouldn’t, but he would still know where I was. I knew him well enough by then that I understood how he might bottle something up for a day or two, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to share it with me, but rather that, every now and again, he was locked in his own world.

The bike ticked as it cooled, once I was standing beside the bike and stretching as well as I could while avoiding outraging public decency., which didn’t include the warden, who knew both of us well by then. We laid out our sheet bags, cooked a simple meal of instant noodles and stew, followed by the four bottles of Banks and Taylor S.O.S. that my clever man had fitted into the rucksack, and hit the bunks.

The next morning dawned clear and bright, which meant that our weather-based plan was ticking along nicely. We had the full YHA breakfast, with extra lard, which meant that we would be fuelled for most of the rest of the day, and then we were back on the bike for the short run out to the White Gate, where we could usually manage to squeeze the bike into the side of the entry track. Always the bit I hated, as Keith settled the throwovers on his left shoulder and the tank bag passed through all four hands as we walked up the good track through birch and alder until we passed the little stream, and the moor opened out. It wasn’t long until the top of the Pinnacle was in sight, but as usual, we went straight past the gully to Curbar Gap, descending around the southern end of the Edge. There were already folk around, one early riser being top-roped on Long John’s, a small group of beginners being lectured at the foot of Nursery, but there was plenty of space below the Great Slab, where we set up.

It was always the same, for each of us. We arrived at the Edge, and before even racking gear or uncoiling the rope, our rock boots were on and our hands almost fondling the gritstone. Our life in Luton was exactly what anyone would expect, in that we saw the best part of the town as being the road out, and weekends like this were our focus. We did the traditional thing, for us, looping up Slab Recess, for once without Keith getting his right foot stuck in the initial crack, and after we had scampered back down to the foot of the slab, we sorted the rope and the gear as we began tipping off the day’s routes.

I tiptoed across Allen’s Slab, before Keith thugged his way up Trapeze Direct, the two routes so utterly different despite finishing at the same spot. He looked at me as he topped out, and I nodded.

“Groups are arriving, love. Move along to?”

“Tody’s?”

“Only if you do the leading on that sod!”

“It’s a lovely crack”

“It’s a bloody silly start!”

“You can lead Heather Wall afterwards?”

That was how the day went, from route to route, a lunch of YHA sandwiches together with tea from our flask, and then pack up and amble back along the top to the White Gate, where we spent a few minutes snaffling gooseberries from the usual bush. This was our life, the time we lived for, and the town we lived in was shaken from our memories by the breeze from the West.

We moved on by way of the Fox House, with that sweeping left-hander over the Burbage Brook, Millstone car park looking almost full, rocks and perfect purple heather around us as the Surprise View was passed, and things closed in a little as Keith flicked us through the bends just before the edge of Hathersage. Down the High Street past Longlands the right turn up the hill, and stand stretching as the bike ticked away once more in the YHA car park. The warden grinned as we came in.

“Hiya! Been at Eyam, as usual?”

I nodded, dumping the rucksack against the wall.

“Yes, and before you say it, yes we could have stopped here just as easily. Just saves us from spending two nights in the pub. Usual place?”

“Aye, Pen. Two sheet bags and a full brekky each?”

Another grin of easy familiarity, and then we were humping the bags up the stairs and shaking out the duvets before I made a dash for the shower.

Bliss.

We ate that night in the Little John, another part of our routine, a heaping plate of garlic mushrooms for each of us, followed by gammon for him and steak pie for me, and it was all accompanied by some decent ale, not limited to what bottles Keith could squeeze into his panniers. We weren’t drunk, just comfortably relaxed under the gaze of Laurel and Hardy, and our return to the hostel was a comfortable strolling cuddle.

Up and repeat the ritual of porridge, fry-up and toast, and then onto the road again, turning left past the Scotsman’s Pack for the long climb to the Popular End car park, where we made bloody sure that all locks were applied to the Suzi before starting up the long path that slanted across the hillside. We made our way to Grotto Slab for our other traditional solo warm-up, as the minibuses started to offload down in the carpark, and then soloed Black Hawk traverse so that we could check the seepage. Back down, and I let Keith lead the balance move on the Burgess Variation, as I hated that sort of edge-left-on-a-ledge-with-no-handhold route. By the time we finished that one, the groups were arriving as regularly as tube trains. We sat for a while at the top of the Chimney, and I cuddled into him as someone skimmed a hang-glider along the Edge towards Carl Wark.

“What was up on Friday, love?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were really tense, and it showed on the ride up. Doctor Derek and Mister Simes?”

He stared out over the Hope Valley, pulling a heather twig apart as he considered my question, then shook his head before turning back to me.

“That mess on K2, love. Yes, I know: didn’t know any of them, only ever met one a couple of times, not even as many as the Villain”

I smiled at him, starting to understand.

“Choice of pubs, love.”

“Yeah, suppose. It just set me thinking. What is it we are doing here? I know it’s nothing like the big stuff, but we can still end up getting chopped, and, well…”

He tried a smile of his own, but it was far from genuine.

“And yes, I suppose it is a bit of Doctor D as well. He’s getting worse, and it rubs off all too easily. We can’t always get a result with the weather like we have this weekend, and we can’t afford it every week”

“We could cut out the beer!”

A rueful laugh.

“Yeah, right! And the climbing, and the bike, and… No, it was Danny Crellin’s death, love. Really set me thinking, re-examining stuff. Is it worth it?”

He sighed, looking back out over the moor to the plume rising from the cement works,

“Then I sit somewhere like this, and yes, it is worth it, but I know I’m going to be back in the office tomorrow with that bastard, so this is just a reprieve, and that was the thing with Crellin and the rest, it wasn’t a weekend thing, it was their life, and it took their life in the end”

“Doing the thing they loved, Keith”

“Na, that’s bollocks. Sorry, but it is. Death’s death, the end of everything, no more choices, done and over”

“You really are off things today, aren’t you?”

“Sorry, love. Cuppa?”

“Yeah. Cuppa be good. Let’s get down”

We scrambled down a break in the cliff, making our way past Grotto Slab, where the newbie conveyor belt was in operation, beginners inching up the tilted cracks of the slab until finding either confusion or inspiration at the little step up in the cave. Our little pile of gear wasn’t that far past them, set on one of the flat rocks that littered the slope under the Edge, and once the tea was poured, I found my gaze straying back to the learners. Beside the cluster of helmets under the Grotto, there was another group under Anatomy and Physiology, a queue for the easier version of our last route, and some sadistic sod top-roping a school group one by one up the glossily polished Crack and Corner. It was a little while before I noticed the solitary figure sitting a little way away from that flowering of Joe Brown helmets. It was a woman, wearing one of the helmets and a sit harness, staring away from the rocks and out over the Plantation, towards the campsite at North Lees. I watched the last orange helmet disappear up the slab, then saw her make a move with her right arm.

“Keith?”

“Yes, love?”

“That woman over there. I think she’s crying. I’m going to have a wander across, see she’s okay”

“Group with her, love”

“All up top now. Be a while before they’re down again”

“Okay. I’ll wait here for you”

I made my way across the broken ground to find a dark-haired woman in her late thirties or early forties, which contrasted with all the adolescents and twenty-something tyros noisily grappling with the Edge, and her eyes were indeed damp.

“Sorry to bother you, but my husband and me, we just saw… Are you all right, love?”,

She gave me a sharp, skewed smile, and started to shake her head, before catching herself.

“I’m fine, Miss. Got to be haven’t I?”

I took a seat on another flat boulder near hers.

“No got to be about anything up here. Not being rude, and if you’d like me to go away just say so, but tears worry me. I’m Penny Hiatt, lad over there is my hubby Keith. We’ve got a couple of flasks if you fancy a sit with us. Don’t need to talk, but things often feel better with a hot drink. Can’t offer you a cold one; we finished our beer on Friday evening”

That brought a warmer smile, and as her group leader arrived, she pointed to where Keith was sitting and promised to be back down in time for their later departure. Not exactly the most involved in the whole purpose of the group, it seemed.

One of our flasks was an old one, with a separate, smaller cup inside the one Keith was using, so we poured her a drink as she introduced herself.

“Name’s Tracy Crellin. Nice to meet you, Keith, Penny”

I watched Keith’s hand twitch at that name, and Tracy spotted the movement, nodding and sighing.

“You’re thinking of K2, aren’t you?”

My man nodded.

“We were just talking about it, Tracy. Painful news, and we never knew any of them. If it’s not too personal…?”

“My brother. Big bro, just by a year, and…”

She was dancing around a different edge, that of a breakdown, so I interrupted.

“Keith and me, we come up whenever we can. We live in a really awful town, so this is our escape”

A slight but noticeable increase in the quality of her smile.

“I live in Northampton. You’ll need somewhere really shit to beat that!”

Keith leant forward, and whispered “Luton!”, which brought a laugh.

“Game, set, match and tournament, Keith!”

After some more laughter, some of it genuine, she glanced back towards her group.

“Seemed like a good idea, at the time. Not so sure, now we’re here”

Keith dug out the emergency flapjack supply and passed her a piece.

“What was the plan?”

“Really? To try and get an idea of what it was about climbing that… That caught Danny’s heart the way it did. I thought I could come up here, try a little bit, feel, I don’t know. Maybe a connection. Waste of time, really”

Keith was looking down at her shoes, which were just that: approach shoes, glorified sports shoes with a reasonable tread. They looked about the same as mine.

“What size feet are you, Tracy?”

“Six and a half, Penny. Why?”

“We do a load of stuff while we are here, and these boots I’m wearing, they edge well, but I’ve got another pair, sticky rubber, that are for smearing, friction. We have the same size feet. Why don’t you try them on, come along with us away from the noise, and see what you think?”

“You sure?”

“Positive. Come on!”

I handed her my sticky boots, and once we were sorted, we took the rope and a load of gear north along the Edge until we were a little bit away from the noisier routes. Keith stopped at the foot of Twin Chimneys Buttress, and smiled at Tracy.

“Have a go at collecting my gear as you come up, but if you can’t manage it, Pen’ll solo up for it. This is a Mod, about as easy as they get. Penny can belay until you are ready to go”

He flew up the route, Tracy looking astonished.

“If it’s that easy, I am really wasting your day”

I shook my head as I released the rope from the Sticht plate.

“Not at all”

“But you could be doing something worthwhile, something harder”

“Tracy, first lesson for you? Something doesn’t need to be hard to be worthwhile”

I waved an arm out over the vale below.

“Gorgeous setting, and the moves on this route are interesting, and, in the end, you’re somewhere that only climbers visit”

“It’s only a few feet”

I grinned at her.

“Trust me, it feels a lot more when those feet are underneath your own. Other places, well, there’s one route we love, up in North Wales, where you could almost walk up part of it, but to get there, and it’s a couple of hundred feet up, well, if you don’t have a helicopter, it’s only other climbers that can be there. Like being in a select club, being someone special, just for a moment, but without any crap about being better than other people”

She grinned back, as her spirit fought her memories and her loss.

“You telling me climbers are paragons of modesty?”

That set me snorting.

“God, no! I mean, every club has at least one, who decides who he will honour with conversation, depending on how high a grade they climb at”

“You say ‘he’, Penny”

“Ha! Haven’t you noticed that they’re always men, that sort? One of them tried it with Keith, he tells me, and of course his response was ‘Why do you imagine I’d want to speak to a wanker like you, never mind see it as a compliment?’. Sound man, my hubby”

The shout came from above just then.

“On belay!”

I quickly checked the rope was tied into her harness properly, and once the ground belay was undone, I called up for him to take in, until the rope was tight.

“That’s her!”

I gave Tracy a last few bits of advice, and then she was off up Left TC. I was impressed, as she moved with what looked like natural balance, and apart from the usual moment where she had to be told to trust her feet on the sloping hold, she sailed up the climb. She also managed to collect all the gear, so I didn’t need to follow her up. I had a little revelation just then, that Keith hadn’t actually needed the gear, and had placed it simply so that Tracy might feel more involved in the climb.

They were soon down, and we moved along the Edge, doing simple routes, but interesting ones, and I noticed how Keith kept other things moving along. The high-water-mark was Straight Chimney, one of my favourite easy routes. We spent a while explaining jamming to her, and when it came time for her to move around the overhang on the two beautiful open-palm jams, she did it with style, almost with grace. We assembled at the bottom once more, and after checking the time, we made our way back towards her group, who were pissing off half the county by monopolising Flying Buttress on a top rope.

We went straight past, as Keith looked back at Hollybush. I nodded at him.

“Yeah, go on. We’ll see you at the top of Black Hawk”

He trotted off, as I explained that it was a sort of tradition to solo the lovely route, and then indicated the Chimney.

“Let’s get indoors for a bit”

Squeezing, bridging, a little bit of simple back-and-foot, emerging at the big ledge on Black Hawk Traverse and then up the easy corner to the top of everything, where Keith was already waiting. I coiled the rope as he described Hollybush, but by now I was picking up her body language. Once I had secured the rope with the usual hangman’s, I laid it down on a flat rock, and turned to Tracy.

“I think that’s enough for the day, love. Sit with us for a while?”

She nodded, and found somewhere flat enough for a seat, with enough drop to let her legs bend naturally. Another gentle smile.

“Nice to sit properly”

Her eyes were back to the West, down towards Hope and Castleton, and her voice was soft.

“It’s beautiful here, much prettier than Northampton”

Keith muttered something about Luton, and she laughed, once again.

“Unfair contest, Keith!”

I squeezed her forearm.

“One of the reasons we come here. How did you find the climbing?”

Tracy turned to me, that smile, the gentle one, still on her lips.

“You’re expecting me to say something like ‘I looked at the cliff, and it was there’, aren’t you? Well, going to disappoint you”

The breeze was rising now, but not yet the sort of blast that filled eyes with grit just as the top of a climb was in reach, and as a walker passed behind us, a couple of red grouse shouted “Go back, go back, go back”, and she smiled, once again.

“I don’t know, really, but I think I’ve got a bit of a feel for, well… I think I’ve got an idea, now, what he was feeling, why he did what he did”

Another sad, soft smile.

“It’s a drug, isn’t it? An addiction?”

I nodded.

“Yes, I suppose it is. Worse things to be hooked on, though. That view…”

One more smile, and Tracy rose to her feet,

“I think I’ll avoid getting hooked, at least for now. Thank you both: I, well, got a bit of an idea what it was that drove Danny, now. Thank you both. That group was a mistake, but you two, well. I’ll be off, nearly time for the bus. Could you please write down the list of what we did?”

Keith grinned.

“Bragging rights, or a way of shutting the buggers up?”

“The latter. Thank you both. Not a cure, is it?

I shook my head, and she stepped forward for a hug.

“A start, though, Penny. Bus to catch, guide to wind up. Oh—want your boots back?”

We scrambled back down to our gear, and there was a rapid footwear exchange before she was bouncing off down the path to her minibus, and without a word between us, Keith and I packed up.

I sat behind him as the bike rumbled down the M1, thinking about Tracy, the courage she had shown in her grief, and my plans crystallised. I waited a fortnight before I raised the issue with Keith.

“Serious talk time, love”

“Yeah?”

“Doctor D and Mister S?”

“Twat”

“I know. I have a solution”

“Uh?”

“I am going to look for somewhere nicer”

“In what way?”

I turned over in the bed to face him, my heart pounding. Take the first step on faith, reach for the hold that needed that extra step.

“He’s making you over in his image, love. Not having that. Not losing the man I love”

I gathered my courage to me.

“I will find somewhere worth living, worth…”

I paused for breath, to find courage.

“I love you, Keith, but if we stay here, with those people, you won’t be the man I love much longer. I’ll let you know where I am and you can…”

I fought back my tears.

“I want a child with you, but it will never be here”