It would have been churlish to refuse when the bishop was going to so much trouble. Patrick said he would consult his diary, knowing already that the first week in April was clear. “Where are you suggesting we meet — if I can get there?”
A less decent man would have made an excuse.
April 1st, 1976, in the car park at Pen-y-pass. The three sixty-year-olds faced each other, ready for the challenge. “We may have deteriorated in forty years, but the equipment has improved, thank God,” Cape Brown remarked when the first handshakes were done.
Ben the bishop allowed the Almighty’s name to pass without objection. “I think I was wearing army boots from one of those surplus stores,” he said. He looked every inch the fell-walker in his bright blue padded jacket and trousers and red climbing boots. Patrick remembered him clearly now, and he hadn’t altered much. More hair than any of them, and still more black than silver.
If the weather was favourable, the plan was to walk the entire Horseshoe, exactly as they had in 1936. A demanding route that each of them now felt committed to try. And a sky of Cambridge blue left them no last-minute get-out. There was snow on the heights, but most of the going would be safe enough.
“Just before we start, I’d like you to meet someone,” Cape said. “She’s waiting in the car.”
“She?” said Patrick, surprised. He had no memory of women in the Alpine Club.
“Your wife?” said the bishop.
Patrick could not imagine why a wife should be on the trip. What was she going to do while they walked the Horseshoe? Sit in the car?
“A friend. Come and meet her.”
She was introduced as Linda, and she was dressed for climbing, down to the gaiters and boots. However, she was far too young to have been at Cambridge before the war. “You don’t mind if Linda films us doing bits of our epic?” Cape said. “She won’t get in our way.”
“She has a cine-camera with her?” said the bishop.
“You’ll see.”
Linda, dark-haired and with an air of competence that would have seemed brash in the young women of the nineteen-thirties, opened the boot of the car and took out a professional-looking movie-camera and folding tripod.
“I didn’t know you had this in mind,” Patrick said confidentially to Cape Brown.
“I thought it was just the three of us,” the bishop chimed in.
“Three men.”
“Don’t fret. She’ll keep her distance, Ben. Just pretend she isn’t there. How do you think they film those climbs on television? Someone is holding a camera, but you never see him. We’re the stars, you see. Linda is just recording the event. And she’s a bloody good climber, or she wouldn’t be here.”
In the circumstances it was difficult to object. Nobody wanted to start the walk with an argument. They set off on the first stage, up the Miners’ Track towards Bwlch y Moch, with Cape Brown stepping out briskly between the blue-black slate rocks and over the slabs that bridged the streams. Linda, carrying her camera, followed some twenty yards behind, as if under instructions not to distract the threesome on their nostalgic trip.
They paused on Bwlch y Moch, the Pass of the Pigs. Below, Llyn Llydaw had a film of ice that the sun had yet to touch. They hadn’t seen a soul until now, but there were two climbers on the coal-black cliff across the lake. “Lliwedd,” said the bishop. “I remember scaling that with the Alpine club.”
“Me, too,” said Cape. “Wouldn’t want to try it at my age. Shall we move on, gentlemen?”
The path leading off to the right was the official start of the Horseshoe. Crib Goch, the first of the four peaks, was going to be demanding as they got closer to the snowline. Towards the top it would need some work with the hands, steadying and pulling.
Once or twice Patrick Storm looked back to see how Linda was coping. She had the camera slung on her back and was making light work of the steep ascent.
After twenty minutes, weaving upwards through the first patches of snow, breathing more rapidly, Pat Storm was beginning to wonder if he would complete this adventure. His legs ached, as he would have expected, but his chest ached as well and he felt colder than he should have. He glanced at his companions and drew some comfort from their appearance. The bishop was exhaling white plumes and wheezing a little, and Cape Brown seemed to be moving as if his feet hurt. He had given up making the pace. Patrick realised that he himself had become the leader. Aware of this, he stopped at the next reasonably level point. The others needed no persuading to stop as well. They all found rocks to sit on.
“In the old days, I’d have said this was a cigarette stop,” Patrick said. “Time out to admire the view. I’m afraid it’s necessity now.”
The bishop nodded. He looked too puffed to speak.
Cape said, “We set off too fast. My fault.”
They spent a few minutes recovering. Each knew that after they reached the summit of Crib Goch, the most challenging section of the whole walk lay ahead, a razor-edged ridge with a sheer drop either side, leading out to the second peak, Crib-y-Ddysgl.
Presently a cloud passed across and blotted out the sun. The cold began to be more of a problem than the fatigue, so they went on, with Patrick leading, thinking what an idiot he had been to agree to this.
Unexpectedly Cape said, “Tell us a joke, Ben. We need one of your jokes to lift morale.”
The bishop managed an indulgent smile and said nothing.
Cape moved shoulder to shoulder with him. “Come on. Don’t be coy. Nobody tells a dirty joke better than you.”
Patrick called across, “We’re not undergraduates, Cape. Ben is a bishop now.”
“So what? He’s a human being. You and I aren’t going to think any the worse of him if he makes us smile. He isn’t leading the congregation now. He’s on a sentimental walk with his old oppos. Up here, he can say what he bloody well likes.”
They toiled up the slope with their private thoughts. Climbing did encourage a feeling of comradeship, a sense that they were insulated from the real world, temporarily freed from the constraints of their jobs.
Cape would not leave it. “The one that always cracked me up was the bus conductor and the parrot. Remember that one, Ben?”
The bishop didn’t answer.
Cape persisted, “I can’t tell it like you can. I always get the punchline wrong. This bus conductor was on a route through London that took him to Peckham via St Paul’s and Turnham Green. He got fed up with calling out to people, ‘This one for Peckham, St Paul’s and Turnham Green.’ ”
“No,” said Ben unexpectedly. “You’re telling it wrong. He was fed up with shouting, ‘This one for St Paul’s, Turnham Green and Peckham.’ ”
“Right,” said Cape. “I can’t tell them like you can. So what happened next? He bought a parrot.”
The bishop said in a monotone, as if chanting the liturgy, “He bought a parrot and taught it to speak the words for him. And the parrot said the thing perfectly. Until one day it got in a muddle, and said, ‘Bang your balls on St Paul’s, Turnham Green and Peckham.’ ”
Cape Brown made the mountainside echo with laughter and Patrick felt compelled to laugh too, just so that it didn’t appear he disapproved. The joke was at the level of a junior school of forty years ago. Odd, really, that a bishop should have retained it all this time, but then not many risqué jokes are told to bishops.
Ben Tattersall’s face was already pink from the effort of the climb. Now it had turned puce. He took a quick glance over his shoulder. Fortunately Linda and her camera were well in the rear.
The cloud passed by them, giving a stunning view of the Glyders on their right.
Scrambling up the last steep stretch, they reached the summit of Crib Goch in sunshine. Ahead, the mighty expanse of Snowdon was revealed, much of it gleaming white. Cape Brown unwrapped some chocolate and divided it into three.