‘It’s all right. I wouldn’t mind. Either way.’
‘What are you?’
‘I don’t vote.’
Emboldened, he said, ‘I’m Labour.’
‘I thought you would be.’
In his walking log, he noted the routes they took, the date, the weather, the duration, ending with an L in red for Lynn. As opposed to a blue C for Cath. Times were about the same, regardless of the initial.
Should he get her a trekking pole? He didn’t want to push it – she’d refused all offers of a walking hat, despite having the pros and cons explained to her. Not that there were any cons. Still, better a bare head than a baseball cap. He really couldn’t take a walker in a baseball cap seriously, male or female.
He could get her a compass. Except he already had one himself, and rarely consulted it. If ever he broke his ankle, and had to tell her through the pain to set off across the moor using that tumbledown sheepfold as a reference point and keep heading NNE – showing her how to turn the instrument and set a course – then she could have his for the purpose. No, one compass between two, that was right, somehow. Symbolic, you could say.
They did the Kinder Downfall circuit: Bowden Bridge car park, the reservoir, pick up the Pennine Way to the Downfall, fork right at Red Brook and down past Tunstead House and the Kinderstones. He told her about the average rainfall, and how when it froze the Downfall turned into a cascade of icicles. One of the sights for the winter walker.
She didn’t answer. Well, anyway, they’d have to get her a fleece if they were going up two thousand feet in winter. He still had the issue of Country Walking with the fleece test in it.
In the car park he looked at his watch.
‘Are we late for something?’
‘No, just checking. Four and a quarter.’
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘It’s good because I’m with you.’
It was also good because four and a quarter is what it used to take him and Cath, and say what you will, Cath was one pretty fit walker.
Lynn lit a Silk Cut, as she did at the end of every walk. She didn’t smoke much, and he didn’t really mind, even if he thought it was a pretty stupid habit. Just when she’d done her cardiovascular system a power of good… Still, he knew from being a teacher that there were times when you had to confront, and times when you took a less direct route.
‘We could go up again after Christmas. In the New Year.’ Yes, he could get her the fleece as her present.
She looked at him, and took a deep puff on her cigarette.
‘If the weather got cold enough, that is. For the icicles.’
‘Geoff,’ she said. ‘You’re on my space.’
‘I just -’
‘You’re on my space.’
‘Yes, Miss Duke of Devonshire.’
But she didn’t think that was funny, and they drove home mainly in silence. Perhaps he’d walked her too hard. It was a bit of a stiff pull, a thousand feet or more.
He’d put the pizzas in the oven, laid the table, and was just pulling the tab on his first beer when she said,
‘Look, it’s June. We met in – February?’
‘Jan 29,’ he replied, automatically, as he did when a pupil mistakenly guessed 1079 for the Battle of Hastings.
‘January the 29th,’ she repeated. ‘Look, I don’t think I can do Christmas.’
‘Of course. You’ve got family.’
‘No, I don’t mean I’ve got family. Of course I’ve got family. I mean, I can’t do Christmas.’
When Geoff was faced with what, despite principled beliefs to the contrary, he nonetheless could only regard as gross female illogicality, he tended to go silent. One minute you were steaming along a track, the weight on your shoulders barely noticeable, and then suddenly you were in a pathless scrubland with no waymarks, the mist descending and the ground boggy beneath your feet.
But she didn’t go on, so he tried helping her. ‘Don’t much like Christmas myself. All that eating and drinking. Still -’
‘Who knows where I’ll be at Christmas.’
‘You mean, the bank might transfer you?’ He hadn’t thought of that.
‘Geoff, listen. We met in January, as you pointed out. Things are… fine. I’m having a nice time, a nice enough time…’
‘Gotcha. Right.’ It was that stuff again, that stuff he didn’t seem to be getting any better at. ‘No, course not. Didn’t mean. Anyway, I’ll turn the oven up. Crispy base.’ He took a swig of his beer.
‘It’s just -’
‘Don’t say it. I know. I get you.’ He was going to add ‘Miss Duke of Devonshire’ again, but he didn’t, and later, thinking it over, he guessed it wouldn’t have helped.
In September, he persuaded her to take a day’s leave so they could do the circuit from Calver. It was best to avoid the weekend, when every hiker and rock climber would be crawling over Curbar Edge.
They parked in the cul-de-sac next to the Bridge Inn and set off, passing Calver Mill on the other side of the Derwent.
‘Richard Arkwright is supposed to have built that,’ he said. ‘1785, I think.’
‘It’s not a mill any more.’
‘No, well, as you see. Offices. Maybe residential. Or a bit of both.’
They followed the river, past the thrashing weir, through Froggatt and then Froggatt Woods to Grindleford. As they came out of the woods, the autumn sun, though weak, made him glad of his hat. Lynn still refused to buy one, and he supposed he wouldn’t mention it again until the spring. She’d taken a tan these summer months, and her freckles showed more than when he’d first met her.
There was a sharp climb out of Grindleford, which she took without a murmur; then he led the way across a field to the Grouse Inn. They sat up at the bar for a sandwich. Afterwards, the barman muttered, ‘Coffee?’ She said ‘Yes’ and he said ‘No.’ He didn’t believe in coffee on a walk. You just needed water against dehydration. Coffee was a stimulant and the whole… theory was that the walk should be stimulating enough without any assistance. Alcohoclass="underline" stupid. He’d even come across hikers smoking joints.
He told her some of this, which may have been a mistake, because she said, ‘I’m only having a coffee, right?’ – and then lit up a Silk Cut. Not waiting till the end of the walk. She looked at him.
‘Yes?’
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You don’t need to.’
Geoff sighed. ‘I forgot to point out the signpost as we got to Grindleford. It’s antique. Nearly a hundred years old. Not many left in the Peak District.’
She blew smoke at him, rather deliberately, it seemed.
‘And, all right, I also read somewhere that low-tar cigarettes are in fact just as bad for you because they make you inhale more deeply to get the nicotine, so actually you’re taking more of the toxins into your lungs.’
‘Then I may as well switch back to Marlboro Lights.’
They retraced their steps, picked up the path again, crossed a road and took a left by the sign for the Eastern Moors Estate.
‘Is this where the Bronze Age circle is?’
‘I think so.’
‘What does that mean?’
Fair enough. But also, there’s no point in not being yourself, is there? He was thirty-one, he had his opinions, he knew stuff.
‘The circle is coming up on the left-hand side. But I don’t think we should look at it this time.’
‘This time?’
‘It’s in the bracken.’
‘You mean you can’t see it properly.’
‘No, I don’t mean that. Well, yes, you do see it better at other times of the year. What I mean is that between August and October it’s inadvisable to walk in bracken. Or downwind of it, for that matter.’
‘You’re going to tell me why, aren’t you?’
‘Since you ask. If you walk in bracken for ten minutes, you’re liable to ingest anything up to fifty thousand spores. They’re too large to go into your lungs, so they go into your stomach. Tests have found them to be carcinogenic to animals.’
‘Lucky cows don’t smoke as well.’