I have rain in my pants. This is a first.
Laughing, we cling on to each other, for warmth and to stop me falling on the slippery stone. I squeeze his arm and he gives me a weak smile.
‘The weather does turn quickly round here,’ he says, or rather shouts, in my ear.
And then it starts to snow.
I have a brief moment of Ah … snow! because it really does look pretty, but Fab seems less impressed. I guess he’s used to snow in Poland.
‘We need to get down,’ he says, trying to make me walk faster. ‘We could lose the path if it gets thicker.’
‘Relax,’ I say through chattering teeth. ‘We’re only twenty minutes to my wheelchair and five minutes later we’ll be in the taxi.’
We plod on in silence, snow settling on our heads and shoulders, back past the waterfall, then on to the track.
‘This is it!’ I use my last bit of energy to run to the wall where we hid my wheelchair, but when I peer over, I can’t see it anywhere. ‘Fab,’ I shout, ‘it’s gone!’
‘You must have the wrong wall.’
‘No, I remember we left it opposite the spooky skeleton tree.’ I point at the tree next to us. ‘There it is: spooky skeleton tree. We put it here!’
Fab searches up and down the rest of the wall, and I look again where I know we left it, and that’s when I see the sodden piece of paper, half covered in snow.
‘Look.’ I hold up the note, my voice rising in panic. ‘Someone’s actually stolen my wheelchair!’
He examines the note, his face buried in the collar of his leather jacket, snow covering his hair. ‘So we ring for the taxi. Maybe he can get further along the track this time.’
‘Fab, you’re not listening to me. My wheelchair has gone. It cost hundreds of pounds!’
He brushes snow off his face. ‘And we are stuck on the moors in a storm. Possibly lost, because I wasn’t paying attention when the taxi drove us up here. We can worry about your wheelchair later.’ He pulls his phone out and tries to shield it from the snow. ‘No reception. You try.’
‘Nothing,’ I say, pointlessly waving my phone around in the air. ‘I had reception when we were dropped off.’
‘So let’s go,’ says Fab, then he sticks out his arm, waiting for me to link arms with him.
‘I’m fine,’ I say, because I’m annoyed, and not just because Mum is going to kill me for losing my wheelchair.
I’m annoyed because I’ve lost my wheelchair for no reason. Yes, we made it to Haworth – we even got to Top Withens – but I thought at some point Fab would reach out to me somehow, but he hasn’t. It’s almost like we’ve been on a school trip, minus the teachers and other students, and I’ve spent the day hanging out with a good friend. We’ll get back to Haworth, go home, and then what? We’ll just carry on being good friends? I wanted so much more than that!
And now we’re not even acting like friends. Fab’s bossing me around and yelling.
‘You should wear my jacket,’ he says when he catches up with me, making it sound like an order.
We stumble forward, heads bent over.
‘Why?’ I say. ‘There’s no reason why I should be dry and you should get soaked.’
‘There’s no reason, Annie. I am saying it to be kind. And maybe if you are a bit warmer, you would walk faster and then we would have a chance of working out where we are, getting off this moor and getting home tonight!’
‘Great. Thanks for making me feel bad again.’
Fab makes a sound of annoyance and we plod on. The snow is falling in fatter clumps now and we’re pushing through it with our feet.
After several seconds, Fab asks, ‘What do you mean? Make you feel bad again? When have I ever made you feel bad?’
I stop walking. ‘Have you forgotten what happened at the wedding? The kiss?’
He turns to face me. ‘Why do you have to bring that up?’
‘Because from the way you’ve been acting since – hardly speaking to me, never touching me – it’s obvious that it still massively bothers you. I brought you here to prove to you what you mean to me, hoping you’d realise that that kiss meant nothing to me, but it didn’t work, did it? Because you, Fabian Kaczka, are just too proud to forgive me!’ I shout these last words out loudly, and we stand there, staring at each other, the snow swirling around us.
I seriously want to stomp off and bang a door, and I’m fairly certain Fab wants to do something similar because he’s breathing very heavily and his fists are screwed up. But we can’t do that because we’re trapped on a moor. In fact, I don’t think I can take another step, and if we’re ever going to get home, I think I’m going to have to do the opposite of storming off.
‘Can I have a piggyback?’ I snap.
‘Yes, you can!’ he snaps back. Then he turns round and crouches down.
I climb up on to his shoulders and he lifts me up in the air. For a few minutes, I cling on in silent fury, like a pissed-off baby koala. This is so infantilising … But at least I have easy access to his ear.
‘I’m not enjoying this,’ I say. ‘In fact, I’m hating this.’
‘So am I. You are as heavy as a pile of bricks.’
‘Yeah? Well, you’re no pixie, Fab. You’re like an actual giant!’
‘It is a good job I am an actual giant, or I wouldn’t be able to carry you out of this mess you got us into!’
This makes me growl with rage, which in turn makes Fab shake me. Yes. He is actually shaking me from side to side! So I squeeze him with my knees and arms, and then he jogs extra bouncily.
Snow falls all around us. My face is numb with cold. I stop squeezing and rest against his back, and Fab stops jogging. In fact, he stops walking altogether.
We just stand like this. I can feel my heart thudding into his back and his hair damp against my cheek.
‘Annie, I have been speaking to you,’ he says, ‘and I have been touching you.’ To prove this, he gives my legs a squeeze. ‘See? I even came all the way to Haworth with you. What else do you want?’
Snow sticks to my eyelashes, my shoulders and my fingers. It settles on Fab’s face.
After a moment, I say, ‘I wanted you to kiss me.’ A gust of wind makes the snow swirl into us. ‘I wanted to bring you to a place we both love and I wanted you to understand what that meant and I wanted you to kiss me. But it was a stupid idea.’
I know from our English lessons that Fab goes quiet when he thinks. Right now he is absolutely silent. Then he says, ‘It was not a stupid idea. It was a beautiful idea.’
I rest my icy cheek against his, and he reaches up and puts his hand on my wet hair, and that’s how we’re standing when the beam of a torch falls on our faces, and Bob appears, flat cap pulled low on his head.
‘Stop canoodling, you bloody idiots,’ he says, ‘and follow me. Cab’s this way.’
Then he turns and trudges back the way he came, and we follow him.
FIFTY
We’re so wet that Bob insists we sit on his dog’s blanket, then he reverses down the narrow, bumpy track. Fab and I shiver in the back of the cab, fluffy dog hair sticking to our soaking clothes. My hands are shaking so much that it takes several attempts to do up my seat belt.
‘Feeling the cold?’ I manage to say.
‘A little,’ admits Fab, leaning against me for warmth.
‘I was considering sending out a search party,’ Bob says, eyeing us in the rear-view mirror.
‘Someone took my wheelchair,’ I say, and I feel tears welling up in my eyes.
He chuckles. ‘I took your wheelchair. I came looking for you and spotted it. Well, I didn’t want to leave it in the snow getting all rusty so I popped it in the boot. Then I got my flashlight out and started searching for you.’
I look at Fab and laugh, relief rushing through me and warming me up slightly.
‘We need a lift to Keighley,’ I say, working out how much money I’ve got left. ‘If we’re going to make it home tonight we need to get the six-twenty tra
in.’
Bob chuckles again. He seems to be enjoying this. ‘There are no trains going out of Keighley. They’re all cancelled because of the snow. It’s frost heave that does it. Moves the tracks.’
I turn to Fab. ‘What are we going to do?’
Fab leans forward. ‘Bob, is there a youth hostel near here?’
‘We’ve got a lovely youth hostel. That’s the best idea. You two need to warm up.’
I let my head fall against Fab’s shoulder.
‘We’ll go home tomorrow,’ says Fab. ‘It’ll be fine.’
‘But there might not be any room in the hostel and we don’t know what it costs and –’
‘So, now you’ve got your adventure.’
I laugh through chattering teeth. ‘I really have, haven’t I?’
FIFTY-ONE
The youth hostel is incredible, a Gothic mansion set on the edge of Haworth, surrounded by trees.
As Bob unloads my wheelchair from the boot, I ask Fab, ‘Are we actually allowed to stay here?’
‘Of course,’ says Fab. ‘We are youth! Come on.’
Inside, he starts chatting to the man behind the reception desk. Fab’s obviously much better at handling the cold because while he’s stopped shivering in the taxi, my teeth are still chattering and my fingers are white. We’re lucky: the disabled-access room is available and we’re even allowed to rummage through the lost property for dry clothes. Which is how I end up curled up on a bottom bunk in a huge pair of tracksuit bottoms, odd hiking socks and a slightly sweaty rugby shirt.
Fab disappears to get changed and, more importantly, to make us a cup of tea. I pull the lime-green duvet over me. The radiator’s cranked up as high as it will go, and slowly, slowly, I feel myself begin to thaw out and my aching body loses its numbness.
Once my fingers are working, I ring Mum and tell her some rubbish about Hilary and me having a great time making cupcakes and watching old movies. She’s very giggly so I’m guessing her and Amanda have hit the Prosecco, which is good because hopefully she’ll forget all about me and won’t try and ring later on the landline.
Fab backs into the room holding two mugs.
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘That is a tight T-shirt.’
‘Yes, I think it might be a lady’s, but at least it is dry.’
I sit up and he passes me my tea.
‘This place is amazing, Annie. There is a kitchen with a cupboard full of forgotten food so I am cooking pasta and a Hungarian boy has given me some sauce – vegetarian – and there are games and films.’
I wrap my hands round my mug, take a sip and close my eyes.
‘Good?’ he asks.
‘Pure bliss … And, look: I’ve stopped shaking.’
When Fab goes to check on the pasta, I finish my tea, then lie back on the bed and send Hilary a message: Staying the night in Haworth. Long story. It involves snow.
Romantic! is her reply.
Well, I have to put her straight. No, cold. And right now I’m wearing a sweaty stranger’s rugby shirt.
Super romantic!! I get back.
FIFTY-TWO
Fab’s pasta might be the best I’ve ever eaten, but then everything I experience at the youth hostel that evening is the very best: the shower, the game of Scrabble, the Hungarian biscuits that Edvin shares with us, the overwashed smoothness of my lime-green duvet cover.
By some unspoken agreement, Fab and I avoid the whole ‘I wanted you to kiss me’ situation in the snow. In fact, we’re almost walking on eggshells around each other, being exceptionally polite and gentle.
When it’s time to go to bed, Fab tactfully disappears for five minutes then knocks on the door and asks, ‘Can I come in?’ It’s like we’ve entered our very own version of a Victorian novel.
We lie in the dark on our bunk beds and I tell Fab that tonight has had a rosy glow around it.
‘Even the water in the shower felt softer than at home,’ I say to the bottom of his bunk. ‘Did you notice?’
‘It’s because you got so extremely cold and tired.’ His deep voice drifts down to me. ‘Anything that follows that has to be good.’
‘Maybe that’s why people swim in icy water or climb mountains. Just so they can experience a mind-blowing cup of tea afterwards.’
‘Maybe.’
We fall quiet and after a while I wonder if Fab’s fallen asleep. I hope he hasn’t because there’s something I want to tell him.
I push at the bottom of his mattress. ‘Hey, Fab. Are you awake?’
I hear him turn over. ‘Yes.’
‘I want to tell you a story.’
‘Really? I am very sleepy.’
‘You can go to sleep if you want. I’ll just talk.’
After a moment, he says, ‘OK. Tell me your story.’
‘So, it’s about a little girl, a little girl who would only wear boys’ clothes and who had a lot of curly hair that she routinely cut off herself, despite her mum hiding all the scissors.’
‘Just to be clear, is the little girl’s name Annie?’
‘It might be.’ I turn over my pillow so that my face is lying on the cool side. Somewhere across the room the radiator ticks. ‘One day, when this girl was six, she was doing an Easter bonnet parade at her school and she noticed that people were staring at her, and the strangest thing was that they weren’t staring at the excellent plastic dinosaurs she’d stuck all over her bonnet – they were staring at her walk. How strange, she thought to herself. Why would anyone be interested in my walk? Haven’t they seen the ceratosaurus I stuck right in the middle of my hat? But they really were staring at her walk, because it wasn’t normal, and normal – the girl soon discovered – was the aim of life … You still awake up there?’
‘Still awake,’ Fab says. ‘This is a very interesting story.’
‘Isn’t it? We haven’t even got to the good bit yet. The little girl soon realised that when people are determined to tell you that there is something wrong with you, then you have a choice: you can either give in and believe them, or fight them. So she fought. When a friend described maths as “retarded”, she told them not to use that word. When a teacher said she was brave for auditioning for the lead role of Annie in the school play, she asked, “Why is it brave?” And when people stared, she stared right back.’
‘That does sound quite brave,’ Fab says.
‘Not brave. Necessary … and often tiring.’
Fab doesn’t speak, but I know he’s listening.
‘Fast-forward a few years, and the little girl has become exactly the same age as me. She has fought to be seen as a valuable human being and, as a result, she’s as tough as a limpet’s tooth. Do you know why she’s as tough as a limpet’s tooth?’
‘No. I do not even know what a limpet is.’
‘It’s a tiny, shelled sea creature that clings to rocks.’
He goes quiet for a moment. ‘Is she as tough as a limpet’s tooth because a limpet’s tooth is very strong?’
‘Yes! In fact, it’s the strongest material on earth.’
‘I thought that was a diamond.’
‘A common misconception. This girl is so tough that all the comments and stares and pity just bounce off her. Which is great. Except she’s become so good at protecting herself that sometimes the good stuff bounces off too.’
‘That’s not so good.’ Fab sounds wide awake.
‘No, although it’s never really been a problem until she meets a giant.’
‘A Polish giant?’
‘Yes!’
‘He sounds incredible and extremely handsome.’
‘He is,’ I say. Then, into the silence of the room, I add, ‘You are.’
It feels as though Fab and I are hovering on the brink, holding our breath.
Fab doesn’t speak, so I carry on. ‘The giant calls the girl moja dziewczyna, and this scares her because she has spent so long getting the world to see her for who she is.’
‘And who is she?’
‘She’s not “the
disabled girl”. She’s not anyone’s girl. She’s Annie.’
The bunk squeaks and Fab’s arm reaches over the side of the bunk. He wiggles his fingers.
‘And I’m not a giant. I’m Fab.’
After a moment, I slip my hand into his. Our fingers entwine and I feel a lightness drift through my whole body.
‘I often feel scared too,’ he says.
‘You do?’
‘Yes, but about different things. I don’t know where my home is. My mother and father …’ he pauses as he tries to find the right words, ‘I feel like I must look after them, but I can’t look after both of them. I am pulled between two different places and two different people. But then I met you, and I felt certain about something.’ His hand is warm in mine. I don’t want to let go. ‘It felt like coming home.’
‘I like that story,’ I say.
‘I liked yours. But it didn’t have an ending?’
I hold his hand tighter. ‘I don’t know how it ends.’
Get down off your bunk, I think with all my might, willing the message to spread from my mind, up through my hand, my fingers and into Fab. Come and see me! More than anything, I want to wrap my arms around him and hold him tight. I was freezing earlier – even my bones felt cold – but now my whole body is glowing.
But I know he won’t. Because Fab Kaczka is such a bloody gentleman.
FIFTY-THREE
When I wake up the next morning, the room is strangely bright and Fab’s hand is still dangling over the edge of the bunk.
‘Hey,’ I say, giving it a tug. ‘Are you awake?’
His fingers tighten round mine for a second, then he lets go and the bunk shakes as he sits up. ‘What time is it?’
I find my phone. ‘It’s ten. We’ve slept for hours!’
I sit on the edge of my bed, then, wincing, I pull on my jeans. Every muscle in my body hurts. Slowly, I go to the window and pull back the curtain.
‘Snow!’ I say.
It was dark when we arrived so we couldn’t see anything out of the window, but it turns out our room is facing the moors, and they are covered in thick, deep, perfect snow. I press my fingers on the cold glass.
Truly, Wildly, Deeply Page 17