by Carmen Reid
Ed, already dressed to hike in muddy blue waterproof trousers and walking boots, seemed to catch wind of her anxiety. ‘I’m a very careful driver,’ he assured her, ‘I don’t want you to worry about that. OK? I’ll take very good care of him. Won’t I, Owen?’ Then he’d given her a wink, to lighten the moment. And maybe to show he was sorry for the criticisms he’d raised the last time they’d met.
Watching Owen cheerfully buckle himself into the car, Annie was glad she hadn’t phoned Ed up and told him not to bother, as she’d considered doing. She was also glad Ed hadn’t made the same call.
They’d both obviously decided to put their disagreement on hold for Owen’s sake.
‘OK. Well, goodbye . . . goodbye, Owen.’ She’d gone round to her son’s side of the car and tried not to wave and smile too much.
‘Did you have any idea where they were going?’ Lana now asked her accusingly as Annie continued to look at the drawings.
‘Of course I know where they are! They’ve gone to the Black Mountains.’
‘And do you know where that is?’
‘It’s in Wales.’
‘Yeah . . . the bit otherwise known as the Brecon Beacons.’
Annie could feel her heart rate speed up at these words.
‘This map . . .’ Lana began, but Annie’s eyes had now picked out the words Even Ridge in tiny writing running along one of the contours Owen had copied onto his plan.
‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed. Even Ridge was known for only one reason in their family. It was Roddy’s place.
‘Don’t you get it?’ Lana was almost shouting at her: ‘Owen wants to visit Dad’s—’
‘Why does he want to do that?!’ Annie cut her off, her voice now urgent too. But she already knew of this deep-seated wish of Owen’s. He had asked her to take him many times before and she had always assured him they would go, the three of them would travel there together as a family, ‘when they were all ready’.
What she’d really meant was when she was ready. And she was not.
She didn’t even like to think about when she could face this trip and had put Owen’s request so far to the back of her mind that she had succeeded in forgetting about it altogether.
But clearly, Owen was determined to go and had hatched this clever little plan all on his own. She was certain Ed could have had nothing to do with it.
Annie snatched up the kitchen phone and punched in the number of the mobile Owen had with him. Ed, of course, infuriatingly, did not have a mobile.
‘I’m not a brain surgeon,’ he’d informed her. ‘Nobody will ever need to contact me that urgently!’
But now she did.
She heard her own voice coming down the line at her: ‘Hi, it’s Annie, I can’t take your call right now . . .’
‘Owen, it’s Mum,’ she began her message. ‘Please phone me, straight away.’
As soon as she’d hung up, she told Lana: ‘Get dressed. We have to go there. If Owen’s going to do this today, he needs us to be there with him.’
Gray came downstairs for breakfast just as Annie, fully dressed and all set to head off with Lana, was about to wake him and explain what was happening.
‘There’s a problem with Owen,’ Annie told him. ‘Lana and I have to head up there and be with him.’
‘Is he OK?’ Gray asked.
‘He’s not hurt, it’s nothing medical . . . look, we really have to go . . . do you mind if I explain it to you later?’
‘Right, well,’ Gray looked grumpy about this, ‘I’ll have a quiet little day to myself, will I? Maybe I’ll do some tidying up in this pigsty of a home.’
‘Sorry, I was going to do . . .’ Annie shrugged her shoulders apologetically. There was a lot of stuff lying about everywhere. Something about Gray’s open plan house didn’t really lend itself well to family life. There just wasn’t any room to put anything. Maybe they needed storage boxes; maybe a trip to Ikea would solve everything.
‘Perhaps if I search hard enough, Lana,’ he said pointedly, ‘I’ll come across the two boxes of medicine currently missing from my supplies.’
‘What?!’ Annie and her daughter chorused together.
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Gray was still several steps above them on the stairs, his face clearly furious, but trying to do an impression of calm: ‘One box of twenty Valium tablets missing from my locked office cabinet. A nice little earner for somebody.’
‘Do you know anything about this?’ Annie snapped at Lana.
She shook her head emphatically, not taking her eyes from Gray.
‘Gray, if there’s a problem with my children, you come and talk to me about it first,’ Annie told him, now furious too. ‘Don’t just go about making completely unfounded accusations.’
‘But we know Lana’s dishonest!’ he exclaimed. ‘Didn’t she cost you your job? And the way she’s been behaving the past few weeks, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find out she’s on drugs!’
This was too much for Annie. She took Lana by the arm and hustled her out of the front door, giving it a great dramatic slam for good measure.
Once they were in the Jeep, she revved the engine and roared out of the driveway, creating two deep ruts in Gray’s neatly raked gravel.
No words passed between mother and daughter until they were miles out of Upper Ploxley and on the motorway heading west, then finally Annie asked first about the dental drugs, to which she got an emphatic: ‘I don’t know anything about that, I promise.’
Then she began her enquiry into the missing £2,000.
At first she was met with silence. Lana turned her head, folded her arms and stared out of the passenger’s window at the passing scenery.
After a long pause, she asked her mother a question in return: ‘How do you know about that?’
‘Ed told me.’
‘Ed! How does he know?’
‘He checked the bank account. The money’s been taken out. It’s not rocket science, Lana.’
‘I didn’t think he ever looked!’
Annie let this completely incriminating remark pass without comment. She kept her eyes on the road, drove steadily and waited.
‘There’s no way I can tell you about it . . .’ Lana said slowly. ‘No way.’
‘Of course there is,’ Annie said gently, feeling her heartbeat accelerate with fear, ‘I’m your mum. I care about you more than anyone else in the world does.’
Then Lana began to sob.
And Annie began to feel very afraid. Lana had obviously done something terrible, or something terrible had happened. The worst thoughts raced through her mind. Pregnancy? Gambling? Drugs? Guilt that she hadn’t paid close enough attention to her stroppy, difficult, but nevertheless fragile, about-to-turn-15-year-old was coursing through Annie’s veins.
‘Lana, whatever it is, you’re here with me. You’re safe and I’m going to look after you. Whatever it is.’
‘It was for Suzie . . .’ the words began, in between tears and sniffs and fresh sobs. ‘She’s in such a mess . . . her parents have split up and her boyfriend’s a . . . total . . . he’s just a druggie, Mum. No other word for it . . .’
Annie was nodding encouragingly, but her grip on the steering wheel was knuckle-white.
‘She was just doing it at the weekends,’ Lana went on, ‘but . . . it got to her. We kept telling her to split up with him and get some help.’
Annie moved the Jeep over into the slow lane so she could give Lana’s story better attention.
‘She persuaded us to lend her money from the fund. She said she needed it to get treatment and she’d get it back from her dad, as soon as he was back in the country. But I think . . . we all think . . . she’s taken the money and spent it with her boyfriend. She’s never going to ask her dad now and I’ve no idea how we’re going to get it back and’ – her voice raised to a desperate crescendo – ‘we’re all going to get expelled once this comes out.’
The sobbing broke out anew.
Although this w
as a problem, Annie couldn’t help breathing something of a sigh of relief that, for Lana at least, it wasn’t nearly as awful as Annie had imagined.
‘Lana,’ Annie began, ‘don’t worry. OK? Try not to worry. I wish you’d told me sooner.’
‘You’ve been so busy with Gray,’ came the accusation.
‘I am never, ever too busy for you, OK?’ Annie looked over at her daughter. ‘But we will sort this out. Blimey,’ she added several moments later. ‘There’s never a dull moment with you around, is there?’
‘Mum?’ Lana asked, wiping her face and looking over at the person she now wished she’d confided in weeks ago. ‘Are we going to carry on living with Gray?’
Annie, looking straight ahead, nudging the Jeep back over into the fast lane and putting it up into sixth gear, let out a deep sigh before confiding, ‘No, babes, and I’m so, so sorry. I thought he was going to be really good for all of us. I wouldn’t have put you through another move if I hadn’t thought it was the best thing to do. I am so sorry.’
‘We’ll have to move again,’ Lana pointed out.
‘I know.’
‘Where to?’ Lana wondered, knowing full well that they couldn’t go back to their flat for months.
‘I’m working on that,’ Annie told her and began to chew her lip. ‘We’ll go back to town though . . . definitely. I can’t stand Upper Ploxley,’ she added with feeling. ‘Where am I supposed to go for a coffee? Let alone a nice pair of shoes.’
Lana giggled at her, which made Annie feel slightly better about the decisions ahead.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Annie outdoors:
Maroon cagoule (village shop)
Maroon waterproof trousers (village shop)
Navy hiking boots (village shop)
Est. cost: £50
‘I can’t . . . I just can’t!’
Lana tried and failed to reach Owen on the mobile as the Jeep ate up the miles between them. Close to two hours had passed when Annie exited the motorway and, using the map they’d bought at a service station, began to navigate the smaller, twisty roads that led to the campsite.
The towns and red-roofed housing estates had fallen away now and they’d entered gentle green countryside: first farms with patchwork fields and then the roll of hills began.
It was damp weather. The highest peaks had wispy cloud clinging to their summits and the smell of fresh, moss-scented air was coming in through the Jeep’s heating system.
Annie wanted to know if Lana was all right about a visit to Even Ridge.
‘If Owen’s going to do it – or if he’s already done it – then I will too,’ came the quiet reply. But after a little while, Lana asked: ‘Mum? It’s OK to be nervous, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course it’s OK to be nervous,’ Annie assured her, ‘I’m absolutely terrified.’
Soon, the Jeep was moving slowing through the high street of the small town closest to the camp-site as Lana tried to decipher Owen’s map. They’d decided to look for Ed and Owen at the camp-site first, then if there was no sign of them, head on to Even Ridge by themselves.
But suddenly Lana shouted: ‘Look, over there! I think that’s Owen!’
Sure enough, walking with his back turned to them was her brother and several feet behind him, recognizable by his nest of hair, was Ed.
Annie sped up a little to get ahead of them and after a quick pause and indication, pulled up on the left. Moments later, she and Lana were on the pavement, standing in front of the surprised campers.
‘Mum?’ Owen spoke first. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘We came into town to look for a phone box,’ Ed began, in no doubt as to why Annie was here. ‘But we’ve not been able to get through to you.’
‘Owen has a phone,’ Annie pointed out. ‘Why couldn’t he have used that?’
‘No reception,’ Ed answered, a picture of calm.
‘Owen, don’t you think it would have been a good idea to tell me about your plan?’ Annie asked, but gently now.
‘What plan?’ Owen stalled, trying for just one moment longer to avoid the inevitable showdown he’d been dreading ever since Ed had told him, kindly but firmly, that no, he couldn’t possibly take him up to Even Ridge without his mother’s full permission and blessing.
Annie took Owen’s drawings out of the back pocket of her trousers and held them out to him.
‘I knew you’d say no,’ Owen burst out. ‘I wasn’t going to tell Ed either . . . and I have . . . and now it’s all ruined.’
His face was suddenly pale with a bright spot of red in each cheek. Annie knew this meant he was very upset, or very angry, maybe both.
‘I should be allowed to see Dad’s place!’ he added in a surprisingly loud voice.
‘I haven’t driven all this way to tell you no,’ she said, hugely relieved to realize that they hadn’t gone up to the ridge yet. ‘Lana and I came here because if it’s so important to you to go, then we’ll go with you.’
Annie saw Owen’s shoulders loosen a little and for a moment she thought he was going to cry.
‘I was about to take Owen for a scone,’ Ed chipped in, patting Owen on the shoulder. ‘It’s still too misty to do any serious hill walking. But it looks like it’s going to clear up, so in the meantime I think we should hide out at “Edna’s tea corner” over there. Great cakes in the window,’ he added cheerfully.
All three Valentines felt deeply grateful for Ed’s tension-breaking enthusiasm for home baking.
***
Annie looked at herself in the mirror with undisguised horror: ‘An anorak? An anorak??!!’ she repeated. ‘I don’t do anoraks.’
Especially, she thought to herself, when they are maroon cagoules paired with – horror of horrors – maroon waterproof trousers, tucked into – this can’t be happening – hiking boots.
The whole outfit was available for £50. Double discount day special in the town’s little outward-bound clothing shop.
Her children were giggling. Ed had one arm folded across his woolly-jumpered chest, the other was propped up as, chin in hand, blue eyes twinkly, he scrutinized her a little too carefully.
‘Oh, now that is sooo you,’ he said, displaying a surprising talent for impersonation. ‘Brings out the colour in your cheeks, wouldn’t you say, Lana?’
Lana’s giggles grew louder.
‘And the trousers, they co-ordinate so well,’ he added. ‘Who’d have thought of putting those two together? Very clever.’
Annie couldn’t decide whether to laugh at him or hit him.
‘Do I have to wear this? All of it?’ she pleaded once again.
He nodded his head: ‘Oh yes. Strictly necessary. I’m going to insist you put the hood up and tie it tightly round your face as well.’
‘But we’re just walking up a hill . . .’ she tried one last time.
He shook his head and told her: ‘You need proper kit.’
‘Mum, you look fine,’ Lana encouraged her, although Annie couldn’t help feeling this was a bare-faced lie. Maroon? Why did the only things left on the bargain rail in her size have to be maroon? The colour she’d overdosed on in those vulnerable years aged 13 to 15. She remembered ‘pleather’ pixie boots in almost this exact shade.
Ed had broken the news to her gently after the teas had been drunk and an impressive amount of Edna’s home baking consumed: ‘If we’re going to go up Even Ridge, Annie, then you’ll have to get some waterproofs and a pair of walking boots.’
‘Cagoules can get a bit sweaty,’ he was warning her now, ‘I like a nice breathable anorak, myself, Gore-Tex lined.’ He held up his bright yellow and navy serious mountaineer’s bit of kit for her examination, but added, ‘That really adds to the price though and if you’re not planning on doing much . . .’
‘No.’ Annie shook her head. ‘Definitely not planning on doing much hill walking, especially if it involves getting dressed up like this. Couldn’t they just have made a nod or two to passing trends?’ she wondered a
loud. ‘Skinny trouser bottoms? Colours from this century’s palette?’
‘It’s practical,’ Ed told her.
‘It’s criminal,’ she insisted.
She pulled the maroon hood on and tied the drawstring tight round her face so that she peered out like an owl.
‘I can’t . . . I just can’t,’ she made one final protest.
‘All set then?’ Ed asked, ignoring her pleas.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Ed up a hill:
Navy blue waterproof trousers (Tiso)
Ancient hiking boots (Army and Navy Stores)
Two long-sleeved T-shirts (vintage)
Yellow Gore-Tex anorak (Tiso)
Small waterproof backpack (Tiso)
Est. cost: £160
‘Let’s try and enjoy the ride.’
The walk towards Even Ridge began straight after the purchase of the maroon waterproofs, once Ed had satisfied himself that every single person definitely wanted to go, and that they were all absolutely sure they wanted him to come with them.
There was some chatter at the start, but it was of the nervous, rather than the cheerful kind.
Twenty minutes or so into the climb, the talk dried up and the four were walking along in silence, in single file, concentrating on the narrow, steadily rising path. Annie found herself thinking hard in the quiet.
Ed had showed them on the map the way the path curved right along the face of the hill, moving slowly up to the summit and then bringing walkers back down by a different route.
‘It’s about two and a half hours’ walk, all in,’ he’d told them. ‘Do you know roughly where we’re aiming for?’ he’d asked.
Annie had shaken her head in reply to this, but told him: ‘I don’t think it’s far from the top.’
‘OK, fine.’ Ed had smiled at them encouragingly as he’d pulled up the zip on his neon yellow jacket: ‘We’ll just put one foot in front of the other. Keep going . . . Let’s try and enjoy the walk.’
A gentle grey drizzle was still blanking out both sky and sun and wrapping itself all around them. Within fifteen minutes of starting the walk, Annie felt damp everywhere. Her face was running with drizzly wet, her body underneath the waterproof outfit was clammy.