Lighthouse
They settled their bags on their backs and began the ascent, zigzagging towards the cliff-top on worn wooden steps. Fifteen miles to go, but once they’d left the cliffs behind it was just farmland, a few small towns, plantations rather than natural woodland, only one serious ascent, and with this in mind he walked ahead, partly to set the pace, partly to admonish himself.
Talk to them, talk to them, talk to them. Absurd for it to be this hard. Given a class of thirty adolescents, he was usually capable of being confident and eloquent, often engaging, sometimes even funny, and surely this was an easier crowd. But here he was, banging on about igneous and sedimentary, a geography teacher straight out of the gate and things had scarcely gone any better with Conrad, who, judging by his new trainers and skinny jeans, really wasn’t taking this seriously at all. He heard his dad’s voice – bit flash – and told himself to keep an open mind, but encounters with other men always seemed pre-loaded with rivalry and suspicion, the handshake tight, the smiles too, and he wondered if, after a certain age, men could ever really like each other. The window for friendship was always small, and narrowed with age, and a new male friend after forty? What a strange, uneasy relationship that would be.
Did the same apply to female friendship? He was unlikely to find out. Glancing behind him, he could see Conrad and the woman who’d talked to her stone already creating scenes for their montage, the man telling some story, the woman laughing and slapping at his arm with the back of her hand. In the corridors and common rooms, this behaviour was a daily rite but, like the school musical, it was more fun to take part in than to watch, and he thanked God that the other woman had failed to turn up. ‘Look at the view!’ shouted Cleo, further back, and they all turned to take in the town and its beach, the gauzy sea and beyond it, in their own grey haze, the chimneys and cooling towers of Sellafield.
‘I particularly like the nuclear power station!’ shouted Conrad. ‘Very picturesque!’
Michael estimated the gradient here as approximately one-in-ten. With a good push, he would probably roll all the way to the car park.
They carried on, the slow rollercoaster of a cliff walk, the others shifting and forming into pairs or threes as they descended to Fleswick Bay, a vivid example of coastal erosion but best keep that to himself. Soon the lighthouse, white and bright in the midday sun. Surely everyone liked a lighthouse, kids especially.
‘Hey! Wait!’ Here was Cleo, trotting to catch up.
‘See the lighthouse?’
‘The large white building?’ she gasped, clutching her knees as if holding them in place. ‘I missed that. Very nice.’
‘Does Anthony want to get a closer look?’
‘He’s all good. He’s past the lighthouse stage now.’
‘That’s a shame. I love a lighthouse.’
She stood, head back. ‘Maybe it’s something you come back to later in life.’
‘I’m just making it entertaining for him.’
‘He’s thirteen, Michael.’
‘I’d have been interested at thirteen.’
‘Oh, I absolutely believe that. Hey, you are going to talk to people, aren’t you, not just walk ahead?’
‘I will. I just have to, you know, get into the zone.’
‘It’s two new people.’
‘I know. I will!’
After a while, she said, ‘I’m sorry Tessa couldn’t come. She still really wants to meet you.’
‘Some other time.’
‘I mean, it’s never come up but I bet she’s a lighthouse freak. I’ll fix a dinner.’
He sighed. ‘I thought I told you—’
‘Remind me.’
‘—no matchmaking.’
‘Oh, come on, what am I meant to do? Days are long. I need something to distract me from all this …’ she gestured to the landscape ‘… all this geography.’
‘You can watch them.’ He nodded towards the woman from the train and Conrad, who was at that moment kicking at a molehill.
‘Hm. The jury’s still out on Conrad. He’s a nice guy but that’s very much Sam’s suggestion. I’m sceptical. I think he might be here for a good time not a long time, if you know what I mean.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Whereas you’re here for a long time not a good time.’
‘Just toying with people’s emotions.’
‘A puppet-master. “As flies to wanton boys …”’ Cleo was an English teacher and it slipped out sometimes. ‘Such a shame about Tessa. When I think what might have been …’
‘We’re going this way now.’ The path began to turn inland. ‘Say goodbye to the sea.’
‘So are we nearly there yet?’
‘You see that hill?’ He pointed towards a wooded peak, sentry to the mountains beyond but still impossibly far away. ‘Just the other side of that.’
‘God, really? Are you trying to kill us?’
‘That’s what ten miles looks like. Over that, we’re in the Lakes.’
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ shouted Anthony, slouching behind.
‘Almost, sweetheart,’ shouted Cleo, ‘not far now.’ Then, to Michael, ‘He’s a little sulky. He wanted to see his friends.’
‘This’ll be better,’ said Michael.
‘Oh, you think so?’ said Cleo, laughing as they turned their backs on the sea.