Human Geography
Inland now, they walked down lanes and across farmyards, Michael leading the group and raising his hand to the farm workers, as if to say, Yes, tourists, bear with us. They passed through small towns, old mining communities that had never quite found a replacement, the terraced streets silent and melancholy in the afternoon sun.
‘Where is everyone?’ said the woman from the train.
‘Maybe it’s siesta time, like in Barcelona,’ said Conrad, and Michael felt his teacherly instinct twitch. Towns don’t appear from nowhere: they need a natural spring or harbour or a seam of tin, and when that loses its importance, the absence will be felt. He thought of his own hometown, his father a lifelong employee of the printing works, not books but brochures, catalogues, directories and calendars. Dad had started there as an apprentice, educated on the factory floor and promoted into the lower levels of management. Everyone’s dad had worked there, some of the mums too, and the fortunes of the factory had mirrored the trajectory of Michael’s childhood, the certainty and prosperity of his early years giving way to the insecurity and angst of adolescence as the business faltered. Phone directories and catalogues – they might as well have been making wagon wheels, and when the last scraps of production moved abroad, the whole town lost its purpose. Like a car without an engine, it had begun to fall apart, shops and pubs closing, the town centre taking on an aggressive air so that people were more than ever inclined to stay indoors. Dad, who’d long carried the stress of keeping the business open, now felt the guilt of watching it close. All that time at home, it was unbearable and he’d often disappear all day into the Peaks. His mum, a piano teacher, once as glamorous and bright as Dad was blunt and self-contained, stayed home and strove to hold on to a few students, but she, too, seemed to shrink and fade. His younger brother, less academic than Michael, had always expected to find a role in his hometown and now seemed dazed, furious with Michael who, with rude timing, was making his escape.
Aspiration had been his parents’ great project: a nice house in a cul-de-sac, holidays in Spain and even Florida, dinner-dances with the lord mayor, a presence in the church and the town hall and now the first Bradshaw in higher education. Yet even as he packed his suitcase, Michael had felt as if he was elbowing his way on to a lifeboat. At parties or flirting in the student bar, he’d suddenly remember his parents and reassure himself: maybe they can just retire.
But his father was forty-two when he’d lost his job, the same age as Michael now. Neither young nor old, too late to start again, too early to stop, the future simultaneously a great swathe of time but also not enough. Maybe they can just retire. He shuddered now to think of how blithely he’d dismissed his parents’ anxieties, though he knew that this was at least part of the reason he’d chosen his own profession. ‘People’ll always need teachers,’ said Dad, who had not always been needed. At the time he’d thought his father had been proud but at least part of it was relief.
They walked on. He would phone him later, tell him his route and progress – no matter where he walked, Dad had always been there before him, walked further in worse weather. They no longer asked if he’d spoken to Natasha but, still, best stick to what they were having for their tea. He would ask Dad, How’s Mum’s arthritis? He would ask Mum, How are Dad’s feet? and in this way, they would avoid anything substantial.
They were back in woodland now, industrial conifers, all identical, a battery farm for trees really, but at the end of the tunnel, framed and illuminated, a great, golden hill, like something from a church painting. He turned to address the group with his best tour-guide smile. ‘So. How are we all doing?’
‘Are we climbing again?’
‘How much longer?’
‘Because I can’t climb again.’
‘Who’s got water? I’m out of water.’
He heard Dad’s voice: Bloody hell, this lot. ‘Okay, team,’ he said, ‘a quick march to the top, and then down to the Lakes. Two hours.’
‘There’s something on my boot. It’s yellow. Wow. Wow, that stinks.’
He found Anthony and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘How you feeling, kid? All right?’ The boy covered his forehead and nodded sadly. ‘You’re doing brilliantly,’ and they headed up through the shade of the forest to the golden hill beyond.