Only Cheating Yourself
Across the swamp, then a descent below the cloud line and now, with vision restored, they came upon a valley entirely different from the last, steep-sided, bleak and gunmetal grey, vast black lines carved into its flanks like tattoos. They’d made it over the top but the landscape was so stark that there seemed little to celebrate, the kind of place a location scout might propose as a hostile alien planet. Even its name sounded like science-fiction.
‘Honister Pass,’ he said.
‘Very nice,’ she said, without looking up.
‘Well, look at it!’
‘No,’ she growled. ‘I won’t give it the satisfaction.’
‘Look at all the slate!’
‘We have slate in London, on roofs, where it belongs – it’s flat and grey, like … like you, frankly, Michael.’
He decided that the hostility was playful, though perhaps a little harder-edged than he was used to. ‘Oh, so you don’t want to hear about the slate-mining communi—’
‘Michael, I don’t care – I don’t care – I don’t care if this valley was used to mine for slate or gold or fucking … toffee, I just want to get back. Okay?’
They joined another path, dead straight, slick and black. ‘This used to be a working tramway back in the—’
‘Okay, is it working now? Is there a tram that takes us to our hotel?’
‘Not for one hundred and fifty years.’
‘Then I do. Not. Care.’
The remains of a derelict building, neat stacks of slate on either side, marked the head of the path. ‘These are the remains of the Drum House. Would you like to know why it’s called the Drum House?’
‘Michael, if you tell me why, I will push you down this hill.’
‘Clearly it’s not a hill.’
‘Let’s just – let’s just get to the hotel. How much more of this?’
‘Um, about ninety minutes?’
‘Fuck! Fucking fucking fuck.’
‘Maybe if you looked up, it’d go quicker.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh, just go and … dry-stone a wall.’
They began to descend faster now, but the water sought the easiest path too, making the slate as slick and treacherous as ice, and when he offered his hand, she knocked it away. They shuffled down, each step a stubbed toe on a chest of drawers. ‘Ow, ow, ow,’ murmured Marnie, voice clenched with rage until, finally, the road, the tarmac felt luxurious beneath their feet.
The last dry part of his body had succumbed some time ago. Like falling into a swimming pool fully clothed, there was a kind of liberty in being so entirely wet and he’d long given up on his hood. Still, it seemed foolhardy to try to chat and they strode on down the valley, Marnie in the middle of the road as if daring someone to run her over. He heard the sound of an engine behind him and shouted, ‘Look!’
Marnie’s eyes widened. A vision, a small bus, the miracle of public transport and she began to laugh. ‘Thank you, God!’ It was almost upon them now and she began to search urgently for the nearest bus stop. ‘Are you coming?’
‘I think I’m going to walk.’
‘But there’s a bus, you idiot! A bus!’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘But why?’
‘I want to walk the whole way.’
‘But look! Look around you. No one will ever know! I won’t tell them!’
‘I’ll know.’
‘But, look, it has a roof!’
‘It’s fine. You go ahead.’ The driver was passing them now and Marnie was running or trying to run, the loose rucksack slapping against her back, shouting, ‘Bus! Bus! Bus!’ as if that was the bus’s name. He watched as the driver took mercy and, without looking back, she used both hands to haul herself inside. He stood for a moment, feeling the cold rain run down his spine. Through the condensation in the back window he saw a shape that might have been Marnie taking a seat, then a pale circle that might have been her face, a hand banging on the glass, a finger writing in the steam, the words backwards, the bus already too far away to read the message.