Chapter 7

Sunday: a bath and a long walk, out to the end of the tunnel. The end had been bricked up, but they’d built a heavy steel door in, and it was hanging off its hinges. I went in, but the light didn’t penetrate very far. There were regular drips with various intervals, and there was a glorious reverberation when I shouted and clapped my hands.

I thought it would be good to borrow a torch from somewhere and walk right through. I hoped Mike would come with me. I didn’t know where it came out, but I decided I didn’t want to know: I’d find out when I emerged. I hoped Mike didn’t know either.

Then out again, and up the side of the cutting onto the moor. Fifty yards away I couldn’t see the cutting any more, and I could have been in the middle of nowhere, if I didn’t look at Quarryside nestling under Rose Hill in the distance. Even that disappeared behind a heathery mound when I sat down on a rock in the sun for a while.

Returning in the early afternoon, crossing the viaduct, I saw dozens of people out for their afternoon strolls around the paper mill and the falls. The magic of Tuesday morning was gone. But the early morning sunshine and the fresh wetness came back to my mind, and I vowed to myself never to take anyone there for the first time except in conditions like those.

Probably Cathie’s been there hundreds of times.

That evening I was just finishing eating my fry-up when Mike arrived. We walked into town without saying much. There was a very long queue at the Odeon – last night of a very successful film – but we just managed to get in.

The film was very powerful, and covered a lot of ground. But somehow it left me unsatisfied. I said so to Mike as we walked home.

‘Me too. It seemed unreal, as though it was fiction about a different world altogether.’

‘And I don’t think it told me a single thing I didn’t know already – that anyone reasonably well informed wouldn’t know anyway.’

‘I believe you’re right there. The problem isn’t informing people, I don’t think. It’s making them believe it. There are those who know, and who are worried, and those who have heard, and who don’t believe it. To them, that was just a cracking good tale.’

‘In fact, thinking about it, I think that that film does more harm than good: imagine trying to tell someone about Karen Silkwood¹, who’s inclined not to believe. They’ll just laugh it off as a story, based on that chap that they bumped off in the film.’

‘And those mutants were ridiculous.’

‘It almost makes you wonder whether they’re all humbugs, saying they’re opposed to the Government; whether it’s really an enormous Aunt Sally.’

We discussed the difficulties of making a film that would change anyone’s mind, and the difficulties one would have getting it shown, or raising the money to make it; and by that time we were home.

After Mike had gone, I realized I’d said nothing about the tunnel.

I signed on rather early on Monday morning. I think they were so surprised at the office that they never thought of making me wait. Then I went into town to buy some food for the evening’s meal with Chris and Terry, and to restock the fridge a bit.

Back at the flat, I had a grand tidy-and-clean-up. I cleaned the windows for the first time since I’d been there, and moved the fridge and the cooker and cleaned behind them. When I’d prepared the food for cooking, it was still early; but I couldn’t really go out because we’d not arranged any particular time, and they might turn up at any moment.

I played patience for a while, but that just made me even more bored. Then I thought of making a reading list from the bibliography in Geothermal Energy, and skipping through it to remind myself of the main areas of interest. That occupied half an hour, and felt much more productive.

I made myself a cup of tea, and lay down on the sofa for a while to think out what preparations I’d need to make for my possible hitch-hiking holiday.

My tea was cold. I was sure I’d not put the gas fire on. There was a smell of cooking in the flat, and a sizzling noise. A suppressed giggle.

‘Shh! You’ll wake the sleeping beauty!’

‘Does he take sugar in his tea?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Hark! The beauty wakes!’

‘I hope you don’t mind us doing the cooking.’

‘No, I don’t mind. I hope you don’t mind being invited round for a meal and then cooking it! You should have woken me up.’

‘Seemed a shame to. Anyway, we’ve been enjoying ourselves.’

‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘How should we know? Ever since you finished doing the spring cleaning. You shouldn’t have done that just for us, you know.’

‘Hey, Chris, leave him alone! That was below the belt. Your tea was cold already when we arrived, and we’ve just finished cooking.’

Chris and Terry were in high spirits, and we spent all evening laughing and joking. We made stupid anagrams of all our names, and all our friends’ names.

I said I’d been to see ‘After the Storm’ with Mike, and Terry asked why I’d not gone with her and Chris; and I told them how much trouble Mike had had persuading me I could afford it. They laughed at that; but it was good-natured and I laughed with them. I told them about the possible double-edge to the politics of it.

Chris said, ‘Yes. It weakens your case a lot when someone says, “you got that from After the Storm”, and it’s irrelevant to say that you knew already. And it’s so easy for them to say that After the Storm is a load of rubbish, ’cause so much of it is. But if it is an Aunt Sally, it’s overkill anyway. There’s no way that our side could persuade enough people to make any difference.’

But she wasn’t pessimistic. She thought that there was at least a fair chance that the war wouldn’t happen, and that anyway there was no point worrying about something that we’d absolutely no control over. We might as well assume it wasn’t going to happen, because if it did, it wouldn’t make an iota of difference what preparations we might have made.

Then we made a huge tower of cards; and we set fire to dangling strips of polythene in the back yard, with wonderful noisy burning droplets streaming to the ground.

I’d not been so happy in ages; but I felt very empty and alone when they left. They’d invited me to tea at Terry’s for Friday; and I’d said, ‘Provisionally, but I might be away for a couple of weeks.’

I went to sleep thinking up anagrams of ‘Cathie Jordan’ – the only name that I knew that we hadn’t played with together.

On Tuesday Mike turned up early in the morning, while I was washing up the things from Monday’s meal with Chris and Terry.

‘How do you fancy ten days in Finland?’

Mike is about to go into a long leg-pull. Still, he’s come round here specially early for something.

‘I know what you’re thinking. No, seriously, it’s straight up. The little travel agent on Northgate’s offering a flight to Helsinki and back, and nine nights in a hotel there, bed, breakfast, and evening meal, for a hundred and thirty-five pounds. You can’t miss a bargain like that.’

‘It’s too much of a bargain to be believable. You’re having me on.’

‘No, I said, it’s straight up. I talked to the old gent who runs the place: he says that what with the depression and all, the hotel trade is desperate for business, especially in Finland. And the exchange rate’s in our favour at the moment, and the airlines are flying half empty.’

‘Okay, I’ll buy all that for the time being. But package tours don’t sound my scene at all anyway; and cheap package tours are notoriously unreliable. So where’s the particular catch in this one? Is the airline going to go broke while I’m there, or is it the hotel? And now we’ve just about exhausted the possibilities of this particular leg-pull, what have you really come round here for at this time of the morning?’

‘Hey! It’s a good job I’m not sensitive or anything. I hope you don’t go round jumping on all your friends like that.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘And it isn’t a leg-pull, I keep telling you. It’s the only reason I’ve come round at this time of the morning, to be sure of catching you in. I think you ought to go. I’ll lend you half the money, and you can pay me back so much a month. And the hotel and the airline both belong to the Finnish government, so they’re not about to go broke. I asked him about that.’

Mike was not to be put off. By the time we’d had a cup of tea my Girocheque had arrived – on time for a change – and Mike came with me to cash it. Then he came with me to the travel agents, ‘I don’t trust you not to change your mind if you go on your own.’

‘I can’t change my mind – I haven’t made it up yet.’

But either I was particularly gullible that morning, or it was all particularly convincing and definitely a bargain not to be missed. There were places left for only one departure date: that Thursday, two days away. Mike paid a cheque for seventy pounds – he said that that way he couldn’t back out of his offer while I was away and leave me penniless when I got back – and I paid the balance in cash. Committed. Two days away.

Then Mike went off to meet Jill. Possibly June too, but he didn’t mention her. I was left feeling rather high and dry, and I went down to the Britannia for a cup of tea and a scone, to calm down and think about what I needed to do to prepare myself for my trip.

Cathie was serving. There were a couple of people in front of me, and I was miles away by the time it was my turn.

‘Hello Pete! What’s up?’

‘Nothing. Tea, love, please, and a scone.’

Cathie waved her hand in front of my eyes. ‘What’s the matter? You’re miles away!’

‘Sorry, Cathie. It’s all so sudden, that’s all.’

‘What’s all so sudden?’

‘I’m going to Finland on Thursday.’

‘Not for too long I hope. Hey, look, I’m too busy for a chat right now. Will you be in later?’

‘I might be. No, yes, of course I can be. Yes, I will be.’

That little exchange put my mind in a whirl again. Cathie was obscured behind a crowd of customers at the counter when I finished my tea, and I left without taking my leave.

I spent most of the afternoon dangling my legs over the canal at the end of my little passageway, chasing my thoughts in circles: Cathie, Finland, Money. I did manage to work out that my trip needed minimal preparations, and that I needn’t start yet. But that didn’t stop me worrying about whatever it was that I wasn’t doing, and I had a sort of vague back-of-the-mind what-have-I-forgotten feeling.

Late in the afternoon I began my economy drive by eating at home. I’ll just have a tea (or two) with Cathie this evening.

I realized I ought to return my books to Raikeley library before I went away. I couldn’t remember the exact times it was open; but I remembered the general pattern, and with an effort I worked out a timetable of the previous week’s events, and deduced that Tuesday was evening opening. I went there on my way to the Britannia. It was busy when I got there, and I was beginning to wonder whether I ought to get another tea, when the queue expired, and Cathie made two cups of tea and came and sat with me. No-one seemed to take any notice, although there were still three or four tables occupied. Perhaps they assumed I had something to do with the place.

‘You haven’t gone and got a contract in Finland, have you?’

‘No, just a holiday.’

‘How on earth can you afford a holiday in Finland?’

‘It’s an amazingly cheap package tour. Mike’s lending me half the money. I’ll have to be pretty frugal for a while when I get back to pay him off.’

‘Somehow I can’t imagine you on a package tour.’

‘No, neither can I. Come here, go there, see this, do that. But this one’s just the flights, the hotel room, and breakfast and evening meal.’

‘How long are you away for?’

‘Just ten days.’

‘Have you got anything planned for tomorrow? It’s my day off.’

‘No, not really. Just got to get everything ready.’

‘Then meet me here about nine in the morning. Jenny’ll give us a cuppa and a bit of cake. We’ll go out for the day together. Okay?’

I couldn’t believe my ears. I didn’t know what to say. I felt myself going red.

‘My dad’ll be here in a few minutes. I know you’d rather not meet him in the state you’re in. See you tomorrow love.’

‘Okay. See you love.’

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