Page 105 of To Hell With It

‘Oh right,’ I said, as I looked around for a wife I couldn’t see.

‘I’m actually over here on my own but it’s a long story.’ I laughed awkwardly. ‘It all went wrong so here I am, trying something new.’

Tim put his rucksack on his back and started to make his way down the aisle of the bus. I pulled my sanitiser out of my pocket and poured a dollop into my hands and then set off behind him like a puppy trying to keep up with its owner who had stomped ahead.

Tim didn’t slow down. He didn’t stop to say goodbye, good luck, or turn around at all. He just marched on as if he didn’t know me, which of course he didn’t but still, he could have at least said goodbye.

‘You know if we’d done this in October it would have been closed – they shut it for lambing right through to December.’ I sped up behind him. I’d read it in the brochure Lynne had given me.

Tim stopped and turned to face me, his face taut and stern.

‘We’re not doing it together,’ he snapped, and it took me by surprise.

‘Sorry, I just meant me and you as in we’re both doing it on the same day, at the same time?—’

‘We’re not doing it at the same time,’ he cut me off. ‘I planned on doing this on my own.’ He carried on walking.

‘I thought you said your wife was doing it with you?’ I said behind him, suddenly aware that it was just me and Tim up there alone, because the bus had already pulled away. He could have been lying to me about his wife – where was she anyway?

Tim didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look back. He just kind of swished his hand as if he was flicking me away like one of the mosquitos, and then off he went along the path that led to Roy’s Peak.

I watched as Tim became smaller and smaller until he was a dot in the distance, and I lagged behind. There was no sign of his wife, perhaps she would stomp past me at any moment to catch him up or maybe she had started before him? Maybe that was why he was in such a rush.

I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with Tim anyway, the track was steep from the moment I started walking on it, so I paced myself and took in the views because that was why I was there wasn’t it – to take it all in.

It was breathtaking. I could see little islands dotted around a huge turquoise lake, and mountains and glaziers beneath me that somehow made me feel bigger than I was. I felt like I was on top of the world, and I suppose I was.

* * *

I don’t know whether it was half an hour later or twenty minutes or maybe even less, but just as things started to flatten out a bit, just as I thought that maybe I might be able to get to the top without passing out (there was no shade and my T-shirt was already soaked through), I tripped. I tripped and I landed on my ankle so hard that I howled out in pain and the small dot that was Tim got bigger until he appeared next to me.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked out of breath as he bent down beside me.

‘I don’t know.’ I winced. ‘It’s my ankle, it really hurts.’

‘Hold on,’ he said and he got something from his bag and that was when I saw it. It had padding around it and was supported by some clothes but there was no mistaking what it was. It was an urn.

Tim wrapped something cool around my ankle and held it there while I tried not to stare into his bag, but I couldn’t help it. I mean who wouldn’t?

‘You need to keep this on,’ he said. ‘Can you stand up?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘We need to see if you can put weight on it, otherwise how are you going to get back down?’

‘I’m not going back down, I need to get to the top,’ I said defiantly.

‘You can’t go to the top now.’

‘I’ll go slow.’

‘It’ll take you all day.’

‘I’ve got all day.’ I shrugged.

‘You need to go back down,’ Tim said firmly. ‘I’ll help you.’

‘But what about your wife?’ I asked and I don’t know why I asked that because I knew where his wife was. She was in his bag.

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