The Wedding Cake Tree (5 page)

‘Would that be a Pole who can dance, or a woman who dances round a pole?’

‘Either. London has both. Bye for now, loser.’

I
turned the phone off (of course I could live without it for a few days for goodness’ sake) and drummed my fingers on the bedside table. My eyes fell on the suitcase Mum had prepared. Although she usually dressed in a fairly bohemian style, Mum had impeccable taste and would try to encourage me to ‘do more with my hair’ as she tried to scoop it up into a fancy up-do, or she might say, ‘Why don’t we go shopping for something lovely?’ – actually meaning, why are you dressed 24/7 like a boy?

A note sat
on the top of the clothes:

Enjoy! You are a stunningly beautiful woman. Perhaps you could just make more of an effort with your clothes?

Typical.

I rose fr
om the bed and took her letter from my bag. Oh Mum, I wondered, what was this really all about?

Chapter Seven

I woke with a start from a knock at the door and it took some moments to remember where I was. I shouted out but no one answered, then reached across to turn on the bedside lamp. It was eight o’clock – eight o’clock in the morning! A piece of paper had been pushed under the door – it was a note from Alasdair:

See you downstairs. Breakfast is until ten – no rush. You will need your walking clothes on today. Bring your boots down and I’ll wax them up for you, it’s probably quite wet on the hill. A lovely day though (just as promised). Al

Surprised by my own excitement, I flung back the curtains and raised the blinds to observe the day – deep blue sky. I smiled at the thought of how pleased Alasdair would be that the weather had improved.

With my cracked leather walking boots hanging from my hand by the laces, I padded down the stairs and hoped to bump into Alasdair, but was ush
ered into one of the snugs by June and fed a full, artery clogging Yorkshire breakfast in front of the fire. Once finished, a slab of black pudding was all that remained on my plate (not my cup of tea at any time let alone at breakfast), so I slipped it under the table to the resident Jack Russell who was waiting patiently by my feet for a taster.

June returned with a fresh pot of tea so I asked (trying to be nonchalant) if she knew the whereabouts of Alasdair.

‘He was up at the crack of dawn
–
sitting just where you are now
–
and going through his maps and books when I opened up at seven. And he’d already been for a run at that.’

She lingered at the doorway,
my breakfast plate in one hand, tea towel in the other, and looked on at me kindly, but quizzically.

‘
You two just friends then?’

The separate r
ooms were a bit of a giveaway.

I nodded.

‘
Such a lovely chap. Nice eyes
–
a bit of spice in that one I reckon. I have a thing for the quiet smouldering look.’ She winked and began to walk away. Alasdair appeared around the door, bumping into June as she left, which made us titter all the harder.

He took a seat opposite me
and removed a small tin from the top pocket of his rucksack, before picking up my walking boots and rubbing wax into the creases of the leather.

‘
So, what’s on the agenda today then?’

‘
Well, first of all, we’re taking a walk up Penhill. No need for the car, we can set off from here. When we get to the top I’ll give you your next letter.’

‘
Oh, I don’t mind a good walk,’ I said. ‘And second of all?’

He glanced up from
rubbing wax into my boots; the man was all innocence.

‘
Second of all?’ he asked.

‘
You started your first sentence with first of all, which would imply that there’s a second of all, or else why say it?’

He lowered his head an
d looked at me through his eyelashes.

‘
Rosamund never said you were pedantic.’

‘
Hmm,’ I narrowed my eyes, ‘you’re side-stepping. Come on, what’s the second of all?’

He handed me the boots
and grinned. ‘It’s a surprise.’

We agreed to rendezvous ten minutes later in the front foyer. 

‘
Pass that here if you like,’ he said, looking at my camera as we crossed the road. ‘It looks heavy, I’ll put it in the rucksack for you.’

I
instinctively rushed a protective hand to cover my camera; my precious and very expensive appendage that had become a constant presence in my life.

‘
No, thanks. I like to have it with me. The shots are more spontaneous that way.’

We followed a tarmac lane lined with cottages. The residents seemed to be in cahoots to win a Britain in Bloom prize. The result, particularly in the morning sunshine, was very pretty indeed.

As the road gained in height it narrowed
slightly, and our view of the Dale opened out to the north. A horse was whinnying as it was put through its paces in an outdoor arena. The predominant noise reverberating across the Dale, however, was not the whinnying of horses, but the ever-present sound of bleating sheep – like a comforting white noise in the background.

I was
suddenly overcome by an aroma I easily recognised. The woodland to our left was carpeted with the little white flowers of wild garlic.

‘
I love the smell of wild garlic,’ I said, ‘it reminds me of home. There’s a large patch of it just beyond our ford.’

Alasda
ir hopped effortlessly over the tall post and rail fence that separated the road from the wood and grabbed a handful.

‘
You probably aren’t supposed to pick these, being wild,’ he said, pulling a mock guilty expression, ‘but I have a feeling you might want to have them with you when we get to the top.’

Remembering
Mum’s wish for me to scatter her ashes in places significant to her, it dawned on me what the flowers were for – a sharp reminder that we weren’t just out for a morning stroll. I placed the flowers as carefully as possible in the pocket of my shirt.

‘
Is this where Mum wanted her ashes scattered then, at the top of Penhill?’

‘
Some of them, yes.’

I sobered, somewhat.

‘And I have to do this … how many times?’

‘
Three.’

Alasdair’s expression was so deadpan, I couldn’t help but
burst into spontaneous laughter.

‘
What?’ he asked, also laughing. ‘At least you didn’t have to divide them up into three different containers.’

‘
What?’

‘
I didn’t want to carry all of the ashes with us to each place in one big pot and then get to the last destination and find we hadn’t got any left.’ Alasdair acted out the scenario by pretending to shake out a container, look into it despairingly and then shake the empty pretend container above his head.

‘
Didn’t the ash go all over the place when you were measuring it out?’

‘
You would not believe the trauma of it. All I will say is that it involved a mask, a funnel and quite a bit of booze.’

‘Oh, Alasdair!’

After about a quarter of a mile, the path – no longer tarmac but a mixture of gravel, earth and grass – opened out and was edged with an endless line of chest-high stone walls. To our left, Penhill climbed into the skyline, and we stopped to take in the view. The hill reminded me of a scaled-down version of Table Mountain in Cape Town; rising symmetrically at each side with a long, flat edge on the top. The last two hundred feet looked to be a sheer face of craggy shale, while the hillside was divided by mile after mile of limestone walls laid out like a patchwork blanket. We were setting a fast pace so I thought we would probably arrive at the top in about thirty minutes or so.

‘
Only about an hour to the top,’ he announced.

I tapped his arm in mock ang
er.

‘
What? I’m not that unfit.’

We stopped
for him to show me the map. The image of the hill from where we were standing was, in fact, an optical illusion. Two completely flat plateaus, positioned periodically up the side of the hill, were hidden from view.

‘
That’s so misleading,’ I said, scrutinising the route. I also noticed we seemed to be taking a rather convoluted path.

‘
Why didn’t we go straight up?’ I placed a finger on the map and traced an imaginary line from the hotel to the top of the hill.

‘
Because there isn’t a direct path from that direction, and even if there was, it would be daft to take it. More often than not, by contouring up a hill, you can keep a good, steady pace rather than stopping and starting all of the time up a steep face, which is why this path has been used for centuries I suppose.’

I
rested my eyes on my feet as we trudged on – I tried to step clear of the sheep dung but there really was no point.

‘
I still can’t believe I’m half the way up a bloody hill you know’—I paused for breath for a second—‘with a man I know nothing about.’

He laughed out loud while
I continued with my methodical stride up the hill. The gradient had increased somewhat.

‘
Sorry,’ I said, breathless. ‘Can’t talk for a minute. I need my breath for this steep bit … not as fit as I thought.’

‘
Are you having a good time?’ The eagerness in his face for me to answer positively was plain to see.

I glanced back and smiled.
‘Yes, of course. This is just what I needed.’

He nodded in agreement.

‘Me too.’

Just under an hour later, the path zigzagged for a final few hundred yards and we strode out on to the top of the
hill. A tundra of heather moorland stretched out ahead of us. Alasdair tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the north. I turned around. My face felt tight against the strong westerly breeze. Candy floss clouds crossed from left to right, while the vibrant greens of the fields in the valley below changed to muted shades as the clouds took turns to momentarily shade the fields from the sun. There was so much detail in the vista a soul could sit there every day for a lifetime and notice something different each time. But, the situation had to be faced; after all, I was there for a particular reason. I looked at Alasdair and raised my eyes to say,
is this the moment you give me my letter
?

He suggested
we take a seat ten feet or so back down the hill out of the wind, took off his rucksack, removed our coats that had been purposefully placed on the top, and laid them out on the deep, damp heather. He passed me his fleece again.

‘
It’s easy to chill down in the breeze, even in May,’ he said. ‘You ought to put this around your shoulders.’

‘
What about you? I can easily put my coat on instead of sitting on it.’ I tried to insist but soon gave up. He draped the fleece around my shoulders.

We sat side by side
taking in the view across the valley. Perhaps delaying the inevitable, Alasdair pointed out features of interest across the Dale.

After five minutes I loo
ked across at Alasdair and said, ‘It’s okay, you can give me the letter now. I’m ready.’

He handed me two envelopes. One said, ‘Open me first,’ and so I did.

Chapter Eight

Penhill

Hello
, My Love

I can imagine you enjoying a clear and bright spring day. The sky will be a hazy light blue and there will be a slight breeze down in the Dale, but at the top of the hill the wind will blow slightly stronger – am I right? I do hope so. It’s impossible to guess how often I have sat exactly where you are now, at the top of the zigzag path, above the crags.

As I told you, my parents were sheep farmers from Yorkshire. They scraped a decent enough living at Bridge Farm, which is situated on the outskirts of a village called West Burton. You can’t see the farm from where you’re sitting as it’s over the moor to the west of the hill. It’s a beautiful place, Grace, particularly in the spring. Mum would plant up pots of tulips for a spectacular spring display, and her immaculate roses always won ‘best in show’ at the village hall – I wish I’d paid more attention to how she managed to obliterate black spot! It all sounds idyllic perhaps, but I can tell you the reality of sheep farming is not all duck ponds and fresh bread. My parents were hard working and tough – you had to be tough to make it through a Dales’ winter in those days. Back then, any offspring from farming stock were unlikely to have a proper childhood, well, not one you would associate with. Children were put to work, in some capacity or another, as soon as they were old enough to be useful. Our situation was no different except my parents were not fortunate enough to have a son to share the chores, they had two girls instead. Yes, you have an aunt, she’s called Annie, and according to Grimes she still lives at the farm.