The Long Walk Home

by Will North

  “He stayed on with the shipping company even after he married Mum and I was born. He’d throw his duffel bag over his shoulder, get on the train at Nantwich Station, and head for the port. We wouldn’t see him for months.

  “I was pretty much raised by my mother—Dorothy Potter was her maiden name—and her family. My grandfather Potter was the rector at St. Mary’s, an ancient Anglican church in the village with a remarkable vaulted stone roof rich with carvings.”

  She paused and looked away for a moment. “That’s odd,” she said more to herself than to him. “The church I go to here in Dolgellau—not often, I confess—is also called St. Mary’s; I never thought about that before ...”

  But by the sixties, she continued, jobs in the cargo ship industry declined as freighters gave way to container ships twice as large but with half the crew. When her father finally found himself without a ship, he returned to Nantwich and got a job as a lockkeeper on the Llangollen Canal, which ran through the village and across the Welsh border all the way to the market town of Llangollen, some forty miles away.

  “It was all rather magical for me. Daddy was home at last and we lived in this pretty little ivy-covered brick cottage beside the canal, next to a flight of locks at Grindley Brook. The cottage came with the job. My father handled the maintenance of the locks and helped barges though them, raising the water if they were going uphill and emptying the locks if they were going down.

  “He was still messing about with boats, you see, and dealing with the machinery, so he was happy. Mum was, too. She and I planted elaborate flower gardens around the cottage and the locks and we often won awards for them from the Waterway Authority.

  “My father married late,” Fiona explained. “So did Mum, come to that, and they were both getting on in years—especially Dad. One day, after he’d filled the Grindley top lock to lift a barge and had heaved the lock door open, he just collapsed and fell in. We never did know whether he died from a heart attack or drowned. Like many sailors in those days, he couldn’t swim. The bargeman dove for him immediately, but canal water is muddy and dark and Dad had sunk like a rock.”

  Alec interrupted, “I didn’t mean to bring up something so painful...I...”

  “No, it’s all right. The funny thing was, Mum died within the year. There was nothing wrong with her so far as anyone could tell. It was as if she’d just decided to stop living. She and my father had been apart for so much of their marriage that when he finally came home and we moved into that lockkeeper’s cottage, it was like a second honeymoon for them. Then he went away again, for good. I guess she couldn’t tolerate the final loss.”

  Alec refilled their wineglasses.

  “I was at school in Liverpool when Mum died,” Fiona continued. “Studying interior design.”

  “That explains how this house came to be so lovely.”

  She smiled at him. “David showed up at school one day, visiting a friend of mine. He was a sweet man, in his quiet way. He pursued me and we married. End of story.”

  There was a distant look in her eyes. “Maybe I was filling the gap my dad left, I don’t know.”

  “I have a friend who claims men always marry women who are like their mother, at least the first time; maybe women marry versions of their father?”

  “Perhaps,” Fiona said, looking off across the kitchen as if to some distant country in her mind. Then she returned.

  “Anyway, David and I worked hard together for a couple of years to improve the farm and the flock, and then Meaghan arrived. Bit of a surprise she was, too, but by that time David could run the farm on his own so I played mum for several years. It was when she started going to nursery school that I began offering bed-and-breakfast. It was partly for my own sanity; it’s pretty remote out here and this way I had people to talk to and care for a good part of the year.”

  “And you had just the one child?”

  Fiona sighed. “Much to my husband’s regret, yes. And a girl at that.” She paused again for a moment, considering whether to continue, then plunged ahead. “We’d planned on having more children, but a few years after Meaghan was born I got fibroids ... know what they are?”

  “Uterine tumors, benign.”

  “Clever you!”

  “My little sister’s a gynecologist. She got the brains in the family.”

  Fiona hesitated, tilting her head and smiling. And you got the looks, she thought to herself, and more.

  “Anyway, in those days the treatment for fibroids was a hysterectomy, so that was the end of childbearing. Sometimes I think David believes I got them on purpose, to thwart his dream of having a son to pass the farm on to. The fact that most sons these days are like his brother, Thomas, and want nothing to do with the family farm is something he chooses to ignore.”

  “How do you feel about all that now?”

  “You mean about not having more children?”

  Alec nodded.

  “If I’m honest, I have to say I don’t think I’m the most maternal woman on earth. Having Meaghan was magical, but it was also hard work, especially once the B and B got going. She’s become a wonderful young woman and I’m very proud of her. David is, too, come to that. Maybe one was enough.”

  Or maybe, Alec thought, you shifted your caregiving to your guests.

  They had finished eating. Alec stood and began gathering the dishes.

  “No! I won’t have it!” she scolded. “I’ll take care of that later. How about if I whip up a sweet?”

  “I couldn’t possibly eat another thing,” Alec replied. The truth was, between the climb, the lambing, and the wine he was weary. “Besides, I think it’s bedtime for me,” he said.

  Fiona planted her hands on her hips and managed to fuse a scowl with a smile.

  “A fine dinner guest you turned out to be!”

  Alec walked over to where she was standing, took her hand in both of his, as he’d done the day before, and said softly, “There’s nothing I’d like better than to sit up all night and talk with you, Fi, but I’m beat and I need to give the mountain another try tomorrow. I didn’t finish what I set out to do.”

  “Which was?”

  “That’s a long story ... for another day.”

  Fiona could almost hear the door to his heart slam shut.

  He inclined his head toward her slightly. “Thank you so much for dinner. I’m not used to being taken care of like this.”

  “Time you were, I should think,” she murmured.

  “Yes. Perhaps it is,” he said, his eyes far away again. Then he left the kitchen.

  She had wanted more from him, much more. She’d almost taken it, almost pulled him toward her, almost wrapped her arms around him. It was more than just wanting to comfort whatever it was in him that hurt. There was a yearning in her belly. It was as if a cave had opened within her, an ever-widening chasm of longing.

  Alec felt it, too. He lay in bed thinking as much about the easy companionship of his evening with Fiona as about the desire that was growing within him. It had been years since he felt this way.

  April 12, 1999

  seven

  SOMEWHERE A PHONE WAS RINGING. Then Alec heard a voice, muffled; a woman’s voice. He opened his eyes and got his bearings. Daylight, but not much of it. Beyond the French doors in his room, Cadair Idris was cloaked in cloud and rain clattered on the roof as if the gods were slinging gravel. He turned toward the clock on the bedside table and winced. He’d stiffened overnight, especially his bruised ribs. That was the problem with getting older: you could do the same things as before, like climb a mountain, but the price you paid for it in pain got higher with each passing year.

  It was after eight o’clock. He pulled on the clothes he’d worn the night before, yawned, and headed for the stairs. No time to shower before breakfast. He didn’t want to inconvenience Fiona by being late again.

  There was a light on by the phone in the front hall, but the dining room was as dim as the day outside. He padded toward the brightly lit kitche
n but found it empty. On the table was a pot of tea and two mugs, along with sugar and a small pitcher of milk. He poured himself a cup and then rummaged through the cupboards until he found a bowl. He went back to the dining room, where there were several clear-plastic storage containers with cereal selections, and filled the bowl with a chunky granola. He had just finished the cereal and poured himself a second cup of tea when the back door burst open and Fiona bounced into the room.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hudson; it’s a fine Welsh day!”

  Water streamed off her jacket and pooled on the floor.

  She tossed her wet jacket over a chair and glanced at the clock on the wall.

  “Ah, just in time.” She switched on a slender radio that was screwed into the underside of one of the cabinets. Alec hadn’t noticed it before.

  “The shipping forecast issued by the Met office, at 8:25 GMT, on behalf of the Maritime and Coast Guard Agency,” the announcer intoned. “There are warnings of gales in Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey, Faeroes, Fair Isle, and southeast Iceland.

  “The area forecasts for the next twenty-four hours: southeast Iceland, southwest 7 to gale 8, becoming cyclonic 6 to 7, rain, moderate to good. Fair Isle, Faeroes, southwest 6 to gale 8, occasionally severe gale 9, rain or showers, moderate. Hebrides, Bailey, Rockall, Malin, south 7 to severe 9, becoming cyclonic for a time, rain, heavy or moderate ...”

  Fiona switched off the radio.

  “What’s that all mean?” Alec asked, fascinated by the obscure language.

  “It means you won’t be climbing Cadair Idris today, for one thing,” Fiona replied. And you’ll be here for at least another day, her heart said.

  “The numbers and descriptions are for wind speed, precipitation, and visibility,” she explained. “The names are those given to different quadrants of the sea off our coast. Because my father was in the merchant marine, I got used to listening to the marine forecast. Around here, it’s the best way to know what’s funneling into the Irish Sea from the Atlantic.”

  Alec watched the rain sheeting down beyond the kitchen window. “Pretty obvious from here.”

  Fiona looked at him: “Okay, Mr. Smarty-pants, what’s the window tell you about tomorrow?”

  “Um, nothing.”

  “Exactly. Whereas I know from that report that tomorrow may be nearly as bad: a big low-pressure area is shoving aside yesterday afternoon’s high-pressure front.”

  “May be as bad?”

  “Well, this is Wales,” she confessed. “You can never be too sure.”

  “Aha.”

  “Aha what?! See if you get a nice cooked breakfast!”

  “Actually, the cereal’s all I need. Doesn’t look like I’m going to get much exercise today, anyway.”

  “Then again,” she said, “maybe you’re like those Ramblers ...”

  “Ramblers?”

  “A national association of walking enthusiasts. They do very good work keeping public footpaths open and so forth. The footpaths, after all, were there long before any of us were—long before there were even roads, in some cases. But I don’t know; the Ramblers who’ve come here seem all to be of a type.”

  “What type is that?”

  “Oh, you know: hearty, earnest; so very intent on completing whatever walk they’ve chosen, rain or shine. A day like this wouldn’t faze them; they’d just plod off though the downpour with their sturdy boots and their dun-colored anoraks and their clear plastic rainproof map holders hung around their necks. Where’s the joy in that? Bunch of masochists is what I sometimes think. Plus, they’re missing the point.”

  “And the point would be ... ?”

  “It’s not about the peak, it’s about the place,” Fiona said with a passion that surprised him. “It’s about the magic of this particular spot, this particular mountain, about how different it is from any other, about its antiquity, its drama—its danger, even. Sometimes they remind me of the bird-watchers you see down at the Mawddach estuary, ticking off bird sightings on a list, as if that were the sole reason for being there. I think some of them come just to tick Cadair Idris off their list.”

  Alec smiled. “That was quite a rant.”

  Fiona laughed. “Yes, I suppose it was. Anyway, we’ve got two of them coming tonight—Ramblers, that is. A couple from Cardiff, the Llewellyns. Also another couple, from Birmingham, so we’ll have a full house tonight. Not bad for a Monday. Any tea left in that pot or have you hogged it?”

  “There’s plenty. Thanks for leaving it.”

  Fiona sat at the table opposite him and marveled at what was happening to her. Somehow this oddly withdrawn man, this very private gentleman who sometimes seemed like he was peeking out of a foxhole to see if it was safe to emerge, had released a playfulness in her she’d long forgotten. When she’d met and married David, she had folded herself into her husband’s quiet. But before David, she’d always been the quick-witted one in her group of friends, full of sharp quips and easy laughter. It was one of her girlfriends at school who pointed out that being smart and snappy with clever remarks only scared off the boys. Now, though, it was as if all that bottled-up antic energy had been released. Was she imagining it or was the very self-contained Alec also uncurling?

  “Look,” she said after a few moments, “I have to go into town in a bit to do some marketing before the other guests arrive. You’re welcome to stay here and write or whatever, or you could come into town if you wish.” She glanced at the window and the rain. “Lovely day for sightseeing.”

  “I’ll come. I have some things I need to do in town, too. When will you leave?”

  “I need to do some tidying for the new guests; an hour?”

  “Sure.”

  “Right. I’ll give you a shout.”

  Alec went to his room, got his notebook, and went downstairs again to the guests’ sitting room. Most of the poems Alec had written over the years were reflective, a way of coming to terms with things that had happened long ago. It was as if there was a lag between events and his emotional response to them. But here, in the shadow of the hulking mountain, that seemed to be changing. Words tumbled from him like water in a swollen stream.

  He was deep into “the tunnel”—the quiet place within himself that he went to when he was writing—when he heard a car horn. It startled him. He looked at the window. Fiona was waving to him from her car. He dashed out through the kitchen, grabbed his jacket from its hook in the boot room, and jogged to the waiting car.

  “Jeez, I’m sorry; I’m kind of in another world when I’m working.”

  “You were so still I was beginning to think I’d have to resuscitate you,” Fiona teased.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have moved so quickly,” Alec shot back.

  Fiona laughed and they were off.

  Once they were on the main road Alec finally asked the question that had been plaguing him—but he did it indirectly.

  “Is David very busy this time of year?”

  Fiona turned to look at Alec, then returned her gaze to the road. She took a deep breath.

  “David is not busy; David is ill.”

  For a moment, Alec was speechless.

  Then he said, “Look, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that you talk about him so often but he’s nowhere to be seen.”

  Fiona’s shoulders relaxed and she kept her eyes on the road. “It’s all right, Alec. It’s just that I never talk about it.

  “It’s the sheep dip,” she said.

  “Sorry?”

  “It’s the sheep dip; it’s poisoned him.”

  Alec hadn’t a clue what she was talking about, and said so. To his surprise, Fiona started laughing.

  “Of course you don’t; how stupid of me! Right, then: ‘sheep dip’ is a pesticide. Sheep in Britain get infested with something called sheep scab mite. It’s a skin disease, a mange, and it can race through a flock. It makes the sheep weak and sickly and their wool falls off in hunks. Back in 1976, the government obliged all sheep farmers to bring their sheep d
own from the hills every September and run them through a deep trough filled with water and chemicals—organophosphates, they’re called. There are lots of different brands, but farmers just call it sheep dip. The main ingredient is something called diazinon. Undiluted, it is very nasty stuff, but in the troughs it’s supposed to be safe. If you don’t use sheep dip, the government fines are huge. Are you following me?”

  “I’m with you.”

  “Right. So every fall, not long after sheep dipping, a lot of farmers get sick. They call it ‘shepherds’ flu’—headache, achy joints, upset stomach—that sort of thing. It goes away pretty quickly and no one’s ever paid much attention to it. David got it all the time. I also noticed he seemed to tire easily, and the queer thing was that he became forgetful.”

  “Well, none of us is getting any younger.”

  “No, it wasn’t that. I’d tell him something—or he’d tell me something—and then he’d have no memory of it, sometimes only an hour later. It was very strange. Then, three years ago, about a week after the sheep dipping, David had a heart attack. He was only forty-five. He’d never had any sign of heart disease. He wasn’t overweight; he didn’t smoke. The doctor was mystified. David and I just accepted it, even though we didn’t understand it. Say what you will about the National Health, David’s doctor didn’t give up. He kept trying to make sense of the whole thing and, in the end, he started to find a pattern of symptoms among hill farmers. In some cases they got dizzy or listless. Some men had racing hearts. Some became temporarily paralyzed. It always happened between four days and a week after the dipping. Most people got better. Some didn’t. David was one of those who got better, or so we thought.”