by Ruth Hay
“I have been up this lane before,” he explained, “it’s a short cut and saves driving through the town, but I must admit I need to hold my breath here in case we meet another car. We don’t have crazy roads like this in Canada, I can tell you.”
Caroline noted that Jay must be Canadian, not American as she had thought originally.
Fortunately, they came to the end of the lane without incident and turned right, up a steep road and continued to climb up a hillside to a row of buildings perched on the side of the hill.
Jay manoeuvred the car into a parking spot on a slope and pulled out a key to one of the doors opposite.
As soon as they entered the door to number 7, Caroline recognized that this place was far superior to the youth hostel in every way. The kitchen on the left was fully equipped and the spacious lounge Jay invited her to enter, had leather furniture, a polished wood dining table and a fireplace with large TV beside it.
Her attention was drawn at once to the huge patio window opposite the lounge entrance, that led to a balcony running the width of the room.
The view was breathtaking. The flat was so high up the hillside that they were on a level with the mountains on the other side of the town. A church spire pierced the mountain view in the lower area but other than that, the entire window was filled with green forests and curving hilltops leading right up to the cloudy sky. Caroline could only speculate on what that view would be like on a bright, clear day.
Jay had already taken off his coat and he urged Caroline to step out to the balcony with him.
A horrible thought that he meant to push her over to her death flashed through her mind but one look at his smiling face convinced her, his intentions were honourable. Nevertheless, she hesitated and said, “I can see from here, thanks. It’s amazing!”
“I know, but you are missing the best part.”
She let curiosity overcome her fears and moved forward. From the balcony, the centre of Ambleside could be seen below. It was like watching a busy anthill. Cars and people moved through the narrow streets and lanes, sometimes disappearing for a moment then seen again as they passed under an overhanging tree or turned a corner. Immediately below the balcony was a paved pathway with a low garden on each side, but the rest of the hillside was filled with the roofs, terraces and back windows of homes and businesses that bordered the main street.
“Look there!” Jay pointed out an area where buses and cars were parked. A tourist bus, open on the top with a few intrepid travellers wielding umbrellas, was just leaving the bus stop.
“On Wednesday, that’s where the market is held” said Jay. “The whole place is full of stalls selling food and other things. I stood here for an hour watching it all.”
“It’s fascinating, all right, Jay! Even on a dull day the old buildings below us are interesting. Look at all the flat-roof decks and balconies people have made, and I see two dogs on one of them!” Caroline jumped for joy as they watched the border collies chase each other around planters and chairs on the roof.
“I know,” agreed Jay. They are so quiet yet they run for miles on the roof there. What a great way to exercise your dogs on a rainy day!”
“This place is incredible, Jay! I would never have guessed you could see all this at once.
The mountains are serene and lonely but there’s so much human life going on down below them.”
The quick look Caroline had had around the flat was enough to cause her to wonder how this young guy could afford to stay in such an expensive place. She decided to ask Jay outright.
“Are you staying here with your parents, Jay?”
“No, but it’s a long story. Come inside and I’ll make us a coffee. Switch on that gas fire and you can warm up. Would you like a boiled egg, by any chance? I left early this morning so I wouldn’t miss you and I am really hungry now. I will warn you, however, that a boiled egg with toast is the limit of my cooking skills, so don’t expect too much!”
Caroline was curious to find out more about this young Canadian and realized she had gone too far to turn back now. She was hearing her grandmother’s voice in her head, saying; ‘In for a penny; in for a pound’ as she accepted Jay’s offer and settled back into the leather chair by the fire, sighing at the comfort of listening to someone clatter about in a kitchen while she relaxed in the warmth. What a strange holiday this was turning out to be, but boring it was not. She thought of telling Janine and Ashley of her adventures and knew they would be astounded at all of it.
The promised ‘long story’ commenced as soon as Jay returned with a laden tray in his hands.
“This place belongs to a client of my boss. It’s a part-exchange with a self-catering house in Scotland, owned by my boss. She pays the weekly maintenance fee here while I am doing research for her in the Lake District.”
Caroline put down her cup of coffee. “Wait a minute! You can’t be much older than me but you have a boss in Scotland, although you are Canadian, and you have been sent here to do research. What gives, Jay?”
“I told you it was a long story. My mother does the accounting for a friend who splits her time between Canada and Scotland. This lady has two businesses with online elements that I take care of. I design web sites and look after her cell phones and computers so that she can keep in touch while she travels from one country to another.”
“Wow! Sounds like she has a nice life! So, you are a techie like my brother Mike, but that doesn’t really explain about the research.”
“Ah, well that part is connected to my family holiday. My mother and brother are in Scotland staying at the farm house where my boss has one of her businesses. She lends the house to her Canadian friends from time to time and since I was here anyway, she asked me to go to the Lake District and check out the possibilities of buying wool or selling hand-crafted goods in local shops. That’s the second business that she runs with her best pal. It’s called A Plus and you can find it online.”
Caroline was thinking how different her own life was at this point. She had no idea what she would do for the remainder of the summer, not to mention for the rest of her life, while this young guy had his future locked up and was presumably earning good money already.
“You look puzzled. Is there more you want to know?”
“No, it’s not that. I was wondering what to tell you about boring little me, now that I know a bit about your life history.”
“Let me ask you a question then. What brings you to the Lake District, Miss Fenton?”
“I live in Sussex, which is in the south of England. I have just finished my last year of college there and my family gave me this holiday as a break after I coordinated a huge project in a nursing home for a bunch of old folks.”
Caroline could see Jay’s blonde eyebrows arch up in surprise to meet the tightly curled short hair that had been hiding under his baseball cap.
“I know,” she continued, “It doesn’t sound anything like as exciting as your life, Jay, but one of the old folk was my great-grandmother and I just wanted to make things better for her.”
“Hey, girl! I think what you did was cool. As it happens, my boss is an oldie but she has a young mind and is always coming up with new ideas. She has made huge changes in her life in the last year. She says it’s never too late to find a new challenge.”
“Well, I am not the type to enjoy challenges. Here I am in the midst of this mountain country and I really don’t care to climb anything taller than a bus. Don’t get me wrong! I’m grateful to you for showing me this super view but the Lake District is not my scene, I’m afraid.”
“Now, Miss Fenton, I would be happy to be your tour guide. I’ve been here for a week and I’ve read the books and maps about this area. I can show you around and I guarantee you will change your mind about this place. It’s absolutely radical!”
“I can’t ask you to do that. You have far more important things to do here, Mr. Patterson.
I’ll get out of your hair and leave you to get on with your b
usiness.”
Caroline pushed herself out of the chair and brushed the crumbs off her lap, but Jay was too fast for her. He took her hand and begged, plaintively, for all the world like a cute puppy dog.
“Please give me a chance, Caroline! Don’t you think fate has thrown us together? What would it hurt to spend a few hours looking around? I can work in some visits as we go, and anyway, you haven’t told me near enough about your English life. I’m a Canadian remember! You should be nice to visitors.”
Caroline could not help laughing at this impassioned plea. She fell back into the chair and threw out her arms in submission.
“You win! I am clueless about what to do next so lead on, Macduff, as Shakespeare says!”
“See, you are teaching me about England already! I knew this would work out to be beneficial for both of us.”
“We’ll see!” said Caroline. “You have two days to convince me.”
Chapter Eighteen
James Patterson was glad to have met this unusual English girl. Although he had enjoyed touring around the Lake District in his hired car, being there alone was beginning to get a touch old.
Caroline seemed on the surface to be a hip chick with her short black hair, expressive dark eyebrows and pale skin. Petite would be the word to describe her, he figured, but from what she had said so far, she was more than a little conventional, and even chicken about some things, which didn’t seem to go with her image at all.
After they had spent an hour talking and arguing about their music tastes, Caroline insisted on helping clean up in the kitchen, and she gave him a lecture on how he needed to take better care of the expensive Wedgewood china and crystal supplied for his use. Jay took note of this advice since he had seen somewhere that he had to replace any breakages.
The kitchen conversation soon turned to families. Jay explained that his father had died years ago and things had been tough for his mother who worked from home while he, and his brother Eric, went to school.
Caroline came alive when she described her family life and Jay could easily picture a comfy home with two caring parents and another generation of grandparents and even a great grandmother beyond that. He tried to imagine what it would be like to be enfolded by such close family support, but the small group of his own family, scattered across Canada, could not be more different.
A glance out of the window confirmed Jay’s suspicion that the weather was changing for the better. The clouds were drifting away in a sharp breeze, taking the rain with them. Jay was sure the wind would dry up the remaining dampness and the day would end in sunlight, as had happened more than once during his stay.
Conscious of his promise to convince Caroline to change her opinion about the Lake District, Jay lost no time in starting the process. Despite her initial protests, he talked her into a short walk. This was a trail he had discovered one evening when it was just too nice to stay indoors and he was sure he could follow the same route again for Caroline’s benefit.
They started out walking to the end of the road where The Lakelands complex of flats was situated. The roadway, as Jay had discovered, ended abruptly in a steep path winding down into Ambleside but hidden in bushes was a set of steps heading up the hillside.
Caroline followed him up these stone steps in hopes of an even better view of the town than they had seen from the balcony of number 7, but the path was engulfed in trees and ended in another road with houses on both sides that lay parallel to the one they had just left.
Jay had felt similarly disappointed on his first foray but now he confidently led the way to the right where they soon started a steep ascent on a road bordered by fine homes and gardens. Caroline was about to complain that the effort might not be worthwhile when Jay diverged to the left again and found a sign stating, ‘Public Footpath’. He had discovered these signs were everywhere in both Scotland and England, and inevitably led to some interesting country walks.
The footpath was a grassy lane with a metal sheep gate, which Caroline identified for him, and metal fencing on both sides.
Now that they were off the road and following this path up and down slopes, Caroline began to open up about her life at school and the swimming team that had clearly provided her with the life-saving skills Jay had already witnessed.
As she talked about her school pals, Ashley and Janine, she forgot to object about the hike and soon Jay spotted the second sheep gate which signalled the end of the grass path and opened onto a driveway. On the right, the driveway led to a fenced garden and on their left they could see a public roadway winding still upward with woods on both sides.
This part was quite steep, so conversation stopped while they rounded the curve in the road and saw another boundary of metal fencing. Jay knew they were almost at the best part of this climb so he hustled Caroline along. So far they had seen no one and encountered no vehicles at all. The sounds of birds celebrating the end of the rain were all they could hear.
Just when Caroline was about to give up, they saw a gate into the woods they had been skirting around. Jay had seen a bench just inside the gate and his companion did not need an invitation to flop down on it, remove her heavy rainwear and catch her breath.
Immediately, the splashing of water falling from a great height became the dominant sound. Jay smiled as he saw Caroline being drawn toward the water source, exactly as he had done on his first walk here. He let her discover the waterfall for herself and waited on the bench until she called out to him.
“Jay, look at this! We are standing on the top of a waterfall. What is this place and where does the water come from?”
Jay looked over the guard rail and told her what he had learned from his maps.
“This is called Stock Ghyll Waterfall and it’s a public park leading right into the centre of Ambleside, believe it or not. As far as I can tell, the water flows down the mountainside from much further up and it is full of white fury today because of the rain we had earlier.”
“It’s magnificent!” she yelled over the thundering water. “Can we walk down without having to re-trace our steps?”
Jay was happy to tell her that there was a way to walk down close to the river on their left but there was no path as such, and it involved considerable amounts of jumping from stone to stone. He had tried the route to the right of the waterfall but it led further away from the rushing river and was not so interesting.
“If you watch your step, Caroline, we can get down alright. I’ll lead the way.”
“You had better go slowly, mister. My shoes were not made for this kind of hiking.”
Jay looked at Caroline’s feet for the first time and saw that she was wearing a flat shoe lacking the sturdy sole and boot laces that marked the usual footwear seen on trails in the Lake District.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you had such feeble shoes on.”
“Well, my trainers are in Lake Windermere somewhere and I really didn’t expect to be imitating a goat today!” Caroline sounded exasperated, and Jay hurried to amend his careless statement.
“I’ll carry your coat for you and I’ll make sure you get down safely. I apologize. My mother would be annoyed at my lack of manners.”
This speech mollified Caroline to some degree and they descended slowly with Jay providing a commentary from in front, warning Caroline where to put her feet.
With her head down most of the time, Caroline felt she was missing the best of the park.
It wound down the hillside between forest and river and when the sunlight slanted onto the path the effect was dazzling.
They had been travelling together like this for about fifteen minutes before they saw a man walking his dog. Apart from them, the park could have been hundreds of miles from civilization it was so quiet and calming. Caroline was beginning to doubt that they would emerge into a town centre but when houses appeared on the river’s edge opposite their rocky path, she decided that Jay must be correct.
The lower gate of Stock Ghyll Park soon came into
view and in ten more minutes of walking briskly down a road with no pavement for pedestrians, she could hear cars. By this point her feet were aching and she would have preferred to remove her shoes altogether, but small stones and the occasional glint of glass pieces convinced her to struggle on.
To her surprise, the road did indeed pass the bottom of the very steep path that she had seen at the beginning of Jay’s ‘walk’. Caroline would have liked to go straight up this path and be driven back to the hostel so she could soak her feet in something cool but the opportunity to see Ambleside at last, was too good to miss.
Jay was aware of Caroline’s discomfort and quickly suggested a break for a late lunch.
“We can eat at the Costa coffee shop or at Esquires, which has a bigger menu, or even at Zeffirelli’s pizza café if you want.”
“Which one is the closest?” asked Caroline.
They settled at the Costa and Jay ordered sandwiches and Italian coffees and sweet buns from the counter display. When Caroline reached into her coat pocket for money, he refused her offer.
“My treat!” he insisted. “You can pay another day.”
Caroline did not even protest and knew she was giving tacit approval to more days with her unofficial tour guide.
There were newspapers scattered on their table, so, after her first hunger pangs had been satisfied, Caroline shuffled through the selection till she came to the issue of the local paper Jay had shown her that morning. The photograph was quite small and the article gave a brief outline of the rescue with quotes from the grateful parents.
‘We didn’t get a chance to thank the young girl who saved our Edward.
She disappeared so fast and we just hope she’s all right.
If anyone knows who she is we’d like to thank her in person before
we all leave for home.’
Caroline was glad that the picture showed little of her face and with the condition of her clothes she was reasonably confident that she would not be recognized. Jay, on the other hand, was clearly seen but without his baseball cap he looked quite different. She immediately encouraged him to remove the cap and explained her strange request.
