Guilt Trip

by Maggy Farrell

I opened an eye. One missed call: from Dad. But then a text appeared. He was reminding me what day it was. Saturday: the Fox and Hound’s annual trip to the Cauldron pothole.

  I groaned and tried to sit up, only to collapse back onto the bed again. My head was thumping and my throat was desert-dry.

  Eventually I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans.

  Once in the bathroom, I removed all traces of panda eyes with a cleansing wipe, and, ignoring the déjà vu, I cleaned my teeth, scrubbing hard at my dry, white tongue. I stood, looking in the mirror, mortified as I ran through the night before. How I’d openly flirted - no, thrown myself at Luke on the way home. What had I been thinking of? He was in his thirties for God’s sake.

  A fully-grown man having to look after a stupid, drunken teenager. I bet that impressed him.

  My only consolation was that he hadn’t witnessed my later behaviour, standing at that very sink. My pathetic little fantasy.

  I cringed, hating myself.

  <><><>

  Downstairs, the place was full of outdoor-types tucking into hearty breakfasts in preparation for the long hike up onto the Devil’s Lair, to the Cauldron. I gulped, feeling queasy, as the smell of fried bacon wafted towards me.

  Dad was already eating. “Morning, lazy bones,” he said, pouring me a cup of tea. “Ready for a fun day?”

  I smiled half-heartedly. The last thing I felt like doing was tramping up onto the fells just to be lowered into a huge pothole on a swing. But Dad wasn’t to know that. And I definitely didn’t want him finding out about my behaviour last night, so it was important to keep the hangover hidden from him.

  When Sandy placed a big plate of fry-up in front of me, I looked at the grease glistening on the sausages, the runny yellow yolk of the fried egg oozing across the plate, and felt nauseous. But we had a long walk ahead of us, so I stuffed as much of it down as I could. And by the end of my second cup of tea I was actually feeling a lot better, apart from my pounding head.

  All through breakfast I kept my eyes down, dreading the moment when I would see Luke. But when he did show up, he was too busy addressing the crowd even to notice me.

  “As it’s been raining hard practically all night,” he began, “I was a little worried that we might not be able to descend into the Cauldron this morning, but I’ve just been in touch with the guys up there now and they say it’s fine. The beck, which flows into it as a waterfall, is higher than normal, but as most of it’s being diverted away from the opening by a dam, that shouldn’t be a problem. So, let’s say we meet out the back, in the car park in ten minutes?”

  Everyone cheered and lots of chairs were scraped back as people started packing up, getting ready to go. I winced at the noise, touching my aching head.

  “You okay?” Dad asked, but I said I was fine.

  “Sure you want to do this?” he asked. “I mean, after last time…”

  I hurriedly assured him that I did. That nothing was wrong. That the fainting spell in the caves was a one-off. A thing of the past.

  “That’s the spirit,” he said proudly. “Like falling off a horse - you’ve just got to get straight back on.”

  <><><>

  It was a raw, fresh morning when we congregated in the car park, our breath visible in the cold air. Everything was still damp from last night’s rain, the colours clean and vivid; but the sky was still overcast. Luke handed out photocopied maps so that no one would get lost, and then stood with his clipboard, checking us off as we filed past him, out of the car park and onto the lane. I managed to avoid his eye as I passed, and he simply kept on doing his register, not even pausing to say good morning.

  So that was it. Clearly he’d had enough of me. And who could blame him?

  We were quite a crowd, maybe forty or more people, of all ages. But, inevitably, some quickly forged ahead while others took their time, and so we became quite spread out as we followed the lane, eventually passing over a wooden style into the fields and down a rough footpath which, after a few miles, began to incline, twisting and turning, up and up and onto The Devil’s Lair.

  It was hard going trying to keep up with Dad’s long strides, especially the way I was feeling, and soon I was lagging behind. At first, he kept jollying me along and even waiting for me to catch up, but eventually he fell in with someone he knew from the gallery, busy talking about photography, and didn’t notice that he was leaving me further and further behind.

  And so I walked alone through the vast, harsh landscape which had been carved out, eroded and scarred over millions of years by vast, icy glaciers and blasting winds.

  And I thought about Luke. About how I must have seemed to him last night. A silly child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes, running after the first person to pay her any attention, to show her any pity.

  I was pathetic. Hideous. No wonder he was keeping well away from me.

  But then, suddenly, he was there, beside me. And he seemed to be smirking.

  “Ah, Miss Williams,” he said, falling into step with me, “feeling all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning are we?”

  “Yes, thank you.” I couldn’t believe it. He was walking beside me, laughing and joking. Maybe everything was okay between us after all.

  “I don’t know…you looked a little green around the gills at breakfast.” He laughed, loudly.

  So he had noticed me then…

  “But I’m fine now,” I said, pretending to wince at the pain in my head. “As long as people keep their voices to a normal volume.”

  He laughed again. “A headache eh? Well - that’ll teach you a lesson. I guess next time you won’t be so daft.”

  Daft? I cringed with humiliation at his word choice. It made me sound so silly, so immature, so childish. Was that really how he thought of me?

  Rolling my eyes dramatically, and tutting loudly, I put on a ‘stupid’ voice to cover my embarrassment: “Yes, Sir! Sorry, Sir!”

  But it was the wrong thing to do. Luke had apparently been prepared to joke about it all at first. But now that it seemed I hadn’t learned any lessons from the experience, he grew more serious. I guessed he saw it as his responsibility, as the grown-up, seeing as Dad knew nothing about it.

  “Look, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong in having the odd glass of something now and again,” he said. “Of course not. After all, I do run a pub. But there’s nothing funny about getting into that state.”

  That state. Again, I was stung by his choice of words. Though he’d been kind to me the night before, he’d obviously found me repulsive. And, though I couldn’t blame him for that, the truth was painful to hear.

  But he wasn’t finished yet. “Christ, Mel,” he looked at me, “you’ve seen first hand what too much drink can do to a person. It’s disgusting. Why would you want to go down that road?”

  I stared at him, horrified. Was he talking about Dad? About the night he’d drunk too much at dinner?

  Yes - just like the others in the pub that night, he was sitting on his throne of superiority, judging my father. Criticising him.

  I couldn’t believe it. It was one thing to lecture me: I deserved it. But not Dad.

  “Have you no sympathy?” I cried, amazed. “I thought that you of all people would understand. The man just lost his wife!” I looked at him. Surely he could put himself in Dad’s shoes? “Just like you lost Billie.”

  Billie. I’d spoken her name at last. And doing so gave me a sudden feeling of liberation. I could almost feel it in the air, carried by the gusting wind, hear it echoing across the hills.

  Billie…

  He stopped and turned to me, his expression severe. “What do you know about her?” he said.

  “Nothing,” I admitted. “Just…just that she died in an accident… like my mum.”

  “No, come on. There’s more to it than that,” he said angrily. “You’ve hinted at this before, asking me about a waitress with a daughter. You’ve been listening to gossip haven’t you? Scratching arou
nd, trying to dig up any dirt. You think you know all about her, don’t you.”

  “No, I don’t!” What did he mean - I thought I knew all about her? I couldn’t believe he was getting so angry over this. “I told you - I don’t know anything about her at all!”

  We began walking again, Luke forging ahead, so that I had to hurry to try to keep up with him.

  But I couldn’t stand this ‘silent treatment’ for very long. It seemed so ridiculous. “But what if I did?” I began. “What if I knew every little detail about her? What would it matter? Why does Billie have to be such a big secret? I mean, you know about my mum. Why am I not allowed to know anything about Billie?”

  He stopped abruptly, his face distorted with anger. “Stop saying her name,” he growled, his voice barely able to contain his fury.

  So now I knew for sure. Luke still loved Billie. And in his eyes I wasn’t even good enough to mention her name.

  Jealousy, hard and ugly, reared up inside me.

  “Why?” I said, my voice getting even louder. “Why should I?”

  He stuck his finger in my face. “I’m warning you,” he scowled.

  Warning me? Warning me? Was this guy for real? I couldn’t believe the way he was behaving. Treating me like a naughty child, scolding me, warning me not to say the name of his precious girlfriend.

  Well - I’d show him.

  And so, head up and jutting my chin out, I looked him square in the face and said it, big and bold, my mouth revelling in the formation of each letter.

  “B-i-l-l-i-e!”

  I’d gone too far. Of course I had. But I couldn’t possibly have stopped myself. It was a complete gut reaction to the situation. An instinctive response. It was as if the jealousy inside me was a raging wild animal, striking out, and I was powerless to stop it.

  I’m not sure what I expected to happen next. Something big, obviously.

  But Luke just stood there, looking at me, his manner cold and detached. Then he shook his head as if disappointed in me. As if I wasn’t the person he’d thought I was. As if he wasn’t sure that he knew me at all.

  “You need someone who cares enough to teach you some manners,” he said, almost under his breath.

  And with that, he turned away from me, trekking back down the path we had just travelled. I watched him calling cheerfully to a couple of stragglers far behind, encouraging them in their attempt to climb the steep, rocky terrain.

  And so he left me, alone and devastated.

  But there was nothing for it: I had to keep going. So, as the sky above slowly blackened, I stumbled on through the cold, brutal landscape, trying to fathom how we had come to this.

  And there was time enough to replay the scene a hundred times in my head. And to regret my part in it. My words. My word. ‘Billie’. With that single word - that name - I had hurt Luke irrevocably, sending him away from me forever, back to the arms of a dead girl.

  And so I stumbled on, weeping for all I had lost - his laughter, his kindness, his comfort - my tears dried by the blasting wind.

  19

  When my destination finally came into view, it looked more like a campsite than anything else: a few tents belonging to the people in charge, a couple of off-road vehicles, and lots of people hanging around.

  I spotted Dad waving me over, and headed towards him.

  Once I drew closer, I could see the Cauldron itself - a large gaping hole in the ground over one edge of which a small stream flowed. Next to the hole some machinery had been erected. This was the winch, which was already in operation, taking people down one by one into the vast pothole below.

  I joined Dad who was standing around like everyone else, discussing the colour of the sky, hoping rain wasn’t too imminent.

  When Luke turned up, he checked that everyone was present and then supervised the doling out of coffee and slabs of fruitcake which had been driven up by Land Rover from the pub. But not once did he look my way.

  Snack over, Dad and I wandered upstream, clambering about on the rocks and looking at the view. We had loads of time to spare as Dad had arranged to go down last so that he could take his time with his photography.

  After a little while we came to two corrugated metal sheets which had been secured across the water by metal poles, like a temporary wall.

  “That must be the dam,” Dad said, pointing out how, though some of the water was still getting through, making its way to the Cauldron, most of it was flowing off in a different direction.

  One of the guides came up behind us and had a look.

  “Just keeping an eye on it,” he told us. “Making sure it’s all holding up after last night’s rain. You wouldn’t want to try a descent with all that crashing round you.”

  As time wore on, the morning grew even darker, huge clouds amassing in the skies above us. It was quieter now, many people heading off as soon as they’d ascended from the pothole, keen to get back to the pub before the rain started.

  Finally, it was our turn. Dad signalled for me to go before him, but I shook my head.

  “No. You first,” I said, looking at the sky. “Just in case it starts to rain and they call a halt to the day. It’d be awful if you missed out after waiting all this time.”

  Dad didn’t put up much of a fuss, desperate to get down inside the ground. I watched him collecting his camera equipment, which had been driven up with the food from the pub. Then, fastening his hardhat, he walked down the gantry, put on a climbing harness and attached himself to various safety ropes with metal carabiner clips. Not for him the winch. He was going to abseil down, so that he could get closer to the cave walls and could stop whenever he found something interesting. Once he was securely fastened on, he began to walk backwards over the edge, pulling a silly face at me as he lowered himself into the darkness below.

  As he disappeared from view, I looked back up at the sky. It had started to spit now. Good. You see, I’d lied to Dad: I wasn’t really worried that it might rain; I was hoping that it would. I wanted the winch to be turned off, the rest of the day cancelled, and everyone sent home.

  But it wasn’t simply nerves about being suspended one hundred metres in the air over a sheer drop. It was more than that. This was the first challenge since my trip to Hell’s Mouth. My fainting fit. And I was terrified of what might happen. No matter how big, the Cauldron was still an underground cavern. Somewhere to feel trapped and enclosed. Somewhere where the sound of the water falling would echo and magnify around me. And then what would happen? What voices might I hear? What visions might I see?

  Looking up, I spotted Luke wandering off upstream. He’d been busy all morning helping the potholing club with various tasks. He seemed to be in his element here, and was obviously good friends with the team. As I watched him walking away, I wished I could put the clocks back. Erase time. Go back to our afternoon playing crazy golf. When he still liked me.

  I touched my necklace, fingering the amethyst drop, remembering how he’d bought it to comfort me in times of emotional upset. How ironic.

  But now the signal came that Dad had finished his descent, so the entranceway to the pothole was once again free. It was raining a little more now, not heavily, but enough for the guides to have a quick discussion about whether to abort this last ride. I stood on the steps, hoping they would, but then the guy on the gantry smiled and beckoned me over.

  “Just time for one more,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you to come all this way for nothing.” He handed me a hardhat with a light at the front, making sure that I tightened the strap properly, then pointed to the little seat surrounded by a metal frame - like a cage. I sat down nervously and he lowered a metal bar in front of me, clipping me in.

  “Fold you arms across your chest, love, so you don’t bash your elbows going through the trap door,” he said. And then he pulled a lever and the floor underneath me slid to one side to reveal the depths below.

  I looked down. Its name fitted it perfectly: it was exactly like looking into a dark cauldron, its
content black and unfathomable, the misty cloud of spray from the waterfall bubbling up like the smoke from hell.

  And then I began to descend.

  At first I was travelling through the round funnel of the pothole - like the neck of a bottle - daylight still able to reach here, allowing ferns and wild plants to grow from the walls. But the lower I went, the darker it became until the walls were bare of all vegetation, just cold wet limestone, glistening in the light from my hardhat.

  Though the waterfall, which flowed to my right, was a fraction of its real capacity, its echoing noise was still loud. I gripped the metal bar in front of me, gritting my teeth, waiting for the ride to be over. Willing myself to keep in control of the situation. Forcing myself to stay alert, in the here and now, and not allow my mind to slip back in time, to the accident.

  And it seemed to work, for I was still in the present as the funnel widened out and I emerged into a huge cavern lit by dim, artificial lighting. I heard a voice calling out and looked past my dangling legs to see a small figure a hundred metres below me: Dad.

  I shut my eyes, wishing I hadn’t looked down. The height was dizzying. I felt vulnerable, hanging here on my thin, metal seat.

  And then something happened. A cry of horror. A sudden violent rocking of my cage. And a torrent of icy water thundered down from above, completely engulfing me, filling my eyes and mouth, and sending me lunging wildly down under its pounding force.

  And then suddenly the cage stopped falling, jolting to a stop as the winch’s emergency break-action kicked in. But now I was trapped inside the waterfall, bouncing from pillar to post like a strange metal puppet dancing on its string.

  “Help me…!” The scream filled my head as the water filled my mouth, but whether it was my mother’s or my own I couldn’t tell.

  <><><>

  I was semi-conscious by the time they managed to winch me back up to the surface. And there was Luke, standing on the gantry, anxiously waiting for me. Unfastening me from my metal prison, he took me into his arms.