The Lost Guide to Life and Love (7 page)

After the muggy crowdedness of London streets, there was something unnerving about these moors. So much space; so much emptiness. How did you know where you were or find your way? Or even who you were?

But the fresh air was just what I needed after the encounter with Clayton Silver.

He clearly thought he was so important just because he could kick a ball around a bit. Expecting everyone to be so impressed. Just because he had a nice smile and knew his way round a wine list. But, I had to admit, there was something about him. He was just so…alive. Even when he was just sitting on a bar stool with a glass of wine in his hand, you could feel the energy in the man. ‘Quicksilver,’ they always called him in the headlines. The trouble was that he made headlines not only on the sports pages but elsewhere in the newspapers and celebrity magazines—when he wasn’t scoring goals, Clayton Silver liked to party, usually accompanied by the latest in a long line of gorgeous-looking women. Typical footballer. Overpaid and full of himself. Odd that I should have been in his company twice in the space of a few days—and in such different places—but Clayton Silver was not part of my world and never would be. I put him firmly out of my head.

By now I was nearly at the top of the path. Down below me I could see Matt Alderson buzzing along on the quad bike. Suddenly, I was on the ridge and could see down into the next valley. I recognised it. The derelict buildings, abandoned cottages, that great sweep of landscape—it was a scene from one of Dexter’s photos. An abandoned
industrial scene. At first glance you’d think no one had ever lived up here, ever, but what had Becca said? Like the Klondike. I wanted to go down and explore it, but it would soon be dark. In any case, I didn’t want to roam too far. I was scared of getting lost. I turned back, over the ridge, and slithered back down to the cottage.

Going down such a steep slope was just as much effort as going up. I stopped for a moment, fearing I would go headfirst if I wasn’t careful. My foot had caught in something. I bent down and picked up a small piece of leather with a buckle attached. I turned it over in my hand, wondering what it could be. Too big to be off a shoe or jacket. Maybe it was part of a bag, or maybe even a harness for a horse or pony. I thought of a pony picking its way down this steep and narrow path, a packhorse, maybe, that had come over the bridge. Caught in the buckle was a knot of some material. As I tried to see what it was, it came unfolded and proved to be a short length of cherry-red velvet ribbon. Goodness knows how long it had been scrunched up with the leather. Yet, as it unrolled, it was still cheerily bright and as luxuriously soft as it must have been when it first got caught on the buckle, however many years ago. Odd. I stroked it as I made my way back to the cottage.

Even close up, under the lights, I could tell no more about the bit of leather, the buckle and the ribbon. It was a worthless bit of stuff, I imagined, but I couldn’t throw it away. Instead, I put it carefully on the windowsill with the other finds, my contribution to the house and its history.

I lit the fire again—easy-peasy now I knew what I was doing—but as I curled up on the sofa and gazed into the flames, all I could see was a laughing footballer with a gorgeous grin. I got up and switched on the television. How dare he invade my head?

The photographer carefully placed the last box of photographic plates into the corner of the cart, sandwiched it in with his battered carpetbag and deftly tied down the tarpaulin that covered it all. Once again he checked the buckles and straps on the harness of the sturdy little pony and climbed into the narrow seat.

He longed to be away from the town with its dark narrow streets and the people who plagued him. He yearned for fresh air, open spaces, and subjects for his camera more interesting than the parade of the town’s traders, their fat wives and their spoilt children. Every day the families would come in, sit in the chair, just so, standing behind the pile of books, or the globe or the potted plant or the painted rustic scene which he supplied to furnish the photograph. He should be grateful to them that they enabled him to live well enough to buy the latest new equipment, which fascinated him. But he wanted to use his camera for more interesting things to record for posterity.

He picked up the reins. ‘Walk on, girl, walk on. We’re off adventuring again.’

The cheese-maker took some finding. There was no sat-nav in the van, of course, so I was following the map. Trouble was that some of the roads were so small that either they weren’t on the map or they just didn’t look like roads. And they don’t do an
A-Z
of bits of moors and hills. Finally I crawled up a steep and narrow road with a dry-stone wall on one side and a high hedge on the other. I just prayed I didn’t meet anyone coming towards me because I wasn’t sure if I could back up to one of the passing places.

But it was worth it: the lady was terrific. She and her husband had inherited an old family recipe—the last in existence—for High Dales cheese and had started off making it in a bucket in the kitchen of their city-centre semi. They finally got it right, moved to a farm, made tons of cheese, won awards and made it famous. It was a great story, perfect for
The Foodie.
Even worth putting on the white overall, hat and hairnet I needed to go into the dairy with its rows of cheeses stacked on the shelves. Back in their office, they put a generous plateful of samples of their cheeses out for me to try. I asked questions and scribbled the answers while nibbling at a chunk of light, salty, crumbly cheese. Wonderful. They gave me some samples to take home with me too. Cheese on toast for supper.

When I told the cheese-maker where I was staying and
that I had to call in to The Miners’ Arms to use the Internet, she promptly went back into the dairy and brought me out a huge chunk of cheese, which she wrapped in tinfoil and stuck in the bag with the others she’d given me.

‘Dexter Metcalfe is a good customer of ours and that’s a new cheese we’ve been trying—made with nettles. Give this to him and tell him to let me know what he thinks. He knows his food, does Dexter.’

‘They’re shooting today,’ said Becca as soon as I walked in. She was pulling pints for a group of walkers. ‘Dennis the gamekeeper went past in his smart shooting suit and Len went past with the beaters in the game cart. Do you think they’ll call in afterwards?’

‘Who? The beaters?’ I asked, baffled, not even totally sure what beaters did.

‘No, silly, Clayton and Alessandro.’ I loved the way their names slipped so casually off her tongue, as if she’d known them for ever.

‘Shouldn’t think so. They’ve probably got food and drink enough where they are,’ I replied, cross that she assumed I was just as interested in the two footballers as she was. As if I’d even thought of them at all.

‘Mmmm…It would be good, though, wouldn’t it?’ Becca was going dreamy over the pumps.

‘Becca, they’re only footballers,’ I said. ‘They’re good at running round in shorts kicking a ball. Like small boys, only paid more. They’re not finding a cure for cancer.’

Yikes! I sounded just like my mother. Now that was a scary thought.

While I waited to use the computer, I sat with a coffee—definitely a coffee this time—and flicked through the papers. Despite what I’d been saying to Becca, for the first time in my life, I started with the sports pages. But there were no pictures of Clayton Silver, nor Alessandro. It was
full of pictures of other footballers from other teams who had been playing the night before. I turned back quickly to the main pages, as if I hadn’t actually
meant
to look at the sports pages, skipped over the serious stuff and studied the gossip columns. But there were more pictures of the girl from the nightclub.

‘That Foxy model seems to have well and truly vanished,’ I said vaguely to Becca as I turned the pages.

‘Don’t worry, she’ll turn up,’ said Dexter, grinning as he came up from the cellar with a box of mixers. ‘Just gone to ground temporarily, no doubt. Give the pack a bit of fun.’ He was laughing, as if it were some huge joke. Then he stopped, as though he’d just remembered something. ‘How did you get on with the cheese-maker?’

‘Excellent. Really good. I’ve got something for you. Some High Dales nettle cheese for you to try.’ I took the carefully wrapped package from the bag. Dexter brought some savoury biscuits and a knife from the kitchen and we sat either side of the bar eating slivers of the cheese, which, we decided, was excellent. I felt as if we were already old friends. I watched him as he ate the cheese. He was about ten years older than me, I guessed. Despite his easy smile, his face was lined and lived-in. His jumper might be shapeless but it had once been good, like the shirt he wore underneath it. At one time he’d clearly had an eye for good clothes. It was a big leap to go from being a successful photographer to a publican in the middle of nowhere. I wondered what had brought him back.

I asked him about his photographs, especially the one of the valley I’d seen the evening before.

‘I sometimes feel as if the place is full of ghosts,’ he said. ‘As if all the people who’ve ever lived up here are still here; as if they’ve never left the dale. I waited hours for the light to be right for that picture and when I printed it up I almost
expected to see ghosts in the pictures—the old lead miners, farmers, the Vikings. Even the Romans. As if they couldn’t get away. Like me,’ he laughed.

‘Did you not get away?’

‘Oh, yes. Not much choice really. After college, I went to Leeds to work for an agency, then I had a few years in London, doing more and more work for myself, my own projects. Then I got married and moved up to Manchester…’

Married? Oh, maybe he wasn’t gay after all then.

‘…but then my marriage fell apart.’ Oh. Maybe he was…

‘…and then my dad died and I inherited this place. It had been let out for years. I didn’t really know what to do with it. But my wife—ex-wife—wanted her share of the Manchester house—like, immediately. She is one scary woman. So we sold that. And I was just wondering what to do, where to go, and then the tenants moved out of here so I thought I could spend the money doing this up. Have a sabbatical. Otherwise known as coming back to lick my wounds. Finding yourself orphaned and divorced in a matter of months concentrates the mind a bit. I needed time to think. And this seemed the best place to do it.’

He looked suddenly embarrassed, as if he’d said too much. I tried to think of something cheerful and positive to say.

‘You seem to have made a good job of it. The pub, that is.’

‘You think so? Thanks. I’m really pleased with the way it’s going. It’s just…well, it’s hard to get out taking pictures when you’re supervising builders, and talking to brewers and sourcing food and hiring staff. I want to make a go of this, but I want to get back to the day job too.’

‘But you’ve only been going a few months. In a few
months more, you’ll really be established, then you can take up the day job again as well.’

‘Yeah, well, I hope so. Still, this always used to be a pub. Had a terrible reputation years ago, but then it closed and there’re no pubs in this end of the dale. One or two café, but not much for tourists and visitors. We want to bring money into the dale and this seemed one way to do it. Of course, it’s cost a lot more money, time and effort than I ever thought possible. But yes, I’m back.’

‘For ever?’

‘Who knows? For now at least.’

‘Back where you started.’

‘No, not really. Not even that.’ He looked sad for a moment. ‘Because while I’ve been messing up my life, other people have been moving on with theirs. Out of reach. And now it’s too late.’

‘It’s never too late,’ I said encouragingly, if rather fatuously, nodding at the sampler on the wall.

‘Sometimes it might be,’ he said, and shrugged and went into the back, returning with an armful of logs.

Oh dear. There was obviously a lost love in his past, but I didn’t know him well enough to enquire further. Sitting there at the bar, trying bits of food, just as I had yesterday, I noticed that Becca looked up hopefully every time the door opened, but it was just the usual groups of walkers, cyclists and people out for afternoon drives. I sent some texts, checked my emails, treated myself to a bowl of soup and a baguette. It was comfortable and cosy in the pub, but I had to go. I had the cheese-maker interview to write up. And it was getting dark.

‘If you get lonely up there, you can always come down in the evening, for a bit of company,’ said Dexter as he threw another log on the fire. The wood crackled and the sparks shot up. ‘Not so many visitors in the evening. More locals.’

‘Nice thought, but I’ve got work to do. Anyway, I’m not sure I would like to go through the ford or up that track in the dark.’

‘There’s always someone who’d give you a lift back up—if you don’t mind the back of a pick-up or a quad bike.’ He cleared my plates away and, with a wave to Becca, I went out into the gloom.

This time, drunk on neither wine nor exotic footballers, I managed the ford without any problem and PIP roared up the track. Already the house felt like home. I switched on all the lights, made myself a strong coffee and settled down to work. First of all I looked through my notes, marking good quotes, underlining parts, linking passages. Usually I worked in the office or at home with Jake to distract me. It’s amazing how much more work you can get done when there are no distractions.

Soon I opened up my laptop and started writing. The words flowed and the piece almost wrote itself. I finished the rough draft. That would do for tonight. I’d read it again and polish it in the morning. Like soup, a piece was always better when you’d left it to cook for a bit. I switched off the laptop, yawned and stretched. It was ten o’clock and I was suddenly hit with a wave of loneliness as well as fatigue.

If I’d been at home now, working at the table by the window in my little sitting room, Jake would probably have been there, working on his own laptop or sprawled on the sofa, flicking through the news or sports channels. He’d have brought me a glass of wine, maybe a little plate of cheese and biscuits or some hot buttered toast. And when I’d finished working, I would have cuddled up against him on the sofa.