THREE

      The rain was beating down with tremendous violence now. The car’s wipers could hardly cope. The windows steamed up. Nobody spoke. It was hard to believe we were in the same area as we had been for the past few days. Only the ease with which the earth was drinking up the downpour told of the sunshine we had enjoyed since the start of the week.

      I had been beset by doubts and guilt feelings throughout the train journey, though Peter’s infectious excitement and delight had helped to convince me I was doing the right thing. But once we started the holiday proper, the perfect weather and the beauty of the landscape made London and Janet seem a thousand miles away.

      I had booked rooms in an hotel south of Keswick overlooking Derwentwater. Our plan was to spend a few nights there, then to move on where the fancy took us. We had come equipped for walking and our belongings were all packed into a couple of large knapsacks of rather old-fashioned design. They went well with the walking-sticks and stout brogues we affected as a corrective to the pretensions of the lederhosen-and-climbing-boots brigade.

      We quickly established a pattern, walking all day, taking a packed lunch with us, and returning to the hotel for dinner, followed by an hour in the bar. It seemed impossible that anything could interrupt the perfection of the weather or the even tenor of our existence.

      Nothing did until our last night at the hotel, and that was more comic than disruptive. At least so it seemed in retrospect.

      We got drunk. We had no intention of doing so. It just happened. Perhaps we were getting fitter and no longer felt the need to fall into bed well before ten.

      The bar was crowded that night. The hotel itself was packed and there were also some drinkers from the youth hostel about a quarter of a mile down the road. Some of them looked very young to be there. I received a cheery wave from one blond-haired, open-faced lad of about eighteen. I recalled he and his friends had overtaken us coming down off Glaramara that afternoon. We had been resting by the track as the boys strode by, arrogant in their youthful fitness. I had to admit their shorts had certain advantages in this weather. They had obviously found us a little amusing and a line of laughter had drifted back up the fellside. At least they had had the courtesy to contain it till they were almost out of earshot.

      I waved back and looked for a seat. A couple of girls stood up nearby, revealing very short shorts and these long, tanned, flawless, and somehow sexless legs that go with them.

      ‘Are you going?’ I asked politely.

      One spoke to the other in a language I did not recognize. The other grinned and they moved away. I sat down and waited for Peter to fight his way from the bar with the drinks.

      ‘Where tomorrow, b’wana?’ he asked. ‘I rather fancy a bit of the briny. All these mountains can press rather close.’

      ‘All right,’ I said equably. ‘We’ll trot along to Seathwaite, scramble up Scafell and drop down into Eskdale. There we’ll catch a train to the seaside.’

      ‘A train?’ queried Peter. ‘In the middle of nowhere? And what about our walking resolution?’

      ‘This train is just like walking,’ I said firmly. ‘And you’ll have had enough by the time we reach it. Let’s have another drink.’

      This time we managed to catch the eye of one of the barwaiters. He was only a youngster. To my surprise, Peter seemed to know him.

      ‘Hello, Clive,’ he said. ‘Bring us a couple of Scotches, will you? Harry, this is Clive. He’s reading Modern Languages at Bristol.’

      ‘And when did you strike up that acquaintance?’ I asked after the boy had left us.

      ‘I have my methods,’ he said, smiling. But I got the impression he was taking careful note of my reactions.

      We sat drinking till midnight. It wasn’t till I stood up that I realized how drunk I was. Peter staggered against me and giggled.

      ‘Shall we dance?’ he said.

      I wasn’t that drunk.

      ‘Let’s go to bed,’ I answered.

      ‘Don’t rush me,’ he said.

      I pushed him out of the door ahead of me.

      ‘Can I help?’ asked Clive from the bar, a look of concern on his face.

      ‘No, thanks. My God! What’s that?’

      It was the dinner-gong being struck with unprecedented violence. The air seemed to shake against my ear-drums.

      ‘J. Arthur Rank presents!’ cried Peter, and brought down the hammer once more.

      I forget the exact content of our interview with the manager, a small, fleshy-faced man named Stirling. I remember walking side by side with Peter up towards what looked like a great poppy-field of faces, red with indignation, which peered down from the hotel’s two landings.

      I laughed myself to sleep.

      I think our fragile state in the morning might have induced us to spend another day in Borrowdale after all, but now it seemed politic to leave. We paid our bill, shouldered our knapsacks, and strode away with great dignity. Once out of sight of the hotel, however, we laughed so much we had to sit by the roadside till we recovered.

      Then we set off in real earnest, to cover as much ground as we could while the sun was still relatively low. It was obviously going to be another very hot day. Soon we had removed our jackets and tied them, rolled, to our knapsacks. After only half an hour I had suggested that we should abandon our notion of going up Scafell and should merely admire it from afar. Our plan was to go up Styhead, cut across to Sprinkling Tarn and thence via Esk Hause to drop down into Eskdale.

      We stopped for a rest. Ahead towered the immense crags of Great End, above us to the right was the stony sharpness of Great Gable. Welay back and looked behind us down into Borrowdale. Far below I could see the minute figures of half a dozen other walkers. A bird sang violently overhead for a minute, then was silent.

      Peter stood up and peered down the slope, shading his eyes with one of his extraordinarily large hands.

      ‘Can’t you rest?’ I asked.

      ‘No,’ he said, and moved between me and the sun. For a second he seemed strangely menacing. Then quite close I heard the sound of boot on stone. Peter swung round. Approaching us were the blond-headed boy and his friends. They passed quite close.

      ‘Hello again,’ I said. ‘Warm enough for you?’

      ‘Yes indeed,’ he said.

      Peter said nothing and watched them out of sight. He obviously wasn’t going to settle, so I stood up and put my knapsack on.

      ‘Come on,’ I said.

      We didn’t stop again till we reached the top of the Hause (the top, as far as we were concerned, being the lowest point at which we could cross!), where we rested again before the descent which I knew could be more strenuous than climbing up. Peter regarded it as a kind of bonus, however, and let out little cries of excitement as he rushed away in front of me, carried on by his own weight and momentum.

      I shouted at him to be careful, then laughed at myself for sounding like an old woman.