‘Mam!’ one of them screamed at Nesta, seeing through her disguise.
SIXTEEN
It was the wrong time of year for a holiday. But it was a beautiful time of year. It was nearly Christmas.
A fine mist was rising in the valley, forming a wreath sprinkled by the fairy lights of the village. Getting dark, frost setting in.
Liz was standing at the very top, on a rock, gazing up and then down. She was proud at having conquered vertigo. She wore a heavy anorak, thick trousers, hiking boots. Her toes were cold.
She heard Cliff scrabbling behind her. He thought she must be in a mood. ‘What did Penny have to say?’ he called.
‘We missed a good wedding, apparently. We were invited, as a couple, even though we’ve never met the bride or the groom.’ She watched her breath crystallise. Cliff came to join her at the top. ‘God, I feel like Heathcliff,’ she said.
‘But where is he when you want him?’ asked Cliff. By now he knew nearly all her jokes.
‘The council let them use the two boating lakes in the park. Can you believe that? They used the park in November for the reception. Penny said that the bride sat in a yellow canoe to throw her bouquet ashore. She said it was a scream; two pensioners in bridal dress paddling round and round the lake while everyone clapped. We should have been there.’
‘We should get married.’
‘Now, Cliff,’ she admonished, smiling. ‘You know we can’t.’
‘You,’ he grinned, ‘can fool anyone.’
‘I think we should be getting back.’
He was shivering. ‘You’re right. Before it gets pitch black.’
‘No. I mean home.’
‘Oh.’
‘Although it sounds as if everyone’s moved in with Penny. That Andy and Vince and God knows who else. Oh, well.’ She turned to see the way they had walked up. Cliff persisted.
‘I was serious. About us getting married. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.’
‘Like that dog thing. Mm. They’d all think I was a woman till I was knocked down in the street and they saw up my dress. Why can’t we just stay sinful?’
‘So long as we do.’
‘Fuck the beholder, dear. Look at me. What am I?’
‘Wonderful.’
‘We know that, love. I mean, look at me now. Am I a man or a woman?’
Cliff opened his mouth to speak. Liz was dressed for hiking, in his clothes. The hood was over her face, over her hair. She nodded.
‘Imagine I’m by myself. This isn’t our town. With no one here to see me I’m neither a man nor a woman. Up this mountain nothing is imposed on me. I like it like that. I get to choose. I get to choose when there’s no one else here.’
She stepped off the pinnacle and led the way back to the rocky path. ‘I’m an exhibitionist. I’m a tart. I need to be looked at. But I needed to be here, to be not looked at, too.’
‘But I’m looking at you,’ Cliff said.
‘So you are.’ They walked on down the hill in silence. ‘But I’m still not marrying you.
SEVENTEEN
On Christmas Eve the council sends a van round every street in town. The back is twined in fairy lights, daubed in red paint and stuck with cotton wool. One of the bin men is dressed up and seated on the top and he is driven around to say Merry Christmas to all the kids. The kids are let out in their dressing gowns to tell him what they want the next morning.
Vince and Andy and Penny remember this ritual. From Penny’s window they watch the kids in their street being taken out. Fran and Frank with their lot, Jane and Peter, Nesta and Tony with Vicki and the baby. Vince and Andy and Penny will never have kids.
Just afterwards, another van pulls up. This is their van. A furniture removal van. They rush out, locking the door behind them.
Ethan is seated in the cab, married now for less than a month, happy to see them, glad of their help. They sit with him in the cab and laugh at themselves. They are off on an adventure.
Ethan parks on the wasteground near the Burn. Near, Penny slyly points out, Narnia. They have a lot of work ahead of them. They realise this when Ethan opens the back of the van and they peer inside by moonlight. The van is crammed. They take a deep breath and start work. It takes till after midnight.
When the van is empty and it begins to snow, they all troop down to the magical dell and, with secret, shared smiles, discover their completed handiwork.
The magical dell is full of animals, little and not so little. They are dusted off and, in the brightness of the moon, scabby no longer. No longer shopsoiled and rotting. And all of them are facing away from Narnia. Vince starts to laugh and the others follow.
Ethan, poised on the brink of the dell, ushers them all down. They wander through the maze of little creatures, laughing. Real little creatures are coming out to see the display, glaring wonderingly at the owls, the squirrels, the leopard and snakes. These are false. These shouldn’t be here. But they are immovable.
The animals will stay here. The snow that is falling gives them a certain grace; meant to be here. Daubed by the same brush, painted into the same scene.
And the ash tree in the centre of the glade is growing apples. Perversely they grow in threes.
Vince and Andy and Penny start to pick apples, laughing and crunching at the crisp red flesh.
Liz was the perfect passenger. she never drove, though once she could. She left it all to Cliff and made no suggestions, no criticisms. When he passed her the map, the day they came to the mountains, she looked at it and it was a different language. He was expecting her to tease out their route, but she
