walk to clear the head
Despite spending more time together these days we’re quite independent. Well, you’re independent. Other than family and the occasional wild-camping trip, I seem to have bent my whole life around you.
It means sometimes I find you upset and you don’t want to talk about the reasons. It took me time but I learned how to give you a little emotional support without overstepping and trying to solve your problems for you.
The tyres crunch gravel as we angle into a parking spot. The car park is almost deserted, just a couple of cars nestling under overhanging trees.
You stare morosely out of the windshield. The passenger seat gathers the fat of your bum and flanks and applies gentle pressure. That and the way your belly sits on your thighs gives you the feeling of a cuddle.
“Can I stay here?”
I look about us. Scrubby grass on one side, drifts of trees on the other. Not the loveliest view, despite what’s five minutes away.
“If you really want to, sure, Rey.” I reach and give your hand a squeeze. “There’s something special not far in that direction. But then there’s something special here, too.”
I give you a lopsided smile. You don’t look, away somewhere else. I take in the curve of your jaw, little touched by the soft flesh that fell upon the rest of you.
You squeeze my hand back belatedly. “No, we drove out here.”
You don’t wait for me to open your door or take your hand.
It’s a five minute walk I stretch to ten minutes by insisting on picking an umbel of hawthorn flowers and seeming to get distracted by foraging. The evening is growing thin. Late summer sun leaks from the sky, leaving behind yellow and rose. The tops of the trees turn to gold.
You inhale deep. Natural smells: moist leafmold, green wood from where a tree toppled under its own weight, the distant warm smell of sheep; all of this grounds you a little. A second breath brings the scent of distant charcoal smoke, my aftershave, picnickers.
“Come on,” I say, after surreptitiously checking my watch. “It’s this way.”
The earth slopes upward in irregular columns of grey stone, then falls like a crashing wave onto the valley below. We stand together in silence on the crest of the high cliff, watching ruddy sunlight pour over fields and a little cluster of houses, tiny in the distance. The sun is so low we can watch night fall by inches.
You reach out and take my hand, this time.
There is a rustle of a plastic wrapper. I present you with a bright blue cylinder you’ve seen me wield once before.
“Biscuit?”
You take the one proffered, eyes still drinking in the landscape we tower over. The wind drifts towards us, leisurely over the ground but pushed upwards by the cliff face so it tugs at our clothing and makes your skirt dance.
You taste chocolate and oats. It makes you realise you’re hungrier than you thought. Absently you put out a hand, expecting and receiving the packet.
When you hand back the empty packet I am wearing a strange, soft smile.
“… What?”
My response is to flash a grin then drop my backpack to the ground and rummage. You don’t clock what I’m doing till I present to you a beige gem in a white paper bag.
“Pork pie?”
“You soppy fool.”
You take the bag and give its contents the same brief scrutiny you did on the summit of Ingleborough. If you were to guess, you would say I had lovingly packed four ham sandwiches, two bags of crisps, bananas, granola bars, and a twin pack of sausage rolls.
I see a smile flicker on your lips before you bite. My arm drapes around your padded waist and squeezes you against me. Together we watch the sun set and take a break from the world.