‘Hey,’ he said when he heard. ‘That’s too bad. But you’ll get her back over.’
It was a statement, rather than a question.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘I’ve chilled out a good bit since she went away.’
‘You’ll want to see the kid, anyway.’
Again I knew he was right.
The rain was pissing down, so KC didn’t look its best, but Tony fell for it, drenched as it was. He kept saying, ‘This is real neat!’ and started on about the possibilities of hunting. He seemed surprised I hadn’t been out blasting the local wildlife. ‘Why, I bet you could hunt squirrels right in back here,’ he said, looking up at the oak spinney.
‘Oh, yeah. There’s plenty of them. Rabbits too.’
‘Who’s the gardener?’ he asked, surveying the unkempt forest of vegetables.
‘Kath. I haven’t a clue. Every time we speak on the phone she tells me to do this or that — earth up the spuds or thin out the lettuces — but I just don’t have the time.’
Indoors, the first thing Tony saw was a photo of her and Tim, taken recently in fine weather on the shore of Strangford Lough, with a background of water and smooth green islands. Kath was wearing a blue check dress and Tim, in a pale blue T-shirt and grey shorts, was standing on a stone wall, so his head was nearly level with hers. The picture had arrived only the day before, and I’d stuck it on the mantelpiece in the living room.
‘But she’s beautiful!’ said Tony. ‘And so’s he. Some kid, that. What is he now? Three?’
‘And a bit.’
‘You sure must be proud of them.’
I made some noncommittal noise and went into the kitchen to open a window. The whole cottage smelt stuffy. Tony realized the place was in a mess — I watched his dark eyes checking things, saw him run a finger through the dust on the table-top — but he was too tactful to say anything about it. I poured a couple of Scotches and we settled down for some crack.
‘So how’s things?’ he asked.
‘Improving. I had a low patch when I couldn’t get myself together at all. I was getting bad headaches and recurring nightmares about Iraq. I went on the piss — but I was so zonked I couldn’t even bring myself to go downtown with the guys. Instead I was buying cans of Stella, twenty-four at a time, and drinking them here on my own with Scotches in between. But I’m over that now. No more headaches. Nightmares gone. Everything’s fine, except for this damned course.’
‘What’s that?’
‘This language course. There’s a possibility of a team job in Colombia, so there’s ten of us learning Spanish.’
‘No kidding! You realize Spanish is my first language?’
‘I knew you spoke it.’
‘Sure do. My mom and dad always talked Spanish at home, and I grew up with it. I expect it would sound like shit to people in Madrid, but it’s Spanish all the same.’
Looking out of the window, he fired off a rapid sentence. ‘Get that?’
‘Only that it was something about the weather.’
‘Correct. I asked if it always pisses with rain during the British summer.’
‘¡Siempre!’ I had to think. ‘¡Sin falta!’
‘Boy! You got it!’
‘I fucking haven’t, Tony. That’s the trouble. I’m finding it a real hassle. Our final tests are coming up in a couple of weeks, too.’
‘Well. You just gotta fight and get through them. I guess I’ve been fighting to survive ever since I was a kid.’
Soon we made a plan. Tony was already very fit; on the initial stages of the selection course, over the Welsh mountains, he would have little trouble in purely physical terms. But I knew what a help it would be to him if he learnt the routes over the Brecon Beacons in advance: that way, he would have a big advantage if the weather turned bad or fog came down. So I offered to walk some of the ground with him, and in return, while we were tabbing, he would give me informal Spanish lessons, to increase my fluency and confidence. The deal suited us both.
We were still talking as dusk set in, and I began to wish I’d done something about supper. Over the past few weeks I’d been picking up takeaways on my run home, or else making do with a jacket potato baked in the microwave. Now I remembered that in Iraq, as we ate shitty rice and lusted after our favourite dishes, Tony had described how he liked to cook.
‘You hungry?’ I asked.
‘Sure.’
‘Want to try your hand in the kitchen? I don’t know what there is, but have a look.’
A search in the cupboards revealed nothing but a few tins of baked beans and a packet of spaghetti. Fuelled by the Scotch, Tony launched a tirade against my housekeeping.
‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed. ‘There ain’t enough here to feed a goddam mouse! You can’t have been shopping in decades. No garlic. No tomato paste. No chilli. No nothing.’
Our prospects improved when he found a bottle of olive oil and a tin of anchovies in the larder. He went into the garden with a torch and returned with a bucket full of spinach, the dark green leaves glistening with rain. Soon we were eating fishy, oily, peppery spaghetti, which we pretended was a traditional Puerto Rican recipe, and spinach pureed with butter, salt and pepper, which I had to admit was outstanding. Tomorrow, Tony promised, we would pay a joint visit to the supermarket and put the kitchen in order.
Three days later we drove out to the Beacons. In his regular training Tony had started to hump loads in his bergen: he hadn’t been used to it, but I told him it was essential to build up slowly to the 55 lbs that he would have to carry during the four weeks of hill-walking which formed the first part of the selection course. For our first recce, however, we took only light day-sacks containing a couple of sandwiches and a water bottle apiece.
Needless to say, rain was falling, and the clouds were touching the tops of the mountains. I parked the car in a lay-by on the B-road that runs along the side of the Talybont reservoir, so that we could get a look at the map while we were still in the dry. Tony had a hell of a pair of boots — high-leg, black leather Matterhorns lined with Goretex — and as he was lacing them up I twisted the map round until it was aligned with the compass.
‘On test week you’ll be walking all round this area,’ I told him, pointing with the blade of my clasp-knife. ‘We’ll start off up the side of the wood here, and get on to these ridges. This is the first part of the Endurance route, and you do it at night, starting out at 0300. Once you get on to the high ground the going’s easy. It’s just a matter of snaking round the ridges. You’re aiming for the summit of Pen-y-Fan… here. Highest point in the Beacons, and the centre of our universe. It’s said that every guy in the Regiment has the outline of the Fan graven on his heart.
‘What we’ll do is come round the ridge here, across the feature known as the Windy Gap, then up a horrendous climb known as Jacob’s Ladder. You almost have to use your hands to go up. The path’s been eroded out of the clay and you’re on the edge of some jagged rocks, which fall away to your right. On Endurance you’re supposed to average four ks an hour, but on the ladder you come to a grinding halt. That’s why you have to run down the hills. In fact, the guys start jogging the moment they get on to any downward slope.
‘Anyway, the ladder takes us up the back of the Fan to the summit. Then we drop down here, skirt round the flank of Corn Du and head for the obelisk… here. After that we swing away on this path, and come down to the Storey Arms on the main road. Used to be a pub, but now it’s an outdoor education centre. Cross the road, and we’ll climb up on to Fan Fawr. The spot height there’s one of your check-points, and it’s quite difficult to find. The course then takes you right away to the Cray Reservoir, in the distance to the west, but we haven’t got time for that today.