Uphill

We were still on the flatter part of the climb so I refused to hear her breath getting heavier with each step.

“I’d forgotten it looked so beautiful,” I said, fishing for a reason for us to rest for a bit.

“How could you forget?”

Despite the noticeable pauses between each of her words, I could still detect the amusement in her voice.

“So many memories of this place,” she said.

Below us, sand and fields spread round the estuary and the winding tongue of the river that lapped at the crashing sea. I rubbed the sweat off my brow. The late August air still held its heat. I knew this view by heart. It was magical place to me but it was her I chose to watch instead. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat that hid most of her blonde curls. Her hair had always been wild so it was no surprise to me that a few untamed strands poked out from beneath the hat. She wore a sundress tied with two bows over her bare shoulder. Her skin was soft and pale, having seen even less of the sun this year than the previous summers. I smoothed over the creases of the jacket I wore over my white tee and shorts. Watching her dress shimmer softly in the breeze made me wish I’d worn something more elegant. Perhaps a watch would have helped. Instead I had a hairband wrapped around my wrist too tight. I could tell it was starting to leave a mark.

“I didn’t think about sunscreen,” she said.

I took off my jacket.

“Put this over your shoulders. It’ll protect from the sun. Also, there’s a tube of it in the pocket.”

I helped her put on the jacket. I had been quietly cooking under it and was glad to be rid of it. I knew she was supposed to keep out of direct sun as much as possible, so I’d brought my jacket along for this express purpose. Hopefully I’d not had had it on too long. I was worried the inside would be sweaty and the cool touch of the wind on my damp back seemed to confirm this. The sleeves came down past her wrists and only her fingers poked through. She gave me a little wave with them and giggled. It was something she always did whenever she wore any of my clothes.

“Shall we press on?” she said.

“Are you sure, you’re able to?”

“Of course, it’s not a hill that going to stop me.”

She said it lightly, but she did not fully meet my eye, nor I hers. We walked in silence after that, our feet crunching on the rocky path.

“Do you remember, when we first came here?” she said.

It was a relief to finally see the summit. She had stumbled a couple of times on the climb and it was getting harder for us to pretend she hadn’t.

“That was years ago.”

“Well I still remember it clear as day. It was Tommy who brought us here of course. His brothers used to come here and... I can’t remember what they did back then, only remember that they used it as a hangout as teens. The way we did afterwards. Anyway, do you remember Tommy was so excited to show us this place, he couldn’t stop talking about it for the entire week leading up to it. It would grow in size every time he talked about it. We thought there would be snow at the top by the end. We must have been twelve then. It was the first summer my parents really let me out alone. Well so long as I was with you, at least. We came here whenever we could, do you remember?”

She paused and threaded her fingers under her hat to scratch her head.

“You know what,” she said, “I think you’re the only person I’ve been here alone with.”

I smiled, it was the same for me.

“Shall we take a break here,” I said. I could hear her breath getting heavy again.

“Why would we need to do that? We’re almost at the top.”

We were. Above us the rocky path gave way to an undulating plateau of tall, wild grass that shimmered tantalisingly in the wind. The final metres of the path steepened hard and I offered her my hand. She hesitated, then refused it.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“What if you fall?”

“Sam, you know we shouldn’t do this. But don’t worry, I’ll be more careful this time.”

The rejection had stung was made worse by the helplessness of watching her struggle. When she paused it was to give me that smile of hers which, once full of joy, had made room for regret.

“They buried treasure.”

I had been waiting to say it. The conversation had stopped whilst she focused her efforts on reaching the summit and I jumped at a chance to strike it up again. From our new vantage point the meandering river beyond the jagged cliff edge now appeared even smaller than before. The wind was stronger up here though I noted that it was still not able to drown out her panting.

“I’m sorry?” she said.

“Tommy’s brothers, you said you couldn’t remember what they did when we first came here. They buried things and called it treasure. It was stones mainly, but also bottles and anything else they could find. Do you remember? Then they would then hand draw a map and mark the spot with an x. They’d invariably end up losing the map but since they buried their treasure in the same holes, they could always find it.”

“You do remember!”

I smiled and pointed out some of the spots. She was having to hold her hat in place now, for fear of the wind taking it from her. The wind had whipped her hair loose so that it floated in and out of her face. I noticed there was less of it than there had once been.

“Want to give me that?”

She handed me the hat. I held it from the inside so that I could touch the warmth where her head had been. When we sat and I had a vision of younger versions of us sitting in the same place. Kids, teens, young adults, we had always sat here together. But that all felt like a long time ago now.

“I wonder sometimes,” I said. “I wonder sometimes if moving away was the right thing.”

“Of course it was. Look at how well you’ve done for yourself.”

I shrugged.

“I would have liked to have sat here more often. Together.”

“We did so whenever you came back.”

“Maybe we would have come here more, though.”

“You did the right thing,” she said, turning to me, “there are no jobs here. Besides that’s not the reason we don’t come here as much.”

A strong gust of wind whooshed past us. It’s sustained blowing cut my breath and for an instant I was worried about her but she shrieked in delight, her hair flowing in her face.

I took the hair band off my wrist and handed it to her.

“How come you were the one to think of this? Thank you. Oh but your wrist!”

“It’s nothing,” I said, rubbing it in an attempt to remove the mark the hair band had left. “Remember how you used to always complain about not having one. The wind would always get your hair in your face.”

“Yes! It used to infuriate you,” she said. “You couldn’t understand how I always forgot them.”

“Because it made sense.”

She laughed.

“Did it ever occur to you I never brought one of purpose because I enjoyed how much it would you up.”

“I should have known,” I laughed. “I’ll take that back then.”

“Too late.”

She tied up her hair in a pony tail with the band. I reached out for it playfully, she swatted my hand away and then again until we were laughing and I was holding her hand. She responded with a soft squeeze that sent my heart fluttering.

“Thank you,” she said at last. “For bringing me up here, I wasn’t sure I would ever see this place again.”

“Of course you would.”

Another gust swept over us again. I felt her hand tighten around mine and she plunged her other one into the pocket of my jacket she was wearing. I had a tendency to burrow away anything I had into them and forget. I was hoping there weren’t any used tissues left around when I saw something paper-like flutter in the wind.

She gave a shout. It had flown out of the pocket when she had removed her hand from it.

“Stay there. I’ll get it,” I said jolting to my feet and storming after it. A couple of times the paper rested on a tuft a grass a few paces from me, scurrying away as soon as I got close. I had to dive to finally catch it, which earned me a round of applause and a giggle.

“What is it?” she called.

“It’s nothing, just a receipt,” I said. It was for the hair band I had bought a couple hours earlier.

“From some place exciting?”

“No, just the hospital shop.”

I sat back down to her, leaning back on my hands so that I had an excuse to leave my hand near hers. The receipt made me think of the shelves of assorted items in the shop. They had been spaced out in a way that left large gaps of bland white walls making it look empty and impersonal. It was the same decoration used in the hospital rooms upstairs. It made me glad that people had kept decorating her room with flowers but I felt guilty at the part of me that wished mine had been the only bouquets.

Her hands rested resolutely in her lap. I sat up straight to shift my weight away from my arms so that I could reach for her hand with mine.

“Sam,” she said as she shook her head. “You know you shouldn’t it will make everything more painful in the end.”

“I know,” I said. “But let’s just pretend. Let’s just pretend it’s like it was before. Before we found out about you and that thing inside you. Before everything became so damned complicated. Before everything felt like an up hill struggle.”

But the thing is about before times is that we always think they will last.