Cath Staincliffe - Witness

‘I can’t go out there yet, anyway,’ Joe said as he pulled up outside Fiona’s house. ‘My kids live with me and there’s no way on God’s earth they want to move to France.’

He had kids! ‘How old?’

‘Seventeen and fourteen, girl and a boy. Never a dull moment.’

‘Tell me about it. Owen’s sixteen and I keep wishing we could flash forward a couple of years, people say they improve again.’

‘Hah!’ He laughed. ‘I’m still waiting.’ The sage green eyes shining, lines crinkled at the corners.

She didn’t want to get out of the car, she wanted to keep talking. ‘I guess Manchester has a lot going for it: clubs, bands, uni. Why would they want to give up all that for a backwater in rural France?’

‘Exactly. Tuesday, you’ll be all right if I meet you there – now you know the way?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you bringing anyone with you?’

She was surprised, it had never occurred to her.

‘You’re allowed: a friend, a supporter, someone to hold your hand.’

‘I want you to do that,’ she said softly.

His face stilled, he blinked, dropped his eyes.

She’d misjudged it. Oh, God. She felt awful, riddled with hot shame and embarrassment. ‘Sorry, that was-’ she stumbled over her words – ‘I shouldn’t, please-’

‘It’s all right,’ he said, looking at her.

‘Unprofessional and-’

‘Fiona, it’s all right.’ He caught her gaze, warmth in his again. ‘I’d love to hold your hand. But that will have to wait till this is all over.’

She felt like squeaking, running. There was a trace of a smile around his mouth. She was giddy and guilty, blood singing in her veins.

‘Thank you,’ was all she said.

She’d actually taken the whole day off and it was only lunchtime. She was restless, itching to do something, work off some of the febrile energy fizzing inside her. A day like this, bold with sunshine, was so rare she wanted to make something of it. Even if September yielded an Indian summer, the sun would be lower in the sky, the air softer, the sting of heat gentler.

She made a sandwich and ate it on the move, gathering things together. She called Ziggy and put him in the back seat. Left a note and sent a text to Owen: there was pizza in the freezer.

She no longer used the car to go to work but was comfortable driving again; she’d done some supermarket trips and driven across town to a training seminar but not any further yet. Now she refused to start worrying about whether she’d cope with a longer journey. She was still taking the pills, she reminded herself, and it was nearly three months since her last attack.

The road out of the city to the south-east was always busy; the traffic sped up along the intermittent stretches of dual carriageway then slowed to a crawl as they were funnelled through the narrower parts. She took the turning for the High Peak, climbing out of the valley and up past the big houses close to Lyme Park, the country estate. Out along the road which zigzagged the side of the hills, she admired the tubs and baskets of flowers that spilt bright colour in front of houses and shops. She had all the windows down and Ziggy stood with his nose out, his eyes closed against the rush of air. Why did dogs do that, Fiona wondered, they all seemed to like it. Was it some race memory of life on windswept plains, did it mimic the thrill of running?

It took her almost an hour to reach the parking spot, in the fold of hills. She changed into her walking boots and rubbed sunscreen on her face and arms. She kept Ziggy on the lead for the first part of the walk. The track led up across farmland and there were sheep in the fields: given half a chance he’d have bounded after them, a game to him but a recipe for heart failure for many a sheep.

Fiona’s calves, the backs of her thighs, ached as the incline grew steeper, the path now climbing between two old dry-stone walls, the slabs of rock encrusted with lichen and here and there tiny violets and thyme growing in the crevices.

She stopped to get her breath, looking back the way she had come. The hillsides were vivid green, the grass as smooth as suede. The few trees that were above the valley stood sentinel, heavy with foliage, alongside the field walls. In one field she could see a tractor at work and the round bales of hay, small as wooden toys. There was a little mere too, the sun glinting on the water in silver stripes.

When they had climbed over the stile into open country, she let Ziggy off the lead. He meandered ahead of her, head down, in an ecstasy of scent trails. Here purple heather and close-cropped turf quilted the peaty soil and cotton grass danced, white feather-heads shivering even though Fiona could feel no wind. Rushes and reeds marked the boggy parts of the moor. A ridge ran from this point for a couple of miles due south. Huge limestone boulders lay tumbled along it, riddled with fissures and holes, the legacy of centuries of wind and water. Fiona heard the spiralling song of skylarks and spotted a pair high above.

She walked along the ridge, following the path as it snaked between the stones and through small streams where hart’s tongue fern lapped at the water’s edge. She let her thoughts roam as free as she was. Ruminating upon Joe. Was he interested in her? In a relationship? He said his children lived with him, was it a permanent set-up? It sounded like it. What had happened to their mother? Had she left? Divorced him, died?

Jeff had left her for another woman. The hurt of that had never really gone away. Shelley was right, it had shadowed the relationships she’d had since and made her cling to her independence. If she didn’t give them much then little could be taken away. But it was a half-life however much she tried to make of it. In time, and not so long from now, Owen would go out into the world. She would be alone. Walking the dog, delivering babies, climbing hills. It wasn’t enough. She wanted more, she wanted love and intimacy.

Joe seemed interested. I’d love to hold your hand. But that will have to wait till this is all over . He might be stringing her along, happy to let her believe there might be more to come so she would do her best as a witness. That possibility and the suspicion behind it rankled with her and she scolded herself. When her thoughts lit on the trial, the pleasure she felt at seeing Joe again was dampened by a wave of anxiety. She felt the squirt of panic in her stomach, the clamouring of her mind. She was dreading it. She quickly drew on the CBT techniques that she’d learnt. Stood still and focused on her physiology, her breathing, the set of her muscles, and derailed those responses. It worked; she stopped the panic from growing, from devouring her.

She walked on another mile and found a natural picnic area, a bowl surrounded by a horseshoe of rocks. She took her rucksack off and lay down, stretched out on the grass, wriggling until she found the most comfortable position. Ziggy ran to her and sniffed at her face which tickled and made her laugh. She pushed him away.

The sun was warm on her skin and even with her eyes closed the world was full of light. She could still hear the fluting cadence of the larks and fainter, further away, the piercing, eerie cry of a hawk. She rubbed the palms of her hands over the springy tufts of grass and smelt the sweet, peaty aroma of the earth. She was drifting, lulled into a doze with the warmth and peace of the place.

An aeroplane woke her; she blinked and scanned its jet trail chalked through the blue above. Ziggy was lying a little way away, head on his paws. Fiona sat up and got the water bottle from her rucksack, drank deep. She threw Ziggy a dog biscuit, then ate the apple she’d packed.

The rest of the route took her to the end of the ridge and down through a forested valley, sown with conifers and oak, rowan, silver birch and beech trees, the ground underfoot crunchy with beech mast and pine cones. They passed a waterfall which roared over a cliff and thundered its way on to a plateau of large stones below. Twisted trees and huge ferns at either side of the force were slick with green slime. Fiona sat and watched the sheets of water for a while, the mizzle of spray settling on her hair and clothes. Ziggy drank from a pool near the bottom. They tracked the stream back to the road, the way dappled with shadows from the trees and the golden sunlight.