Sharon Griffiths - The Lost Guide to Life and Love

By now I was nearly at the top of the path. Down below me I could see Matt Alderson buzzing along on the quad bike. Suddenly, I was on the ridge and could see down into the next valley. I recognised it. The derelict buildings, abandoned cottages, that great sweep of landscape—it was a scene from one of Dexter’s photos. An abandoned industrial scene. At first glance you’d think no one had ever lived up here, ever, but what had Becca said? Like the Klondike. I wanted to go down and explore it, but it would soon be dark. In any case, I didn’t want to roam too far. I was scared of getting lost. I turned back, over the ridge, and slithered back down to the cottage.

Going down such a steep slope was just as much effort as going up. I stopped for a moment, fearing I would go headfirst if I wasn’t careful. My foot had caught in something. I bent down and picked up a small piece of leather with a buckle attached. I turned it over in my hand, wondering what it could be. Too big to be off a shoe or jacket. Maybe it was part of a bag, or maybe even a harness for a horse or pony. I thought of a pony picking its way down this steep and narrow path, a packhorse, maybe, that had come over the bridge. Caught in the buckle was a knot of some material. As I tried to see what it was, it came unfolded and proved to be a short length of cherry-red velvet ribbon. Goodness knows how long it had been scrunched up with the leather. Yet, as it unrolled, it was still cheerily bright and as luxuriously soft as it must have been when it first got caught on the buckle, however many years ago. Odd. I stroked it as I made my way back to the cottage.

Even close up, under the lights, I could tell no more about the bit of leather, the buckle and the ribbon. It was a worthless bit of stuff, I imagined, but I couldn’t throw it away. Instead, I put it carefully on the windowsill with the other finds, my contribution to the house and its history.

I lit the fire again—easy-peasy now I knew what I was doing—but as I curled up on the sofa and gazed into the flames, all I could see was a laughing footballer with a gorgeous grin. I got up and switched on the television. How dare he invade my head?

The photographer carefully placed the last box of photographic plates into the corner of the cart, sandwiched it in with his battered carpetbag and deftly tied down the tarpaulin that covered it all. Once again he checked the buckles and straps on the harness of the sturdy little pony and climbed into the narrow seat.

He longed to be away from the town with its dark narrow streets and the people who plagued him. He yearned for fresh air, open spaces, and subjects for his camera more interesting than the parade of the town’s traders, their fat wives and their spoilt children. Every day the families would come in, sit in the chair, just so, standing behind the pile of books, or the globe or the potted plant or the painted rustic scene which he supplied to furnish the photograph. He should be grateful to them that they enabled him to live well enough to buy the latest new equipment, which fascinated him. But he wanted to use his camera for more interesting things to record for posterity.

He picked up the reins. ‘Walk on, girl, walk on. We’re off adventuring again.’

The cheese-maker took some finding. There was no sat-nav in the van, of course, so I was following the map. Trouble was that some of the roads were so small that either they weren’t on the map or they just didn’t look like roads. And they don’t do an A-Z of bits of moors and hills. Finally I crawled up a steep and narrow road with a dry-stone wall on one side and a high hedge on the other. I just prayed I didn’t meet anyone coming towards me because I wasn’t sure if I could back up to one of the passing places.

But it was worth it: the lady was terrific. She and her husband had inherited an old family recipe—the last in existence—for High Dales cheese and had started off making it in a bucket in the kitchen of their city-centre semi. They finally got it right, moved to a farm, made tons of cheese, won awards and made it famous. It was a great story, perfect for The Foodie. Even worth putting on the white overall, hat and hairnet I needed to go into the dairy with its rows of cheeses stacked on the shelves. Back in their office, they put a generous plateful of samples of their cheeses out for me to try. I asked questions and scribbled the answers while nibbling at a chunk of light, salty, crumbly cheese. Wonderful. They gave me some samples to take home with me too. Cheese on toast for supper.

When I told the cheese-maker where I was staying and that I had to call in to The Miners’ Arms to use the Internet, she promptly went back into the dairy and brought me out a huge chunk of cheese, which she wrapped in tinfoil and stuck in the bag with the others she’d given me.

‘Dexter Metcalfe is a good customer of ours and that’s a new cheese we’ve been trying—made with nettles. Give this to him and tell him to let me know what he thinks. He knows his food, does Dexter.’

‘They’re shooting today,’ said Becca as soon as I walked in. She was pulling pints for a group of walkers. ‘Dennis the gamekeeper went past in his smart shooting suit and Len went past with the beaters in the game cart. Do you think they’ll call in afterwards?’

‘Who? The beaters?’ I asked, baffled, not even totally sure what beaters did.

‘No, silly, Clayton and Alessandro.’ I loved the way their names slipped so casually off her tongue, as if she’d known them for ever.

‘Shouldn’t think so. They’ve probably got food and drink enough where they are,’ I replied, cross that she assumed I was just as interested in the two footballers as she was. As if I’d even thought of them at all.

‘Mmmm…It would be good, though, wouldn’t it?’ Becca was going dreamy over the pumps.

‘Becca, they’re only footballers,’ I said. ‘They’re good at running round in shorts kicking a ball. Like small boys, only paid more. They’re not finding a cure for cancer.’

Yikes! I sounded just like my mother. Now that was a scary thought.

While I waited to use the computer, I sat with a coffee—definitely a coffee this time—and flicked through the papers. Despite what I’d been saying to Becca, for the first time in my life, I started with the sports pages. But there were no pictures of Clayton Silver, nor Alessandro. It was full of pictures of other footballers from other teams who had been playing the night before. I turned back quickly to the main pages, as if I hadn’t actually meant to look at the sports pages, skipped over the serious stuff and studied the gossip columns. But there were more pictures of the girl from the nightclub.

‘That Foxy model seems to have well and truly vanished,’ I said vaguely to Becca as I turned the pages.

‘Don’t worry, she’ll turn up,’ said Dexter, grinning as he came up from the cellar with a box of mixers. ‘Just gone to ground temporarily, no doubt. Give the pack a bit of fun.’ He was laughing, as if it were some huge joke. Then he stopped, as though he’d just remembered something. ‘How did you get on with the cheese-maker?’

‘Excellent. Really good. I’ve got something for you. Some High Dales nettle cheese for you to try.’ I took the carefully wrapped package from the bag. Dexter brought some savoury biscuits and a knife from the kitchen and we sat either side of the bar eating slivers of the cheese, which, we decided, was excellent. I felt as if we were already old friends. I watched him as he ate the cheese. He was about ten years older than me, I guessed. Despite his easy smile, his face was lined and lived-in. His jumper might be shapeless but it had once been good, like the shirt he wore underneath it. At one time he’d clearly had an eye for good clothes. It was a big leap to go from being a successful photographer to a publican in the middle of nowhere. I wondered what had brought him back.