Dangerously Healthy  - Copyright © Malcolm Birkenshaw [List all 43 Chapters]

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Chapter 11.

`What a damned stupid thing to do,' I churned in my chair,
still dwelling upon yesterday's cycling catastrophe. Things had
looked a lot better after that sherry but today I mused through the
window, watching a blackbird hopping and hoping, hoping and hopping,
leapfrogging all over our lawn, cocking an eye each time it stopped,
watching for grass movements, signs of worms close to the surface
before striking to whip out a meal for its chicks. A sort of fly-in
Macdonalds, but the worm hung onto the earth - its home as well as
the bird's take-away counter, stretching longer and longer until
market forces made it too thin for its hole and the fat bird grew
fatter, the small guy lost out. The environment? Well, there's
always plenty more where that came from, but its beak was too full
of chopped worm for it to whistle the answer.

`Damn yesterday,' I shuffled again, and an arm fell off the
chair. `Is this my lot, never to run again?... strenuous exercise
forever resulting in physical collapse - perhaps even leave me
permanently crippled?' Not that the pain and discomfort bothered me,
I could endure anything if it was going to help. `But what if I'm
pushing myself, considering my age, running the risk of heart damage
or something?'

`That's all right,' my doctor rested his stethoscope, after
checking circulation and blood pressure, `You're not an athlete,
y'know,' he unwrapped the sphygmomanometer from my arm. `Forget any
ideas about increasing your performance,' he scribbled some notes on
my records. `Whatever you do you must never tire yourself....That
doesn't mean you need stop enjoying life,' he added quickly, putting
down his pen. `Get out with your family, buy each of them a bicycle
so they can look back with pleasure, remembering the days before you
become unable to get around any more.'

Buy them all a bicycle! He must be joking, I'm out of work, no
income, and broke. `His advice must be wrong,' I repeated all the
way home - all my days in hospital, planning a recovery, were not to
be abandoned so lightly. `True, yesterday's ride was a calamity, but
at least it was much further than ever before, and all because of
patience whilst training had led to a gradual improvement - until 
that bloody hill. I'll have to be more careful in future, taking
more time developing muscles,' I steered the car into our drive and
the sparrows took to the air to the tree whilst blackbirds scuttled
under the hedge; someone had been throwing out scraps so they were
ready to flit back once I was indoors.

`Hi,' I called out, upon entering the kitchen, my mind musing
busily - for the time being my bike better be locked away, just in
case the doctor was right, although by the way my legs were feeling
he had no need to worry for yesterday I'd had a bike-full of staring
at slow wheels turning for hour after hour.

`Can I have your bike, now that you've finished?' John was
quick to write me off.

`It's too big,' I was just as quick to nip that idea in the
saddle. `Besides......,' but if I said more it would reveal that I
was more ill than he thought.

`Can't I have it for when I get older, then?' Perhaps he
suspected more than his age would suggest for he forced home my
disadvantage, then disappeared.

That's unusual, the lawn needed cutting. He enjoys driving the
mower, starting its engine, provided I let him cut patterns rather
than steer in straight lines, leaving it to run amok on its own,
catching up, just in time, swerving it away from a tree or wall or,
worse still, clip the evergreens standing sentry to Mildew's garden,
the obsession of an old misery who lived at the back. He's made his
point, I suppose - no bicycle, no mower.

`Be like that,' I shrugged off his grass roots revolt, `I'll do
it myself,' being in need of the exercise now that my bike was
garaged away...... Trouble was, the mower proved to be faster than
me, threatening to race away and demolish the boarder then race on
towards Mildew's - we were already in trouble after Claire's rabbit
had eaten her chrysanthemums.

`How about a rotary model, Sir, one to be pushed,' the cycle
man doing a sideline in mowers during summer whilst his bike stand
from Christmas was dormant - in winter his wife sold wellingtons and
raincoats in the shop next door, and knickknacks to tourists
throughout the rest of the year.

He was right, it did solve the problem, and it also provided an 
alternative therapy, testing my reflexes by tripping me up with its
cable entwined round my ankles. `Still, better the shock of a fall
than to cut through live wires.... But,' I wondered, `Would a charge
of electricity sent up my nerves wake them and help my condition?'

`Here's a cup of coffee,' Lena signalled, offering a less
spectacular stimulant, unable to make herself heard over the whine
as I grappled against gravity when the mower slid off the lawn and
started to carve into the border.

`A switch in time saves nine,' I thought, twisting the
accelerator to "stop" before whirling blades ploughed on past
Mildew's eighth evergreen, inciting her to chunter mystical
incantations as it endangered the ninth when, like a hydra-headed
cyclops, and hair bristling with rollers, her all-seeing eye watched
all through a parting in the twigs.

`Good idea, your timing's just right,' I rose to my knees,
stretching and standing, rocking a bit, in need of a rest. `Here?' I
queried, pointing towards where Lena had moved two picnic chairs
into the sunshine, and sagged into the one with a history of
collapsing, sinking to a precarious angle, threatening to test my
reflexes again. `It's all right,' I laughed, placing my trust in the
mustard seed, drinking from a beaker before its contents ebbed,...
if Pisa could stay upright so could I. `But why?' I switched muses,
`Why should today's heat leave my feet still numb and cold? Perhaps
it also had something to do with circulation,' I rubbed my legs,
grass falling away from my socks. `Or nerves, or nerves and oxygen,
or ... Oh, what the hell,' having finished my drink I made to get
up.

`Stay a bit longer' Lena spread out a car rug, suggesting that
work enough had been done for the moment.

I hesitated, tempted to take her advice. `But I mustn't,'
suspecting I might fall asleep before having done enough exercise,
`If muscles won't work without nerves, then nerves won't get better
without muscles.'....... But she was deaf to my theories.

When the grass cutting reached our silver birch the job was
half done. `Should I rest, and take the doctor's advice.... or best
do a bit more in case he was wrong?' my reasoning silenced by
concentration as I hung onto the mower's handles, balancing whilst 
pushing. `Just a bit more,' I kept urging, though this time
remembering to rest with increasing frequency.

I fell back into my chair, the rough and the smooth having been
mown until all was mediocre, but it finally collapsed, my legs as
dead as the chair, useless, finished. Yet, despite this numbness,
they were beginning to tingle - a healthy kind of tingle. `Anything
worth watching on television tonight?' I looked up, saying the first
thing to tumble out of my mind which might assuage Lena's alarm.

`A film, again,' she picked up the paper, its back page also
sprayed with grass cuttings. `But it's one we missed. Made soon
after Claire was born,' she brightened up, perhaps satisfied that
whilst I remained tumbled onto the lawn I was resting.

A motor horn sounded in the lane. It was the greengrocer's van.
`Get some cabbage, please,' I raised my head to quickly call before
Lena was too far down our drive - just an ordinary drive over a dike
with its thriving hawthorns, not a long and winding one, but the
noise of chattering birds and a perennial tractor would require any
slow call become a shout.

`What kind?' she looked at her list.

`Green.... As green as possible.'

`That's not very imaginative.'

`I read an article, by a research doctor. He said the darker
the pigment the better.' Quite a coincidence, me liking spring
cabbage, lightly cooked. I wondered if it would help? `Chlorophyll,
it's an anti-oxidant, in plants, photosynthesis, and all that...'

By the end of the evening my legs felt rested and cured. But
they only felt cured, things being different when I stood up to
move. Still, they seemed to be recovering more quickly than when I
cycled to Molly's and Seth's. `If that's the case, tomorrow I'll
attack the rest of our lawn,' or "wilderness", as Mildew, her
without chrysanthemums but with rollers, would chunter in
tight-lipped silence whenever she peeped through that strategically-
engineered window which she had parted in her evergreen hedge.

By Thursday even the verge had been mown, plus my legs were
continuing to improve. `But I can't cut grass for ever,' I whinged,
never having been a gardener, not since those days when my brothers
and I were conscripted into weeding Father's rose garden after 
school once a week. `Anyway, Lena, this lawn's not big enough if a
disabled man's got to do what a fit man can do.'

`Go for a stroll, then,' she shrugged, turning onto an elbow
from her flat-on-her-back reclining position, wanting to think about
anything other than problems or work during a week when there was a
sun in the sky.

`It's so boring,' I mumbled, chin in hands, face half cocked in
her direction, fed up at not being able to risk walking further than
up and down our lane. `I suppose I might try using the bike again -
only so far as the cricket field, mind you,' I tacked on in haste.
`There'll be somebody there, for cricket practice, every Tuesday
night.'

An ice age advanced across Lena's face as her north-easterly
blew. `What if you're injured, getting too near the ball. Haven't I
got enough on my plate?'.... She was always complaining about having
a husband who did stupid things, despite his incurable disease, but
this was too much.

I agreed, but would be careful, obviously, to please her,..
and pedalled away rather than argue. She would never understand, at
least not until I had proved what I was aiming to prove, and a
chorus of rooks circled and cawed in agreement above the high trees
along Chapel lane that ran in the lee of our village.

They were already training, some men in white, when I arrived.
There was a spare ball, lying frayed and abandoned. `Do you mind if
I join in?' I asked, bracing myself for rejection. They turned,
looked at each other, embarrassed to say what they thought.

`Sure, help yourself,' an older man unlocked the silence, the
only man with a cap, from days when he played in a higher league,
`It's only a practice,' his seniority forestalling any objections.
The last time they had seen me was as a slow bowler, or was it
medium, or fast? What would it be this time - surely not a bloody
under arm? Questions raced over their faces as I limped to the
wicket. I turned sideways, unable to run, and whirled my arm over.
Somehow the ball set off in the right direction, a surprise to me
and a surprise to the batsman. He was mesmerised, waiting for me to
fall over; but I was still tottering at the half fall when the ball
passed his bat, hitting his wickets. His eyes remained mesmerised 
that death rattle sound as leather fells wicket - as final as a
hangman's trap - impaled in his ears.

Magic, bloody magic, everything was not gone after all. I
continued to bowl and, just in case being out to me was due to some
kind of transplant, nobody risked trying to hit me out of the
ground. Or were they just being kind, saving me the long totter to
the boundary to search for the ball?

`Get your pads on,' somebody shouted.

`No, thanks. I'm having a rest.'

`Go on, it'll do you good,' encouraged another voice... was it
the man I got out looking for a chance to get his own back?

I wedged myself upright - before each player bowled, with legs
and bat forming a tripod.... all very stable until I lifted the bat
leaving me one tripe short of a tripod, the inevitable result being
there was less than a second for prodding the ball before tripping
over. But the tactic worked, and five minutes later I was still
there with the bowlers feeling progressively less sympathetic
towards the disabled, sending the ball faster and faster until one
flew off my bat to the boundary. That felt good, just like the old
days, apart from me still having to pick myself up.

This time nobody offered to help, in fact the lad whose ball
had been dispatched tried to knock off my head next delivery with a
short one.... `Too good to miss,' my instinctive reaction,
forgetting my problem, taking a luxurious swing which smashed it
into the sunset.... or would have done, had I not missed, my legs
woven into impossible knots whilst heeling over. `Never was any
bloody good at hooking,' I laughed, seeking sanctuary in the funny
side, which was my normal reaction ..... Besides, what else could I
do? A quandary of silence embarrassed the ground for they were
again at a loss for something to say.

`Got to hand it to you, you're not going to be beaten, are
you?' that old timer threw me his cap, despite knowing like me that
it wasn't the sunshine. Pax, we were learning more of each other as
I filled with gratitude and a germ of humility began to mature -
didn't they realise I was enjoying myself?

When my turn was finished I rested, tingling, bubbling with
euphoria, unable to resist another chance of a bowl, yet very soon 
ran out of legs like upon that ride to Molly's and Seth's. `You
all right?' they were becoming concerned.

`I'm fine,' I walked leaning against the boundary rail, still
bent upon hiding my incapacity.... otherwise they'd see me crawling
over grass to reach my bike.

Blackbirds were competing as twilight approached. Feeding time
was over, each song rivalling the other's song, one proclaiming from
the highest branch, another perched upon a naked telephone pole,
their territory jealously guarded for tomorrow. `How good that
sounds, still,' I mused, the trees silhouetting into a crystal
brightness as the clear sky's changing light displayed its spectrum,
and felt at ease, having rested sufficiently before freewheeling
home, glowing. My exercises had been in short bursts and, what is
more, I'd been enjoying myself. I should remain eternally grateful
to those players. They had confirmed me upon the field to recovery.

From then on I turned out every practice night and my
improvement continued, even travelling to the Castleford Gilbert and
Sullivan Society on Fridays for training - not at singing, of
course, they were only short of cricketers, but they had feet as
flat as my voice and perhaps I made their worst players look
that bit better.... until we went to the pub afterwards where they
hit the hard stuff whilst I remained on shandies, then we all looked
tarred with M.S. when staggering home.

Day after day my confidence increased as reflexes started to
return. Lena said, `I'm going to start playing tennis, again,'
having got herself invited to a private court belonging to a farmer
in the next village. She felt it was about time she took her share
of nights out.

Its surface was new, with fresh nets to match. `Last year's
bumper harvest paid for this lot,' he chuckled, removing his racket
from an old battered bag.

`Off-set against tax.... the net for catching pigeons eating
your sprouts?'

`Well, you've got to draw the line somewhere, haven't you?' he
hitched up his well-worked corduroys. `Anyway, point is, I need
somebody else to play against,' he winked, `I'm tired of beating my
wife.' With Lena's arrival he could play singles against doubles and 
beat two women at the same time.

Yet even this additional crop of victories soon began to lose
its macho appeal. He wanted a fourth person, somebody male, but not
very good. `You'll fit the part,' he called me over when I was
collecting John for his tea. `He's already had it.' Besides, he now
had the foursome he wanted, Lena and I losing against him and his
wife.

Different muscles were awoken as I relearned moving backwards
and sideways, although still being unable to run. Were my nerves
healing, or new muscles developing? `You can think about that
later,' he grumbled, for the first time finding himself losing. He
suggested the "Eden" alternative - playing men against women so he
could win all the apples, persuading them of what fun it would be by
calling them girls, using flattery to suggest they had youth on
their side.

John reckoned it was a great idea, grown-ups' playing tennis
which left him longer to safari deeper into the woods with Richard,
their son. That was until half term arrived when tennis, and
exercise, and his den in the "forest" had to be abandoned whilst we
went to see Claire who was camping near Whitby with Adderton's
guides. `Do I have to go?' he whinged, preferring his new life in
the trees.

`Of course you do,' Lena insisted, it was Guides' Open Day.

`Every family will be going. And Claire will be disappointed if
you don't turn up,' my iron hand coaxed him into the car. Besides,
he was no longer to be trusted in the woods on his own, nor with
Richard, not since they came down from the trees and had excavated a
tunnel which undermined the farm road.

When we arrived at the field above Whitby, high cliffed and
windswept, Lena immediately busied herself, drawn into the commune
of mothers and daughters. Left to rest I quickly became bored, until
dads and lads started playing football. `See if you can get off your
ass and try kicking the ball,' someone's shout suggesting a rustic
non-Freudian therapy.

`OK,' I was glad to join in, but ended up booting divots out
of the field instead of kicking the ball.. Although at least I could
tackle, opponents tripping over my legs as I stumbled and missed. 
Wow! it was great, adrenaline flowing, enjoying myself, not being
treated like a cripple. Yet, when exhaustion began to set in, I
retired to the car whilst still able to limp, remembering the
consequences of overexertion at cricket practice and those bloody
awful cycle rides.

`Come on, Martin, you idle sod. Teas up,' shouted one of the
fathers - ignoring Guide Leader's etiquette and regulations on
language - standing, grinning, hands on hips, owning the North Sea
as well as half Yorkshire, and now also in charge of the trestle
table which heaved under sandwiches and children.

`No thanks,' I shook my head, holding up a gluten-free salad
which had been put up by Lena.

`On a bloody diet, eh? Tha ought to speak to our Vera, in
Selby. Her husband upped and left her as soon as she started with
M.S... By hell, she didn't half go downhill quickly when she
discovered he'd buggered off with his secretary. Left her in a right
state, he did. Could hardly move, until she got herself a
specialist who gave her a cracking good diet. Now she walks like a
good 'un.'

Chapter 12.

John was up early next morning, soaking his corn flakes until
soggy in milk, not wishing their crunching should wake us - no way
did he intend to end up bored on another family outing. "Gon to
farm," it said on the note which he left next to his plate.

An ill-spelt note, but it was an ill note that turned our free
time to good and we waited until lunch before calling to collect
him. Yet every silver lining has a cloud - `I've already eaten.
We've all had sandwiches,' he greeted us. In addition to Richard he
was also playing with two other children.

`Do you fancy a game of tennis?' Willy invited, the farm able
to function without him. `This is Heather and Ian, they're staying
with us over half term. They were delighted when your John turned
up.' After a couple of sets we went indoors for a coffee. `They're
my brother's kids. He's been in hospital for tests, about the same
time as you,' he nodded towards me. `He's very poorly, dying from
cancer, but wishes to be nursed at home. That's why Heather and Ian
are here, to give my brother and his wife chance to be alone before
it's too late.' Lena asked for another cup of coffee. Black, very
black, and strong, very strong.

`It's a great week, dad,' John bubbled, especially now that
Claire's Guide camp was over and her return had helped balance the
numbers. Yet like the year's fresh dandelions everything sunny met
its time, turned grey, and their clocks blew away when the school
break came to an end. Heather and Ian were breezed away home in a
large limousine back to Nottingham. Would we ever see them again?

Maybe... one day, but for the moment my competitive exercises
would be restricted to tennis on fine evenings and weekends now that
Lena was returning to her classroom, this time in a flurry of
disorientation after having brushed close to someone else's creaking
mortality. Behind her mask was she wondering, and wondering what?
- perhaps the odds for her own husband when his games were all over?

`What did Stan call that woman in Selby, the one with M.S.?' I
wondered next morning, having decided to fill in the daytime by
finding out more about Vera.... and finding was the operative word.
Street by lane, avenue by crescent, searching for her bungalow 
before discovering that she lived in a house. Obviously she was now
able to manage the stairs. `Oh yes, but when my marriage broke up I
was much worse than now,' she switched on the kettle. `I became
blind in one eye, was losing sight in the other, and was dragging
both feet so badly that the toes on my shoes were wearing right
through,' the kettle started to whistle.

`What's your reason for having improved so much?' I asked,
eyeing her carry a tea tray for sign of unsteadiness before we
started to compare discoveries and experiences.

`No, no. Tried it, of course, but it didn't do anything for
me,' she shook her head, having failed to benefit from a gluten-free
diet. `Although I did read another article - well, you know how it
is, anything and everything about M.S. Anyway, in one piece I
recognised the researcher's name. Stroke of luck, really, me having
been his secretary at the university when I lived in Scotland,' she
passed me a cup which rattled on its saucer as her outstretched arm
revealed a slight tremor, almost like anyone's might. `He remembered
me, and even travelled all the way from Edinburgh to carry out
tests.' I kept stirring my tea, absentmindedly stirring in sugar,
anxious to hear more. `He advised me to take 60 ml. of sunflower
oil, every day, plus vitamins, and stop eating any form of animal
fat,' she offered me a biscuit.

`No, thanks, I'm...'
`Ah, yes... Anyway, as you can see, my sight is now almost
perfect, and I only have the slightest limp,' she topped up my cup.
`Mind you, the pains in my legs were also a problem, until they got
better after I massaged them with cream to improve circulation.'

The information about vitamins and circulation matched my
discoveries, but all this business about sunflower oil was something
completely new to my ears.

`It's sometimes prescribed on the National Health Service, you
know,' she added, `If you can find the right hospital.'

`Thanks,' I looked at the time, unable to stay longer, but
determined to do something about sunflower oil. `I'll keep in
touch, let you know how I get on.' It had certainly had been a
worthwhile visit, both having benefited, if only by discussing our
do-it-yourself cures. Next morning I went straight to my hospital 
outpatients' department.

`Your specialist is a heart doctor, not a neurologist,' the
receptionist sniffed at my enquiry, her oversized white coat lending
weight to her authority. I refused to move, lolling against her
counter until they had completed referral arrangements with another
infirmary.

Weeks slipped by, yet I remained content in the knowledge that
sooner or later I was to be seen by a consultant neurologist.
Autumn's mists were gathering at dawn upon the webs of the spiders
before a date for the appointment arrived. It was with high
expectations and reawakened enthusiasm I entered his room.

`You can only have five minutes,' he checked his watch: and
checked my optimism - before I had time to sit down, mouth open,
searching for words; whilst he rampaged, praising the skills of my
previous specialist. `A man I know very well,' he waved his
spectacles enthusiastically, then spent the next ten minutes
describing how the National Health Service was falling apart at the
seams. Only then did he refer to my problem, albeit obliquely. `You
should get things into perspective. The roads are filled with Rolls
Royce’s carrying former bankrupts.' My mouth remained open.... I
might be poor, but not yet a bankrupt. `What precisely are you here
for, what is it you want me to say?' he took the top off his pen,
ready to write.

`I don't know, you're the specialist,' finally words slipped
out, my reflex response.

`Take your trousers off,' he continued waving his spectacles,
intending to humiliate and immobilise a troublemaker before he began
what, in law, could be claimed as being an adequate examination.

`I thought you might let me have some sunflower oil,' I
balanced on one leg half trousered.

`Sunflower oil?' he looked puzzled, as though wondering what
was my motive. `We only have emulsified sunflower oil, so you won't
be able to fry chips in it.'

Didn't he realise that people with M.S. just wished to get
better? `I'm not bothered about chips, I want to take the oil as a
medicine.'

`You won't like the taste. You'd be better off buying ordinary 
sunflower oil from a health food shop, then mix it with orange juice
to make it more palatable.'

`I'm on a pension, the taste doesn't matter.'

He shrugged his shoulders and began to scribble a prescription.

`Take this to pharmacy.'

The first thing I did back in the car park was to slam my door
and swallowed a dose. `It seems all right to me,.... especially if
it works,' I thought, waiting on the off chance in case something
bad or good would flow through my being. But nothing. `Still, didn't
expect anything yet, it's too soon to tell,' and, licking my lips, I
drove back to Adderton.

Claire greeted me, with a twinkle in her eye, seeking a taste
of my medicine. `Ugh!' she recoiled, `I don't know how you can take
it.'

`I think it's nice,' John savoured his spoonful.

`Oh, dear,' I thought. `I hope that he's not potentially an
MS type. Still, just in case he is, it's even more important for
me to find a prevention as well as a cure.'

`Pardon?'

`Nothing, just thinking.'

On Wednesday we received a telephone call. It was Mary from the
farm. `Willy's brother has died. The funeral's on Saturday. We don't
want the children to be there,' she hesitated. `Can they spend the
day at your house?'

`Of course,' Lena said without hesitation.

`They're more than welcome,' I added, overhearing the call, it
was the least we could do as a thank you - the tennis court having
contributed so much towards my improvement. Their generous
friendship had also, together with that of other villagers, more
than compensated for the attitude of those like the accountant who
was quick to take advantage of my situation.

Come Saturday a car backed into our drive. It was Willy and
Mary delivering the children before driving to John's funeral.
`We've had breakfast, thanks,' the kids said smiling damply, whilst
meandering across our kitchen, their futures lost amongst dreams of
the past, each carrying a bag of spare clothes.

Lena was finishing her toast, but Claire and John were already 
outside, `Hi, we're here,' waiting for a game, trying their best to
be doing their best. I joined in, playing dodge ball, jumping and
falling amongst the willow tree's canopy, up to my elbows recovering
the ball from our dike, crawling into Mildew's garden, picking it
out from the stubble which had been her chrysanthemums, moving all
ways each time the game was restarted, my adrenaline rushing,
injected by fun, glowing with exhaustion, long before Willy and Mary
returned.

`Phew, that was much better than going for walks,' I turned to
Lena, breathless, as their car drove away. `What's on television
tonight?'

`Dan phoned about cricket - this afternoon. But you were out of
sight, so I said you'd ring back later.'

`I was only in the dike, looking for the ball,' I moaned,
presuming she'd never even bothered to try - not whilst there was
someone on the phone to whom she could chat. `I better give him a
call, rather than bike, after a day like today,' for Dan farmed in
the middle of nowhere, much further from Adderton than Willy.

`You can if you want. But he's also invited us down for the
evening. Freda and he are guarding their farm.'

`Guarding? More likely their son's borrowed his car,' I
chuckled, glad to be going to another welcoming house, this one with
a permanently blazing log fire.

`What'll you have to drink?' Dan greeted us before we got
through their door....`Mind,' he barred the way, open armed and
bottles in each hand, reminding us to duck to avoid bumping our
heads, their farmhouse having been built during centuries when
people were smaller. `There's a friendly match tomorrow, between
the Gilbert and Sullivan team and Adderton Cricket club. We're a man
short, would you like a game?'

`Would I!' a grin flooded over my face. `It's years since my
bat was tuned up to concert pitch,' I joked at his taunt whilst he
offered to refill the glass. `Well, if you press me..... after all,
the experts say you're not supposed to leave a bottle once it is
opened,' suggesting he offer it round, guessing that nobody else was
drinking white wine. `Oh, dear,.. it looks as though I'll have to
finish it myself.' 

The wine jostled for a shrinking space in my glass whilst Dan
continued to pour, `Seriously, we really are a man short,' he said,
`So, as long as you can hold the bat we'll find someone to run.'

He was serious. Trouble was, I had read somewhere that alcohol
interfered with vitamins, so once we got home I took extra B tablets
before going to bed to make up for the drink.

Next morning I felt great. Was the enjoyable evening
responsible for providing the "medicine", and was it masking any
damage from alcohol. It's impossible to say, for I never ever
suffered from hangovers.

`Sorry, Martin. We're not short of a player after all,' the
Gilbert and Sullivan captain greeted as I managed my cycle over the
stile.

`Bugger,' a black crow flapped from the trees. I might have
known, being picked for cricket was too good to be true. What was
worse, I felt a right twit, dressed up in white, being left to sit
amongst the confetti of spectators scattered across grass sunning
close to the tea hut.

`Hang on, we're one man short,' the Adderton captain called
across.... the waft of that crow's wings now out of hearing. Crystal
air swelled my lungs as I squeezed through the doorway and crossed
to the home side's half of the dressing room, their bench more
spell-bound and worn than the visitor's.

`Sorry, he's turned up,' the opening batsman kicked a limp into
my stride. `We can't help it,' he winced, pushing a protector
inside his jockstrap, shrugging off the crow which had swooped back
into my day. `Even our reserve's arrived,' he ignored my pleading
look of despair.

`Nay, it's only a friendly game. Why not play twelve a side?'
the lead baritone struck a note of hope. `And then Martin can have a
game.'

Please, I prayed, not daring to look, this was my last chance.

`Why not. Martin can play with you,' the Adderton captain
played tactics, shuffling the cripple back onto their side. But I
still wanted to hug him, metaphorically like.... might even have
done so, at least in my mind, had he been a young woman.

Wickets fell until, way down in the order, it was my turn to 
walk onto the field using my bat as a walking stick .... two crows
deserted the tree..... or were they rooks? Please don't let me be
out first ball.

I prodded away, and lasted five balls, until a snick flew past
the anguished hands of a fielder, racing away distant enough for me
to attempt a run on my own.... Last in, they hadn't thought it
worthwhile to give me a runner, but now reckoned my hop, hop, hop,
and the tumble between wickets worth a run on its own. Please don't
let the other batsman be out, I wanted a chance to score again in
what in all probability would be my last game.

Claire was bored as I dug in, defiant, keeping the bowlers at
bay, so she cleared off to Sally's and arrived there in tears.

`Don't worry, Claire, your father won't die of M.S.,' Sally's
mother comforted her, having been a nurse. `He's not like the daddy
of those two children who played at our house. Their father was ill
from something very much worse,' she continued to assure her
throughout the whole afternoon. `Besides, your father seems to be on
a very good diet.'

It was a good thing Claire had left. Even the spectators were
losing their patience, watching me dabbling away. `Come on, give it
a clout, or get thyself out... Tha's putting us to sleep.'

`Tha's worse than Geoff Boycott,' shouted another, which almost
started a fight.

Three balls later I was out, having tortured the game for an
hour and a hobbled score of just eight. My legs had sensed a memory,
a familiar memory, but were too frightened to run, fearing that crow
and the spectacle of me ending up spread eagled in public.

Early next morning, whilst the village was sleeping, I crept
into a field, took a deep breath, and risked all. `Shazzam! I can
run, I can run, I can run!'

Chapter 13.

`A pound of spring cabbage, please,' I said - chest proud
because of yesterday's secret run, as I sprightly mounted the step
that was lowered at the back of the green grocer's van which, once a
week, stopped at the end of our drive. Everything was arranged just
high enough for a clear view, its shelves, screwed to battered and
repainted sides, were stacked high with apples, oranges, tomatoes,
onions - as high as the bends in lanes and driving conditions would
allow, and also with things less likely to roll, plus extra boxes of
last-minute produce crammed in at tempted-fate tilts.

`Spring cabbage? Wrong time of the year,' he lent against an
upended crate which acted as a counter which balanced a brass set of
scales, its weights in an old Oxo tin, and a wooden till with a
drawer that went `ting each time it opened. `I thought you were ill.
How about a firm white cabbage instead?' he said, opening a brown
paper bag.

`It's greens that I want,' I shook my head.

`Well, then, a nice healthy cauliflower, fresh in today,
they're classed as greens.' Whilst waiting for a yes he cleaned his
spectacles upon one corner of the brown apron which was tied round
his waist.

`No thanks. Must be dark green, as dark as possible.'

`You needs spinach, to gets up yer strength,' he shut his left
eye, confusing Long John Silver with Popeye.

I squeezed a reluctant smile. Spinach? It tastes like seaweed,
but at least it's green, I suppose. `All right, a pound of spinach.'

`That's out of season as well.... Anyone brought up in the
country knows that,' he chopped me down with an expression reserved
for townies. `What about beetroot?'

`Beetroot?' I winced,.... mind you, its dark red might be an
anti-oxidant. `OK, and some carrots, and some....,' I looked over
his shelves, having read about roughage being important for health.
Trouble is, that's an additional problem, what with me not eating
bread, although whole grain rice should be a help.

`Don't sell rice,' he tediously wiped his spectacles again,
convinced that M.S. had addled my brain. 

`Sorry, I was going through the range of foods I can eat,' I
mumbled, ordering apples and potatoes. `And the rest of the things
on this....,' I passed a used envelope upon which Lena had scribbled
a list before leaving for school.

`Why didn't you give me that in the first place?' he suppressed
the customer-non-friendly expletives which had sprung to his mind.
`I could have had the whole lot done whilst you were
pontificating...... Here,' he stuffed the whole order into my arms
and pointed me in the right direction. `Tha won't get lost, will
tha?'

`Umm,' I sidled along, unable to reply since he had wedged the
shopping as high as my chin, leaving me to navigate by blind
reckoning. As long as our dike’s to my left I'll be shuffling in the
right direction, I thought. Better make sure, though, I peeped
sideways, leaning over, couldn't see it, and an apple rolled out of
a bag. At least it hasn't gone splash, I comforted myself, assuming
that the drive must be well-sited under my feet. I'll come back for
it later, after having something to eat, my routine being thrown out
by the greengrocer calling early in amongst everyone departing for
school.

The shopping spilled across our kitchen table as I let go,
looking up at our clock. Crumbs!... I've never been this late
before, better have a dose of sunflower oil before even starting on
breakfast.

One quick gulp, before M.S. could strike and undo all my
progress, then I opened a packet of cornflakes. `What's happening?'
goose-pimples were beginning to erupt along the full length of my
arms. `Hell!' I panicked, an unfamiliar sensation sweeping all over
me. `What's in this stuff?' perspiration poring from my forehead,
dripped off the end of my nose..... even my shirt was soaked to my
back. I gasped for air, staggered from the room, slumping to my
knees, insides tied up in knots. `Am I about to die?'

Once in the bathroom, having crawled there, I gave up fighting
the nausea, too drained to resist, the rumblings of my stomach
increasing. Within minutes..... ten minutes, twenty minutes, five
minutes - I don't know, my darkness began to lift, like the
remorseless passing of a storm, leaving me gasping for air - and even more air. Exhausted, I sank back against the white tiles, spent
from the physical effort. `What the hell had that been?' in the wake
of disappearing nausea feeling was gradually beginning to return to
those areas which had been numb for so many months. `It must have
been that sunflower oil on an empty stomach,' stunning my system
with neat linoleic acid. `Sod that for a lark, even if it is a
cure, I hope I never go through that again.' - Mind you, it really
did show that sunflower oil worked. `Wait 'til I tell them,'....
but I would drink it more slowly in future, and not before having
some food in my stomach.

`It's not scientifically valid,' snapped the local society's
secretary. `Any improvements you experienced were just ordinary
remissions.'

Damn him, the man's obsessed. He knows very little about the
disease, except that he's determined to stamp out any threat to his
fiefdom.

`You must leave it to us.....,' his sermon continued as I put
down the phone.

`I wonder what he'd do if a cure was found?... No more first
class rail travel or trips to conventions in America!' his
obstructions had strengthened my determination. `Call them
remissions, or whatever he wants, but I'll find some employment.
I'll show him,' and I drove to the station, bound for London to see
the outfit which had arranged my last job - the job which was
scuppered by me going into hospital.

As usual, I was late into Doncaster. With hot tyres I sped up
the ramp which serpented against the outside of their multi-storey
car park. `What the hell is she doing?' I swore at the car which
had stalled immediately in front. My hands were clenched, squeezing
the steering wheel, frustrated at being unable to overtake, the
train due any minute.

`What's wrong with your car?' I signalled, got out of my car,
and stumbled up the ramp. `What's wrong with your car?' I tapped on
her window.

`It won't go up,' she panicked, lowering it half an inch, her
index finger pointing to a barrier in front.

Red and white striped, the pole was painted, like a billion 
others. What a moment for its mechanism to refuse to take coins.
`No, not this, not another bar to my progress.' I looked back,
intending to effect an escape, but a line of cars had built up
behind me. Bugger it, with no chance of reversing, and my future at
stake, I grabbed hold of the pole, took a deep breath, and snatched
upwards. It moved, sufficient for me to get underneath and push
further with every sinew of strength until its clamp yielded.

Knackered, surprised that I still had some strength, a bit like
the old days, I assumed a nonchalant air and limped back to my car.
Onlookers might suppose I had a pulled muscle, if they wished, but I
didn't care, provided they didn't guess there was something actually
wrong with me.

Stupid pride, stupid pride. I didn't even know them, yet was
conscious of their eyes as I left in haste for the station,
staggering down the steps, my limping echoes in the underpass before
hauling myself up onto platform one, exhausted. `The train for Kings
Cross is running twenty minutes late,' a Martian voice announced
over the tannoy.

`Bloody marvellous,' I swore, backing like Quasimodo into a
corner of the refreshment room.

Three announcements and two plastic cups of coffee slopping at
one hundred miles an hour later King's Cross arrived, all too soon.
I should have prepared for the interview. London seemed different.
After only nine months its station platforms were longer, its
escalators steeper although, whilst strap-hanging on the Underground
- its carriages tussled and swaying, my stiffness from the journey
soon disappeared. Almost, that is, as long as I concentrated on
thinking about walking once I emerged from the tube station.

`You're looking remarkably fit,' welcomed one of the
interviewers, expecting me to have passed through a regressive
metamorphosis. `I can't see any employer recognising your illness.'

That was all I was wanting to hear. After seeing the
industrial psychologist - who confessed to knowing little about the
disease, I caught the train home, sure my regime was on the right
tracks, certain I had been right after all, this M.S. was merely an
interlude.... I overlooked the fact that no-one had suggested
offering me a job. 

`Job interviews here I come,' and next morning re-emerged my
writing pad, and upon the next day, and the next day, and the next
day, the first application being for work in the Gilbert and Ellice
Islands, then Turkey, then Portugal, then..... - no sooner had that
letter gone when a revolution shortened my horizons, perhaps to the
railway museum in York. `No? All right then, how about a laboratory
assistant for a Professor at Leeds University?'

`You're just the person I've been looking for,' his reply
opened. `But you're not in a union.'

`Damn the unions, damn them all,' I cursed.

But Lena was becoming impatient, not feeling it right that a
woman should be the one to bring in the money. `Pension?' she
complained. `Your pension doesn't count, it's a matter of
principle."

`All right, then, I'll take this job with the ministry of food,
something to do with fish. It only requires 'O' levels."

`Sorry, you're overqualified,' came their reply.

To cap it all, by coincidence, next morning's newspaper carried
a full page article. ’Minister for the Disabled claims he is doing
wonderful job“.

`Who does he think he is fooling,' I wrote to the newspaper.
`He should first put his own house in order, since the civil service
fails to employ their quota of disabled.'

A local radio station took up my story, the broadcast
coinciding with me becoming involved with a group agitating for
research into multiple sclerosis. This was a new self-help
organisation, so this connection with radio coincided just right.
`We'll do a major programme to precede your first meeting outside
London,' offered the station manager.

They first produced a half hour programme. `No, no, no,'
contradicted a neurologist. He preferred to remain telling people
they had an inflammation of the spine rather than let them know the
real truth.

`But we want to know what's wrong with us. It helps, otherwise
we think we're going mad, maybe,.. or perhaps even got cancer, or
goodness knows what,' bolshied another sufferer who had been invited
into the studio. 

`We're the people to let you know when there is something worth
researching,' recited that damned local secretary, perhaps worried
we might have a flag day and take some of the froth off his
monopoly. `Besides, the worth of sunflower oil is yet to be proven,'
he leant back on his gusset.

`You've already been overtaken, there's something even better
than that,' cut in Henry, an M.S. sufferer from London. `Oil of
evening primrose, it contains gamma-linoleic acid, one stage better
than the essential fatty acid in sunflower oil.'

The neanderthal neurologist, unable to smother our microphone,
shook his head and opened his mouth, but the producer was winding up
the programme. When the tape recorder had stopped the arguments
became heated. A retired nurse was caught in the crossfire. She was
trying to sell copies of her booklet of poems called "Laughing with
M.S."

`Ha bloody ha,' someone angrily pushed them aside, being more
interested in finding someone who was peddling a cure.

`People get all the vitamins they require from normal diets,'
the consultant retaliated, digging in his clichés. But we were
fighting a guerrilla war not of our choosing

`Cups of coffee are waiting upstairs,' the producer's secretary
interrupted, hurrying to defend their none-of-plenty microphone,
increasingly at risk of becoming a casualty in no-man's-land.

`Multivitamin mineral capsules are prescribed by the National
Health Service,' Henry made certain he was overheard before the
armistice.

`What are they called?' I asked, before giving him a lift to
the train.

Concrete tubs remained dead, amongst the swirling dust, line in
line upon cracked concrete slabs where one-time flagstone pavements
had been laid with verges sprouting early daffodils - though in
today's easterly wind their green spikes would have shivered,
flower-less.

`And don't forget oil of evening primrose capsules,' Henry
reminded me on the platform. `But we have to buy those,' he called,
dropping the carriage window, leaning out, as his train pulled away.

Next day my doctor stopped me in the village. `I never before 
realised how patients felt about M.S.' he said, intending in future
to let them all know, except in cases where that knowledge would do
more harm than good. `Here,' he handed me a prescription for
multivitamin mineral capsules.

That's one expense saved, I thought, whilst sauntering past the
Brick Pond. `Morning,' even the postwoman gave me a knowing wave.

`No wonder she waved,' I muttered to myself upon reaching home.
She had been pedalling light, after unloaded masses of mail through
our kitchen door letter box - mail from as far as Scotland, Bristol,
Liverpool and Hull, people wanting to know when our first meeting
was being held. `Crumbs, it was only a local broadcast,' I verbally
mused, thinking of how desperate they must be for news to have
travelled that fast. Although one letter was different:-

"I am congratulating you on your bravery, and hope you are
going to achieve success. I am fighting a losing battle against the
same disease. But as I live alone, and have already outlived my
friends I just wonder. A Home is frequently suggested, but the idea
is unpleasant. The complaint has only recently been diagnosed, but I
look back over the years and see myself tackling mysterious
unpleasantness such as coming home alone, feeling drunk, not
understanding any reason for my indisposition; and now I don't know
how one should tackle life.

You have one advantage however - a family to keep you
interested.

As I said before, I hope you are going to be successful in your
tussle with M.S. I shall keep remembering you.
Yours sincerely,
...............
(P.S. I am an octogenarian.)"

Each day our postwoman continued to cycle shotgun behind an
overfilled post-bag as people got in touch, their hearts set upon
hope, anxious to know more of the meeting. My regime, my regime, in
danger of being swamped..... but how could I abandon them and not
answer our telephone? `Yet I must do something to keep myself
exercised.' 

Lena shrugged her shoulders. `Getting a proper job would have
been more to the point than messing around with broadcasting.'

She must be joking, anyone would think I didn't like work. `How
about if I design an extension for the house?'

She became mildly interested, seeing this as a start. `At
least that's a positive idea.'

Thus, with a point to prove, I drew my plans in a day and sent
them for council approval. `What else is there to do, whilst
answering these calls? I know, I'll make a start upon the
foundations.'

`Don't you think you should wait for planning approval?' Lena
hedged, remaining thorny and cautious. `I don't want landing with
even more debts.'

`Debts?' I growled, dismissing the stubbornness of her
imagination. `Anyway, you've no need to worry, they'll pass it, I've
already had a word with them,' despairing at her gloom. `And if they
don't I'll fill in the hole and turn it into a vegetable patch.....
so that'll cut down on our greengrocery bill.'

`Cabbages? I don't see how cabbages will help when I find us
landed with debts,' she prickled, not finding any good reason for
smiling.

She's still on about bloody debts. `I'll do the work myself, if
that's what bothers you,' I retaliated, though never said that I
only intended to make a start the easy part, like digging some of
the foundations, carefully taking things easy, seeing how I managed,
still remaining cautious after last year's cycling fiasco.

Next morning, when Lena left for school, she had expected the
worst to be waiting upon her return. But I had paced each spadeful,
being determined to avoid making a fool of myself, taking frequent
breaks, so when she got home my legs were holding up and my health
appeared to be glowing.

A vacant eye cast over my work. I'm not sure what she was
thinking but she did not complain, so each day I continued the
digging. A blackbird, keen on fat worms, kept me company until the
afternoon arrived when the foundations were ready for concrete.
Somehow it seemed to sense they had been dug as deep as they need
be, and its meals would no longer be served up by the spadeful, or 
was it because it recognised that the clay had been reached? Either
way, what should I do now, and would my planning application be
approved?

`I don't see why not,' a clerk at the Council gave me a sniff
and a wink when we were alone in his office.

`Right,' I muttered to the steering wheel on the way home, my
legs feeling ready for even more work, `Why not try laying the
concrete yourself?'

`What!' Lena recoiled when I told her. `You'll never do it,'
yet again overflowing with the milk of human pessimism. `The
concrete will set before you can lay the full load. Then I'll be the
one stuck with a solid block jamming the drive.... Not to mention
the prospect of having a cripple left on my hands.'

`A full load! Ready-mix?' I derided. Did she really think I
was that stupid? `I'll do a trial mix in the first place, by hand,
just a few shovelfuls, so you've no need to panic, your car can't be
concreted in.'

`That's what you say,' she attempted to sink my enthusiasm
under the weight of her negative optimism but, just in case, next
morning took her car to school to make sure.

Left on my own, unharried, with all the time needed to think, I
worked out the most I could handle,.... not too much lest things
went wrong. By good fortune and serendipity I started doing the
right thing, knocking off frequently, taking a short rest from
mixing every time the bucket needed filling with water.

By the time my application was returned, stamped “Planning
Approved”, all five tons of concrete had been laid..... AND MY LIMP
HAD GONE! Good, just in time for the meeting in Leeds and yet
another BBC interview.

After hearing this broadcast a local farmer, on his way to the
market to see what was going free, stopped, released the binder
twine which held shut his window, and leant out on his elbow to
apologise. `When tha refused them lifts in me van I never realised
it were because thee preferred exercise. I thought it were on
account of tha not liking the smell of me pigs.'

From all seven quarters of the British Isles came sufferers to
the Leeds meeting.... this week's fogs having lifted just in time, 
like the parting of the Red Sea, the mustard seed again having borne
fruit. Everything being ready, Lena had treated the catering
arrangements like a cottage industry, helpers and salads arriving
from Adderton in shifts.

Within the hall a professor described his discoveries, as well
as the benefits of sunflower oil and his suspicion that there might
be some kind of hereditary link. But these were yet early days.

During question time an angular man leapt from his seat. `I
have evolved my own diet,' he preached to the packed hall, ignoring
the professor. `My own diet,' he emphasised, `Is free from gluten,
sugar and all refined foods. My cure is so effective that, despite
being over sixty, I can now run up and down stairs, as though I was
sixteen years old.'

`I found something better to do than that when I was sixteen,'
rued a man in a wheelchair.

The angular man scanned the audience, cranking his neck to see
who had said that. I glanced at my watch, it was lunch time, thank
goodness, and slid open the hatches, the noise distracting attention
before fundamentalist could monopolise the meeting.

Walking wounded, relatives, and helpers crocodiled between the
seats and wheelchairs, chattering, wending their appetites over
trestle tables weighted with food, before sitting down with heaped
plates balanced upon knees. `It's been a real revelation, teaching
me more about the disease than I've learned during the last twenty
years helping sufferers,' enthused a man from Lancashire.

And after lunch there was more to come, the eager hum of
conversation settling when a university doctor took the stage. Much
of his work related to diet, including the needs of the nervous
system and general health. In layman's terms, fresh fish for brains,
fresh vegetables, lots of greens lightly cooked or raw.

`That's what my granny used to say.'

`Hush.'

In contrast, dairy products were suspect, because of the need
to avoid animal fats. Thus any meat should be lean, and offal was
good. In fact it was important to eat plenty of offal.

`Aye, granny liked offal. She always liked offal.'

`Will you shut up, Arthur, he might give us the names of the
books he has written.'

I raised a hand, signalling, the London train was leaving in
forty minutes' time. I'd been lucky, I realised, much of my diet had
been almost right, though I must remember that polyunsaturated oils
were ruined by heat when cooking. No more chips! `Perhaps that part
of his diet, if eaten in small quantities, might not apply to me,' I
searched for excuses, as though cyanide in small amounts was not
poisonous!

Chapter 14.

First out of bed, doing my exercises, Sunday or not - well,
nobody else can do them for you, can they? Besides, I had remained
excited after yesterday's meeting, my enthusiasm resulting in John
waking up and beating me to the cornflakes.

`Why waste soap, I'm not dirty?' he squirmed out of reach,
bolting his last spoonful, and made for the door, `I'll get a bath
after I've been to the farm,' he dashed away, setting off to explore
his "jungle", intending to meet Richard from the farm under the
rookery in Bluebell wood.

`Bluebell wood rookery?.... Don't look up with your eyes open,
then,' I laughed. He pretended not to hear, walked with his head
down, thinking I might be calling him back.

Claire eventually rose from hibernation, having read about
beauty sleep. `Why's mum crying?' she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. Lena was still in bed. `Perhaps she's
tired after yesterday.'

`From just buttering sandwiches?'

`She did more than that,' I defended, though remained silently
puzzled. Was Lena like this because of yesterday seeing so many
people in wheelchairs? - my future if I did not keep fit. `Your
hair looks nice, let's have some lunch. Ask your mother if she'd
like some.'

`Mum's not hungry,' Claire returned, having been put through
the emotional mill.

`Oh,' I commented, low-keyed, trying to defuse Claire's
apprehension, and carried on peeling potatoes, at the same time
wondering what to do later now that I had finished concreting the
extension's foundations. Trouble was, our local stonemason had died
last week: if only he could have waited a bit longer.

`She just wants a cup of coffee.'

`The water's already boiled,' I motioned with my head in the
kettle's direction, my hands fully occupied, having begun slicing
some chips. Perhaps tomorrow I'll put an advert in the post office
window?...... In the meanwhile I might be able to occupy myself,
always providing Stan will lend me his pig truck, by going for loads 
of breeze blocks at trade price until a bricklayer replies.

Bit of a cheek, really, I thought, but, `Help yourself,' Stan
pointed with a spanner towards his truck's unlocked door before I'd
half started to hint at my plan, then he carried on repairing his
seed potato planter.

It seemed that the spring tide of Lena's depression or cry for
help or something or other had receded long before Monday when she
was back at school, teaching, and I was on my way for the blocks.
`You'll have to load them yourself,' the foreman said - when I
reversed into their yard, and took another bite into his sandwich,
balancing back upon the legs of his chair, both feet crossed on a
dust-worn desk, disordering the papers into greater disorder. `It's
our lunch-time.'

`That's all right,' I hastened not to upset him, anxious to get
the blocks cheap.

`You'll have to wait.' Clearly messing with invoices was one of
his hates.

`My boss told me to pay cash,' I fed him what I hoped he would
be happy to hear, propping myself against his doorway to hide any
signs of M.S.

`Leave it there, then, and help yourself,' leaving his bosses
to deal with the documentation as suited them best.

Negotiations thus complete I was free to take my time, pace
myself, with nobody to pose personal questions. Stupid pride, I
suppose, but probably best to continue with my pretence of being a
workman.

Lena wondered about the blocks when she got home from school.
They were stacked chest high, so presumably they had been delivered
by somebody else. `I don't want you knocking yourself up, we're
going to mother's this Sunday.'

`Good, I can cycle part of the way.'

`Cycle! After last year's fiasco?'

`I only said part of the way.'

`It's winter.'

`Looks more like spring to me,' lemon sunlight luminescent on the
dust of our windows. `Don't worry, if winter returns I shan't
bother.' 

`What do you mean, part of the way?'

`Before I get tired I can always stop, can't I? After all, my
BIKE has been in the back of your car... at least one time before.'

`Huh!' she turned away from any argument, the custard was
boiling. `Suit yourself, you've obviously made up your mind.'

The weather stayed so fine on Sunday I set off an hour before
Lena and the children, having again restated in fine detail how I
planned to keep to her regular route.

`Don't ride on the A.1, that's all I can say,' her final
instruction followed me onto the lane, not being enthusiastic
herself about having to drive along it let alone contemplate what
might happen to a cyclist.

I slowed, wobbled, and called back over my shoulder, `I'll
walk, if I get that far,' then slowly accelerated past the Brick
Pond, building up to a carefully regulated pace, considering my
departure to be morally unhindered now that my reassurance had been
given.

Everything went much better than I had hoped for, my legs still
feeling fresh even when I reached the flyover. `Dare I risk it?' I
glanced at my watch. `Plenty of time,' but soon realised just how
right Lena had been as I filtered onto the Great North Road - no
longer the exact route Cromwell's army had taken but no less a
battle as I struggled to steer along the hard shoulder, buffeted by
air-quakes and slipstreams as an unbroken cavalry charge of wagons
hurtled northwards. `Sod this for a Sunday, I'll need more than a
bike and faith in my mustard seed to play David against all these
Goliaths.' But I had to get off that road somehow - there was no
place for Lena to stop. My legs filled with fear, with only a
peppering of bravado, and drove the pedals faster than they had ever
pedalled before until I reached the next junction.

Thank goodness for that, I eased off, that damned dual
carriageway safely behind me, and ahead the road to Leeds along
which Lena soon would be driving. `How are my legs?.. Not bad,' I
congratulated myself. `I wonder if the children are ready, with
John forbidden to do anything dirtier to occupy himself than throw
bread to the birds?... Still,' my watch surprising me, `They won't
be setting off for,' I wobbled, `For... er,.. at least another half 
hour.'

Really, I should have stopped long before now. But, no, not
yet, not when it was only a couple of miles on the level to Garforth
where I could enjoy the luxury of freewheeling downhill.

The woods were sleepwalking, ready for spring, until its tangle
of trees ended as sudden as the edge of an oasis overlooking a
desert of fields.

`This is where my breeze blocks came from,' I thought once at
Garforth, with no pedalling to do, a different breeze in my hair,
gravity speeding me fast past the works and locked gates and
shuttered foreman's hut - all shuttered and dead. Halfway already,
just one uphill gradient remaining. `It's a long one, but not that
steep,' I calculated from the comfort of my freewheeling distance,
listening to the ego in my left ear rather than to the logic of my
right. `You know, Mytholmroyd, cycling the rest of the way is a
real possibility.'

`Oh no it's not,' my legs started to stutter, having forgotten
their rhythm during their free ride. `Get some of this down you,'
youths bellowed, waving cans of beer, when their car lurched past.

`Ignore them, concentrate,' ego fought to gain control of the
wobble. Had my legs gone to sleep after doing so little during that
mile?.... Had they become chilled?.... Or, worse, had I overdone
things yet again?' There would be that "I told you so" look when
Lena caught up. `Better not give her the chance,' I squeezed the
last dregs of determination out of my muscles. `Just one last
effort,' having got stuck in top gear, slowing my legs. `Funny!..
this gear is the wrong way to tackle a slope, but their aching's
decreasing?'

A giggling gaggle of cyclists overtook, legs whirling past.
`Ignore their sniggers, you know as much about racing as they do
about M.S., but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to copy their
style,' I rocked my frame from side to side, breathing deeply in
time with my legs,.... much slower than they but it really did help.
`Bit like getting a second wind, perhaps something to do with
respiration and circulation,' I muttered, talking myself up the
incline past where bulldozers had blitzkrieged a field into a
pe of trenches, its flagpole fluttering "TIGER HOMES" on a 
plastic flag with a permanent breeze.

Thoughts ate up the miles all the way into Leeds - I was
actually enjoying the misery, semidetached gardens of hoed winter
soil ignoring my passing, gateways shrinking until doorways led
straight onto cracked pavements, terrace houses my father had passed
on his way to work when tramways were horse drawn. `Go on, take a
short cut,' I returned to the present, seeing my chance to arrive
before the children and Lena.

A good idea, at first, until my dodge brought me to the
steepest hill of all, where every manageable slope had been
condensed into one, within sight of Mary's, the mother-in-law's
flat. `I'll crawl the last yards if I run out of legs,' I gritted
my calves, `And just have to hope she's not looking out.'

Damn, Lena's car was already there, engine still hot, I
grounded my feet, disappointed, but at least I had remained upright,
despite pedalling and aching all the way up that hill - a marked
improvement on last year. Mind you, my legs were numb, and like
plasticine. `Don't say I've done it again.'

`Oh, dear Lord,' Mary alarmed upon seeing my limp, once the
steam cleared after she finished draining her vegetables.

But the children were delighted, Mother was wrong, her Sunday
would not be ruined after all searching for father.

Oh no she wasn't, she was certainly not wrong, her expression
said so. More a foolhardy husband, she could tell by the spastically
of his walk.

`Sit here, Martin,' Mary moved a chair to the table, defusing
the silence. `Move up, a bit,' she nudged Claire, rearranging the
cutlery and mats closer together, leaving Lena to play at being
busy.

`Yes, please,' I smiled. Lean roast, creamed potatoes and veg.,
whilst the children ate my Yorkshire pudding as I avoided its flour
- I was yet to discover the real reason why Yorkshire puddings were
"poisonous" to people with M.S.

After a sleep in the armchair I rose to my feet. `There,' I
turned to Lena, my walk had recovered.

`You're never cycling back,' she saw me checking the lighting
up times. 

`It's better than cramming my bike in with the children.'

`I'd rather manage that than have to nurse you in bed.'

`Do I look ill?'

`You're so well you can't get a job.'

`Cup of tea, before you set off,' Mary interceded. `No milk,
two sugars?'

`Thanks,' I looked at the clock. An hour and a half until
sunset.

`Sunset? I can only see clouds,' Lena's anger continuing to
fester.

`Best set off now, then.'

I was on the last stretch, it was dusk, when Lena's Morris
Minor drove past. Claire and John cheered to catch my attention,
betting sweets upon who would be first home, but I was too busy to
look, ducking beneath branches, riding close to the kerb, no lights
on my bike. I'd lost time walking up a couple of short hills, but
my legs were much better for that.

Success breeds success, not owning up to there being more
downhill than uphill on the way back from Leeds. But Lena still
refused to see it that way so next morning, when she left for
school, it was another jolly Monday. `What state will you be in
when I get home tonight?' she pursed her lips.

`I'm going to have breakfast,' I held up the cornflakes, `See,
like a good boy, and get washed then find someone to build our
extension.' What was she still moaning about, I wondered? I'd
already proved the specialist wrong. Mind you, I was still
learning, yesterday's ride proving the importance of pacing myself.
So, first job today, take it easy, feed the blackbird.

It scuttled under the hedge, preferring live food to bread now
that a touch of sunshine had wakened its larder, leaving me with
nothing to do other than be tempted to lay a few blocks.

`Mister Mytholmroyd, what are you doing?' the little boy from
next door had slipped through their hawthorn and was watching me
work.

`Mixing mortar.'

`What is it for?'

`Building a wall.' 

`Why are you building a wall?'

`Because I'm making my house bigger,' I shovelled the mixture,
encouraging clouds of lime dust to make him stand back. Good, that's
got rid of him. I added the water.

`Mister Mytholmroyd?'

I tried ignoring him.

`Mister Mytholmroyd?'

`Yes.' That hadn't worked.

`What are you doing?'

`Mixing mortar.'

`What is it for?' The repetitive drip of his questions
producing a stalagmite in my heart.

He started to move closer. `Don't do that,' I snapped as he
tested the mix with the toe of his sandal.

`Mister Mytholmroyd?'

For a brief moment Misery Mildew, our neighbour on the other
side, the one without kids, did not seem so bad after all, for this
was turning out to be much worse than work. Will he never go away?
- I'm supposed to be taking things easy, with a life free from
stress. On second thoughts, filled with the milk of human
cussedness, I turned my back. Why stop him? I left him to paddle
around in the mound of wet mortar whilst I laid the first blocks.

`Nicholas, what are you doing?' his mother, hanging out
washing, parted the hedge, ignoring the thorns.

`I tried to stop him, Susan,' I economised on the truth, happy
to see him summoned indoors.

Back to normal, I smiled. Work a bit, rest a bit, the extension
beginning to take shape. `Time to knock off for lunch,' I mused to
the blackbird - it had returned to our garden after the to-ing and
fro-ing had ruined the peace of its hedge. Not that I felt tired, and
within half an hour was back on the job, using the rest of the
mortar.

`Mister Mytholmroyd.'

Bloody hell, the little sod's back, before I've hardly started
the next row. `Does your mother know that you're here?'

`What are you doing?' he asked, turning a blind ear to my
question. 

`Susan,' I tried to attract her attention. Where is she?

`Susan.' She heard me. `I don't want to risk this wall falling on
Nicholas.....,' I trawled up an excuse, `.... When I go for more
water.'

He was banned whilst the walls were under construction. My
spirits lifted, actually I felt as though I might manage the job all
by myself.

`Suit yourself,' Lena snapped. Goodness knows what her reaction
would have been had she known about the load of window frames I had
ordered.

But for some reason even next day they had still not arrived,
the company's excuse being that a wagon delivering them had got
lost north of Watford. This was good news for the robins. They had
seen off the sparrows and were nesting in a hole which was destined
to be blocked up by my extension.

`Lost a wagon!' I exploded, over the phone, after Lena left
for school. `Lost a wagon?' I repeated, anxious to keep working,
remembering how I deteriorated whilst immobile in hospital. It had
taken me long enough to recover, I was not going to risk it again.
`Can't you do better than that?'

`We're rushing them to you as fast as we can, Sir. They'll be
with you sometime next week.'

`Next week!' I slammed down the receiver. What should I do
until then? There was cycling, of course, somewhere different for a
change. What about my parents? Trouble is, I was aiming for their
house that time I ended up at Molly's and Seth's, having to be
rescued by Lena. That really would go down well with her back
teaching!

Still, that was last year. This time I shall avoid all hills,
at least the steep ones, even if means using main roads.

`Should get there for lunch time,' I glanced at my watch,
setting off early. Good thing too, there were temporary traffic
lights round the first corner. What are they digging up this time?
I took my eyes off the road, checking for workers, and my wheels ran
over their lights' insulated cable.

Despite having never fancied a circus career my wheels ended up
trying to ride full length of the cable, refusing to steer clear, my 
bike first going one way, then another, then back again..... Time to
bale out before reaching the trench.

`Are you all right, mate?' a head appeared out of a trench,
flat capped with a mug in its hand.

`Yes, thanks,' I pretended to examine my wheels, hiding the
pain. No blood, probably just bruises. Strange, how it hurt despite
being numb. Seconds became minutes, things started to ease. `Good,
get back on the bike before your legs forget how to pedal,' I said
to myself, remembering tales of fighter pilots being ordered back up
after being shot down.

`You haven't cycled all the way here?' mother unbolted and
inched open their gates, more likely to hide robbers at work than
keep them locked out. `Percy, put the kettle on, make yourself
useful,' she broke Father off from washing the pots. `You must have
something to eat, but we've got nothing in.. It's your father, you
know, he never remembers the right shopping.'

`A tin of beans will do, thanks,' I limped to a chair,
intending to ease her embarrassment as she rearranged the contents
of their pantry. They normally made bread and butter do, unless
visitors were expected.

`Tastes like margarine to me,' muttered Father.

`You'll need more than that,' she searched another cupboard,
ignoring her husband.

`And we never have jam.'

`No, really, beans are ideal, full of protein and fibre,' I
hastened to save Father's bacon - though he rarely had any of that.

But Mother ignored all that was happening about her and began
peeling potatoes, determined to fill me with something.

The mountain of mash put me to sleep yet, just like when I last
had a big meal after cycling to Lena's mother's, I recovered in time
for the ride home. Since I was now in even better condition my
condition must be continuing to improve - good old mustard seed
faith, good old sunflower seed oil. `But I wonder if sunflower oil
softens the tissues, increases the bruising?..... What the hell,
does it matter, if my strength continues to grow?'

Chapter 15.

The fitter I became, the higher the wall, and the higher I
stretched the fitter I grew, again a discovery by luck. `Are you
coming round to cricket practice?' a voice interrupted as I laid the
last block.

`You must be joking,' I checked the block with my spirit level.

`Do you good,' Ernie pressed.

Why not? I thought, work now at a standstill, the window frames
still lost north of Watford.

`Come on, yer late, get yer pads on,' shouted three bowlers,
prowling, the only ones there, each sweating to have a go at a
batsman.

Ernie was smiling. `Me?' I looked round, who else were they
talking to?

`Yes, you,' bellowed the huge one, his boots stomping at the
turf like a bull ready to charge.

Oh, I got it, he was not the only one. The other two were
lining up, each with their ball polished for maximum speed, waiting
to knock something over, not bothered whether or not it was
breathing.

I looked at the grass, rough, uneven. `Why not you?' I returned
the invitation to Ernie.

`I'm a wicket keeper, not a batsman. I'll have my turn
later,' he started painting the boundary fence, ready for the new
season.

The rooks cawed three times. Oh, well, probably my last chance,
I rummaged through their kit for the biggest thickest pair of pads,
desperate to resist all they could hurl at me.

Ten minutes later they were sweating, having hit everything
except my wickets. `Next,' they shouted, tired by my stonewalling.
`You'd have been out in a match, caught in the slips.'

`Aye, and caught in the gully,' coughed one who was bowling
with a fag in his mouth, now lobbing down slow ones, having given up
wasting his energy on me, saving his pile-drivers for the next
victim to bat.

`They seemed more like blockbusters to me.' 

`Pile-drivers is what I calls `em.... If they don't gives a
batsman the shits `ee ends up with piles.'

Thank goodness for that, I was glad to knock off, the other two
were getting into their stride, becoming more accurate. Bruises were
one thing, but things other than my M.S. were at risk of being put
to the test to see if they still reacted to pain. The rook, having
held high hopes of me being humbled, flew even higher, cawing upon
all rooks within cawing distance to circle and rise upon a discord
of complaint.

`How did it go?' Lena asked, repairing a split in Claire's
school clothes when I got home, in better humour now the extension
was beginning to take shape.

`Not bad, thanks,' I flopped into a chair, disguising the
bruising. Better go to the chemist's tomorrow, I thought, flicking
through the Radio Times, and get another prescription of vitamins -
anything to speed up tissue repair. Potty idea, of course, the
experts said so, but anything offered promise in the absence of
cures.

`Someone's at the door,' Lena said, brightening up at the sound
of male footsteps.

`Come in,' she switched on the kettle. It was Ernie.

`You've been picked for Saturday.'

`Me?' I waited for the joke.

`Look,' he showed me the list. `It's early season, and a lot of
the team are still playing soccer.'

`Cup of coffee?' Lena asked, enjoying the prospect of company.

`I thought you'd like to go for a drink, we can pick up my wife
on the way to the pub.'

`We haven't a baby-sitter,' Lena said.

`They'll be all right on their own,' he pressed. I suspected he
needed an alibi before going home.

`Wouldn`t dare risk it. You don`t know Clare,` we made up
excuses, being short of cash.

`I'm buying the rounds,' he guessed our predicament.

`No, thanks. Really, we daren't leave them, not on their own.'
Pity, for he was obviously in deep trouble with Mabel.

`All right, then,' he settled for coffee. 

Don't know about Mabel when he got home but at least Lena was
happy.

For the rest of the week I nurtured myself, taking particular
care whilst lifting weights, especially when the Hansel and Gretel
transport company finally arrived. `Got yourself lost in Watford
Gap?'

`You what, mate?... Never `urd of `em,' the driver unsheeted
his load. `Cor, what you on abowt, this business of bread crumbs?"

`Nothing, no nothing. Must be somebody else I was thinking of,'
I dismissed my remark and helped him off-load.

`Talk abowt gettin' lost. It's a right bloody place to find,
this one, in'it?'

`I suppose it is,' I felt it politic to agree in the light of
everything having been supplied at trade price, and then directed
him back to the main road. But what to do now with the windows? I
wondered, - they're too big to handle alone. But Stonehenge was a
much larger problem, so I began nudging the frames using levers and
rollers, taking my time, balancing each one into place.

Lena's car arrived, the children were home from school, their
faces alight, Claire signalling thumbs up whilst John loudly
cheered. Obviously they could now see the building had shape, their
enthusiasm lifting my spirits, boosting my health since I was making
it for them. Take it easy, knock off, I told myself, don't let
success go to your head. Leave everything propped,... cement them
tomorrow, just pray there's not a wind during the night.

My luck held and by the weekend the extension was roofed, I was
definitely ready for Saturday's match.

`Caw,' my black rook flapped across overhead, returning to try
yet again.

It was wasting its time, the first ball was so easy and I hit
it out of the ground. `Sod it,' I'd missed it, the death rattle of
wickets knocked over. Out for a duck, didn't even hit the ball.
`Caw..Caw...Caw...Caw..' the sky was wheeling with satanic
blackness. Twelve months' exercise squandered in one reckless
wrecked moment. Weighted down with a bat, totem pole of my
humiliation, I trudged as slowly as quickly as I could back to the
changing hut where I hid in silent depression, dwelling upon the 
barren ego upon which I'd just cast my mustard seed. Please let me
have a second chance, I'll never be stupid again.

Another week of strict regime and practice, more in hope than
promise. Were the double vitamins responsible as my improvement in
health continued? `You've been picked again,' Ernie checked the team
sheet. I'd not dared to go round and look.

The news left me floating, an unfortunate response, for on
Saturday it poured, rain running in waves over the bitumen tiles of
our pavilion roof to cascade as liquid icicles of water onto the
turf `Cheer up, we've all got ducks this time,' laughed Ernie. `Can
we go home?'

The umpire, lifetime occupant of the same flat cap, referred to
his watch, made a note on his match sheet, stood facing the elements
before solemnly shaking his head. `Premature abandonment of the
pavilion is against the rules.'

`You'd think `e were master of t'Titanic."

The rain stopped, ready for our game to begin. Umpire again
checked his watch. `I officially abandon the match."

`Ohhhh,' a chorus of complaints.

`Regulations state....'

`He's not bothered, whether we play or not. Once it gets to
this time the old bugger qualifies for being paid,' someone shouted.

`Who said that?' he got out his pencil.

`Mickey Mouse. Ignore him.'

`I'll remember your face, I've got a photographic memory.'

`Well, picture this, mister Umpire man, tha's being locked in't
this `er shed til next Saturday if tha doesn't move tha' sen
quickly. We're off,' and everyone left for the pub.

`Shandy, please,' I ordered, finance restricting my intake of
alcohol. Perhaps I just might get another game - next week a lot of
them would be watching the F.A. cup final.

The mustard seed flourished and seven days later sunshine lit
up my pads, be damned if I was going to be out. Trouble was, this
time they sent me in next to last, with an hour left to survive, and
all hope gone since eight of our batmen were already out.

Defeat was inevitable, with not long to bat unless I could stay
in and pinch the bowling at the end of each over. `Batsman's name,' 
a shout from the score box.

`Forgotten,' I shouted back, first ploy in my attempt to upset
the other side.

`Got a right nut here,' muttered the bowler, not suffering
fools lightly. He set about teaching me a lesson, aiming the first
ball straight at my head.

I gave him a you're-not-going-to-get-me-out-that-way look and
smiled, practising a stroke, sharpening my reflexes. That made him
even madder. At the end of the over I was still in and he looked
distraught and distracted.

`Run,' I screamed at the other batsman, pinching the bowling,
upsetting the opposition still further. Ninety minutes the game was
drawn, we saved a point, and my place in the team was secure.
The air remained silent, my rook being made to laugh on the other
side of its beak.

Mind you, it was a brilliant summer and, apart from the tennis,
Lena soon lost interest in my attempts to remain fit, particularly
when I started batting and bowling midweek for the Gilbert and
Sullivan Society. I'm not singing, so what's she grumbling about,
would she prefer to look after an invalid? `I still think you'd be
better with a job,' she retorted.

`I've tried, they sent me on an ogu.'

`A what?'

`An O.G.U., Occupational Guidance Unit.'

`Well, that's more like it. How did you get on?'

`They want me to go on a course to fill in a year.'

`What's wrong with that?' she brightened up. `At least you'd be
employed.'

"Oh no I wouldn't.. It was just to fill in a year.'

`That can't be all, there must be other jobs for you to apply
for?'

`There were, but I was either too old, or without enough
experience, or overqualified."

`Nothing?'

`Not a thing. In fact the queue for my last interview was so
long I waited a day, got home late, and missed the evening cup
match.' 

`Never mind cricket, what was the job?'

`Don't know, they said I shouldn't have been there in the first
place.'

Lena refused to believe that someone with a degree could not
get a job. `Huh,' she dismissed my attempts. `Well, next week it's
my turn, I'm having the week off, it's half term.'

`Good! That's a coincidence. Tom and Ola offered us their
friend's cottage in Wales.'

`We can't afford a holiday,' she recited.

`Why not? My pension's been increased... Apparently I'm now
classified as being a permanent invalid.'

`You can't be, you're getting better.'

`I know that, but that's got nothing to do with it, at least
not so far as the way in which square wheels of bureaucracy revolve.
Anyway, it'll make up for them not paying me when I was disabled
and, look on the positive side, it'll cover the cost of us going on
holiday if you can afford the price of the food.'

She stared at the fireplace, flickering uncertainty. `I'll have
to ask Ransley?'

`Ransley! What the hell's it got to do with him, it's half term
when we're intending to go?' I paused, half way through dialing a
telephone number, having been intending to confirm our booking with
Tom.

Still she had doubts, pondering doubts. `What about your
cricket?'

`That doesn't matter. In any case, they've dropped me from the
team for turning up late after going for that interview.'

`I might have known,' she exploded.

`Please, mum.'

`Please.'

`Please, please,' the children pawed Lena with outstretched
emotion. They had been eavesdropping.

A week's a long time in politics, half a week even longer to
children waiting for Saturday. `Are we setting off now?'

`You've only just had breakfast, we've still got everything to
load, so we won't be ready to set off before lunch.'

`I'm not bothered about lunch. A packet of crisps will do for 
me.'

`Me too.'

`Oy,' Lena wagged her finger, taking the J out of joy, `It's a
long journey, so you're having a proper meal before we set off, or
else we don't go.'

Eventually the rear doors of Lena's Morris Traveller were
bulging shut and the car settled onto its haunches, like a camel
laden with more than was needed - just in case. `Have you got
everything, games to play?' I squeezed into the driving seat. Claire
and John bubbled excitedly, `Yes, yes,' ignoring the discomfort of
being buried under a humpload of baggage, they were ready for off.

Lena struggled to make room so she could open the road map.

`We won't be needing that, not on the way there. Their cottage
is near Tal-y-Bont, not far from the main road, apparently third
turn past Aber, Tom said.'

The twin lanes of the M62 climbed to Lancashire in lazy curves
and eternal inclines, through cuts where discoloration from
surrounding moors had already seeped across the fresh cut rock - and
our engine whined in stoic servitude......... Until we reached where
the car sat back less heavily and the Pennine Way crossed high
overhead, its concrete arch walked by pin-sized hikers from
Blackstone Edge to Standedge - passing others migrating in the
opposite direction.

It is hereabouts that a wedge of air from the North Sea, often
chilled and stubborn, would block the soggy westerlies and frost
would turn to murk, or sun to shower, or fog to drizzle. But this
afternoon a Saharan sun breathed heavily upon our roof. We could
have seen as far as the Irish Sea had it not been for the haze from
the obscured Lancastrian fish and chip shops and black pudding
factories. One more battle like Towton Moor and we'd have driven
the lot of them into the bloody Mersey, I mused in wild imagination
to stifle a yawn. `Pardon?'

`Um?.... Oh, nothing. I was just counting the miles.'

`Well, our teacher says that the War of the Roses had nothing
to do with the present size of Yorkshire.'

`Ah.' Just how many mutterings had been aloud? `He would say
that, wouldn't he, with him coming from Ramsbottom?' 

`Delph.'

`All right, Delph then. That's what I mean. Yorkshire stretched
even further than here before the government changed our
boundaries,' I retaliated in mock bluster.

`I spy with my little eye something beginning with H,` the
children reverted to games.

`It can't be house, there aren't any on top of these moors, and
we've already had hill a hundred times.....?'

`Hypocrite,' Claire laughed, pointing her finger to my back.

Across the plain the journey fell into a doldrum, the engine
purring as the sun we were chasing began to set over Colwyn Bay, the
orange colour upon the shops being highlighted by yellow sodium
street lights as they flickered on. `Look, a fish and chip shop.'

`Yes, please.'

`Just fish for me.'

`I'll have yours,.. and scraps, too.'

`You'll be sick.'

`Shan't.'

Our headlights sped past parched stone walls, and hedges, and
signs, the engine soothing the children to sleep as it cruised even
more willingly in the night's cooling air.

`That was Aber.'

`Which was?' I muttered, concentrating on the driving.

`That was, back there,' Lena repeated.

But I had other things on my mind, like trying to make up time
and at the same time attempting to read road signs in Welsh.

`Don't you think we should have asked that man for directions?'
Lena looked back whilst checking the children.

`Which man?'

`The one who was waving.'

`In the dark!.. in the middle of nowhere? Probably someone
thumbing a lift,' I peered through squashed flies on our windscreen,
concentrating on the road ahead over which we were racing

`No, he was definitely waving.'

`If you insist,' I braked, steered the car round, and
backtracked towards Aber, grudgingly conceding that, on this
occasion, I might have overrun whilst doing my best to make up time 
after not being the only one to be responsible for us setting off so
late .... Um, she was right, there was a man waving. Perhaps it was
Morgan, owner of the cottage, at least he looked a bit like what we
expected from the description given by Ola and Tom.

`The speed you raced past I thought your brakes would never
stop you until you reached Caernarvon,' he ratatat-tatted on the
part open sidelight, saying something about his instincts having
told him to turn out to meet us.

`Pardon?' I wound down the window.

`Celtic instinct, you know,' he sang on.

Was he joking, or serious, I wondered as he inspected my face,
the light of our headlamps being reflected off the hedgerow.

`High cheekbones,' he repeated, `High cheekbones.'

Was that good news or bad, I wondered?

`What did Tom say your name was?'

`Martin, Martin Mytholmroyd.'

`Mytholmroyd, Mytholmroyd,' he repeated slowly. `That's an old
name. It's not English, is it..... at least not Southern English?'

`No,' I risked, `It's Yorkshire. There's a place called
Mytholmroyd not far from Halifax.'

`Halifax,.. Halifax near Leeds?'

I nodded.

`That's alright, then, Leeds having been in Elmet, a British
kingdom before the English stole it from our ancestors, you know.'

`Mmm,' I tried to sound sympathetic, and thought of my father
who was a Leeds born man of small stature. `My father's as tall as
you, and dark hair too.'

`Tall? I wouldn't say I was that tall,' he perked up. `You had
better follow my car, then,' he smiled, `Foreigners can't find my
place during the daytime let alone when it's dark.'..... He
hesitated, keeping his hand on my door, preventing me from winding
up the window, `You don't smoke, do you?'

I shook my head.

`That's alright then, don't want any fires, no mains water, you
see.'

No water! Lena and I looked at each other.... What had Tom and
Ola let us in for? Better take a look, we agreed - besides, it was 
too late for second thoughts, what with us being in the middle of
Nowhere,in danger of being abandoned if we didn't chase after
his
car which was racing off in the direction of Aber.”

He braked sharply, swerved, and abandoned the main road for a
track. No, it wasn't a track, more a half-macadamed lane along
which he and his car disappeared. But we could tell they were not
far ahead going by the smell of burnt oil of blue exhaust fumes as
we lunged around corners between winding banks, sunken and narrowed
and lumpy cambered by the trunks of old trees, their canopy arched
overhead with branches, and leaves, and an undergrowth through which
we caught sight of the occasional flicker of his rear lights.

`We can't be lost,' I reassured Claire and John, now both wide
awake, their faces dancing with excitement as we raced on.

`It's a haunted forest,' Claire whispered.

`With dragons,' John tried to deepen his voice until it was
down in his boots - not an easy thing for a lad aged eight.

Rounding another corner we suddened upon a ford, too late to
stop. `Can't see a damned thing,' I held deftly the steering wheel,
trying to interpret its vibrations and guess where the lane was
whilst the windscreen wipers sloshed under the drenching until,
almost as suddenly, we were driving between gates into a glade with
a cottage straight ahead. Morgan was already opening its door,
switching on an outside light, around which moths immediately
circled singeing their wings.

But to our right a light - perhaps a torch, seemed to be
dancing through the darkness. `It's Bronwen, my wife, you see,'
Morgan reappeared against the door of our car. `She's avoiding the
beehives,' then he vanished as swiftly into the night.

Beehives, at night?.... And no water?.... we wondered what
next.

`The other path would have been better,' his wife arrived,
breathless, having wound her way through an overgrown kitchen
garden. `Yes, the other path would have been better, instead of me
risking bumping into the hives..... But along the other path I would
have disturbed the geese, and then you'd have never got to sleep.'

`You're.....'

`Yes, that's right. Ola and Tom phoned, said you might be bit 
late.... Hello you two. You'll be, er, John and Claire, is it?' she
smiled, spotting the children still on the back seat

`That's right. Morgan left rather quickly before
introducing....'

`Ohh, he would. Couldn't wait to get back to his river, fishing
for sea trout, you see...... That's right, stretch your legs,' her
helping hand eased the children over the luggage and through the car
door. `Not much room for you in there, was there?'

`We'll start getting the stuff out,' Lena started to busy
herself.

`That's right..... No need waiting for Morgan, you won't see
him until breakfast, and then only when he can smell that it's
cooking,' her warmth led us inside. `This is river water, for
washing,' she turned a brass tap, gargoyling brown fluid into the
stone sink. `Pure, you know. Comes off the mountain, colour of peat.
Good for the skin, use it in the bath, see,' she repeated the
demonstration, this time using the same plug for their cast iron
bath, restricting its flow because of the river being low.

`It's,.. er,.. a bit different,' we were unsure of what best to
say.

`Yes, that's right... More modern, Morgan got it from a hotel
in Bangor,' she said, showing us how he had used pieces of slate to
prop up its legs on the uneven floor.

`Is there a television?' John whispered to Claire.

`Television? No. What do you want with television, you're on
holiday?' her broad smile illuminating the cottage as she led us
into the kitchen. `This one is for drinking,' she stopped by the
sink, with its third tap fed from a filtering device. `It uses
clean water, collected off the roof and stored in a rain butt
outside.' She paused, ensuring that the children were not listening,
before confiding, `I also use the filtered water for washing my
hair.... But don't tell Morgan.'

Chapter 16.

Funny, I thought; remembering my mother, recalling how she had
similarly washed her hair from a rain butt. But that was as a child
on holiday on a farm earlier this century in East Yorkshire where
the ground water is hard. `I suppose you'd end up a red head if you
used river water round here,' I chuckled.

`That's what I tell him, but he won't have it, determined not
to pay to have mains water installed, he is.'

`Is it expensive?'

`That's not the point. He refuses because he says it should be
free, subsidised by the English for damming our valleys and taking
whatever they want.'

We hesitated, reluctant to be seen as Saxon colonials. `Is it
all right if we put the kettle on for a small cup of tea - whilst
the children are getting ready for bed?'

`Of course it is, but I won't stay for a cup, Morgan will be
wondering where I have got to.'

`He isn't going fishing all night, then?'

She looked puzzled. It was her turn to hesitate, `Oh, yes,
he'll be out all night.... It's the river, you see. Being close to
the house he can see everything. In the morning he'll be worried,
wanting to know why it took me so long. Good night.'

`Good night,' we closed down the lights for the night.

Upstairs, in the darkness, we lay still in bed, and the longer
we lay the blacker the blackness as we stared into silence; the more
silent our stare the louder the river, louder, louder through the
night's cool silk of blackness. `What if the children wake up?'

`They'll let us know.'

`What if they fall down the stairs?'

`They won't. They'll ask for a light first.'

An owl hooted, leaves rustled amongst the still air. The river
flowed on. A screech - an animal's death. The river flowed on.

Tucked away in an attic bedroom, exhausted by the day, the
children slept on, through the dawn and sunrise, untroubled by all
the honking of geese alerted to Morgan returning from fishing.

I was already awake, and quickly outside to explore within the 
cool air before day displaced the tail end of twixt-time. How small
the cottage, built of slate with walls climbed over by flowers,
snuggling into a hillside; a hill covered with velveteen grass which
climbed ever steeper until grass became shale and shale became a
towering outcrop. Beyond, far beyond and higher still, the
Snowdonian peaks, hazed in blue mist.

I turned about, towards the sound of the river. `It doesn't
turn, you know,' Morgan's voice carried from nowhere.

`What doesn't turn?' my eyes scanned. Nothing, nobody, what
doesn't turn?

`The water wheel,' his voice sounded suspicious, as though the
answer was obvious. `Use the mill as a workshop, you see, making
spinning wheels for antique shops in Caernarvon.'

I still could not see him, nor the wheel, nor the river. Was
this a passage of rights for the testing of Saxons? `Over here,' he
held up a hand, above the wrist signalling me to approach through
the squelch grass.

`Good morning,' I stumbled from tussock to tussock until all
splattered and mudded.

`Morning...... Don't come too near or make any noise,' he
remained motionless, up to his wrist in water within the scoured
gorge. `Geese?... No,' he scoffed lightly so as to not wake up the
fish. `That was me getting up, not going to bed. What man with the
value of his neighbours' respect would be out all night?'

Funny, that's not what Bronwen said, still, `Mmm,' I agreed,
relying upon judicial caution, not wishing to be left holding the
baby like a Solomon between him and his wife.

`Very interesting,' I nodded, yet to see the wheel, hiding my
ignorance whilst he disgorged a flood of rivercraft knowledge, and
of Wales, and of history, and.....

`Are those your children?' unable to hear over the spate of the
water he caught sight of them laughing, splashing across grass
towards his river. `Stay where you are, don't frighten the fish,' he
tried to hold his rod steady.

`I'm sorry, I'll keep them away,' I apologized, and backed
away, retreating round the side of his mill where a giant wheel had
been restored for appearance yet left unable to turn. 

`They're doing no harm,' Bronwen found us, garden trowel in her
hand. `Take no notice, him and his river..... The wheel? No, not
even if he had restored it completely it couldn't turn, all the
water in its race is piped into our plumbing,' then she held out a
hand each to Claire and to John. `Have you seen my cottage?'

At first glance it appeared to be part of the mill, except its
windows were clean, with white net curtains. Shy, uncertain, they
shook their heads.

`Come in, come on,' she invited them into her kitchen. `Have a
biscuit. Go on, take two. They're very good, wholesome, I bake them
when Morgan's away in the town.'

Their eyes were fascinated by the old kitchen range. Cold at
the moment, with logs stacked in a basket. `Look,' she stepped into
her pantry, whitewashed and a floor of cool slate, its shelves also
of slate stocked with home made provisions, a slit of a window
slotted into one wall. A side of bacon hung from the rafter. `Take
this to your mam,' she passed down a jar of home made jam.
`Quickly, before Morgan returns.'

`What do you say?' I reminded them, habit forgotten in the
confusion of a strange environment.

`Thank you.'

`Thank you.'

`And for the biscuits,' Claire remembered. But John had
finished eating. Out of mouth out of mind.

`Come back with us, have a cup of tea,' I suggested. `We're not
going out for a while.'

`No, I'm making a sandwich for Morgan. He'll be back soon, got
to finish a spinning wheel, you see. Urgent order, takes him longer
when it's got to be genuine antique. Another time, perhaps.'

Lena had also made sandwiches, and a salad for me - on acccount
of the glutin. `Caenarvon's worth visiting,' she said, having been
reading an illustrated guide.

`Yes please,' John saw the picture of a castle.

`Yes please,' Claire seeing the sea, wishing to play in the
water next to the castle and the yachts, oh those yachts, how her
imagination wished to sail on a luxury yacht.

More likely mudflats, I thought, but loaded the car, opening 
its windows to release its baked air.

`Don't know why mum bothered to come,' Claire grumbled when we
got there, Lena again staying behind in the car. They were older
now, not like the last time at Simon's Seat. No, today their
loyalties were clear, they wished to be left on their own to enjoy
themselves. `Mud,' John exclaimed, being first to the sea wall.

`Don't,' my shout pursued after him, `It might be dangerous,
like quicksand.'

`Let's have ice creams, then,' Claire doubled back to tug at my
pockets.

I smiled. `O.K., what kind do you want,.. and see what kind
your mother wants,.. and whether she'd like to come to the castle.'

Lena declined the climb. Be like that, I thought, staring up at
the walls, more determined than ever to take a shufty and see what
it was like on the inside. `Wait,' again they were racing ahead,
this time aiming for the highest battlements, reaching the top just
as their ice cream cornets ended up empty.

John had sucked his dry, after biting off its base. `I can see
mum,' he peeped through a look-out. She was still where we had left
her reading a paperback.

“Squawk, Squawk, Squawk,” sea gulls soared upon thermals and
breezes as though the castle's walls were cliffs. `Watch,' I threw
my empty cornet through the slit. `Have you ever seen gulls
catching food whilst they're in flight?'

`It's not going to work, is it, dad?' Claire remembering
something from school about different weights being dropped from the
leaning Tower of Pisa.

`That was Galileo, and he didn't carry out his experiment in
conditions like these with items so light they would float.'

`Didn't he use ice cream cornets, then?' John grinned, watching
my demonstration being lifted high over the car park.

This denial of gravity also outwitted the sea gulls. `No,' I
pleaded to the puffy white clouds which were sailing across the sky,
hoping against the laws of chaos that the demon which had replaced
my mustard seed would fail in its mischief as the soggy cornet
swirled in a remorseless curl towards a policeman. `No,.. is
it?... Isn't it going to?' as I watched whilst it hovered for a 
brief moment. But seeds of faith are not intended for such occasions
of levity and it dived with missile precision until it struck,
spreading its fallout all over his toe caps.

Claire and John both ended up terrified and laughing all at the
same time, scuttling down the sole staircase, imagining themselves
to be parties to a serious crime, the tips of their shoes barely
touching the worn stone as they spiralled downwards upon the steps,
with me only inches behind, until we emerged breathless into the
sunshine to lose ourselves amongst the crowds milling outside.
Amongst this ocean of faces the threat of the Old Bailey receded and
they again burst into laughter, exhilarated after a close brush with
danger.

The bobby was gone, only the faint silhouette of one boot
remaining. Mother was not amused, `Childish,' she replaced her
bookmark and started the engine, she wanted to get back to the
cottage for food.

`Can we have fish and chips?' John remembered whilst we were
still in the town.

`Please, can we?' Claire leaned between the front seats, `It'll
save you having to cook.'

`Have you some money?' Lena turned towards me.

`Not enough,' my reply evoking a wasted-on-ice cream second of
silence.

`You better pass my purse,' she changed gear and slowed, seeing
the shop the children had seen. Perhaps it ’was“ late to start
cooking, but if she was doing the paying they could do the queuing
and carrying.

`It's not a big queue,' I said on reflection. `Let's hope
that's because it's only half term and not the high holiday season,'
- though going by the glee with which they returned embracing the
hot newspaper parcels close to their chests the contents must have
smelt good.

`Just a moment,' Lena put the brakes on their stampede into the
car. `Not here, not in the main street.'

`Why,... are you parked on a double yellow line?'

`Get in, John,' she started the engine and drove round the
corner with the parcels, tormenting their nostrils, remaining
impatiently balanced tight to their knees.

`Here,' he was quick to spot a suitable car park. Well, not
really a car park, more a disused siding, trackless, purposeless,
where men had once termited away but no longer any more than grey
ballast too recently abandoned to bare more than a single sparse
weed, but somewhere for Lena to steer as the chassis contorted to an
uneven halt.

`I'll share them out,' Lena impounded the parcels.

`They're bigger than the helpings we get from Violent
Violet's,' John referred to the fish and chip shop back home.

`And without soggy chips,' Claire added.

`Anyone for more batter,' I peeled mine away. They shook their
heads.

`Save it for the sea gulls,' John tittered. Lena saw the joke,
her mood better now, with food in her stomach and not on her mind.
Until then we had been so busy in the castle we had forgotten all about their Mother and her melancholias.

Chapter 17.

Next morning the mountains loomed larger, nearer, free of haze.
`Would you like a drive to Snowdon?' I looked at the map. `It's
early, so we should beat the crowds.'

`Good idea,' Lena agreed, having slept well. `But this time
I'll make a proper picnic. Fish and chips are all right, once in a
while, but not when I'm watching my weight,' she was attempting to
reverse the passage of time, or to regain eternal youth just to
impress Ransley, that bloody headmaster of hers.

The geese, in addition to being their usual unwelcoming selves,
this time were cropping the grass between us and the car so we took
the long cut past Bronwen's bee hives. `If you've got any fruity
sweets don't suck them until we're well past the bees,' our early
departure slipping until it was later rather than sooner and all the
traffic seemed to be aiming for Snowdon.

Exhaust fumes hung invisible on the air through our windows as
we millepeded past walls, fields, cottages and hills, and where the
remnants of forest had withdrawn into copses, their roots grappling
onto whatever mean land had been spared. Yet summer life still
sprouted, fighting to overhang whenever the road wandered too near.

There were rooks, too, at least they looked like damned rooks,
circling and mocking.... In fact they must have been rooks because
when we arrived at Snowdon the queue for its railway stretched
beyond reason, every seat for the day booked. `Damn.... Well, I
suppose we could drive a short way, find somewhere to park, then
perhaps go for a walk.' I had seen a sign post and, softly, softly,
kept my wildest hopes secret, hopes of how I would like to climb to
its top. Mind you, best not admit lest it left Lena reluctant to
park. She'd be right, of course, it was too far, but with my mustard
seeds at least we might get part of the way.

To my surprise she agreed that we park temptingly close to its
base, but before she had even locked the car doors the children were
missing. She panicked. `Don't worry,' I chased after them, having
caught sight of the direction in which their heels were disappearing
before they scuttled between an outcrop of boulders, aiming for the
mountain. I reached where they had been and stood on top of the 
boulders, at first seeing nothing but Snowdon, like a tidal wave
swamping my senses.

Never mind its grandeur, where were they? my purpose swiftly
acclimatising. Ah, there, on the tourist track, I think, racing
past hikers. `I've seen them,' I turned round and called back to
Lena. `They're safe,' I shouted, sensing that here was an
opportunity to test my recovery as I struck out in pursuit, pacing
my rhythm.

Gosh, it was hot, I removed my pullover and shirt. `Morning,' I
passed the first party. They descended in silence. Was this because
now I was dressed in only trainers and shorts, or were they just
townies suspicious of strangers? `Good morning,' I tried again, next
lot, this time on a group walking so slow on the way up that they
had to be passed.

`Eee looks some kind of nut,' I heard a London voice say. Was
he referring to me? I bristled, dismissing his worth on the grounds
that he was a Southerner. In fact they were all Southerners, with
not a Welshman in sight, and I wondered about why no Yorkshiremen -
perhaps they'd stayed at home, arguing about whether foreigners
should be allowed to play cricket for the County? Anyway, this lot
of hikers can suit themselves, I shrugged my shoulders, calming
myself down, which also got rid of a fly which had just landed
somewhere in the middle of my back. Take no notice of them, I was
enjoying myself in the heat, grateful to be unlike those M.S.
sufferers who were unable to withstand high summer.

The pathway fingered its way up and across ankle-high rockcrops
and over rough-hewn gravel, winding, climbing, descending, yet
progressing for ever upwards. Claire and John, at some distance
ahead, were beginning to weaken, only spurring themselves on when
they realised I was nearing. But my pace refused to yield, like a
tortoise keeping up with two hares, and their stamina broke when
they reached "Half Way House".... It sold lemonade and ice creams
and..

`Can we have a drink?'

`And some crisps?'- two just excuses for an honourable break.

`All right,' I dug deep into my pockets, searching their
corners until enough money had been pulled out by the tips of my 
fingers, then laid back to relax on the turf, siting myself so as to
prevent another break for the top. `And a cup of tea for me,
please,' I signalled towards where they were queuing.

Time to reassess the mountain, I thought, resting on its
throne, now subject to its majesty, the crown so close, inviting to
be touched, despite being over two miles away. Ants, everywhere ant
trails of people, like worker ants in the sunshine, trailing up,
trailing down, only a few straying from its tracks. Yet for most of
its life the mountain remained slumbering, deserted, resisting the
elements, only to be trampled all over as it tried to recover during
each summer. I even thought of Simon's Seat, not half as high, and
of how it also sat upon a throne.... `Wake up,' it was John, waving
a lemonade beneath my nose.

`I asked for tea.'

`Claire's carrying it, I've got the crisps,' they spread
themselves out upon the springy grass, minds open to all things new,
young islands still to be battered by the tidal waves of life.

`Look who's coming,' Claire propped herself upon her elbows.
Mother was plodding up the track. `What's she doing here? She's
never climbed a hill with us before.'

`Where?' I searched, wicked elves upon my left shoulder
purring when they heard Lena being rewarded by her for spending too
many hours with Ransley, that bloody headmaster. Deep in the
dungeons of my heart I knew I should have censored them, but the
voice on my right shoulder was locked stubbornly away. `Where,' I
repeated, but they had gulped their drinks and gone, clutching their
crisps, determined not to be organised.

Lena sagged onto the grass, a picture like joy lost in transit.
I smiled, hoping her rest would help. `They never had the courtesy
to say Hello,' she said, `Or offer to buy me a drink.'

My heart sagged, tongue silenced, these were not the complaints
I had anticipated. All logic freeze-dried in my mouth, as though
overshadowed by those rooks which had scattered back in the valley,
their splayed feathers torn by thermals like ragged lepers' cloaks.
Yes, I should have said something, for Ransley was a non-event, a
weed, and perhaps she was only trying to earn a graded post at the
school, though her excessive hours had warped my scales of justice
and one set of weights were now cast in iron, the other in brass.

`No,' she pursed her lips when I offered to buy her a coffee.
`I'll pay for my own,' she walked ten martyred paces to the cafe,
leaving me to watch over the children's progress from where I was
sitting, confident they were safe, still a long way from the steep
bits.

But it was a serpentine queue, Claire and John scampering much
further than expected before she had returned. `No need to worry,
they'll soon tire,' she said, sitting down whilst stirring her
coffee, like the sun which had gone in.

I answered in equal measure, minutes passing in silence before
I saw John climbing a scree on his own. `Sorry, I'll have to chase
after them,' I broke the impasse before Lena's coffee had cooled.
`We'll wait for you at the top...if we get that far,' I called over
my shoulder, hoping she would follow so that we should return to
being a family again, like in the old days, brought together by
climbing a mountain for the first time together.

Oh dear, I pounded after them, abandoning my regime, both legs
aching as I strained to catch up. At last, at last, the children
were resting, where the scree was too steep. Yet, before I reached
its base, he was climbing again, almost vertical, almost out of
sight. `John,' I bellowed, cupping my hands. Too late, he was
gone, my voice drowned by a jet fighter flying below us, low level
training against the side of our mountain, its arrival as sudden as
the roar of its engine, the thunder of its departure reverberating
long after it disappeared over Cardigan Bay or wherever else it had
gone to.

`Claire,' I waved frantically. She heard me. `Get after him,
sit with him, put on parkas, and don't move an inch, not until I get
there.'

She waved back, still tired, perched on a rock, knees tucked
under her chin, quickly rebalancing herself with hands clasped round
her ankles.

`He could be killed,' my voice persuasively desperate. She
stared up at the scree, then back at me, realised the situation was
serious, and uncoiled like a spring off the rock. At last, good
girl, she was fighting her way up the route he had taken. I 
slithered, grabbed hold of a stone, rattling dislodged shale down
the slope. Marvellous, not only marooned on this slope but my
pension in danger of being cancelled, "Disabled climber brought down
by Mountain Rescue Team", just the sort of headline the Social
Security inspectors spent their days scanning for.

`How are we going to manage on my salary alone?' I could
already imagine what Lena would say. Best cast a fistful of mustard
seeds onto the slope, I took a deep breath, then started climbing
and slithering, two up one back, until I could see Claire calling to
John.

He was already sitting, knees clasped tight together, as though
having lost confidence before attempting the narrow incline of a
long ridge. `I'm freezing,' he complained, `Waiting for you.'

`Better get a move on, then. If low clouds are on their way it
really WILL become cold,' I shepherded them over the last dangerous
stretch, upwards and upwards, forever upwards, upon a knife edge
with only a grey horizon to aim for, their spirits fading until
BANG! - like a deafening silence overwhelming our senses the summit
leapt into sight.

We tottered a moment, taking all in. Near to its peak was a
building, of stone, substantial, somewhere for sanctuary, but first
we must touch Snowdon's tip. `How do we get down to the cafe?' John
shivered. I shrugged my shoulders, looking as puzzled as he.

`Perhaps it's only for people who've bought tickets,' Claire
pointed to a train on its knees puffing into the station.

`Mingle. Come on, mingle. Don't bother to ask, just mingle.
Pretend to be passengers, follow me,' we snaked amongst the crowd on
the platform into the cafe.

`Don't know why you had to pretend. I can't see any notices
telling us to keep out,' John mumbled.

`Here, get something to drink, ready for when your mother
arrives,' I bagged four seats with panoramic views whilst they
juggled the money.

`I suppose we should have expected top prices, being high up a
mountain,' I mused, as I looked for some change. Never mind, at
least we each had a drink and were pointing out landmarks where 
Wales lost its way to the sea. Not very interesting, unless they
could open their packets of nuts. I nodded and smiled, we had done
it, all on our own, without using the railway; and once again I
remembered the specialist, but this time was determined that my
recovery would last.... Though that's what I said after we climbed
Simon's Seat, but now I know what the consequences of failure would
be.

`Where's mum?' John crumpled his empty packet.

`Should have been here by now,' I looked at my watch. `Perhaps
we better set off, in case she's got stuck.'

`I'll wait, she still might come,' Claire said, feeling
concerned.

`And be left on your own in the clouds?' wisps were already
brushing the cafe as the change in the weather continued to glide
past from the west. I ushered them outside, into the cold cauldron,
its contents condensing and fuming about us. `Better keep to the
railway line.'

`You always tell us not to play on railway lines.'

`Good lad, you're right, I'm wrong. What I meant was keep close
to the track, before we get lost - but not too close, although close
enough so we can see to avoid stumbling onto it by mistake.'

`Doesn't he go on?'

`That's because it can be the difference between life and
death. But thanks for remembering, and certainly never do it on
other railways where trains go very mu....'

`The train won't see us,' he had stepped to one side, sticking
his head further into the clouds.

`We'll hear it coming, though,' Claire said, her ears already
alert since these were ideal conditions for ghostly things like the
Hound of the Baskervilles'.

He held his breath, listened, the mountain was smothered in
silence. `Wouldn't it be safer to ride on the train?'

`Yes, but we don't have the money..... though never do this
again. However, what with me being with you, and under these
circumstances, and only on this railway, we'd best stay between the
lines,' I donned sackcloth and ashes, `For I can't see and don't
know how steep is the drop on either side of the track.' 

Then suddenly we walked free, back into warm air.

`Oh, I'm soaked.'

`So'm I.'

A train whistle hooted. `Quick, get off the lines,' we
scrambled up a sheep path, whilst looking over our shoulders, but
the locomotive stayed hidden as the arthritic squeaking of its
metals came nearer.

`Look, there's mum,' John pointed. She was on the trail to the
summit, about to walk into the clouds.

`Hi,' I waved, leaving the children safe, outstretched, drying
off.

`Oh, it's you,' her trudge dragged to a stop.

`You're nearly there, and the clouds are now clearing,' I
sparkled. `We'll climb with you,' certain that Claire and John would
welcome the kudos of telling their friends they had scaled Snowdon
twice in one day.

`No, I'm not bothered,' she turned back.

`Where's mum going?' they caught up with me, wanting to know
what was happening.

`She's going back,' I replied.

They ran to persuade her, fun lighting up their faces, only to
return puzzled with their hearts as uncertain as upon quicksand.
`She's going back to the car.'

`I suppose we'd better follow,' my voice fell, our day of
triumph sallower as she retreated, abandoning her climb with the
goal almost in sight. Had she been there before, with that bloody
headmaster France's school parties? I stood to one side, giving way
to other climbers on their way to the top, unable to get that damned
man out of my mind, what with his beard to cover his infantile face.

Were they waiting for me, is that why they've stopped? ... No,
they were resting, one of their party was exhausted, inching her way
to safety. `Is there far to go?' she asked one of the men as she
slumped onto a patch of short grass, springy and mown by the sheep.

`Far to go?' I butted in, exploiting the fact that the summit
was still out of sight. `You see that, down there, "Half Way Cafe"
the Welsh call it. Well, it's just another Celtic con trick. Where
you're sitting is really half way.' 

`No,' she capitulated, pleading up at her husband. `You can go
on by yourself, I'm staying right here.'

`I was only joking,' I apologised quickly, `You're almost
there,' my tentative smile ready to broaden or vanish as the
occasion demanded. He was a big man, very tall, very long, but how
short was his temper?

They were laughing, that's a relief... Quite nice, these
Southerners, when you actually get to know them.

But it was time to catch up with Claire and John. They were
well on their way, having overtaken Lena, darting first one way then
another, taking adventurous detours, long grass, lumpy grass,
between rocks and.... they stumbled into a small flock, the sheep
scattering, panic and uncertainty leaving it uncertain as to who was
the more scared of the other.

The sun reappeared and we all reached the bottom, more or less
at the same time. I was limping a bit, had any of yesterday's batter
seeped into the fish?.. or was it because we had covered ten miles?
No, forget it, get on with living, worrying about nothing will only
cause stress.

Next morning, last of the holiday, Lena unpacked her two-piece
swimming costume, determined to soak up some sun before we returned
to Adderton. Out of sight she found a corner, a nudge of space
missed by hillside, cottage and hedge fit only for grass. `Does
anyone pass this way?'

`They can't do, it doesn't go anywhere.'

`Why's the grass so short, then?'

`Geese, sheep, rabbits? I don't know.'

And she did not know, either, so whilst the sun was climbing
she settled down upon a tartan blanket.

`Naked, nearly naked,' I could hear Morgan telling his wife.
Perhaps he had a hidy-hole.

`Get on with you. You didn't have to look, did you?' Bronwen
told him to get back to his woodwork.

Claire and John had evaporated between the trees, dodging,
hiding, playing, until they were balancing on a rocking stone,
bridging the mill stream. The neglected wheel slept, its waters
seeping, slowly, below this worn slab of slate, twinkling, wanting
to play before being devoured into the river's appetite.

Leaves and sun cast patterns, whilst jerky movements invited
the children to fish, each scooping with a jam jar, holding the
captive water to the light, pouring, laughing, getting wet. Hidden
from view I filmed. Some melancholic breeze touched me, or was it
the distant waft of a giant wing..... might this be the last time
they would play together as children?

Chapter 18.

Back home, back to cricket, back to answering the telephone.
`You did what?' exclaimed Fiona from London.

`Climbed Snowdon.'

`How much did you get?'

What did she mean? She was one of the founders of our embryo
charity but her question still left me puzzled. `It wasn't a
professional race, I just did it for pleasure.'

`Weren't you sponsored?.... That's ridiculous,' she was angry,
`You know how desperate we need funds for research.'

`Don't worry,' I cast for an idea to bluff my way out, `Next
year I'll do something dramatic, now that I've tested my stamina.'

`Like what?' she responded.

`I don't know,' I found myself hoisted, suggesting the first
petard to enter my mind.... `Probably cycle to London.'

`Good idea. I'll set up a reception at this end, involve T.V.,
get the cast from a West End show,' she entered my suggestion into
her diary.

Damn, I had forgotten about her contacts from when she worked
on the stage.

Nor was everything well in the village of Adderton, Lena having
fallen out with Willy over the use of his tennis court. Why was
this? - had he slipped in a few caustic digs about her
disappearance during last New Year's Eve after her having flirted
with friends?.... Or were other things in her life now more
important than tennis?.... Or perhaps she was distancing herself
after new storm clouds of trouble at my parents had started to
rumble louder than any others before?

`Stop!' I said to myself. `Stop worrying. There's really
nothing to bother about, try to forget it,' so out came my
sledgehammer, and some diversionary therapy, as I smashed a few
holes in our hall to add a dining extension. It had been planned,
and put extra value on the house, making Lena quite pleased and
suspending her complaints about me not having a job.

But as one door of stress closed another squeezed open - this
time it was Mother on the telephone. `I've found out about Peter. 
You'll never believe it,' she interrupted my decorating as I
finished off our new dining room. She alleged wild facts about my
brother's marriage. `He's filthy, he's dirty, he's evil,' she
ranted and raved for at least half an hour before turning her wrath
upon Father's attempt to mediate a reconciliation.

She had always been like this, so far as my suppressed memories
were prepared to recall. Yet both her and Father's intentions were
painfully good, so I assumed that these reactions were the
consequence of her childhood having been scarred, hers by violent
beatings at the end of a strap from her stepmother. But Father also
suffered psychologically, his father turning violent when drunk.
Were these the common experiences which subconsciously drew them
together?

There were differences, though, his problems only being
whenever his loving father became drunk, whilst hers were at the
hands of a dedicated sadist. Their responses to brother Peter's
difficulties were as a result different. `He's rubbish,' she
shrieked, `I've told his wife that she needs to get rid of him.' My
brush had set solid by the time she was finished, like my mind as it
fought to keep the M.S. at bay.

Each day thereafter our telephone burned, though my ears
remained cool. But her hemlock got through when I overheard Father
attempting to mediate aggressively once she started to send
libellous postcards to Peter's employers, each marked in red ink,
"PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL", in her attempt to get him the sack if he
refused to submit to her will.

But her demands were not met, so the next target was Peter's
other woman, thus that afternoon she packed a carving knife in a tea
towel and caught the two o'clock train to Bedford. `I'm going to
murder her, slash her face so no other man ever will look at her.'

Father was beside himself, face drained, pacing around the
kitchen in circles, his morning cup of tea going cold. `She's never
happy unless she's causing trouble,' he kept repeating.

He was quite right, of course, for this man of little learning,
born in the last century, had learned the hard way what a modern
psychiatrist might refer to as being a `As long as you hate
somebody it makes you feel good,' type of condition, `Diverting
attention away from being able to handle your own failures.'

Though my Father's scarred childhood had involved spending many
a night huddled round a night watchman's brazier, driven out by his
own father's drunken rages, his early months must have been sound
for he had no such problems. Indeed, he had long since decided that
he was one of life's "failures", a recognition of which Mother never
ceased to remind him.

`Yet another of her bluffs,' I tried to assure him. `She's
intending to arrive just as Peter gets home from work. If she had
wanted to catch them together she'd have caught an earlier train.'
Lena agreed, which helped deflect the stress whilst the storm was
still raging. True, she had a taken a knife, setting out upon a
crusade, but it was merely a threat intended to impress, typical of
the wild theatricals to which her frustrations resorted when not
getting their way. `She'll be all right. I've told her not to do
anything silly,' I repeated.

Of course, my mediations had done nothing for her tongue. That
remained cyclonic as she blew through the streets of Bedford telling
all-comers about her wicked son, intending the scandal would spread,
teach him a lesson and bring him to heel. She failed, her efforts
helped to drive the company bust, and father suffered a stroke.

`I want to go home,' father gripped my hand, pleading, when I
visited the hospital daily.

`How about coming to my house?'

`No,' his tone softened. `I want to go to my home.'

`Just a minute, I'll see what can be done, Sister's over
there.'

`You're not going to leave me, you're coming back, promise,' he
held on.

`Yes, promise, I'm coming back,' I loosened his grip. Sister
referred to her notes, explained the situation, and nodded. I
returned, smiling. `You can go, but Sister doesn't know what Mother
is. It will be just the same as before, so you'll have to control
yourself, no matter how she torments you. Will you promise not to
shout?'

`I won't shout,' he promised. `I won't shout. You will get me
out, won't you?' 

I agreed, but, `First I'll clear it with Mother.'

What a hell of a task to take on. A black rook crowed and my
legs became heavy whilst my health, like a pan of cold porridge,
simmered with frozen emotion as bubbles of M.S. threatened to rise
to the surface.

Pray for a miracle, I mused to the traffic. No, better not, God
knows what has to be done. If it's right I'll survive, I closed my
mind and rang the door bell.

`It's you, come in, have a cup of tea,' she measured water into
the kettle whilst pouring abuse, running more scandal over Peter.

`Thanks, I've been to see Father.'

`Oh,' her tone slumped, she became silent.

`The hospital says he can come home.'

`Do they, and who's going to look after him?'

`He's walking about, they know he's recovered. He's promised
not to shout, so it's up to you.'

`Huh! Not shout, that'll be the first time. I suppose that
means I'll have to take him. Pour yourself a cup of tea, then give
me a lift to the shops, we'll need a loaf of bread.' Thank goodness
that was over, I stirred in sugar without counting the spoonfuls.
`It's not very convenient, I might be out,' she raised her voice
from the bathroom.

`That's all right. The ambulance will make extra trips.'

`Ambulance!'

`Yes, ambulance.' She was outmanoeuvred.

`My husband's being discharged from hospital. Edward's had a
stroke, you know. I've got a lot to do, let you know more next time,
when we've got longer to talk,' she told every customer in the
baker's, bathing in sympathy as they asked after his health. Fifteen
minutes later she had bought a loaf. I drove her back to their
house, then left to take the good news to Father.

His eyes swelled, he smiled, searched for a handkerchief, did
not have one, and hurried to the nurses' desk. `I've decided to
leave,' he apologised, anxious to go home to the house he had built.
`Could I have my bill?' Not that he was posh, it was his first time
in hospital, but he was only familiar with private wards. `I always
have to pay when my wife is ill,' he insisted, standing in the grey 
light which was passing through the ward's windows, refusing to
leave until Sister promised to send on the bill.

Poor Father, temporarily disorientated, but even the strongest
man's mind would have started to wander after what he had been
through. Putting up with mother's onslaughts must have been like
being on the wrong end of the Gestapo's interrogation techniques.

Shattered, but not limping, I reached Adderton and looked for
something to shake off the stress. `How about me building a passage
to link the extension to our garage?'

Lena approved, though was less enthusiastic about the remaining
games of cricket.

Cycling seemed to be all right, so what was so inconvenient
about cricket? Sooner or later she'll understand, I told myself, as
I played out the last of the season as well as completing the
passage. All this activity not only provided exercise but my games
also helped keep the tension at bay, for my parents had resumed
where they left off by re-establishing undiplomatic relationships.

Throughout these hostilities Peter remained out of reach at
remote telephone distance, leaving Father to soak up the flak,
particularly since Mother had always claimed to be a hater of
Christmas. `Shall we ask your parents over for Christmas dinner?'
Lena suggested during a meal one day after I completed the passage.
`My mother's coming.'

I swallowed, in a quandary, before nodding in agreement.
Eighteen months had passed since my discharge from hospital, and
this invitation would involve me in breaking my health rules, yet
again; and they were rules which had taken so long to uncover.
Still, now I knew how to control the disease.....

Christmas morning arrived, full of joy. `Dad, how do you know
when an elephant's sleeping?'

`What time is it?'

`What time!'

`Who on earth's bought you a joke book?'

`You don't know!'

`I better get up before they throw the wrappings and gift
labels away,' Lena said as she put her dressing gown on.

Thus it was in good time that I set off for Leeds. Where do the 
rooks go in winter? I wondered, musing to pass the time during the
journey to pick up my parents. Mother and Father had agreed on a
truce, but when she opened their door it was more like a truce from
the First War - all around an eerie silence amongst the
psychological carnage. This, I thought, is where the rooks go, or
at least where their ghosts settled, you could feel their invisible
presence of lead within the cold of the kitchen. Yet, when we
arrived in Adderton, Claire and John ran into our drive and the
truce became peace and peace became joy.

It was Father's largest meal since being discharged from
hospital, he confided whilst inspecting the extension and approving
its woodwork. He enjoyed doing that, what with him having been a
builder; and also examining the passage, and the......... `It's
dark outside,' he suddenly became disorientated, his recovery still
fragile. `Where's the toilet?'

I followed his shuffle back into the house where his problem
was exacerbated for our bathroom door had become jammed. I was
unable to free it. `It's locked from the inside!... John. Are you
in there?' I rattled its door, but there was just silence. `I bet
he's fixed the door and climbed out through the window,' I
apologised, for someone had locked grandpa out of the lavatory.

`I can't wait,' Father stood on one leg.

`Ted, get outside,' Mother bundled him through the door, as
compassionate as ever. `Nobody will see you, use a tree, it's pitch
black, there's nothing round here but countryside.'

Minutes past, a feint tap-tapping was heard, Lena opened the
door. It was Father. `I've not been.'

`What have you being doing all this time, then?' mother forced
her way past.

`I've been waiting for John, but I can't wait no longer, and
I'm not going out here because a plane's just flown over.'

`Don't be so ridiculous. They're pilots, not Peeping Toms,'
Mother mocked.

`It's all right,' Lena assured him, having telephoned Rosemary
and Roy to explain our predicament, their bungalow being in the
orchard next door. `Get in the car, Pop,' she drove him round to
their house rather than risk him stumbling the short distance though 

the trees in the dark.

`Come in, the toilet's through that door,' Roy welcomed Father
and showed him the way.

When Father wandered back into their kitchen he imagined he was
still in our house. `By Jove, Martin has built a big extension.'

We suppressed our smiles when Lena returned and told us the
story. Yet it was so sad for, although rows had taken place between
Father and Mother for as long as I could remember, it was the war
concerning Peter which was beginning to tell. But at least today he
was happy, and looking much better by the time they were ready for
returning to Leeds.

His joy was short lived for as soon as they got home he
telephoned Peter, it being Christmas and goodwill to all men,
attempting a reconciliation between mother and son. `Who gave you
permission to phone him?' she pulled out the plug.

As punishment he was not to be allowed out for any more walks,
all his privileges withdrawn - except for him washing the pots and
`driving' the fireplace. Then the poker was confiscated, leaving
him only the controls to play with. `You've got it all wrong,' she
shut down the flue, slamming its door, `All the fire's going up the
chimney.' She stopped it going up the chimney all right, in fact she
turned the controls so far that it stopped going anywhere,
compelling him to put on an overcoat.

I withdrew to the peace of our village. Yet within a few days
there was an urgent telephone call. Father was injured. Not only
had he refused to agree that Peter was all evil but had made the
mistake of saying, `Blessed are the peacemakers,' whilst standing
too close to the poker she was waving.

When I arrived mother's private doctor was there, and a
specialist. What's this, I wondered, sensing the air.

`It's only temporary,' they assured me. `Just to give your
mother a rest.'

I still felt uneasy, sitting silently like Pastor Bonhoeffer
who said nothing when the Gestapo came to arrest the Gypsies,
nothing when they arrested the Intellectuals, and nothing when they
arrested the Jews. But, no, these men would not be like that,
though this time sad Father would end up paying the bill for being 
on the receiving end of Mother's attack.

When I visited him it looked as though they had been telling
the truth about her having a rest, for this time he was being
billeted in a different ward, a kind of geriatric transit camp,
and one for which he would not have to pay. He sobbed for joy,
clasping my hands when I entered. `You've saved my life. How long
have I been here?'

`Two days.'

`It seems more like two years,' he became angry. `I'm not like
these other people. It's your mother and her doctor who've had me
locked away. Is this an asylum?'

`No, no,' I assured him. `It's the same hospital, just a
different ward.' Though this one not modern, like the last time, but
a Victorian building left at the back, its skyline now dominated by
the steaming bowels of the health authority's central laundry.

His eyes did not believe me. `I've read about women who get rid
of their husbands when they've got all the money,' he molared away,
adding bite to his words. I remained silent, certain he was
imagining things. How little did I know, but she had already done
it, held his hand whilst he signed and now it was hers, all hers,
all hers to do with just as she wanted. `When am I getting out, your
mother always says tomorrow?'

Still ignorant, I side-stepped the question, `Cup of tea?' not
knowing the answer, at the same time coaxing him to lower his voice.

`No,' his eyes burned, looking beyond me, having spotted his
tormentor. Mother had arrived. `When am I getting out?' he gripped
the edge of the table and shook to his feet.

`Tomorrow. Stop nagging, Ted. You're not like these others,'
she gestured with an expansive sweep of her arm, `They'll die here.'

I flinched, the tourniquet gripping my stomach turning another
twist tighter. Already the plight of these poor folk had filled
Father with compassion without her needing to mock them. I returned
home, having slithered back into the deep end, wondering as I drove,
`Was she born like this? Were her stepmother's beatings the only
explanation? What could I do to secure his release?'

Two visits later I floated my question at the controller's
glass cubical before I entered the ward. `You can take him for a 
trial drive,' the man in a white coat replied. `Then we'll consider
whether an odd weekend or so at home can be arranged, always
providing your mother says yes.'

Like a man on his way to the gallows father rarely looked out
of my car. `I want to go home,' he kept on repeating, remaining
disinterested as we drove around Leeds.

Returned back to hospital, being a man used to exercise, he
continued pacing the corridor from morning to night, waiting for
permission to spend a weekend at home. `There's nothing wrong with
me,' he wagged a finger when the weekend arrived and I called to
collect him, his face white with fury, blaming me. `I'm not like the
others, I can look after myself, I'm a fit man....'

`Hush,' I ushered him through the doors, before his behaviour
was seen, lest they cancel his weekend.

With one foot on the first step outside he came to a halt.
`There's nothing wrong with me, I shouldn't be here,' he continued
complaining, working out what to do with his other foot. Lack of
exercise or drugs had made him forget. `Help me! Don't just stand
there. Help me!'

Chapter 19.

On Sunday my heart sagged. It drooped even further when
evening arrived and it was time to take Father back, a black rook on
my shoulder as I drove to their house.

`Hello, good to see you,' Peter opened their door, grabbed my
hand, shaking it vigorously. `Come in, I'll take dad back to
hospital.' The prodigal son had returned, owning up to having dumped
the other woman.

Despite this bonhomie their hall of a kitchen remained a still
cavern of shallow emotions. Except for Father, sitting alone in the
middle at Mother's scrubbed Formica table, with a tea cupped in his
hands and a melancholic joy in his heart, his return to hospital now
being bearable, his torment worthwhile, for his youngest son was
here, his family complete.

I returned to Adderton, freed from Father's tumbrel trip. On
Tuesday Mother bought Peter a new car, his reward for succumbing to
the ways of clean living. `Thank you very much,' he said, not
mentioning that his bird was now dwelling in Leeds, shacked up in
digs, whilst he was eluding the financial hounds who were attempting
to corner him into paying his wife. `But I have no money, no
goods....... It's not even my car you see,' he spread an aniseed
trail, frustrating their hunt.

I closed my mind. At least he was doing the negotiations and
relieving me of the hospital run. An equitable solution since my
legs were again leaden. Best news of all, Mother was intending to
buy a flat, all on one floor, so she could look after Father. That
gave me a chance, time was of the essence, for I must recover in
time to cycle to London, funds for research being desperately
needed.

`Hell, it's cold,' as I cycled along the lane, my breath
freezing, the Balaclava helmet turning brittle. `To heck with this
for a lark,' I stopped at the Jolly Poacher to thaw out.

`Tha wants to give it up until spring,' Jack made room, giving
the fire a poke and turning over a log.

`Maybe. But where else can I exercise?

`Do you fancy painting our ceiling?' he said. 

`Yes, please,' something to do whilst the Arctic was here. `Is
it big?'

`Depends upon what you call big.'

`Well,' I ummed, `A factory?'

`Nay, nay. It's just my shop in't next village.'

I was still painting his ceiling when spring arrived.

`Tha's taking longer than Michelangelo,' Jack rattled his keys,
wanting to lock up his village supermarket for the evening.

`That's because I'm painting a picture of The First Supper in
heaven, where everything's white,' I wiped my hands and left on my
bike. Home in no time, climbing and stretching having worked, this
time my speed of recovery even quicker because of the diet I was
using.

But father was running short on weekend passes. Mother's excuse
was that she was getting their house ready for selling. `I need the
money to look after him properly. Particularly if he needs to go
into a private home,' she shed a dry tear, playing the poverty card,
still telling nobody that all his was now hers, `For when we get
older.'

I was involved again, finding a decorator in our village who
did back-pocket cash jobs, no income tax to pay, no questions asked.
`My car's off the road,' he said. `Will you give me a lift if I do
it on weekends?"

`No problem, Chuck,' I agreed, anything to get Father released.

But the driving began to tell. Taking Chuck in the mornings,
doubling back to look after the children ( Lena was away on courses
with Ransley), and then rushing to collect him and his ladders at
night.

Worse was to come. Peter got a job and became too busy to do
the hospital run. `Do you mind if I pick up my father on the way
there?' I asked Chuck.

`Of course not,' he replied. `First stop the hospital.'

`Mind your head,' we nudged Father into the front seat. `Next
stop Fort Knox.'

We unbolted the solid gates to his house. They were made of
best builder's timber, as though when swung open they would let the
wagon train through whilst, when closed, keep the Red Indians at 
bay. `Oh,' Mother choked, again taken by surprise. `I better put
the kettle on.'

`Tea,' Father smiled, he was all right now.

`I'll see you later, then,' I left in a hurry for Adderton.

Almost immediately after I set off apparently Mother went out,
leaving just one bread and butter sandwich to last Father the day.
`You'll have to watch him,' she told Chuck, warning him of much more
besides, and departing with, `He's enough to tax the Almighty.'

Thoughts of being up a ladder with a nut in the house left
Chuck apprehensive about unwrapping his brushes. `Haven't you got
anything to keep you warm?' he searched for something to say, hoping
to find something to keep Father busy and out of the way. But Father
shook his head, thought of the things he was permitted to do, and
put on the kettle to make tea. Chuck was never known to say no so
he started to light a fire whilst the water was coming to the boil.
Soon they were chatting, getting on famously, talking about
building, and politics, and the weather, and...... By the time they
had finished Father ended up outside, Chuck happy to have somebody
reliable guarding the foot of his ladder.

`It's a crime leaving an old man like that,' Chuck said to me
on the way home. `There's nothing wrong with him.'

Thank goodness for that. Hearing those words made me feel
better, knowing someone else thought Father was sane. At least I
was not wasting my time in trying to get him released from the
hospital.

`What's he done to be in your mother's black books?'

`She's always been like that.'

`Always! Even as a child?'

`I don't know, I wasn't there,' I smiled weakly. `So far as I
know she tantrumed at her grandparents when she was three and
refused to go home. She claims to have never seen her mother again,
so they brought her up, until her grandmother died when she was
eight.'

`Why not return to her mother after that?'

`I don't know, perhaps some family feud. Anyway, next thing the
housekeeper had married grandfather, and then set about thrashing
her stepdaughter until she left school and got a job in an 
orphanage. Mother eventually progressed until she had became a
fully-trained nurse in a hospital. But she never forgot that her
grandparents had servants, and ever since has been hankering after
being upper class.'

`Is that why she married your father?'

`In a way, yes and no, I suppose,.... Father was definitely
working class but at least he had money, which she must have
calculated would return her to a way of life to which she imagined
herself to be due. Mind you, they also had things in common because
he also suffered a miserable childhood.'

`She will have been all right with you and your brothers,
though.'

`You must be joking. She might have meant well, but I can
remember pleading for the brown skirting boards to open up during
one of her unmerciful beatings as she continued upon her crusade to
knock all the evil out of me, before beating me again to knock
knowledge back in.'

Chuck remained silent, for a few moments, then started to talk
about the fields, and how they were bare, and the sky was grey,
and....

After four weekends of running Chuck to Leeds and back the
painting was finished. Whereupon Mother wasting no time ringing up,
`We're ready to move into the flat.'

`Ah, that's good,' I cheered up, thinking I had satisfied her
since goodness know when.

`But you'll never guess what, the previous owner's taken all
the good carpets. Do you still have your business contacts?'

I pondered.

`You did say you did, at least that's what you told me. I'm
stuck, absolutely stuck,' she started working herself up into a
state of contrived agitation. `Are you still there?'

`Yes, I'm here. I'm just thinking, tomorrow's a Saturday.'

`Don't bother, if it's going to be too much trouble,' she
exhaled, a discharge of breath which meant she was polishing one of
the chips on her shoulder.

`It's no trouble, I was just working out the best way to do
it,' I said, absentmindedly watching our lane through the window, 
exchanging waves with Ernie who was passing on his way home from
work. `When do you want them?'

`Tomorrow.'

`Tomorrow!' my voice died the death of a thousand expletives.
`What kind do you want?'

`Anything, anything will do. Anything, just bring a few samples
tonight.'

Digging deep into my reserves of energy I raced round my
contacts in Lena's car and arrived at Fort Knox, laden with pattern
books. `Most are available ex stock,' I gasped, having hulked them
the long way round to her kitchen.

`That one looks nice,' she went straight to the bottom,
inferring I had hidden the best.

`It is, but not yet in stock. I'm sorry.'

`I thought you said they were ALL in stock.'

`They are, except for that one.'

`Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?' she flicked
through the rest, returning each time to the one not available. `Is
it good value?'

`They all are, but delivery on that one is over three weeks.'

`If it's not available it must be the best. I can wait,
providing I'm going to save money.'

I gnawed silent obscenities between clenched teeth. `How much
do you require?' I finally found something to say.

`I don't know,' she objected to being cross-examined. `Give me
a lift to the flat on your way home. You can measure up and tell
me yourself.'

A three-story set of flats, in the countryside? I mused,
breaking my concentration for a second, a brief moment of relief
from the flood of conflicting directions which continued to stand
logic on its pythagoras, each time her fingers pointing first one
way then another. I had been caught this way before, once being
panicked against the flow of traffic into a one-way street, then
being left to pick up the fine. But this time we were in the
country, up a lane, down a lane, back a lane.

`If you had listened to what I was telling you in the first
place we'd have arrived long before now,' she said as we drove 
through a stone arch which led to a country estate, its wrought iron
gates left open except in times of civil strife.

`Good gracious,' I gasped, seeing a mansion ahead, complete
with stables, and gardens, and peacocks, and terraces, and a gravel
drive which swept up to its front.

`Stop here,' she tugged at my steering wheel, hauling me to a
halt in front of a broad terrace of steps which led to the main
doors, marble lions guarding all sides. `This?' I exclaimed, with
its pilasters and columns and its own chapel, `All this, the third
residence of an absentee marquis, is where you have leased a flat?'

`Mmm,' she nodded, searching her handbag for keys. `Follow me,'
she rattled the bunch, crossing to the east wing where she unlocked
a medieval side door of oak with a clang. It creaked open, revealing
a staircase to her flat which occupied all the first floor.

Up the stairs she clopped upon the uncarpeted treads and
unlocked another door. We entered the flat, its lounge, Georgian,
more like a ballroom, high ceilinged with tall windows was the first
room she showed me. `I'll have to measure twice, my tape measure
isn't big enough,' I boggled.

`My curtains are ordered,' she ignored me. `Peter's borrowed a
ladder, he's managing to put them up,' she hinted upon competition
before leaving me and entering another room.

`Well, he can do your bloody carpets if that's how you feel,' I
mumbled whilst doing a quick calculation, two hundred yards of
carpet being needed. Father was right, she must have got hold of
his money.

On Sunday he was introduced to the place. `I don't know,' he
lamented, being resigned to watching Peter decorate and me fit the
underlay. `This is the first time I've not helped with the
painting.'

The sooner we get him out of hospital the more chance he'll
have, I thought.

But back in Adderton a black rook was waiting, reclining back
on its wings, as though crowing each time it heard Mother telephone.
`We can't live on underlay,' she nagged every day.

I wrote, telephoned, and badgered the manufacturer until the
carpets arrived. `Good news, they're here,' I rang her, `And the 
fitter can lay them on Monday.'

`Monday! We've got to be in tomorrow.'

`All right, stop nagging, I'll get it done for you, somehow,' I
snapped, determined I would do it myself if that is what it would
take just to show her. Stupid move on my part, for it left me having
to shift heavy radiators single handed before making a start on
laying the carpets.

`Never again,' I shook my head next day as I limped back to the
car. I was knackered, and she had not the first bloody idea. Oh, she
moved in all right, but furniture only, herself not arriving until
three weeks had passed, by which time she had discovered about
Peter's new girl friend.

This was war, which involved her returning to the solicitor,
changing her will and issuing writs. `The car I bought him was a
loan, not a gift,' she wrote, before locking him into the flat and
sending for the police to evict him. `That should get into the
papers, and if he's disgraced as a squatter he'll lose his job. He
needs to be taught a lesson.' Nobody risked Father's fate by
mentioning “blessed be the peacemakers.”

Thereafter my telephone rang daily, with up-to-date tales about
Peter. I dodged its sapping monotony by taking it off the hook, or
biking to friends to escape.

But Father could not dodge, his weekends got in the way, so she
had him transferred to a Mental Hospital. `You have no idea of how
disorientated he is,' she said in justification of her action,
promising that he would be released. `But you've no need to rush, I
think he'll still be there after you've cycled to London.'

Yes, the sponsored ride, most important for funds, especially
since the sun was shining and the rooks had migrated to somebody
else's misfortune, so I took her advice and put off visiting him.
Was this right, did the end justify the means? `Perhaps,' I
persuaded myself, but even more reason to get myself well and
succeed.

`I think I might have 'flu,' I told my doctor, feigning the
symptoms to obtain a prescription of tetracycline. After a couple of
weeks I came to the decision that it might touch the odd virus, but
it was an antibiotic which had no affect upon M.S., so back to 
recovering the hard way, walking and cycling, day after day as the
summer grew hotter.

`Leave it to me,' my neighbour switched off his hedge-cutter one
day as I returned from yet another training ride. He was balancing
upon steps, trimming our side of the hedge.

I thought of the tyres and lifted my cycle over his thorns.
`Leave what to you?'

`I work for a brewery, don't I?'

`Yes,' I nodded, wondering what this had to do with the hedge.

`We sponsor all sorts of events.'

`Oh, yes,' I said, but remained at a loss.

`Well, you know, you and your ride.'

`Sponsor my ride?' my face lit up with a grin, toying with
prospects unlimited - but surely he must be just bragging?

`Have you got a better idea?' he wanted a quick answer.

`Me?.. No,' I sounded very responsible, clearing my throat.

`But will you have time?'

`It won't involve me. We have a Pro for this kind of work.'

`A pro?'

`P.R.O., Public Relations Officer. He'll welcome the chance of
a bit of local publicity, particularly since this puts him in good
stead with head office.'

With this spur to my ego each day I practised cycling much
longer distances and the fast repairing of punctures, especially
during the hottest hours just to make sure that every reason for
failure had been eliminated.

My strength grew daily, I was sure I could do it long before
their P.R.O. appeared. `You don't have to do a thing,' he said,
driving me round to the Jolly Poacher rather than give his short
legs a walk. `Here,' he carried our drinks to a table which was
tucked away in the corner. `We'll print ten thousand sponsor forms
for our pubs. How many extra do you want for your members?' he
unzipped his executive diary.

If twenty people per pub pay the cost of a pint, figures raced
through my mind..... This is ridiculous, impossible, sponsorship
figures beyond all expectations.

`How many extra forms do you require?' he repeated. 

`Er,....' I calculated, `There are at least fifty thousand
suffers with M.S.,' I made a stab at a figure, `Plus the members of
our charity,' I divided by the figure I first thought of..... `Ten
thousand?'

`Call it twenty thousand,' his pen waved figures like a wand
conducting an orchestra. `We're also well in with a cycle
manufacturer. They'll provide specialist bikes together with spares
and a van to accompany you.'

`New bikes? I'll need a few days to get used to them.'

`No bother,' he scribbled more notes. `And you'll also need
special clothing, including shammy leather underpants soaked in
olive oil.'

I laughed.

`They're to prevent chafing.'

My laughing continued.

`It's no joke. Have you ever cycled several hundred miles
before?'

`No. But I think I'll manage London,' I wiped the tears on my
wrist, `It's only a couple of hundred.'

`Might be just an odd mile or two more, The brewery wants
maximum publicity, just for you, of course. How are you placed for
speaking on radio and talking to newspapers?'

The sun having moved round now shone through a window onto my
face. `Fine. I've broadcast on the radio before,' I said, unable to
look straight into his eyes, `But what newspapers?'

`There are plenty, that's why if you cycle just a bit further
you'll pass through a few towns.'

`What towns?' the beam of sunlight was now catching the
cigarette smoke, preventing me from watching his face.

`Just a few. Take a couple of days, stay in our hotels if you
wish, and we'll pay for your reception in London,' he bought some
more beer.

`That sounds great. But what towns?' I persisted.

`The route I sketched out is subject to your approval,' he
replied.

`Well, give me an example.'

`An example?... How about, for instance, Wakefield and
Barnsley, then perhaps Sheffield, Mansfield and Nottingham, before
straight on through Loughborough to Leicester, Northampton, Bedford,
Luton,...'

`Hang on a minute, hang on a minute, what about the hills? A
route like that's a bit too bloody close to the Pennines?'

He shrugged his shoulders. `All right, then. plan your own
route. I was only trying to help, thinking that if it was money your
charity wanted you'd be better aiming for places where people live.'
He waited, watching my silence through the smoke which was drifting
from a man with a pipe far away at the bar. Then he added a bonus,
`Take a third day instead, and bank on the extra publicity you'll
get.'

Chapter 20.

He's right, I suppose, but it will mean the end of me being
able to play cricket this year. Still, I won't have much time for
many games, not now that Lena's away most weekends on courses and
then working over at school almost every other night of the week.

Mind you, despite what the P.R.O. says, I'm not going to cycle
over all those bloody mountains and run the risk of bringing on an
attack of M.S. I'll plan an alternative route which still takes in
those cities but approaches them along valleys instead.

The portents felt good when summer broke through, going on to
break new records, the hottest for two hundred years, obviously my
rooks had flown away to torment some other poor sod. All I had to
do was make sure I kept fit and, since I was running out of
sunflower oil, use this as an opportunity to test cycling in the
heat and collect my prescription from the hospital in Wakefield.

`What if you get knocked down, it's bad in the cities?' the
new M.S. Research Committee were alarmed when they heard what I was
intending to do.

`Bad for me, perhaps, but just think of the extra publicity and
money you'll raise,' I jested, intending to give the impression of
not being worried, having taken all major risks into account, though
not daring to let them know I would be mainly relying upon faith and
a handful of mustard seeds.

Mind you, just in case the rooks had not gone away (perhaps
they were nesting high this year, biding their time, creating a
false sense of security whilst the summer remained good), I better
ring up the brewery and make sure they are supplying a set of
brightly-coloured clothing to make me visible when perched on the
bike.

`Good idea,' said the P.R.O. `I'll give the suppliers a prod.'

I continued to train along all-too-familiar circuits, watching
the same front wheel turning and turning, the monotony freeing my
thoughts which increasingly returned to Father, especially since
Mother's visits had become less frequent. She now claimed to have
so much extra to do - socially of course, after moving into
Otterlake Hall. And on top of all this there was the extra time it 
was taking to sue Peter and sell one of Father's factories. `I need
the money to pay for that private hospital. Your father just
wouldn't fit in around here, all the people are so top drawer.'

Won't fit in! I cursed and slammed down the phone. Won't fit
in! We'll see about that, so I cycled to see him.

He was now incarcerated in a yellow brick block near to the
hospital from which I got my sunflower oil. `Martin,' he dissolved,
immediately recognising me... So much for mother's bogus reports!

We held hands, something we had never done since I was a child.
With my words refusing to speak I looked about him. The staff were
doing their best, but confined to a system which was dismantling the
patients whilst senior whatever-they-weres strode about filling in
paperwork, feeding the government's need to survive on statistics,
numbers which could be measured unlike compassion which could not.

Like all the others, Father's private possessions had been
removed for "safe keeping" which included his dentures.

`Your dentures?' As though these old folk were likely to run
riot eating each other.

Even his spectacles were being "looked after", leaving him
restricted to reading banner headlines and having to imagine the
rest. Then there was the shock of seeing what they had done to his
hair, all those long strands which religiously had combed across his
baldness since long before I was born. They too were missing, shorn
without finesse, his last token of dignity gone.

`What's happened to your hair?' I eventually asked.

`I had bushy hair when I was young,' he said, thinking we were
talking about long, long ago. `In those days I had wanted it to go
straight, so the barber told me to wash it in soda..... I thought he
meant washing soda,' he lamented, his eyes glazed, `Instead of
baking soda. It went straight, all right. Straight down the plug
hole.'

Poor Father. Already his present was fading into the past as
he hung on, waiting to go home. `I'll see you again, as soon as I
get back from London.' I said, making no mention of the fact that my
journey might be dangerous.

I cycled straight to Otterlake Hall whilst on my way home,
leaning my bike against the doorway to Mother's flat. `Why have you 
stopped visiting him?' I limped into her kitchen passing the shut
door to her lounge, now restricted for special visitors.

`Stopped visiting your father? Oh, it's only temporary,' she
shuffled, making excuses.

Better not argue, I thought, otherwise Father will be the
loser. Besides, I had to get home early because tomorrow was half
term and the children were hoping to collect a new kitten. They had
been ticking off all the weeks and the days waiting for this time to
arrive.

A feverish scent of anticipation filled the air that evening
and after long, long wakeful hours tomorrow arrived. We set off
early, the car bursting and straining with excitement by the time we
pulled up at the address on the card. `This is it, this is it!' they
leapt out, haste tussling with manners.

`Can I ring the bell?'

`Can I?'

The door opened. Their Siamese was waiting. `It's a
seal-point,' their hearts danced, picking the most daring. It was
inquisitive, too, until the car journey to Adderton commenced. `But
it IS house-trained,` Claire held it so tightly whilst John stroked
the fur of soft silk, both trying to comfort their kitten.

`Look,' they held it up to Lena when we got home. At a loss, it
mewed, sniffing round our kitchen, timidly searching each corner,
looking for all that it knew, adventuring into the lounge. But
there was nothing, all was gone, except to grieve and keep
searching.

By the third day its grieving was over, encouraged by helpings
of familiar food. It had also learned the word `No.' Good, we
thought, our furnishings now safe. It could be trusted, left on its
own, a fully-integrated part of the family.

Claire and John took photographs, saved up, bought a new film
for the cine camera, and were still playing with their feline sister
on Thursday, trying to think of a name. I was upstairs, hurrying to
decorate Claire's room before her school exchange friend arrived.
`There's just a scrap of emulsion left over,' I muttered to the
roller, trying to think of any outstanding job elsewhere in the
house as I climbed down the steps. `Damn,' paint splashed over the 
carpet. I hurried downstairs to get a wet cloth and on my way back
the kitten pounced. It had been doing this all morning with the
children. But my feet were tired, dead to the world, leaden and
numb.

A screech and convulsions before its cries faded, her stare
pleading for friendship, `What has happened? What have I done wrong?
Please help me, please help me?' her eyes seemed to be asking of
mine, sharing the same inheritance of life. I knelt, trying to
comfort her, what nerves were damaged within that sad little head,
beneath that soft gorgeous coat? She settled, breathing quietly,
perhaps her agony passed. Would she recover? the trust in her gaze
forever tormenting me.

Why the hell hadn't I thrown away that bloody scrap of
paint?.... Why the devil did I work until my legs were too
tired?.... My bloody M.S..... My bloody M.S.....

`She will be all right, won't she?' Claire sobbed, tears
streaming down her face.

`I don't know, I don't know,' I gave her a hug but she pulled
forever away. `Let's hope so, I'll carry her into the car, we'll
take her straight to the vet's.'

Next morning I picked up the telephone, long wires of hope.
Claire looked away, trying to delay the vet's news so as not to
tempt fate, hoping to improve the kitten's chance of recovery. `I'm
sorry, Claire. Terribly sorry, I'll get you another.'

`I don't want one, I don't want one, you'll only stand on it.'
Another wedge of childhood lost.

`I won't, I promise. I'll walk round in stocks until it's grown
big enough.' But she had already gone, upstairs, to pour her
desolation into the pillows, all hope in her life dead.

To punish the M.S. I got on my bike and aimed south along the
A.1., stopping off at the Jolly Poacher on the way back just for
someone to talk to. But it was a weekday lunch-time, I should have
known, with only five customers, three in the tap room and two in
the lounge. `Shandy please,' I propped myself against a shelf next
to the bar, welcoming the rest. Lofty Cartwright the landlord
remained on his stool, lame in one leg, his long arms serving both
bars without him having to shift. 

He leant forwards, `Where's tha been?' and picked up my money.
`Riding on the A.1! I'm not surprised you found it risky,' he passed
me the change. `A cyclist died there last week, and he were the
second what's got killed this year. What the hell got into your
mind to go riding on that suicide stretch?'

`Training, for a sponsored ride.'

`Training?' he looked over the bar at my legs. `What kind of
person's sponsoring you?'

`You should know, it's your brewery.'

`Is tha sure? It's first time I've `eard about it,' he leaned
back, his arm snaking out to push open the door to their kitchen.
`Ma, does tha know owt about any sponsorship forms?"

Doris appeared, drying both hands down her apron, looking
bemused, leaving behind a frying pan and blue clouds of smoke. `We
ain't received nothing in't mail.'

`Nothing, nowt at all? Tha doesn't think postman's shoved it
too `ard and got it stuck under our door mat?'

`No, you know very well I sweep under there twice a week.'

That's strange, I thought, my forms had arrived. Better go home
and give the brewery a ring. `Can I speak to your Public Relations
Officer?'

`I'm afraid he's out. Is it urgent?' his secretary answered.

`Very. We've still to finalise the plans for my journey. Also,
the special clothing he's getting has not yet arrived.'

`Are you still waiting?' she expressed with genuine surprise.
`When he gets in I'll give him a prod.'

Prod? That must be the in-word because he also said he was
going to give someone a prod. Perhaps it's company jargon. `Whilst
I'm on, our village pub's not had any sponsorship forms. Give him a
prod about that.'

Prod or no prod the next week was memorable for what did not
happen, and with only a few days to go I was still waiting for
something to happen. `Still waiting?' Ken said when I cycled into
our drive. `Don't go away,' he switched off his hedge trimmer and
scurried indoors, returning within a couple of minutes. `You're
right, I've rung a few pubs, none of them have received sponsorship
forms,' he scrambled back up his steps ready to start trimming away, 
`I'll chase things up first thing in the morning.'

`Thanks,' I relaxed, with him involved things should start
moving - Bionic man Lena and I called him, `Tomorrow I'll tell my
doctor that the trip is definitely on,' I said, but my words were
lost beneath the noise of twigs being shorn.

Next day a third of the seats which lined the waiting room's
walls had patient patients in various states of ill and well-being at
random upon them. Sometimes the sign which buzzed and illuminated a
doctor's name seemed to have died.

`She must have a lot wrong with her, that patient what went in
last.'

`Maybe the doctor's gone home.'

`Perhaps we ought to ask, in case they've forgotten we're
here?'

`Aye, maybe we should.'

`Who's fittest, they'll be best able to ask?'

Nobody moved. `No, you're wrong there. It'd look best if them
what's worst was to enquire.'

They sized each other up, some itching to volunteer except for
several what ifs? By which time the buzzer had recovered.

`He'll have been having a cup of coffee.'

Eventually it was my turn. The doctor stared in disbelief, at
first muttering semi-audible words when I said what I intended to
do. `I'd better write you a prescription for a pain-killing spray,'
is part of what I think he was saying as he wrote down “to be used as
required.” `I don't suppose there is anything I can say to dissuade
you?' he paused with his pen before signing.

`I'm sorry, but not this time.'

`You'll never recover,' he shook his head, then opened his
drawer and passed me a sponsorship form, one of my sponsorship forms
already completed by every doctor and member of staff in the
practice.

`Thank you,' I smiled, taken aback, my spirits lifted.

Ken slipped through a gap in our hedge to intercept me upon my
return. `I've been in touch with our brewery,' he said. `There's no
sign of your cycling clothes, nor of our P.R.O.'

Suddenly the rooks' nests were not as high as I thought. Their 
public relations officer was obviously a right P.R.O.D., more
bothered about his company magazine, using my project just to
further his future.

`But I've managed to get some more sponsorship forms,' Ken
waved a bundle. `I'm going round all the pubs in the area tonight
whilst Lofty Cartwright takes some to the Victuallers' meeting.'

The rooks moved back up a few branches. Mind you, I'd tried to
think of everything, but it suddenly occurred to me that Prod might
be assuming the heat wave would continue like the weather
forecasters predicted. The rooks flapped down a branch when I saw
the Atlantic weather chart showing that there was a blip just south
of Greenland. `But this will not affect us,' said the weatherman.

`Aye, maybe,' I thought, feeling the rooks dropping yet another
branch lower, `But just my luck if it comes this way. Better get my
own track suit.'

`I'll buy it,' mother insisted, as soon as she heard, adding,
`Actually, it's from Peter, although I'm lending him the money until
he gets back on his feet.' This brought a smile to my face, he had
worked the oracle again, for the taller Peter's yarns the more she
believed them. `And you'll need something waterproof for your legs.
You don't want to catch a chill.'

I returned home in a quandary, feeling somewhat bought at the
expense of poor Father.... But the track suit was extremely good,
with a bright orange top, yet really bought with his money, although
he would want me to have it, wouldn't he? - the toehold of
conscience in perilous danger upon my steep slope of ego. I should
have visited him, though, to ask him and give him the chance?.....
But these worries confettied free from my mind when I drove past the
Brick Pond for there was a Ford Escort estate parked outside our
house. It must be P.R.O.D., at last, and he was delivering two
bikes.

But they were specialised racing machines! `They're too
small,' I exclaimed.

`They're adjustable,' he spun them round, trying to enthuse me,
sliding the saddles up and down, fixing them past the mark DO NOT
ADJUST BEYOND THIS POINT after matching the frames against the
length of my legs. 

`They're intended for short fat muscular Frenchmen,' I derided.
`Besides, I've never ridden a bike with toe clips on its pedals.'
`You'll get used to them,' he leapt on one and did a
demonstration ride up our lane. `Give them a try.'

`It's all right for you,' I held onto the kitchen window ledge
as he fastened my feet into the clips, `But I've already told you,
the bike's too small,' my knees hitting the handlebars when I set
off wobbling, unable to turn along the length of our drive.

`All right,' he conceded, `You can use a different model, so long as you're photographed on one of these racers outside Leeds Town Hall with the manufacturer's name and our brewery banner in the background.'

`Leeds Town Hall?'

`You bet, the Lord Mayor's starting you off.'

`Oy! Wait a minute,' I chased after him, waving a map. `This
is the route I planned. You said nothing about starting from Leeds.'

`Don't worry, ask Ken to give you a lift to the start, the
distance you cycle will be roughly the same.'

`But what about the hills? And what do I do for a bike? Mine's
at the cycle shop being fitted with saddle bags and a dynamo,
intended for shopping, so now it's too heavy.'

`You'll just have to go slower. It's too late for me to get
another machine,' he started his engine.

`It's too late for me, as well. The shops are all shut.'

`See you in the morning,' he peeped his horn,

Read the following chapters that tell of how Martin "cured" his M.S. and climbed mountains by the following year.

1  

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