Helen came downstairs half an hour later and for the first time we were on our own.  I switched off the TV, desperately wanting to talk and clear the air, but she picked up a magazine from the coffee table and immediately appeared engrossed.  Clearly she wasn’t going to make this easy for me, and I attempted to break the ice with an apology. “Sorry about last Thursday – I mean, not telling you I’d be out all night.  I just had too much to drink and ended up sleeping on the floor of one the technicians’ flats, but don’t ask me how I got there.”

She didn’t seem particularly impressed by my act of contrition, and responded frostily with her eyes fixed on her reading matter. “I’ve got no problem with you staying out all night if that’s what you want, just have the courtesy to tell me, that’s all I ask.”

I nodded. “I doubt very much it’ll happen again.”

I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on.  While the tea was mashing, I returned to the living room and again tried to reopen communication channels. “Actually there was something else I wanted to talk to you about. I had a chat with Bob Andrews last week and he’s offered me Gill Taggart’s old job – you know she’s retiring.”

Helen fleetingly glanced at me, her face bearing a look of surprise. “You’re considering it then? I thought she was just an admin person.”

“Well, she is, but Bob’s expanding the job; I’ll do her job and continue teaching the undergraduates, but also with the big assessment this year I’ll coordinate all the preparation.”

She still appeared less than convinced. “But what about your research, all you’ve worked for?”

“I know, I know, it’s a big decision.  I’m just sick of the grant-writing, and in any case I could be out of a job in a few months if I don’t get a successful application.  It’s just not worth the stress anymore.”  I felt I was trying to sell the job to her and it certainly wasn’t prudent to mention that I’d already accepted it.  “It’ll be a decent salary, as much as I get now but with regular hours, home at 5:30, longer holidays.  I just can’t imagine it.”

For the first time Helen looked up from the magazine and I suspected that already she’d started to see the potential benefits.

I went into the kitchen and poured the tea.  When I returned Helen was still reading her magazine.  I desperately wanted to bring up Kentish and the fact that I’d seen them together at the B&B.  I was still angry and hurt, of course, but it wasn’t because I wanted her to be uncomfortable or feel guilty: more a need to have everything out in the open.  I sat down opposite her and took a sip of the hot tea, not quite knowing where to begin.  “There’s, erm ... something important I wanted to talk to you about actually.”

She looked up from her magazine with a flicker of anxiety in her face.  Maybe I was imagining it, but it was almost as if she suspected what I was about to say.  It was quiet for a second while I tried to find the right words, but they wouldn’t come.  Suddenly I had cold feet; perhaps I should wait … yes, wait until I’d formally been offered the job and things had started to settle down “… erm, it’s … it’s about my Dad’s sixty-fifth. We need to decide what to do about a party and what present to get.”

She appeared relieved. “Yes, I’ve been thinking about that as well, your mum said he’s broken his watch doing the gardening.  What about getting a nice one and have it engraved on the back.”

“Okay, that sounds good, I’ll go and have a look during my lunch break tomorrow.  I was thinking that we could just go out for a meal on his birthday, just the six of us; we’ve left it a bit late to organise anything else and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want a surprise party or anything like that.”

Helen nodded. “Yeah, I think that’ll be fine. I’ll speak to your mum tomorrow and see if she’s happy with it.”

The following morning I arrived in the department early. Not because of my normal obsession with work, but to prepare my CV and application for the new job.  For the first time in months it actually felt good to be in the building where I’d spent so much of my adult life.  Bob arrived shortly after nine and we spent close to an hour discussing the remit of the new post.  The more I heard, the more I liked the sound of it; yes, there would be a lot more paperwork and basic administrative-type duties, but there would still be time to write grants and attend conferences if that was the direction I wanted to go.  He went on to explain that they were short-listing by the end of the week and interviewing early the following week.  I left the meeting feeling upbeat and confident that I’d made the right decision, and pleased that I wouldn’t have to wait long to hear whether I’d got the job.

----

Later that week, the Friday afternoon, I was packing my bag about to leave for home when Bob Andrews stuck his head round the door off my office. “Good news, Julian, we’ve had no more applicants, I’ve already spoken to personnel, you’ve got the job ... if you still want it.”

I was stunned.  Not wanting to leave anything to chance, I’d spent much of the week preparing for an interview.  Clearly that wouldn’t be necessary. “That’s great, Bob, I’m really pleased, I’ll take it,” I said beaming.

He leaned over the desk and we shook hands. “Why don’t you take next week off then you can start afresh a week on Monday, how’s that?”  “Cheers, Bob, I appreciate it.”

On the way home I called in at the shops and bought champagne, not the supermarket kind but the expensive stuff Helen liked.  I sensed that things were very definitely starting to look up.

Chapter 15

Christmas Day morning in the Kinder Scout bolt-hole and with another twenty minutes to go before my 6:00 a.m. alarm I’ve already been awake for several hours.  My thoughts are concentrated on a year ago, trying to remember the Christmas when I still had my beautiful boys and Helen.  Perhaps for the first time I can now think of them without spiralling into a deep melancholy and can focus on the many good times we had.  I’m sure a psychologist would describe it as an essential step in the recovery process, but to me it’s just a relief to feel better.  Over the previous few weeks my mood has gradually improved and my depression of the early days of incarceration has slowly lifted.  Although it is still another four months until I leave the bolt-hole and my flight to Brazil, I begin to get the sense that long-term freedom beckons and I’ll reach my ultimate goal.

There’s no particular logic to it. I could go five minutes earlier, I could go five minutes later, but I like routine, and as always I leave the bolt-hole at 6:00 a.m. precisely.  As I crawl out of the entranceway, the sun is just beginning to rise into a grey, cloud-filled sky.  Despite the gloom and the rain that begins to fall, nothing can dissuade me from leaving the dark and dreary bolt-hole.  After a minute of stretching out my stiff limbs, I follow my usual jogging route as my running shoes squelch in the increasingly sodden and muddy path.  For the next half an hour I run hard and complete a couple of loops of my circuit before taking a seat on my favoured rock overlooking Ashop Moor.  Out of breath, and with sweat and rain water dripping off me, I marvel at the views, which are undiminished by the driving rain.

The time passes all too quickly and it is already 8:02 a.m. I know I need to return to the bolt-hole before the first ramblers arrive to enjoy a Christmas Day walk, but I struggle to drag myself away and, like hitting the snooze button after a dreaded early morning alarm, I repeatedly promise myself another five minutes.  I watch as a low-flying plane appears momentarily through a gap in the clouds, heading away from Manchester airport forty or so miles to the west.  As I try and imagine the plans and destinations of the passengers on board, a voice from behind me shockingly interrupts the silence. “Good morning … oh, and Merry Christmas to you, young man.”