Wishing Water (23 page)

When they reached the beacon on Thornthwaite Crag, a solid chimney of stones fourteen feet high, they were breathless and stopped to eat their sandwiches.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Lissa breathed, the freedom of the fells soothing her soul, as it always did, the undulating surface of the summit stretching out invitingly all around them, just waiting to be explored.

‘Makes you feel a bit insignificant though, doesn’t it? As if your own troubles are slight by comparison with those nature has to contend with.’
 

Spread out below them, beyond the fans of scree and craggy boulders, lay all of the Troutbeck valley. The silver thread of the beck could be traced right down until it disappeared around the hump of the Tongue, dwarfed by the sweep of greater mountains all around. And beyond that, could be seen the blue ribbon of Lake Windermere and the smaller Carreckwater.

Derry wondered if he could tell her his troubles now, then bit hungrily into a thick cheese sandwich. Lissa did the same.

They ate in companionable silence. When they’d finished, Derry rolled over and cupped his chin in his hands to stare up at her. ‘So tell me what you intend to do with your life?’
 

Lissa stared at him in surprise. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’
 

‘Everyone should have a life plan.’

He’d tell her now. He’d say, quite casually, ‘I’ll be away for the next few weeks, trying to get a recording contract.
^,

‘Plans don’t always work out,’ she said, with such sadness in her voice that he bit back the unspoken words.’ Long ago, when I was very young, I vowed to have no more plans, no more wishes. It’s too disappointing when they don’t work out. What about you? Do you have one?’
 

She looked so beautiful, so trusting, gazing at him out of those soft, entrancing eyes. His courage failed. ‘Oh, you know me,’ he joked. ‘I intend to be rich and famous. Make a million records and have my skiffle group play on television. The usual stuff.’
 

Lissa tried to laugh, though she found it surprisingly difficult. ‘You’d have to leave Carreckwater to do all of that. Go off to London to seek your fame and fortune?’ She smiled up at him, waiting for him to deny it.

‘Would you blame me if I did?’ He was watching her carefully.

Lissa frowned, cautious suddenly. ‘Everyone has the right to pursue their dream. It’s no business of mine what you do, is it?’ She longed for Derry to assure her that he would never leave, that his only dream was to stay with her. But he was chewing on a piece of grass, saying nothing.

The black knuckle-bone rocks, the cry of a lone curlew in the silence seemed to intensify a sudden and intense sense of loneliness. As if Derry had slipped from her in some way when really he was still beside her, reaching for her hand, urging her to move on.

Why hadn’t he denied it? Oh, she didn’t want him to go away. The very idea opened up a deep void that frightened her. Head in the clouds. A dreamer, that’s all he was.

They walked on, hand in hand. Perhaps because of the silent sweep of mountains all around, which made Lissa feel as if they were the only two people in the world, she told him of her illegitimacy. She brandished it like a weapon, so he could stab her with it if he wanted to. ‘That’s why I hate my grandmother.’
 

‘I know all about that,’ he said, as if it were of no consequence. ‘Jan told me. So what? It’s not your fault. is it?’
 

Violet eyes opened wide and she pushed back the wayward curls with an impatient hand. ‘Don’t you understand? Can’t you see how rejected it makes me feel? It’s not as if Meg went along to an orphanage and
chose
me. Kath, my own mother, didn’t want me at all, and got rid of me at the first opportunity. She left Meg literally holding the baby.
Me.’
 

Derry considered this for a moment as he helped her negotiate a pile of fallen rocks, the peat cracked and brown underfoot. ‘So because you hate Kath for dumping you, you blame Meg? That’s not very fair.’
 

Hot fury rose in her breast. ‘Fair? For all I know, Meg might’ve driven Kath away, as punishment for stealing her fiancé. How do I know what happened?’
 

‘Exactly. And it’s so long ago, does it really matter?’
 

‘Of course it matters. Don’t blame me, I’m the victim here.’
 

‘What sort of victim?’ He gazed at her, genuinely puzzled that she was so close to losing her temper, simply because he didn’t see her point of view.

‘Nobody wanted me. None of them. Don’t you see?’ Lissa longed for him to tell her that he wanted her, would want her for as long as he lived.

Derry had been watching her face, reading the expressions that flitted across it in the space of a few seconds. Hope, pain, disappointment and disillusionment. ‘You know your trouble, don’t you?’ He grinned at her, crooked and teasing. ‘You don’t know where you’re going because you’re too busy looking where you came from.’
 

‘What?’
 

‘In climbing we’re taught never to look back. Onward and upward, that’s the thing. Look, I’ll show you something.’ Lissa very nearly refused but then let him take her hand and lead her to where a drystone wall lay tumbled across their path. She stood and looked over, gasping at what she saw. It was the most amazing sight.

A whole new vista had opened up before her eyes. She looked out on to a complete new set of dales and mountains, lit by the sun in brilliant green and gold patches like a magical stage set with a backdrop of blue mountains and the glimmer of yet another silver lake.

‘This is known as Threshwaite Mouth, probably because the mountains yawn wide open, giving you a grand view of the Northern Lakes. If we carried on walking we would reach Patterdale and Ullswater. There’s Ullswater, every bit as beautiful as Carreckwater and the Windermere valley we’ve just left.’

‘It’s magnificent. Takes my breath away.’

‘We could stay in the softer valleys for ever of course, in the lush intake land, taking no risks whatsoever. We don’t have to come up these mountains. We could venture on through the rigours of Skiddaw forest. We could choose to climb Helvellyn or Scafell, or go right over the border and up into the highlands of Scotland if we wanted. Or we could take a bus and play it safe. It’s up to you. But if you want to know what lies beyond the next mountain and the one after that, and find out your own worth at the same time, then don’t look back, look forward. It’s the only way to succeed.’
 

He turned to her and found she had tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, crikey, listen to me playing the philosopher. Still, life isn’t about where you came from, only where you’re going.’
 

‘I can’t believe that. I believe who you are and where you start out determines where you are going.’
 

‘But a lot of it’s up to you. When my mam was dying,’ he said, fixing his eyes on the middle distance. ‘She told me not to remember her as sick and unhappy. “If you must look back,” she said, “think of the happy times when I was healthy and full of life. Better still, look forward. Live your life to the full. Live for tomorrow.”’

He was silent for a moment, then he said. ‘So that’s what I try to do. Much as it hurts at times.’

Lissa gazed at him, and at the land before her. Could he be right? Had she spent too much of her life looking back, worrying about other people? Should she push herself forward more? Anything seemed possible with Derry beside her.

He was looking at her with the kind of intent gaze that made her shiver with longing. ‘I wish I could be brave like you. Dream. Make plans. Do anything I wanted.’ She slanted a glance up at him. ‘Perhaps I even wish I dared to let myself love you.’

Lissa wanted to take back the words the instant they were out of her mouth. But they were spoken now, bursting out of her, answering a need in her.

His response was everything she might have hoped for. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, a deep, loving kiss that went to the heart of her. ‘Why can you not?’ he softly asked. ‘If you want to?’
 

‘Because I’m afraid.’

‘Of me?’
 

‘Of rejection. I expect people not to want or care for me, except out of duty. I’ve decided they’re really only concerned about their own feelings, not mine.’
 

He looked shocked. ‘What, because your mother didn’t want you, you imagine everyone else is the same? Even Meg? Even me? That’s a bit strong.’
 

‘It’s how I feel. So unwanted.’
 

He was cradling her in his arms, smoothing back tendrils of hair from her brow, kissing the tears from her cheeks, telling her that he loved her and would do so for as long as he lived. Excitement mounted inside as his words soothed her, making her grow weak with the need to surrender to the compulsion of wanting.

Their kisses were growing ever more passionate and he suddenly stopped, to put her firmly from him. ‘Hell, we’d best stop now. We’ve a long way to walk yet.’ His eyes were warm and loving and she reached for him, kissing him of her own volition, heard his groan, and her own soft sigh of pleasure as they sank upon the sweet grass.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ he murmured against the fevered warmth of her skin. ‘I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.’
 

‘I’m not cheap,’ she said, aware in that moment that there was little she didn’t want him to do.’ I want you to respect me.’
 

‘I do respect you, silly.’
 

Her heart exulted when she felt the muscles in his arms tighten about her. Lissa had never felt more alive, more wanted in her life before. They rolled and clung together like young puppies, teasing, touching and kissing as they explored and discovered the joys of love. She stuffed bracken down his neck and he tickled her mercilessly, stopping her squeals with increasingly demanding kisses.

It was meant to be no more than harmless fun. They’d neither of them intended to take it too far but Derry couldn’t disguise his hunger for her, nor she her need for him. Though he was a young and inexperienced lover, a little clumsy in his eagerness, they came together quite naturally and made love without restraint, pulling off clothes which got in the way, ignoring others till a tide of passion took them over and the laughter faded. Their loving seemed right, the most natural thing in the world. Lissa gave herself to him freely and with all her love, cleansing herself of the pain of broken promises. There was a tender sweetness and sensitivity in their loving that moved her to tears and brought Derry to a shuddering climax.

Afterwards they lay upon the yielding bracken staring into the wide arc of a brilliant blue sky, stunned by their emotions and shaken by the result. ‘I shouldn’t have let you do that,’ Lissa murmured, filled suddenly by the enormity of what had happened. What had she been thinking of? She hadn’t been thinking at all, that was the trouble. Now that the passion had faded she began to worry. ‘I can’t think what came over me.’
 

‘Me neither.’
 

A dreadful thought struck her and she sat up, all hot and bothered. ‘Oh lord, what if I get pregnant?’
 

Derry took her hand and squeezed it consolingly. ‘You won’t get pregnant. I’m not daft. I was careful.’
 

Violet eyes gazed pleadingly into his. ‘But what if?’ It didn’t bear thinking about. ‘I’d die. I’d just
die.’
 

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her brow with great tenderness. ‘I promise you, Lissa, you’re quite safe. I’ll look after you.’
 

‘I love you,’ she said.

‘And I you.’
 

‘For ever?’

‘And ever.’
 

They were sitting on Kidsty Pike. Not too far, had they but known it, from where Jack Lawson had proposed to Meg nearly twenty years before. Where he’d given her his mother’s engagement ring and she’d kept by her promise to wait for him throughout the long years of war that followed, through all the pain and suffering, the realisation of his betrayal and her love for another man.

Lissa and Derry were children of a different world. There was no fear of their young lives being torn apart by Hitler’s ruthless ambitions. They believed it would be an easy world to live in because of that simple fact.

 
‘We should go,’ he murmured, kissing every contour of her delightful, beautiful face. ‘How smooth and silky your skin is.’ She felt warm and languorous, heady with the joys of the tenderness that flowed between them, pushing aside her niggling worries. She wouldn’t get pregnant, she wouldn’t. Not from just one mistake.

Neither could bear to break the spell, and as they were quite exhausted, they fell asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms.

Lissa woke to find the clouds had gathered and darkened, clotting the skies like thick cream. She looked beyond his beloved face and stared into a blank, soft white nothingness. Then she was pushing him away, trying desperately to wake him and examine the seriousness of their situation.

‘Do wake up, Derry. The mist has come down. We’re smothered in cloud.’