Pulse

quarter.’
    ‘Is that good or bad?’
    ‘It’s good because I’m with you.’
    It was also good because four and a quarter is what it used to take him and Cath, and say what you will, Cath was one pretty fit walker.
    Lynn lit a Silk Cut, as she did at the end of every walk. She didn’t smoke much, and he didn’t really mind, even if he thought it was a pretty stupid habit. Just when she’d done her cardiovascular system a power of good … Still, he knew from being a teacher that there were times when you had to confront, and times when you took a less direct route.
    ‘We could go up again after Christmas. In the New Year.’ Yes, he could get her the fleece as her present.
    She looked at him, and took a deep puff on her cigarette.
    ‘If the weather got cold enough, that is. For the icicles.’
    ‘Geoff,’ she said. ‘You’re on my space.’
    ‘I just –’
    ‘You’re on my space.’
    ‘Yes, Miss Duke of Devonshire.’
    But she didn’t think that was funny, and they drove home mainly in silence. Perhaps he’d walked her too hard. It was a bit of a stiff pull, a thousand feet or more.
    He’d put the pizzas in the oven, laid the table, and was just pulling the tab on his first beer when she said,
    ‘Look, it’s June. We met in – February?’
    ‘Jan 29,’ he replied, automatically, as he did when a pupil mistakenly guessed 1079 for the Battle of Hastings.
    ‘January the 29th,’ she repeated. ‘Look, I don’t think I can do Christmas.’
    ‘Of course. You’ve got family.’
    ‘No, I don’t mean I’ve got family. Of course I’ve got family. I mean, I can’t do Christmas.’
    When Geoff was faced with what, despite principled beliefs to the contrary, he nonetheless could only regard as gross female illogicality, he tended to go silent. One minute you were steaming along a track, the weight on your shoulders barely noticeable, and then suddenly you were in a pathless scrubland with no waymarks, the mist descending and the ground boggy beneath your feet.
    But she didn’t go on, so he tried helping her. ‘Don’t much like Christmas myself. All that eating and drinking. Still –’
    ‘Who knows where I’ll be at Christmas.’
    ‘You mean, the bank might transfer you?’ He hadn’t thought of that.
    ‘Geoff, listen. We met in January, as you pointed out. Things are … fine. I’m having a nice time, a nice enough time …’
    ‘Gotcha. Right.’ It was that stuff again, that stuff he didn’t seem to be getting any better at. ‘No, course not. Didn’t mean. Anyway, I’ll turn the oven up. Crispy base.’ He took a swig of his beer.
    ‘It’s just –’
    ‘Don’t say it. I know. I get you.’ He was going to add‘Miss Duke of Devonshire’ again, but he didn’t, and later, thinking it over, he guessed it wouldn’t have helped.
    In September, he persuaded her to take a day’s leave so they could do the circuit from Calver. It was best to avoid the weekend, when every hiker and rock climber would be crawling over Curbar Edge.
    They parked in the cul-de-sac next to the Bridge Inn and set off, passing Calver Mill on the other side of the Derwent.
    ‘Richard Arkwright is supposed to have built that,’ he said. ‘1785, I think.’
    ‘It’s not a mill any more.’
    ‘No, well, as you see. Offices. Maybe residential. Or a bit of both.’
    They followed the river, past the thrashing weir, through Froggatt and then Froggatt Woods to Grindleford. As they came out of the woods, the autumn sun, though weak, made him glad of his hat. Lynn still refused to buy one, and he supposed he wouldn’t mention it again until the spring. She’d taken a tan these summer months, and her freckles showed more than when he’d first met her.
    There was a sharp climb out of Grindleford, which she took without a murmur; then he led the way across a field to the Grouse Inn. They sat up at the bar for a sandwich. Afterwards, the barman muttered, ‘Coffee?’ She said ‘Yes’ and he said ‘No.’ He didn’t believe in coffee on a walk. You just needed water against dehydration. Coffee was a stimulant and the whole … theory was that the walk should be stimulating enough without any assistance. Alcohol: stupid. He’d even come across hikers smoking joints.
    He told her some of this, which may have been a mistake, because she said, ‘I’m only having a coffee, right?’ – and then lit up a Silk Cut. Not waiting till the end of the walk. She looked at him.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I didn’t say