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It was as if the little valley had a roof; they couldn’t see the tops of the fells for the blanket of grey which covered them. They found a spot by the beck and Amy sat on a broad stone as the boys and Matt piled into the stream, which they proceeded to dam; then, when the dam was complete, they knocked it down and made a flood. Matt was great with the boys. He didn’t talk down to them and tell them things, he talked with them and, crucially, he listened. It was something James had never managed; he spoke and Harry was supposed to pay attention, but never the other way around.
She looked up at the quiet fells around her and felt at peace. This is what she’d come here for. All she could hear was the occasional sheep bleating, and she remembered when she used to play in the stream and her mam used to sit on the bank and listen to the sheep on the fells. Once the Thompsons’ son Peter had been rounding up the flock for shearing, and they’d helped him, opening gates and heading the sheep off from going the wrong way. It had been fun, helping to guide the river of sheep down to the farm. Her mam had laughed and laughed as she’d tried to chase a wily stray down towards the others, but the sheep had other ideas and kept leaping behind rocks, running up instead of down. In the end she was so hopeless Peter had to come back to help her out.
‘I can’t tell what it’s going to do next! I don’t know how you manage it!’ she had said, breathless and laughing, as he whistled to one of the sheepdogs who had swiftly brought the sheep back to the main group.
‘Our Jip knows what he’s doing,’ the farmer had told her mam. ‘You know where you are with a Border Collie. Loyal animals, they are. Loyal — and biddable.’
‘Sounds to me more like your idea of the ideal farmer’s wife!’ her mam had said, with a laugh.
‘Ay, well maybe — and maybe not,’ he’d replied.
Her mother had seemed somehow different that day — almost childlike in her excitement at chasing the sheep down the valley, glowing with happiness. Now, Amy understood. The softness and silence of the place, the freedom. No wonder her mother had loved it here so much. Strange how they’d stopped coming after that year. Perhaps it was because the Thompsons had stopped letting out the cottage? Or it got too expensive? Another thing she wished she could have asked her mother, another thing she would never understand.
It was such a coincidence the Thompsons had an old dog called Jen, though. It made her feel a certain warmth thinking something of her mother’s spirit still lingered on the fells where she had been happy.
Towards lunchtime the sky began to clear and the sun appeared in the gaps between the clouds — not for long, but at least it wasn’t raining. The cloudy roof that had enclosed the valley had lifted, and they could see all the way up the fells, high above them. They sat on a big rock for lunch, the boys quiet for once as their mouths were full of sandwiches and chocolate, and to her amazement Amy spotted a movement on the skyline above her.
A stag. A red deer stag with majestic antlers outlined against the sky. She didn’t want to speak and scare it, so she pointed, and even as she did so, another deer, and another, and another appeared above them. For a moment they stood poised, the humans looking up at the deer, the deer looking down at the humans.
‘Oh wow!’ Matt said softly.
‘Look! Deers!’ yelled Harry, always the last to catch on, and with a rumble of hooves the deer turned and ran.
‘You scared them. You’re too loud,’ Oliver said.
‘Did not!’
‘You did!’
‘Did not.’
‘Did.’
‘Come on, boys, that’s enough. Shall we head home?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Goat Gunge!’
The boys were running away at top speed, Matt and Amy following more slowly behind towards the rocks that guarded the entrance to the valley.
‘I knew there was a herd of red deer round here, but I never expected to see them,’ Matt said as they walked.
‘I know. I thought I was dreaming for a minute. I’ve always thought that valley was enchanted. You know we didn’t see anyone else there today? I don’t think I’ve ever seen another person up the valley, except the Thompsons, of course, with the sheep. It feels like we’re somewhere separate from the rest of the world. Sitting on the rock this morning while you played with the boys … I haven’t felt peace like that for a long time. I wasn’t Harry’s Mum, or James’ ex-wife, or anybody’s anything. I was me again. It’s a long time since I’ve felt like me. You probably think I’m crazy.’
‘Not at all,’ he said quietly. ‘I know exactly how you feel. I get it.’
‘You felt that too?’ She stopped and turned to him.
He nodded. ‘Since Stella died …’ he began, and she realised it was the first time she’d heard him refer to it so directly. ‘Since Stella died, I’ve felt like I was struggling in the water, trying to swim against the current. I’ve been struggling to keep Oliver and Stella’s family afloat. It’s been hard. But here … it all seems easier, somehow. I could float on the water for a while without struggling. It’s the same feeling I used to get when I was running up on the hills.’
The rocks which marked the bottom of the valley and the return to reality were ahead of them, the boys were already on the other side, and they were alone in the silence of the hidden valley. They stopped walking, reluctant to pass the huge boulders. If they never left the valley, everything would be all right. There would be no James and no Laurie, no Darcey-Mae and her mother. Just her and Matt.
She met his eyes, slate blue, slate grey, and she understood him. He wanted to be like the deer, heading back into the peace and emptiness of the wilderness, and she wanted to go with him, keep going onwards and upwards, away from everything, into the mist, until they could find themselves again. Together. Her breath caught in her chest and everything seemed to stop as she realised she was beginning to feel something she hadn’t felt for a long, long time. Almost without thinking she stretched out a hand to touch him.
But she shouldn’t be feeling like this. He was a grieving widower and it was wrong to take advantage of his fragile emotional state. This was all wrong, so very, very, wrong, and she snatched her hand back again, before it was too late. Or was it already too late?
‘Amy …’ he said, softly, taking a step towards her.
Oh God, it was too late. It was much too late for her and she felt as if she was tumbling down the steep slope towards the tarn below them where she might drown, the tarn as icy grey as his eyes.
‘No! Don’t!’ she gasped, ‘I shouldn’t —’ but she was cut short as Oliver and Harry came tumbling back round the corner between the rocks and the moment was shattered.
‘Come on, hurry up! We want to play Goat Gunge!’ Harry shouted.
‘Dad, what are you doing standing there? Why are you looking at Harry’s mum like that? Dad? Come on, Dad, get a move on! I’m cold and I want to go home to the campervan,’ Oliver whined.
She took a shaky breath. At the last minute, Oliver had saved her. She wouldn’t let herself slip again.
