Ambleside, July 2013

Alice

Brenda handed Alice a plate of scrambled eggs on toast then sat at the table.

‘There you go,’ she said. ‘Soak up some of the hangover.’

‘I feel like shit,’ Alice said. ‘Not enough sleep.’

‘Why did you get up so early?’

‘I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep,’ Alice said. ‘So I decided, fuck it, I’ll get up.’

‘And you got me up too.’

‘I didn’t mean to!’ Alice laughed. ‘And if you’d been in the dormitories you’d have been woken up in any case.’

‘Fair,’ Brenda said. ‘What time did you get back in the end?’

‘I dunno. Two? Donny and I hung out by the lake for a while.’

‘Hung out? Is that a polite English way of saying you did the dirty?’

‘No!’ Alice felt her cheeks flush. ‘A kiss! That was all.’

‘He’s a nice bloke,’ Brenda said. ‘Hendrik too.’

‘Shame they left,’ Alice said. ‘Lizzie and Clara went home this morning too.’

‘Only us left now,’ Brenda said. ‘You leave tomorrow?’

‘Yeah. I booked a train ticket for the evening. Originally Ned and I were going to spend the day here and then head back to Nottingham.’

‘I’m going to Liverpool to meet my friends. I’ll head out the same time as you. Anyway, since we’re up we might as well do something. Want to go hiking? I can’t come all this way and not see the famous mountains of the Lake District.’

‘I’d love to,’ Alice said. She cut a piece off her slice of toast and lifted it to her mouth. ‘Let’s ask at reception where we should go.’

The woman at reception smiled. She was a few years older than Alice and had close-cropped red hair and a nose stud. Her name badge read Sharon.

‘You want something tough?’ Sharon said. ‘You guys look in pretty good shape.’

‘Not too tough,’ Alice said.

‘Well, I’ll give you my two favourite walks in Lakeland, and you can decide.’

‘Sounds good,’ Brenda said. ‘Shoot.’

‘The first is a cliché,’ Sharon said. ‘But like a lot of clichés there’s a reason they’re popular. In this case it’s because the walk is spectacular.’ She looked out of the window. ‘Especially on a day like this.’

‘What is it?’ Alice said.

‘Striding Edge to Helvellyn,’ Sharon said.

‘That was one my boyfriend – ex, actually – wanted to do,’ Alice said.

‘He has good taste. Striding Edge is amazing – it’s incredibly narrow, with sheer drops, hundreds of feet down, on either side. Then you get to the summit itself.’

‘Sounds like the real deal,’ Brenda said. ‘Is it safe?’

‘Someone dies up there every summer,’ she said. ‘But today’s nice and dry. You’ll be fine. And it’s worth it.’