A Country Walk - by Adam Carlton

---

A Country Walk

What’s mostly on his mind as they start this walk is something he certainly hasn't discussed with his companion of so many years. Yet he rather fears that this route today, from Whitby south towards Robin Hood’s Bay, may scarcely offer it — the clifftop coastal path is open country, grassland and fields. And it’s a little cold, being early April, with an easterly breeze coming in from the North Sea.

They climb the steps to Whitby Abbey, though not without difficulty. Their much-denied old age comes with stealthy decline, a certain lack of endurance. That should not in itself prevent anything today; the real problem lies with their surroundings.

They keep meeting people: tourists and walkers. Some mutter a polite greeting; others look airily at the clouds or find the rutted path engrossing. None, thankfully, want to engage them in conversation, unlike those contrived celebrity country walks on television.

If they see a celebrity approaching, he thinks, they will certainly depart at a slow run.

He guesses the subject is not on her mind at all. As they climbed, he held her arm and she complained about the unevenness and steepness of the steps. Now they are in the Abbey ruins, he is alert for suitable quiet corners while she continues a monologue about gulls. Birds and cats have been a constant theme throughout the many decades of their relationship.

They leave the ruins behind them, steadily moving south, and come to a stile, one of those where you climb up wooden steps and hoist yourself over the crossbar. Endearingly and bafflingly, she calls these obstacles ‘sties’ — perhaps a subconscious verdict on their own faintly porcine awkwardness. He steps up, across and down, but he knows she is going to have a mobility problem, not least because of that fashionable skirt she is wearing.

From the other side of the stile, he talks her through it, holding her arm to steady her as she begins the climb. She can’t quite get her leg over the top and he has to manoeuvre her skirt up and shift her knee over the wooden bar.

She’s intent now on completing the move. She straightens her clothing. He takes her hand and they walk on. He looks ahead at the small wood or copse, wondering how he might get from here to there.

He points to the approaching wood: the path meanders through it.

‘If we were going to do it,’ he asks her neutrally, ‘where do you think would be best? There seems to be a small grassy area behind those bushes.’ He points airily to the left.

‘Or maybe that wall over there’ — he points right — ‘has some possibilities — behind it, I mean. Looks pretty private to me.’

All this in a casual, neutral voice, as if discussing forthcoming dinner arrangements. He gives her hand a little squeeze.

And now, out of politeness, he thinks, she must at least consider the idea. They walk on, she beside him in amused silence. She considers his questions too nonsensical for words.

In any case, she has now walked enough. They were never going to get to their destination on foot, and they retrace their steps back to the car.

In Robin Hood’s Bay they are booked into a hotel at the top of the town. In bed that night, they snuggle together.

Here, in this moment, there are no strangers, no distractions; they are quite alone. She relaxes into herself, and into him, while beyond the window the dark sea breathes against the coast.

---