By Sam Szanto

Originally published in West Coast Review #1

Jenni had done it, the climb the had planned for years. She looked at the teardrop-shaped lake, three thousand feet below her. She turned to smile at Matthew.

Where was Matthew?

She had been so excited as she approached the zenith that her pace had increased, She had assumed Matthew was close behind; he was usually faster than her. He must have slowed his own pace. Making a point. She felt bad about their argument. Anger wasn’t good, especially with her blood pressure. She remembered him telling her that and felt angry again.

Never mind, she could rest while she waited, eat the Kendall Mint Cake. She would relish in her moment of aloneness in the normally touristy Lake District. And when Matthew got there, indulge in some light teasing about his apparent lack of fitness. That would serve him right for saying she shouldn’t take on a climb like this without training. Muscles have memory, she would say. Or maybe not. Her reaching the top before him was evidence enough. She could be the bigger person.

Someone was coming up the mountain. Her smile froze as she realized it wasn’t her husband. The man looked to be in his sixties, wearing a green bobble hat and a black coat.

‘Hello’, Jenni called.

The man didn’t reply. Nor did he look at her. Maybe he had a hearing implant.

Fat raindrops fell onto her thin waterproof jacket. One splashed onto her hand. Although she could see the water on her skin, she couldn’t feel it. Maybe the climb had been a bit much for her. Not because she was unfair as such; it would take it out of anyone. She remembered when she and Matthew has met, over twenty years ago, and gone hiking in the Highlands; afterwards, he was so tired he couldn’t speak properly during dinner, and her muscles had cramped all night in bed.

The Kendall Mint Cake would cure her. But there was only one bar, and Matthew loved it too. She would save it.

Where was he? Surely he couldn’t be walking at a snail’s pace just to spite her. She could barely remember how their argument had started. She was sorry for snapping. What if he were so angry that he descended the mountain alone; went back to the B&B; drove home? How would she get back to Birmingham?

Or what if he got lost on the mountain? He’d never had the best sense of direction. It was always her who remembered where the car was parked in a multi-storey. Always her with the first aid kit, the extra bottle of water, the spare change.

More people were approaching, out of breath but grinning. They looked like a family — all red-heads; a woman, a man, and two teenagers alike enough to be twins.

‘Hard climb, isn’t it?’ Jenni said to the woman, who was bent over with her hands on her knees. ‘But worth it, right? Can I ask if you remember passing a man on your way up?’

The woman straightened up. Instead of replying to Jenni, she stared down the lake, Jenni realized how irritatingly vague she’d been.

‘Sorry, you must have passed a lot of men. This one’s about six foot, wearing a red jacket with a brown rucksack.’

Eyes the colour of lapis lazuli and hair that’s bright blond, even at fifty. Blue and gold, like a Van Gogh. He loves Van Gogh, does my Matthew.

‘Do you speak English?’ Jenni asked.

There were a lot of tourists in the Lake District. But the woman didn’t even seem to have noticed that Jenni was there. She started talking to the children. Jenni thought she detected a Mancunian accent, although the rain whipped the words away.

You’re rude, wherever you’re from.

The red-haired man was talking to the older man in the green bobble hat. Green-bobble-hat man slapped him on the back, gave a general wave to the rest of the family, and started the descent.

‘Oh my god’, the teenage girl said, ‘as if there’s no phone signal. I need to go on TikTok now.’

‘We can take a selfie,’ the woman said, ‘and you can upload it later.’

‘I’m not being in a photo with my parents,’ the girl said.

‘I’ll take a picture for you, if you like,’ Jenni said, and again was not acknowledged. It was like being at school.

The teenagers posed for a selfie, their parents watching. The rain was easing off, the sky grey and light-flecked. The family sat on the rocks to have lunch.

Jenni looked at her watch. It had stopped half an hour ago. That was a pain, she had only had it for a week. Her birthday present from Matthew. Something else for him to be angry about.

She would eat the mint cake. She imagined the sharp-sweet taste she has loved ever since she started hiking as a child, when her parents were alive. Perhaps it was good Matthew wasn’t there. He didn’t like her eating sweet things. I have had enough of that sort of talk from the doctors. You only live once, she had said to him (though not to the doctors).

The rocks looked sharp and jagged, and the teenagers were moaning about how uncomfortable they were to sit on. Yet, when Jenni sat, she didn’t feel as if there was anything underneath her. Obviously her body was numb from the climb—hopefully that wouldn’t turn into pins and needles.

The girl was asking her mum if they could go kayaking tomorrow, and was told that sounded dangerous.

‘Mum,’ both children moaned, and the boy said: ‘You promised. Tell her, Dad.’

The air filled with the chopping of a helicopter. The family looked up from munching their doorstop sandwiches.

The helicopter circled then descended the mountain.

‘Must be for that poor woman. I hope they can save her,’ the man said, through a mouthful of food.

‘I’m sure they will,’ the woman said. ‘These paramedics can do amazing things.’

‘She looked like she was dead,’ the boy said.

Jenni wanted to ask what had happened, but it was clear that they weren’t going to talk to her.

‘That poor bloke with her looked so upset,’ the man said. ‘Maybe we should have stayed with him.’

‘We’d have got in the way,’ the woman said. ‘There was that woman trying to do CPRm and other people milling around, remember? Quite a crowd.’

How did I miss this? Jenni was so intrigued by what they were saying that she’d forgotten the mint cake: the girl unwrapping her own chocolate bar reminded her.

When Jenni tried to take off her rucksack to get to the Tupperware container she had packed that morning, her hand passed through the fabric of the straps. She must be ill. Maybe so I’ll she was hallucinating. Maybe she was hallucinating the other people and that was why no one seemed to notice her.

‘Poor bloke,’ the man repeated. “imagine your wife collapsing on a mountain.’

‘Don’t upset the children,’ the woman said.

‘Is there any more chocolate?’ asked the boy.

The sound of the helicopter has stopped.