45 Years Page #3

OK, you could've...

you could've just told me, Geoff.

I thought I had.

If I hadn't, well, it's hardly, er...

the sort of thing you tell

your beautiful new girlfriend, is it?

I suppose not.

I think I'm going to have a...

go upstairs and have a bath.

I've got lots to do tomorrow.

- Are you sure you're all right?

- Yes. Yes.

Yeah, really, I am.

I can hardly be cross with something

that happened before we existed, can I?

Not really.

Still...

I suppose a cuddle's out of the question.

It doesn't even feel like it was me

that was there.

Do you know what I mean?

How long had you been up there?

Oh, six or seven weeks, I suppose.

It seemed a lot longer.

We had a map, er, to start with.

It was so bloody unreliable.

I've still got it somewhere.

Yeah, we were getting higher

into the mountains

and I decided it would be best

if we found someone,

y-you know, to help us

get to the Italian border.

- A guide?

- Yeah, wasn't really a guide.

This swarthy little bastard

who thought he was Jack Kerouac.

- You always did hate Kerouac.

- Yes, I did.

Maybe you were jealous.

- What, of Jack Kerouac?

- Of the guide.

Was he flirting with her?

Well, they did have, er... the language.

My German, it wasn't that great,

what with its accent.

They laughed a lot.

He was forever making these jokes

I didn't get.

- Oh, God, you wouldn't like that.

- No, I didn't.

They were walking up ahead,

more than they needed to perhaps,

or... maybe I just let them, I don't know.

We were on a track round this rock,

and the glacier was on the right,

below us.

Way down.

Beautiful thing, it was.

You'd love the landscape out there, Kate.

- You really would.

- Yeah, I'm sure.

They were out of sight, round the corner,

and the last sound but one

that I heard was her laughter.

And, Christ, did it annoy me.

But then, there was a scream.

It wasn't a loud scream, neither.

Sort of outpouring of air from her lungs,

from the shock, I suppose.

It was low and guttural,

not like her voice,

which was soft, higher-pitched.

God, that's just horrible.

Mm. Mm.

And then what?

That was it, really.

When I got there, she'd gone.

And Kerouac was looking down this hole.

A fissure.

Yeah, a fissure, I suppose you'd call it,

like a narrow, narrow crack in the rock.

D-Do you remember that one in Scotland?

- Yeah, I do.

- Yeah. Well, it was like that one.

- Yeah.

- Only much deeper.

And Kerouac was just standing there.

His face, oddly enough,

it looked almost yellow.

Was she blonde?

- Sorry?

- Did she have blonde hair?

Oh, no, no. She had dark hair.

- Like mine, then.

- Mm.

I mean, not now.

Yeah, like yours.

How old was she?

She was two years older than me,

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