I turn around and smile at George, but he averts his gaze, his jaw clenched.
We set off up the hill in silence. I’m racking my brain for something to say because it’s not a comfortable one.
I settle on: ‘I wonder how Theo is today.’
‘Yeah,’ George replies.
‘Do you reckon he’ll ignore us on Monday?’
He shrugs.
Help me out here, buddy.
‘Have you ever been to Brimham before?’
He nods. ‘But I don’t remember much of it. I came here with my mum.’
Suddenly I wish Theo was with us. The way he and George spoke to each other seemed so natural. Why can’t I get him to open up to me like that?
‘I’m sorry,’ I find myself saying before I’ve had a chance to think it through. ‘I want to ask you about your family and why you’re here, but I don’t know if that’s okay. I’m out of practice.’
‘Out of practice?’ He casts me a look.
‘When I was younger, I always used to ask the teenagers who came here about their situations. But over the last few years, I’ve stopped doing that so much. I don’t know why.’
‘Yeah, you do. When you were younger, you didn’t understand what you were hearing. Each story was just another story: a fairy tale with wicked stepmothers and big bad men. You might have been able to picture the horror, but only now you’re older can you truly imagine it and know that it’s real.’
I’m taken aback by his eloquent analysis. It’s probably the most he’s said to me in one go.
‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘I don’t know how my mum and dad do what they do, to be honest.’
‘Do you resent them for it?’
I want to say no, but I decide not to lie again.
‘Sometimes,’ I admit.
I open the field gate and let George pass through, securing it behind him. There’s less mud than there was a week ago, but George shoots me a warning look as he takes a stride over a large puddle. I grin at him and follow his lead.
Mistletoe and Marigold gallop towards us, swerving at the last moment to walk the final few steps. I reach out to touch Mistletoe, but she grunts and jerks away.
‘I should’ve brought you an apple. Then you’d let me pet you.’
‘They are cute,’ George says with a smile.
‘Wait until you see their newborn cria.’ I point at Jessamine, Hazel and Elizabeth, who are all expecting in June. The whole herd has made their way over to us now. ‘Those three are pregnant. When alpacas give birth, it’s called “unpacking”.’
‘Unpacking an alpaca? I like that.’
‘Me too. There’s not much to dislike about them.’
‘Apart from when they spit,’ he reminds me drily.
‘Luckily, they don’t do that very often.’
By now we’ve reached the top of the paddock. I’m self-conscious as I climb over the stile, aware that I don’t have the slimmest figure in the world. I’m not exactly overweight, but I’m definitely curvy and my jeans hug my figure more tightly than I’d like them to. It’s hard not to compare myself to Becky, who’s pretty much perfect.
George jumps down from the second to last step, his feet making almost no sound as he lands. The ground beneath our feet is damp and spongy, almost like woodchip in its consistency. The track carves straight through the landscape and the higher land on either side is thick with brambles that come almost to head height. When it’s raining, this path becomes a stream, but right now it’s dry and easy to navigate.
We break out into a small wood of silver birch trees. George runs his hand down the pearlescent white trunks as we wander between them.
‘They feel like satin, don’t they?’ I say, copying him. ‘I love silver birch trees.’
He nods, staring up at the branches overhead. They’re covered with lime-green shoots.
‘The first child my parents fostered was a six-year-old boy who had never seen a tree,’ I confide.
Liam had been locked in his bedroom high up in a tower block flat while his parents went to work each day. He’d been so badly neglected that he had the mental age of a toddler. Mum and Dad poured their hearts and souls into helping him, and he was a different boy by the time he left us to go and live with his aunt.
George glances at me. ‘Is that why they started their wood?’
‘I think so.’
I don’t want to mention the tree ceremony and set him off again, so I carry on walking until we reach a sandy track lined on either side with scraggy heather bushes and long tufty grasses.
‘In August, this whole area is covered with pink and purple heather,’ I say.
‘I guess I came here in August, then. I remember the heather.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Seven? Eight? It was before Sophie was born. Wow,’ he says as a cluster of gritstone rocks come into view.
‘The main outcrop is another ten minutes or so away. This area is called Hare Heads,’ I tell him. ‘I love it here. Tourists don’t tend to venture this far.’
‘Isn’t there, like, an enormous rock balanced on top of a tiny rock somewhere?’ he asks.
‘That’s right. Druid’s Idol. There’s also a rock called Druid’s Altar and another one called Druid’s Writing Desk. People used to think that the Druids carved the rocks into these shapes.’
‘Didn’t they?’
I shake my head. ‘They were created by over three hundred and forty million years of weather and water erosion. We did a geology walk around here once with school.’
There are small rocks balanced on top of big rocks and vice versa, big chunky slabs and rounded, bulbous creations, a couple of storeys high, that look as though they’re melted out of candle wax.
I point out a large oblong-shaped rock balanced on top of a flat slab. ‘I call that one Mini Druid’s Writing Desk. I don’t know if it has an actual name.’
‘I remember there being one called the Dancing Bear,’ George says.
‘People have given them loads of names over the years: the Turtle, Sphinx, Watchdog, Camel.’ I reel off some I remember. ‘But if you come with Jamie, you’ll get a different tour: Lava Lamp, Crack Head, Sheep Horse, Slug and, his personal favourite, Bell-End Rock. I won’t show you that one, you’ll get a complex.’
I can’t believe I’ve said it. It’s so inappropriate. I was getting carried away with the buzz I get when I make him smile, but now my face is burning.
There’s a startled silence, and then he throws his head back and laughs.
The sound – warm and deep – is one of the best things I’ve ever heard.
‘Come on,’ I urge giddily, no longer caring that what I said was bordering on flirty. ‘You can see the farm from up here.’
George follows close behind as I climb up between the rocks. We reach a large flat overhang that juts out over the rugged land below by a couple of metres. If we look over our left shoulders, we can see all the way to the Yorkshire Dales, and straight ahead, beyond the farm, the view extends towards the Yorkshire Moors.
Below us, the land rolls away and climbs up again. The gradient is deceptive from this angle – the hills are a lot steeper than they look, as I know from climbing them. They’re speckled with the yellow of wild primroses.