Late June, Scotland. There are four of us, colleagues from years past who arrange to go hiking together once a year. This time: Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the country, from sea level up. The evening before, fish and chips, old stories, much laughter. In the morning we set off cheerfully, and we are not alone: young and old, groups and solitary walkers, hikers and trail runners, from many countries. People greet one another, let one another pass; British politeness walks with us.

Then it begins to rain. I put up my umbrella and provide amusement for everyone I meet – I am evidently the only person on this mountain who considers an umbrella a piece of hiking equipment. Halfway up, the rain becomes a downpour, the wind picks up, we climb into the clouds, the view disappears. It grows colder. We cross fields of snow. Anyone who stands still begins to freeze at once; teeth chatter, hands can no longer grip.

The strange thing is: the cheerfulness remains. Not as bravery, not as a slogan for gritting it out – it is simply there, in us and in everyone else. The stories people tell each other as they walk are louder than the rush of the rain. A hiker falls and bleeds from his forehead; he is looked after by whoever happens to be nearby. Nobody complains about the weather. As if everyone here knew that it is not negotiable.

At the summit we stop only for a photograph. We see nothing, it is pouring, the temperature is below freezing. So straight back down, just keep moving. The wind now drives the rain into our faces, we are soaked to the skin, and from somewhere we hear a helicopter. At some point on this descent I understand what holds this day. It is not the view; we have none. It is not the arriving; that was a photograph in the pouring rain. It is that no one here goes through this rain alone. The weather cannot be changed – who walks beside you can.

I could not help thinking of conversations in which it is much the same. Sometimes nothing can be changed about what is coming down on a person – no solution, no way out, no better weather in sight. Only one thing can be changed: whether they must go through it alone. Whether someone walks with them, step by step – and whether along the way there is even room for a story, for a laugh that makes light of nothing and still warms.

When we are back down after almost eight hours, the sky tears open. The sun shines as though nothing had happened. In the evening we sit over dinner, exhausted and in good spirits, and we agree: the day was terrible, but beautiful. And none of us could have said where the one ended and the other began.