by R. D Rhodes
Everything was sparkling under the open moonlight- the grass, the road, and the trees. My breath floated in the air and I half expected it to freeze into crystalline like the grass had done.
When I regained my breath I went for a last run, then burst back in through the open door and up the stairs, into my sleeping bag.
The warmth hardly lasted twenty minutes.
“It’s not funny anymore, how can it be so cold?” Harry said half an hour later, “Come on, morning!”
I rubbed my numb nose. I beat my chest and felt the soft padding off two shirts, a hoody and a jacket beneath my fist. “How did they do it?” I said.
“Who?”
“The ancestors, how did they survive temperatures as brutal as these? This is a stone shack with just a fireplace for warmth, probably nineteenth century or something, but before then they wouldn’t have even had that. How did they keep warm? I can’t comprehend it. You cast the average western adult out here and they wouldn’t last three nights, and we’re struggling to last even one. But they did it. For thousands of years, they did it.”
“Yeah, they were better prepared though. And made of stronger stuff. Animal skins too, we’d be extinct if it wasn’t for animal skins. The cattle shared the houses as well,” he said. “Cow farts and hot breath, that was their central heating.”
“Yeah, I know, but surely that would only have given them so much heat. I just don’t know how they managed it. How far we’ve fallen.”
I again rolled under my sleeping bag. Then I changed tactics. I tried to ignore the cold, to tell my brain that I was warm. I had read about Buddhist monks in the Himalayas doing that and surviving minus twenty without a drop in their temperature.
It worked, for five minutes.
Chapter 40
I t was a long time coming but morning eventually arrived. The birds chirped their happiness. There was a distant sound of drilling and every so often a car roared by.
We rolled up the sleeping bags and packed the rucksacks and tried to appease our rumbling tummies with two jam sandwiches each. We bumbled down the stairs and out the door and doubled back on the road to the village, it had been gritted sometime overnight, and our boots crunched the salt with every step.
The frost still glistened but the sun was out low in the blue sky above the tree-covered hills. I guessed it was about half-eight. When we got back to Cannich we read the bus times on the board. Then we went into the shop and spent three fifty on bread, milk and cheese.
We sat on a garden wall next to the bus stop. The food was so good. I was really hungry.
Harry was sticking some cheddar between two slices of bread, when he stopped and looked at me, “Will you be okay here, for a few hours?”
“Yeah. Just make sure you come back.” I said.
He smirked, his thin lips now almost fully healed and blending into the paleness of his face. Only a few small scabs on his cheek remained of our escape. “Of course I will. Be here at two, at the very latest.” He finished his sandwich, then went into his bag and took out a cheap-looking, blue plastic watch. “Two. Okay?”
“Alright.” I strapped it around my wrist.
He sat back up. “Are you okay? After what you told me last night? I can stay,..if..”
I watched my breath billow into the air, “Yeah. It feels good to have spoken about it. To tell someone else. I have been trying to process it for a long time.” I thought about telling him of the dream I’d had in the hospital, about my dad. But I let it slide. “No, you should go. I’ll be fine, honestly.”
Harry passed the block of cheddar and I took a big bite then drank some of the milk. A curtain twitched down the street, but that was the only movement other than the smoking chimneys.
“Can you phone someone, please? When you’re there? A government office, or the police. We have to try to do something.”
He rolled his eyes, somewhat irritably. “Can it wait? I can’t even think who to call. Wait till we are settled, till we have a place to go. Then I will. Promise. But I really don’t think it will make a difference.”
“Fine.” I said. “But we will phone. I don’t think it will either, but,”
“Cheese is good, isn’t it? I should have got the blue one though.” He took another bite. “But I’ll get some in town, and for half the price.”
“Remember the bananas, and dates.”
“Yeah. I said three times,” he laughed. The bus came towards us and stopped, and we hugged goodbye before he got on. I watched as it did a U-turn then disappeared around a bend.
I sat alone on the wall. I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t as cold as the night, but it was still freezing. I put the food into my backpack and started walking.
I did a tour of every street in the village then circled round the park. I walked past the campsite, by the pair of static caravans- but smoke was puffing from their cylinders. The rickety, old hotel was closed for the season. Then I saw the church. Dreamy thoughts of the warmth inside those stained-glass windows swarmed into my head. But the door was shut and padlocked.
The frost was nipping me so I turned away and walked briskly on, out of the village. From the oak wood to my left golden leaves were falling and fusing an Autumnal collage onto the road. I spotted a hill through the trees and stepped off into the wood. There was no path and I headed straight, my thoughts beginning to run again as my body warmed up. I thought of my dad. Of what had happened. How it had happened. I thought of Harry. I left the woods behind and climbed the slope.
Forty minutes later I sat on a rock at the top, looking out over the mass of forest, which stretched up every mountain to just below the jagged summits. The river snaked out into the distance, and directly below me was Cannich. I gazed down on its tiny houses, amongst that vast landscape, and I could feel just how small I was. White cumulus clouds drifted gently and impressively across the blue sky, a sky so big, I thought, so 3D-looking, its expanse could cover us all a thousand times over. Then I remembered something I thought Andrei had said in War and Peace, “That sky, that great sky, why had he never noticed it before?” I seemed to remember him lying on a battlefield, dying, when he saw it. I thought I understood him.
And beyond that sky are the stars, I considered. We are all just little ants wrapped up in all that. Something greater, that we can’t even begin to comprehend. Then it hit me with great force- so what if my life is pointless?! No life means anything when compared to all this anyway. I am just a wee tiny dot, a blip in the existence of the planet. My pain, all the suffering throughout my life, what Dad did to me, really means shit in the grand scheme of things. I will go and be forgotten about, just like everybody and everything else on this planet. I am nineteen measly years amongst four and a half billion. It felt good to know that. It felt reassuring.
I took out my bottle from my rucksack and filled it up from a nearby spring. I drank that pure water and sucked in deep bursts of the cool fresh air. I was a million miles away from the city. Nevermind didn’t seem at all relevant now.
Harry’s watch said it was only eleven. The cold started to bite again though, so I started off along a ridge that led to a higher summit. As I neared its top the clouds blew around me, and turned the world all white, before they floated on again. I was up with the Gods. I lay down on the rocks and soaked up the views and the smells and every sensation, trying to capture it all to memory. I said a long prayer, then headed back down out of the clouds.
I got down, then started up another peak, a much higher one. It was tougher, but even from half-way it had better views. It was addictive, this climbing. I hadn’t done much of it before. My adrenaline was going. It was like nourishment for the soul. And as I overcame each new blockade or scramble, I felt like I was growing and growing. I need these experiences, I thought.
Thirty minutes later and fifty metres higher, I misjudged my footing going up a steep rockface and almost fell, but instinctively grabbed hold of an old tree root which somehow held my weight. With the one hand s
upporting me, I looked down. I would have been paralyzed at least, more likely dead. One little mistake and that was it. My senses were at their peak. This is living, I thought- pushing my mind and body and seeing how far I can go. All the shit I’d been thinking was non-existent. I kept looking back on the climbs I’d navigated. I had overcome, I was strong.
I imagined what would happen if I had died. But I felt safe enough and I didn’t want to stop. I got up to the top. The wind blew harder and I had to dig in my shoes to keep from blowing off.
I lay down near the summit and closed my eyes. I wanted to keep that feeling of being on top of the world, and have it forever. I dreamed of letting myself starve up there, and getting to die in a beautiful place, and happy. But I had to go down. It was going on two. There will be plenty more chances to climb, I thought.
When I got back to the village, I bought a little bottle of Irn Bru and sat on the wall drinking it and eating the cheese and bread. The temperature was warming up when the bus came in- Harry at the back with his hood up, reading a book. He came off carrying a bulging eco-bag in each hand.
“That’s a lot of stuff!” I said. I looked in the carrier bags- a new stove and two thick sleeping bags. Some rice, some porridge.
“Courtesy of Tesco.” Harry said cheerily. He stashed away his book and we walked towards Affric again.
“Did you steal all of that?”
“Just some of it.” He walked with a determined swagger, his face stoic on the road ahead. “The bins were all fuckin’ locked. But anyway, how are you? What did you do?”
“I climbed those hills.” I pointed. “It was beautiful.”
“Those ones?”
“Yeah.”
“To the tops?!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Cool. What was it like?”
I told him about the climbing, and he told me about Inverness, and how good our four-season sleeping bags and butane stove seemed. He managed not to pay for one of the sleeping bags by going through the self-service tills. We chatted away as we passed the old cottage we’d slept in the night before. The blue patches in the sky were gradually covered with fat, grey clouds, and soon snow started to fall.
It felt adventurous. Heading out towards the middle of nowhere. We were both excited, even after the farce of the last night. But first we had to go past the bridges, and the hydroelectric dam, where a buzzing new generator was being set up. As the snow settled we watched the maintenance guys at work, standing out a mile in their orange boiler-suits.
We headed out past them all, and beyond the rows of spruce trees, and down the rolling roads, till we made it to the sign for Glen Affric Nature Reserve. Beyond the sign the land seemed to grow wilder with every hundred yards. The road cut through woods of birch and oak and cherry. Thick snowflakes swirled in front of our eyes. To our left, the river was getting louder and bigger while everything else fell silent. The white packed higher. It felt like it was snowing just for us.
About an hour later the light began to fade, and we headed into the trees to set up camp. The soft snow crunched harmoniously as we got well away from the road, and we found a good spot on level ground.
Working together it was easy, and we had the two-man tent up in barely five minutes. We zipped open the door, threw our rucksacks inside, laid the cheaper sleeping bags down, and rolled the new, thicker ones over on top. Harry tied the lamp to the string dangling from the ceiling, and we were ready.
He turned on the blue flame of the portable stove and cooked up a pack of chicken soup in the pot. We dipped bread into the soup. I wolfed my portion down and snuggled into my sleeping bag. I felt like I could explode with happiness.
Outside it was freezing. It was going to be a long, cold night. But we were so warm. There we were in our own owned home. Sheltered from the elements by nothing more than a strong, thin wall of tarp. I felt happy from such a simple thing, and happy that I could feel so happy from such a simple thing. I rolled and nestled and felt comfy all over. I was aware of myself grinning like the Cheshire cat. Harry was too. The delight didn’t falter as the steam from our second cups of soup flared up our nostrils and up through the air.
It soon got dark. Harry took out the book he’d been reading on the bus. He offered me another one, but I was content just to sit in the silence and take all the peace and comfort in. There was nobody around. No lights of towns and cities. Nobody to tell us what to do. No bad neighbors. We were alone for at least a couple of miles.
I felt independent. My muscles ached satisfactorily from their good workout on the mountain trek. I fell asleep and slept like a baby.
Chapter 41
“Mornin!”
I opened my eyes to the steaming cup and bright light pouring in through the canvas. I took the cup and sat up on my bum. Harry was smiling like a kid on Christmas. He sat up under the dome with his legs and feet shaking, his eyes blazing on me.
“You’re cheery this morning!” I laughed.
“Well, look at that?” He almost leapt across to the door and whipped it back to reveal a winter wonderland, “It’s beautiful!”
It really was. I sipped the tomato soup as a little red robin landed next to the door and weightlessly hopped along the layer of white. With a quick flutter it flew away again.
“Your scabs are almost all gone.” I said.
Harry’s hand jittered as he brought it up to his face and stroked his nose and lip. “That’s good. Yeah, feels like it.” He said blasély, “How’s your leg, now?”
“Och, it’s fine. It hasn’t bothered me for days.”
“That’s good.”
His knees kept bouncing.
“Aw man, I’ve got so much energy. C’mon, you want to get goin’ soon?”
“Yeah, I can see that.” I laughed. “Give me a chance to wake up first. This is good soup.”
“It is, eh? Just the cheap stuff, too.”
“Hm.”“You been up long?”
“Yeah. Got up hours ago. Went for a pee and a run through the woods. It is stunning out there. Then I came back and finished my book. Oh, and I’d like you to meet my new friend. Ha-Ha! Look!”
He came away from the entrance, directing to the left. I kneeled over and looked out- at a seven-foot-high by ten feet wide Loch Ness monster, the periscope neck poking up from the ground along with four raised bumps and a tail. “Wow!” I said, impressed. “How long did that take?”
“Thanks. Three hours. C’mon, let’s get going then!” He twisted, and bent his knees up and bounced them.
“Okay. Okay.”
I finished my soup and wriggled more clothes on under my sleeping bag. Then we packed up, folded up the tent, crammed everything into our rucksacks and stepped through the shin-deep snow. We got back to the road, not knowing where it began and the forest floor ended.
A few cotton clouds patched the blue sky. It didn’t look like snowing again. I bent down and scooped up a handful and rubbed it in my face, then I packed some into a small ball and popped it in my mouth. I chewed it to ice and let it dissolve on my tongue as we walked.
We really were on our own out there. The road rose up and away from the river, leaving a vast silence to reign over the land. Apart from our footsteps I literally couldn’t hear a sound. My heart was soaring. The road kept dipping and rising. Harry stopped and shook his head.
“This is stunning.”
“Wow.” I said.
On both sides of the road we were surrounded as far as the eye could see by biblical-looking forest made up of knarled and twisted trees that must have been at least several hundred years old. And despite it being almost winter, and snowy, there was green everywhere; in the lichen dangling like old men’s beards from the branches, in the moss clinging to the trunks, and in the white-dusted pine tree canopies above us that stretched way out onto the other side of the river.
It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.
We carried on. With each lunge, the snow came up above my boots, melted qu
ickly, and soaked through my socks. It was heavy going. But the scenery drove me on, seeming to give me extra energy.
Down to our left, the white river was winding and swinging away, smashing down waterfalls and powering through the gorges it had made. Time and again the sun managed to break through the clouds and was shining beams everywhere, illuminating mythical-looking spots amongst the distant trees.
“Wow!” I gasped. On the other side of the river, the light beams were now landing on some of the most pristine-looking places I had ever seen. It looked boggy and wet out there, and was in the middle of miles of forest. Nobody would go there.
“That’s where we need to go.” I said.
Harry’s eyes followed the river. “How though, we can’t cross?”
“Maybe the road circles the glen and comes back down the other side. Or we’ll find a bridge further down. C’mon.”
Chapter 42
W e carried on for miles, but there was no bridge. And the river was too wide and fast to think about crossing. It soon opened out into a loch, full of little pine-filled islands, and at its side we came to an empty car park buried under a foot of snow. We skim-read the ranger signposts and went on, to another car park further up. The tarmac turned to stone. We had to keep stopping and looking to navigate through the white.
“Want to have a break?” Harry asked.
We’d been walking for hours. “Okay.” I agreed. “Where do you want to sit?”
“What about up there?” He pointed to some boulders further up the hillside.
We left the loch and climbed, and sat down on the separate rocks. Harry handed me sandwiches as we stared in awed silence. It was like the earth was breathing. The clouds were sweeping the sky, laying down shadowed shapes on the ground and shrouding the hilltops in mystery. The loch lapped onto the shore, then calmly pulled out again. God’s searchlights shone from heaven to check out beautiful spots everywhere below. And that’s what it felt like- heaven. How could heaven be any better than this? I thought.