by R. D Rhodes
The loch splashed, and a bird flew out into the trees, a little fish in its beak. Maybe I can try making a fishing rod? I thought.
I was lost in my imagination, thinking about what the Picts would have used, when a flock of about a hundred geese swarmed across the sky, their triangle pattern pointing the direction they were going. Their low-pitched honks trailed the air till they disappeared above the tree line.
“They’re going to the warmth. We went to the cold.” Harry said.
Back at the tent, we still had no luck with the fire. We spent the night outside, watching the stars and playing different games.
Next day we went out walking again. We climbed a little hill. Skimmed stones on the loch. The day after we did much the same things. And for the next three days too.
But Harry was acting differently. His feet were bouncing all the time in the tent. He kept clawing and scratching his hair and fiddling with his hands. He was unable to stay either inside or outside the tent. His eyes looked pained and anxious. On our eighth day in the glen, he said he had too much energy and went for a run. Two hours later he was doing press-ups and sit-ups, but that night he was as restless as I’d seen him.
I kept asking if he was okay, and he fended it off and said he was fine. But we were sitting outside the tent, when he suddenly announced that he needed to go to Inverness.
“What do you mean, you need to go to Inverness? You went last week.”
He looked away, at the grey, saturated landscape. His pupils were tormented and desperate. “We don’t have enough food to last us. I want to get enough to keep us going. And I want to get a fishing rod as well, like you said, to be self-sufficient. And more books, I’ve read all of mine.”
It was true we were running out of food already. We’d been eating bigger portions, to keep ourselves warm. His pain-struck eyes looked out to the loch then lifted to the mountains then went down to the ground. He rubbed his face with both his hands. “What is it?” I asked. “You’re anxious. Are you getting bored here?”
“No, no, I’m fine. I’m just,-Well, yeah, I’m anxious about running out of food. And-…”
“And what?” I asked.
“And, I just have a feeling, I should go now. There’s something pulling me.”
He inhaled deeply. Wrapped up in his hat and scarf and numerous padded layers, he looked frail. He glanced up momentarily to gauge my reaction, then looked away again.
“Well, I’m coming too then.” I said.
He squirmed. His right hand grabbed some of the grass we were sitting on and twisted it around. “I don’t feel comfortable with that. They will still be looking for the two of us together. And I might have to sleep rough, which I can manage alone, but I don’t want to, I can’t, put you through that too. Or anyone I love. It’s brutal.”
“Look,” his eyes on me pleaded, “I won’t be gone long. This will be the last time, I’m sure of it. I don’t want to go, but I have to.”
I could see his mind was already made up. “What if you don’t come back?” I asked. “What if you get caught?”
“I won’t get caught.”
“How do you know?”
“I promise. I won’t get caught. I’ll be extra cautious with everything I do.”
I felt something on my cheek, then more little drops came down. There was a lovely pitter-patter soothing sound as the rain landed on the leaves and the trees.
“Okay.” I said. “How long will you be gone?”
“Well, actually, I think it’s better for me to walk, and save the bus money. I know, what you’re thinking, but I’ve thought about it a lot these past three days. So I’ll be, I guess, maybe four or five days maximum.”
I looked into his face. He bit his thin lips and chewed them as his eyes stared out at the rain falling on the land. I really don’t know him, I thought. We’ve been through a lot together, but how well can you know someone after only two weeks? Maybe he’s had enough, and won’t come back? Will I be left here alone, for the whole winter?
“Look, just calm down.” I said.
“I am calm.”
He was adamant, and there was no convincing him. He said he planned to leave the next morning.
Chapter 47
W e waited around the rest of that day. With it raining, we stayed inside the tent- me writing, him re-reading his Moonwalking with Einstein book. It was awkward between us. I didn’t regret running with him, I had nowhere else to go, and besides, it was him who saw the open door when the staff were distracted. But it felt like everything had been thrown up into the air, and I didn’t know what was going to happen.
The rain went off at dark, but we had dinner inside. The next morning when I woke he’d already packed up. On his side of the tent there was an empty space.
I heard him shuffling about outside. Zips opening and closing. I stuck my head out to see him kneeling in the heather. “Morning.” I said.
He looked back, nervously. “Morning.”
“Did you pack plenty food?”
He stuffed his headtorch into the backpack’s side pocket. “Yeah, I cooked some rice in one of the plastic containers. I have bananas, and a little bit of bread too. Will be enough till Inverness.”
“Okay.” I said. “And remember to get UHT milk, and more teabags. And to phone the care com-”
“Yeah, I said I would. I promise. UHT milk, teabags, and tampax. Anything else?”
I had been using sphagnum moss the past two days, but I was worried about tics.
“Good. Good.” I said. “No, that’s all. Thanks.”
I watched him pretending to pack. The dreich, drizzly weather corresponded with my mood.
“I don’t know what to say.” He proffered at last.
I forced a smile. “It’s fine. I’ll see you in five days, right?”
He nodded.
We had some tea together then I walked down with him, his guilty face traipsing the ground as we reached the old man tree then headed left along the lochside.
I peered out into the greyness above the water. It was just like it had been on the day we left Glasgow- the same soft rain that hung in the air, unsure of what to do. “Not the best weather to start.” I said.
“Yeah. At least the snows melted though, and the slush has gone. I don’t mind the rain so much.”
We turned the head of the loch, walking along by the mountainside to our left. We both stopped at the same time.
“Well…” Harry said, looking up at me. He looked so small, and young. His navy collar was turned up high above his scarf, his backpack strapped tight around his bony shoulders. The rainwater glued his oversized jacket to his thighs.
“Well,” I said. “Good luck.”
I stretched my arms around him and we squeezed each other tight.
“I’ll come back, I promise. Don’t worry.” he assured.
I didn’t reply. I let go and stood back.
“Ok, bugger off then,” I joked. “You know how to get to Inverness, right? I’m not going to hear about you getting frozen like Jack Nicholson, somewhere in the middle of the mountains?”
He laughed. He looked relieved. The sparkle retained his eyes. “Heeere’s Harry! Maybe I’ll just find us a hotel like that to hide out in, kill the caretaker, and it will be ours!” He pumped his fist in the air.
“Sounds like a plan.”
He looked down at the gravel, then up at me, “Do you know about the minotaur? Where the inspiration for that film comes from?”
I shook my head and smiled. “Tell me about it when you’re back, Harry. I’ll be waiting for a good story.”
He nodded, and gazed away into the trees beside us, then above the trees to the stream coming down. It hadn’t been there when we arrived eight days ago. It ran from the gap between two hills, until it was loud enough and close enough that it was the only thing we could hear.
He started walking away, then turned and walked backwards, “Five days, tops, and you can hear all about the Minotaur! Greek Myt
hology. You know how I love the Greeks!”
I waved. He waved back and smiled. He looked glad to be going. I didn’t know if he just needed to keep on the move, or if he really did want to get all the things he felt we needed. Maybe he had to sort something out by himself, I didn’t know. He turned his back fully on me. I watched him get smaller and smaller then I turned away too.
Chapter 48
With the mountain stream behind me, it was my lone footsteps crunching through the gravel that I was overly aware of. Somewhere amongst the mass of forest ahead, was our little tent. I stared out to the other side of the loch, but Harry was gone.
The emptiness inside that tent was gaping. I pushed my bag into the middle and threw some of my stuff over to Harry’s side, then I opened the door and looked out, at the sodden, grey world. I wondered if I had always been this insecure. I cast my mind back, and it seemed that I had, even before my mum fucked off with that other man.
As much as I’d tried, I had never really gotten used to being alone.
But you have God, I thought. You prayed in the hospital for a friend, and He brought you one. He won’t let you lose him again. God will look after Harry. It’s a miracle you got here in the first place.
I thought back to the train journey. No-one had bothered me, or Harry, for a ticket, and we’d gotten past two ticket barriers each. Getting up here was pretty crazy. Maybe God was looking out for us.
What to do?
I looked around the pale, green walls. Birds chirped away outside. The stream gently gurgled away. There wasn’t much wind, and it was very quiet. I closed my eyes and prayed out loud, about the hospital, Harry, my discomfort at being out there on my own. My dad, Nina and Sandy. All the other patients at the hospital. All the kids in Glasgow- the gang kids on the estate, Gary’s brothers, the brothers smashing stones into the steel shutters. The poor boys at that abbey in Fort Augustus. The poor, oppressed and beaten down souls all over the world. I talked for a long time, releasing my pent-up brain into the open air. I prayed for all those people. And for the beautiful places of nature like this, that they’d stop being desecrated. That man could wake up and see what he was doing to the earth and his fellow beings. I prayed for all the humans of the planet, and that we could all live together in peace. I asked for strength. I prayed for a light. For a direction to follow, “Show me which way to go, and I will go.” I said.
I opened my eyes. The daylight was dismal, but it was still daylight. I thought I should get out while I still had it.
I took my bottle out with me and filled it from the stream, savoring it’s refreshing coldness. It’s probably from the snows of a few days ago, I thought, imagining the water falling from God’s sky and running down the mountain and into my bottle. I drank and refilled and drank again, thinking what a con packaged bottled water was, especially in Scotland. I drank and filled it again and sat down at the edge of the stream, listening to it as it fell through the trees above and ran down through the bracken and heather.
Underneath the transparent water, I contemplated the big, grey rocks. Then I bent over and lifted some out. They were heavy, but I carried them on my shoulder down to the fireplace and dropped them, then went back for more. I knocked our old fireplace down and moved it five yards further along the hill. Then I re-laid the stone circle, piling the stones high until they were up to my knees. I put a flat stone in the middle and I gathered the wood we had left inside the tent, then went around the branches for more.
I worked slow. The rain drizzled softly around me while I broke the branches into straight sticks, then broke them again into smaller sticks. I built a little twig pyramid, keeping a gap on one side. Most of the wood still felt pretty damp. I held the lighter underneath. A flame sparked…but wouldn’t burn long enough. I tried again. Nothing.
I slumped down and stared at it. Then I looked around at the moss and bracken and trees. I noticed a strip of white, papery bark peeling from one of the birches. The way it was curled up reminded me of woodworking class in school. It was worth a try. I pulled the piece off and took it back and held it under the pyramid and lit it.
It caught straight away. The flame spread so quickly it was like it was soaked in petrol. The twigs cracked and snapped and whistled as the orange flame grew. One by one I fed in more twigs and the fire ate them like a hungry baby.
I sat back from the intensifying heat. My morale boosting with it as I watched the sparks kicking up above the smoke, and the flames dancing red-blue-orange-yellow. Amongst the grey weather and landscape, it was spectacular. This is better than any TV, I thought. The only thing that would make this any better is some food cooking over it, and maybe if Harry was here.
But I didn’t let myself linger on that too long. Well done Aisha, I told myself. You should be proud. You can’t rush these things. Look at those trees that grow so slowly. Drink and eat slowly too. It just takes patience.
I held my hands up to the heat. I wondered how far Harry was along. Maybe at Cannich by now? The world was slowly turning black. The mountains turned into shadows. But the flames mesmerized a calmness into me.
The birds soon stopped singing. The wind went silent. Only the fire was talking. But I didn’t feel lonely. As I sat ensconced in that remote forest, the more I watched the flames the more content I felt. I fixed my eyes on them as they weaved and waved before me, and I let my gaze soften.
Hours passed. I was so relaxed it felt like half of my brain had shut down. All I want to do is be here, I thought. Out beyond these woods somewhere is progress, but this forest was created by the heavens and hasn’t changed in hundreds, or thousands of years. I’m not going anywhere.
The relaxation took a stronger hold, and I felt myself sinking deeper into my mind. I had the impression that I was walking in the shoes of the ancestors. I thought that this could well be the same woods that hunter-gatherers and druids and pagans had stepped through, and that they’d done the same things that I was doing now. The sky was above me, the earth below me, the forest around me, and I was close to the fire. I am inhabiting a timeless realm, I thought. There was no difference between now and five thousand B.C. I was sitting in both the past and the present.
The trees became vague black statues and the stars came out. The temperature dropped, but I was warm. I went into the tent and took out the pot and some rice, poured water in, and put the pot in the middle of the fire. I stirred the rice with a stick, and ten minutes later it cooked up perfectly. Some of the rice had stuck to the bottom of the pot, but other than that it was delicious. I ate in exhilaration.
I finished my tea, collected more wood and stoked the fire, then I lay down next to it in my sleeping bag, removing two of the stones so more heat would get to me.
Harry would’ve liked this, I thought. It’s a shame we couldn’t light it when he was here.
The heat was coming through beautifully. I clasped my hands behind my head. There was no light pollution. I could even make out the milky way.
I watched for a long time. One of the stars drifted quickly across the sky from right to left. It’s probably some sort of satellite. Some telescope taking photos of towns and streets and the people in them. We are always being watched.
Being around my dad’s work had made me wary. I was always wary of what they weren’t telling us. I knew that Big Brother would keep getting worse in the voracious, urbanizing world. But I was safe here, for now. It was still possible to find solitude and freedom. For how long, I didn’t know.
Chapter 49
I woke up under another grey sky. Dew glistened on the grass around me. I got up and stretched out my back and legs, then rolled up my sleeping bag. But something felt strange, and it wasn’t that Harry wasn’t there.
A stiff wind was swaying the trees and blowing the clouds over my head, the mountains behind the loch were dark and brooding under shadow. Then I realised what it was, the birds weren’t singing. I couldn’t even see any.
I made some breakfast, went for a pee, and came ba
ck. The wind picked up. I was sitting, staring at the charred remains of the fire, when a loud rumble went out from beyond the mountains. A thrill of excitement shot through me. Above the peaks, a set of clouds, blacker than the charcoal, merged into a single entity and started to drift my way. Underneath it a mesh of water, like a giant portable waterfall, fell on the loch, and got closer.
It arrived quickly, landing on the hill, thrashing the leaves. I dived into the tent and zipped the door right up, dragging our things in from the walls. The rain hammered down on the roof. The canvas that separated us was so thin I could physically feel it beating against the earth outside. I looked nervously to the corners of the floor, and stroked the walls with my palm. Ten minutes must have gone by. Then twenty, then thirty. The rain kept lashing. “Yes! It’s holding up!” I thought. I felt like I was hidden in an impenetrable bubble.
It was relentless. The trees thrashed loudly. I thought I was quite sheltered but then the wind bent in the front of the tent. The sky groaned like an angry beast and then a flash lit up outside. I partially unzipped the door, but the rain immediately made me close it again. It seeped into the left side of the tent. I waited, marooned.
My adrenaline was rushing. The storm continued to batter down and throttle the tent and was demanding me to show it respect. I was. And I suddenly thought, maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be. Environment dictating man instead of vice versa. Just me and my shelter against the elements, a natural battle to survive, like the rest of the animals. Did the hunter-gatherers live in the moment like this when they roamed from place to place? Their lives had meaning, instead of bills and tax returns their thoughts were only on today. And just now my life too has meaning. I am aware of who I am, and where I am. If this rain gets in, or if this tent collapses, I could get pneumonia, and I’d have nowhere to go. I could die. This is a real threat. A real challenge.