by R. D Rhodes
I was just as impressed. That green sheet roof stretched right across his campsite, its four corners tied via cords to four different trees, each of which he must have climbed the fifteen feet by himself. A wooden, home-made hanger was positioned above the fire in the centre, the rod bending under the weight of a cooking pot, and the faint smoke drifted up to escape through a precisely cut hole in the canvas. At the back was a large tent divided into three different colored compartments, a high pile of firewood to its right, which was also sheltered under the roof. It all looked fantastic. It was a little dark inside due to the canvas blocking out the sunlight, but otherwise I couldn’t fault it.
“It’s not bad, is it?” Alex said. “I’ll show you inside.” We followed under the roof, across to the tent and he zipped open the door of its middle compartment. We stepped on through under its high curved ceiling, into a hallway-like area. All underneath the back wall an assortment of glass jars and wooden boxes were laid out across the floor, all labelled with the names of the contents inside- sphagnum moss. Blueberries. Pine needles. Raspberry jam. On each side of the hall another room was portioned off.
Harry knelt down and picked up the jar with pine needles inside. Alex gestured for us to take a closer look and Harry took off the lid and sniffed it. His neck twisted round. “How the hell did you get all this stuff out here?”
“My cars parked at the other side of the loch.” Alex told him.
“You have a car?” I said.
“Yeah. Sure. What, did you get the bus here or something?”
Harry and I looked at each other.
“Want some coffee, or tea? Let’s sit outside. Watch the snow.”
“I’ll have a coffee, please.” Harry said. He indicated to both sides of the tent, spreading his thin arms wide. “It’s so warm in here. It's huge. But why do you need all this?”
“Well, it gets a bit confined, for me, in smaller tents.” Alex said.
“Tell me about it.” I agreed.
“Our tent reeks of Aisha’s feet just now.” Harry smirked at me. I stuck up my middle finger.
“Dandelion root?” Alex picked up a jar.
“What?”
“Dandelion root coffee?” He held it out, showing the brown granules inside. “It’s the only coffee I have.”
Harry made a face. “Is that a thing?”
Alex laughed. “It’s good. Yeah, it’s easy. Dig up the root, roast it in the oven or over the fire, mash it up. And you’ve got a nice, nutty, caffeine-free coffee. With no damage to the rainforest.”
We went back out to the fireplace, and Harry and I sat down around its jagged rocks. Alex stoked the few remaining embers, then took over a bunch of kindling from the woodpile and threw it on. He bent low, bringing his face close, and blew. A flame kicked up and quickly spread, and he opened the lid of the cooking pot and poured in the coffee.
He handed us each a blue mug and sat down with us. His back straight. His chest puffed out as he watched the fire.
The ceiling fluttered gently in the wind. Snow swept in from the right to land in its shadow. The smoke drifted up through the bright hole above us. It was like looking up into a spaceship.
Harry smiled warmly at me. I no longer felt nervous either. “You’ve got it set up real good,” I admired. “But why did you come here?”
Alex kept his eyes on the fire. “I just needed to get out, to be honest.” He scratched his beard, then glanced quickly at me. “I’m, um, a bit of a survivalist as well.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Like Bear Grylls? Or Ray Mears?” Harry smiled widely, looking at me.
Alex watched our exchange, not getting the inner joke. He smiled anyway. “Ray Mears, I guess. I just, you know, like to be ready. Just in case.”
“Ready for what?” Harry asked.
“The end.” Alex explained, with a straight face.
Harry laughed. Then Alex laughed too. And I could see that they were both at ease with each other already. “Smart.” Harry said. “You’re certainly prepared anyway.”
Alex stood up. “Yous hungry? Want any bread? Or soup?”
“I’m okay.” I said.
Harry shook his head. “No thanks, mate.”
Alex reached for the pot and slipped the handle across the pole and out. He poured the steaming dandelion coffee into our mugs.
I blew, and took a sip of the dark brown drink. “It’s good.”
“It’s really good.” Harry praised.
“Told you.” Alex smiled.
We drunk it slowly. It was nutty. Bitter. It really did taste like coffee.
“You were saying?” Harry asked.
Alex looked at him, and acknowledged his meaning. “Well, it only takes one big wave, or one big solar flare and the national grid is down. If the grid goes down, technology is out. It’ll be chaos.”
“We’ll all be headless chickens.” Harry agreed.
“I think it’s great,” I said, “what you’re doing. But what do eat? You must still go shopping?”
“Well, yeah. You can’t live off the land here. There’s no meat. I fish, but that loch is a bit sparse. So yeah, I go shopping once every two weeks or so. But what about yous? Why did you choose here? How long are yous staying?”
“Because it’s beautiful.” Harry gestured towards the loch at the back of the break in the trees, and the white canopy above it. “We just wanted to come out for a while. Don’t know how long for yet. Maybe till Spring. It’s just so natural here. So pristine.”
Alex nodded. But his face momentarily screwed up.
“What was that look?” I said. “You don’t think so?”
“Well, yeah…It is one of the best conserved glens. But a lot of this is regeneration. And planted. It’s not so pristine.”
“Really?” This time it was Harry’s eyes that narrowed.
“Yeah.” Alex sipped his coffee, “Re-planted years ago. And still being replanted further up. There’s a guy called Alan Featherstone. Amazing guy. So inspiring. One of my heroes. He runs a charity called Trees for Life. Set it up about twenty years ago to preserve the old Caledonian forest. And he started it here. So a lot of this glen is down to him.”
Harry couldn’t hide his surprise. I struggled as well. “A lot of this is restored?”
“Yeah. Sure. You can tell there’s loads of ancient trees here, but yeah, they’ve been saved. And the younger ones have only been able to grow because of the deer fences and stuff they put up originally, before they took them away again. I’ve been on one of their volunteer conservation weeks, myself.”
“When?” I asked.
“About two years ago.”
The ceiling billowed in a sudden gust. This glen. The trees I’d been speaking to. The energy I’d felt in this place. It was only because this charity he was talking about had saved it! I had no reason to doubt him. His expensive-ish full regalia outdoor clothes, bushy frontiersman beard, his big arms- I could imagine him out on the hills, planting trees. Alex seemed to be in his element here, his brown Autumnal eyes at ease next to his fire, with his self-collected coffee. “So, do you do a lot of volunteering?” I asked him.
He picked up his stoking stick and gave the fire a prod. “Yeah. Quite a bit.” The flames kicked up with a snap and crackle. “I don’t like working for money.” He muttered, almost to himself.
“How come?” Harry asked.
“It’s just a pain. And it doesn’t feel right. I hate money.” His face tightened as he stabbed the fire again. “It feels like I’m doing it against my will. But when I volunteer, and give my time up, and get a genuine thanks for doing something, it feels so much better than getting paid for it. That’s just how I feel. The only work I like to do is the work I would do for free.”
“You’re a Thoreau fan, too?” I said, in a higher pitch than I intended.
He looked at me, confused. “No. Who’s he?”
“Oh. He’s one of the greatest people who ever lived.” I said. “A tota
l genius. Lived about, what? One hundred and fifty years ago?” I glanced at Harry and he nodded. “He went to the forest and lived in a log cabin. And he wrote all about conservation, and the need for treating land not as a product. And the way he wrote, he inspired John Muir, a Scottish guy, to go out to nature and write about it too. And John Muir took the president of the United States out with him, I think to the redwood forest at Yosemite. And he convinced him to protect the land from development, and to create the first ever national park. And now there’s land protected all over the world. Because of what Thoreau started. And he was one of the first, if not the first, to talk about the right to peaceful, non-violent protest. America was fucking around in a war with Mexico, and he didn’t think it was right that he should have to pay taxes to go towards that war, so he refused to. He was put in jail for a night. Fined, I think. And he wrote about it, and how everyone should have the right to peaceful protest. After him there was Tolstoy, and there might not have been a Martin Luther King or Gandhi, and equal rights would have been very different. It’s all cause of him. He was so far ahead of his time. But yeah, that’s what he said, “The only work worth doing, is the work you would do for free.”
“And” Harry added, That government is best which governs least, and when we are ready, that is the government we shall have. That’s one of my favourite quotes from him. He was all for independence. Like you seem to be living. I’m impressed.”
“Sounds like quite a guy.” Alex said, deadpanned.
“So, you just volunteer all the time?” I asked.
“Mostly.” He nodded indifferently.
“Where?”
“Well, I kind of do aid work. I’ve been a few places. Costa Rica. Peru. Africa. Asia. I like working with kids, so I’ve done quite a bit of that. I do do paid work, but only for about two months of the year, then I fuck off abroad somewhere. The money lasts you, especially when accommodation is provided.” He turned to me. “What do you do? Uni?”
Uni! “Nuthin just now.” I said. “I’d like to get into aid work too, though.”
“Cool.” “And you?”
“I’m a KP.” Harry reported.
Alex laughed. “Another professional dishwasher. That’s mostly what I do, when I’m not abroad.”
“What does your family say, about your life?” I asked.
Alex shrugged, seeming annoyed by the question. “They don’t get it. Want me to settle down. Get a career. Get married.” He prodded the fire again then dropped the stick and his eyes narrowed on the flames, I thought for a second I saw tears in them. “But the world might not even last another twenty years, so I don’t see what the point is. I’d rather try to make a difference. The world can be changed. I see good people all the time making things work. That’s just what I want to do, and it makes me happy, so-..”
The wind howled just then, and a flurry of snow was blasted under the roof. But we were too deep inside for it to get in at us.
The smoke filtered up. The crackling fire and the canvas were the only sounds that joined the wild wind.
“How long are you planning to stay?” Harry asked.
“Not sure. I don’t wanna go home for Christmas. Maybe I’ll stay three more weeks. Leave after new year…
…And what about you guys? Spring is a long time away. Yous not got anything to get back to?”
We stayed around the fire talking, long after we had finished our second cups of coffee. And then, as the snow continued to swirl around outside us, Alex stood up and offered us a “nature walk.” We padded after him through the snowdrifts as he told us which tree was good for which kind of wood, and what medicines they provided, and what you could eat from them and what you couldn’t. He really knew his stuff.
After that we all went down to the loch and despite the weather, did a bit of fishing. Harry and me sharing our rod, Alex using his. But none of us with any success.
Me and Harry went back to our own tent, then returned to Alex’s to have dinner together. His campsite was better, warmer, and more sheltered. You could move around more freely. After all those weeks cooped up hiding from the rain, it was such a joy to be able to walk around without getting soaked and cold.
My first impression, of Alex being loud and confident, was at least half wrong. As the day went on I realised he was actually quite quiet. But he was really nice. And we all got on really well. Late into the night he offered us one of the compartment rooms in his tent and we snapped up the opportunity to escape from our own stinking, claustrophobic space. Harry had one side of the room. I took the other. There was enough space for about seven in there and I sprawled right out.
In the darkness I listened to the flapping of the canvas. And to the howl of the wind as it picked up. And to the trees as they began to creak and groan in its grip. I felt so cosy inside, and I was so grateful for everything. It was so luxurious in there that it felt like a hotel room.
I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke it was to the same sounds of the blizzard.
Chapter 64
I left Harry snoring and zipped the compartment door back up behind me as I exited the tent. I sat down next to the fireplace and pulled my sleeping bag up to my cold neck. Faint trickles of smoke floated lazily up from the ashes. All around me, beyond the darkness cast by the ceiling, the world was ablaze with white. The trees were buried a foot deeper than the night before. We were hidden like a cave amongst the thrusts of the blizzard.
I felt safe, and magical again. I could feel myself energised by the weather, and inspired.
I had been sitting there about twenty minutes when I heard the door zip open behind me and Alex stepped out. He wriggled his feet into his boots and staggered wearily over.
“The fire’s out!” His bleary eyes looked at it then at me. “You should have just topped it up, if you wanted? Are you not cold?”
“No, no. I’m fine.” I said, but he had already turned towards the woodpile.
Alex added the fuel, and loaded up the cooking pot with water and coffee and sat opposite me on the other side of the fire, watching the flames grow and occasionally glancing my way. He rubbed his baggy eyes, then wiped those big hands over his face, then sniffed and snorted to clear his nose. He wore the same clothes he had on yesterday.
“Did you sleep okay?” he grunted.
“Yeah. I had an amazing sleep. Had so much space. Felt like a king-sized bed.”
“That’s good.”
His smile gave his grizzly face a momentary warmth.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Yeah, fine.” He pushed his arms up high and long. “I’m not a morning person though.” he smirked with his eyes closed.
It went quiet between us. The pot began to whistle. Alex slid it off the pole and poured out two cups and handed me one. I turned my eyes away, letting my gaze rest on the swirl of the grey-white world.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I sipped the coffee, holding both hands tightly round the warm mug, and nodded in agreement.
“I work with kids a lot.” Alex said, his deep voice still lethargic. “I think I told you that yesterday. Sometimes, before a big storm, they can feel it coming. Just like animals their senses are heightened to the electric, or atmosphere, or whatever it is. They go crazy in the playground, you can’t contain them! They just run everywhere, laughing and screaming, throwing their hands in the air.”
I sniggered, picturing it. Then I heard coughing, and Harry appeared. Full of life. Face bright. Eyes wide. Clean-shaven. The complete contrast of Alex.
“Coffee?” Alex asked him.
“Please, man.” Harry said cheerily. He sat with us and his eyes tuned in on the weather. “What a morning!” he chirped. “Thanks.”
The canvas wrestled loudly above us. The wind wailed in frustration.
Harry broke our silence. “Why did you choose to come out in the middle of winter?”
Alex shrugged. “It’s the toughest environment to come out in. This and the rain. Best
way to prepare.”
…“I like testing myself with it, too.” He continued. “Either of you read Jack London?”
I shook my head. Had never heard of him. I was surprised when Harry shook his head too.
“Well, he wrote some great stories about this kind of weather. This extreme environment. School killed reading for me, I didn’t want to touch a book for years after I left. But then I picked up one called Call of the Wild, when I was about twenty. And I fell in love with reading again. The way he described nature, the animals. The cold and snow. He was a real adventurer. Went to Alaska in the gold rush in the early nineteen hundreds. When he was still a teenager, I think.
“Cool.” Harry said. “I’ll have to read it.”
“I always wanted to go to Alaska after that,” Alex went on wistfully, “But this is just like Alaska to me. It’s wild. The snow. The conifer trees. The mountains. The rivers. The lack of people. It’s good to feel wildness. The only thing that’s missing here is animals. But I’m rambling.” he shook his head dismissively and smiled with self-deprecation.
“No, not at all.” Harry said. “The cities offer nothing. It’s always better to be out in nature.”
“However long we have it.” I added.
Alex sipped at his coffee. The amount of daylight radiating off the snow said it was about midday. “However long we have it.” He repeated. He took another drink and looked around at the forest and up to the treetops. He was thinking about something and looked unsure to say, but he opened his mouth anyway, “Jack London was an early socialist too. I think that’s the only way we can save these places now. Well, either we all die and nature is saved, a meteor or climate change will wipe us out and nature will renew itself, or we stop capitalism. And the more I travel around the world, and the more things I see and the more I learn, the more I become convinced of it. It’s so grating, seeing man constantly fuck each other over. Or fucking over nature, because it’s just seen as a resource. It has to stop.”
“That’s the thing though, isn’t it?” Harry said. “The economy and the environment can’t co-exist. They’re enemies. What William Wilberforce, the guy who helped stop slavery in the eighteen hundreds, went through, is like what we are going through now. He wanted to stop slavery because it was disgusting, obviously, and unethical and immoral and evil. But in parliament, they all told him it was not economically viable. Now the question is, Can we stop capitalism? Immediately? No! Because it’s not economically viable.”