by Mick Kitson
After we’d been away a week they told her she was going to a rehab. Some lassies from the club and Ian Leckie came to see her and she had a long talk with him and started telling him about what she’d been like when she was drinking. He said that we’d be found safe and she needed to go into the rehab. The polis wouldn’t tell her anything about the search for us or where they thought we were.
Ian brought her some clothes and the long grey coat to go to the rehab in and he gave her fags. The polis kept her phone.
She got driven down to the rehab by two social workers and a polis woman who told her they thought I’d killed Robert. Maw knew I’d killed Robert. When she got to the rehab she had to be searched for drink and drugs and then she got a room with another lassie called Jackie. By then she hadn’t had a drink for seven days.
Jackie was the woman we saw her with on the lawn and she was a hairdresser and she cut Maw’s hair and dyed it while they were going to lots of meetings and having talks with the doctors. The polis came to see her after three days and told her they hadn’t found us and asked her loads of questions about us again.
Maw stayed off the drink and started to get better and she talked to people about what she had been like with us, and about Robert, and she cried a lot. Ian Leckie drove down to see her for a day and she talked to him for a long time and he told her she was doing the right thing. She said she stayed sober by not drinking for one day at a time and by being honest. She said it was simple but it wasn’t easy.
On that first night we all slept in our bender and while Peppa was getting undressed Maw looked at all our survival stuff like the sleeping bag and the kettle and the fire steel. I showed her the head torches in case she wanted a pee. She said ‘Where did you get it all?’
I said ‘I bought most of it online. I nicked some things too.’
Maw picked up the rucksack and held it out in front of her. ‘How did you pay for it?’ she said.
‘I nicked money off Robert and I nicked the cards he got.’
She said ‘You were planning it for a long time weren’t ye?’
I said aye and she sighed.
I said ‘I’ve still got some money left. Look. Fifty quid. We can use it for food.’ I pulled the notes out of the zipper pocket in the rucksack and she stared at them.
Maw said ‘I still haven’t seen you smile Sal.’
Peppa shouted from the bed ‘Ah’m the only one can make her smile. And she laughs too sometimes. She laughs if I say Ah’m gonnae have ginger pubes.’
I didn’t laugh then though and Maw looked sad.
She took off her coat and her Converse and got in with Peppa and I got in too.
It was a bit of a squash with all three of us but it was nice and warm. We were all really tired and I started telling them about the French Revolution and when they were chopping off the heads of all the posh people and then started chopping off everyone’s head in 1793 when they did the Terror and a lawyer called Robespierre who thought they needed to kill everyone who didn’t want the revolution.
Maw listened and then she whispered ‘Where did you learn all that stuff Sal?’
And I said ‘Online.’
Maw lay awake for a long time and I lay listening to her breathing. I was glad we’d got her and she was sober and I started to relax. Peppa was in between us.
Chapter Fifteen
Frost
In the morning Maw was gone.
I felt her get up in the night and get the head torch and put on her coat and Converse. I thought she was away for a pee. I lay next to Peppa waiting for her to come back and I fell back asleep. When I woke up it was getting light and Maw wasn’t there.
It was raw cold again and even the embers on the fire had frost on them. It was still, with no wind and the frost was like white fur on everything. I got my fleece on and stood and listened outside the bender. Maw had left a track in the frost, up to the latrine and then back along. I could see her tracks go past Ingrid’s and then away down into the wood. I stood and listened and my breath made stiff white clouds around my head. It was so silent I could hear my blood.
Waiting there by the cold fire to hear something I tried to plan. Hunters try to predict the behaviour of prey, so they know where and when they will be, they know what they want like water and food and they adapt their behaviour. Predators exploit the needs of prey and try to get them where they are most vulnerable, like doing the toilet or feeding.
I knew Maw wouldnae be out for a walk and I knew she wasn’t at the latrine. I went across and looked at the tracks going by Ingrid’s. The Converse had left imprints in the frosted grass and the tracks were deep like she was stamping. A new fluff of frost was forming on the indentations so I knew they’d been there for an hour or so. The tracks were erratic too, going one way and then adjusting the line she took towards the wood. It was still dark when she left and she was following the beam of the head torch.
I felt cold and flat and calm and I went into our bender and whispered to Peppa ‘Ah’m going for a walk wi’ Maw. When you get up boil water and make Ingrid some pine tea and porridge. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.’
She stirred and murmured ‘alright’ and went back asleep. I checked she was warm and pulled the covers up around her.
The money was gone from the rucksack pocket. I got my knife and the airgun and the monocular. I put the first aid kit in the backpack with some paracord and a bag of raisins.
Once the fire was going and stacked up I went to see Ingrid. She was sitting up on her bed with a quilt around her. She smiled when I came in and I said ‘Maw’s gone.’
She said ‘Oh Sal.’ She was breathing hard.
I said ‘Ah’m going to find her. She’s left tracks. Peppa’ll get your breakfast.’
Ingrid said ‘She will come back to you.’
And I looked her hard in the eye then and said ‘No she won’t.’
At the top of the woods her tracks were easy to follow, she was stamping and blundering and there were scuffed leaves and broken twigs. She was going down towards the badgers and the wee valley where the river was. I tracked her between the trees and she made a big loop to start with so she was heading up the river away from the best crossing place. I could see dents in one place where she’d fallen and gone onto her knees, and the leaves and needles were swept out dark by her big coat. The sun was breaking in between the trees above the freezing mist but as I went down into the valley it got thicker and the ground was bristly white with frost.
I saw where she crossed the river. There was cracked ice and a footprint in the mud and she’d slipped by some rocks and there was a big triangle swept out of the frost and scrabbling marks where she tried to get up. There was a handprint in the leaf mould.
The track got less easy to follow past the badgers and the trees and she’d found the path we followed the night before so there were our tracks too but they were frosted more than hers so I could tell which were which. I kept stopping and listening.
She had stopped at the top of the first big bank and had a fag by a birch tree. There was a roll-up butt squashed into the dirt and smears of a muddy hand on the white bark.
I was starting to feel excited.We all leave tracks of where we’ve been but some people leave tracks that are easier to follow. Because I could now predict where she was headed, along the path towards the road and the Little Chef I went out wide and sprinted up and through the thicker trees. Maw wasn’t as fit and fast as me and I thought I could make up her start and cut her off before she got to the road. I knew where she was going and I knew why. She had the money.
I had to climb up and run through Scots pine always looking and listening down to my right for where the path ran. When I got to the top the sun had broken the mist and was glinting off the top of the pines and then away down to the path it was still flat and misty.
I was trying to figure out how far she could’ve got. If she’d got to the road she could go up to the Little Chef. I didn’t know if they sold drink o
r if she could get it first thing in the morning. But alcoholics will always find a way to get it if they want it. You can’t trust them. If they say they’ve had one they’ve had ten. If they say they’ve had none they’ve had twenty.
I came up to the top above the Little Chef, the dropping down to the path was a sheer cliff about ten metres to the bottom there. I could see the car park where we nicked the Rolls-Royce. I crept down along the edge of the drop going from tree to tree. I heard her before I saw her and it was sobbing. It came through the mist like a dry cough and echoed. I flattened onto the ground and crawled towards it.
She was sitting ghost grey against a tree on the edge of the drop and convulsing like she was being sick and the sound of her sobs rang across the woods. I crawled till I was about fifteen metres from her and lay watching from behind a frosted tussock. I got the gun and levelled it and set the bead into the V on the back sight on her head and waited.
She was still now and I had my finger on the trigger and it was pumped ten times and there was a pellet in the breach. At that range it would go through 9mm plywood on ten pumps. I couldn’t see the detail of her face with one eye closed and the bead focused on the grey blob that was her through the mist.
I breathed in and waited with her in the sight. I thought about her and the days and nights since I was wee when she was asleep or out of it. My jaw was clenched tight and ached, and cold was pricking me where I lay on the ground.
Then I shouted ‘MAW.’
She turned her head and I took my eyes off the sight and saw her face. Her mouth was open and she was dribbling snot and her eyes were pink. She called in a tiny voice ‘Sal?’
I shouted ‘YOU LEFT US. YOU LEFT PEPPA.’
She creased up her face like she was hurting and hacked out a sob and it echoed.
I shouted again. ‘YOU LEFT HER MAW. SHE CAME AND GOT YOU AND YOU LEFT HER.’
She stood up slowly looking around her and she moved slow. I kept the gun on her. She shouted ‘Sal I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
I started to stand and she saw me up above her and turned towards me with her hands out. I shouted ‘Did ye take the money?’ and she nodded and tears were dripping off her chin and down into the frost. She put her hand in her pocket and took it out and held the notes up. She stepped nearer the drop in front of her down to the path and the Little Chef.
I took a step forwards with the gun on her still. She was standing on the edge by the big tree but looking back up at me. I started to see her more clearly as I walked down through the mist. Her face was screwed up and her eyes were closed and soaked with tears and mist. I kept the gun on her. My heart was beating hard. ‘Were ye going for a drink?’ I said.
She turned so as not to look at me and staggered and nodded again and her body convulsed into a sob. Then she stepped forwards and walked off the edge.
There was cracking twigs and a grunt and then a thud and rustling. I dropped the gun and ran to the edge of the cliff and looked down. She was on her side with the big coat spread out round her like a skirt on the white frost. She was still. One arm up like she was pointing and one arm back behind and her legs were twisted together.
My heart started banging faster and faster and a tight knot clenched up in the centre of my chest and sweat burst out of my forehead. I staggered dizzy backwards and felt sick coming in my belly and chest. I clung onto the tree to stay up and tried to breathe and felt the breaths stick in my throat and not go in. I hung there against the tree feeling the ridges of the bark on my fingertips, finally got a breath in and held it. The sweat was freezing onto my face but my chest was burning. I fell with my face into the bark of the tree and the ridges and dents pressed into my skin. I stayed there like that not breathing with my arms round the trunk to keep me up. When I took in a breath I breathed in the tree and the bark scratched my lips. Things were starting to go black with just wee flashes.
Then I heard a man’s voice shout ‘Sal?’ and then shout it again. I stayed by the tree and I heard feet running on the path below and then he said ‘Christ! Are you okay? Stay there. Sal? Sal?’
I let go of the tree and crawled to the edge and looked down.
Adam was standing over Maw and he looked up. He said ‘I saw you up there from the car park. I saw her fall.’ He knelt by Maw and he had his hand on her forehead and he was feeling her neck. He looked up again. ‘I think she’s concussed. She needs to sit up.’
I got up then and ran down the long slope through the trees to the path and then back up, and sprinted to where Maw was. Adam had her sat up and she was moving her head and blinking. He was holding her face and looking into her eyes and going ‘You’re okay. Can you hear me? What’s her name?’
I said ‘Claire.’
He said ‘Claire . . . you fell and you’ve had a shock. Can you hear me?’
Maw’s eyes rolled a bit and then she shook her head and said ‘Sal.’
Adam said ‘Sal’s here.’
Then Maw’s head flopped back and her eyes rolled and Adam took the weight of her head. He was patting her face gently. Her face was soaked and smeared with dirt and her head looked like it was too heavy for her neck. Adam was going ‘Claire . . . Claire . . .’ in a soft voice.
He was wearing a blue fleece and jeans and he pulled the fleece off and wrapped it round Maw’s shoulders. He had a T-shirt on underneath and his arms were thick and muscly but he was really gentle the way he held her face. He turned to me. ‘She’s in shock. It’s pretty soft here where she fell. I think the wind’s just knocked out of her. I was coming back to my car and I looked up and saw her fall and then I saw you. I knew it was you.’
There was a pile of frosty leaves all sprayed round her where she’d hit the ground. If Peppa was there she’d have said it was a good job she landed on her arse. I said ‘She’s my maw. We were walking and she didn’t see the edge.’
He said ‘Easily done in the mist.’ Maw looked like she had gone to sleep.Adam looked at me and he looked worried. He said ‘I’ll lie her back down.’
I said ‘You could slap her. It might wake her up.’
But he started to lower her down really gently and he said ‘There doesn’t look like there’s a head injury. She’s breathing.’
I said ‘Get her in the recovery position.’
He let her lay back and then he got her behind the knee and pulled it up and then turned her onto her side. Then her eyes opened and she jerked and opened her mouth and retched like she was being sick but nothing came out. She breathed in again deep and said ‘Sal’ again.
I said ‘I’m here Maw.’
Her eyes were shut but she was breathing harder and Adam pulled the fleece out from under her and covered her. She lay like that for a few minutes breathing hard on her side with her eyes closed and then she suddenly opened them and said ‘Jesus. What did I do?’
Adam said ‘You fell . . . from up there.’
She said ‘Sal . . .’
She started shifting and Adam helped her sit up. She sat up slowly and stretched her face, opening her mouth wide like she was gulping. She opened her eyes wide and looked up at me.
Adam squatted down next to her and started squeezing her legs. Maw went ‘Ow’ and jumped a bit. Her face was all smeared and red from crying but she was looking at Adam. He held his finger in front of her face and moved it and her eyes followed it. He said ‘How many?’
She said ‘One.’
He said ‘How many of me?’
She said ‘One’ and smiled.
Adam held her face again and looked into her eyes and then he felt her arms and pulled her fingertips and said ‘Feel that?’
Maw said ‘Aye.’
Then he said ‘Tell me your name’ and Maw said ‘Claire Brown’ and Adam said ‘What are your daughters called?’ and Maw said ‘Salmarina and Paula. But we call them Sal and Peppa.’
Adam looked round at me and said ‘How is Peppa?’
I said ‘She’s fine aye. She’s back at the camp with our nanna.�
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Maw said slowly ‘Do you know each other do you?’
Adam said ‘We met up by the stones on the frozen loch. I was skiing.Yes I know Peppa.You don’t forget Peppa’ and he laughed and his eyes went wide and sparkled and I thought how beautiful he was.
He helped Maw up and he said ‘Where does it hurt?’ and Maw said ‘Ma arse’ and he laughed again. ‘You were lucky, that’s quite a drop.’
Maw said ‘I am really hungry. I am so hungry.’ She looked at me and then pulled me in and cuddled me and I said ‘Don’t say sorry’ and she had her mouth buried in my neck and she said ‘I won’t.’ She pressed the money into my hand.
We walked across to the Little Chef and Maw limped a bit and kept clutching at her back. Adam told us he was going back to uni and he’d stopped for breakfast and he saw us when he was coming out to his car. It was quiet in the café and we got a booth on the far side where I could see the door. Me and Maw both ordered a big breakfast and Adam had coffee.
He told Maw ‘You need to be careful in case you’ve got concussion. If you feel sick or feel like you’re going to black out you should really see a doctor.’
I said ‘It’s okay. We know a doctor.’
Adam asked me how old I was and I told him and he said ‘Wow. You look older.’ And I felt my face getting red. Maw put her hand on my head and said ‘Nah. She’s still a bairn’ and I said ‘Am not’ and Adam laughed.
Maw went to the toilet and I sat with Adam for a bit and then I said ‘Adam don’t tell anyone you met us right? We’re not supposed to be here and there’s someone after us and we need to hide in the woods for a bit. Don’t tell anyone about us.’
Adam said ‘I won’t. Who’s after you? I could help you.’
I said ‘Nah we’re safe. We just need left alone. I look after them, Maw and Peppa. I’ve got a knife and I can protect them. I’m not scared of anything.’
Adam looked straight at me and said ‘No I don’t think you are. You are an outlaw then.’