“So many seem to want my soul these days. I should feel privileged. I hope I didn't cause you too many problems.”
Rachael frowns. “I had to explain to a senior nurse over the phone that my husband had decided to come home. Caused a few raised eyebrows at work.”
“Sorry about that. I really appreciate all you did for me. I had to follow my calling.”
“When you told me about it, it seemed kind of wishy washy. Like all you did was have a vivid dream.”
“I'm getting real cold and I need to eat something,” I say. “Would you mind if we go back to my flat?”
“Why don't you get changed and I'll buy you some dinner?”
“Are you sure?” She looks at me as if to say If I wasn't sure why would I ask? “Okay, that would be great.” It's weird feeling that I owe someone enough to accept their invitation to dinner. Besides I still couldn't face beans and I'm sick of noodles. I get changed, emerging in a small cloud of deodorant. Without the coat and the leather jeans on I feel like I'm walking on air. We carefully climb the steps, cross the fence and crunch our way over the freezing layer of snow to the nearest path.
Rachael hooks her arm around mine. “There's a nice gourmet burger place I'd like to try.”
“Sounds good to me, but how on earth can you afford it?” From Corbie's absence I take it that I've got the night off for good behaviour.
“I don't go out very often.”
I push my last chip into the pool of mayonnaise and even though I'm stuffed full I'm still wondering about dessert. The downside of not eating big meals is that you feel full quickly. Rachael is still picking at hers, the bun discarded. “Everything okay?” I say. I don't think I looked up from my food until now.
“Yeah. It's weird.” She pushes some hair behind her ear. “Meeting you. I mean I could have picked nearly anyone in the crowd.”
“You did. It just happened it was me.”
“But you helped,” Rachael says. “Someone else could have left me to it. Like you said, the Tent City really makes for a lousy community if my grandfather is one of the few who really gave a shit.”
“That was a weird day alright. Things keep getting weirder. I had to make that drum. From scratch.”
“What do you mean? I thought it was an old bicycle wheel.”
“The skin is new.”
“Oh.” She bites a chip in half. “Best I don't ask about the donor.”
“Yeah, not unless you want to see your dinner again.”
Rachael drinks her wine. “That's not really where I was going.”
“Sorry.”
“I was lucky to meet you.” I recognise the look on her face, even if it's been years since I've seen it.
“And now you're responsible for my life.” I smile. “I'm not sure its luck you should thank.” Rachael frowns. I recall Midori's similar expression. Where women are concerned, luck seems to be deserting me today.
She puts her glass on the table. “You shouldn't put yourself down so much.”
“I'm a failed, near bankrupt, businessman. I live in a tent. In an old railway tunnel. My wife will soon serve me with divorce papers. I'm learning to be a shaman with all the blood, shit and other fluids that come with it. I can't pay my share of this meal and without your health insurance would be dead. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for feeding me. But I'm beyond rescue.”
She laughs. “I'm not trying to rescue you. This is exactly it. You're all living in your little tents but you've thicker walls between you than anyone else. You're so fucking wrapped up in your own self-pity. You can go anywhere you like, leave anytime you want.”
“I would have agreed with you once,” I say. “Maybe other people can, but I can't.”
“Bullshit.”
“No. I tried to leave. Just before I got really sick I offered to move back in with Kathryn and the kids. She was harassed for days. Someone kept calling her phone with my Caller ID coming up. I'm getting so stressed about all this I'm tempted to book an appointment with my shrink.”
“You're seeing a psychiatrist?”
“I was. I watched my colleagues impact one after another. As part of my severance package they included trauma counselling. But in the interest of full disclosure you should know that I was in and out of mental institutions in my youth as my Dad tried to cure me. You already know I now see an invisible talking thorn bird and travel to spirit worlds, so good that that worked out so well.”
“I don't even know where to start unravelling all of that. Some shit happened to you in the past. Shit happened to us all in the past. Time to saddle up and move on. You're so obsessed with what you have, even if it's nothing. It's just stuff, you say, but you don't seem to mean it. You have other things. Relationships with people. Your kids for a start. Hell, you even have a new career.”
The chip is cold and stiff, the mayo eggy. “Okay. Thanks for dinner.” I stand up.
“Oh no you don't, Mister. You're not walking out on me a third time.”
I squeeze along the booth. “There's nothing you can do about it.”
“I own your ass, remember.” She grabs my hand with a strength I didn't think she could have. I can't pull away without dragging her over the table. She exits the booth and standing on tiptoes pulls me in to her and kisses me. She smells musky and sweet. I can taste her Pinot Noir.
Someone cheers and there a few sarcastic claps from the other side of the room.
“Look, I…” Where do I start? “I'm still married. After your pep-talk in the morgue I decided to move back home. I've not yet heard Kathryn's response to that. I like you but we still barely know each other and I'm not about to give Kathryn more grounds for divorce.”
“I know. I heard you.” She smiles. “I just wanted you to know. You don't need to protect me. I know what I want and what I'm doing.”
After Rachael pays the bill I walk her back to the underground station. “Thanks again for dinner.”
“I probably shouldn't say this, but if Kathryn wanted you back, she wouldn't have let you go in the first place.”
“She was just supporting my decision.”
“For who's benefit?” She pecks me on the cheek. “Take care of yourself, Nik.” She goes through the turnstile.
I have a lot to think about on my walk back to the park.
Chapter 11
It's a struggle to get up for my first Monday at work in several weeks. My limbs are tired and heavy. My head feels woolly even though I didn't drink last night.
Still no word from Kathryn. I wonder if Fiona has even spoken to her. Perhaps Rachael is right – she isn't interested in carrying on our marriage and was happy to see the back of me.
Work is quiet. Everything is in the green. I spend most of the day surfing, catching up on news of various sorts, mainly tech related.
Back in the Gardens, Corbie is waiting for me. “Free love, man. You can't beat it,” he says.
“Are you spying on me?”
“I have eyes. I see things you can't see. Only because you're not lookin. Besides Florence Nightingale was waitin for you.”
“I'm married.”
“You can wave that bit of paper around like it will stop you from having feelings,” Corbie says. “It's just a contract, not a shield. Love is free. You just have to accept it and give some away.”
“What are we doing today?”
“One day you'll learn to be free.” Corbie laughs. “I thought we could try for the Upper World. Could be tough to get in, but it's worth the journey.”
“The right tie again. This spirit world seems full of little cliques and clubs. I hope you're going to teach me all the secret handshakes.”
“You seem to be opening doors with your lips. Way more fun than a handshake.”
“You tried kissing my arse?”
Corbie laughs again. “Ass, man. Ass.”
I climb into my shaman suit and take up my drum. It all appears to be holding together well. I start to find my rhythm, but every time I think
I have it, it moves away from me. Feeling it would be better than thinking about it. I stop and try again. More slowly this time I count out the beat. As soon as I think I have it I raise the tempo and keep it simple. Beat after beat. I feel it in my chest and in my groin. My limbs begin their jerky spasms which graduate into a smooth dance. Round and round I whirl on the spot and around in a circle. Around and around. Beat after beat. It is night time, but late, the moon is going down and I think I see the first hints of dawn in the sky. The calendar of the Otherworld isn't so much a reflection of the Living World as its opposite.
Out on the grass there are no webby pyramid tents like I saw on my first trip here. I didn't notice their absence yesterday. I used a different drum that time.
“Come on,” Corbie says. “We need to find the Tree of Life again.”
“The one with the big boobies?” Corbie just looks at me.
We head off toward the back of the Gardens, Corbie gliding along behind me with the occasional lazy flap of his wings. The fertile breasts on the Tree of Life ooze a metallic strawberry milk as the dawn rises in the Otherworld. I watch as the pool changes to red then yellow. The shadows of the trees lengthen and the stars clear from the sky as it turns light blue.
“Where do we go?” I say.
“For the Upper World?” Corbie says. He looks up.
Scrabbling up over rows of fat lactating breasts will be awkward. I like the feel of a breast beneath my hands, but this will be like fondling a number of different women in succession and I've no idea if they will be too slippery to gain a decent purchase. I see the hole down into the Lower World, the wooden lips around it. There is a space there amongst the breasts and from the top of the hole I think I could reach one of the lower branches and pull myself up.
Getting onto the top edge of the hole is no mean feat. There aren't many footholds and it is far too high to just step up onto it. My feet keep slipping on the bark and soon my hands are sore from all the abrasion.
There's no choice but to try the mammary route. The bottom ones are taught enough and obscenely large enough for me to step on to them. It's like stepping on to a ball without enough air in it. They depress beneath my weight. Great fountains of milk spurt forth and splash into the pool and beyond. Where the milk drops fall on the grass it quickly grows thicker and flowers spring up.
I try grasping at breasts above me in a way that would get me slapped in the Living World. My hands can't get a grip as they are so slick with the milk of Yggdrassil. I slide off the tree, a damp smear down the front of my clothes. Wiping my hands on the grass causes small green shoots to emerge from the earth. I half expect grass to start growing on my palms this stuff is so powerful.
Corbie sounds like he is being strangled or has something caught in his throat. His laugh is humiliating at first then I join in.
“So how do I get up there? I've tried everything except use a rope or a ladder.”
“Imagine yourself floating like smoke from a fire on a still day,” Corbie says. “Not dissimilar to how you moved in the desert to get to the Underworld.”
I picture a fire. A circle of stones with a cone of twigs crackling and burning. Warm orange, flecks of wavering yellow, black carbon and white ash. Over it a thin grey tendril of smoke is tentatively joining the fire to the air. There is no breeze so it rises steadily and without effort up towards the sky. Opening my eyes, my stomach lurches as I'm six feet off the ground. I land heavily, but only my ego is bruised. Last time had been a laugh, this time I was unprepared. I'd not sensed any movement.
I try again. The fire is a vivid image in my mind. The smoke curls as it starts to dissipate out of sight. I open my eyes, prepared this time. I am several metres off the ground, almost to the height of some of the other trees. The Tree of Life has gotten larger. I look down and it is like an office block. I look up and the tree now goes on and on up into the sky. The branches are huge and could support houses and shops. This change in perspective makes me dizzy. I have to close my eyes again. When I open them I'm higher still. About the height of the church steeple on the corner of Byres Road, which I have to remind myself isn't there in the Living World.
Corbie is flying up alongside me. “You should get onto a branch and climb the rest of the way up.”
As soon as I float close enough I step over onto a branch as thick as my body. Not as titanic as the lower ones but still as big as many normal trees. The branches are much denser here too.
I haven't climbed a tree since I was a kid. It takes a while before I get into the rhythm of movement that leads to good progress; my eye looking for a route, my hands reaching for a branch without any thought, my feet finding knots to stand on. As ever my costume holds me back. The weight of the coat draws me down to earth and I have to exert twice the effort to get where I'm going.
Looking down is a bad idea. You'd think I'd have learned from crossing the hair bridge. I feel dizzy and my balls retract. This must be the height of the flats still dotted across the city, like in Castlemilk and the Gorbals. Beyond, Glasgow stretches out along the Clyde and up the sides of the valley, windmills on the crests.
Corbie lands on a branch next to me. “C'mon, no time for slackin off.” He takes off again, beating his wings to hover near my head.
Rolling my shoulders and stretching my back I prepare to start again. My hands feel rough. The bark of the Tree of Life is a patchwork of other trees; the dry papery bark of Birch, the rough cracked diamonds of old Redwoods, the smooth skin of Oak. It makes it harder to climb as I can't be certain of my grip in advance.
After a while the air starts to feel damp and I notice the trunk of the tree has narrowed, the branches are not so thick. Around me is just white mist.
I hear something scratching against the bark. It gets louder, accompanied by a tremor in the tree. It must be big. A dark shape above me gets closer. Do I hold on tight or get out of the way? Corbie is not far away. If I shout to him will it draw too much attention to me? I hold still and tight to the trunk.
I can make out reddish fur, a bit like the fox I had to kill. Warm blood on my face. Cracking of bone. I shake my head. Focus.
It's a squirrel. About the size of a large van. The huge brush of tail moves to balance it as it climbs downward head first. It sniffs – it must have my scent. It pauses on the branch above me. Its dark eyes look me over and it sniffs again. Maybe I'll be considered a bad nut. It could easily knock me off if it wanted to. Instead it climbs past me and continues on down the tree. I stay still until the tremors pass.
“I see you met Ratatoskr.” Corbie swoops in close.
“Sounds like a villain in an Opera. It wasn't very chatty.”
“How's your Old Norse?”
“I take your point. Does it guard the Tree?”
“Ratatoskr delivers messages between the eagle at the top and the wyrm Níðhöggr at the bottom.”
“I must have missed the snake at the base of the tree. I was preoccupied with the breasts.”
“He's down in the roots,” Corbie says. “Gnawing his way to Niflheim.”
“I guess his success would not be a good thing.”
“A dragon might warm the place up a bit.”
I look up. The Tree stretches away. “Are we nearly there yet?”
“I'm sure you'll bump into it sooner or later.”
Putting one hand after the other, hauling myself up onto another branch, I continue my climb. Once I'm back into the flow it gets easier. The tree narrows to the point where I'm sure my weight is making it sway slightly from one side to the other. My hands are covered in bark and sticky with sap. I go from one branch to another as I plot my course, but my head hits something. I look up and can't see anything above me. Did something strike me back in the Living World? I've been pretty confident in my body's safety without me. Nothing is stopping some bored neds robbing me while I'm away. But this wasn't a hard hit. It was like heading a Space Hopper or a bouncy castle. It was firm, but yielding.
Rather than cram
p my neck I go back down a branch and reach up. Sure enough there's a see-through surface. It's resilient but flexible. The Tree's trunk passes through it no problem. This must be what Corbie was referring to. It's no coincidence that he has buggered off.
Maybe I can just poke through. It can't be like a balloon and the whole spirit world will burst as the Tree sticks through no problem. Unless this membrane, or whatever it is, grew around the Tree and it's all sealed up. I sit peering into the white mist hoping for some insight. None comes.
Stand up on the next branch, I push with my head and feel the barrier doming up over me. It puts a huge strain on my neck and shoulders, but also my legs on the branch. I feel the bough dip down and the Tree swing to one side. It could move out from under me and I'd fall until I hit a branch on the way down.
I give one more push as I try to climb a little higher bracing both feet on branches either side of the trunk. My neck hurts.
Then there is a pop and a sighing sound. The pressure is gone and the film flops on my face as it slides down and around my torso. I haul myself up through the tear into what looks like a stereotype for Heaven.
I'm looking out at a surface of white cloud. Bright blue skies surround me. More clouds are floating in the air. Golden sunshine warms me. The Tree continues up into the sky beside me.
In the air fly a variety of birds; eagles, sparrows, even what looks like an ostrich. Is that a horse with wings in the distance? Passing between clouds a Chinese dragon undulates by.
A black dot plummets towards me, before resolving into Corbie. He lands in the cloud, raising puffs of steam around him. “How do you like the Upper World?” Corbie says.
“It seems vast and empty, compared to the Lower World. It's not really Heaven is it?”
“You've seen the Underworld. That's all I know about after death. Maybe there's somethin after that.” Corbie gives his Gallic shrug. “This is the land of ideas and abstraction, Gods and math, Platonic Ideals and beings of light.”
“Angels?”
Corbie laughs. “Apply your natural scepticism here as much as anywhere else. You may find teachers as easily as torturers. Who knows what skin they'll be in? This isn't Heaven, as you say.”
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