Straight on Till Morning

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  It seemed to take forever to haul him back up the slope. By the time we reached the top again, sweating and panting, it was almost fully dark, the first stars glimmering shyly above us and just a low strip of pink left on the horizon to usher out the remains of the day.

  ‘Right,’ he said, taking charge once again as we re-convened and sat down on the grass back up at the path’s edge. There was a gleam of sweat on his forehead, and he was breathing heavily. He looked as if he was in serious pain. ‘We need to make a plan,’ he said. ‘Best bet, I think, is that I stay here, and you two retrace your steps back up as far as the milestone. Yes. That’ll be best. One thing we do know is that the footpath there eventually connects with a road. The road they brought us in on, right?’

  He paused. We waited.

  ‘Right?’ he said again.

  ‘Right,’ we both echoed.

  ‘OK,’ he went on. ‘Once you’re on the road there’s bound to be a car along eventually, or, if not, a house, a farm or something. Somewhere you can get help from at any rate. And you have your mobile, don’t you, Russell? I’m sure once you’ve gotten a little higher, you’ll be able to get a signal anyway, in which case, you can call up the centre and get them to come out and meet you. Meantime, I’ll hobble a bit higher up this hill, so I can keep an eye out for you. OK?’ His face was beginning to look as if it had been clingfilmed. He was blinking a lot. ‘And you’d better take the torch,’ he mumbled ‘Oh, and the number of the centre, of course. In my…in my….’

  And then he groaned and his head flopped down between his knees.

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ bleated Russell. ‘Jesus! What now?’

  Nick didn’t move, though I could still hear his breathing. I could see the downy hair on the back of his neck was wet.

  ‘Russell, get the bag. There’s some water in there.’

  Russell fished in the back pack and pulled out the tepid remains of the bottle of Volvic.

  ‘Shall I throw it on him?’

  Nick’s head snapped up again. ‘Don’t you dare bloody throw it on me! I’m fine, OK? Just felt a bit dizzy, is all. Shit, but my side really hurts.’

  I took the bottle from Russell, opened it and handed it to Nick.

  ‘Here, drink some,’ I told him, more than ever anxious now to have him in one piece. ‘It’s probably the pain. And you’re probably dehydrated too. Better?’

  He nodded. Though I wasn’t sure he was. Any half-formed wild hopes I’d harboured about this being the point where he’d tell us everything was all right and that he had flares or a field telephone or an emergency fold-away four by four in his pocket had long since disappeared. The expression on his face was beginning to scare me. He looked like he really was going to faint. Perhaps we should get him up on his feet. I had visions of one of those dreadful movies where if the hero isn’t kept walking up and down, he’ll die. I never quite worked out why, precisely, but it frightened me all the same.

  I jiggled his arm. ‘You’ve hurt yourself badly, haven’t you? Where does it hurt? Which side? Shall I have a look? Oh, God! Bloody map.’

  He grimaced again as he gestured. ‘Here. Yes. My ribs. I think I landed on my mobile.’

  ‘Oh, my God, Russell! He might have broken some ribs! There might be internal bleeding. Try not to move, Nick. Stay as still as you can, OK?’ I looked across to Russell. ‘We can’t leave him. We can’t leave him here on his own, can we?’

  Russell’s forehead creased. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Nick. ‘Really. Just –’

  I turned back to him. ‘Just what?’

  ‘Just, well, just that if you could loosen your grip on my wrist a little it might improve my circulation, is all.’

  I hadn’t even realised. I gave him his arm back. He looked like a ghost.

  ‘We can’t leave him,’ I said again.

  ‘No,’ Russell conceded. ‘But we have to do something. How about one of us stays here with Nick and the other one goes? Like, well, I suppose, like me, maybe?’

  He looked like he’d rather lick the asphalt off a newly tarred road, but I could tell he could see it was the only thing to do. Unless I went, of course. He was looking very anguished. Who knew what big fears lurked within his veneer of machismo? I felt rather sorry for Russell at that moment. He seemed suddenly terribly young.

  ‘Or me,’ I said, mentally crossing my fingers. ‘I could go.’

  ‘No way,’ said Nick, with encouraging firmness. Perhaps he wasn’t about to die after all. Then he added, ‘You can’t go off on your own, Sally,’ which comment would, in any number of alternative circumstances, have had me bristling with feminist pique. But not this one. Oh, no. No veneers with me.

  Russell caught my eye. ‘No, no, Nick’s right,’ he agreed quickly. ‘Be better if I go. You stay with Nick and do the nursey TLC bit.’

  ‘If you can just find somewhere high enough,’ suggested Nick, while I went radish, ‘you should be able to get a signal.’

  I felt frightened for him. Frightened for all of us. It was dark. What if Russell had an accident too? I spread my hands. ‘But how will they find him? He won’t know where he is, will he?’

  Nick shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. They’ll send out a search party. They’ll find us.’ He looked into the gloom. ‘Eventually.’

  We half carried, half dragged Nick up the footpath a little further, to where a gap in the scrub formed a steep thistled pathway that gave us access to a pale expanse of dune. I gave him three paracetamols with the last of the water, and we settled ourselves on the ground. We’d attached Russell’s white baseball cap to a branch by the footpath, and could do nothing now but await his return.

  We watched him stride off with the torch and the back-pack. And then there we were. All alone.

  Chapter 8

  Alone together.

  What a day. It’s been six or seven hours now since we set off from the centre, and it feels like even more. I am damp, I am cold, I am hungry, I am tired, I am bashed, I am battered, I have sand in my boots. And yet, here I am, standing on the crest of a sand dune, a vista of picture-postcard beauty below me, and a moon of impossibly detailed perfection, slung low, like a beach ball, in a cloudless night sky. So what do I feel? I feel alive. Alive in a way I haven’t in a long time. I’m not sure why, but I do, all of a sudden. Perhaps there is something to this lark after all.

  Scene 2. Somewhere else in South Wales. Stage right.

  ‘Ahoy there!’

  Nick had hobbled off down a dune a little way to ‘make use of the restrooms’ as he put it. I fretted briefly about the vague embarrassment I’d feel if I could hear him doing a wee (why?) but the silence in his absence was complete and unbroken. It was almost as if I’d found myself marooned in another time. The only solid evidence of the twentieth century was a solitary light that burned way over on the other side of the estuary, high on the hillside, beyond the far shore. The tide had gone out and the crescent of bay was a smooth bed of sand now. Waiting to be walked on and pummelled by bare toes.

  ‘I’m right here,’ I called, turning to scan the darkness behind me. His shape reappeared as a solid block against the skyline. I trotted across to help him back up.

  ‘You’re bad for my health, you are,’ he observed, as I linked my arm in his to help him. ‘I was just thinking. You know, every time I come into contact with you some disaster or other seems to happen.’

  ‘What! Well, that’s charming, I must say. It’s me who should be worried. You’re a walking calamity.’

  ‘You got us lost.’

  ‘Russell got us lost. And it was you who had the bright idea to try and shimmy up a tree trunk, as I recall. In my book that makes me the innocent victim, not you.’

  He nudged me with his elbow.

  ‘Ah, but it’s a vibes thing. Must be some sort of aura you’ve got going or something. If I had any sense, I ‘d give you a pret
ty wide berth. Yeeow! You see? You just took me straight down a pot hole! Like I say, bad for my health.’

  For all that, he was looking much better. The painkillers had long since kicked in, and my panicky fears for his gradual slide into coma had long since melted away. Taking my hand for support, he eased himself gingerly back down on to the thick grass, then tucked the arm on his good side carefully behind his head and grinned up at me.

  ‘What we really need,’ he said chattily, ‘is a whistle.’

  I lowered myself down beside him. The grass was all spikes and thorns. I yanked on a length and started idly stripping it. ‘A whistle? What for?’

  ‘First rule of orienteering. Always carry a whistle.’ He grinned again. ‘In case you lose your map.’

  ‘And what’s the second rule?’

  ‘Um…pass. Don’t know. Probably always carry a bicycle. Or orienteer only in a built up area. Or, no. Probably that if you’ve elected to ignore the first rule, then whatever you do, don’t lose your map.’

  I sucked on the smooth green stem I’d extracted and listened to the far away hiss of the sea. I wondered, idly, what my family were up to. They seemed a very long way away.

  ‘Is there a wine gum rule?’ I asked him.

  ‘I very much doubt it. Why?’

  ‘Because it would be nice to think I’ve got something right, and I happen to have a packet in my pocket. I’ve been saving them. Do you want one?’

  He raised himself carefully on to one elbow. ‘Jeez. I don’t think I’ve eaten a wine gum in two decades. Do they still say port and claret on them? It always felt very grown up to be sucking on something so sinful.’

  I ferreted in the folds of my Barbour. ‘At least I thought I had – oh, no. I know. I put them in the game pocket.’

  He raised his brows. ‘The what?’

  ‘The game pocket.’ I lifted the flap and slipped my hand into it. ‘The detachable game pocket, in fact. It’s where you put your bloody corpses once you’ve shot them so you don’t get entrails spilling out all over your tweeds.’

  ‘Ugh, that’s so gross,’ he said, rolling slightly to look at me. He lifted his forearm and propped his chin on his palm. There were the beginnings of dark stubble clouding his jaw. He pulled a face. ‘No rotting game in there with the wine gums, I hope?’

  I shook my head as I pulled out the bag. ‘Not unless – hey! That’s a thought! I do have a whistle! Of course I do!’ I ferreted some more. ‘God, I’m so stupid! I’ve got Merlin’s whistle! Here!’ I pulled it out and handed it to him. ‘It’s worth a try, isn’t it?’

  He turned it in his hand and then put it to his lips and blew.

  ‘Except it doesn’t work.’

  ‘Oh, no. It does work. It’s just you can’t hear it because it’s the wrong frequency for human ears. But I thought, if there’s someone out there looking for us with a dog –’

  ‘Or just a dog, maybe. A wild dog. A pack of wild dogs perhaps. Or wolves. They still have wolves in Wales don’t they? I think they do in the Appalachians. Should we take cover or something?’ His eyes were picking up shards of moonlight and reflecting them back at me. He started laughing.

  ‘Of course they don’t,’ I said. ‘At least I don’t think they do. No, of course not.’

  ‘But you never know. Perhaps Merlin will hear it, eh? Perhaps he’ll come bounding to the rescue.’ He laughed. ‘Jeez, you know, you gave me such a fright that night. You and your huge dog and your wild hair and that maniac look in your eyes. I thought you were going to slug me.’

  ‘Me? Gave you a fright? That’s rich! Just stop and think how it must have seemed for me! Tootling along happily, minding my own business and then this crazy man comes storming down the lane straight towards me. I thought I was going to die, for sure.’

  ‘But you didn’t. So you obviously weren’t on the list that day.’ He turned to look at me. ‘You believe in fate?’

  ‘I believe in a careful observance of the highway code. It’s stood me in good stead so far.’

  ‘No, I mean, really.’

  ‘No. Not at all. You make your own luck. Why, do you?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking luck. I was thinking more of serendipity. That kind of thing. But, no. I guess you’re probably right. Funny though, us nearly colliding that night, wasn’t it? And then you fetching up at the meeting three days later.’ He turned the whistle in his hands and chuckled to himself. ‘With that ‘don’t mess with me, pal’ look on your face.’

  ‘Cheek!’

  ‘If I was a wolf, I don’t think I’d mess with you.’ He handed it back to me. ‘Even so, no point in tempting it, eh?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fate, dingbat. Perhaps we’ll just stick with the wine gums, yes?’ He lay on his back again and chewed his sweet. ‘Jeez, it’s starry tonight.’

  I lay down again also. The sea grass was tussocky and damp underneath me, but the sky was a perfectly smooth wash of ink.

  ‘Very. I wish I had some binoculars.’

  ‘I wish I had a mattress. And a blanket. And a pillow. And a flask of coffee. And some muffins. And some good runny honey. And a TV with five sports channels. Oh, and a bottle of bourbon. Hey. ’ He nudged me lightly with his elbow. ‘D’you want to hear a joke?’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘OK. Let’s see if I remember this right. Sherlock Holmes, OK? And Watson, of course, well, they go on a camping trip. They head out into the countryside, set up their tent, and go to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes up Watson, and says “Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”

  ‘Watson looks up and replies, “I see millions of stars.”

  “ Hmm,” says Holmes. “And what does that tell you?”

  ‘Watson thinks for a bit and then he says, “Astronomically speaking, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically speaking, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time-wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically speaking, it’s evident that the Lord is all powerful and that we are but small and insignificant beings. Meteorologically speaking, it tells me we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you, Holmes?”

  ‘Holmes is silent for a moment, then speaks.

  “Watson, you idiot,” he says. “Someone’s stolen our tent!”’

  I’d heard it before but it didn’t seem to matter. It still made me laugh. ‘That’s a very good joke.’

  He smiled with childish pleasure. ‘It is, isn’t it? My son emailed it me last week. God, but I wish we had a tent.’ He held up his wrist and squinted at his watch face. ‘Jeez. Nearly eleven. D’you think he has gotten lost?’

  I thought it highly likely. ‘Yes,’ I said, feeling not the slightest trace of panic. ‘But he’ll be back soon enough. Another wine gum?’

  He took one and held it in the air to inspect it. It glowed amber against the soft gleam of the moon. He popped it into his mouth. ‘I don’t think Saturn is in Leo right now. I think Uranus is just nudging up alongside Aquarius with a view towards making a stab at Sagittarius. You think?’

  ‘God, I wouldn’t know. I know sod all about astrology.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Me neither. I just made that up. But there’s the Plough, and that’s Cassiopeia, isn’t it? Over that way?’ He pointed. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. That W shape.’

  I scanned the sky. ‘And that’s Perseus. Low, over there. If it was winter you’d be able to see the Pleaides too, but they rise in the day at this time of year.’

  ‘The Pleaides?’

  ‘The Seven Sisters. My favourite stars. Just under Taurus. They’re very faint. It’s actually easier to see them when you’re not looking straight at them. Kind of catch them out of the corner of your eye. Look right at them and they seem to disappear. It’s a rods and cones thing. The rods are for monochrome vision and the cones are for colour. And because you have a greater density of rods than co
nes towards the edges of the retina, when you look at faint things at night, they’re clearer at the edge of your visual field. Which is why stars like the Pleaides seem to disappear when you look straight at them.’

  ‘Well, I never knew that.’ He turned his head towards me. Even though I couldn’t see it, I was aware that he was gazing at me again. It made me feel strange. ‘You study the stars a lot then?’ he asked.

  ‘Not study, exactly. I wouldn’t profess any proper knowledge. But I certainly spend lots of time looking at them.’

  ‘An amateur astronomer, then.’

  ‘Hardly. No. More a professional insomniac.’

  I could smell the orangey sweetness of the wine gums between our faces as he exhaled. ‘Tell me about it,’ he said.

  ‘You too, then?’

  ‘Yeah. Me too. Me three. But, hey. C’est la vie, and all that. I used to waste a hell of a lot of time worrying about it, but now I’ve pretty much decided not to bother. Except that it’s so maddening that every morning at about six I get sleepy like you wouldn’t believe. You know?’

  I reached down to zip up my jacket again. ‘I know. I know that feeling exactly. I wish I had the knack. I wish I could work out what it is that wakes me up. I’ve tried all sorts. Baths, milky drinks, exercise, relaxation tapes…’ I shrugged. He was nodding.

  ‘And nothing works, right?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You worry?’

  ‘About not sleeping?’

  He shook his head. ‘Worry about everything. You know. Go over every little thing. Fret. I wouldn’t mind so much if I could write a symphony in my head or enjoy a good book or something. But I can’t. It’s such a lump of dead, unproductive, frustrating time.’

  ‘Oh yes, too right I do. Trouble is, I don’t even have anything big to worry about. So I worry about rubbish. I worry about running out of dog food. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I did have something big to worry about. I doubt I’d sleep at all. But you’re right. You get used to it. It’s not such a big thing any more. So I sit and I think, and I gaze at the stars, with my little Patrick Moore book by my side.’