Farewell Tour of a Terminal Optimist

by John Young

  An old Vauxhall car skids down the street, nearly clipping a wee lady. In front of us an elderly man in a Nissan Micra is struggling to park. The Vauxhall driver takes his chance, sneaking into the Micra’s space. The old man looks shocked, then drives off.

  “Did you see that? Bastarts,” I say.

  We watch as two well-groomed students, one blond and one dark-haired, grab skis from the roof of their Vauxhall. They barge into the queue between us and the girls.

  “Sod off and get your own space, wingnuts,” says Skeates.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” one of them says, all very nice, and they move along the queue.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” says Skeates in a bad imitation of an English accent.

  “Don’t you start,” I say.

  “Well, he wasn’t sorry at all, was he?” Skeates says loudly. “That’s dishonest.”

  I can feel Skeates’s rising temper, but he leaves it at that and instead asks one of the girls, “Where’s the snow, love?”

  The blond Vauxhall lad behind her answers, “On top of the mountain.”

  “Did I ask you, ya goat?”

  The guy smirks. I’m thinking he won’t be skiing today if he takes this conversation any further, but he steps forward. Skeates is about to find a new place for the guy’s nose, when the girl stands between them.

  “The bus takes you up to the chairlift. Are you two skiing?” she grins like we’re two heid-the-baws. It would be hard to fault that conclusion.

  Skeates smiles back at her. “Too right, can’t wait.”

  The Vauxhall guys glare at Skeates from behind the girl. When the bus arrives, Skeates bumps hard into the blond guy and they jostle each other while they clamber aboard. Fortunately, Skeates stops before trouble brews. He’s grinning like pushing toffs is great sport. It’s heavin’ on the bus and there are no seats. I would have stood but Skeates approaches two older men in the front row. “Hoy, my mate’s disabled.”

  They don’t argue and the two of them squeeze up the bus. We gradually make our way up the mountain. I stare wide-eyed at the weather going from horizontal water, to sleet, to proper snow as the bus gets higher. Even Skeates is excited, pointing like a kid at the frozen waterfalls and deep drifts.

  The bus pulls up at a big busy square and we shuffle out and into the lift station. Most of the people already have ski boots, skis and passes and clump off up the metal steps towards the slopes.

  “This looks like a laugh. You on for it?” Skeates asks.

  “Get away, ya maggot. It’s freezing, I’m lopsided and drenched. Anyway, ya need skis and boots – and talent.”

  “Well, I’m going. If that big scrote can ski, I sure as hell can.” He marches up the steps towards a sign that says ‘Ski Hire’.

  By the time I catch up he’s at the front of the queue paying for two passes and two sets of skis and boots. He’s given a token and we head towards the ski-collection area. I’m worried what his plans are but I’m grinning anyway, because it’s mad and spontaneous. I’ve lived in a controlled medical bubble for ages, where the only method of letting off steam was to wind up Skeates. Skiing can’t be any more dangerous than sticking dead birds into the local head-case’s sandwich, can it? Even so, I’m shaking in trepidation at the thought.

  “You skied before?” asks the attendant, whose name badge says ‘Fergus’.

  “Aye, loads of times, Fergus,” says Skeates.

  I shake my head behind Skeates and mouth ‘no’. Fergus smiles at me and nods. He goes off and picks up some beginner skis and boots in our sizes.

  “It’s minus three and windy out there.” Fergus eyes up our clothes. “You can hire waterproofs and fleeces downstairs. And helmets are in that basket over there.”

  “Aye right,” says Skeates, and I can tell he isn’t the least bit concerned about fleeces and helmets.

  We grab our skis, poles and boots and stumble to a rickety bench. I really don’t know what to think. We aren’t kitted out properly, neither of us can ski and I have major balance issues. Yet why the hell not? Why shouldn’t I have a go? Why shouldn’t the sick boy get to have mad laughs?

  “These aren’t made for comfort.” Skeates winces as he pulls on the heavy plastic boots.

  I squeeze my left leg into the boot first, then start to remove my caliper. My right leg is all floppy in the boot as it’s so skinny, and I can feel Skeates watching me. He grabs an old towel hanging over the helmet basket and stuffs it down the back of my boot. It isn’t ideal but it gives me a bit more support.

  “Ticketyboo,” he says and grins.

  I smile too when I catch a look at the two of us in a mirror.

  “What?” he asks.

  I nod to the mirror and he looks all serious and says, “Yeah and what? Hermann Maier would be dead jealous of our ski style.”

  “Who?”

  “You never watch Ski Sunday?”

  I shake my head.

  “He was a legend, I had a box set of all his races.”

  “Anything you didn’t have a stolen box set of, Skeates?”

  “Not much.”

  I leave my caliper with a bemused Fergus behind the ski desk and we try to head outside to the ski lift. The door is snow-blasted and the wind catches our kit and blows it about. We finally force our way into a wall of snow and wind.

  “Shite, let’s get some warm gear,” I say.

  “Naw, we’ll be alright out of the wind.”

  “What?” I shout. There’s no shelter anywhere out here. I struggle with the skis and throw them onto the ground. I’m nervous as hell trying to get to grips with what to do. Somehow Skeates’s fearlessness rubs off on me and I force my boots into the ski bindings.

  I shout at Skeates, who doesn’t hear as he slides towards a big line of people huddling by the moving T-bar ski lift. Leaning back, he accelerates towards the queue. He almost looks like he’s done this before – until he tries to stop.

  “Shite!” he shouts and piles straight into the line of skiers, who tumble like dominos.

  I crease up laughing and shuffle over. Skeates is shouting at everyone like it was their fault and they leave him plenty of room. He slips his way to the front, tries to grab the T and falls over. Three failed attempts at sitting on the bar later, he heads up the slope holding the bar like he’s water skiing, slipping all over the place. The people in the queue laugh like they’ve never seen anything so funny.

  It’s my go. With my short leg I’m likely to just go round in circles or fall off, but what the hell. A girl comes up behind me.

  “Do you want a hand? It’s easier if you ride it two together.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  She smiles at me. I’m happy now.

  “You must be freezing?” she says as she places us both in position to wait for the oncoming T-bar.

  “Too right,” I reply, “but I can’t see this ski day lasting too long.”

  We perch on the T and trundle our way up through the mist and falling snow. As we approach the top, I spot Skeates face-planted and scrabbling in a snowdrift. “Look at that tube,” I say.

  She grins and says, “You need to steer either left or right now. Not straight on like him. Right is back down the nursery slope.”

  She steadies me as we get off and she heads left. I go with the easy option, bumping into Skeates as he tries to climb out of his self-made snow hole.

  “Ya wee bastart,” he shouts and face-plants again. He’s covered in snow, which sticks to his blazer like a separate shell. He looks like one of those Tunnocks things, which funnily enough are called Snowballs.

  I manage to stop and laugh. But now the girl has gone I realise I’m foundered. My hands sting with the cold and I feel nauseated from tiredness. I’m not giving in yet though, this is too funny.

  “It’s a bit slippy,” I say as we hobble forward, poles wagging in the air.

  “That’s the aim, Nobby. Come on, let’s go.”

  We shuffle towards the edge. I stop and stare in hor
ror at the wind and snow-swept descent. The girl said it was a nursery slope – I wouldn’t like to see the serious stuff. Skeates points his skis straight down and accelerates fast.

  “How do you stop these bloody things?” he shouts before careering off-piste and into a metal pole, then cartwheeling about a billion times down the hill.

  I can’t help creasing up, even though he may have bust his neck. There’s no sign of him for a minute. Then his head pops up, like an arcade hit-the-beaver, from behind a pile of snow. His face is red enough to melt ice and his grin bigger than Mr Happy’s.

  I gather courage and slowly slip down the slope sideways. Somehow I manage to turn right before I go off-piste, but only because my right leg is short. I start tumbling down the hill as soon as I try a left turn, landing face-first in a pile of icy snow, feet kicking in the air. I can hear Skeates wetting himself behind me as I try to right myself. He hauls me up. We dust ourselves down and dig my skis out of the snow.

  “I’m chankin, Skeates.” I shiver so much the words can’t get out.

  “Come on, this way.” He points down.

  Just as we try to move, a skier comes flying towards us and turns fast, spraying ice and snow all over us. I fall back into my snow hole. The skier shouts, “Losers!” and disappears into the mist.

  “That’s that big lig from earlier. Come on!” He helps me up.

  “You’ll never catch him.”

  “Never quit, never bloody quit.” He starts heading down, only to wipe out on the other side of the piste.

  I laugh and shout, “Ya tumshie!” at him, trip over my ski pole and fall face-first into the snow. By the time I get myself up again he’s at light-speed, whizzing across the snow, poles helicoptering about him.

  He isn’t that far from the ski station and I continue a slow slide-slip down, shivering like a wet dog and gripping the poles with Gumbo’s long jumper sleeves.

  Other skiers swerve to avoid Skeates as he flies across the piste and catches his skis on a picket fence. Both skis come off and he disappears over a rise. He looks a right idiot when he reappears, helmet all askew, blazer filled with snow and bright red face, snow melting and running off his chin. Funny and all as this is, I have to give him his dues; he keeps trying the whole way to the ski station. I slip and slide nice and easy and wait for him as he picks himself up for the last time. He’s looking really chuffed with his skills.

  “Piece of cake. Right, let’s go.” He takes off his skis and marches towards the returns counter.

  “What’s the hurry, had enough?” I ask, shivering, the snow melting and dripping down my back. I instantly worry that he may take my jibe as a challenge and join the queue again, but he has other plans.

  “Naw way.” He holds up a set of keys. “Transport!”

  I blank him.

  “Car keys.”

  “Where did you get those?”

  “I picked them out of that joker’s pocket when he bumped into me in the bus queue.”

  “Aye, when you bumped into him, more like.”

  “Whatever. That guy who just knocked you over has kindly lent us his old Vauxhall. Happy days, Perth here we come!”

  “Naw, you can’t steal a car, Skeates,” I whisper, but I grin anyway. Recklessness is catching.

  “Who says it’s stealing? Kids go free!” He laughs like a drain.

  ***

  We get off the bus in town and make our way to the car. There’s a parking ticket on the window, which Skeates throws into the wind. We climb in and he rattles the keys under the steering wheel.

  “Come on, we’ll get nicked,” I say, between chattering teeth.

  “Who by? They won’t be down for yonks.”

  After a second or two the dashboard lights and radio come on, the engine turns, stalls.

  “Can you even drive?” I ask, already regretting this latest stunt.

  “Course I can.” He turns the key again and the car sparks into life. “Yee haw!” he shouts, puts it in gear and pulls out of the space, kangarooing down the street on the wrong side of the road.

  “Skeates!” I shout as he pulls over to avoid a lorry.

  He turns up the radio. “Amy Macdonald, brilliant.”

  I laugh, “I never would have guessed you were a fan.

  “Aye, she’s braw, I used to have a poster of her on my wall when I was wee.”

  I rummage in the glove compartment and pull out a multipack of Mars Bars and a pair of orange Ray-Bans. I put them on and turn the heat up full blast. I’m jittering like a jaikie, my limbs don’t feel my own, and I’m more tired than I’ve ever felt before. Even so, I grin like the village fool and say, “Hit it!”

  “This ain’t like dusting crops, boy!” he says and turns right onto the main road.

  “Perth is that way,” I say, pointing left.

  “Alright, alright,” he shouts and U-turns.

  We head down the A9 into the sleet, towards Perth, singing, ‘This is The Life’.

  Chapter 16

  The Broxden Campers

  During the journey I peel off my wet stuff to dry over the heaters. I sing above Skeates’s complaints about the heat and the car steaming up, and we munch on the posh boys’ Mars Bars. I keep the orange Ray-Bans on all the while, even though it’s pishing dark. It’s all happening too quickly for me to care or worry. I haven’t ever been as immediately in-the-moment happy as I am now. Carefree is a great place to be.

  We arrive a couple of hours later in the outskirts of Perth, and Skeates steers the stolen car into a small country park just off the main drag to town.

  “Right, let’s dump the car and find alternative accommodation. Those toffs will have the polis on the lookout for their motor,” he explains as he pulls into a copse of trees.

  I wipe down the plastic bits inside the car with my sleeve like the crims do in films.

  “What are you doing, ya numpty?” Skeates laughs at me.

  “Cleaning it for prints. I don’t want to get done for nicking a car.”

  He roars with laughter and says, “It’s not stolen. Stolen is permanent. This is temporary.”

  “I’m pretty sure they’ll have thought up a crime for temporarily stealing a car.”

  “Aye, borrowing,” he laughs.

  I don’t care what he says. We at least pretend to cover our tracks, which only adds to the thrill. Gumbo’s jumper will need a wash after all this.

  “Where will we stay?” I ask as we slink away from the car, trying not to be seen.

  “We’ll buy some cheap camping gear and that’ll keep us going all week.”

  “Cool,” I say, and I mean it. I’ve never been camping before, and this sounds preferable to breaking in or sleeping rough. “Will that not be limb-removingly expensive though?”

  “Naw, cheap tent and sleeping bags, be about forty, fifty quid max. They sell packages for the summer fests.”

  “This is February! You know, winter?” I remind him.

  He replies in his usual way when someone points out an obvious flaw in his plan, “Don’t be so drippy!” and marches on regardless.

  His optimism is infectious and I’m giddy enough with it to forget about my health, meds, school and consequences.

  We find a camping shop and I sit on top of a bin in the lobby whilst Skeates goes shopping. I get funny looks from the staff and customers. Not surprising really, as Gumbo’s sweater has stretched even further since the soaking and I’m still wearing the toffs’ orange Ray-Bans. I grin at people who dirty-look me. I don’t want them thinking that I’m some special-needs kid waiting for his mum, so I pretend to be drunk.

  “Uuughhhhgh,” I groan, and dribble.

  They gape and leave me alone. Someone complains to a member of staff who appears just as Skeates returns with a tent and sleeping bags.

  “Uggghhhhhbbblllahhhhhhhhhh,” I say to him and we snort with suppressed laughter on our way out.

  “Now off to the campsite,” says Skeates.

  I know full well there w
on’t be any such thing, but I follow him back the way we came, past the car and out to the main road. Our big plastic bags full of gear wobble about as we head out of town, and I complain the whole way. My energy levels are wasted, but I don’t feel too bad considering how long I’ve gone with no meds. Skeates eventually stops opposite a massive wooded roundabout near the motorway.

  “That?” I say, shivering.

  “Yeah.” Skeates glares half-cheekily at me, feigning hurt that I’m not in love with his dream den. “And what about it?”

  “What about it?” I repeat. “Everything about it! Start with cars and lorries!”

  “Yeah, so? What about it?” he says again, like I’m missing something obvious.

  I point to the problem. “It’s traffic furniture, a roundabout, a road safety device. A campsite has toilets, BBQs, showers and other campers. Campsites are not surrounded by a three-lane motorway.”

  “Fancy campsites cost money and they come with baggage, like – ‘Why are you teenagers staying here by yourselves in a tent when you should be at school?’ – sort of baggage. This is wild camping.”

  “But that’s a roundabout.”

  “Yep.” He nods. “It’s a famous one called the Broxden Roundabout, and it’s got a small forest in the middle to hide us two happy campers for a night.”

  “Oh, a famous roundabout?” I say. “That changes everything.”

  “Exactly!” Skeates laughs. “Remember the golden rule for outlaws is to stay hidden, not be obvious.”

  “You not being obvious?” I shout. “That’s like telling a dog not to bark.”

  “And you aren’t sticking out?” He laughs at me. “It’ll be like trying to hide Vin Diesel and Gollum.”

  “What do you mean, Gollum?” I ask him, crabbit at his reference to something I’ve often thought about myself. “And you as Vin Diesel? More like Shrek.”

  “Aye, then we’re Shrek and that ferret from Guardians of the Galaxy.”

  “Goliath and David, more like.” I enjoy that one but he comes back quick as a flash.