by Ian Stephen
Gabriele really was cool about walking back the same way – that would do her fine. She’d rescue the car and pick us up at that point on the Hushinish Road.
‘You two won’t be happy till you get soaked right through,’ she said.
We’d storm it. The rain gets you walking faster.
We waved goodbye to the shape of Gabriele, taking it slow back up the rise to the path. We went to find the best route across. There was the foundations of a long-gone bridge. Very green grazed ground around that, standing out from brown, shining in the dreich late afternoon.
It’s the first step in, when the cold hits your toes and the pain is sudden. Then it goes dull. The water warms in your boots and it’s bearable. Then you don’t notice. It’s normal. I’m wading the ford and then my pole is going too far down. We should turn back. We’ll have to find another way.
We both pace the bank. Not looking for salmon now but for a route through the shallows. I see one and go. Between rocks, the pole dips again but I push for it. Lose the footing, right close to the other bank. I dive for it.
‘Hey, Da. Nearly a dry capsize. Nice one.’
‘Kind of you to say so, girl, but I’m not as bloody dry as all that.’
Anna is across already, learning fast from the mistakes of her olman.
That was bridge number one.
Well, the bridge wasn’t there any more but the ford was. We pause. I’m shivering but if we walk at a gallop I’ll be fine. There’s still a way back but it’s borderline now, for catching up. We’d arrive in time to see Gabriele drive off to pick us up from somewhere we wouldn’t be.
I think of the crossing before Loch Voshimid. Another trickle that could bring forth a yield of adrenalin today. I pause again.
‘Do you think we should turn back?’
‘Let’s just go for it,’ Anna said.
We do.
The responsible adult and his daughter get euphoric, warming up with the incline. Some pace. We strike out with the rhythm of folk who’ve been cooped up. Tasting the elements again.
We pause and look up, scan the skyline. You seldom walk this way without seeing a golden eagle. We’ll hear stags soon. I see the lines of white descending from the ridges. Places where I don’t remember any burns. Deep down, I’m turning over the options in my head.
We could still go all the way back. Wait for Gabriele to realise we’re not going to appear on the Hushinish Road. Or else we could skirt round the next burn. Get up the east side of the ridge and follow it along the high ground. Along the watercourse. Dark wouldn’t be long away but the ridge would keep us right. And Anna’s an ace on the Silva compass.
Then we hear the roar of water. We look at each other but don’t alter the stride.
We’ll take a look at it, anyway.
This is bridge number two.
I’m trying to consider the option that’s it’s a no-go. I’ve struggled to find enough water here to fill my hand for a drink. Remember the Bible story. David or Joshua or some other heroic leader has more men than he needs for the mission. So he gets the squad to drink from a stream. Those who cup their hands to drink are taken. Those who lie down and lap are not. Since the Clock School education, of stories, singing and sums, all by a coal fire, I’ve cupped my hands to drink. You wouldn’t want to miss out on a wee adventure.
‘Can you see the path, Anna?’
Neither of us can. The noise is bad news. But the bulk and shape of the water is scaring us too. The colour is muddy or peaty but it’s charging over the concrete bridge so hard that the foam is thick. It’s a rapid, going over as well as under a bridge. I’m trying to remember what the bridge is like. There’s nothing visible. It’s only there by implication in the water-flow. I remembered it being a basic concrete casting over wide pipes but I’m not sure of the detail. Anna is already testing the edges. She finds solid cement-work under her boots. ‘It’s all right, Da, we’re on it.’
‘Aye, but how wide is it?’ I feel with the walking pole. I’m tentative. Anna borrows it and prods. She hands the pole back. We reckon we’ve got it. Too much froth to see anything but there’s no more than a foot of rapid water flowing over the bridge. Likely less. Anna links her arm in mine like when she was a kid. Now she’s already higher and heavier than me.
‘Come on, Da, we’re going for it.’
But I’m the more cautious, elder one. I keep feeling with the pole, anxious to know the concrete is down there. But our slower progress does not give us enough momentum so the weight of water is driving us across to what must be the limit of the underwater walkway. Too late, we move faster and try to adjust our line upstream. Like vessels steering a course to allow for leeway. But it’s not wind, it’s water with the power to drive a turbine. And we over-compensate.
It’s a big shock when I’m down. Seeing Anna in the water beside me. We’re gasping. I feel the weight dragging me. See that Anna is lower than me already. My face is very close to hers. I’ve caught her eyes with mine.
Things are fast and they’re also slow. I’m seeing something pretty close to panic.
‘Take a deep breath.’
I hear my own voice giving the advice to my daughter.
It sounds calm.
And then I gasp air, too.
We’re both down.
Then I’m up again or my head is. All the rest of me is being thrust against what must be the bridge. We’re on the wrong side. Upstream of the concrete and the pipes.
I’m thinking that, very fast.
Then I see Anna going down again and I’m losing her.
I’m trying to dive, trying to chase her.
But now I’m in the full weight of water and there’s no breathing.
No thinking.
I’m away.
Then I’m getting breath. It’s in at the edge.
My boots are finding stones. I’m sick in my guts. In my heart. I don’t want to get out of the river. Anna’s in here.
This is where I stay. I’ll get breath to dive again.
‘Are you OK, Da?’
She helps me out. I suppose I must be exhausted because I can’t help much. I used to help her eat, clean up her shit. Now she’s coaxing me out of the water. It doesn’t feel cold any more. The air feels cold. My stick is gone. Anna worms in under my shoulder and half hauls me up away from the wild wet.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ I said.
‘I thought I’d lost you.’
So we hug a bit and the warmth is good.
I know we have to get moving. The cold is going to set in and there’s not a lot of light left. We’re going to have to bomb it down the path.
‘Any injuries?’
‘I’m fine, Da, what about yourself?’
It’s a bit difficult to get a full share of weight on one of my legs. The other is OK. I feel something that’s a bit like pain under the numb stuff. Can’t decide where it’s from. I rub my legs and the juice is circulating.
‘Fully operational, blone. Yourself?’
‘Fit as a butcher’s dog, cove.’
‘Well, what are we waiting for?’
So there you are. Bridge number two. It’s behind us now.
Bridge Number Three
At first everything is stiff and then you’re through the pain. It gets euphoric again. The elation kicks in and drives us down the track past Loch Voshimid. The shapes of the hills either side of the glen getting bolder as the light is lost from the sky.
‘You know this is where the last waterhorse was killed?’
‘I thought that was in Uig. Other end of Loch Langabhat. I know you only ever tell me true stories, Da, but a girl could get confused.’
‘Aye, depends where you’re from. The versions.’
I tell her the short synopsis of the three-day struggle and it gets us down the hill a bit. The waterhorse preyed on cattle that strayed too close to the edge of the loch. It would lure a man or a woman on its back and dive down deep. I was trying to distract my own self thoug
h, keep the gnawing muscle-pain at bay. Anna was doing fine now.
The limp wasn’t holding me back much. ‘We’re grand,’ I said.
So we were, till I saw what was coming, next. This time Anna must have seen something in my eyes.
‘We can go round this one,’ I said.
‘We’re going over it. It’s not that big. I can see the route this time.’
You know how it is in the stories. The pattern of three. There’s always a twist when it comes to the third and last part of the pattern. A story like that has a form that’s as strong as a good bridge.
That’s why the shape of it stays so clear, in your mind.
While I was trying to think straight, Anna was studying the run of the water.
‘I can see where the bridge is,’ she said. ‘There’s only a few inches over it.’
‘I don’t have the stomach for it,’ I said.
She put one boot out to make sure the structure was where she thought it was. Then she left me and took it at a run. There was nothing I could do to stop her. She was across. ‘Come on, Da, you’ve got to go for it.’
I ran for it.
We were both on the other side of this burn and laughing like crazy. Then on again, walking at speed, coasting on the relief. There’s a catch in every story. Like my olman’s tweeds, no two were ever exactly the same. Like Coastguard search and rescue missions. When I was put in charge of my own watch, I’d tell my trainees, there is no such thing as the standard task.
At least one of us had entered the water at each of the first two bridges. We both got away with it on the third one.
Anna is no daft when it comes to the outdoors. She’s been through mists and fogs and snow on Duke of Edinburgh Awards and stuff. She knew we had to get off this hill soon. It was half-light.
We didn’t bring supplies because it was to be a fast slog. The chocolate was gone. I could feel the start of the wobblies. The blood-sugar thing. The combination of using different muscles – and needing more calories than you’ve supplied to your body.
And then I could see the tail-lights. They were moving so slowly. Like someone was looking back all the time for others appearing off the hill, waving their arms and shouting to stop.
We did all that but no-one saw us.
We were both a bit distressed at that stage. I couldn’t stop shivering and the pain in my legs was kicking in. The adrenalin stage was over. Then we stumbled on the flask and the note. Left by Gabriele in a poke on a post. She’d be driving back to check the other end of the route now, thinking we must have turned back. It was sweet cocoa.
Nice one. Everything but the St Bernard. I didn’t fancy brandy at that point. That’s when you know it’s getting serious. When you don’t fancy a dram any more.
I knew then I couldn’t walk any further. I was done. I gave in to it and sat on my sodden arse. The hot drink with its sugar and milk helped a lot. By the time Anna was ready to walk to find a house she could phone from, to tell the police we were fine, the car returned.
Gabriele had driven all the way back to the Loch Seaforth end but we weren’t there either. She was getting seriously worried.
The heater was on full-blast. Anna and me were playing it down. ‘Aye, we had to make a detour or two round a burn or two. Sure, we both got soaking wet. And the olman had a fair stab at pulling a muscle.’
Anna seemed completely unscathed.
I got a shock when I got into the bath. It wasn’t the change of temperature. The bruising was already up. It was the extent of it. I’d only noticed the specific pain from one upper leg, transmitted down. It was the mass of purple and yellow that showed I’d been driven against an underwater bridge.
But when Anna went down, it was suction. She was less marked but more scarred. She told me later she did have nightmares about being sucked into a pipe. It’s difficult to tell anyone about the forces involved. Past a certain point and there’s no coming back. Nothing could come back against that weight.
She showed me the website. One of her number got given a boat, gratis, from a company. That means the group’s exploits are being noticed. I see the tiny red dot emerging from waterfalls. I know it’s Anna’s helmet.
There’s more than two versions of the waterhorse story. Like the last wolf in Scotland, there were a few last ones killed here and there. No shit, I don’t think they’re all dead. It’s not so bad if you come out bruised. You’ve just been in a battle, what would you expect? It’s the guys who come out of the turbulence without visible signs of a struggle. Even if you weren’t a Da, you’d worry about that.
And I knew I’d done exactly the wrong thing by playing it all down so Gabriele didn’t get more anxious. It would have been better if we’d told our full story at the time. My uncle Ruaraidh made the effort to teach me that, while he was preparing for his death.
I did hear later that Anna eventually did tell her story. It was a sea-kayaking trip, with an overnighter in a bothy. People were talking about close shaves. A mate of mine told me that everyone fell silent when they heard Anna tell it.
Good that she told it. Not just because it’s a warning.
Andra 2
I was set to hand over the old Peugeot estate to Anna and her pals. They were adventurers and it wasn’t as if a bit of brine dripping from dinghies or boards or kayaks was going to do a lot more damage. She ran fine. So it was my last road movie with the workhorse. I had some stuff to pick up on the mainland so it was a chance to see Andra. Sometimes you just need to get off the rock.
I don’t care much about distance when I’m got some wheels under me. Dead easy. I tried to phone, before I left home, but got no answer. It was the evening. Maybe the home-help got him to his bed soon after his tea. I could have got the number from the cousins but I was going anyway.
The car wasn’t booked on the ferry. The guy kept me in the standby area till the last minute even though the boat wasn’t that busy. The bite of April.
And I wasn’t booked in anywhere. I couldn’t see a big push for weekend breaks by the North Sea this month. But the Alexandria was boarded up like its neighbours. Then I saw the posters. A gospel music convention. There might not be a bed in town. I could phone Willum and Sheila but it was a bit awkward – he might be at sea. She might be involved in the festival – she was quite strong on the church. They’d be bound to ask how Gabriele was doing. I wouldn’t be able to say, ‘Nae baud,’ and move on.
No big deal, I could run out of town and get a bed in Pennan or out Inverallochy or even Peterhead. Pennan could be booked out too. This was a holiday weekend, for some, and Local Hero left its mark on that village. People still wanted a photo of themselves standing by the phone box. They’d get lashed with spray there tonight.
But I knew I’d better get my arse up West Road pretty soon. I went the long way, past the signs for the lighthouse museum, leaving Glenbuchty Place between the sea and the main road. Took a left before the seaward road that used to lead to the gut-factory. You never got that smell now, in either The Broch or SY. My grampa used to call the street with the big new houses, further up the road, Fishmeal Avenue.
I was just round the corner from West Road but the prefabs were gone and my bearings with them. There were new blocks of flats between the boarded up old houses and the more prosperous outskirts.
I looked at the dashboard and saw it was near seven. I shouldn’t have stopped to walk along the beach, earlier on. I remembered the frapping red flag that warned the waves were too high for safe bathing. The surfers had a blazing gellie going in the dunes but they wouldn’t call it that, these latitudes.
One house looked like it might be the one. I knocked. There was a chain on the door. It opened enough for a wifie to tell me, aye, Andra was on the go all right but he bided off that next wee close. Looked just like this one. I might be ower late though. No, no, he was keeping a richt for a man who’d had his quota o strokes but these home-helps just did the rounds richt early.
The house looked dead. The
buzzer worked well enough but nobody came. Then someone went by.
‘Aye,’ the man said. ‘Andra Sim’s house. For sure. No, no, he’ll no be in his bed but you’ll no find him in, this time o nicht. Try the Elizabethan.’
‘Not the Legion?’ I asked.
‘No, he disna drink there ony mair. Elizabethan.’
He pointed the way. I left the car on West Road and walked round the corner. There was a concrete building which looked like it could be of pre-fab construction but it had black painted mock timbers. This could be it. They had a board with special drinks offers on for the football. He’d be here.
It had all sorts of sightlines and corners and more than one screen. I had a fixed idea he was here but I couldn’t see him. I was being careful because even big characters can shrink after a stroke. I still couldn’t see him.
‘You in fae the match?’ someone asked.
‘No, I’m looking for my uncle Andra. Andra Sim.’
‘Andra disna drink here ony mair,’ the barman said.
‘Is he back at the Legion?’
‘Ye’ll find him in the Sultan. Just off the main street, ken at the front.’
‘Before that drop down to the harbour?’
‘Aye, that’s it. He’ll be in there.’
I thought I knew the way. Drove towards the sea-front. Parked the Peugeot.
I walked up and down the street and I couldn’t see a pub called the Sultan.
Time was marching on. I asked someone else. There wasn’t a lot of people out on the street.
‘You’ve just walked by it. Can you no see it there?’
I looked back to the Saltoun Arms Hotel. That’d be it then.
I found the opening to the public bar and took a deep breath. There was a screen on with the warm-up to the match. Commentators were speculating. Alan Hansen was looking chill as ever. That’s the guy the Latin teacher wagged his finger at. Alan was always a bit more cool than cool. He came sauntering in off the pitch at Lornshill. Another Academy though folk down there still called it The Grange. That was real Rangers and Celtic country. Of course, we had to shout for Rangers.