‘I’m just saying we need to be focused on Glasgow, it’s got to be the absolute bollocks if we’re going to impress this guy.’
‘Fuck that,’ said Connor. ‘We’re always the bollocks, aren’t we? If this arsehole, whoever the hell he is, doesn’t like us, then fucking tough.’
He realised he was shouting, and his hands seemed to be waving about in front of his face with a life of their own. He didn’t really believe the words coming out his mouth, but he resented being told what to do.
‘Paul was just saying we need to be on the ball, that’s all,’ said Kate. ‘He’s got our best interests at heart.’
‘He was saying I can’t be trusted not to fuck up, weren’t you, Paul?’
Paul spread his arms out in conciliation. ‘I just want it to go well,’ he said softly, ‘and for you guys to get the deal you deserve.’
‘Maybe we don’t deserve a deal. Maybe we’re elitist, miserable indie pish, and we’re just like every other two-bit bunch of chancers with guitars.’
‘You don’t believe that any more than I do,’ said Paul. ‘So don’t give me that shit. The Ossians are the best fucking band in the world. I should know, I manage you bastards.’
Connor felt sick to his stomach. He had to get away from the table, from these people.
‘I’m off for a pish,’ he said. ‘Want to come hold my dick for me, Paul?’
‘There’s no need for that,’ said Hannah, reaching out for Connor’s hand. Paul just sat with a rueful smile on his face.
‘Why are you taking your bag?’ asked Danny.
Connor pulled his hand away from Hannah’s, turned and headed for the toilets.
He sat in the trap, dabbing speed with one hand and feeling the glowing gun in his pocket with the other. He got the map out and unfolded it to Loch Ossian. He stroked the blue water with his finger, feeling the coolness of it spread up his arm and through his body. It felt good. He’d always loved maps as a kid. He started to trace a line west from the loch, a tiny, black dotted line that headed through the valley floor of Glen Nevis, before twisting north along woodland until it came out at the east end of Fort William. He wondered how easy it was to get there. He sat like that for a while until he became aware of a dryness in his mouth. He folded the map, flushed the toilet and headed back out.
Except somehow he got lost. He emerged in a different part of the bar, brighter and noisier, with a pool table and a television in the corner of the room. When he tried to find his way back to the rest of the band, he turned one corner then another and found himself at the delivery door at the back of the pub. No one was about. He pushed open a side door and inside was the cellar, stacked with kegs of lager, and crates of beers and spirits. He looked around. Still no one about. He grabbed two bottles of gin, stuffing one into the kitbag, then headed out. He pushed open the back door and was outside in the car park overlooking Loch Linnhe.
It was snowing lightly, a flutter of flakes disappearing as they landed on the main road and the still water beyond. He sat on the wall, broke open the seal on the bottle and took half a dozen gulps. The burning in his throat, then stomach, seemed to warm him from the inside out, and he felt calm spread over him.
He thought about that fucking idiot Paul, mollycoddling him for the last two weeks. The whole lot of them doing it, in fact. He was twenty-four years old, for fuck’s sake. He could look after himself. All his life, it seemed, these fucks had been wrapping him up in cotton wool, trying to protect him from what? Himself? The world? It was fucking pathetic.
He put the bottle down and took the gun out his pocket. It didn’t mother him. He knew it was stupid and childish, but he really did feel better when he held it. Like it was made for his hand, moulded to his fingerprints, even, right down to a microscopic, molecular level. Some fucker in a pub once told him that according to quantum physics the molecules at the edges of touching objects actually interact, intertwine with each other a little. At the moment his hand and the gun were so close that part of his hand was the gun, and part of the gun was him. He didn’t even think this was strange. It felt completely natural, as if the gun had always been an extension of his arm. It had just been misplaced for a while. After a time he put the gun back in his pocket and pulled out the map again. It was folded open at Loch Ossian and he rubbed it with his fingers, imagining the molecules of his hand merging with the glacial blue waters of the loch, the rugged browns of the mud, the greens of the grass and the trees.
Just then two German bikers on large BMW motorbikes pulled up and dismounted. Connor watched as they removed their helmets and examined their bikes. He folded up the map and stuffed it into his pocket. He picked up the gin bottle, took a few swigs and walked towards them.
‘Excuse me.’
They turned from the bikes to look at him. He must be a wretched sight, he thought. Wet, exhausted, drunk, strung out, unwashed, with his dirty coat, his lank hair and his wired, red eyes. He pulled the gun out his pocket and pointed it at them.
‘Sorry, gents, but I need to borrow one of your motorbikes,’ he said quietly, swigging from the bottle without taking his eyes off them.
Controlling the bike was simple once he got used to the bulk of it. A few early skids, then he had it sorted and was heading out of town. The turn off for Glen Nevis was easy to spot and he wobbled down it. Small, lonely houses appeared occasionally on the right and the wiry tangles of trees to his left hid the Nevis River, its burble drowned by the hum of the engine beneath him.
He laughed as his headlamp lit up a sign for ‘Braveheart Car Park’, then he passed a squat, square building which seemed to be some kind of visitor centre. Snowflakes were like ray-gun fire in the bike’s headlamp, zooming at him and making him feel dizzy. The bike skidded and he felt sweat form on his forehead then instantly dry in the wind. The road took him over the river and the ominous, colossal bulk of Ben Nevis rose up in front of him. He continued a few more miles until the road ended in a gravel car park. He pulled up and swung the front of the bike round, using the headlamp to examine where he was.
There was only one path out of the car park apart from the way he’d come. A small wooden signpost said Corrour Station 15 Miles. It rang a bell. He took out the map. Next to Loch Ossian, there it was, Corrour Sta – that must mean station. And he could just ride there from here. He traced it once more with his finger, small fluffs of snow landing on the page as he did so. There was a path, a small black dotted line, all the way from here to there. It was that simple.
He revved up to the path entrance. He could see now it was rocky, winding and steep, impossible on motorbike unless you were a scrambling champion. So he would walk it. He’d read somewhere that the average human walks five miles an hour, so fifteen miles would take him three hours. Add a bit extra because of the terrain and he could be there in four. And there was this station, Corrour, where he could shelter. Sorted. He would need a torch. He searched the panniers at the back of the bike and sure enough there was a torch, along with two bars of Kendal Mint Cake that he stuffed in his pocket. Perfect. He imagined Hillary checking provisions before setting off from Everest base camp. Torch – check. Kendal Mint Cake – check. Map – check. Handgun – check. Bag of amphetamine sulphate – check. Bottle and a half of gin – check. Kitbag full of drugs and drug money – check. He knew this seemed idiotic, heading off into the hills at night in winter, but he knew how to walk and read a map, didn’t he? And judging by the map, most of this looked pretty flat, so what was the problem? He switched the torch on, gave it a bang to make sure its rubber handle was sturdy, hoisted the kitbag on to his shoulder and set off into the snowy darkness.
He felt spooked by the loneliness of it, but happy about being spooked. This was what he was after, for fuck’s sake, a bit of peace and quiet. He kept the torch on the path for the most part, whirling its beam up occasionally into the treetops where the wind sounded like wailing spectres. After a while the snow got heavier and the wind died as he clambered up an incline into a fla
t, open meadow. A waterfall roared in the distance, and he felt his head beginning to pound, so took some gin and a whack of speed. His feet were soaking already and caked in mud, but he could hardly feel them, and what he couldn’t feel couldn’t hurt him, right?
He followed the path along the side of the meadow, the trickling river somewhere to his left drowned out by the increasing rush of a waterfall up ahead. He waved the torch about hopefully in the din, but couldn’t see anything so he trudged on, still feeling pretty good despite the thickening snow. He came to a ruined cottage. Who the hell would live out here? Half a dozen sheep lay sheltered in the tumbling stones, their heads sunk into their bodies against the elements. Weren’t sheep supposed to be taken inside on winter nights? As if he knew anything about sheep farming.
He pushed on, feeling the speed buzz through the marrow of his bones, warding off the fat snowflakes, the icy mud underfoot, the sticky blackness of the night and the wind whistling down the glen into his face. The funnelled wind sounded like high-pitched voices, and several times he turned, thinking that someone was calling him, only to stare back into the blackness and hear nothing. He finished what was left of the first gin bottle and slung it with all his strength over his shoulder. As he walked on, the mountains on either side closed in. It felt claustrophobic, but in a good way. He enjoyed being flanked by the land, millions of years old, unchanging, unflinching and uncaring. The path became less well defined and large muddy puddles appeared. Rather than find a way round, Connor just sploshed through them, keen to get to Loch Ossian and the peace and quiet he imagined there. He was kidding himself, he knew, and even now he thought, why the fuck am I doing this?
‘This could turn out to be the dumbest thing you’ve ever done,’ he said out loud. The sound of his voice surprised him in this inhuman place, the darkness soaking it up like a sponge. He screamed as loud as he could, just to see what would happen. The sound disappeared as soon as it was out his mouth, as if the land were sucking it out of him. Could he turn back? Should he? What was back there, anyway? Just irritation and white noise, that’s all. Just a country full of fucking morons. A bunch of people held together by absolutely nothing. Hadn’t someone said there was no such thing as society? Well there wasn’t any fucking society out here, just individual bundles of nerve and sinew and idiotic thought, like him.
He trudged on for what seemed like hours. The weather got worse, closing in, the snow somehow wetter and the wind a continual slap in the face. As long as he kept the river nearby he was all right. He checked the map again – it was getting soggy with the continual snowfall – and seemed to be on track. There were no obvious landmarks on the map, which was just as well, because since the ruined cottage he hadn’t seen any. That seemed like a fucking lifetime ago.
He walked on. What else was there to do? Lie down and die?
‘Get to fuck,’ he shouted, and the world soaked it up without a blink. ‘You think this is ridiculous, don’t you?’ he shouted at the darkness. ‘Don’t you!’ Silence.
He walked some more, enough for four more hits of gin, two of speed, a slab of mint cake, which he chewed with a sarcastic grin on his face, and five more checks of the map, which looked increasingly sodden and sorry for itself. At one point he spotted another ruined cottage across the burn in front of him. It looked as fucked as the last place, but somehow the sight of it spurred him on. He walked faster now, the path hugging the waterside as the burn turned up to the left and twisted back round on itself.
After a while the steep hills at either side fell away and he was faced with a huge expanse of water. He could sense the calmness of its size, the immensity of it. He checked the map, which was almost falling apart at the sodden creases. This must be Loch Treig, he thought. Yeah, there was the small island, and the loch seemed to taper off into the distance, flanked by massive mountains on either side. That meant Loch Ossian wasn’t far away. He measured along the map with his finger. He had already walked three quarters of the way! Piece of piss. Get it up you, nature. Hill walking was a fucking doddle. Why did everyone make such a fuss about it? He figured he’d earned a rest, so removed the kitbag and threw it to the ground, then plonked his soaking arse down on the sandy edge of the loch, drank some more gin, had a piece of mint cake and a dab of speed. The speed was beginning to get wet and cake up in the bottom of the bag. He tied the top of the bag tightly and stuffed it down the front of his trousers into his shorts underneath.
Right, time to get moving. He brushed the sand off his arse and headed east, with what could almost be called a spring in his step, despite the snow which was falling thickly again, a swirling wind that was getting stronger and an all-pervasive darkness.
But as he left the banks of the loch and headed what he thought was south, his high spirits quickly ebbed away. He started on the path, which was little more than a line etched in boggy marsh amid the whirl of snow and darkness. He was surrounded by sludgy peat bog, as featureless as the ocean. The snow was thick on the ground where it had drifted, but bare patches of brown still showed through. He headed for these areas initially, but found himself knee-deep in mud, so returned to heaving his solid legs through the deepening snow. The path had completely disappeared. He looked behind him and all he could see was the same featureless spread of brown and white. The light from the torch seemed dimmer now, sporadically flashing brighter for a moment, then weaker. He banged the front of the torch hard with the heel of his hand but the beam didn’t change. He pulled the map out his pocket – it was in several pieces now, the folds an incomprehensible mush. He swigged more gin, the last of the second bottle, which he hurled into the void in disgust, losing his balance and falling as he did so. He landed with his face in a pool of icy mud. He fished the speed bag out his pants. It had crystallised completely in the soaking wetness. He smudged out a pinch of the mulch and swallowed it, which made his stomach sear with pain for a moment. He felt the unnatural burst of energy to his brain and used it to drag his limbs out the mire and continue.
There was supposed to be a path here, for fuck’s sake, and a railway line nearby. If only the weather wasn’t so fucking terrible, he might be able to see where the hell he was going. He figured that if he just kept heading in this direction – it was south, wasn’t it? – eventually he would find this bastard loch, or at least the train station where he could rest for a bit. He felt his head throbbing and went to his pocket for the gin. It took him a few seconds to remember that he’d hurled the empty bottle away.
‘Fuck,’ he said quietly. He felt like screaming but there didn’t seem much point. The land wasn’t going to listen to his screams, it didn’t care about him, wandering about in a blizzard in the wilderness. He trudged on a short distance, his legs like anchors in the sludgy mush of mud, snow and ice. The wind was blowing a gale now and he frequently had to stop in his tracks to let huge gusts play over him. He couldn’t walk into it, not with these fucking legs. He wondered if he was getting frostbite. Maybe he should go back. But the wind and the snow were all around him now, and he didn’t know any more which way he’d come. The ground had levelled off under the layers of mud, and he had no idea where the hell he was. He took the map out again but when his hand emerged from his pocket all it held was paper mush that slipped through his fingers and mingled with the swirling snow around him. No fucking map. Great. This was looking like the most brainless fucking idea yet. The rest of the band would gloat over this one. They’d all be chortling to themselves around his grave saying ‘I told you he was an idiot’, ‘What a stupid way to die’ and all that shit. Well, fuck them, he wasn’t about to die out here. He pulled his sodden coat tighter around him and struggled on, one torturous step after another, his bones and muscles and sinews and marrow and brain all aching with every step. The torch got dimmer and dimmer, either the battery was dying or water was getting in. Connor desperately wanted a drink to steady himself. He felt the burning cold in his feet and legs, his ears and nose. The wind roared around him, and he had to stop for l
onger times to let gusts blow past. He tried to keep moving when the wind died down, but as soon as he’d gone a few steps it would rage in his ears again. Snow spiralled in the inky nothingness around him and he screamed at it, swearing at the top of his voice for it to stop.
A few more steps, another rest, this time sinking to his knees in snow and mud. He felt dizzy and sick, and had lost all feeling in his fingers. He tried to reach into his trousers to get the speed but couldn’t get his fingers to work, and dropped the torch in the process. The effort to bend down and pick it up seemed monumental, like he was a giant stone statue coming to life for the first time. If anything, the wind was getting stronger and the snow heavier, and he had to take individual steps, one at a time, resting in between, the blinding pain now pulsing incessantly through his whole body, making him even more desperate for a drink that would numb it all.
He couldn’t go on. He felt as if his legs were set in concrete. He stood wavering in the gales. The only thing keeping him upright was the mud and snow his limbs were anchored in. He waved the pathetic beam of the dying torch around but could see nothing, just black night and white snow stretching all around him. His knees gave way and he pitched forwards into the soft whiteness. He imagined the snow as a large frozen pillow. Eventually he struggled on to his elbows and looked up.
In front of him only ten yards away was a large, reddish-brown stag, looking straight at him with impassive eyes. With its shoulders arched back and its antlers proudly displayed, it reminded Connor of a painting he’d seen somewhere. He tried to get up and move towards the animal but his legs wouldn’t work. The stag seemed to be looking smugly at him now, impervious to the blizzard that battered against them both, the storm that had sucked all the life out of Connor’s body. He reached for his pocket and managed through the burning pain to fish the gun out. The metal against his fingers was the first sensation he could remember feeling in a while and it felt good. He lay in the snow propped up on his elbows, the feeble torch beaming out from one hand, the gun, now pointing at the stag, in the other. He pulled the trigger. Nothing. His brain sluggishly thought about what he was doing. The safety. The safety was on. He dropped the torch and fumbled with the gun in both hands, trying to find the switch at the top of the handle, then fumbling to flick it. There. He readjusted his weight, picked up the torch, which was virtually useless now, and steadied himself.
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