by A. Sparrow
“That could be arranged … in time … but only for a short time. There are threats.”
“And one other thing….” He looked at me and sighed. Only the ghost of his smirk remained. His eyes rolled up to the empty balconies. “I want that address in Inverness.”
Chapter 36: Detour
At Cornavin, I bought an almond croissant and the cheapest train ticket to Paris. Once we got underway, we were basically a hop, skip and a jump from the border with France. Now I knew why everybody in Geneva spoke French.
My future was inscribed on a precious scrap of paper in my hip pocket:
#6 Ardconnel Terrace, Inverness, Scotland
I treated it like a holy relic, taking it out now and then, smoothing it, staring at it, feeling my adrenalin kick in, revving my heart until I was forced to put it away.
Luther/Arthur was unable to give me a phone number but that was fine. I had what I needed. And this way my arrival would be a complete surprise. Our first contact would be face to face, with no room for evasion.
The old man promised that things would be different in the ‘Burg the next time I visited, but he wouldn’t promise how long it would last. He was deathly afraid of Victoria, even though if anyone could lead him closer to his ‘Holy Grail’, it was someone like her—a weaver of superior skills. It seemed to me, a few more manners and a little more tolerance would have given her a far better impression of Luthersburg and brought the old man a heck of a lot closer to his ‘Holy Grail.’
When we passed the border into France, the train picked up speed. Thanks to a little thing called sunlight, there was a lot more to look at out the window than during my traverse of the Alps. Who knew that France had so many farms? Before coming, I guess I had this idea that Europe, aside from a few parks, was basically paved end to end.
I gathered that all this space had something to do with the towns and villages being all clustered together. That opened up the landscape big-time. There was none of that sprawl I was used to in Florida.
When you thought about it, it made sense, this kind of living. You got to know your neighbors well, and when you wanted to get away from them, a short walk in any direction would take you somewhere peaceful.
So this cracker boy was a European at heart. Go figure.
***
It was still light out when I got to Paris. A nice lady helped get me pointed in the right direction. I was at a station called the Gare de Lyon and I needed to get to the Gare du Nord. She insisted I needed to take the bus or Metro, and I nodded politely but it didn’t look that far on the map and I was itching for a good walk, so I hoofed it.
Man, was that a mistake. Paris was enormous. I went down block after block after block without ever seeing anything I remembered from the tour guides—no Eiffel tower, no Notre Dame, no Arc de Triomphe. Just masses and masses of prettified apartment buildings, crêperies and boutiques.
Night fell. I had to check every bus shelter map to keep myself moving in the right direction, but there was no missing the Gare du Nord. I crossed this narrow street about a block away and there it was— a cathedral of rail with an ornate and monumental façade that told you it had been in the business of people moving and for ages.
I went inside, and with more help from some kind and helpful people—who ever said that Parisians were rude?—I booked a Chunnel train to London leaving early the next morning. The idea of going under the English Channel made me a little nervous for some reason. One would think I would be used to tunnels by now.
My dinner that night was a hotdog from a push cart. But this was no ordinary hotdog. The dang thing was crunchy and a foot long and tucked into what seemed like half a loaf of crusty bread. With some spicy mustard, it really hit the spot.
There was no way I could afford a hotel here, so I washed up in a washroom, changed my shirt and went back out and roamed around to scout for a likely place to rest without getting hassled.
I made my bed in a heap of flattened and bundled boxes behind an electronics shop. That cardboard made a decent mattress, a little firm but not too bad. I stuffed a paper sack full of packing peanuts to make a pillow. Newspapers were my blanket. It turned out to be one of the coziest nights I had since leaving Florida.
Luckily, nobody tried to recycle me during the night. The only close call came when a back door squealed open and someone tossed another batch of bundled boxes onto the pile. I kept as still as a corpse while they had a leisurely smoke, until they went back in and latched the door.
I got up at first light, a few hours before I had to catch the train. I wandered a bit, looking for a bakery, finding one in an area full of shops selling fiddles and sheet music. I bought a couple of berry-studded rolls, stepped outside and almost dropped them in the gutter, stunned by what I saw down the boulevard.
A white dome gleamed on a wooded hill. It seemed to hover above the rest of the city and there was this glowing mist floating about it that made it seem even more magical, ethereal, heavenly—pick an adjective describing something that didn’t belong in this world. I couldn’t stop staring at it.
“Excuse me,” I said to a young man passing by. “What is that?”
“That is the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur at the Montmartre.” He said, smiling. “You like it?”
“Yeah.”
He hurried off on his way, while I stood there all agog, stepping out into the street for a better view, almost getting run down by a girl on a bike. I wanted to walk there, but didn’t have enough time. Who knows, seeing the place up close might have only ruined its mystique. I would have discovered the warts—the inevitable Starbucks or McDonalds. Nothing could do justice to the view from afar on a misty morning.
So that was my only glimpse of Paris’ potential beyond the mundane. I didn’t need any Louvre or Notre Dame or La Tour Eiffel. I went back into the train station, and almost missed the train because I didn’t realize I had to go through customs first to reach a special, secured platform. I was switching countries again. If this is Tuesday it must be England.
It was a bit startling how quickly I got to London on that Chunnel train. I ended up at some station named after a digestive organ. Saint Spleen or Gall Bladder or something like that, bought a ticket to Inverness and found myself at THE King’s Cross Station. Like any tourist, I couldn’t help looking around the platform for evidence of young witches and wizards.
I didn’t see any Harrys or Hermiones but there were some more of those solitary young men I had been noticing everywhere. I imagined them belonging to some secret fellowship of the miserable. I was probably a member myself.
I went outside the station for a bit to get some air. From what I could see of London, it lacked the pizzazz of Rome and Paris, but the street seemed pleasant enough. Lots of brick, but enough greenery to make it feel livable.
This clean-cut looking guy in black sweats and an Arsenal jersey saw me looking around and he sidled over, sizing me up.
“You … eh … looking to buy, mate?”
“Buy what?”
“Guess not.” He started to walk away, but he did a double take and paused.
“What’s your name?”
“My name? What’s it to you?”
“Just curious.”
I turned and walked away.
“It’s not James Moody, is it?”
A jolt shimmied through me. “What the fuck?”
I freaked and ran. How could some random stranger in London possibly know my name?
It seemed impossible that those guys in Cleveland had a long enough reach to track me here, but who knows how vast their network was and how far they had spread my image. Maybe they had some kind of cooperative enforcement pact against runaway mules. Maybe there was a bounty on my head.
I ran straight through King’s Cross back to the other station—St. Pancras, winding in and out of the crowds until there was no way anyone could track me. I went into a book shop and lingered in back, peering over the magazine rack, counting down the minutes
until my train left. I had to avoid the train platform as long as I could.
They couldn’t possibly know I was headed to Scotland. The best they could figure was that I had arrived in London. I just needed to get to onto that train unnoticed.
Five minutes before departure, I pulled up my hood and left the store. I stormed through St. Pancras, out the door, across a drive and into King’s Cross. The tight quarters in a construction area made me nervous. I didn’t dare look up. I thought for sure I’d be waylaid.
I checked my watch. My train was due to leave in one minute. I hoped my watch wasn’t running slow. I ran around a barrier, but it was the wrong platform—a train headed to Manchester. I had to double back.
There were two guys down the far end, looking in all the windows of the train. They spotted me and started running my way. I sprinted past a Cornish pasty stand to the proper platform.
The conductors on the Inverness train were already signaling the engineer that all were aboard. I found my car and risked a peek back into the station before stepping onto the train.
The two guys turned the corner. I ducked inside the train just as the doors shut. We began to pull out. I made my way back and took a seat by the window, my senses at eleven on a scale of one to ten. I stared blankly out the window as we picked up speed.
And then there they were, sprinting alongside the train. One of them spotted me and pointed. I glanced away, looked back and they were waving to me, laughing and taunting. I gave them the finger and slumped down into my seat.
***
It took a good hour to get my heart to wind down. I was too close to my goal to have a pair of cut-rate bounty hunters take me down.
I wondered if they might call ahead and have someone waiting for me in Inverness. It would be dark when I arrived. I ran schemes through my head to evade any unwanted welcoming parties. Maybe I could leave the train before it reached the platform and disappear into the night.
I took inventory of my dwindled reserve of cash. I had just under three hundred bucks left—enough for a few meals and a night or two in a fleabag hotel. After that I would be down to pocket change. Karla had better be in Inverness. This was my last train ride.
Once we were out of London, I tried to get my head into the moment and not dwelling so much on challenges waiting at my destination. I counted sheep to pass the time—literally. There were pretty pastures and paddocks everywhere. Butterfly bushes grew like weeds in every vacant lot and right of way.
York was the last station stop I remembered seeing before my eyelids clamped shut. I had the usual nightmare, except instead of the mall, I was running naked through a culvert. I awoke in a cold sweat in the middle of a bustling train station.
Some man in tweed was shaking me by the shoulder, his brogue so thick it was unintelligible. Did he just call me ‘bro?’
Not fully awake, I grabbed my day pack and stumbled out of the train. Could this be Inverness already? Had I slept through all of Scotland?
And then I remembered too late those guys in London, and my daring escape plan. But the tracks here were all enclosed, there was nowhere to run. I slipped behind a support column to gather my wits.
I took a peek and indeed, far down the other end at the head of the train, a young guy in a pleather jacket stood alone on the concourse watching the passengers gather their luggage.
He looked like yet another one of those ubiquitous young loners. Was he some dutiful grandson meeting his grandmother or a bounty hunter with a contract from Cleveland? How could one tell?
I waited behind the column, sneaking a glance every once in a while, until he had gone away and the train had pulled back out of the station. I hurried down the platform, hood pulled over my head, hung a quick right up a long flight of stairs that dumped me out into the most astonishing cityscape. The place looked ancient, quarried straight out of the sandstone bedrock.
A taxi pulled up to the curb and dropped off a lady with a cello. I rapped on his window just as he flicked off his top light. The window came down.
“Sorry lad, that was my last fare. I’m going off shift.”
“Quick question for you … do you know where can I find Ardconnel Terrace?”
“Ardconnel? Never heard of it.”
“I have this address. Number six Ardconnel Terrace.”
“I tell you, I know this town well. And there’s no such place in Edinburgh.”
“Edinburgh?”
“Where do you think you were? This is Waverley Station, Old Town Edinburgh.”
“Oh my God. I bought a ticket for Inverness!”
“Look again, lad.” He pointed to a road sign, chuckling. “What happened? Get snockered on the train?”
“I … fell asleep.” I started back towards the stairs, but then I remembered that train was gone, not to mention that guy might still be down there. The full horror of what I had done began to sink its teeth. I could have been in Inverness tonight.
“No worries, lad. The trains run pretty regular … although … that might have been the last one bound for Inverness today. Just hop one in the morning. I’d make the best of it. Enjoy Edinburgh. It’s a great town … especially for a young man like yourself.”
What did he think I was going to do? Party? I was in no mood to enjoy anything. The idea of interrupting my journey so close to its destination galled me. I was anxious to keep moving. Morning was a long time from now.
“Tomorrow … do you think I can re-use the same ticket? I mean, it was an honest mistake.”
“I doubt that. Train tickets are only valid on the day of travel. There’s nothing to be done but purchase a new one. But it’s probably only ten quid for the cheap seats.”
“How far … is Inverness?”
“Too far to walk, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“What about hitchhiking? Do folks still do that here?”
“Well, sure, in the countryside. But what’s the hurry, lad? Why not have yourself a good night’s rest?”
“I don’t have a whole of cash on me.”
Something shifted in the cabbie’s expression, as the local gravity had just been amped up a notch.
“Hop in, lad. I’m coming off shift, but I can take you as far as Falkirk. That’s a fairly major crossroads. Make friends in the pub and you’re bound to find someone going on to Inverness … or who’ll put you up for the night.”
***
The cabbie drove back to his dispatch lot to pick up his personal vehicle. On the way over, I got to appreciate how startling Edinburgh could be. We would be riding down a street, a gash would open up in the land and there would be this other cityscape a hundred feet beneath us. The sheer verticality and layering of the place stunned me.
Transitions could be abrupt, too. One minute we’d be driving through these dense and tangled warrens of cobbled alleys and the next we’re staring at a craggy hillside devoid of human habitation.
So the cabbie—George was his name—brought me home to his family and fed me some stew. They offered me a spare bed in the attic but I declined politely.
So he dropped me off at a local pub which he said was as good a place as any from which to arrange a ride to Inverness. Folks down to Glasgow or Edinburgh for the day would be heading back to the highlands after dinner.
George wasn’t kidding. I quickly made the acquaintance of a middle-aged auto mechanic named Craig who was heading north after his pint and could take me part of the way. The drinking age was eighteen, believe it or not, but I made do with a Pepsi.
So things were going well. We were bounding along in his panel truck when, less than an hour later, we stopped for petrol in a place called Perth.
“There’s a pub with beds around the corner,” said Craig. “If you want to give it a shot.”
What he said confused me. Was he kicking me out of his truck? Had I offended him somehow?”
“But I thought you were going further north?”
“Aye, but the road forks here. I’m leavi
n’ the A9 and goin’ on to Braemar.”
“Is Braemar any closer to Inverness than Perth?”
“Well, technically yes, but then you’ve got the Cairn Gorms in between.”
His brogue was a little thicker than George’s so I had no idea what he had just said. What the heck was a ‘Cairn Gorm’?
“Can I go on with you … to Braemar?”
“Sure, but you can’t easily get to—“
“Please? I really don’t want to spend the night here. I want to keep on moving.”
Craig sighed. “Suit yourself.”
***
It was half past eleven when we reached Braemar. Craig dropped me off at an inn with a restaurant that was still open for business.
“Now I know it’s tourist season, but you might get lucky, seeing that it’s midweek. Jilly might have a room vacant.”
Jilly had no rooms, but she did make me a mug of hot cocoa. She suggested I try a bed and breakfast down the road and offered to call ahead, but I was still in no mood to settle in for the night. I had to keep moving. I had slept enough on that damned train. I was too close to Inverness to stop now.
So I headed down the road and prayed that some late-returning tourists might be heading to Inverness. Whether they would be crazy to stop at this hour and pick up a hitcher as bedraggled as me was another question, but I was beyond all rationality by that point.
I moseyed around the town a bit, which seemed to cater mostly to tourists and hikers. The information center had a bin with free maps of the Highlands. I unfolded one against a mischievous breeze and saw at a glance what Craig was trying to warn me about.
Braemar looked a good distance further north than Perth and a good deal closer to Inverness, but it had taken me off the main road and plopped a good sized mountain range—the Cairn Gorms—in my way.
There was a road just past Braemar, a long and winding way called the A939—‘The Old Military Road’—that cut across the range. But there was another route, a foot path, that slashed directly towards Inverness, hitting the A9 at a town called Aviemore.
This alternative route was called the Lairig Ghru, which was an old cattle droving route, according to a blurb on the tourist map. I looked around for a scale but couldn’t find one.
Aviemore didn’t look so far on the map and the mountains in the pictures didn’t look so tall. I figured, if a cow could hike it, why couldn’t I? So I found the trailhead at the edge of a parking lot. The night was clear, the stars sharp and the path was broad and obvious, lit by a hefty slice of moon. I felt strong and alert. I saw no reason why I couldn’t walk all night.