2./ The
train drowns its rumble in the distance. Mhairi lingers under the
overhang of the tiny station's roof, the slender white building and
single platform marooned in rain-swept blackness. Past streamings
from the overflowing gutter, she sees, in the valley below, an
intermittent flow of car headlights and tail-lights travelling the
sole road, hereabouts, between north and south. Dragging her rucksack
onto her shoulders, she pulls up the hood of her fleece and descends
from the platform, taking the rain and chill gusts full in her face.
Her lower belly suffers another twinge, accompanied by a trickle of
blood down the inside leg of her jeans.
Beyond the station, a
narrow road, coursing with water, descends past a portakabin post
office, a tiny school, a fire station and the short single line of
houses which passes for a village, the curtains tugged tight. At the
foot of the hill, the main road greets her with the spray from a
northbound supermarket lorry.
At the road's far side,
a small hotel clenches light and warmth within itself, a few
chattering backs-of-heads bobbing behind the leaded windows of its
bar. She wonders if there isn't some outbuilding where she could bed
down. There is a phone box near the door of the bar. It occurs to her
that a phone call and a confession would sort her a bed for the
night.
But by the time the next
car has swished by, awareness of how important it is to keep running
has reasserted itself, along with a certainty of there being only one
place, one person, she can run towards. Squelching onto the grass
verge at the near side of the road, she turns into the glare of the
next vehicle hurtling southward.
As it races by, she
wonders if she should stick out her thumb. Instead, she stares at the
dark shapes behind each oncoming set of headlights, urging one of
them, sooner or later, to understand what it is like to be a lost
object in a callous world.
Her backward steps have
carried her to the far end of the verge before a car swerves close,
passenger door swinging wide.
*********************************************************************
"Some’dy waiting
for you in Glasgow?"
Facing Mhairi across the
table in the roadside cafe, the man with the vague smudge of
moustache licks his middle finger, using it to mop doughnut crumbs
from his plate.
"Mm," she
nods, taking another slurp of milkshake.
"What? Family?"
he asks, smiling that same smile he's been shoving her way since
picking her up at Bridge of Orchy.
She gives a sidelong
shrug. "Yeah."
She wishes they could
have kept on going, whooshing through the dark in his snug, sleek
car. Mightn't they have been as far south as Loch Lomond, by now?
"They do know
you're coming?" he asks, licking the crumbs from his finger. He
has told her he sells cars, that he's got his own showroom in Glasgow
and is on his way back from a trade show in Fort William, clearly
assuming she's impressed.
She nods. He pats his
hand on top of hers.
"There was me
taking you for a little girl lost," he says. 'Aitch', he's asked
her to call him.
She tries to slide her
hand clear. He takes firmer hold.
"Can we... can we
maybe get going?" she suggests.
"That highland
lilt," he grins, "that bonnie red hair. The boys are gonna
fall over themselves in the Big G."
She wrenches her hand
free. "Can we? Go?"
"Sure," he
agrees, knocking back a last mouthful of coffee. Cappuccino foam
clings to his moustache.
They head outside to the
gravel car park, which is almost empty of vehicles at this hour. The
rain has dwindled to a drizzle.
“Ooh...!” says
Aitch, frowning and doubling up as he opens the door of the driving
seat.
“You okay?” asks
Mhairi.
“What? Oh... yeah,
sweetheart. Oof. Just the usual.”
“Usual?”
“My digestion… the
Rennies shareholders must be cock-a-hoop every time I clock a
doughnut. Ulcers! Side effect’ah being a successful entrepreneur!”
“Is there...” Mhairi
begins warily, “...anything I can... do...?”
He straightens up, shows
a plucky smile.
“You, pet? Well, short
of you having a jumbo bottle of Pepto-Bismol on you, you could spare
me a wee five minutes for a lie down before we move on.” Reaching
inside his souped-up little number, he pushes flat the back of the
driving seat.
“Oof...how could I have missed the whiskers on yon
doughnut? – Don’t worry, pet, you don’t have to stand out there
in the rain. Here, look - !” He pushes down the back of the
passenger seat. “You can have a wee lie down too. Bet you could do
wi’ one!”
“Uh no…” says
Mhairi, stepping back, “…not really….”
“Well, the café
there’s shutting up, so where you gonna hang around, catchin' the
rain, while my belly’s settlin’? Still umpteen miles o’highland
between us and Glasgow. Go on, doll, climb in.”
"No... listen..."
Mhairi responds, scanning the unpopulated distance between herself
and the cafe and the road beyond, "...I’m just gonna...."
"What?" asks
Aitch, grinning. "Catch the bus? What bus? C'mon, I’m talkin'
about an innocent lie down. We can play at being Babes In The Wood,
eh?"
"No..." Mhairi
draws back further, "...no way."
Aitch steps after her,
gastric agonies dispelled.
"You don't want to
snub me entirely, I’m sure? Wind up stranded here? It's a cold
world if you don't make the most of a friendly hand."
He reaches towards her.
She turns, takes the first step of a sprinting away. He catches her
rucksack, dragging her back, pulling the pack down the single arm
onto which she has its strap looped. She turns, tries to tug it back.
He pulls her closer, the pack sandwiched between them.
"Hey..." he
says, "...what's the panic? Even a sweet wee teuchter cannae be
entirely naïve about a fellah's assumptions when a lassie hops in
his motor, middle of the night."
She pulls harder on the
pack. He tugs it his way.
"What you got in
here?" he sneers. "The crown jewels? Some frilly knicks tae
fire my fantasies? Or…"
He stops, lifting one
hand from the pack, studying its palm in the meagre light. Something
drips on his shoe. Looking up, he glimpses too late the metallic
flash. The sound of the flesh around his eyes shearing wide registers
ahead of the pain.
He supposes the eyes
themselves have been scythed out, hot black agony searing his skull,
sending him tumbling through the open car door at his back. The rear
of his head bumps the door-frame, his backside bouncing on, then
sliding from, the edge of the driving seat, clunking onto the metal
edge below.
Tears scald a pale shape
into his darkness, the shape of the girl staring down at him, all
white face and red hair. She grabs the rucksack, running off. For a
moment, he watches her dissolve into the drizzle. Then, pain biting
deeper across his face, blood coursing hot into his mouth and
bubbling up his nostrils, he gropes into the driving seat, anger
jostling ahead of agony.
Mhairi, running, hears
the rev of his engine, the slice of his wheels across the car park's
gravel and puddles. The cold heat of his headlights is upon her back,
throwing her shadow before her, the vehicle’s heat and oily stink
sniffing at her rear. She glances over her shoulder.
Metal, hard and hot and
slicked with rain, thumps into her. But even as she is thrown across
it and cast to the ground, she realises this
car came from another direction.
The next second or two
is a chaos of engine snorts, wheel screeches and gravelly rattlings.
Her reeling vision settles on Aitch's car, much further away than she
had thought. It stands at a skewed halt, exhaust fumes thickening the
red glow of its tail lights. It is another set of headlights that
shines across the puddles in front of her. Somewhere to the rear of
that glare she catches the sound of a door opening, of feet splashing
her way. Aitch's car screeches out onto the road. Mhairi feels hands
about her shoulders.
"You okay?"
someone asks: a man's voice, Glaswegian, gentle and slightly gruff.
"That bastard almost killed you."
