Authors: Karen Campbell
Sitting down has made the itching better. She slides her hands into the waistband of her jeans, waits a second then, when nobody’s looking, slides them deeper. She tries to shift the notes to stop them rubbing. Would the ticket-guy freak if he knew from whence those two crisp tenners came? Maybe he’d just breathe deeply. Let a quiver of saliva drip. A brace of police officers saunter in. Automatically, Justine rises. Hood right up, goes to the loo. Thirty pee just to pee. Inside the cubicle, she liberates sufficient cash to see her through the day. Six minutes till her bus. Man, her head is mince. She’d love a drink, but it’s eight forty-six a.m. When she re-emerges, the cops have gone. Justine goes to the wee kiosk selling crisps and juice. Purchases Tropicana, two bags of salt and vinegar, and a puce-pink, cheapo mobile phone. She returns to her bench, but it’s full now. The overflow stand in a loose, alert queue, poised to spring whenever the bus appears. No one has asked the tramp to budge up.
At last, the Lochallach bus pulls into the bay. Passengers alighting, the driver climbing from his cabin; Justine’s breath is knuckle-tight, she doesn’t even realise she’s been holding it until the bus driver wanders off, leaving the little queue waiting. Then she feels sick, she isn’t going to make it, Jesus, she’s going to throw up right here on the concourse and they won’t let her travel, they’ll think she’s drunk or on drugs and she
isn’t
, she doesn’t DO . . . She doesn’t. Eventually, another driver comes and lets them on. Justine makes for the neutral middle, spreads and shapes her bag on the seat beside her until it’s a bulging obstacle. She’ll sleep alone and intact like the red-haired dosser, stretched diagonally, with her head on her bag. Behind her, kids call and bicker, but she’s so tired she barely hears them. She closes her eyes. That way, she’ll have no idea how she got there when she arrives. And neither will she know how to get back.
*
She must have slept about an hour, a dark empty sleep. When she wakes, brief panic, then a breath, then it’s all brown heather and clouds of different grey, the bus climbing. To her left, the valley drops down, dipping to a gully. On the far side of the bus, the hills rise sheer to the air, rocks at every angle. It makes her dizzy. Bridged between Heaven and Hell, a foot-high barrier all that will save them from the fall. They chug a bit more, reach an open plateau. No trees, just a tiny loch like a cup of water left amongst the rocks. Justine narrows her eyes, so the colours blur in a tartan blanket.
‘Excuse me.’
A black stick, a golden halo, closer, glowing orange. Wild orange curls and a face like peel. She sits up. It’s the tramp from the bus station.
‘Sorry. Would you mind if I sit here for a while? Those kids are doing my nut in.’ He fingers the twine around his waist, examining the threads. Justine faffs with her bag, hoping he’ll take the hint.
‘Sorry. There’s really nowhere else to sit.’
Justine grunts. The tramp sits down, slides his brolly between his legs. She waits for the whiff of pee to strike as his coat billows, is captured beneath his backside. But all he smells is loamy: a rounded rich smell of earth.
‘So, where you off to?’ His voice is mahogany. Consonants enunciated, only a trace of Glasgow glottal stop.
‘Lochallach.’
‘Me too. Well, a night in Lochallach, then Oban, then off to Mull.’
‘Mm.’
‘You been to Mull?’
‘Nope.’
‘Me neither. My dad was born there. I want to see if I can find the house.’
The tramp’s eyebrows are dark behind the ginger furze.
‘I know it’s daft,’ he continues, ‘but he died last year. I want to get some heather for his grave. You know, from Mull.’
‘Will it keep?’
‘I’ve brought a wee pot with me. And some Miracle-Gro.’
Crackle
go the notes.
Itch
goes her groin.
Crackle
goes the tramp’s electric hair. Justine chews the inside of her lip. She doubts ripping a plant from its natural habitat and transporting it a hundred miles south to a Glasgow graveyard will work. Even if it does survive the journey, the heather will be in a bad way. In shock, probably, and needing the best of attention. And you wouldn’t be digging very far down to replant it, would you? In a graveyard. Though, the soil’s probably very well nourished. Dug regularly too.
‘Was he buried or cremated?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your dad. Was he buried or cremated?’
‘Both. Well, cremated. Then they buried the ashes. I think. Why?’
‘I was just thinking it might be easier to bring him to the heather, that’s all.’
He sniffs a little, picks at the bamboo neck of his umbrella. The contraction is only sensed, not seen, but she knows he is drawing inwards. Justine has actually made a dosser recoil. The itching increases. She checks her watch. At home,
Murder She Wrote
would be starting – and he’d be looking for his first can of the day. Bastard never got up till lunchtime. Never. She wonders what woke him this morning. Not her, no way. She had been quieter than death. Three joints and virtually an entire bottle of Grouse had been consumed; she had glugged it out for him herself. Sat two hours on the edge of the filthy bath, waiting to bolt. Each time she flexed her elbows to push up, her stomach burned, and a little spit of urine escaped. As long as she stayed there, she could say she was at the toilet. Gentle rocking, dwindling to inertia. As dawn broke, she could see the open door slam shut – and that scared her even more. Without breath or sense or shoes she gathered what she had to, and got out. Askit was sleeping in the yard, barely raised his head. He’s trained to keep people out, not in. She shoved her boots on, knelt to kiss the dog’s ugly head. ‘Bye, baby.’ Half-thought about taking him too, but if he kicked off, she couldny control him. ‘Love you.’ A thump of his tail as she passed.
He would have woken to birdsong. A grey half-light of fag-stoured windows. He would have dreamt he heard a click perhaps? Or sensed some greater emptiness than was usual. How fast had it gone, that little winding mechanism in his brain, before he started looking? Not for her, but in the wardrobe, the drawers? That box under the loose floorboard under their aching bed.
‘Sorry, folks,’ the bus driver shouts. ‘Road’s closed up ahead. Looks like a rockfall. We’ll need to go round in a bit of a circle.’
Fine by Justine. More time to be in limbo. She listens to the hum of engine and passengers, glancing up every now and then to check their progress. By mutual accord, the tramp and Justine have stopped talking. She sinks back to almost-doze.
They are driving down into a deep, long valley when she notices the first one.
Stones.
Hulking grey spears of stone, some in groups, some a single silhouette. Piles of smaller rocks studded in between, like gems in a chain, or foot soldiers in an army. Together, the stones form a thick rope of cairns and standing columns, marching along the basin of the glen. Beyond the valley, hills arch to sky: green and cloudy purple; to grey and milky-blue. The sun is low, heavy, and, just for a moment, a burn of orange flashes over the whole, sending shadows deep into the glen.
‘Shit!’
She feels the bus lurch, slamming them forwards in their seats. A half-open ashtray, her forehead striking, the in-and-out lashing of a whip. Her neck springs back, is catapulted away. Another slam as movement stops. Shouting, the kids all screaming, folk yelling on the bus . . . she is on the bus so?
Justine is puzzled. It’s raining. Her head dulls and shimmers, her head is opening out again but it feels nice and dizzy and it is raining. One by one, tiny droplets splash the floor, her boots. The splashes on the floor are pink.
‘You OK? Here . . . look you’ve cut yourself.’ The tramp’s rough hand is holding her chin. He shoogles the wrist of his other hand so the sleeve falls back. He has a whitish shirt underneath, which he’s using to wipe her blood. Showing her his knuckles as proof. His knuckles are red; the hairs on his knuckles are red. Somebody’s red-headed son, once. She can’t bear it. She shoves him away, batters down to the front of the bus.
‘Can I get off? Please? I’m . . .’
‘Whoah now, hen – gies a minute.’ The driver starts to open the doors. ‘Don’t you go puking on my bus. And watch they bloody sheep!’
A rich brown boom follows. ‘She’s got a head injury!’
The driver releases her. She stumbles outside, thick-woolled sheep scattering, jostling her legs.
She recognises this place.
In the summer, hardy wildflowers will come. Straggly blooms of saxifrage and cowslip will push through moss and the tussocks of wiry grass, fleeting colour across the land; loping and long, across hills and glens that flow for ever beneath sharp sky. Five thousand years before, this pale sun would have struck off the same jags and curves that she is looking at now, buttering rocks that were old, seeping under crags that were ancient.
She wills the nausea away.
‘Ho, you all right?’ the driver calls.
‘Yeah, yeah.’
She surveys the road, the sky, the land. About a mile away, on the hill, sits a little church, a row of houses facing. One hill erupts like a plook behind the church, all on its own in the middle of the plain. It’s dotted with sheep. She squints at the different colours. No, it’s people, bending and dipping.
‘Can I just get off here, please? Stay off, I mean?’
‘How? There’s nothing here.’ The driver follows her gaze. ‘Ho, now wait: there’s nae polis there. I mean, if you’re looking to make a claim or something: that wisny my fault. They sheep are bloody kamikazes—’
‘No. No. It’s not—’ Pressing her brow with the heel of her hand. A sticky lump is forming.
The driver climbs from his cabin. Lighting a fag.
‘Look, hen. I could lose ma licence—’
‘Honestly. I don’t want to make a fuss. Can you just get me my bag, please?’
‘Here, it’s fine. I’ve got it.’
Somehow, the tramp has joined them. ‘But you need to get that seen to. I think it’s going to need stitches. And
you
need to get your first-aid kit replenished—’ Umbrella jiggling on his arm, he’s waving a white tin box at the driver; an exaggerated warding-off of his smoke.
‘Here! Did you go in my cabin? That’s a total liberty; that’s authorised personnel only—’
‘Excuse me!’ yells someone on the bus. ‘Can you all stop chuntering and get back on, please? I’m gonny miss my ferry.’
‘I’m fine,’ says Justine. Behind the two men, the strings of stone glitter. Behind the stones lies a bleached field of tree-bones. Acres of logging, then more stones and cairns. The skies closing.
‘Trust me.’ Deftly, the tramp applies a pad of lint to her forehead. ‘I’m a doctor.’
‘Aye,’ says the driver. ‘And I’m the Queen of Sheba.’
‘No gauze, I’m afraid.’
‘What is this place?’
‘Kilmacarra Glen,’ says the driver, breathing in his Silk Cut. He pats his sternum with his fist. Coughing it all up.
‘Kil-ma-carra.’ She tries the sound out.
‘’Scuse me . . . there.’ The tramp stands back. ‘All done.’
‘Thank you.’ She touches her hand to the pad. Soft and thick, like the inside of her head. ‘Is there a tourist information place?’
‘No really,’ says the driver. ‘There’s a hotel, but I think it’s closed down. Or, you could try over by the church – there’s a wee tearoom there. You could ask them.’
This will do. This place will do you.
Justine puts her bag on her shoulder, begins to follow the road.
‘That you away then?’ shouts the driver. ‘D’you no want me to drop you off up the hill?’
‘No. No thanks.’
‘Here, wait. Take this.’ The tramp comes after, is holding out his brolly.
‘Och, no. It’s yours.’
‘Please. It looks like rain.’
The oiled silk glides like metal in her hand, the hooked handle warmer. It’s a lovely thing.
‘At least let me give you something for it.’ Though how she’s going to reach her stash of notes could be a problem.
‘Absolutely not. Now, listen,’ says the orange-doctor-tramp. ‘If you feel at all sleepy, you must call a GP, right? Or NHS 24.’
‘Yeah. Thanks. I’ll be fine.’ People on the bus are staring. She has to keep moving. ‘You take care . . . ?’
‘Frank. My name is Frank. You take care too, yes?’
‘Cheers, Frank.’
‘You sure you’ll be all right?’ says the driver. ‘No that I’m accepting any liability or anything I mean, there’s a’ seatbelts fitted; it’s up to—’
‘I’m fine, I promise. I’m good.’
Which is a lie, of course. The money down her pants is testament to that.
First thing you see of Kilmacarra is its dead. As you approach, there’s a sweep in the road, then a clean rise beyond you, like half an egg. Squat on top, a small dour church, watching over the graveyard terraces that slope in tiers downhill. Sun-traps of a sort, these little flatnesses, facing east across the glen, positioned to see every arrival and departure. When the living go to worship in Kilmacarra, they can’t ignore the dead. Even if they avert their eyes from the blunt gravestones and look upwards instead, there’s the name of every dead soldier of the Great War, carved above the arched kirk gateway. That worries Michael. Such awareness of your own mortality. He’d much rather have grown flowers in his garden. Serves him right for living in a manse. He’s thick with mortality – and morality. Thick and sick and tired. He thinks he might refuse to open his eyes.