bear sick

1. Whittingehame.

Stonypath, Herring Road. Penshiel. Dirrington Little Law, Dirrington Great Law. Dye water, Twin Law. Lauder. Melrose. Tweed.

Eildon Hills.

2. The herring road, and the trade inland. The drover’s road, where the cattle came down from the North. In the Eildons, the warlock, Michael Scott. So powerful he split the hill into three, cracking out a seat for himself in the saddle to see past and future. He locked the plague up in a castle vault, and when it came to be his time to die, he set out walking. 

3. Whittingehame. I left early. I followed the road for several miles, then cut up onto the moors. Lunch was an apple the first day. Later I ate chocolate, and salami with oatcakes.

I swam, dried off, walked more. I saw and heard a curlew, watched hills recede into dusk. I camped by a river. I cooked pasta. In the morning, on through Lauder. I lay in a meadow at noon. By evening, I was through Melrose, over the bridge, and up to the saddle of the Eildon Hills.

4. Down by the river in Whittingehame, when I was six, I cut my knee so the water turned pink. When I rose, numb, my brother watched red streams trace down my shins and screamed. We ran home together, me limping when I remembered.

Bonfire night, rings of gorse on Twin Law, and the sparks flying horizontal into the black gale.

In the Eildons, I told my son a story. We sat on heather, and we looked back, past Twin Law, Dirrington Great Law, Penshiel. I pointed at dragons and armies, camel-clouds and mackerel. The low wide peaks sat hard and old beneath. It seemed impossible that I could have walked from there to here, or that I would go back, or that, once back, I would ever have been away.

5. Whittingehame. Click of sticks on tarmac. A forked road and a rabbit. A house in a high valley. A sharp descent. A river meander.

Cold like waking, warm sun, and a slow dry on a hot rock.

High moors. Track trenched and ditching. Mottled bright light, puddles thick with peat-black tadpoles.

New pine gate to old beech copse. Grass to the back of the neck. Cool green river, wide spaced trees, long slung bridge, broken lace stonework. Bright scattered gorse.

Wide saddle, long valley.

Eildon Hills.

I walk on the left. I stand on the right. I mind the gap. I offer exact change. I drive in the bus lane Sundays only, or 7pm to 7am weekdays. Match-days I don’t park and, leaving the pub, I am considerate as this is a residential area. I only take three items into the dressing room. I keep my ID visible at all times. I floss, brush and don’t sit on radiators.

I use linseed oil on the wooden worktop of my kitchen. I wear matching socks, sometimes. I stand up for the old lady on the bus, and intentionally sit next to the Muslim, because I’m no bigot. I wear my wedding ring on the third finger of my left hand. When watching football, I clench my fists. I do jury duty, or I would if they ever called me. I have a stack of payslips, because you should keep them for two years. When I throw away my bills, I tear out the pieces with any personal information on and burn them.

I say sorry to strangers I pass on the street.

I have O-levels, A-levels, a degree and a PhD. I have badges for woodcraft and knot-tying in my drawer. I look at sexy pictures when I see them in a non-embarrassing context, fix them in my mind and then masturbate later. I phone my sister regularly.

On special days I do special things. I treat myself. My treats include: Tesco’s finest; items from the expensive delicatessen; a bottle of wine that either costs above £7.99 or has been reduced by £4 or more.

I run, sometimes, walk often and take the car when I’ve got too much on my mind. I visit the hygienist and lie about my diet. When people tell jokes, I do my best to laugh, and when someone is unfunny or socially inept I do my best to ignore the fact that I am subtly excluding them. I call people mate.

I make coffee first, then toast. If I eat blueberries I always remind myself that they are a superfood. I monitor my blood pressure. On Saturdays, I buy the Guardian, and turn to the scrabble puzzle first. I never raise the toilet seat, but I always wipe it after.

Sometimes I rate my friends according to how happy they are. I place myself in varying positions on the scale, but never at the top. In any given situation I will at one point think the worst of it, and at another think the best. When my wife was ill, I reassured her until she was reassured, at which point I panicked. I was right to.

I often use the phrase ‘to be honest’. I also make use of ‘at the end of the day’. When I drink my accent comes through, and when people notice this, I tell them how much I regret not having a stronger one. Among the most frequent conversations that then occur are: discussions of identity, and how you can say who you are in the modern world when all around you is in constant flux and the norm is for migration and career change; debates about how working class/middle class/occasionally upper class different members of the group are; diatribes about the drinking culture of Scotland backed up by statistics half-remembered from a newspaper article five years ago.

When I have a cold, I say ‘I’m coming down with something’. When other people have a cold, I use the phrase ‘the dreaded lurgy’ and discretely hold my breath. When considering major social and political issues, I try to see both sides of the argument, while remaining faithful to certain core values. I genuinely believe that people like the smell of their own shit.

I go to the cinema when I remember to. I mostly watch films that are second on the list of things I want to see. I eat out alone sometimes, and when I do I bring a book, which at first I hold, and then when the food comes I prop under the edge of the plate until it becomes impractical or I get sauce on the page.

Unbroken egg yolks give me a lot of satisfaction.

In the last few years, I find myself often having this conversation: Someone asks how I am, I reply fine, but with the added nuance of varying tones of voice and expression, we say some things, and they touch some part of me and say, ‘you know where I am.’

I always think, yes I do, you’re right there.

I buy new shoes for specific purposes. Sometimes these can be fairly tenuous, such as the fact that I might want to go walking on holiday and should buy some shoes that are both light and sturdy, but I never just think, oh, I fancy those shoes. This doesn’t stop me from looking at other people who have better shoes than me and thinking, why do I never buy shoes like that? But even as I do so, I am aware that notwithstanding the reasons I buy shoes, there are also rules about what type of shoe I buy that would exclude most shoes I admire other people for wearing from my possible repertoire.

I often rationalise my thought processes to the point of absurdity.

I find it hard to cry. If I notice myself moving towards a point where I might, my self-consciousness kicks in, and I feel like I’m taking advantage of my upset to make some kind of social gain. I often mentally compare crying to either orgasm or sleep – both of which I find unattainable with too much forethought.

I forget myself at work. Every now and then someone asks a question about my weekend, and I remember. The bit I like the most is when students say goodbye at the end of the lesson, and for some of them, I almost feel they are sorry to go.

One of my most common thoughts is to recall moments when I felt the world was a curtain rising.

When I have conversations with seventeen-year-olds about the choices they make, I have a patter I work through. I tell them about how the choices I made were not so much made as encountered. I talk about how there really isn’t such a thing as the right choice, and how we can never know what the consequences might have been and therefore shouldn’t try to second-guess them. I tell them the stories of some of my choices, editing out the ones it would hurt too much to repeat. I watch them as they talk, and I think about how much they know and how little. While they listen to my words, I tell them silently other words, about how maybe we can know what the consequences might have been, about how the choices they make now are going to spin their lives off in vastly divergent directions. I say, silently, that they should ignore everything I say and do what the fuck they want.

When I eat my Sunday morning croissant, I wonder if I will do something different. I know the answer. Every question I ask, I know the answer now. I can anticipate my reaction to films before I see them.

On holidays I go for three-day walks. I plan meticulously. I pack carefully everything I need into my walking backpack. I include a gas stove, although I rarely use it, and both waterproof trousers and gaiters, although I know that I will always choose to wear either one or the other, never both. I buy the maps I need, and trace the route on them. I promise to myself that I will take it slowly, that I will write, that I will think. I often even write the promises down. And when I start, it goes like this: day one is harder at first than I thought, but then I get into it. I walk fast. I love the feel of the air in me. I watch the purple skies and steely light over the moors and feel wide. Day two is a slog. I realise I am going too fast, but I am not enjoying it, so I see no reason to slow down and prolong the experience. I realise I’m too tired to think about all the things I want to think about. Day three is often marked by things such as wet clothes or a blister, and becomes a race to the point where I can stop. Nearing the end, though, my mind clears, and I start to feel the same spacious joy I felt in the first few hours, and then I wonder where all the time went. On the train returning home, there are two thoughts, or variations of two thoughts, that circle. One is loneliness, worked into the bones like cold. The other is the smell of the highlands, the rich mossy birch and bracken that tricks my brain back to childhood.

Always, I remember the rope swing, the mud under my feet, and the faces around me. I remember one face. I remember a taste, and the sway of a body, a touch. These things catch at moments with their invisible hooks, and lift them.

When I get off the train I walk with purpose through people, taking long steps in thick boots as if I’m still on empty moorland and they are rocks and sheep. At the barrier I pause, adjust. My oyster card is in the left hand side of my wallet. I read the free papers in this order of preference: Standard; Metro; London lite; City AM.

When I shower, I let it run until it’s hot. I stand, delay for a moment putting my head and face under. When I do a shiver runs over me. I wash my armpits first, then across my chest, then my penis. I crouch to wash my feet. I always wait a fraction too long at the end, not wanting to step out of the water.

My rarest treat is a conversation I indulge in on one of my many anniversaries, with the oldest of many old friends. It is like an exorcism. We talk until we reach a point we can both see approaching. How we start varies, but we always get there. Something cracks the surface.  I repeat my question. And he gives his answer.  The answer varies. But it always gives a reason. And I always disagree. I wave my hands as I talk about possibilities unspoken.

Afterwards, I go home. I sit in silence. With a glass of whisky, I make a conscious effort to rifle through memories. I let them scroll out in my mind like a photo-album. I pick the ones I always pick to dwell on, fingered by use. After a while, something different happens. An unexpected echo, something real.

I don’t always cry. It doesn’t always happen. But after, if it has, I wash my face and stare hard in the mirror. Then I do what I always do. I brush, floss, piss while I’m doing it, wipe the seat with a piece of toilet paper. I go to bed, read, sleep with the pillow vertically beside me. Wake up, do it again. Coffee, toast, blueberries. I have to. 

Copyright Samuel Wright 2011

The Christmas House

Johnny dared me once to steal a piece of Christmas from the Christmas house. I said no, because of God. But he made a spaz face at me all day so I promised to do it for a Twix.

Johnny hated the Christmas House. He said it was wrong to have Scrooge next to Santa. I said, it didn’t matter, because they were both with the Baby Jesus, and that’s what Christmas is all about. I didn’t like the grotto, though. It was really just the back door of the Christmas House, and it had an iron grating on it, with a Santa that waved behind, like he was in prison.

The easiest piece to steal was a Santa head. They were all lit up and hung down so you could reach. You just needed to get some scissors and cut the string. I did it on Christmas Eve, because we were bored and it might stop me thinking about presents. Only, the string was electric. Johnny said it was lucky I was wearing wellies, but still, the whole of the Christmas house went pfft.

We ran away, but then I said it was like that film about Christmas, and we had to be good to get presents, so I went and told Mr Christmas what I’d done. He told me to piss off, though, so I spat on him.

I still got a bike for Christmas, though, so next year we’re going to steal the Baby Jesus.

“You travellin’?”

He was squat and dark, dark like they say in old books to mean a little foreign looking. His voice was, as far as I could tell, southern.

I looked at Flora. She was better at strangers than me.

“Yes,” she said, brightly. “We’re heading up into the mountains – the Cascades.”

“You from England?”

“Yes. Do you know how we can get there?”

“The Cascades?”

“Yes.”

He looked around the car park, then began to chuckle.

“How come you’re here?”

Flora rolled her eyes. I seethed.

“Wrong bus,” she said.

“Bad information,” I said.

“You ain’t getting to the Cascades tonight.” His voice crinkled a little, then he erupted into full blown laughter. “This sure ain’t the Cascades!”

A boy in a crisp shirt was cycling in tiny circles over in front of the first in a row of gated drives. I watched him until he noticed us, wobbled in a skid of gravel and zipped off. A blue, dusky chill was settling in the air.

“Is there somewhere we can camp near here?” asked Flora.

The man raised his eyebrows. “You wanna camp?”

“Yes, we were going to camp in the mountains, but I suppose we’ll have to go tomorrow. Is there a campsite?”

I pointed to a large notice in the corner of the carpark. “It’ll say there.” I shifted weight and hauled my pack off my back and onto the tarmac, and walked over. I made sure I looked at the notice from a position where I could keep an eye on them.

It said this was Pinelawn, and there was a golf club, and a private estate, and buses that stopped at 7pm.

It was 7.30.

I heard Flora laugh. I walked on, beyond the sign. There were trees, and beyond, a lawn.

 “This is Monty,” said Flora, when I returned. Monty held out a hand, and I shook it. “He says we can’t camp here. There’s private security.”

“They drive round, and if they see ya, they’ll bust ya.”

“We must be able to go somewhere,” I said.

Monty smiled. It cracked his face open. “I can show you where to go. I’ve gotta campsite.”

“Thanks,” I said, “But I think we’ll be fine.”

Flora looked at me. Her eyes had that look. It was like that time in Malawi when someone passed me a small baby to hold, and I could see it was covered in snot and probably urine, only she looked at me like I was Cecil Rhodes, and I just had to.

“But maybe it would be really helpful.”

She gave me a little smile, then a wider one to Monty as he led us off.

“This isn’t my permanent camp. I just been here a couple days.”

The lawn was Pinelawn neat. Nice shrubs, metalled path leading off to one side. Sheltered by trees.

“This is lovely,” said Flora.

Monty beamed. He went over to the bundle on the ground under one of the shrubs. He pulled out a poncho.

“This is all you need. I can make camp with this, a few sticks, and I’m happy.”

I dumped my bag. I looked at his bundle. I could see there was a sleeping bag there, but it was greasy with use.

I turned to Flora. “What do you think?”

“Is there a place we can put our tent up?” she asked.

Monty chuckled. “You won’t need it. Not in summer. They’ll see it from the road, anyhow.”

I looked at Flora. I made a face. She frowned back.

“You settle yourselves down, and I’m going to find us some beers.”

“No, honestly, don’t worry about us,” I said. “I’m not even sure-“

“Let us give you some cash for the beers,” Flora interrupted. “Here.” She pulled out a ten dollar bill.

Monty frowned and waved his hand at us. “Oh no, don’t you worry.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

While we waited, I played with the grass. I almost asked her if this was revenge for the bus, or for the motel in Reno. The sky was dusty and fading to a deep rich blue. Between the leaves I saw a nugget of lamplight. Flora rifled through her pack, busy with nothing. I watched her. After a while, I figured out she was hiding her passport and money in her pants.

We settled round a small fire. Monty handed out the cheap, super-strength lager he’d come back with. He talked about ‘travellin’ a lot, as did we. Flora told him some well-worn stories, I added details, and Monty laughed, huge peals of cackling, then coughing.

It all felt very normal. The sky was dark now, and Monty’s face was mostly in shadow. I liked him, I think. I know I imagined what we might say about it all when we got back.  I think I imagined starting by saying, ‘I can’t believe we did this, but..’ Or, ‘We met the most amazing guy!’ I knew when we told it that some people would put their hands over their mouths, and open their eyes wide, and say things like ‘You did what?’ I knew it would make me feel good to hear how shocked they were.

I stared at Monty’s shadowy figure, and imagined how I might describe him.

“Tom! My buddy!”

A tall shambling shape approached, hands hanging bear-like.

“Tom!”

Monty rose. He slapped the newcomer on the back and pointed at him. “This is my buddy,” he said.

We smiled and said, “Hi,” shook hands, sat down.

You could tell right away that Tom was a little broken. His voice slurred, not much, just a hint, like a stretched old cassette tape. He was funny, though. The two of them had a little double act thing going, like old friends who know the jokes in advance and finish each other’s stories.

“Tom, my buddy Tom.”

Monty slung an arm round his friend.

“He’s just a dog. Dog Tom. Tom the dog.”

Tom barked.

“You wanna know why he’s a dog?”

We nodded, smiling.

“Cos he’s a dog!”

(woof woof)

“No, but you wanna know?”

Nod again.

“You don’t wanna know!”

(woof woof)

“You sure as hell don’t wanna know!”

We drank cheap lager. Monty spoke, laughed. He talked about places he’d been, other campsites.

“Travellin. I fuckin love it. Don’t you love it?”

He pointed to the stars.

“I ain’t slept in a house for five years.”

We told him about our trip. Flora told him about the motel in Reno. He laughed at us. I told another story, and threw my arms around her, to prove I didn’t care.

“So you two in love, right? You in love!”

“Uh-“

“No, you can’t say shit to that! Look at your face!”

(woof) said Tom.

“Hey, look at him, man! He knows it! You gotta marry her, man!”

Later, towards the morning. I haven’t spoken for a while. The leaves catch the light of the fire on one side, and the streetlights from the car park on the other. I drift, vaguely. It might be time for sleep soon. Monty, laughing at nothing, deep and rasping. Flora, laughing too. The sound dies away, but above, I see stars poking bright holes through the thin smoky cloud, and beyond, the deepest, richest blue yet, so blue it’s black.

Monty, I think. Monty. Monty the traveller. The night we met Monty. My friend Monty.

“I remember the first time I killed a woman”

My thick brain sharpened abruptly.

“It was in the Gulf. Kuwait. She came runnin up over the side of a dune, and she had one of them – whaddaya call it? All over. Like a tent. Like a  goddam poncho.”

I stared at Monty. His face was cut deep with shadow.

“The captain told me to shoot her. Never know if they’re gonna have a bomb or some shit on underneath.”

I looked over to Flora. She was laughing at something Tom had said now.

“Heavy shit, you know.”

I nodded.

“They never give you anything after, either. Fucked up.”

He raised his can to me. His eyes caught the light. They were warm and sad. “Cheers, buddy.” He slurped at it, then grinned and smacked his lips. “That’s the shit.”

I stared at him. Tom barked from where he was squatting in the shadows. Monty let out a sudden sharp howl and stood up, arms out.

“Tom the dog!”

Monty’s laugh rang out, deep and wide and worn down to the bone. He turned to me. His eyes gleamed.

“You wanna know why he’s called Tom the dog?”

Suddenly, I knew that I really didn’t.

“You wanna know why he’s called Tom the dog?”

I felt sick.

“It’s cos he shits like a dog! On the sidewalk, in the park! Tom the dog!”

Tom barked. I smelt the stench of faeces tucked under the wind.

I did sleep, later, but I dreamt of being cold and scared in a field under diamond-sharp stars. In the morning, I woke from my shallow sleep to see Monty having a piss against a tree. I closed my eyes, then opened them again. His hand moved in sharp jerks and his head was craned unnaturally.

I looked over to Flora. Her eyes were black and open in her grey face.

Monty insisted on taking us to the supermarket to get supplies before we headed off. He pointed us in the direction of the best road for hitching on, too. In the supermarket, he even insisted on buying us some food.

“This is the stuff, man, this is what you want when you’re travellin.”

We couldn’t say no. We tried, but it was too hard to insist, and in the back of my mind, I was sure the security guard was watching us, looking at Monty in his shabby combats.

He shook our hands at the side of the road.

“It was good to meet you folks,” he said. “Good luck travellin’.”

His eyes were soft and for a second I thought he was going to cry. He stood for a moment, then turned quickly and shambled off.

We got a lift. We hadn’t spoken much while we waited. We were at the trailhead in a few hours. There, we sat and checked our baggage. We had tents, a gas stove, mats, sleeping bags, gore-tex waterproofs, and bags of dried fruit. And a plastic bag filled with cheap white bread and luncheon meat.

I made to throw it away, but Flora said no, we had to take it.

So we did.

The trail was beautiful. Lush, clean woods, rough grey boulders and artful patches of blue sky gave way to a high rocky path cresting and dipping between bare, ragged peaks in skirts of green. At the top of a pass we ate. Flora pulled out the white bread and luncheon meat. The meat peeled off in uniform grey discs, and the bread was skewed and doughy.

“I’m not going to eat that,” said Flora decisively.

I grinned. “But you wanted to take it.”

She looked at me. “You know why I wanted to take it.”

“I don’t.”

Her face was alert, bright, sharp, everything I loved.

She shook her head. “I don’t care what you say. I don’t want it.”

I looked at the meat. It shone.

“Imagine the animal this came from,” I said. “Like a giant earthworm put through a bacon slicer.”

“Ugh!”

“Like a slice of whale dick.”

“Stop it!”

She was grinning.

“They probably mince up hobos to make it. Tastes of the real travellin’ experience.”

She made a face and pushed my hand away. I made to shove it in her face and she flinched and grabbed at my wrist. We tumbled off our bags, giggling.

Eventually, we threw the meat over a cliff. If you flicked your wrist, it span and sailed on the updraft like a Frisbee.

Kayla, 29, was pretty, but in a pinched way, both literally thin and narrowly perched on a section of the border between beauty and ugliness that was particularly precarious. She was sitting awkwardly on some badly-carpeted stairs, holding her labia open with a greedy expression on her face. Even on her spare frame, the pose made her stomach ruffle into rolls. Her inner thighs had acne.

Sofia, 21, on the other hand, was burnished like lino. This wasn’t an afterthought for her. She’d had a spray tan to cover her knicker-marks. Her anus and vagina were partly shaded puckers in an otherwise smooth bronze surface.

Robert turned the page. Neither would do. If asked, he would have said Sofia was better, but there was something too doll-like about her. It wouldn’t always bother him, but this time was special. He didn’t want it to be hurried, or furtive, or stimulated by something nasty. He wanted to be looking at a nice, clean bit of pornography, a well-formed, beautiful woman who looked like she had a healthy body image and wasn’t in any way aspiring to appear underage or subjugated. And when he’d found it, he wanted to have a good run up at it, a nice long build up and a good strong burst of semen. The doctor kept on mentioning natural selection amongst sperm, and so he felt an obligation to make sure they were released upon the world with vigour, a positive attitude, and as little hateful degrading of women as possible.

He could hear people moving around outside. He wondered what the guy before him had chosen.

This was so much harder than before. When he was being tested, it had been a pleasure. Instead of work, masturbation – careful, hygienic, guilt-free. They did that bit in a different unit, though. You pressed a buzzer to get in, filled in a form, and waited to be ushered into a further locked corridor. Off that corridor was a locked room. That was three locked doors – two between you and anyone else. Also, in the room itself, the porn was in a discreet blue box, along with two chairs (mysteriously) and a relatively spacious en-suite toilet.

Robert definitely disapproved of the sex industry.  He’d enjoyed the strip-club at his mate’s stag night, but only because it wasn’t for him, and anyway he’d made a point of smiling at the girls in a kindly and understanding manner. But this was different. It was medicinal.

The blue box contained quite some variety. There was your obvious, low-grade stuff. Nuts and Zoo. He wondered if anyone bothered with that here. If it was embarrassing in normal life to be caught reading Nuts, how much more embarrassing to satisfy yourself with Lucy Pinder’s Gigantic Jugs when countless Asian Babes were fingering themselves just a magazine away?

Mind you, the Asian Babes were not all babes. There was definite variation in quality. And they were both Asian in the sense of Indian and in the sense of Thai or Chinese. The distinction seemed to be that the Thai or Chinese girls were shaved to the point of weird asexuality, whereas the Indian ones (on the small but presumably representative sample Robert had taken) were abundant, almost aggressively so. One of them in particular made a point of emphasising how the hair spread out for at least an inch on either side of her pants. He imagined that somewhere there was probably a whole dissertation on racist archetypes of the vagina.

As for the rest of the magazines, you could literally choose from 18-80. Both extremes equally problematic.

It had occurred to Robert with reasonable frequency, both while rifling through the blue box and on the lazy walk home afterwards, that someone must have bought this stuff. Someone must have been allocated a portion of the NHS budget and told to go and buy a sufficient range of porn to cater for all tastes.

Maybe there were official categories. A tick list in triplicate. Schoolgirls? Tick. Spanking? Tick. Lesbians? Tick. Sadistic? Neo-colonialist? Quasi-paedophile? Tick, tick, tick. And did the official porn-buyer test out the goods? Did the staff at the hospital ever sneak into the wank room for a quick one off the wrist?

Not a bad thought, really. Maybe every workplace should have a masturbation room. Boys and Girls. Not next to the toilets – that would just be seedy – but in a discreet corridor (with two locked doors) off the coffee room.

Or that was what he used to think. Now, in this altogether less restful situation, he began to doubt the wisdom of it. All fine if the wank went well, but a misfire could put you in a foul mood for the rest of the day. There’s nothing like desperately trying to knock one off over dog-eared close-ups of increasingly weird-looking pudenda, and finding that turning the page faster only makes them seem even weirder, and thinking how many other people have flicked through this same magazine while vigorously rubbing their genitals, to put you off any kind of meaningful human interaction until the time you can get home and have a long bath.

He looked at the crumpled page through narrowed eyes. He pictured one of those terrifying adverts for disinfectant where fluorescent germs spread inevitably from malevolent household objects to the innocent mouth of a child.

He wondered if the handwash would be bad for his penis.

No. Concentrate. This was a serious business. He could not afford to let his mind wander. His future child’s identity was in the balance, depending on which sperm were prioritised. This was no time to end up with one of those half-limp wanks where the main emotion upon ejaculation was just relief that the whole sorry business was over. He needed a proper, sex-starved early teen epic.

He checked his watch. 9.34. He’d been in here almost ten minutes.

He rubbed a bit more vigorously, but it didn’t really help.

It all came back to this fucking room. As soon as he had entered the building, he knew it was a whole different ball-game.

For starters, there was the simple layout of the ward. Beds two feet apart, and a couple in each bed. Thin blue curtains separating them, but you could still hear the breathing, and the whispered gynaecological details. Every now and then a loud bell sounded and the gaggle of women at the main desk muttered and giggled.

Then there was the nurse. After Louise had changed into the backless gown, the nurse had come by with some forms to fill out. She was small, wizened, Chinese and extremely hacked off. They’d made faces over her head. There was another wait, and then she was back, holding a small pot like the ones you get olives in from the deli at Sainsbury’s.

“Come on,” she said abruptly.

Robert followed. With feverish bravado, he had winked at Louise. She looked like she was going to piss herself.

The nurse led him to a door between the main ward and a glass fronted office. It opened onto a small cubicle about a metre wide, with a sink inset in the wall like the toilet in a train. It reminded him inescapably of the narrow cattle pens he’d seen at his cousin’s farm. At one end was a plastic-covered chair, and there was a rack with two tatty magazines, Reader’s Wives and, in front, with an improbably busty Chinese girl open-mouthed on the cover, Asian Babes.

Robert felt an uncontrollable blush spread over his face. He tried to stand between the nurse and the busty Chinese girl. It felt indecent for them to see each other.

The last straw for his dwindling libido was the instructions. The nurse plonked the pot down by the sink and said,

“Wash your hands. Ring the bell when you’ve finished.”

His heart missed a beat. “The bell?”

She pointed. It loomed on the bare wall. The cackling laughter of the nurses echoed in his head.

 “Write the exact time you ejaculate on the label,” she said. Her eyes slid over his face. “And tick if you collect the whole sample.”

She slammed the door behind her. It shook, as if it might just splinter into nothing.

He picked up Reader’s Wives. Even aside from the racism, it just seemed more moral to be looking at people who hadn’t been paid to do this.

He heard the nurse walk back over to the desk. A peal of laughter rang out. He could hear the murmur of a voice on the telephone next door.

He opened the magazine and dropped his trousers.

Now, ten minutes later, he was not much nearer his goal, and was increasingly aware of the unpleasant way the plastic covering of the chair was sticking to his thighs.

He turned the page.

Angela, 27, spread her legs and pulled off her pants in an unnecessarily elaborate way over the few pages of a picture story. By the end of it she had her finger up her arse and her pussy was wet.

He caught himself. Pussy. Seeing that on the page had made him think the word ‘pussy’. Was the porn infecting him? Maybe this was turning him into a misogynist. What would Virginia Woolf think of him now?

No. Concentrate.

Her pussy was wet. Angela’s, not Virginia Woolf’s.

Stop it. Think sexy. Wet pussy.

Or was it? Was it really? This was a photo. It was set up. Did pressing her bum up to a camera with her finger up her arsehole really make her wet? Or was it just lubricant?

He looked closely. It did look quite clean and well-defined. Neatly within the appropriate space, copious and yet confined.

Maybe it had been Photoshopped.

No. If they left the acne on Kayla’s inner thighs alone, they weren’t going to bother adding highlights to Angela’s flanges.

Concentrate.

He turned the page again. Another arse and cunt combo. Pussy after pussy. Women posed like tripods on unstable ground. It was amazing how quickly it all became routine. He should find the one. The one that would really get him going, make it a good one. He tried not to get flustered, but he couldn’t resist another peek at his watch.

9.39.

He flicked past the granny section, trying not to look.  Once that got in his head he’d never get rid of it.

There. Near the back. Janice. 25. Curvy. Pretty. Two buttocks presented to the camera, with a neat pink slit between them.

Now or never.

He stroked the head of his penis. This was it. He stared hard. He imagined the feel of a proper good one, the jet of it, the weakness in the back of your legs.

He stared. He adjusted his grip.

This was it.

His hand moved.

This was it!

His hand moved faster.

This was going to be his child.

Simultaneously, he felt himself about to come, and he felt his penis slacken infinitesimally. He was thinking about babies. No good. Retreat. That was worse than Kayla. But just as he was readying himself to back down and regroup, he realised he hadn’t opened the pot, and he suddenly felt the panicked certainty that he would come after all, and it would spurt out wasted over his trousers, and he’d have to either go out and explain to Louise and the nurse and the doctor, or scrape it off and risk spawning a child whose DNA was spliced with the bacon fat stain near his knee.

He scrabbled for the pot. It toppled into the sink, and he lurched forward, one knee dropping to the ground, grabbing it. Janice slipped off his lap and fluttered to the floor. He fumbled one-handed with the pot. With a thumb he popped the lid off and jabbed his penis deep into the plastic container just as, with a tiny sigh of horror, he looked down at Tiffany, 76, lying on her back in a red basque and no knickers, and came.

---

Boots stamped. Concrete echoed flatly after the wide beach.

“Hello? Hello?”

Crackle of fire.

“Hello?”

They knew someone was there. They’d seen the smoke from the hilltop a mile away.

“Hi there.”

They stood, half in the door, half in the porch, damp. Martin stocky, Alfie thin and bowed under his pack. They looked in.

Three men. Two in folding chairs, one perched on a log. Bright small fire. Wood stacked, bag of coal beside it. Tin cans in neat rows on the filthy shelf. Sleeping bags rolled out on plywood platforms. Two coiled ropes in the corner.

“Welcome!”

A Glaswegian accent. Weathered face, clean-shaven, thin hair.

“There’s another room out and round the side to sleep in, but you can come and share the fire if you want.”

In the other room, they unpacked. It was as bare as the first, but without a fire it was no more than a shed.

“What do you reckon?” whispered Alfie. “Shall we join them?”

Martin shrugged. “Yeah, why not.”

They came back through, Martin rubbing his hands. He stepped straight to the fire to hold them up to it.

“So have you guys been here long?” he said.

The man who spoke before answered.

“Aye, me and Rob have been here a week now.” He gave a brisk nod to the man on the log. “This guy just turned up the day.”

The man on the log looked up. He had a thick beard and eyes that wobbled glassily. He was whittling something on his knee with a hunting knife.

Martin stepped back from the fire and sat on the ledge of the window. He pulled out his flask and took a swig. He grimaced, then looked up casually at the first man and offered it to him.

 “Thank you very much.”

He swigged at the bottle. Alfie watched his lips in the firelight pouting round the rim. He could smell damp bog-soaked clothes. It was humid in the small room with five in it.

Martin offered the flask to Rob, who shook his head, then to the man on the log.

 The first man let out a bark of laughter. “Dinnae give it tae him!”

Martin looked round, startled.

“Honestly, pal, the things he’s been saying, you wouldnae want him drunk.”

Alfie watched the man on the log’s face. There was something secretive and childlike about it. His mouth twitched slightly.

 “Fuck you,” he said flatly, looking down at his knife.

Rob raised his eyebrows and the two older men drew their breaths in then began to chuckle.

“See? He’s a right fucking numpty.”

Alfie stood up. “I’m going for a slash.”

He felt the sea as soon as he stepped out the door, even in the dark. There was moonlight, but the clouds shot fast across the sky on a driving wind. He didn’t even need to piss, but he walked a few paces out, up to the edge of the sand. Martin was right. This was wild. He imagined the peaks they’d seen earlier before the rain came down. On the right would be the Black Cuillin, miles of jagged spires and slick rock.  To the left, Bla Bheinn, a tattered shark’s fin rising from the flat open bay. Ahead, just sea.

That was visible now. A low blue-grey mass, shifting and spitting in the gale. His uneasiness returned. There was an uncompromising bluntness to all this. It wasn’t nature as a gentle soothing presence, it was just elements crunching over each other with raw force.

He turned to go back in, an odd flutter in his chest.

The front of the bothy was in a deeper darkness. He froze. A black shape detached itself and stepped out. It was the man on the log.

“It’s a really spiritual place here,”  he said without emphasis.

In the shadows, his face and beard had become one dark mass.

 “Yeah,” said Alfie uncomfortably.

The man leaned forward. “It’s OK.”

“Sorry?” said Alfie.

“It’s OK.”   

Alfie’s heart began to pound. The sky was wide and empty, and the bothy tiny and far from anywhere.

“It is OK, though, isn’t it?” the man said intently. Then his fingers gripped Alfie’s arm. “Isn’t it?“ He swallowed. Alfie felt hot breath on his face. It smelt rank. “It is OK, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” said Alfie. “it’s OK.”

The man’s voice changed gear. “I can take care of myself,” he said abruptly, letting go of Alfie’s arm.

The sweat was cold on Alfie’s neck.  “It’s freezing out here,” he said, “I’m going in.”

That night, Alfie slept unevenly. Several times he woke to hear laughter. Later, when it was silent, he looked over to where he knew Martin was and willed him to wake up and say something.

In the morning, the rain was relentless.

“What do you reckon?” said Martin.

“Let’s just go for it,” said Alfie. He knew that once they were in the pub at the end of the day he’d be able to say he’d enjoyed this, but he couldn’t face another night out here.

They kitted up fully. Waterproof trousers, jackets, map in a plastic wallet. Protective covers over their bags.

“Shall I see if that guy’s up?” said Martin, as he struggled into his pack, heavy with the climbing gear they hadn’t used.

“What?” said Alfie.

“That guy. With the beard. I was chatting to him while you went for a piss. I think he was angling to walk with us today.”

“Seriously?” Alfie said. “I don’t know. He’s …”

He paused.

“I don’t know,” he said again. “Let’s just go.”

They headed for the stream at the back first to fill their bottles. As they stepped away from the bothy into the downpour, Alfie felt a disproportionate relief. He turned to Martin and danced a clumsy step.

“I’m singin’ in the rain, just singin…”

Up by the stream a figure was crouched, washing something. It was him. He stood up as they came close, and they saw his bag was beside him. He was wearing an army surplus coat, belted on the outside, and it was sodden already. He had high-top trainers on his feet, caked in mud.

He held up what he was washing. It was the knife.

“You’ve got to keep them clean,” he said.

He slipped it carefully into a sheath hung on the belt at his middle.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

Alfie looked over to Martin, but didn’t catch his eye.

“Sligachan,” said Martin.

“So am I.”

At first, they walked together. The rain was thick and constant. The drops drummed on their waterproofs.

The clouds seemed only metres above them.

The first river was swollen, but it had burst out and spread shallowly. You could pick across it on stones still. On the far side, they looked back, and saw the man from the bothy hesitate. He looked up at Alfie.

“Come on,” said Alfie quietly. Martin looked at him. “Please,” said Alfie.

They walked on quickly. Soon, they couldn’t see him.

For a while they didn’t talk. Then Martin stopped and turned. He peered at Alfie from under his dripping hood.

 “I am fucking soaking,” he said.

“I think I saw a fish on the path,” said Alfie.

They grinned at each other, and walked on.

The next river was a problem. It came down from the steep edge of Bla Bheinn, thick and muddy. No stones even broke the surface.

Martin looked around. He dumped his bag on the heather and headed up the slope. He came back with two sticks. One was whippy and thin, but the other was practically a club.

“Best I could get,” he said.

He went to the edge of the river. He prodded one stick into the flow. It went all the way.

Alfie looked at the river. It was ten metres or so from bank to bank.

“We’ll have to use a rope,” said Martin. “I’ll go without my bag, and tie it on at the other side. Then I’ll come back, and we’ll go in turn with our bags.”

Martin tied the rope around his waist. He felt his way with both sticks. The water was just below his chest for most of it, but he slipped once so only his head was visible.

On the other bank, he tied the rope fast then came back. Now Alfie went, with the thicker stick in one hand and the other clutching the rope. The water was icy. The pull of it was terrifying, a great weight that dragged at you and made the huge stones underfoot shift and bob. He understood now how easy it was to die here.

On the far side, he lifted his arms in triumph.

“Yes!”

He turned to look at Martin, but his smile faded. A skinny figure was standing on the high ground behind him.

Martin was busy with his bag. The figure began to trudge down the hill. Alfie saw the sheath at his waist and his heart leapt into his mouth.

“Martin!” he shouted.

Martin didn’t hear.

“Martin!” he screamed.

His friend looked up. The figure had reached him. Martin turned and said something. The figure slipped his bag from his shoulder and sat on it wearily.

Alfie sat down. His heart raced. The water was everywhere. In the air, the water, the rock, like the world was dissolving. “Come on,” he muttered to himself. “Come on.”

On the other side of the river, Martin was talking. Then he untied the rope and tied it round the other man’s waist. They shouldered their bags. They stepped into the river, Martin in front, holding the rope, the other behind, tied on. His hair and beard were plastered to his face now, and Alfie could see how gaunt he was. They began to feel their way slowly across. About half way, the man looked up. His eyes were wide and excited. He looked right at Alfie, and smiled.

Then he was gone. The rope went taut. Martin’s arms flailed and he disappeared.

Alfie ran to the bank. He grabbed the rope. It pointed directly down stream. He pulled at it. It was heavy, almost beyond him, but he pulled. He was shouting, but he couldn’t hear himself.

A head surfaced, gasping. A hand splashed out and grabbed at the bank. The man from the bothy pulled himself up, his face clenched round a fixed grin. He held his knife in one hand.

 “Where’s Martin? Where the fuck is Martin?”

His face was vacant, but then he began to giggle. His eyes were glazed.

“Shit!”

Alfie grabbed the stick and then ran down the bank.

“Martin!” he shouted.

The river foamed, thick and fierce. His foot caught a stone, and he fell sprawling. He sat up panting.

He could see nothing.

He looked back up river. The gaunt bearded figure was standing there. He could see the knife in his hands as he turned the blade over, cleaning each side on his shirt.

“I can take care of myself,” he thought. He imagined the knife, stabbing under water. The swirling cold.

He began to walk back, slowly, tensing himself. He held the thinner end of the stick in his right hand, and steadied the other against the ground. He came closer. The figure was waiting for him. He stepped close, seeing the matted hair all over his face, like an animal, and he lifted the stick and swung.

He dropped instantly.

Alfie stood over him. He lay awkwardly, in a little hollow, his eyes still open. He bent lower to look. Blood was seeping from a long wound on his temple and mingling with the rain.

Alfie stepped back. He looked up. The clouds were higher than before and he could see the slick black rock gushing streams of water. Further down the river his eyes caught movement. Martin was hauling himself up the bank.

Billy snicked the bolt in place. His mum was at Sainsbury’s but he didn’t want to be caught out. He walked awkwardly over to the bathroom mirror, putting one hand down his pants. The cellophane on the pack of Marlboro lights was a bit sweaty as he pulled them out. He wished he hadn’t gone to the shop in his new skinny jeans. It was much easier to hide them in tracky bottoms.

He sniffed the packet. His nose wrinkled. He put a hand down again, then lifted the fingers to his nose.

He grabbed his can of Lynx Africa and gave a quick blast into his pants.

He frowned in the mirror. As well as the new jeans he was wearing a new t-shirt, with scruffed up letters and a band he’d never heard of on it. He flicked at his straggly hair and set his head back on his shoulders so he was looking down at himself. If he sneered and turned a little to the left he might look like that guy from the Strokes.

He squinted. No. He definitely didn’t look like that guy from the Strokes. He did look a bit like a retard, though.

It was so unfair. Cal looked so much cooler, and he was sure most of it was because of his cheekbones. He was older, obviously, but it was the cheekbones too.

He let his lower jaw drop slightly, elongating his face.

He pulled out a fag. Fag or ‘grette? ‘Grette sounded pretty stupid, but Cal said ‘grette. Fag was more generic, less risky, but it also meant gay.

He raised his eyebrows at himself. He gave a little nod, and held out the packet. His mouth lifted at one corner, a wry smile that went with the eyebrows.

He pulled one out of the pack and put it between his lips. He adjusted it,  letting it droop more, lips slightly apart.

He pulled it out of his mouth and blew out as if smoking it. He held it between his first two fingers, but kept them a little bent. Girls held their fingers straight. So did gays. He put it back in, took it out, put it back in. He shifted it to between his finger and thumb. That was how Cal smoked. He put it to his mouth, and this time inhaled, sucking his cheeks in as he did it and frowning.

He went to the door and stood next to it. He called out as loud as he could, “Mum!” He did it again. “Mum!”

Nothing.

He went over to the bath and stood in it. He unlatched the window and heaved it open as wide as he could. Then he stepped out and went to the shower cubicle, turned the shower on and pulled the cord for the extractor fan.

In front of the mirror again, he got out his lighter. He moved to light the cigarette, but then he stopped.

“Mum!” he shouted.

Nothing.

He flicked the lighter. He held the flame up and inhaled. The cigarette crackled and he sucked in the smoke. It scratched. He could feel it inside him like a hot hole. 

He blew it out in a thin stream, examining it carefully in his reflection. He raised it to his lips again, pinched between thumb and forefinger.  He inhaled deeply, then held his lower lip in and blew it in a jet directed downwards over his chin.

He imagined Indira and Lola and Grace and Katie and Carly. He didn’t distinguish massively between them in his mind, but they would all be there, and probably at least three of them would be wearing tops where you could see their tits. Cal would be there with Frances. He’d have his arm round her, and they’d sit on each other.

He was feeling a little light-headed. The smoke hung in the bathroom air. He wafted it towards the window. Then he frowned at himself and inhaled again. This time he left the cigarette in his mouth and blew the smoke out through his nose. It hurt the inside of his nose but it looked excellent. He inhaled again without removing the cigarette, and then exhaled through the nose once more. As the smoke came out, he felt his lips lose something of their grip on the cigarette. He tightened them, and it tipped up towards his nose. Acrid, hot smoke directly from the burning cherry on the end hit his nostrils, and he suddenly sneezed. The cigarette flew out of his mouth into the sink.

He picked it up, there was a damp bit on the filter, but it was still burning OK. His throat hurt a bit now, though. He placed it carefully on the edge of the bath, the lit end overhanging.

He stared at himself. He raised both eyebrows and stretched hi s face. Then he leant in close to inspect the spots beneath his nostril. He pulled his nose over to one side and dug his fingers in to make the whiteheads stand proud of his greasy skin. He was inches from the glass, on one foot. He felt a sharp little stab of pain as he got one, and a satisfying pop of white came out.

He stood back. Then he smelt it.

“Shit!”

The fag was gone. He dropped to the floor. It must have fallen in the corner near the sink. He looked. Nothing. He turned round. In the bath? He looked over the edge.

It was down on the cork floor by the toilet. A thick nasty smoke was rising faster and thicker than it should. He grabbed it. The cherry remained, stuck in a charred hole.

“Fuck!”

He spat on it. The thick gob of spittle landed next to the cherry. It continued to burn. He wiped the spit over. His fingers burnt. The cherry winked and died, but smoke still rose. He spat again.

The smoke stopped. He looked for a minute at the mess on the floor, then he jumped hurriedly to his feet and washed his hands. Then he wiped away the gob and burnt bits with some toilet paper.

There was a clear and unmistakeable burn on the floor. There was also a clear and unmistakeable smell of cigarette smoke and burnt cork and plastic.

“Fuck.”

He knelt down and ran his fingers over it. There was a deep trench in the surface. The plastic coating had melted and bubbled, and the cork underneath was properly black.

“Fuck.”

She would definitely switch. She would completely spaz about this. He could imagine the things she would say. “How can you be so irresponsible? How can you be so inconsiderate? The bathroom was only put in last year! And smoking? Smoking, Billy! You always said you hated it.”

He rubbed at it vaguely, but he knew there was no hope of concealing it. There was no reason for any rug or anything to be there, and anything he put on it would just be moved. And there were no excuses either. This was one he couldn’t weasel out of. It was going to have to be saying “sorry”, and “I know”, and “I’m really sorry,” and “I know I’ve let you down.”

He should tell her straight off. He knew he should. It was the only thing that would help. She’d say, “At least you’re being honest with me.”

But there was no way he’d be going out tonight if he did that.

He wondered if there was any way she’d let him. But he knew she wouldn’t. She didn’t get it, though. He just had to be there tonight. This was his chance. His real chance. He’d felt that before, but all the signs were right for this one. He was mates with Cal now. He had his new clothes, and his cigarettes. All the people were part of the new lot. There was no one there who remembered him from before. And if he didn’t turn up, the momentum would be gone. They’d all have fun, and do things, and put stuff on facebook, and talk about it for months. He’d be out of the loop again.

Last time, he’d seen the pictures of Reece’s party and he’d felt like he wanted to die. All of them shrieking and having fun. People bleary-eyed with drink. Carl eating the face off some girl. Girls in groups screaming mouths open, red and wide with lipstick. Low tops, high skirts, sequins.

He remembered that night with Anna, where he’d felt her pubes. The wetness of her mouth. The elastic of her pants against the back of his hand. The corner, the hard ridge beyond which there was her proper fanny. She’d stopped him before he got there, but it was so close. He could feel that it was going to happen soon. Maybe tonight Indira would just start kissing him, and then say to him, whisper in his ear, “finger me.”

Maybe not like that. It was all a bit vague in his mind, how these things actually worked. He didn’t even know how he’d got that far with Anna, and to be honest, he knew if he’d asked her at any point she’d probably have said no. But it was definitely possible. Louisa was always talking about doing things like that, and Dwayne in year 10 lost his virginity at Robbo’s party last year, on his mum’s bed.

He imagined what it would be like, going to the party, getting back, feeling that finally, it was done. No need to worry about anything anymore.

But his mum. His mum would be so much worse. If he left this, and didn’t tell her, it would be awful. She’d make him feel so bad. She’d cry. Definitely. She’d probably say that it was “so hard”. She’d mention Dad. She wouldn’t actually mention him, but he would know what she was talking about. She wouldn’t mean to, but she’d make him feel bad, and he didn’t want to feel bad. She’d say stuff about how they needed to look after each other, and how she needed them to be honest and open with each other, when all he wanted was not to talk about it for once. Just be a new person, an adult, who looked like that guy from the Strokes and had sex with girls at parties, not just some kid who everyone felt sorry for because his Dad died.

A door slammed downstairs.

 “Billy!”

He had a split second to decide. It didn’t even take that long. He grabbed his can of Lynx Africa and sprayed it liberally all over his head, face and body. He sprayed it on the floor too, just for luck. Then he jammed the cigarettes down his pants again, turned off the shower and opened the door.

“I’m late, mum, I’m just off!” he shouted.

“What?”

By the sound of the voice, his mum was in the kitchen. If he was quick he could be down the stairs and out while she was still unloading the shopping. He ran. The stairs thundered under his feet.

“Billy, what did you say?”

His mum was standing at the door of the kitchen as he raced past.

“I’ve got to go!”

“Where?”

“Party!”

The door slammed behind him. He was out, in the cool night air, and as he ran down the street his neck prickled with fear and excitement, and the smallest touch of shame.