Acid Rain

by R. D Rhodes

  “I close my eyes and I wonder…. if everything is as hollow as it seems.”

  He made sense. It was the truth, everything was hollow. It was no wonder people were scared to accept the way the world really was, diverting their attention in celebrity magazines, movies, sports and nothingness crap like that. The truth was scary.

  I yawned and looked out at the lorries driving past- lorries full of logs from one of the many man-made, money-forests that were everywhere in that area. There was no nature anymore, nothing natural, nothing Godly. The landscape was dead. The people were dying inside it.

  “Don’t even hear, the murmur of a prayer,

  It’s not dark yet…..but it’s getting there.”

  Old Bob was there with me. The music was with me. He knew what I knew.

  The bus drove through Drumnadrochit, dropped off some passengers, and carried on down the A82. A signpost read-Fort Augustus, 30 miles ahead. I’d heard not along ago about what had happened at the abbey there- choirboys getting beasted by the priests.

  But instead of going towards it, the bus turned right and took us away from the lochside. It drove along the winding roads through gloomy cluttered forests. Then out into the open and past the construction fields of yet another new wind-farm site, where the cement was being tipped out of a lorry into a massive hole in the earth. Then alongside the Beauly-Denny line with the new, giant, electric pylons rising up and away over the distant hills. Tractors and trucks were coming and going everywhere, up and down the mountains, tearing up the earth. The land was for sale. Man’s morals and soul was for sale. Everything was for sale for the right price.

  The pale-grey silhouette of the sun behind the clouds kept sinking closer to the mountains. We went through more forest then a valley opened up beneath us, revealing a small remote settlement of houses dotted about between the trees, their chimneys blowing quiet smoke into the air to mingle with the darkening sky. The bus went round the bend into Cannich, past the old stone church and the less than fifty Victorian stone houses, past its empty caravan site, and onto its lonely main street. We pulled up outside the one village shop doubling as a post office. “Last stop!” the driver bawled.

  Chapter 37

  I woke Harry up as the last two pensioners navigated the few yards to the door and stopped to have a friendly word with the driver. We waited for the last old woman to decline the stairs.

  “Thanks very much.” Harry said. “Have a good day.”

  The driver glanced at his rucksack and his face screwed up beneath his orange cap. His big red cheeks puffed out,“Yous are nae goin camping in this, are ye?!” He nodded towards the snow-capped hills. “It’s fuckin freezin!”

  Harry laughed. “Nah, we’re on our way back home. Been in the Pyrenees the last two weeks.”

  “Oh, lucky yous. Ah’m away to Spain masel’ in two weeks. Cannae wait.”

  Harry smiled. “Thanks again.”

  “Ach aye!” The driver took of his cap and furled it in the air, “Take care then. Toodle- doo!” The automatic doors shut and the bus sped off.

  “What a character,” Harry laughed as we laid our bags down on the pavement outside the shop. Harry adjusted the straps on his rucksack and put it back on.

  “Which way?” I asked.

  “Down this road straight. I think it’s about a four-hour walk.” He tilted his head up at the darkening sky, “Don’t think we will get in for sunset though.”

  I guessed we had about an hour’s daylight left. “Just find a safe spot to camp along the way then?”

  “Aye.”

  We put on the hiking boots we had bought and threw our old peeling trainers into the bin. Harry bent down to re-tie his laces. I tightened the cords on my own rucksack. It was like a ghost town. The only signs of life came from the lit windows on the other side of the street, and the plumes of smoke blowing from their chimneys. The pavements were empty, and the road too, but for a few cars parked up and sleeping.

  Harry tightened one boot and moved to the other one. Inside the shop, a bored sales assistant was sitting amongst the bright light, twiddling her thumbs on the counter and glancing at the clock. I could feel the air getting sharper, the cold curling around my neck and shoulders. I watched Harry double-knot his shoes. When I looked up again, the sky had turned much darker.

  Harry stood up, looked at me, and smiled the same smile he’d had since we arrived in Inverness. “Okay?”

  “Okay.” I said.

  We hit the road at a good pace. The sun sank behind the mountains. Clouds hovered low and threw huge shadows of themselves on the ground. We walked about a mile out of the village, a grey river gurgling on our left, black silent forest on our right, and the road ahead.

  “Are you okay?” Harry asked.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Why?”

  “Just wondering. You’ve been quiet since this morning, since you got back from that walk.”

  “Mm.” I muttered. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  I could feel the darkness coming in around me.

  “It’s just seeing all that, on that scheme, it makes you sick.” I said.

  He nodded and pulled his hood up. Our new boots sounded heavily on the road. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

  We walked in silence. I could hear nothing but the river. Then Harry halted in his tracks, “Wait a minute, that’s not really it, is it? Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. Stop asking me!” I snapped. I kept walking, faster.

  An owl hooted from somewhere in the woods. We came upon an old stone shack, sheltered away in a flat bank at the right side of the road, surrounded by leafless trees. We looked at each other and wandered in for a look. The oak door was open on its hinges and we stepped inside the bare rock walls onto the bird-shit covered floor. By the old fireplace someone had painted in large white letters “The ghost of Annie Lewis stays here. Keep away.”

  I went up the wooden staircase to the top floor, Harry right behind me. Taking care not to step through the empty spaces, I stood up over the floorboards. Half of the corrugated iron roof was missing, and the other half of it was so slanted there was hardly room enough to stand. But it was empty. We went to work laying out our sleeping bags in the small pocket of space.

  I got into my bag and watched through the missing ceiling as the clouds rolled past and the night stars came out and got brighter and brighter along with the full moon. Harry set up the battery-operated lamp-light and started spreading jam sandwiches for tea. It weighed on my mind.

  I didn’t hear a single car pass the road.

  It was all so quiet out there.

  There wasn’t even a squeak from the birds.

  I thought about it.

  “Harry?” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  I pulled my covers in tighter and tried to get the words out, but they never came. I kept looking at the stars and tried to get it out.

  “What is it?”

  “I…nuthin. Just thinkin’ somethin.”

  “Do you want cheese in your sandwiches?”

  “I was raped.”

  Chapter 38

  The wind sucked right out of me. I had said it. I had told someone.

  There was a strong, sharp silence.

  “Um, er, okay,” Harry stuttered. His black eyes were as wide as I’d seen them. He sat down on the bare floor next to me, picked up his sleeping bag and wrapped it around my shivering body.

  “When did it happen?”

  I looked back at his long, thin face as he waited.

  I sat up and inched into the slope of the roof. I looked up at the sky then back at Harry then at the floor. “It started when I was twelve. My dad, he,-he,-did it when I was twelve.”

  Harry nodded. His scarf had slipped a little, and in the bright moon's light, the right side of his neck was glistening red.

  He waited for me to say more.

  I exhaled deeply. My soul was in me somewhere, but it felt like it was hanging out on a line. I waited for
my strength to come back.

  “My mum and my dad were happy, till they broke up when I was nine.” I told him. “I had the best childhood up till then, and they loved me. But he lost his job. He was a politician. They caught him swindling money, and my parents got unhappy and broke up. My mum didn’t want anything more to do with me. She found a new man with two kids and moved on, so I was left with him. And one night, when I was in my bedroom, he came home late, opened the door. Pulled down the covers and, and did that to me. He said it was my fault mum had left him. Said he was going to teach me a lesson. Then he came in the next night, and the night after. Even when he got his old job back and a new girlfriend he kept coming in. But I had nowhere to go, I didn’t have any other family, I didn’t know what to do. I was just a kid. And he kept at it for two years. Then last year I... I killed him.”

  Harry’s eyes were impassive. He nodded calmly and encouragingly. “How did you kill him?” he said softly.

  “I, um,..I can’t really remember it much. I just-..,” I took a great deep breath and spoke quickly to push it all out, “He came into my room again, after he hadn’t tried it for all those years. I pushed him away. I said he made me sick, and for some reason he looked at me funny then just walked out the room. But I lay there, thinking, and then my mind just went blank. It was like I was on auto-pilot. Like I had to do it. I got up and went downstairs, went into the kitchen drawer, and took out a knife. Then I went through to the living room, he was watching TV. He had his suit on and his back to me, and I stabbed him in the neck. He screamed but I didn’t feel a thing, I was like a zombie. I pulled it out and stabbed him again in the chest. My arms were all wet and warm with blood, it spurted onto the couch and the floor everywhere. And as he fell to the ground I kept doing it. Then I went upstairs and got into bed. And that’s where the police found me forty minutes later. He had twenty-two stab wounds.”

  Harry’s eyes widened. He quickly looked away, then looked back at me. “Is that how you ended up in the hospital?”

  I tugged the covers in tighter. “Yeah, I..I.. had to go to court, but they couldn’t find a motive. His girlfriend didn’t know about what he had done to me, but she hired a good lawyer and they,…um…I couldn’t say anything. I was just, speechless. They were all looking at me.”

  I tried to calm myself. I took another deep breath.

  “They came up with different theories and talked about me like I wasn’t there. They held up pairs of my pants in the courtroom. It would have humiliated me, but I was frozen inside. So I was sent to the mental hospital because they thought I was crazy. Had gone mad with jealousy, I heard them say in the distance, even though they were right next to me. They said I was jealous of his girlfriend. Jealous that he wasn’t giving me enough money. He was spending too much time away from home and I got annoyed. So they sent me away. Mrs. Mack, my social worker, knew what had happened though, and I didn’t even tell her, she just knew. But since it all started, I have been getting these blackouts, depressions, and they just come and go, but it’s gotten worse in the last eight months. I just,..I just see no hope.”

  I could tell he wasn’t sure whether to hug me or not. Instead, he sat cross-legged.

  “I don’t understand why it had to happen to me. Why did I have to get a parent like that? Why did nobody notice, or care? And now, whenever I see someone suffering, especially kids, it just makes me sick. I feel like I can feel their pain, but it’s everywhere I look, and I don’t know why and you’ll think I’m crazy but, well, what happened to me, it feels like that’s what’s happening to everyone else but in a different way. Even the planet. It’s like, they’re taking everything good and worthwhile and, I just, I can’t describe it, all that’s left is bad stuff. I don’t know. Sorry.”

  “Hey! Don’t be sorry.” He wrapped his arms tight around me as the tears burst forth. They dampened his jacket that was in my face. I could feel myself shuddering violently.

  “It’s okay, mate. It’s okay. Let it all out.” His fingers stroked my head. I cried and cried till I wore myself out, seeing nothing but black as I smothered myself into his chest.

  Chapter 39

  I woke up under an avalanche of sleeping bags and jumpers, the moon beaming a silver light upon me. I glanced over at Harry, lying on the bare floorboards. He had his back to me with his arms wrapped around himself, shivering with nothing covering him but a jacket.

  “Hey, what you playin at? Take your covers back.” I threw one of the sleeping bags over him.

  “I don’t need it, I’m fine.” he said, trying to hide his shivers. “How you feelin’ anyway?”

  “A bit better. Thanks.”

  And I was. I knew it was going to be a long process, but I was so glad I had finally told someone and got it out between someone else other than God.

  “That’s good. I mean it, you keep those covers.”

  “Well, we’ll share them then.”

  I wiggled across the floor, pulled all the covers over the both of us, then I turned my back to his. But when I heard his teeth clattering together, I turned and put my arms around him to try and share my body heat.

  “How long was I asleep?” I asked.

  “Couple of hours.”

  “Have you slept?”

  “No.”

  We held each other for another ten minutes till he stopped shaking. He shuffled away, readjusted his jacket pillow, and folded his arms beneath his head.

  The world was so silent. It was like we’d fallen into some otherworldly chasm. I glanced over from time to time, Harry was so still it was only by his blinking eyes on the sky that I could tell he was awake. The stars twinkled red and orange and yellow. A few odd shapeless clouds drifted over the cratered moon.

  “Aisha?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What was your dad’s name?”

  “John.”

  He went quiet for a few awkward seconds. I wondered what he was going to ask me.

  “John McGilvary?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Just wonderin.”

  “You think you’ve heard of him?”

  “No... No I haven’t.”

  There was quiet again. “That’s one of the worst things anyone can do to someone. For you to come through it like you have, and be as functional as you are, you’re incredible.”

  “Well, it’s done now. I just want to put it behind me.”

  The moon climbed higher and the temperature seemed to keep taking sudden drops. I pulled the covers tight to my neck, but it didn’t prevent the chill getting through.

  I could feel his nervous energy. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “Hm? Nothing…Well, it’s just,..it’s disgusting. The whole act of sex, to me, is disgusting. And men that have done that, over the years…” he shuddered. “We’re just animals. Chimps. I…” he didn’t say anything else.

  “How many homes did you get passed around?” I asked.

  “Seven. Eight. Yeah, eight. Three foster homes, three care homes, my parents, and my uncles. I’d been everywhere from Inverness, down to Manchester, back up to Edinburgh by the time I was thirteen.” He shuffled on the floor for the hundredth time in twenty minutes. “I’m gonna have to go back into town tomorrow and get some decent sleeping bags. This is ridiculous.”

  “I know. We were too rushed. How much we got left?”

  “Eighty quid.”

  “That should be enough for a couple decent ones.”

  “Yeah, probably. But there won’t be much left after that for food. We could do with a stove as well, it’s gonna be a struggle to cook in weather like this.”

  “I know.”

  A cold shiver ran through me. “So, who’s going?” I said. “You, or me, or both of us? It was Eight-twenty each for those single tickets.”

  “I’ll go. It’ll save the extra fare. If you want to wait here I’ll come back properly prepared this time. I’m sorry. I fucked up.”

  “Don’t be stupid. I’m here too. You didn
’t force me to come.”

  “I know, but I should have known better. All my rough living’s been done in south England, and in nothing like this. I’ve never been in a cold like this before.”

  “We’ll be fine, as soon as we get the few extra things we need.”

  Just then a shooting star trailed across the sky. I made a little wish. Then I pulled my head under the sleeping bag and blew in my warm breath.

  I rolled over. While Harry shuffled around, I tried stuffing my sleeping bag with my hoody and jacket. It didn’t work either. We were on our own separate wars against the cold. Before long, everything was glistening like diamonds- the stone walls, the floor, even the sleeping bag. Frost.

  “It must be at least minus five.” Harry said.

  I thrashed about, it was piercing from all angles. I gave up and got out the sleeping bag and braved the air that tried to seize me.

  “Hey, where you goin?”

  “For a run.”

  I pushed my feet into my shoes and fumbled my way down the stairs and out the door. As soon as I was out of the building, I took off. I raced up the road and back, then up the road and back again. I bounced on my toes, trying not to slip on the tarmac.

  Harry joined me. We stood on the hard grass and did star jumps, clapping our hands together as we brought them back in. We laughed at how ridiculous we were.

  My heart was thumping with the exercise. Eventually, I felt my toes again. I put my hands on my hips and watched as Harry took a turn at running. He hopped from one foot to the other, like he was about to do the long jump. He pulled a daft face and I burst out laughing.