Blast Radius

by Rebecca McKinney

  I wash down a mouthful and look up. ‘Say again.’

  She nods at her plate, then pats her tummy. ‘You can have the rest of my chips.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Aye, go for it.’ She slides her plate toward me.

  ‘Thanks.’ I tip her chips onto my plate and use them to polish off the last of the tomato sauce. ‘Total gannet, eh?’

  ‘You looked like you needed them. Where did you walk from today?’

  ‘Rannoch Station. I ran most of the way.’

  ‘You ran?’ She clocks my Bergen. ‘With that thing on your back?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Jesus. Isn’t that just a little bit masochistic?’

  ‘Yeah, probably.’

  ‘Okay, let me guess.’ She cocks her head to one side and studies me carefully. ‘You’re training for something. Everest. That marathon thingy across the Sahara.’

  ‘Everest?’ I laugh. ‘No. Not training for anything. Just running.’

  ‘Then you’re running from something.’

  I shrug and drain my pint. ‘Possibly. What you drinking?’

  She smiles. ‘Best.’

  I go to the bar and order pints for both of us, watch the rings of foam rising to the top of the Guinness and wonder what pathetic story I might be able to concoct for her. I’ve got six months to live. My wife has gone off with my best friend. I’m looking for God on the road. All of the above.

  I head back to the table and sit down. We drink and chat about meaningless things for a while and then Laura goes to the bar again to buy another round.

  ‘So is it a girl you’re running from?’ she asks when she sits down.

  I take a long drink. ‘No.’

  ‘A boy then?’

  I raise an eyebrow. ‘No. Not quite. Would you have been disappointed if I’d said yes?’

  She flushes. ‘Maybe, but I’d have got over it. So, Sean of Sean’s Way, are you going to tell me what lies at the end of your quest?’

  ‘Ehm . . .’ I laugh. ‘The Holy Grail. The Ring. Yoda. I don’t know.’ I sigh and rub my hand over my chin. ‘A life that’s . . . a little different from the one I’ve had up to now. I’m just in an in-betweeny kind of place, Laura.’

  She leans toward me again, her chin resting on her palm. ‘So am I. It’s a wee bit scary and a wee bit exciting.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve got to the exciting part yet.’

  ‘I can read palms, you know. Let me see and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘I dinnae believe in all that.’

  ‘Give us a paw.’ She takes hold of my right hand and draws it toward her, turns it over and traces her fingertips very lightly over my skin. Her hair brushes my arm.

  ‘Ah ha,’ she says softly. ‘There’s a break in your lifeline, just here.’ She taps the middle of my hand. ‘It gets a little lost, but it starts again here. You’ll find your way soon.’

  ‘That’s good to know.’

  She looks up at me and laughs, still holding onto my hand. ‘I am bullshitting, you know. I can’t really read palms.’

  ‘You’re just teasing me.’

  ‘No, I’m definitely not teasing you. Where are you sleeping tonight?’

  ‘Honestly?’

  She grins, shrugs. ‘Just asking. I’m a bit drunk and you’re a bit nice, so I’m asking.’

  ‘Okay . . . I’m a bit drunk too, so I’ll tell you. Outside. In my bivvy.’

  ‘A bivvy? That’s it? I’ve got a whole two-man tent to myself.’

  ‘A veritable palace.’

  ‘You can share my palace if you want to.’

  I clear my throat in astonishment. ‘So, what’s the deal? Is it a man a night between Glasgow and Fort William?’

  She sits back and lets her mouth hang open. ‘Is that how I come over?’

  ‘No. Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’ve had too much to drink.’

  ‘So have I.’ She drains her pint and stands up. ‘I need a pee.’

  She disappears into the Ladies’ for a couple of minutes, comes out with a damp, red face and pulls on her jacket. ‘Come on, then. Unless you’d rather be in your bivvy all night.’

  I finish my own drink, grab my Bergen and follow her outside toward a compact pup tent on the other side of the burn. It’s cold and mostly dark now, a brilliant spray of stars showing through deepest blue, the black brooding masses of the hills all around us. There is a rush of wind through the stand of Scots pines in front of the hotel and a little burble of water, muffled laughter coming from inside, the occasional whoosh of a car passing on the road.

  ‘Well, here we are, home sweet home.’ She stops in front of the tent and turns toward me, wavering a little as if a second thought has entered her mind. I stand there like a kid on the doorstep after a first date.

  Get some, Marine. An American voice: Texan.

  Fuck off, Mitch. Do I get no privacy at all?

  Laura looks over my shoulder curiously. ‘What was that?’

  I turn. ‘What?’

  ‘I thought I just saw . . .’ She pauses for a moment, scanning the heather behind us. ‘Nothing. I thought I saw someone.’

  ‘Who?’ I ask, too quickly.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shivers. ‘Somebody just walked over my grave, I think.’

  I am tempted to agree with her. ‘The moor’s a creepy old place at night.’

  ‘Aye. Anyway, come in.’ She turns on her torch, kneels and crawls in, kicking her boots off in the bell end before pulling her feet inside. I pull my ground mat and grot bag out of the Bergen, squat down and arrange them inside beside hers, then pull off my own boots and get in. The tent is barely high enough to sit up in, and we huddle there still fully clothed, staring at each other nervously.

  ‘What, no nightcap?’ I ask to break the ice.

  She laughs softly, switches off the torch, then leans toward me and kisses me. I twine my fingers in her hair and kiss her back, then find the zip of her jacket and slip the rustling material off her shoulders like Christmas wrapping. We undress each other hungrily, peeling away layers of sweaty fleece and wool. I hate to think what I smell like, but she smells of Avon Skin So Soft, woodsmoke and fresh air.

  Sex in a backpacking tent is a bit of a logistical nightmare and really only lends itself to the missionary position, but it’s warm and companionable. She giggles at me as I scuff my head off the roof and eventually subside onto the sleeping bag beside her, chest pumping and pulse racing in my ears.

  We lie there for a few minutes, until the night air begins to sting our skin. I pull on a shirt and clean boxers, and she wriggles into some blue thermals, then sits cross-legged on her sleeping bag, switches on her torch and peels off her socks to examine her heavily-plastered feet. It’s definitely not the normal way to charm someone you’ve just met in a pub, but when you’re walking, normal rules cease to apply.

  She smiles at me. ‘Sorry, you might want to look away now.’

  I sit up. ‘Let’s see those.’

  ‘God, no, they’re minging. You don’t need to look at my feet.’

  ‘I’ve seen worse things, believe me. Give ‘em to me.’

  She lies back and rests her feet on my lap. I shine the torch on them, gently peel away the plasters and inspect the blisters. A couple of them have already burst and rubbed themselves raw.

  ‘Let’s sort you out.’ I reach for my pack and locate the first aid kit, pull out a needle and a lighter. ‘I’m going to lance the ones that haven’t burst already, alright?’ I hold the needle in the flame for a moment to sterilize it.

  ‘Is this what you do to all the girls?’

  I laugh. ‘Only the ones who yomp across Scotland in boots that don’t fit properly. Just . . . lie still and I’ll try not to stab you, right?’

  ‘Great.’ She closes her eyes and wiggles her pink-tipped toes. ‘One prick and it’s the bivvy for you.’

  ‘You’ll thank me for this tomorrow.’ I lean down and set to work, delicately poking each firm blister until
a little bead of liquid appears, then pressing cotton wool over it and squeezing out as much of the water as I can. When they’re all done, I rub antiseptic cream on them and leave them unbandaged.

  As I work, Laura finds the RMC flash stitched onto my Bergen, beside my name and stripes. ‘McNicol,’ she says softly, running her fingers over the dagger. ‘Is this you? Sean McNicol. Sergeant.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Royal Marine Corps. So that’s how you know what to do about blisters.’

  ‘Look after your feet. It’s the first thing they teach you. I knew guys who dropped out of training because of blisters.’

  ‘I don’t blame them.’ She smiles. ‘Are you on leave?’

  ‘No, I’ve been out a little while.’

  ‘Is that why you’re in an in-betweeny place?’

  ‘Yeah. Well . . . sort of.’

  ‘I understand,’ she says, and to her credit doesn’t ask any more. Instead, she yawns and wriggles her toes again. ‘That’s much better. Thank you, Sean.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Bandage them up in the morning. I think I’ve got one as well, here.’ I peel my own sock down and examine the rubbed area on my ankle. ‘Almost.’

  She squirms around and looks at my ankle, then takes my foot onto her lap and massages it firmly with her thumbs. I lie back with my arms behind my head, and the aches seem to melt out of my body as she works away on one foot, then the other.

  I close my eyes. ‘That’s incredible.’

  ‘Mmm. They say there’s a connection between every part of your body and a nerve somewhere in your foot. It’s very effective pain relief.’

  ‘Well, it’s working a treat.’

  ‘You’ve never had a foot rub before?’

  ‘Not often. It’s not something that’s done in the Marines, as a matter of course. If there’s any rubbing to be done, it’s not usually of feet. I mean, maybe there’s the odd guy with a fetish or something, but generally speaking . . .’

  She giggles and begins to run her hand up my leg. ‘I don’t have to stop at feet.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ I turn onto my side and let my fingers work their way up the inside of her own leg, until they find their way into her thermals. She breathes deeply, then slips her hand round the back of my head and pulls me toward her.

  After a second go-round, I lie beside her and we don’t talk for a few minutes. The wind pushes at the walls of the tent and makes the pine branches creak. Maybe it’s just the beer or the afterglow of sex, but a fragile peace has fallen over me like a feather come to rest on a fencepost. I hardly dare to breathe for fear of sending it sailing upward again, but for now it lingers. Duncan Campbell, Molly and her photographs and Cauldhill Farm might be a thousand miles away.

  My eyes begin to close as fatigue catches up with me. It’s all I can do to force myself up again, locate my toothbrush, pull on some clothes, slide my feet into my boots and stumble outside for a swamp and a notional wash. I run the brush over my teeth, splash my face with cold water from the burn and take a long swig from my camel pack, then walk for a minute or two along the drive toward the road to clear my head. There is laughter coming from inside the pub, but outside it’s still and, although there is still a blue-ish glow in the west, extremely dark. The Milky Way is a vivid bandolier across the sky, dizzying to look at. I tilt my head back and stare up until I feel tiny and lost and in danger of being swept away into space.

  I won’t tell Paula if you won’t. It’ll be our little secret.

  ‘Oh fucking hell, Mitch, what are you trying to do?’

  She loves you, Nic. Honest to God, real life, grown up LURVE, while you’re rolling in the heather with a stranger. You want to sort out your priorities, buddy boy.

  I leave the drive and head for the trees, thankfully remembering that beer makes me prone to shouting. I reply in a barely controlled whisper, ‘We haven’t committed to anything. You remember. You heard me. She’ll understand.’

  She’ll say she does.

  ‘So . . . what? What you trying to say?’

  I’m saying, don’t blow it. I’m saying mind where you go this time, my friend.

  ‘I always minded where I went.’

  You were depressed and punishing yourself for the kid, and it made you careless. You still are. Harry was right. About blaming yourself for other people’s decisions. What’s the bloody point of that?

  I open my mouth to deny this, but even in my semi-intoxicated state I can see the ridiculousness of lying to a voice in my head. ‘We should never have been there in the first place. We had no business being there.’

  Well, the next time you happen to bump into Tony Blair you can tell him.

  ‘What do you think, Mitch?’

  I think men fight because it’s in our nature to fight. Like baboons. We justify it with politics because we like to think we’re cleverer than they are, but we’re not. So there’s no point worrying about what should or shouldn’t happen, because it’s always going to happen.

  ‘So that makes it alright?’

  Was it alright to kick the shite out of Duncan? Was doing that any more justified because you have business with him?

  ‘No.’

  Ah, Hallelujah! He’s capable of answering a question. Let me ask another one. Are you capable of letting anyone love you? And are you capable of loving them back? Or is resentment the best you can manage?

  ‘That’s three questions, and I don’t know.’

  Come on, let’s have an answer.

  ‘That is my fucking answer! I don’t know!’

  Now I am properly shouting. My voice seems to reverberate off the surrounding hills, and I cringe at the sound of it.

  Well figure it out. There. That’s your hint.

  ‘My hint?’ I whisper.

  Figure it out.

  I stand there, wishing all of a sudden that I didn’t have to go back to Laura’s tent. If she was sound asleep and I could retrieve my gear without waking her, I would happily melt away into the blackness of the moor.

  Laura is dozing in her sleeping bag when I crawl in beside her. She wriggles closer and nuzzles her cheek into the crook of my shoulder. I lie there with my arm around her and my eyes wide open as she drifts off. Wind pushes at the tent and footsteps pass by, bursts of drunken laughter, the trickle of water in the burn. The pub grows quiet, the wind strengthens and weakens and sleep stays just out reach.

  So I lie awake and a route begins to unfold itself in my mind, the path through the mountains clear as the contours of a lover’s body, until I arrive at what seems an appropriate end point. What happens when I get there is less clear, but in a way it doesn’t matter. As Mitch always said, the fixed points on the map matter less than the road you take between them.

  I open my eyes to sunlight, the incessant twitter of a skylark and a dull, dehydrated throb in my head. Laura is still out cold beside me: a lumpy red sleeping bag with a fringe of yellow hair poking out the top. As quietly as I can, I extract myself and crawl out into the cold damp morning, my mouth thick with the tastes of sex and beer. A wave of dizziness passes over me and I step delicately across the heather in my bare feet, kneel beside the burn, plunge my hands into the water and bring up two big cupped handfuls to my face. It’s so cold that my breath catches in my chest and my teeth ache.

  There is nobody about and the road is quiet; it must still be very early. I sit by the burn for a minute or two in my tee-shirt and boxers, then go back to the tent, pull on my trousers and socks and begin stuffing my sleeping bag into its sack.

  Laura stirs. She unzips her sleeping bag a little, raises her head and looks at me, then at her watch. There are creases from her sleeping bag across her face.

  ‘It’s not even five.’ Her voice crackles with sleep.

  ‘I’m gonna get moving,’ I say softly, pulling the drawstring around the top of the stuffsack.

  ‘Which way are you going?’

  ‘To Kinlochleven, then up over the Mamores.’

  She sits up,
rubs her eyes. ‘I’ll see you over the Devil’s Staircase if you want to wait a bit.’

  I pause to consider this, then smile. ‘Sean’s Way needs to be walked alone, I’m afraid.’

  Laura doesn’t protest, but watches me as I press a couple of ibuprofen tablets out of the packet and wash them down with water from my camel pack. Then I break off a wedge of fruit loaf and chew on it as I stow the rest of my gear and lace up my boots.

  ‘Bite?’ I offer her a bit of the fruit loaf.

  A pained expression crosses her face. ‘No thanks. I can’t eat this early.’

  ‘Okay.’ I pop the last of it into my mouth, then stick my arms into the sleeves of the old standard issue green woolly pully which has been with me since Lympstone. ‘I had a very nice night. Thank you.’

  ‘So did I. I hope Sean’s Way takes you where you need to go.’

  I nod. ‘Me too.’ Then I lean in and kiss her once, on the cheek. ‘Cheers, Laura. Look after those feet.’

  We part without exchanging numbers and I swing my Bergen onto my back and follow the little wooden waymarks for the West Highland Way, heading toward the mouth of Glencoe.

  XXVI

  At Altnafeadh I get out my primus and make tea, have a cereal bar and an apple, and watch a raven rising from the craggy face of the Buachaille.

  Raven or eagle? Macpherson asked us once, mid-way through our ML training. We were huddled around a meagre campfire, shivering against a Hebridean November howler, half starving after days of foraging. If you had the choice to be one or the other, which would you be?

  Eagle, we answered, to a man.

  Raven, said Macpherson. The eagle’s hunt won’t always be successful, no matter how good he is. The raven eats what he finds, and he can always find something. That’s why he’s laughing, chaps.

  I drink my tea and watch the raven. He laughs his familiar coarse laugh, like a chesty old miner, circling above the mountains. The sun climbs higher and steam begins to rise from the peat, along with clouds of midges which promise misery later on if the wind doesn’t pick up. A couple of walkers are now making their way toward me from the direction of Kingshouse, another couple behind them.