Strip the Willow

by John Aberdein

  They got out of the city just before midnight, when the tide was full, swimming up the slackened river. Peem was the weakest link. Gwen and Pawel did strong versions of head-down freestyle, whereas Peem swam slowly, like a stick insect fond of air, on his back. It was dark enough, with plenty wind on the waters, else they might have been spotted and shot. Then it was a question of moving where it was possible to move, sometimes by brambled dyke or broken woods, or bending their backs along the river path. Bridges they avoided. Humpy stone and swinging slat bridges were choke-points, easily manned.

  Gwen thought of her mother’s face: it was a real picture once she had tracked her down, sheltering with Lucy, and demanded to know where the stash of spare Semtex was likely to be, from Calving Glaciers.

  Bear in mind I’m not your wee lassie, she’d said to her mother.

  Okay, said Alison.

  Because we’re well past the days of the wee lassies, she had insisted.

  Okay, okay, said Alison, dinna blaw ma heid aff.

  Hope I’ve got better targets, Gwen had replied.

  Peem thought of Iris, who had sped them on their way, stuffing the spare space in the poly-lined knapsack with provisions. She kept ramming things in, wrapped in foil or plastic or kitchen roll, or kept for the top, like cake and bananas.

  Watch, Iris had warned, and eat your bananas early, or they’ll be mush. Do you want a flask?

  I’m sure we’ll find water, Peem replied.

  Iris squeezed his hand.

  A flask for after the swim, yes, I think so, said Pawel.

  Are you vegetarian? said Iris.

  How do you know? said Gwen.

  Your skin.

  I do take fish, said Gwen.

  These are herring I’ve lightly smoked, said Iris, they’ll keep a day or two. Do well all of you, she said to the three.

  Thanks, Iris, said Peem, you’re a gem.

  Never mind that, Iris had said. Bring me something useful when you come back. I need sphagnum moss for keeping the wounds clean. Here. And she’d given them an extra black plastic sack.

  Pawel thought of Maciek, trying to tend his absurd garden, and of Lech and the other Poles, forced from their squats and penned in a makeshift camp, pending deportation. He’d show them a better way.

  Further upriver they risked a hitchhike, in agricultural vehicles and delivery vans. In Braemar, when they got the length of Braemar, they did something about their lack of bicycles that didn’t involve money. They pressed pedals, moved up to Inverey, Linn of Dee, and on to Derry Lodge, seldom separating, taking turns to lead and break the wind. The Linn of Dee was roaring; the snow must be melting on the high slopes of the Cairngorms.

  – We don’t want to get high too early, said Peem. They stuck instead to the very long valley of the Lairig Ghru, moving off the main path in the lee of Devil’s Point and hugging the river, past the white bones of pine revealed in the bog.

  – How old are these trees? said Pawel.

  – Three thousand years, said Peem.

  – And how old are you, grandad? said Gwen. She didn’t say it like Grandad, not her style, little interest in that.

  – Eleven, twenty-two, thirty-five, ninety, said Peem. Two grouse got up and gave their startled call. I don’t do age, I leave that for the young to fret about.

  – We need to be on the top by dawn, said Gwen. If you guys sleep for a bit, I’ll keep watch.

  – You need sleep too, said Peem. Nobody knows we’re here, none of these sods will guess we’re coming. A couple of hours will do us good.

  – Yes, said Gwen. We owe ourselves that.

  – Che, said Gwen, a little later. I’m thinking of Che.

  But in the late afternoon sun, deep in the heather, the other two were already snoring.

  love, please, give

  When the day was well on, Lucy and Alison risked a brief walk. Despite all the developments out at sea, the oil, the gas, the wind farms, there was still haar, that sudden fog, and the haar came rolling in. All over the Links. Air from the south was flowing over winter-cold water.

  They walked past UberSea, then UberEye, rehearsing missed moments and sketching small plans. Lucy had lost her phone and all her numbers. Haar swirled and rose through the pods and girders. They stopped at the white tree of the dead, where the haar hung in skeins.

  Alison took her Mum’s arm, and they stood in the damp air for a bit.

  – It’s jewellin the end o yir nose, Ma, said Alison.

  Then the fog balled itself up, and billowed off north.

  Forty yards from a tent they were – huge, dank, olive.

  Strung on the wet grass, higgledy-pig, lay rolls and rolls of razor-wire.

  – Oh, god, try them again, said Lucy.

  – They’ll still be ower high.

  – Love, please, give them a try—

  i’ll take off my clothes

  At dawn they’d have to mount a distraction. The bottling-plant for Mountain Heart was sure to be guarded. They had one pistol, which Pawel had captured from the Town House tank.

  I’ll take off my clothes, thought Gwen, and walk towards them. That’s what these fuckers like, anyway, a real good show. Pawel can get them from the back, Peem can disarm them.

  They moved up in the May moonlight, well above the oldest tree-line, choosing dark spaces between glittering shields of snow.

  About the Author

  John Aberdein was born and educated in Aberdeen. After some time herring-fishing and scallop-diving on the West Coast, he taught English and outdoor education in Fife, Hampshire and Orkney.

  He was the first person to kayak round mainland Scotland; a member of the Kirkland Five who campaigned for more democratic schools; and a main organiser of Labour’s move to ditch nuclear power in 1985–86 – a policy since reversed by ‘the divine fiat of Tony Blair’.

  His first short stories, The Can-Can, ken?, were published by Duncan McLean (Clocktower Press, 1996), his story ‘Moving’ was runner-up in the inaugural Scotsman/Orange Short Story competition in 2004, and his novel Amande’s Bed (Thirsty/Argyll Publishing) won the Saltire First Book of the Year Award in 2005.

  John Aberdein is based in Hoy and divides his time between writing, gardening and travelling.

  Copyright

  This ebook edition published in 2011 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  First published in 2009 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

  Copyright © John Aberdein 2009

  The moral right of John Aberdein to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ebook ISBN: 978–0–85790–010–4

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  The publisher acknowledges subsidy from

  (Highlands & Islands Arts Ltd and HIE)

  towards the publication of this ebook