Rise (7 page)

It’s doubtful there are any cops within a ten-mile radius; she suspects Lochallach is the nearest station. Justine has a nose for these things. But given that he is a minister, with a hotline to truth and justice, and that she, Justine the unjust, would like nothing less than to provide her name, address and current location to the police, and given that he appears entirely unhinged – and we all know what that is capable of doing – she concedes.

‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’

‘Yes.’ Then, briefly contrite. ‘Yes. I will be fine.’ A dry whisper. ‘Thank you.’

Satisfied he isn’t going to keel over again, Justine leaves the minister clutching at his grave.
Told you. All loonies here
. Out of the churchyard, past the Kilmacarra Hotel – ah, there it is. Looks all right: clean-white, wee glittery lights making the thickened window neuks all cosy. It’s getting damp again – and dim. What they call gloaming; the light of day gone thin. She flicks up her hood. A gash of brighter light as a man emerges, wearing a kilt. A kilt. Of course he is. Black socks, green tartan kilt, black waistcoat, black Glengarry with a red rosette, and masses of thin grey hair. What do they drink here? He makes himself comfortable against the outside wall. Lights a cigarette. Should she say about the minister? The man nods at her. ‘Ow doo’, in broadest Yorkshire.

‘Hi,’ she replies. Keeps walking. She’ll ask about a room later. If she decides to stay.

This floating feeling. Nobody knows her, or knows she is here. This place is negative space, and that minister none of her business. She has a sudden notion of a tent. Her and canvas and the stones and the sky. If she follows the burn, finds a knot of trees behind a hill and just lives wild. How good would that be? That collie is sniffing about again. In a garden this time, growling as Justine passes. ‘Here boy, it’s me.’ She offers him her fingers. A wee boy comes from the house, stares at her. The dog snarls. She continues walking, the dog growling until she is far away from his house. His best buddy in the churchyard, now she’s a threat. Defending his territory like the men above the gate. You’d think on a planet eight thousand miles wide there’d be room enough for everyone.

Oh for God’s sake, just stop, Justine. Here is far enough
.

But she walks further along the main – and only – road, her bag bumping on her shoulder. She’s getting used to the weight: quite likes the solid reassurance of it pitching and settling. When she’s dizzy from tiredness, she’ll stop. There are no streetlamps beyond the houses; the grey light is turning black. Plenty of cats’ eyes, though, running up the centre of the road. She’ll go a little further yet, just to check the boundaries. She takes her old phone pouch from her jacket pocket. Rattling inside is the bus station pay-as-you-go. Untraceable. Very definitely pink. But it does have a dinky wee torch.

The high verges are fertile ground for weeds and wildflowers. People live outdoors all the time. Perhaps she could forage for her tea. Stay outside for ever. This sense of space expanding; she doesn’t want to lose it. The road is empty; you can hear low traffic hum from far away, carried on the dulling air. But no one is coming to Kilmacarra. Where are the hordes of windfarm protesters? The crusties and the travellers, the greenies and the Druids? Poor hairy Mhairi has baked all that lovely bread. Justine keeps to the lower edges of the verge. Ahead is lighter. That must be west. She is moving away from the glen and up towards . . . Kinmore says a road sign. Will Kinmore be any different from Kilmacarra? No lights, no cars, no human noises. She flicks on her phone-torch. Glitters of quartz on the road catch bouncing light.

What exactly are you looking for, Justine?

A low serrated thrum, rumbling beneath her feet. She trips in the dark. This is stupid. She should go back, book a bed, get some dinner, some sleep. Tomorrow she can decide . . . she, Justine, can decide anything at all. The rumbling increases. She waits. Faint. Very faint like foil rippling, or wads of paper notes. A silvery whispering; the wind rising. And then a boy, emerging from the dusk in front of her: head down, thumping shiny feet in resolute lopes. An iPod wired to his ears. Justine moves in to let him past, he doesn’t see her, then does. Is startled, stumbles out as the rumbling gets louder, Justine dipping, the boy going wide, away. Away?

Suddenly, a van punches past.

It’s a mobile home, towing a wee car behind it – or she knows that after, or her logic says it while her eyes burst only with streaks of coloured light: a white metallic comet, then the swinging flash of the bright red car and a flapping flag and its residue of colour, glowing. And the whoosh and the whoosh and the whoosh. Her belly slackening. Then snapping back to hurt her.

The car misses her by an inch.

She stands a full two minutes. Flesh dancing, breathing in. Breathing out. Where is the boy? Was that a bang, just there, just then, just the two minutes ago, two seconds, ten hours, did she hear a screeching bang? Justine starts to chase the empty tarmac back towards Kilmacarra. To a bend in the road. Stripy chevrons banking the deep curve, white shining liquid in her phone-beam. She hadn’t noticed, on the way out, how the white of the road sign is set to pulse when hit by light. No sign of a crash, no trace of boy, or motorhome. It must have skliffed a tree. What kind of a speed is that to drive on country roads? Hopefully the thing will have a great big dent in its side, at least. But where is he? The boy? She shines her phone in greater and greater circles.

Over by the grass, just before it falls into a gully; something dark and huddled. A bundle of clothes, half on the road. Bright colours: a purple sock, toe pointing at a training shoe further down the ditch. Justine drops bag, brolly, runs towards the heap; it, him, he must’ve been dragged along, it is only seconds since he passed, was running past all strong and solid on gleaming feet. With a whoosh, that fucking whoosh.

Keep running
.

Only for an instant.

He is lying, one leg angled at a sharp obtuse. Pink bone pushing wrinkles through his thigh like puckers on rice pudding. His wee white face; he’s just a kid.

‘Ho! Hoi! Can you hear me?’

No movement. Then a gurgle, a tongue loll. A sliver of tongue comes away, where he must have bitten it.

‘Ssh. Hey, it’s fine. Don’t try to talk, all right? I’ll get help. You . . . I’ll go—’

She tries to pull him off the tarmac completely; it’s his uninjured leg that lies on the road, but still, he screams, not him exactly, but the cavity of his chest flares up, expels its outrage, and she can’t move him any more. Her mobile is still in her hand. With stuttery fingers, she stabs three nines.

‘Ambulance please.’

Bad line, a metallic voice. A woman. ‘Yes, caller. You need an ambulance?’

‘It’s an accident. Just outside Kilmacarra. A boy’s been knocked down really, really bad. His bone’s out his leg—’

‘Can I just take . . . few details. What’s . . . name please?’

‘Look, you need to get someone here now. Now, d’you understand? It’s actually sticking out of his leg. He’s unconscious—’

‘Where exactly . . .’ it drifts ‘. . . you are?’

‘I don’t know the name . . . we’re on a bend in the road, just outside Kilmacarra. There’s a sign for Kinmore and there’s a massive big chevron on the bend that kind of flashes. Do you know where we are?’

‘Kilmacarra? Heading east or west?’

‘I don’t know. There’s a chevron, a bloody great chevron sign that glows in the dark.’

‘A chevron. Yes.’

‘He’s by the road. Just at the big bend outside Kilmacarra. Tell them to go really slow when they see the chevron, right?’

‘It might . . . helpful . . . flag . . . ambulance down. Do you . . . torch?’

‘Yes . . . no. Look, what do I do?’

‘It’s important . . . keep his airways clear . . . he breathing?’

‘Aye . . . well. He’s gurgling.’

‘OK. You . . . to check for obstructions. Can . . . finger in his mouth? Check . . . tongue—’

‘How long will you be?’

‘There’ll be . . . soon as possible. Now, if . . . your name? Madam? Son?’

Justine hangs up. Raises the boy’s head upon her lap. The hidden notes crack like dry leaves. ‘Ssh now. It’s all right. You hang on now. There’s help coming. You hang on. Please.’

She tries to hook her finger in his mouth, she tries, but it’s all blood and swollen. Cannot push herself inside that. Babbling at him, murmuring. Rocking him, rounded metal in her shoulder blades. Soft curls on her knees. Wet. Behind her eyelids is a pressing image. Curly waves. It was on the flag, the car’s flag. Carefully, she inches her arm into her pocket. There’s rubbish, sweetie papers, a hanky. An eyeliner. With the soft tip, Justine copies what she remembers. It is in her head, so it doesn’t matter that it’s dark. ‘Dah.’

She bends her neck forward to the boy.

‘Da-ah.’ His eyes are crammed-tight shut, his whole face is crammed and twisted, all the wrong colours. Sulphur in her nostrils.

‘Ssh. I know. It’s fine. We’ll get help. I promise.’

The ground is damp, she is maybe sitting in it. Sitting in this boy filtering from life, rising like mould on a wall, flooding over her legs, her shoulders. Already it is in her mouth. She can see the ivy growing, watches it creeping in the berry black. She has done this. If Justine Strang had stayed on the bus, this boy would have stayed on his verge. No, he would have reached the village by now, possibly his house. He’d be stepping into the shower and shouting to ask his mum what was for tea.

From a tangle of branches, a soft, whitish owl watches her. Blinks once, then flies off. The boy stirs, like he is settling for a nap.

‘Hey! Hey you – don’t go to sleep. Yes? Stay with me. Are you at school? What – first year? Second year? Bet you’ve got a girlfriend, eh?’

She holds him in her lap for ten, maybe fifteen minutes. The cold melting into nothing. All across the glen: silence. Softly, softly round them, whispering louder, until it rises up, growing strident and defined. Wailing. She has dragged him as far off the road as she could. Right by the chevron – they can’t miss it.

‘Look, I’m sorry. That’s them coming now, OK?’

Gently, she puts the boy’s head on the moss. There is a big branch skewed and broken behind the chevron, and she hauls this across the road. Curt stumps like blunt bone knuckles, all sticking up. They’ll see that in their headlights, surely.

‘I can’t stay. You’re going to be fine.’

She repositions the branch, so the angle is greater, the emphatic
Stop
of its twiggy arms more pronounced. Picks up her bag, retrieves the umbrella, then Justine starts to run. The bus stop isn’t far. Get on the first one anywhere, or she can hitch, or she can . . . if she leaves a single trace, he’ll find her. Fuck, she’s already left a trace. Her lungs are tearing, but she still packs in more gulps than she needs, trying to force the tin taste from her mouth. Why didn’t she stay on the bus? The road has stretched, has tricked her. It gets darker and further while her legs get shorter. Deep, insistent, the wailing screeches. Closer. Closer.

Is here.

As the ambulance lights appear, she hides herself into the undergrowth, letting it sweep past in trails of blue and red and white.

Chapter Four

Not a bad crowd, considering.

Hannah Anderson looks at the buzzing room. She counts thirty-one people in all, including her, her pal Mhairi and the man from the
Courier
Mhairi’s bullied into coming. Granted, some will have come for the drama, the small-town theatre of it all, but some have come for honest debate. And, of course, the baking, which is being devoured in steady chomps, even as the first speaker takes the stage.
An air of distraction, as if he did not quite believe himself
. She slips her notebook back in her bag.

‘When am I gonny get a swatch at that?’ whispers Mhairi. ‘I want to see the dirty bits.’

Hannah covers Ross’s ears. ‘There’s no dirty bits.’

‘Not what you said this afternoon.’

‘Yeah, well. It’s not yet fit for human consumption. Bit like your scones.’

There’s a kerfuffle as an old man comes back from the toilet, and a row ripples to let him regain his seat. It’s a roll-call of worthies: two bald farmers, a tight perm, set of blond dreads, grey short-back-and-sides (ex-military), grey bob, mousy-brown mess, another brown (chestnut; like a lovely horse), steel grey (cropped in at the nape, wavy on top). This is where Hannah lives. A town called serendipity. For the thousandth time, Hannah says it in her head. It’s an elegant, sinuous word, which – like your horoscope – can be bent to many meanings. Hannah’s a writer, one of those soft, beady creatures made of sponge and antennae. Before they’d even thought about moving to Kilmacarra, she’d been sketching the shape of her next book. She had this idea about stone circles, about the people who built them. Then the option of buying the manse came up – in a stone-strewn glen, thank you very much. The church was selling it on their website. Michael, casting round for a new charge, a . . . something. Saw his grandpa’s old house, surplus to requirements. Saw himself the same. Saw the possibility of this place, the cleanness and the rightness of it.

He didn’t want to do it any more, he’d said.
Preaching
. (Although that’s exactly what he’s doing tonight. She watches him lean his bum against the counter, clear his throat. The skin of his Adam’s apple tightens. Lips soft. She’s nervous for him; yet she wants him to fail.) Already made enquiries, he’d said. Friends in the party thought he’d be perfect. The local touch, the lad come hame. Hannah had heard him speak about Kilmacarra, though they’d never been. But if it made him happy? Then she could pretend the sacrifice was all her own, that she was doing it to ‘save her marriage’.
It was perfect!
she told everyone. Fresh challenge for Michael; she’d get to live in a place she’d been trying to invent; country air; no crime; aren’t you jealous? Too perfect to listen to Euan’s protests and the too-quick chronology, and the whispering in her head. My God, it was all the answers.