The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Chapter Seven: Storm (Part II)

I spent a couple of days on the Isle of Skye, walking around mostly along the shore, swimming in the sea, and reading my way through a bunch of cheap crime and romance novels I picked up at the hostels. In the hostel in Uig in the north of the island I met Ruth, a thief from London who had specialised on backpackers. We spent a night of getting drunk on whiskey and swapping tales and tips about grafting and life on the street. I tried to get her to join me in some confidence game, but she wouldn’t. She had been screwed royally by another con artist a while back and had been caught. It had cost her 10 months and 2 prison rapes. She would never again trust anyone to play anything more complex than straight theft. She tried to get me to team up with her for that. I’d had enough of that in Leeds.
Thursday afternoon I got a ride out of Broadford Bay. Sparring was opened right away with the confession of the Honda Civic Si diver who had picked me up that he normally didn’t take on hitchhikers because of “how today’s youth is”. I probably succeeded in confirming most of his prejudices – more than he knew when he finally kicked me out at that unmotivated roundabout outside Achnasheen, since I had lifted his wallet and a high end mp3 player from the coat he had flung on the back seat.
I was still giving him a two fingered salute and shouting some choice expletives in Polish and Turkish after his diminishing hatchback when a muddy, dented, bottle-green Defender One-Ten Pickup stopped next to me. Two sheep were bleating under the aluminium hard-top covering the bed. The window was cranked down and a large, slender brown dog looked out. Past him, from the driver’s seat, a young man with a freshly stitched up face peered at me.
Faesger ma. Masel ween ye want fer anusser ride.”
He wore dirty curderoys, tall, olive Wellingtons, and a colourless, coarse woollen jumper. His hair was cropped to a fuzz. The stitches on his left temple and cheek gave him a rakish appearance, but underneath he seemed friendly, and open, and ready to laugh.
He reached past the dog and opened the passenger door. I climbed in.
“Thank you.”
Isheh do veha,” he answered and put the car in gear. “Masel uss on t’wey tae Inverewe, by Port Maree. Bit if yer gaun aist A coud tak ye tae Garve or Ullapul.”
None of these place names meant much to me, though I had heard of Ullapool. So I said: “Ullapool would be perfect, if it’s not too much trouble.”
He let the clutch come too fast, and stuttering and coughing the Defender crawled out of the roundabout, and only picked up speed as we passed through Achnasheen, past the train station and a burned down hotel. The dog sniffed at me and gave a short bark. His tail thumped against the vinyl upholstery.
“Awricht. Masel uss Conall. T’ dug uss Jovantucarus.”
“Daniel,” I answered.
“Nice tae meet ye, Danny. Whaur ye frae?”
That one was always tricky. If you are too far from home, it raises all sorts of questions. But passing yourself off as local obviously doesn’t work either. Back in England I had sometimes gone with relatives living somewhere beyond where my ride would take me, sometimes embellished with a sick single mum and the need to stay with said relatives for a while, but in the Highlands I had made the experience that peeps were apt to go out of their way and hand me over to my imaginary family. So I went with this tale instead:
“I’m from Canada, but my dad’s grandmother came from Scotland. My parents are visiting some distant relative today, but I didn’t want to, so they let me explore a bit on my own.”
Conall was astonished at how far I had gotten, on my own (I kept underestimating travel distance in the Highlands, it may not be much as the Crow flies, but given the state of the often single track roads, it was a lot in travel-time), but I think I would have pulled it off, had not a police car come our way shortly after, lights flashing. Normally, the best way to react to the rozzers is by keeping your face under control and just going about your business as if nothing’s amiss. But the A832 between Achnasheen and Garve had been bloody deserted and I still had the wallet and the mp3 player of that Civic driver burning a hole into my pocket. So I slunk down and pressed myself into the corner between seat and passenger door. Conall watched me and raised an eyebrow, but kept on driving.
“Sumtsun masel shoud ken?”
I tried to turn my slinking manoeuvre into a yawn and stretch, fully aware that it wouldn’t be convincing, not after my worried glance into the wing mirror. But the police car had disappeared behind us, and it set up my next yarn nicely.
“C’mon, Danny. Masel uss no blind. Why’re ye hidin frae t’ polis?”
I summoned up the memories of Cannich and all the shame and resentment I could and put on a sullen face. And I told him about an abusive dad, and a stupid cow of a mother who never fought back – and how last night he had gone off on one of his rages again, back in the holiday cottage on Skye they had rented. How normally I would weather these storms at a friend’s place, but how there wasn’t anyone here. So I’d taken some money and planned to make the best of it, stay in some hostel, and wait out the three days it usually took him to calm down again.
I mostly stared out the window or at the scuffed tips of my boots as I talked, my head ducked to match the role of the battered child, but I threw Conall a furtive glance, and to my astonishment saw he had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. There was no doubt on his face, just compassion and concern.
“You will not hand me over to the cops, will you? If they drag me back now, only one day into his fit, he’ll smile and be polite and my mom will back him up in everything. They’ll make it all out to be my imagination and stuff. But he’ll kill me once they’re gone. Seriously, you must promise not to tell!”
Conall promised, solemnly. And then he invited me to stay at his family’s place for the night. I tried to wriggle out of that, but I’d dug myself in too deep, and short of jumping out of the car and running away, there wasn’t a no he’d accept for an answer.
So at Braemore Junction, he took the turn for Wester Ross, and in silence and a golden sunset we drove through some of the most breath-taking land I have ever seen. On the right the sea, quiet and slate grey, and reaching for the horizon. And on the left the earth dark with moor and heath, and the rushes pale golden and shivering in the wind. And behind that, dusted in snow, the mountains, rising, and rising, like time made substance.

6 comments:

  1. As I've said before, this is very interesting reading, but you've cured me from ever picking up a hitchhiker. I envy your writing skill.

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  2. @Brian: Thanks. ^_^ But please don't generalize from my bad behaviour. In my experience, most peeps are decent folks. It just so happened that I was one of the bad apples.

    There are a few simple precautions that make stealing not impossible (total safety is in itself impossible) but so hard that it usually is no longer worthwhile: (1) Keep valuables in pockets that can be zipped up, that are inside your clothing, and/or on your front, where you are more likely to have them in your peripheral vision. Don't leave valuables unattended.
    (2) If someone bumps into you, don't pat yourself down. You're then showing where you are keeping the goodies.
    (3) If someone you don't know helps you, maybe because you dropped something, stumbled, got a smudge on your clothing, or something like that, check for their unseen hand and/or possible accomplices. Most forms of theft opperate through distraction. It is hardly ever the hand you see you got to worry about. Same if you help someone else. Being elderly no more equals being innocent than being young does.
    (4) Don't keep everything in one place. Spread your money, traveller cheques, mobile phone, car keys, house keys, credit cards, mp3 and camera spread out over your body (and still zipped up.)
    (5) NEVER, EVER keep PIN-Numbers together with Cash Cards!!! Make sure nobody can see your fingers when entering PIN-Numbers! Don't let anyone distract you while you withdraw cash or pay with electronic cash.

    None of that should be news, but it can't be repeated often enough.

    And finally: Don't get too attached to anything. Everything can break, can get lost, and can in spite of every precaution get stolen. But meeting new people and learning about them is something nobody can take from you. If yer failin' yer playin'.

    Safe travels everyone.

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  3. Sounds like very good advice, from someone whose obviously an expert. Thanks!

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  4. Man, you have a good ear and a good sense for dialects.

    The last line really stands out for me: "like time made substance." Nice.

    I think today I'll try to get caught up with your posts, but from then on just read one post at a time. That way, if there is any back-n-forth discussion to do, I won't get lost. Cheers.

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  5. @Andrew: Thanks. And I'll welcome any back and forth. Things are a bit crazy here these days, and I hardly manage to continue with my own text, but I'll get back to your blog and the current discussion there as soon as I can. (I kinda miss it, actually.)

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  6. Aahhh. Miss you too.
    [warm fuzzy feeling]

    No worries about my stuff. Whenever you can. But keep in mind, you are one of the few that seem to call me on my bullshit. :-)

    Heck. I'm still figuring it out as I go. You have lived your own text, and so you better find a way to get it down!

    Later.

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