These Demented Lands (3 page)

‘Caaan I?' the girl goes.

‘You must ask Mother,' went the driver.

I says, ‘Crossing The Interior to The Drome. What way?'

‘Past the mud huts, try not to wake the baboons.'

‘Byeee.' The little girl took away one hand to wave and the miniature train did a circle till its red light jerked and shaked away down the little track, its redness showing on the rails before it dived into a tunnel that seemed made of papier mâché. I trod on along the track, through the silly wee tunnel and round another bend. When I turned right onto open hillside the king baboons must've seen me cause they started such a commotion, and this in turn got all the bloody parrots along at the castle going bonkers.

Bended double like the clans at Culloden stepping into the end, I traversed bensides ever upwards. I climbed straight through steady blackout – the sodden Levi's going stiff on both thighs with the perishingness – knowing always, hung up in some place of aboveness like a cyan-coloured censer swinging in the wind, snugged up in the clam of a scree-clagged corrie, was the campfire: the campfire with its angle of floor that had let me see it when I swam out in the Sound but hid from view deep down at the sole bulb of Ferry Slipway below.

When I came on them it was sudden. The campfire lifted up out of the darknesses as I heave-heaved up a bank. I
ducked down though I knew from the fire area, against nightsky, I'd be invisible.

Two guys – old, kind-of-harmless-looking-slack-jowelled-brotherly-baldiness made you trust them, as if one could never do anything bad in the always-look of his brother. But
it
was beyond them,
it
was lying within the light of the fair-old-bleeze. I squinted, made sure I was seeing what I was but I was so cold I stepped into their light and both men swung and looked at the coffin sitting beside them on the fold-down trestles before they bothered turn and begin to study me.

‘Aye-aye,' coughs one of the brothers.

‘Come away hence and form a square circle, girl.'

‘Aye, let the dogs see the rabbit,' says the First Spoken.

‘Where the hell've you been? Specting you for hours,' says the Most Baldy, pretend-annoyedly; he nicked a peek at First Spoken who let out a honky laugh.

‘Busy the night.' (Gasped, glancing round.)

‘Rush hour . . .'

‘Off our feet . . .'

‘Visitors are such a strain.'

I lowered myself beside the flames and looked into them, smiling; I announced: ‘I cross the Interior to The Drome.'

‘We go the other way. To open ocean. The three of us,' First Spoken spat into the fire. ‘Guess what we've buried under that hearth? A fat clucky hen snaffled from old Gibbon's Acres wrapped in silver foil. Ready in . . .' (his watch clicked down as he flicked a wrist) . . . ‘just a jiffy.'

‘Know how to catch a chicken?' asked Most Baldy.

I goes, ‘Nut.'

‘You catch em at night,' cackled First Spoken.

‘They cannae
see
in the dark!'

‘Cannaesseeeeee!'

‘Would you
like
a wee bite chicken?'

I goes, ‘Oh
yess
I would. Yum-yummy.'

‘Alexander. I hope you've polished the silver.'

‘It was bloody parrot last night and never again.'

‘Can I ask?' I looked across at the dark oak coffin on trestles.

‘Scrawny creature. A parrot steak.'

‘Dad,' nodded the First Spoken.

I nodded back.

‘We promised him he'd be buried at sea . . .'

‘And when he went from us a week on Tuesday we go and find you have to book
years
in advance for a burial at sea with the navy.'

‘And him on the convoys all those years, is that not right, Alexander?'

‘And of course
all kinds
of rules and red tape about doing your own bloody burial at sea . . .'

‘Money makes no difference.'

‘“Nae pockets on a shroud, boys.”'

‘That's what he always told us, “Nae pockets on a shroud,” so we're burying him at sea ourselves, on the other side of the island; we have to cross to The Inaccessible Point, and cause it's inaccessible we have to take him in on foot.'

‘And we'll need a boat to take him right out to sea when we get there . . .'

‘Cast him off on the last voyage; right far out so the wood coffin doesnt float him back in . . .'

I says, ‘Have you heard of a man called the Argonaut?'

‘Him in the kayak? We couldn't trust Father to a one like yon.'

Just then a sound came from the coffin, I swung round towards it. It was coming from the insides of the coffin, it was the purrr, purrr, purrr of a cellnet phone.

‘It's Dad's.'

‘He asked to be buried with it . . .'

‘He was very attached to it . . . never out of his right hand . . .'

‘It's still in it . . .' the First Spoken muttered.

Most Baldy turned away from me to the First Spoken and went, ‘That'll be old McKercher after his fee,' he looked at me and says, ‘Our accountant.'

The phone stopped ringing and after a silence the First Spoken produced a packet of Chesterfields that he offered round. I shook head and goes, ‘I've recently quit, thanks.' Most Baldy took and they lit up offof the fire. Some spits of rain started to come down.

‘Contrary to speculation,
these
are what James Bond smoked,' goes the First Spoken.

The Second Spoken: Most Baldy, says, ‘I am not James Bond nor was meant to be,' he stood and crossed over towards the coffin where a large sheet of polythene was folded; he picked it up and shook it out so's it made a big crackling noise. We were all looking over at the coffin: on its varnished side, bolted on, was a white metal plate with the black letters reflecting in the campfire's unsteady light:

‘What's that number thing fixed to the side?' I goes.

‘It's the personalised number plate from his Jaguar, there's the other on the opposite side.'

The Most Baldy draped the polythene over the coffin to protect it from the rain.

‘Right, lets dig this chicken
up
!' goes the First Spoken. He took a stick and began shoving the red-hot cinders aside to get at the little oven he'd made in the soil under. Sudden, both men turned and looked out, towards the darkness of the Sound, then I heard it too, turned and saw the new light and the flashing red one too, moving: a cone of light pointing down and sweeping a sparkly circle over the waters.

‘Nam the Dam, what's he doing?' the First Spoken moaned.

‘The little ferry got sunk by the car ferry; there's a man missing.'

‘It sunk? What
again
!' went the Most Baldy.

‘That Nam the Dam shouldn't be out there, this is official.'

‘He's an old yank from Vietnam with his own Westland Wessex. He lifts a lot of posts and wire when they're fencing high on the mountainsides. He does mountain and sea rescue in his spare time, it's bloody disgrace; you're a damn sight safer stuck on a rock face or floating at sea than you are in his old rust-bucket.'

I goes, ‘Why's he got yon name?'

‘Mind out now, lass, the Piston of Achnacloich's coming out. Come on now, son, out you come now, son'; the First
Spoken whipped out his knob and started doing just a massive number one on the flames of the campfire that hissed all wild; I jumped back from the balloons of steam and the old dangling doosey there as the smelly clouds lit up a bit then a last wet shadow flipped before all was pitch blackness.

The Most Baldy's voice went, ‘Well. Guess we won't be eating that chicken.'

‘They call him Nam the Dam cause he was a Huey pilot in Vietnam who spent twenty-five years recovering in Amsterdam before he came here.'

‘If the lunatic sees us he'll come in and try to land; then he'll be all for lifting Father, flying him out to sea and dropping him from the helicopter.'

I says, ‘Wouldn't that be more simple?'

‘Lassie, lassie, you'll no understand how a Navy man won't let an airforce man into his business if he can help it.'

The voice of the Most Baldy went, ‘Specially no some yankee with a long beard who's never seen shirt nor tie nor soap and water.'

We watched the searchlight from the helicopter patrol the Sound waters. It started to rain more, all the heavier.

Into the dark I says, ‘Do either of yous know that guy, John Brotherhood, who has The Drome Hotel?' I could hear the raindrops patting on their plastic jackets. One coughed but I couldn't tell which. When one spoke it was the Most Baldy.

‘We read Joseph Conrad; there's a bit where a girl is asked if she really believes in The Devil.'

The voice of the First Spoken says, ‘She answers that there
are plenty of men worse than devils to make a hell of this earth.'

I slept under the coffin, the polythene flappered and the mobile phone inside the coffin got a couple of calls through the hours of darkness. I couldn't get to sleep as the slate-grey dawn of mists began. I crawled out letting the rain wash my face; I tiptoed past the tent and away round the sheep-paths and down into the first of the glens. Around midday I saw the bright yachting jackets high on the ridge above, moving towards the wide base of the telly aerial. In the distance, the multiple aerials of the old Tracking Station and Observatory: the upper structures of rusted satellite dishes lost in the mist or cloud.

I was so hungry I trembled when I stopped walking forwards so it was best just to press on. At the end of the glen, in the versant of the extinct volcano I came to the floor of moss, a-drip with water. Little droplets clinging to the frothy emerald and curly serrations of the lichen. My tongue flicked at the diamonds of liquid then my lips clamped onto the moss, by rubbing my face side to side with the base of my tongue right out I could gulp down gallons and taste the salady smeg of raw blossoming life. I could connect to our fetid origins in the faded, damp places. I found a pink growth and kneeled, my arse up in the air as I shoved my face deep-deeper into that planetary sponge of mossflowers, biting away at the base.

The cattledrovers seen me, bum in the air as they came down that old drove road. It was the stubbly Leader who
shouted, ‘The moon's up already,' that got me turned round and on my feet like a shot.

You stared at the sight: the lazy swing of the cattle walk, with big diarrhoea splatters all up their shanks; there were one, two, three . . . eleven and the leading beast with its special coat all wet.

I crossed to the stubbly Leader guy, over the grass of the drove road that was so waterlogged it was reflecting the sky: I seemed to cross a floor of clouds towards him.

‘Where are
you
headed?' he went.

‘Drome over there.'

‘There? We're headed landward to the Hinterlands. Today we've taken them over the Mist Anvils, skirted the Woodland Edges, now we're headed for The Far Places and we'll swim them over the Sound.'

‘Never. Can cows swim?'

‘They can swim
miles
,' the girl one with the video camera bawled.

‘Long as you have a good lead beast the others follow,' says stubbly guy.

‘You don't have an Ordnance Survey do you?' says the bearded, ‘We're using this fifteenth-century one and it's loaded with inaccuracies.'

The girl one went, ‘We're following the old black cattle-drove roads, come a hundred mile across Mainland.'

I held out my shaking arms, ‘Whats all this for?'

‘University project.'

‘Some of the financial backing's EEC.'

‘And a bit from the Arts Council . . .' the bearded one added.

‘Keeping them all together at night's a hassle but we wanted to prove it could still be done,' girl one goes.

‘Got anything to eat?' I came straight out with.

‘Well, we've been doing hunting and fishing, trying to do the fifteenth-century thing with Gore-Tex and a video camera thrown in!'

The stubbly leader guy goes, ‘We're just about to make camp down by the river though; we'll try a spot of night-fishing, bound to come up with something good.'

IN THE SHEER
pitch dark over there I could hear the lead beast meandering, crunching out grass with those side-head jerks. The herd was tethered in black beyond where the bearded one was hunting with his fold-out crossbow. My bottom was saturated wet-through on the sodden grass by the campfire; suddenly old Last of the Mohicans stepped back into the wobbling shadows of the cast light. You noticed how he was smoking a joint, holding the crossbow by his thigh.

‘How can you hunt at night?'

‘Instinct,' he goes, then blethers on, ‘In the Middle Ages they think all folk were permanently stoned from lysergic growths of roots in cereals:
everyone
wasted, dressing up animals in clothes and putting them on trial.'

Out of the darkness from the night-fishing came the stubbly Leader guy and the girl one with video camera. They had a coiled-up eel and a leaky bucket full of tadpoles. I wouldn't try the eel but the bearded one goes that it tasted a little like chicken. When they boiled the tadpoles each floated to the top of the bucket. The bearded one ate some then his face all
curled up in the firelight. He picked up his crossbow then marched off till we couldn't hear him. When he returned he had a dead goose with an arrow in it. They chucked it all on the flames without even plucking, but it just went on fire, then exploded.

‘Where's the lavvy?' I goes. Really meaning if they had any lavvy paper.

‘Just go anywhere,' goes the girl one.

I gave her a look – her ladyship there – but she didn't have the gumption to cotton on. I walked and walked trying to get out of sight of the three of them round the campfire but you just couldn't tell at what bit they didn't see you any more. I cooried down and jobbied; the grass so wet it reflected the smeary line of campfire, the big blades of grass that I clutched and ripped out again and again to heave upward using both hands then toss away aside. It was the way life humiliated on top of everything: having to take a shit when you'd eaten nothing for forty-eight hours.