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‘Forget it. The whales is the thing. As in, it got me thinking about doing like training in Marine Rescue, or something.’ I feel the rising excitement of this idea.
‘Well, I expect science A levels would be involved.’ Mum can’t help herself looking pleased.
‘Yeah, no promises there.’ I fold my arms over my chest. Like literally deflated by this all too familiar exchange.
‘Oh, I don’t want to put you under any pressure.’ Mum sounds defensive.
I can see the corners of Jez’s mouth twitch as she brings her hand up to hide her smile.
The nurse pops her head round the door, taps at her watch. ‘Time our invalid settled for the night, guys.’
‘Really?’ I literally have no clue what the time is.
‘It’s gone half ten,’ Jez points to the clock. ‘I didn’t set off from Lochgillan ’til about half seven. Did it in an hour and a forty flat.’
‘No deer in the way, is it?’ I tease.
Jez shakes her head.
‘I’ll give you ten minutes,’ the nurse says.
There’s a faint glow coming through the drawn blinds. ‘Is it still like light out there?’
‘It will be,’ Jez says. ‘Practically the midnight sun here, right?’
I remember the night on the beach, the light sitting on the horizon, competing with the stars.
‘Let’s have a look, before you go.’ I shift my legs to the edge of the bed.
‘Gethin, be careful now,’ Mum warns.
‘Aw, come on, I can make it to the window. Give us a hand.’
I swing my legs to hang over the bed, signal Jez and Mum to either side and throw my arms over their shoulders while I stand. We walk a slow shuffle to the window and Jez pulls up the blinds.
The sky is a dusky blue patterned with mackerel cloud and the pale glow of the sun slipping behind the buildings. Beyond the neat rows of modern housing, the dark mounds of a golf course lead to the glint of the river. There’s a bank of trees downstream which could be where the homeless camp was. My eye follows the river past the floodlit castle, widening as it heads out of eyeshot, to the sea.
‘I tell you what?’ I pull Jez and Mum closer. ‘There’s so going to be a lot more getting out and living for me. Whatever happens with Don hardly matters compared to that.’
I lean my head on Jez’s shoulder and smell the sexy saltiness of her. ‘Seize the moment, is it, Jez?’
‘Totally!’ She gives a thumbs up.
‘I’ll go with that.’ Mum squeezes my arm, and it feels like she actually might mean it.
Finishing Pieces – Pat
The music is strangely seductive with its clashing industrial tribal drumbeat. It holds me in this moment sitting at my worktable, the air warm and soft through the open window, the shine of the copper beech framing the edge of my vision. Gethin’s life collage spread in front of me and the image filling my laptop screen. A landscape of open sea, dark mountains, craggy heath and shining valley: 360o on one picture plane. I ache with the lonely beauty of it, discovered amongst the endless pictures of young people draped over each other. Expanding horizons in the Scottish WildLands.
I catch my breath, thrown yet again into flashback of that dry mouthed terror as I drove to Inverness. It was the time I caught him toddling into the path of a reversing lorry; the time he and Francesca disappeared from the pub garden.
The tap on my shoulder makes me jump, a little involuntary scream as I turn to see Gethin.
‘Fucking hell, Mum, I did knock. What’s with the heavy industrial?’
‘Oh, something this friend lent me. How to Destroy Angels. It’s the guy from Nine Inch Nails, who I have at least heard of, and his wife, whose name I forget.’ I’m wittering to cover being caught out with the collage he doesn’t know about and his Facebook page on my laptop.
‘Hmm,’ he’s distracted, obviously, by the collage. The laptop has conveniently switched to standby. ‘What the hell is this, Mum?’
