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‘Soon as I’ve finished this, I’m off for the bus.’
Fuck it, I’m not leaving with an empty stomach. I wash down a mouthful with a gulp of beer, though even that seems to stick in my gullet.
Baby Beard signals to his girlfriend for them to go. She gathers her things hastily, follows him to the door.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ Jez mutters. ‘Motorcycle Moral Majority or what? No chance of being head-hunted by Angels here.’
‘You are so out of order Jez. I expect they want to be well away before you hit the road. And I will be too. Fucking loony.’
Jez eats without saying anything. I manage a bit more, take out my phone again: the landscape from all directions. I type in the caption: Lochgillan: Awesome with not a person in sight. Maybe loneliness improves with practice, it can hardly get much worse.
‘Did you feel unsafe on the bike, Gethin?’ Jez interrupts my maudlin musing.
I pull back from the sinking pit and try to think how it was. ‘Well, a bit, to start with. But that was mainly me. The point is…?’
‘The point is to feel safe, right? My foster brother taught me to ride this bike. He was confident I’d be OK. And riding up here has, like,’ she hesitates, ‘well, I’ve learnt a lot.’
‘But you’re not insured!’ I insist. She is so not going to talk me into getting back on the bloody thing.
‘Does insurance make you safe? You see plenty of shit riders who’ve passed their test. If I get caught, that’s my look-out, right?’
‘But why not just take the fucking test?’
‘I didn’t have time. Martin gave me a “crash course”.’ She makes finger speech marks.
‘Oh, ha ha.’
‘I’ve ridden a 500cc before, this isn’t much different. He thinks I’m a natural.’
‘Oh, and how many blow-jobs did that cost you?’
‘Now who’s being funny?’ She looks into her beer.
Shit. I cannot believe I said that! Just when I had the moral high ground.
‘OK, that was uncalled for. Sorry.’ I hold my hands up. Fucking idiot.
She shrugs, starts looking around, like avoiding looking at me.
‘Why did you have to get away in such a hurry?’ I ask. How come it’s suddenly me that’s wrong?
She drains the last of her drink and looks up at me, her face more weirdly innocent than ever. ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ is all she can come up with.
‘Try me.’
She pulls her jacket on. ‘Don’t want to talk about it, right?’
‘OK, as in none of my business. But it takes the piss, not telling me you’re not legal on that bike.’
‘Well, you know now. So, are we hitting the road or saying goodbye?’
I shake my head. ‘Seriously takes the piss, Jez.’
She focuses on her zip, then looks at me. ‘What do you want? Big grovel? I can’t run off and do my test now, can I?’
‘No, just, well…?’ my argument is literally falling apart even though I’m right.
She tucks her helmet under her arm. ‘I know what I’m doing with the bike. There’s no traffic and about one policeman for every hundred square miles. We’ve only got seventy to go.’
