Page 23 of Little Wing
Dougie had been driving for two and a half hours and was only now at Tyndrum. He had no chance of making the ferry and yet he was still heading north. No doubt his father, in his inimitably laconic way, would just call thisa bit of weatherbut actually the conditions were appalling. The rain and the wind had become a monumental entity, bigger than anything, devouring the landscape only to expel it now and again in gauzy and ghostlike apparitions. Occasionally, through the wafting and glower, a glimpse of a hillside scarred by silver streaks of wet; a valley suffocating in a shroud of dark mist. The mountain edges could occasionally be seen, trying valiantly to cut into the sky only to be swallowed up by it. Everything was purple and black, like new bruising from the assault the weather was wreaking.
Glencoe. Dougie always stopped at Glencoe, but not today. He was still three hours from Uig. He asked himself over and again, why am I doing this? why am I still driving? I’m not going to make it. He doubted the ferry would sail in this anyway and even if it did, it would leave in two hours. If by some miraculous time travel he made it, he’d puke his way over the waters of the Minch, that was for sure. But still he drove on. Jesus, would they not close the Skye Bridge in this?
Nearing Fort William, Dougie called it a day. Called himself a stupid bastard. He was tired now, too tired to drive on or drive back. After booking into a B&B on the edge of the loch he could not see, Dougie sat on the side of a single bed and put his head in his hands. Despite the gloaming, the lashing rain and the hurl of the wind, the proximity of home confronted him. His fingers ran absent-mindedly over the candlewick bedspread. He’d had one like this on his own bed, growing up. He remembered his mother teaching him to make a bed, snapping the sheets tight, smoothing the blankets and hospital-cornering the lot before tucking the bedspread under and over the pillow so that it looked just right, she said. A couple of years after she’d died, Dougie bought his father a duvet for Christmas. Gordon said she’d turn in her grave seeing how quickly he could make his bed now.
Dougie went out for a walk along Loch Linnhe, the water whipping and lacerated like a small sea. He wanted to feel it all, to be drenched right through, to shiver and not feel his fingers and have earache from the wind. It was getting dark but whether this was true dusk or the untiring weather was unclear. Sodden, he found a pub where a pint of heavy was pulled for him before he even asked. There was a peat fire lit and he went and stood by it until steam came off him, his body shaking, his cheeks starting to burn, his hands thawing, finally, though his fingers remained wind-swollen and stiff. The beer helped and a whisky was settling and a stool was pushed towards him by a local called Ken whose face was as etched and as craggy as the landscape. Dougie sat awhile, mesmerized by the glowing peats. Eventually, he came to. He checked his phone for a signal and dialled.
‘Gordon Munro, hello.’
‘Da?’
‘Son?’
‘Aye.’
They both took a beat.
‘Aye,’ said Dougie again. ‘It’s me.’
‘You all right? Dougie?’
It was only just gone five in the afternoon, a very odd time to be taking a phone call from his son.
‘I’m outside Fort William.’
‘Fort William?’
‘Aye,’ Dougie sighed, pushed his pint away, took a moment and gave his father the same. ‘I was on my way, Dad – but the weather! I was coming to see you.’
There was silence. Gordon prayed for his mind not to be playing tricks, for his memory not to have failed.
‘Did I know this, Dougie?’
‘No,’ his son said quietly. ‘I was going to surprise you.’
It was all a bit baffling. ‘Well,’ Gordon said, ‘that’s – well, that’s—’
‘I should have called, given you the heads-up. I’m sorry,’ said Dougie. ‘I’ve been working away this week. Peterborough, Derbyshire, then Carlisle last night and I thought I’d come – back.’ Why could he never say ‘home’ to his dad? Why always ‘back’ or ‘for a visit’ or ‘to see you’?
‘You’ll have missed the boat.’
‘Did it even sail today? In this?’
‘I believe it did. Will you come tomorrow, then?’
Dougie considered his answer even though he knew what it was. ‘I’m not sure I can. I need to head back, you see.’
His father paused, continued slightly stunned. ‘You were coming home – for just for one night?’
Dougie realized then how stupid the concept had been and how lame it all sounded.
‘I just thought – it occurred to me I was closer than I was to London. I just drove.’
‘You’ll stay in Fort William.’ Dougie hadn’t heard his father strict for some time. ‘I’ll not have you driving to England in this bit of weather.’
‘I’ll stay here tonight, Da. And next time I’ll plan it properly.’
‘That’ll be grand, Douglas.’ Gordon floundered to make sense of a visit that wasn’t known about and hadn’t happened.
