Chapter 33
Chapter 33
T he odd thing was, Struan felt, the day had started well. They had waved off the plane, then it had been assumed, correctly, by Skellan and Denise that everyone had already gobbled their packed lunches, so they revealed they had prepared some cheese sandwiches—white bread, no salad cream in case there were any nervous nelly eaters in there. Which there were, obviously, so that all worked out very well.
Then there’d been the safety briefing. Skellan had played the tough guy warning them if they didn’t do everything he said they’d be in terrible danger, and Denise had been very nice and mumsy and assured them that everything would be absolutely fine. They sometimes did it this way and sometimes did it the other way around depending on the group. Sometimes if Denise was too nice the children called her mum by mistake and got a little tearful, but this lot seemed fairly resilient; they’d lived in the shadow of Archland all their lives. It was hardly news for them. It was the nervous city kids they had to watch out for, who’d never seen a rabbit in the wild, never mind a puffin or a kestrel.
The tents were already up there, stored in a waterproof box in the cave, so there was a quick round of toilet stops then a second round of toilet stops, because the staff were experienced, and finally it was time to go. Although it was cold, they set off in fine fettle, tackling the gravel scree and large clambering rocks with ease. It was a clear day and they were excited with how high they climbed and, as they did so, how the other islands—Larbh, Cairn, Inchborn—and the mainland gradually came into view. Most of the kids wanted to stop every five seconds to look at some bright flowers, or try and smuggle some rocks to throw at each other later (the guides had a pretty good eye for this kind of thing) or drink the amount of water they had all been terrorized into believing they had to drink these days. Skellan and Denise gently chivvied them along. It was chilly but sunny—a nice day to be on the mountain. Struan found he was almost enjoying himself, although he started regretting carrying the guitar very quickly.
“I’ll leave it at base camp,” he said every time someone asked him about it banging against the backs of his legs; he was tempted to leave it in a cave they passed, where the children dared each other to run in and out, and screamed with glee when they did so.
“Something will pee in it,” predicted Skellan gloomily. “If it’s a fox, seriously, you don’t want to know.”
“No, keep the guitar!” said Wee Shugs. “We can do our song for Skellan and Denise!”
“Maybe we could do it without Shugs,” said Jimmy.
“Shut it,” said Shugs, aiming a kick up the scree but missing completely.
“That would be lovely,” said Denise with quite a lot of enthusiasm for someone who’d listened to so many middle-management and Christian groups take out a guitar around the campfire, when she’d rather be listening to a podcast instead.
But he didn’t mind it, Struan found, as they headed on, the children growing quieter as the exercise and fresh air took effect, and he couldn’t quite believe, looking round, that he hadn’t been up here for so long.
When he took in the extraordinary beauty of the Northwest Isles spread beneath his feet, he was struck once again by how lucky he was to live where he did. The air was fresh and sharp but so clear; the clouds scudding across the sky, reflecting onto the choppy waves beneath. Mure, the Faroes and Iceland were in one direction; America in the other, and due south to the landmass of Scotland, with its mountains and beautiful glens. He couldn’t think of a better place to be. The higher he got, the further below him all his problems seemed. No wonder people climbed so much. It was a joy.
Struan beamed, even as the guitar hit him on the behind once more as he navigated a slightly tricky rock fall. Ach, well. He’d leave it at the camp and come back and get it the following day. The idea of making the summit was suddenly quite exciting, even if they weren’t doing anything terribly complicated with ropes (there was one rope section, the fabled cliff, but it was carefully managed for the children and very straightforward, with a tiny bit of abseiling too).
The top of the Mermaid’s Spyglass looked far overhead, which gave them the impression that they really were climbing; it was much more adventurous than he’d expected. If he got this touring job... he glanced round at the kids laughing and joking and arguing and saying the first thing that came into their heads. You knew where you were with kids. He thought about Saskia again and felt bad. He had, he was thinking, taken a wrong fork. Somewhere. Gone the wrong way. It wasn’t like this mountain, where the path was difficult—but you could see where you were meant to be going.
He shepherded the children when they took a break.
“Do I have any volunteers to carry my guitar?” he said, swinging round to the scattered class, who were munching on chocolate bars.
“Nooooo!” they said in unison, except Anna-Lise, who shot up her hand and said, “I’ll do it, sir,” and everyone else groaned and rolled their eyes and Anna-Lise looked defiant.
“Thank you, Anna-Lise, you are a diamond amongst coal,” said Struan, eyeing the tiny girl carefully. The guitar was about the same size as she was. “But actually I should stumble on my weary way. Thankfully as a musician I am always in tip-top physical condition.”
“Why aren’t you a proper musician, sir?” said Khalid, he of the annoying little sister.
“I am too!” said Struan, slightly offended.
“No, I mean, why aren’t you like Harry Styles and that? Why do you spend time with us?”
“Because I prefer being with you?” said Struan.
They groaned again.
“No way,” said Jimmy Gaskell. “You’d much rather be Harry Styles.”
“I wish you were Harry Styles,” said Oksana, very quietly.
“So do I,” said Mrs. McGinty suddenly, and then put her hand over her mouth as if she’d surprised herself. The children were so shocked they didn’t know if they were allowed to laugh or not.
“Harry Styles would be a terrible teacher!” said Struan. “He’d have to fly in on his private jet every day and he’d be exhausted! And all the girls would scream all the time and you wouldn’t learn anything.”
“I think we would still like our music teacher to be Harry Styles,” said Bronte eventually.
“Yeah, yeah, okay. For that I am not sharing my chocolate,” replied Struan.
“You haven’t got any chocolate!”
“I forgot to bring any chocolate. Can anyone share their chocolate?”
Anna-Lise’s hand was already in the air and he accepted one solitary, slightly manhandled chocolate button with good grace.
He then eyed up a rather large KitKat Mrs. McGinty was unwrapping.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “Besides, you’d have to share it with everyone.”
Struan gave the children a look that made them laugh, teachers playing up outside of school.
They had reached the bottom of the “cliff” which was 15 meters of flat rock, clips already hammered in. This was the most thrilling part of the climb, which was otherwise mostly an amble.
Skellan patiently explained to them how to use the ropes and how he would clip them in and out, and how they couldn’t fall off even if they wanted to, but also not to jump off just to be funny because it wasn’t funny. It was possible to bang yourself on the cliffside if you weren’t careful, and then he had to pull you up and his arms got tired so who knew what might happen? The children looked slightly frightened again until Denise bustled in with a bag for their chocolate wrappers, reassuring them they’d be all right. Skellan clambered up first, like a monkey, which impressed absolutely everybody, whilst Denise stayed at the bottom to encourage the nervous climbers.
Jimmy pushed his way to the front as soon as volunteers were required, grabbing the helmet from Denise. Struan would rather one of the other kids went first—it didn’t do any good to bullies when they got their own way, even when they were only showing off. They needed to be quashed immediately, for their own good as well as everyone else’s. But Struan’s fears were tempered when, halfway up, Jimmy skidded and lost his footing and did indeed end up dangling, feet bouncing off the bare cliff face, as Skellan hauled him up and everyone managed to smile about it. Jimmy could not take it in good part, and looked furious.
“There was something wrong with my clip,” he shouted loudly at the top.
“Yeah, it had your fat bum in it,” shouted up Khalid, unusually bravely, and Struan didn’t have the heart to tell him off for it.
“You do it then!” shouted Jimmy. “You’ll probably die .” So Khalid did do it, perfectly and without fuss, and earned a huge round of applause from his classmates.
Then the girls shuttled up, and the remaining boys, until finally it was only Oksana left at the bottom. Struan looked at her.
“Come on now, Oksana,” said Mrs. McGinty, busying herself. “Up you pop!”
Denise glanced up. She was used to nervous children like this and was ready to help.
“You’re going to be okay,” she said calmly.
Oksana sighed and looked at Struan.
“What is it?”
She looked around and they moved somewhere slightly quieter. When she spoke you could hardly hear her voice at all.
“They bombed the house next door,” the little girl finally said, very very quietly. She had never spoken about the Donbas. There were groups for Ukrainians in Fort William and Struan knew her mother took her to those in the hope she would express herself in her own language.
“We had to climb over the wall.”
This was in a whisper. Struan didn’t say anything. He couldn’t imagine such horror, especially here where it was so very safe. Then he thought about it. Screw it, the one thing this child did not need after being torn halfway across Europe, running away from a war, was some stupid idea of character-building.
“That’s okay,” he said, mildly. “Want to head back down? Or we could lift you up. I bet Skellan could. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
“Oksana Dineko! Come here immediately!” said Mrs. McGinty. “We need to get over our fears.”
Oksana and Struan exchanged a look. Struan knew that one of the first rules of teaching was never to publicly disagree with another teacher; it was terribly unprofessional and very bad form. As well as rude. But nonetheless. That rule was superseded by another, more important rule. Never ever humiliate a child. Because children can carry that forever.
“Screw it,” he said. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
Oksana glanced upward.
“You can do it!” shouted Isla, and Bronte joined in.
Oksana frowned. She had been very quiet since she arrived in the UK; understandably, as she didn’t speak all that much En-glish, except what her harassed mother had tried to teach her on the long journey through Poland. But she was clever, and it was soon obvious she understood everything. She had still, however, kept herself a little apart from her classmates who had been at first curious, then respectful, and sometimes warm.
Oksana looked at them, then back at Struan, who shrugged and kept his expression completely neutral. Then suddenly, as if giving herself a talking-to, Oksana shook herself, and Struan absolutely hated to see it. But still: she then pulled herself carefully, hand over hand, feet bouncing off the rock, cheered on by her classmates shouting words of encouragement and support. By the time she reached the top her face was absolutely beaming with happiness and pride, as they streamed around in a tight pack, patting her on the back and congratulating her.
Well, well, thought Struan. You didn’t get that playing weddings in a band.
He even grinned at Pamela McGinty, before he realized it was his turn. Struan had no problem playing music in public, standing in front of an audience, or any kind of performing really.
But he had quite a few problems climbing up a rope; namely that he was physically very uncoordinated, not terribly brave or athletic, and was actually quite afraid of heights.
Well, there wasn’t much to be done about it now. He was being ridiculous, he told himself, even as he found his hands shaking as he approached the rock. It didn’t look so small after all, now he was up close to it. Just do what the other kids did he told himself. God, even Anne-Marie had managed it, and she was the size of a fairy. Mind you, being the size of a fairy was probably helpful when it came to hauling your own body weight up a great big piece of smooth stone.
Struan attempted to take to the climbing rope in an urbane manner. Unfortunately he misjudged the pull and ended up scrabbling with his feet in midair as the children laughed hysterically. Khalid took photographs on the disposable camera he had bought exactly for this purpose as phones weren’t allowed, but Struan didn’t mind. It actually put mean wee Jimmy in a better mood, as he was able to point out loudly that he hadn’t been as rubbish as Sir. Struan did his best to remember that Jimmy was the youngest of four fairly feisty boys and an aggressive father, which, even if it didn’t make him much more likeable to be around, certainly made him more explicable.
All successfully up the cliff, they found themselves more exposed to the elements, on the ridge. They bundled up, pulled down their hats, and set their wee faces against the wind, trudging on, less talk and chatter now half of them had barely slept a wink from excitement the previous evening.
The route crept round the mountain at one point, and the north face was exposed and absolutely punishing. The views were remarkable—there was nothing beyond Archland and you felt tiny in the world, clinging to a rock, and not even a very big rock, plonked in the middle of an endless, unfriendly sea. In the far distance was the glimpse of an occasional vast tanker, plowing the routes to Scandinavia, remote in the huge passageway of the northern waters. And to the northeast was the great and beautiful field of windmills, all whirring like crazy in the rising wind. It was beautiful; even lovelier for knowing it was clean, free power, en route to warm homes and keeping people safe. Struan absolutely loved them. Then he remembered that there was going to be no power tonight because they were camping out on a ridiculous mountainside like a bunch of idiots, and that brought him back down to earth a little bit.
Round this side, the wind was too noisy for them even to hear one another, and Skellan beckoned them fiercely, ushering the little bodies onward to the relative calm of the other side of the mountain. An hour later they had made it, more than halfway up, to the sheltered natural little outcrop that had become a famous campsite. White-painted stones marked the edges of the flat, grassy ledge. Birds stayed away, as the regular influxes of humans made them less than keen to build their nests there, but they could be seen shearing up and down to the water nearby.
The tents were already there, all set up and waiting, to Struan’s massive relief. Putting tents up was part of the teenagers’ trips, not the little ones’. There was a cave there where gear was stored in boxes. It was too low, dripping damp and dark to sleep in though, filled with guano to boot. Struan was tired. Skellan and Denise of course were showing no ill effects at all, and they’d already nipped up that morning to fix the tents. But Struan wouldn’t have wanted to start fixing poles to things for any money. It wasn’t what he considered one of his core skills. Mind you, as soon as it was made clear to him that he was going to have to explain to the children what a long-drop toilet was, it became clear he had quite a lot to learn.
Denise lit a fire in the fire pit immediately, warning the kids to stay well back, but it’s difficult to keep children away from a fire, particularly considering that as soon as they stopped walking, the bitter coldness immediately became apparent. The sun had passed over them on its journey west, and the clearing was in shade. The fire was extremely welcome as it crackled high, and Denise took out a large saucepan that was stored there and started pulling out big packets of sausages from her bag.
The children washed up in the little stream, which turned into a waterfall on its way down the mountain, fretted about sheep poo, and queued up by Struan if they needed medication. Baked potatoes were cooked in their skins in the base of the fire, wrapped in tinfoil, so they were smoky and crunchy on the outside and soft and delicious within, with copious amounts of butter and salt to make them even more tasty. A sausage eaten outside with the drifting smoke of a peat fire, and the sun going down, is a wonderful thing, even if the air is cold. Everyone was wrapped in old blankets from the cave. The children smelled of sheep, and cuddled up in front of the fire, chattering loudly and getting through more sausages than you might consider possible.
Suddenly Anne-Marie yelled loudly and pointed. The birds had been the usual mix of gulls and guillemots coming down the cliff, but down below, heading toward the water, they suddenly saw a group of puffins, tearing down like tiny dive bombers.
“Look, look!” she shouted and the children ran to see them, being called back quite sternly by the organizers before they breached the row of white-painted stones that marked the beginning of the slope of the ridge.
They were a joyous sight, the little seabirds, their tiny comical feet pointing upward as they dived full length to grab the fish out of the water.
Struan poured some fresh hot tea into his flask cup and caught the eye of Denise, who was smiling at him.
“Pretty cool huh?” she said, looking at the excited, engaged children.
“You must get bored of seeing it all the time,” said Struan.
“I never do,” she said. “Kids... they’re all the same underneath. All of them. Rich, poor, lucky, unlucky... they all need to be out in the fresh air. Using those young limbs they’re born with. I love it.”
Struan looked at Oksana, who was now in the middle of a group of four girls, all of them pointing excitedly. Khalid, normally so timid and skinny in the class full of farmers’ sons, had, by virtue of cleverly packing a camera, become the most important person there. He was now the official recorder of the trip and everyone was begging for pictures of them with the birds in the shot. None of these photos would be at all useful, showing either a bird and half an out-of-focus head, or a head and a gray blur, but Khalid’s future popularity was assured. Even Jimmy and his henchmen were enjoying the bird display and, pleasingly, weren’t throwing stones at the creatures.
“Yup,” he said with a small lump in his throat.
Later, the kids had sung along to every single song Struan knew and he was slightly worried he was going to default to “The Wheels on the Bus.”
Then, chilled and worn out, they had turned in with a surprisingly low level of complaints and chitter-chatter, long-drop toilets and all. Struan had found Skellan had made their tent relatively comfortable with a big flashlight and decent mats and realized he was happily exhausted. After no sleep the night before, a long energetic day, lots of fresh air, and about the right number of sausages (i.e., one more than what would generally be considered a disgusting number of sausages) he was more than ready for bed.
He had shepherded the boys into their sleeping bags—no getting changed and no washing went down extremely well, although there was some cursory tooth-brushing. It was notably cold, but they were all more or less dressed for the weather, and bundled up in their tents. Struan reminded them he was just outside, and that under no circumstances were they to get up and wander off in the dark. This wasn’t something that seemed likely to happen, even with the made-up story that went around every year about how someone’s big brother’s friend had been on a trip and got up to go for a pee in the middle of the night and never came back again , even though they searched the mountain for months! Sometimes the story involved bones. It never actually involved anyone anybody knew, but it was generally quite useful for the teachers to keep the kids more or less where they had to be.
With the minimal bedtime preparations done, they got back round the campfire, and, for the last time that night, Struan took out his guitar.
Once he’d given them the notes, they’d sung for Skellan and Denise, so soft and gently and beautifully into the flaming sunset that Denise got slightly tearful and even the birds, it seemed, stopped what they were doing to hear, all alone, on top of a mountain in a completely deserted, utterly lonely, cold, and desolate place, the beautiful sound of children singing.