Chapter 9
Thursday
The sneachd nan uan had its sport with the island, arriving overnight in playful flurries nestling on the hills, gambolling over the garden, wisping about on the sand; fluffs of the stuff not unlike the lambs themselves after whom this springtime snow was named.
Under a turquoise sky striated with diaphanous clouds, the scene was enchanting.
Could it have lifted the moods of the inhabitants of Flora’s House?
Who knows. None of them had looked through the windows to the day outside.
Messages had ricochetted between Drew and Taylor via their phones late into the night, mostly denigrating JB as a selfish bastard, and they’d gone to sleep feeling wounded and justifiably resentful as well as belittled by their so-called friend.
But now, the next morning, that ire and frustration was misdirected at one another, with agitated whispers hissing through the air while the kettle boiled.
‘Why are we kowtowing to JB, Taylor? He’s not our leader. He doesn’t get to decide what we do or don’t do.’
‘Yeah but he has a point. Not the stuff about his father. But about solidarity. It’s only a run, man.’
‘A marathon is never just a run, Taylor. You know that, you’ve felt it. You’ve trained your ass off and you planned this one. You brought us here for it. Paris to Harris. This is your marathon.’
‘Well, we’re still here, in Harris, and marathon or not I’m cool with that.’
‘You’re telling me you’ll leave here happy enough that you never ran it?’
‘You don’t think we should show a little compassion?’
‘You think JB would? If it was one of us? Get real. We’re pandering to a spoilt kid.’
‘Anything for an easy life.’
‘Oh grow a pair, Taylor.’
All Taylor could do was shrug that off, try to swallow the salty porridge with gulps of rank coffee to stop it sticking to his throat like wallpaper paste.
In all the years he’d known Drew, Taylor had never witnessed him so impassioned, so affronted.
His friend’s fury freaked him out a little.
Obviously, Drew would want to run; he was brilliant at it and it was the most natural thing in the world to him.
And of course Taylor wanted to run; his body felt good and he’d pounded the route there and back in his mind’s eye and in his sleep.
But if running meant trampling all over their friendship, if running meant having to endure confrontation and the aftermath, well then he’d rather forego it.
‘We need to do the right thing,’ Taylor said and he knew it sounded empty and a little lame.
‘The right thing?’ said Drew. ‘Who, amongst us, is responsible for that? Jesus, Taylor!’
‘Drew,’ Taylor sighed, he was tired now with all this discord. It hurt his ears, it confused him, it rattled his soul. ‘If it’s that important to you, you run it. You’ll be faster without me anyway. I’ll support you.’
‘Don’t you get it?’ Drew paused, regarded Taylor, baffled. ‘I don’t want to run by myself. Even though I’m always ahead, you guys quite literally have always had my back.’
Drew looked so alone just then and Taylor realised how it wasn’t just about this run. It was for the kid who’d had to work so hard for absolutely everything to stand up to the privileged kid who always got his way.
‘Buddy, I get you,’ Taylor said. But Drew had snatched up his bowl of porridge and was stomping up to the bedroom, spilling coffee over Flora’s stairs as he went.
JB came downstairs, freshly showered, to find Taylor sitting at the table toying over cold porridge which had clagged against the sides of the bowl with a skin puckering its surface.
‘Morning!’ said JB. He yawned extravagantly, had a good stretch, as if he’d had the best night’s sleep.
Taylor glanced over to his foot. It was still very swollen, a cankle the colour of eggplant and blueberry.
It was hideous. It must hurt like crazy.
A network of navy bruising had crept all the way to his toes.
His foot looked like it belonged to a dead man.
‘Where’s the Drewdog?’
Taylor snapped his eyes up and stared unflinchingly at JB. ‘Seriously?’
JB looked around him, as if perhaps he’d missed Drew sitting in plain sight. ‘Where is he, though?’
‘Avoiding you,’ Taylor said and he left the table, scraped the last of the porridge into the bin and clattered the bowl into the sink.
‘Look bud—’
‘—don’t tell me to look, JB. I can see it all pretty clearly. It’s you – you need to open your eyes, man. Look beyond yourself – see how it feels to be your so-called friend.’
‘Fuck me Taylorboy! Easy! Easy!’
Actually, when it came to it, this was easy.
‘You know why Drew wants to run?’ Taylor squared up to JB.
‘Is it because he’s the greatest athlete we know?
Partly, sure, whatever. But more than that it gives rhythm to his life and it calms that crazy brain of his.
He loves it. And you know what? He gets an extra side of happiness every time he phones through his results to that mom of his who holds down three jobs to provide for her kid. ’
‘Tay—’
‘As for me, you know why I run? I’m decent at it, sure I am.
But I should push myself more. It’s time I did that.
I want to push myself more. But you know why Paris was hard and why this run is so important to me?
Because I need to focus on something else.
Because my parents are getting a divorce and that’s fucked up.
So, yeah, I’ve come here to this island which you think is a piece of shit.
Because here, apparently, I am from somewhere – because right now, my family doesn’t feel like a family should feel and I don’t know what home means. ’
Taylor’s breath left him in a deep sigh.
Suddenly, he was aware that Drew was standing quietly right there, at the foot of the stairs.
He’d appeared as if from thin air in that way of his and Taylor wondered how much he had heard.
Perhaps he hadn’t listened to a word. He was looking again at the old photograph, adjusting the frame so that it was straight.
In his other hand, his porridge bowl was empty and so was his mug of Taylor’s truly terrible coffee.
And Taylor’s head now hurt, not knowing if he’d spoken out of turn on Drew’s behalf, whether his outburst had done more harm than good.
His heart was beating hard and fast, tight up against his breast bone as the truth of his family’s situation, now out in the open, reverberated off the walls in this old stone cottage.
JB had his hands firmly against the kitchen counter either side of the sink, he was gazing intently through the window.
He’d said nothing in response and it was hard to know what he was thinking, what had hit home; his expression was illegible.
He levered himself away and hobbled over to the front door, flinging it open. He turned to face Taylor and Drew.
‘I guess there’s no running anyway – not unless you want ankles matching mine. I don’t have to lie to my father after all. Look – snow.’