Chapter 11
Friday: The Harris Marathon
Even JB kept his voice down.
‘You guys ok? You set? T-minus ten for breakfast.’
He had popped his head around the door to see the other two, lying very straight and still in their single beds, nodding obediently.
They were grateful that someone was doing the thinking for them.
As they dressed, Taylor and Drew studied the weather through the window.
They didn’t dare jinx it, but they noted with some relief how the clouds were barely moving across a blue sky, the sun was having a morning stretch and the windowpanes bore no tracks of rain.
Breakfast on the day of a marathon was always a hard meal to eat; the pressure of its importance made chewing and swallowing difficult and JB had cooked up a lot of pasta.
Your stomachs only feel small, he told them, it’s just the adrenalin putting on a psychological squeeze.
Somehow, they finished everything he served them and then began the rigmarole of checking and double checking what they’d be needing.
Unlike the official marathons they’d run, there would be no regular stations set up today with drinks and gels for them to grab on the fly.
However, they had hydration vests which they filled with water and electrolytes and they tucked their gels into the pockets.
JB flinched from the image of his vest upstairs, redundant. He didn’t mention it.
‘Madainn mhath.’ Dougie knocked and entered, he clapped his hands and grinned at them. ‘Good morning, lads.’ He was wearing trackpants and trainers, he looked like a sports coach. ‘How are we feeling? Ready to hit the road?’
‘Hopefully not literally,’ Drew said darkly.
‘If it’s all the same to you, do you mind taking us to Hushinish?’ Taylor said.
Dougie paused. ‘That’s a heck of a run.’
‘To the door, it’s pretty much spot on,’ Taylor said.
‘I know,’ said Dougie, ‘I’ve done it six times over the years. And I’ll tell you, it’s a stunning route but it’s hard. There are a few wee climbs, I’m warning you.’
‘Why do you guys say ‘wee’ when you mean anything but?’ Drew asked.
‘Sense of humour?’ Dougie said, knowing it didn’t make much sense at all. He noted how Taylor was caught in a thought and he could feel the apprehension seeping out of the boy. Drew, however, was as relaxed as if the day held no more than a stroll to the beach.
‘All set?’ JB asked. ‘Let’s do this!’
Just before they left Flora’s House, Dougie spoke in earnest. ‘I need to prepare you for how very, very different this marathon is going to feel. You’ll have wind coming off the sea and barrelling down the hills and the climbs are going to test you.
But what you might find hardest is that there are no crowds – don’t underestimate how that roar and support has lifted your spirits and propelled you along in the past. Today it’s just going to be you, out here alone, for mile after mile after mile. ’
‘You got this,’ JB said thoughtfully.
As Taylor and Drew headed out, Dougie ruffled JB’s hair.
‘You and me, boy,’ Dougie told him quietly. ‘Aye, we’re going to have a fine day, you have my word.’
‘How was your shake-out run yesterday?’
From the rear view mirror, Dougie noted Drew and Taylor squirm at the question, admitting that the day had run away with them.
They didn’t explain further, they were over all that discord of yesterday.
The three had apologised to each other before sitting to eat and normal service had resumed as they tucked in to JB’s surprisingly good food.
‘They’re cool,’ JB told Dougie. ‘We ran Paris three weeks ago and we tracked around five miles on Monday before my fall. These guys have it in the bag, I’m telling you. They’re invincible!’ He turned right round to regard his friends and he whooped so loudly Dougie swerved in reaction.
‘I drove it yesterday,’ Taylor explained. ‘I went to visit this old guy, Duncan the weaver.’
‘Ah, Donnchadh MacDhòmhnaill. You’ll have had a story or two off him, aye?’
‘Actually, I brought him stories of my own,’ Taylor said. And he considered how, though he had not left Duncan’s with his family history tied neatly in a bow, it wasn’t all bad either, was it? Look where he was. Look who he was with. Look what they were about to do today.
‘Who was Flora?’ Drew asked. ‘Was she your mom?’
Dougie smiled. ‘No – she was my wife’s mother. She was sent out here in disgrace in 1969 at the age of sixteen. Banished. Exiled. She was a pregnant English schoolgirl but there were distant relatives here who harboured her. It’s quite some story.’
‘So my mom left here when she was sixteen,’ Taylor said quietly.
‘Is that so?’ Dougie said.
‘She wasn’t pregnant or anything like that – she just wanted to see the world.’ It seemed wrong to tell Dougie she was done with Harris.
‘The youngsters still leave,’ Dougie said.
‘The lure of the mainland, a wider job market, affordable housing.’ He paused.
‘But for Flora, Harris became her true home,’ he told them.
‘The island gave her refuge and provided a found family for her. That wee cottage where you are staying was where my wife spent her very early years. No electricity or any mod cons – but all the island’s warmth.
’ He looked at Taylor from the mirror. ‘Does your mother come back?’
Taylor shook his head. There’s nothing there, she’d told him. There’s nothing there at all. Nothing to keep her here and nothing to return for.
‘Ah – but you’re here,’ said Dougie, ‘aren’t you?’
But Taylor, gazing out of the window, was in a world of his own. Inbetween.
‘You’re here,’ Dougie repeated and Taylor snapped back to the day in hand. When he was little, Inbetween was a place to daydream, latterly it had become an escape route. But it struck him how, here in Harris these last few days, he’d hardly been back there at all.
JB gave a long whistle and said Jesus a lot when, out of nowhere, Amhuinnsuidhe Castle appeared.
Taylor felt strangely triumphant, as if he’d discovered it, as if it was his gift to his friends.
They didn’t stop though; after all there’d be plenty of time for Dougie and JB to do so, and Taylor and Drew would have the glorious approach from the other direction nearing five miles done.
A while later and Dougie was slowing down at the Weaver Welcome! sign. ‘There’s your man Duncan,’ he said to Taylor. ‘No doubt he’s at his loom, a wee splash of uisge beatha in his mug. That’s Gàidhlig for whisky – it means water of life. Just think of a dram or two waiting for you tonight, lads.’
Taylor saluted as they passed by.
A few miles on and the cattle were there but this morning they were tucked away from the road.
Coos, Dougie called them. Highland coos.
Most were grazing but two were standing quite still as if simply enjoying the view.
When JB and Drew followed their gaze and set eyes on Hushinish far below, they were rendered speechless.
Drew and Taylor loitered by Dougie’s car.
It had suddenly struck them hard that they were running without JB and it just seemed wrong.
The resentment and disbelief they’d felt when he’d told them they were not to run, replaced today with guilt and confusion that they were running without him.
They looked for him. He’d walked a little way off to take photos of the view, pet a couple of dogs.
Now he was chatting animatedly with a local man and though neither of them understood the other there was a lot of laughter because, in life, that’s what counts.
JB, wearing his bright and loud persona as if it was a jacket to ward off the shudder and chill of his deeply felt disappointment, to protect and conceal the delicate layers beneath from anyone who might see them.
‘I’d say go for a walk, loosen up – just follow that sandy path there. It’s even and flat and it’ll take you to a great view over to Scarp,’ Dougie told them. ‘It’s what I used to do.’
‘JB! Want to come take a look at a view?’ Taylor said, pointing in the direction Dougie had suggested.
‘Sure thing,’ said JB gesticulating at the white beach with the turquoise sea and the breathtaking views towards South Harris. ‘Because this one sucks!’
Although he was no longer on one leg, it was still hard for JB to walk any distance.
However, without making a fuss, he slung his arms around Taylor and Drew and they linked theirs around his waist and away they went.
Over the soft sandy carpet through land that was like a velvety fuzz of green down, they walked to the slipway and looked over the water to Scarp.
‘The island’s uninhabited now,’ Dougie told them. ‘But I had family from there and I remember my old Uncle telling me how he thought of Harris as the mainland, how there’s a point a little way along where the voice carries right over the water at the Clach na h-Eigheach – the shouting rock.’
This place, thought Taylor. This place.
‘But enough with the history lesson,’ Dougie said. ‘You’ve a marathon to run.’
‘So get moving, ass-wipes!’ JB said and Dougie looped JB’s arm around his shoulders as if it was his favourite scarf. Only then could Drew and Taylor pick up their pace; marching, striding, jigging and jogging; forwards, backwards, sideways, back to the starting point.
Visitors to Hushinish watched the antics in the car park; two young men shedding layers, donning fancy drinking vests, jumping around on the spot, stretching, shaking out their legs and their arms. Smart watches were set, checked and set again.
Gels in pockets were counted and recounted.
Vaseline was applied to lips and nipples, sunblock to noses.
Laces were tightened, loosened and tightened until they felt just right.
It was coming up for eleven o’clock and a small group had gathered.
JB clapped his hands. ‘Ladies, gentleman, cute dogs and small kid eating sand – I declare the Harris Marathon ON! Godspeed my friends, godspeed.’