Chapter Eight
Rowan
Penis.
I can’t get the word – or the sight – out of my mind.
I’ve seen Angus’ penis, and what a penis it is.
Perfectly formed, oh-so-touchable and, despite what I imagined is icily cold water, utterly hard.
Angus, it turns out, is as well-endowed as I would have imagined him to be – had I been allowing myself to imagine such a thing. Which I have not.
Until suddenly, there it was, in the naked, and very real, flesh, right before my eyes.
I hadn’t counted on stumbling across a buck-naked man well before eight o’clock, let alone it be him – but I really, really hadn’t expected said naked man to have an erection.
No, this isn’t something that happens to me, not even in my wildest dreams.
I picture Marnie’s reaction. He what? she’ll ask, wide-eyed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees, practically slavering at the juiciness of the gossip. Starkers? Completely starkers? And then, inevitably: What about his arse? He sounds like the kind of guy who has a good arse.
Angus, I will have to admit, even though it goes against everything inside me, does not have a good arse.
He has a great one. The kind of arse one might describe as statuesque: perky and pert and hard as marble.
The kind of arse that should be displayed on a plinth in the British museum, with an inscription such as: Scottish hiker’s buttocks, perfectly preserved.
Note the gentle curve of the derriere and the set of dimples at its apex. Truly a specimen for the ages.
But no, I’m not going to tell Marnie. I’m not going to tell anyone. I am going to bury the memory of Angus’s arse, and, more importantly, his hard, rigid, lickable cock, somewhere deep, deep down inside from which it can never again be recalled.
Certainly not at night when I’m trying to sleep. Certainly not in my next hot shower.
“Excuse me? Do you think you could lend me a hand?”
I stop, trying to find the source of the voice, but there is seemingly no one around.
“Hello?”
“Down here!”
A few steps to my left, the edge of the path gives way to a short but sharp drop into a collection of rocks by the loch’s edge.
There, a university-age lad from the night before is lying on the ground, his leg stretches out at an awkward angle, his bag beneath him.
He’s wet, and looks profoundly uncomfortable and more than a little embarrassed, his face red under his buzzcut.
“You alright?”
“Er, no. Not really.” He gestures at himself, frowning as if it’s obvious. Which it is, now I think about it. “Not really. Ankle’s a bit fucked and my bag’s stuck on something, so I can’t get myself up. Do you think you could maybe… help me?”
“Oh, right! Yes, of course.”
I shuck my bag and lower myself beside him, crouching to examine the problem. Somehow, a tree root has wedged itself through the strap of his bag; and with the way he’s lying, there’s no way he can either free himself from the root or get the bag off, rendering him stuck.
It takes a few tries, but I eventually manage to pull the offending tree root out and we both stagger upright; standing, he doesn’t look like much, scrawny in the way young men can be, before they’ve finished growing into themselves, and deathly pale, although that could have been the fall and the shock.
“Thanks,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Owe you one.”
“No problem.” I shuffle my feet.
He asked for help. I’ve given him help. Our contract is over, our mutual activity passed. What do I have to say to a 20-year-old? For that matter, what does he have to say to me?
“Took you a while though.” He laughs. “Didn’t think you were going to stop actually.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, well, I was calling you for ages. All the way since you passed that tree. You nearly walked right past me. Guess you were a bit lost in your own world, yeah. Really into nature and all that, are you?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks as I remember exactly what distracted me. “Uh, yeah,” I say. “I love nature. Wildlife, especially. Scotland’s, uh, stunning.”
“Isn’t it?” His eyes light up. “I had no idea that nature could be, like, so overwhelming beautiful, you know? Like, that loch? The slow ripples of the water with the sunlight on them? Sick. Caleb used to tell me, but I didn’t really believe him.
I thought it is made up, like on TV. But…
Man.” He shakes his head, and then looks at his boots, embarrassed.
“Hard, though. This walking thing. I thought I’d be alright as I’m pretty good at football and all, but it’s so long.
Just keeps going. My feet are covered in blisters, and now… ”
He pulls the bottom of his trousers up so I can see his ankle, which is swelling rapidly, the fabric of his sock straining over the top of his boot in a way that makes me feel a little sick.
“Are you sure you can walk on that?”
I fight down a bit of bile as he gingerly places it on the ground and takes a hesitant step. His face goes white as bones left out in the sun, and a small bead of sweat forms at his temple.
“Yeah, it’s fine, yeah.”
It is very clearly not fine, which becomes even more obvious to both of us when he tries to take another step and staggers sideways instead.
I catch his arm, as together we heave him upright.
“Alright, maybe it’s not so fine.” The words come out bitterly, almost angrily. “But what else am I meant to do? I’m due in at Beinglas tonight. I already paid and everything.”
“Your health is worth more than a night’s camping fee. It’s not that far back to Milarochy from here, if you wanted to—”
“—give up? Fuck no!” He balks like a startled horse.
Marnie would have a field day with this – she’d immediately lecture him about how real men talk about their feelings, and how the healthiest thing is to know your limits and respect them, and not push on through when you’re feeling shit – but I’m not Marnie.
So instead, I hold up my hands up as if he’s a wild animal, as if he needs placating.
“Oh, no. Of course not,” I say. “In that case, you need a stick.”
“A stick?”
“To lean on?” I hunt around in the underbrush until I find one that I think will work: thick, not too knobbly, the height of my armpit from the ground, so it should be tall enough for… “What’s your name?”
“Ewan.” His expression darkens. “Before you start, no I don’t go baaaa, and I’ve never had a shearing, and I don’t even like sheep, alright?”
A wave of sympathy sweeps through me. “Get that a lot growing up, did you?”
He rolls his eyes. “You’ve no idea.”
“Luckily for me, no one younger than eighty knows what my name means,” I offer. “I’m Rowan.”
“Does that mean something?” he asks as he takes the stick and experimentally leans on it, using it to hop forward on his good leg.
“It’s a tree.”
“Well, you did say you love nature. And wildlife.” He grins. “So maybe it’s fitting.”
I smile back, and offer him my arm, which to my surprise he takes. Between the stick and the arm, he seems reasonably able to hobble along, and so carefully we make our way down the track.
The sun is peeking out from behind its habitual clouds, casting light across the loch from end to end, the gentle ripple of the water diffusing the sunbeam into gleaming shells.
“Maybe it is.”
* * *
Ewan, I discover over the course of the morning, is, indeed, twenty, went to university in Bristol, was born in Blackpool but moved to the south coast with his single mum when he was a baby and has rarely left since, loves football and is a firm supporter of Arsenal, thinks all wine tastes like baby’s piss (he does not explain why he knows what baby’s piss tasted like, and I do not ask) and his favourite activity is getting drunk with his friends at the pub, or going on a shit night out (his words, not mine).
He is, in short, everything I expect a twenty-year-old man to be, although none of that explains why he is out here – on that matter, he does not elaborate.
I discover all of this because Ewan cannot abide silence.
No matter how much pain he is in, which is clearly quite a lot, or how difficult and rutted with roots and stones the path get as we continue to run parallel to the loch, which is very, Ewan keeps talking.
In some ways, I’m grateful: as long as he speaks, I don’t have to think about what Ethan has done, or how much I wish he was here, even though I know he’d hate every second of it even more than I do, or my sister’s hen do, and how angry she must be that I’m missing it, or whether my mum is worrying about me, or what I’m going to do when the walk is over.
Still, it is with great relief that we finally clear the first hurdle of the morning and cross a bridge over a gushing stream to arrive at a once-grand hotel tucked back from the path, with a picturesque view over the loch.
“Well,” I say, looking at the entrance to the bar with longing, “you coming in for a cuppa?”
Ewan eyes it askance. “I don’t drink tea.”
“Blimey. Alright. Coffee then?”
He shakes his head. “Red Bull or nothing, mate.” And before I can process this, he gestured to his bag. “No worries, though. Brought my own lunch, didn’t I. Cheese and pickle sandwich. Mum made it for me.”
We’re only on day two of the walk, so assuming his mum made it fresh the day he left that seems…
acceptable. A part of me wants to know if she’s made him a packed lunch for every day, and, if so, what sort of state those sandwiches will be in after five days of hot and cold and rain, stuffed in a heavy pack, but the rest of me can’t bear to think about them sliding around in their cellophane, and so instead I nod furiously and bare my teeth in what I hope is a convincing impression of a smile as I slip inside the hotel.
A group of older men is emerging as I enter, and one – ruddy faced and grinning – holds the door for me.
“Don’t forget to take your shoes off, love,” he says, pointing at the sign beside his head. “They get right cross if you don’t.”