Chapter Sixteen
Rowan
After lunch – a steaming bowl of leek and potato soup and a flaky, golden sausage roll – we groaningly replace our packs and stagger onwards, past the Kingshouse Hotel and along a seemingly endless road towards what has been dubbed the Devil’s Staircase.
My body aches, but I’m used to that now, used to the stabbing pain between my shoulders, and the red-raw rubbing over my hip bones and the throbbing of my blisters.
This is one of the longest days, and I can feel it in every lumbering step. I want to lay down on the grass and watch the clouds scud by. I want to be in the park with a cone of pistachio ice cream. I want my own soft bed, and to crawl under my duvet and sleep for a year.
I want to be anywhere but here. And, yet, this is the only place I want to be. Walking with Lila and Priya and Angus. Testing my limits. Meeting the challenge.
Even if the challenge hurts like fuck.
I can’t remember the last time that I’d been in this much pain. I can’t remember the last time I’ve fought so hard not to give up.
It feels good.
When we set off again, Angus takes point, striding away on his strong, long legs. Lila and I follow, while Priya dances behind us, picking daisies from the side of the road and stringing them into chains that she places on first my, then Lila, and then even Angus’ head.
“So why the West Highland Way?” Lila asks. The path curves left, skirting the foothills of a slope I’m sure is far too steep to climb. I really hope something changes before we reach the Devil’s Staircase, as there is no way I’ll be able to make it up that, not even if I crawl.
“Oh.” I tip the brim of my cap down. “Well, it’s on the way to my sister’s wedding. And… To be honest, I was drunk at the time. So I think I searched ‘hikes in Scotland’ and now here I am!”
“Do you get drunk and book holidays often?” There’s a note of judgement in Lila’s voice.
“No, that was a special occasion.” I sigh. “I caught my boyfriend cheating.”
“So you booked a hike?”
“I think I wanted to do something that would make me feel strong. Independent. Like I had my shit together. And it’s silly, but I have this memory of a walking holiday my family went on once.
I must have been eight. I’m not sure. I don’t know where we were or what the walk is, but we were all doing it together, and I remember that I spent the whole day smiling, holding my mum and my dad’s hands.
And at the end, we got fish and chips and sat on the beach and watched the sun go down.
” I shake my head. “That was the last time we were all together. I think a part of me wanted that feeling back.”
Lila nods, but there’s a pall over her features, as if something I’ve said has made her feel sad.
“Sorry, that was a bit heavy, wasn’t it?” I say, trying to lighten the mood. Rowan, always ruining nice conversations with her bloody feelings. When will she learn? “What about you? Why are you and Priya here?”
Lila looks away. “We’ve always gone on walking holidays. Ever since she was small. And I… I wanted to give her one last happy memory before—”
“Mum! Come look at this!”
Priya dances back towards us holding a yellow flower. Lila looks almost relieved, her confession pressed behind her lips, as she bends down to examine it.
When we start walking again, I glance at Lila, wondering if she’ll continue, but the moment is over. And all too soon after that we’re turning through a farmer’s gate, the moorland rising steadily beneath our feet.
Then we’re standing at the base of a switchback trail, looking up, and up, and up as it disappears behind grass and boulders, steadily rising in what looks like it will be a hellish ascent. We’ve arrived at the Devil’s Staircase.
And I am not prepared.
There’s nothing else for it. No way over, but through.
I take a moment to stretch out my back, and glug from my water bottle to ease my parched throat.
The sun, which has been a welcome warmth all morning, is now hot overhead, sending trickles of sweat down my spine.
The climb is exposed, and we’ll be in the direct sunlight every step of the way.
By the top, I’m sure I’ll be a dripping, red-faced mess.
But there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing but endure.
Lila goes first, then Priya, then me. Angus brings up the rear. Even the first, gentler slope set my calves and hamstrings on fire. Why am I doing this? I can’t help but ask. Why am I torturing myself like this?
I have no answer.
“Why is it called the Devil’s Staircase?” Priya asks.
“It was named by British soldiers building roads here,” Angus says from behind. “Bastards couldn’t hack the elevation. Serves them right.”
“It is pretty steep,” Lila puffs ahead of us, her steps slow but steady.
The conversation lapses as we plough onwards. Sweat pours down my back, and my hair under my braid is wet. My bag feels as if it’s filled with rocks, and if it didn’t contain everything I need for the night, I’d throw it back down the hill.
I can feel Angus behind me, his breathing even and slow compared to my harsh gasps.
“Just… go…” I manage, turning back to him and resting with my hands on my knees. “I’m sure I’m holding you up.”
“Don’t worry about it, London,” he replies. “You keep picking those feet up, one at a time. I’m right behind you.”
The sound of his voice is soothing. Strengthening. He believes I can do this. Maybe I need to believe it too.
So I pick my feet up, one at a time, even though my legs shake, and my body rings out in protest. I count the steps in my head: one, two, three, four…
And when I get to ten, I start again, over and over.
Anything to distract myself from the agonising climb.
We rest every few turns, looking out over the steadily growing view: the road winding below us through the valley, the green grass shoots with hazy gold, the mountains watching over us from either side, craggy as old men’s faces.
We climb until I’m sure I can’t climb anymore. Until my muscles scream and my lungs are iron-hot and screeching and a tear slips down my cheek in pain and frustration.
Angus is wrong.
I can’t do this. I’m not cut out for this. It is too hard.
I need to stop. To go back. To go home.
I don’t do difficult things. I’m a failure. I failed at university. Failed at my early twenties. Failed at my relationship. Failed to build the kind of life anyone would admire. I’m not the sort of person who thrives when the going gets tough: I collapse.
This. Hardship. This isn’t me.
“How do you do this?” I ask Angus without looking back.
“Do what?”
“This! You do this all the time, right? But how?” A sob threatens: fatigue and pain combining to throw me over the edge.
It’s all coming back: those years in my bedroom, weighed down by my own thoughts.
Curtains drawn, phone off. Trapped. I hate thinking about it, but this is what happens when I push myself.
I always, always end back in the hole. “This is hard, Angus. This is really fucking hard.”
“Life is hard, London. That’s how you know you’re alive,” he shoots back. “But you have to keep going, no matter how hard it is. That’s how you get to the good things. That’s how you get to the top.”
“What if it’s too hard?” A gust of wind tears the words from my mouth.
“It’s not.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’re tough. Tough enough to get through this.” He hesitates. “And because I’m right here with you. All the way. So you keep picking those feet up. This mountain doesn’t get to beat you.”
Angus thinks I’m tough. Mr Hiker Know It All, Calves of Steel, thinks I can do this.
I take a deep breath and focus on nothing else: not the view, not Lila and Priya, not my own fears, not the voice in my head that is always there, telling me I can’t, that I’m not good enough, will never be good enough.
Instead I breathe, and on the in breath, I move my left leg, and on the out, my right.
There is nothing else.
And then suddenly, out of nowhere, right when I’ve settled into the rhythm of pain, step, pain, step, we reach the top.
I stagger the last few paces and almost sink to my knees when the ground levels out. There are a few other hikers up here already, their bags shining like beetle carapaces as they crawl over the top. The sun is still high, but a stiff wind gusts, whipping my face.
Priya and Lila have already jettisoned their packs and are perched on neighbouring rocks, sharing a bag of dried mango. Priya holds it out, and I take a piece, relishing the sharp, sugary hit on my tongue.
“I’m glad we put Ewan on a bus,” Lila comments, eyeing the steep slope. “I think that would have been a bit much for him.”
“It was a bit much for me,” I say, honestly. I must look a sight: red-faced and bedraggled with sweat. But achievement glows within me like a hot coal.
“But you did it.” Lila smiles, reflecting what I’m thinking.
“I did it.”
“Me too! I did it too!” Priya holds up her hand and we high-five, while Lila hugs her from the side.
“That’s right, kiddo. You’re the best hiker there ever was.”
“You did great, Priya.” Angus ambles over, munching some jerky.
Bastard is fresh as when we started. He hasn’t even bothered to take off his bag.
With his tight hiking trousers that leave little to the imagination and the thick stubble that has taken over his sharp jaw, he looks rugged, all mountain man, strong and capable of anything.
I want to feel that stubble between my thighs, for his hands to grab my legs and throw them apart. The contrast I imagine between the harshness of his beard and his hot, wet tongue.
Angus catches my eye, and I flush an even brighter red, glad that I have the excuse of the exertion to hide behind.
“And what about me?” I ask. “How did I do?”
“You beat the mountain,” he says approvingly. “How does it feel?”
How does it feel? I’m sure I’ve sprouted at least two new blisters, and my fingers are swollen from the heat. Now that I’ve stopped, my knee is shouting at me, twinging in anger whenever I shift my weight onto my left side.
Physically, I’m a mess.
But emotionally? Mentally? I beat the mountain. I kept going even when I didn’t want to. I didn’t give up.
And how does that feel?
“Fucking fantastic.”