Rise Read Free

He would have dreamt he heard a click perhaps? Or sensed some greater emptiness than was usual. How fast had it gone, that little winding mechanism in his brain, before he started looking? Not for her, but in the wardrobe, the drawers? That box under the loose floorboard under their aching bed.
    ‘Sorry, folks,’ the bus driver shouts. ‘Road’s closed up ahead. Looks like a rockfall. We’ll need to go round in a bit of a circle.’
    Fine by Justine. More time to be in limbo. She listens to the hum of engine and passengers, glancing up every now and then to check their progress. By mutual accord, the tramp and Justine have stopped talking. She sinks back to almost-doze.
    They are driving down into a deep, long valley when she notices the first one.
    Stones.
    Hulking grey spears of stone, some in groups, some a single silhouette. Piles of smaller rocks studded in between, like gems in a chain, or foot soldiers in an army. Together, the stones form a thick rope of cairns and standing columns, marching along the basin of the glen. Beyond the valley, hills arch to sky: green and cloudy purple; to grey and milky-blue. The sun is low, heavy, and, just for a moment, a burn of orange flashes over the whole, sending shadows deep into the glen.
    ‘Shit!’
    She feels the bus lurch, slamming them forwards in their seats. A half-open ashtray, her forehead striking, the in-and-out lashing of a whip. Her neck springs back, is catapulted away. Another slam as movement stops. Shouting, the kids all screaming, folk yelling on the bus . . . she is on the bus so?
    Justine is puzzled. It’s raining. Her head dulls and shimmers, her head is opening out again but it feels nice and dizzy and it is raining. One by one, tiny droplets splash the floor, her boots. The splashes on the floor are pink.
    ‘You OK? Here . . . look you’ve cut yourself.’ The tramp’s rough hand is holding her chin. He shoogles the wrist of his other hand so the sleeve falls back. He has a whitish shirt underneath, which he’s using to wipe her blood. Showing her his knuckles as proof. His knuckles are red; the hairs on his knuckles are red. Somebody’s red-headed son, once. She can’t bear it. She shoves him away, batters down to the front of the bus.
    ‘Can I get off? Please? I’m . . .’
    ‘Whoah now, hen – gies a minute.’ The driver starts to open the doors. ‘Don’t you go puking on my bus. And watch they bloody sheep!’
    A rich brown boom follows. ‘She’s got a head injury!’
    The driver releases her. She stumbles outside, thick-woolled sheep scattering, jostling her legs.
    She recognises this place.
    In the summer, hardy wildflowers will come. Straggly blooms of saxifrage and cowslip will push through moss and the tussocks of wiry grass, fleeting colour across the land; loping and long, across hills and glens that flow for ever beneath sharp sky. Five thousand years before, this pale sun would have struck off the same jags and curves that she is looking at now, buttering rocks that were old, seeping under crags that were ancient.
    She wills the nausea away.
    ‘Ho, you all right?’ the driver calls.
    ‘Yeah, yeah.’
    She surveys the road, the sky, the land. About a mile away, on the hill, sits a little church, a row of houses facing. One hill erupts like a plook behind the church, all on its own in the middle of the plain. It’s dotted with sheep. She squints at the different colours. No, it’s people, bending and dipping.
    ‘Can I just get off here, please? Stay off, I mean?’
    ‘How? There’s nothing here.’ The driver follows her gaze. ‘Ho, now wait: there’s nae polis there. I mean, if you’re looking to make a claim or something: that wisny my fault. They sheep are bloody kamikazes—’
    ‘No. No. It’s not—’ Pressing her brow with the heel of her hand. A sticky lump is forming.
    The driver climbs from his cabin. Lighting a fag.
    ‘Look, hen. I could lose ma licence—’
    ‘Honestly. I don’t want to