Blackwaterfoot

Orginally published in Gutter 17, Winter 2017.

They had crossed the Kilbrannan Sound by late morning, the sun striking the three kayaks and flickering on the swell gave the sea the glint of a silver trout. Jason took the lead south, following the west coast of Arran, keeping them a decent distance from the shore, close enough they could reach it if the sea took against them, far enough that he didn’t feel in its orbit. Sitting in his one man island, his gear stored water-tight and only the splash of Malcolm and Eddie’s paddles behind him, he could let the strain fall overboard. He didn’t so much drown his sorrows in the firth, as make them walk the plank, cannonballs tied to their feet.

Well, all but one.

Malcolm caught up with Jason and grabbed the end of his kayak, pulling alongside. ‘Avast. Prepare to be boarded unless ye have a bottle of rum!’

 At least he didn’t do the accent. Ever since they’d seen the news report about Somalian piracy and David Miliband’s statement on the TV in the pub in Inverary Malcolm had been shouting, ‘Shiver me timbers’ in a non-specific African accent.

‘I’ve got some Jaffa Cakes you racist fuck.’

 Eddie drifted in alongside Mal and they lashed the kayaks together, let the current edge them south, passing Jaffa Cakes across their makeshift raft. Eddie stretched down the bow of the kayak, his lower back still giving him a bit of jip. Usually by the third day all the kinks had been pulled and pummelled out but it was taking longer. Age catching up and that camp spot Jason had picked hadn’t helped, all those hidden rocks that only made themselves known slowly, an ache in your sleep that grew. He’d have to get back to the running, the swimming. He’d let his fitness slip over the winter, the endless stretch of dreich mornings and one too many whiskies at night with his marking.

‘Glad you came?’ Mal echoed his thoughts, waving the last biscuit under his nose.

‘No, it’s just the way I’m sitting.’ Eddie looked over at Jason, his eye on the horizon, as always with them but somehow separate, same as he’d been at school. Away with the fairies one teacher had called it, and Jason had been ‘Fairy’ for the rest of his school days. It took a stint in the army to get most people to drop it. Yet Eddie took Jason’s distance as implied superiority. He’d been the one that spoke about leaving, about travelling the world, about there being more to life than fucking Dingwall, but thirty years later he was still there, a street away from the house he’d grown up in, with that air of having one foot out the door. ‘How about you, Jason? You glad you’re here? We’re sure glad you could make the time.’

A pained look briefly sailed across Jason’s face. ‘Sure.’ He took the empty Jaffa Cake box from Mal and stowed it. ‘I’m not convinced the weather’s going to hold. If we’re going to camp at Blackwaterfoot we need to get a shift on.’

They pulled up out of the water just as the first drops fell. Mal had picked a quiet spot around the headland, a bit north of the village. Few people on the west coast had a problem with wild camping as long as you tidied up after yourself, but it was always better to keep out of sight if you could. With an empty golf course between them and Blackwaterfoot, they should manage to avoid a run in with some poker-arsed busybody.

Jason lay in his tent, his copy of Treasure Island open on his chest, the last of the shower pattering out on the canvas. Bloody Mal had ruined the book for him, Long John Silver’s west country accent replaced with Mal’s black-and-white-minstrel version of East African. Every trip they did, five or six times a year, he took a Stevenson with him, the stories perfect for the setting. He should’ve taken Travels With a Donkey in Cevennes. He was, after all, travelling with an ass.

Did Eddie know? His dig out in the Sound about ‘making the time’, was he reading too much into it?

When Melanie texted him to say Mal was planning to go away over Easter weekend they’d immediately made plans, a B&B near Tongue booked, cover arranged at work, John agreeing to manage the restaurant and bar for double time and the next week off. He’d been packing when Mal called.

‘Fairy! Get your gear out of mothballs, we’re going away. The forecast is good, Eddie’s free, and I’m itching to get out on the water. What do you say we do Kintyre and Arran this time?’

‘I can’t Mal, some of us have to do real work.’

‘Real work? You don’t even cook anymore, just get others to do it for you. And you call me the capitalist. Anyway, I was in your place for lunch and John was bumping his gums about having to work all weekend.’

‘Liquid lunch was it?’

‘A glass or few. New client, a resort up the coast. They liked my design for the one near Crieff. Big contract. Big. Called for a glass or few. So you in?’

‘For a drink?’

‘For kayaking. Eddie’s in.’

‘I don’t know, Mal. I’ve got a lot on...’

‘What’s so important it would trump kayaking with your mates? Is it a bird? Is it? Bros before hos, Jason, thems the rules.’

He couldn’t think of anything Jason would buy and the truth wasn’t an option.

Jason got his phone out and texted Melanie. Missing you. Outside a tent unzipped. Footsteps. The sound of someone pissing and a sigh of relief. Mal. She replied instantly, You too. Leave him, he wanted to write. Pack your bags and I’ll tell him. There’s a key under the third plant pot from the left at the back door. Pack your bags and come to mine. We can make it work. Instead he texted a colon and an open bracket.

The squall passed leaving the kind of sunset you could sail off into. Eddie collected driftwood and got a fire going while Jason dealt with the rations. After school he’d joined the army believing their promises of seeing the world. Instead all he’d seen were the insides of kitchens and mess halls in Britain, Germany and, latterly, Bosnia. He’d got out at the earliest opportunity and took over the lease of The Crofter, a former working man’s club that he’d turned into a bistro that got mentioned in the Sunday papers. He was capable of so much more than two tins of beans and sausages over a fire but this was supposed to be his weekend off. He should be eating scallops with Melanie not watching her increasingly tubby husband pour whisky into plastic camping cups. He shared out the bowls, took his cup from Mal.

‘A toast,’ Mal raised his cup, the smoke from the fire obscuring him for a second as the wind shifted. ‘To Alba Hotels for signing on the dotted line, making me the happiest architect under this bruised sky.’

Jason was next. ‘To our Lord Jesus Christ who died so that we might have a long weekend.’

The wind whipped up the fire, spraying a wave of ash across the sand. Eddie raised his cup a third time. ‘To us, to you, Mal, for organising this trip and to you, Jason, for choosing, as Mal delicately put it, bros before hos.’

In the sinking light, the flitting smoke, the fierce glow of the flames, Jason wasn’t sure whether Eddie really did wink.

Eddie took the dishes down to the shoreline and rinsed the remnants of sauce into the dark water. Jason was still sitting on the sand playing with his phone. Mal had a first generation iPhone and Eddie was waiting for the 3GS to come out in a couple of months before taking the plunge. Jason however was hanging on to his Nokia like a hippy to vinyl. Eddie shook his head. Jason was clearly texting Melanie.

Eddie and Melanie both taught in Dingwall Academy, her physics, him geography. It had been at the staff Christmas dinner at the end of last term that she’d let slip enough details for Eddie to piece together what was going on. Since then he’d sat on the knowledge, unsure what to do with it. Mal may not be the most attentive husband but he loved Mel in his own way – a financially generous way - and had since she moved to Dingwall from Glasgow after her graduation. He shook water off the spoons and watched Mal dance around the fire to the Rolling Stones coming from his iPod and tiny speakers. For all his size and bluster, there was still a small boy in there. The news would crush him.

Mel was an adult and free to make her own mistakes. If she wasn’t satisfied with Mal and got whatever she was missing from Jason, then it wasn’t his place to judge. He wouldn’t be the one to split up Team Mal and Mel.

But then there was Jason. The three of them had been mates since primary school yet he was sitting there, drinking Mal’s twenty-five year Macallan while texting his wife. That wasn’t on. It just wasn’t.

<Can’t believe I’m eating beans with him when I could be eating scallops with you.>

<That’s not all you could be eating.>

<Don’t! That B&B had a huge bath. I had all these plans...>

<Tell me.>

<Now?>

<I’m here by myself with only his wine cellar and the TV for company. This is my holiday too. I demand some excitement.>

<You’re filthy.>

<And you love it. Details! So we’re in this bath and...>

<And I start kissing your toes, one at a time, then your foot. I run my tongue up your calf...>

‘Hey, you boys having a swim?’ Eddie dried off the dishes and repacked them, pulling his towel from his pack. ‘Mal? Before you put too much of that whisky away?’

‘Aye, good point, don’t want to fall overboard.’

‘Jason?’

Jason put his phone down and peered at Eddie. The hard fire against the black sky made it difficult to see him clearly. He rubbed his eyes and stood. ‘Aye, sounds good. My shoulders are stiff from today.’

‘Out of shape?’ Mal patted him on the stomach. ‘Come on, soldier, drop and give me twenty!’

‘More likely you’re stiff from being hunched over that phone.’ Eddie pulled his shirt off and took a step towards the sea. ‘You’re like a fucking teenager, or a... fucking Golem hunched over with it in your palm. My precious. Gonnae leave it for a bit? Bros before, eh?’

 ‘Aye, sorry,’ Jason grabbed his own towel, kicked his crocs off.

‘You going to tell us about this bird?’ Mal stepped into the shadows, dropped his shorts.

‘Dunno. Don’t know if it’s serious yet.’

‘Seems pretty serious to me,’ Eddie said. ‘Look, you guys go on ahead, I’m going to take a shit.’

‘Trowel’s in the thing,’ Mal pointed towards his Kayak. ‘Make sure you go far enough this time. All through last night, the stink of your turd wafting over Skipness.’

Eddie waited until he was sure they were in the water. Lit by the fire his movements had to seem plausible. Under cover of returning the trowel to Mal’s box he got hold of Jason’s phone, tapped into the contacts, his back to the sea, quick as you can, changed an A to an E, and E to an A. He checked the sent folder, <...my fingers exploring...>, deleted all the messages, same in the inbox, then turned the phone off and dropped it on the sand close to the fire.

‘Hell of a shit! What did you eat? I hope it’s at least six feet down.’

‘Aye, buried treasure for Tony Robinson.’

‘Arr, X marks the spot!’

Eddie dived into the chilly water and pulled a few hard strokes feeling the tension in his lower back stretch out, his shoulders warming with the rolls. Over the Sound west-southwest, the lights of Campbelltown glowed like fireflies, the lighthouse on Davaar sweeping warnings into the night. Bobbing in the water he turned in time to see Jason towelling off as he walked back to the fire, picking up his hot phone in a panic, switching it back on. He’d assume the heat had caused some sort of malfunction, would wonder which drunk idiot had kicked it as they walked by. He’d see his contacts were still there, see his messages had gone. He’d text Mel, compulsively, openly, honestly, perhaps even erotically. Somewhere in Malcolm’s tent, maybe in one of his shoes, his phone would beep, would flash out in the dark.

Eddie treaded water, warm and cold patches trailing by him, the ridge of Arran like a dinosaur spine against the purple sky, the beach a stage for a tragedy. From here it didn’t look real, wasn’t something he was part of. He could float, secret in the dark, his betrayal hidden as Jason’s played out on Blackwaterfoot beach, and in the fall out there’d be pieces to pick up.