TWENTY-SIX

Cramped inside the tiny porch of a tent, Hutch and Luke sat and watched the little gas flame stutter around the stove ring. Rain hazed into drizzle. Grey dusk-light dispersed around the oncoming concussion of night. As every minute passed and they waited to see bubbles appear on the murky surface of the soup, it was becoming harder to see their feet, or where they had put the plates and mugs. The ground was too wet for a fire; sopping, like all of the dead wood around them that could have made kindling.

On the far side of the abandoned churchyard, the dwarf birch and willow were not so thick and the bracken and thorns between them had thinned, but their mobility had still been slowed, first by the acres of ferns that grew out of marshy soil to waist-height, and then by ground made uneven with lichen-slippery, grey rock formations. It had taken nearly an hour at one point to manoeuvre Dom over an outcrop of boulders. From the stony ground they entered more of the thick bracken. And since leaving the church, the canopy overhead had revealed only glimpses of a watery-grey sky.

Hutch had called an end to their slow and hesitant progress through the forest at seven. There was still an hour, maybe even ninety minutes of light left, but Phil and Dom had gone beyond their limit. Twice Dom had sat down in the woods, in silence, and been unable or unwilling to move. Phil’s movements had developed an ungainly, uncoordinated aspect, like he was drunk. In a way he was; he was intoxicated with exhaustion.

The darkness in the forest always made it appear later than it actually was. Watches were even checked; held up to ears to detect ticking. Even as early as four in the afternoon, under the ancient leafy canopy it began to feel like night.

They’d barely moved six, maybe seven kilometres all day.

The forest floor about their campsite was so strewn with broken wood, the erection of the two tents in this spot had been nearly impossible. Behind them in the thinning light the tents sagged and fluttered like discarded parachutes. Much ground had to be cleared first and Hutch’s fingers were scratched from scraping aside the dead wood and bracken to create a temporary clearing. Now the two tents were up as best he and Luke could manage, crammed together and sagging, with so many roots, nettles and lumps visible beneath the groundsheets it would be impossible to lie down comfortably and sleep inside them.

Hutch anticipated a bad night ahead, sitting up or curled into a corner of the two-man tent. But at least it would be dry inside, or so Hutch promised the others. From the waist down they were all soaked. The chafing inside Phil’s jeans was bad. He had managed to slowly peel the wet denim down to his knees, but doubted he would ever get them back on again so left them half down. His inner thighs were now shiny in the faint light with a salve they could smell. Tomorrow, he would have to squeeze into the pair of filthy over-trousers Dom had worn during the first two days of the hike. Phil lay down inside a tent, on top of his sleeping bag, in silence.

Spread out over Hutch’s sleeping-bag cover was the remainder of their food supplies. There was hunger ahead. Dom had demanded a substantial lunch. As a result, in the little metal pot on the camping stove was the last meal they could fashion together out of the two remaining packets of dried soup, a bag of soya mince, some freeze-dried savoury rice and the last tin of hot dog sausages. After that, they were down to four energy bars each and one communal chocolate bar, some boiled sweets and chewing gum. And even tonight’s food would amount to little more than a mug of soup each, cooked in pre-boiled marsh water, with two sausages standing upright in each of the four cups surrounded by soya mince. But not one of them could concentrate on anything but the slow advance of the pot’s contents to readiness.

At the perimeter of one of the stony outcrops, Luke had found a creek. Water that never grew beyond a brownish trickle in three separate locations. The actual stream seemed to be underground. But at least the murky water ran freely, and was cold and fresh. For ten minutes they had sat in silence and filled themselves, and then the plastic litre canisters and personal canteens. Hutch had felt dizzy and sick afterwards. But there had been no stopping them gorging on the first fresh water they had seen in two days.

At least their pitiful campsite was on the best ground they had seen for hours; out of the chilly breeze that could come through the trees at dusk, and more or less level once the scrub had been removed. With the tents up, Hutch set about preparing the stove and assembling the ingredients. They were all too tired to talk. And didn’t even look at each other.

Luke was spent. Aches bruised his thighs and jabbed through his buttocks. Had he taken off by himself, he wondered how far he would have made it alone. At least twice the distance they had covered as a group. Maybe he would even have found the fringe of the forest. Who could say? But once they were clear of that dreadful church, he had just wanted to break free of the others. Every moment of misery endured since fuelled his resentment at Phil and Dom for slowing them down; putting them at risk by being so physically unprepared for the trip. And the rash decision Hutch had made with the short cut still made him smoulder. Much of his anger should have been directed at himself. He was transferring it onto the others. He knew it. Taking the short cut had been against his instincts. As had their continuation on the trail from the house that morning, westwards into the unknown. Taking both routes had been the wrong thing to do; he had known it, but he had followed the others and not raised enough of an objection. Why? Same again with squatting in the hovel last night; his participation had been contrary to his instincts. And look at what it had done to them all. It had been a night they had lacked the energy and inclination to confront since. Something terrible happened to each of them they could later blame on environment or tiredness. But they were not random, those dreams.

He wanted a clean break from it all and from all of them. Tomorrow, he would take off. On his own to get help. He had made the decision earlier that evening. And when he told Hutch in a whispered aside, his old friend had just nodded his assent. Not raising any of his usual enthusiasm for the new strategy, or a single objection, Hutch had just moved his head slowly. Inside his grimy sockets Hutch’s eyes had looked too old, dim somehow.

They were fucked. Really in trouble now. The day had been a waste of time, exhausting the last of their supplies and what little energy Phil and Dom had left. They had turned that corner, from camping to survival. It had happened sometime during the day. Probably in the early afternoon. Had not been marked by anything specific, but by everything. And only now, once they’d stopped staggering, foot by foot through the debris, had Hutch finally accepted their situation. Just knowing it made Luke’s head heavy. But at least it stilled the maelstrom of ideas in his mind, and the sense of choice, that had almost made the morning exciting for them in the way men can get excited outdoors.

There was no choice now, no debate. Someone had to go for help. One of the fitter ones. Him or Hutch. While the other one stayed behind with Phil’s terrible blisters and exhausted overweight body, and Dom’s painful swollen knee, and the way it too was exasperated by an exhausted overweight body. Hutch wasn’t happy with the arrangement, but Luke’s fight with Dom had settled it.

He’d take off at first light. Due south with the second compass. After a few hours’ sleep. And he was looking forward to it, despite the risks. Those pitfalls he could not allow himself to dwell on in any great detail, like the sudden gaping chasm of solitude that would swallow him up and boom through his ears. He would just have to keep going through the madness of it, the awe and terror, and stay focused. But he wanted to settle a few things before he left the others. ‘Dom?’

Inside the mouth of the tent, he could see Dom lying down in silence, with his injured leg raised and propped up on his rucksack to ease the swelling. No answer.

Hutch raised his face and frowned at Luke, then shook his head. He mouthed the words, Not now.

Luke nodded and sighed, before looking up at the dark roof of tree branches and heavy wet leaves they had camped below. The individual limbs and branches above merged into an inky ceiling. Tiny segments of paler sky glimmered through the holes. Drizzle settled onto his face. A few heavy drops regularly smacked the earth about him. The water would always find a way down to them.

‘Ready chaps,’ Hutch said.

The two figures inside the tents stirred. Dom groaned. Then stuck an arm out of the awning of his tent. The hand at the end held a metal dish. ‘And don’t skimp on the sausages. I don’t care if they taste like scrotum.’

Hutch grinned. ‘Well I had to thicken the sauce with something. ’

Luke didn’t have the strength to laugh. Phil turned his torch on inside the tent and looked about himself to find his own tin.

‘We’ll wash this down with some coffee after.’

Luke’s mouth filled with saliva. Even with the milk powder that never fully dissolved and the sugar sachets they had swiped from the hostel in Kiruna, just the idea of it made him stupidly happy.

They ate quickly and noisily, almost weeping into their tins as they licked at the final dregs of liquid around the sides. None of the pans had been washed from the previous night and the dried residue of yesterday’s meal could be felt against their tongues as they lapped like starving cats.

‘That might have just been the best food I have ever eaten,’ Hutch said, when they had all finished, his tone of voice lighter and warmer than it had been since midday.

Luke thought of saying something about losing sight of the simple things that really mattered. But decided against it. He doubted anyone in that camp had any interest in what he had to say any more. They all felt awkward around him now. He sensed it on the few occasions he had spoken since the fight, and intuited a tensing of their bodies when he came close to them as they made the clearing and set up the tents. The majority of both tasks he had performed, but his efforts had gone unacknowledged. He was getting impatient again, at his exclusion, and it was turning to irritation.

He lit a cigarette. And pondered again on why he had been at the very edge of the group since they met in London six days ago. Six days? It seemed much longer. He looked into the packet and squinted. Only eight filter cigarettes left and then he’d be into the emergency ration of roll-up tobacco, 12.5 grams of Drum. Being out of tobacco would make him truly psychotic; he’d take cigarettes over food every time.

He fidgeted. He sighed. If he were honest, something had happened to him in his late twenties that seemed to manoeuvre him away from other people, not just his friends, but from the normal course of human affairs. He’d begin to catch people exchanging glances whenever he spoke up in group situations; or they would be half smiling when he entered the offices and warehouses he worked in, but he never stayed for very long before he moved on to something else equally unsatisfactory. Invitations to join others lessened, then ceased before he was thirty-two. Only damaged and insecure women seemed to find comfort in his company, though they had little interest in him besides his being a confirming presence. By thirty-four he was lonely. Lonely. Genuinely.

Back in London and Stockholm, before the hike began, unless he was talking to Hutch alone, his every attempt to start a conversation in the group had been treated like an ill-thought-out statement, or just ignored. No one even tried to pick up the threads he started. Most often there would be a silence and then the other three would fall back into whatever natural camaraderie they had rediscovered. A bond he was only interrupting by speaking. At best, he had been humoured from the start of the trip.

How he had become so estranged from his oldest friends puzzled him, and wounded him deeply. It could be down to something that happened to him in London after a few years in the city. He knew how the city changed whoever you were before you lived in it. Or maybe he’d always suffered a fundamental disconnection with other people that had been latent in his youth. He didn’t know, and was getting too tired to think about it now, and was sick of analysing it. Fuck it, what had he got to lose? ‘Dom. Look. This morning …’ He took a deep breath and sighed.

Inside his tent, Phil turned away, onto his side, his back to the open door. Hutch stayed preoccupied with boiling water for the coffee, but Luke could tell the tension was almost unbearable for him.

‘I’m sorry, mate. I mean, really sorry. About this morning. It was just … unacceptable.’

Dom did not respond for a while. And each second of silence thickened the chilly air about the campsite. When he did speak, his voice was calm. ‘It was. But stuff your apology right up your arse. I don’t want it. And unless it’s a strict matter of our survival, I don’t want to exchange a single word with you until we get home.’

Luke looked at Hutch, who winced and pursed his lips, but continued to busy himself with the coffee preparations.

Luke’s temperature rose and warmed his entire sheath of skin. He felt light-headed and choked up with emotion. All over again. Self-pity. Anger. Regret. Every-fucking-thing as usual, thickening his throat like the mumps, blocking his mouth with the taste of iron. ‘Fair enough.’

‘Too right it’s fair enough. And I swear, if you even go for one of us again, you’ll get more than you bargained for.’

Had they a strategy to defend themselves against him then? Had he been discussed? Of course he had been; when he was out ahead, walking point. The fight was an event that would have commanded any breath they had left for debate.

‘Like you were blameless.’ He was speaking on instinct again. That terrible instinct that he could barely control when he felt aggrieved, which if he were honest, was every morning on his way to work on the London Underground and then for the best part of every day at work in a second-hand record shop.

‘Eh? I provoked you, did I? Into what you did? I deserved that? You’re a bloody psycho.’

‘Dom,’ Hutch said, his tone stern.

‘Leave it, Luke,’ Phil said. ‘Just leave it. You’ve done enough for one day.’

‘Piss off.’ It was out of his mouth before he spared a fraction of a second to consider it.

‘Here we go again,’ Dom said.

Luke took a deep breath. Paused. Looked at the end of his cigarette. ‘You’ve been on my case since London. You think I’m happy being the butt of all your jokes, mate?’

‘Oh poor you. Boo fucking hoo.’

‘You’re doing it again. Belittling me. Why?’

‘Can it, Luke,’ Hutch said, his voice sounding tired.

‘Why? Why is it whenever I speak, it’s too tedious for you all to listen? What do I say that is so inappropriate, or stupid?’

‘Maybe it is,’ Dom said.

Luke ignored the comment, knowing it was an attempt to get back at him for the humiliation Dom felt about the fight. ‘I can’t believe any of us used to be friends.’

Dom kept it up. ‘We’re not any more, so don’t strain yourself.’

Suddenly, Luke did not regret a single punch he had landed on Dom’s face. ‘What the fuck am I doing here, with you? I’ve been thinking that since you all showed up at my flat.’

Dom propped himself up on his elbow, so Luke could see his tight flat face in the dark entrance of the tent. ‘Well maybe you should have said something then and spared us all your company for the last few days.’

Luke laughed out loud. ‘Forget what happened this morning, which is seeming more justifiable now, by the way, but just put that aside for one moment, and tell me. Tell me what your problem is? With me? Come on, let’s have it.’

‘Luke!’ Hutch barked.

‘No. Piss off.’ Luke moved his eyes back to Dom and spoke slowly. ‘What is it that I have done? Tell me. You’ve been breaking my balls non-stop. Everything I say, you contradict. I’m not entitled to an opinion. Anything I say is rewarded with a sarcastic comment from either you or Phil. Or you look at each other with those pathetic half-smiles. Why? I’ve done my best to get along here, but no matter what I do, it’s like I’ve committed some cardinal error to provoke this contempt. Because that is what it is. Contempt. But I am goddamned if I know what it is that I have done to deserve it. And this is what I want to know now. So tell me.’

No one spoke.

‘Things have changed Luke. We’ve all moved on,’ Hutch said.

‘What does that mean? Really mean?’

‘We’re different people now. People move apart. Time does that. No big deal.’

‘It is a big deal if you invite someone on a camping trip and then exclude them and make them feel like shit. And even when everything has gone to shit, you’ve still kept it up.’

‘You’re overreacting,’ Phil said.

‘If we’ve made you feel that way, I apologize,’ Hutch said. ‘Now can we drop it?’

‘Not you. You’ve done nothing, H. I’m not talking about you. It’s this pair.’

Dom shook his head. ‘Ever thought about some of the things you’ve said that just might piss us off?’

Luke raised both hands. ‘Like? An example?’

Dom leaned further out of the tent. ‘Who do you actually think you are? You can’t help reminding us of what a free spirit you are. No family. No wife. You don’t believe in monogamy. You won’t take any shit from anyone at work. Don’t want to be trapped by responsibility. You’re bloody thirty-six, mate. You work in a shop. You are a shop assistant. You are not eighteen. But you never changed and it’s hard to take you seriously. Because you still get excited by the fact that Lynyrd Skynyrd have a new record out.’

Phil and Hutch sniggered. Luke looked at all three of them and then dropped his head back to laugh derisively. ‘So that’s it.’

‘Do you think your philosophy impresses anyone with any responsibility in their lives? You said back in Stockholm that you have made other choices. What choices? What have you done with your life? Really? What have you got to show for yourself?’

Luke leaned forward, his voice raised, until he became too conscious of it and lowered it. ‘It’s not a competition. I don’t want what you have. I genuinely don’t. And because I haven’t bought into it, you try and make me feel like some kind of loser. True enough, I’ve made my life difficult for myself, with the record shop that went tits-up. With London. But I’m not some aimless loser. I work in a shop now to get by. It’s not a career choice. It’s an occupation to pay my rent. Something I am doing now. And that’s all. It’s not who I am.’

Phil sniggered and Luke could tell he was looking at Dom. Would he like a fucking slap too? He stared at Phil. ‘But it bothers you. It pisses you off that I’m not crippled with debt or saddled with some moody bitch. Instead, you P.R. your lives and act like I’m supposed to envy you. Who would want it, boys? Look how bloody old you look. Both of you. Fucking fat and grey and you’re not even forty yet. Is this what a family does? And marriage? Am I supposed to aspire to it? Envy it? And if I don’t, I should be excluded? Why? I’ll tell you why, because I remind you of everything you can’t do. Yes, can’t do. Because you are not allowed to.’

Dom just shook his head.

Phil quietly said, ‘Twat.’

Dom looked up at Luke again, trying to hold his mirth back. ‘Which is something you try and rub our noses in every time we see you, because it’s all you have. Arrested development is hardly a way of life I aspire to.’

‘What? Following your heart. Not compromising. You can’t see it as anything but failure and avoidance.’

‘Listen to him,’ Phil said, quietly, but it was the most engaged he seemed to have been with anything since his cries of distress chilled them all that afternoon outside the church. ‘And he earns two pounds fifty an hour and lives in the sort of shit-hole you were supposed to leave behind in your second year at university.’

‘But it still pisses you off,’ Luke said. ‘It really does. It’s all that regret and resentment you carry around. It’s not my fault you’re both terrified of your own fucking wives.’

Dom snorted. ‘Shagging those scabby tarts and living like a bum. Oh, I’d swap places in a heartbeat. And where has selling CDs and that music journalism course got you, eh? Finsbury-fucking-Park.’

‘Why is it that any woman I go out with is a scabby tart? Whereas the uptight bitches you got shacked up with are somehow what … desirable? Respectable?’

Hutch was shaking his head, but it was too hard to tell in the gloom if he was smiling or nervous. ‘Fellas, you’re all getting way out of line here.’

But no one was listening to Hutch. Even he was irritating Luke now, trying to protect Dom as usual. Always babying him. Did they know how they looked together? ‘Money,’ Luke continued. ‘That’s the only worth anyone has, is it? What they earn?’

‘Well it’s a start and better than nothing.’

‘The only criteria with which you judge anyone these days. What they own, acquire, have. What a sad fucker you turned into. And don’t pretend you’re happy, mate. Don’t kid yourself because I am not fooled. I saw you at Hutch’s wedding. How many arguments did you have with Gayle?’ He glared at Phil. ‘And you with Michelle? Eh? She had a face on all day, like a bulldog chewing on a wasp. I’d have got shot of the pair of them years ago. Put them out with the fucking bin bags. Let alone married them. I mean, what were you thinking? I’d rather be on the street than have to look at one of their miserable faces for a single night.’

Hutch reached out and grabbed Luke’s calf muscle hard. ‘Luke. Luke. Luke. Too far. Too far.’ Then Hutch stood up quickly and said to them all, ‘Fellas, I’m done with you all. Remind me to never ever set foot in a room again when you’re together. Like we don’t have enough to deal with. I mean, men, get real. We’re in some pretty deep shit right now.’ He stalked away, into the treeline to urinate.

‘And whose fucking fault is that?’ Dom shouted after him.

Luke still didn’t feel that he had finished, or had said anything right. ‘Once we get out of here, we go our separate ways.’

‘Well, as far as you are concerned, yes. I won’t be looking you up again. You can be sure of that,’ Dom said and laughed, a note of triumph in his voice, that made Luke fondly recall smacking his face with both fists.

‘Fine by me.’

‘We only went camping because you’re so skint. Me and Phillers and H wanted to go somewhere warm, but you couldn’t afford it. We were thinking Egypt for some Red Sea diving. So this is what happens when you compromise for a free spirit, who lives by his own rules. Who ended up selling CDs for a living and is always skint.’ Dom raised the zipper on the tent flap.

Luke sat still and tried to regulate his breathing. The rage was strangling him again. When he felt like this, he wondered if, one day, he might actually kill someone.

‘Best thing for you to do now,’ he said to the closed door of the tent, ‘is to think of how you are going to get your fat useless arse out of this place tomorrow. Because I won’t be here when you wake up.’

‘Piss off.’