Hamish would put a pound in the pot, ready for the next time he had to have his beer-garden wall rebuilt. ‘Someone is going to get themselves killed at the bottom of that bridge someday,’ Hamish liked to warn his patrons, ‘as if the Fairbanks girl hadn’t come close enough.’
Alex took the bridge cautiously. The Old Girl and the rest of Eilidh high street fell away in her rear view mirror, Alex’s shoulders releasing a little the more the bridge shrank into the distance. A light twinkling of morning sun on water held Alex’s attention on the disappearing view. It made her feel sorry to leave it back there without a proper look, it wasn’t often she thought the Old Girl pretty. She had time for a little look.
Alex pulled over onto the side of the road in case she nearly killed anyone else before breakfast and shut the engine off. Her door cranked outwards like an arthritic hip. She sat there for a few moments with her feet on the cool earth outside the truck. It was so quiet here. Alex held her face to the sky. The air felt lighter up here in the Falls, lighter than it did back in the city anyway. Cleaner. Good for the soul. She’d taken it for granted as a child. She wanted to inflate herself with it now, purify herself with it. Alex clambered from her truck before even questioning herself and slammed the door shut behind her. The morning sun was spreading its greeting along the river catching like crystals on its changing surface. She’d spent so much energy distancing herself from this place, she’d almost forgotten its beauty.
Alex took in the view back towards the river where it cut past Hamih’s pub. You used to play Pooh sticks off that bridge with Jem, Dill Pickle. Alex would invigilate while Mum and Dad watched from The Cavern’s beer garden.
She missed him so much it ached. She missed Dill too.
None of the self-help articles ever said what to do about her dad. There wasn’t a fear ladder for that, no psychological tool that would make her apology substantial enough to brave offering it again.
You’re not here for that. You’re here for Mum. And then you’ll be gone again. Out of his way.
Alex shook off her inner monologue. She always became the same useless wimp when it came to Ted, that was a given, but Alex had decided on the drive up here that she would at least shuffle up a couple more rungs of her self-help strategy while she was here. She was going to pay a visit to an old adversary. The Old Girl looked welcoming now, winsome and pretty, just as she had been a thousand times before on still summer mornings such as this. Perfectly safe, if you chose the right spot.
Alex shuddered. That was a few rungs up yet. The Old Girl was right at the top, the end goal. She was going to wade into the Old Girl one day and she was going to do it without becoming a dithering wreck. Just like that. Tra-la-la. Alex quivered a little at the prospect. One step at a time, Dr Phil said. She could start up at the plunge pools, in the shallows. Alex found herself drifting away with her thoughts. Yes, before leaving the Falls again, she was going to achieve something. She was going to stand in the plunge pools up to her knees. That was the benchmark, that was something realistic she could aim for, a rung she could climb.
Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing, she reassured herself.
She’d seen an allegedly phobic woman on Oprah say this, again and again like a magical spell of protection while someone had steadily placed a boa constrictor around the woman’s sweaty neck. Alex had watched intently and the woman hadn’t even blinked. The not blinking thing wasn’t as impressive as having a snake near her windpipe though, in fairness.
Alex watched the sparkles on the water. ‘Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing,’ she said aloud. It felt strange. Liberating. She’d read that in the Climb your fear-ladder article too. Face your fears and assertively tell them, ‘No! I will not be a slave to you any more!’
She locked eyes on the riverbank. ‘No’, she said in a small voice, ‘I will not—’
This was ridiculous. She was losing her mind. Alex let out a little laugh. Then she cleared her throat and tried it again. All this clean air was flushing something out of her, it felt kinda good. And weird. ‘Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing!’ she called, louder this time. The wall of evergreens called back with a small echo. There were only squirrels and, rumour had it, a headless ghost she might disturb back here. Sod it, call it coffee jitters but she was going to go for it. She’d see a car coming a mile off before anyone would hear.
She took another lungful. ‘AIN’T NO THING BUT A CHICKEN WING ON A STRING—’
‘From … Burger King?’
Alex snapped her head round to her right side. Her heart hurt, like it had a stitch. It might actually have just stopped.
The mud was the first thing. New toffee-coloured mud spattered across his jaw. She glanced up and down, scanning him for possibility.
Oh God. Oh my God.
Another pain in Alex’s chest. She felt the beating in there fire up again on all cylinders. This was why kids pedalled stories of headless ghosts in the forest, the mulchy floor spongy enough that any person with a half-decent pair of trainers and a degree of athletic grace (that was Alex out then) could suddenly, soundlessly appear from the woods and scare the crap out of you.
Finn looked stunned too.
Alex didn’t know where to look. The mud was a running theme. His trainers were caked in the stuff, so were the calf muscles glistening with tiny beads of sweat. He hadn’t been a runner in his youth. He hadn’t been so defined, either. She tried to take him all in. His chest was heaving beneath his t-shirt, fervently but steady, like a racehorse. A thin white wire trailed down from the headphones either side of his face giving the rise of his chest a glancing blow on its descent to one of the pockets of his jogging bottoms. Joggers cut off at the knees. He wasn’t just a runner now, he was a hardcore runner.
Alex was dumfounded. ‘You’ve … changed colour.’ Her voice caught in her throat. Maybe he didn’t notice. He’d appeared from the trees as fluently as he did in her sleep. Alex swallowed, her heart already migrating to her mouth. Finn gave a gentle yank and sent the earplugs tumbling towards his waist.
He looked down at himself. ‘I guess that would be mostly the mud.’
It wasn’t the mud, it was adventure seeking in the southern hemisphere while Alex had been making vats of chilli con carne at the food bank. He probably smelled of coconut oil and ylang ylang now, she usually smelled of fried onions and disinfectant. His hair had changed colour too, lighter at its edges than it was. It still sat long just over his ears but it looked more deliberate now, like he’d just fallen off a billboard advertising surfboards, or cranberry juice, or something full of antioxidants.
‘You haven’t changed colour.’ He smiled. ‘Still a striking red head.’ Alex cringed at her own statement. ‘Well, actually you look a little less red than the last time we spoke if I remember right.’ He offered a half-hearted smile.
She was going to die. Right here on the spot. The last time they’d spoken had been in her student bedroom. Trying to be quick, efficient, like ripping off a plaster, hadn’t worked. There had been nothing clean and clinical about it. Just lots of arguing and hurt. And red faces, obviously.
‘Actually, you look a little pale, Foster. Are you OK?’
She hadn’t heard her name on his lips since the last moments before watching him walk away through the snow. Be kind to yourself, Foster, he’d said. Because not having the balls to go home and tell her
