White Heather IV (OB266)

"Birches clustered in sprays where the dried-up burns dipped into the streams....Flickers were coming off the loch and the massive sky seemed filled with a sparkling dust above those hot summer hills, fattened with plants and trees."*

Luke coughed. He hudnae slept well up amongst the bracken-flecked sheep. It was chilly, pale-eggshell-sky morning. Mist rose above the railway pass. He shivered.

In the awning of his tent he started up the Coleman gas. Warmth at last, tea water on the go. He needed a slash. Shuffling out the tent he found his favourite birch to have a piss behind. Steam rose to echo the clearing mist.

You see, life had no been easy since he had left HER. Her name was too painful to say out loud. Ma, Mar. Mar. Mmmm, Martha. God, it still hurt over 3 years later. His ribs ached as he cackled with phlegm. Still, his own fuckin fault.

What was he gonna do today? Aw ya dancer, it was Thursday. Best day of the week. You see it was the Foodbank at St Francis In The East. He loved that place; hot tea, custard creams, a wee chat with that helper Tara. And bags of food to bring back to his tent; beans, sugar, toilet roll and tinned anchovies. Fuckin treats.

He'd manage a lunchtime hauf 'n hauf in the Lorne with that wee skinny barmaid. And he'd go for a wander down the pier to watch the island ferries come and go. He'd take a seat near the green-walled seafood shack and watch the gulls fight over scraps. He'd look for Jimmy's boat White Heather IV. Aye, and mind that time he and his pal saw the two drunk fishermen at Halloween unloading langoustines then hitching their dinghy to a battered white van. Weird stuff happens in Argyll.

He bloody loved Oban, so he did. His ex father-in-law, with his tales of fishing at Loch Awe would have been proud; if he didnae still hate his guts for that Martha thing.

Luke muttered and walked out in the Argyll sunshine to seek a kind of redemption of sorts.

[*quote from Alan Warner, Morvern Callar (1995)]

Sandy Wilkie