Turbulence

These boats are toys. Reds, blues, purple and green. Mixes. Marbles. Spots. There are trailers with stacks of them but mostly they come in pairs or threes, a family, huddled on the roof rack. Don’t think kayaks. Sea kayaks are long. The length and sleekness give you speed. Guys have crossed to Flannans, Kilda, Sula Sgeir, North Rona. They make them from all kinds of composites these days, resins and strands of lightweight matting. Same kind of principle as the skin stretched over a delicate lattice of bone or bleached wood. Strong as hell.

They say an Inuit paddler arrived in Aberdeen around 1720 but died shortly afterwards. There is indeed a fine example of an Inuit kayak in Marischal College and it can of course be accurately dated. But the story of its acquisition needs careful scrutiny. There are records of Dutch whalers landing Inuit people and vessels, captured alive along with the dead whales. I don’t think you can say that the documentation proves that anyone paddled all the way from Greenland to Aberdeen.

I couldn’t tell you the difference between surf boats and river boats. I know they’re both short so they can spin in a tight space. They look squat, maybe for buoyancy so they should come back up when the turbulence just drives them down. Anna does both. Surf and rivers. Mostly rivers these days. She told me about this meet. A memorial. Surfers, climbers, paddlers all do that. Folk remember someone killed on the mountain, or in the water, by gathering in mass.

I think most people believe in remembering.

I hadn’t clocked it was Invermoriston. Great Glen. Not consciously, anyway. I was just driving the same way. Working in Argyll. The obvious way to go. I pulled in right away. My car looked conspicuous without a roof rack. I was maybe intruding. But folk were still arriving. Stalls were set up. I had a look around for the old Peugeot estate I’d given over to Anna. No sign of it.

I walked down to where other cars and vans were parked. More were arriving, all the time. It was a big event. I sent a text. She would be driving. This was definitely the place. But she’d been down in the dumps, last time we’d talked on the phone. The boyfriend had told her he wanted some time apart to think things out. So maybe she didn’t have the stomach. No, all the more reason she’d be here. The alternative family. The community of river boats.

I thought of getting coffee. Waiting. There wasn’t a ferry to catch tonight. But I did have a rendezvous to make. The scenery should have been in black and white. Ealing era. A meeting in Ardnamurchan at the Strontian crossroads. Mairi was coming back from Mull. She was getting a fair bit of work now. Helping folk who worked from home in areas where the broadband was slow or iffy. I didn’t have a job to do. The trouble with independent boatbuilders is they’re usually very creative so they install the engines, themselves.

But the weather had been decent and tourists were prolific. The pound was low in Europe. Ferry fares were down, with Road Equivalent Tariff for the islands – the ones with falling populations, anyway. Orkney and Shetland didn’t qualify. Nothing to do with the way they voted.

I’d done a good few shifts on the pans and had the ferry fare for the 205. We could meet up and stay with mates of hers. It might be easier than when we were on the Island.

So I’d to get to the crossroads by a definite time. And right here now, I could be intruding. The text was enough. Just so Anna would know I was thinking of her. Doesn’t matter what you say. I wanted her to know I’d thought of her. Simple as that.

It was sun after rain. Pretty ideal for these guys – or maybe they needed a week of torrents for some of the runs.

I got that chill again. The lazy wind, as my olman called it. Goes right through you. Can’t be bothered to go round you. The submariner’s gansey wouldn’t help. It was in the car, picked up in a classy thrift shop in Inverness. A fiver’s worth of ex-Admiralty contract. The big chill’s worse when you’re close to lively groups. Worst of all when you’re living next door to the action. You’re a step aside. Cars dropping folk off. Chinks of supermarket bags with bottles of beer and wine and gin.

But I was off the Island and still feeling that chill in the marrow. Movement helps. I got back in the car.

The flashing and siren registered just after I pulled out. I indicated and pulled back in, to let the ambulance get ahead. The car in front did the same. The way was clear now for the emergency services, speeding down the road. That was the punch in the gut. I was winded. As sure as if I’d just been driven against a submerged bridge by a mountain torrent.

It was a fine day. Just into September. All these paddlers, a UK-wide community, they were gathering here like Jacobites. Bit more tasteful though. Thousands of tourists were still going up and down the road. But that’s what being a parent is. First you think of your own. A red Peugeot estate with the front crumpled in. Then you think, whoever it is, it’s someone’s family. But that’s the second thought.

You’d think, after the experience we’d shared, that water should have been something for her to fill the kettle with. But she went from sea kayaking to rivers. Then the specialised stuff. Studying the rainfall, the snowmelt. Reading the gradients on the OS map. Looking for trickles that you could paddle in a spate. She has a talent for reading what’s under a weight of water. She’s good at sensing the obstructions.

Sure she knows there’s risks. But that’s not a simple equation. There’s risks in everything you do and don’t do. The minibus went over on the way to a river. No-one was hurt.

It wasn’t her car in the road accident, that day of the commemoration. The incident that got me started on all this. I don’t know the story behind the flashing lights, that day. But they would have affected someone else’s family.