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Wednesday, 31st December, “Hogmanay”
Cam chucked his rucksack into the boot of his ancient Volvo Estate and glanced up at the swollen grey clouds mobbing the sky. The weather forecast on the radio had predicted possible snow. Cam had been sceptical at the time but he didn’t like the look of those clouds. It was definitely time to set off. Although it was less than two hours’ drive to Glasgow, the Volvo had been playing up recently and Cam wasn’t sure how well it’d cope in snowy conditions.
There was no way he was going to risk missing this night out. He needed it. For the last two days, he’d thought of little else. It had been ten months since he’d been out in Glasgow. Ten months since he’d got drunk and danced. Since he’d got laid.
More compelling even than the obvious attraction of getting laid was the thought of just—letting go. Letting someone else take control, if only for a little while. He felt almost giddy at the thought of it, after all these months of being so tightly wound, and so isolated.
He was about to slam the Volvo’s boot shut when he remembered the bottle of Champagne that had been languishing in his fridge since he’d arrived here, a present from his parents when he’d moved to Inverbechie ten months before.
“Save it till you’ve got something to celebrate,” his mum had said.
Somehow, a suitable occasion had never arisen—until now, anyway. Tonight he would celebrate getting away from Inverbechie for a couple of days. He’d pretend he’d never left Glasgow, never made any of the mistakes of the last ten months.
With that determined thought, Cam strode back to the cottage, dragging his keys out of his pocket to open up again.
Just stepping inside brought his mood down. Recently, he’d come to hate the place, which was sad considering how many happy summers he’d spent here when he was a kid, and that it was the memory of those summers that had made him decide to set up his business here.
Back then, the cramped conditions and ancient furniture had been part of the fun, but now he hated the lumpy, threadbare sofa and the bulky, old TV. Hated the tiny, tiled dining table in the corner of the living room where he ate his meals—who the fuck chose to tile a table?—with its too-small chairs. Worse was the shoebox kitchen that only had a hotplate to cook on. No oven. Jesus, he couldn’t even console himself with frozen pizza.
Everything in the cottage was run down and ancient. Falling apart, just like his life. The boiler was just the latest casualty.
Stomping through to the kitchen, Cam yanked the fridge open and extricated the Champagne from its hiding place behind a half-empty jar of mayonnaise and a tub of cream cheese so elderly Cam suspected he’d find nothing but mould if he opened it. Tucking the bottle under his arm, he strode out again, locking the door behind him with an overwhelming sense of relief.
Ruthlessly, he shoved away the thought that he was going to have to come back in a few days, concentrating instead on stowing the bottle of fizz in the empty ankle sheath of a walking boot to make sure it wouldn’t roll around before slamming the boot shut and getting in the driver’s side.
He held his breath when he turned the ignition, waiting for the engine to spring to life—and it did, the little beauty. Not quite down and out yet.
With a grim smile he reached for his seatbelt, snapping it into place at his hip with one hand while he steered the car out onto the road. And then he was off, off to Glasgow for a long, debauched night out on the town.
He could almost taste his first drink already.
***
BY THE TIME CAM REACHED Ardkinglas, he knew the Volvo wasn’t happy. Even so, he kept going, coaxing the car along the long, winding road that led up and up. At the high point of the road was the Rest and Be Thankful—or ‘The Rest’ as the locals called it—the point on the road where travellers used to stop after the arduous ascent to rest their horses, and still stopped now, to take a picture and buy some chips from the snack van in the car park.
Every time Cam changed gears, there was an ominous scraping noise that made him wince. He tried to be gentle on the clutch, taking care to move the gearstick smoothly and carefully, but with every change, the noise grew worse and Cam grew more tense.
“Just get me to Glasgow, you fucker,” he muttered as he took a deep, curving bend. “I don’t care if you die once we get there, but you have to get me there.”
He was driving uphill and the slow climb was excruciating. On his left, the hillside soared, and ahead of him, the narrow road unfurled like a ribbon. It was slow-going, but this was the ‘quick way’ to Glasgow. The alternative was an even longer drive via Oban.
Cam had travelled this road many times in his life. When he was a kid, his mum had inherited a modest lump sum from his grandmother, just enough to buy the cottage. After that, they’d spent every holiday in Argyllshire. The cottage had been a bargain even then, thanks to its dilapidated state and eccentric wiring.
God, all those childhood journeys. Him and Eilidh and Ross in the back singing, playing games and fighting, sharing the space with bags of groceries, piles of board games, tennis rackets and sleeping bags. Everything they needed for a whole summer just doing stuff kids love.
The McMorrow family had come to Argyllshire each summer to “get away from it all” and that was exactly what they did. The kids left school behind, and so did their geography teacher Dad. As for Mum, she stopped nagging them about keeping their school uniforms clean and tidying their rooms. All the boring, normal stuff like going to bed early on school nights and doing chores got left at home.
When Cam had decided to start his business here, he’d had some nebulous idea that maybe he’d be able to recapture that feeling—that sense of simplicity—again. Now he realised that the thing that was so heady about coming here wasn’t that it made the family’s worries and responsibilities disappear, it just put a few miles in the way. The worries and responsibilities were still waiting for his parents back in Glasgow.
Cam hadn’t been able to escape his worries when he’d moved to Inverbechie—they’d come right along with him. Now, ironically, he found himself driving back to Glasgow to get away from them, and the closer he got to his old home city, the lighter his heart felt.
He was almost at the Rest now and, after that, it’d be downhill all the way to Arrochar. From Arrochar it was just a hop, skip and jump to the A82 and the rest of the drive to Glasgow should be a breeze if the snow held off.
But would it?
Cam squinted at the sky. Already a clutch of sooty storm clouds was scudding across the horizon, bullying the last of the weak, winter daylight away and ushering in a violet-grey dusk. In that strange half-light, the colours of the landscape were oddly intense—the darkly vivid green of the sweeping hillsides, the rusty amber of the dying bracken, the silver grey of the road itself, meandering through the glen.
This view took Cam’s breath away, even now, as he longed to be somewhere else.
But the ache he felt when he looked at these soaring mountains was very far from the simple contentment he’d felt when he used to drive this road and dream of making a life here. Now he found himself wondering whether, in choosing Inverbechie as the location of his new business, he’d unwittingly staked something he’d never have wanted to risk—the love he had for this place and the uncomplicated happiness it had once brought him.
And shit—he was thinking about the business again, just when he’d been so determined not to.
Cam pushed those thoughts firmly from his mind and made himself think instead about the night ahead, about drinking Champagne and cocktails at Eilidh and Kitty’s tiny flat in the Merchant City, then getting a few more drinks in at the pub down the road from Gomorrah before going to the club itself. He couldn’t wait to be out in the city again, was even looking forward to queuing for Gomorrah, sharing that weird buzz of anticipation with the other clubbers as they waited to be let in, taunted by the fat, driving beats that escaped every time the bouncers opened the doors to let someone in or out.
He couldn’t wait to dance. To dance on a floor that was packed with hot, sweaty bodies. To gaze at other men openly and invite them closer with nothing more than a look. To tear off his expensive shirt and shove the tail in his back pocket so he could display a chest that he knew without vanity was second to fucking none.
The quick, dirty thrill of pulling someone.
Of scoring.
Of surrendering himself to someone else—giving up all control.
How the hell had he gone nearly a year without a single night like that?
God, he was going to get so drunk tonight. The hangover would be horrendous after a year’s worth of quiet weekends, but it would be worth it.
The next rise loomed, the last one on the way up to the Rest. Cam took the Volvo down to second gear as he approached, grimacing as the clutch scraped again. His anxiety ebbed a bit when the noise died away and the car began to steadily climb the hill, but when the hill levelled off and he rounded the bend, he had to bring the Volvo to an abrupt stop.
“Shit.”
There was rock everywhere, all over the road and several feet high. Rock and mud and clumps of vegetation that Cam realised had sloughed right off the side of the mountain.
A landslide.
They happened with notorious regularity here at the Rest, though Cam had never seen one himself before. This one must have only just happened given that the road was still open, and there were no traffic cones blocking the area off with flimsy neon officialdom.
Cam had stopped the Volvo a few feet away from the edge of the debris. He stared out his windscreen at the stony river being illuminated by the car’s headlights and found himself wondering if there was any chance of driving over those sharp, rocky teeth, before rejecting the idea as absurd.
“Fucking hell.” His voice sounded too loud in the eerie silence.
Releasing his seatbelt, Cam got out of the Volvo, slamming the door behind him and zipping his elderly North Face jacket up against the cold. The jacket protected his upper half from the freezing wind but he felt its bite at his ankles, in the space between the hems of his skinny red jeans and his flimsy sandshoes. His outfit was definitely more suitable for clubbing than the great outdoors.
He walked up to the edge of the debris, wondering how recently the ’slide had happened. Perhaps he was being fanciful, but there was an air of stillness about the scene that made this moment feel like a very recent aftermath. To his left, the hillside that had shrugged the rubble off glowed a little in the darkness, a new gash of whitish scree scarring its surface. And right then, Cam realised that he could have been driving past here as the mountain collapsed. If he’d been just a few minutes earlier—if he hadn’t gone back to the cottage for that bottle of Champagne—he could’ve been under this rock instead of standing here, looking at it.
It took a few moments for the bolt of gratitude that thought prompted to pass. Once it did, however, reality set in with a vengeance.
He was not going to reach Glasgow by this road. Not tonight.
Distantly, he wondered how long it would take the Police to open up the old military road—that was the fall back when landslides happened. The only other option was to drive all the way back to Inverbechie, then head for Oban and take the long way round. Another four hours of driving at least.
If the Volvo held up that long.
“Shit,” he said again. Then, more loudly. “Fuck!”
The rubble just sat there, unmoving and unmoved.
“You had to do this today, didn’t you?” he accused, his tone driven and raw, though whether he was talking to the rubble or to some cosmic force he didn’t even believe in, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he was suddenly full of festering, welling rage.
“You had to ruin my one and only chance at a fucking night out, didn’t you!” His voice rose to a yell at the end of that rhetorical question and he kicked out, hard, only to howl with pain when his foot connected with unyielding stone.
He hopped onto his other leg, grabbing hold of his foot and cursing fluently.
“Fucking, bastarding, stupid, wanky, fucking shoes—”
He was so used to wearing walking boots all the time, he’d forgotten how uselessly flimsy these shoes were. Shit—had he broken a toe?
He was about to investigate further when the slow sweeping arc of another car’s lights announced the arrival of someone else on the scene, and not just anyone else: the police.
The police car pulled up behind the Volvo and two officers got out, an unfamiliar man and a woman Cam recognised from the village, though only to nod to.
“Evening,” the female officer said, nodding a greeting and walking towards him while the male officer went to open the boot of the police car and started rummaging inside.
“Evening,” Cam replied. “I take it you’re here to block off the road?”
She nodded. “I reckon it’ll be a few days before it gets cleared what with it being Hogmanay and with all the snow that’s been forecast. Were you off to Glasgow?”
“That was the plan.”
“Well, you’ll have to go by Oban if you want to get there tonight.”
“What about the military road?” Cam asked hopefully. “Will that be opened?”
“Not before tomorrow morning.” She shrugged. “If I were you I’d forget Glasgow and head down to The Stag. That Oban road is a long one and like I said, there’s bad weather coming.”
Cam swallowed against the sudden lump that had wedged itself in his throat. “Thanks,” he managed, dredging up a weak smile from somewhere. “I’ll bear that in mind. Have a good new year when it comes.”
“You too. And mind, you’ll have to move the barriers when you get to the junction—we’ve already closed this road off at the bottom. Just make sure you put them back, okay?”
He gave a jerky nod. “Will do.”
The engine of the Volvo stuttered when he turned the key in the ignition, giving him a moment’s panic and making the policewoman glance his way again, but on the second attempt it came to life and he was able to turn around and drive away with no more hitches.
He was extra careful, all the way down the road, taking care to change gears smoothly and slowly, but by the time he was approaching the junction, he knew the Volvo’s luck was running out. The groaning, scraping noise from the clutch wasn’t getting any better—it was probably getting worse—and he was becoming worried about turning off the engine in case it wouldn’t start again.
He had no choice but to stop the car when he had to move the barriers at the bottom of the road, but since he was pointing downhill by then, he didn’t bother switching the engine on to steer it through the gap, just put the car in neutral and rolled through, before stopping again to put the barriers back in place.
When he got back in, there was no getting away from it though—he closed his eyes before turning the key, wincing when that stutter came again, worse than before. And not just once, but again and again. On the fourth try, the Volvo finally started, but Cam’s relief was overshadowed by the realisation that there really was no way he was going to reach Glasgow tonight—not in this car. The disappointment was so sharp he felt physically sick.
He’d needed this night out so badly, and now it wasn’t going to happen.
There was nothing else for it but home. Back to the cottage for another night on his own in front of the TV. Just him and his bottle of warm Champagne.
“Save it till you’ve got something to celebrate.”
Christ.
As he crawled towards the junction, Cam considered, just for a moment, taking the main road into Inverbechie village instead of going home. He could go to The Stag and order a double whisky. Just down it in one and order another straight after. The thought was so seductive, he put on his left turn signal and sat there for a minute with the indicator flashing.
In the end though, he flipped the signal to the right and took the narrow, winding road that wrapped round the loch instead. The road that led to his tiny, miserable cottage.
He’d barely gone a quarter of a mile past the junction when the snow started. Just a few aimless-looking flakes at first, but soon they were coming steadily. Then heavily. And that was when, at last, the Volvo died. It happened as soon as the road started to climb. The car began struggling—Cam could feel it. He dropped it into second gear but the engine was already stuttering, stuttering then bucking and shaking, and finally seizing, right in the middle of the road. On a hill.
Two hundred yards from Rob Armstrong’s cottage.
Shit. It would have to happen here, wouldn’t it?
Cam dropped his head onto the steering wheel, hard. The pain was weirdly satisfying so he did it again.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He let himself wallow for about another five seconds before he put on his hazard lights, then he checked his phone—unsurprisingly, there was no reception—grabbed the torch out of the glove compartment and climbed out.
Sharp, icy pellets of snow stung his face as he emerged from the shelter of the Volvo. There was already a thin layer of the stuff underfoot and when he twisted to slam the driver’s door shut behind him, his right heel skidded and he went down heavily, falling on his arse into cold, gritty wetness. His thin trousers were soaked instantly and he cursed as he rose to his feet.
Clearly, the universe was determined to shit on him today.
He took stock and determined that the first thing he needed to do was get the car off the road before it caused an accident. Someone could easily come round the bend and plough right into it. He switched on the torch and investigated the road above and below, locating the nearest lay-by a short way up the hill. Moving it uphill was far from ideal, but moving it downhill round a sharp bend wasn’t an option at all.
Cam glanced at Rob Armstrong’s cottage. Its white walls glowed in the darkness, and a low light shone from the front window, suggesting its owner was home. He pressed his lips together, thinking. He really didn’t want to ask for help—especially not from Rob, even if he had been more friendly than usual the last time Cam had seen him.
He’d at least give it a go on his own first. He was a big guy, after all.
Aw-light, okay.
Opening the driver’s door wide, Cam took hold of the edge of the roof in his right hand, bracing his feet against the road as best he could in his slippy sandshoes, before reaching inside to gingerly let off the handbrake.
Instantly the weight of the car took it backwards. With a huge effort he managed to stop it slipping back any further but soon realised he couldn’t move it forward at all. After less than a minute of trying, Cam yanked the handbrake back on and extricated himself from the car, breathing heavily.
He regarded the Volvo’s flashing orange distress for one more moment, then, pressing his lips together, he turned around and started walking towards Rob Armstrong’s cottage, his jaw set and determined.