26.

■ What light came across the landscape in the morning did so as a formality. The sound of vehicles blew heavy in the distance. There had never been anything on this site except a rocky field, until at some point in our recent history, some people in protective suits had arrived and laid a concrete basin, a car park and a service station, and then gone off down the road to do the same, 50 miles further south.

I clapped my body for a little strength, but that didn’t work. I was stiff and my clothes had stuck. When I’d set out the day before I had thought that it would take me several days to arrive at this state, but, after only one night, I was impossibly abandoned to the world of wretchedness which lurks — I tell you now — only centimetres below our modern senses.

cf. Damien Hirst : A Thousand Years (1991) Steel, glass, flies, maggots, MDR, insect-o-cutor, cow’s head, sugar, water.

When men built service stations and roads, they replaced nature with a bacteriological muck. What had been green then became brown. Rivers were filled with lumpy mud, forests replaced with poles, shafts and spikes — roadways were driven in compass lines through the eeriness — and the speed limit was set at 70. Nature wasn’t needed anymore, not once the car was in production. Nature was now to be experienced through a medium.

In the service station at Clinterty, lorries revved up clouds of oily smoke and the smell of metaplastic bread rose from the back of the cafeteria. I crawled to rest within the stem of my bush. I didn’t want anyone to see me.

When the sun made its official appearance, I stretched my legs and thought about Liska’s funeral and the fact that people would soon be trying to get her paintings. I doubted that her funeral could go ahead until a proper cause of death had been stated and, given that I was the chief witness, I could see matters being held up indefinitely. If they came after me for questioning, I daresay I’d give in. Even if they dreamed up a charge like Perversion of Suicide, I daresay I’d pass beneath the battlements of the law — and give in.

The morning passed but I was not brave enough to move. That’s how long it takes for you to become untenable in this world — just one night away from goose feather and soap and you’re a savage who needs to be hosed down. Civilisation is only some fine letters and curls standing in the middle of a swamp.

On top of that, Liska’s washed-away body now stood out clearly against the dark surface of Kirkhill Forest, and she was frowning at me, signalling for me to join her. All the aches of the night were back in place and worse than before. I shut my eyes and tried to sleep but my skin was too cold.

Why wasn’t Liska annoyed with me?

It’s typical of dreams to be so unfaithful.

Liska was mid-tumble, falling towards the water and her life was racing before her eyes and she didn’t even know that I wasn’t there beside her. She didn’t even know that I was alive and that I’d gone all the way to Lerwick and back to Aberdeen.

I cuddled against my knees. It was dark again and car lights inscribed dashes along the road. The trousers of yesterday had become consumptive damp strips that would never mend and I had stopped collecting information about the world outside. As I stood up, the mechanics of my stiff body picked together into the slim assessment of my health. All the pain-intensive systems of my hunger kicked in and I was ready to go for the very first time into the noisy world of the road service.