27.

□ The traffic fluttered past and a clot of cold spread up my legs. A truck under the canopy came jogging to a halt — a man jumped out and stretched — and that was the excitement over. The darkened bypass was enlarged by occasional headlights, and I walked to the window of the service building and was seen in the glass to be disgusting. Life was rejecting me at last.

cf. T.T. Macoutes : Hand That Emits Tears (2001) Painted acorn wood on aluminium base.

In the cafeteria, the toilets were empty so I kicked away my shoes and dropped my shirt. I collected paper towels and started on my body with hot water, balancing with one foot on the tiles. Liska could have moved at any moment, lifted a hand from the seabed and clicked her fingers slowly — and that crackling would have been enough to cause a calamity. With a rumble, another service station would sink into the earth — the victim of a dead artist’s deepest repulsions.

All of which destruction would be justified, I thought as I took off my underwear. We demarcate everything and everybody gets a label. No one can escape, I thought as my underpants dropped to the wet floor of the toilet. We are all as bad as each other. Our concerns might clash, but we’re not doing anything about the real problem — which is our own lack of contentment.

Using paper towels, I wiped my bottom and thought about Anna Lunken. In most ways, I realised, Anna Lunken was a more perfect citizen than I could ever be. Anna Lunken is not one thing and then the other — she is all of one thing, I thought as I wiped my bush-sore bum. Anna Lunken knows that ignorance is peril and that if you don’t put your own needs first, you’ll either end up dead in the sea, or dancing naked in a roadside toilet.

I cleaned up my privates and threw the paper towels in the bin. I jumped up and belted my leg out — and it felt good. I should do this more often, I thought. I took a couple of turns around the tiled floor, almost at a loss without clothes, unsure of which way to turn, and completely excited.

An instinct had awakened and I had arrived at a crossroads.

Everything was a possibility and once again I felt refreshed.

I jumped up and spun around again.

Liska skimmed across the surface of the sea, and she raised her hand and laughed.

When the door to the toilets opened, I picked up my trousers as if nothing was going on. The dirty-looking guy who came in wore a lorry-driver’s badge and I made a short pretence of cleaning myself. The guy glanced but that was it — he’d seen worse than me naked in a toilet so I figured that everything was all right.

When the lorry guy had finished pissing and washing his hands, I had all my clothes on and I cleared my throat and tried my luck.

“Do you know how I can get a ride back to Aberdeen?” I asked.

The guy looked at me, good and long, depressive as a rain-soaked cow. His moustaches drooping into a beard that looked like it wouldn’t grow in the proper places.

“You’re a freak,” he said after a moment. He spoke like an islander.

“I was just washing,” I said to him, “I’ve been sleeping in a bush.”

“You’re still a freak,” he said.

“I know that,” I said, “but I just need a lift back to Aberdeen.”

The lorry-driver looked at me and I could feel a decision in the offing. His hands roamed back and fore across his belly as he dried them on his shirt.

“I’ll fix you up,” he said, “but I’ll need to search you first.”

“Search me?” I asked. “You’ve seen I’ve nothing to hide.”

The driver didn’t laugh — he only said, “Nobody likes freaks.” The comment came with a meaningful stare.

He turned to leave and I followed him. I never knew his real name because when I asked him he said nothing and pointed to a seat in the cafeteria, meaning that I should sit down. Nobody likes freaks and I didn’t like him either. He ordered everything on the menu as if it were an eating contest and I watched it all go down.

“Come on,” he said when he’d finished.

I was dreaming of my darkened bush retreat. There had been some happy hours up there. At least that was the way it seemed as I climbed into the cab and felt the engine vibrate in unexpected places.

The driver made no effort to speak so I sat back and felt sad about everything as the vehicle took to the road, terrified that from my passenger seat I could see over the warped, blackish tops of the other road vehicles. This is how I returned to Aberdeen. The sound of the engine was so deep that everything took on a proper place and harmony. I dropped to sleep but a bump on the road kicked up my head. I looked around and the driver was staring down the carriageway like it was a shooting range.

When the end of the ride came, the driver made a gruff noise, which meant that I was to get out. I was on the north side of Aberdeen among the old sheds and weeds again, with the smell of oil, standing in a long commercial lot where rows of lorries rested like mortified caterpillars.

I closed the lorry’s door, which was nearly impossible and the driver looked out of his window and said “Good luck, squire,” and that was about the most he’d offered in his life.