‘Yep.’
‘Fucksake man! Where the hell is Arladuke Falls anyways?’
‘It’s fictitious,’ Drew, with his eyes closed, said evenly.
‘Yeah right – so you know every river everywhere to be able to declare this shit one fake?’
Drew opened one eye briefly. ‘Well, I’m pretty sure it’s made up.’
Nothing ruffled Drew, certainly not JB’s mood which he calculated in a millisecond to be entirely justified. Taylor was grateful for Drew just then. Actually, he liked the tee-shirt his Dad had mailed to him at college; it was that heavy washed cotton in a wrung-out sage green and the eagle and the bear were in a canoe which was nonsense and cute all at once.
In his self-effacing way, Drew tutted and frowned at himself and googled Arladuke Falls all the same. Fancy that, he mused tohimself as if it had been a lucky guess all along. There really is no Arladuke Falls, JB!
‘Can I get you—anyone—something? Coffee?’ Taylor wanted done with this topic.
‘You going to boil it up in the kettle?!’ Drew asked.
‘That’s coming straight off our deposit,’ JB growled.
‘I’ll pay it,’ Taylor snapped and he went over to the kitchen area and made the coffee his way. He glanced over at the other two. JB was gingerly lifting the peas off his ankle. They were no longer frozen. Good job the bag was unopened, the room smelled ripe enough with their overheated bodies as it was. Even from the kitchenette, Taylor could see the purple and the blue creeping across JB’s foot and up his leg and he knew that somewhere, beneath the misshapen mound of flesh, his friend’s ankle lay damaged.
‘Man!’ Drew winced at the sight of it.
JB’s mood changed again. Now he just looked devastated.
Taylor placed the mugs of coffee on the side table.
‘Dude,’ he said and he paused, laid his hand cautiously on JB’s shoulder, gave it a squeeze. ‘I’mreallysorry, man. It totally sucks. What can we do?’
‘We don’t have to run,’ Drew shrugged as if it had been just an impromptu idea anyway.
‘We could go to Edinboro—Edinburgh—early?’
‘Maybe you want to go back to the health hub?’
‘Or book a scan somewhere on the mainland?’
‘Did you call your Dad. Oh wait – the time difference.’
‘We could go to the hotel? See if they have rooms?’
‘Or just go hole up in the whisky bar – that’s good medicine right there.’
‘A dram of anaesthesia. Dramaesthesia.’
‘You know, we don’t have to be hereon Harris at all.’
‘InHarris,’ Taylor corrected. The other two looked at him. ‘You sayinHarris’ he said quietly. ‘So I’m told.’
‘Well, we don’t have to be here – we can leave.’
‘You know what I want?’ JB said, his voice now softened by exhaustion. ‘Candy.’ He looked at his friends. ‘And chips. Chocolate. Crap like that.Beer.’
‘You mean Drew’s marathon nutrition plan?!’ Taylor said.
‘I’m not running,’ JB said.
Both Drew and Taylor took an instinctive beat.
