‘—it’s your mind, Taylor, not your knee. You know it.’
West Loch Tarbert was flowing in the opposite direction to which they were running and they had to dig deep not to let illusion slow them down.
‘Don’t look,’ Drew laughed.
‘Don’tloch!’
The sixteen mile point was Sir Edward Scott School where an unexpected welcome party was waiting. As soon as Drew and Taylor passed, kids in sports kits joined them, chattering, laughing and singing; patting their backs, overtaking them,undertaking them. Ten, twenty – what did it matter how many. Taylor and Drew glanced at each other and grinned. Dougie had warned them how much more difficult it would feel to Paris, or New York or Boston – no spectators, no waymarkers, no staff, no drink stations. But to have this bunch of overexcited teenagers escorting them meant more than all the crowds at all the marathons they’d run together.
On the other side of the road, at the Harris Hotel, staff and guests cheered them on and, just a tenth of a mile later, the lady they’d met at the Tweed shop stood with a wry smile and a big wave that said och you lads, what are youlike?!Next to her, the man from the café shook his head in disbelief applauding all the while. A shrill whistle suddenly sounded and all the school kids ignored it. It sounded again and, moaning and protesting, they turned to run back to school and double maths. But Drew and Taylor could see Dougie and JB just ahead, seemingly teleported from holding back the traffic a million miles down the road.
‘You got this!You got this!’ JB held aloft a piece of card.
10!!!
Now the climb. They’d driven it. They’d considered it. They’d talked about it and run it in their heads. But when it came it was harsh and it hurt. There was Drew and there was Taylor and there was no one else now. The carnival of support at Tarbert had distracted them from noting that they were running the red section but now it grabbed them viciously. They knew they’d just have to fight their way through.
Loch Direcleit is glowering to their left, deep and black. To the right, the upward clamber of hillsides battered with rock. Above, rain out of nowhere, pelting into their faces; a gusting headwind shoving at their chests. They are surrounded by the steep and the deep, the bleak and the hostile. They are in the midst of utter aloneness. They suck down another gel. Taylor gags. Drew tunes into Taylor’s breathing, it is erratic.
‘Music,’ Drew says. ‘Play. Music. You should.’
Taylor faffs with ear buds.
‘Louder than your breathing,’ Drew says. ‘Play it louder you must.’
Yoda Yoda Yoda.
Red.
Warning and danger. Blood and fire. Red for battle. Red for a fight. See red and look it in the eye. A towering wall of red. Legs not working. Lungs too tight. Heart rates high. Feet disappearing into stubs. Marathon paranoia—maranoia. Monkey cackling straight into the ear: hey! I know! why don’t youstop!Go on – just stop running! What kind of a shit pace is this anyway? You may as well just quit. You’ve got cramp. Your head’s not right, you’re spinning. You’re not going to make it. You are going to fail. You are a total loser.
There’s nothing here for you. There’s nothing at all.
Taylor feels Drew’s hand at the small of his back and the monkey falls from his shoulder. In his ears now, the Small Faces are singingSon of a Baker. It’s Taylor’s dad’s all-time favourite song, he used to sing it to Taylor who hasn’t thought of it for many, many years. Tears are streaming down his face. Engineer, baker, whatever – he is his father’sboy. How he wishes his dadwas watching him today; his dad right here, on this road right now, on the island which means nothing to his mother.
Taylor’s father means nothing to his mother. Taylor hates his mother.
Ultimately, Taylor’s need to run away from these thoughts, these feelings, propel him through the red. He doesn’t notice the little posse of people making a noise and clapping like crazy at the turning for the Golden Road. He doesn’t hear the cheers from Iain MacAllister who picked them up and drove them to the health hub a lifetime ago. He doesn’t see Becca who is waving and clapping, nor the lady from the tweed museum. He only looks at the tarmac, just a yard at a time, ahead of his feet. He must punch, stab and kick his way through The Wall and he does.
Magically, the wind has abated and the rain has stopped. If you wonder when the weather might change in Harris, just wait five minutes.
‘Twenty miles, man,’ says Drew. ‘Yellow. Yellow now all the way home.’
Taylor thinks of JB, how he always finds the yellow zone, the final quarter, the hardest stretch; when Taylor would hang back for him towards the finish. Now, he thinks how much he’s missed JB’s bluster and bull today. Though cramp threatens his calf – or is it his quad, it’s hard to tell – he focuses on his breathing, on inhaling glugs of beautiful life-giving oxygen. He envisages lactic acid as a fluorescent liquid to be exhaled, sweating it out, imagining it dripping down his leg to be absorbed by his socks. He’ll be throwing these socks away.
Over a crest and suddenly, the vista widens and unfurls before them and yellow is for the sun, for gold. The famous sands filling the bay between Seilebost and Luskentyre comeinto view at last, like the hugest smile. What was with the weather back there behind them? Had they imagined it? What did it matter – they’d stormed right through it. Now the west coast was welcoming them with sunshine and softness and lovely downhill. Soon the turning for Luskentyre would come up on the right and then there’d be just over two miles to go. The finish is now a tangible thing.
Ahead, a solitary person stands at the junction. Blue hair with streaks of silver. A lot of dark eye-shadow going on, a leather jacket, clunkingly huge boots laced up to the knee. And the sweetest grin. She sweeps her arm in an arc, as if they might have forgotten the way. Twenty four miles can do that to you.
‘Nearly there Gel Boy,’ she calls out. ‘Nearly there, Gel Boy’s friend.’
Whether tourists or residents, people have come out of the holiday lets and family homes which speckle the Luskentyre road and there they stand, clapping and cheering for the two youngsters who’ve run all the way from Hushinish.
‘How are you doing?’ Drew asks.
‘I’mdying,’ Taylor laughs, ‘and my legs don’t belong to me – but I feel good.’
‘Sprint?’
