Objective three… Focus on objective three, Fliss.
“We need to find somewhere to camp. We need to find water. Do we just fill our bottles up? Do we have those tablets that disinfect it? Or are we going to risk getting poisoned?”
“I’m pretty sure we’re safe drinking Highland water,” James says, looking down at me in that stupid hands-on-hip pose again. It’s a pose I usually appreciate in a man, but on him, it’s patronising. He’s looking at me like I’m a child.
“Do you know how to put this tent up?” I ask, climbing to my feet, patting my soggy dress down. “I need to get out of these clothes.” I glare at James waiting for a smart comment, but he just tilts his head as if to suggest he’d never. “And soon…”
“Well, I guess we might as well stay here tonight then, yeah? Don’t know about you but I’m knackered, frankly. We can look at that map properly and work out how to get to the nearest town. Don’t see much point in heading back to that other one. Do you?”
“They did have a phone.”
“But we only have fifty pounds. That’s not going to get us a taxi out of here.”
I nod. “Besides, I’ve already decided I’m doing this challenge. We spend a night here then tomorrow we hike.”
James drops his head as if this plan fills him with dread. “Tomorrow, we hike. God help me.”
*
I’m not sure when it happened but as the sun began to lower over the horizon and a navy-blue sky rose above us, the wind seemed to drop. The clouds have cleared. There’s a promise of a gorgeous starry night sky. The ripple of water from a nearby waterfall I found earlier and used to fill our bottles, trickles in the background. And as the beauty of Scotland’s summer evening curls around us, so do the midges.
“It’s like a fucking apocalypse,” James complains as he tries once again to wedge the tent pole in. He spits as he tastes a few.
“Do you mean the Exodus?”
“The what?”
“Are you referring to the locusts?”
“They’re midges, Felic-puh!” James spits more of the buggers out, batting his hands around his face. He shakes his head before ducking down again to fight the pole into the tent.
I give up the discussion, concluding I’m right and he’s wrong. I’m standing uselessly beside the tent waiting for him to erect it so I can finally get dressed. “I think you’re doing,puh, it wrong-g,” I say through spits.
James tenses all over, throws the pole he’s wrestling with down on the floor and gives me a glare. “Do you want to do it then?”
“Fine,” I say, shouldering past him. He straightens and steps back to let me past.
“No, it doesn’t –pah– Christ, these midges are making me mad! It doesn’t go like that.” I can see the faint outline of his shadow pointing at my progress.
“Look, let’s just peg it in and hope for the best,” I say. He goes quiet and I realise too late I’ve used the word “peg” around a child. When I turn around, he’s looking up to the sky, hands on hips again, doing that irritating foot-tapping thing. He’s biting his lip, so I know he’s trying not to laugh. “It’s literally a peg though.”
He laughs. “Come on, Felici-puh… Get that peg in.”
“Grow up,” I say, turning to place the peg in the ground, then standing to squish it in with my foot. Once it’s in, and the tent is manageable, for one night at least, I grab my bag and dive in to change out of these knitted tights I may very well have to peel off at this stage.
James, however, seems to have the same idea and is already sat inside with his legs crossed.
“Get out!” I demand. “I need to get dressed.”
“You can’t seriously expect me to stand out there whilst those midges eat me alive?”
“They don’t eat flesh… Do they?”
He gives me a funny look. “What, midges? God, I don’t know.”
“Out,” I say, nodding behind me as I crawl in too.
“I’ll turn my back,” he suggests.
