Read Online The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) by Paul Kearney - Free Book Online Page B

below him, and the gulls followed in its wake. What was he coming back to? The thought of Camasunary, dead as she was dead, with her things inside, left as they had been left that summer morning, made him squirm. Made the black mood hover close to his head and nestle on his shoulder.
    Maybe Molesy’s advice was not so hot.
    From the pier at Armadale he was subject to the vagaries of the island bus system. He managed to get to Broadford without much trouble. From there he could catch the post bus which went through Torrin; first, however, he ensconced himself in a hotel and fortified himself with a few drams of McLeod’s whisky. A head for the hard stuff was a vital social skill, and it was something he had picked up in his time in Scotland.
    The little red bus that took post around the island arrived late, as usual. The driver did not recognise him, for which Riven was profoundly thankful. He sat in silence as the vehicle wound its way around the knees of mountains, south beyond to Torrin. For Riven, it was like going back in time. The months in the Centre seemed like a grey and hazy dream from which he had finally woken.
    And at last the ridge, leaning tawny with the bracken above him, its head powdered with snow. He breathed deeply and fingered his stick, looked about him. From a dripping stand of hazel nearby, he cut himself a staff better suited to the rough ground, and began the long haul upwards. The whisky glow left him after a few moments of wind-driven drizzle. He bent forward, took small steps and tried to regulate his wild breathing.
    Noisy rills crossed what path there was, soaking his feet. He felt the beginnings of sweat on his back and under his armpits, though his face remained wind-cold. Stopping for a moment, he straightened up and stared at the climb ahead, trying to ignore the pains in his legs.
    I must be mad.
    But he lurched forward again, leaning on the hazel staff. There were a few Highland cattle on the hillside. They eyed him with placid curiosity, chewing cud under a shaggy fringe. He splashed past them and stole a glance at the sullen sky.
    Looks as though it’s about to dump something really unpleasant. He was familiar with this path, this ridge. He knew most of the twists and turns, the false summits, the areas of bog and black peat water, but the body which ached up it now was unfamiliar. New weaknesses mapped his ascent, so that he was taking this path for the first time, ignorant of the effort required to follow it.
    He crossed the snowline, and the rain turned into sleet that gathered on the rocks and the clumps of heather and then degenerated into slush, only to be replaced by a fresh flurry. A soft day, Calum would have said, with his imperturbable pipe in his mouth and his eyes gazing out from a face which had seen much worse. But Calum had died a year before his daughter, with his dog whining at his feet on a clear night of moon and silver surf, bowed under a load of drift which his heart had refused to bear.
    Riven reached the summit of the ridge, and sat down on a stone with the sight of Sligachan glen blooming out before him in the gathering darkness and the whipping sleet. A mountain loomed opposite, and to his left the sea hissed in long spumes that crashed on the beach below. Aye. A soft day; but not a soft night to follow it. He rubbed his legs, utterly alone and near to tears. Only some stubborn, partly military thing prevented him from sobbing, as it had prevented him from weeping when his corporal had been blown to bits in front of him in Ireland, or when he had known Jenny was dead.
    And, again, he could see her, hair tossed by the wind, wrapped up against the winter, laughing and telling him to hurry on. To hurry on down this hill I’ve climbed. So he started off again, swearing at his legs, the mud, the water and the winter, and most of all at himself.
    The way down was harder, hurting his calves and jarring his bones. He had to grasp heather and boulders to control the