Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

“Bet you’re glad you’re not in your t-shirt now?” I said.

The trail receded till it came to a clearing in the middle of the bushes. A couple of old sleeping bags lay on the ground along with the odd pair of discarded socks and pants. It wasn’t a big space, barely enough for both of us to lie on, but there was little chance of us being found.

I brushed my fingers along one of the sleeping bags. It was drenched. But the ground was spiky and uncomfortable so I zipped it open anyway and spread it out for a floor. Harry did the same with the other one, and we huddled together in the open.

Chapter 29

“It’s fucking baltick.”

H e was right about that. I rolled over for the thousandth time and tried to get warm. I drew my knees in tight and buried my face in the sleeping bag, but it didn’t do any good. I sat up and looked round the circle of thorny bushes, feeling crappy and irritable.

“What do you think the time is?” I said.

“Bout five I guess.”

“Have you slept at all?”

“No, not a wink. You?”

“I think I got about an hour or so. Jesus, it’s cold.” I blew out a stream of air and watched it rise and break away. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, the night has almost finished now. I saw a few clothes recycling bins at Tesco too, I should have taken something. Man, I wish I had had a drink now.”

It was a delayed reaction but something about the way he had said “baltick” triggered something in me. I joined up the chains of thoughts, “We’ve been so stupid.”

“Eh?”

“How could we not even notice? We’re the only Scots around for miles. The only Scots in that whole ward. That’s who they’ll be looking for, two young Scottish people, male and female, and we just told those kids!”

Harry slapped his head. He smiled ruefully. “We’re fucking idiots.”

“Well,” I reasoned, “nobody said anything, so it doesn’t sound like the hospital have put the word out yet. It would have been on the news.”

“Just have to hope it stays that way.” Harry said.

“See if we do make that train, and get on it for free, what will they do if they catch us not paying?”

“Nothing. They’ll just punt us off at the next station.” He seemed nonplussed.

I thought about it. “We have a little money now. We could get a cheap bus to London then get one of those megabuses to Glasgow?”

“We could, but we don’t have enough for all that. We’ll be at least Fifteen pound each to London from here and, I don’t know, twenty-five each to Glasgow on top…Hey, what’s that look? Don’t worry about it.” He shimmied over and gave me a hug. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. We can’t hang about here any longer though. The sooner we leave the better and I’ve just got a feeling about that half three train.”

He pulled back and rested on the sleeping bag. In the dark I could just make out his arm holding his black-figured head up.

“How are you so calm?”

“Eh? What do you mean?”

“Since we outran those guys, and got to the woods up that hill, you’ve been calm as anything. If we get caught on, or before we even get to, this train, we are fucked. Yet you’re acting like some Zen Buddhist.”

He laughed. A loud, vibrant laugh than rung out above the silent gorse and into the park. “This is just my life.” He explained. “This is what I’m used to. I feel most comfortable being on the move. In chaos. It’s the other times I get anxious, the sitting around and having to stay in one place.”

“How come?”

“Just my childhood, I guess. But maybe I would have been like that anyway.” His voice went flat, “It was when I was settled and happy that things went wrong. Whenever I started to like a family that fostered or adopted me, they moved me on again. I learned that I could never get too comfortable because something would go wrong quite quickly. And the abusive stuff too. The physical violence. Moving is just normal for me, has been since I was seven. It relaxes me.”

“I didn’t know you were adopted.” I said. “So, your half-brothers, were they-

“It’s complicated. My parents never wanted kids. I don’t know why they fucking did. I never asked to be born. But they didn’t think about it, like you were saying about that girl in the shelter and parents wanting dolls, not thinking about them growing up. Everyone just falls into the same old trap, living, fucking, procreating, dying. Like fucking rats. Instead of doing something constructive, or trying to change things, make the world better, people just keep popping out babies.” He paused, his face full of resentment. “One of the families I was fostered by only took me in because they got paid to do it. Guess how much?”

I shrugged and stayed quiet.

“Twenty grand a year! It was a common thing in the care homes I went to as well, at the time parents having kids because they got paid benefits for them all. And then social services had to take us away because they weren’t caring for us. You can’t believe it sometimes. All the things, the fuckin shitty things about evil men and immoral people you read about in books and see on films, nothing in them compares to life. This stuff is actually happening every day. We actually live in a world where you get paid to have kids. I just don’t have much faith in humanity. Everyone just looks out for number one. They come into the world and they just seek comfort, and when they get it, they want more comfort. That’s it.”