The Way Home by Michael Castle (great book club books TXT) 📕

School of Life

Ariane and Hannah lay across the back seat of the car, tangled in a nest of duvets and pillows. Scottish scenery whizzed past their slumbering forms; towering mountains and vast moors. The car bumped along erratically with Colin at the wheel. He pushed his hair back and peered out at the drizzling sky.

He was a hesitant driver and his was a driving style characterized by indecision. He spent much time musing upon the advantages of driving at 10km/h or 100km/h. To be on the safe side, he alternated between the two. There are no happy mediums in this life and there were certainly none in that car.

Mika was the co-pilot and he held a rough map across his lap. The map was simple and had been ripped from a Lonely Planet. Scotland was divided by two intercrossing lines – the A8 and the C5. Mika studied the map carefully before peering out at the empty wasteland before once more returning his gaze to the map. Colin slipped up to 100km/h and Mika’s knuckles resumed their former position – a clenched position denoting fear. Mika feared for his life.

“Maybe you should slow it down a bit mate,” he said in the calmest tone of voice he could find. Mika was not feeling calm and his voice sounded more like a pubescent youth than a 25-year old.
“Nah, it’s more safe this way. Besides, the car just seems to get away from me,” said Colin.
“You can say that again,” whispered Mika.

The car jerkily pulled up to a t-section and Colin found himself at a rather perplexing cross roads, literally. Should he wait until there was no other car in sight or should he just shoot out and hope for the best? He sat in contemplation, cars slowly piling up behind.

“Maybe you should just go mate,” said Mika.
“Alright then,” said Colin, thankful that the decision was now out of his hands.

The car stalled twice and it was at was at this moment that a truck appeared. Its horn split the air and Colin madly grappled with the gear stick. He shoved the car into third and it coughed itself across the line and into its lane.

Mika’s eyes were white, brilliant white, quite like the color of his face and knuckles.

“Woah man,” laughed Colin nervously.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” asked Mika swallowing back the acridity of stomach acids.
“She’ll be right.”

The rental car was in Colin’s name so there was little Mika could do. Mika was also slightly illegally in the country having over stayed his visa by two months and didn’t want to get pulled over and deported.

“Are we there yet?” asked Ariane sleepily from the backseat.

The tiny car sped along the uneven roads, its passengers tossed about as sharp corners were haphazardly navigated and plunging ravines narrowly avoided. After countless moments of fear, horror and the sinking feeling that ‘this is it – life is now over,’ the crew arrived on the banks of the widely renowned Loch Lomond. Colin slammed on the brakes and the passengers flung forward, the car almost plowing into the murky water.

“Ahhh! Did we just nearly die or is that my fever talking? I think I have whiplash …” said Hannah hyperventilating. “I can’t feel my toes!”
“Toes?” screamed Mika. “I can’t feel my heart! It’s beating so fast that I can’t feel it,” he said and to emphasise this point, he broke into a bout of severe coughing.
“Oh my hat,” said Ariane quietly before breaking into mumbled French.
“Well I think we’re here,” said Colin looking around. “This is it,” he said, blissfully unaware of the horror that he was inflicting upon his passengers.

They were four: Mika and Hannah were Australians, fiercely patriotic although they didn’t know it. Everyone within a 2m radius of them did however know it. Ariane was from the exotic land of French Canada. Most people pretend to know that Frenchies live in Canada. They smile politely and nod their head and later that day, they conduct discreet internet-based research. Mika and Hannah had done their research after walking around Ariane suspiciously for a couple of weeks. And Colin, the hesitant man at the wheel, was South African; a non-racist South African. Hannah had asked. All four were on working holiday visas, living together in a one-bedroom flat in Edinburgh, rented from a suspected ex Guantanamo bay prison guard.

It was the Easter holiday weekend and the four had decided to embark on a trip through the Scottish highlands in a rented car, camping out in a 5-man tent purchased the morning of their departure. They were equipped with a video camera and the idea that they were about to make cinematic history with a mock-umentary entitled “I know what the Loch Ness Monster did last summer.” They had 8 different hats, various microphones and wires and cables and a vague idea about ‘putting people on the spot and talking fake French. It’ll be classic bro, classic’

“Let’s go,” said Colin energetically.

Mika slowly pried open his door of the ‘2-door vehicle of death.’ Howling winds galloped through the narrow gap, whipping everything in sight. Empty crisps packets and papers and old lolly wrappers were flung about. Hair whipped eyes and teeth chattered involuntarily.

“A bit windy innit,” said Colin, the newly crowned king of understatement.

The two guys then did what guys do best: they got out of the car, pretending to themselves and the world around them, that there was nothing they wanted to do more. Mika felt his heart swell. He felt heroic and brave. He knelt down and kissed the ground.

“What are you doing Mika?”
“Oh you are such a girl Hannah! Can’t you see that I am being masculine?”
“What the hell are you talking about monkey boy?”

Sometimes girls can be very insensitive beings. Sometimes men can be very deep and complex beings and Mika was feeling particularly deep and complex.

“Stupid girls,” he muttered wiping the dirt from his mouth and picking some gravel from his teeth.

The girls looked at each other and then at the murky loch and then back at each other. Hannah bravely ventured a toe from under the warmth of their back seat nest. Ariane bravely ventured an arm from its cocoon of comfort. They nodded at each other. It was a nod that said “seen one loch, seen them all.”

Mika and Colin continued their pretence of adventure and poked around the water.

“Not much to see here.”
“Nope, just looks like water to me.”
“These girls are a bit boring staying inside the car. Don’t they know this is the famous Scottish Loch Lomond?”
They were standing at the edge of the loch with the hills behind them covered in heather glowing green against the contrast of the snow which had formed a slight layer across the peaks earlier in the morning. The sun was peeking from behind the clouds making the mist swirl across the water, seemingly alive with a mind of its own.
“Hmm … not really sure what all the fuss is about actually.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmmm..,” Mika said before returning to the car.
“I think I’ll continue driving,” said Colin. “I’m finally getting used to driving on the left side of the road.”

And so the car pulled off on the right side of the road before wildly swerving violently to the left. The four continued their jolted journey through the growing dark of twilight. The lacking light did little to improve Colin’s driving and the passengers, all now awake and alert, sat clenched with fear.

“Shouldn’t we be driving with lights?” asked Ariane ‘The Practical.’
“If you like,” said Colin before switching on the windscreen wipers then the left indicator, the right indicator, then the stereo.

“Let me,” said Mika reaching across with shaking hands.

Tension soon reached fever point. It is worth noting that Hannah actually did have a fever and she sat sucking the ubiquitous white of Advil, vainly hoping to cool her raging forehead. No one spoke.

And on they drove, now looking for a campsite for the night ahead.

“There!” cried Hannah, delighted that she had won this ‘competition’. “There it is!” she said as one says of a long lost friend.
“Hannah, even a dull witted nong would know that this is clearly someone’s front yard,” said Mika, the self proclaimed ‘boss man.’ His ‘boss man’ status had recently risen in his mind. He was a masculine and complex hero after all.

“Seriously, we can camp there, they won’t mind,” said Miss Persistence.

Miss Persistence finally persuaded the ‘boss man’ and the others out of the ‘2 door vehicle of death.’

“I am not getting back into that car,” whispered Ariane.
“Look on the bright side. It can’t get any worse,” said Hannah.
“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Mika. “We are still alive, somehow. Death provides room for worse!”

They walked on.

“Oi! What dae hell dae ya think yer doin?!” screamed a voice from the gloom.
“Did you hear that?” asked Ariane nervously. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Oi, shoot the craw sharpish Raffs” it came again.
“Just ignore him,” said Hannah, gesturing in the distance. The others peered into the gloom.
“How can you even see that far?” asked Mika.
“Fevers enhance the senses. Besides, I have 20-20 vision.”

What Hannah was gesturing towards was the distant form a farmer, a distant form which was slowing growing larger and clearer.

“Why is he carrying a chainsaw?” asked Colin slowly.
“Just ignore him,” said Hannah. “We can face the tent this way so we will get the morning sun,” she continued.

The others were unable to take their eyes from the farmer and his chainsaw and they drew back.

“Oi! ah said, what tae hell are yer dayin?!” His persistence annoyed Hannah, so sighing she turned to face him.
“Hello, we are just planning our campsite for the night,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I was just planning the details ok,” she said, clearly annoyed at the interruption.
“Do you think it’s very safe to wield that chain saw whilst under the influence?” Colin bravely asked.
“Naw amurny! Who’s pished lardy? Just sipped myself a few cheeky wee Scotches; something to warm the old cockles.”
“Clearly,” said Ariane, choking on the pungent fumes of wafting alcohol.
“I think he means to kill us.” Mika whispered a touch too loudly. The man missed this last comment and to cover his discomfort at being slightly deaf, he decided to launch into a speech.

“Yer cannie camp here in mah yard, haven’t yer heard of the ‘School of life’? Ah lassie what dah yer do?” he said, randomly pointing at Hannah.
“Well I have a business degree and …” she got no further.
“University!” He said with all the scorn he could possibly muster. Yer avin a laugh! Wot yer need is tae grow up in the ‘School of Life’. School of hard knocks; that will git hair o’ yer wee