Stonemouth

I was sixteen and I’d recently bought a moped, like just about every boy in my class who could afford to and hadn’t been forbidden by their parents. Scared myself on it a couple of times; never told Mum and Dad. Once I got over the novelty of whirling through the local wee roads and lanes, and making an expedition down the old coast road to Aberdeen, I used it mostly for heading for the hills and then going walking.

I liked hill walking because it got you away from everything and everybody and it was healthier than being on the bike. Other kids in my class were already getting gym memberships for birthdays and Xmas but I thought being out in the open air was less regimented, less controlled. Years later, in London, I held out for nearly two years before I joined a gym, and gave in then purely because it was almost the only way to stay fit without choking on traffic fumes.

I’d just struggled the hard, steep way up to the top of a wee hill in the forests above Easter Pilter when I first bumped into Joe in what must have been the summer of ’01; he’d come up the easy way and was sitting taking the sun with his back against the summit cairn, the two still-panting collies lying flopped round his feet. He wore baggy, worn corduroy trousers somewhere between dark green and brown and an even baggier green jumper with a hole in one elbow. The dogs looked up at me with milky eyes but didn’t raise their heads off their feet.

‘Mornin,’ the old guy said.

‘Aye,’ I said.

Usually I avoided other people in the hills, where I could, without making it obvious. As I had just got to the top of the steep grass-and-boulder slope, though, there was nowhere else to go, and anyway I needed to catch my breath. I stood facing away from him, looking at the view. Beyond the treed ridges and tumbled, grassy hills near by, Stonemouth was just visible to the east, the sea a blue-grey presence beyond.

‘Bonny, eh?’ the old guy said.

‘Aye,’ I said. Then I felt I was being too monosyllabic, like some rubbish teenager. ‘Yeah, it is bonny, isn’t it?’

‘You’re a Toun boy, aye?’ he asked.

I turned and looked at him. ‘Aye,’ I said.

‘Accent,’ he said, tapping a large, round and quite red nose. Not that I thought I’d looked surprised or anything.

‘Yourself?’ I asked.

‘Aye. Frae so fur back ah doot yir faither wiz burn.’

From so far back he doubted my father had been born. Joe certainly talked like an old geezer, though, as I learned, he only really put it on like that when he was playing up to some image of age or parochialism he wanted to poke fun at.

I sort of laughed.

‘Ye no stoapin?’ he asked.

‘Um, no,’ I said. He didn’t look like a weirdo or a paedophile or anything, and even if he was I’d be able to outrun him, but I just felt uncomfortable. ‘Well, better be going,’ I said.

Joe nodded. ‘Wouldne want tae keep ye,’ he said. ‘Mind how ye go, now.’

‘Aye. Nice to meet you,’ I said. Though this wasn’t really true. I walked off, the easy way. I felt vaguely annoyed with myself, though I wasn’t sure why. Awkward meeting.

As I started to head home, I took a forest track a bit too fast on my moped, whacked the sump or something and the bike bled a trickle of oil onto the narrow single-track back to the main road. I found out about the wee trickle of oil when I took a corner — not going fast at all — and the rear wheel just seemed to go out from under the bike. I skidded, tipped onto the tarmac and was scraped across the surface, with the bike pirouetting alongside, until I hit the grass and pine-needle verge and came to a stop. The bike lay ticking beside me, bleeding oil.

I got up, shaking a bit. Ripped my good jeans. Torn my right boot above the ankle. Ripped the stuffing out of my parka. Helmet looked a bit scraped. No blood or broken bones, though. I went for my phone but it had been in a pocket ripped open by my slide along the road. I found it on the grass, but the screen was dead and it wasn’t even powering up.

I was still wondering what to do and how exactly to break this to my mum and dad when an ancient blue Volvo estate came humming along the road. It drew to a stop and it was the same old guy. The two collies, slightly livelier now, were standing panting in the rear, looking at me through their cloudy eyes, moderately interested. The old guy leaned over, wound the window down.

‘Ye have a spill, son, aye?’

‘Aye.’

He shooed the collies to one side and helped me manhandle the bike into the back of the estate. Actually I helped him; he was stronger than me. The collies didn’t appreciate sharing their space with the now dry-sumped bike, but settled down when they realised a few whines and some hangdog looks weren’t going to change matters. The old guy offered his hand as we were about to leave.

‘Joe,’ he said, as we shook.

‘Stewart.’

‘Fine Scoatish name. Whereaboots in the Toun ye wantin?’

‘Ormiston’s Garage, I suppose.’ Not much point taking the bike home. I tried my phone again. Still broken.