off, feet pattering, heart and lungs surprised, labouring. Cold water on bed-warm skin and why is she doing this again, exactly? The holiday park is asleep, curtains drawn, cars beaded with rain. The log cabins, she thinks again, are a stupid idea, borrowed from America or maybe Scandinavia but anyway somewhere it rains less than Scotland, when did you see wooden buildings anywhere in Britain? Turf, more like, up here, stone if you’ve got it, won’t rot. And they don’t look Nordic – not that she’s been but she’s seen pictures – they look dated, an unappealing muddle of softening wooden walls and cheap plastic windows, the sort of garden shed you’ll have to take down sooner rather than later. One thing to rent for a couple of weeks, even if obviously the wrong couple of weeks, weather-wise, but even if you had the means wouldn’t it be an admission of defeat to buy one? You’ve only to look at the woodwork to see that they’re depreciating assets anyway, if you’ve got money you might as well spend it on visas and plane tickets and not pass what are supposed to be the best weeks of the year watching a loch fill with rain. She must check the bank balance, next time there’s internet. Steve was right, she’ll admit that, camping would have been a mistake, worse than staying at home, but they’re not cheap, these chalets, not in the school holidays. She’ll be needing to buy new uniforms for the boys when they get back, Noah’s ankles poking out of his trousers weeks before the end of last term and she needs to dig out his old plimsolls for Eddie and isn’t the car needing its MOT before the end of the month? They can always just not drive it for a couple of weeks till the salaries come in, done that before, her on her bike and Steve on the bus, it’s a luxury anyway, really, the car, they should maybe sell it while it’s still worth something. She leaps a puddle, feels a cold muscle stretch. She could do anything, this hour of the morning, steal laundry sagging from racks on a couple of verandas – that won’t work, she thinks, the air’s too damp, they’ll have to take it in – nick a boat from the pontoon and go explore the islands, set fire to one of these stupid big cars that will be dry enough underneath, but she won’t because she’s running now, you don’t stop once you’ve started, not even to set fire to things that need burning down. She’d thought maybe that old couple next door might be stirring, she saw him this time yesterday sitting with his tea and the French windows open onto the rain, they say old people wake early. Maybe he’s awake and reading in bed. Maybe he and his wife lie together in the mornings, talking, or even – well, it would be nice to think that might be waiting in the future. After another twenty-five years with Steve. Or not. Goodness knows what they do here all day, that pair, the wife takes ten minutes of shuffling and grasping to get herself into the car, can’t be hiking or boating or cycling and what else is there out here? Steve says he talked to the man on his way back from the pub, they bought the cabin brand new thirty years ago and they’re thinking of selling now. To a nice local family, he said, said Steve, they just don’t get it, do they, that generation, what nice local family does he think has that kind of money to burn? Anyway the old guy says his wife’s not up to walking these days and doesn’t like to be left on her own so there’s not much point, really, any more, you’d be coming to watch the rain, wouldn’t you. Gave me the creeps and all, said Steve, he had these kind of sad eyes, never mind that stupid car.
Along the track to the beach where people launch boats, each leaf bouncing under raindrops, slippery mud and the trick is a short gait, don’t be on the ground long enough to slip, same as for ice, your feet are for staying airborne, pushing off not landing. Justine’s never going to get like the old man’s wife, she’s going to keep running until she dies. You’re not supposed to be judgemental, she knows that, she tells the boys, it’s not that anyone’s fat or slow by choice, no one gets up one day and decides to eat until they can’t move so have some sympathy lads, basic human decency, but you see people sometimes, when you’re running fast, dripping sweat, specially old ladies, powder and lipstick to totter to the corner shop with one of those trolleys because they’ve not bothered to lift anything heavier than a biscuit since the menopause, who give you a dirty look. Unladylike, mesh vest and red face, ought to be at home with her kids. Or those huge women that time in Scarborough, wobbling along the Promenade like milk floats, who shouted at her, skinny bitch, and she thought, what you are going to do, hm, chase me, bring it on love, bring it on. You can’t help thinking, well, if you’d done a bit more of this you wouldn’t be like that, would you now?
Up the drive towards the road, towards the end of the road, stones hard in soft mud. Round the barrier you have to activate with an electronic fob, as if they, the holiday park owners, anticipate ram-raiders or terrorists with vans. Onto the tarmac, easier. The slugs have come out, the kind with orange flashes, and worms drowned in puddles, swollen white like dead skin. She runs on her toes, nimble around the slimy bodies. Things shouldn’t be made like that, unprotected, lying around waiting for sharp beaks and fleet wings, for boots and tyres. Proper creatures run
