Flat between the trees, roots veining the path, straight through the puddles now, can’t get any wetter. There’ll be hikers out soon, the ones walking the whole trail under huge rucksacks and their calves bared to the ticks which isn’t clever, not around here, doomed by hostel bookings to finish the day’s distance whatever the weather. She could run the whole trail, she thinks, she’d like to do that, but not with one of those bags. She’d like to run from Penzance to John o’ Groats, from Paris to Vienna. Well, maybe not over the mountains but you can go round, can’t you, up the Danube or something? She could probably handle a few passes, anyway, anything people can cycle Justine can run. She’d like to run from San Francisco to Vancouver, not that she wouldn’t miss the kids.
Behind the music, the sounds around her change. A wind strokes the hillside, disturbs the trees, lifts the rain sideways into her face. Go on then, rain on me.
She thinks of the blood pulsing on one side of her skin and rain on the other, the thin membrane so easily opened, of the threads of blood in water. She had a waterbirth with Eddie, felt the baby’s waters go into her own pool, Russian dolls of membrane and fluid. Leaves flutter in the wind and rain, the valves of her heart flicker, currents of water move in the loch below her running feet and rain filters through earth where the roots of oak and beech reach deeper, spread wider, than the trees’ height. There are waterways through the soil, aren’t there, trickles and seeping, and the branching streams within her body, the aortic river and the tributaries flowing from fingers and toes, keeping her going. Faster, then. Faster. The wind is lifting the mist, making a space for her between the rocky trail and the low sky. Breathing room, steady now. She can feel her core muscles responding, her belly and her backside holding her, letting thighs and calves and the unthought muscles and tendons of ankles and feet stretch and hold, lift off and land. She could go on for ever, easier than turning back, but she must turn, must make breakfast and see that the kids brush their teeth and create the day for them, not yet, a few more minutes, just up there to where the path levels, broadens, where if you could see today she’d be able to see miles, down the loch towards the town and the station and up the Ben with the whole Highlands peering over its shoulder, leaning south. Breathing room, damp and oak and pine and her feet finding their way, rain and sweat in her eyes, she’ll remember this later in the year when she’s running by orange street light under a brown sky, keeping an eye out for dog poo, she’ll remember how she could have kept going.
The track turns and runs back under the trees, rivulets carrying soil and sand towards the loch, patterns of sediment like ripples on a beach. Not much point going down just to turn round and come up again, she could turn here. It’s not that she minds hills, not when they happen to be where she’s going, but she doesn’t go looking for them, doesn’t do training, intervals and hill reps, doesn’t join the running club, doesn’t race against anyone but herself. But you could probably run a marathon, Vicky tells her, Vicky who starts Couch to 5K every six months and gives up because she’s too busy or there’s weather or she doesn’t like being out in the dark. Of course Justine could run a marathon, she does the odd 25-miler just to show that she can and it’s not hard, you run and keep running until the end, but she doesn’t see why she should, just because some bloke in Ancient Greece was too excited to find a horse or a chariot or whatever people normally used when they wanted to go faster than they could walk. Women run marathons for sure and good luck to them, but it seems to her such a blokey thing, 26 point whatever miles and all that chatter about minutes and seconds and splits and Personal Bests, are we not measured and recorded and found wanting often enough already these days? Why not just run?
*
Oh well, she’s down the hill now, may as well keep going a bit, just a few more minutes, they’ll probably all still be asleep when she gets back anyway, though maybe Steve in his dressing gown, picking at his feet and doing the crossword from last weekend’s paper which is pointless but harmless – the crossword, not the picking, the picking makes Steve much more likely to have his scratching fingers bashed with some handy domestic implement, with the iron or the big orange pan, than he seems to understand. It doesn’t change anything, does it, doing a puzzle, you don’t learn anything or make anything. It’s exercise for the brain, Steve says, stops you getting dementia, running doesn’t change anything either, you have your hobby and I’ll have mine. Anyway it’s a bit weird, he says, the amount you run, it’s not normal, you do know that, you’re addicted. Fuck off, she says, yes I do know it’s not normal, normal is sitting on the sofa pushing cake into your face and complaining about your weight until you get type-two diabetes and they have to cut your feet off and then you die, no thanks. And she’s out and back before the kids are up, isn’t she, and if it keeps her fit and well into old age he should be grateful, she knows who’ll be looking after whom.
She must turn back. She can hear her children turning in their beds, scent their morning breath, feel on her fingers the
