Ally and Jamie stood side by side at the foot of the path looking up at the green-blue granite elevation of Cairn Dhu in the distance. The mountain, shaped like a ragged molar tooth and topped with the lightest powdering of snow even in summer, lifted into a hazy sky. Leading up into the mountain was a wide boulder-strewn pass, almost always in shade, that leads hikers on deeper into the range and a week’s serious hillwalking before you’ll lay eyes upon a driveable road or a pub again.
‘Just a gentle trek, right, for an hour or two?’ Ally said, checking again that Jamie felt recovered enough for this.
It was the first day of August, and bright and cool. He’d stayed in hospital, sleeping mostly, for another few days, just to be sure, before holing up in his flat for a few days longer, with the district nurse calling in to change his dressings. Some of his old pals from the barracks had come up to see him too, once word got around Edinburgh what had happened.
Ally had stayed away, partly because she was so busy planning the repair shop open day, and partly because she knew Jamie needed to rest and he would already be beset with neighbours bringing him stews and whisky, Lucozade and shortbread (all a convalescing man needs, apparently – and who’s to argue with local wisdom?)
Jamie, his bandage now gone, with a scar across his temple already turning sheeny silver, showed Ally the route on his phone app. ‘Five hours’ round trip, at most,’ he confirmed. ‘Easy-peasy.’
When he’d suggested they go out, she’d thought it would be just that. A nice dinner somewhere. A drive with a view and a fish supper at the end of it. But a trek, albeit a modest one, hadn’t once crossed her mind. When he’d told her his intentions over Messenger during his recovery period, she’d had to take a moment to process why she felt the tiniest bit disappointed. Then, just as quickly, she’d dismissed the feeling. She’d landed in trouble having just those sorts of feelings over Gray; hoping for romance and commitment when what she really needed was to be known by someone and in turn to understand them. Whether that was truly possible with Jamie, she wasn’t sure. Not when the clock was ticking on his return to Edinburgh.
She tried not to think about that. She was here now and so was he. That in itself was pure luck, given that he’d spent the night out cold on the pavement down an alley only recently. The fact he was standing beside her at all was miraculous. That was more than enough.
Two buzzards wheeled in a widening gyre high over the scattered downy birch trees and low shaggy junipers now thick with silver-blue berries – that unmistakeable juniper fragrance already filling their nostrils.
Jamie searched for the tattoo on her wrist. ‘You love this mountain, right?’
‘Love looking at it,’ she told him.
Ally’s boots hadn’t known what was happening this morning when she’d reached for them at the back of the cupboard. They couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken them onto the hills. Her parents and teachers had made sure she knew the passes well enough as a child, but in recent years – the pyjama years – Ally’s connection to the hills had severed and she hadn’t known she’d missed it until this moment.
To get into the pass they’d have to walk through the gently rising open moorland, a sea of stone and purple heather before them.
A stag bellowed in the hills somewhere. Jamie’s eyebrows shot up at the sound. He looked beyond delighted.
‘Am Monadh Ruadh,’ Ally said to herself, awe in her voice.
Jamie faced her, questioning.
‘These mountains weren’t always call the Cairngorms, you know? Their ancient, Gaelic name is Am Monadh Ruadh. Russet rounded hills.’
‘Hah.’ Jamie was impressed. He fixed his feet all the firmer on the dry earth.
They fell quiet, letting the mountains hear their old name invoked again.
A band of walkers, clearly set on many days’ climbing, passed by, head to toe in Gore-Tex and neon nylon, huge packs on their backs, determination in their strides. They greeted Ally and Jamie the way all adventurers do; talking of the weather, and checking for mountain news in passing.
‘Quiet on the lower elevations this morning,’ one of them said in a Geordie accent.
‘Gonna be cloudy out there,’ said a second.
‘Doing the thirty K to Lairig Ghru?’ another wanted to know.
‘Just a picnic in the pass,’ Ally confessed with a shrug and a smile.
‘And home before evening,’ Jamie added.
With a wave and well wishes, the group tramped on.
Jamie watched them go, then smilingly glanced down at his own clothing; basically his running stuff with a fleece and a thin waterproof jacket on top. ‘Are we experienced hikers? No,’ he said to Ally. ‘But are we good map readers? Also no.’
‘But we’ve got GPS and a flask of tea, so…’ Ally shrugged, mirroring Jamie’s lightness of mood. ‘Lead the way.’
They moved off, at half the pace of those serious walkers already making good headway over the gently rising heath. Jamie and Ally followed what’s known as one of the many ‘community paths’, busy year round with locals and dog walkers out for the day.
Young wrens flitted between the scrubby trees, chittering their noisy songs. A robin emerged, not long out of his summer moult with his fresh fluffy grey feathers and a lingering bare patch in his red breast. He eyed them with curiosity as they passed.
Ally and Jamie exchanged all kinds of observations and small talk while the going grew gradually rockier and the sounds of gently tumbling waters increased. They crossed a new wooden bridge over crystal clear runnels, water that had filtered through mountain rock on its way down into the valley.
