“Would have been a nice little farm once, I suppose,” said Ted.
“It’s not bad now, is it?” said Israel, looking at the rough open moorland spread as far as the eye could see. “Rural idyll, isn’t it?”
“If you say so,” said Ted.
They pushed open the wooden gate and went and knocked at the door. There was no answer. The knock seemed to echo across the fields and mountains.
“Now what?” said Ted.
Israel was bending over, peering inside the windows of the cottage: it had clearly been expensively renovated inside in a traditional style, with a prominent pine dresser and stone floors and what looked like milking stools for seats.
“Wow,” he said to Ted, “come and look at this.”
“It’s a cottage, said Ted. “I’ve seen plenty of cottages before.”
“It’s really cool, though,” said Israel.
“Aye, right,” said Ted.
There were colorful cushions on thick-string-seated chairs, a plain rug, oil lamps, and a huge wall-mounted plasma-screen TV over the open fire.
“It’s lovely,” said Israel.
“Looks dark and damp to me,” said Ted. “So, now what?”
“Well, she’s clearly here,” said Israel, straightening up.
“The Morris girl?”
“Yes.”
“Aye, how can you tell, Sherlock Holmes?”
“There’s a pink iPod nano sitting on the table in there.”
“And what’s that when it’s at home, then?”
“An iPod?”
“I’m joking,” said Ted.
“So she can’t have gone far.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t go anywhere without their iPods, do they?”
“Does she not have a car?” said Ted.
“She’s only fourteen,” said Israel.
“Hmm,” said Ted.
Israel gazed around.
“If you were fourteen, Ted, and you were hiding in this cottage, what would you do?”
“Get the bus to Newcastle and go home?”
“No. If you were here, hiding. I think she’s gone for a walk,” said Israel.
“In the mountains?”
“Yes.”
“Ach, don’t be soft.”
“Why?”
“If you live in the mountains, you don’t go walking in them,” said Ted. “Sure, I’ve lived in the Glens most of my life, and I’ve never been walking out. It’s only tourists go walking.”
“But she is a tourist, isn’t she? This is her parents’ second home.”
“Aye,” said Ted dismissively. “Second home. One not good enough for them.”
“Walk,” Israel confirmed to himself. “That’s definitely what she’d do.”
“Aye,” said Ted.
“That’s what I’d do.”
“Aye, you would,” said Ted. “Go all naturalistic, wouldn’t you.”
“Yes, well, sort of,” said Israel, who was walking away past the stone boundary wall. “Like Thoreau. I think if we follow this path…”
“Aye, right,” said Ted dismissively. “You follow away there. I’m going to sit in the van for a wee smoke.”
“You sure you don’t want to come?”
“Do I look like I want to go walking in the mountains?”
“No.”
“There you are, then. You work away there.”
So Israel went walking alone. He’d not walked in mountains for years: the last time was probably when he’d gone on holiday with his mum and dad to Wales when he was eight or nine years old. He’d never really understood the whole nature and sublimity thing: he found his sublimity in a nice cup of coffee on a bustling city street, a crisp copy of the Guardian before him, and the prospect of a day’s flaneuring ahead.
He followed the worn path up and up.
And after just ten minutes he sat down on a rock, exhausted, and shut his eyes. Even though he’d lost the weight, he was maybe not as fit as he could have been. Not that there was any previous, perfect state of fitness he’d fallen away from: he’d never been as fit as he could have been. He was sweating. And his knees hurt. But at least he hadn’t been thinking about Gloria and Danny. The walking had somehow allowed him to stop thinking. Just for a moment he had escaped his imagination, and he was living in the here and now. He allowed his breathing to become regular and deep, and he felt the warm autumn sun on his eyelids.
“Hi.”
Israel leaped up off the rock like a chamois leaping from a mountain peak.
“Oh god!” he yelled.
“Sorry, sorry.”
“You gave me the fright of my life!”
“Are you OK?”
“Yes. I’m fine, thank you. Yes,” gasped Israel.
“You’re the librarian, aren’t you? From Tumdrum.”
“Yes.”
“I thought so.”
“And you’re Lyndsay,” said Israel, for Lyndsay indeed it was.
“What are you doing here?” said Lyndsay. “Out walking?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Actually, no, I’ve come to find you,” said Israel.
“Oh,” said Lyndsay. “You know, then?”
“I know that people back home are worried sick about you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“They are. Your parents are beside themselves.”
“They don’t care at all about me,” said Lyndsay, who looked remarkably well for someone who’d been hiding away in a remote cottage halfway up a mountain.
“Of course they care,” said Israel.
“My father is a scummy politician.”
“No,” said Israel, finding it difficult to disagree. “He’s…a man doing a very difficult job.”
“He’s a total scumbag,” said Lyndsay.
“No…” said Israel. “I wouldn’t say that. I think he’s a man who…”
“You don’t know him,” said Lyndsay.
“No. But I know of him,” said Israel.
Lyndsay sat down beside him on the rock. They both stared in silence at the vista-the admittedly sublime vista-before them.
“What did you think of the Philip Roth, then?” said Israel.
“American Pastoral?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t started it yet,” said Lyndsay. “I’m reading the Stephenie Meyer at the moment.”
“The vampire books?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” said Israel. “Really? I thought maybe you’d…Anyway.”
“I hate living there,” said Lyndsay.
“Where?” said Israel.
“Tumdrum.”
“You’re not the only one,” said Israel.
“Really?”
“Of course.”
“Where are you from?” said Lyndsay. “Originally?”
“London,” said Israel.
“I’d love to live in London.”
“Well, you can, when you’re older,” said Israel. “It’s open to all.”
“What’s it like living in Tumdrum, if you’re from London?” said Lyndsay. In all his time in Tumdrum no one had ever asked him that simple question. He didn’t quite know how to answer.
“Well,” he said. “I suppose it’s a bit like…It’s a bit like Groundhog Day.”
“I love that film!” said Lyndsay.
“Yeah,” said Israel. “Punxsutawney Phil.”
“Bill Murray,” said Lyndsay. “I love Bill Murray in that film.”
“Yeah. He’s good, isn’t he?”
“And in Lost in Translation.”
“Yeah,” agreed Israel. “And what was that other one? About Schmidt.”
“I think that was Jack Nicholson,” said Lyndsay.
“Was it?”
“Yeah, but he was…a bit like Bill Murray in that, I suppose.”
“Yes, he was,” agreed Israel.
He glanced up at the gathering clouds above them.
“She’s coming on plump,” said Israel. “And you really shouldn’t be out in the mountains in this weather. In clothes like…” Lyndsay was wearing a sort of black miniskirt, with black leggings and black pixie boots and a black T-shirt. “Sorry, I sound like my mother.”
“You sound like my father,” said Lyndsay.
“Shall we go back to the cottage, then?” said Israel.
They began walking back down the mountain, side by side.