THE ROAD by COR MAC CAME TOO

Some of you will have read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. As bleak and dispiriting a book as you could ever pick up, but one that was difficult to put down - you needed to know how it ended - not well, is all I can tell you!

Well, there were elements of our walk for March that reminded me of the book. I will quote from parts of the book to give you a flavour.

"Late in the year. He hardly knew the month. He thought they had enough food to get through the mountains but there was no way to tell. The pass at the watershed was five thousand feet and it was going to be very cold. He said that everything depended on reaching the coast, yet waking in the night he knew that all of this was empty and had no substance to it. There was a good chance they would die in the mountains and that would be that."

So it was with a light heart and a skip in our step that we got out of the cars into the cold and the snow at Loch Morlich.

"In the morning he rekindled the fire and they ate and watched the shore. The cold and rainy look of it not so different from seascapes in the northern world. No gulls or shorebirds. Charred and senseless artifacts strewn down the shoreline or rolling in the surf."

There were, however, ducks at Loch Morlich.

"An hour later they were on the road. Both he and the boy carried knapsacks. In the knapsacks were essential things. In case they had to abandon the cart and make a run for it. Then they set off in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire."

Luckily we had the snow and lots of entertaining company.

"A dead swamp. Dead trees standing out of the gray water trailing gray and relic hagmoss. Perhaps in the world's destruction it would be possible to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be.The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. the silence." 

Actually quite a nice view over Loch Morlich to the Cairngorms.

 " He studied the sky. There were days when the ashen over-cast thinned and now the standing trees made the faintest of shadows over the snow. They went on."

Some nice Caledonian Pine and natural regeneration. A sure sign of conservation in action, but a little stark.

 "They began to come upon from time to time small signs by the roadside. They were signs in a gypsy language, lost patterans. The first he'd seen in some while, common in the north, leading out of the looted and exhausted cities, hopeless messages to loved ones lost."

Hmmm, not sure what this was, but would guess it wasn't a hopeless message. 

And I'm pretty sure this was just a carving of an owl, but by now I could be getting a little paranoid!

 "Stop worrying, he said. Just keep a lookout. He waded naked into the water and stood and laved himself wet. Then he trudged out splashing and dove headlong."

Actually, it wasn't quite like the book. Dave egged poor innocent Stuart  onto the ice covered ditch. What Dave didn't know, but should have, was that the ice would not carry both of them. And so it proved as you can see from the series of photos below!

"There was a sharp crack from somewhere on the mountain. Then another. It's just a tree falling, he said. It's okay. The boy was looking at the dead roadside trees. It's okay, the man said. All the trees in the world are going to fall sooner or later. But not on us."

Well, in fact, this is just a bit of windblow and not the signs of some gloomy post-apocalyptic world - honest! 

"He folded down the lid of the can and set it in the road before him. What? he said. What is it?

Nothing.

Tell me.

I think there's someone following us.

That's what I thought.

That's what you thought.

Yes. That's what I thought you were going to say. What do you want to do?

I don't know.

What do you think?

Let's just go. We should hide our trash. Because they'll think we have lots of food.

Yes."

The conversation didn't quite go like that, but it was pretty close!

"Beyond a crossroads in that wilderness they began to come across the possessions of travellers abandoned in the road years ago. Boxes and bags.Everything melted and black. Old plastic suitcases curled shapeless in the heat. Here and there the imprint of things wrested out of the tar by scavengers."

Actually this is where we turned round and went back by a different route. Nothing too sinister at all. Although I wasn't sure if I had heard a strange noise from the trees................

"You always think we've gone further than we have.

He moved his finger. Here then.

More.

Here.

Okay.

He folded up the limp and rotting pages. Okay he said.

They sat looking out through the trees at the road."

We have conversations like this on most walks as well.

"The country went from pine to liveoak and pine. Trees as dead as any. He picked up one of the heavy leaves and crushed it in his hand to powder and let the powder sift through his fingers."

What more can I say - the trees were definitely dead.

".......they came upon a solitary house in a field and they crossed and entered and walked through the rooms. They came across themselves in a mirror and he almost raised the pistol."

In real life it was a little bothy at the Drumguish complex where we decided to have our lunch - and very good it was too.

This is what a robin looks like. Not like in the book where 

"...............he had a tattoo of a bird on his neck done by someone with an illformed notion of their appearance."

"They ate a sumptuous meal by candlelight. Ham and green beans and mashed potatoes with biscuits and gravy. They ate peaches and cream over biscuits for dessert and drank coffee." 

Actually this was one of the the most uplifting bits in the book. The eggs were Pam's and she had bought them for us all for Easter.

 .....They spent the day eating and sleeping. He'd planned to leave but the rain was justification enough to stay."

"It took two days to cross that ashen scabland. The road beyond ran along the crest of a ridge where the barren woodland fell away on every side. It's snowing, the boy said. He looked at the sky. A single gray flake sifting down. He caught it in his hand and watched it expire there like the last host of christendom."

This is actually the section of the walk that made me think of basing the blog on the book.

In reality, the walk was nothing like as bad as the book, although it was quite cold in some places and very exposed on the stretch across from Drumguish.

The book did end on a bit of a high note - or, at least, the suggestion of a deeper purpose that transcends the feeble machinations of mankind - but it wasn't exactly fun-filled.

" Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing that could not be put back. Not to be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

Whilst the book couldn't be said to have a happy ending, the walk did, as we had a very pleasant tea and cake in Glenmore.

Thanks to Hugh and Pam for the organisation of the walk, if not the setting for the latest outing for my imagination!