Chameleon. Mark Burnell
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branches and twigs slashing at skin and cloth alike. Squinting fiercely through the rain, Stephanie slowed to try to make out the route ahead, only to feel the heavy prod of Boyd’s fist in her back.
‘Faster, not slower!’
When she fell, he made no attempt to catch her. She reached out blindly, her left arm clattering against a branch. She wrapped herself around it. Bark shaved skin off the crook of her arm. Her feet were airborne. Blinking furiously, she saw Boyd on the track, hands on hips, watching. She slowed her swing, steadied herself and climbed back to the ledge. On her hands and knees, she looked up at him. She expected an insult but he said nothing. He didn’t have to. The message was in his stare; there’s no safety-net out here.
They reached a plateau. Stephanie guessed it was the saddle between two peaks because suddenly the wind was stronger, the rain horizontal. With the incline gone, he forced her to go faster still. At the higher altitude there was no thick grass, just greasy tufts between slivers of sheered rock and sheets of smooth stone. Her T-shirt clung to her body like an extra skin.
Recklessly, they ran without direction, burning the last of the air in their lungs, the wind moaning in their ears. When she retched, she didn’t stop. She just spat the last of her bile and saliva into the night. Sometimes she fell, sometimes he fell. She’d hear the grunt as he hit the ground and the crackle of loose stone beneath him. She never looked round. She carried on, forcing him to make up the lost ground. Will-power drove her on when her stamina began to fail.
Until she twisted her ankle.
It was a flat slice of land but her right foot skidded and then wedged itself between two rocks. She went over on it, felt the wrench in the joint, the searing heat up her calf and shin. The foot broke free as she fell.
She came to a stop close to the edge of a small pool of icy black water. She lay on her back, her spasmodic breathing beyond control. Boyd barked at her to get up. She did nothing and felt his boot in her ribs again. She rolled onto her side and then dragged herself to her feet. But when she placed the weight of her body on the right ankle, it folded. Boyd yelled at her once more.
‘I can’t!’ she panted.
He grabbed the collar of the T-shirt, squeezing cold water from it. ‘You will.’
‘My ankle … it’s sprained … twisted …’
‘I don’t care if it’s broken! Run!’
Three times she tried, three times she fell, but Boyd was having none of it. As she lay on the ground, he stood over her and pressed the sole of his boot onto her right ankle. She squirmed but refused to cry out.
‘The next time you fall down I’m going to stamp on this bone until it’s fucking paste! You understand, you shilling slut?’
She staggered to her feet once more. The strike caught both of them by surprise. Stephanie wasn’t fully aware of throwing it and Boyd had no time to avoid it. Her right hand cracked against the side of his face, loud enough to over-ride the cacophony of the storm, strong enough to put him down. But like a rubber ball, he was on his way up the moment he hit the ground. Stephanie never even raised her hands. He threw a punch, not a slap. It caught her on the right cheek, just below the eye. As she collapsed, stars erupted on the inside of her eyelids, the only spots of brightness in the night.
For a moment, there was nothing but rain and cold.
When Stephanie opened her eyes, Boyd had moved away. He was sitting on a mossy ledge, his head in his hands. She watched him, as still as stone, water dripping from him. Eventually, he looked up at her. Despite the darkness, she could see that the hatred was gone. In its place, there was sorrow.
It took two hours to return to the lodge. Boyd supported Stephanie so that she wouldn’t have to put any weight onto her right ankle. At first, she was oblivious to the wind and rain but when she saw the faint shimmer of the loch and the vague outline of the cabins beyond, the cold cut in and the last of her strength evaporated.
Inside, he led her to the kitchen, sopping and shivering. He pulled a wooden chair from the table and turned it to face the Rayburn, making sure not to place it too close, before collecting dry clothes for her. He removed her wet T-shirt first – replacing it with a thick burgundy sweatshirt – followed by her tracksuit bottoms and trainers. After jeans, he pulled thick Alpine socks over her frozen feet. Finally, he wrapped a scarf around her throat. Then he put the kettle on one of the hotplates before disappearing to change his own sodden clothes.
Outside, the storm continued to rage.
Gradually, Stephanie drifted back. The thaw in her fingers and toes began to burn. They drank two mugs of sweet milky tea, Boyd telling her to sip not slurp. The clatter of wind on glass was curiously comforting now they were warm and dry. She was a child again.
Boyd waited until her body was able to generate its own heat before attending to her. He removed the scarf and pulled her chair a little closer to the Rayburn. He examined her right ankle, turning and pressing it. He strapped it with a bandage, wiped her grazes with antiseptic and rubbed arnica into the worst of her bruises. Neither of them spoke. Later, he fed her Nurofen, led her to her bed and told her to go to sleep.
It was mid-afternoon. She dressed slowly, easing her muscles through the stiffness. She pulled on the same pair of jeans, a thick roll-neck jersey, climbing socks and a pair of boots. Outside, the weather had cleared. The air was sharp, the sky a deep sapphire. She found Boyd servicing the diesel generator in one of the outbuildings, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his hands and forearms black with oil and dirt. There was a mark on the side of his face. She couldn’t tell whether it was a bruise or just grime.
He laid a wrench on a strip of stained cloth. ‘How’s the foot?’
She shrugged. ‘Okay.’
‘And the rest of you?’
‘Look, about what happened …’
‘Don’t say anything, Stephanie. It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does matter.’
‘Well, it’s in the past now. Better that we leave it there, don’t you think?’ When she didn’t reply, he added: ‘For both of us.’
‘Can I ask you to do something for me?’
‘What?’
‘Cut my hair.’
Boyd frowned. ‘I’m not much of a barber.’
‘You won’t need to be.’
The following morning brought frost, the start of a four-day cold snap. Stephanie awoke late and rose slowly. The wood-framed mirror above the chest of drawers was only large enough to reflect half her face. She had to crouch a little to see her dark hair. Cropped close to the scalp in ragged tufts, she thought it made her look vulnerable. Which was how she felt. And which she didn’t mind.
Outside, the ground was glass beneath her boots. Above, the sky was almost purple in patches with a few wispy cirrus clouds. Boyd had gone on a run without her. She could see him on a ridge on the hill on the far side of the loch, a green-grey spot moving against a backdrop of wet rust.
She was waiting for him in the kitchen when he returned. He wasn’t short of breath but the cold air and his heat had turned his cheeks red. Sweat lent his forehead a sheen.
He looked at the kitchen table. ‘What’s this?’
‘What does it look like?’
‘You don’t have to make breakfast.’
‘I know.’
‘What I mean is, you don’t have to make amends.’
‘I know.’
Valeria