Free In the Middle of the Wood by Iain Crichton Smith Page B

cars’ headlong humming course. More than ever he was convinced that Linda and the taxi driver were stalking him. Why else should the taxi driver have remained at all? What business was it of his? Why hadn’t he gone back to Glasgow? Or was he simply adding mileage so that he could present him with a large bill at the end of his journey? Why indeed had he himself consented to come home at all? He should have stayed where he was, he had allowed himself like a baby to be passive to their will, which was much stronger than his own. Linda had a simplicity and directness of energy which he could never emulate no matter how hard he tried. It was that trait of hers which he admired most but he didn’t admire it now, he feared it.
    He plodded steadily on. He had settled down into a rhythm now, allowing his feet to take him to his destination, not thinking. That would be best. From the time they had been to Yugoslavia she had thought this plot out carefully: perhaps that was why she had selected Yugoslavia in the first place, had immersed herself in its brochure, nesting with it in her chair. His mind opened frightening vistas. H OW LONG HAD THIS BEEN GOING ON? It hadn’t started recently.
    Mines began to explode in his thoughts, one after the other. When she had come in with cups of coffee for him had she really been deliberately interrupting him, trying to stop the flow of his ideas?
    And these endless interrogations about Christianity, had they been intended to unnerve him? Linda, too, was far more superstitious than he was, she believed in planetary influences, ghosts, auras, phantoms. She believed that the Egyptians had encountered space-men in ancient times. She believed that Christ had been a space-man. She believed that planes had disappeared in the Bermuda triangle. She believed that when she died she would go to another planet. Was she not at all frightened of the punishments of hell, then? Did she not feel the flames stroking her hair tenderly? He himself was a rational man, he didn’t believe that watches could be bent by minds, he didn’t believe that the laws of physics could be set aside by the spiteful winds of magic. He believed that we were all on a perishable road where the grave waited for us, the tombstone with our name inscribed on it like a simple address.
    He headed onwards as if into a high wind. And then he heard the car coming up behind him and slowing. It was Linda, but this time Linda on her own without the taxi driver, and in her own car. She drove alongside him as if he were the runner in a race and she was following him with the sustenance of food and water. She leaned out of the window.
    â€œListen,” she said, “I’ll take you to the doctor if you must go.”
    â€œI don’t believe you,” he said.
    â€œI swear,” she said. “If that is what you want.” Cars passed them steadily, in a magnified and diminishing roar, and people looked at the two of them as if wondering what was happening. In one car a tall black dog stood upright as a Buddha, with smooth shining black skin.
    â€œNo,” Ralph shouted.
    â€œCome on,” said Linda. “I won’t say anything. I won’t even speak to you if you don’t want me to.”
    He thought for a while and then he said, “All right then,” and got into the car. He refused to put his safety belt on and Linda didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to be bound and helpless if she suddenly turned back. But, no, she was indeed driving in the direction of the town. Perhaps she was really telling the truth.
    â€œWhere did you meet him,” he asked at last.
    â€œMeet who?”
    â€œThat so-called taxi driver.”
    â€œI’ve never seen him before in my life.”
    â€œThat’s a laugh. What’s he doing helping you then? Why hasn’t he gone back to Glasgow?”
    â€œBecause he has some human feeling, that’s why. He has a wife and six