Page 16 of Highland Games
‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ she called up to him, ‘Mummy’s coming.’
She rolled her eyes at herself and the devotion she was showing to a rat that had been in her life less than twenty-four hours and hauled herself up the next two branches. Basil was higher but the next branch wasn’t easy. It involved wedging her foot into a crack in the trunk as a step and she was beginning to realise she was higher up than she had ever been before.
‘Do NOT look down now,’ she said as she eyeballed Basil. ‘You are in so much trouble, young man. Wait till I get you home. No TV tonight and only bread and water for tea.’
Basil was running back and forth excitedly, knowing she was nearly there. Zoe took a big breath in, wedged one foot into the crack, dug her fingers into the bark above and yanked herself up with all her might, swinging her other leg over the branch where Basil was perched and pulling herself up. She lay across the branch, eyes closed, heart thudding, whilst Basil sniffed about, making sure she was still alive.
A series of pings, dings and vibrations in her pocket alerted her that she had a phone signal at last. She sat up, checked her messages, then took photos from her vantage point and selfies of her and Basil. Thank god her parents didn’t know what Instagram was.
With her back resting against the trunk and Basil wrapped around her neck, she posted the shots of them both up the tree, checked her bids on eBay, and read Sam’s messages. She said Zoe had managed to go feral in less than a week and asked if Basil was a joke. Zoe replied that he was the cutest chap she’d met so far.
She then rang home. She knew both her parents would be busy at work but she left a message. Hearing her mum’s voice on the answering machine sent a stab of pain to her chest. The last time she had been up this tree she hadn’t even known she was going home to a mum. She was so grateful. She had wanted to break away from her parents, from their expectations of what they thought she should do with her life. But now she missed them terribly and they were very far away. She kept her message short and upbeat, injecting as much positivity into it as she could.
As soon as the cabin was as inhabitable as she had claimed, she would get them up. Just not before, or she knew they’d be taking her straight back down south, perhaps in a straightjacket.
Finishing her message, she had the urge to pee and realised she had been in the tree over an hour. She turned to Basil. ‘Right, little monkey, we’re getting out of here.’ She secured her phone, stretched, then glanced down.
Big mistake.
Adrenaline had taken her up the last branch to get to Basil, but now adrenaline was showing her exactly how easy it would be to fall and end her life, thumping into every branch on the way down to the ground.
She groaned. ‘Come on, come on, Zoe. You can do this.’
She felt sick. Dizzy.
‘Come ON!’
Face down on the branch, she gripped it with her arms and right leg. Putting her left leg towards the trunk, she felt with the point of her boot for the crack.
Where had it gone?!
Her heart raced. Her muscles strained with the effort to keep herself on the branch whilst still reaching lower with her left foot.
Where was it?
She hauled herself back up fully onto the branch, feeling the bark against her face, and tried not to panic. Dammit. She was stuck up a tree. Like the idiot she knew she was. Why didn’t she just buy a ladder and look at the roof a sensible way? She’d need one anyway to fix the bloody thing.
She brought herself back to a sitting position, then rang Jamie but it went to voicemail. He worked out of town as an electrician on new build projects and said he didn’t always have a signal. The next call was to Morag, who thankfully picked up.
After Morag went through two minutes of worry, she reassured her she’d send someone out straight away. ‘Don’t worry, love, there’s at least two people in the post office who could be your knight in shining armour. Sit tight, okay?’
Zoe thanked her and rang off. Her phone battery was now down to eighteen per cent, so she put it in her pocket and sat back to wait, wrapping her arms around herself to keep warm.
After ten minutes, the phone rang. Jamie?
It was Sam, who didn’t even bother saying hello. ‘A rat! You’ve got a frigging rat? As a pet? They carry the plague. You’ll get boils, then die all alone in your Scottish shed and then your rat will EAT YOU!’
As an actress, Sam saw every situation as an opportunity to be dramatic. She called it ‘expanding her range’. Zoe often asked why her range never included quiet, shy, retiring types, or nuns.
‘I mean, for a rat, he is pretty cute but seriously, have you lost your mind? They piss over everything, all the time, and stink, then breed like fricking rabbits and chew through wires so you’ll get electrocuted and die. Then they move onto chowing down on your hot, sizzling corpse.’
Zoe laughed. ‘He’s remarkably house-trained for a rat and so intelligent – I swear he can understand me.’
‘O. M. G. That is it! You have got to get back to civilisation. I bet you haven’t even had a bottle of Prosecco since you got there. You’ll have swapped it for Irn-Bru.’
‘Oh, I have, I drank a whole bottle on the first night and was convinced I was about to be attacked by a bear. So, when are you coming to visit?’
‘You know how much I love you. But seriously? I am not spending any of my precious time re-enactingDeliverance. I’ll see you when you’ve regained your senses and come home.’
