The Edge of Solitude by Katie Hale

Author:Katie Hale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd

THE SAME

MEMORIES ON

REPEAT

When Ross was a child I took him to a nature reserve. It was a two-hour drive from the new house north of Boston, which we’d bought after the flood-risk zone had crept too close to the old flat. Normally, visits had to be booked weeks in advance, but at the last minute I’d used my connections to wheedle a rare full day of just the two of us, where I would turn off my vid, and teach Ross to enjoy the world outside of a screen. For years, this was one of my favourite memories.

We arrived late in the morning, Ross sticky and grumbling from a journey without any digital distractions. After hooking the car up to a solar charging point and loading the food from the ice box into my backpack, I chivvied him from the empty parking lot, through the gate that marked the boundary of the reserve, and down the winding track through the woods.

The light fell slant and dappled, and we both strained to see where creatures snapped and rustled between the trees. Was that a bear, or the broken stump of an old beech? A stray leaf, or a squirrel perched on a high branch? A trick of the light, or the white scuts of retreating deer? We walked till Ross forgot his grumbles from the journey, and he ran ahead along the track.

I followed more slowly, careful of the stones and roots sticking up under my feet, the weight of the backpack pulling at my shoulders and across my hips. Twice, Ross ran out of sight around a corner, and I had to call him back, my voice swallowed by the dark between the trees. I started to wonder if there really were bears in there, and what I would do if we came across one. The fingerpost at the car park had said the trail was only a mile, but I felt as though we’d been walking for longer.

Then, without warning, we were through. The track ended and the woodland opened out onto a grassy meadow, with roe deer grazing the edge of it, ready to dart away between the trees. At the bottom, grass gave way to reeds, and the reeds thinned out into the breeze-rippled waters of a lake.

Ross ran into the meadow with his arms out and the deer bolted. From somewhere to my left, a flock of birds took flight with a sound like canned applause.

I laid out the picnic blanket and we sat in the shade of the trees. Hungry from adventure, we stuffed ourselves till our eating slowed to grazing, and our slow smiles spread. We played catch in the long grass, and afterwards I checked Ross’s ankles for ticks. We’d brought books, and we lay side by side, dozing and reading as the meadow flowers rustled, as seed pods dried and popped around us. Against the smells of earth and greenness and fresh water was the smell of sun block heating on Ross’s skin, a fat white smear of it across the back of his neck.

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