Читать книгу The Anarchist - Tristan Hawkins - Страница 10

An undoubtedly positive aspect to being in the middle of nowhere is that everything is delivered.

On the other hand, folk rise early making it that much more awkward to receive their donations.

Scouring Fort William and the foothills of Nevis that morning, Yantra managed to collect just a pint of milk, a loaf of bread and some eggs. Still, as he often commented at such times, hunger assists humility and provides an empty focus for meditation. And, of course, where there’s famine there’s repletion. They should feel glad that someone would be eating what they would not.

At times, Jayne had the distinct feeling that Yantra’s crude Zen-styled maxims were little more than a façade for life’s frustrations. She was bloody starving and she made this plain.

‘For God’s sake,’ he barked in a very unenlightened manner. ‘I’m really not in the frame for begging and, forgive me if I’m mistaken, but the Jocks aren’t exactly known for their love of the didgeridoo.’ She tutted, but he went on. ‘Tell yer what though, Jayne, find me one of them dying cats in a tartan sack and I’ll have a crack at it. But, you know, babe, it’s been a long day already so just give me a fucking brea … Hey, like sorry. Yeah, I know what you’re saying. You want to use some of the money, right?’ She nodded, so he undid the zip at the back of the driver’s seat and reluctantly pulled out the bank bag. They were down to their last twenty pounds.

Shopping in Fort William was not easy. They concluded that a tribe must have visited the town earlier for many of the shops and pubs had handwritten signs saying no travellers and no gypsies.

Yantra wanted to make enquiries. Was it possible that they’d travelled alone for so long that they’d failed to hear about a festival? Or had the town merely been paranoic hosts to a tiny group of travellers? Jayne had experience of Yantra’s making enquiries. Invariably he’d ask the most inappropriate person he could find – like a pig or a pub owner – and wind up in a vicious debate over civil liberties.

‘Yan, I don’t feel welcome here. You know, I’m experiencing some powerful negativity from the indigenous. Can we, like, just do the dust from our shoes thing.’

‘Well, babe, to my reckoning the path of least resistance has to be the A82. Which leads us directly to the middle of an even more nowhere place than this – and a highly Buddhist place it is to be, if I recall.’

They managed to find some vegetarian burgers in a small shop on the edge of town which they wrapped in tinfoil and cooked on Biddy’s engine as they hurtled southbound on the path of least resistance.