-oO0Oo- I'm not me. Not the me you wanted me to be. I doubt if I'm the same person you met, the person you claim to have fallen in love with, the person you wanted, expected to take care of you but that's less important than the fact I never became the person you thought you could make me. I'm not the me I want either. Is that your fault or mine? I'm not sure. That doesn't matter much either. I've never been big on blame, better I feel to find a solution and act on, save the recrimination for later. That's what I'm doing, acting on the only possible solution I can see. It's cold up here. Surely at one time these waiting rooms would have had a fire or a stove to keep the waiting passengers warm. There are stories about trainloads of people getting stuck in the snow on these lines. Surviving for a week or more huddled round the stove in just such a waiting room, burning the furniture until help arrives. Looking across the valley now I feel the isolation, just a few distant grey smudges on the hills indicate the homes that once belonged to shepherds. Places to keep the lonely vigil, ranges to warm the orphan lamb, sodden clothes a place to drip their lack of light or reek suggests they are empty now waiting the summer holiday tripper or weekend Glasgow banker. You cant see the town from here, only the orange grey smoke from the peat shows where it lies out of sight below. It hardly deserves the label town. Barely 20 squat grey houses huddle together either side of the road. A pub that calls itself a Hotel though you wouldn't stay there by choice. A shop I have never seen open but imagine would just about be able to provide you with a pint of milk and some tobacco. I watched the silent residents use their car to travel the 100 yds from one end to the other for fear of having to walk past me, a stranger in their still world. There is no reason anyone would want to come here. No reason except it is the nearest train station within 60 miles, no small feat on this crowded island Britain. This is the mainline from the Irish ferry to Glasgow. Mainline, only line. I sit and I shiver in a little wooden hut half way up a hill in the dullest, wettest part of Scotland I know. I can't even bemoan the train for being late, it isn't due for another hour. There aren't many trains, four a day if you are lucky, right now I'm more lucky than I have a right to expect. It would have made more sense to stay in the van, a nice warm lift all the way through this dead zone to the almost civilized Ayrshire beyond. The van had seemed, no the van had been a good idea. Leave behind the soul abrading endless iteration of a real job and get some miles laid down. OK so I wouldn't have my stuff but people had been telling me I had too much stuff for way too long anyway. She was a lovely shade of pale sick yellow, orange brown acne bursting through in patches. Much more Dormobile than Winnebago, the eighties Volkswagen lacked the class of the original VW camper. The tiny engine appealed for fuel economy reasons and I didn't know enough to be scared of things like long hills. When I sat behind the wheel I loved it, all I could see through the windscreen where the rolling vistas that would be open to me, gone already was the drab reality of the city. I couldn't afford even the lowest charity case price they wanted but after handing over my stereo, my computer and my sofa I could drive her away just as soon as I came back with two and half thousand in cash. Other people's money is the best kind when it comes to making those big errors of judgment. I pretty much just left the contents of my flat, I took the food, the pans, clothes and towels. Gave most of my books to my alcoholic ex neighbor, not sure if he intended to read them or burn them to heat his flat, and one sunny January morning I left the burned out cars and drug dealing children behind. The tape player worked, a bit of Elvis Costello is good for the mood, and the world seemed to be at my feet, well the west coast of Scotland was at my feet. Ah movement. The little man in the orange dayglo vest just came out of his shed the other side of the line. I bet he has heat, tea as well and porn or at least something more distracting to read than years old posters for away day trips that I doubt would live up to even the subdued tones of the copy writer. The little man, the Station Master (do they still call them Station Masters? I doubt it) does something in the little signal box opposite me then trecks back down the platform to the far end where the crossing point is taking up position with his token as far from me as you can get while still being in the station. Looks like he is the flying changeover sort. When the train comes he will seamlessly swap his token for the one carried by the train before it comes to a stop. It all seems like a good way of losing an arm to me. I can hear the rails singing now. Not be long till I'm back in the warm and on my way. I like traveling but all this waiting around does my head in. I may even be able to have a coffee on the train, well warm wet brown stuff that costs as much as coffee. There may be some psychological gain to drinking it. The train rumbles tiredly in. I'm the only person getting on here, I have trouble remembering anyone ever getting on this train with me here. Finding a seat is no problem, obviously a quiet day for fleeing loyalist terrorists and returning European drug smugglers. The cold lights of the station are quickly left behind and outside it appears a few hours darker than it did from the platform. There is nothing to see here that I haven't seen too many times before to even pretend interest. I can't say I will miss the place much though I feel I will never be back. Shouldn't you feel something? There should be some sorrow at leaving the city of your birth, where you have lived the brief but oh so drawn out 24 years of your life. I drove past the bus stop of warm wet passion, not the actual shelter where I lost that delicate but oh so hard to break virginity but the glass and steel replacement for it. If they were to knock down these last few red sandstone tenements I could see the house where my mother slowed to a halt without my father to feed. If I wanted to take the slightest of detours I could drive past the black iron gates of five years of secondary modern hell. Across the river to the right is the oldest pub in Glasgow, many problems of the world we solved there, uncountable hairs of the dog were consumed. Not one tear to be shed, not an ounce of remorse do I feel. It can all go hang for all I care, I can't wait to get on the motorway and leave it all behind. What about people? My friends? I probe again like a tongue in a vacant tooth looking for some sign that a nerve remains. Ray, Angela, Clair or Clair? I can't say I will miss them any more then they will miss me. Mark was sorry to see me go, at least he came to say goodbye. Helped me pack although I noticed he was cherry picking the best of the rubbish I was leaving behind. I don't begrudge him, most of it probably came from his house in the first place. He won't have anyone to go shopping in Maplin with anymore. Mary. This has nothing to do with Mary. She is not why I am leaving, it was nearly six months ago now and I am long over her. Mary and me could hardly be called the relationship to end all relationships anyway. What did we manage? Six weeks, six weeks of sex and shouting. Now the sex was good, Mary was as warm and loving as they come and she gave good argument too. It wasn't the shouting that finished us but the fact that she didn't want anything. Mary was happy just to eat, sleep and shag with occasional breaks for a bit of TV. I'm not the most ambitious person in the world but I would rather not spend the rest of my days in bed. Glasgow Central is a dead end station. All the trains approach from the south, across the Clyde with it's view of the towers of the Gorbals then across Argyl Street before the backs of city centre clubs and shops close in around you. They all have to leave southbound again and even with the mess of points and tracks it can take a while to sort out a route through. Long enough to collect your gear and get up by the doors to play the game of guess which side the platform is on. The station itself is a faded hangover of the Victorian heyday of rail, it's expansive marble floored concourse bounded by bars, eateries and gift shops. I don't hang around, my single bag hoisted to my shoulder I march straight through and out to the taxis. There is a sizable queue but this is a popular rank on a Friday night and I doubt if I will have to wait long. Mark said he would put me up for a few days until I decide what comes next. 17:28, she'll be home from work soon. I doubt she will be surprised that I'm gone. I don’t envisage any confusion, any calling my name, any thoughts that I have just popped out to fetch something. She won't have to read the letter to know it's content. I'm not running away, just owning up to what we have both known for as long as I care to remember. I take my first deep breath of Glasgow air, it tastes crisp and clean to me. The petrol fumes, the people, the overtones of beer and fags, these are more natural to me than the cloy of cowshit and wet greenery the countryside provides. Only one place smells better to me than a winter evening in this city, the salt tang of the sea. As I dropped on to the motorway I was aiming for the sea. I thought it would be nice if I could get to the sea before I stopped, get my first brew in anger going with the door open and the spray blowing in. In reality I was waiting for my first major breakdown. Isn't that the way it is supposed to work? Spend weeks planning, a day and a half packing, write the "Cape Wrath or bust" card for the back window and get less than ten miles up the road before the whole thing falls to bits at the side of the road? I'd done more than ten miles though and, touch wood, everything was still working. Damn, I was nearly at the bridge. Once you cross the Erskin bridge you are nearly in the highlands. I would be happy just making the highlands on my first day, getting clear of the Clyde Valley conurbation, leaving the overpopulous central belt over the hill if not far behind. It's a nice view from the top of the bridge, Glasgow fills the flood plane away to the east, the west past the ribbon of people by the river lies Arran, Kintyre and the Atlantic Ocean. Probably should pay more attention to the crosswind than the view though when your driving a less than stable and badly loaded little van. Still I didn't dent anything but my piece of mind. It went well that first day, I got my cup of tea by the sea though sea is an exaggeration. I brewed up by a sea loch, looking over at the submarine base, spent my first night in the van parked up in a little layby. I would have slept well too if I hadn't near shat myself when some idiot went flying past at three something in the morning six inches off the side of the van closely followed by the local constabulary in hot pursuit. Perhaps I just wasn't far enough from the city yet. Mark was gentle with me. He didn't hit me with questions I wasn't ready to answer, didn't press for explanations or try to make with the heavy sympathy. We ate some meat and drank some beer, chewed the fat about old times and his latest projects. What can you say really to someone who trashed it all and went off the live a new life when they have to come crawling back and sleep on your couch? I couldn't handle the couch as it turned out, what happened to good big sofas that could accommodate a six foot sleeper in comfort? I shifted the cushions on to the floor and slept there. My dreams were filled shouting lads and speeding cars. I guess I wasn't used to the noise yet, it can be very very quiet in the country. -oO0Oo-