The door opened off the top of the external stone staircase.  Within lay the kitchen area of what had once been the boathouse loft.  Andrew flicked the switch and the overhaed flouresant flickered into life.  "shit it's cold" he muttered "I'll light the stove"  He disapeared through the doorway beyond and I heard his footsteps recede, sharp on the boards of the floor.  Half completed carcasses lined three walls of the room yet to have either their doors or tops fitted.  A large gap directly oposite the doorway where I stood presumably waited for the cooker in that still lay in the back of Andrew's van somewhere on Rannoch Moor.  A formica topped table stood in the center of the room it's surface scared from many years use, by the look of it as a saw bench.  "There should be a bottle of something in that box Lachie, fetch it through will you?" Andrew called from the other room.  On the table where several boxes of groceries, I raked through them till I located a bottle of Grouse.  There were no glasses that I could see in the half completed kitchen.  Hesitantly I walked through the door that Andrew had used moment earlier.  Beyond was a short coridore leeading to the front of the boathouse.  the walls lacked any substance, only the new pine timber frame had been erected.  Here and there wires hung down from above where I could make out the timbers of the roof.  I counted three small bedrooms and a bathroom layed out in the main space of the loft each with it's own skylight window let into the roof.  The room at the front of the house had been lined with plaster board, a warm light spilled into the construction site from its door frame.  Andrew already seemed to have a considerable amount of flame as he added split logs to the small cast iron stove in the large living area.  The light came from a mixed batch of table lamps placed on ill matched items of furnature.  The end wall of the house had large french windows let into it and beyond I could imagine a balchony though it was too dark to make out.

"I have some glasses somewhere" he said as he closed the little door of the stove "soon be nice and toasty."  He blew the dust from a red wine glass and handed it to me.  "What do you think then?  It'll be finished by the summer, it better be, I've already taken bookings" He looked me in the eye for the first time since we had got out of my van.  "Oh come on Lachie, you couldn't have missed him"  He took the bottle from my limp grip "it could have happend to anyone, that is anyone would have hit him"
"I did...It happened to me."  I could see the open enquiring look the tourist had given me just before he disapeared behind the crazed glass.  I wanted to go back.  I wished I had never bought the bloody van.  I wanted to burn it.  I have no idea how I managed to drive it all the way here.  I had wanted Andrew to drive, couldn't bring myself to sit back in the driver's seat even.  I was a liability, not safe to be behind a wheel.  Andrew had told me not to be so bloody stupid, that it was like falling off a horse, the best thing to do was climb straight back on.  He refused to drive, and the police had gone.  There was no other way to get out of Glen Coe and as Andrew had pointed out we couldn't stand around there in the cold all night and I couldn't sleep in the van without a windscreen.  I had crawled it up that road, queues of traffic forming behind me then streaming past sounding their horns in anger had made me more and more uptight.  It had taken what seemed like forver before Andrew pointed down the right and we had crunched off the road into his stoney yard in the dark.  We parked it nose in in the wide doorway of one of the sheds.  It would get damp but it wouldn't get wet.

The whiskey caught in my throat.  I wasn't a big drinker of Scotch, I liked sipping the odd single malt but this blended stuff was beyond me, still it served a purpose.  I could feel it wrming me from the inside.  Doing a better job of cutting through the cold than stove was.  "It'll warm up once it gets into it's stride" Andrew told me.  I was gratefull to him for doing this.  He could have left me after the accident.  He seemed to know both police officers that had attended the emergency call as well as the mountain rescue guys.  It was them who had shown up first.  I imagined they must have already been in the area, I couldn't see that they would call out the mountain rescue for a car accident but then what did I know.  I never felt so foreign in my own country as I had then, I couldn't to be honest even understand what they were saying to me.  The big blue landrover had pulled into the car park while the police were still far down the glen.  Four of them had run down the hill towards us carrying bags and a complicated looking stretcher.  They ignored me and talked to Andrew.  he filled them in describing first how he had pulled the man from the river, what he had checked, how he had moved him, how the poor sod was still breathing but hadn't shown any sign of consiousness.  Two of the others fussed around the man, the boy on the ground while one started climbing back towards the Landrover.  Several times Andrew and the others said something to me but gave up when they were met by my blank uncomprehending stare.  I sat in the wet grass looking at his curled form lying there in the mud.  Andrew had climbed back up the hill when the police arrived but I had stayed down here.  I stared at him as if by sheer act of will I could keep him alive, give him back his animation, make him wake up and walk out.  I replayed the scene in my mind.  Change down, turn into the corner, see the tourists, look at Andrew, LOOK AT THE ROAD, LOOK AT THE ROAD, THE FUCKING ROAD YOU STUPID BASTARD.  My inner naration screamed in my head.  Where the hell did I learn to drive by looking at my pasenger.  I lost concentration and now look what I've gone and done.  I didn't hear the helicopter, didn't notice it it until the downdraft started to pluck at my clothes.  I realised they had lifted him and strapped him into the frame of the stretcher, everyone was looking up.  I looked up only to have the air blind me with tears.  The Helicopter didn't land, couldn't I suppose, the steep sides of the gorge where more gentle here but there wasn't a level spot till much further down.  Once the stretcher had been brought aboard and the chop of the blades was diminishing in the distance I started to feel cold.  I looked back up the hill to where I had left the van, Andrew and a flat capped police officer where picking their way carefully down towards me, I went to meet them.

"Take your pick Lachie" Andrew indicated the three large couches that occupied most of the floor space.  "You'll be staying for a while I imagine.  We will be able to do something about your van tomorrow but you'll be more comfortable in here.  I take it you have a sleeping bag?  Do you want me to get it?"  he disapeared out through the curtain strung accross the doorway without waiting for me to answer.  Without his offer of a place to stay I don't quite know where I would have been.  The police had made me blow into one of their infernal machines, just routine they had explained.  They had asked me how fast I had been going, did the van have an MOT, do I normaly wear glasses or contact lenses, a rash of stupid inconsequential questions.  They didn't ask me if I had looked away at the vital moment.  They wanted my address, I didn't have one to give them.  Mark was getting my redirected mail but I didn't live there.  No fixed abode did not seem to please them, they asked if I was a traveler, suspicion coloured their attitudes.  No, I tried to explain, I just didn't have anywhere to live right now, I was on Holiday.  It didn't make a lot of sense even to me when I said it.  Andrew said something to him.  They had a brief conversation before he put his hand on my shoulder and told me I would be staying with him.  I didn't realy understand but I was grateful, I had felt like I was about to be arrested, flung in some highland jail until they finished their enquiries.  I hadn't planned to get involved with the police when I set out on my discover Scotland trip.  They left us there.  There were still people around but none of them seemd very keen to talk to us.  I wondered if there was anyone left who had seen what happened or if the shift had changed several times in the car park while I was down the hill with...with what?  With my victim.

There was a clink as the full cup of coffee was placed down against an empty wine glass.  It had taken a few moments to play through to where I was.  I was lying in my sleeping bag in Andrew's house.  I had killed someone, well not killed just mashed the beyond any hope of function.  I had gathered that he would be taken to Fort William and the local constablulary would be in touch with me here.  I wanted to see him.  As I followed that line through I remembered that I had no windscreen in my van and that Andrew didn't have transport either.  Back in Glasgow this wouldn't have posed a major problem, they had buses, they had trains.  You could get around without a car, it might take some time but it could be done.  I didn't know much about the highlands but I was fairly confident that busses where of the one per day variety.  If you were going to go somewhere you had better have somewhere to stay when you got there.  Being in a hurry was anathma.  Andrew came back in and sat down to put his boots on.

"Come on then, we'd better get our arses in gear if we're gonna get these vans sorted."  He seemed way too cheery to be entirely sane, what was it, nine o'clock?  Yuck.  I got up and pulled on yesterdays clothes.  I had more clean gear in the van but it could wait.  I caught my first sight in daylight of the view from the window.  Beyond the small timber balchony the hills of Mull where silouetted in shades of darkest blue.  Even through the light misting of rain it looked impressive.  I finished my coffee and drank it in.  This was part of what I had been looking for.  To see the sea, see the hills, to open my front door to this every morning I would go a long, long way.  All my life I had looked out my window into someone elses, if I could see them then they could see me.  I wanted to be alone, away from the scruitiny of people I didn't know.  Andrew had disapeared, probably outside, I went to look.  In the daylight the construction site that made up most of the house looked worse than it had in the dark.  I couldn't see how he was going to finish it before the summer.

We took most of my things out of the van and piled them in one of the incomplete bedrooms.  As I had thought they were damp but I didn't think anything was damaged.  Andrew knew owner of a local garage, he figured they would be able to replace the windscreen and it wasn't that far away.  We considered trying to patch up the gaping hole with plastic sheeting but it wouldn't realy have alowed me to see where I was going.  We decided to wear more clothes and put up with it.  The garage was small but busy, several cars waited their turn outside.  As we drew up a large man in a dirty red overall walked over.  He grinned at the pair of us shivering and wet in the Volkswagon.  "Problems lads?" I climbed out and explained what had happened.  "Aye well, they're bloody daft at any time.  You should see it round here in the summer, bloody crawling with them"  He didn't have a screen for a Volkswagon but he would ask around.  If he couldn't get one loacly he would have to get it sent up from Glasgow.  That might take a day or so.  I could leave it here in the meantime, they would patch it up with something to stop the rain getting in any more than it had already.  Andrew talked to him about his own problems and they arranged to take the big recovery truck up the glen and bring his van back.  The garage didn't have anything they could lend us so we had to walk back along the road to Andrew's yard.  It wasn't quite raining, more the thick drenching mist that makes you feel like you're walking theough a cloud. I was wet already so it wasn't the end of the world but I was disapointed that it had closed off my view of the hills.

I wondered about man I had run down.  I didn't even know his name.  Did he have a family?  Friends?  What was he doing here, was he realy a tourist at this time of year or did he live localy?  I knew nothing.  I couldn't even begin to surmise.  What were they doing to him now, at the hospital?  I had to find out but I was scared at what they might tell me.  What if he was dead?  They would have phoned me, they knew Andrew's number, they would have phoned us and told us last night.  Perhaps they had phoned, before we got back there.  I had stopped someone's life and I didn't feel right about continuing with my own until he recovered.

They recovered Andrew's van, Bessie, later that day.  Archie from the garage came round with the cooker, a sink, a stack of wood, some cable and numerous light fittings.  I could see that might have overloaded the little VW, especialy if it was still fitted out as a camper.  I twould be a couple of days before they could get me a screen for my van unless of course we wanted to use the one from Andrew's.  Although things didn't sound particularly good for Bettie, major damage to the chassis, I told Archie I could wait until the screen arrived from Glasgow.  Andrew tried to say it would be OK, that I could have his screen, I insisted they left it in Bessie.  I supose it would have made no diference either way, she wasn't going anywhere but I felt I had caused enough disruption and chaos since coming north.  The police phoned eventualy but Andrew took the call while I fretted in the other room trying not to listen to what was being said.  His name was Junpei, Hanabusa Junpei, a Japanese student.  They had found his hire car still parked up by the side of the road.  The police in Fort William were fairly sure that he had some family and they were trying to get in contact with them.  Junpei was still unconsious, in a stable but critical condition and they were going to keep him in The Belford for now.  I wondered if they would let me see him, I doubted it and in reality what good would it do either of us if they did.  I resolved to go up there anyway as soon as I was mobile again.

That afternoon and the next day Andrew made sure I didn't get time to sit around and feel sorry for myself.  He made me give him a hand stringing the cables for the lights and sockets in the upstairs bedrooms.  We hauled the new stove up the outside staircase and dumped it in the kitchen.  It had a dent in the side which Andrew said was due to his almost accident but I thought it was more likely that Archie had done it getting the cooker in the back of his pickup.  We stacked the wood and other materials in the lower floor of the boatshed.  Downstairs it still looked like a building designed to hold and launch boats.  A pair of rails ran nearly the full length of the one big room and out under the double doors at the front.  Two wooden dingies lay upside down behind this door and various strange items of chandelry were hung from the walls and sitting in boxes near by.  Further back in the boat house neatly stacked piles of plaster board and wooden battons waited to be used in the refurbishment going on upstairs.  The idea was eventualy to use most of this floor as a further self contained residence and still maintain some storage to be shared by the house.  Outside surrounding the small yard where a couple of open fronted outbuildings and an enclosed shed.  I thought it would be pretty impressive when it was finished.  When my van was ready Andrew persauded them to drive it round and drop it off.  I decided it was probably too late to drive all the way to Fort William so I spent the rest of the evening sorting and packing my stuff back into the van.  With a bit of luck it wouldn't be long before this Junpei would be better and the police would let me go.  It wasn't that I didn't like staying at Andrew's but I didn't feel comfortable being forced to stay put.

In the morning I drove back to the bridge and headed north.  The rain clouds had cleared and the day was bright and cold.  Looking back up Loch Leven I could see the Pap, beyond that lay Glen Coe where all this had started to go wrong.  I din't have the first idea why I was going.  It seemed important to make the effort, to take responsablity for my own actions.  I supose it was all just an excersise in salving my own guilt.  I wanted to see with my own eyes that someone was taking care of him, making him better, fixing him up.  I wanted there to be something I could do for him, some way I could start making it better.

The road followed a long twisting route round the crenellated coastline before turning in along the straight sided Loch Linnie.  Long before Fort William proper I started passing houses on the side of the road furthest from the shore.  Unlike the villages and crofts I had passed earlier their clean modern aspects jarred with the soft green of the hills.  Unnaturaly neat manicured lawms and imaculate gravel drives fronted a mess of diferent styles.  Almost without fail they each displayed a sign advertising them as a guest house.  By the time I reach the sign anouncing the town the houses form an unbroken ribon down one side of the road.  Having recieved directions from Andrew I follow the waters edge round the town proper, there are some boats that appear to be fishing boats on the loch it'self but there seems to be little ctivity on the water.  The traffic is far from busy and it is fairly easy to locate the hospital.  I park up and gaze through the window of the van at the building where I imagine he lies.  I find myself appealing to some higher power, a god I have never truly believed in.  I hope, to something, that Junpei will be alright.  The name seems alien but I can't deny the frail human truth of his face that I can still see now through the replacement windscreen.  I take a deep breath and get out of the van.  I might as well get this done rather than sit here eating my self up about it.

-oO0Oo-