Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [38]
“I’ve got a really interesting story to tell you,” Ben said over their meal of mixed pastas and roasted red peppers. “I was running about two weeks ago – or was it three? Hang on, it was three because it was the week before I was due to do the Peebles Half-Marathon with Ted and the others. Anyway, I was doing a circular route up Colinton Road, past Redford Barracks, and then down into Colinton Village. You know how, if you turn right after the bridge, there’s a path that goes down and follows the Water of Leith? There’s an old Victorian railway tunnel there that you run through – they’ve lit it now; it used to be pitch dark and you just used to hope that you didn’t run into a group of neds or anything like that!
“Anyway, I ran through there and then over the bridge that goes over the Lanark Road and then turned and ran along the canal. You know the aqueduct? Well, that’s where it happened. The path along the side of the bridge has setts or whatever, and I should have walked, but I didn’t and I twisted my ankle. I swear that I felt nothing right then – nothing at all. You know how you can tear things without feeling them? Except your Achilles’ tendon. If you tear that, you feel it all right. Cuts you down. Just like that.
“I didn’t feel it, and I carried on running, but I knew by the time that I reached the Polwarth section of the canal that there was something wrong. You know that place where the Canal Society has its boathouse and there’s that guy who wears the kilt who looks after all the boats? You know the place? That’s where I found that I had to slow right down and then walk.
“I said to myself : ‘First thing you do when you get home is rub Arnica cream into it.’ And I did. I put a lot on – really rubbed it in. You can also get it in homeopathic solution but, I’m sorry, I’ve never been convinced by homeopathic remedies. If you look at the dilution, how can such minute quantities have Matthew’s Friends
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an effect? Right, so I rubbed it in, and you know what, Matthew?
The very next day, I was running again. No trouble. And I didn’t feel a single thing.
“And the next day I ran out to Auchendinny and back, and did it in a really good time. That’s quite a run, as you know. No trouble with that ankle. That’s Arnica for you.”
There had been a silence after that. Matthew had looked at his pasta and at the ceiling, and tried to remember what it was that he saw in Ben all those years ago. He had liked him. They had been friends, and now this thing – this running – had come between them.
There was another close friend from the Academy, Paul, whom he used to see and whom he now avoided. He had married young – they were both twenty-two at the time – and now had two young children. This friend now spoke only of issues relating to babies: of nappies, unguent creams, and feeding matters.
“Here’s a tip for you, Matthew,” Paul had said to him the last time he had seen him. “When you put a baby over your shoulder to wind it, make sure you put a cloth underneath it, just where its mouth is. No, I really mean it. It’s important. I found that out the hard way when I was about to go to work when little Hamish was about four months old. He’d just had his feed and I put him over my shoulder and started to pat his little back. The wind came up very satisfactorily, but what I didn’t realise was that half the feed came up too and went all the way down the back of my suit jacket! I didn’t notice it and went off to the office. I went to a meeting – it was quite an important one –
and I was standing next to one of our clients and I could see him sniffing and puckering his nose. And then one of the secretaries came and whispered in my ear and the penny dropped. So just you remember that, Matthew!
“And here’s another thing. When you travel with a baby, make sure that you’ve got a good, strong bag to put the dirty disposables in. We went off to see some relatives of Ann’s who live at St Andrews. Stuffy bunch. We had to change the kids on the way there and we put the disposables in the same bag