LITMIR.BIZ

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although the few contrite lines at the bottom of the Daily Record’s Letters page a few weeks later were a far cry from the screaming headlines of the original story, it was important to me for my father to know I had done all I could to right the wrong. I wanted to show him that I cared about such an intrusion to his private life, that I was doing what I could to protect him.

      Of course at the same time I was reminded that my father had never shown those kindnesses towards me, and I wondered how different such an intrusion would have felt if he had known immediately that he could pick up the phone, tell me there were reporters outside his door, and hear my advice and my reassuring words.

      So now, back in the lounge at Nice airport, I listened to Mary Darling’s lilting Highland tones and knew what to expect. Probably a gossipy, needling piece in that Sunday’s Mail, no big deal compared with what had come before, but able to churn up old sadness nonetheless.

      “But don’t you worry, pet,” she said reassuringly. “I just said I couldn’t help them, had no comment, and smiled and shut the door.”

      My flight to London was called. I took a last sip of my Bloody Mary and thought to myself, “Tomorrow’s chip paper!” And it was true: by Monday lunchtime the Sunday Mail would be used for wrapping up greasy bags of chips in fish-and-chip shops all over Scotland.

      But by then, the damage would have been done. So much more damage than I could ever have countenanced.

      We ascended into a cloudless Mediterranean sky and, as I always tend to do when airborne, I smelled the roses. Maybe it’s the fact that I hurtle through the sky in a metal-fatigued box so regularly and therefore the odds of said box careering to a watery grave must be quite scarily higher than for the average traveller that makes me count my blessings in this way. Or maybe it’s the copious amounts of free booze. Whatever, it’s another inexorable ritual.

      But I smell the roses not just to remind myself of how lucky I am, but also to wonder how on earth it all happened. I smell the roses to try and figure out how I came to be in the garden at all.

      THEN

      Nobody disliked the rain more than my father. All of a sudden nature would not bend to his will, time would not mould to his form. His meticulous plans would have to be altered. Men would have to be redirected to new, hastily created tasks. The rain brought chaos to his carefully constructed realm. And on this particular day, I would become the unwilling, and as usual ill-informed, brunt of his frustration.

      This day was the first time I truly believed I was going to die. I looked into my father’s eyes and I could see that in the next few moments, I might leave the planet. I was used to rage, I was used to volatility and violence, but here was something that transcended all that I had encountered from him before. This was a man who had nothing to lose. The very elements were raging against him, and what was one puny little son’s worth in the grand scheme of things? I felt like I was my father’s sacrifice to the gods, a wide-eyed, bleating lamb that he was doing a favour in putting out of its misery.

      It was during my summer holidays from secondary school. I was old enough to be working for him full time by then, but not yet fully grown enough to be sent to aid the men with their tasks. So not only was I feeble and weak and inept, I also, in this current downpour, demanded more time and planning and attention due to my inadequacies. It was always like this with the rain. I longed for it as respite from the backbreaking labour, but as soon as it came, I knew I was doomed.

      We had been working outside in the nursery, separating the one-and two-year-old spruce saplings that were strong enough to be taken to the forests and planted from the runts of the litter. These, much like me, needed to be cast aside. The rain had necessitated that this work be postponed, and instead all the saplings were transported into the old tractor shed in the sawmill yard, where they could be graded and selected in a dry place. This, I was told, was to be my job. I was sent to the shed to await further instructions.

      There was a single bare lightbulb hanging above me. I stood beneath it, surrounded by mounds and mounds of spruce saplings, hearing my father’s voice come wafting through the gale as he ordered his men around.

      Finally the shed door opened and a gust of wind and a clap of thunder heralded his entrance. In the lightbulb’s dim hue, his lumbering frame cast a shadow over me and much of the piles of baby trees. I remember the smell of them, so sweet, fresh and moist.

      “You go through these,” he said, picking up a handful of saplings, “and you throw away the ones like this . . .”

      He thrust out a hand to me, but it was full of saplings of various lengths and thicknesses. With his shadow looming over me I could barely discern the differences between any of them.

      “And you put the good ones into a pile over here.” He gestured to his right.

      I looked up at him, blinking and windswept.

      “How do I know if they’re good or not?” I asked.

      “Use your common fucking sense,” he said from the shadows. A second later a shaft of eerie grey-blue light filled the shed, thunder vibrated beneath my feet, and he was gone.

      For the next few hours I sifted through the trees like a mole, blinking and wincing in the semi-darkness. After a while the saplings began to blur into a prickly procession, spilling through my fingers. I would check myself and go back through the discarded pile at my feet and wonder if I had been too harsh in my judgement. The pile of rejected saplings seemed to be bigger than the successful ones, and I questioned if my criteria were too harsh. Then pragmatism would win over and I’d tell myself I needed to be ruthless, that this pile had to be shifted and it never would be by prevaricating or becoming sentimental.

      Of course my father had not given me much to go on to make my choices. He was usually vague and generalised in his instructions, but incredibly specific when it came time to inspect my work. But today was different. Perhaps because he was so preoccupied with the challenges the weather had created for him and his workers, he had doled out fewer instructions than usual about how I was to proceed. For instance he gave no indication of what ratio of plants should be kept to those that should be rejected. He gave no clues as to the criteria I should use in filtering them, aside from that shadowy fist he had thrust in my face. I was standing in a freezing, damp, dark room surrounded by thousands of baby trees. I began to panic.

      I did what I could. When my hands began to get numb I pushed them between my thighs and held my legs close together to bring some life back into them. At times I felt I was on a roll, but then the panic would set in. I would glance down at a mound of discarded trees and realise I had been too hasty in my judgement. They seemed too healthy, too thick, too tall. But I couldn’t save them all, could I?

      Every moment of doubt was compounded by the knowledge that I was wasting precious time and before long my father would return. And of course, he did.

      I heard him saying good-night to some of his men, and my heart sank. With none of them around, he would have less motivation to rein in his fury. After a while I heard his footsteps and the door opened slowly. He stood for a second, silhouetted, dripping and silent, as though this was how he wanted me to remember him.

      I stood up from the bundles of plants and tried to ease back into the shadows.

      My father bent down to one of the piles I had made and without looking up at me asked, “What are these?”

      “Rejects,” I said, questioningly.

      He sifted through them for a moment and then, without warning, he backhanded me across the face. I flew through the air and landed in a heap against the stone wall of the shed. I was breathless and dizzy, the wind knocked out of me. I knew I had to get away. I began to run for the door, but my father grabbed on to my collar with one hand and smashed my mouth with his other. I fell to the ground and instinct told me to stay there. I could tell he had only started.

      “What the fuck do you call this?” he railed.

      The storm raged outside and it was as though my father was determined to belittle nature with his own wrath.

      I

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