She wasn’t born there. No, she was an
incomer, arriving at eighteen months, oldest child of parents moved
to the far north for a better job than he could ever have imagined. A
million quid to think up research projects in a nuclear reactor? For
a working class bloke from Blackpool with a third class degree who’d
really rather be playing jazz? A reactor prudently situated in a
sparsely populated area, not that the locals considered this prudent,
well they wouldn’t, would they. It might be fewer lives at risk but
it was their lives. Anyway it never blew up though there was some
unpleasant business involving the casual disposal of radioactive
waste. None of which was his fault.
For her there was a lot about living
there that was good. It was normal to roam free aged five, shouting
back to your mum that you’d be home for tea. The sea was freezing
so even after fifteen years you didn’t need double figures to count
how often you’d been in. But there’s nothing to beat sitting
staring out across the Pentland Firth as a teenager. Angst - don’t
tell me, or any other Thurso kiddie, about angst.
Kiddie, that just means person. Like
wifie means woman, there’s no diminutive, or any relationship to a
mannie, implied. You meet some fucking tough wifies in Thurso. It’s
the gale force winds that does it. If you can stand on your own two
feet in Thurso you can stand on your own two feet anywhere. You meet
some totally crushed wifies in Thurso too. I suppose you do anywhere
really.
She left of course. She was desperate
to get out by the time she was eighteen; she was lucky to have an
escape route. She was an incomer.
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