‘Midway through my life, I found myself in a dark forest — for the straight path forward had been lost… ‘
‘Mal, what are you talking about?’
I turned to face them, walking backwards. ‘It’s Dante! The Divine Comedy!’
‘Only you could manage to think of something like that while on LSD,’ chuckled Theo.
‘Someone as — brilliantly intelligent as me?’
‘I was gonna say pretentious… ‘
I opened my mouth to protest, but stumbled over a thick, fallen branch and fell on my arse among the rocks and weeds. ‘Argh!’
‘Are you okay?’ Aoife and Theo helped me up. I checked my palms for cuts. The dirt shimmered and flowed in the lines, as if trying to tell me something. I felt reluctant to brush it off, but did.
‘Yeah, I’m good.’
‘Maybe walk — forwards, not backwards?’
‘That’s an idea.’ Wasn’t there a thing in the Divine Comedy about certain sinners being punished by having to walk backwards? With their heads facing forwards? Or the other way around. I followed this trail of thought while we walked out of the clearing and along a broad, sort-of path with a canopy leaning low overhead. Lines of spider webs gleamed. A woodpecker drilled. Aoife said what if we get lost. Theo countered that it was very hard to get lost in Epping Forest; you were never far from a path. They wouldn’t have taken us here to do acid if it had been that easy to get lost.
‘Aw,’ said Aoife, snuggling up against her partner. ‘You do look out for us.’
‘Someone’s got to,’ said Theo, reaching to re-tie their bandana around their dreads.
We reached a proper path and followed it. Our skin gleamed. Aoife’s oversized open shirt billowed in the breeze. She reached into Theo’s backpack as we walked, pulling out SPF to re-apply on her face. For a while, we listened only to the sounds of the forest, to chirping swallows, leaves rustling, a child’s inquisitive voice ahead, a mother’s response. We passed the family soon after, our trio tightening in on itself, making an effort to look normal. I glanced warily up. The mother and father’s faces looked ancient as they passed — no, young actually, pretty, frozen in time. Too sharply defined to be real. Fairies. Then they were gone, receding behind us. The tree crowns whistled.
The pebbles and rocks in the path were surrounded by dirt wanting to free itself, wanting to rise up in little towers towards our bodies. I told Aoife and Theo. ‘Let the road rise up to meet you! Isn’t that an Irish thing?’
Aoife breathed a sigh. ‘Yes, it’s an Irish thing. May the road rise up.’
‘Do you think they were on acid when they came up with that?’
‘Sure, Mal.’
‘You guys are —’ I swallowed water from my bottle, suddenly parched, spilling some on my t-shirt. ‘You guys are seeing stuff as well, right?’
Aoife and Theo both gave a low, affirmative hum, tranquil, drifting into the surrounding quiet.
We reached a lake. More people here, ambling peacefully. I didn’t feel alarmed this time. I was ready now, to be around people. The people were an interesting new addition to the scenery. They felt beautifully tolerant of our and everyone else’s presence as we strolled around the water. Utopian. Pristine blank surface, rippling silkily. We sat on a bench and watched the comings and goings of scattered ducks and geese, waddling up through the reeds and back down again, gliding onto the water, flapping, taking off. The trees on the opposite shore waved their crowns at us, saying come over here. Reaching out. Eventually, I thought in reply, we will. Be patient. The reeds clumped in loving clusters, then separated, dancing, becoming faces, faces with reaching arms. I shifted my focus to the geese, who were just geese. ‘Egyptian geese,’ I said suddenly. ‘Right?’
‘Yeah… I think so,’ said Theo, sat on the other side of Aoife, who was rapt, rigid, between us, holding the SPF in her palms like an offering to the scene.
‘Then why don’t they walk like an Egyptian?’
‘Oh God, man,’ said Theo, and I felt them put their face in their palm without needing to look. I giggled suddenly at the realisation of how well the three of us knew each other.
Aoife started singing the song, walk like an egyptian, though she didn’t remember most of the words, and Theo noted it was a racist song, supposedly, and Aoife and I said what, really, oh, I guess I can see that, but the spotting of an ice cream van across the lake curtailed the conversation. We made our way over and stood, like weirdos, at some distance from it, summoning the strength to go and have an interaction with the vendor — it demanded a lot of us, such an interaction; focus and the use of language and the dexterity with one’s fingers to produce a method of payment. Theo went first, getting them and Aoife two Magnums and a bottle of peach ice tea. Emboldened by their triumph, I approached.
‘Hi, uh — can I have a…. ‘ I stared at the menu.
The guy in the van, a handsome, Middle Eastern kid in his late teens, stared at me blankly.
‘A Cornetto?’
‘Which one, mate?’
‘Uh… ‘ I stared at the board. ‘A — Classico, please.’
‘That’s two-fifty, mate.’
‘Yep.’ I pulled out my wallet; my keys came with it and dropped on the ground. I picked them up, put them back. Extracted my card. I thought I could hear someone laughing — Aoife and Theo, at me? No, someone else, at something else. I tapped my card to the reader. Inside the van, a big, stainless steel fan was blowing, rattling as it turned. ‘Must be nice and cool in there!’
‘Yeah, it’s all right, man,’ said the kid with a cheerfulness that surprised me as he handed me the Cornetto, smiling. Movie-star smile. ‘It’s all right.’
‘Thanks.’ Success.
‘Mal?’
A hand tapped my shoulder.
I turned.
The face that stared into mine, with tentative, smiling bafflement, was not immediately familiar. A square-jawed, broad-shouldered, wholesome guy, in a grey sports vest and shorts, strong arms gleaming, brown wavy hair. Then I realised. ‘Oh — it’s you!’
What was his name? We’d been on a date — a date I had abandoned in favour of Panos, when he’d appeared like a devil in a puff of smoke, that night in the crowded bar…
Phil!
‘Phil!’
‘Yeah, hi!’ He smiled, green eyes taking me in with an interest as if we hadn’t parted on such bad terms. ‘So funny to run into you! How are you?’
‘I’m — good!’ Two girls asked if we were queuing; we stepped apologetically out of their way. ‘I’m just out — walking with — my friends over there… ‘ I gestured towards Aoife and Theo.
‘Oh, lovely. I’m just here with my sister over there and her friend — and my little nephew… ‘ He pointed out two women crouched by a pram, trying to soothe a displeased baby. The baby’s eyes picked me out, between the bodies of the women; the eyes looked evil, the face impossibly purple. I looked away, but the crying continued worming its way into my brain, like a curse.
‘Oh, that’s nice! Love that,’ I told Phil, nodding, making myself stop nodding. ‘Getting some — family — I love spending — family time with… yeah.’ I thought about how long it had been since I’d called my parents. Six months, at least. Some people managed to keep up such a close relationship with their family. Good people.
The wind whistled in the trees. I looked up at them reaching down towards me, reaching like a baby, a baby’s face in the leaves, the leaves merging with the crying.
I looked back at Phil. Tried to focus on the cold, hard paper of the Cornetto in my fingers.
‘How long has it been since we — uh, since we saw each other that time?’ I asked.
‘Oh, must be like a year, right?’ Phil smiled. Still so cheerful, forgiving. Was he really there? He had to be. I’d never hallucinated a whole person. ‘How have you been?’
‘I’ve been good! Good. Uh… ‘ I stumbled, regained my balance. A teasing voice came from afar. ‘Ma-al… ‘ I looked over. Aoife was giggling into Theo’s shoulder; the two seemed merged for a second into one body.
‘You still doing comedy?’
‘Uh, yeah! Still trying to — do the thing… ‘
‘And you were a — graphic designer, right?’
‘Yep. Yeah. Still… ‘ I should ask him things too, but was struggling to remember anything about what he did, what he was interested in. I wished I remembered. He was nice, being nicer to me than he needed to. Maybe I shouldn’t have discarded him like that, that night. Maybe I should’ve given him more of a chance. Maybe I’d missed a great possibility. He was hot, too — there in his vest, a broad chest and taut stomach showing underneath — oh God, was I getting a hard-on, just from looking at him — don’t get a hard-on, please, Mal.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, bemused.
‘Yeah! Yeah. I’m good. Think the — heat is just getting to me a bit.’
‘Oh, it’s gorgeous, isn’t it?’ He grinned, looking up at the blue sky, scratching his neck, showing an inviting tuft of armpit hair. ‘You should make sure you drink enough water.’
‘Yeah, definitely. Are you still — uh — are you… ‘
‘Phil?’ called the woman who I think was his sister. ‘I think we’re gonna go back?’
‘Oh yeah, I’m coming!’ He looked back at me. ‘You should probably eat that.’
The Cornetto was trickling onto my fingers. Had been for a while. I looked at it. Looked back at him. ‘Stop telling me what to do! Ha, ha.’
He gave a bemused frown.
‘Sorry. I’m… joking.’
‘Ah, yeah. Of course. You’re a comedian!’ He grabbed my shoulder and squeezed it. It felt good. I wanted more. But he was backing away. ‘Well, it was fun to bump into you.’
‘Yeah! We should… bump into each other again.’
‘Yeah, I think — think I’ve still got your… ‘
Tinder profile?
‘Yeah, you’ve —’ I made a strange back-and-forth gesture with my fingers that didn’t communicate anything. ‘Yeah, we can just… ‘
‘Okay, bye!’ And he hurried back to his group as they departed. I didn’t know if I did still have any contact details for him, actually. Or if he did for me. Or if he would contact me, if he did.
I returned to Aoife and Theo, the sun sizzling on the back of my neck as I tucked messily into the top of my collapsing Cornetto.
‘Who was that?’ asked Aoife, in a saucily intrigued tone.
‘Uh. Someone I really shouldn’t have run into while on acid.’
She and Theo waited for more, but I just kept eating, licking my fingers. We began walking further around the lake, past a duck with ducklings. Aoife started talking about how she’d had to get her ticket to Euphoria Festival refunded because she’d found out it was backed by a company that backed Israel. The conversation turned heavier, political, and I stayed quiet, the moment with Phil lingering like an afterimage of the sun. The afternoon was wearing on. A sadness in the way the trees rustled, the way the lake rippled around the landing, gliding bodies of geese. A swan. A coolness in the shadows, sun reaching us through the trees in shards.
I had fallen behind a little. I jogged up to Aoife and Theo, crunching up the last of the waffle cone, and made an effort to rejoin the conversation.
