The Loneliness of the Long Distance Book Runner by Bill Rees Page A

Battle concludes the Chronicles of Narnia. It deals with the end of time in the old Narnia and sums up the series by linking the experience of the human children in Narnia with their lives in their original world. This copy is on sale for £480.
    It’s started to drizzle so I carefully place the book inside my jacket. The weather isn’t dampening anyone’s zeal. People are tucking into fairy cakes. Jam is for sale. The bouncy castle is in operation and other children participate in the egg and spoon races. I think of my son back in France. His school too has fêtes, with tombolas and face painting. But there’s something quintessentially English about egg and spoon and three-legged challenges. Mathieu attends l’Ecole Rudyard Kipling; the French naming many educational establishments after famous artists and writers.
    I take him to the school gates where we loiter until a friend calls out. The shout from the other side of the playground exerts its pull. Matty pauses, for just a second or so, before charging off in zig zag fashion. He reminds me of a fish returned to the river, a moment to reacquaint itself with the water before that dart to freedom.

Scourie, Scotland, March 1990
    A friend from university works on a salmon farm off the northwest coast of Scotland. His boss is prepared to buy a library of academic books on fisheries, and a more general selection concerning the physiology of fish. I neglect to mention that the books have come out of a skip, jettisoned by the college’s accountants. It happens more frequently than you’d think.
    I arrive late but there is just enough light to take in the barren hills bounding the loch. Sombre green waters are patched with wood and wire. Mark lives in a house within fifty yards of the loch. Ravaged by the elements, it is fast advancing towards dilapidation. Over a fish supper, Simon explains that I have an invitation from his boss to join in tomorrow’s cull. There’s a knock at the door. ‘That’ll be Jake,’ says Mark. Jake lives with his sister in a white cottage nearby.
     
    After a cold night it’s good to be up and moving. There is time only for the briefest of introductions to Alex who says he’ll check out the books after work. I have left them in the boot of the Princess, which has defied expectations in getting me here, a journey of some 700 miles from London.
    We walk to the water’s edge. Jake fights to light a cigarette. The lines of age curve chaotically all over his narrow reddened face. Swathed in dirty yellow oilskins, he crouches to get down low in the boat. By resting his good arm against the gunwale, Jake smokes, free of the wind’s interference. He is shocked out of his reverie when the boat rocks with the sudden presence of Alex. Mark and I hurry to board the boat as its engine is jolted to life. I keep my eyes fixed to the metal gangway. Slip, and the sea will numb every nerve in the body.Death is unlikely – providing you’re fished out within five minutes.
    His fingers glow red with defiance. Paralysed with arthritis and yellowed with nicotine, Jake’s hand is little more than a cigarette holder. The good arm attains an equilibrium of sorts, but his body still shakes, needs more than a dram to control its mutinous movements.
    ‘You all right lads?’ he asks with vigour.
    ‘Not too bad,’ I lie. Jake had called round with a bottle of malt, which didn’t see out the night.
    ‘You’ll not be inquiring after my welfare lads?’ says Jake, who I now know has the capacity to drink a loch full of Glenfiddich.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ we say in chorus to which Jake replies ‘Fucking awful. Spring time in Scotland. Hah!’ he adds, looking around. Clouds scud across the sky, darkening the day. The sun can only shed a cold light upon the perennially soggy Highlands.
    Salmon swim sluggishly. Jake sees too many salmon in his life; his clear blue eyes stare into the nets, rigidly secured and weighted down. In total there are twelve nets,