The Mills and Boon editing team weren't overly fond of Tara, though she probably is my favourite character in the novel....
Her attempts at orienteering recall my own adventures once upon a time.
Her apple green Mini Cooper splutters on
the incline and chugs reluctantly towards a darkening tree skyline; she changes
gear and lets out a long sigh. Tara loathes the great outdoors unless it is
relieved by a balmy Mediterranean breeze and accompanied by a G and T, cuisine
al fresco, and an exotic waiter hovering around her, but she has walked briskly
around Blackrock Park three times every evening for the past week in
preparation for this, her first orienteering event. A glimpse of the darkening
sky overhead prompts her to tilt her rear view window and scan the back seat of
the car for her pink woolen hat and mittens. No sign of them. She smooths her
recently straightened hair with a sigh; without the cap her blonde locks will
look like a bird’s nest if these clouds open.
Djouce Woods is looming on the horizon,
over shadowed now by a low heavy laden sky. Running through trees on an
inclement afternoon in late September is not her idea of fun but she can hardly
set up an orienteering club if her only contact with the sport is on-line.
How difficult can Orienteering be? She has
bought a compass and she will be provided with a map. She is wearing a new pair
of Nike runners and has rooted out her one and only tracksuit from the pink
charity bag due for imminent recycling. Luckily the baby blue cotton-velour
suit survived the last purge, and while she suspects that it might be a bit
démodé, who is she likely to meet in the wilds of Wicklow?
Jeeps vye with Mazdas and four wheel drives
for space in the small makeshift car park, while young men in black lycra limber
up with a professionalism that suggests that perhaps Tara has under estimated
the demands of the sport.
So this is where the talent comes on a damp
Sunday morning in post modern Ireland Ireland Tara
places the cigarette carefully back in the box, tucks it into her pocket, reaches
underneath the pedestrian seat for a bottle of diet coke and pops a piece of
Wrigley’s Cool Breeze into her mouth. Slowly and deliberately she strolls
towards the two men who are registering competitors at a fold up table.
“Think I might be out of my league here,
lads.”
“Not at all,” replies the younger man
grinning as he gives her a long, slow, head-to-toe appraisal.
“This is the West Wicklow One Day?”
“Three events to choose from- Beginners,
Intermediate or Advanced?” says the older man, anxious to avoid another long
discussion about the various categories.
“Advanced sounds a bit daunting. Do you
think I might qualify as an intermediate?”
“Whatever you like, you’ll hardly get
lost.”
There is a group of eager West Wicklow
Gazelles building up behind her and she notices that they are all wearing black
lycra.
“Official gear?”
“You’ll be grand,” says the younger man.
“Frankly you look far too fit for the intermediate category.”
“You’ll rescue me if I don’t get back
before nightfall?”
“Personally.” He has a great set of
orthodontically rearranged teeth; there is no doubt about it, that lad will be
dangerous in a year or two.
Equipped with a map and a card Tara sits on a mossy bank and considers her options,
speed versus accuracy or hopefully a winning combination of both. Should she
rely primarily on the compass or the map? She slides the brand new compass out
of its leather bound case. The young female sales assistant in the Great
Outdoors was too busy chatting up a customer to pay any attention to Tara ’s legitimate apprehension about the plethora of dials
on display in the clock face. She looks now at the confusing array of needles
and arrows and slides the compass back into its case. She has only five minutes
to decide on a route before a whistle blow sends her hurtling through potted
tracks and wet stream beds.
The jogging is pleasant until a stampede
behind her alerts her to the competitive arrival on her shoulder of the
Gazelles who are here to settle a score with Bray Antelopes. Tara
withdraws into the path verge and lets them past. Then she resumes a gentle
jog. Colourful butterflies and luminous blue flies flit past her and a brief
glance at the map every few minutes assures her that she hasn’t already strayed
off the course. This necessity does, however, slow her down and after another
five minutes of halting progress a small excited gathering of lycra to her
right pulls her attention to the red can in the tree branches that she is about
to by-pass. She punches holes in her card and studies the map again. To heck
with speed, she almost missed that first can! The Gazelles have already plunged
into the depths of the thickly forested parkland to her left.
Sitting on a boulder Tara
considers the symbols on her map more carefully. She extracts the compass from
its brown leather case and tilts it this way and that. The next can should be
at 10 degrees North West
The ground underfoot is becoming stony,
ferns and reeds choking up the track. The forest is unrelievedly pine and every
junction looks exactly like the one before, pathways appearing that aren’t mapped
on Tara ’s small 6x 6 inch map. After ten
minutes she decides that it has been too long since her last can sighting and
she begins to listen for the sounds of lycra legs breaking through the thickets,
but the only sounds come from the
streams that gurgle in the mossy underlay beneath the trees and from the
buzzing of late summer flies. More ominously, midges begin to gather in dark
clouds around her head.
She stumbles along a path strewn with fist
size boulders until the track deteriorates into a muck trail. Tara
is forced to negotiate her steps along the grassy verges, abandoning all
attempts at record breaking. She passes several piles of chopped tree trunks,
newly cut, but none of these are marked on her map. The streams are not even
indicated. Tara hadn’t noticed that September
has been a wet month until now. A fork in the road prompts her to consult the
compass in her pocket but its leather case feels light as she eases it out. The
sound of twigs cracking nearby startles her; it isn’t the crash of legs through
thicket. Sweat trickling into her eyes blurs her vision. The compass case in
her hand is empty and she digs her fingers into her pocket again; a gap in the
pocket seam explaining everything. Her
eyes strain in a wide arch but she can see nothing beyond deadwood logs and
pine trunks. She listens intently. The thud of hooves breaks the silence as a
herd of about five actual reindeer sweep into view, scamper through the trees
and disappear again. She realizes that she is holding her breath.
Ahead of her the terrain begins to open up
into an expanse of gorse covered hills. She studies the now torn map in her
hand but there is no indication of open ground on it. She has obviously strayed
off the map. She clutches for the mobile in her other pocket, her fingers
curving gratefully around its solid shape. She should have taken an emergency
phone number at registration- she should have taken that Goddamn little flirt’s
number instead of simpering back at him like a besotted adolescent. In her
mind’s eye Tara sees herself being spirited
out of the mountains by a helmeted, uniformed volunteer from the Wicklow
helicopter rescue service.
Overhead the sky is darkening and the first
few spits of rain hit her forehead. She sets off towards the hilltop, twisting
her ankle as she labours up the uneven surface, gorse bushes scratching her
hands as she forces her way through closely packed clumps. The rain is falling
more steadily.
Dave MacFadden hears the voice, high
pitched and alarmed, and on the hilltop ahead of him he sees the figure waving
her arms and calling out to him. A damsel in distress! Djouce woods is full of
them on Sunday mornings. He lengthens his stride and dives through the furze
bushes with the vigor of a man practised in the sport of hill running. By the
time he reaches her side Tara ’s hair is
plastered to the sides of her face and her Mac mascara is dripping ink stains
down her cheeks. She lights up her last cigarette and inhales deeply.
