Eternally North (Eternally North 1)

"Two… Thr-"

"Erm... do you hear bombs?"

"Shut up and quit stalling."

Nearly there.

"Three."

"OH, HELL NO!" was the instant response from my flamboyant partner in crime.

I opened my eyes and took in the splendour of... Afghanistan???

"What the heck is this show?" I said in a panic.

Tink snatched the remote from my tight grip and brought up the title: Ross Kemp in Afghanistan. Well, fate had truly turned us upside-down and smacked us right on the arse!

"Wil, I love you and everything, and you know I would do anything for you, but, well... I’m just too goddamned pretty to pull off a burkha!" he proclaimed with absolute sincerity whilst throwing himself onto the vintage white shag pile rug.

I, on the other hand, at this heartfelt plea, proceeded to break into hysterics at the sheer horror on the face of my best friend.

The Tinkster lifted his head with a scowl. “What are you laughing at? I'm serious. I’ll wither and die in such a climate... and the sand. Lord, the sand! I'll be shitting out castles for eternity! However, on the upside, the exfoliation would do wonders for my complexion, and… Oh. My. Gods of glitter! I’ll get to wear a headscarf and embody the iconic Little Edie from Grey Gardens and be ‘fabulous, mother-darling’! Mmm… Afghanistan is starting to have possibilities...” he pondered as he weighed up the pros and cons, using his hands as scales.

Pulling myself together, I turned to my bloody daft pal. "Okay, one last try and this time whatever destination is on the screen, we WILL be going there, war zones excluded."

Taking each other’s hands once again, we closed our eyes. I had to refrain from chuckling at the idiot beside me who was chanting under his breath, "Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii, oh, maybe Bali?"

With a calming exhale, I tapped on the buttons once more. The thud of our hearts created a staccato rhythm. When the sound came on and we opened our eyes it was to the delightful sound of a Caribbean accent.

'Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up, it’s bobsleigh time!'

Taking in the scene before us, we turned to one another and began jumping and screaming around the room.

"We are going to Jamaica!" shouted Tink in blissful happiness.

After a thirty-second hysterical celebration involving hip bumps and high fives and tit-to-tit taps, I turned to the TV to bask in the joy of our chosen new home and abruptly noticed the snow.

Wait... snow?

"Erm, since when do they have snow in Jamaica?" Did I miss something in Geography class?

Tink looked over my shoulder after expertly rounding off his cartwheel and said, "Well, dip me in shit and roll me in breadcrumbs. You're right, Wilbur, look at the sign – 'Winter Olympics 1988, Calgary’."

"Calgary. Canada. Gosh! Canada, Tink, we’re moving to bloody Canada!" I declared with an Irish jig.

Several dances and Cool Runnings quotes later – 'Kiss the egg, man' being the favoured line – it all began to sink in. We were headed to the Great White North.

I glanced at Tink, who was midway through a Fosse-inspired routine using the staircase banister for a ballet barre and said, "Well, kid, it’s you and me against the world, or Girls Gone Wild in Calgary. I’m not sure which?"

He circled towards me on a pirouette, floated across the room and grabbed my arm with a lustful look upon his face. "One word makes this all worthwhile, Wil," he said, his eyebrows jumping up and down in a dastardly villainous fashion.

"And what's that? The Rockies? Hockey? Syrup?" I laughed, goading him on.

Shaking his head, he smirked and smouldered in a raspy voice, "Even better."

I held a breath in anticipation, eager for the response.

Closing his eyes and puckering his lips he answered, "Mounties!"

Enough said.

Chapter 3

Oh Canada!

"Glynis, I’m gonna need my Munro Clan kilt and my steel-capped boots, the ones that can break coccyx!" screamed my father.

The next day, after seven pints of water and a restorative fry-up, I was sitting at the farmhouse-style kitchen table of my parents’ house on their farm trying to gently break the Nathan-bomb to them. As you can see, it was going well.

"Dad, calm down," I pleaded. I sooo did not need this right now.

With a slammed fist on the breakfast bar, my father, turning a lovely shade of crimson – and was that..? Yep, smoke coming from his ears – shrilled in a battle cry-type manner.

"The scrawny English bastard!” Cue excessive rolling of R's. “I'm going to kill the Sassenach prick. As my ancestors before me, I will paint myself blue and cut him from naval to nose. Let the fields of Bannockburn rejoice in the sacrificial slaughter of one Nathan Skellet, another casualty of the Scottish cause: ridding the world of wee English shits! Especially those that f**k with my family!"

I threw my head in my hands.

My father – Gordon - is the best man I know. He is also the craziest man I know. He is 100% Scottish and proud of it, as well as the most hot-headed and impulsive man on the planet.

"Calm down!" I yelled.

"I will not! That beady-eyed wee f**ker slighted my daughter and thus he must pay! Glynis, get my Sgian-Dubh… and make sure its sharp!"

I jumped up and headed after my father’s retreating form. "Okay, okay Braveheart, sit down," I said, grabbing his arm and returning him to his seat. "For a start, there will be no battling on my behalf. We are no longer living in the Middle Ages so 'slighting your daughter' is perhaps too dramatic a term to use towards my ex that I lived with... out of wedlock. And Dad, your Sgian-Dubh is purely decorative for your kilt and about two inches long, so, unless Nathan has joined ranks with Grumpy and Dopey in the last twenty-four hours, it's not exactly an appropriate weapon to wield if you want to be successful in the slitting from naval to nose!"