AN EXCERPT FROM A MEMOIR WRITTEN BY BELINDA MOUNTAIN
As I lock my rented red bike to a pole on the bridge, the rain begins to fall softly. I curse under my breath, pulling up the hood of my anorak and yanking my sleeves down. Only one other person is waiting under the dim light at the edge of the forest – a woman – and I can’t tell if it’s a stranger or someone I’m supposed to meet.
I approach hesitantly, greeting her in English.
‘Goedenavond,’ she replies in Dutch, her breath fogging in the icy night air.
‘Excuse me, could you say that again? I’m learning Nederlands.’
‘Goed-uh-ah-vond,’ she articulates slowly, as if I am stupid. ‘It means good evening.’
‘Oh – thank you! Are you here for the running group?’
‘Ja.’
‘Okay. Goedeavond,’ I repeat to myself, rolling the unfamiliar word across my tongue. The woman turns away, holding onto the rails to stretch her calves. As I huddle into myself for warmth, I note her outdoorsy complexion, like that of a seasoned runner or hiker, and guess that she’s in her late fifties. Neither of us speaks again as we await the rest of our group. The silence is taut as I think of my children already tucked into their beds, my husband Gareth on the couch, probably on his second glass of red wine.
‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this,’ he complained earlier while I searched for my trainers. ‘It’s too late at night to be doing any kind of sport. Plus, I can hear rain. And it’s fucking freezing. If you did this in South Africa, people would call you crazy.’ While telling me this, Gareth was snug under a blanket, eyes glued to an episode of his favourite sci-fi show, something featuring creatures with three eyes.
I pulled my laces as tight as possible and, as per the email’s instructions, attached the light I’d bought from Decathlon to my upper left arm.
‘I need a challenge, love,’ I explained to him. ‘I can’t carry on lifting tins of beans up in the attic. I need some form of group exercise, and this is all there is.’
There are no sports clubs or gyms open due to the pandemic, but outdoor running groups of a certain size are permitted. A leaflet for one appeared in our mailbox last week, and I signed up immediately. But now, as the drizzle intensifies and the wind starts to lash at the skeletons of the trees, I’m questioning my choices. I’ve already paid, though, and I’ve committed, and besides – being constantly trapped indoors is making me want to scream.
I left my phone at home, but my watch says that it’s 20:25. The class begins at half past, and as my tights become soaked through, I curse my perpetually early self.
Suddenly, I see a lone figure on a bicycle approaching through the path in the forest, a flashing white light announcing his arrival. ‘Goedavond!’ the man says. ‘Beetje koud vannacht, vind je niet?’
He is twenty-something, long-legged and, apparently, our instructor. His name is Glenn, a student and part-time athlete who hosts these running classes weekly to earn extra money. Like they know each other, Glenn and Grumpy Hiker Lady start a rapid conversation in Dutch while the rain hits the side of my face with tiny painful pinpricks. I can’t understand a word, but I’m secretly hoping they’ll realise this was a stupid idea and call the whole thing off.
But then, another two bikers approach from the bridge, then a third from the forest and finally a fourth. The couple on the bridge lock up their bikes and say hello, while the third bike deposits a pretty woman with dark hair who speaks Dutch in a way that makes me suspect it’s only one of many languages she knows. There’s also an older gentleman who strikes me as a long-distance runner.
As more discussions start up, I get the feeling that this is everyone. We gather in a circle as Glenn introduces himself and gets us to start warming up. While we stretch, he gives a lowdown on what tonight’s training will entail. I hear ‘snel’, which means ‘fast’ (I think), and ‘lopen’, which I’m confident means ‘walk’. After a few questions, everyone nods in understanding.
‘Do you understand?’
Our circle has gone silent, and Glenn is looking at me.
‘Not really,’ I admit, ‘but please don’t speak English for my sake. This is a good way for me to learn Dutch. I’ll just … do what you do.’
‘Okay,’ Glen says. ‘But where is your headlight?’ He nods at the Decathlon light on my armband as I notice the others busy attaching bright torches to their heads or chests that illuminate the paths in front of them. They’re also all wearing gloves and buffs around their throats or over their ears.
I must’ve missed that in the email.
‘You must stick with a person who has a light, please,’ Glenn says. ‘The one on your arm – it is to tell people you are there, but it is not bright enough to see where you are placing your feet.’
Ah. Recalling my weak ankle, I’m now worried I’ve set myself up for a trip to A&E during a pandemic. Too late now, though. I follow the group towards the dimly lit path in the middle of the woods, while all around us is a thick blanket of darkness.
Is that an owl?
I resist the urge to spot one in the treetops as we press on with more warm-up exercises: hopping, skipping and sprinting. I can no longer feel my nose, but sprinting is my secret love. When Glenn shouts, ‘Go!’ in English, I feel a surge in my veins as I pump my arms and bring my knees up high, and the weather becomes inconsequential. The others look startled, except for Grumpy Hiker Lady, who seems vaguely annoyed. I’m clearly a try-too-hard.
As we make our way down a single lane winding through the forest, I find myself next to a lovely French lady – I decide she is French as she is impossibly elegant, even while rain-drenched. I keep to her pace for a while until we slow down to a stop by a clearing as Glenn speaks, where I glimpse a vast lake to our side. The water is perfectly still, a liquid portal, and everything around me is shades of black, from liquorice to slate and ink to coal.
As Glenn relays more instructions, I gather we’ll be running laps of the lake, some faster and others slower, all coordinated by Glenn’s whistle. A long whistle means one thing, and a short one another. The rain has stopped, and as everyone lines up, I forget to ask questions, distracted by dreams of blankets, light, food and warmth.
Glenn’s whistle suddenly pierces the air, and we’re off.
The couple immediately falls to the back while Grumpy Hiker Lady charges to the front with Older Gentleman, and I position myself behind them next to Lovely French Lady. Our pace is intermediate, suitable for talking, but I’m concentrating mostly on not tripping, a little distracted by the sounds echoing from the undergrowth. Occasionally, I hear movement in the bushes on either side of us, but mostly, the air is filled with the sound of leaves rustling and the occasional beating of wings.
We’re running with the lake on our right, and as we near the end of one side, I make out a large, curved bridge that I assume we’ll be crossing. God, those two fifty-year-olds are fast. Lovely French Lady seems friendly, which makes a nice change. Her torch is just bright enough to light up both our paths as we run, but I don’t have a lot of breath to spare, and various parts of my body are going numb.
‘Where are you from?’ she asks.
‘Uh, Cape Town. We moved here nine weeks ago.’
‘Oh, I have heard South Africa is beautiful. Why did you come to the Netherlands, and do you like it?’
‘Hmm. Hard to say yes at the moment. But it’s still early – maybe it’ll grow on me.’
She nods in understanding, thankfully not pressing the first part of her question that I skipped. ‘Very difficult with the Corona and these lockdowns,’ she agrees. ‘You run in South Africa?’
‘I’ve run a few five K’s before, but mostly I like sprinting. And I’m bored of running alone here, so I thought I should join this group.’
‘Yes, I understand. I am Delphine, by the way.’
‘Belinda. Thanks for sharing your light!’
‘It is no worries.’
Delphine and I slow down at a section littered with thick tree roots, which I take care to hop over. Our chat has put some distance between us and the frontrunners, though, so we quicken our pace after the ground levels out. It starts to rain again, this time harder.
‘It is not, how do you say it, pleasant?’ Delphine comments. ‘Running in this weather, it is not pleasant.’
I nod because I agree, but mostly because I like her cute way of talking. As we’re crossing the bridge, we hear Glenn’s sharp whistle. What does that mean again? Suddenly, the two frontrunners quicken their pace, breaking into a sprint as their lights bob farther away from us. Delphine and I look at each other.
‘You go,’ she says. ‘Catch up to them! You like to run fast. I will find you back at Glenn.’
It sounds like she’d prefer to run alone, so I don’t waste a second. I accelerate, confident I can catch up to the two lights up ahead. I’m gaining on them, probably ten paces away, when suddenly the lights disappear. Huh? I go all out, rushing to the point where I saw them last. To my left is a path, and another to my right that leads over a smaller footbridge. I hesitate momentarily; with no bearings to draw on, having never set foot here before, I go left on impulse.
The trees start growing taller, and once I realise I’m no longer skirting the lake, I stop running, totally blind. There’s rainwater dripping from my eyebrows as I stand still, hearing only the trees creaking, the patter of rainfall and my own excited breaths. I smell earth, dead leaves and rot. Out here all by myself, time seems to have stopped, the forest itself a creature in slumber. I know that I could simply retrace my steps, but something holds me in stillness. I’m lost, in the dark, in a deeply unknown place, but for some reason, I am not afraid.
After what feels like a few minutes, a whistle shatters my reverie – then two more. Maybe Glenn is signalling to me? Either way, I follow the sound, treading carefully, and emerge from the forest into another clearing. I see a gathering of lights a short distance away, so I jog over.
‘We lost you!’ Glenn is all white teeth and long arms, not at all bothered about misplacing one of his runners. ‘Sorry, but this is why you need a head torch, I think.’
‘Next week you bring own torch, yes?’ Grumpy Hiker Lady adds, definitely amused.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘next week I bring own torch. Haha.’
The others chuckle, and we all prepare for the next round. The rain has lessened once again.
‘Okay,’ Glenn says, ‘we go again now that we have Belinda back. I say it this time in English because, I think, it is better? You start at medium pace, then the first whistle is to speed up. The next whistle means slow down to medium again. Then I repeat until you are back here with me. Also, I forgot to say that you must watch out for the swans. I see two of them by the big bridge, and they can make a loud noise if they are angry.’
Swans? Okay. Swans and owls, with lakes like mirrors and forests full of secrets. I realise that I am running in a fairytale – and I am a part of the story.
About the Author
Belinda Mountain is a writer, author and marketing consultant who has lived in London, Europe and South Africa over the past 20 years. Her first non-fiction book was published by Kwela Books in 2023, and she has written for the Sunday Times, Fast Company, Glamour and Entrepreneur. Before co-founding a content agency, she worked in the publishing industry for Penguin Books and Harlequin. Her author site is https://belindamountain.co.za/
Belinda is the recipient of the 2024 Writers’ College Creative Writer of the Year Award.
