The Crow Road

by Iain Banks

  "Later," Rory said, looking serious, mysterious, and winking.

  "So," Kenneth said. "How's the world?"

  Rory shrugged, "Still there."

  "Back for long?"

  Another shrug, and an easy smile. "Dunno. Maybe."

  "Well," Ken said, putting one arm round his brother's shoulders and starting to walk towards the path, where the still-frowning form of Ashley Watt stood, arms crossed tight as her brows. Ken smiled broadly at her, glanced at Rory. "Better get all the family in the one place before you start answering questions; otherwise you'll get fed up telling the same stories all the time." Kenneth turned round, waved to the rest of the children. "Come on, rabble; your Uncle Rory's back from exotic places and he's got much better stories than me!"

  The children started after them. The two men came up to Ashley; Rory ruffled her hair. She frowned. Kenneth lifted her up with a grunt, held her dangle-legged in front of him. "Sorry if I upset you, Ashley," he told her.

  "Huh, okay, Mr McHoan," she said. "Ah'm sorry ah swore."

  "Okay," he set her down.

  She looked down the hillside to the forestry track that led back to Lochgair, glanced up at him, then back at the other children, and said loudly, "Ah bet ah can be back at the hoose first, though but." She turned and ran.

  The rest raced after her, whooping and hollering past Kenneth and Rory.

  Kenneth shook his head. "Preprandial stampede; traditional," he told his brother. He made a show of squeezing Rory's boney shoulder. "Woa; feels like you could do with a bit of feeding up yourself."

  "Yeah," Rory said, looking down at the heather. "Well, my stories might be a bit thin, too; maybe I should tell them to you first. Let you re-tell the kids." He gave a small laugh. "You're the professional fictioneer in the family. I'm just a glorified hack."

  "Hey, is that false modesty or even a note of jealousy there, young Rore?" Kenneth laughed, squeezing his brother's shoulder again. "Come on, man; I stayed here and had weans and taught weans and you were off getting famous; consorting with tigers and wandering through the Taj Mahal and then wowing us all; fucking celebrity; toast of the town and plenty of bread; literary festivals, awards —»

  "Travel writing awards," Rory sighed.

  "Nothing wrong with that. Jeez; last time I saw you, you were on TV. What was that line? 'Better lionised than mauled.?" Ken laughed as they walked down the hill.

  Rory made an exasperated noise, shook his head. "Ken, don't you remember anything?"

  Ken looked nonplussed. "What? Did I get it wrong?"

  "No, but that was your line. You said that. Years ago. One night. We were drunk; I don't know… but you said it, not me."

  "Did I?"

  "Yes."

  Ken frowned. "You sure?"

  "Positive," Rory snapped.

  "Good grief. I'm wittier than I thought." Ken shrugged. "Well; you're welcome to it. But anyway; let your poor old brother have his turn. Don't begrudge me for being able to distract the odd pre-adolescent from the TV for the odd half-hour."

  Rory shook his head. "I don't, Ken," he said, and sighed again. "I'm not jealous." He looked at his brother; bearded, hair still dark, face cheerfully lined but still young-looking. "Just those end-of-ramble blues." Rory shrugged, the thin shoulders moving under Kenneth's arm. "But it's good to be back."

  Ken smiled. They saw Prentice walking back up through the grass and fern towards them, panting. The others were kicking up a cloud of dust on the forestry track; a small and highly noisy storm heading Lochgair-ward.

  "What is it, Prentice?" Kenneth called.

  "Dad!" the boy gasped from some distance off.

  "What?"

  "What was the sound… " He took a deep breath. "You can see?"

  "The Sound of Jura!" he yelled. "Now keep running or you'll get no dinner!"

  "Okay!" Prentice called. He jogged off, shaking his head.

  * * *

  The rain fell with that impression of gentle remorselessness west coast rain sometimes appears to possess when it has already been raining for some days and might well go on raining for several more. It dissolved the sky-line, obliterated the view of the distant trees, and continually roughened the flat surface of the loch with a thousand tiny impacts each moment, every spreading circle intersecting, interfering and disappearing in the noise and clutter of their successors. It sounded most loud as it pattered on the hoods of their jackets.

  "Ken, are you sure fish are going to bite in this weather?"

  "Course they will, Prentice. Have some faith."

  "Well that's good, coming from you."

  Kenneth McHoan looked at his son, sitting looking suitably miserable in waterproofs in the bows of the little boat. "Just a phrase. I could have said, 'Trust me, I suppose."

  "Huh." Prentice said. "That's no better. Who was it used to say 'If someone says Trust me"… don't'?"

  "Na," Kenneth said, shaking his head. "That was Rory. I never said that."

  "You did!" Prentice said, then seemed to realise he was sounding petulant, and looked away again. He plonked the rear end of the fishing rod down in the bottom of the boat, watched the thin end waggle up and down for a while. He folded his arms, leaned forward, hunching up. "God, I'm depressed."

  "Cheer up," Kenneth said, falsely hearty. "Have some more coffee."

  "I don't want coffee."

  "Well, you forced me into it; I was saving this for later, but… " Kenneth opened the poppers on the Berghaus jacket, unzipped and dug into the deep internal pocket, pulled out a hip-flask. He offered it to Prentice.

  Prentice looked at it, looked away. "I don't think that's going to solve anything."

  Kenneth sighed, put the flask away again, completed reeling in, cast again, and slowly wound the lure in once more. "Prentice; look, we're all sorry about —»

  Darren Watt was dead.

  He'd been on his motorbike, driving to Glasgow one bright day. He was overtaking a truck on the long straight at the start of Glen Kinglas; a car pulled out onto it from the Cowal Road. Darren had assumed the driver had seen him, but the driver had only looked one way; hadn't thought to check there was nothing overtaking on his side of the road. Darren's bike hit the wing of the car doing eighty; he might have survived being thrown into the open road or the heather and grass at the road-side, but he had started to turn as he saw the car coming out in front of him, so hit it at a slight angle; he was catapulted across the road and into a lay-by; he hit the big concrete litter bin full on, and was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.

  "It's not just Darren," Prentice said. "It's everything; it's… it's Uncle Rory; Aunt Fiona, and… shit, it's even doing History, dad. Jesus; do human beings ever just get on with each other? Why are we always at each other's throats?"

  "Well, I wouldn't worry about Rory," Kenneth said quietly.

  "Why shouldn't I? He's dead. He must be; it's been six years; we could probably have him legally declared dead." Prentice kicked the rod. "Good excuse for a wake; and we wouldn't even have the expense of a coffin or anything."

  «Prentice…» Kenneth said.

  "Well!" Prentice shouted. "You're always so fucking smug about Rory being alive! What do you know? What makes you so smart?"

  "Prentice, calm down."

  "I will not! Christ, dad, do you realise how insufferable you can be? Mr Omniscience. Jeez." Prentice looked away at the grey landscape of water, cloud and dripping trees.

  "Prentice, I don't know for certain Rory's alive, but I'm fairly sure. In a round-about sort of way, he keeps in touch. I think. That's all I can say." He started to say something else, then stopped himself. "Oh, I don't know what to say. I want to say, 'Trust me, but… looks like Rory himself has ruled that out. Can't say he isn't right about that… It's true, most of the time. But I'm not lying to you."

  "Maybe not," Prentice said. He looked back at Kenneth. "But you might be wrong about the things you're so busy telling us the truth about."

  "I did say I wasn't certain."r />
  "Yeah? What about Darren?"

  Kenneth looked puzzled. He shook his head. "No, you've lost me; what do you —»

  "I can't believe he's just… gone, like that, Ken. I can't believe there isn't something left, some sort of continuity. What was the point of it all, otherwise?"

  Kenneth put the rod down, clasped his hands. "You think Darren's… personality is still around, somewhere?"

  "Why not? How can he be such a great guy, and clever and just… just a good friend, and some fuckwit forgetting to look both ways cancels out all that… probably not even a fuckwit; probably some ordinary guy thinking about something else… How…

  Prentice shoved his hands under his oxters, rocked forward, head down. "God, I hate getting inarticulate."

  "Prentice, I'm sorry. Maybe it sounds brutal, but that's just the way it is. Consciousness… goodness, whatever; they haven't got any momentum. They can stop in an instant, just snuffed out. It happens all the time; it's happening right now, all over the world; and Darren was hardly an extreme example of life's injustice, death's injustice."

  "I know!" Prentice put his hands up to the jacket hood, over his ears. "I know all that! I know it's happening all the time; I know the death squads are torturing children and the Israelis are behaving like Nazis and Pol Pot's preparing his come-back tour; you keep telling us; you always told us! And people just scream and die; get tortured to death because they're poor or they help the poor or they wrote a pamphlet or they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time; and nobody comes to rescue them, and the torturers never get punished; they retire, they even survive revolutions sometimes because they have such fucking useful skills, and no super-hero comes to save the people being tortured, no Rambo bursts in; no retribution; no justice; nothing… and that's just it! There has to be something more than that!"

  "Why?" Kenneth said, trying not to sound angry. "Just because we feel that way? One wee daft species, on one wee daft planet circling one wee daft star in one wee daft galaxy; us? Barely capable of crawling into space yet; capable of feeding everybody but… nyaa, can't be bothered? Just because we think there must be something more and a few crazy desert cults infect the world with their cruel ideas; that's what makes the soul a certainty and heaven a must?" Kenneth sat back, shaking his head. "Prentice, I'm sorry, but I expected better of you. I thought you were smart. Shit; Darren dies and you miss Rory, so you think, 'Bugger me; must be a geezer with the long flowing white beard after all.»

  "I didn't say —»

  "What about your Aunt Kay?" Kenneth said. "Your mum's friend; she did believe; must be a God; prayed every night, went to church, practically claimed she had a vision once, and then she gets married, her husband dies of cancer within a year and the baby just stops breathing in its cot one night. So she stops believing. Told me that herself; said she couldn't believe in a God that would do that! What sort of faith is that? What sort of blinkered outlook on the world is it? Didn't she believe anybody ever died 'tragically' before? Didn't she ever read her precious fucking Bible with its catalogue of atrocities? Didn't she believe the Holocaust had happened, the death camps ever existed? Or did none of that matter because it had all happened to somebody else?"

  "That's all you can do, isn't it?" Prentice shouted back. "Shout people down; skim a few useful anecdotes and bite-sized facts and always find something different to what they've said!"

  "Oh I'm sorry! I thought it was called argument."

  "No, it's called being over-bearing!"

  "Okay!" Kenneth spread his arms out wide. "Okay." He sat still for a time, while Prentice remained hunched and tense-looking in the bows. When Prentice didn't say anything, Kenneth sighed. "Prentice; you have to make up your own mind about these things. I… both your mother and I have always tried to bring you up to think for yourself. I admit it pains me to think you… you might be contemplating letting other people, or some… some doctrine start thinking for you, even for comfort's sake, because —»

  "Dad," Prentice said loudly, looking up at the grey clouds. "I just don't want to talk about it, okay?"

  "I'm just trying —»

  "Well, stop!" Prentice whirled round, and Kenneth could have wept to see the expression on the face of his son: pained and desperate and close to tears if he wasn't crying already; the rain made it hard to tell. "Just leave me alone!"

  Kenneth looked down, massaged the sides of his nose with his fingers, then took a deep breath. Prentice turned away from him again.

  Kenneth stowed the fishing rod, looked round the flat, rain-battered waters of the small loch, and remembered that hot, calm day, thirty years earlier, on another fishing trip that had ended quite differently.

  He took up the oars. "Let's head back in, all right?"

  Prentice didn't say anything.

  * * *

  "Fergus, darling! You're soaked! Oh; you've brought some little friends with you, have you?"

  "Yes, mother."

  "Good afternoon, Mrs Urvill."

  "Oh, it's young Kenneth McHoan. Didn't see you under that hood. Well, jolly good; come in. Take off your coats. Fergus, darling; close that door."

  Fergus closed the door. "This is Lachlan Watt. His dad works in our factory."

  "Oh, really? Yes. Well… You've all been out playing, have you?"

  Mrs Urvill took their coats, handling Lachy's tattered and greasy-looking jacket with some distaste. She hung the dripping garments up on hooks. The rear porch of the Urvill's rambling house, at the foot of Barsloisnoch hill, beyond the north-west limits of Gallanach, smelled somehow cosy and damp at the same time.

  "Now, I dare say you young men could do with some tea, am I right?"

  Mrs Urvill was a tall, aristocratic-looking lady Kenneth always remembered as wearing a head-scarf. She wasn't that day; she wore a tweed skirt, sweater, and a pearl necklace which she kept fingering.

  She made them tea, accompanied by some slices of bread and bramble jelly. This was served at a small table in Fergus's room, on the first floor.

  Fergus had one slice of bread, and Kenneth managed two before Lachy wolfed all the rest. The war was only over a few months, and rationing was still in force. Lachy sat back, belched. "That was rerr," he said. He wiped his mouth on the frayed sleeve of his jumper. "See the breed in our hoose; it's green, so it is."

  "What?" said Kenneth.

  "What rot," Fergus said, sipping his tea.

  "Aye it is," Lachy said, pointing one grubby finger at Fergus.

  "Green bread?" Kenneth said, grinning.

  "Aye, an" ah'll tell ye why, tae, but ye've goat tae promise no tae tell anybudy."

  "Okay," Kenneth said, sitting forwards, head in hands.

  "Hmm, I suppose so," Fergus agreed unenthusiastically.

  Lachy glanced from side to side. "It's the petrol," he said, voice low.

  "The petrol?" Kenneth didn't understand.

  "Load of absolute rot, if you ask me," Fergus sneered.

  "Na; it's true," Lachlan said. "See the Navy boys, oot oan the flyin boat base?"

  "Aye," said Kenneth, frowning.

  "They pit this green dye in thur petrol, an if yer foun wi that in the tank uv yer motor car, ye get the jile. But if ye pit the petrol through breed, the dye comes oot, an ye can use the petrol an naebudy kens a thing. It's true." He sat back. "An that's why we huv green breed in oor hoose, sometimes."

  "Woof," Kenneth said, fascinated. "Bet it tastes horrible!"

  "That's illegal," Fergus said. "My mother knows the C.O. at the base; if I told her she'd tell him and you'd probably all be arrested and you would get the jail."

  "Aye," Lachy said. "But you promised no tae tell, didn't ye?" He smiled thinly over at Fergus, sitting on the other side of the small table. "Your maw always call ye 'Darlin'. aye?"

  "No," Fergus said, sitting straight and drawing a hand across his forehead, moving some hair away from his eyes. "Only sometimes."

  Kenneth got up and went to stare at a big model ship in a glass case on
the far side of the room. It was an ordinary steamer, not a warship, unfortunately, but it looked magnificent, like one of the ones he'd seen in the big museum in Glasgow when his dad had taken him there. The ship was wonderfully detailed; every stanchion and rail was there; every tiny port-hole, even the oars in the tiny shore-boats behind the tall funnel, their seats and internal ribs thinner than match-sticks.

  "You her darlin, ur ye?" Lachy said, wiping some crumbs from the plate. "You her wee darlin, that right, Fergus?"

  "Well, what if I am?" Fergus said sniffily.

  "Weyl, whort if a eym?" Lachy mimicked. Kenneth looked round from the gleaming, perfect model.

  Fergus's face looked pinched. "At least my mum and dad don't hit me, Master Watt."

  Lachy sneered, stirred in his seat. "Aye, great fur some," he said, standing up. He walked round the room, looking at some wooden aircraft models on a desk, tapping them. "Very fancy carpet, Fergus darling," he said, going up and down on his heels on the thick pile of the intricately-patterned rug. Fergus said nothing. Lachy picked up some lead soldiers from a couple of trays ranked full of them, then stood inspecting some maps on the wall, of Scotland, the British Isles, Europe and The World. "They red bits aw ours, are they?"

  "No, they're the King's actually," Fergus said. "That's the Empire. They're not red because they're commie or anything."

  "Ach," Lachy said, "Ah ken that; but ah mean they're British; they're ours."

  "Well, I don't know about 'ours', but they belong to Britain."

  "Well," Lachy said indignantly. "Ah'm British, am ah no?"

  "Hmm. I suppose so," Fergus conceded. "But I don't see how you can call it yours; you don't even own your own house."

  "So whit?" Lachy said angrily.

  "Yes, but, Fergus," Kenneth said. "It is the British Empire and we're all British, and when we're older we can vote for MPs to go to parliament, and they're in power, not the King; that's what the Magna Carta says; and we elect them, don't we? So it is our Empire, really, isn't it? I mean you when think about it."

  Kenneth walked into the middle of the room, smiling at the other two boys. Fergus looked unconvinced. Lachlan rolled his eyes, looked at the small single bed, then at a couch in one corner. "You got this room all tae yerself?" Lachy said, voice high.