The Crow Road

by Iain M. Banks

  CHAPTER 10

  Once upon a time, long ago, there was a rich merchant who thought that the city where he lived was full of bad people, and especially bad children.’

  ‘Were they Slow Children?’

  ‘Some of them were, as a matter of fact, but at the time they didn’t have the signs to tell them so.’

  ‘Are the Slow Children only in Lochgair, dad?’

  ‘No; there are Slow Children in various places; watch out for the road-signs. Now; back to the story. The rich merchant thought the children should always salute him and call him “sir” when they passed him in the street. He hated beggars and old people who couldn’t work any more. He hated untidiness and waste; he thought that babies who threw things from their cradles should be punished, and children who wouldn’t eat their food should be starved until they ate what they had been given in the first place.’

  ‘Dad, what if it had gone rotten?’

  ‘Even if it had gone rotten.’

  ‘Aw, dad! Even if it had maggots and things in it and it was all horrible?’

  ‘Yes; that would teach them, he thought.’

  ‘Awwrr! Yuk!’

  ‘Well, the rich merchant was very powerful, and he came to control things in the city, and he made everybody do as he thought they ought to do; snowball-throwing was made illegal, and children had to eat up all their food. Leaves were forbidden to fall from the trees because they made a mess, and when the trees took no notice of this they had their leaves glued onto their branches ... but that didn’t work, so they were fined; every time they dropped leaves, they had twigs and then branches sawn off. And so eventually, of course, they had no twigs left, then no branches left, and in the end the trees were cut right down. The same happened with flowers and bushes too.

  ‘Some people kept little trees in secret courtyards, and flowers in their houses, but they weren’t supposed to, and if their neighbours reported them to the police the people would have their trees chopped down and the flowers taken away and they would be fined or put in prison, where they had to work very hard, rubbing out writing on bits of paper so they could be used again.’

  ‘Is this story pretend, dad?’

  ‘Yes. It’s not real; I made it up.’

  ‘Who makes up real things, dad?’

  ‘Nobody and everybody; they make themselves up. The thing is that because the real stories just happen, they don’t always tell you very much. Sometimes they do, but usually they’re too ... messy.’

  ‘So the rich merchant wouldn’t like them?’

  ‘That’s right. In the city, nobody was allowed to tell stories. Nobody was allowed to hum, or whistle or listen to music, either, because the merchant thought that people should save their breath the way they saved their money.

  ‘But people didn’t like living the way the merchant wanted them to; most mums and dads wouldn’t serve their children rotten food, and hated having to pretend that they did. People missed the trees and flowers ... and having to walk around with one eye covered by an eye-patch.’

  ‘Why was that, dad? Why did they have -’

  ‘Because the merchant thought it was a waste of light to have both eyes open; why not save the light the way you save money?’

  ‘Were they like Mr Lachy, dad?’

  ‘Well, not exactly, no; Lachlan Watt only has one eye; the other one looks like a real one but it’s glass. The people in the city could change from one eye to the other on different days, but Lachlan -’

  ‘Aye, dad, but they’re like him sort of, aren’t they?’

  ‘Well, sort of.’

  ‘Why has Mr Lachy only got one eye, dad?’

  ‘Uncle Fergus punched him! Eh, dad?’

  ‘No, Prentice. Uncle Fergus didn’t punch him. It was an accident. Fergus and Lachy were fighting and Fergus meant to hit Lachy but he didn’t mean to put his eye out. Now; do you two want to hear this story or not?’

  ‘Aye, dad.’

  ‘Aye, dad.’

  ‘Right. Well, the city wasn’t a nice place to live because of all the silly laws the merchant had passed, and people started to leave it and go to other towns and other countries, and the merchant was spending so much time passing new laws and trying to make people obey the ones he’d already passed that his own business started to fail, and eventually the city was almost deserted, and the merchant found that he owed people much more money than he had in the bank, and even though he sold his house and everything he owned he was still broke; he was thrown out of his house and out of the city too, because he had become a beggar, and beggars weren’t allowed in the city.

  ‘So he wandered the countryside for a long time, starving and having to beg for food, and sleeping in barns and under trees, and eventually he found a little town where all the beggars and old people he’d had thrown out of the city had gone; they were very poor, of course, but by all helping each other they had more than the merchant had. He asked if he could stay with them, and eventually they agreed that he could, but only if he worked. So they gave him a special job.’

  ‘What, dad?’

  ‘What was the job, dad?’

  ‘He had to make brooms.’

  ‘Brooms?’

  ‘Old fashioned brushes made from bundles of twigs tied to a wooden handle. You know up in the forest you sometimes see those things for beating out fires?’

  ‘The big flappy things?’

  ‘Yes; they’re big bits of rubber - old tyres - attached to wooden handles, for beating out fires on the ground. Well, in the old days, those used to be made from twigs, and even longer ago people used to use brooms like that to sweep the streets and even to sweep their houses. Not all that long ago, either; I can remember seeing a man sweeping the paths in the park in Gallanach with a broom like that, when I was older than either of you are now.’

  ‘Ah, but dad, you’re ancient!’

  ‘Ha-ha ha ha!’

  ‘That’s enough. Now listen; about these brooms, right?’

  ‘What?’

  What, dad?’

  ‘The man who had been a rich merchant, and who was now a beggar, had to make brooms for the town. He had a little hut with a stone floor, and a supply of handles and twigs. But to teach the man a lesson they had given him a supply of twigs that were old and weak; poor twigs for making brooms with.

  ‘So, by the time he had made one broom the floor of the hut was covered in bits of twigs, and he had to use the broom he’d just made to sweep the floor of his hut clean before he could start making the next broom. But by the time he’d cleaned the floor to his satisfaction, the broom had worn right away, right down to the handle. So he had to start on another one. And the same thing happened with that broom, too. And the next, and the next; the mess made making each broom had to be cleared up with that same broom, and wore it away. So at the end of the day there was a great big pile of twigs outside the hut, but not one broom left.’

  ‘That’s silly!’

  ‘That’s a waste, sure it is, dad?’

  ‘Both. But the people had done it to teach the man a lesson.’

  ‘What lesson, dad?’

  ‘Ah-hah. You’ll have to work that out for yourselves.’

  ‘Aw, dad!’

  ‘Dad, I know!’

  ‘What?’ Kenneth asked Prentice.

  ‘Not to be so damn silly!’

  Kenneth laughed. He reached up and ruffled Prentice’s hair in the semi-darkness; the boy’s head was hanging out over the top bunk. ‘Well, maybe,’ he said.

  ‘Dad,’ James said from the lower bunk. ‘What happened to the merchant?’

  Kenneth sighed, scratched his bearded chin. ‘Well, some people say he died in the town, always trying to make a broom that would last; others say he just gave up and wasted away, others that he got somebody else to make the brooms and found somebody to provide better twigs, and got people to sell the brooms in other towns and cities, and hired more people to make more brooms, and built a broom-making factory, and made lots of money
and had a splendid house made ... And other people say he just lived quietly in the town after learning his lesson. That’s a thing about stories, sometimes; they have different endings according to who you listen to, and some have sort of open endings, and some don’t actually have proper endings yet.’

  ‘Aw, but dad ...’

  ‘But one thing’s definite.’

  ‘What, dad?’

  ‘It’s light-out time.’

  ‘Aw ...’

  ‘Night-night.’

  ‘Night, dad.’

  ‘Yeah; night.’

  ‘Sleep tight.’

  ‘Don’t let the bugs bite.’

  ‘Right. Now lie down properly; noddles on pillows.’

  He made sure they were both tucked in and went to the door. The night-light glowed softly on the top of the chest of drawers.

  ‘Okay ... Dad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did the man not have any family, dad?’ Prentice asked. ‘In the story: the merchant. Did he not have any family?’

  ‘No,’ Kenneth said, holding the door open. ‘He did, once, but he threw them out of his house; he thought he wasted too much time telling his two youngest sons bed-time stories.’

  ‘Aww ...’

  ‘Aww ...’

  He smiled, padded back into the room, kissed the boys’ foreheads. ‘But then he was a silly man, wasn’t he?’

  They left Margot to look after the children and set off in the car, heading for Gallanach. Kenneth smiled when he saw the hand-painted sign at the outskirts of the village that said, ‘Thank You.’

  ‘What are you grinning at?’ Mary asked him. She was bending down in her seat, staring into the little mirror that hinged up from the glove-box flap, inspecting her lip-stick.

  ‘Just that sign,’ he said. ‘The one that goes with the Slow Children sign at the other end of the village.’

  ‘Huh,’ Mary said. ‘Slow children, indeed. I hope you weren’t telling my bairns horrible stories that’ll keep them awake all night.’

  ‘Na,’ he said. The Volvo estate accelerated down the straight through the forest towards Port Ann. ‘Though maggoty meat and people with one eye did come into it at one point.

  ‘Hmm,’ Mary said. She snapped the glove-box closed. ‘I heard Lachy Watt’s back in the town; is that true?’

  ‘Apparently.’ Kenneth rotated his shoulders as he drove, trying to ease the nagging pain in them that too much drink the night before always seemed to give him these days.

  They had spent Hogmanay at home, welcoming the groups of people roaming the village as they came round. The last revellers had finally been seen off at nine in the morning; they and Margot had done some cleaning up before going to bed, though Ken had anyway had a couple of hours’ sleep between three and five, when he’d fallen into a deep slumber on the wicker couch in the conservatory. The boys had gone out to play on the forestry tracks with their new bikes on what had proved a bright but cold day; Mary had got three hours’ sleep before they came back, noisily demanding to be fed.

  ‘Haven’t seem him for ... what? Ten years?’ Mary said. ‘Has he been away at sea all that time?’

  ‘Well, hardly,’ Ken said. ‘He was in Australia, wasn’t he? Settled down there for a while. Had some sort of job in Sydney, I heard.’

  ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘Don’t know; you could ask him yourself. Supposed to be coming to Hamish and Tone’s shindig tonight.’

  ‘Is he?’ Mary said. The Volvo hissed along the dark road; a couple of cars went past, holes of white light in the night, scattering spray which the water jets and wipers of the Volvo swept away again. Mary took a perfume spray from her handbag, applied the scent to wrists and neck. ‘Fergus and Fiona are coming tonight, aren’t they?’

  ‘Should be,’ Ken nodded.

  ‘Do you know if Lachy and Fergus still talk to each other?’

  ‘No idea.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t even know what they’d talk about; a member of the factory-owning Scottish gentry and a second mate - or whatever Lachy is these days - who’s spent the last few years in Oz. What is there to say; aye-aye, captain of light industry?’

  ‘Fergus isn’t gentry, anyway,’ Mary said.

  ‘Well, good as. Might not have a title, but he acts like he does sometimes. Got a castle; what more do you want?’ Kenneth laughed lightly again. ‘Aye-aye. Ha ha.’

  The lights of Lochgilphead swung into view ahead, just as rain started to spot the windscreen. Kenneth put the wipers on. ‘Aye-aye!’ he sniggered.

  Mary shook her head.

  ‘Going to the dogs, if you ask me.’

  ‘Fergus, people like you have been saying that since somebody invented the wheel. Things get better. They’re always looking up.’

  ‘Yes, Kenneth, but you’re basically Bolshie, so you would think so.’

  Kenneth grinned, took a drink of his whisky and water. ‘It’s been a good year,’ he nodded. Fergus looked suitably disgusted, and threw back the remains of his own whisky and soda in one gulp.

  They stood in the lounge of Hamish and Antonia’s house, watching the others help themselves to the buffet Antonia had prepared. Neither of the two men had felt hungry.

  ‘You might not be saying that when the refugees come back from Australia,’ Fergus said sourly. Kenneth glanced at him, then looked round for Lachlan Watt; he was sitting on a distant chair, a plate of food balanced on his knees, talking to Shona Watt, his sister-in-law.

  Kenneth laughed as Fergus refilled his glass from one of the whisky bottles on the drinks trolley behind them. ‘Fergus, you’re not talking about the Domino Theory by any chance, are you?’

  ‘Don’t care what you call it, McHoan; not saying it’ll be next, either, but you just watch.’

  ‘Fergus, for God’s sake; not even that asshole Kissinger believes in the Domino Theory any more. The Vietnamese have finally got control of their own country after forty years of war; defeated the Japs, the French, us, and the most powerful nation in the history of the planet in succession, with bicycles, guns and guts, been bombed back into the bronze age in the process and all you can do is spout some tired nonsense about little yellow men infiltrating the steaming jungles of the Nullarbor Plain and turning the Aussies into Commies; I think a Highland League side winning the European Cup is marginally more likely.’

  ‘I’m not saying they won’t pause to draw breath, Kenneth, but I can’t help feeling the future looks black for those of us interested in freedom.’

  ‘Fergus, you’re a Tory. When Tories say freedom they mean money; the freedom to send your child to a private school means the money to send your child to a private school. The freedom to invest in South Africa means the money to invest there so you can make even more. And don’t tell me you’re interested in freedom unless you support the freedom of blacks to come here from abroad, which I know you don’t, so there.’ Kenneth clinked his glass against Fergus’s. ‘Cheers. To the future.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Fergus. ‘The future. You know, I’m not saying your lot won’t win, but I hope it doesn’t happen in my lifetime. But things really are going to the dogs.’ Fergus sounded genuinely morose, Kenneth thought.

  ‘Ah, you’re just peeved your lot have elected a woman leader. Even that’s good news ... even if she is the milk snatcher.’

  ‘We got rid of an old woman and replaced him with a younger one,’ Fergus said, mouth turned down at the corners, staring over his whisky tumbler and across the room to where his wife was talking to Antonia. ‘That’s not progress.’

  ‘It is, Fergus. Even the Tories are subject to change. You should be proud.’

  Fergus looked at Kenneth, a wealth of sombre disdain in his slightly watery-eyed look. Kenneth gave him a big smile. Fergus turned away again. Kenneth looked at the other man’s heavily jowled, prematurely aged face and shook his head. Chiang-Kai-Shek and Franco dead, Angola independent, Vietnam free at last ... Kenneth thought it had been a great year. The whole tide of history seemed to be qui
ckening as it moved remorselessly leftwards. He felt vaguely sorry for Fergus. His shower had had their reign, he thought, and grinned to himself.

  It had been a good year for Kenneth personally, too. The BBC, bless its cotton socks, had taken some of the stories from his first collection; a whole week of Jackanory to himself, just six weeks before Christmas! At this rate he could start thinking about giving up teaching in a year or two.

  ‘I wish I shared your enthusiasm for change.’ Fergus sighed, and drank deeply.

  ‘Change is what it’s all about, Ferg. Shuffling the genes; trying new ideas. Jeez, where would your damn factory be if you didn’t try new processes?’

  ‘Better off,’ Fergus said. He looked sourly at Kenneth. ‘We’re just about making enough from traditional paperweights to keep the Specialist Division afloat. All this hi-tech stuff just loses us money.’

  ‘Well, it must be making money for somebody; maybe you weren’t able to invest enough. Maybe the big boys’ll take over. That’s the way things go; capitalists all want to have a monopoly. Only natural. Don’t get depressed about it.’

  ‘You won’t be saying that if we have to close the factory and put everybody out of work.’

  ‘God, Ferg, it isn’t that bad, is it?’

  Fergus shrugged heavily. ‘Yes, it is. We’ve told them it might come to that; the shop-stewards, anyway. Another strike, or too big a pay rise, and we might go under.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Kenneth said, sipping at his whisky. He wondered how serious the other man was. Industrialists often made that sort of threat, but they rarely seemed to be carried out. Kenneth was a little surprised that Hamish hadn’t said anything about the factory being in such dire straits, but then his brother did seem to put the church and the factory above family and friends.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Fergus shook his head. ‘If we weren’t tied to this bit of the country, I’d almost think about chucking it all in and heading off somewhere different - Canada, or Australia, or South Africa.’

  It was Kenneth’s turn to look sour. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, you’d probably get on fine in the RSA, Ferg. Though that’s the one place I wouldn’t recommend if you want to keep well away from the red tide.’