They sat, stood or lay within the shattered cone-stump of the old broch, looking out over the more recent, but just as empty, equally abandoned, and even more forlorn square crater of the never-used production-platform yard. Above, a lark — just a speck against the blue — sang, its shrill voice jetting fluid bursts of song.
"Aw, tell us, Mr McHoan; please."
"Yeah, dad; what is it?"
"Please, Uncle Ken. Pleeease."
"Yeah, come on, Mistur McHoan. Tell us. Whit is it?"
"What's what?"
"The sound you can see!" Prentice shouted, jumping down from the broken wall of the broch; Ashley was climbing higher.
The sound you can see?" he said thoughtfully. He leant back on the sun-warmed stones, looking across the grass circle inside the old ruin, over the spray of grey stones downhill where the broch had fallen or been torn away, over the sharp green tops of the pines to the waters of Loch Fyne. A white-hulled yacht ran gull-winged before the wind, heading north-east up the loch towards the railway bridge at Minard point; perhaps heading for Inveraray. In the distance, a few miles behind, he could see another boat, its spinnaker a tiny bright bulb of pure yellow, like a flower on a gorse bush.
"Well," he said. "You can't see it from here."
"Aw naw!"
"Where can you see it from then, uncle?"
"Well, where we were when I told you about it; we could see it from there."
"In the Old House?" Diana said, looking puzzled.
That's right."
"It isn't the wind, then," Helen Urvill said, and sat down beside him.
Lewis snorted derisively. "The wind!" he said. "Don't be so stupid."
"Aunt Ilsa said it might be breeze block, but I wasn't to say anything until… aw… heck!" Prentice flattened his hand and struck it off his forehead with a loud slap; he fell over backwards into the long grass.
"Very amusing, Prentice," Kenneth sighed.
"Hi, Mr McHoan; look at where I am!"
"Good grief, Ashley; be careful." She was at the top of the wrecked broch wall, rising into the sky like a grey sine on a sheet of blue paper; Ashley a point.
"I'm no scairt, Mr McHoan!"
"I bet you aren't, but I didn't ask you whether you were scared or not, Ashley; I told you to be careful. Now get down here."
"I'll come down if ye tell us whit the sound ye can see is, so ah will, Mr McHoan."
"Get down here, you wee monkey!" he laughed. "I was about to tell you, before you started hollering. Down; now."
"Aw, dinnae get yer knickers in a twist, Mr McHoan," Ashley said, shaking her blonde-haired head and starting to climb down the curved edge of the wall.
"I won't, young lady," he said. Diana and Helen looked shocked, then giggled. Lewis and Prentice sniggered quietly.
"She said knickers, Mr McHoan," Dean Watt said.
"Ah'm tellin mum," Darren told his sister as she made her way, feet and bum first, down the slope of stone.
"Ach, away and bugger yourself, Darren Watt," the girl said, checking on her next footstep.
"Haaaw!" gasped Diana.
"Ashley!" Kenneth said, exasperated.
"Oh, Mr McHoan, did you hear whit she said! Did ye! Yur a wee bissum, so ye are, Ashley."
"Yes, I did, and —»
That's very rude you know, young lady," Prentice said, wagging his finger at the girl. ('Oh shut up, Prentice," said Lewis.)
"Ah'm no a bissum —»
"Uncle Ken: what's a bu —»
"Waa! She said —»
"Knickers knickers kni —»
" — buggerlugs."
"All right, all right!" Kenneth said, raising his voice over a high-pitched babble of Childish. "That's enough! Do you want to hear the answer or not, you horrible rabble?"
"But —»
"She —»
"Ah'm —»
"Stop it!" he roared. He jumped to his feet and shook one fist in the air, dramatically pirouetting so that the gesture included each of them. "You're all acting like children! If I'd wanted this sort of treatment I'd have stayed a teacher!"
"But dad, we are children," Prentice said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head and falling over in the grass again, sighing loudly.
Innocence is no excuse, Prentice McHoan!" he roared, shaking one finger at the prone child. "That was the motto of my old school and you'd all better remember it!"
Lewis was the only one not amused by the performance. He played with a bit of grass. The others were either laughing outright or sat, bunched up, heads down between shoulders, arms tense by sides, making snorting, guffawing noises and exchanging nodding, wide-eyed looks.
"Oh dear lord!" Kenneth shouted to the bare blue sky, his arms wide, head thrown back. "Look down upon this awful stupid bairn of mine and teach him some common sense before the world gets him!"
"Ha, Mr McHoan! You dinnae believe in the lord!" Ashley roared from half-way up the wall, almost level with his head.
He swivelled to her. "And that's enough of your old buck, Ashley Watt! I don't believe in Santa Claus but Prentice still gets presents at Christmas, doesn't he?"
"Ah!" Ashley said, pointing at him. That's different, Mr McHoan; there's hunners of them!"
He took a step back, looked shocked. "You little barrack-room barrister; what sort of extra-mural comment is that?" He threw his arms out wide again. To his shock, Ashley jumped right into them, yelling,
"Jurmonimo!"
The girl slammed into his chest, clunked her head off his chin, little arms whacking round his neck, knees hoofing into his stomach. He put his arms out to hold her, staggered back, almost fell, aware that behind him were the twins, sitting on the grass.
He bent his knees, flexed his back, and did not collide with or fall over the twins. He wobbled upright with Ashley still clinging to him, legs round his waist now. She smelled… sweaty, was probably kindest. "Well," he wheezed, winded. Thank you for that contribution, Ashley." The others were relatively quiet. Ashley was rubbing her forehead vigorously with one hand. He frowned, lifted the girl away from his chest so he could look at her face. Apart from being grubby, it looked all right. "What did you shout, Ashley?"
"Please, Mr McHoan," the wee rough voice said, "Ah said JURMONIMO!"
He started to laugh and had to put her down. He went to his knees, then sat down and rolled over. All the rest joined in except Ashley, who stood, arms folded, bottom lip stuck out fiercely.
"This isnae funny," she said, turning away. "Ah'm away tae get fed."
"Ha ha ha ha," Kenneth McHoan said, holding his tummy. "Ha ha."
"Were your classes this hilarious?"
Kenneth opened his eyes.
"Uncle Rory!" Prentice said, and ran for the man; the boy jumped up onto him rather the way Ashley had leapt down onto his father. Rory laughed and caught him, swung him around, let go an arm and grabbed a leg, whirling the boy round once. "Wheee!" Prentice yelled. Rory landed him one-handed.
Kenneth went to Rory, hugged him. "God, man, it's good to see you."
"You too, Ken."
"You just get back?" Kenneth laughed.
Ten minutes ago."
The two men separated; Kenneth looked his brother up and down.
"Uncle Rory! Uncle Rory! Do some magic; do a trick!"
Rory's chestnut curls had been cut back to what was almost a crew-cut; his face was tanned, clean-shaven. Rory pursed his lips, took a coin from his pocket, bent down to the children, made the coin progress across the knuckles of one hand, then disappear into his fist; he waved over it, and when the fist became hand, the coin was gone. Squeals.
Rory looked lean and a little tired; his jeans were white with wear, and frayed at one knee. He wore a cheesecloth shirt and smelled vaguely of patchouli.
The coin re-appeared behind Diana's ear. She put one hand to her mouth, eyes wide. The others went, "Yaaayy!"
Kenneth grinned, shook his head, as Rory straightened, a little stiffly. "More! More! Do it again!"
"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."
"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.
"Yes, so?" Fergus replied.
"Bi Christ, it's all right for some, eh, Ken?" Lachy said, winking at Kenneth and walking over to the model ship in the glass case. "Aye," he said," tapping the glass, then twisting a little key in a lock at one end of the case; the side panel of the case opened. "Ah bet ye can get up tae all sorts aw things in here by yourself at nights." He started trying to haul the model out of the case.
"Stop that!" Fergus shouted, standing up.
Lachy shifted the whole glass on its stand, reached in and lifted the model out of its two wood and brass cradles. Kenneth saw the rear mast bend against the top of the case. The black threads of the radio wires sagged.
"How can ye play with it in here?" Lachlan protested, straining to pull the model out.
"Lachy — " Kenneth said, starting over to him.
"It's not a toy!" Fergus said, running over. He swatted Lachy's arm. "Stop it! You'll break it!"
"Ach, all right," Lachy said. He slid the model ship back in. Kenneth noticed with some relief that the mast flexed back into shape, hauling the radio antennae taut again. "Keep yer hair on, darling."
Fergus locked the door of the case and pocketed the key. "And don't call me that!"
"Sorry, darling."
"I said stop it!" Fergus shrieked.
"Ach, dinnae wet yer knickers, ya big lassie."
"You disgusting little —»
"Oh, come on, you two; act grown-up," Kenneth said. "Fergus," he pointed over to the window, and a slope-topped display case standing under it. "What's all this stuff?"
"That's my museum," Fergus said, glaring at Lachy and walking to the window.
"Oo, a museum," Lachy said in a pretend posh voice, but came over too.
"Things I've found, locally," Fergus explained. He stood over the case, pointing. "That's a Roman coin, I think. And that's an arrowhead."
"Whit's that green thing?" Lachy said, pointing to one corner.
"That," Fergus told him, "is a fossilized pear."
Lachy guffawed. "It's a bit aw bone, ya daft bugger. Where'd ye get yon? Back a the butcher's shop? Find it in the dug's bowl, aye?"
"No I did not," Fergus said indignantly. "It's a fossilized pear; I found it on the beach." He turned to Kenneth. "You've got some education, Kenneth; you tell him. It's a fossilized pear, isn't it?"
Kenneth looked closer. "Hmm. Umm, I don't know, actually."
"Fuckin bit a bone," Lachy muttered.
"You filthy-mouthed little wretch!" Fergus shouted. "Get out of my house!"
Lachy ignored this, bent down, face over the cabinet.
"Go on; get out!" Fergus screamed, pointing to the door.
Lachy looked sourly at the pitted, vaguely green exhibit labelled "Fossilized Pear, Duntrunne Beach, 14th of May 1945."
"I'm not kidding! Out!"
"Fergus — " began Kenneth. He put a hand on the other boy's arm. Fergus hit it away, face white with fury.
Lachy wrinkled his nose, which was almost touching the glass of the cabinet. "Still, whit dae ye expect frae a laddy that hides in a lavvy?"
"You pig!" Fergus screamed, and brought both fists thudding down on the back of Lachy's head. Lachy's face crashed through the glass, into the display case.
"Fergus!" Kenneth yelled, pulling him away as Fergus kicked at Lachy's legs. Lachy screamed, jerked back, spilling glass, arms flailing, face covered in blood.
"Aah, ya basturt!" he wailed, staggering. "Ah canny see!"
"Lachy!" Kenneth shouted, hauling his hanky out of his pocket. He went to Lachy, grabbed his shoulders. "Lachy; stand still! Stand still!" He tried to wipe the blood from the other boy's eyes; it was all over his jumper, dripping onto the carpet.
"But ah canny see! Ah canny see!"
"What on earth is going on in he — Oh my God!" Mrs Urvill said, from the doorway. "Fergus! What have you been letting him do? And get him off that carpet; it's Persian!"
Lachlan lost an eye. The Gallanach Glass Works, Ornaments Division, made him an artificial one. Fergus was soundly beaten by his father, and not allowed out for a fortnight. The Urvills granted the Watt family the sum of one thousand guineas in full and final settlement of the matter, the papers drawn up by the firm of Blawke, Blawke and Blawke.
Lachlan was still growing, and perhaps because of that during his mid-teens the eye kept falling out, so another, slightly larger, was made; Lachlan was allowed to keep the old one. He had a third glass eye, which he'd got from the hospital when the first one had been lost for a week (it was eventually discovered, months later, under a chest of drawers in Lachy and Rab's bedroom, where presumably it had rolled during the night), but it was of inferior quality; duller and less lifelike, and he kept it as a spare.
He was the boy with four eyes, and he didn't even need glasses. Or rather a monocle.
"Keep an eye out for us, Lachy!" and variations thereof became a popular phrase amongst his school-mates, though not to his face after the first boy to say it within Lachy's earshot, if not sight, was held down by a half-dozen powerful young Watts and forced to swallow the brown-irised orb, and then to bring it back up.
Mary McHoan sniffed the air. "Prentice, you smell of petrol."
Prentice collapsed into a seat in the living room. "Sorry," he said.
His mother looked over the top of the Guardian at him. On the television, a game of snooker was proceeding silently. Prentice sat and looked at it. Mary put the paper down, took off her reading glasses.
"Where's Ken?" Prentice asked. He still had his black leather jacket on.
"In bed, reading," Mary told him. She folded the paper, went over to her son, and sniffed the air above him. "And smoke! You smell of… of non-pub smoke," she said, going back to her seat. "What have you been up to?"
Prentice leaned towards her. "Promise you won't tell dad?"
"No, Prentice," she said, smoothing her skirt. She took a coffee mug from the small table at her side and sipped from it. "You know I'm terrible with secrets; not like your father."
"Hell's teeth. Oh, well," Prentice said. "Whatever; we got let off, so —»
"Let off what?" Mary said, alarmed.
"We were in the Jac and Bill Gray said he'd heard the Watts saying — well, it was Ashley, he said, which was why I didn't believe him at first — but he'd heard them… they were all sitting, all the young ones; the Watts, anyway, sitting there being antisocial and morose, cause of Darren getting killed, and anyway, Bill heard Ash saying there was only one way to deal with it, or they'd never get over it properly, and they should all get sledgehammers and stuff —»
"Sledgehammers!" Mary said, clutching at her elbows.
That's what I said!" Prentice said, sitting forward, unzipping his jacket. "Sledgehammers? And Bill said yeah, he was sure; and crowbars, that sort of stuff; they were going to get it out of their system, and I believed Bill because he's so straight; no side at all, and I looked over and they were all standing up and putting their coats on and drinking up, and I tried to talk to Ashley, but they were out the door, and Ash said something about coming along too, and it was Bill had the car, and he'd dashed for a pee, and by the time we got out to the car park they were tearing off in Dean's Cortina, and then Bill couldn't get his car started and we headed for the Watts" house, but by then they'd been there and they passed us; we turned round, followed their lights, caught up with them at those new houses out by Dalvore, but they were just throwing stuff in the boot. I shouted to them, but they got back in and screamed off again, so we followed.
"Jeez, I thought they knew where that guy lived that hit Darren, but Bill said he was from East Kilbride, and I said but we're heading that way! And they just kept going; past here and up to Inveraray, and then I thought, God, I hope I know what they're really going to do, and I told Bill, and he said Shit, let's hope so."
"Prentice."
"Sorry. Anyway, I was right. They drove to Kinglas; Glen Kinglas, with us following, and they got parked in the lay-by, and we did too, and we all got out, and we all stood there for a while, and nobody said anything. Then they got the sledgehammers and the crowbars out, and we turned the cars and left the engines running so we had plenty of light, then Bill and I sat on the bank and watched them… Oh, wow! Mum; you should have seen them! They smashed that fucking litter bin —»
"Prentice!"
"Sorry. But they did; they pulverised the mother. They whacked and smashed and blasted the damn thing to smithereens then tore them to shreds too; hammered the metal bins inside flat, turned the concrete shell of the thing to dust, and I'd asked Bill if it was okay, and he'd said, In the circumstances… so I went to his car and got his spare can of petrol, because Bill's really organised that way, and said, Was it all right? And they were all standing there, sweating and panting and looking just so drained, and Ash just sort of nodded, and I emptied the petrol all over the remains of the bin and Dean threw a match at it and Whumph! up it went, and we just stood there.
"And then this cop stopped! I couldn't believe it! What were the chances? And like only a couple of cars had passed; hadn't stopped, though one had slowed down, certainly, but it had gone off again. And this enormous fu — great sergeant got out and he was, like incandescent! The bin was nothing on this guy! And we all just stood there, and I thought, Oh no, this really could end badly, because there was just him by himself, and he was cursing us up and down and the Watts weren't taking it too well and I thought I could hear Dean starting to growl, and I finally managed to get a word in edgeways when he said who'd set it on fire and I said me and stepped forward, showing him the petrol can, and told him what it was all about; about Darren hitting the thing and it being like — well I tried not to use too many long words, but like, expiation… and he listened, and I was like in that way when you're really nervous where once you've started you can't stop, and I was probably repeating myself all over the place and rambling and not making much sense, but I just kept on going, and he just stood there with this look like thunder on his face, all lit by the fire, and I stopped and said we knew it was wrong and we'd accept having to be punished for it — even though I heard Dean growling when I said it — but even so, although we might be sorry we'd done it, we were glad too, and that was just the way it was, and if we didn't normally have respect for public property, it wouldn't mean so much to us to destroy it like we had."
Prentice swallowed. "And I shut up at last, and nobody said anything, and the fire was nearly out by this time, and the big sergeant just says, "Get on your way and pray I never haul any of you up for anything else." And I'm like, Yessuh, massa, and kicking dirt over the wee bits of the fire that's left and the Watts are still surly but they're putting all the stuff back in the boot of the Cortina and the big guy's just standing with his arms folded watching us, and I'm thinking; Guildford Four, Birmingham Six, hell; there's still a few good apples left, and we just got into our cars and drove away, with the big sergeant still standing there glowering like Colossus in our tail lights." Prentice spread his hands. "That's it."
"Well," Mary said. "Good grief." She shook her head, glanced at the snooker, then put her glasses on and took up her paper again. "Hmm, well, I probably won't tell your father that. Away and wash your hands, try to get rid of that smell. There's plenty of milk in the fridge if you want cereal."
"Right-oh, mum." He came over to her, kissed her hair.
"Yuk; what a stink. Go and wash, you vandal."
"Thanks for listening, mum," he said, on his way to the door.
"Oh, I had a choice, did I?" she said, pretending primness.
Prentice laughed.