Dirt Road

by James Kelman

I’m just saying ye’ve got to be careful.

  So I cant go for a walk?

  For God sake Murdo dont make it a big deal.

  Well it is a big deal.

  No it’s not.

  It is.

  It isnt.

  Dad it is.

  Jesus Christ!

  Well ye always get upset!

  No I dont.

  Ye do. Then it ends up a row.

  Dad was silent for a moment. I just worry. What’s there and who’s there.

  Dad it’s only a walk.

  Things happen on walks.

  What things?

  Ye’re not that thick. As ye keep reminding me, ye’re sixteen years old.

  Exactly! I could’ve got married months ago Dad I could have been a father by now.

  Oh aye who’s the lucky girl!

  Dad I’m only saying. It was Mum made the joke. You were there when she said it, I would make ye both grandparents. It was her said it Dad it was Mum, it wasnay me.

  Oh jees Murdo.

  Murdo stared at the carpet. Neither spoke until eventually Murdo said, She would have liked it here.

  Yeah only for a holiday.

  But she would have liked it.

  Yeah.

  I know she wouldnt have wanted the racism. She would have hated that.

  Yeah, well… Dad nodded.

  Definitely.

  Dad shrugged. Racism’s everywhere son.

  Yeah but is this not the worst? lynching people and civil rights and stuff; Martin Luther King. Ye even hear about it at school.

  Well that’s the old times.

  Yeah Dad but the cops battering people and killing them? Murdo gazed at Dad. I was wondering that, like how come Aunt Maureen and Uncle John are living here?

  Dad smiled.

  I mean like here, in Alabama?

  That’s simple son it’s work. Aunt Maureen’s from Kentucky and there wasnt any work. So they moved here. People need to work. That’s how they leave one place to go to another. Uncle John left Glasgow and came here then he met Aunt Maureen.

  Yeah but Alabama?

  It’s not just Alabama that’s racist son ye’ve got all these other places.

  New York!

  Yeah New York. Dad sighed. He shifted on the armchair to look directly at Murdo. Murdo held his look. What is it ye’re trying to say son? D’ye think it’s just here ye get racism?

  Dad

  Is that what ye think?

  No.

  It’s racist everywhere son. Just like Scotland too. Dont act like ye dont know.

  Dad I’m not acting like anything.

  This isnay some class at school son this is the real world; this is what ye get in the real world. People are different all over but that’s what ye learn when ye grow up. You’re talking all the time about how mature ye are and then ye come out with stupid stuff like that. So is it Aunt Maureen and Uncle John then because they live here? Is it them that’s racist?

  What?

  Is that what ye’re wanting me to say?

  Never. Never. I’m not saying that at all.

  The trouble is son you dont know what ye’re saying. Dad shook his head and turned from Murdo.

  Murdo sat still. Dad had his book opened and was studying the page. Murdo waited. Dad continued to study the page. Murdo got up from the settee, lifting his book. He left the room without looking back, clicked shut the door behind himself. He headed along and into the bathroom. He washed his face and hands without looking in the mirror then dried and opened the door gently. Nobody there. He stepped out and downstairs.

  He had left his book in the bathroom. It didnt matter. He sat down on the mattress. Then the fast clumping down the stairs. Murdo sat there. The door opened and Dad.

  He stood by the side of the bed. He said: Murdo, if you have got something to say, say it.

  Murdo looked away. Dad stepped around the end of the bed to face him. Stand up, he said.

  Murdo didnt.

  Stand up!

  Murdo stood up and nearly smiled. He looked at the floor. He folded his arms and unfolded them. Dad said, Tell me what it is?

  What what is? I dont know what ye mean.

  Dad stared at him

  Honest Dad I dont know what ye mean. Murdo put his hands in his pockets then took them back out.

  Dad said, I only asked ye to say where ye were going. That’s all. And it’s because I worry, I worry.

  Yeah I know Dad but really ye shouldnt because I cant go anywhere anyway so what does it matter it doesnt matter. Really, it doesnt matter.

  What are ye talking about?

  Murdo folded his arms.

  What are ye talking about?

  I’ve got no money. Murdo rubbed round the sides of his mouth. What I’m saying: I dont have any money.

  What d’ye mean?

  Murdo shrugged.

  I give you money.

  Yeah but not for myself. Murdo shrugged again. Like only if I need it for something. I dont have any money of my own. Know what I mean Dad I dont have any money.

  I give ye money.

  Murdo unfolded his arms and turned his head to look away. Dad, what I’m saying, ye never give me any pocket money; like ye never ever give me any pocket money. What about pocket money? Ye never give me any pocket money! Murdo shook his head:

  Pocket money Dad ye just never ever… Pocket money, it is fucking pocket money Dad… Murdo was clenching his fists. Ye never…ye just…ye never ever give me any damn bloody pocket money and I dont know what to do I dont know what to do I’m just I’m stuck. I cannay go out even a walk Dad; I cannay go out; I dont have even one dollar, one dollar; I cant even buy a packet of chewing gum Dad nothing, I cant buy any damn thing and I cant do any damn thing… Dad… Dad I cant do anything.

  Murdo was shaking now and tried to stop it, pushing down his hands by his sides, clenching and unclenching his fists; taking a deep breath.

  Dad turned away.

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry Dad. Dad it doesnt matter.

  It was Mum dealt with pocket money.

  Yeah.

  I mean…

  Yeah Dad sorry.

  Ye need to remind me, if ye just could remind me.

  Okay Dad.

  I dont want us to fight. Whatever happens son I dont want us to fight. I mean me and you. Dad reached out his hand and clasped Murdo’s shoulder. Murdo had his head lowered.

  Dad went away soon after. Murdo laid down on the mattress, eventually switching on the music, just quietly, a beautiful number that was so so easy, going along someplace, the damp leaves, branch roots, smelling the woods, the loch water.

  *

  That evening Uncle John drove with Dad to the local bar which was about three miles away. They werent so strict as back home on drink-driving where Dad wouldnt have taken even one bottle of beer. Here Uncle John drank three or four which according to him was “nothing”.

  Murdo was glad when they went. It was good for Dad getting out and good for Uncle John too because whenever did he get the chance? Never. Dad being here was special for him. Once they had gone he sat with Aunt Maureen in the lounge watching television. She picked out a magazine from a magazine rack at the side of the television. Murdo knelt down to check through it, and found a book called the USA Road Atlas. It was full of maps. An actual book full of maps. Every page was a map, and followed on from the page before, or ran into the page coming after, just like online if ye were scrawling or zooming in someplace. It was just a brilliant old book. Murdo flourished it aloft. Aunt Maureen glanced at it. Huh? she said. Oh you want to go someplace Murdo?

  Murdo grinned, sat back on the settee with it and began from page one. It gave a clear idea not only of the roads but the land itself; mountain ranges, rivers and lochs. The book had generalised maps and the downtown centres of the major cities. It was brilliant. Just scanning map pages and seeing the names of actual towns. Their very names! Murdo had to read them out to Aunt Maureen. Honest, he said, it is just amazing.
Look! Gretna! Imagine Gretna! Elgin! Jeesoh, Elgin. McKenney! Cadder! Aberdeen! Aberdeen, actual Aberdeen. It’s all Scottish names Aunt Maureen. Glasgow!

  Glasgow sure!

  Highlands! Jeesoh. Highlands?

  Huh?

  A town called Highlands. An actual town!

  What is so wrong with that?

  The Highlands is a whole place, not just one town.

  Maybe it’s a different Highlands.

  Well yeah of course but one town!

  Reminded the old people of home I guess.

  Well yeah but – Phil Campbell! What is that is that a town? Phil Campbell? An actual town?

  Sure it’s a town.

  But it’s a guy’s name! Phil Campbell!

  Aunt Maureen shrugged. They all go there. All the Phil Campbells. One year a bunch of them came from the west coast of Canada.

  Jeesoh!

  You want the tourists to visit get a fancy name!

  Do they come from Scotland too?

  Well now I cant say there son.

  There would be hundreds of them if they did. Imagine it! all the Phil Campbells! Murdo returned to the map and saw Millport. Millport! A Millport on the map. Millport. Aunt Maureen, that’s right beside where we live, Millport, it’s an island along from us; Millport’s the name of the town!

  Huh!

  We used to go there. My pal’s uncle’s got a boat and Millport is a place we sailed. There’s a great pier for jumping in the water. We used to do it.

  You did?

  It was great, just great. There was a chip shop there as well and if ye were hungry, ye always were, if ye were swimming, so it was great, ye went in there after, whatever, fish and chips. It was just smashing.

  Sure sounds good.

  All the different names. It’s great!

  Aunt Maureen chuckled. That’s the old people, she said.

  Rome: look! Rome!

  Rome Georgia, sure: Rome Georgia, Athens Texas, Paris Tennessee. That’s the jet set Murdo. You know that one? Aunt Maureen sang:

  Oh we’re not the jet set

  We’re the old Chevrolet set.

  You dont know the song? Rome Georgia, Athens Texas. Aunt Maureen chuckled. It’s fun. You got to listen to it. They got an Athens in Alabama too. You look and you will find it there.

  Murdo didnt answer. He was seeing the very town itself: LaFayette. He studied it. LaFayette. There’s LaFayette. Aunt Maureen, he said, I’m just seeing it here.

  Sure. Aint far from Chattanooga.

  So it is close.

  Yeah it’s close. You got cousins in Chattanooga; Gillespies – unless they all went west. Used to get on a train there took you down through Huntsville. Did that train go over to St Louis now? I think it did. Chattanooga’s Indian; they got a song.

  Pardon me boy

  Is that the Chattanooga choo choo?

  Aunt Maureen stopped. Something going down the line, track twenty-nine… She frowned. The Dixie Line son you ever hear of that? Back then it was famous. It’s gone now more’s the pity. People dont know. You ask them and they dont know, my Lord, in the old days, they had to drive them coaches onto boats, had to stop the train. That’s how they crossed the Tennessee River. Now it’s for tourists. Aint got one for ourselves. Son it is beautiful up there. They got the Lost Sea Cave. You ever hear of that?

  No.

  You didnt hear of it?

  The Lost Sea Cave. Never.

  Huh. Son they got a whole underground sea over there, up by Sweetwater.

  An actual sea under the ground?

  They got boats go on it. If you like boats.

  Boats!

  Sure. We could go there week after next. We aint fixed any plans yet. Got the long weekend huh, so we’re going somewheres that’s for sure. Aunt Maureen glanced at the clock on the wall, made to rise from the armchair. I’m going to make a hot chocolate son what about you you want one?

  Can I make it for you? asked Murdo.

  No you cannot.

  Murdo rose from the settee and walked with her to the kitchen. Things tied in. Amazing how it happened. When Sarah said about the gig she made it seem like it was easy to get there. How easy? Now he knew. She said him and Dad could stay overnight with friends but if it was as close as this maybe they wouldnt need to, they could just get a bus home. Maybe they had their own friends, their own family relations. But that wouldnt matter if they drove home after. Or like a bus. There had to be a bus. Ye think a bus goes to LaFayette? he said.

  Aunt Maureen chuckled. You like buses huh!

  Well I just mean like…

  You got a notion for it. It’s mountain country; good country. They got resorts. You go skiing back home?

  No.

  Calum does. He goes skiing Murdo. You dont think of snow in California huh, but they got snow alright, they got mountains. Him and his wife now they got a good size of a house son they’d put you up any time; you and your Dad want to visit there. Any time. Got two children of their own, younger than you. That’s your first cousins Murdo. My Lord, they would love to see you there.

  Is John there too?

  John? Huh. Aunt Maureen smiled. You ask the questions.

  I was just wondering.

  Sure. Well no, he aint there. John’s in Springfield, Missouri, that’s where John is – little John as I call him. Him and your uncle now one’s hammer and one’s tongs.

  Murdo smiled.

  Yeah, only it aint so funny. Aunt Maureen lifted her mug of hot chocolate and held it to her cheek. She turned to Murdo and touched his hand. She had switched on the Weather Channel. Now she switched it off. I’m going in my room a bit, she said.

  Aunt Maureen would you mind if I took the Road book downstairs with me?

  My Lord Murdo I do not want you saying that kind of thing! Makes like you are not family and yes you are family. This is your home and you do what you want. Aunt Maureen brandished her fist at him.

  Sorry Aunt Maureen.

  She nodded.

  *

  Murdo’s concentration was on the book of Road Maps. Maybe ye didnt have to go through Chattanooga at all for driving, if ye could pass through the wee towns. Except if it was the bus and folk were getting off. That was his recollection of buses coming from Memphis.

  Noises from outside, tyre noises on the gravel. Uncle John’s 4x4; him and Dad back from the pub. He got up off the bed, shoved a chair under the high-up window and stepped up to see, but would have needed a step ladder to see properly.

  The bathroom door closed. Murdo undressed swiftly, switched off the light and got into bed, expecting footsteps down the stairs and Dad chapping the door to see he was okay. Why would he not be? Vampires attacking, creatures from the depth coming to drag him down.

  He thought to put the light on after but his head was gone because of the gig and the idea of that, if it was even possible. Surely it was? Even just “possible”.

  If he couldnt he couldnt. He said he would so really he had to. Otherwise he would let people down.

  Amazing how black it was with the light out. Ye couldnt see a thing! Better with yer eyes shut. If ye were in the dark too long with yer eyes open ye got that weird feeling like things closing in; the land coming together and shutting ye in. An earthquake and the ground cracks, you fall in, aaahhhh, trying to cling on, the dirt crumbling. Scary.

  He switched the music on, playing it quiet. Playing it quiet was listening to it quiet, and made it different. But full-sounding.

  The truth is Dad knew nothing about music. So nothing about Murdo. He heard him play in his room, and knew he was in a band, or had been before Mum was ill.

  No point talking.

  Maybe Aunt Maureen would come with him! She could drive, she could hire a car.

  He shifted on the bed. Moonlight through the wee window; it angled, making the ceiling itself a kind of map made out of papier-mâché, all the bumps, lines and cracks. Imagine a marker pen and tracing it out, following the lines, circling the bumps for mountain
s and lost valleys, lochs and rivers. Contours. Ye could trace them with yer tongue on the roof of yer mouth, the way sometimes Murdo drew things, sitting on a bus and an old man’s head from the seat in front. Then Mum, he didnt want to draw Mum, how she was sleeping, that way she was, the changes; these changes in her face.

  Poor Mum.

  Murdo thought things that were totally private. Nobody ever got to know. Not even himself in a weird way. It all mixed in without working it out. Then later something came out. Maybe while he was sleeping. Not dreams, just whatever. Thoughts working their way through. Sometimes he got angry and shouldnt have.

  It was just life. Dad met Mum; if he hadnt Murdo and Eilidh wouldnt have been there. Different parents different children.

  *

  Early next morning Murdo heard the gravel crunch beneath the wheels of the 4x4, then it had gone. Uncle John was on his way to work. Murdo lifted his jacket and walked upstairs, collecting his boots from the rug at the front door, treading past Dad’s bedroom and through into the dining area. He tried to unlock the dining room exit to the patio but it wasnt locked. He opened it and stepped outside. Aunt Maureen was there in the garden. Hey Murdo!

  Aunt Maureen! I’m just going a walk.

  You’re early?

  So are you!

  Huh…? Oh, Mister Impatient!

  “Mister Impatient” was one of her names for Uncle John. Most every morning Aunt Maureen was up along with Uncle John and sat with him before he went to work. Murdo hadnt thought of that.

  He intended walking in a square. The streets roundabout were wide and straight, up and down and side by side, so it was easy walking. The houses neat with trimmed grass lawns, no front hedges. The lawns stretched to the kerb at the edge of the pavement, if ye could call it a pavement; the grass came right down to the kerb. It was like walking on somebody’s grass. Uncle John said about a boy getting shot dead for crossing somebody’s garden. That was hard to avoid. If ye didnt walk on their grass ye would have had to walk on the street.

  Surely that was wrong? If there was no actual pavement. Beneath the kerb was a curved drop and a stank to fend off a torrent of water, for when they had floods. Flash floods. They spoke about them on the Weather Channel.

  While he was walking a pick-up truck backed out of a driveway. A big man in a check shirt was at the wheel. Murdo had to stop in his tracks to let the guy out. The guy looked at him as if it was Murdo’s fault. On the main road only a few cars passed. A woman walking a dog. Another woman walking a dog. No sign of a bus-stop. If there was a local bus it maybe would go into the city centre. From there there would be buses to everywhere.