The Crow Road

by Iain Banks

  I nodded. "Pacemaker. That's what Doctor Fyfe was rushing to tell us; told dad in the ambulance. But it was too late by then, of course."

  Uncle Hamish looked more baffled than ever, but nodded eventually and said, "Of course," and walked off over the parquet with a startlingly tree-like creaking noise which I realised — with a small but welcome surprise — was issuing from his black brogues.

  I made straight for the sideboard with the drinks, but a quick inspection of the casement of the relevant window on my way there revealed that Verity the Comely had gone.

  * * *

  Fortingall is a modest hamlet in the hills north of Loch Tay, and it was there in the winter of 1969 that my Aunt Charlotte was determined to consummate her marriage. Specifically, she wanted to be impregnated beneath the ancient yew tree that lies in an enclosure within the graveyard of the small church there; she was convinced that the tree — two thousand years old, according to reliable estimates — must be suffused with a magical Life Force.

  It was a dark and stormy night (no; really), the grass under the ancient, straggling, gnarled yew was sodden, and so she and her husband, Steve, had to settle for a knee-trembler while Charlotte held onto one of the overhanging boughs, but it was there and then — despite the effects of gravity — that the gracile and quiveringly prepossessing Verity was conceived, one loud night under an ink black sky obscuring a white full moon, at an hour when all decent folk where in their beds and even the indecent ones were in somebody's, in a quaint little Perthshire village, back in the fag end of the dear old daft old hippy days.

  So my aunt says, and frankly I believe her; anybody wacko enough ever to have bought the idea that there was some sort of weird cosmic energy beaming out of a geriatric shrub in a back-end-of-nowhere Scottish graveyard on a wet Monday night probably hasn't the wit to lie about it.

  * * *

  "Naw, she's great, I mean really really great. I'm in love. I love her; I'm hers. Verity; take me; put me out of my misery. O God…»

  I was drunk. It was getting on towards midnight in the Jacobite bar and at my normal rate of drinking that meant I'd had about ten pints of export. Ash and Dean Watt, and another couple of old pals, Andy Langton and Lizzie Polland, had all drunk about the same as I had, but then they'd been home for their tea and they hadn't been swilling back the Urvill's whisky for a significant part of the afternoon.

  "So have you told her, Prentice?" Ash said, putting down another set of pints on the pocked copper table we were hunched around.

  "Ah, Ash," I said, slapping the table. "I admire a woman who can carry three pints at the same time."

  "I said, have you told this lassie you love her, Prentice?" Ash said, sitting down. She took a bottle of strong cider from one breast pocket of her navy shirt, and a glass of whisky from the other.

  "Wow!" I said. "Ash! I mean, like; wow! Wicked." I shook my head, took up my old pint and finished it.

  "Answer the lassie," Dean said, nudging me.

  "No, I haven't," I confessed.

  "Ya coward," said Lizzie.

  "I'll tell her for you if you like," Droid offered (there is an entire generation of Andrews with the shared nickname of Droid, post Star Wars).

  "Na," I said. "But she is just fabulous. I mean —»

  "Why not tell her?" Liz asked.

  "I'm shy," I sighed, hand on heart, eyes heaven-ward, lashes fluttering.

  "Get out a here."

  "So tell her," Ash said.

  "Also," I sighed. "She's got a boyfriend."

  "Ah-ha," Ash said, looking at her pint.

  I waved one hand dismissively. "But he's a wanker."

  "That's all right, then," Liz said.

  I frowned. "Actually, that's the only flaw Verity seems to have; her lousy taste in men."

  "So you are in with a chance then?" Liz said brightly.

  "Yeah," I said. "I think she's going to chuck him."

  "Prentice," Ash insisted, tapping the table. "Tell her."

  "I can't."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I wouldn't know how to," I protested. "I've never told anybody I love them before. I mean, how do you? The words sound so corny, so devalued. It's so… it's just such a cliche."

  Ash looked scornful. "What rubbish."

  "Well, smarty-pants," I said, leaning over to her. "Have you ever told anybody you love them?"

  "Hundreds of times, darling." Ash said in a deep voice, pouting. Dean guffawed. Ash drank from her pint, then shook her head. "Well, actually, no."

  "Ha!" I said.

  Ash leaned over to me, her long nose almost touching mine. "Tell the girl, you idiot."

  "I can't," I said, sitting back. "I just can't. She's too perfect."

  "What?" Ash frowned.

  "Infallible. Too perfect; ideal."

  "Sounds like misogynist romantic shite to rne," snorted Liz, who's always taken a hard line on such things.

  "It is," I admitted. "But she's just incredible. D'you know where she was conceived?"

  Dean and Ash exchanged looks; Andy spluttered into his beer while Lizzie rolled her eyes. "Aw yeah," Dean said, nodding and looking quite serious. "Doesn't everybody?"

  I was shocked, and almost cut short my next gulp of beer. "You don't really, do you?"

  "Course not, Prentice," Ash said shaking her head. Her long fair hair spilled from over one shoulder. "What diff —»

  "Aw, it's just incredible," I told them. "Her mum told me; Aunt Charlotte. Bit of a nutter, but okay. I mean totally aff her heid really, but anyway — " I took another gulp of beer, " — she had this thing about psychic energy or some crap like that… and about Scottish history —»

  "Aw; runs in the family, does it, Prentice?" Dean asked.

  "Naw; she's not a McHoan… anyway; she'd married this English guy called Walker and they hadn't consummated the marriage, right, not on their wedding night; she wanted to wait, and when they did get it together she made sure it was in this wee village called Fortingall, right? Near Loch Tay. Thing is, she'd heard something about Fortingall being where Pontius Pilate —»

  "Wait a minute," Dean said. "How long was it between them getting married and them humping?"

  "Eh?" I scratched my head. "I don't know; a day or two. Oh! I mean, they'd done it before, like. It wasn't their first time or anything. It was just Aunt Charlotte's idea that it'd be more special if they hadn't done it for a while, and then did it under this tree. But they had been fucking before. I mean; good grief, this is the love generation we're talking about here."

  "Right," Dean said, apparently mollified.

  "Anyway; Fortingall is where some people say Pontius Pilate was born, and —»

  "Whit?" Andy said, wiping his beard. "Away ye go."

  "So they say," I insisted. "His dad was in the… shit… the seventh legion? The ninth? Damn… " I scratched my head again, looked down at my trainers (and thought with some relief that at least tonight I would not have the long struggle to undo the buckles and untie and then loosen the laces on the Docs, which were my usual drinking gear these days). "Or was it the seventh legion?" I pondered, still staring at my Nikes.

  "Never mind if it was the fuckin" foreign legion," Droid said, exasperated. "You're no trying to tell us Pontius fucking Pilate was born in Scotland!"

  "Well maybe!" I said, spreading my arms wide and almost spilling Ash's whisky. "His dad was in the legion stationed there! Apparently! I mean, the Romans had a military camp and Pontius Pilate's pa was stationed there, maybe, and so young Pontius could have been born there! Why not?"

  "You're making this up," laughed Ash. "You're just like your dad; I remember those stories on a Sunday afternoon."

  "I am not like ma dad!" I yelled.

  "Hey, shoosh," Lizzie said.

  "Well, I'm not! I'm telling the truth!"

  "Aye, well," Ash said. "Maybe. People get born in funny places. David Byrne was born in Dumbarton."

  "Anyway; Pontius Pi —»

  "Whit?" Dean grimaced
. The guy that wrote Tutti frutti?

  "Listen; Pontius —»

  "Na; that was John Byrne," Lizzie said. "David Byrne; the guy in Talking Heads, ya heidbanger."

  "Look, anyway, forget Ponti —»

  "Anyway, it was Little Richard."

  "Will you shut up? This isn't about Pon —»

  "What? In Talking Heads?"

  "Shut up! I'm telling you; Po —»

  "Na; that wrote Tutti Frutti."

  "I give in," I said, sitting back. I sighed, supped my export.

  "Aye, the song; but no the film."

  "It wasnae a fillum; it was a series."

  "Ah know, you knew what ah meant."

  "I hate these drunken, rambling conversations," I breathed.

  "Aye, but I've heard worse." Ash nodded.

  "Anyway, it wasnae fillum at all; it was video."

  "It was naawwwt!" Dean drawled scornfully. "Ye could see it was fillum! What sort a telly have you got?"

  I crossed my legs, crossed my arms and swivelled to look at Ash. I rubbed my rather greasy face and focused on her. "Hi. Come here often?"

  Ashley pursed her lips and studied the ceiling. "Just the once," she said, frowning at me. "In the toilets." She gathered my shirt lapels in her fist and pulled me close to her face. "So who talked?"

  "Fnarr fnarr," I breathed over her. Ash's face wrinkled, quite attractively, actually. But then it was late.

  "Hi youse," a deep voice said, bending over us. "Yer oan."

  "On what?" I asked the very large fellow with very long hair who had spoken.

  "The pool table; PM and AW; that's youse, is it no?"

  "Shit, aye, right enough."

  Ash and I went to play pool.

  I'd been just about to ask her about the jacuzzi in Berlin, but now didn't seem like the right time.

  * * *

  Uncle Fergus had the observatory built back in 1974 (when the heavenly Verity was four). The idea was two-fold. First of all — according to my father — Fergus wanted a bigger and better telescope than he had. Dad had a three-inch refractor in a shed in the garden at Lochgair. Fergus ordered a six-inch reflector. Also, it was a business sample. The lenses and mirror were to be made in the new Specialist Glass Division of the Gallanach Glass Works, the Urvill-owned factory which even yet provides the town with a significant proportion of its employment. Not only, therefore, would Uncle Fergus have a fascinating and unique additional feature for his not-long restored castle, it would be both an advertisement for his Glass Works and tax-deductible!

  The fact the telescope was a wee bit close to Gallanach itself, and so possibly prone to light pollution from the town's sodium vapour lamps, was less of a problem than it might appear; with Uncle Fergus's connections he could have the offending lamps shaded at the council's expense. So Uncle Fergus was prepared if necessary — and only selectively, of course — to dim his home town.

  (His niece had already bettered that; when the diminutive, bloody and bawling form of Verity Walker had appeared on the scene, the lights had actually gone out.)

  I'd met the sublime Verity for the first time in some years in the observatory, one coal-sack-black moonless night in 1986, a few days before I left to go to University, when I was already full of the exhilaration and fear of departure and independence, and the whole huge world seemed to be opening up before me, like some infinite blossom of opportunity and glamour. The twins had taken to having star-gazing parties in the cold, cramped hemisphere which protruded from the summit of the compact castle, and I'd arrived late after being out on the hill with little brother James during the afternoon and then suffering a delayed tea because some friends of dad's had showed up unannounced and had to be catered for.

  "Aye, it's yourself, Prentice," boomed Mrs McSpadden, informatively. "And how are you?" Mrs McSpadden was the Urvill's housekeeper; a rotundly buxom lady of perpetual middle-age with a big baw-face that gave the impression of being freshly scrubbed. She had a very loud voice and dad always told people that she hailed from Fife. A ringing noise in one's ears after a close encounter with the lady tended to enforce the impression this was literally true. "The rest are up there. Will you take this tray up? There's coffee in these pots; you just turn the wee spot to the front here, ken, and — " She lifted the corner of a heavy napkin smothering a very large plate. " — there's hot sausage rolls under here."

  "Right, thanks," I said, lifting the tray. I'd come in through the castle kitchen; entering through the main door after it had been shut for the night could be a performance. I made for the stairs.

  "Here, Prentice; take this scarf up to Miss Helen," Mrs McSpadden said, flourishing the article. "That lassie'll catch her death of cold up there one night, so she will."

  I bowed my head so that Mrs S could put the scarf over my neck.

  "And mind them there's plenty of bread, and some chicken in the fridge, and cheese, and plenty of soup forbye, if you get hungry again."

  "Right, thanks," I repeated, and jogged carefully upstairs.

  "Anybody got any roach paper?"

  I squeezed into the brightly-lit dome of the observatory; it was about three metres in diameter, made from aluminium, the telescope took up a lot of it, and it was cold, despite a wee two-bar electric heater. A modestly proportioned ghetto-blaster was playing something by the Cocteau Twins. Diana and Helen, bundled in enormous Mongolian quilted jackets, were crouched round a small table with Darren Watt, playing cards. My elder brother, Lewis, was at the telescope. We all said our hellos. This is cousin Verity. Remember her?" Helen said, as she draped the scarf I'd brought her over Darren's head. Helen pointed at a cloud of smoke, and as it blew towards me and cleared I saw her.

  There was a sort of cubby-hole in the non-rotating part of the observatory, built into the attic of the castle's main block. It was just a long cupboard really, but you could coorie down into it to make more space in the dome proper. Verity Walker was lying in a sleeping bag there, only her upper half protruding into the dome; she was smoking one joint and rolling another, on the cover of a pictorial atlas of the universe. "Evening," she said. "Got any roach paper?"

  "Yeah; hi," I said. I put the tray down, searched my pockets, pulled out some stuff. The last time I'd seen Verity Walker, maybe five or six years earlier, she'd been a scrawny tyke with a mouth full of orthodontic brace-work and a serious Shakin" Stevens habit. Now — once seen through the smoke — she had short, pure blonde hair, and a delicate, almost elfin face which tapered to an exquisite chin that looked like it had been made to be grasped lightly in three fingers and pulled closer to your lips… well, to my lips, anyway. Her eyes were the blue of old sea-ice, and when I saw her complexion all I could think was: Wow; Lloyd Cole city! Because she had perfect skin.

  That'll do." She took something from my hand. "Thanks."

  "Hey! That's a library ticket!" I grabbed it back. "Here." I handed her half a book token my mother had given me.

  "Thanks." She started cutting it with a little pair of scissors.

  "It's just a tokin" token," I told her, squatting down beside her.

  She grunted with laughter, and my heart performed manoeuvres that the connecting plumbing makes topologically impossible.

  "All set for the big move, bro?" Lewis grinned down from the wee seat under the eye-piece of the telescope. He reached over to the table where I'd set the tray down and started pouring coffee into the mugs. My big brother has always seemed more than two years older than me; a little taller than my 1.85, and a little more thick-set, he looked bigger still at the time thanks to a beard of the burst-sofa persuasion. Back then, it was his turn to be in disgrace with my father, because he'd just dropped out of University.

  "Yeah, all set," I told him. "Found a place to stay." I nodded at the telescope. "Anything interesting tonight?"

  "Got it on the Pleiades just now. Take a look."

  We took turns star-gazing, playing cards, crouching round the little electric heater, and constructing joints. I'd brought a half
bottle of whisky, and the twins had some brandy, which we used to beef up the coffee. The munchies struck again an hour or so after we'd polished off the last of the sausage rolls; the twins mounted an expedition into the depths of the castle in search of the mythical Soup Dragon (we spoke in Clanger while they were gone) and returned with a steaming tureen and a half-dozen bowls.

  "Where're you staying in Glasgow, Prentice?" Darren Watt asked.

  "Hyndland," I said, slurping my soup. "Lauderdale Gardens."

  "Ah, that's no far from us. Going to be around on the thirtieth? We're having a party."

  "Oh, ah, yeah; probably." (Actually, I'd been going to come home that weekend, but I could juggle things.)

  "Ah well, come along; should be fun."

  Thanks."

  Darren Watt was in his last year at Art School and — for me, at least — had been the epitome of cool since New Year two years earlier. After the bells, mum had driven Lewis and me into Gallanach; we went to a party Droid and his chums were giving. Darren had been there; blond, lean, drop-dead bone structure, and exuding style. I'd admired the looped silk scarf he'd worn over a red velvet jacket that would have looked silly on most people but in which he looked totally poised. He'd given me the scarf, and — when I'd tried to demur — explained he was growing bored with it; better it went to somebody who would appreciate it, though he hoped I'd hand it on too, if I ever tired of it.

  So I took it. It was just an ordinary silk scarf, given a half twist and the ends carefully sewn together, but that, of course, made it a Mobius scarf, the very idea of which I just thought was wonderful. I thought Darren was pretty wonderful, too, and for a while wondered if maybe I was gay, too, but decided against it. In fact, a large part of the attraction of an invite to a party at Darren's place was due to the fact his flat-mates were three salivatingly attractive and reputedly enthusiastically heterosexual female arts students (I'd met them when he'd brought them to Gallanach on a day trip the previous year).

  "You still making models of these wave-powered hoodjie-ma-flips?" I asked him, finishing my soup. Darren was wiping his plate with a bit of bread, and I found myself copying him.