The Crow Road

by Iain Banks

  "It's just old poems and notes; that sort of thing." She started the car; we put our belts on. She took a pair of glasses from her shoulder bag. "All a bit confusing, really."

  "Hmm," I said. "I suppose dad might want a look at them. Wouldn't mind looking at them myself, come to think of it."

  "Do you want to pick them up now?" She looked at me, her round face soft-looking in the orange blush of the sodium vapour. Her hair was like a curly halo. "It isn't far."

  "Yeah, okay. I guess so."

  I watched her face. She smiled as we pulled away. "You sound just like Rory sometimes."

  * * *

  Janice Rae was the last person known to have seen Uncle Rory, one evening in Glasgow. Rory had been staying with friends in London for the previous fortnight. He had talked to his agent and seen some television people about doing some travel series, but whatever deal he'd been trying to set up with the BBC, it had fallen through.

  At the time Rory was still — just — living off Traps, which was attracting a trickle of money even then, when he'd spent everything he'd got for later travel books and occasional articles. He was sharing a flat with an old pal called Andy Nichol who worked in local government; according to Andy, Rory had moped around their flat for a couple of days, shut in his room mostly, supposedly writing, then when Andy had come back from work one day, Rory had asked if he could borrow Andy's motorbike for the night. Andy had given him the keys, and Rory had set off; he'd stopped briefly at Janice Rae's mum's place, and said something about having an idea; some way of saving the project he'd been working on; adding some new ingredient.

  He'd given Janice the folder that she now wanted to give me, eight years later, and then rode off into the sunset, never to be seen again.

  * * *

  Her flat was on Crow Road, not all that far away, down near Jordanhill. As she showed me into the place, down a hall lined with old movie posters, I asked her if she'd ever heard Grandma Margot use the saying: away the Crow Road (or the Craw Rod, if she was being especially broad-accented that day). It meant dying; being dead. "Aye, he's away the crow road," meant "He's dead."

  Janice looked away from me when I said those words, mumbled about the papers and went to get them.

  Idiot, I told myself. I stood in the living room; it was full of heavy old furniture that looked as though it belonged somewhere else, and some limited edition modern prints. On a sideboard, there was a photograph of Janice Rae's dead mother, and another of her daughter Marion and her husband. Marion was a policewoman in Aberdeen. I shook my head, grinning and feeling very old and very young at once.

  "Here," Aunt Janice said. She handed me a cardboard folder stuffed with loose papers. On the spine it said CR in black felt-tip. The folder was burgundy but the spine was faded to grey.

  "CR?" I said.

  "Crow Road," Janice said quietly, looking down at the folder in my hands.

  I wasn't sure what to say. While I was still thinking, she looked up, bright-eyed, glanced around at the walls of the flat and shrugged. "Yeah; I know. Sentimental of me, eh?" She smiled.

  "No," I said. "It's… it's — " The words sweet and nice suggested themselves, but didn't seem right. " — fitting. I guess." I stuck the folder under my arm, cleared my throat. «Well…» I said.

  She had taken off her jacket; she wore a blouse and cords. She shrugged. "Would you like some coffee? Something stronger?"

  «Umm…» I said, taking a deep breath. "Well… aren't you tired?"

  "No," she said, folding her arms. "I usually read way past this time of night. Stay; have some whisky."

  She took my jacket, poured me a whisky.

  I sat down on a huge, surprisingly firm old couch. It looked like brown leather, but any smell it had had was gone. I held the whisky glass up. "Won't you?" I said. This is like playing chess, I thought.

  "Well, not if I have to drive you home, Prentice."

  "Oh… I could… walk," I smiled bravely. "Can't be more than three or four miles. Less than an hour. You'd lend me a brolly, wouldn't you? Or there might be a night bus. Please; have a whisky; sit down, make yourself at home."

  She laughed. "Okay, okay." She went to the table where the bottles were, poured herself a whisky. Somewhere in the distance, that sound of the city: a siren warbling.

  Stay here, if you like," she said, slowly putting the top back on the bottle. She turned, leaning back against the table, drinking from her glass, looking down at me. "That's if you want to… I don't want you to think I'm seducing you or anything."

  "Shit," I said, putting my glass down on a rather over-designed coffee table. I put my hands on my hips (which is rather an unnatural thing to do when you're sitting down, but what the hell). "I was kinda hoping you were, actually."

  She looked at me, then gave a single convulsive laugh, and right until then I think it might still have gone either way, but she stood there, her back to the table, set her glass down upon its polished surface, put her hands behind her back, and looked down, her head forward and a little to the left. Her weight was on her left leg; her right leg was relaxed, knee bent in slightly towards the left. I could see she was smiling.

  I knew I'd seen that stance before, and even as I was getting up from the couch to go over to her I realised she was standing just the way Garbo does in Queen Christina, during the Inn sequence, when she's sharing the best room with John Gilbert, playing the Spanish ambassador who doesn't realise until that point the disguised Garbo is a woman, not a man. She starts to take her clothes off eventually, and gets down to her shirt; then Gilbert looks round, does a double take and looks back; and she's standing just like that, and he knows.

  It had — I recalled, even as I went over to her — been one of Uncle Rory's favourite old films.

  * * *

  It was one of those wonderful first nights when you never really do more than drowse between bouts of love-making, and even when you do think no more; that's it, finito… you still have to say goodnight, which itself means a kiss, and a hug; and each touch begets another touch more sweet, and the kiss on the cheek or neck moves to the lips, the lips open, the tongues meet… so every touch becomes a caress, each caress an embrace, and every embrace another coupling.

  * * *

  She turned to me, during that night, and said, "Prentice?"

  "Mm-hmm?"

  "Do you think Rory's… away the crow road? Do you think he's dead?"

  I turned on my side, stroked her flank, smoothing my hand from thigh to shoulder, then back. "I really don't know," I admitted.

  She took my hand, kissed it. "I used to think, sometimes, that he must be dead, because otherwise he'd have been in touch. But I don't know." There was just enough light seeping in past the curtains to let me see her head shaking. "I don't know, because people sometimes do things you'd never have thought they would ever do." Her voice broke, and her head turned suddenly; she pushed her face into the bedclothes; I moved over to hold her, just to comfort her; but she kissed, hard, and climbed on top of me.

  I had, up until that point, been performing an agonising reappraisal of the indignant signals of total, quivering, painful exhaustion flooding in from every major muscle I possessed. My body's equivalent of the Chief Engineer was screaming down the intercom that the system just wouldn't take any more punishment, Jim, and there was no doubt that I really should have been pulling out and powering down just then…

  But, on the other hand, what the heck.

  * * *

  "… all your your nonsenses and truths, your finery and squal-adoptions, combine and coalesce, to one noise including laugh and whimper, scream and sigh, forever and forever repeating, in any tongue we care to choose, whatever lessened, separated message we want to hear. It all boils down to nothing, and where we have the means and will to fix our reference within that flux; there we are. If it has any final signal, the universe says simply, but with every possible complication, "Existence," and it neither pressures us, nor draws us out, except as we allow. Let me b
e part of that outrageous chaos… and I am.»

  Her voice was sleepy; the hand that had been quietly ruffling my hair had now gone limp. The litany subsided, the quiet words not echoing in the dark room.

  Uncle Rory's words, apparently. At first just thought; a mantra to delay ejaculation — a slightly more civilised, if narcissistic, alternative to brother Lewis's thoughts about constructing MFI kitchen units. Then, once, she had asked him what he thought of when they made love (and smoothed over his protestations of eternal in-head fidelity) to discover that — purely to prolong her pleasure — he sometimes recited a piece of his own poetry to himself. He was persuaded to repeat it, for her, and it became a shared ritual.

  "Always… always liked that," she said quietly, shifting a little to fit her body to mine. "Always…»

  "Hmm," I said, and felt her breathing alter. "Good-night, Janice," I whispered.

  "Night, Rore," she murmured.

  I wasn't sure what to feel. Eventually I yawned, pulled the duvet over the two of us, and smiled into the darkness.

  I went to sleep wondering what on earth had possessed Uncle Rory to write a miserable, incomprehensible line "your finery and squal-adoptions'.

  What in the name of hell was a squal-adoption, for goodness" sake?

  There was something else nagging me; my conscience. The embarrassing truth was that despite having taken a sort of policy decision years ago, the gist of which was: no condom, no sex, Janice and I had not been using one. She'd emplaced a cap, but that, as the leaflets will tell you, don't provide no AIDS protection. So here I was indulging in casual — if intensive — sex with a woman I hadn't even heard anything about for eight years; hell, she could have been up to anything! But she had claimed the opposite, and I'd believed her. It was probably the truth, but it was exactly such instances of casually misplaced trust that were undoubtedly going to kill better men and women than me over the next decade or so.

  Still, it was done. I drifted away.

  I swear I was asleep when my eyes flicked on their own and in a burst of dark certainty I thought: squalid options! that's what he wrote: Squalid options, before going instantly back to sleep again.

  CHAPTER 6

  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 wi
th 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!"