The Crow Road

by Iain Banks

but power us to the next disgrace.

  "Not applying for a job with Hallmark cards, then," I muttered to myself, sipping at my coffee.

  But I kept on reading.

  My head wasn't really in the right state for assimilating all this stuff, but as far as I could gather, Uncle Rory had been trying for years to come up with something Creative (his capital, his italics). Something that would establish him as a Writer: script-writer, poet, lyricist for a rock band, novelist, playwright… it didn't matter. Being recognised for having kept a glorified diary while wandering through India when he was young and naïve wasn't enough for him. It wasn't serious. This work, Crow Road, would be Serious. It would be about Life and Death and Treachery and Betrayal and Love and Death and Imperialism and Colonialism and Capitalism. It would be about Scotland, (or India, or an "Erewhon???) and the Working Class and Exploitation and Action, and there would be characters in the work who would represent all of these things, and the working out of the story would itself prove the Subjectivity of Truth.

  … There were pages of that sort of stuff.

  There were also pages of poems forced into some sort of rhyming structure so that they might conceivably have worked as songs, several paragraphs of references to critical works (Barthes, especially; Death of the Author! shouted what looked like a head-over one entire page of notes devoted to ideas about a loose-leaf novel/poem?? There were location notes for a film and sheets physical appearance of the characters and the sort of actors who might play them, these surrounded by doodles, mazes and uninspired drawings of faces. There was a list of bands that might be interested in doing an album (a musical tone-scale running all the way from Yes to Genesis), and a sheaf of sketches for the sets in a stage presentation. What there wasn't was any indication whatsoever that Rory had actually written any part of this great work. The only things that might have been classed as narrative were the poems, and they didn't seem to have anything to do with each other, apart from the fact a lot of them seemed to be vaguely about Death, or Love. Tenuous, was the word that came to mind.

  I looked in the folder again to see if I'd missed anything.

  I had. There was another small sheet of blue writing paper, in Janice Rae's hand. "Prentice — had a look at this — " (then the word "while', crossed out heavily, followed by the word "before', also nearly obliterated) " — Can't find any more; R had another folder. (?) If you find it and work out what it's all about, let me know; he said there was something secret buried in it. (Gallanach)?"

  I bobbled my head from side to side. "Gallanach?" I said, in a silly high-pitched voice, as though quoting. I stretched, grunting with pain as my leg muscles extracted their revenge for having been ignored twelve hours earlier.

  I reached for my coffee, but it was cold.

  * * *

  "Dear God, we beseech ye, visit the reactive wrath of their own foulness upon those nasty wee buggers in the Khmer Rouge in general, and upon their torturers, and their leader Pol Pot, in particular; may each iota of pain they have inflicted on the people of their country — heathen or not — rebound upon their central nervous system with all the agony they originally inflicted upon their victims. Also, Lord God, we ask that you remember the dark deeds of any communistic so-called-interrogators, in this time of great upheaval in eastern Europe; we know that you will not forget their crimes when their day of reckoning comes, and their guttural, Slavic voices cry out to ye for mercy, and ye reward them with all the compassion they ever showed to those unfortunate souls delivered unto them. Prentice?"

  I jumped. I'd almost fallen asleep while Uncle Hamish had been droning on. I opened my eyes. The Tree was looking expectantly at me.

  "Oh," I said. "Umm… I'd just like to put in a word for Salman Rushdie. Or at least take one out for old Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini… " I looked at Uncle Hamish, who was making quiet signals that I should clasp my hands and close my eyes. We were in the front lounge of Uncle Hamish and Aunt Tone's Victorian villa in the attractive Gallanach suburbette of Ballymeanoch, facing each other over a card table. I closed my eyes.

  "Ah," I said. "Dear God, we pray that as well as suffering whatever part of the general physical unpleasantness involved in the Iran-Iraq war you may judge to be rightly his, you can find a spare area in his suffering, er, anti-create, for Mr R. Khomeini, late of Tehran and Qom, to experience at least some of the, umm, despair and continual worry currently being undergone by the novelist Mr S Rushdie, of Bombay and London, heathen and smart-alec though he may well be. Amen."

  "Amen," echoed Uncle H. I opened my eyes. Uncle Hamish was already rising from his sear, looking positively twinkly with health and good cheer. He rubbed his hands. "Very good," he said, moving in that oddly stiff and creaky way of his for the door. "Let us repair for some repast," he chuckled as he held the door open for me. "I believe Antonia has prepared something called Cod Creole." He sniffed the fishy air in the hall; we crossed to the dining room.

  "Not Lobster Creole? Or Kid?" I inquired.

  But I don't think Uncle Hamish heard me. He was humming something sombre and looking pleased with himself.

  Uncle H has developed a fascinating heresy based on the idea that exactly what you did to other people while you were alive gets done right back to you once you're dead. Torturers die — in agony — hundreds, maybe thousands of times, before their ravaged souls are finally dropped from the jaws of a fearsome and vengeful God. Those who authorise the dreadful deeds carried out by the torturers (or whoever) also share whatever proportion of this retrospective agony the deity — or his angelic cost-benefit-calculating representatives — deem they deserve. Having quizzed The Tree on the details of this scheme, it would appear that said burden of transferred pain is debited from the account of the guy at — or rather wielding — the sharp end of the original action, which seems only fair, I suppose.

  Apparently Uncle Hamish is awaiting divine inspiration on the knotty problem of whether the good things one has accomplished in one's life are also re-lived from the other side (as it were), or simply subtracted from the nasty stuff. At the moment he seems to be veering towards the idea that if you did more good than bad during your life you go straight to Heaven, an arrangement which at least processes the merit of simplicity; the rest sounds like something dreamt up by a vindictive bureaucrat on acid while closely inspecting something Hieronymus Bosch painted on one of his bleak but imaginative days.

  Still, it has its attractions.

  Aunt Tone and the family's two children, Josh and Becky, and Becky's infant daughter, Iona, were already in the dining room, filling it with bustle and chat.

  "Said your prayers?" Aunt Tone said brightly, depositing a steaming dish of potatoes on the table.

  "Thank you, yes," Hamish replied. My uncle worships alone these days, and has done ever since his son left home to become a devout Capitalist (neither his wife nor his daughter had ever bothered with my Uncle's unique brand of condemnationist Christianity; as a rule, the McHoan women, whether so by blood or marriage, have displayed a marked reluctance to take their men-folk's passions seriously, at least outside the bedroom). I think that was why Uncle Hamish had been so delighted when I'd come to stay with the family, and also — perhaps — why he was in no hurry to help effect a reconciliation between me and my father.

  We dined on spicy fish which repeated on me for most of the evening in the Jac, meeting pals, until I drowned it in an ocean of beer.

  * * *

  "Happy New Year!" Ashley yelled, flourishing a bottle of generic whisky with more enthusiasm than care; she cracked the bottle off the oak-panelled wall of the castle's crowded entrance hall, but without, apparently, causing damage to either. Clad in a sparkly jacket and a long black skirt, wreathed in silly string and clumps and strands of paper streamers from party poppers, her long hair bunned, she enveloped me in a very friendly kiss, breathing whisky and wine fumes. I kissed right back and she pushed away, laughing. "Wo, Prentice!" she shouted over the noise. The hall was packed with people; mus
ic spilled out from the main hall beyond; pipes and fiddles, tabors and accordions, guitars and a piano, several of them playing the same tune.

  "I thought you gave up," I said, pointing at the cigarette she had stuck behind one ear. Josh and Becky were still at the doors, greeting people they knew.

  "I did," she said, taking the fag from behind her ear and putting it in her mouth. She left it there for a few seconds, then restored it to its previous position. "See? Still given up; no temptation at all."

  Ash and I levered our way through the press of people while I undid my jacket and struggled to extricate my half-bottle of whisky from a side pocket. We made it into the hall, which was actually less crowded, though still full. A huge fire roared in the grate; people balanced on the fire-seat which ran around the hearth, and on every other available perch, including the stairs and the piano.

  A few enthusiasts within the midst of the crowd were trying to dance the Eightsome Reel, which in the circumstances was a little like trying to stage a boxing match in a telephone box; not totally impossible, just pointless.

  Ash and I found a space over near the piano. She reached over the piano to a pile of little plastic cups, grabbed one and shoved it into my hand. "Here; have a drink." She sloshed some whisky into the cup. "How've you been?"

  "Fine," I said. "Broke, and I can see that 2.1 disappearing over the event horizon, but fuck it; I've still got my integrity and my Mobius scarf, and a boy can go a long way with those things. You got a job yet?"

  "What?"

  "Let's stand away from this fucking piano."

  "What?"

  "Have you got a job yet?

  "Na. Hey." She put one hand on my shoulder. "Heard what David Bowie's latest film's called?"

  "This sounds Lewisian," I shouted.

  "No," she shook her head. "'Merry Christmas, Mister Ceausescu'!" Ashley laughed like a drain; a teetotaller might have said her breath smelled like one.

  "Very funny," I yelled into her ear. "Haven't laughed so much since General Zia got blown up. Where is Lewis, anyway? We were waiting for them to turn up at Hamish and Tone's but they never showed. He and James here?"

  Ash looked concerned for a second, then her smile returned. She put her arm round my shoulders. "Saw James over by the accordion earlier. Hey; you want to take a stroll round the battlements?" She pulled a spliff half out of her breast pocket, let it fall back. "Got a number here, but Mrs McSpadden keeps wandering through, and I seem to remember she took inordinate and extremely loud interest in one of these last year when wee Jimmy Calder stoked up. You comin?"

  "Not right now," I said, looking around the crowd, acknowledging a few waves and some distant mouthings that were probably shouts. I stood on tip-toes to look round the hall; a paper-plane battle seemed to be taking place at one end. "You seen Verity?"

  "Not for a bit," Ash said, pouring herself more whisky. I refused. "Hey." Ash nudged me. There's dancing upstairs."

  "Verity there?"

  "Maybe," Ash said, raising her eyebrows.

  "Let's check it out."

  "Way to go, Prent."

  … No Verity in the Solar, loud with sounds and dark with light, and less crowded still. Ash and I danced, then cousin Josh asked her, and I sat watching the people dance for a while — the best way to extract any real enjoyment from dancing, I've always thought, but I seem to be unusual in not gaining any real pleasure from performing the movements — and then saw Helen Urvill, entering the hall holding a lager can. I went over to her, through the dancers.

  "Happy New Year!"

  "Hey, Prentice. Same to you…»

  I kissed her, then lifted her up and spun her round; she whooped.

  "How are you?" I yelled. Helen Urvill, elegantly tall and judiciously lean, straight thick hair obsidian black, dress combat-casual, back on holiday from Switzerland and looking as thoroughly kempt as ever, passed the lager can to me.

  "I'm fine," she said.

  I looked at the tin she'd handed me. "Carling Black Label?" I said, incredulous. Somehow this did not quite seem Helen's style.

  She smirked. Try some."

  I tried some; the stuff foamed, went up my nose. I spluttered, stepping back, dripping, while Helen took the can back and stood grinning. "Champagne?" I said wiping my chin.

  "Lanson."

  "What else? Oh you're so stylish, Helen," I said. "Wanna dance?"

  We danced, and shared the can of champagne. "How's Diana?" I shouted above the music.

  "Couldn't get back," Helen yelled. "Still out in Hawaii."

  "Poor thing."

  "Yeah."

  Helen continued to circulate; I decided it was time for a pee and then maybe some food, which took me via the garden (there was a queue for the downstairs loo, and the upper part of the castle was locked) to the kitchen.

  Mrs McSpadden was in command, over-seeing a production line of sandwiches, sausage rolls, bowls of soup and chilli, slices of black bun and Christmas cake and accompanying slices of cheese.

  "Prentice!" Mrs McSpadden said.

  "Mthth MnThpndn!" I replied, mouth full of cake.

  She shoved a set of keys into my hand. "Will ye pop down to the cellar, for us?" Mrs S shouted. "Get another litre of whisky; it's the second archway on the left. Dinnae let anybody down with you, mind; keep that door locked." The microwave chimed and she hauled a still half-frozen block of chilli out on a big plate; she started breaking it up with a large wooden spoon.

  I swallowed. "Okay," I said.

  I went through to the utility room, cool and dark after the noise and chaos of the kitchen. I turned the light on, sorted through the keys for one that looked like it might match the door to the cellar. A movement outside caught my eye and I peered through the window; looked like I'd put on an outside light, too.

  Verity Walker, clad in a short black dress, was dancing sinuously on the roof of Uncle Fergus's Range Rover. Lewis sat cross-legged on the bonnet of the car, watching her. He glanced over, shading his eyes, and seemed to see me, looking through the window from the utility room. Verity pirouetted. Holding her shoes in one hand, she ran the other down over her body to one thigh, then back to her head and through her cropped blonde hair.

  The floodlight outside — harsh and white — lit her like she was on stage. Her hair glowed like pale flame.

  Lewis jumped off the Range Rover (Verity wobbled a little as the car bounced on its springs, but recovered); he stood at the side of the car, between me and it, and held one hand up to Verity. She danced on, oblivious, then he must have said something, and she danced seductively, fluidly, to the edge of the roof, hips moving slow, a big smile on her face as she looked down at Lewis, then she threw herself off the roof. Lewis caught her, staggered back a couple of steps, then forward, as Verity wrapped her arms round his neck and her legs round his waist; white glances of thigh against the black. Lewis put his arms round her as he pitched forward.

  They thumped together into the Range Rover. I thought the impact must have hurt her back, but it didn't look like it had. Her arms and legs stayed where they were, and Lewis's head bent down to hers. Her hands started to stroke and caress the nape of his neck and the back and sides of his head.

  After a while, one of Lewis's arms disengaged, waving behind him. One finger pointed up to the bright flood-light that was showing me all this. His hand made a cutting, chopping motion.

  When he did it a second time, I put the light out.

  I let myself into the cellar, locked the door behind me. The cellar was cold. I found the whisky, let myself out of the cellar and locked it, turned all the lights out, gave Mrs McSpadden the bottle, accepted a belated new-year kiss from her, then made my way out through the kitchen and the corridor and the crowded hall where the music sounded loud and people were laughing, and out through the now almost empty entrance hall and down the steps of the castle and down the driveway and down to Gallanach, where I walked along the esplanade — occasionally having to wave or say "Happy New Year" to various peop
le I didn't know — until I got to the old railway pier and then the harbour, where I sat on the quayside, legs dangling, drinking my whisky and watching a couple of swans glide on black, still water, to the distant sound of highland jigs coming from the Steam Packet Hotel, and singing and happy-new-year shouts echoing in the streets of the town, and the occasional sniff as my nose watered in sympathy with my eyes.

  CHAPTER 8

  Rory stood on the dunes, facing the sea. Lewis stomped away along the tide-line, kicking at the odd piece of driftwood and the occasional plastic bottle. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his camouflage jacket; his head — short-haired, these days — was down.

  South Uist. Lewis seemed to be taking it as a personal insult that the family had come to the Hebrides for their summer holiday. People kept asking him what he was doing on Uist; Lewis was further north, ha ha.

  "He's awful moody, isn't he, Uncle Rory?"

  Rory watched Lewis walk away along the beach. "Yeah." He shrugged.

  "Why do you think he doesn't want to walk with us?" Prentice's thin face looked genuinely puzzled. Rory smiled, looked once more at Lewis's retreating back, then started down the far side of the dune heading for the narrow road. Prentice followed. "I think," Rory said, "it's called being at an awkward age."

  Kenneth, Mary and the boys had come holidaying to the Hebrides, as they did most years. Rory had been invited along too, as he usually was, and for a change had accepted. So far, they'd been lucky; the Atlantic weather systems had been kind, the days bright and warm, the nights calm and never completely dark. The big rollers boomed in, the wide beaches lay mostly empty, and the machair — between dunes and cultivation — was a waving ocean of bright flowers thrown across the rich green waves of grass. Rory loved it, somewhat to his surprise; a holiday from holidays. A place to stay where he didn't have to take notes about flights and ferries and hotels and restaurants and sights. No travel book to think about, no articles, no pressure. He could laze.

  He volunteered to take the boys on a walk after breakfast that Sunday. James had stayed behind and Lewis had been sullen for the half-hour or so they'd been walking before suddenly announcing he wanted to be alone.