The Crow Road

by Iain Banks

  "Umm… Yeah. That about sums it up."

  Ash nodded a few times, lips tight, weighing the disk in her hands. "Right." She nodded at the ones I still held. "Okay. Can I take these?"

  "Sure." I handed them to her and she turned for the door.

  "See you later," she said, heading into the crowded hall. I went after her; she was excusing her way to the front door.

  "Ash!" I said, squeezing through after her. "Not now! Come and enjoy the party!"

  "Don't worry," she said, glancing back. "I shall return. I'll drop these at home so I don't forget to take them back to London; I know people who might be able to help… but I just remembered I forgot something; something for you. Left it at mum's." She looked out the door; it was starting to rain. "Shit."

  There was an old giant brass cartridge case by the hall hat stand which held our assorted umbrellas and walking sticks; I lifted a brolly from it. Ash turned to me, a worried expression on her face as she said, "I saw that guy again. I'll show you. Give my present to the happy couple!"

  "What guy —?" I said, but she was already sprinting through the still-arriving guests for the little red 2CV, parked a good fifty metres down the car-crowded drive, the disks held tight to her chest. I watched her high-heels flashing over the gravel, and the other guests turning to look at her, then there were more people to greet and hands to shake.

  I took the brolly myself eventually and went for a walk up the garden to dad's grave, just to get away from the crowds for a bit.

  * * *

  Back in the house, I dodged one of the waitresses from the Lochgair Hotel, carrying a huge tray with champagne flutes out of the kitchen towards the marquee; I waved at mum, splendid in black with white stripes and standing talking to Helen Urvill, and went through to the hall. I put the umbrella in the old cartridge case. Then I thought maybe I should open it out and dry it, like you're supposed to, so I hauled it out again and left it opened in the hall.

  "Prentice," Verity said, coming down from upstairs.

  She was enfolded in white silk; a creation of some clothes-designer, friend of hers in Edinburgh. Technically it was a blouse, medium-length skirt and jacket, but when she wore it it looked like a single piece, and handsome it was too. She was hardly showing yet, but the outfit would anyway have disguised an almost full-term pregnancy. She wore white leggings, and high-heels that made her taller than me. She also wore the fulgurite necklace; mum had guessed both that Verity would want to wear it, and that she might think it best not to, in case the association hurt, so she d made a point of telling Lewis she thought Verity ought to wear it, if it suited the outfit she had chosen. Verity's hair was as short-cropped as ever, but she looked none the worse for that, and the little white micro-hat she wore, complete with thrown-back, white fish-net veil, sat well on her too. She came up to me, took me by the shoulders and kissed me on the cheek.

  "That was a great speech; thanks," she said. She was still holding my shoulders, and squeezed them. She looked the way you're supposed to look, both when you're pregnant and on the day of your marriage; glowing, radiant, suffused with joy. Still had perfect skin. She put on a convincingly upper-class English accent as she said, "You've been en ebserloortly soopah byest men, my deah."

  I put my hands lightly on her still slim waist and made a small bowing motion. "Any time," I said, and grinned.

  She laughed, shaking her head. She stepped back, folded her arms, looked me up and down and said, "And so smart."

  I curtsied, fluttering my eyelashes.

  She laughed again and held out her hand. "Come on; let's find my husband. He's probably flirting with the bridesmaids by now."

  "I thought that was my job," I said, taking her arm in mine as we went towards the rear of the hall. I heard the front door open behind us. I turned and looked, stopped, then turned back to Verity. "I'll take a rain check on that, shweetheart."

  Verity smiled at Ashley Watt, shaking a glistening waterproof she'd just taken off, and nodded. "Well, there's appropriate, today." She winked at me and walked off.

  Ashley met me at the foot of the stairs, brandishing a VHS cassette. "Got it. Take me to your video."

  "Walk this way," I told her, heading up the stairs two at a time.

  "Do I get to look up your kilt?" she said from behind.

  "Not if you're lucky."

  I switched the lights on in the study; we tended to keep the curtains closed. There was a TV and video in the study. I switched it all on and put the cassette in the machine.

  "Cool," Ashely said, standing hands on hips in the middle of the study, hands nearly over the centre of dad's Persian rug, bunned hair directly beneath the big brass and stained-glass light fixture, hanging extravagantly beneath an ornate plaster ceiling rose. She swivelled, surveying the book-case walls, the maps, the prints and paintings and various interesting bits and pieces scattered around shelves, tables, desks and the floor.

  "Bit cluttered for my taste," I said, starting the tape and watching some end-credits. "Dad found it conducive enough."

  "Fast forward," Ash said. The screen scrolled quickly, then the BBC Nine O'clock news started flashing before us. Ash turned away, so I let it roll.

  Ashley crossed to an over-crowded book case; there was an empty crystal bowl perched on a pile of loose papers on top of the book case, and Ashley tapped the bowl very gently with one finger. She took her hand away, held it in the air near the ice-coloured ornament, and clicked her fingers. She bent her head towards the bowl, seemingly listening for something. I frowned, wondered what she was up to.

  She turned and faced the bowl, went "Ah," in a high-pitched voice, then listened again, head tilted, smiling this time.

  "Ashley, what exactly are you doing?"

  She nodded at the bowl. "Crystal; you can make it ring by producing the right noise." She grinned like a little girl. "Good, eh?" She looked behind me. "That's you," she said, nodding at the screen.

  I hit Play. We stood, watched.

  "… talked to Rupert Paxton-Marr of the Inquirer, one of the journalists held by the Iraqis, and asked him how he'd felt," said the BBC man in Amman.

  I couldn't resist a thin smile, one journalist asking another how he felt.

  Rupert Paxton-Marr was a tall, blond, blue-eyed man with exactly the jaw-line I'd have chosen for myself, given the opportunity; sickeningly handsome, he had an accent to match. "Well, Michael," he said. ('Air, hair lair," I said to myself.) "I don't think we were really in much danger; clearly international attention has fixed on Iraq, and I think they knew we knew that, and accepted we were… weren't a threat to them. Umm… our driver had taken a wrong turning, and that was that. Of course, one does remember what happened to, ah, Farhzad Bazhoft, but I don't think you can let that stop you; in the end one has a job to do."

  "Thank you, Rupert. And now, reporting fr —»

  I hit Stop and turned to Ashley, standing beside me. She was still looking at the blank screen where the little green zero symbol sat in one corner, wobbling almost imperceptibly. She had sucked her cheeks in and her lips were pursed. There was a whoop of laughter from somewhere downstairs. Ash nodded slowly, looked at me. "That's ma boy," she said.

  "You're sure about that?" I said.

  "I'm sure." She looked serious. She looked pretty good, too, now I looked properly; I couldn't remember ever seeing Ashley wearing make-up, and you'd have thought that not having had the practice she'd be crap at it, but she looked great; maybe a little over-enthusiastic with the dark stuff round the eyes, but why quibble? She nodded. "Don't look at me like that; I'm really sure."

  "Sorry. I believe you," I said. I spun the tape back, to play it again. Ashley put one hand on my arm and rested her chin against the shoulder of my Prince Charlie jacket.

  "Turn the sound down," she said. "That guy's voice is like chewing on silver paper."

  I turned the sound down. The noise of people laughing and talking in the marquee came through the double glazing and the heavy burgundy of the velvet
curtains. I heard an amplified voice outside say, "Testing." It was probably Dean Watt; he and his band had been hired by Lewis and Verity to play during the afternoon (for the evening they'd booked a more traditional wheech-your-partner fiddle and accordion band).

  I ran the clip again. "Definitely, officer," Ashley said, tapping the top corner of the TV. "Recognise him anywhere, even with his clothes on."

  I switched the TV off and ejected the cassette. I stood for a moment, rubbing my chin.

  "Whoops," Ashley said, and delicately rubbed a little of that transferred make-up from the black shoulder of my jacket.

  I waited till she'd finished, then went to dad's desk, unlocked a lower drawer and took out a slide tray; one of those plastic things that holds a few hundred transparencies. "So, when you saw this guy, Paxton-Marr," I said, opening the tray and putting the lid on the desk, "in Berlin, in this hotel, in the Jacuzzi… " I looked up at Ashley, standing sceptically by the TV, one elbow resting on it as she watched me. "What was the hotel called again?"

  "I told you," she said. "I can't remember. I called June, and neither could she. It's probably the only place she ever stayed and forgot to nick a towel or yet another emergency sewing kit or whatever." Ash shrugged. "Frankly, Prentice, I was stoned out of my brains most of the time I was there. All I can remember is it had a big pool in the basement with a Jacuzzi at one end, and they did really good breakfasts." She sighed. "Excellent hopple-popple." Her eyebrows flicked once.

  "Hopple-popple?'I grimaced.

  "Scrambled eggs," Ash smiled. "Take me to Berlin and I'll find it for you. It was somewhere near the zoo."

  I put the tray down on the desk, went over to Ashley, holding out a little piece of cardboard; it was the front cover off a book of matches, torn off the piece that held the matches.

  "Wasn't the Schweizerhof, was it?" I asked her.

  She looked steadily into my eyes for a little while, then took the piece of card, looked at it and turned it over.

  "Twenty-seven eleven eighty-nine," she muttered. She nodded and handed me the cover back. "Yeah," she said, frowning. "Yeah; it was. That was the place."

  I put the little torn bit of cardboard back in the slide tray. It was the second last one, out of about forty of them.

  "What's the significance of the date?" Ashley asked, coming over to the desk. Outside, I could hear the sound ot an electric guitar chord and a few drum beats.

  "I think that was when dad received it." I picked the latest torn cover out of the tray. "This one arrived just after he died." We both sat on the edge of the desk; Ashley looked at the little piece of glossy cardboard.

  "Woo," she whistled. "Amman Hilton. Spooky, or what?"

  "Yeah. Spooky " I said, as fuck,tapping the cover with one fingernail. "And I'm sure I recognise that guy Paxton-Marr, too. From Glasgow, or Edinburgh, or here. I've met him. In the flesh, I think."

  Ash put her elbow on my shoulder. "And damn firm, tanned flesh it was too, let me tell you," she said.

  I looked into those grey eyes, smiling. "But not as firm and tanned as your programmer from Texas."

  Ash laughed, skipped off the desk. "Systems Analyst. And you're right; they breed them bigger and better in Texas."

  Music started up in the marquee. Kiss The Bride. Ash stood on the Persian rug again, putting one hand to her ear. "Hark; it's young brother and his pals." She frowned. "Doesn't sound like a Mark E Smith or Morrissey track to me." She shook her head. Tsk. How are the mighty fallen." She put her head down so that, if she'd been wearing glasses, she'd have been looking over them at me. "Want my advice?"

  "Mm-hmm," I nodded.

  "Come on and dance. We can sort — or you can sort — this out later, when you've had time to think." She struck a dramatic, arguably dance-inspired pose and held out one hand. "Hey baby, let's boogie!"

  I laughed, shut the match-book covers away and locked the desk drawer.

  That's it, laddy," Ashley said, holding my arm as we went to the door. "You put that key in yer sporran."

  "At least I know down there it's safe from interference," I told her. She smiled. I locked the study door too.

  "By the way, by the way," Ash muttered into my ear as we headed along the landing for the stairs, "got a gramme of the old Bogota talcum powder about my person. Fancy a toot, later?"

  "What, the real thing?" I grinned. "I thought speed was your poison."

  "Normally," she nodded. "But this is a special occasion; I splashed out."

  "You wee tyke," I said. I pulled her closer as we walked, held her tight. "You just stick with me, kid, all right?"

  "Whatever you say, ma man."

  We did kick-steps down the stairs. Risky, when you're wearing a kilt as it is meant to be worn, but invigorating.

  * * *

  I danced with Ashley, and with Verity, and with Helen Urvill, and with mum, cutting in on Lewis after he'd persuaded her onto the floor. Most of the time though she just sat, surrounded by family and friends, watching us all with an expression that, to me at least, spoke of a kind of stricken joy; a surprise that such pleasure could still exist — and she feel even remotely a part of it — when dad was not here to share in it all.

  I am not a natural dancer but I made an exception for Verity's wedding. I grooved and sweated and drank and made a point of doing the old red blood cell impression, circulating; bathing in, soaking up and transmitting onwards the oxygen of family news and gossip from cell to cell…

  "Where are you off to next, Aunt Ilsa?" I asked the lady in question, during our waltz. Aunt Ilsa — even larger than I remembered her, and dressed in something which looked like a cross between a Persian rug and a multi-occupancy poncho — moved with the determined grace of an elephant, and a curious stiffness that made the experience a little like dancing with a garden shed.

  "Canada, I think, Prentice. Churchill, on Hudson's Bay. To observe the arctic bear."

  I confess I had to re-process that sentence a couple of times as we danced, before working out that she did not intend to study the region naked (an image I found rather alarming), but was merely using a more pedantically accurate term for a polar bear.

  "Super." I smiled.

  * * *

  Uncle Hamish sat at the table with the rest of the family and got slowly drunk. I danced with Aunt Tone, and asked after her husband's health.

  "Oh, he's getting better all the time," Aunt Tone said, glancing at him. "He hasn't had the nightmares for weeks now. I think going back to work helped him. Fergus was very understanding. And he's had a lot of long chats with the minister. People have been very kind, altogether. You haven't talked to him?" Aunt Tone looked at me critically.

  "Not for a bit." I gave her a big smile. "I will, though."

  * * *

  Uncle Hamish watched the dancing. He lifted his whisky to his lips, sipped at it, then shook his head with such slow deliberation I caught myself listening for the creak. "No, Prentice. I have been foolish, and even vain. I did not pay sufficient heed to the scriptures. I thought that I knew better." He sipped his whisky, shook his head. "It was vanity; my theories, my beliefs about the hereafter; vanity. I have renounced them."

  Oh," I said, disappointed. "No more anti-creates?" He shook, as though a chill had passed through him. "No, that was my mistake." He looked at me straight for the first time. "He Punished both of us, Prentice." Uncle Hamish flicked his gaze towards the roof of the marquee. "Both of us," he repeated. He looked away again. "God knows we are all his children, but he is a strict father, sometimes. Terribly, terribly strict."

  I put my head on my hand and looked at my uncle as I considered this idea of God as child-abuser. Hamish started to shake his head again before he'd sipped his whisky, and I experienced a brief feeling of excited horror, waiting for the resulting catastrophe; but he just stopped in mid-shake, sipped, then shook his head slowly again. "Aye; a strict father."

  I patted his arm. "Never mind." I said, helpfully.

  * * *

  I dan
ced with Aunt Charlotte, Verity's still-handsome and determinedly superstitious mother, who told me that the newly-weds would surely be happy, because their stars were well-matched.

  Exhibiting a generosity of spirit I rather surprised myself with, I agreed that certainly the stars in their eyes seemed to augur well.

  * * *

  I bumped into the smaller than life-size Mr Gibbon near the bar at one point; I was in such a gregarious, clubbable mood I actually enjoyed talking to him. We agreed Aunt Ilsa was a wonderful woman, but that she had itchy feet. Mr Gibbon looked over at Aunt Ilsa, who had — I could only imagine by force — got Uncle Hamish up for a dance. Together they were having the same effect on the dance floor as a loose cannon manned by hippos.

  "Yes," Mr Gibbon said, sighing, his eyelids fluttering. "I am her kentledge." He smiled at me with a sort of apologetic self-satisfaction, as though he was the luckiest man alive, and tip-toed off through the crowds with his two glasses of sherry.

  "Kentledge?" I said to myself. I'd have scratched my head but my hands were full of glasses.

  * * *

  "Prentice. Taking a breather too, eh?"

  I had stepped outside the marquee for a breather, late on, after the hoochter-choochter music started and the place got even warmer. I looked round in the shadows and saw Fergus Urvill, Scottishly resplendent in his Urvill dress tartan. Fergus came into the light spilling from the open flap of the marquee. He was smoking a cigar. The rain had ceased at last and the garden smelled of earth and wet leaves.

  Fergus glittered; crystal buttons sparkled on his jacket; black pearls of obsidian decorated his sporran, and the skean dhu stuck into the top of his right sock — a rather more impressive and business-like example of the traditional Highland-dress knife than mine, which looked like a glorified letter opener — was crowned with a large ruby, glinting in the light against the hairs of his leg like some grotesquely faceted bulb of blood.

  "Yes," I said. "Yes, getting my breath back."