The man slid into first gear and laughed again. “Aye. My boys would like you. They’re simple country boys but they think that they’re slick. Ye would make them look like masters of espionage.” There was no cruelty in his laughter. He had an easy way about himself. Calum seemed like the type of person that enjoyed talking to his neighbours. But also like the type of person who didn’t get to talk to his neighbours very often, and so when he did, he could spin talk out of nothing. Clumps of mindless sheep grazed along the verge, they started to thicken and block the road ahead. Calum slowed the Defender again, he pumped the horn to scatter them. “We’re a long way from the toon, David. But if you won’t tell me your stories then that’s all right. I won’t pry.” He raised his hands in defeat.
After that they drove on in silence for fourteen minutes; Mungo sucked on his pastilles and kept his eyes on the clock. The vents had brought the warmth back to his skin but it couldn’t quite penetrate to his bones. He considered telling Calum about the loch side, about his mother and the bargain she had made with the men. He wondered if he told him about it, would he feel lighter, would the pain draw out of his gut like a clog from a drain. As he sat worrying about the dead Glaswegians, he became aware of the man glancing at his face. It jolted him from his thoughts when Calum said, “The roads are a terrible state. Are ye carsick? An awful white face ye’ve got there, David.”
Mungo put his hand over his tic. “Do I? No, I’m fine. I’m sorry.”
Calum leaned in and said, “Don’t tell anybody, but Alexis there likes to eat the spew whenever any one of my boys gets carsick.” He reached back and tickled the brown dog under her chin.
“That’s horrible.”
Calum agreed with a chuckle as he turned them back on to a two-lane road. The hills stretched in every direction, Mungo could not see a single tree. “Did I tell ye about our youngest boy, our Gregor?”
Mungo had been so numbed by his own thoughts that he wasn’t sure if the man had told him about Gregor or not. “Sorry. I don’t think so.”
“Am I boring you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, yon Gregor’s the one who always gets carsick. He’s an awful traveller yet he’s my son that’s destined to see the world. What a cruel irony, eh?”
Mungo didn’t know what irony meant. “How do you know he’ll see the world?”
“A father can tell. Gregor’s a good lad. A bright, fresh-air mind. Always helps his mother around the house without being asked, but he’s a wee bit …” The man paused as though he couldn’t find the correct word. “Artistic. T’chut. Do ye know what I mean by that?”
Mungo gave a small nod. He wasn’t sure if what the man meant, and what he understood, were the same thing.
“Forgive me if I’ve read you wrong, David. But would I be right in thinking ye are a wee bit artistic yourself?” Calum didn’t wait for an answer. “See, I know lots of men would be bothered by that. But I have no problem with ye if you are. I’m just saying … Och, well, I dunno. I say the wrong thing sometimes.” The sunlight was strobing through the clouds and on to the windscreen. Mungo took the opportunity to look at the man. He had a kindly face, it was handsome underneath the weathering, it had been strong before the sagging. His eyes were a clear, bother-free blue and his hair was a neat crown of curls, white and tight as lambs’ fleece. “Our Gregor never shuts up, he’s like his mother in that respect, but I don’t mind. Sometimes I have to sit back and marvel at the nonsense that flies out of his mouth. What an imagination this boy has. I honestly don’t know where he gets it from.”
Mungo rolled another sweetie around in his mouth. He had thought it was strawberry, but now he wondered if it was blackcurrant.
“If he can get his hands on a length of old curtain and a couple of table lamps, then you are getting a three-act play and an extra matinee for free. He just stands in front of the fireplace and makes it up. Songs, jokes, big heart-breaking dramas – utter nonsense, you understand, but thoroughly entertaining.” Calum laughed again but Mungo could tell that he was forcing it. He turned to Mungo to see if he was laughing along with him. He was not.
Mungo didn’t know why the man was telling him about his son. Why tell him about this one particular son out of the four sons he said he had? The pastille was sticking to his splintered molar.
“Gregor’s almost fourteen. I’d like him to find some work around here, but the wife says he’s going to leave us one day. She says he has to go off in search of people that like the same things as him.” Calum gestured at the empty hillside. “I suppose there’s no life for him here.”
Mungo turned his face as though he was considering the empty hillside, but he was looking in the wing mirror, staring at his own reflection and wondering again what it was that people could identify in him.
The man was running along with his own thoughts now. Not really asking for Mungo’s conversation but speaking aloud whatever crossed his mind. “Do you think he could be happy? In the city?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have many arty friends?”
Mungo thought of James. He shook his head. “I don’t have any.”
Calum worked his jaw left and right. “Well. I just want him to know that I’m proud of him. No matter what. Ye know?”
“I think so.”
“Your own father must be proud of you,” Calum said. “But I hope you don’t get in bother for that lost tent.”
Mungo turned his face away again. The wing mirror was cracked and affixed to the body with electrical tape.
“Ye’re a guid lad, David. I’ve chewed your ear enough.” The man patted Mungo’s knee. It was a heavy hand, possessive, and accustomed to being in control. Mungo flinched at the touch but the man’s hand didn’t linger. It didn’t ask for more. Mungo watched it return to the steering wheel. “Ye get a wee sleep if ye want to. I’ll wake ye when we get to town.”
Mungo could smell the freshness of him now; the aftershave that smelled like every single nice thing the boy had ever inhaled, but crushed together all at once. Mungo laid his head against the headrest, and half-closed his eyes. Through the canopy of his lashes he considered the man’s fingernails again, pink and broad and healthy. There was a peek of pale unblemished skin where his shirt met his wrist. These were not hands that worked the land in all weather. They spoke of days sat reading books in the sun. If you could tell things about a person from only a hand, then Mungo would have to admit he was a little jealous. This man was worth more than a hundred-hundred of him. Life looked good and easy. Mungo could imagine that his sons loved him. And that he loved them in return.
TWENTY-EIGHT