“No.” Mungo sank into himself and slid out of Gallowgate’s grip.
Gallowgate winced as though he had heartburn. “Imagine. God gives ye a beautiful face. Then he does that to fuckin’ spoil it. What a spiteful bastard.”
“Cruel!” sang St Christopher.
“Poor wee Mungo. Ye’re wound so fuckin’ tight.” Gallowgate tilted his face towards the distant moon. Then he let out a sudden, terrible howl. It made Mungo want to run. Gallowgate lowered his smiling face to the boy, his sharp incisors snagged on his bottom lip. “Howl wi’ me.”
Mungo shook his head. Gallowgate stood up and held out a hand to the boy. He pulled him into the night. “Howl. Ye’ll feel better.”
Mungo tilted his head back. He hadn’t noticed, but the sky wasn’t absolutely black after all. There were stars in every corner you could see. Even when he thought he found an empty patch of nothingness his eyes adjusted and the sky filled with frosted stars and then what looked like the cream left by stars. He had never seen the night sky like this before. He had never seen it so cloudless, without the soft orange filter from the lights of the scheme.
He howled once. A timorous sound that hurried away at the end, his chin falling to his chest.
“No like that. Lit this.” Gallowgate inhaled, he swallowed the night. Then he howled like a monster. It ruptured the stillness and made Mungo long for the return of silence. He peered into the dark loch, fearful that something might reply.
Gallowgate gave up. “Awright, if you won’t howl, then jump the fire.” He took a small run and leapt over the embers. “C’mon!”
St Christopher had been enjoying their foolishness but at this he sat up. “Take that nylon jacket off first, son, or ye’ll be wearing it for life.”
Mungo cast off his blue cagoule and could feel the chill coming off the loch. Stepping into the darkness he took a running leap and flew over the flames. He cleared the dying fire easily, relieved that he didn’t embarrass himself. Something like happiness thawed out the cold inside of him. He followed Gallowgate in a looping jumping circle, the two whooping like a pair of maddies. The stars, the fire, the deep loch, it suddenly felt all right and for a moment he forgot all about Glasgow. He forgot why he had been sent away with these men.
They jumped the fire for a time, until Gallowgate started bumping into Mungo, and they were colliding in mid-air, moshing each other the way headbangers liked to do. Mungo stopped his jumping, pretending to have a stitch. Gallowgate sprawled out upon the shingle. He opened a can of Tennent’s and nudged it towards the boy. “I’ll boil ye some water in the mornin’ but drink this for the now. It’ll help ye sleep.”
Mungo realized he hadn’t drunk anything all day, no loch water, no milky tea. He sniffed the can with its familiar yeasty smell. He could feel the men watching him nurse it, but he was wary of the drink. He had seen the awful sadness it contained, just beneath the happy foam. Slowly, he raised the can to his lips, the first sip soothed his parched throat, but the thick oaty taste made the boak in him rise. The men nodded in approval. Mungo found if he took a mouthful of the beer and held it in his mouth before letting it trickle down his throat, then it was less sickening, tasted less like mildew. If he sucked and sloshed it back and forth between the little gaps in his teeth, it lost its bloated heavy feeling and became like stale, sour dishwater.
The men passed the whisky back and forth, as Mungo stripped young branches for the flames. After a time, he turned his cold kidneys to the fire; there was nothing beyond this pool of dim firelight. His eyes were growing heavy when St Christopher spoke again. “So huv ye goat any pubes yet?”
The lager emboldened him. “Is that all you two talk about? Fannies and fitba and pubes?”
“It’s just banter between the boys.” Gallowgate snickered. “How auld are ye again?”
“I told you. Nearly sixteen.”
“So ye’ve got plenty pubes?”
“Mibbe,” Mungo sneered. “None of your business, is it?”
“No shame in becoming a man, ya big hairy beast. Happens to all of us.” Gallowgate held out his hand in the American way for the boy to slap it. “Here, put it there big man.”
Tired now, Mungo reached out for the high five. In a swift move Gallowgate grabbed the boy’s wrist and with a wrench he spun the boy on to his lap and choked his forearm around Mungo’s throat. The violence was sudden, his can of lager went rolling into the darkness. Mungo forgot about the stars and the firelight. Gallowgate took his thick fingers and stuck them in between Mungo’s ribs. He found the old hurt. “If ah ask ye a question don’t be so bloody cheeky.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
The man released him as quickly as he had grabbed him. Mungo scrambled to his feet. He stood apart from the men for a long time, his eyes bloodshot from the smoke. He dared not rub them.
“Don’t spaz out, wee man,” Gallowgate gurned. He mocked Mungo’s mutinous face. “Ah was only having a laugh.”
St Christopher sat slurping his can and grinning like a halfwit.