Mungo had been clenching his fists. They were bloodless, white, and as he unfurled them they tingled with relief. He counted. One Saturday sleep. One Sunday sleep. Then home.
In the hush of the morning, while the shingles were still slick with mist, Gallowgate led Mungo down to the loch. He taught the boy how to prepare his line, threading the fish gut with weights and a buffer bead. He showed Mungo how to secure the barbed hook with a blunt knot and how to cast out into the darkest pools of water. For bait he produced some fetid lamprey chunks which had been sealed in a freezer bag. Gallowgate kept gulping to swallow the threat of his own bile.
Mungo took off his trainers and waded thigh-deep into the frigid loch. The cold made a castrato out of him; it made him want to sing. Except for the gentle lapping and the occasional swarm of midges, the loch was tranquil. Under the clear sky, the surface was shiny as a looking glass. Mungo wriggled his toes and could see them clearly beneath the water. Before him lay more emptiness than he had ever known.
The far side of the loch was walled in by the carpeted hillsides. Beyond these were jagged Munros, the denuded mountains stretching as far as Mungo could see. The sun illuminated the eastern face of the crags and left the other faces in deep shadow. These shadows held pockets of speckled snow that looked like flaking paint, like old coats of white emulsion that were peeling away from the moss-covered hills, as if it were the handiwork of a careless God. Each mountain appeared as though it had been chipped away from a larger piece of flint. Some of the ridges were so sharp they reminded Mungo of Hamish’s homemade tomahawk.
A sharp wind blew across the loch and snapped the fabric of his cagoule in its hurry. The air was clearer than he had ever tasted, and when Gallowgate wasn’t watching, he tilted his head back and put his tongue out into the breeze. It tasted green like spring grass, but there was a prehistoric brownness to it, as though it had searched an entire age through damp peaty glens and ancient forests, looking for its way to wherever it was going.
If he had known the words to describe it, he would have said he could smell the tang of the pine forests, the bright snap of bog myrtle, vetch, and gorse, and then underneath it all, the damp musk of dark fertile soil, the cleansing rain that never ceased. But to Mungo, it was green and it was brown and it was damp and it was clean. He had no words for it. It just smelled like magic.
Gallowgate was not moved by this magical wind. He spoiled it by hauching great gobs of phlegm into the water. They floated by Mungo like swirling nebulae. All morning the man had said very little, like he could not speak over the din of his hangover. He held his rod between his knees and lit his fifth cigarette. Mungo slid further out into the freezing loch. He wanted to keep the unsullied wonders for himself.
St Christopher was not moved by the majesty either. He spent the bright morning lying in the one-man tent, nursing his shakes. As the morning wore on, more drink left Gallowgate’s blood and put him in a worsening state. The two men hadn’t spoken since the previous night and by the way Gallowgate kept glancing at St Christopher’s tent the boy could tell that he was in a foul mood and looking for a place to pollute with it.
Gallowgate lurched off into the long grass to take his morning shite. He took a meandering route past St Christopher’s tent and kicked the guy ropes. The tent sank on to the sleeping man like a shroud. Mungo watched the thin nylon heave up and down, keeping time with the man’s snoring.
The slow sun had shifted from the eastern side of the crags by the time St Christopher finally rose from the dead. In his wool suiting, he bent over at the loch’s edge and lapped at the icy water like a beast. Sitting back on his haunches he blinked to himself for a long while. Gallowgate ignored him and busied himself with the campfire. He dropped two tins of beans into the flames and the three of them sat together and ate a measly breakfast. They had been an age trying to open the stubborn, scalding tins without a can opener, and when Gallowgate finally burst them on the edge of a rock, some of the beans had sprayed across the shingles. St Christopher used his yellow fingers to save the beans and scoop them into his mouth. Every so often he would eat a small stone by accident, and the grinding of the broken teeth would stop, and he would cough and spit the tiny pebble across the campsite.
Mungo sat apart as some thick clouds rolled in. The clouds had been locked out by the tall Munros, but now that they found their opening, they rushed into the peaceful glen. They gathered and thickened and pressed downwards, like smoke filling a room.
It was a strange thing to see; the wonder of the changing light and how it gave colour to the land. The morning sunshine had burned the hills with brackens and lichens and coppers. Now, the fleecy clouds fell like heavy curtains, and they dampened it all to a lifeless grey and brown. It was as if the earth had no hues of its own.
As all the greens faded to grey he thought of James, and the way the light left his eyes without warning. He wanted to see those greens and golds. Then he pushed the thought away – he would never see them again.