The men were scratching through empty bags and rattling the crushed beer cans looking for a mouthful to kill their shakes. For the first time Mungo could study Gallowgate in the crisp daylight. He wasn’t much older than Hamish. His flashy denims hung off his frame; his only remaining fat sat in paunchy bags beneath his eye sockets. He was hunched over, inspecting the last of their supplies, and laying them out on the rocks. There was a fair share of drink left: a noose of cans, a bottle of whisky, and a quarter of something clear. For food there were two chocolate bars; the kind with the painted frog on the side, the too-milky ones you gave teething toddlers. Mungo wondered if that had been his share. If that is what they’d brought to make this boy they didn’t know fond of them.
Soothed by the fresh beer in his gut, St Christopher came down to the water. His shakes were softer now. He had brought some sprats from the city, a handful of half-rotted fish that he had wrapped in toilet paper for transport and carried in his breast pocket. It helped explain the unpleasant smell that emanated from him. Mungo tried not to inhale as the man showed him how to sink the hook into the fish’s gullet. St Christopher cast out into the peaceful loch and put the remaining fish back into his suit pocket.
“Absolutely nuthin’ better, is there? Just us boys and some good fishing, eh?” At least he was in better fettle than the sullen Gallowgate. “Cannae believe ye’ve never been at the fishin’ afore. Shame that. Nobody tells wee boys how to fend for themselves anymair. Ah met a fella the other week who didn’t even know how to fix a puncture on his bike. He just took the thing, flung it in the canal.”
“Why?”
St Christopher shook his waddle. “Ah dunno. But ah waited till he was gone, waded in, and got twenty-five poun’ for it at the pawnshop.”
“I can fix a bike. I’m not great at school, but I can fix things. And I know about pigeons.”
“Don’t worry about school. Any man that can use his hands will never want for work. Glasgow is the home of the working man.”
Mungo thought about what Hamish had told him about the shipbuilders; the hundreds of men being put out of work every month. St Christopher was lost in another time. Mungo skimmed a stone across the water’s surface. “What is this loch called, anyway?” He tried to sound casual, but he still didn’t know where he was.
“Ah’m no tellin’ ye,” said St Christopher. “If I tell ye, all the schemie wee bams wid be up here, ruining paradise with their souped-up Escorts and BMX bikes. Aye, yer maw telt us aboot yer brother.” He chewed on a thought for a moment. “How come yer brother couldnae teach ye how tae fish?”
“It’s too quiet for him.”
“And ye’ve no got a faither who could teach ye?”
“He’s dead.”
“Ach, ah’m sorry. A young gent like you. Ye must miss him.”
Mungo couldn’t say just how much he missed him. It was too big a feeling to put into words. “I was only wee.”
St Christopher gave a pitying sigh. “Funny. Yer mother had the look of a divorcée to me. Angry wee wummin. She looks like she’s been cheated out of something.”
Mungo didn’t know what to say to that. He was glad when St Christopher kept talking to fill in the silence. “Ah think ma own mammy was overjoyed when ma faither died. He wisnae a bad soul, he jist liked the ponies too much. At first ah thought ma mammy wid marry again. She was young enough, never much of a looker though.” He turned to the boy. “Is that an awfy bad thing to admit about yer mammy?”
Mungo shrugged.
“No? Well it’s true. She wisnae anybody’s idea of a thrill, but she was companionable enough. A very well-read wummin.” St Christopher turned back to the loch, he reeled the slack from his line. “Did your mammy ever marry again?”
Mungo shook his head. “She’s been trying. How about yours?”
“Och, naw. This was years ago now. Right after ma faither died aul’ Jeanette sold the family hoose and bought a one-bedroom flat in Govan. She gave us all a wee bit of cash, said she wanted to see us enjoy it aw while she could. In other words, ‘here take this and get the fuck away frae me.’” He laughed. “She never remarried, ah don’t think she let a fella inside her ever again. But in the end she got what she always wanted.”
“And what was that?”
St Christopher chuckled like it was obvious. “Peace from men.”
Mungo skimmed the last of his stones out over the loch.
St Christopher drew his fishing line from the water. The sprat was gone; all that was left was a milky sac of tiny organs, faint lines of the red liver and heart that marbled the cloudy mucus. The hook must have been painfully deep to rip the insides from the twice-destroyed fish. “Basturt! He’s away wi’ ma lure. You were meant to be watchin’ that. Ah bet it was a fuckin’ pike. How did I no feel it pullin’ on the line?” He posed the question more to the loch gods than to Mungo.
Mungo wondered if there was much the man could feel anymore. The blunted and cauterized veins on his face, across his hands, and down his forearms all looked like they were pushing to the surface in hopes of feeling something, anything. Even his jaundiced eyeballs were encroached with tiny blood vessels that put Mungo in mind of Garibaldi’s vanilla ice cream; creamy yellow boules shot through with raspberry-red sauce.
St Christopher scraped the fishy organs off the hook and flung them into the water. He spat over his shoulder to Mungo, “It’s aw yer fault. Gettin’ me gassin’ on about ma mammy lit that. Away wi’ ye. Ye’re bad luck.” Then he added, mostly to himself, “I’m better at it than this.”
Mungo didn’t reply. It was hard to know if St Christopher was a ruin of a man, or if there had never been much to ruin in the first place. Teaching the boy the ancient skill of fishing had been the only contribution he had made to the trip so far. This water was hoaching with fish, all of Scotland was. But now the ripped-out guts of a supermarket sprat confirmed him to be a failure even at this.