Mungo lay flat upon the earth. After the men had used him, he neither slept nor moved. He thought if he played dead, he could invite death to take him away. Several times he tried denying his own breath, not with a puffed-out chest, hoarding oxygen, in the way Jodie had taught him for swimming, but on the edge of his exhale he simply stopped breathing and refused to take more air inside of him. It never worked. His body was a treacherous thing.
The sun rose early. The rain had ceased but it left the air thick and moist to the touch. As the sun came overhead it illuminated the red tent and everything was bathed in a furious cherry glow. Gallowgate had not bothered to close the zipper when he left, but he had wiped Mungo almost tenderly and raised the football shorts back around his waist. Although the tent flaps blew loose, the air was stifling and hard to breathe. It stunk like sweated whisky, like blood and watery shit. Fat horseflies were landing on the nylon siding and fucking each other, inches from his face.
Mungo could tell he had a black eye; the slightest touch from his fingers made him recoil in pain. He hesitated before he searched the length of himself. There was a gash on his chin where the zipper on the sleeping bag had caught him and then the waterproof matting had rubbed it open. His ribs were tender and the hair at the top of his head sang where Gallowgate had gripped it and pinned him down. His legs felt wet and sticky with his own blood, and his own shit, and other things that were not his own. But the worst of the pain was deep inside him. Somewhere above his stomach and below his heart. He tried to search it with his fingers, but he couldn’t get at it, and it grew.
There were no voices outside the red tent. All he could hear was the gentle lapping of the water and the lazy buzz of clegg flies. He needed to go to the lochside, to lower himself into the numbing water and wash it all away. He wanted to sink beneath the surface and never come up again.
Mungo rolled over. There was another sensation, a new feeling; like he needed to sit on a toilet and evacuate himself entirely. Mungo removed his sock. He used it to wipe the worst of the mess from his bare legs. Then he crawled out of the tent.
The men were sitting at the dead campfire in silence. The bars of toddler’s chocolate sat on a rock, like a rabbit trap.
“Oh. What time do you call this?” St Christopher was looking Mungo straight in the eye, a face free from remorse. Mungo didn’t want to, but he dropped his gaze to the ground. He wanted to look at the man in the face, make him drop his eyes, but found he couldn’t. “Ah thought mibbe ye were gonnae sleep the whole day away. What a waste. We’ve got trout to catch.”
Gallowgate had his back to the boy. He didn’t say a word. St Christopher came closer, he squinted at the boy and considered his bruises. “Dear God, that’s a fuckin’ shiner ye’ve got there. Did we get that loaded?” There was an odd tone of pride in his voice. He seemed to be innocently enjoying the thought that they had become rowdy, and Mungo wondered what, if anything, the auld lush remembered. “Fuck me. Ah must’ve tain a bad blackout. When ah’ve got a drink in me, ah could start a fight in an empty coffin.”
Mungo backed away without turning his back on them. He was inching towards the tree line, back to the cool quiet place where he had felt unfettered and free the day before.
“Where are ye going?” asked St Christopher. “Ye’ve no touched yer pot noodle.”
“I just need to—” Mungo gulped painfully – “to use the toilet.” The sound that escaped his lips was hoarse, it lacked power. He touched his swollen throat.
Gallowgate was gutting a small perch. He turned slightly and watched Mungo recede into the canopy of trees. He spoke to the boy over the blade of his shoulder. “Dinnae go far, Mungo. Bad things happen to wee boys in dark forests.”
Mungo went deep into the forest. He ran and ran till he came to his rushing river. He crouched in some tall ferns and let his body empty itself. It stung as it poured out of him, and he knew he was split. When he was finished, he took off all of his clothes and stepped into the torrent. Fresh violet bruises were rushing to meet the old blue bruises he had brought from Glasgow. Yesterday the frigid water had made him recoil and shriek. Now he plunged his whole body underneath the surface, and he could barely feel the cold for the scalding inside him. He searched the riverbed and found a porous stone. He scrubbed himself with it, dragging it like a pumice all over his skin, till he was pink and chilled and stinging from the roughness. It was no good. He felt filthy. He vomited then, big arching torrents of yellow and puce. He watched it float downstream to the loch.
“It was only a wee game,” said Gallowgate. “It just got a little bit out of hand, that’s all.”
The man was leaning against a beech tree, near to Mungo’s discarded clothes. He was smoking and digging the dirt out from under his thumbnail with the gutting knife. The blade caught one of the few rays that snuck through the canopy and glinted menacingly.
Mungo’s bottom lip started to tremble. He pinched it, pushed his nail into it until it was steadied. “It wasn’t a game to me.”
“Ah, c’mon. You know what boys are like. Everybody does something lit this. It’s all part of growin’ up. It’s easier than getting a lassie in bother.”
Mungo was angry at himself. He couldn’t look the man in the face and found himself talking to the river’s surface. The raspy voice didn’t sound like his own. “Just you wait. Wait till I tell my big brother what you did. He will fuckin’ kill you. He has a tomahawk and he’ll split your stinkin’ skull with it.”
Gallowgate knew nothing about the legend of Ha-Ha. He chuckled as he fussed with his neat fringe. “Be a shame to ruin a guid haircut.”
Mungo launched his pumice stone, but Gallowgate was too quick for him and dodged it. It clattered off a tree trunk and skittered through the ferns. The understorey swallowed all sound. They were alone again. Gallowgate folded his blade and tucked it away. “Look, it’s possible that I went too far. But are ye sure you didnae enjoy it?” He was grinning now, small sharp teeth. “Even jist a wee bit?”