“Mo McConnachie’s there,” said Mungo, “and Joe McConnachie as well.” Everyone knew someone on the inside of Barlinnie.
Was this all there was? Was this what was at the end of the road, as far as their legs could carry them? Mungo could feel all enthusiasm ebb from his friend. He switched places with James, forcing the larger boy to slide back on the narrow seat. “Let me pedal for ten minutes more. If we don’t see anywhere nice then I’ll pedal all the way home. Okay?”
“Aye, okay.”
They rode on, but slower now, heavier of heart. They debated whether to cross a bridge over the roaring motorway. Mungo had a distrust of bridges; it was only an overpass that separated the Protestant Billies from the Catholic Bhoyston. On the far side he could see another housing scheme, but beyond that was a low line of trees, and there were no tower blocks, nor gasworks, to spoil the horizon.
They rode to the line of trees and were delighted when they opened on to some grassy slopes. There was a golf course to one side, where plump middle-aged men looked as cheerful as bonbons in their pastel jumpers. Beyond this lay a large pond almost like a small lochan. The pond itself was choked with algae and filmy as a cataract, but pretty swans glided over the green surface. It was peaceful. It was theirs alone.
“See. Telt ye. Happy birthday.”
James cuffed him in the side, “Jammy bugger,” but he was smiling.
Mungo wove the bike along a path, cycling in great lazy circles, and tried to dip low enough that James would fall off. They spent time laughing and dragging each other to the water’s edge and trying to pitch the other man into the swan scum. When the swans grew tired of them and floated away, the boys climbed a low berm and Mungo pushed the old racer through the long grass till dew glistened on all the spokes. From the top of the hill they could see the dense, grey city to the left of them; to the other side were new houses, half-built and generously spaced, made of bright orange brick, for families with cars and good-paying jobs.
James opened the box. The cake was flattened and the letters had bled into the sponge. It didn’t matter. They shovelled sticky handfuls of it into their mouths, lay back on the grass, and let the warm cream choke them. James had a hidden quarter-bottle of Famous Grouse in his anorak pocket. He took a long slug and passed it to Mungo. “Put some hairs on yer baws. Go on. They cannae arrest us for drunk-pedalling an auld racer.”
He only swallowed a dribble. Drink scared him but he didn’t let James see that. The whisky tickled on the way down, but under the low clouds and on the fresh grass he liked how it tasted like woodsmoke and peat. It was like bonfire night, before they put old bike tyres on the flames, before Ha-Ha buried cans of hairspray and watched them whine and explode.
James took out a packet of crumpled cigarettes. “Watch this.” He turned his head from Mungo, and when he turned back, he had four cigarettes in his mouth, each stuck between a different gap in his teeth. He grinned and rolled his eyes.
“Ye’re a bam,” laughed Mungo. “Honestly. I can’t believe what a moody basturt you are. Laughing like an eejit. Two hours ago I thought you’d jump off the roof of that doocot.”
“Well, ye’ve cheered us up.”
James lit a cigarette and offered it to Mungo, but he shook his head. Anyone who had seen Mo-Maw hacking in the morning, ash-fingered and raking through the douts, would never smoke. He could hear Jodie’s voice in his head. Jodie, the hypocrite, who had already done something much, much worse than smoking.
James frowned at him. “What’s wrong with you now?”
Mungo hadn’t realized his face was knotted. “See at your school, do the Catholic teachers try and shag the students?”
“Naw. Don’t be daft. There was a Father Peter that taught fitba that we called Father Paedo but that was it. He stood in the corner and monitored us when we were in the changing rooms. But I just took it as him being a cunt.” James blew smoke rings into the air. The boys watched them float down to the pond. “How? Are the Proddy teachers trying to touch yer ring?”
“No, not mine,” said Mungo. “But I’d let them if it meant I never had to study Maths again.”
“Oh. Shove it in, sir. Just a wee fraction more!” James laughed. They watched pensioners take slow laps around the pond. “I don’t mind Maths. It’s the languages that I can’t stick. Priests fuckin’ love their Latin.”
“Do you have to go to chapel all the time?”
“No, but we pray most mornings at school.”
Mungo thought about it for a while. They had weekly assembly in the Protestant school, and they were expected to recite the Lord’s Prayer at lunchtime. So, what was it about Catholics that made them so different? What was it he was supposed to hate in them? “How do ye remember all the dance moves?”
“The rituals? Och, they teach ye all the moves when yer a wean. Ye just know after that. Catholics aren’t all that big on freestyle, ye know.” James made the sign of the cross. “At least it’s just school. At home we don’t go to chapel on a Sunday anymore. Not since my mammy died. Ma da doesnae like to get all dressed up to sit in the pew. He says it’s like good china without a working teapot.”
“What a poet. He’s the next Rabbie Burns.” James’s eyes were bright under his flaxen hair. He seemed less like the sullen boy from the doocot. Mungo was sure James was happy again, and that he could take a teasing. Mungo put his hand on his hip, he did a fey half-dip and said, “Besides, you’re the teapot. You big bender.”