James pedalled into the city, heading downhill, back towards the East End. The Rattray flew through the smirr, it sliced and turned, thin and fast as any whippet. Mungo held his body away from James like before, but now, when he held on to his waist, he used his whole hand and gripped the sharp bone at the top of his hips. He allowed his thumbs to slowly creep up under James’s Fair Isle jumper and brush against the warm skin. It was a nothing that felt like an everything.
When the traffic thickened the boys took to the pavement, riding against the evening rush, bumping up and down each wet kerb. The rain clung to everything it touched. It dripped from the end of Mungo’s nose and coated his eyelashes, which made the glare from the headlights explode like a concussion.
“I thought you had a bird?” asked Mungo, over the growl of a corporation bus.
“A doo?”
“No-o. A robin big breast, a pair of blue tits. A lassie.”
“Who? The girls from the fountain?” James stopped pedalling and rested on the razor saddle, sliding himself between Mungo’s legs. They coasted slowly downhill together, closer than they had been all day. “No, I don’t have a bird,” James said. “But I was trying my hardest to get one. After my da found the phone bill he called us every name under the sun. He threw me out and I went to sleep in the doocot, propped up a’cos of all the glass on the floor. It was about half past eleven when he came to the doocot. He tried to kick it down with me inside. He would have wrung the neck of every doo, and mine as well if I had let him. I had to climb out of the top trap and dreepie down the back edge. He dragged me through the streets and called us names I’d never heard afore. He was roaring so loud that there were wummin hanging out of windows from Culloden to Ballindalloch.”
Mungo rested his chin on James’s shoulder.
“In the morning, he said I could only live under his roof if I got a girlfriend. He said I could ‘even get her pregnant’ if I wanted. He didnae care either way. But I needed to get a bird, or I would have to leave his house.” Headlights streaked across them. “I promised to try. After all, I’d still not done anything I couldn’t undo, not really. So, I’d go to the park with a fresh packet of fags and try to find someone to winch. I knew a couple of lassies from my class who didnae have fathers. To them I was just a walking ice cream van. They use me, I use them.”
Mungo’s face was stinging with the threat of a gift taken back so suddenly. He opened his legs slightly and released James. The damp air filled the space where the other boy had been.
They rolled past the prison and, without a word, James shifted on the narrow seat. He filled the space between them and this time he pushed his spine into Mungo’s cavity. Each bony vertebra was a knuckle that pressed into the places that hurt the worst. Mungo exhaled into the sandy hair. His arms disobeyed him as they wrapped around James’s waist. He laid his face against the Shetland wool and inhaled the grease of the lanolin and the musk from his armpits. James leaned back into him as hard as Mungo was pressing forward. A diesel lorry chugged by, its air brakes hissing in the rain.
Then James said, “We don’t … We don’t have to do anything like that again. I mean, if ye don’t want to?”
SEVENTEEN
There was a bend in the river where a tilting birch tree grew too close to the bank. The soil was worn away and the dissolving riverbank was held in place by a mesh of exposed roots. Mungo floated the body behind him and tucked the old man under the canopy of roots. St Christopher would be safe in this dark hollow, where the eroding earth and the tree formed a hidden pocket.
His rod and fishing bag hadn’t floated far, but Mungo searched and could not find the man’s tweed bunnet. His teeth were chattering as he pulled himself up on to the riverbank. The rain fell heavy as hailstones.
His whole body was shaking by the time he made it back to the campsite. The belongings Gallowgate had dumped on the ground were scattered and ruined; Ludo pieces had blown across the shingles and his favourite sketchbook was a sodden, bleeding mass. The flaps were open on the tents and the mouth of the larger tent was submerged in a puddle. The sleeping bag, the fishing supplies, everything was wet. Mungo crawled inside and tried to sweep the puddle out but it was futile. He shrank against the back wall and felt all the adrenaline leave his body.
* * *
The sky was dimly lit with a dull blue gloam. The clouds hung low and Gallowgate struggled to find his way back. If it hadn’t been for the outline of the ruined bothy, he might have missed the campsite entirely. The rain had hammered the tents and several guy lines had come loose. They were half-deflated and looked defeated. No one had lit a fire.
It was too quiet at the campsite. Gallowgate went to the two-man tent expecting to find St Christopher sulking and sober. He had to reach into the darkness until he felt something that wasn’t wet polyester or a puddle of rainwater. His fingers brushed skin. There was a leg, it was cold to the touch. He sparked his lighter and the boy sat up.
“Where’s auld Chrissy?”
“He’s in the other tent,” said Mungo, though it hurt to speak. “He went to bed in a huff.”
Gallowgate made a movement to retreat and check on his friend. But Mungo took hold of his wrist and tried not to let his panic show. “Leave him. If he’s sleeping then he won’t want any drink,” he said. “Besides, I’d rather share a tent with you.”
Gallowgate smiled, the white of his teeth looking almost ultraviolet in the last of the blue light. The man shed his anorak in the rain, then he lay on his back and inched out of the sodden denims. Gallowgate swept more of the water out of the tent. He pulled the zipper closed and they sat in the darkness together. There was a spark of the lighter and a tiny tea light candle illuminated the space between them. He had bought it at the shop and it was like the ones the Chinese takeaway put in the window at Christmas; a happy, festive thing. Mungo picked at his wounded cheek, wondering if he could use the candle to set the tent on fire.