Mungo sat up and peered over the top of the counter. He was there, shifting nervously, at the very edge of the light. James Jamieson was scrubbed pink from a hot bath, his hair slick and neatly parted. Mungo grinned at the effort, he would noise him up about it afterwards. “Mo-Maw, this is my pal. This is Jamesy.”
“Wait. Ye’ve made yersel a wee pal?” He watched her calf muscles tense as she leaned into the darkness to shake his hand. “Pleased to meet you, son. Ah’m Maureen, ah’m Mungo’s big sister.”
Mungo opened the caravan door and jumped down into the dirt. He could tell Mo-Maw was appraising James favourably. However, when James turned his back to say hello to Mungo, Mo-Maw pushed behind her own ears and mouthed silently, Shame about those.
“How did youse two start playing the gether?” she asked.
“Jesus. Come on, we don’t play.”
“Ah don’t know the slang, do ah? So when did youse two start going to the bingo the gether? Bridge? Canasta?” She pulled a smart-arse smile. “Is that better?”
Mungo’s eye started to pulse. “James has a doocot. He raises pigeons.”
Mo-Maw mugged as though she might be sick. “Ah don’t know how ye could, beady-eyed wee buggers. Ah swear they just need to see me and then they try an shite on me.” She was peering at the tawny boy as she leaned out of the serving hatch. Mungo wished she would button her blouse. James let himself be pored over. Mo-Maw cocked her head in recognition and fell back into the snack bar. “Here now, are you Jimmy Jamieson’s boy?” Before James could answer, Mo-Maw slapped the counter. “Ye bloody are. I can tell. Ye’re a big handsome wan just like yer da.”
James didn’t answer, but he looked uncomfortable. Mo-Maw took a polystyrene cup and poured James some of her wine. “Here, ah winched him once. Years ago. Your granny had a conniption when she heard I was a Protestant. But ah’ve always believed in bringing the religions the gether.”
James reached up and cradled the cup with both hands, as though it were a communion chalice. “Thanks for doing your part, Mrs Hamilton.”
Mo-Maw had warmed to the young man instantly. She raised her cup in salute. “But here, Mungo, think how different it would be if Mr Jamieson was your da.” She snorted, and waved her hand. “No, wait, what am I saying? James, think how much fun it would be if ah was yer mammy. Eh?”
“I’d like that,” he lied. The front of his teeth were already staining with wine. “I like your perm.”
“See!” Mo-Maw had a weakness for compliments, she never seemed to care if they were sincere or not. She pointed accusatorily at Mungo. “He’s only been my son for five seconds and already a nice word. Now that’s how ye talk to a wummin.”
NINETEEN
The second time they lay together the greediness of the first fever had broken. Now there was no hurry, no selfishness. Afterwards, they lay in the glare of the three-bar fire and turned only when the heat became too much. The electric fire was crowned with a layer of fake plastic coals in imitation of a real fireplace. There was a tinny fan underneath the coals that whirled and sent an artificial firelight dancing across the ceiling. Mungo lay back on the blue rug and watched the flames flicker. James told him how his mother had come to hate this fire. She had loved it when they were children, but as her end came nearer, she said the flames made her think of hell.
Mungo held him tight. James walked his fingers across Mungo’s belly. He allowed himself a daydream as he traced his imaginary walker across the pale stomach, into the gullies of his hips and across the rise in his breastbone. Mungo’s skin was a snowy plain, a landscape of unblemished emptiness. James teased the line of fine hair that ran down the centre of his stomach. He blew on it and said it reminded him of the grass verges between two fields.
“Imagine living somewhere quiet like this. What it would be like to see as far as you could, nothing but fields and not a soul for miles and miles.”
His talk of leaving had begun to irritate Mungo. He wanted James to be here, in the now, not staring into the far distance, worried about his father’s return. Mungo ran his hand over his body, he pushed his luck. “Why would you leave? You already own all this.”
“Is it mine?”
Mungo nodded.
James used the edge of his hand. He ran it across Mungo’s sticky belly like he was slicing him up. “In that case, how much do you think I would get for it if I subdivided it and parcelled it off for a Barratt estate?”
“Nothing. Nobody else wants it.”
James tweaked at the faint line of pubic hair that ran from Mungo’s cock to his navel. “I dunno. How many head of cattle do you think I could feed on this?” He lowered his muzzle to Mungo’s belly and grazed lightly.
Mungo relaxed under the light kisses. “If you left, where would you go anyhows? Edinburgh?”
James collapsed across him. “Nah. I went wi’ the school once. Four poun’ for a cheese sandwich. Too fuckin’ stuck-up. Can ye imagine what they would say about how we talk?”
“London?”
“No way. Really expensive. ‘Asides, ye get mad riots down there, don’t ye? In Brixton and that. It looks rougher than the Calton.” He started singing “Guns of Brixton” to himself, a fair distance from the actual melody. “Yeese kin crush us, yeese kin bruise us, but yeese’ll huv tae answer to, ohahwoaoh, the Orange drums of Cahhl-ton.”
The Clash reminded Mungo of Hamish; he had once stomped a boy to unconsciousness while singing “Police and Thieves.” Mungo slid his hand over James’s mouth to silence him. Then he pushed two fingers between his lips just to see what it felt like. He probed the soft fat of his cheek, the scarred ridges of his back molars. He was quiet a long while, recording all these private textures.
James spat out the fingers. “Ardnamurchan.”