The Crow Road

Well, the old man had been right and I had been wrong, and I just hoped that he'd known somehow that I would come to my senses eventually.

But if he had gone to his grave — via the McDobbie's — thinking that his middle son was a credulous fool, and likely to stay that way, well, that hurt me; hurt me more than I could say, but there was no fixing that now. It was over.

I turned and left and caught the ferry back to Ullapool from Stornoway that afternoon, drinking cups of styrofoam coffee and eating greasy pies while I stood out on deck watching the beating waves.

We'd seen dolphins following the ship once, coming back this way past the Summer Isles after a holiday, one day many years ago; mum and dad and Lewis and James and me.

But that was then.

I was back in Glasgow six hours later. I slept well.

And so we went back to the Anarkali restaurant on that Sunday night, Ashley Watt and I, and we had a meal that was almost identical to the one we'd had before, on the summer night when dad had died, except we got along just fine this time, and Ashley didn't throw any brandy over me, and I didn't act like a complete asshole, and as I sat there, talking about all the old times and about the future, again I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, because it was so good to see her, but she was going away tomorrow, flying off across that wide grey ocean I'd stood looking at just the day before, flying away to Canada and maybe going to stay there, and I didn't know whether to ask about any men in her life or not — even though I knew from Dean that the guy she'd gone off with at Hogmanay had only been a one-night thing — and I still didn't feel I could tell her how I felt about her because she was going to go away now, and how could I suddenly say I love you when I'd never said it to anybody in my life before? How could I say it now especially, the night before she was due to leave? It would look like I was trying to make her stay, or just get her into bed. It would probably wreck this one precious evening that we did have, and upset her, confuse her, even hurt her, and I didn't want to do any of that. And through it all I knew there must have been a moment when I could have told her, some time in the past, some time over the last few months, when it would have been the right time and the right place, and it would have felt like the most natural thing in the world to say and do, but somehow, in the heat of things, just during the complexity of events — and thanks to my own stupidity, my hesitation, my indecision; my negligence — I'd missed it, and that, too, was gone from me; over.

So I just sat there, across from her, looking into her soft-ski

We walked out into the cool March night. It was fair but it had been wet and the pavements shone. Ashley stood on the steps as I put on the old tweed coat that had been my dad's. She wore a black dress and the old naval jacket with the turned-over cuffs I remembered from Grandma Margot's funeral. She leant against some railings, watching me button my coat up, and with her left foot she clicked her toe and heel as if in accompaniment to some song I couldn't hear.

I looked down at her tapping black shoe as I adjusted my collar.

"Morse code?"

She shook her head, long fawn hair spilling over her dark shoulders.

We went arm in arm down the steps. "What was that film that had a dancer tapping out insults at somebody?" I said.

"Du

"Was it Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid?" I scratched my head. I wasn't wearing gloves and I could feel Ashley's warmth through her jacket. She smelled of Samsara, which was a departure for her, I thought.

"Maybe," she said, and then she laughed.

"What?"

"I was just remembering," she said, squeezing my waist. "Mrs Phimister's class. Remember? The French teacher? We were in the same class."

"Oh yeah," I said. We turned onto Woodlands Road.

"You hated her because she'd confiscated a radio or something, and you used to tap out insults in morse code." Ash laughed loud.

"God, yeah," I said. "That's right."

"'Fuck off you old cow', was the witticism I recall best," Ash said, still snorting with laughter.

"Jeez," I said, pulling away from her a little to look into her eyes. "You mean you could decipher it?"

"Yeah," Ash said, with a sort of friendly scorn. "You rotter!" I laughed. "You absolute cad-ess. You cad-ette; I thought that was my secret. I only told people later, after I'd left school, and then nobody believed me."

"Yeah," Ash said, gri

"I didn't even know you knew morse code," I said. "I learned it in the scouts. Where did you learn it?"

"My grandad taught me," Ash said, nodding. "We used to sit and pass messages at meal times by clinking our cutlery off the plates. Mum and dad and the others always wondered what we found so hilarious about yet another helping of shepherd's pie and chips."

"And you never said!" I shook my head. "You rascal!"

She shrugged, looked down at her black, medium-high heels as she did a little tap-dance. "You didn't like me; what was the point?"

"I didn't like any girls," I told her. "In fact I wasn't that keen on any of the boys either. Come to think of it, I felt mostly contempt even for my friends."

"Yeah," Ash said, leaning over towards me so that her gri

I stopped in my tracks.

Ash gave a little squeal as she staggered, suddenly losing support on one side. She steadied and turned. She faced me, looking puzzled, from a metre or so away. I just stood there open-mouthed.

"You knew that was me?"

"Course I did." She frowned and smiled at the same time.

"Another secret gone!" I exclaimed, waving my arms. "I've felt guilty about that for years!"

Ash tipped her head to one side.

"Well, not all the time," I said. "I mean, on and off."

She raised one eyebrow.

"Okay," I said, slumping a little. "Mostly off. But I did feel bad about it. I really did. I always felt bad about that."

Ashley shook her head gently and came forward, took my arm and led me along the street. "Never mind," she said. "I never told anybody. And I forgave you."

"Really?" I said, putting my arm round her again, "When?"

"At the time. Well, after it stopped hurting, anyway." We turned the corner into Woodlands Gate. I shook my head. "Why didn't you ever say you knew it had been me?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "The subject never really arose before."

I shook my head again. "Good grief," I said. "All this time. Good grief."

Ashley had been ravenous when she'd arrived at the house in Park Terrace a little after seven that Sunday evening, so she'd just dumped her bags and we'd gone straight out to the restaurant. When we got back after the meal, I showed her round the place. We opened a bottle of Graves I had in the kitchen — after first agreeing that of course we shouldn't — and then walked from room to room while I did my guided tour bit and pointed out the more interesting or valuable works of art, while we sipped our wine and the statues gleamed and the chandeliers glittered and the paintings glowed and the carpets spread before us like gigantic blow-ups of oddly symmetrical printed circuits.