The Crow Road

"Maybe not," Prentice said. He looked back at Ke

"I did say I wasn't certain."

"Yeah? What about Darren?"

Ke

"I can't believe he's just… gone, like that, Ken. I can't believe there isn't something left, some sort of continuity. What was the point of it all, otherwise?"

Ke

"Why not? How can he be such a great guy, and clever and just… just a good friend, and some fuckwit forgetting to look both ways cancels out all that… probably not even a fuckwit; probably some ordinary guy thinking about something else… How…

Prentice shoved his hands under his oxters, rocked forward, head down. "God, I hate getting inarticulate."

"Prentice, I'm sorry. Maybe it sounds brutal, but that's just the way it is. Consciousness… goodness, whatever; they haven't got any momentum. They can stop in an instant, just snuffed out. It happens all the time; it's happening right now, all over the world; and Darren was hardly an extreme example of life's injustice, death's injustice."

"I know!" Prentice put his hands up to the jacket hood, over his ears. "I know all that! I know it's happening all the time; I know the death squads are torturing children and the Israelis are behaving like Nazis and Pol Pot's preparing his come-back tour; you keep telling us; you always told us! And people just scream and die; get tortured to death because they're poor or they help the poor or they wrote a pamphlet or they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time; and nobody comes to rescue them, and the torturers never get punished; they retire, they even survive revolutions sometimes because they have such fucking useful skills, and no super-hero comes to save the people being tortured, no Rambo bursts in; no retribution; no justice; nothing… and that's just it! There has to be something more than that!"

"Why?" Ke

"I didn't say —»

"What about your Aunt Kay?" Ke

"That's all you can do, isn't it?" Prentice shouted back. "Shout people down; skim a few useful anecdotes and bite-sized facts and always find something different to what they've said!"

"Oh I'm sorry! I thought it was called argument."

"No, it's called being over-bearing!"

"Okay!" Ke

"Dad," Prentice said loudly, looking up at the grey clouds. "I just don't want to talk about it, okay?"

"I'm just trying —»

"Well, stop!" Prentice whirled round, and Ke

Ke

Ke

He took up the oars. "Let's head back in, all right?"

Prentice didn't say anything.

"Fergus, darling! You're soaked! Oh; you've brought some little friends with you, have you?"

"Yes, mother."

"Good afternoon, Mrs Urvill."

"Oh, it's young Ke

Fergus closed the door. "This is Lachlan Watt. His dad works in our factory."

"Oh, really? Yes. Well… You've all been out playing, have you?"

Mrs Urvill took their coats, handling Lachy's tattered and greasy-looking jacket with some distaste. She hung the dripping garments up on hooks. The rear porch of the Urvill's rambling house, at the foot of Barsloisnoch hill, beyond the north-west limits of Gallanach, smelled somehow cosy and damp at the same time.

"Now, I dare say you young men could do with some tea, am I right?"

Mrs Urvill was a tall, aristocratic-looking lady Ke

She made them tea, accompanied by some slices of bread and bramble jelly. This was served at a small table in Fergus's room, on the first floor.

Fergus had one slice of bread, and Ke

"What?" said Ke

"What rot," Fergus said, sipping his tea.

"Aye it is," Lachy said, pointing one grubby finger at Fergus.

"Green bread?" Ke

"Aye, an" ah'll tell ye why, tae, but ye've goat tae promise no tae tell anybudy."

"Okay," Ke

"Hmm, I suppose so," Fergus agreed unenthusiastically.

Lachy glanced from side to side. "It's the petrol," he said, voice low.

"The petrol?" Ke

"Load of absolute rot, if you ask me," Fergus sneered.

"Na; it's true," Lachlan said. "See the Navy boys, oot oan the flyin boat base?"

"Aye," said Ke

"They pit this green dye in thur petrol, an if yer foun wi that in the tank uv yer motor car, ye get the jile. But if ye pit the petrol through breed, the dye comes oot, an ye can use the petrol an naebudy kens a thing. It's true." He sat back. "An that's why we huv green breed in oor hoose, sometimes."

"Woof," Ke

"That's illegal," Fergus said. "My mother knows the C.O. at the base; if I told her she'd tell him and you'd probably all be arrested and you would get the jail."