Iain Banks - The Crow Road

The children started after them. The two men came up to Ashley; Rory ruffled her hair. She frowned. Kenneth lifted her up with a grunt, held her dangle-legged in front of him. "Sorry if I upset you, Ashley," he told her.

"Huh, okay, Mr McHoan," she said. "Ah'm sorry ah swore."

"Okay," he set her down.

She looked down the hillside to the forestry track that led back to Lochgair, glanced up at him, then back at the other children, and said loudly, "Ah bet ah can be back at the hoose first, though but." She turned and ran.

The rest raced after her, whooping and hollering past Kenneth and Rory.

Kenneth shook his head. "Preprandial stampede; traditional," he told his brother. He made a show of squeezing Rory's boney shoulder. "Woa; feels like you could do with a bit of feeding up yourself."

"Yeah," Rory said, looking down at the heather. "Well, my stories might be a bit thin, too; maybe I should tell them to you first. Let you re-tell the kids." He gave a small laugh. "You're the professional fictioneer in the family. I'm just a glorified hack."

"Hey, is that false modesty or even a note of jealousy there, young Rore?" Kenneth laughed, squeezing his brother's shoulder again. "Come on, man; I stayed here and had weans and taught weans and you were off getting famous; consorting with tigers and wandering through the Taj Mahal and then wowing us all; fucking celebrity; toast of the town and plenty of bread; literary festivals, awards —»

"Travel writing awards," Rory sighed.

"Nothing wrong with that. Jeez; last time I saw you, you were on TV. What was that line? 'Better lionised than mauled.?" Ken laughed as they walked down the hill.

Rory made an exasperated noise, shook his head. "Ken, don't you remember anything?"

Ken looked nonplussed. "What? Did I get it wrong?"

"No, but that was your line. You said that. Years ago. One night. We were drunk; I don't know… but you said it, not me."

"Did I?"

"Yes."

Ken frowned. "You sure?"

"Positive," Rory snapped.

"Good grief. I'm wittier than I thought." Ken shrugged. "Well; you're welcome to it. But anyway; let your poor old brother have his turn. Don't begrudge me for being able to distract the odd pre-adolescent from the TV for the odd half-hour."

Rory shook his head. "I don't, Ken," he said, and sighed again. "I'm not jealous." He looked at his brother; bearded, hair still dark, face cheerfully lined but still young-looking. "Just those end-of-ramble blues." Rory shrugged, the thin shoulders moving under Kenneth's arm. "But it's good to be back."

Ken smiled. They saw Prentice walking back up through the grass and fern towards them, panting. The others were kicking up a cloud of dust on the forestry track; a small and highly noisy storm heading Lochgair-ward.

"What is it, Prentice?" Kenneth called.

"Dad!" the boy gasped from some distance off.

"What?"

"What was the sound… " He took a deep breath. "You can see?"

"The Sound of Jura!" he yelled. "Now keep running or you'll get no dinner!"

"Okay!" Prentice called. He jogged off, shaking his head.

The rain fell with that impression of gentle remorselessness west coast rain sometimes appears to possess when it has already been raining for some days and might well go on raining for several more. It dissolved the sky-line, obliterated the view of the distant trees, and continually roughened the flat surface of the loch with a thousand tiny impacts each moment, every spreading circle intersecting, interfering and disappearing in the noise and clutter of their successors. It sounded most loud as it pattered on the hoods of their jackets.

"Ken, are you sure fish are going to bite in this weather?"

"Course they will, Prentice. Have some faith."

"Well that's good, coming from you."

Kenneth McHoan looked at his son, sitting looking suitably miserable in waterproofs in the bows of the little boat. "Just a phrase. I could have said, 'Trust me, I suppose."

"Huh." Prentice said. "That's no better. Who was it used to say 'If someone says Trust me"… don't'?"

"Na," Kenneth said, shaking his head. "That was Rory. I never said that."

"You did!" Prentice said, then seemed to realise he was sounding petulant, and looked away again. He plonked the rear end of the fishing rod down in the bottom of the boat, watched the thin end waggle up and down for a while. He folded his arms, leaned forward, hunching up. "God, I'm depressed."

"Cheer up," Kenneth said, falsely hearty. "Have some more coffee."

"I don't want coffee."

"Well, you forced me into it; I was saving this for later, but… " Kenneth opened the poppers on the Berghaus jacket, unzipped and dug into the deep internal pocket, pulled out a hip-flask. He offered it to Prentice.

Prentice looked at it, looked away. "I don't think that's going to solve anything."

Kenneth sighed, put the flask away again, completed reeling in, cast again, and slowly wound the lure in once more. "Prentice; look, we're all sorry about —»

Darren Watt was dead.

He'd been on his motorbike, driving to Glasgow one bright day. He was overtaking a truck on the long straight at the start of Glen Kinglas; a car pulled out onto it from the Cowal Road. Darren had assumed the driver had seen him, but the driver had only looked one way; hadn't thought to check there was nothing overtaking on his side of the road. Darren's bike hit the wing of the car doing eighty; he might have survived being thrown into the open road or the heather and grass at the road-side, but he had started to turn as he saw the car coming out in front of him, so hit it at a slight angle; he was catapulted across the road and into a lay-by; he hit the big concrete litter bin full on, and was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.

"It's not just Darren," Prentice said. "It's everything; it's… it's Uncle Rory; Aunt Fiona, and… shit, it's even doing History, dad. Jesus; do human beings ever just get on with each other? Why are we always at each other's throats?"

"Well, I wouldn't worry about Rory," Kenneth said quietly.

"Why shouldn't I? He's dead. He must be; it's been six years; we could probably have him legally declared dead." Prentice kicked the rod. "Good excuse for a wake; and we wouldn't even have the expense of a coffin or anything."

«Prentice…» Kenneth said.

"Well!" Prentice shouted. "You're always so fucking smug about Rory being alive! What do you know? What makes you so smart?"

"Prentice, calm down."

"I will not! Christ, dad, do you realise how insufferable you can be? Mr Omniscience. Jeez." Prentice looked away at the grey landscape of water, cloud and dripping trees.

"Prentice, I don't know for certain Rory's alive, but I'm fairly sure. In a round-about sort of way, he keeps in touch. I think. That's all I can say." He started to say something else, then stopped himself. "Oh, I don't know what to say. I want to say, 'Trust me, but… looks like Rory himself has ruled that out. Can't say he isn't right about that… It's true, most of the time. But I'm not lying to you."

"Maybe not," Prentice said. He looked back at Kenneth. "But you might be wrong about the things you're so busy telling us the truth about."

"I did say I wasn't certain."

"Yeah? What about Darren?"

Kenneth looked puzzled. He shook his head. "No, you've lost me; what do you —»

"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?"

Kenneth put the rod down, clasped his hands. "You think Darren's… personality is still around, somewhere?"

"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…