Iain Banks - The Crow Road

Kenneth, Mary and the boys had come holidaying to the Hebrides, as they did most years. Rory had been invited along too, as he usually was, and for a change had accepted. So far, they'd been lucky; the Atlantic weather systems had been kind, the days bright and warm, the nights calm and never completely dark. The big rollers boomed in, the wide beaches lay mostly empty, and the machair — between dunes and cultivation — was a waving ocean of bright flowers thrown across the rich green waves of grass. Rory loved it, somewhat to his surprise; a holiday from holidays. A place to stay where he didn't have to take notes about flights and ferries and hotels and restaurants and sights. No travel book to think about, no articles, no pressure. He could laze.

He volunteered to take the boys on a walk after breakfast that Sunday. James had stayed behind and Lewis had been sullen for the half-hour or so they'd been walking before suddenly announcing he wanted to be alone.

Rory and Prentice walked on together, their short shadows preceding them. The road would be turning east soon, and taking them back to the main road so that they could turn south and walk back to the house. Lewis knew his way about the area, so Rory was happy to let him wander off alone.

A car passed them on the single track road, heading north; they stood aside to let it pass, waving at the single occupant when he waved at them. The surf was a distant wash of noise, rolling over the sparkling machair in invisible waves. Larks warbled, points of sound in the sweep of blue sky and small puffy clouds.

"Is it all right to walk on a Sunday, Uncle Rory?"

"All right?" Rory said, glancing at the boy. In shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, he looked almost painfully thin. Rory wore an old cheesecloth shirt and cut-off jeans.

"Aye; dad was saying you're not even allowed to walk in some islands on a Sunday!" Prentice rolled his eyes and puffed his cheeks out.

"Well, yeah," Rory said. "I think they're like that in Lewis and Harris. But that's the hard-line prods up there. Down here they're Catholics; bit more relaxed about that sort of thing."

"But not being able to walk!" Prentice protested, shaking his head at his shadow on the grey-black tarmac.

"I think you're allowed to walk to church and back."

"Ho! Big deal!" Prentice didn't sound impressed. He was silent for a while. "Mind you," he said, sounding sly. "I suppose you could always take a very long way round."

Rory laughed, just as his attention was caught by a little white blossom lying on the road surface in front of them. Prentice looked up, at first surprised, then smiling, when Rory laughed. Prentice stood on the flower, then jumped, shrieking with pain.

"Ah; my foot! My foot! Oh! Oh!"

Rory stood, open mouthed for a second, watching Prentice hop around on the tarmac, clutching at one ankle, his face contorted. Rory thought for a second Prentice was pretending, but the boy's expression convinced him he was in real pain. Prentice hopped onto the grass and fell over, still clutching at his foot; Rory could see something white stuck to the sole of the boy's sandshoe.

"What is it?" he said, crouching down by Prentice's side. The boy was shaking, and when he looked up at Rory there were tears in his eyes.

"I don't know," he sobbed. "Stepped on something."

"Let me see." Rory sat on the grass in front of Prentice and held his foot. The little white blossom he'd seen on the road's surface was stuck to the boy's sandshoe; it wasn't a flower, it was a little paper charity flag for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the sort you secured to your lapel with a pin. The flag was still attached to its pin, which was buried in the sole of Prentice's shoe. Rory sucked his breath in when he saw it; most of the pin must be inside the boy's foot, near the middle of the broadest part of the sole.

Prentice's foot and leg shuddered as he rolled on the grass. "It's awful sore, Uncle Rory," he said, voice trembling.

"It's just a wee pin," Rory said, trying to sound encouraging. "I'll have it out in a second."

He licked his lips, rubbed his right index finger and thumb together for a couple of seconds and held Prentice's foot steady with his left hand. He used the nails of his finger and thumb to find the head of the pin, itself almost buried in the tan rubber sole of the sandshoe. He grasped it. Prentice whimpered, foot trembling in Rory's grip. Rory gritted his teeth, pulled.

The pin slid out; an inch of it, shining in the sunlight. Prentice cried out, then relaxed. Rory put the boy's foot down gently.

Prentice sat up, face quivering. "That's better," he said. He used one shirt sleeve to wipe at his face. "What was it?"

"This." Rory showed him the pin.

Prentice grimaced. "Ouch."

"You're probably going to need a tetanus injection," Rory told him.

"Aw no! More needles!"

They took his shoe and sock off. Rory sucked at the tiny wound and spat, trying to remove any dirt. Prentice, eyes still watering, laughed nervously. "Is that not a horrible smell, no, Uncle Rory?"

Rory threw the boy's white sock at him, grinning. "I've been to India, kid; that ain't nuthin."

Prentice put his shoe and sock back on and got to his feet, obviously in some pain when he stood. "Here; I'll give you a carry-coal-bag," Rory said, turning his back to the boy and putting his arms out from his sides as he crouched.

"Really, Uncle Rory? You sure? Will I not be awful heavy?"

"Hop on; you're a bean-pole, laddie. I'll probably go faster with you on my back; you walk too slow. Come on."

Prentice put his arms round Rory's neck and got up onto his back; Rory set off at a run. Prentice whooped.

"See?" Rory said, slowing to a fast walk.

"I'm not too heavy, honest, Uncle Rory?"

"What? A skelf like you? Never."

"Do you think this is a punishment from God for talking about walking on a Sunday, Uncle Rory?"

Rory laughed. "Certainly not."

"Do you not believe in God either, Uncle Rory?"

"No. Well; not in the Christian God. Maybe something else." He shrugged his shoulders and shifted Prentice into a more comfortable position on his back. "When I was in India, I thought then I knew what it was I might believe in. But when I came back it all seemed to go away again. I think it was something to do with the place." He looked to one side, at the dazzling expanse of machair; endless emerald green scattered thick with flowers so bright they seemed lit from inside. "Places have an effect on people. They alter your thoughts. India does, anyway."

"What about when you went to America? Did that effect what you thought?"

Rory laughed gently. "Yeah; it did that all right. Kind of in the opposite way, though."

"Are you going to go away again?"

"I expect so."

Prentice elapsed his hands in front of Rory's chin. Rory glanced at his wrists; thin and fragile looking. Prentice was still holding the little Lifeboat flag, twirling the pin between his fingers.

"When did you stop believing in God?" Prentice asked.

Rory shrugged. "Hard to say; I think I started to think for myself when I was about your age, maybe a bit younger."

"Oh."

"I tried to imagine how the world had been created, and I imagined Sooty — you know; the glove puppet —»

"I know; they still have him. Sooty and Sweep." Prentice giggled.

"Well, I imagined him standing on a wee planet about the size of a football —»

"But he hasn't got any legs!"

Ah, but he did in the annuals I got for Christmas. Anyway, I imagined him waving a wand, and the world came into existence. Like, I'd been to church, been to Sunday School, so I knew all the stuff in the Bible, but I guess I needed to envisage it… see it, in my own terms."

"Uh-huh."

"But then I thought; wait a minute; where does the planet Sooty's standing on come from? I thought Sooty could have waved his wand and made that appear too, but where would he stand while he was doing it? I mean, I didn't think, Well, he could float in space, and it never occurred to me to ask where Sooty himself had come from, or the wand, but I was already heading towards not believing, I suppose. It was like the dragons."