Iain Banks - The Crow Road

Janice had taken that day off from the library. She and Rory left on the last train back to Glasgow that night.

It was the last time Kenneth ever saw Rory.

Fiona sat in the passenger seat of the car, watching the red roadside reflectors drift out of the night towards her. She was thrown against one side of the seat as Fergus powered the Aston round the right-hander that took the road out of the forest, down, into and through the little village of Furnace. She was pressed back against the seat as Fergus accelerated again. They swung out and past some small, slower car, over-taking it as though it was stationary; headlights ahead of them glared, the on-coming car flashed its lights and she heard its horn sound as they passed, a few seconds later. The sound was quickly lost in the snarl of the Aston's engine.

"If you're driving like this to try and prove something, don't bother on my account," she said.

Fergus was silent for a while, then, in a very controlled and even voice said, "Don't worry. Look, I just want to get home as soon as possible. All right?"

"Everything'll suddenly get better once we're home, will it?" Fiona said. "Kiss the kids on the head and get Mrs S to make some tea; stiff whisky for you, G and T for me. Maybe we should call up the McKeans to say we got back safely; you can ask after Julie…»

"For Christ's sake, Fiona —»

"'For Christ's sake, Fiona'," Fiona sneered, imitating Fergus's voice. "Is that all you can say? You've had half an hour to think up another excuse, and —»

"I don't need," Fergus sighed, "any excuses. Look; I thought we had agreed to just leave this —»

"Yes, that would suit you fine, wouldn't it, Ferg? That's your way of dealing with everything, isn't it? Pretend it hasn't happened, maybe it'll go away. If we're all terribly polite and decorous and discreet, maybe the whole horrid thing will just… " She made a little fluttering motion with her hands, and in a high-pitched, girlish voice, said, "Disappear'."

She looked at him; his broad, soft-fowled face looked hard and set in the dim light shining from the car's instruments. "Well," she told him, leaning over as far as she could towards him. "They won't just go away, Ferg." She tried to make him look at her. He frowned, put his head slightly to one side and lifted it, trying to look round and over her head. "Nothing ever goes away, Fergus," she told him. "Nothing ever doesn't matter." She strained over a little more. "Fergus — " she said.

He pushed her away with his left hand, back into her seat.

She sat there, mouth open. He seemed to understand the silence and glanced over, a weak smile flickering on his face. "Sorry," he said. "Getting in the way a bit there. Sorry."

"Don't you push me!" she said, slapping his shoulder. She hit him again. "Don't you ever dare push me again!"

"Oh stop it, Fiona," he said, more exasperated than angry. "One minute I'm in the dog-house because… well, because I'm not all over you all the time; next second —»

"'Not all over you all the time'?" Fiona said. "You mean not fucking me, Fergus, is that what you mean?"

"Fiona, please —»

"Oh." Fiona slapped one palm off her forehead, then crossed her arms, looked away, out of the dark side window. "Fuck; did I swear? Oh fuck. Oh what a silly fucking cow I must fucking be."

"Fiona —»

"I said something straight. I'm so sorry. I actually said what I meant, used the sort of word you'd normally only hear from your golfing chums or your rugby pals. Or does Julie use that sort of language? Does she? Do you like her to talk dirty? Does that get you going, Ferg?"

"Fiona, I'm getting rather tired of this," Fergus said through his teeth, his fingers gripping the wheel harder, rubbing round it. "I'm sorry you think what you do about Julie. As I have tried to tell you, she was the wife of an old friend and I've kept in touch since she got divorced —»

"Still stuck on that, Fergus?" Fiona said, impersonating concern. "Oh dear; we had that line back at Arrochar, I seem to recall. And what was the rest of it? Oh yes, one of her sons has leukaemia, poor little kid, hasn't he? And you've helped her and the little darling with BUPA out of the goodness of your heart —»

"Yes I have, and I'm sorry you choose to sneer about it, Fiona."

"Sneer!" laughed Fiona. "It's a joke, Fergus. Jesus, she was practically taking your zip down."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. It's not my fault Julie got a bit tipsy."

"She was smashed out of her brains, Fergus, and about the only thing she remembered was that she wanted to get your trousers off. God knows why, but she seemed to associate that with pleasure." Fiona gave a sort of strangled laugh, then put one hand up suddenly to her nose, and looked away, and sobbed once.

Fergus drove quickly on, trees flicking past like green ghosts to the right, the waters of the loch just a dark absence on the left.

Fiona sniffed. "Trying the great silence again, eh, Ferg?" She pulled a handkerchief from her handbag on her lap, dabbed at her hose — "Still pretending it'll all go away. Still sticking your head in your precious fucking optical-quality sand."

"Look, can't we talk about this in the morning? I mean, when you're…»

"Sober, Fergus?" she said, looking over at him. "That what you were going to say? Blaming it on drink again? Is that all it was? Of course, silly me. I should have realised. Dear Julie gets drunk and for bizarre reason suddenly starts feeling you up under the table while we're nibbling our cheese and biscuits, and making pathetic double-entendres, and attacks you outside the bathroom; totally unprovoked, of course, and it's all just the drink talking. And I'm just being hysterical, I suppose, because I've had too many of John's terribly strong G and Ts and it'll all look different in the morning and I'll come to you and say sorry and wasn't I being a silly girl last night, and you can pat me on the head and say yes, wasn't I? And you can still go for cocktails at the Frasers" and bridge at the McAlpines and tee off with the Gordons and cruise with the Hamiltons with a united front, a respectable face, can't we, Fergus?"

"Fiona," Fergus said, face set and teeth clenched. "I don't know," breathed, "why you're making such a big thing of this. It's just one of those things that happens at parties; people do get drunk and they do do things they wouldn't normally think of. Maybe Julie has… or has had, in the past, a crush on me or something. I don't know. Maybe —»

"A crush on you, said Fiona. "Jesus. Well, that's a better try, Ferg. But I don't think you're quite as good a liar as you think you are. And she's not that good an actress." Fiona looked down, twisting the handkerchief in her fingers. "Oh God, Ferg, it was so fucking obvious. I mean. I knew there was something going on; all those trips away, and getting drunk and not being able to come home, staying at one of your chums" delightful little pied-a-terres. Oh, sorry, no, you can't phone back, he's only just got it and it hasn't had a phone put in yet. Or coming back with bruises; how you suddenly became so very clumsy or so easily marked. But at least I could still kid myself, at least I didn't have my nose rubbed in it."

"Fiona!" Fergus shouted, knuckles white on the steering wheel. "For God's sake, there's nothing to have your nose rubbed in! Julie's just a friend. I haven't touched her!"

"You didn't have to, she was touching you," Fiona said, voice quiet, looking away from Fergus, out to the darkness of the loch. A few weak lights shone on the far side, and headlights on the Otter Ferry road, two miles away across the black expanse of waves, swung out briefly, like a lighthouse beam… and then dimmed and disappeared. The car roared through another small village before the trees hid the view again.