Iain Banks: The Crow Road

"And eventually there would just be a skeleton left —»

"Eek," said Diana, and put her hand over her mouth again.

"Until even that crumbled away and became dust, and —»

"And their tusks, Mr McHoan?"

"Pardon, Ashley?"

"Their tusks. Did they go intae dust as well?"

"Umm… yes. Yes, they did. So after a while everything was dust… except for the stones that the big animals had carried in their crops; those lay in a big pile where the mythosaurs had laid down to die, and that," he turned and slapped one of the larger stones protruding from the base of the rock pile behind him. "That," he grinned, because he liked the story he had just thought up and told, "is where cairns come from."

"Ah! Ashley! You're standing on stuff that's been in a animal's gizzurd!" Darren shouted, pointing.

"Eaurgh!" Ashley laughed and jumped down, throwing the stones away and rolling on the grass.

There was a deal of general tomfoolery and wee high squealing voices for a while. Kenneth McHoan looked at his watch, and wound it up as he said, "All right, kids. Time for your dinner. Anybody hungry?"

"Me!"

"Me, dad!"

"We are, Uncle Kenneth."

"Ah could eat a missasore, so ah could, Mr McHoan!"

He laughed. "Well, I don't think they're on the menu, Ashley, but not to worry." He took his pipe out and stood up, filled the bowl and tamped it down. "Come on, you horrible rabble. Your Aunt Mary's probably got your dinner ready for you by now."

"Will Uncle Rory be doing tricks, Uncle Kenneth?"

"If you're good, and eat up your vegetables, Helen, aye, he might."

"Oh good."

They trooped down. Dean had to be carried because he was tired.

"Dad," Prentice said, falling back to talk to him while the rest whooped and yelled and capered on the slope. "Are miffasores real?"

"As real as Wombles, kiddo."

"As real as Dougal in The Magic Roundabout?

"Every bit. Well, almost." He drew on the pipe. "No; just as real. Because the only place anything is ever real is inside your head, Prentice. And the mythosaur exists inside your head, now."

"Does it, dad?"

"Yes; it used to just exist in my head but now it exists in your head too, and the others'."

"So is God in Mrs McBeath's head, then?"

"Yep, that's right. He's an idea in her head. Like Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy." He looked down at the child. "Did you like the story about the mythosaur and the cairns?"

"Was it just a story then, dad?"

"Of course it was, Prentice." He frowned. "What did you think it was?"

"I don't know, dad. History?"

"Histoire, seulement."

"What, dad?"

"Nothing, Prentice. No, it was just a story."

"I think the story about you meeting mum's more better, dad."

"Just 'better' will do, Prentice; the 'more' isn't required."

"Still a better story, dad."

"Glad you think so, son."

The children were entering the forest, funnelling into the path between the pines. He looked away then, across the rough geography of bough and leaf, to the village and the station, just visible through the trees.

The train chuffed off into the evening, the red light on the final carriage disappearing round the bend in the cutting through the forest; the steam and smoke climbed into the sunset skies beyond. He let the feeling of return wash over and through him, looking across the deserted platform on the far side of the tracks, down across the few lights of Lochgair village to the long electric-blue reflection that was the loch, its gleaming acres imprisoned between the dark masses of the land.

The noise of the train faded slowly, and the quiet susurration of the falls seemed to swell in recompense. He left his bags where they lay and walked to the far end of the platform. The very edge of the platform dropped away there, angling down to the deck of the viaduct over the rushing water beneath. A chest-high wall formed the furthest extent of the rest of the platform.

He rested his arms on the top of the wall and looked down the fifty feet or so to the tumbling white waters. Just upstream, the river Loran piled down from the forest in a compactly furious cataract. The spray was a taste. Beneath, the river surged round the piers of the viaduct that carried the railway on towards Lochgilphead and Gallanach.

A grey shape flitted silently across the view, from falls to bridge, then zoomed, turned in the air and swept into the cutting on the far bank of the river, as though it was a soft fragment of the train's steam that had momentarily lost its way and was now hurrying to catch up. He waited a moment, and the owl hooted once, from inside the dark constituency of forest. He smiled, took a deep breath that tasted of steam and the sweet sharpness of pine resin, and then turned away, went back to pick up his bags.

"Mr Kenneth," the station master said, taking his ticket at the gate. "It's yourself. Back from the varsity, are you?"

"Aye, Mr Calder; that's me done with it."

"You'll be coming back then, will you?"

"Aye, maybe. We'll see."

"Indeed. Well, I'll tell you now; your sister was here earlier, but wi" the train bein late an that…»

"Ach, it's not far to walk."

"Indeed not, though I'll be shutting up shop very soon now, and I could offer you a lift on the back of my bike if you liked."

"I'll just walk, thank you."

"As you will, Kenneth. It's good to see you back."

"Thank you."

"Ah… that might be her, actually… " Mr Calder said, looking down the curve of the station approach. Kenneth heard a car engine, and then headlights swung white light across the iron railings holding the rhododendrons back from the tarmac road.

The big Super Snipe growled into the car park, heeling as it turned and stopping with the passenger's door opposite Kenneth. "Hello again, Mr Calder!" a voice called out from the driver's seat.

"Evening, Miss Fiona."

Kenneth threw his bags onto the back, settled into the passenger seat and accepted a kiss from his sister. He was pressed back into the seat as the Humber accelerated off down the road.

"Okay, big brother?"

"Just grand, sis." The car skidded briefly as it swung onto the main road. He clutched at the grab handle on the door pillar, looked at his sister, sitting hunched over the big steering wheel, dressed in slacks and blouse, her fair hair tied back. "You have passed your test, haven't you, Fi?"

"Course I have." A car, coming in the opposite direction, honked at them and flashed its lights. "Hmm," she said, frowning.

"Try the dip switch."

"Ah hah."

They swept off the main road and into the house drive, roared up between the dark masses of the oaks. Fiona took the car grinding over the gravel, past the old stable block and round the side of the house. He looked back over his shoulder. "Is that a wall?"

Fiona nodded as she brought the car to a halt in front of the house. "Dad wants a courtyard, so he's building a wall by the stables," she said, turning off the engine. "We're going to have a conservatory overlooking the garden, if mum has her way, which I dare say she will. I think your room's all right, but Hamish's is being redecorated."

"Heard from him?"

"Getting on famously with the piccaninnies, apparently."

"Fi; really. They're Rhodesians."

They're little black Rhodesians and I shall always think of them as piccaninnies. Blame Enid Blyton, say I. Come on, Uncle Joe; you're just in time for supper."

They got out; there were lights on in the house, and a couple of bikes lying against the steps curving up to the front door. "Whose are those?" he asked, taking his bags from the back of the car.

"Couple of lassies camping over there," Fiona pointed, and he could just make out a dim orange shape, lit from inside, under the elms on the west side of the lawn.