Iain Banks - The Crow Road

"She did, did she?" I said, trying to look pleased. "Well. Good for her. Nice chap, is he?"

Dean shrugged. "Okay, ah suppose."

We were sitting on the rocks beyond the car-park crash barrier at the viewpoint above West Glen, overlooking the Kyles of Bute. The island itself stretched away to the south, all pastel and shade in the slightly watery light of this New Year's morning. The waters of the sound looked calmly ruffled, reflecting milky stretches of the lightly clouded sky.

Damn, I thought.

Ashley had got off with somebody at Liz and Droid's party. Dancin and winchin, as Dean had put it. Then gone off together. And suddenly I felt like it had happened again. Maybe not quite as stylish as jumping off your uncle's Range Rover into your future husband's arms, but just as effective. My heart didn't exactly go melt-down this time, but it still wasn't too pleasant a feeling.

Dean seemed happy to adjust his Strat and pick out the occasional tiny, tinny-sounded phrase; Lewis and Verity and Helen were arguing about the coming war. Or at least Lewis was ranting and they were having to listen.

"Aw, Hell," Lewis said. "I'm not arguing he isn't an evil bastard…

Ashley, I thought, staring out into the view. Ashley, what was I thinking of? Why had I taken it so slow? What had I been frightened of? Why hadn't I said anything?

Hadn't I known what it was I wanted to say?

" — democracy and freedom, what Our Brave Boys are actually going to be fighting for is to restore the nineteenth century to Kuwait and defend the seventeenth century in Saudi Arabia."

Now I thought I knew what I wanted to say, but it might already be too late. The knowledge and the provenance of its uselessness were the same; a feeling of loss I couldn't deny. Did that mean I was in love with her? If I was, it felt quite different from what I'd felt for Verity. (Verity sat at Lewis's side, huddled in her leggings and leathers and wearing Lewis's startlingly bright skiing jacket, all orange and purple and lime; she looked like a little psychedelic blonde Buddha perched on the tartan car rug.) Something calmer than that, something slower.

" — ternational law is only so goddman sacrosanct when it isn't something awkward like the World Court telling America to quit mining Nicaraguan harbours."

But perhaps I was wrong about Ash being interested in me, anyway. Ashley was the one I remembered talking to in the Jac that evening after Grandma Margot's cremation; she was the one who kept telling me to tell Verity I loved her. If you love her, tell her. Wasn't that what she'd said? So if Ashley felt anything for me beyond friendship, why hadn't she said anything to me? And if she did feel anything, what was she doing going off with this friend of Droid's?

" — next time the US wants to invade somewhere and see what happens; out'll come that good old veto again. Heck, we got lots of practice using that. We'll do it if the Yanks don't. Panama? This place with the ditch? You don't like the guy in power any more after paying him all that CIA drug money over the years? Ah, why not? On you go. Seven thousand dead? Never mind, we can hush that up."

Could I finally be right, and a woman was taking up with somebody else to make me feel jealous? I doubted it. Maybe she had been patiently waiting for me to tell her how I felt, or make some sort of move, and now she was fed up waiting, so all bets were off. But why should she have been so passive? Was Ashley that old-fashioned? Didn't sound like it; from what she'd told me, it was her who went after that Texan systems analyst, not the other way round. If she'd fancied me at all she'd have said or done something about it before now, wouldn't she?

" — resolutions are fine, unless they're against Israel, of course, in which case, Aw sheeit; you guys just stay in them Golan Heights, and that Gaza Strip. Shoot; them Palestinians probably weren't — aw, gosh-darn; did I say shoot them Palestinians? Well, hell no, we won't mention that. Twenty-three years the Israelis have been ignoring UN resolutions and occupying foreign territory; south, east and north. Hell's teeth, they'd probably invade the Mediterranean if you told them the fish were Palestinian. But does the US lay siege to them? Impose sanctions? Like fuck, they bank-roll the place!"

Maybe she did think of me as a brother. All those times I'd rambled drunkenly away to her about how much I loved Verity and what a hard time I was getting from everybody, and how wonderful Verity was, and what a poor, hard-done-by kid I was, and how much I loved Verity and how nobody understood me, and how wonderful Verity was… How could you expect anybody to listen to all that moronic, self-pitying, self-deluding crap for so long and not think. Poor jerk?

" — we paid him to fight the Iranians for us, but now the scumbag's getting uppity, so we'll pay other scumbags like Assad to help fight him, and it'll all happen —»

Unloading all that stuff on Ash; most people would have told me to fuck off, but she listened, or at least didn't interrupt… but what must she have been thinking? The response just couldn't be, Oh, he's so sensitive, or Oh, what a deep capacity for lurve this young fellow has… Poor jerk. That about covered it. Or just, Jerk.

" — a modern day Hitler it's Pol Pot; even Saddam Hussein hasn't obliterated two million of his own people. But does the West mount a crusade against that genocidal mother-fucker? No! We're supporting the vicious scumbag! The United fucking States of America and the United fucking Kingdom think he's just the bee's knees because he's fighting those pesky Vietnamese who had the nerve to beat Uncle Sam —»

But maybe she hadn't really got off with this guy. Maybe it was all a mistake, maybe there was still a chance. Oh shit, I thought, and watched a seagull glide smoothly through the air below us, over the tops of the trees and the bundled rocks that led down to the distant shore.

"Oh," said Verity suddenly, and clutched her belly, and looked wide-eyed at Lewis, who was in full flight over the vexed sands of Kuwait, and apparently quite beyond verbal interception.

" — Sabra and Chatila; ask the Kurds in Halabja — " He stopped dead, looked at his wife, who was still clutching her belly, looking pleadingly at him.

Lewis's jaw dropped and his face went white.

Verity hugged herself, put her head between her knees and started to rock back and forth. "Oh-oh," she said.

Lewis staggered to his feet, hands flailing, while Verity's shoulders started to quiver. The dog, which had been snoozing at Lewis's feet, jumped up too.

"Verity, what's wrong? Is it —?" began Helen, leaning over and putting an arm on Verity's shoulders.

"Who's the least drunk?" Lewis hollered, gaze oscillating rapidly between the car parked a few metres behind us and his wife, sitting rocking back and forth and shaking. The dog barked, bouncing up on its front feet, then sneezing.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" said Verity, as Helen hugged her.

"Aw Christ," said Dean. "Verity, you're no about to drop, are ye?"

Lewis stood with his hands out, fingers splayed, eyes closed, on the rock. "I don't believe this is happening!" he yelled. The dog barked loudly in what sounded like agreement.

Helen Urvill, her face down at Verity's knees — where Verity's head was still wedged — suddenly slapped Verity across the back and rolled away, laughing.

Dean looked confused. I felt the same way, then realised.

Lewis opened his eyes and stared at Helen lying laughing on the rock.

Verity rose quickly and gracefully, her face pink and smiling.

She stepped up to Lewis and hugged him, rocking him, her face tipped up to his as she giggled. "Joke," she told him. "It isn't happening. I keep telling you, this baby's going to be born in a nice warm birthing pool in a nice big hospital. Nowhere else."