James Kelman - Dirt Road

He could have brought a book. The cowboy one, he could have brought that. How come he didnt? Because he was going out. Stay in the house if ye want to read. In is in and out is out. Ye didnt go out to read a book. What about a sexy one, if he had brought that?

Before long Aunt Maureen was there. Murdo and Dad carried bags for her. A couple she carried herself. There’s things in them I dont want bashing, she said.

They headed along to the food court. There was a choice of places. A Mexican one looked good. Mexican’s spicy, said Aunt Maureen. Your Uncle likes spicy. That’s why he’s got the bad stomach. She led them to an empty table by a delicatessen. Once upon a time you got a real bit of dinner here, she said. Not now you dont. A sandwich is good for me. See if they got turkey Tommy, or chicken.

Murdo? said Dad.

Is it a sandwich?

Whatever.

So a sandwich?

Dad stared at him.

Tuna please. Or cheese. Chicken. Murdo shrugged.

So ye dont have a preference?

No Dad, just anything, thanks.

Dad walked to place the order. Aunt Maureen was checking through her purchases and receipts, and talking at the same time: Some folks spend their lives in here, huh. Then you got the walkers. Twice round the mall then it’s lunchtime, another twice and that’s them done their day’s exercise. There’s folks come here in the morning dont go home till evening. You believe that? They spend their life right here. Dont buy a thing; they just walk about, dont do nothing. Dont work. Nothing. They got their entitlements, you know what entitlements are son?

Murdo didnt reply and Aunt Maureen’s attention was distracted by two young women arriving at a nearby table, one pushing a buggy with a baby inside. They were maybe from China or a country roundabout there, both wearing tight jeans. They didnt look over but just sat down, fixing the baby. Aunt Maureen wasnt quiet in talking so they could have heard what she was saying. Maybe they were just walking about, like if Aunt Maureen was referring to them. Maybe they thought that. If they did they were wrong, very wrong. Aunt Maureen would never have said any such thing, and now was away talking again.

The elder girl lifted the baby out of the buggy. The baby didnt laugh but stared at the mother — if she was the mother. Aunt Maureen was saying about how things used to be when this mall was first built and how it had changed so much. But she stopped talking. It was the baby, how she stared at the baby, even like she wanted to lift it up. Jees, imagine she did, just reaching to lift it. Oh my, she said, he is a beauty. He is a true beauty, that is what he is.

But she kept on staring. The young women exchanged looks. They were more like girls. The younger one fingered her necklace. She was about Murdo’s age. He could see the side of her face and just like the position she was sitting, as if she could maybe see him out the corner of her eye and how she was fingering her necklace again. How come? She was sexy-looking. That was the truth. Was she going to look at Murdo. Maybe. Maybe she didnt because with Aunt Maureen there and talking. Dad too, Dad was back, distributing the stuff, sandwiches and drinks, napkins, plastic forks. Extra salad with the cheese sandwich, and potato crisps. Murdo took his sandwich and gobbled it down fast. A lumpy bit stuck in his throat. He took it out to see. An orangey kind of thing. He left it at the side of his plate, drank some juice.

Dad looking at him. Murdo bit another piece of the sandwich. He wanted to leave the table but if he went too soon it was like he was still in a bad mood because of the music store. And he wasnt. He really wasnt, he just wanted away, just to walk about, on his own, he just wanted like — his own space.

He needed to tell Dad about the gig. Sometime he did. If he didnt he wouldnt know about it, and that wasnt fair. Okay if Dad said no, but he needed the chance.

The young women were chatting together, and Aunt Maureen too, to Dad, but including Murdo in it, just stuff about how it used to be way back. Murdo smiled, a kind of smile, if it was a smile. Smiles are just whatever, ye give one.

*

They were home by two thirty. Dad and Murdo offered to help Aunt Maureen prepare and she told them not to bother. It’s a pot-luck, she said, nobody’s going to worry too much. Then at four thirty her friends Josie and Melissa arrived early and helped her prepare the dining-room area. Melissa was Dave Arnott’s wife. Dave came later with his daughter and son-in-law and their children.

People all brought food in bowls ready to eat. This was the pot-luck side of it. Ye came and ye took pot-luck. Whatever people brought was what ye ate. It was a good idea. Most were neighbours but a few had traveled a distance and were maybe connected to the same church as Aunt Maureen. The food was spread out on the dining table; some of it on the side cupboards and kitchen counter. Murdo was hungry but nobody was eating.

The women stayed around the kitchen and dining area while the men were outside on the patio and garden, drinking beer out bottles and smoking if they smoked. Two conversations were on the go with the men. Dad and Dave Arnott in one: Uncle John in the other. Murdo sat roughly between them but was glad Uncle John drew him in to his. It was difficult in company with Dad and people at the same time.

Uncle John was wanting to talk about stuff to do with Scotland, and not family stuff. Murdo was glad. Ye get it out yer head then it is all back in. An older man held onto his hand. Yeah, gotta be brave. Before him Aunt Maureen’s friend Josie gave him a hug and said, Oh now son she’s in a better place! talking about Mum, which was the kind of thing drove him nuts. It wasnt just daft it was worse than that. Although she was being nice, of course she was, obviously, and ye just had to act like it made sense, although it didnt, it was just like mental madness.

Oh yes isnt she lucky, passing on to a better place. He should have said that. At school the Headteacher broadcast a message of sympathy “for Murdo whose mother has passed on”.

Passing on to a better place. The coffin is pushed into the furnace. Oh isnt she lucky. Maybe we can all go! After death comes life. A dead person going. Death comes after life and life comes after death. So death is not death.

Two kinds of life: before death and after death. After-life is after-death. Dead but not dead is vampires. The undead. Then Hell with all the demons. Imagine that was true. That would be the “unlucky soul”, oh the unlucky soul, he’s dead and going to Hell.

What if ye do something good in Hell? Do they take ye out and put ye in Heaven? What if ye do something bad in Heaven? Do they take ye out and put ye in Hell? How do ye get from one place to another?

Uncle John and the men were talking about work. To them it was interesting. Murdo would have skipped downstairs but it was too early for that and would have annoyed Dad. But it was okay to leave the company, surely?

He stepped down from the patio, and walked to where he did the sunbathing. It was good here; a thick hedge and a high hedge so if ye wanted shade from the sun ye could get it. The earth was hard, and dry grass, different grass. Ye think of grass all being the same but it wasnt.

On parts of the hedge it was like dew had already gathered. Slimy stuff, soapy. Cobwebs glinted. Whatever spiders they had here, probably various species, maybe poisonous ones. Murdo had gone online before leaving Scotland and there was this tiny spider could fire a line of mesh twenty-five metres across a river. Although maybe that wasnt Alabama. He walked on a bit to where the hedge thinned out. Ye could have made a hole to crawl through, and escape. Except if it landed ye in the next door neighbours’ garden. Uncle John said the buggers were liable to shoot ye stone dead, and would be justified in a court of law because you would be seen as an intruder and they would be protecting their property.