James Kelman - Dirt Road

What time was it anyway? Who knows. There was a lot going on about America and a history to this place too, the south. Horrors. Ye just didnay think about it.

Declan Pike’s playing was excellent but that other side too, how he performed and how some didnt like it. That was politics. Some clapped and thought it was great. Others didnt seem to, maybe they hated it. Imagine hating music. It wasnt music it was what ye said. But if what ye said was in the music, if it was part of the music, so like it was the music… So then they would hate the tune, hate the words and hate the singer.

*

Murdo strolled towards the marquee. A big truck was parked behind it. Guys were unloading musical equipment in through a rear entrance. A Scottish Country Dance Band was providing the evening music. Murdo heard music, not via the speaker system but from inside. The session: he had forgotten about it; scheduled between the afternoon and evening events. People chatted by the front entrance. More smokers. It would be good to smoke. Ye could just disappear and nobody worried about how come ye were disappearing: Oh he’s away for a smoke. That would be great in school. Imagine the teacher. Where is everybody? Please sir away for a smoke.

The session took place not on stage but in the audience area. Chairs had been shifted to create a space. Declan was there on guitar, sitting on a chair and finger-picking. Chess Hopkins was with the guy in the fancy waistcoat and other older people. They hadnt long been started and people had drifted away, including the family. Murdo moved to a chair on the fringes. Declan sang another then passed his guitar to a man who sang a folky song about animals. It was good fun for a session. He did another then Declan took back the guitar, did a country-style song with little flourishes here and there. He laughed a lot in his playing and ye felt ye were sharing a joke with him. Some players never smile let alone laugh. He looked for Chess at the end of it. You about ready? he asked.

Yeah, said Chess then hesitated.

He was looking for the fiddle. Murdo had seen it; it was near the raised platform, placed parallel to its bow on a chair. He waited a moment but Chess wouldnt see it from where he was sitting. Murdo rose to collect it, also the bow which he held upright while walking. Fiddlers were fussy how ye held the bow. Murdo once got a severe row about it. A fiddler with a bad temper, it wasnt unusual.

Chess watched him. Murdo handed them over. Chess said, Thanks son.

I saw them when I sat down, said Murdo.

You did huh. Well I’m glad you did.

Instead of going back to his old seat Murdo sat on the edge of the main group. He had a fiddle at home but for learning only. Nothing like the one belonging to Chess. What was it about fiddles? His made ye smile! Macpherson on the scaffold. Imagine ye were there and he threw it high in the air. Whoever catches the fiddle gets to keep it! Everybody scampering about.

A couple more drifted in. Younger ones were way to the side. Four of the kilted guys in the Glengarrys returned to their same table, not far from the raised platform and talking quietly, not to distract from the music. This was like back home. Nobody expected people to stop talking, just not to be rude. Only if they had too much to drink their voices got loud. Then it was hopeless.

Another one new to Murdo. So much of this was new to him. Soon enough Chess was in on the fiddle and Declan was whistling. The song called for whistling. There was religious content but it was okay. More joined in on the chorus which amounted to whistling the tune. Not as easy as ye might have thought. People had a laugh doing it. Good fun. The young ones at the side were trying to whistle and stare each other in the eye at the same time. What ye noticed with a song like this was how it brought people into the company. At the end ye seemed to know the ones sitting next to ye.

A discussion started about the song led by the bald guy with the wee white beard and the fancy waistcoat. He said it was an old tune from bygone days; somebody else said it was new. They looked to Chess Hopkins for an answer but he didnt give one. Declan was yawning, leaning his elbows on his guitar. He yawned again, then made to rise from his seat.

Chess called to him: You know “Bonaparte’s Retreat”?

Declan was in the act of bringing something out of his side jacket. I got to have a smoke first.

Guitar’s only an add-on anyhow, said Chess.

Oh you think so! said Declan in the stagey growl he used in his performance.

It’s a distraction.

Declan grinned, raising the guitar over his head, seeing a place to lay it. Declan hesitated, seeing Murdo who wasnt too far from him. He gestured with it towards him. Murdo shrugged, took the guitar from him.

Declan had reached into the pack for a cigarette then strolled to the exit. The woman was there who had been in Dad’s company earlier. She and Declan exited together. Murdo sat with the guitar on his lap. He knew the makes of the good ones. This wasnt one of them. Yet it was very very good, just like whatever, it didnt have a name.

People were waiting for Chess. Murdo saw how they paid attention. When he was ready he spoke out the corner of his mouth: Old Napoleon now watch him go, he’s on the retreat again.

Murdo knew the tune but different to this. The funny thing here was the actual feel Chess was getting. Murdo wondered what it was, but then obvious, it was Scottish. Was it Scottish? Murdo hadnt heard it played this way before. But he knew it and knew what to do with it. He was keeping time, tapping his fingers on the body of the guitar and whatever like he was ready to play, and he was ready to play, he was. Chess looked the question at him, how if he did want to play then that would be fine. Murdo slipped the strap over his shoulders. A wee rhythm just, to let the fiddle go. Murdo played that in, keeping it on keeping it on, watching and hearing what Chess did and going with that, a swing forwards now the fiddle was freed up.

Chess didnt look anywhere. Some look at things and some dont; some close their eyes. Chess didnt close his but neither did he look at anything. His playing was different. Maybe an older style. Murdo didnt hear playing like this much. But he liked it; there was a swing and a swagger, just happy who ye were, that was Chess and his baseball cap. He wasnt a busy type of player but he did stuff and ye could see how his head and his upper body, his neck, that control he had. Everything was measured. Ye knew he could burst out. Any time, he could explode right out. He didnt.

Murdo kept it on except a point when he veered off a fraction, brought about by something Chess did that knocked him out, but it was only that fraction and he got through. The guitar was a help, whatever it was. It had a mark like a signature so probably it was hand-made.

The tune ended. Chess nodded to Murdo who grinned. He caught sight of Aunt Maureen, hand to her mouth and gazing at him, sitting with people near the back of the marquee. Uncle John was there but Dad wasnt. Chess chuckled, tucking the fiddle under his arm. He wagged the bow at Murdo. I know what you did!

Yeah I missed that wee bit.

You did too!

I caught it though.

Yeah you caught it, you caught it. Chess wagged the bow at him again, called to the old guy in the fancy waistcoat: Hey now Bill he aint heard of no Bonaparte! Who in heck’s Bonaparte, that’s what the boy wants to know!

Murdo knew fine well who Bonaparte was.

Dad was by the marquee entrance. Murdo hadnt seen him arrive. So during the song. So he must have heard a little of it. He wouldnt have been too surprised. Maybe he would have been. He didnt come much to gigs. Uncle John would have enjoyed hearing Chess. That old style making ye think of ancestral relations from bygone days. Mum too, she would have liked it.