St Christopher held his distance. Away from the firelight it became a sleekit kind of dark. It was as though the sky wanted to be like the quiet loch: it crept in shades towards the water, until the sky and the loch became one, and St Christopher was swallowed by the inky night.
“That’s a funny name. Mun-go,” said Gallowgate. He was sucking on a bent dout. He had crushed the hand-rolled cigarettes in the back pocket of his tight denims and amber tobacco escaped from the creases in the paper.
“I suppose.” Mungo watched him cover the holes with his fingers, skilled as any flautist. “My father was a Nationalist. He wanted his boys to have traditional Scottish names.”
“Aye, but Mun-go. Ah mean, for fuck’s sake, that’s pure child abuse.”
“St Mungo. He was the patron saint of Glasgow. He started a fire from nothing, or … something, I don’t really know.” His understanding of the Glasgow myths was streaked with embarrassment. He couldn’t count the times he had been dragged to the front of the classroom to read the history of the city aloud, blushing at the sound of his own voice, retaining not a single word of what he read.
The first time they had called him Mungoloid, he had come home in tears. Jodie had hidden with him in the hot airing cupboard. He was soothed by the happy click and whirr of the gas immersion as she dried his face on Mo-Maw’s winter coat. She had told him about the myths of St Mungo: the bird that never flew, the tree that never grew, the bell that never rang, the fish that never swam. Of all the legends, he liked the one about the bird the best; how St Mungo had brought the little robin back to life after it had been killed by the cruel children. Jodie said that was his power, that after their father died, he gave life back to Mo-Maw when she had given up on it for herself. He loved Jodie. He forgave her when she lied to him.
Gallowgate raised his can in salute. His eyes were rheumy with drink. “It’s a marvellous thing. Here, ah thought ah was only scum but turns out ah’m a blessed man indeed. Oh, to be protected by two saints on this fine bank holiday weekend. One to carry me safely across the water. The other to light ma fires as we go.” He drummed his fist against his heart. “If only ah could find another to gies a loan of some money. Then ah’d be fuckin’ whistlin’。”
St Christopher came shivering out of the darkness. He waited on the very edge of the light, like a shy guest at a house party. Gallowgate belched, beckoned the man to find a rock to sit on. It was embarrassing to watch St Christopher pretend like he hadn’t been sulking, to watch him try and catch the conversation, jump back on to it like it was a galloping horse. His feet were meatless and bloodless. The water was so cold they shone smooth as blue porcelain.
As St Christopher thawed by the fire, there was a smell of turned milk, and underneath that, something that smelled like dried goldfish flakes. Gallowgate wrinkled his nose, shifting upwind slightly to lie against the bothy wall. Mungo watched as he lifted his shirt and ran a hand across his taut, distended belly; even there, he was inked with words, signed like the inside flap of a school jotter. They sat drinking by the fire long enough for their eyes to begin streaming from the smoke. As each new lager splashed open, the conversation darkened and ratcheted downward. For Mungo it was like walking down a tenement close: every flight they descended, it got darker, the lights were less bright.
“… So, ah took hold of her and she was pure gaggin’ for it,” Gallowgate was explaining in the firelight. “She telt me that her husband knew whit she was up to and didnae mind. So, ah thought to masel, if this cunt disnae mind then ah’m no going tae worry about leaving marks, eh?”
Mungo drew his knees up to his chest again. He didn’t like the way the man was licking the back of his own teeth.
“So, whit did ye dae?” St Christopher spat, un-saintly, eager for the dirty details.
“Well, ah’ve got haud of her.” Gallowgate leaned closer to the boy. “An’ she’s got oan this wee blue nightie, one of them cuddly kittens printed on the front. Ah didnae bother to undress her cos she was no Easter lamb ye understand, sometimes it’s better no tae chance it. So, ah just got stuck in. Started going for it.” His eyes were opals in the firelight. He held out a cupped hand. “Ye know. Ah was rubbing away. Feeding the wee horse.”
The question slipped out of Mungo. “Wait, the lady had a horse?”
The men blinked at him. They roared with laughter. “Naw, wee man. Her lady bits, her fanny. Next time ye put your hand over one, see if it disnae feel like a pair of horse lips.”
St Christopher rattled his own lips and made a neighing sound.
Gallowgate laughed, the short dout hanging out the side of his mouth. Mungo had done it again, failed to see the difference between what someone said and what they truly meant. He could feel his eyes start their nervous blink. He tried to laugh through the tic, eager to stay on the inside and not the outside of it all.
St Christopher had no time for the boy. “Then whit?”
“So, ah put her on the couch and we start doing it, like really doing it, right? An ah’m up to ma nuts in her guts and she goes like, ‘Ooooh let’s go upstairs and do it in the bedroom.’” He hauched into the fire, the spit sizzled a second and then disappeared. “So here’s me, ah carry her up the stairs like she was an auld coat stuck on a peg.”
Mungo thought about the coat hooks they had made in techy class at school. Twisted G-shaped metal pegs, heated and dipped in powder coating and screwed to cheap wood. He bit down on his bottom lip.
St Christopher slapped his leg. “Ye’re a dirty basturt.”
“Ah get her up the stairs and ah must’ve gone into the wrong room, cos this is a teenager’s bedroom. But she’s clawing at me, and we’re gaun for it.”
“She’s a filthy besom, right enough,” said the saint. Mungo wondered if he knew this woman.
“Well ah’ve bent her over and ah’m doin’ her on the single bed.” Gallowgate stood up and began thrusting his hips in and out of the firelight. His pale face was bloated with alcohol, it floated like a moon in the sky. “And just then ah look at her carpet and ye’re no gonnae believe it, right?”
“Whit? Whit!”
Gallowgate stepped closer to the firelight. He arched his back, and Mungo could see the swollen outline in his denims where his meat lay pressed against his hip bone. Mungo lowered his gaze. Gallowgate took a draw on his dout, holding the tension, savouring the impatience of his saints. “Well, as it turns out, ah’ve only bloody tacked out and laid that floral carpet in her daughter’s room the year afore.”
“Aye. So?”
“A guid carpet-fitter never forgets his work. It turns oot ah had shagged her wee lassie on it as well.” Gallowgate tossed his head back in a smug way. He exhaled like a proud chimney.
It took a minute, then St Christopher let out a howl like a punctured dog. “Ah, ya dirty basturt.” His broken teeth looked dangerously sharp. He slapped his knee.
“Well. Ah’ve got nae memory for cunts. But ah never forget a well-laid carpet.”
Mungo didn’t understand the joke. He was glancing from one man to the other, but he knew now not to ask.