When Gallowgate was spent, he lay back and threw his arms out to the side as though he had been crucified. He reached out to the boy and ruffled his hair, a look of satisfaction upon his face. Mungo listened to the rain beat against the tarpaulin. A question burned inside him, he asked the universe as much as he asked Gallowgate, “Does this mean you’re a poofter?”
Gallowgate had slithered across the floor and had begun to snake his naked body around the boy. Now he shoved him away. The distance felt good to Mungo. “Call me that again an’ ah’ll knock ye out.”
* * *
Mungo must have dozed because it was already brightening when Gallowgate woke him. The man crawled naked from the tent and went for a piss. Mungo could see the clear morning light through the flaps, it seemed the rain had stopped for a spell. He wrapped the sleeping bag around his shoulders and followed Gallowgate out to the shoreline, feeling safer in the open rather than the sweaty, fetid trap of the tent. The prehistoric boulders were slick again with rain, and new pools of water were already busy with flies. Gallowgate stood at the water’s edge. Even his back was a tapestry of tattoos; a life-like pair of women’s eyes were painted on his shoulder blades, the eyelashes flicking up like feathery wings. Only his buttocks were untouched, and glowed a ghostly white.
Mungo stared at the one-man tent. It no longer resembled a shelter and lay almost completely flat, a red puddle on the grey shore. It didn’t look like it could house a man’s body. Mungo pulled the sleeping blanket tight around himself, he walked away from the pissing man and crouched by the water. The face that stared up at him was not his own.
It seemed Gallowgate was impervious to the cold. The last of the drink was burning him from the inside out. “So, what do ye want to do the day?”
Run, run all the way home. But Mungo pushed his face into the frigid water, let the loch chill his tic. Then he shook himself, steadied himself, and shrugged. “Should we not pack up and think about heading back?”
“You sick of me alreadies?” Gallowgate shook the last dribble of piss from the end of his cock. He frowned at the boy.
Mungo sat back on his haunches. Ha-Ha had trained him well. They were a lot alike, Gallowgate and his brother. They were moody, self-made demigods who demanded constant offerings and could turn vengeful for no reason. Mungo saw the trouble forming. He crossed the short distance and placed a placating kiss on the man’s lips. It was the first he had ever offered him.
Gallowgate beamed at him proudly. Now he was convinced of his own allure, happy that he had known what was best for Mungo all along. All the boy had needed was a guiding hand, a father figure to show him the way. Gallowgate flicked his own chin upwards, his sharp teeth tugged on his bottom lip. “See, we are pals.” He encircled Mungo’s waist with his arm. “Ah think ah’m gonnae show you how to catch some rabbits the day.”
“Seems a shame to kill a thing and not even eat it. Can you take it on the bus?”
“Course ye can.” He was studying Mungo closely. “‘Asides, yer maw’ll love it. She’s gonnae be expecting to hear about yer adventures. And if we catch two she can have a new pair of slippers.”
Mungo lowered his gaze. “Don’t worry about Mo-Maw. She’ll have forgotten I was even gone. She’ll be worried about herself, as usual. ‘Asides, I learned how to build a fire and peg a tent and …” Mungo put his lips to Gallowgate’s ear and whispered the last part.
The man flushed. “Ya dirty wee bastard.” He bit the boy’s neck. “Ah knew what you were like the first time ah saw ye.”
Mungo’s jumper hung over his knuckles, he blew warm air up his sleeve. “Let’s just go. We can catch those rabbits another time.”
Gallowgate thought about it for a moment. “Awright then. Do ye promise?”
Mungo nodded.
Gallowgate let go of the boy and turned towards the red tent. “Let’s get this auld bastard on his feet and we can get going then.”
Mungo caught the man’s pinkie with his own. “Do we have to? I mean, can’t we just leave him here. He’ll find his own way home.”
“That’s a laugh.”
“I can’t be his friend and your friend. I can’t.”
The man pulled Mungo under his armpit and hugged his head hard, twisted it like all the bullies he had ever known. “Don’t worry about that. Ye’re ma special pal now. But ah cannae leave him here. That tent belongs to a fella at ma work. Ah’ll be out sixty poun’ if ah don’t return it to him. He’s gonnae ask me for money anyhows, cos auld stinky baws has been fartin’ away all night in it.”
All that lying, all that forced tenderness had been for nothing. Mungo’s stomach lurched as Gallowgate kicked the guy line. The last of the air blew out and the red tent collapsed with a defeated sigh. There was the faint hummock of a sleeping bag, but it seemed impossible that the tent could hold the body of St Christopher, no matter how rotted and hollowed out the man was. Gallowgate stepped on the sleeping bag. Then he tramped up and down the length of the collapsed shelter. “Where the fuck is he?”
Mungo was bone-tired. He was so plain-spoken and honest that guile exhausted him. It was sapping the last of his energy to pretend he felt anything but hatred for this man. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s gone fishing?”
Gallowgate stumbled along the waterfront, his shrivelled cock bouncing comically. He peered up and down the banks of the loch. “At this hour? Where’d ye see him last?”
Mungo didn’t know what to say. He spread his sleeping bag. He threw it open like a pair of quilted wings and revealed his thin body. It lay in the centre like some knock-kneed offering.
Gallowgate shook his head. “Naw. C’mon. There’s nae time for that. We have to find him.”
Mungo wrapped himself up again. He lied as best he could. He told a half-truth about the day before, how St Christopher had been a terrible fisherman and so he had taken him to a spot where the fish seemed lazy and easy to catch. Then he told Gallowgate how he had lost all of his little sprats and grown frustrated even there. The saint had bloodied feet when he came back to the campsite, and scratching for a drink and finding none, he had sealed himself into the tent in a huff. That was the last the boy had heard from him before Gallowgate had returned in the gloaming. “Maybe he’s gone home?”
“Naw. He must’ve had the bad shakes.” Gallowgate was pulling on his rain-soaked clothes. It was a sick relief when he covered the eyes on his shoulder blades.
“He was definitely tremblin’。 It looked somethin’ awful.”
“Then we need to find the auld arsehole. Ah cannae leave him here and expect to show ma face up at the probation office.” With that, Gallowgate trudged towards the trees.
Mungo wrapped the sleeping bag tight around himself, certain now that the chill was coming from inside him. He wanted to cast it off and run the other direction. He could bound over the rocks and boulders and make for the other treeline. He was sure he could run faster than Gallowgate; Mungo had seen the damage the drink had done to the man. But where would he run to? What way was home? The man stopped; he snapped his fingers and whistled as though the boy was a terrier. Mungo nodded and followed him into the understorey.