“So, what are ye doing all the way oot here?”
“Nothing. Camping.”
“What? By yourself?”
“Aye.”
The man reached forward and angled all the air vents towards the boy. “Hope ye don’t mind me saying, but ye don’t half look like ye’ve been through the wars.”
Mungo laid his hand over the worst of the scrapes on his leg. “I fell down a hillside.”
“Aye? How many times?”
Mungo missed the smirk on the man’s lips. He answered him earnestly. “Just the once. I slipped.”
The man seemed like he would say no more about it. The toast-coloured dog was licking her forepaws, chewing the pads with frantic little nibbles. Then the man said, “Ye know, I have four sons of my own. Guid boys. I’ve learned that they never get hurt when they’re by themselves. It’s when they’re together that they get awful clumsy. Together they trip, they fall through the skylight into the lambing shed, they dare one another to ride their bikes into dykes, they chuck themselves into bonfires for laughs. Funny that.” The man opened his glove compartment and took out a roll of fruit pastilles. He offered them to Mungo. Mungo politely took one and his mouth flooded with saliva. The man protested and pushed the whole packet on him. The dogs sat forward at the sign of food, before the man elbowed them away. Mungo was glad of how the sugar rinsed the taste of loch water from his mouth. He sucked the first sweetie and tried not to wolf it down. He felt the man’s eyes linger on the side of his face as he considered the bruises and the matted hair. “So who was it that shoved you down that hill, then?”
“Nobody.”
“Really?” The man was holding the wheel steady as they bumped through the puddles in the road. “Since the minute I picked ye up, ye’ve been sitting pressed up against that door like some mongrel.”
Mungo looked down at himself, and he was indeed perched on the edge of the seat, as far away from the man as he could be. His hand had been worrying the door handle. “Sorry.” Mungo eased the seat belt. He relaxed into the centre.
“Look, no need to be sorry. I’m Calum, by the way. I should have said that earlier.”
“David,” said Mungo.
“Well, nice to meet you, David.” The man saluted him with his left hand. His wedding ring glistened in the sunlight. It seemed like it was embedded in to his finger, like a brace slipped around a young sapling that was now stuck, as though the tree had grown up around it. “So, ye heading home?”
It was a simple question but it gave Mungo pause. All weekend he had dreamt of the East End. The image of the tenements lay before him, but “home” didn’t feel like the right word anymore. “I suppose so.”
“Brave of ye to be oot here on your lonesome. Not sure I’d let any of my boys do that.”
“It’s awright.”
Calum pulled over to allow a camper van full of hippies to ease on by. He drummed his hands on the steering wheel. “Where’s yon tent then?”
“My what?”
“Tent.” The man nodded at his small backpack. “If you were camping, then where’s your tent?”
Mungo swallowed the pastille. “Oh. I must have lost it.”
The man slid into first gear and laughed again. “Aye. My boys would like you. They’re simple country boys but they think that they’re slick. Ye would make them look like masters of espionage.” There was no cruelty in his laughter. He had an easy way about himself. Calum seemed like the type of person that enjoyed talking to his neighbours. But also like the type of person who didn’t get to talk to his neighbours very often, and so when he did, he could spin talk out of nothing. Clumps of mindless sheep grazed along the verge, they started to thicken and block the road ahead. Calum slowed the Defender again, he pumped the horn to scatter them. “We’re a long way from the toon, David. But if you won’t tell me your stories then that’s all right. I won’t pry.” He raised his hands in defeat.
After that they drove on in silence for fourteen minutes; Mungo sucked on his pastilles and kept his eyes on the clock. The vents had brought the warmth back to his skin but it couldn’t quite penetrate to his bones. He considered telling Calum about the loch side, about his mother and the bargain she had made with the men. He wondered if he told him about it, would he feel lighter, would the pain draw out of his gut like a clog from a drain. As he sat worrying about the dead Glaswegians, he became aware of the man glancing at his face. It jolted him from his thoughts when Calum said, “The roads are a terrible state. Are ye carsick? An awful white face ye’ve got there, David.”
Mungo put his hand over his tic. “Do I? No, I’m fine. I’m sorry.”
Calum leaned in and said, “Don’t tell anybody, but Alexis there likes to eat the spew whenever any one of my boys gets carsick.” He reached back and tickled the brown dog under her chin.
“That’s horrible.”
Calum agreed with a chuckle as he turned them back on to a two-lane road. The hills stretched in every direction, Mungo could not see a single tree. “Did I tell ye about our youngest boy, our Gregor?”
Mungo had been so numbed by his own thoughts that he wasn’t sure if the man had told him about Gregor or not. “Sorry. I don’t think so.”
“Am I boring you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, yon Gregor’s the one who always gets carsick. He’s an awful traveller yet he’s my son that’s destined to see the world. What a cruel irony, eh?”
Mungo didn’t know what irony meant. “How do you know he’ll see the world?”
“A father can tell. Gregor’s a good lad. A bright, fresh-air mind. Always helps his mother around the house without being asked, but he’s a wee bit …” The man paused as though he couldn’t find the correct word. “Artistic. T’chut. Do ye know what I mean by that?”
Mungo gave a small nod. He wasn’t sure if what the man meant, and what he understood, were the same thing.
“Forgive me if I’ve read you wrong, David. But would I be right in thinking ye are a wee bit artistic yourself?” Calum didn’t wait for an answer. “See, I know lots of men would be bothered by that. But I have no problem with ye if you are. I’m just saying … Och, well, I dunno. I say the wrong thing sometimes.” The sunlight was strobing through the clouds and on to the windscreen. Mungo took the opportunity to look at the man. He had a kindly face, it was handsome underneath the weathering, it had been strong before the sagging. His eyes were a clear, bother-free blue and his hair was a neat crown of curls, white and tight as lambs’ fleece. “Our Gregor never shuts up, he’s like his mother in that respect, but I don’t mind. Sometimes I have to sit back and marvel at the nonsense that flies out of his mouth. What an imagination this boy has. I honestly don’t know where he gets it from.”
Mungo rolled another sweetie around in his mouth. He had thought it was strawberry, but now he wondered if it was blackcurrant.
“If he can get his hands on a length of old curtain and a couple of table lamps, then you are getting a three-act play and an extra matinee for free. He just stands in front of the fireplace and makes it up. Songs, jokes, big heart-breaking dramas – utter nonsense, you understand, but thoroughly entertaining.” Calum laughed again but Mungo could tell that he was forcing it. He turned to Mungo to see if he was laughing along with him. He was not.