Mungo didn’t know why the man was telling him about his son. Why tell him about this one particular son out of the four sons he said he had? The pastille was sticking to his splintered molar.
“Gregor’s almost fourteen. I’d like him to find some work around here, but the wife says he’s going to leave us one day. She says he has to go off in search of people that like the same things as him.” Calum gestured at the empty hillside. “I suppose there’s no life for him here.”
Mungo turned his face as though he was considering the empty hillside, but he was looking in the wing mirror, staring at his own reflection and wondering again what it was that people could identify in him.
The man was running along with his own thoughts now. Not really asking for Mungo’s conversation but speaking aloud whatever crossed his mind. “Do you think he could be happy? In the city?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have many arty friends?”
Mungo thought of James. He shook his head. “I don’t have any.”
Calum worked his jaw left and right. “Well. I just want him to know that I’m proud of him. No matter what. Ye know?”
“I think so.”
“Your own father must be proud of you,” Calum said. “But I hope you don’t get in bother for that lost tent.”
Mungo turned his face away again. The wing mirror was cracked and affixed to the body with electrical tape.
“Ye’re a guid lad, David. I’ve chewed your ear enough.” The man patted Mungo’s knee. It was a heavy hand, possessive, and accustomed to being in control. Mungo flinched at the touch but the man’s hand didn’t linger. It didn’t ask for more. Mungo watched it return to the steering wheel. “Ye get a wee sleep if ye want to. I’ll wake ye when we get to town.”
Mungo could smell the freshness of him now; the aftershave that smelled like every single nice thing the boy had ever inhaled, but crushed together all at once. Mungo laid his head against the headrest, and half-closed his eyes. Through the canopy of his lashes he considered the man’s fingernails again, pink and broad and healthy. There was a peek of pale unblemished skin where his shirt met his wrist. These were not hands that worked the land in all weather. They spoke of days sat reading books in the sun. If you could tell things about a person from only a hand, then Mungo would have to admit he was a little jealous. This man was worth more than a hundred-hundred of him. Life looked good and easy. Mungo could imagine that his sons loved him. And that he loved them in return.
TWENTY-EIGHT
It was the end of a long, muggy dusk by the time he reached Glasgow. It took eight hours of faithfully getting into cars and aboard buses he didn’t quite know the destination of, but he wasn’t afraid any longer.
On two occasions the bus driver wouldn’t let him aboard; he had almost no money, plus he was filthy. But there were three occasions when they did, when the driver took pity on him, punched a ticket that didn’t exist and waved him on for free.
Mungo was in a daze as he walked slowly home from Buchanan Street station. The city air was hot and close. It stayed light until late this time of year, and carousing louts still had their shirts off, scalded pink from the long weekend, drunk on the last of their holiday wages and not yet willing to go home. He walked past the new Strathclyde University campus, the old Rottenrow hospital, and climbed up and out towards the East End.
All roads to home took him in front of the oppressive Royal Infirmary and the dirt island with the rusted snack bar. Mo-Maw was already at her serving hatch. She was chatting with some ambulance drivers. Even from this distance, he could tell by the artificial width of her smile that she had taken a good drink. He considered passing on by without even saying hello, when he noticed Jodie and Hamish were there, sitting at the skelfy picnic table. They had a poached look about them, as though they had been waiting a long time.
They drew their eyes the length of him as he crossed the dirt. Their reaction was typical of each of them. Mo-Maw fell to melodrama; her cries flew out to him, but her voice was calling, look at me, look at me. Hamish set his jaw in a lock; Mungo could see him narrow his eyes behind his thick lenses, determined to let the women show their hands before he played his. He peered past Mungo and seemed disappointed the two alcoholic men were not with his brother.
Only Jodie seemed truly pleased to see him. She wiped her face on her jumper sleeve and folded her arms around his middle. Mungo could feel the heat from her crown where she had sat in the sun the whole bank holiday Monday, just waiting to see her brother again. His arms hung limp at his sides. He found he could not hug her back.
Mungo wanted nothing more than to share his pain with them. To make them feel the slow terrifying hours he had felt. But Gallowgate was right, he could never share the hurt, because it would cloud their eyes and some part of them would wonder what he had done to deserve it. There were tears in his eyes, but he held them there and steadied his lip. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of pity. He wasn’t their baby anymore.
“What happened?” screeched Mo-Maw as she pulled Jodie off of him. “Ah haven’t had a minute’s peace since ye phoned us.”
“Nothing.” He shrugged like she had asked him what he’d had for school lunch.
He had worried her on the telephone, or perhaps she sobered up and realized she didn’t know where her youngest son was, or who he was with, but now Mo-Maw was concerned in a way she rarely was for others. Mo-Maw’s eyes were wild about his face. She turned his hands in hers and ran a finger along the pale boundary where his hair had protected his skin from the sun. She found the saint’s finger marks on his neck and licked her thumb, tried to scrub them away with her spit. They would not lift. “Your face. What the fuck happened to it?”
Mungo nodded at his brother. “He happened to it. It was like this when I left.”
“Was it? It looks worse.”
“You’re imagining it.” He picked at his scabby chin. “I fell a couple of times. It was slippy on the hillside. Maybe I banged it again.”
Mo-Maw peered along the road. “Well, where are they, then?”
“Who?”
“Ye know, whatshisface and the lanky one.”
“Away.” Then he added casually, “They said they would see you at the AA meeting on Thursday.”
“Are you really all right, Mungo?” Jodie handed him a cup of flat Coke and he drank it in messy gulps.
“Aye, I’m brand new. How are you?”
Mo-Maw was clutching his face too tightly. She seemed annoyed at him now, for intruding on her peaceful weekend. “Why the fuck did ye phone and worry us like that then?”
Mungo shook his face free from her greasy fingers. “What do you care?”
Mo-Maw rested her weight on one leg and put both her hands on the same hip. The Nike trainers had been through the washing machine, their stitching was separating and the fancy logo had rubbed off; they were fake. “Don’t think ye can go on one fishing trip and come over all cheeky bastard on me now.” She was raving to herself, turning on the dirt island, talking to any strange driver who would nod sympathy at her plight. “One weekend away doesnae make you a man. Ye’re not too big to go over my knee.”