Rise (33 page)

‘Don’t tell Daddy we pinched his car, OK? Or I’ll make you walk the plank.’

The road up to Cardrummond is a strew of haphazard cobbles, stepping stones almost, and much steeper than it appears. Would be slippy in the mud, but it hasn’t rained for days. Windy, though, up here. Exposed. Michael’s Volvo only makes it three-quarters of the way up, before she has the burning sense in her belly that the car is rearing backwards, will stutter and buck them off. She parks on the verge, in the inshot of a metal gate, and they continue on foot. Each stunted tree, each bug is examined as they go, her pockets becoming laden with ‘interesting things’ (mostly pebbles), which Ross insists he might need.

‘For what?’ she asks.

‘For
stuff
.’

‘Ooh, c’mere you.’ She grabs him. ‘Monkey Boy.’

‘I am Monkeee Boy!’

This is her favourite spot, that scoop of ear and neck and shoulder. She blows a raspberry on the rubbery folds of flesh as Ross squirms to get away, sets him down again. ‘Right, enough. C’mon, Monkey Boy. We have a mission, remember? We have to climb all the way up this mountain.’

‘Mm.’ He pouts. ‘But I am tired now, Justi.’

‘Ooh, wee boosie-face.’

‘Will you carry me?’

‘No way!’ A flurry of pebbles splash and crack, kicked loose by her scabby trainers. The echo bounces down the track. It gives the impression other footsteps are behind them. Justine’s toes feel damp. Brand new: eighty-five quid Hannah said these shoes cost her, and they’re falling apart already.

‘Just
ee
. Carry me.’

‘No! You said you wanted to come. You need to be a big boy. Big giant steps, come on. Raah-rr, raah-rr!’

Ross stops dead. ‘That is not a gianter’s noise. Gianters say “Fee fi fo”.’

‘So they do. My apologies. Now fee-fi-fo your little butt up this hill.’

‘Raah!’ Head down, chubby legs stomping. A definite frown of his mother about him. It’s Hannah’s face when she’s con- centrating.

‘Are we nearly there yet?’

‘Yes, honey. Two more minutes.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’

‘Justi, I need a one more rest.’

‘All right, wee man. Seen it’s you.’

They stop for another minute, Justine peching. She hears the crack of breathing trees. Birch and oak. A few rowans. Her arms ache, thigh muscles throbbing.
Och, it’ll
be fine
, she’d thought when she saw the farm from the distance.
It’s just a wee hill
.

‘Wee hill, my arse.’

‘You are not allowed to say that word. It is
my
bottom
.’

‘See when you go to school, you’ll need to stop being such a smart-bottom, young man.’

Ross frowns, looks at his bum.

‘Right, c’mon.’ She slaps her thigh. ‘Nearly there.’

‘You
said
that already.’

‘I
know
.’

Cardrummond Farm is big and crumbling; looks more like a country manor. Definitely bigger than the manse, but patched and boarded. What might have been a pretty pond is filled with slurry; there are sacks and tyres and junk all round the place. They find Duncan in the yard. He’s hosing something disgusting off his boots.

‘All right?’ she says.

‘Hello you.’ He lets the hose slide to the ground, where it spurts and writhes. Inside the house, a dog barks. ‘Thought I heard a car down there.’

‘Hope you don’t mind. We’ve come to ask a favour.’

‘Dun-
can.
Please can I pat the lambs?’

Hands on knees, hunkering down to talk. His canvas trousers are damp. ‘Hiya, Rossie. How are you? Wow – you’re getting big.’

‘I am fine, thank you. Please can I pat the lambs, please?’

‘Well, there’s a couple in the byre there, but they’re a wee bit scared the now. Why don’t you and Justine come back next week, when they’re a wee bit bigger, eh?’

‘Aw.’

‘It’s just, they only want their mummies just now. But I promise you. Next week. And you can feed one.’

‘Oh-
kay
.’ He scuffs the dirt with his trainers.

‘Tell you what. There’s a new puppy in the house. Bess had babies, and I kept one. You want to see him? His name’s Fly.’

‘Yes! Yes!’

‘Come on then.’

Duncan halts in the doorway. ‘Sorry. Is that OK?’

‘Sure.’

A vast bird wheels, and with it, a funnel of green, sharp wind. It whistles to Justine through skies vague with distance.

There you are.

‘You coming?’

‘Yeah . . . Man. It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?’

There you are
, say the hills.
There you are
, say the stones.
There you are
, says the dirt, and the roots in the dirt and the dampness through the roots, the rooted stone, the trees, this great crease of land that runs the spine of Scotland. She senses him at the back of her, in the fold of air between them.

‘It is.’

There you are.

They say it to everyone, of course. And no one. They say it to themselves, have said it all the time Justine has not been here, and will say it all the time and times after she’s gone. Whispering in their long ridges and peninsulas, their parallel, fish-gill sea lochs, their pleated Caledonian earth. Maybe her dad did come from here. Maybe that is what she remembers, and it’s not an imagined, fanciful yearning.

Maybe he did.

Maybe she’s as bad as all those fifth-generation emigrants, who twist themselves purple to sense connections. Maybe that’s why this wasted landscape drips with a melancholy that is more than history and rain. It’s an entirely different view to that from the manse. From the long hill Cardrummond clings to, she can see an abandoned steading – no more than a gable end, arched in surprise at what’s left of its world. Wisps rising from the distant loch. Water peaking, collapsing. Black moving beneath waves in shoals of prehistoric beasties. Why not? Loch Ness has got Nessie. Why can’t Kilmacarra have a Kraken, or a Kirsty? You can just make out Crychapel Wood, with two vans and a big white tent.

And something else she’d never seen before. Fine dark markings radiating from where the archaeologists’ tent is, like veins on a leaf. Running shadows under the grass. She can see them too, over at the hill behind the manse, where another tent’s been pitched, and by the other cairns, needle-faint, feeding like tributaries into one thicker line that runs through the glen. Like the lifeline on your palm.

‘What’s that? Those lines?’

Duncan leans in over her shoulder. She feels her breast rise; it is the swift gasp of air she’s taken in. Their hands almost touch. Their curving hips do.

‘Where?’

‘See all those wee lines in the earth?’

‘Changes in peat, I suppose. Or lines of rock maybe, under the soil? Could just be the way the light hits. You get all sorts of weather up here.’

They go inside. The door opens into a spacious hall, damp patches festooning the ceiling. Flock wallpaper peels below a dado. This was once a fine house.

‘How’s Ross’s brother doing?’ Duncan shows her into the kitchen. Warmed by an enormous, rattling stove, it’s clean and freshly painted, though the cabinets are worn. Pine table. Three chairs. Battered oak sideboard. An empty clothes pulley over- head.

‘Good, I think.’

‘Still no word about the hit and run?’

‘No. Not that I know of.’

‘Shocking. Bloody shocking they could leave a wee kid like that—’

An unexpected tightness, the pull of tears welling. ‘They phoned, though. Someone phoned an ambulance.’ She flares her nostrils, because that tricks you into sneezing. ‘They don’t really tell me much. But he’s getting better. Far as I know he’ll be home soon.’

And I will not be here.

‘Home where, though?’ Duncan pulls out one of the chairs. ‘Have a seat. I hear it’s World War Three at the manse.’

‘Jesus! I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not true.’

‘What’s not true?’ He seems genuinely puzzled.

‘Whatever you’ve heard. Whatever folk are saying about me.’

‘Ach, it never is round here. Trust me.’

He makes them both tea, while Ross gets filthy with the dogs.

‘Ross! Get that out your mouth. That’s the doggie’s chew, not yours. Now, sit up.’

‘Cheers,’ says Duncan, raising his mug. ‘I’ve got your tapestry thing, by the way. Well, I say got. It’s at the pub still, but I got Rory to put it in the store room.’

‘Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten about that thing. But thanks.’

‘Justi, I am hungry. A hungry, hungry hippo. Can we get crisps?’

‘I’ve no crisps, wee guy. But I could do you a cheese and ham sandwich?’

‘Cheesy ham! Cheesy ham!’

‘We don’t really have time,’ she says, stretching out her calf muscles. She wants to take her trainers off, so her toes can splay on the cool flagstone floor.

‘Flying visit, is it?’ Duncan grins. ‘I can be very quick.’

They have two rounds of bread each.

‘You bake this yourself?’

‘Oh aye. Man of many talents, me.’

She takes another sandwich. They are laid on a carved wooden platter, which Ross keeps spinning like a wheel.

‘Don’t do that, Rossie. You’ll break it.’

‘But look at the whirlies, Justi! They are like Johnny’s!’

‘Just stop playing with it. It’s not a toy.’

‘Ach, he’ll not break that. It’s indestructible. My great-granda’s brother sent it back from the war. We’ve his medal somewhere too.’

‘Yeah? What for?’

‘Dying mostly, I think. Brittany or Normandy, somewhere like that.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Och, I never knew him. Though according to my Aunt Effie, I look just like him. Poor sod, eh? Peely-wally skin and freckles.’

‘Another proud ginger, you mean?’

‘Excuse me—’ pointing at his fringe. ‘I’ll have you know this is authentic Celtic colouring.’

‘I like the whirlies, Duncan. Can I have it please?’

‘Ross! Don’t be cheeky.’

‘I asked it nicely, Justi. And Johnny would like it for his secret.’

‘Yeah, but you can’t just ask for things—’

‘Yes you can, Rossie boy. Does no harm at all to ask for things. But I can’t give you the plate, sunshine, cause it was my uncle’s. However—’ Duncan gets up. ‘Give me two ticks . . . I think . . .’ He rifles in a drawer. ‘Would this do?’ Gives Ross a postcard. ‘My auntie sent me it when she went to see his grave. See. It’s got the same whirly picture on it.’

‘Oh, no, Duncan. Don’t be daft. You keep it.’

‘Thank you, Duncy-boy! I like you.’ Ross jumps down from his chair.

‘You mind the puppy doesn’t eat that now,’ says Duncan, as Ross disappears under the table. ‘It’s fine,’ he says to Justine. ‘It’s just junk.’

Sitting there, his legs spread comfortably wide, his hooded eyes bright, she is struck by how nice it is. Not to flinch when he gets up or moves his cup, or wonder which voice he’s speaking to. There’s a poster on the side of his fridge, held in place with magnets. It’s preprinted with ‘Today’s Specials’, but in the space below, someone’s written in black felt pen:

We’re the Yes! Campaign too.

Yes for Keeping the UK United

Meeting every Friday, upstairs. (After Poker Night). Volunteer knitters required.

See Rory for details.

‘Knitting?’ she says.

Duncan glances behind him. ‘Ah. Don’t ask. It’s Rory’s idea. Rory in the pub? He wants everyone to make a Better Together blanket. You know, each square representing the Union: red pillar boxes—’

‘When they’re privatising the post office?’

‘The NHS.’

‘When they’re privatising the hospitals— ow.’

He chucks a heel of bread at her. ‘European funding for farmers.’

‘When the UK’s campaigning to leave—’

‘Yeah, yeah. That’s why I said it, daftie. I take it you’re your master’s voice then?’

‘Don’t. Don’t say that. They’re nothing to do with me. I just live there.’

She falls quiet. Sips her tea. When did she become a sponge, absorbing and excreting the arguments at the manse? The silence widens.
My name is Justine Strang
.
And I really don’t give a shit
. She imagines standing on the limits of Cardrummond’s glorious view, bawling it across the glen.

‘Anyway,’ Duncan reaches down to feed the dogs – or possibly Ross – another crust. ‘They’re just things. Wee things. D’you no think it’s about more than that? It feels like they’re cutting our arms and legs off. Security, economy, currency, the army, the BBC—’