The Crow Road

CHAPTER 12

"This is the Specialist Glass Division," Hamish said, opening a door. They found themselves in a long corridor with one glass wall that looked out into a bright, modern, open-plan and spacious area. Everything gleamed and the few people visible wore white coats; apart from the exposed brickwork of a couple of rotund furnaces, linked to the ceiling by shining metal ductwork, the place looked more like a laboratory than a factory.

There was a silence none of the three brothers seemed inclined to fill. Hamish, an immaculate white coat over his three piece suit, gazed with a rapt expression at the almost static panorama on the far side of the glass. Kenneth looked bored. Rory stood at Janice Rae's side, humming something monotonous, one arm round Janice's waist and attempting to tickle her, just above her right hip. "Very clean," Janice said eventually.

"Yes," Hamish said gravely. He nodded slowly, still observing the scene beyond the glass. "It has to be, of course." He turned to the tables against the wall behind them, on which lay various glassy-looking objects, some in display cabinets, most loose, all with explanatory notes stuck to the wall above them. From a wooden plinth on one table, Hamish picked up a dull black cone that looked a little like a Viking helmet without the horns.

"This is a missile nose-cone," he said, turning the cone over in his hands. He held it out to Janice. She took it.

"Hmm. Quite heavy," she said. Rory tickled her again and she nudged him.

"Yes, heavy," Hamish said gravely, taking it back and carefully replacing it on its wooden block. "Strictly speaking, this is a glass ceramic rather than ordinary glass," he said, adjusting the precise position of the nose cone on the plinth. "The basis is lithium aluminosilicate, which withstands heat very well. Cooker hobs are made from this sort of thing… and obviously missiles need to withstand a lot of heat from friction with the air."

"Obviously," Kenneth said. He and Rory exchanged looks.

Hamish turned to another exhibit; a broad bowl, also dull and dark, and over half a metre across, it was like a gigantic plate with no lip. He lifted an edge so that they could look underneath, where it was criss-crossed with a lattice of deep ribs.

"Satellite aerial?" Kenneth said.

"No," Hamish said, though a hint of a smile crossed his dour face. "No, this is a substrate for an astronomical telescope mirror."

"Like the one Fergus has in the castle?" Rory asked.

That's right. All the substrates and optics for Mr Urvill's telescope were made here. Though of course they were on a smaller scale than this piece." Hamish lowered the edge of the bowl and flicked a bit of dust off one edge. "This is made from the same type of material as the nose cone there. It resists distortion under thermal shock."

"Hmm," Janice in a tone that suggested that she was really trying to be interested as well as sound it.

"Over here," Hamish said, plodding towards another table, "we have what are called the passivation glasses, related to the Borate glasses but made from zinc-silicoborate…»

"All I said was I'd like to see the factory," Janice whispered to Rory as they moved to follow Hamish. "The outside would have done."

"Tough shit," Rory said, and tickled her with both hands this time, producing a yelp.

Another man in a white coat came up to Hamish from the far end of the corridor. "Excuse me a moment," Hamish said to the others, and turned to talk to him.

Kenneth turned to Rory and Janice. He tugged on Rory's sleeve and in a low monotone said, "Dad, I'm bored, dad; dad, are we nearly finished yet, dad? Dad, want to go home, dad." He leant one hand against the glass wall, glanced back at Hamish — still deep in conversation, and nodding — and rolled his eyes. He looked at Janice. "My elder brother," he said quietly. The man who put the Bore in Boro-silicate."

"You don't have to stay." Rory grinned. "We could get a train home."

Kenneth shook his head. "No; it's okay." He glanced at his watch. "Maybe we can drag the Tree out for lunch soon."

"Sorry about that," Hamish said, coming up behind them. They all smiled at him. Hamish moved one arm up to indicate they should move down the corridor to where they could see the exciting zinc-silicoborates. He took a pristine white handkerchief out of his pocket and rubbed at the faint hand-print Kenneth had left on the glass partition as he said, "These passivation glasses are of much use in the semi-conductor industry, and we have high hopes that with the burgeoning of the Scottish computer industry — Silicon Glen as it is sometimes jocularly called — we shall shortly be supplying…»

"And to think, all that could have been mine." Kenneth sighed with pretended regret, putting his feet up on the low wall of the terrace and rocking his seat back on its rear legs as he shaded his eyes with one hand. He brought his drink up to his lips with the other.

Janice and Rory were tucking into their salads; the terrace of the Achnaba Hotel was crowded with tourists, and on the road in front of the hotel cars, caravans and coaches hummed past, heading for Lochgilphead, Gallanach, or Kintyre. A brisk warm wind blew from the south west, laden with the vanilla smell of gorse blossom, mixed with pine off the forests and a salt hint from the sea.

"Well, that's just the way it goes, Ken," Rory said. "Hamish got to be manager of the factory and you didn't. No use crying over spilled boro-silicate…»

Kenneth grinned, staring out over the balustrade of the terrace towards the hills on the far side of Loch Fyne. "I wonder where that saying comes from. I mean, why milk? If it means something not very valuable, why not water? Or —»

"Maybe crying over milk was unlucky," Rory suggested.

"It was years before I realised it was even common parlance," Kenneth said, still staring out to the loch. "I used to think it was something only mum came out with. Like 'I couldn't draw a herring off a plate. I mean, what the hell does that mean? Or, 'Och aye; that's him away the Crow Road. Jeez. Opaque or what?"

"But they might all have some… some basis in reality," Rory insisted. "Like crying over milk was bad news; spoiled it."

"Maybe it spoiled un-spilled milk," Kenneth nodded. "Some chemical reaction. Like they say thunder can curdle milk; ions or something."

"Ah," Rory said. "Then maybe you were supposed to cry over milk, because it helped preserve it, or made it easier to turn into cheese. And so it was a waste crying over spilled milk."

"I think this is where we came in," Kenneth said. He squinted at a car on the road as it hurried north. "Isn't that Fergus?" he said, nodding. "Where?"

"Racing green Jag; heading north."

"Is that what Ferg's driving these days?" Rory said, rising up in his seat a little to watch the car pass. It swept round the long bend that carried the road towards the forest. He sat back down and took up his fork again. "Yeah, looked like Ferg."

"This is Fergus Urvill, who owns the factory?" Janice asked. She sat back in the white plastic chair, fanning herself with her napkin.

Kenneth looked at her. "Yep, that Fergus," he said. "Of course, you haven't had the dubious pleasure yet, have you?" He put his glass down on the circular table, and inspected the rolled up sunshade that protruded from the centre of the table like an unopened flower.

"No,'Janice said. "What's he like?"

Kenneth and Rory exchanged glances. "Bearing up remarkably well," Kenneth said.

Janice looked puzzled for a second, then said, "Oh; yes, of course; Fiona… " she looked embarrassed. Rory patted her hand on the table.

Kenneth looked away for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Yeah; anyway." He stretched his shoulders, sat back. "Fergus… Upper-class; huntin'-shootin'-fishin" type… Could be worse, I suppose."

"Still," Rory said. "Not what you'd call a happy man."

"Well, of course," Janice said quietly, and bit her lip.

Kenneth frowned. "His precious factory's making a profit," he said briskly, draining his glass. "The Greedy Party's in power. What more does he want?"

"A wife?" Rory suggested, and then sucked on one finger.

Kenneth looked down, studying his glass. There was silence.

Rory rubbed a mark off the white table's surface. Janice lifted the scooped neck of her bright print dress and blew down.

"Want some shade?" Kenneth asked Janice. She nodded. Kenneth stood, lifted the stalk of the sun-shade and opened the big parasol, casting a shadow over Janice and Rory.

"Did you know," Janice said to Rory, squeezing his hand. "In the Dewey Decimal System, glass-making comes under the code six six six?"

"Woo," Rory whistled. "Number of the beast! Spooky, eh?"

"Not many people know that," Janice said. She smiled.

Kenneth laughed. He sat back in his chair again, dragging it round so he was under the shade too. "Shame Ferg isn't superstitious." He chuckled. "Mind you, Hamish is. Maybe we should tell him that. The Tree has some pretty weird ideas about religion; he might just swallow the idea he's been working for the devil all this time. Renounce the whole business, start going round smashing windows."

"Really?'Janice said. "What is he? I mean what religion?"

Kenneth shrugged. "Oh, just Church of Scotland; but if they had a Provisional Wing, I think he'd be on it."

"He's always had a soft spot for the royal family — " Rory began.

"Yes; his head," Kenneth said.

" — Maybe he could start the Royal Church of Scotland."

"Maybe he could start thinking like a rational human being instead of a cave-man frightened by lightning," Kenneth said tartly.

"Oh, you're so cruel," Rory told him.

"I know," Kenneth sighed, rolling the base of his glass around on the table top. "Time for another drink, I think."

"My round," Janice said, rising.

"No," Kenneth said, "Let —»

"Sit down," Janice told him, taking his glass from his hand. "Same again?"

Kenneth looked glum. "No; Virgin Mary this time. Gotta drive."

The two men watched Janice head for the bar.

"What did Fergus ever say to you?" Kenneth asked Rory.

"What?" Rory said, blinking. "What about?"

"God, I hate it when you're mysterious!" Kenneth shook his head. "You know damn well. Before the crash; way before. What did Fergus ever tell you? Was it after you came back from India that second time; before you went back to London? You two went hill-walking a lot then, didn't you? Old Ferg spill some beans up in them there hills?"

"We talked," Rory said awkwardly, using his fork to push bits of lettuce around his plate. "He told me things, but… I don't want to go into it, Ken, it would only complicate matters. It's nothing that directly touches you."

"What about Fiona?" Kenneth said, voice low, staring at his brother. "Did it touch her?"

Rory looked away, across the loch. He shrugged. "Look, Ken, it isn't something you'd benefit by knowing, all right? Just leave it at that." The fork continued to shift the lettuce leaves around the plate.

Kenneth watched his brother for a moment, then sat back. "Oh well, serves me right for being nosey. Let's change the subject. How's this new project thing coming along?"

"Oh, I'm still working on it."

"I wish you'd let me look at it."

"It isn't finished yet."

"When will it be?"

"When it is," Rory said, frowning. He put the fork down. "I don't know. Look; it's sort of a personal story…

"Ah," Kenneth said.

Rory leaned forward over the table, closer to his brother. "Look," he said, glancing round towards the french windows that led to the bar. "I've had a few more ideas… well, I've thought about… areas I didn't think I could use that I now think I can, and I want to develop that stuff, and —»

"What stuff?" Kenneth said, laughing in exasperation and throwing his arms wide. "Just tell me what sort of stuff!"

Rory sat back, shaking his head. "I can't say. Really." He glanced up at Kenneth. "But things… things might start to happen soon, anyway. I can't say any more for now." Kenneth shook his head sadly. "They might have happened by now if you'd just let me see this… opera, TV series, pop-up-book, whatever the hell it is; and if you'd let me talk to a few people. I mean, if it's just that you're too close to it and you don't want me to look at it, there are people I know who're good at that sort of thing; they can see the wood from the trees; they could —»

"Aw, come on, Ken," Rory said, a pained expression crossing his face. He ran a hand through his short, straight hair. "This is my show; this is the way I want to do it. Just let me, all right?"

"I don't know, Rore," Kenneth said, sitting back. "Sometimes you play your cards so damn close to your chest I don't think you can see them yourself. You should open up a bit more, share your problems. Share some secrets."

"I do," Rory said, biting his lip and looking down at his glass.

"Rory," Kenneth said, sitting forward and lowering his voice to conspiratorial levels, "the last secret I remember you telling me was that it was you who set fire to that barn on the Urvill's estate."

Rory grinned, stirring his finger through a little patch of moisture on the side of his glass. "Hey, I'm still waiting to see if you tell anyone."

Ken laughed. "Well, I haven't. Have you?"

Rory smiled, sucking air through his teeth at the same time, clinked one thumb-nail against his glass. He glanced at his brother. "Don't worry; my secret is safe with us." He shook his head, then shrugged. "Okay," Rory sighed, trying to suppress a smile, looking away. "There might be a job with Aunty in the offing, okay?"

"What?" Kenneth laughed. The Beeb? You going to be a TV star?"

"It's not definite yet," Rory shrugged. "And it's… " he frowned at his brother. "Shit, Ken; it's just more hack-work. It's better paid, is all."

"What is it though?"

"Oh, a fucking travel programme, what else?" Rory rolled his eyes. "But anyway; we'll see, okay? It's not definite, like I say, and I don't want to get anybody's hopes up, so keep it quiet; but things might start to happen."

"But that's great news, man," Kenneth said, sitting back.

"Talking about me, I hope, boys," Janice said, returning with their drinks on a tray.

"…said, 'My God, Rory, I've never seen one that blg! and I said " — oh; hello dear," Rory grinned, pretending only then to notice Janice.

She sat down, smiling. "Talking about the size of your overdraft, are we dear?"

"Gosh-darn," Rory said, snapping his fingers, looking at Kenneth. "Caught telling tales again."

"Runs in the family," Kenneth said, taking up his glass. "Cheers, Janice."

"Your health."

"Slange."

They left after that drink and went back to the house at Lochgair; Rory and Kenneth cleared a tangled choke of bushes and shrubs at the rear of the garden, where Mary wanted the lawn extended. They sweated through the insect-loud afternoon, while the sun shone. Janice sunbathed, and later helped Mary and Margot prepare the evening meal.

Janice had taken that day off from the library. She and Rory left on the last train back to Glasgow that night.

It was the last time Kenneth ever saw Rory.

Fiona sat in the passenger seat of the car, watching the red roadside reflectors drift out of the night towards her. She was thrown against one side of the seat as Fergus powered the Aston round the right-hander that took the road out of the forest, down, into and through the little village of Furnace. She was pressed back against the seat as Fergus accelerated again. They swung out and past some small, slower car, over-taking it as though it was stationary; headlights ahead of them glared, the on-coming car flashed its lights and she heard its horn sound as they passed, a few seconds later. The sound was quickly lost in the snarl of the Aston's engine.

"If you're driving like this to try and prove something, don't bother on my account," she said.

Fergus was silent for a while, then, in a very controlled and even voice said, "Don't worry. Look, I just want to get home as soon as possible. All right?"

"Everything'll suddenly get better once we're home, will it?" Fiona said. "Kiss the kids on the head and get Mrs S to make some tea; stiff whisky for you, G and T for me. Maybe we should call up the McKeans to say we got back safely; you can ask after Julie…»

"For Christ's sake, Fiona —»

"'For Christ's sake, Fiona'," Fiona sneered, imitating Fergus's voice. "Is that all you can say? You've had half an hour to think up another excuse, and —»

"I don't need," Fergus sighed, "any excuses. Look; I thought we had agreed to just leave this —»

"Yes, that would suit you fine, wouldn't it, Ferg? That's your way of dealing with everything, isn't it? Pretend it hasn't happened, maybe it'll go away. If we're all terribly polite and decorous and discreet, maybe the whole horrid thing will just… " She made a little fluttering motion with her hands, and in a high-pitched, girlish voice, said, "Disappear'."

She looked at him; his broad, soft-fowled face looked hard and set in the dim light shining from the car's instruments. "Well," she told him, leaning over as far as she could towards him. "They won't just go away, Ferg." She tried to make him look at her. He frowned, put his head slightly to one side and lifted it, trying to look round and over her head. "Nothing ever goes away, Fergus," she told him. "Nothing ever doesn't matter." She strained over a little more. "Fergus — " she said.

He pushed her away with his left hand, back into her seat.

She sat there, mouth open. He seemed to understand the silence and glanced over, a weak smile flickering on his face. "Sorry," he said. "Getting in the way a bit there. Sorry."

"Don't you push me!" she said, slapping his shoulder. She hit him again. "Don't you ever dare push me again!"

"Oh stop it, Fiona," he said, more exasperated than angry. "One minute I'm in the dog-house because… well, because I'm not all over you all the time; next second —»

"'Not all over you all the time'?" Fiona said. "You mean not fucking me, Fergus, is that what you mean?"

"Fiona, please —»

"Oh." Fiona slapped one palm off her forehead, then crossed her arms, looked away, out of the dark side window. "Fuck; did I swear? Oh fuck. Oh what a silly fucking cow I must fucking be."

"Fiona —»

"I said something straight. I'm so sorry. I actually said what I meant, used the sort of word you'd normally only hear from your golfing chums or your rugby pals. Or does Julie use that sort of language? Does she? Do you like her to talk dirty? Does that get you going, Ferg?"

"Fiona, I'm getting rather tired of this," Fergus said through his teeth, his fingers gripping the wheel harder, rubbing round it. "I'm sorry you think what you do about Julie. As I have tried to tell you, she was the wife of an old friend and I've kept in touch since she got divorced —»

"Still stuck on that, Fergus?" Fiona said, impersonating concern. "Oh dear; we had that line back at Arrochar, I seem to recall. And what was the rest of it? Oh yes, one of her sons has leukaemia, poor little kid, hasn't he? And you've helped her and the little darling with BUPA out of the goodness of your heart —»

"Yes I have, and I'm sorry you choose to sneer about it, Fiona."

"Sneer!" laughed Fiona. "It's a joke, Fergus. Jesus, she was practically taking your zip down."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. It's not my fault Julie got a bit tipsy."

"She was smashed out of her brains, Fergus, and about the only thing she remembered was that she wanted to get your trousers off. God knows why, but she seemed to associate that with pleasure." Fiona gave a sort of strangled laugh, then put one hand up suddenly to her nose, and looked away, and sobbed once.

Fergus drove quickly on, trees flicking past like green ghosts to the right, the waters of the loch just a dark absence on the left.

Fiona sniffed. "Trying the great silence again, eh, Ferg?" She pulled a handkerchief from her handbag on her lap, dabbed at her hose — "Still pretending it'll all go away. Still sticking your head in your precious fucking optical-quality sand."

"Look, can't we talk about this in the morning? I mean, when you're…»

"Sober, Fergus?" she said, looking over at him. "That what you were going to say? Blaming it on drink again? Is that all it was? Of course, silly me. I should have realised. Dear Julie gets drunk and for bizarre reason suddenly starts feeling you up under the table while we're nibbling our cheese and biscuits, and making pathetic double-entendres, and attacks you outside the bathroom; totally unprovoked, of course, and it's all just the drink talking. And I'm just being hysterical, I suppose, because I've had too many of John's terribly strong G and Ts and it'll all look different in the morning and I'll come to you and say sorry and wasn't I being a silly girl last night, and you can pat me on the head and say yes, wasn't I? And you can still go for cocktails at the Frasers" and bridge at the McAlpines and tee off with the Gordons and cruise with the Hamiltons with a united front, a respectable face, can't we, Fergus?"

"Fiona," Fergus said, face set and teeth clenched. "I don't know," breathed, "why you're making such a big thing of this. It's just one of those things that happens at parties; people do get drunk and they do do things they wouldn't normally think of. Maybe Julie has… or has had, in the past, a crush on me or something. I don't know. Maybe —»

"A crush on you, said Fiona. "Jesus. Well, that's a better try, Ferg. But I don't think you're quite as good a liar as you think you are. And she's not that good an actress." Fiona looked down, twisting the handkerchief in her fingers. "Oh God, Ferg, it was so fucking obvious. I mean. I knew there was something going on; all those trips away, and getting drunk and not being able to come home, staying at one of your chums" delightful little pied-a-terres. Oh, sorry, no, you can't phone back, he's only just got it and it hasn't had a phone put in yet. Or coming back with bruises; how you suddenly became so very clumsy or so easily marked. But at least I could still kid myself, at least I didn't have my nose rubbed in it."

"Fiona!" Fergus shouted, knuckles white on the steering wheel. "For God's sake, there's nothing to have your nose rubbed in! Julie's just a friend. I haven't touched her!"

"You didn't have to, she was touching you," Fiona said, voice quiet, looking away from Fergus, out to the darkness of the loch. A few weak lights shone on the far side, and headlights on the Otter Ferry road, two miles away across the black expanse of waves, swung out briefly, like a lighthouse beam… and then dimmed and disappeared. The car roared through another small village before the trees hid the view again.

Fiona kept her face away from him, looking out into the night, watching the vertical bright line of light the car threw onto the serried mass of dark conifers. Even there she could not escape him; she could see his distorted image in the slanted glass of the car's windows, dim in the background, still lit by his instruments.

She wondered how she could ever have thought that she loved him, and why she had stayed with him for so long after she'd realised that if she ever had, she did not love him now.

Of course she could say it was for the children, as people always did… It was true, up to a point. How terrible it was to have those easy phrases, trotted out so often in the course of gossip, or heart-to-hearts, or in magazine articles, or even court cases, become so real.

It was never the sort of thing you thought about when you were young, when you were — or thought you were — in love, and all the future shone with promise.

Problems belonged to other people. You might imagine supporting them, talking with them when they needed to talk, trying to help, but you didn't imagine that you would be the one desperate to talk (or the one too embarrassed to talk, too ashamed or too proud to talk); you didn't imagine you would be the one who needed help, not even when you told friends that of course there might be problems, or agreed with your beloved that you would always talk about things…

Staying together for the children.

And for the adults, she thought. For the sake of appearances. God, she had thought she was above that sort of thing, once. She had been bright and free and determined and she had decided she was going to make her own way in the world, just as well as any of her brothers might. She'd been a sort of feminist before it became fashionable; never had much time for all that sisterly stuff, but she was positive she was as good as any man and she'd prove it… And marrying Ferg had seemed like an extra boost to her life-plan. London had been exciting, but she had not shone out there, she felt, the way she had here. She had never felt any affection for the place and had made no friends there she would miss; and anyway, she would find fields to conquer up here, coming home triumphant to wed the lord of the manor.

But it had not been as she had imagined. She had expected to be the centre of things in Gallanach, but the McHoans as a family had so many other things happening to them; she had felt peripheral. The Urvills" own history, too, made her feel like something unimportant on the family tree, for all that Fergus talked of responsibility and duty and one's debt to the next generation.

She was a leaf, expendable. A twig — maybe — at best.

Somehow all her dreams had disappeared. It seemed to her now that all she had ever had had been the dream of having dreams; the goal of having goals one day, once she had made up her mind what it was she wanted.

But that had never happened. First Fergus, then the twins, then her own small part in the society of the town and the people there, and in the wider, still circumferential concerns of this wee country's middle-to-ruling classes, and in the more dissipated commonwealth of mildly powerful people who were their peers beyond that — in England, on the continent, from the States and elsewhere — took up her time, sapped her will and replaced her own concerns with theirs.

So now, she thought, I am married to a man whose touch disgusts me, and who anyway does not seem to want to touch me. She looked at Fergus's dim reflection, distorted in the glass, then tried to re-focus on her own image. Can he find me as repellent as I find him? I can't look that bad, can I? A few grey hairs, but you don't notice them; still a size twelve, and I've looked after myself. I look good in this, your standard little black number, and I still get into a tight pair of jeans… What's wrong with me? What did I do? Why does he have to spend half his time with that drunken, brassy bitch?

God, the best time I've had in the past five years was one night with Lachy Watt, angry at Ferg, and more surprised than anything else. The way he just took my hair in one hand, while we were standing looking up at that God-awful window in the great hall, and turned my head to him, and pulled me close; tongue down my throat before I knew what was happening, and there was something adolescent and desperate beneath all that working-class directness, but Jesus, I felt wanted…

She shook her head. That was best left out of it. Once was once; dismissible. Ever again would set a pattern. Lachy had been back one time afterwards that she knew of, a year later, and he had called, but she'd told him she wouldn't be able to see him, and put the phone down on him. No, that didn't matter.

She looked at the reflection of Fergus again, as he pulled the wheel; the car tunnelled into the forest, the wall of trees on either side a blur, their greenness more remembered than seen.

I could leave him, she thought. I could always have left him. But mother's too close for comfort; there'd be too many nearby friends, too many chances of bumping into people I'd rather not bump into; too much mitigating against the clean break; new start. God, I'm pathetic, though, that's so petty. Why haven't I the sheer drive to just get up and go, take the twins and emigrate to Oz or Canada? Or live in wild eccentricity in London or Paris?

Or I can stay, as I know I probably will. Muddle through. Look after the twins and try to make sure they negotiate the reefs of puberty and adolescence, set them up to make their way in the world, and do so without becoming just like me…

She looked out, into the grey sweep of road ever rushing towards them. Fergus powered the car down out of the forest, through some more houses and a few lights. The car lurched. Fergus looked over, smiled at her. She didn't know whether to smile back or not, and she wondered what that expression had meant, and what had been going through his head for the last few miles.

The car jiggled on its springs, lurched again and settled. She clutched at her seat, looking forward. The engine roared.

She looked back at Ferg, saw tears in his eyes. "Ferg?" she said.

The car skidded a little, came straight; she glanced forward at the road, saw the corner and the trees. She clutched at the dashboard with both hands. "Ferg!" she screamed. "Look —!"