rock face or floating at sea than you are in his old rust-bucket.â
I goes, âWhyâs he got yon name?â
âMind out now, lass, the Piston of Achnacloichâs coming out. Come on now, son, out you come now, sonâ; the FirstSpoken whipped out his knob and started doing just a massive number one on the flames of the campfire that hissed all wild; I jumped back from the balloons of steam and the old dangling doosey there as the smelly clouds lit up a bit then a last wet shadow flipped before all was pitch blackness.
The Most Baldyâs voice went, âWell. Guess we wonât be eating that chicken.â
âThey call him Nam the Dam cause he was a Huey pilot in Vietnam who spent twenty-five years recovering in Amsterdam before he came here.â
âIf the lunatic sees us heâll come in and try to land; then heâll be all for lifting Father, flying him out to sea and dropping him from the helicopter.â
I says, âWouldnât that be more simple?â
âLassie, lassie, youâll no understand how a Navy man wonât let an airforce man into his business if he can help it.â
The voice of the Most Baldy went, âSpecially no some yankee with a long beard whoâs never seen shirt nor tie nor soap and water.â
We watched the searchlight from the helicopter patrol the Sound waters. It started to rain more, all the heavier.
Into the dark I says, âDo either of yous know that guy, John Brotherhood, who has The Drome Hotel?â I could hear the raindrops patting on their plastic jackets. One coughed but I couldnât tell which. When one spoke it was the Most Baldy.
âWe read Joseph Conrad; thereâs a bit where a girl is asked if she really believes in The Devil.â
The voice of the First Spoken says, âShe answers that thereare plenty of men worse than devils to make a hell of this earth.â
I slept under the coffin, the polythene flappered and the mobile phone inside the coffin got a couple of calls through the hours of darkness. I couldnât get to sleep as the slate-grey dawn of mists began. I crawled out letting the rain wash my face; I tiptoed past the tent and away round the sheep-paths and down into the first of the glens. Around midday I saw the bright yachting jackets high on the ridge above, moving towards the wide base of the telly aerial. In the distance, the multiple aerials of the old Tracking Station and Observatory: the upper structures of rusted satellite dishes lost in the mist or cloud.
I was so hungry I trembled when I stopped walking forwards so it was best just to press on. At the end of the glen, in the versant of the extinct volcano I came to the floor of moss, a-drip with water. Little droplets clinging to the frothy emerald and curly serrations of the lichen. My tongue flicked at the diamonds of liquid then my lips clamped onto the moss, by rubbing my face side to side with the base of my tongue right out I could gulp down gallons and taste the salady smeg of raw blossoming life. I could connect to our fetid origins in the faded, damp places. I found a pink growth and kneeled, my arse up in the air as I shoved my face deep-deeper into that planetary sponge of mossflowers, biting away at the base.
The cattledrovers seen me, bum in the air as they came down that old drove road. It was the stubbly Leader whoshouted, âThe moonâs up already,â that got me turned round and on my feet like a shot.
You stared at the sight: the lazy swing of the cattle walk, with big diarrhoea splatters all up their shanks; there were one, two, three . . . eleven and the leading beast with its special coat all wet.
I crossed to the stubbly Leader guy, over the grass of the drove road that was so waterlogged it was reflecting the sky: I seemed to cross a floor of clouds towards him.
âWhere are
you
headed?â he went.
âDrome over there.â
âThere? Weâre headed