They named her Verity, after the hurricane.
When she was eighteen, Fergus Urvill gave his niece Verity a very special present made from one of the exhibits in the museum attached to his glass factory. For the child born to the blaze and crack of human lightning, her entry into this world marked by the same brilliant arcs of short-circuited energy that plunged Gallanach into powerless gloom, he had a necklace fashioned which was made from fulgurite.
Fulgurite is a natural glass, like another of the museum’s minor treasures, obsidian. But while obsidian is born purely of the earth, formed in the baking heat and furious pressure of volcanic eruptions, fulgurite is of the earth and of the air, too; it is made when lightning strikes unconsolidated sand, and fuses it, vitrifies it in long, zig-zag tubes. God’s glass, Hamish McHoan called it.
The Gallanach Glass Works Museum contained a collection of tubular fulgurites, plucked from the sands of Syria by Walter Urvill - Fergus’s grandfather - on a visit there in 1890, and transported back to Scotland with great care and not a little luck so that they arrived intact. One of the crinkled, gnarled little tubes was over a metre long; another just a fraction shorter. Fergus had the smaller of the two sent to a jeweller in Edinburgh, to be broken, the pieces graded and ground and polished and threaded together like dark little pearls, to create a unique necklace for his niece.
He presented the result to the lightning-child during her birthday party, at her parents’ house in Merchiston, in Edinburgh, in August 1988 (it was, perhaps unfittingly, a perfectly fine, warm, clear and calm night, on that anniversary). Fergus - always a rather dour, prematurely elderly figure, characterised by those collar-contacting jowls - improved immensely in the eyes of both Kenneth and Prentice McHoan with that single, elegant, and rather unexpectedly poetic act.
Verity had the grace to accept the necklace with a particular gratitude that acknowledged the thought behind the gift, and the taste to make it a regular, even habitual, part of her wardrobe.
The upholstery of Fergus’s Rover was cleansed of the debris and stains associated with Verity’s birth and the car continued to serve the Urvill family for another five years or so until 1975, when it was traded in (for what Prentice would thereafter maintain was a scandalously small sum, considering that the thing ought to have been preserved as some sort of internationally-recognised shrine to Beauty) for an Aston Martin DB6.
It was once Prentice’s dream, shortly after he’d passed his driving test, to find that old Rover - lying in a field somewhere, perhaps - and to buy it; to own the car his beloved had been born in; to drive it and to cherish it. He realised, of course, that it had almost certainly been scrapped long before, but that had not prevented him harbouring the perhaps irrational notion that somehow a little of its recycled metal must have found its way into at least one of the three old bangers he’d owned.
The defiantly thunderous and lightning-fast Aston Martin DB6 was the car that Fergus and Fiona Urvill were travelling in on the night they were involved in a crash at Achnaba, just south of Lochgair, in 1980.
CHAPTER 5
Right, now this isn’t as bad as it sounds, but ... I was in bed with my Aunty Janice.
Well, actually, in one sense it’s exactly as bad as it sounds because when I say I was in bed with her, I don’t mean I was in bed with her because we’d gone hill-walking together and been caught out in a snow storm and eventually found shelter in some exceptionally well-appointed bothy that just so happened to have only one bed and we had to get into it together to keep warm; nothing like that. We were fucking.
But (phew), she wasn’t a real aunt; not a blood relation, not even an aunt by marriage. Janice Rae had been Uncle Rory’s girlfriend, and I just called her Aunty. However she had been my father’s brother’s lover, and - perhaps more embarrassingly - it had been her daughter, Marion, who had initiated me into the whole sticky, smelly, noisy, potentially fatal, potentially natal, sordid and sublime act in the first place, on the dry, cracked green leather surface of the garaged Lagonda Rapide Saloon’s back seat, one hot and musty summer’s afternoon, eight years earlier.
(We brought the house down.)
Blame Lewis.
The voice has gone quiet, deep, almost gravelly now. A light - harsh and white - shines from one side, so that his lean, clean-shaven face looks hard and angular, even cruel.
‘I have this door in my house,’ he breathes, then pauses. ‘It’s a very special door.’ He looks to one side. The way he does it, you get the urge to look that way too, but you don’t. ‘Do you know what I keep on the other side of that door?’ He raises one eyebrow, but there is silence in the darkness. You wait. ‘Behind the door I keep ...’ (He leans forward now, towards us, somehow confiding and threatening together.) ‘... the rest of the Universe.’ A wintery smile, and if you were prone to that sort of thing, your skin might crawl.
There is a little nervous laughter. He waits patiently for it to subside. ‘I have a special name for that door,’ he says, eyes narrowing. ‘Do you know what I call it?’ (This is the dangerous bit, where it could all end in disaster, but he holds the pause, and the silence is eloquent.) ‘I call it ...’ he pauses again, looks into the darkness to one side, then towards the light again. ‘... my Front Door.’
There is more laughter, like relief. He smiles for the first time; a thin, unimpressed expression. ‘Perhaps you have one like it, in your house.’ He steps back, the lights go up, and he makes a sort of half nod, half bow. ‘My name is Lewis McHoan. Good night.’
He walks off to loud applause; cheers, even.
I look from the television to my flatmates.
‘Aye, he’s no bad,’ Gav says, pulling open another can of cider.
‘He’s okay,’ agrees Norris, and drinks from his. ‘That last bit was a bit weird but. He really your brother, aye?’
I glare at the screen as the MC appears, signing off. Lewis had been the last act. ‘Yes.’ I say, taking my empty Export can between both hands, and crushing it. ‘Yes, he is.’ The credits roll. I throw the squashed can at the litter bin, but it misses, hits the wall, rolls across the floor and dribbles flat beer onto the threadbare carpet.
I stood in the bookshop, reading the story about the magic dressing gown, tears in my eyes.
A hand tapped me on the shoulder. I put the book down quickly on the pile and hauled my hanky from my pocket, bringing it up to my face as I turned. I blew my nose.
‘Come on, slow-coach,’ mum said, smiling down at me. Her gaze flicked to the book-pile. ‘Reading your dad’s stories at last, eh? What’s brought this on?’ Not waiting for an answer, she put one arm round my shoulders and guided me out onto the Departures concourse. ‘Come on; let’s go and wish your Uncle Rory bon voyage, shall we?’
‘All right,’ I said, sniffing.
Mum frowned down. ‘Prentice, have you been crying?’
‘No!’ I said vehemently, shaking my head and stuffing the hanky back into my trousers. Mum just smiled. I felt the tears try to come again, prickling behind my eyes.
‘Prentice!’ Uncle Rory said, picking me up. ‘God, you’re getting big. I’ll soon not be able to lift you.’
Good, I thought; this is embarrassing. I hugged him, as much to get my face out of sight as to express any regret at his leaving.
‘Aye,’ I heard my mum saying. ‘I think we had a wee tear or two, there.’
‘We didn’t, did we?’ Uncle Rory laughed, bringing me back round in front of him, holding me there. His big face, entirely framed by curly auburn hair, looked happy and kindly. I wanted to hit him and my mum, or maybe burst into tears and hug them; either would do. ‘Ah, dinnae greet, laddy,’ he laughed, lapsing into the working-class Scots I had grown ashamed of because my beautiful cousins Diana and Helen didn’t speak like that, and those coarse Watt children did.
Stop it! I beamed at him (I was trying to develop a technique for aiming my thoughts at people to get them to do things for me; there were promising developments, but it was early d
ays still, and I was suffering a lot of teething problems. That bastard George Lucas hadn’t had the decency to reply to my letter about The Force yet, either).
‘I have not been crying, honest I haven’t, Uncle Rory,’ I said, sniffing.
‘Of course you haven’t,’ Uncle Rory grinned, winking at my mum.
‘That’s right,’ I said. Now put me down!
Uncle Rory put me down with a grunt. ‘That’s better,’ he said, roughing up my hair. ‘Ah; a wee smile!’
Of course I’m smiling, you big fool; you are prey for my thoughts!
‘Will you be away awful long, Uncle Rory?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I dare say I will, Prentice,’ Uncle Rory said. The PA system shouted that the Heathrow flight was boarding. The voice mentioned something about a gate, but I doubted it would be anything as interesting as a stargate. Uncle Rory picked up his shoulder bag and the three of us started to walk towards a big crowd of people. A loud roar outside the glass expanse of one wall sounded excitingly like a crash ... but it was only a plane landing.
‘If you’re in Hollywood and bump into George Lucas -’
Uncle Rory laughed mightily, and exchanged one of those infuriatingly knowing adult looks with my mum. ‘I don’t think that’s very likely, Prentice, but if I do ...’
‘Will you ask him if he got my letter?’ I said. We reached the place where everybody was standing around and hugging, and we stopped. ‘He’ll know what it’s about.’
‘I certainly will.’ Uncle Rory laughed, squatting down. He made a worse mess of my hair and gripped both shoulders of my blazer. ‘Now you be a good boy and I’ll see you all in a few months.’ He stood up. Him and mum had a brief cuddle, and she kissed him on the cheek. I turned my face away. I was glad my father wasn’t here to see this. How could they do that sort of thing in public? I had a look round to see if my dad was watching from behind a potted palm or through holes cut in a newspaper, but he didn’t seem to be.
‘Bye, Rory; safe journey.’
‘Bye, Mary. Tell Ken I’ll call when I can.’
‘Will do. Take care now.’
Uncle Rory grinned. ‘Yeah.’ He squeezed one of her shoulders and winked at her again! ‘Bye love; see you.’
‘Bye.’ We watched him show his ticket to the man at the gate, then with one last wave he was gone.
I turned to mum. ‘Mum, can I have some more money for the Star Wars machine?’ I pointed at the video games. ‘I got through three stages last time and I almost got to the fourth; I think I know how to deal with the big towers now and I’m getting really good at -’
‘I think you’ve had quite enough of that machine, Prentice,’ mum said, as we walked away through the people. We were heading for the stairs. I tried to pull her towards the row of video games.
‘Aw, mum, please; come on; I’ll let you watch if you like.’
You will let me play the machine. You will let me play the machine.
She had the nerve to laugh. ‘That’s very kind of you, Prentice, but I’ll pass on that. We have to get back home.’
‘Can I go home on the train mum, please can I?’
You will let your son take the train home. You will let your son Prentice take the train home.
‘Something wrong with my driving, you wee rascal?’
‘No mum, but can I please?’
‘No, Prentice; we’ll take the car.’
‘Aww, but mum ...’
‘Will I buy you a book?’ Mum stopped near the bookshop. ‘Would you like that?’
‘There’s a Judge Dredd annual out,’ I said helpfully.
She tssked. ‘Oh, I suppose, if it’ll keep you quiet...’
While she paid for it, I went to the pile of dad’s books, and when nobody was looking I tore a couple of pages in one book, then put a load of somebody else’s books over the top of dad’s, so that nobody could see them.
How dare he take the stories he’d told me and Lewis and James and the others and tell them to other people, to strangers? They were ours; they were mine!
‘Come on, terror,’ mum said.
A hand between my shoulder blades propelled me from the shop. But at least it wasn’t the Vulcan Death Grip.
You will change your mind about letting your son take the train.
Mrs Mary McHoan, you will change your mind about letting your son Prentice take the train home ... and about playing the Star Wars machirie ...
‘I mean, nobody tells you sex is going to be so noisy, do they? I mean, they can be quite specific about the actual act itself; there is no gory detail, no technical nuance that is not gone into, by teachers or parents or books about sex or the Joy of LURVE or television programmes or just the boys or girls in the year above you at school telling you behind the bike sheds, BUT NOBODY TELLS YOU ABOUT THE NOISE!
‘They don’t! The first time I ever got laid it was the summer, it was hot, we were doing it naked in the old missionary position, and there I was, trying to pretend I’d been doing this for years, and thinking am I doing this right? Was that enough foreplay, did I devote sufficient time to going down on her or did it look like I was doing it because I read you ought to in Cosmopolitan... and I did want to spend more time down there, but my neck was getting sore ... and I’m thinking should I start chewing the other earlobe now, and should I sort of pull back so I can get my mouth to her nipples, because I’d like to suck them; I would, but my neck’s still sore, and just as I’m thinking about all this, and still trying to think about putting this MFI kitchen unit together to stop myself from coming too soon but it isn’t working any more more because I keep thinking of screws and pre-drilled holes and male and female parts and I’m stroking her and it’s great and she’s panting and I’m panting and then, just then, from in between our two naked, heaving bodies, THERE IS A NOISE LIKE A RHINOCEROS FARTING!
‘There is the noise of a fart the like of which you have never heard in your life before; it echoes off nearby tall buildings; it leaves your ears ringing; little old half-deaf ladies three streets away run to the broom cupboard and start hammering on the ceiling and threatening their upstairs neighbours with the Noise Abatement Society. I mean, a Loud Fart, okay?
‘And she is laughing and you don’t know what to do; you try to keep going but it happens again and she’s in hysterics and it is all deeply, deeply, deeply embarrassing, and you keep going but there’s this constant farting noise caused by all the sweat and it just isn’t the same any more and you’re thinking why didn’t they tell me about this? Why wasn’t I told? I mean, do other people put a towel in between them, or what?
‘... And you come eventually and after a cuddle and you’ve whispered a few sweet somethings, you withdraw, holding the old johnny on because that’s what it says on the packet after all, and you go to the loo to dispose of the horrible dangly greasy thing and you have a very full bladder by now and you think you’ll have a pee ... Ha ha ha ha ha; WRONG! You think you’ll have a pee, but you can’t! ...’
I shook my head, remembering the times Lewis had ranted away like this in the past; in pubs, amongst friends, at parties. I’d enjoyed it usually, back then; I’d felt almost privileged to witness these chaotic fulminating tirades, and even been proud that Lewis was my brother ... But then I’d come to my senses and decided that my elder sibling was in fact a vainglorious egomaniac with a runaway sarcasm-gland problem. Now he was taking what had been relatively amusing examples of a private wit and exposing them to everybody, to make money and amass praise. My family are always doing this sort of thing to me.
I looked at Gav. Gav was standing at my side, clutching his pint glass up near his shoulder and howling with laughter. He was sweating. He had tears in his eyes and his nose was running. He was having a great time. Gavin - one of my two flatmates — is a chap of the world; he has been there, he has done all this, he has had everything that Lewis was describing happen to him, too, and he didn’t mind who knew it; this was the comedy of recognition; it was mature, it was happening, it
was ideologically correct in terms of sexual politics, but it was also extremely rude, and Gav just thought it was all totally hilarious. He was spilling what was left of his pint down his coat, but I suspected he wouldn’t have cared even if he had noticed.
I shook my head again and looked back at the low stage, where Lewis was still stalking back and forth like a caged hyena, grinning and sweating and gleaming under the lights and shouting into the microphone and flinging one arm about and smiling wickedly and striding side to side, side to side, talking to individuals at the front, to the people at the side and in the middle of the crowded audience, talking to us standing here at the back, talking to everybody.
Lewis was dressed in black jeans and a white tuxedo over a white T-shirt which had three enormous black letters on it; FTT. In much smaller letters underneath, it read: (have carnal knowledge of the conservative and unionist party and their supporters). You could buy these T-shirts at the door. Gav had one, wrapped in polythene and stuffed in one pocket of his coat.
We were upstairs in Randan’s, the latest incarnation of a bar that had previously traded under the name Byre’s Market, and before that had been called Paddy Jones’s; premises forever apostrophised. That original appellation was before my time, and I confess to a degree of yearning for an age when bars had, in the main, sensible names, and did not pride themselves on serving their own creakingly-titled cocktails, a Choyce Selection of Our Eftimable Home-Made Pies, Hotpottes And Other Fyne Dishes, and twenty different designer lagers, all of which taste identical, cost the earth and are advertised on the tellingly desperate Unique Selling Points of having a neat logo, a top that is difficult to open or a bottle neck whose appearance is apparently mysteriously enhanced by having a slice of citrus fruit rammed down it.
But if this is the price we have to pay for all-day opening and letting women into public bars, then I admit it may well be churlish to carp. I used to think dad was kidding about bars closing in the afternoon, and at ten in the evening (TEN, for Christ’s sake; I don’t go out until midnight sometimes!), and about some not having women’s toilets at all ... but apparently it’s all true, and scarcely a decade and a half gone.