towels and handed them across.
Thanks, said Murdo.
Sure.
Back in the room the television was on but he could see Dad had been dozing. Dad yawned, watching him come in the door and carry the towels and toilet rolls into the bathroom. Murdo laid the food and drink along the foot of the single bed then knelt to unlace his boots.
Dad said, Well done son.
The office guy was fine. He just gave me the stuff.
Good, said Dad. What about the shop? How was the walk? Did ye meet anybody?
No.
Dad yawned. Did ye get teabags?
Instead of answering Murdo knelt to retie the bootlaces.
Did ye not get any? asked Dad.
No but I will now, said Murdo, quickly knotting the lace on his left boot.
Dont bother.
No Dad I’ll go.
No ye wont.
Dad ye need tea.
I dont.
Ye do.
I dont.
Dad, ye need tea!
Calm down.
But Dad
I dont need tea. We have needs in this life but tea isnay one of them. I’ll survive. Dad lifted the towels and toilet paper and entered the bathroom.
Murdo sat a moment then switched on the television. He watched it while preparing the food. When Dad came out the bathroom he saw it on top of the cupboard. Good stuff, he said, well done.
I’ll go for tea in the morning, said Murdo.
Dont worry about it.
No, he said, I’ll go.
*
Last thing in the evening he went in for a shave. He hadnt done it for a while. The mirror over the washbasin was more a large flat tile but it worked alright for looking into. There were these pimples around his chin. When he shaved the safety-razor cut them, it cut off the tops. The risk was more pimples. The blood out a pimple caused that to happen. It made them spread. Ye had to be careful if ye scratched them, it could leave scars and brought plooks and boils. Ye were better patting yer face dry with the towel instead of wiping it.
Mum used to give him a separate towel. It was her told him about patting instead of wiping because wiping makes pimples spread. His werent as bad as some. But he didnt have a heavy growth. Some guys did. Dark hair meant ye shaved more. If ye were black ye wouldnt go red at all. How could ye? Then with pimples, probably it disguised them. Ye wouldnt see them as easy if ye were black. He could never imagine that girl in the shop having pimples. Girls get pimples but ye dont think of it. Sarah. It was a good name. He liked her and he could imagine her; she had good lips. People have different lips. He saw his own in the mirror and what did they look like? Thin; thin lips. A guy he knew played the pipes and he had thin lips where ye might have expected thick ones. Because playing the pipes, it was what ye would expect. Some guys were horrible-looking; gross, the worst imaginable. Yet they had girlfriends; wives and children too. So they got kissed. Gay guys kissed each other. Everybody kisses and gets kissed.
When he dried his face there were spots of blood on the towel. The usual wee cuts round his chin and neck. He splashed on the cold water again, patted his chin dry. Dad had the television on when he appeared. He looked over. Murdo said, I was shaving.
Oh.
Murdo shrugged. He sat on the bed with his back to the top end. It was relaxing watching television, except Dad kept the volume low and there were no good programmes and the adverts were like every second minute, the voices droning on, but it was comfy, and thick pillows just like sinking in. Dad woke him later. Ye’re better getting inside the sheets, he said.
Murdo undressed and got inside the sheets. A while passed and he was awake again. This time it was the middle of the night. The bedside lamp had been switched off. Although the curtains were drawn light came through the underside. He thought he heard voices. The television was off. One voice mumbling. Was it Dad? Was he praying? Murdo couldnt tell, not individual words. He didnt want to listen. Dad prayed when Mum died. Murdo didnt – except only before with the pain Mum suffered ye needed to block it out, how she held his hand, gripping it, because with the pain, gripping his middle three fingers like squashing them tight, the pain she was in. Please God make her not in pain, please God. But she was, except with the medication heavier and ye saw her eyes, poor poor Mum, inside her eyes, just like hollow, a hollowness. People said, Oh ye must pray. Murdo tried it before. Not after because what did it matter. People prayed at the funeral. What for? So they wouldnt die? Oh God please make me live forever.
The voice had stopped talking. It must have been Dad. Unless it was Murdo talking out loud. Or in his sleep so he woke himself up. That happened. Dreams woke ye up. Or nightmares. Or something between. Not dreams and not nightmares, and not like wet dreams or whatever, and not music although sometimes music but weird music just like systems and things to do with planets, alien worlds and spirit worlds; worlds for dead people. Stupidities all crowding in, crowding out yer mind; the last nonsense ye heard on television, the more stupid the better. Why did they not just shut up? Some voices Murdo hated and ye wanted to drown them out.
What time was it? Who knows.
Mum and his sister, Eilidh. What world were they in? A spirit world, always surrounding you and you surrounding it. You are within it but they are within you.
*
He was awake early next morning and lay on in bed. Only a minute then he was up and the clothes on. Dad was sleeping. He didnt want to wake him. The bus was not until mid afternoon so it was okay. Dad liked long lies. The same when Mum was alive, the two of them. There were times they didnt show until after eleven o’clock. It made ye think of something else. So what yer Mum and Dad? if it was sex; sex is sex.
Murdo slugged milk out the fridge and left it at that. Teabags and Sunday breakfast. On his way out he lifted a ten-dollar note from Dad’s money and clicked shut the door. With luck he would be there and back before he wakened.
The same five cars in the carpark. A clear blue sky. Already it was warm. So peaceful. What other day could it be but Sunday! Is there something beyond enjoyment! This was more than enjoyment! No cars hardly at all. He was hearing sounds but quiet ones; insects and birds. Definitely. Mum would have loved it.
The sensation that he was seeing everything but nothing was seeing him. The road was here and him walking it. Nobody else. Not Dad and not anybody. He didnt know anybody. He hadnt seen Uncle John and Aunt Maureen since he was a baby. He didnt remember them. Who else? Nobody. Except that lassie in the shop, if ye could say he knew her. But he did. Sarah. And she knew him. Ha ha, it was true, she knew he was Scottish, whatever age she was, maybe older than him, but not much like if she was seventeen; another couple of months and him too. Ye were a man at seventeen. People said that. Sixteen is a boy and seventeen a man. Oh what age are ye? Sixteen. Wait till ye’re seventeen.
Would she be there? Maybe. Although late last night and now this morning: that was long
