Stonemouth Read Free Page B

mum and dad’s house when I pointed it out to him from Art Room Two didn’t help demystify it either.
    ‘Hey, Callum,’ I said, ‘isn’t that your house up there, on the hill?’
    Callum squinted, already frowning aggressively, and finally saw where I was pointing. ‘Naw it’s naw,’ he said, sounding angry and looking like he was going to hit me.
    Callum was never far from throwing a punch when he thought people were taking the piss. Which, to be fair, we were all prone to do, though not quite as often as Callum assumed we were. Almost any other kid in school would long since have been kicked into a less hair-trigger attitude, but Callum was a Murston (a fact we’d known since primary school meant something serious in Stonemouth), his elder brother Murdo was the biggest kid in sixth year – even if he rarely resorted to blows – and Powell Imrie – Stonemouth High School’s very own Weapon of Mass Destruction – had already sort of aligned himself with the Murston clan. That made Callum pretty much untouchable, even when he was in the wrong. Unless a teacher got involved, of course; Callum had already been suspended oncefor violent behaviour and was on verbal warnings almost constantly. And he really did look like he was winding up to belt me.
    So I backed off immediately, smiling and holding up both hands. ‘Sorry, Cal. Chill.’
    He still looked angry but he let me walk away.
    Just another Callum Murston WTF ? moment.
    By that time I’d come to accept that the place was the Murston family gaff and I just assumed he was denying it to fuck with me or because he was oddly embarrassed at coming from what was obviously a very large house, but it turned out later he honestly didn’t recognise it from that angle, and his in-head sat-nav couldn’t do the maths required to work it out. Callum never was the sharpest chiv in the amnesty box.
    All the same, it was largely because of the house glimpsed through the trees that I persevered in getting to know Callum and becoming one of his friends, and it was largely through Callum – and the just-deceased Joe – that I got to know the rest of the family: Mr M himself (a bit), Mrs M (a slighter bit), Murdo (a bit more), Fraser and Norrie, the twins from the year below (fairly well) and, of course, Ellie. And Grier, her kid sister; I got to know her too and we even became sort of friends. But Ellie, mostly. Ellie more than all the rest, Ellie more than anybody ever, until I fucked it all up.
    The cloud is clearing a little as I swing the Ka between the tall, ornate gateposts of the Murston house, high on the hill. It’s called Hill House, so no prizes for imagination there. A still-clinging haze to the east obscures the North Sea, and to the west the clouds glow yellow-orange and hide the north-eastern tip of the Cairngorms. The wrought-iron gates stay open these days, though they are electric and there is an intercom. The driveway snakes down through a broad slope of striped lawn studded with ornamental bushes and life-size statues of stags. I park between a sleekly silver four-door AMG Merc and a spanking-new green Range Rover.
    The triple garage I remember has been joined by anadded-on-looking fourth. There’s a wee boxy Japanese van parked outside it. The van’s filled with equipment and a compressor of some sort, hoses snaking into the open garage doorway. There’s a big foamy wet patch on the forecourt and inside there’s a monstrous pick-up truck. Its bonnet – hood – is as high as my shoulders. The badge says it’s a Dodge. The machine is truly vast; the new garage is wider and taller than the other three, as if built to contain the thing. The truck is gleaming: all massive chrome bull bars and deep, sparkling, flaked crimson paint with a rack of extra lights on a bar across the roof. Inside the four-door cab I can just see a Confederate flag stretched across the back. A guy in blue overalls appears from behind the truck and comes out, holding a duster.